第 80 页

flannel wrapper in which she looked seven feet high, she appeared, like

a disturbed ghost, in my room, and came to the side of the sofa on which

I lay. On the first occasion I started up in alarm, to learn that she

inferred from a particular light in the sky, that Westminster Abbey

was on fire; and to be consulted in reference to the probability of its

igniting Buckingham Street, in case the wind changed. Lying still, after

that, I found that she sat down near me, whispering to herself ‘Poor

boy!’ And then it made me twenty times more wretched, to know how

unselfishly mindful she was of me, and how selfishly mindful I was of

myself.

It was difficult to believe that a night so long to me, could be short

to anybody else. This consideration set me thinking and thinking of an

imaginary party where people were dancing the hours away, until that

became a dream too, and I heard the music incessantly playing one tune,

and saw Dora incessantly dancing one dance, without taking the least

notice of me. The man who had been playing the harp all night, was

trying in vain to cover it with an ordinary-sized nightcap, when I

awoke; or I should rather say, when I left off trying to go to sleep,

and saw the sun shining in through the window at last.

There was an old Roman bath in those days at the bottom of one of the

streets out of the Strand--it may be there still--in which I have had

many a cold plunge. Dressing myself as quietly as I could, and leaving

Peggotty to look after my aunt, I tumbled head foremost into it,

and then went for a walk to Hampstead. I had a hope that this brisk

treatment might freshen my wits a little; and I think it did them good,

for I soon came to the conclusion that the first step I ought to take

was, to try if my articles could be cancelled and the premium recovered.

I got some breakfast on the Heath, and walked back to Doctors’ Commons,

along the watered roads and through a pleasant smell of summer flowers,

growing in gardens and carried into town on hucksters’ heads, intent on

this first effort to meet our altered circumstances.

I arrived at the office so soon, after all, that I had half an hour’s

loitering about the Commons, before old Tiffey, who was always first,

appeared with his key. Then I sat down in my shady corner, looking up

at the sunlight on the opposite chimney-pots, and thinking about Dora;

until Mr. Spenlow came in, crisp and curly.

‘How are you, Copperfield?’ said he. ‘Fine morning!’

‘Beautiful morning, sir,’ said I. ‘Could I say a word to you before you

go into Court?’

‘By all means,’ said he. ‘Come into my room.’

I followed him into his room, and he began putting on his gown, and

touching himself up before a little glass he had, hanging inside a

closet door.

‘I am sorry to say,’ said I, ‘that I have some rather disheartening

intelligence from my aunt.’

‘No!’ said he. ‘Dear me! Not paralysis, I hope?’

‘It has no reference to her health, sir,’ I replied. ‘She has met with

some large losses. In fact, she has very little left, indeed.’

‘You as-tound me, Copperfield!’ cried Mr. Spenlow.

I shook my head. ‘Indeed, sir,’ said I, ‘her affairs are so changed,

that I wished to ask you whether it would be possible--at a sacrifice on

our part of some portion of the premium, of course,’ I put in this, on

the spur of the moment, warned by the blank expression of his face--‘to

cancel my articles?’

What it cost me to make this proposal, nobody knows. It was like asking,

as a favour, to be sentenced to transportation from Dora.

‘To cancel your articles, Copperfield? Cancel?’

I explained with tolerable firmness, that I really did not know where

my means of subsistence were to come from, unless I could earn them for

myself. I had no fear for the future, I said--and I laid great emphasis

on that, as if to imply that I should still be decidedly eligible for a

son-in-law one of these days--but, for the present, I was thrown upon

my own resources. ‘I am extremely sorry to hear this, Copperfield,’ said

Mr. Spenlow. ‘Extremely sorry. It is not usual to cancel articles for

any such reason. It is not a professional course of proceeding. It is

not a convenient precedent at all. Far from it. At the same time--’

‘You are very good, sir,’ I murmured, anticipating a concession.

‘Not at all. Don’t mention it,’ said Mr. Spenlow. ‘At the same time, I

was going to say, if it had been my lot to have my hands unfettered--if

I had not a partner--Mr. Jorkins--’

My hopes were dashed in a moment, but I made another effort.

‘Do you think, sir,’ said I, ‘if I were to mention it to Mr. Jorkins--’

Mr. Spenlow shook his head discouragingly. ‘Heaven forbid, Copperfield,’

he replied, ‘that I should do any man an injustice: still less, Mr.

Jorkins. But I know my partner, Copperfield. Mr. Jorkins is not a man

to respond to a proposition of this peculiar nature. Mr. Jorkins is very

difficult to move from the beaten track. You know what he is!’

I am sure I knew nothing about him, except that he had originally been

alone in the business, and now lived by himself in a house near Montagu

Square, which was fearfully in want of painting; that he came very

late of a day, and went away very early; that he never appeared to be

consulted about anything; and that he had a dingy little black-hole of

his own upstairs, where no business was ever done, and where there was

a yellow old cartridge-paper pad upon his desk, unsoiled by ink, and

reported to be twenty years of age.

‘Would you object to my mentioning it to him, sir?’ I asked.

‘By no means,’ said Mr. Spenlow. ‘But I have some experience of Mr.

Jorkins, Copperfield. I wish it were otherwise, for I should be happy

to meet your views in any respect. I cannot have the objection to your

mentioning it to Mr. Jorkins, Copperfield, if you think it worth while.’

Availing myself of this permission, which was given with a warm shake

of the hand, I sat thinking about Dora, and looking at the sunlight

stealing from the chimney-pots down the wall of the opposite house,

until Mr. Jorkins came. I then went up to Mr. Jorkins’s room, and

evidently astonished Mr. Jorkins very much by making my appearance

there.

‘Come in, Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mr. Jorkins. ‘Come in!’

I went in, and sat down; and stated my case to Mr. Jorkins pretty much

as I had stated it to Mr. Spenlow. Mr. Jorkins was not by any means the

awful creature one might have expected, but a large, mild, smooth-faced

man of sixty, who took so much snuff that there was a tradition in the

Commons that he lived principally on that stimulant, having little room

in his system for any other article of diet.

‘You have mentioned this to Mr. Spenlow, I suppose?’ said Mr. Jorkins;

when he had heard me, very restlessly, to an end.

I answered Yes, and told him that Mr. Spenlow had introduced his name.

‘He said I should object?’ asked Mr. Jorkins.

I was obliged to admit that Mr. Spenlow had considered it probable.

‘I am sorry to say, Mr. Copperfield, I can’t advance your object,’ said

Mr. Jorkins, nervously. ‘The fact is--but I have an appointment at the

Bank, if you’ll have the goodness to excuse me.’

With that he rose in a great hurry, and was going out of the room, when

I made bold to say that I feared, then, there was no way of arranging

the matter?

‘No!’ said Mr. Jorkins, stopping at the door to shake his head. ‘Oh, no!

I object, you know,’ which he said very rapidly, and went out. ‘You must

be aware, Mr. Copperfield,’ he added, looking restlessly in at the door

again, ‘if Mr. Spenlow objects--’

‘Personally, he does not object, sir,’ said I.

‘Oh! Personally!’ repeated Mr. Jorkins, in an impatient manner. ‘I

assure you there’s an objection, Mr. Copperfield. Hopeless! What you

wish to be done, can’t be done. I--I really have got an appointment

at the Bank.’ With that he fairly ran away; and to the best of my

knowledge, it was three days before he showed himself in the Commons

again.

Being very anxious to leave no stone unturned, I waited until Mr.

Spenlow came in, and then described what had passed; giving him to

understand that I was not hopeless of his being able to soften the

adamantine Jorkins, if he would undertake the task.

‘Copperfield,’ returned Mr. Spenlow, with a gracious smile, ‘you have

not known my partner, Mr. Jorkins, as long as I have. Nothing is

farther from my thoughts than to attribute any degree of artifice to Mr.

Jorkins. But Mr. Jorkins has a way of stating his objections which often

deceives people. No, Copperfield!’ shaking his head. ‘Mr. Jorkins is not

to be moved, believe me!’

I was completely bewildered between Mr. Spenlow and Mr. Jorkins, as

to which of them really was the objecting partner; but I saw with

sufficient clearness that there was obduracy somewhere in the firm, and

that the recovery of my aunt’s thousand pounds was out of the

question. In a state of despondency, which I remember with anything

but satisfaction, for I know it still had too much reference to myself

(though always in connexion with Dora), I left the office, and went

homeward.

I was trying to familiarize my mind with the worst, and to present to

myself the arrangements we should have to make for the future in their

sternest aspect, when a hackney-chariot coming after me, and stopping at

my very feet, occasioned me to look up. A fair hand was stretched forth

to me from the window; and the face I had never seen without a feeling

of serenity and happiness, from the moment when it first turned back

on the old oak staircase with the great broad balustrade, and when I

associated its softened beauty with the stained-glass window in the

church, was smiling on me.

‘Agnes!’ I joyfully exclaimed. ‘Oh, my dear Agnes, of all people in the

world, what a pleasure to see you!’

‘Is it, indeed?’ she said, in her cordial voice.

‘I want to talk to you so much!’ said I. ‘It’s such a lightening of my

heart, only to look at you! If I had had a conjuror’s cap, there is no

one I should have wished for but you!’

‘What?’ returned Agnes.

‘Well! perhaps Dora first,’ I admitted, with a blush.

‘Certainly, Dora first, I hope,’ said Agnes, laughing.

‘But you next!’ said I. ‘Where are you going?’

She was going to my rooms to see my aunt. The day being very fine, she

was glad to come out of the chariot, which smelt (I had my head in it

all this time) like a stable put under a cucumber-frame. I dismissed the

coachman, and she took my arm, and we walked on together. She was like

Hope embodied, to me. How different I felt in one short minute, having

Agnes at my side!

My aunt had written her one of the odd, abrupt notes--very little longer

than a Bank note--to which her epistolary efforts were usually limited.

She had stated therein that she had fallen into adversity, and was

leaving Dover for good, but had quite made up her mind to it, and was

so well that nobody need be uncomfortable about her. Agnes had come to

London to see my aunt, between whom and herself there had been a mutual

liking these many years: indeed, it dated from the time of my taking up

my residence in Mr. Wickfield’s house. She was not alone, she said. Her

papa was with her--and Uriah Heep.

‘And now they are partners,’ said I. ‘Confound him!’

‘Yes,’ said Agnes. ‘They have some business here; and I took advantage

of their coming, to come too. You must not think my visit all friendly

and disinterested, Trotwood, for--I am afraid I may be cruelly

prejudiced--I do not like to let papa go away alone, with him.’ ‘Does he

exercise the same influence over Mr. Wickfield still, Agnes?’

Agnes shook her head. ‘There is such a change at home,’ said she, ‘that

you would scarcely know the dear old house. They live with us now.’

‘They?’ said I.

‘Mr. Heep and his mother. He sleeps in your old room,’ said Agnes,

looking up into my face.

‘I wish I had the ordering of his dreams,’ said I. ‘He wouldn’t sleep

there long.’

‘I keep my own little room,’ said Agnes, ‘where I used to learn my

lessons. How the time goes! You remember? The little panelled room that

opens from the drawing-room?’

‘Remember, Agnes? When I saw you, for the first time, coming out at the

door, with your quaint little basket of keys hanging at your side?’

‘It is just the same,’ said Agnes, smiling. ‘I am glad you think of it

so pleasantly. We were very happy.’

‘We were, indeed,’ said I.

‘I keep that room to myself still; but I cannot always desert Mrs. Heep,

you know. And so,’ said Agnes, quietly, ‘I feel obliged to bear her

company, when I might prefer to be alone. But I have no other reason to

complain of her. If she tires me, sometimes, by her praises of her son,

it is only natural in a mother. He is a very good son to her.’

I looked at Agnes when she said these words, without detecting in her

any consciousness of Uriah’s design. Her mild but earnest eyes met

mine with their own beautiful frankness, and there was no change in her

gentle face.

‘The chief evil of their presence in the house,’ said Agnes, ‘is that I

cannot be as near papa as I could wish--Uriah Heep being so much between

us--and cannot watch over him, if that is not too bold a thing to say,

as closely as I would. But if any fraud or treachery is practising

against him, I hope that simple love and truth will be strong in the

end. I hope that real love and truth are stronger in the end than any

evil or misfortune in the world.’

A certain bright smile, which I never saw on any other face, died away,

even while I thought how good it was, and how familiar it had once been

to me; and she asked me, with a quick change of expression (we were

drawing very near my street), if I knew how the reverse in my aunt’s

circumstances had been brought about. On my replying no, she had not

told me yet, Agnes became thoughtful, and I fancied I felt her arm

tremble in mine.

We found my aunt alone, in a state of some excitement. A difference

of opinion had arisen between herself and Mrs. Crupp, on an abstract

question (the propriety of chambers being inhabited by the gentler sex);

and my aunt, utterly indifferent to spasms on the part of Mrs. Crupp,

had cut the dispute short, by informing that lady that she smelt of