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‘You have just come back,’ said I, ‘and it would be in vain to ask you

to go with me?’

‘Quite,’ he returned. ‘I am for Highgate tonight. I have not seen

my mother this long time, and it lies upon my conscience, for

it’s something to be loved as she loves her prodigal son.---Bah!

Nonsense!--You mean to go tomorrow, I suppose?’ he said, holding me out

at arm’s length, with a hand on each of my shoulders.

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘Well, then, don’t go till next day. I wanted you to come and stay a

few days with us. Here I am, on purpose to bid you, and you fly off to

Yarmouth!’

‘You are a nice fellow to talk of flying off, Steerforth, who are always

running wild on some unknown expedition or other!’

He looked at me for a moment without speaking, and then rejoined, still

holding me as before, and giving me a shake:

‘Come! Say the next day, and pass as much of tomorrow as you can with

us! Who knows when we may meet again, else? Come! Say the next day! I

want you to stand between Rosa Dartle and me, and keep us asunder.’

‘Would you love each other too much, without me?’

‘Yes; or hate,’ laughed Steerforth; ‘no matter which. Come! Say the next

day!’

I said the next day; and he put on his great-coat and lighted his cigar,

and set off to walk home. Finding him in this intention, I put on my own

great-coat (but did not light my own cigar, having had enough of that

for one while) and walked with him as far as the open road: a dull road,

then, at night. He was in great spirits all the way; and when we parted,

and I looked after him going so gallantly and airily homeward, I thought

of his saying, ‘Ride on over all obstacles, and win the race!’ and

wished, for the first time, that he had some worthy race to run.

I was undressing in my own room, when Mr. Micawber’s letter tumbled on

the floor. Thus reminded of it, I broke the seal and read as follows. It

was dated an hour and a half before dinner. I am not sure whether I

have mentioned that, when Mr. Micawber was at any particularly desperate

crisis, he used a sort of legal phraseology, which he seemed to think

equivalent to winding up his affairs.

‘SIR--for I dare not say my dear Copperfield,

‘It is expedient that I should inform you that the undersigned is

Crushed. Some flickering efforts to spare you the premature knowledge of

his calamitous position, you may observe in him this day; but hope has

sunk beneath the horizon, and the undersigned is Crushed.

‘The present communication is penned within the personal range (I cannot

call it the society) of an individual, in a state closely bordering

on intoxication, employed by a broker. That individual is in legal

possession of the premises, under a distress for rent. His inventory

includes, not only the chattels and effects of every description

belonging to the undersigned, as yearly tenant of this habitation, but

also those appertaining to Mr. Thomas Traddles, lodger, a member of the

Honourable Society of the Inner Temple.

‘If any drop of gloom were wanting in the overflowing cup, which is now

“commended” (in the language of an immortal Writer) to the lips of the

undersigned, it would be found in the fact, that a friendly acceptance

granted to the undersigned, by the before-mentioned Mr. Thomas Traddles,

for the sum Of 23l 4s 9 1/2d is over due, and is NOT provided for. Also,

in the fact that the living responsibilities clinging to the undersigned

will, in the course of nature, be increased by the sum of one more

helpless victim; whose miserable appearance may be looked for--in round

numbers--at the expiration of a period not exceeding six lunar months

from the present date.

‘After premising thus much, it would be a work of supererogation to add,

that dust and ashes are for ever scattered

‘On

‘The

‘Head

‘Of

‘WILKINS MICAWBER.’

Poor Traddles! I knew enough of Mr. Micawber by this time, to foresee

that he might be expected to recover the blow; but my night’s rest was

sorely distressed by thoughts of Traddles, and of the curate’s daughter,

who was one of ten, down in Devonshire, and who was such a dear girl,

and who would wait for Traddles (ominous praise!) until she was sixty,

or any age that could be mentioned.

CHAPTER 29. I VISIT STEERFORTH AT HIS HOME, AGAIN

I mentioned to Mr. Spenlow in the morning, that I wanted leave of

absence for a short time; and as I was not in the receipt of any salary,

and consequently was not obnoxious to the implacable Jorkins, there was

no difficulty about it. I took that opportunity, with my voice sticking

in my throat, and my sight failing as I uttered the words, to express

my hope that Miss Spenlow was quite well; to which Mr. Spenlow replied,

with no more emotion than if he had been speaking of an ordinary human

being, that he was much obliged to me, and she was very well.

We articled clerks, as germs of the patrician order of proctors, were

treated with so much consideration, that I was almost my own master at

all times. As I did not care, however, to get to Highgate before one

or two o’clock in the day, and as we had another little excommunication

case in court that morning, which was called The office of the judge

promoted by Tipkins against Bullock for his soul’s correction, I passed

an hour or two in attendance on it with Mr. Spenlow very agreeably.

It arose out of a scuffle between two churchwardens, one of whom was

alleged to have pushed the other against a pump; the handle of which

pump projecting into a school-house, which school-house was under a

gable of the church-roof, made the push an ecclesiastical offence.

It was an amusing case; and sent me up to Highgate, on the box of the

stage-coach, thinking about the Commons, and what Mr. Spenlow had said

about touching the Commons and bringing down the country.

Mrs. Steerforth was pleased to see me, and so was Rosa Dartle. I was

agreeably surprised to find that Littimer was not there, and that we

were attended by a modest little parlour-maid, with blue ribbons in her

cap, whose eye it was much more pleasant, and much less disconcerting,

to catch by accident, than the eye of that respectable man. But what I

particularly observed, before I had been half-an-hour in the house, was

the close and attentive watch Miss Dartle kept upon me; and the lurking

manner in which she seemed to compare my face with Steerforth’s, and

Steerforth’s with mine, and to lie in wait for something to come out

between the two. So surely as I looked towards her, did I see that eager

visage, with its gaunt black eyes and searching brow, intent on mine; or

passing suddenly from mine to Steerforth’s; or comprehending both of us

at once. In this lynx-like scrutiny she was so far from faltering when

she saw I observed it, that at such a time she only fixed her piercing

look upon me with a more intent expression still. Blameless as I was,

and knew that I was, in reference to any wrong she could possibly

suspect me of, I shrunk before her strange eyes, quite unable to endure

their hungry lustre.

All day, she seemed to pervade the whole house. If I talked to

Steerforth in his room, I heard her dress rustle in the little gallery

outside. When he and I engaged in some of our old exercises on the lawn

behind the house, I saw her face pass from window to window, like a

wandering light, until it fixed itself in one, and watched us. When we

all four went out walking in the afternoon, she closed her thin hand on

my arm like a spring, to keep me back, while Steerforth and his mother

went on out of hearing: and then spoke to me.

‘You have been a long time,’ she said, ‘without coming here. Is your

profession really so engaging and interesting as to absorb your whole

attention? I ask because I always want to be informed, when I am

ignorant. Is it really, though?’

I replied that I liked it well enough, but that I certainly could not

claim so much for it.

‘Oh! I am glad to know that, because I always like to be put right when

I am wrong,’ said Rosa Dartle. ‘You mean it is a little dry, perhaps?’

‘Well,’ I replied; ‘perhaps it was a little dry.’

‘Oh! and that’s a reason why you want relief and change--excitement and

all that?’ said she. ‘Ah! very true! But isn’t it a little--Eh?--for

him; I don’t mean you?’

A quick glance of her eye towards the spot where Steerforth was walking,

with his mother leaning on his arm, showed me whom she meant; but beyond

that, I was quite lost. And I looked so, I have no doubt.

‘Don’t it--I don’t say that it does, mind I want to know--don’t it

rather engross him? Don’t it make him, perhaps, a little more remiss

than usual in his visits to his blindly-doting--eh?’ With another

quick glance at them, and such a glance at me as seemed to look into my

innermost thoughts.

‘Miss Dartle,’ I returned, ‘pray do not think--’

‘I don’t!’ she said. ‘Oh dear me, don’t suppose that I think anything!

I am not suspicious. I only ask a question. I don’t state any opinion. I

want to found an opinion on what you tell me. Then, it’s not so? Well! I

am very glad to know it.’

‘It certainly is not the fact,’ said I, perplexed, ‘that I am

accountable for Steerforth’s having been away from home longer than

usual--if he has been: which I really don’t know at this moment, unless

I understand it from you. I have not seen him this long while, until

last night.’

‘No?’

‘Indeed, Miss Dartle, no!’

As she looked full at me, I saw her face grow sharper and paler, and the

marks of the old wound lengthen out until it cut through the disfigured

lip, and deep into the nether lip, and slanted down the face. There was

something positively awful to me in this, and in the brightness of her

eyes, as she said, looking fixedly at me:

‘What is he doing?’

I repeated the words, more to myself than her, being so amazed.

‘What is he doing?’ she said, with an eagerness that seemed enough to

consume her like a fire. ‘In what is that man assisting him, who never

looks at me without an inscrutable falsehood in his eyes? If you are

honourable and faithful, I don’t ask you to betray your friend. I ask

you only to tell me, is it anger, is it hatred, is it pride, is it

restlessness, is it some wild fancy, is it love, what is it, that is

leading him?’

‘Miss Dartle,’ I returned, ‘how shall I tell you, so that you will

believe me, that I know of nothing in Steerforth different from what

there was when I first came here? I can think of nothing. I firmly

believe there is nothing. I hardly understand even what you mean.’

As she still stood looking fixedly at me, a twitching or throbbing,

from which I could not dissociate the idea of pain, came into that cruel

mark; and lifted up the corner of her lip as if with scorn, or with a

pity that despised its object. She put her hand upon it hurriedly--a

hand so thin and delicate, that when I had seen her hold it up before

the fire to shade her face, I had compared it in my thoughts to fine

porcelain--and saying, in a quick, fierce, passionate way, ‘I swear you

to secrecy about this!’ said not a word more.

Mrs. Steerforth was particularly happy in her son’s society, and

Steerforth was, on this occasion, particularly attentive and respectful

to her. It was very interesting to me to see them together, not only on

account of their mutual affection, but because of the strong personal

resemblance between them, and the manner in which what was haughty or

impetuous in him was softened by age and sex, in her, to a gracious

dignity. I thought, more than once, that it was well no serious cause of

division had ever come between them; or two such natures--I ought rather

to express it, two such shades of the same nature--might have been

harder to reconcile than the two extremest opposites in creation. The

idea did not originate in my own discernment, I am bound to confess, but

in a speech of Rosa Dartle’s.

She said at dinner:

‘Oh, but do tell me, though, somebody, because I have been thinking

about it all day, and I want to know.’

‘You want to know what, Rosa?’ returned Mrs. Steerforth. ‘Pray, pray,

Rosa, do not be mysterious.’

‘Mysterious!’ she cried. ‘Oh! really? Do you consider me so?’

‘Do I constantly entreat you,’ said Mrs. Steerforth, ‘to speak plainly,

in your own natural manner?’

‘Oh! then this is not my natural manner?’ she rejoined. ‘Now you must

really bear with me, because I ask for information. We never know

ourselves.’

‘It has become a second nature,’ said Mrs. Steerforth, without any

displeasure; ‘but I remember,--and so must you, I think,--when your

manner was different, Rosa; when it was not so guarded, and was more

trustful.’

‘I am sure you are right,’ she returned; ‘and so it is that bad habits

grow upon one! Really? Less guarded and more trustful? How can I,

imperceptibly, have changed, I wonder! Well, that’s very odd! I must

study to regain my former self.’

‘I wish you would,’ said Mrs. Steerforth, with a smile.

‘Oh! I really will, you know!’ she answered. ‘I will learn frankness

from--let me see--from James.’

‘You cannot learn frankness, Rosa,’ said Mrs. Steerforth quickly--for

there was always some effect of sarcasm in what Rosa Dartle said,

though it was said, as this was, in the most unconscious manner in the

world--‘in a better school.’

‘That I am sure of,’ she answered, with uncommon fervour. ‘If I am sure

of anything, of course, you know, I am sure of that.’

Mrs. Steerforth appeared to me to regret having been a little nettled;

for she presently said, in a kind tone:

‘Well, my dear Rosa, we have not heard what it is that you want to be

satisfied about?’

‘That I want to be satisfied about?’ she replied, with provoking

coldness. ‘Oh! It was only whether people, who are like each other in

their moral constitution--is that the phrase?’

‘It’s as good a phrase as another,’ said Steerforth.

‘Thank you:--whether people, who are like each other in their moral

constitution, are in greater danger than people not so circumstanced,

supposing any serious cause of variance to arise between them, of being