第 62 页

acquiescence in all I had heard from my superior in years and knowledge;

and we talked about The Stranger and the Drama, and the pairs of horses,

until we came to Mr. Spenlow’s gate.

There was a lovely garden to Mr. Spenlow’s house; and though that was

not the best time of the year for seeing a garden, it was so beautifully

kept, that I was quite enchanted. There was a charming lawn, there were

clusters of trees, and there were perspective walks that I could just

distinguish in the dark, arched over with trellis-work, on which shrubs

and flowers grew in the growing season. ‘Here Miss Spenlow walks by

herself,’ I thought. ‘Dear me!’

We went into the house, which was cheerfully lighted up, and into a hall

where there were all sorts of hats, caps, great-coats, plaids, gloves,

whips, and walking-sticks. ‘Where is Miss Dora?’ said Mr. Spenlow to the

servant. ‘Dora!’ I thought. ‘What a beautiful name!’

We turned into a room near at hand (I think it was the identical

breakfast-room, made memorable by the brown East Indian sherry), and I

heard a voice say, ‘Mr. Copperfield, my daughter Dora, and my daughter

Dora’s confidential friend!’ It was, no doubt, Mr. Spenlow’s voice,

but I didn’t know it, and I didn’t care whose it was. All was over in a

moment. I had fulfilled my destiny. I was a captive and a slave. I loved

Dora Spenlow to distraction!

She was more than human to me. She was a Fairy, a Sylph, I don’t

know what she was--anything that no one ever saw, and everything that

everybody ever wanted. I was swallowed up in an abyss of love in an

instant. There was no pausing on the brink; no looking down, or looking

back; I was gone, headlong, before I had sense to say a word to her.

‘I,’ observed a well-remembered voice, when I had bowed and murmured

something, ‘have seen Mr. Copperfield before.’

The speaker was not Dora. No; the confidential friend, Miss Murdstone!

I don’t think I was much astonished. To the best of my judgement,

no capacity of astonishment was left in me. There was nothing worth

mentioning in the material world, but Dora Spenlow, to be astonished

about. I said, ‘How do you do, Miss Murdstone? I hope you are well.’ She

answered, ‘Very well.’ I said, ‘How is Mr. Murdstone?’ She replied, ‘My

brother is robust, I am obliged to you.’

Mr. Spenlow, who, I suppose, had been surprised to see us recognize each

other, then put in his word.

‘I am glad to find,’ he said, ‘Copperfield, that you and Miss Murdstone

are already acquainted.’

‘Mr. Copperfield and myself,’ said Miss Murdstone, with severe

composure, ‘are connexions. We were once slightly acquainted. It was in

his childish days. Circumstances have separated us since. I should not

have known him.’

I replied that I should have known her, anywhere. Which was true enough.

‘Miss Murdstone has had the goodness,’ said Mr. Spenlow to me, ‘to

accept the office--if I may so describe it--of my daughter Dora’s

confidential friend. My daughter Dora having, unhappily, no mother, Miss

Murdstone is obliging enough to become her companion and protector.’

A passing thought occurred to me that Miss Murdstone, like the pocket

instrument called a life-preserver, was not so much designed for

purposes of protection as of assault. But as I had none but passing

thoughts for any subject save Dora, I glanced at her, directly

afterwards, and was thinking that I saw, in her prettily pettish manner,

that she was not very much inclined to be particularly confidential to

her companion and protector, when a bell rang, which Mr. Spenlow said

was the first dinner-bell, and so carried me off to dress.

The idea of dressing one’s self, or doing anything in the way of action,

in that state of love, was a little too ridiculous. I could only sit

down before my fire, biting the key of my carpet-bag, and think of the

captivating, girlish, bright-eyed lovely Dora. What a form she had, what

a face she had, what a graceful, variable, enchanting manner!

The bell rang again so soon that I made a mere scramble of my dressing,

instead of the careful operation I could have wished under the

circumstances, and went downstairs. There was some company. Dora was

talking to an old gentleman with a grey head. Grey as he was--and a

great-grandfather into the bargain, for he said so--I was madly jealous

of him.

What a state of mind I was in! I was jealous of everybody. I couldn’t

bear the idea of anybody knowing Mr. Spenlow better than I did. It was

torturing to me to hear them talk of occurrences in which I had had no

share. When a most amiable person, with a highly polished bald head,

asked me across the dinner table, if that were the first occasion of my

seeing the grounds, I could have done anything to him that was savage

and revengeful.

I don’t remember who was there, except Dora. I have not the least idea

what we had for dinner, besides Dora. My impression is, that I dined off

Dora, entirely, and sent away half-a-dozen plates untouched. I sat next

to her. I talked to her. She had the most delightful little voice, the

gayest little laugh, the pleasantest and most fascinating little

ways, that ever led a lost youth into hopeless slavery. She was rather

diminutive altogether. So much the more precious, I thought.

When she went out of the room with Miss Murdstone (no other ladies

were of the party), I fell into a reverie, only disturbed by the cruel

apprehension that Miss Murdstone would disparage me to her. The amiable

creature with the polished head told me a long story, which I think was

about gardening. I think I heard him say, ‘my gardener’, several times.

I seemed to pay the deepest attention to him, but I was wandering in a

garden of Eden all the while, with Dora.

My apprehensions of being disparaged to the object of my engrossing

affection were revived when we went into the drawing-room, by the grim

and distant aspect of Miss Murdstone. But I was relieved of them in an

unexpected manner.

‘David Copperfield,’ said Miss Murdstone, beckoning me aside into a

window. ‘A word.’

I confronted Miss Murdstone alone.

‘David Copperfield,’ said Miss Murdstone, ‘I need not enlarge upon

family circumstances. They are not a tempting subject.’ ‘Far from it,

ma’am,’ I returned.

‘Far from it,’ assented Miss Murdstone. ‘I do not wish to revive

the memory of past differences, or of past outrages. I have received

outrages from a person--a female I am sorry to say, for the credit of my

sex--who is not to be mentioned without scorn and disgust; and therefore

I would rather not mention her.’

I felt very fiery on my aunt’s account; but I said it would certainly be

better, if Miss Murdstone pleased, not to mention her. I could not hear

her disrespectfully mentioned, I added, without expressing my opinion in

a decided tone.

Miss Murdstone shut her eyes, and disdainfully inclined her head; then,

slowly opening her eyes, resumed:

‘David Copperfield, I shall not attempt to disguise the fact, that I

formed an unfavourable opinion of you in your childhood. It may have

been a mistaken one, or you may have ceased to justify it. That is not

in question between us now. I belong to a family remarkable, I believe,

for some firmness; and I am not the creature of circumstance or change.

I may have my opinion of you. You may have your opinion of me.’

I inclined my head, in my turn.

‘But it is not necessary,’ said Miss Murdstone, ‘that these opinions

should come into collision here. Under existing circumstances, it is as

well on all accounts that they should not. As the chances of life have

brought us together again, and may bring us together on other occasions,

I would say, let us meet here as distant acquaintances. Family

circumstances are a sufficient reason for our only meeting on that

footing, and it is quite unnecessary that either of us should make the

other the subject of remark. Do you approve of this?’

‘Miss Murdstone,’ I returned, ‘I think you and Mr. Murdstone used me

very cruelly, and treated my mother with great unkindness. I shall

always think so, as long as I live. But I quite agree in what you

propose.’

Miss Murdstone shut her eyes again, and bent her head. Then, just

touching the back of my hand with the tips of her cold, stiff fingers,

she walked away, arranging the little fetters on her wrists and round

her neck; which seemed to be the same set, in exactly the same state,

as when I had seen her last. These reminded me, in reference to Miss

Murdstone’s nature, of the fetters over a jail door; suggesting on the

outside, to all beholders, what was to be expected within.

All I know of the rest of the evening is, that I heard the empress of

my heart sing enchanted ballads in the French language, generally to the

effect that, whatever was the matter, we ought always to dance, Ta ra

la, Ta ra la! accompanying herself on a glorified instrument, resembling

a guitar. That I was lost in blissful delirium. That I refused

refreshment. That my soul recoiled from punch particularly. That when

Miss Murdstone took her into custody and led her away, she smiled and

gave me her delicious hand. That I caught a view of myself in a mirror,

looking perfectly imbecile and idiotic. That I retired to bed in a most

maudlin state of mind, and got up in a crisis of feeble infatuation.

It was a fine morning, and early, and I thought I would go and take a

stroll down one of those wire-arched walks, and indulge my passion by

dwelling on her image. On my way through the hall, I encountered her

little dog, who was called Jip--short for Gipsy. I approached him

tenderly, for I loved even him; but he showed his whole set of teeth,

got under a chair expressly to snarl, and wouldn’t hear of the least

familiarity.

The garden was cool and solitary. I walked about, wondering what my

feelings of happiness would be, if I could ever become engaged to this

dear wonder. As to marriage, and fortune, and all that, I believe I was

almost as innocently undesigning then, as when I loved little Em’ly. To

be allowed to call her ‘Dora’, to write to her, to dote upon and worship

her, to have reason to think that when she was with other people she was

yet mindful of me, seemed to me the summit of human ambition--I am

sure it was the summit of mine. There is no doubt whatever that I was

a lackadaisical young spooney; but there was a purity of heart in all

this, that prevents my having quite a contemptuous recollection of it,

let me laugh as I may.

I had not been walking long, when I turned a corner, and met her. I

tingle again from head to foot as my recollection turns that corner, and

my pen shakes in my hand.

‘You--are--out early, Miss Spenlow,’ said I.

‘It’s so stupid at home,’ she replied, ‘and Miss Murdstone is so absurd!

She talks such nonsense about its being necessary for the day to be

aired, before I come out. Aired!’ (She laughed, here, in the most

melodious manner.) ‘On a Sunday morning, when I don’t practise, I must

do something. So I told papa last night I must come out. Besides, it’s

the brightest time of the whole day. Don’t you think so?’

I hazarded a bold flight, and said (not without stammering) that it

was very bright to me then, though it had been very dark to me a minute

before.

‘Do you mean a compliment?’ said Dora, ‘or that the weather has really

changed?’

I stammered worse than before, in replying that I meant no compliment,

but the plain truth; though I was not aware of any change having taken

place in the weather. It was in the state of my own feelings, I added

bashfully: to clench the explanation.

I never saw such curls--how could I, for there never were such

curls!--as those she shook out to hide her blushes. As to the straw hat

and blue ribbons which was on the top of the curls, if I could only have

hung it up in my room in Buckingham Street, what a priceless possession

it would have been!

‘You have just come home from Paris,’ said I.

‘Yes,’ said she. ‘Have you ever been there?’

‘No.’

‘Oh! I hope you’ll go soon! You would like it so much!’

Traces of deep-seated anguish appeared in my countenance. That she

should hope I would go, that she should think it possible I could go,

was insupportable. I depreciated Paris; I depreciated France. I said I

wouldn’t leave England, under existing circumstances, for any earthly

consideration. Nothing should induce me. In short, she was shaking the

curls again, when the little dog came running along the walk to our

relief.

He was mortally jealous of me, and persisted in barking at me. She took

him up in her arms--oh my goodness!--and caressed him, but he persisted

upon barking still. He wouldn’t let me touch him, when I tried; and then

she beat him. It increased my sufferings greatly to see the pats she

gave him for punishment on the bridge of his blunt nose, while he winked

his eyes, and licked her hand, and still growled within himself like a

little double-bass. At length he was quiet--well he might be with her

dimpled chin upon his head!--and we walked away to look at a greenhouse.

‘You are not very intimate with Miss Murdstone, are you?’ said Dora.

--‘My pet.’

(The two last words were to the dog. Oh, if they had only been to me!)

‘No,’ I replied. ‘Not at all so.’

‘She is a tiresome creature,’ said Dora, pouting. ‘I can’t think what

papa can have been about, when he chose such a vexatious thing to be my

companion. Who wants a protector? I am sure I don’t want a protector.

Jip can protect me a great deal better than Miss Murdstone,--can’t you,

Jip, dear?’

He only winked lazily, when she kissed his ball of a head.

‘Papa calls her my confidential friend, but I am sure she is no such

thing--is she, Jip? We are not going to confide in any such cross

people, Jip and I. We mean to bestow our confidence where we like,

and to find out our own friends, instead of having them found out for

us--don’t we, Jip?’

Jip made a comfortable noise, in answer, a little like a tea-kettle when

it sings. As for me, every word was a new heap of fetters, riveted above

the last.

‘It is very hard, because we have not a kind Mama, that we are to have,

instead, a sulky, gloomy old thing like Miss Murdstone, always following