第 87 页

‘Last evening after tea,’ pursued Miss Murdstone, ‘I observed the little

dog starting, rolling, and growling about the drawing-room, worrying

something. I said to Miss Spenlow, “Dora, what is that the dog has in

his mouth? It’s paper.” Miss Spenlow immediately put her hand to her

frock, gave a sudden cry, and ran to the dog. I interposed, and said,

“Dora, my love, you must permit me.”’

Oh Jip, miserable Spaniel, this wretchedness, then, was your work!

‘Miss Spenlow endeavoured,’ said Miss Murdstone, ‘to bribe me with

kisses, work-boxes, and small articles of jewellery--that, of course,

I pass over. The little dog retreated under the sofa on my approaching

him, and was with great difficulty dislodged by the fire-irons. Even

when dislodged, he still kept the letter in his mouth; and on my

endeavouring to take it from him, at the imminent risk of being bitten,

he kept it between his teeth so pertinaciously as to suffer himself

to be held suspended in the air by means of the document. At length I

obtained possession of it. After perusing it, I taxed Miss Spenlow with

having many such letters in her possession; and ultimately obtained from

her the packet which is now in David Copperfield’s hand.’

Here she ceased; and snapping her reticule again, and shutting her

mouth, looked as if she might be broken, but could never be bent.

‘You have heard Miss Murdstone,’ said Mr. Spenlow, turning to me. ‘I beg

to ask, Mr. Copperfield, if you have anything to say in reply?’

The picture I had before me, of the beautiful little treasure of my

heart, sobbing and crying all night--of her being alone, frightened,

and wretched, then--of her having so piteously begged and prayed that

stony-hearted woman to forgive her--of her having vainly offered her

those kisses, work-boxes, and trinkets--of her being in such grievous

distress, and all for me--very much impaired the little dignity I had

been able to muster. I am afraid I was in a tremulous state for a minute

or so, though I did my best to disguise it.

‘There is nothing I can say, sir,’ I returned, ‘except that all the

blame is mine. Dora--’

‘Miss Spenlow, if you please,’ said her father, majestically.

‘--was induced and persuaded by me,’ I went on, swallowing that colder

designation, ‘to consent to this concealment, and I bitterly regret it.’

‘You are very much to blame, sir,’ said Mr. Spenlow, walking to and fro

upon the hearth-rug, and emphasizing what he said with his whole body

instead of his head, on account of the stiffness of his cravat and

spine. ‘You have done a stealthy and unbecoming action, Mr. Copperfield.

When I take a gentleman to my house, no matter whether he is nineteen,

twenty-nine, or ninety, I take him there in a spirit of confidence.

If he abuses my confidence, he commits a dishonourable action, Mr.

Copperfield.’

‘I feel it, sir, I assure you,’ I returned. ‘But I never thought so,

before. Sincerely, honestly, indeed, Mr. Spenlow, I never thought so,

before. I love Miss Spenlow to that extent--’

‘Pooh! nonsense!’ said Mr. Spenlow, reddening. ‘Pray don’t tell me to my

face that you love my daughter, Mr. Copperfield!’

‘Could I defend my conduct if I did not, sir?’ I returned, with all

humility.

‘Can you defend your conduct if you do, sir?’ said Mr. Spenlow, stopping

short upon the hearth-rug. ‘Have you considered your years, and my

daughter’s years, Mr. Copperfield? Have you considered what it is to

undermine the confidence that should subsist between my daughter and

myself? Have you considered my daughter’s station in life, the projects

I may contemplate for her advancement, the testamentary intentions I

may have with reference to her? Have you considered anything, Mr.

Copperfield?’

‘Very little, sir, I am afraid;’ I answered, speaking to him as

respectfully and sorrowfully as I felt; ‘but pray believe me, I have

considered my own worldly position. When I explained it to you, we were

already engaged--’

‘I BEG,’ said Mr. Spenlow, more like Punch than I had ever seen him,

as he energetically struck one hand upon the other--I could not help

noticing that even in my despair; ‘that YOU Will NOT talk to me of

engagements, Mr. Copperfield!’

The otherwise immovable Miss Murdstone laughed contemptuously in one

short syllable.

‘When I explained my altered position to you, sir,’ I began again,

substituting a new form of expression for what was so unpalatable to

him, ‘this concealment, into which I am so unhappy as to have led Miss

Spenlow, had begun. Since I have been in that altered position, I have

strained every nerve, I have exerted every energy, to improve it. I am

sure I shall improve it in time. Will you grant me time--any length of

time? We are both so young, sir,--’

‘You are right,’ interrupted Mr. Spenlow, nodding his head a great

many times, and frowning very much, ‘you are both very young. It’s all

nonsense. Let there be an end of the nonsense. Take away those letters,

and throw them in the fire. Give me Miss Spenlow’s letters to throw in

the fire; and although our future intercourse must, you are aware, be

restricted to the Commons here, we will agree to make no further mention

of the past. Come, Mr. Copperfield, you don’t want sense; and this is

the sensible course.’

No. I couldn’t think of agreeing to it. I was very sorry, but there

was a higher consideration than sense. Love was above all earthly

considerations, and I loved Dora to idolatry, and Dora loved me. I

didn’t exactly say so; I softened it down as much as I could; but I

implied it, and I was resolute upon it. I don’t think I made myself very

ridiculous, but I know I was resolute.

‘Very well, Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mr. Spenlow, ‘I must try my influence

with my daughter.’

Miss Murdstone, by an expressive sound, a long drawn respiration, which

was neither a sigh nor a moan, but was like both, gave it as her opinion

that he should have done this at first.

‘I must try,’ said Mr. Spenlow, confirmed by this support, ‘my

influence with my daughter. Do you decline to take those letters, Mr.

Copperfield?’ For I had laid them on the table.

Yes. I told him I hoped he would not think it wrong, but I couldn’t

possibly take them from Miss Murdstone.

‘Nor from me?’ said Mr. Spenlow.

No, I replied with the profoundest respect; nor from him.

‘Very well!’ said Mr. Spenlow.

A silence succeeding, I was undecided whether to go or stay. At length

I was moving quietly towards the door, with the intention of saying that

perhaps I should consult his feelings best by withdrawing: when he said,

with his hands in his coat pockets, into which it was as much as he

could do to get them; and with what I should call, upon the whole, a

decidedly pious air:

‘You are probably aware, Mr. Copperfield, that I am not altogether

destitute of worldly possessions, and that my daughter is my nearest and

dearest relative?’

I hurriedly made him a reply to the effect, that I hoped the error into

which I had been betrayed by the desperate nature of my love, did not

induce him to think me mercenary too?

‘I don’t allude to the matter in that light,’ said Mr. Spenlow. ‘It

would be better for yourself, and all of us, if you WERE mercenary, Mr.

Copperfield--I mean, if you were more discreet and less influenced by

all this youthful nonsense. No. I merely say, with quite another view,

you are probably aware I have some property to bequeath to my child?’

I certainly supposed so.

‘And you can hardly think,’ said Mr. Spenlow, ‘having experience of what

we see, in the Commons here, every day, of the various unaccountable

and negligent proceedings of men, in respect of their testamentary

arrangements--of all subjects, the one on which perhaps the strangest

revelations of human inconsistency are to be met with--but that mine are

made?’

I inclined my head in acquiescence.

‘I should not allow,’ said Mr. Spenlow, with an evident increase of

pious sentiment, and slowly shaking his head as he poised himself upon

his toes and heels alternately, ‘my suitable provision for my child to

be influenced by a piece of youthful folly like the present. It is mere

folly. Mere nonsense. In a little while, it will weigh lighter than

any feather. But I might--I might--if this silly business were not

completely relinquished altogether, be induced in some anxious moment

to guard her from, and surround her with protections against, the

consequences of any foolish step in the way of marriage. Now, Mr.

Copperfield, I hope that you will not render it necessary for me to

open, even for a quarter of an hour, that closed page in the book of

life, and unsettle, even for a quarter of an hour, grave affairs long

since composed.’

There was a serenity, a tranquillity, a calm sunset air about him, which

quite affected me. He was so peaceful and resigned--clearly had his

affairs in such perfect train, and so systematically wound up--that he

was a man to feel touched in the contemplation of. I really think I saw

tears rise to his eyes, from the depth of his own feeling of all this.

But what could I do? I could not deny Dora and my own heart. When he

told me I had better take a week to consider of what he had said, how

could I say I wouldn’t take a week, yet how could I fail to know that no

amount of weeks could influence such love as mine?

‘In the meantime, confer with Miss Trotwood, or with any person with

any knowledge of life,’ said Mr. Spenlow, adjusting his cravat with both

hands. ‘Take a week, Mr. Copperfield.’

I submitted; and, with a countenance as expressive as I was able to

make it of dejected and despairing constancy, came out of the room. Miss

Murdstone’s heavy eyebrows followed me to the door--I say her eyebrows

rather than her eyes, because they were much more important in her

face--and she looked so exactly as she used to look, at about that

hour of the morning, in our parlour at Blunderstone, that I could have

fancied I had been breaking down in my lessons again, and that the

dead weight on my mind was that horrible old spelling-book, with

oval woodcuts, shaped, to my youthful fancy, like the glasses out of

spectacles.

When I got to the office, and, shutting out old Tiffey and the rest of

them with my hands, sat at my desk, in my own particular nook, thinking

of this earthquake that had taken place so unexpectedly, and in the

bitterness of my spirit cursing Jip, I fell into such a state of torment

about Dora, that I wonder I did not take up my hat and rush insanely to

Norwood. The idea of their frightening her, and making her cry, and of

my not being there to comfort her, was so excruciating, that it impelled

me to write a wild letter to Mr. Spenlow, beseeching him not to visit

upon her the consequences of my awful destiny. I implored him to spare

her gentle nature--not to crush a fragile flower--and addressed him

generally, to the best of my remembrance, as if, instead of being her

father, he had been an Ogre, or the Dragon of Wantley. This letter I

sealed and laid upon his desk before he returned; and when he came in,

I saw him, through the half-opened door of his room, take it up and read

it.

He said nothing about it all the morning; but before he went away in the

afternoon he called me in, and told me that I need not make myself at

all uneasy about his daughter’s happiness. He had assured her, he said,

that it was all nonsense; and he had nothing more to say to her. He

believed he was an indulgent father (as indeed he was), and I might

spare myself any solicitude on her account.

‘You may make it necessary, if you are foolish or obstinate, Mr.

Copperfield,’ he observed, ‘for me to send my daughter abroad again,

for a term; but I have a better opinion of you. I hope you will be wiser

than that, in a few days. As to Miss Murdstone,’ for I had alluded to

her in the letter, ‘I respect that lady’s vigilance, and feel obliged to

her; but she has strict charge to avoid the subject. All I desire, Mr.

Copperfield, is, that it should be forgotten. All you have got to do,

Mr. Copperfield, is to forget it.’

All! In the note I wrote to Miss Mills, I bitterly quoted this

sentiment. All I had to do, I said, with gloomy sarcasm, was to forget

Dora. That was all, and what was that! I entreated Miss Mills to see

me, that evening. If it could not be done with Mr. Mills’s sanction

and concurrence, I besought a clandestine interview in the back kitchen

where the Mangle was. I informed her that my reason was tottering on

its throne, and only she, Miss Mills, could prevent its being deposed.

I signed myself, hers distractedly; and I couldn’t help feeling, while

I read this composition over, before sending it by a porter, that it was

something in the style of Mr. Micawber.

However, I sent it. At night I repaired to Miss Mills’s street, and

walked up and down, until I was stealthily fetched in by Miss Mills’s

maid, and taken the area way to the back kitchen. I have since seen

reason to believe that there was nothing on earth to prevent my going in

at the front door, and being shown up into the drawing-room, except Miss

Mills’s love of the romantic and mysterious.

In the back kitchen, I raved as became me. I went there, I suppose,

to make a fool of myself, and I am quite sure I did it. Miss Mills had

received a hasty note from Dora, telling her that all was discovered,

and saying. ‘Oh pray come to me, Julia, do, do!’ But Miss Mills,

mistrusting the acceptability of her presence to the higher powers, had

not yet gone; and we were all benighted in the Desert of Sahara.

Miss Mills had a wonderful flow of words, and liked to pour them out. I

could not help feeling, though she mingled her tears with mine, that she

had a dreadful luxury in our afflictions. She petted them, as I may say,

and made the most of them. A deep gulf, she observed, had opened between

Dora and me, and Love could only span it with its rainbow. Love must

suffer in this stern world; it ever had been so, it ever would be so. No

matter, Miss Mills remarked. Hearts confined by cobwebs would burst at

last, and then Love was avenged.

This was small consolation, but Miss Mills wouldn’t encourage fallacious