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He said this solemnly, bare-headed; then, putting on his hat, he went

down the stairs, and away. We followed to the door. It was a warm, dusty

evening, just the time when, in the great main thoroughfare out of which

that by-way turned, there was a temporary lull in the eternal tread of

feet upon the pavement, and a strong red sunshine. He turned, alone, at

the corner of our shady street, into a glow of light, in which we lost

him.

Rarely did that hour of the evening come, rarely did I wake at night,

rarely did I look up at the moon, or stars, or watch the falling rain,

or hear the wind, but I thought of his solitary figure toiling on, poor

pilgrim, and recalled the words:

‘I’m a going to seek her, fur and wide. If any hurt should come to me,

remember that the last words I left for her was, “My unchanged love is

with my darling child, and I forgive her!”’

CHAPTER 33. BLISSFUL

All this time, I had gone on loving Dora, harder than ever. Her idea was

my refuge in disappointment and distress, and made some amends to me,

even for the loss of my friend. The more I pitied myself, or pitied

others, the more I sought for consolation in the image of Dora. The

greater the accumulation of deceit and trouble in the world, the

brighter and the purer shone the star of Dora high above the world. I

don’t think I had any definite idea where Dora came from, or in what

degree she was related to a higher order of beings; but I am quite sure

I should have scouted the notion of her being simply human, like any

other young lady, with indignation and contempt.

If I may so express it, I was steeped in Dora. I was not merely over

head and ears in love with her, but I was saturated through and through.

Enough love might have been wrung out of me, metaphorically speaking,

to drown anybody in; and yet there would have remained enough within me,

and all over me, to pervade my entire existence.

The first thing I did, on my own account, when I came back, was to take

a night-walk to Norwood, and, like the subject of a venerable riddle of

my childhood, to go ‘round and round the house, without ever

touching the house’, thinking about Dora. I believe the theme of this

incomprehensible conundrum was the moon. No matter what it was, I, the

moon-struck slave of Dora, perambulated round and round the house and

garden for two hours, looking through crevices in the palings, getting

my chin by dint of violent exertion above the rusty nails on the top,

blowing kisses at the lights in the windows, and romantically calling

on the night, at intervals, to shield my Dora--I don’t exactly know what

from, I suppose from fire. Perhaps from mice, to which she had a great

objection.

My love was so much in my mind and it was so natural to me to confide in

Peggotty, when I found her again by my side of an evening with the old

set of industrial implements, busily making the tour of my wardrobe,

that I imparted to her, in a sufficiently roundabout way, my great

secret. Peggotty was strongly interested, but I could not get her into

my view of the case at all. She was audaciously prejudiced in my favour,

and quite unable to understand why I should have any misgivings, or be

low-spirited about it. ‘The young lady might think herself well off,’

she observed, ‘to have such a beau. And as to her Pa,’ she said, ‘what

did the gentleman expect, for gracious sake!’

I observed, however, that Mr. Spenlow’s proctorial gown and stiff cravat

took Peggotty down a little, and inspired her with a greater reverence

for the man who was gradually becoming more and more etherealized in my

eyes every day, and about whom a reflected radiance seemed to me to beam

when he sat erect in Court among his papers, like a little lighthouse in

a sea of stationery. And by the by, it used to be uncommonly strange

to me to consider, I remember, as I sat in Court too, how those dim old

judges and doctors wouldn’t have cared for Dora, if they had known

her; how they wouldn’t have gone out of their senses with rapture, if

marriage with Dora had been proposed to them; how Dora might have sung,

and played upon that glorified guitar, until she led me to the verge of

madness, yet not have tempted one of those slow-goers an inch out of his

road!

I despised them, to a man. Frozen-out old gardeners in the flower-beds

of the heart, I took a personal offence against them all. The Bench

was nothing to me but an insensible blunderer. The Bar had no more

tenderness or poetry in it, than the bar of a public-house.

Taking the management of Peggotty’s affairs into my own hands, with

no little pride, I proved the will, and came to a settlement with the

Legacy Duty-office, and took her to the Bank, and soon got everything

into an orderly train. We varied the legal character of these

proceedings by going to see some perspiring Wax-work, in Fleet Street

(melted, I should hope, these twenty years); and by visiting Miss

Linwood’s Exhibition, which I remember as a Mausoleum of needlework,

favourable to self-examination and repentance; and by inspecting the

Tower of London; and going to the top of St. Paul’s. All these wonders

afforded Peggotty as much pleasure as she was able to enjoy, under

existing circumstances: except, I think, St. Paul’s, which, from her

long attachment to her work-box, became a rival of the picture on the

lid, and was, in some particulars, vanquished, she considered, by that

work of art.

Peggotty’s business, which was what we used to call ‘common-form

business’ in the Commons (and very light and lucrative the common-form

business was), being settled, I took her down to the office one morning

to pay her bill. Mr. Spenlow had stepped out, old Tiffey said, to get a

gentleman sworn for a marriage licence; but as I knew he would be

back directly, our place lying close to the Surrogate’s, and to the

Vicar-General’s office too, I told Peggotty to wait.

We were a little like undertakers, in the Commons, as regarded Probate

transactions; generally making it a rule to look more or less cut up,

when we had to deal with clients in mourning. In a similar feeling

of delicacy, we were always blithe and light-hearted with the licence

clients. Therefore I hinted to Peggotty that she would find Mr. Spenlow

much recovered from the shock of Mr. Barkis’s decease; and indeed he

came in like a bridegroom.

But neither Peggotty nor I had eyes for him, when we saw, in company

with him, Mr. Murdstone. He was very little changed. His hair looked as

thick, and was certainly as black, as ever; and his glance was as little

to be trusted as of old.

‘Ah, Copperfield?’ said Mr. Spenlow. ‘You know this gentleman, I

believe?’

I made my gentleman a distant bow, and Peggotty barely recognized him.

He was, at first, somewhat disconcerted to meet us two together; but

quickly decided what to do, and came up to me.

‘I hope,’ he said, ‘that you are doing well?’

‘It can hardly be interesting to you,’ said I. ‘Yes, if you wish to

know.’

We looked at each other, and he addressed himself to Peggotty.

‘And you,’ said he. ‘I am sorry to observe that you have lost your

husband.’

‘It’s not the first loss I have had in my life, Mr. Murdstone,’ replied

Peggotty, trembling from head to foot. ‘I am glad to hope that there is

nobody to blame for this one,--nobody to answer for it.’

‘Ha!’ said he; ‘that’s a comfortable reflection. You have done your

duty?’

‘I have not worn anybody’s life away,’ said Peggotty, ‘I am thankful to

think! No, Mr. Murdstone, I have not worrited and frightened any sweet

creetur to an early grave!’

He eyed her gloomily--remorsefully I thought--for an instant; and said,

turning his head towards me, but looking at my feet instead of my face:

‘We are not likely to encounter soon again;--a source of satisfaction to

us both, no doubt, for such meetings as this can never be agreeable. I

do not expect that you, who always rebelled against my just authority,

exerted for your benefit and reformation, should owe me any good-will

now. There is an antipathy between us--’

‘An old one, I believe?’ said I, interrupting him.

He smiled, and shot as evil a glance at me as could come from his dark

eyes.

‘It rankled in your baby breast,’ he said. ‘It embittered the life of

your poor mother. You are right. I hope you may do better, yet; I hope

you may correct yourself.’

Here he ended the dialogue, which had been carried on in a low voice,

in a corner of the outer office, by passing into Mr. Spenlow’s room, and

saying aloud, in his smoothest manner:

‘Gentlemen of Mr. Spenlow’s profession are accustomed to family

differences, and know how complicated and difficult they always are!’

With that, he paid the money for his licence; and, receiving it neatly

folded from Mr. Spenlow, together with a shake of the hand, and a polite

wish for his happiness and the lady’s, went out of the office.

I might have had more difficulty in constraining myself to be silent

under his words, if I had had less difficulty in impressing upon

Peggotty (who was only angry on my account, good creature!) that we were

not in a place for recrimination, and that I besought her to hold her

peace. She was so unusually roused, that I was glad to compound for

an affectionate hug, elicited by this revival in her mind of our old

injuries, and to make the best I could of it, before Mr. Spenlow and the

clerks.

Mr. Spenlow did not appear to know what the connexion between Mr.

Murdstone and myself was; which I was glad of, for I could not bear to

acknowledge him, even in my own breast, remembering what I did of the

history of my poor mother. Mr. Spenlow seemed to think, if he thought

anything about the matter, that my aunt was the leader of the state

party in our family, and that there was a rebel party commanded by

somebody else--so I gathered at least from what he said, while we were

waiting for Mr. Tiffey to make out Peggotty’s bill of costs.

‘Miss Trotwood,’ he remarked, ‘is very firm, no doubt, and not likely

to give way to opposition. I have an admiration for her character, and

I may congratulate you, Copperfield, on being on the right side.

Differences between relations are much to be deplored--but they are

extremely general--and the great thing is, to be on the right side’:

meaning, I take it, on the side of the moneyed interest.

‘Rather a good marriage this, I believe?’ said Mr. Spenlow.

I explained that I knew nothing about it.

‘Indeed!’ he said. ‘Speaking from the few words Mr. Murdstone

dropped--as a man frequently does on these occasions--and from what Miss

Murdstone let fall, I should say it was rather a good marriage.’

‘Do you mean that there is money, sir?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ said Mr. Spenlow, ‘I understand there’s money. Beauty too, I am

told.’

‘Indeed! Is his new wife young?’

‘Just of age,’ said Mr. Spenlow. ‘So lately, that I should think they

had been waiting for that.’

‘Lord deliver her!’ said Peggotty. So very emphatically and

unexpectedly, that we were all three discomposed; until Tiffey came in

with the bill.

Old Tiffey soon appeared, however, and handed it to Mr. Spenlow, to

look over. Mr. Spenlow, settling his chin in his cravat and rubbing it

softly, went over the items with a deprecatory air--as if it were all

Jorkins’s doing--and handed it back to Tiffey with a bland sigh.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s right. Quite right. I should have been extremely

happy, Copperfield, to have limited these charges to the actual

expenditure out of pocket, but it is an irksome incident in my

professional life, that I am not at liberty to consult my own wishes. I

have a partner--Mr. Jorkins.’

As he said this with a gentle melancholy, which was the next thing to

making no charge at all, I expressed my acknowledgements on Peggotty’s

behalf, and paid Tiffey in banknotes. Peggotty then retired to

her lodging, and Mr. Spenlow and I went into Court, where we had a

divorce-suit coming on, under an ingenious little statute (repealed

now, I believe, but in virtue of which I have seen several marriages

annulled), of which the merits were these. The husband, whose name was

Thomas Benjamin, had taken out his marriage licence as Thomas only;

suppressing the Benjamin, in case he should not find himself as

comfortable as he expected. NOT finding himself as comfortable as he

expected, or being a little fatigued with his wife, poor fellow, he

now came forward, by a friend, after being married a year or two, and

declared that his name was Thomas Benjamin, and therefore he was not

married at all. Which the Court confirmed, to his great satisfaction.

I must say that I had my doubts about the strict justice of this,

and was not even frightened out of them by the bushel of wheat which

reconciles all anomalies. But Mr. Spenlow argued the matter with me. He

said, Look at the world, there was good and evil in that; look at the

ecclesiastical law, there was good and evil in THAT. It was all part of

a system. Very good. There you were!

I had not the hardihood to suggest to Dora’s father that possibly

we might even improve the world a little, if we got up early in the

morning, and took off our coats to the work; but I confessed that I

thought we might improve the Commons. Mr. Spenlow replied that he would

particularly advise me to dismiss that idea from my mind, as not being

worthy of my gentlemanly character; but that he would be glad to hear

from me of what improvement I thought the Commons susceptible?

Taking that part of the Commons which happened to be nearest to us--for

our man was unmarried by this time, and we were out of Court, and

strolling past the Prerogative Office--I submitted that I thought the

Prerogative Office rather a queerly managed institution. Mr. Spenlow

inquired in what respect? I replied, with all due deference to his

experience (but with more deference, I am afraid, to his being Dora’s

father), that perhaps it was a little nonsensical that the Registry of

that Court, containing the original wills of all persons leaving effects

within the immense province of Canterbury, for three whole centuries,

should be an accidental building, never designed for the purpose, leased