第 67 页

was aware of. He then returned to the punch, in the highest state of

exhilaration.

He was full of eloquence. He gave us to understand that in our children

we lived again, and that, under the pressure of pecuniary difficulties,

any accession to their number was doubly welcome. He said that Mrs.

Micawber had latterly had her doubts on this point, but that he had

dispelled them, and reassured her. As to her family, they were totally

unworthy of her, and their sentiments were utterly indifferent to him,

and they might--I quote his own expression--go to the Devil.

Mr. Micawber then delivered a warm eulogy on Traddles. He said

Traddles’s was a character, to the steady virtues of which he (Mr.

Micawber) could lay no claim, but which, he thanked Heaven, he could

admire. He feelingly alluded to the young lady, unknown, whom Traddles

had honoured with his affection, and who had reciprocated that affection

by honouring and blessing Traddles with her affection. Mr. Micawber

pledged her. So did I. Traddles thanked us both, by saying, with a

simplicity and honesty I had sense enough to be quite charmed with,

‘I am very much obliged to you indeed. And I do assure you, she’s the

dearest girl!--’

Mr. Micawber took an early opportunity, after that, of hinting, with the

utmost delicacy and ceremony, at the state of my affections. Nothing

but the serious assurance of his friend Copperfield to the contrary,

he observed, could deprive him of the impression that his friend

Copperfield loved and was beloved. After feeling very hot and

uncomfortable for some time, and after a good deal of blushing,

stammering, and denying, I said, having my glass in my hand, ‘Well! I

would give them D.!’ which so excited and gratified Mr. Micawber,

that he ran with a glass of punch into my bedroom, in order that Mrs.

Micawber might drink D., who drank it with enthusiasm, crying from

within, in a shrill voice, ‘Hear, hear! My dear Mr. Copperfield, I am

delighted. Hear!’ and tapping at the wall, by way of applause.

Our conversation, afterwards, took a more worldly turn; Mr. Micawber

telling us that he found Camden Town inconvenient, and that the first

thing he contemplated doing, when the advertisement should have been the

cause of something satisfactory turning up, was to move. He mentioned

a terrace at the western end of Oxford Street, fronting Hyde Park, on

which he had always had his eye, but which he did not expect to attain

immediately, as it would require a large establishment. There would

probably be an interval, he explained, in which he should content

himself with the upper part of a house, over some respectable place of

business--say in Piccadilly,--which would be a cheerful situation for

Mrs. Micawber; and where, by throwing out a bow-window, or carrying up

the roof another story, or making some little alteration of that sort,

they might live, comfortably and reputably, for a few years. Whatever

was reserved for him, he expressly said, or wherever his abode might be,

we might rely on this--there would always be a room for Traddles, and a

knife and fork for me. We acknowledged his kindness; and he begged us

to forgive his having launched into these practical and business-like

details, and to excuse it as natural in one who was making entirely new

arrangements in life.

Mrs. Micawber, tapping at the wall again to know if tea were ready,

broke up this particular phase of our friendly conversation. She made

tea for us in a most agreeable manner; and, whenever I went near her, in

handing about the tea-cups and bread-and-butter, asked me, in a whisper,

whether D. was fair, or dark, or whether she was short, or tall: or

something of that kind; which I think I liked. After tea, we discussed a

variety of topics before the fire; and Mrs. Micawber was good enough

to sing us (in a small, thin, flat voice, which I remembered to have

considered, when I first knew her, the very table-beer of acoustics) the

favourite ballads of ‘The Dashing White Sergeant’, and ‘Little Tafflin’.

For both of these songs Mrs. Micawber had been famous when she lived at

home with her papa and mama. Mr. Micawber told us, that when he heard

her sing the first one, on the first occasion of his seeing her beneath

the parental roof, she had attracted his attention in an extraordinary

degree; but that when it came to Little Tafflin, he had resolved to win

that woman or perish in the attempt.

It was between ten and eleven o’clock when Mrs. Micawber rose to replace

her cap in the whitey-brown paper parcel, and to put on her bonnet. Mr.

Micawber took the opportunity of Traddles putting on his great-coat, to

slip a letter into my hand, with a whispered request that I would read

it at my leisure. I also took the opportunity of my holding a candle

over the banisters to light them down, when Mr. Micawber was going

first, leading Mrs. Micawber, and Traddles was following with the cap,

to detain Traddles for a moment on the top of the stairs.

‘Traddles,’ said I, ‘Mr. Micawber don’t mean any harm, poor fellow: but,

if I were you, I wouldn’t lend him anything.’

‘My dear Copperfield,’ returned Traddles, smiling, ‘I haven’t got

anything to lend.’

‘You have got a name, you know,’ said I.

‘Oh! You call THAT something to lend?’ returned Traddles, with a

thoughtful look.

‘Certainly.’

‘Oh!’ said Traddles. ‘Yes, to be sure! I am very much obliged to you,

Copperfield; but--I am afraid I have lent him that already.’

‘For the bill that is to be a certain investment?’ I inquired.

‘No,’ said Traddles. ‘Not for that one. This is the first I have heard

of that one. I have been thinking that he will most likely propose that

one, on the way home. Mine’s another.’

‘I hope there will be nothing wrong about it,’ said I. ‘I hope not,’

said Traddles. ‘I should think not, though, because he told me, only the

other day, that it was provided for. That was Mr. Micawber’s expression,

“Provided for.”’

Mr. Micawber looking up at this juncture to where we were standing, I

had only time to repeat my caution. Traddles thanked me, and descended.

But I was much afraid, when I observed the good-natured manner in which

he went down with the cap in his hand, and gave Mrs. Micawber his arm,

that he would be carried into the Money Market neck and heels.

I returned to my fireside, and was musing, half gravely and half

laughing, on the character of Mr. Micawber and the old relations between

us, when I heard a quick step ascending the stairs. At first, I thought

it was Traddles coming back for something Mrs. Micawber had left behind;

but as the step approached, I knew it, and felt my heart beat high, and

the blood rush to my face, for it was Steerforth’s.

I was never unmindful of Agnes, and she never left that sanctuary in my

thoughts--if I may call it so--where I had placed her from the first.

But when he entered, and stood before me with his hand out, the darkness

that had fallen on him changed to light, and I felt confounded and

ashamed of having doubted one I loved so heartily. I loved her none the

less; I thought of her as the same benignant, gentle angel in my life; I

reproached myself, not her, with having done him an injury; and I would

have made him any atonement if I had known what to make, and how to make

it.

‘Why, Daisy, old boy, dumb-foundered!’ laughed Steerforth, shaking

my hand heartily, and throwing it gaily away. ‘Have I detected you in

another feast, you Sybarite! These Doctors’ Commons fellows are the

gayest men in town, I believe, and beat us sober Oxford people all to

nothing!’ His bright glance went merrily round the room, as he took

the seat on the sofa opposite to me, which Mrs. Micawber had recently

vacated, and stirred the fire into a blaze.

‘I was so surprised at first,’ said I, giving him welcome with all

the cordiality I felt, ‘that I had hardly breath to greet you with,

Steerforth.’

‘Well, the sight of me is good for sore eyes, as the Scotch say,’

replied Steerforth, ‘and so is the sight of you, Daisy, in full bloom.

How are you, my Bacchanal?’

‘I am very well,’ said I; ‘and not at all Bacchanalian tonight, though I

confess to another party of three.’

‘All of whom I met in the street, talking loud in your praise,’ returned

Steerforth. ‘Who’s our friend in the tights?’

I gave him the best idea I could, in a few words, of Mr. Micawber. He

laughed heartily at my feeble portrait of that gentleman, and said he

was a man to know, and he must know him. ‘But who do you suppose our

other friend is?’ said I, in my turn.

‘Heaven knows,’ said Steerforth. ‘Not a bore, I hope? I thought he

looked a little like one.’

‘Traddles!’ I replied, triumphantly.

‘Who’s he?’ asked Steerforth, in his careless way.

‘Don’t you remember Traddles? Traddles in our room at Salem House?’

‘Oh! That fellow!’ said Steerforth, beating a lump of coal on the top

of the fire, with the poker. ‘Is he as soft as ever? And where the deuce

did you pick him up?’

I extolled Traddles in reply, as highly as I could; for I felt that

Steerforth rather slighted him. Steerforth, dismissing the subject with

a light nod, and a smile, and the remark that he would be glad to see

the old fellow too, for he had always been an odd fish, inquired if I

could give him anything to eat? During most of this short dialogue, when

he had not been speaking in a wild vivacious manner, he had sat idly

beating on the lump of coal with the poker. I observed that he did the

same thing while I was getting out the remains of the pigeon-pie, and so

forth.

‘Why, Daisy, here’s a supper for a king!’ he exclaimed, starting out of

his silence with a burst, and taking his seat at the table. ‘I shall do

it justice, for I have come from Yarmouth.’

‘I thought you came from Oxford?’ I returned.

‘Not I,’ said Steerforth. ‘I have been seafaring--better employed.’

‘Littimer was here today, to inquire for you,’ I remarked, ‘and I

understood him that you were at Oxford; though, now I think of it, he

certainly did not say so.’

‘Littimer is a greater fool than I thought him, to have been inquiring

for me at all,’ said Steerforth, jovially pouring out a glass of wine,

and drinking to me. ‘As to understanding him, you are a cleverer fellow

than most of us, Daisy, if you can do that.’

‘That’s true, indeed,’ said I, moving my chair to the table. ‘So you

have been at Yarmouth, Steerforth!’ interested to know all about it.

‘Have you been there long?’

‘No,’ he returned. ‘An escapade of a week or so.’

‘And how are they all? Of course, little Emily is not married yet?’

‘Not yet. Going to be, I believe--in so many weeks, or months, or

something or other. I have not seen much of ‘em. By the by’; he laid

down his knife and fork, which he had been using with great diligence,

and began feeling in his pockets; ‘I have a letter for you.’

‘From whom?’

‘Why, from your old nurse,’ he returned, taking some papers out of his

breast pocket. “‘J. Steerforth, Esquire, debtor, to The Willing

Mind”; that’s not it. Patience, and we’ll find it presently. Old

what’s-his-name’s in a bad way, and it’s about that, I believe.’

‘Barkis, do you mean?’

‘Yes!’ still feeling in his pockets, and looking over their contents:

‘it’s all over with poor Barkis, I am afraid. I saw a little apothecary

there--surgeon, or whatever he is--who brought your worship into the

world. He was mighty learned about the case, to me; but the upshot of

his opinion was, that the carrier was making his last journey rather

fast.---Put your hand into the breast pocket of my great-coat on the

chair yonder, and I think you’ll find the letter. Is it there?’

‘Here it is!’ said I.

‘That’s right!’

It was from Peggotty; something less legible than usual, and brief. It

informed me of her husband’s hopeless state, and hinted at his being

‘a little nearer’ than heretofore, and consequently more difficult

to manage for his own comfort. It said nothing of her weariness

and watching, and praised him highly. It was written with a plain,

unaffected, homely piety that I knew to be genuine, and ended with ‘my

duty to my ever darling’--meaning myself.

While I deciphered it, Steerforth continued to eat and drink.

‘It’s a bad job,’ he said, when I had done; ‘but the sun sets every day,

and people die every minute, and we mustn’t be scared by the common lot.

If we failed to hold our own, because that equal foot at all men’s doors

was heard knocking somewhere, every object in this world would slip from

us. No! Ride on! Rough-shod if need be, smooth-shod if that will do, but

ride on! Ride on over all obstacles, and win the race!’

‘And win what race?’ said I.

‘The race that one has started in,’ said he. ‘Ride on!’

I noticed, I remember, as he paused, looking at me with his handsome

head a little thrown back, and his glass raised in his hand, that,

though the freshness of the sea-wind was on his face, and it was ruddy,

there were traces in it, made since I last saw it, as if he had applied

himself to some habitual strain of the fervent energy which, when

roused, was so passionately roused within him. I had it in my thoughts

to remonstrate with him upon his desperate way of pursuing any fancy

that he took--such as this buffeting of rough seas, and braving of hard

weather, for example--when my mind glanced off to the immediate subject

of our conversation again, and pursued that instead.

‘I tell you what, Steerforth,’ said I, ‘if your high spirits will listen

to me--’

‘They are potent spirits, and will do whatever you like,’ he answered,

moving from the table to the fireside again.

‘Then I tell you what, Steerforth. I think I will go down and see my

old nurse. It is not that I can do her any good, or render her any real

service; but she is so attached to me that my visit will have as much

effect on her, as if I could do both. She will take it so kindly that it

will be a comfort and support to her. It is no great effort to make,

I am sure, for such a friend as she has been to me. Wouldn’t you go a

day’s journey, if you were in my place?’

His face was thoughtful, and he sat considering a little before he

answered, in a low voice, ‘Well! Go. You can do no harm.’