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‘I am not fond of professions of humility,’ I returned, ‘or professions

of anything else.’ ‘There now!’ said Uriah, looking flabby and

lead-coloured in the moonlight. ‘Didn’t I know it! But how little

you think of the rightful umbleness of a person in my station, Master

Copperfield! Father and me was both brought up at a foundation school

for boys; and mother, she was likewise brought up at a public, sort of

charitable, establishment. They taught us all a deal of umbleness--not

much else that I know of, from morning to night. We was to be umble to

this person, and umble to that; and to pull off our caps here, and

to make bows there; and always to know our place, and abase ourselves

before our betters. And we had such a lot of betters! Father got the

monitor-medal by being umble. So did I. Father got made a sexton by

being umble. He had the character, among the gentlefolks, of being

such a well-behaved man, that they were determined to bring him in. “Be

umble, Uriah,” says father to me, “and you’ll get on. It was what was

always being dinned into you and me at school; it’s what goes down best.

Be umble,” says father, “and you’ll do!” And really it ain’t done bad!’

It was the first time it had ever occurred to me, that this detestable

cant of false humility might have originated out of the Heep family. I

had seen the harvest, but had never thought of the seed.

‘When I was quite a young boy,’ said Uriah, ‘I got to know what

umbleness did, and I took to it. I ate umble pie with an appetite. I

stopped at the umble point of my learning, and says I, “Hold hard!” When

you offered to teach me Latin, I knew better. “People like to be above

you,” says father, “keep yourself down.” I am very umble to the present

moment, Master Copperfield, but I’ve got a little power!’

And he said all this--I knew, as I saw his face in the moonlight--that

I might understand he was resolved to recompense himself by using his

power. I had never doubted his meanness, his craft and malice; but I

fully comprehended now, for the first time, what a base, unrelenting,

and revengeful spirit, must have been engendered by this early, and this

long, suppression.

His account of himself was so far attended with an agreeable result,

that it led to his withdrawing his hand in order that he might have

another hug of himself under the chin. Once apart from him, I was

determined to keep apart; and we walked back, side by side, saying

very little more by the way. Whether his spirits were elevated by the

communication I had made to him, or by his having indulged in this

retrospect, I don’t know; but they were raised by some influence. He

talked more at dinner than was usual with him; asked his mother (off

duty, from the moment of our re-entering the house) whether he was not

growing too old for a bachelor; and once looked at Agnes so, that I

would have given all I had, for leave to knock him down.

When we three males were left alone after dinner, he got into a more

adventurous state. He had taken little or no wine; and I presume it was

the mere insolence of triumph that was upon him, flushed perhaps by the

temptation my presence furnished to its exhibition.

I had observed yesterday, that he tried to entice Mr. Wickfield to

drink; and, interpreting the look which Agnes had given me as she went

out, had limited myself to one glass, and then proposed that we should

follow her. I would have done so again today; but Uriah was too quick

for me.

‘We seldom see our present visitor, sir,’ he said, addressing Mr.

Wickfield, sitting, such a contrast to him, at the end of the table,

‘and I should propose to give him welcome in another glass or two

of wine, if you have no objections. Mr. Copperfield, your elth and

appiness!’

I was obliged to make a show of taking the hand he stretched across

to me; and then, with very different emotions, I took the hand of the

broken gentleman, his partner.

‘Come, fellow-partner,’ said Uriah, ‘if I may take the liberty,--now,

suppose you give us something or another appropriate to Copperfield!’

I pass over Mr. Wickfield’s proposing my aunt, his proposing Mr. Dick,

his proposing Doctors’ Commons, his proposing Uriah, his drinking

everything twice; his consciousness of his own weakness, the ineffectual

effort that he made against it; the struggle between his shame in

Uriah’s deportment, and his desire to conciliate him; the manifest

exultation with which Uriah twisted and turned, and held him up before

me. It made me sick at heart to see, and my hand recoils from writing

it.

‘Come, fellow-partner!’ said Uriah, at last, ‘I’ll give you another one,

and I umbly ask for bumpers, seeing I intend to make it the divinest of

her sex.’

Her father had his empty glass in his hand. I saw him set it down, look

at the picture she was so like, put his hand to his forehead, and shrink

back in his elbow-chair.

‘I’m an umble individual to give you her elth,’ proceeded Uriah, ‘but I

admire--adore her.’

No physical pain that her father’s grey head could have borne, I think,

could have been more terrible to me, than the mental endurance I saw

compressed now within both his hands.

‘Agnes,’ said Uriah, either not regarding him, or not knowing what the

nature of his action was, ‘Agnes Wickfield is, I am safe to say, the

divinest of her sex. May I speak out, among friends? To be her father is

a proud distinction, but to be her usband--’

Spare me from ever again hearing such a cry, as that with which her

father rose up from the table! ‘What’s the matter?’ said Uriah, turning

of a deadly colour. ‘You are not gone mad, after all, Mr. Wickfield, I

hope? If I say I’ve an ambition to make your Agnes my Agnes, I have as

good a right to it as another man. I have a better right to it than any

other man!’

I had my arms round Mr. Wickfield, imploring him by everything that I

could think of, oftenest of all by his love for Agnes, to calm himself

a little. He was mad for the moment; tearing out his hair, beating his

head, trying to force me from him, and to force himself from me, not

answering a word, not looking at or seeing anyone; blindly striving

for he knew not what, his face all staring and distorted--a frightful

spectacle.

I conjured him, incoherently, but in the most impassioned manner, not

to abandon himself to this wildness, but to hear me. I besought him to

think of Agnes, to connect me with Agnes, to recollect how Agnes and I

had grown up together, how I honoured her and loved her, how she was his

pride and joy. I tried to bring her idea before him in any form; I even

reproached him with not having firmness to spare her the knowledge of

such a scene as this. I may have effected something, or his wildness may

have spent itself; but by degrees he struggled less, and began to look

at me--strangely at first, then with recognition in his eyes. At length

he said, ‘I know, Trotwood! My darling child and you--I know! But look

at him!’

He pointed to Uriah, pale and glowering in a corner, evidently very much

out in his calculations, and taken by surprise.

‘Look at my torturer,’ he replied. ‘Before him I have step by step

abandoned name and reputation, peace and quiet, house and home.’

‘I have kept your name and reputation for you, and your peace and

quiet, and your house and home too,’ said Uriah, with a sulky, hurried,

defeated air of compromise. ‘Don’t be foolish, Mr. Wickfield. If I

have gone a little beyond what you were prepared for, I can go back, I

suppose? There’s no harm done.’

‘I looked for single motives in everyone,’ said Mr. Wickfield, ‘and I was

satisfied I had bound him to me by motives of interest. But see what he

is--oh, see what he is!’

‘You had better stop him, Copperfield, if you can,’ cried Uriah,

with his long forefinger pointing towards me. ‘He’ll say something

presently--mind you!--he’ll be sorry to have said afterwards, and you’ll

be sorry to have heard!’

‘I’ll say anything!’ cried Mr. Wickfield, with a desperate air. ‘Why

should I not be in all the world’s power if I am in yours?’

‘Mind! I tell you!’ said Uriah, continuing to warn me. ‘If you don’t

stop his mouth, you’re not his friend! Why shouldn’t you be in all the

world’s power, Mr. Wickfield? Because you have got a daughter. You and

me know what we know, don’t we? Let sleeping dogs lie--who wants to

rouse ‘em? I don’t. Can’t you see I am as umble as I can be? I tell you,

if I’ve gone too far, I’m sorry. What would you have, sir?’

‘Oh, Trotwood, Trotwood!’ exclaimed Mr. Wickfield, wringing his hands.

‘What I have come down to be, since I first saw you in this house! I was

on my downward way then, but the dreary, dreary road I have traversed

since! Weak indulgence has ruined me. Indulgence in remembrance, and

indulgence in forgetfulness. My natural grief for my child’s mother

turned to disease; my natural love for my child turned to disease. I

have infected everything I touched. I have brought misery on what I

dearly love, I know--you know! I thought it possible that I could truly

love one creature in the world, and not love the rest; I thought it

possible that I could truly mourn for one creature gone out of the

world, and not have some part in the grief of all who mourned. Thus the

lessons of my life have been perverted! I have preyed on my own morbid

coward heart, and it has preyed on me. Sordid in my grief, sordid in my

love, sordid in my miserable escape from the darker side of both, oh see

the ruin I am, and hate me, shun me!’

He dropped into a chair, and weakly sobbed. The excitement into which he

had been roused was leaving him. Uriah came out of his corner.

‘I don’t know all I have done, in my fatuity,’ said Mr. Wickfield,

putting out his hands, as if to deprecate my condemnation. ‘He knows

best,’ meaning Uriah Heep, ‘for he has always been at my elbow,

whispering me. You see the millstone that he is about my neck. You

find him in my house, you find him in my business. You heard him, but a

little time ago. What need have I to say more!’

‘You haven’t need to say so much, nor half so much, nor anything at

all,’ observed Uriah, half defiant, and half fawning. ‘You wouldn’t have

took it up so, if it hadn’t been for the wine. You’ll think better of

it tomorrow, sir. If I have said too much, or more than I meant, what of

it? I haven’t stood by it!’

The door opened, and Agnes, gliding in, without a vestige of colour in

her face, put her arm round his neck, and steadily said, ‘Papa, you are

not well. Come with me!’

He laid his head upon her shoulder, as if he were oppressed with heavy

shame, and went out with her. Her eyes met mine for but an instant, yet

I saw how much she knew of what had passed.

‘I didn’t expect he’d cut up so rough, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah.

‘But it’s nothing. I’ll be friends with him tomorrow. It’s for his good.

I’m umbly anxious for his good.’

I gave him no answer, and went upstairs into the quiet room where Agnes

had so often sat beside me at my books. Nobody came near me until late

at night. I took up a book, and tried to read. I heard the clocks strike

twelve, and was still reading, without knowing what I read, when Agnes

touched me.

‘You will be going early in the morning, Trotwood! Let us say good-bye,

now!’

She had been weeping, but her face then was so calm and beautiful!

‘Heaven bless you!’ she said, giving me her hand.

‘Dearest Agnes!’ I returned, ‘I see you ask me not to speak of

tonight--but is there nothing to be done?’

‘There is God to trust in!’ she replied.

‘Can I do nothing--I, who come to you with my poor sorrows?’

‘And make mine so much lighter,’ she replied. ‘Dear Trotwood, no!’

‘Dear Agnes,’ I said, ‘it is presumptuous for me, who am so poor in all

in which you are so rich--goodness, resolution, all noble qualities--to

doubt or direct you; but you know how much I love you, and how much I

owe you. You will never sacrifice yourself to a mistaken sense of duty,

Agnes?’

More agitated for a moment than I had ever seen her, she took her hands

from me, and moved a step back.

‘Say you have no such thought, dear Agnes! Much more than sister!

Think of the priceless gift of such a heart as yours, of such a love as

yours!’

Oh! long, long afterwards, I saw that face rise up before me, with its

momentary look, not wondering, not accusing, not regretting. Oh, long,

long afterwards, I saw that look subside, as it did now, into the lovely

smile, with which she told me she had no fear for herself--I need have

none for her--and parted from me by the name of Brother, and was gone!

It was dark in the morning, when I got upon the coach at the inn door.

The day was just breaking when we were about to start, and then, as

I sat thinking of her, came struggling up the coach side, through the

mingled day and night, Uriah’s head.

‘Copperfield!’ said he, in a croaking whisper, as he hung by the iron

on the roof, ‘I thought you’d be glad to hear before you went off, that

there are no squares broke between us. I’ve been into his room already,

and we’ve made it all smooth. Why, though I’m umble, I’m useful to him,

you know; and he understands his interest when he isn’t in liquor! What

an agreeable man he is, after all, Master Copperfield!’

I obliged myself to say that I was glad he had made his apology.

‘Oh, to be sure!’ said Uriah. ‘When a person’s umble, you know, what’s

an apology? So easy! I say! I suppose,’ with a jerk, ‘you have sometimes

plucked a pear before it was ripe, Master Copperfield?’

‘I suppose I have,’ I replied.

‘I did that last night,’ said Uriah; ‘but it’ll ripen yet! It only wants

attending to. I can wait!’

Profuse in his farewells, he got down again as the coachman got up. For

anything I know, he was eating something to keep the raw morning

air out; but he made motions with his mouth as if the pear were ripe

already, and he were smacking his lips over it.

CHAPTER 40. THE WANDERER

We had a very serious conversation in Buckingham Street that night,

about the domestic occurrences I have detailed in the last chapter. My

aunt was deeply interested in them, and walked up and down the room with

her arms folded, for more than two hours afterwards. Whenever she was