第 52 页

replace that hand, but, still appearing timid and constrained, walked

by herself. I thought all this very pretty and engaging, and Steerforth

seemed to think so too, as we looked after them fading away in the light

of a young moon.

Suddenly there passed us--evidently following them--a young woman whose

approach we had not observed, but whose face I saw as she went by, and

thought I had a faint remembrance of. She was lightly dressed; looked

bold, and haggard, and flaunting, and poor; but seemed, for the time, to

have given all that to the wind which was blowing, and to have nothing

in her mind but going after them. As the dark distant level, absorbing

their figures into itself, left but itself visible between us and the

sea and clouds, her figure disappeared in like manner, still no nearer

to them than before.

‘That is a black shadow to be following the girl,’ said Steerforth,

standing still; ‘what does it mean?’

He spoke in a low voice that sounded almost strange to Me.

‘She must have it in her mind to beg of them, I think,’ said I.

‘A beggar would be no novelty,’ said Steerforth; ‘but it is a strange

thing that the beggar should take that shape tonight.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘For no better reason, truly, than because I was thinking,’ he said,

after a pause, ‘of something like it, when it came by. Where the Devil

did it come from, I wonder!’

‘From the shadow of this wall, I think,’ said I, as we emerged upon a

road on which a wall abutted.

‘It’s gone!’ he returned, looking over his shoulder. ‘And all ill go

with it. Now for our dinner!’

But he looked again over his shoulder towards the sea-line glimmering

afar off, and yet again. And he wondered about it, in some broken

expressions, several times, in the short remainder of our walk; and only

seemed to forget it when the light of fire and candle shone upon us,

seated warm and merry, at table.

Littimer was there, and had his usual effect upon me. When I said to

him that I hoped Mrs. Steerforth and Miss Dartle were well, he answered

respectfully (and of course respectably), that they were tolerably well,

he thanked me, and had sent their compliments. This was all, and yet he

seemed to me to say as plainly as a man could say: ‘You are very young,

sir; you are exceedingly young.’

We had almost finished dinner, when taking a step or two towards the

table, from the corner where he kept watch upon us, or rather upon me,

as I felt, he said to his master:

‘I beg your pardon, sir. Miss Mowcher is down here.’

‘Who?’ cried Steerforth, much astonished.

‘Miss Mowcher, sir.’

‘Why, what on earth does she do here?’ said Steerforth.

‘It appears to be her native part of the country, sir. She informs me

that she makes one of her professional visits here, every year, sir.

I met her in the street this afternoon, and she wished to know if she

might have the honour of waiting on you after dinner, sir.’

‘Do you know the Giantess in question, Daisy?’ inquired Steerforth.

I was obliged to confess--I felt ashamed, even of being at this

disadvantage before Littimer--that Miss Mowcher and I were wholly

unacquainted.

‘Then you shall know her,’ said Steerforth, ‘for she is one of the seven

wonders of the world. When Miss Mowcher comes, show her in.’

I felt some curiosity and excitement about this lady, especially as

Steerforth burst into a fit of laughing when I referred to her, and

positively refused to answer any question of which I made her the

subject. I remained, therefore, in a state of considerable expectation

until the cloth had been removed some half an hour, and we were sitting

over our decanter of wine before the fire, when the door opened, and

Littimer, with his habitual serenity quite undisturbed, announced:

‘Miss Mowcher!’

I looked at the doorway and saw nothing. I was still looking at

the doorway, thinking that Miss Mowcher was a long while making her

appearance, when, to my infinite astonishment, there came waddling round

a sofa which stood between me and it, a pursy dwarf, of about forty

or forty-five, with a very large head and face, a pair of roguish grey

eyes, and such extremely little arms, that, to enable herself to lay a

finger archly against her snub nose, as she ogled Steerforth, she was

obliged to meet the finger half-way, and lay her nose against it.

Her chin, which was what is called a double chin, was so fat that it

entirely swallowed up the strings of her bonnet, bow and all. Throat she

had none; waist she had none; legs she had none, worth mentioning; for

though she was more than full-sized down to where her waist would have

been, if she had had any, and though she terminated, as human beings

generally do, in a pair of feet, she was so short that she stood at a

common-sized chair as at a table, resting a bag she carried on the seat.

This lady--dressed in an off-hand, easy style; bringing her nose and her

forefinger together, with the difficulty I have described; standing with

her head necessarily on one side, and, with one of her sharp eyes shut

up, making an uncommonly knowing face--after ogling Steerforth for a few

moments, broke into a torrent of words.

‘What! My flower!’ she pleasantly began, shaking her large head at him.

‘You’re there, are you! Oh, you naughty boy, fie for shame, what do you

do so far away from home? Up to mischief, I’ll be bound. Oh, you’re a

downy fellow, Steerforth, so you are, and I’m another, ain’t I? Ha, ha,

ha! You’d have betted a hundred pound to five, now, that you wouldn’t

have seen me here, wouldn’t you? Bless you, man alive, I’m everywhere.

I’m here and there, and where not, like the conjurer’s half-crown in the

lady’s handkercher. Talking of handkerchers--and talking of ladies--what

a comfort you are to your blessed mother, ain’t you, my dear boy, over

one of my shoulders, and I don’t say which!’

Miss Mowcher untied her bonnet, at this passage of her discourse, threw

back the strings, and sat down, panting, on a footstool in front of

the fire--making a kind of arbour of the dining table, which spread its

mahogany shelter above her head.

‘Oh my stars and what’s-their-names!’ she went on, clapping a hand on

each of her little knees, and glancing shrewdly at me, ‘I’m of too full

a habit, that’s the fact, Steerforth. After a flight of stairs, it gives

me as much trouble to draw every breath I want, as if it was a bucket of

water. If you saw me looking out of an upper window, you’d think I was a

fine woman, wouldn’t you?’

‘I should think that, wherever I saw you,’ replied Steerforth.

‘Go along, you dog, do!’ cried the little creature, making a whisk at

him with the handkerchief with which she was wiping her face, ‘and don’t

be impudent! But I give you my word and honour I was at Lady Mithers’s

last week--THERE’S a woman! How SHE wears!--and Mithers himself came

into the room where I was waiting for her--THERE’S a man! How HE wears!

and his wig too, for he’s had it these ten years--and he went on at

that rate in the complimentary line, that I began to think I should be

obliged to ring the bell. Ha! ha! ha! He’s a pleasant wretch, but he

wants principle.’

‘What were you doing for Lady Mithers?’ asked Steerforth.

‘That’s tellings, my blessed infant,’ she retorted, tapping her nose

again, screwing up her face, and twinkling her eyes like an imp of

supernatural intelligence. ‘Never YOU mind! You’d like to know whether

I stop her hair from falling off, or dye it, or touch up her

complexion, or improve her eyebrows, wouldn’t you? And so you shall, my

darling--when I tell you! Do you know what my great grandfather’s name

was?’

‘No,’ said Steerforth.

‘It was Walker, my sweet pet,’ replied Miss Mowcher, ‘and he came of a

long line of Walkers, that I inherit all the Hookey estates from.’

I never beheld anything approaching to Miss Mowcher’s wink except Miss

Mowcher’s self-possession. She had a wonderful way too, when listening

to what was said to her, or when waiting for an answer to what she had

said herself, of pausing with her head cunningly on one side, and one

eye turned up like a magpie’s. Altogether I was lost in amazement,

and sat staring at her, quite oblivious, I am afraid, of the laws of

politeness.

She had by this time drawn the chair to her side, and was busily engaged

in producing from the bag (plunging in her short arm to the shoulder, at

every dive) a number of small bottles, sponges, combs, brushes, bits of

flannel, little pairs of curling-irons, and other instruments, which

she tumbled in a heap upon the chair. From this employment she suddenly

desisted, and said to Steerforth, much to my confusion:

‘Who’s your friend?’

‘Mr. Copperfield,’ said Steerforth; ‘he wants to know you.’

‘Well, then, he shall! I thought he looked as if he did!’ returned Miss

Mowcher, waddling up to me, bag in hand, and laughing on me as she came.

‘Face like a peach!’ standing on tiptoe to pinch my cheek as I

sat. ‘Quite tempting! I’m very fond of peaches. Happy to make your

acquaintance, Mr. Copperfield, I’m sure.’

I said that I congratulated myself on having the honour to make hers,

and that the happiness was mutual.

‘Oh, my goodness, how polite we are!’ exclaimed Miss Mowcher, making a

preposterous attempt to cover her large face with her morsel of a hand.

‘What a world of gammon and spinnage it is, though, ain’t it!’

This was addressed confidentially to both of us, as the morsel of a

hand came away from the face, and buried itself, arm and all, in the bag

again.

‘What do you mean, Miss Mowcher?’ said Steerforth.

‘Ha! ha! ha! What a refreshing set of humbugs we are, to be sure, ain’t

we, my sweet child?’ replied that morsel of a woman, feeling in the bag

with her head on one side and her eye in the air. ‘Look here!’ taking

something out. ‘Scraps of the Russian Prince’s nails. Prince Alphabet

turned topsy-turvy, I call him, for his name’s got all the letters in

it, higgledy-piggledy.’

‘The Russian Prince is a client of yours, is he?’ said Steerforth.

‘I believe you, my pet,’ replied Miss Mowcher. ‘I keep his nails in

order for him. Twice a week! Fingers and toes.’

‘He pays well, I hope?’ said Steerforth.

‘Pays, as he speaks, my dear child--through the nose,’ replied Miss

Mowcher. ‘None of your close shavers the Prince ain’t. You’d say so, if

you saw his moustachios. Red by nature, black by art.’

‘By your art, of course,’ said Steerforth.

Miss Mowcher winked assent. ‘Forced to send for me. Couldn’t help it.

The climate affected his dye; it did very well in Russia, but it was no

go here. You never saw such a rusty Prince in all your born days as he

was. Like old iron!’ ‘Is that why you called him a humbug, just now?’

inquired Steerforth.

‘Oh, you’re a broth of a boy, ain’t you?’ returned Miss Mowcher, shaking

her head violently. ‘I said, what a set of humbugs we were in general,

and I showed you the scraps of the Prince’s nails to prove it. The

Prince’s nails do more for me in private families of the genteel sort,

than all my talents put together. I always carry ‘em about. They’re the

best introduction. If Miss Mowcher cuts the Prince’s nails, she must be

all right. I give ‘em away to the young ladies. They put ‘em in albums,

I believe. Ha! ha! ha! Upon my life, “the whole social system” (as

the men call it when they make speeches in Parliament) is a system of

Prince’s nails!’ said this least of women, trying to fold her short

arms, and nodding her large head.

Steerforth laughed heartily, and I laughed too. Miss Mowcher continuing

all the time to shake her head (which was very much on one side), and to

look into the air with one eye, and to wink with the other.

‘Well, well!’ she said, smiting her small knees, and rising, ‘this is

not business. Come, Steerforth, let’s explore the polar regions, and

have it over.’

She then selected two or three of the little instruments, and a

little bottle, and asked (to my surprise) if the table would bear. On

Steerforth’s replying in the affirmative, she pushed a chair against it,

and begging the assistance of my hand, mounted up, pretty nimbly, to the

top, as if it were a stage.

‘If either of you saw my ankles,’ she said, when she was safely

elevated, ‘say so, and I’ll go home and destroy myself!’

‘I did not,’ said Steerforth.

‘I did not,’ said I.

‘Well then,’ cried Miss Mowcher, ‘I’ll consent to live. Now, ducky,

ducky, ducky, come to Mrs. Bond and be killed.’

This was an invocation to Steerforth to place himself under her hands;

who, accordingly, sat himself down, with his back to the table, and

his laughing face towards me, and submitted his head to her inspection,

evidently for no other purpose than our entertainment. To see Miss

Mowcher standing over him, looking at his rich profusion of brown

hair through a large round magnifying glass, which she took out of her

pocket, was a most amazing spectacle.

‘You’re a pretty fellow!’ said Miss Mowcher, after a brief inspection.

‘You’d be as bald as a friar on the top of your head in twelve months,

but for me. Just half a minute, my young friend, and we’ll give you a

polishing that shall keep your curls on for the next ten years!’

With this, she tilted some of the contents of the little bottle on to

one of the little bits of flannel, and, again imparting some of the

virtues of that preparation to one of the little brushes, began rubbing

and scraping away with both on the crown of Steerforth’s head in the

busiest manner I ever witnessed, talking all the time.

‘There’s Charley Pyegrave, the duke’s son,’ she said. ‘You know

Charley?’ peeping round into his face.

‘A little,’ said Steerforth.

‘What a man HE is! THERE’S a whisker! As to Charley’s legs, if they

were only a pair (which they ain’t), they’d defy competition. Would you

believe he tried to do without me--in the Life-Guards, too?’

‘Mad!’ said Steerforth.

‘It looks like it. However, mad or sane, he tried,’ returned Miss

Mowcher. ‘What does he do, but, lo and behold you, he goes into a

perfumer’s shop, and wants to buy a bottle of the Madagascar Liquid.’

‘Charley does?’ said Steerforth.

‘Charley does. But they haven’t got any of the Madagascar Liquid.’