第 55 页

proctor there, which Steerforth pictured in a variety of humorous and

whimsical lights, that made us both merry. When we came to our journey’s

end, he went home, engaging to call upon me next day but one; and I

drove to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where I found my aunt up, and waiting

supper.

If I had been round the world since we parted, we could hardly have been

better pleased to meet again. My aunt cried outright as she embraced me;

and said, pretending to laugh, that if my poor mother had been alive,

that silly little creature would have shed tears, she had no doubt.

‘So you have left Mr. Dick behind, aunt?’ said I. ‘I am sorry for that.

Ah, Janet, how do you do?’

As Janet curtsied, hoping I was well, I observed my aunt’s visage

lengthen very much.

‘I am sorry for it, too,’ said my aunt, rubbing her nose. ‘I have had

no peace of mind, Trot, since I have been here.’ Before I could ask why,

she told me.

‘I am convinced,’ said my aunt, laying her hand with melancholy firmness

on the table, ‘that Dick’s character is not a character to keep the

donkeys off. I am confident he wants strength of purpose. I ought to

have left Janet at home, instead, and then my mind might perhaps have

been at ease. If ever there was a donkey trespassing on my green,’ said

my aunt, with emphasis, ‘there was one this afternoon at four o’clock.

A cold feeling came over me from head to foot, and I know it was a

donkey!’

I tried to comfort her on this point, but she rejected consolation.

‘It was a donkey,’ said my aunt; ‘and it was the one with the stumpy

tail which that Murdering sister of a woman rode, when she came to my

house.’ This had been, ever since, the only name my aunt knew for Miss

Murdstone. ‘If there is any Donkey in Dover, whose audacity it is harder

to me to bear than another’s, that,’ said my aunt, striking the table,

‘is the animal!’

Janet ventured to suggest that my aunt might be disturbing herself

unnecessarily, and that she believed the donkey in question was then

engaged in the sand-and-gravel line of business, and was not available

for purposes of trespass. But my aunt wouldn’t hear of it.

Supper was comfortably served and hot, though my aunt’s rooms were very

high up--whether that she might have more stone stairs for her money, or

might be nearer to the door in the roof, I don’t know--and consisted of

a roast fowl, a steak, and some vegetables, to all of which I did ample

justice, and which were all excellent. But my aunt had her own ideas

concerning London provision, and ate but little.

‘I suppose this unfortunate fowl was born and brought up in a cellar,’

said my aunt, ‘and never took the air except on a hackney coach-stand. I

hope the steak may be beef, but I don’t believe it. Nothing’s genuine in

the place, in my opinion, but the dirt.’

‘Don’t you think the fowl may have come out of the country, aunt?’ I

hinted.

‘Certainly not,’ returned my aunt. ‘It would be no pleasure to a London

tradesman to sell anything which was what he pretended it was.’

I did not venture to controvert this opinion, but I made a good supper,

which it greatly satisfied her to see me do. When the table was cleared,

Janet assisted her to arrange her hair, to put on her nightcap, which

was of a smarter construction than usual [‘in case of fire’, my aunt

said), and to fold her gown back over her knees, these being her usual

preparations for warming herself before going to bed. I then made her,

according to certain established regulations from which no deviation,

however slight, could ever be permitted, a glass of hot wine and

water, and a slice of toast cut into long thin strips. With these

accompaniments we were left alone to finish the evening, my aunt sitting

opposite to me drinking her wine and water; soaking her strips of toast

in it, one by one, before eating them; and looking benignantly on me,

from among the borders of her nightcap.

‘Well, Trot,’ she began, ‘what do you think of the proctor plan? Or have

you not begun to think about it yet?’

‘I have thought a good deal about it, my dear aunt, and I have talked a

good deal about it with Steerforth. I like it very much indeed. I like

it exceedingly.’

‘Come!’ said my aunt. ‘That’s cheering!’

‘I have only one difficulty, aunt.’

‘Say what it is, Trot,’ she returned.

‘Why, I want to ask, aunt, as this seems, from what I understand, to

be a limited profession, whether my entrance into it would not be very

expensive?’

‘It will cost,’ returned my aunt, ‘to article you, just a thousand

pounds.’

‘Now, my dear aunt,’ said I, drawing my chair nearer, ‘I am uneasy in

my mind about that. It’s a large sum of money. You have expended a

great deal on my education, and have always been as liberal to me in all

things as it was possible to be. You have been the soul of generosity.

Surely there are some ways in which I might begin life with hardly any

outlay, and yet begin with a good hope of getting on by resolution and

exertion. Are you sure that it would not be better to try that course?

Are you certain that you can afford to part with so much money, and that

it is right that it should be so expended? I only ask you, my second

mother, to consider. Are you certain?’

My aunt finished eating the piece of toast on which she was then

engaged, looking me full in the face all the while; and then setting

her glass on the chimney-piece, and folding her hands upon her folded

skirts, replied as follows:

‘Trot, my child, if I have any object in life, it is to provide for

your being a good, a sensible, and a happy man. I am bent upon it--so is

Dick. I should like some people that I know to hear Dick’s conversation

on the subject. Its sagacity is wonderful. But no one knows the

resources of that man’s intellect, except myself!’

She stopped for a moment to take my hand between hers, and went on:

‘It’s in vain, Trot, to recall the past, unless it works some influence

upon the present. Perhaps I might have been better friends with your

poor father. Perhaps I might have been better friends with that poor

child your mother, even after your sister Betsey Trotwood disappointed

me. When you came to me, a little runaway boy, all dusty and way-worn,

perhaps I thought so. From that time until now, Trot, you have ever been

a credit to me and a pride and a pleasure. I have no other claim upon

my means; at least’--here to my surprise she hesitated, and was

confused--‘no, I have no other claim upon my means--and you are my

adopted child. Only be a loving child to me in my age, and bear with my

whims and fancies; and you will do more for an old woman whose prime of

life was not so happy or conciliating as it might have been, than ever

that old woman did for you.’

It was the first time I had heard my aunt refer to her past history.

There was a magnanimity in her quiet way of doing so, and of dismissing

it, which would have exalted her in my respect and affection, if

anything could.

‘All is agreed and understood between us, now, Trot,’ said my aunt,

‘and we need talk of this no more. Give me a kiss, and we’ll go to the

Commons after breakfast tomorrow.’

We had a long chat by the fire before we went to bed. I slept in a room

on the same floor with my aunt’s, and was a little disturbed in the

course of the night by her knocking at my door as often as she was

agitated by a distant sound of hackney-coaches or market-carts, and

inquiring, ‘if I heard the engines?’ But towards morning she slept

better, and suffered me to do so too.

At about mid-day, we set out for the office of Messrs Spenlow and

Jorkins, in Doctors’ Commons. My aunt, who had this other general

opinion in reference to London, that every man she saw was a pickpocket,

gave me her purse to carry for her, which had ten guineas in it and some

silver.

We made a pause at the toy shop in Fleet Street, to see the giants of

Saint Dunstan’s strike upon the bells--we had timed our going, so as to

catch them at it, at twelve o’clock--and then went on towards Ludgate

Hill, and St. Paul’s Churchyard. We were crossing to the former place,

when I found that my aunt greatly accelerated her speed, and looked

frightened. I observed, at the same time, that a lowering ill-dressed

man who had stopped and stared at us in passing, a little before, was

coming so close after us as to brush against her.

‘Trot! My dear Trot!’ cried my aunt, in a terrified whisper, and

pressing my arm. ‘I don’t know what I am to do.’

‘Don’t be alarmed,’ said I. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of. Step into

a shop, and I’ll soon get rid of this fellow.’

‘No, no, child!’ she returned. ‘Don’t speak to him for the world. I

entreat, I order you!’

‘Good Heaven, aunt!’ said I. ‘He is nothing but a sturdy beggar.’

‘You don’t know what he is!’ replied my aunt. ‘You don’t know who he is!

You don’t know what you say!’

We had stopped in an empty door-way, while this was passing, and he had

stopped too.

‘Don’t look at him!’ said my aunt, as I turned my head indignantly, ‘but

get me a coach, my dear, and wait for me in St. Paul’s Churchyard.’

‘Wait for you?’ I replied.

‘Yes,’ rejoined my aunt. ‘I must go alone. I must go with him.’

‘With him, aunt? This man?’

‘I am in my senses,’ she replied, ‘and I tell you I must. Get me a

coach!’

However much astonished I might be, I was sensible that I had no right

to refuse compliance with such a peremptory command. I hurried away a

few paces, and called a hackney-chariot which was passing empty. Almost

before I could let down the steps, my aunt sprang in, I don’t know how,

and the man followed. She waved her hand to me to go away, so earnestly,

that, all confounded as I was, I turned from them at once. In doing so,

I heard her say to the coachman, ‘Drive anywhere! Drive straight on!’

and presently the chariot passed me, going up the hill.

What Mr. Dick had told me, and what I had supposed to be a delusion of

his, now came into my mind. I could not doubt that this person was the

person of whom he had made such mysterious mention, though what the

nature of his hold upon my aunt could possibly be, I was quite unable

to imagine. After half an hour’s cooling in the churchyard, I saw the

chariot coming back. The driver stopped beside me, and my aunt was

sitting in it alone.

She had not yet sufficiently recovered from her agitation to be quite

prepared for the visit we had to make. She desired me to get into the

chariot, and to tell the coachman to drive slowly up and down a little

while. She said no more, except, ‘My dear child, never ask me what

it was, and don’t refer to it,’ until she had perfectly regained her

composure, when she told me she was quite herself now, and we might get

out. On her giving me her purse to pay the driver, I found that all the

guineas were gone, and only the loose silver remained.

Doctors’ Commons was approached by a little low archway. Before we had

taken many paces down the street beyond it, the noise of the city seemed

to melt, as if by magic, into a softened distance. A few dull courts

and narrow ways brought us to the sky-lighted offices of Spenlow and

Jorkins; in the vestibule of which temple, accessible to pilgrims

without the ceremony of knocking, three or four clerks were at work as

copyists. One of these, a little dry man, sitting by himself, who wore

a stiff brown wig that looked as if it were made of gingerbread, rose to

receive my aunt, and show us into Mr. Spenlow’s room.

‘Mr. Spenlow’s in Court, ma’am,’ said the dry man; ‘it’s an Arches day;

but it’s close by, and I’ll send for him directly.’

As we were left to look about us while Mr. Spenlow was fetched, I

availed myself of the opportunity. The furniture of the room was

old-fashioned and dusty; and the green baize on the top of the

writing-table had lost all its colour, and was as withered and pale as

an old pauper. There were a great many bundles of papers on it, some

endorsed as Allegations, and some (to my surprise) as Libels, and some

as being in the Consistory Court, and some in the Arches Court, and some

in the Prerogative Court, and some in the Admiralty Court, and some in

the Delegates’ Court; giving me occasion to wonder much, how many Courts

there might be in the gross, and how long it would take to understand

them all. Besides these, there were sundry immense manuscript Books

of Evidence taken on affidavit, strongly bound, and tied together in

massive sets, a set to each cause, as if every cause were a history in

ten or twenty volumes. All this looked tolerably expensive, I thought,

and gave me an agreeable notion of a proctor’s business. I was casting

my eyes with increasing complacency over these and many similar objects,

when hasty footsteps were heard in the room outside, and Mr. Spenlow,

in a black gown trimmed with white fur, came hurrying in, taking off his

hat as he came.

He was a little light-haired gentleman, with undeniable boots, and the

stiffest of white cravats and shirt-collars. He was buttoned up, mighty

trim and tight, and must have taken a great deal of pains with his

whiskers, which were accurately curled. His gold watch-chain was so

massive, that a fancy came across me, that he ought to have a sinewy

golden arm, to draw it out with, like those which are put up over the

goldbeaters’ shops. He was got up with such care, and was so stiff, that

he could hardly bend himself; being obliged, when he glanced at some

papers on his desk, after sitting down in his chair, to move his whole

body, from the bottom of his spine, like Punch.

I had previously been presented by my aunt, and had been courteously

received. He now said:

‘And so, Mr. Copperfield, you think of entering into our profession?

I casually mentioned to Miss Trotwood, when I had the pleasure of an

interview with her the other day,’--with another inclination of his

body--Punch again--‘that there was a vacancy here. Miss Trotwood was

good enough to mention that she had a nephew who was her peculiar care,

and for whom she was seeking to provide genteelly in life. That

nephew, I believe, I have now the pleasure of’--Punch again. I bowed my

acknowledgements, and said, my aunt had mentioned to me that there was