第 60 页

shone on me from some removed being, like an Angel, I hope I thought no

harm.

I have said that the company were all gone; but I ought to have excepted

Uriah, whom I don’t include in that denomination, and who had never

ceased to hover near us. He was close behind me when I went downstairs.

He was close beside me, when I walked away from the house, slowly

fitting his long skeleton fingers into the still longer fingers of a

great Guy Fawkes pair of gloves.

It was in no disposition for Uriah’s company, but in remembrance of the

entreaty Agnes had made to me, that I asked him if he would come home to

my rooms, and have some coffee.

‘Oh, really, Master Copperfield,’ he rejoined--‘I beg your pardon,

Mister Copperfield, but the other comes so natural, I don’t like that

you should put a constraint upon yourself to ask a numble person like me

to your ouse.’

‘There is no constraint in the case,’ said I. ‘Will you come?’

‘I should like to, very much,’ replied Uriah, with a writhe.

‘Well, then, come along!’ said I.

I could not help being rather short with him, but he appeared not to

mind it. We went the nearest way, without conversing much upon the road;

and he was so humble in respect of those scarecrow gloves, that he

was still putting them on, and seemed to have made no advance in that

labour, when we got to my place.

I led him up the dark stairs, to prevent his knocking his head against

anything, and really his damp cold hand felt so like a frog in mine,

that I was tempted to drop it and run away. Agnes and hospitality

prevailed, however, and I conducted him to my fireside. When I lighted

my candles, he fell into meek transports with the room that was revealed

to him; and when I heated the coffee in an unassuming block-tin vessel

in which Mrs. Crupp delighted to prepare it (chiefly, I believe, because

it was not intended for the purpose, being a shaving-pot, and because

there was a patent invention of great price mouldering away in the

pantry), he professed so much emotion, that I could joyfully have

scalded him.

‘Oh, really, Master Copperfield,--I mean Mister Copperfield,’ said

Uriah, ‘to see you waiting upon me is what I never could have expected!

But, one way and another, so many things happen to me which I never

could have expected, I am sure, in my umble station, that it seems

to rain blessings on my ed. You have heard something, I des-say, of a

change in my expectations, Master Copperfield,--I should say, Mister

Copperfield?’

As he sat on my sofa, with his long knees drawn up under his coffee-cup,

his hat and gloves upon the ground close to him, his spoon going softly

round and round, his shadowless red eyes, which looked as if they had

scorched their lashes off, turned towards me without looking at me, the

disagreeable dints I have formerly described in his nostrils coming and

going with his breath, and a snaky undulation pervading his frame from

his chin to his boots, I decided in my own mind that I disliked him

intensely. It made me very uncomfortable to have him for a guest, for I

was young then, and unused to disguise what I so strongly felt.

‘You have heard something, I des-say, of a change in my expectations,

Master Copperfield,--I should say, Mister Copperfield?’ observed Uriah.

‘Yes,’ said I, ‘something.’

‘Ah! I thought Miss Agnes would know of it!’ he quietly returned. ‘I’m

glad to find Miss Agnes knows of it. Oh, thank you, Master--Mister

Copperfield!’

I could have thrown my bootjack at him (it lay ready on the rug), for

having entrapped me into the disclosure of anything concerning Agnes,

however immaterial. But I only drank my coffee.

‘What a prophet you have shown yourself, Mister Copperfield!’ pursued

Uriah. ‘Dear me, what a prophet you have proved yourself to be! Don’t

you remember saying to me once, that perhaps I should be a partner in

Mr. Wickfield’s business, and perhaps it might be Wickfield and

Heep? You may not recollect it; but when a person is umble, Master

Copperfield, a person treasures such things up!’

‘I recollect talking about it,’ said I, ‘though I certainly did not

think it very likely then.’ ‘Oh! who would have thought it likely,

Mister Copperfield!’ returned Uriah, enthusiastically. ‘I am sure I

didn’t myself. I recollect saying with my own lips that I was much too

umble. So I considered myself really and truly.’

He sat, with that carved grin on his face, looking at the fire, as I

looked at him.

‘But the umblest persons, Master Copperfield,’ he presently resumed,

‘may be the instruments of good. I am glad to think I have been the

instrument of good to Mr. Wickfield, and that I may be more so. Oh what

a worthy man he is, Mister Copperfield, but how imprudent he has been!’

‘I am sorry to hear it,’ said I. I could not help adding, rather

pointedly, ‘on all accounts.’

‘Decidedly so, Mister Copperfield,’ replied Uriah. ‘On all accounts.

Miss Agnes’s above all! You don’t remember your own eloquent

expressions, Master Copperfield; but I remember how you said one day

that everybody must admire her, and how I thanked you for it! You have

forgot that, I have no doubt, Master Copperfield?’

‘No,’ said I, drily.

‘Oh how glad I am you have not!’ exclaimed Uriah. ‘To think that you

should be the first to kindle the sparks of ambition in my umble breast,

and that you’ve not forgot it! Oh!--Would you excuse me asking for a cup

more coffee?’

Something in the emphasis he laid upon the kindling of those sparks,

and something in the glance he directed at me as he said it, had made me

start as if I had seen him illuminated by a blaze of light. Recalled by

his request, preferred in quite another tone of voice, I did the honours

of the shaving-pot; but I did them with an unsteadiness of hand, a

sudden sense of being no match for him, and a perplexed suspicious

anxiety as to what he might be going to say next, which I felt could not

escape his observation.

He said nothing at all. He stirred his coffee round and round, he sipped

it, he felt his chin softly with his grisly hand, he looked at the fire,

he looked about the room, he gasped rather than smiled at me, he writhed

and undulated about, in his deferential servility, he stirred and sipped

again, but he left the renewal of the conversation to me.

‘So, Mr. Wickfield,’ said I, at last, ‘who is worth five hundred of

you--or me’; for my life, I think, I could not have helped dividing that

part of the sentence with an awkward jerk; ‘has been imprudent, has he,

Mr. Heep?’

‘Oh, very imprudent indeed, Master Copperfield,’ returned Uriah, sighing

modestly. ‘Oh, very much so! But I wish you’d call me Uriah, if you

please. It’s like old times.’

‘Well! Uriah,’ said I, bolting it out with some difficulty.

‘Thank you,’ he returned, with fervour. ‘Thank you, Master Copperfield!

It’s like the blowing of old breezes or the ringing of old bellses to

hear YOU say Uriah. I beg your pardon. Was I making any observation?’

‘About Mr. Wickfield,’ I suggested.

‘Oh! Yes, truly,’ said Uriah. ‘Ah! Great imprudence, Master Copperfield.

It’s a topic that I wouldn’t touch upon, to any soul but you. Even to

you I can only touch upon it, and no more. If anyone else had been in

my place during the last few years, by this time he would have had Mr.

Wickfield (oh, what a worthy man he is, Master Copperfield, too!) under

his thumb. Un--der--his thumb,’ said Uriah, very slowly, as he stretched

out his cruel-looking hand above my table, and pressed his own thumb

upon it, until it shook, and shook the room.

If I had been obliged to look at him with him splay foot on Mr.

Wickfield’s head, I think I could scarcely have hated him more.

‘Oh, dear, yes, Master Copperfield,’ he proceeded, in a soft voice,

most remarkably contrasting with the action of his thumb, which did not

diminish its hard pressure in the least degree, ‘there’s no doubt of

it. There would have been loss, disgrace, I don’t know what at all. Mr.

Wickfield knows it. I am the umble instrument of umbly serving him,

and he puts me on an eminence I hardly could have hoped to reach. How

thankful should I be!’ With his face turned towards me, as he finished,

but without looking at me, he took his crooked thumb off the spot where

he had planted it, and slowly and thoughtfully scraped his lank jaw with

it, as if he were shaving himself.

I recollect well how indignantly my heart beat, as I saw his crafty

face, with the appropriately red light of the fire upon it, preparing

for something else.

‘Master Copperfield,’ he began--‘but am I keeping you up?’

‘You are not keeping me up. I generally go to bed late.’

‘Thank you, Master Copperfield! I have risen from my umble station since

first you used to address me, it is true; but I am umble still. I hope I

never shall be otherwise than umble. You will not think the worse of

my umbleness, if I make a little confidence to you, Master Copperfield?

Will you?’

‘Oh no,’ said I, with an effort.

‘Thank you!’ He took out his pocket-handkerchief, and began wiping the

palms of his hands. ‘Miss Agnes, Master Copperfield--’ ‘Well, Uriah?’

‘Oh, how pleasant to be called Uriah, spontaneously!’ he cried; and gave

himself a jerk, like a convulsive fish. ‘You thought her looking very

beautiful tonight, Master Copperfield?’

‘I thought her looking as she always does: superior, in all respects, to

everyone around her,’ I returned.

‘Oh, thank you! It’s so true!’ he cried. ‘Oh, thank you very much for

that!’

‘Not at all,’ I said, loftily. ‘There is no reason why you should thank

me.’

‘Why that, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah, ‘is, in fact, the confidence

that I am going to take the liberty of reposing. Umble as I am,’ he

wiped his hands harder, and looked at them and at the fire by turns,

‘umble as my mother is, and lowly as our poor but honest roof has ever

been, the image of Miss Agnes (I don’t mind trusting you with my secret,

Master Copperfield, for I have always overflowed towards you since the

first moment I had the pleasure of beholding you in a pony-shay) has

been in my breast for years. Oh, Master Copperfield, with what a pure

affection do I love the ground my Agnes walks on!’

I believe I had a delirious idea of seizing the red-hot poker out of

the fire, and running him through with it. It went from me with a shock,

like a ball fired from a rifle: but the image of Agnes, outraged by so

much as a thought of this red-headed animal’s, remained in my mind when

I looked at him, sitting all awry as if his mean soul griped his body,

and made me giddy. He seemed to swell and grow before my eyes; the room

seemed full of the echoes of his voice; and the strange feeling (to

which, perhaps, no one is quite a stranger) that all this had occurred

before, at some indefinite time, and that I knew what he was going to

say next, took possession of me.

A timely observation of the sense of power that there was in his face,

did more to bring back to my remembrance the entreaty of Agnes, in

its full force, than any effort I could have made. I asked him, with

a better appearance of composure than I could have thought possible a

minute before, whether he had made his feelings known to Agnes.

‘Oh no, Master Copperfield!’ he returned; ‘oh dear, no! Not to anyone

but you. You see I am only just emerging from my lowly station. I rest a

good deal of hope on her observing how useful I am to her father (for

I trust to be very useful to him indeed, Master Copperfield), and how I

smooth the way for him, and keep him straight. She’s so much attached

to her father, Master Copperfield (oh, what a lovely thing it is in a

daughter!), that I think she may come, on his account, to be kind to

me.’

I fathomed the depth of the rascal’s whole scheme, and understood why he

laid it bare.

‘If you’ll have the goodness to keep my secret, Master Copperfield,’ he

pursued, ‘and not, in general, to go against me, I shall take it as a

particular favour. You wouldn’t wish to make unpleasantness. I know

what a friendly heart you’ve got; but having only known me on my umble

footing (on my umblest I should say, for I am very umble still), you

might, unbeknown, go against me rather, with my Agnes. I call her mine,

you see, Master Copperfield. There’s a song that says, “I’d crowns

resign, to call her mine!” I hope to do it, one of these days.’

Dear Agnes! So much too loving and too good for anyone that I could

think of, was it possible that she was reserved to be the wife of such a

wretch as this!

‘There’s no hurry at present, you know, Master Copperfield,’ Uriah

proceeded, in his slimy way, as I sat gazing at him, with this thought

in my mind. ‘My Agnes is very young still; and mother and me will have

to work our way upwards, and make a good many new arrangements, before

it would be quite convenient. So I shall have time gradually to make her

familiar with my hopes, as opportunities offer. Oh, I’m so much obliged

to you for this confidence! Oh, it’s such a relief, you can’t think, to

know that you understand our situation, and are certain (as you wouldn’t

wish to make unpleasantness in the family) not to go against me!’

He took the hand which I dared not withhold, and having given it a damp

squeeze, referred to his pale-faced watch.

‘Dear me!’ he said, ‘it’s past one. The moments slip away so, in the

confidence of old times, Master Copperfield, that it’s almost half past

one!’

I answered that I had thought it was later. Not that I had really

thought so, but because my conversational powers were effectually

scattered.

‘Dear me!’ he said, considering. ‘The ouse that I am stopping at--a sort

of a private hotel and boarding ouse, Master Copperfield, near the New

River ed--will have gone to bed these two hours.’

‘I am sorry,’ I returned, ‘that there is only one bed here, and that

I--’

‘Oh, don’t think of mentioning beds, Master Copperfield!’ he rejoined

ecstatically, drawing up one leg. ‘But would you have any objections to

my laying down before the fire?’

‘If it comes to that,’ I said, ‘pray take my bed, and I’ll lie down

before the fire.’

His repudiation of this offer was almost shrill enough, in the excess of