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THE BEGINNING OF A LONG JOURNEY
What is natural in me, is natural in many other men, I infer,
and so I am not afraid to write that I never had loved Steerforth
better than when the ties that bound me to him were broken. In the
keen distress of the discovery of his unworthiness, I thought more
of all that was brilliant in him, I softened more towards all that
was good in him, I did more justice to the qualities that might
have made him a man of a noble nature and a great name, than ever
I had done in the height of my devotion to him. Deeply as I felt
my own unconscious part in his pollution of an honest home, I believed
that if I had been brought face to face with him, I could not have
uttered one reproach. I should have loved him so well still - though
he fascinated me no longer - I should have held in so much tenderness
the memory of my affection for him, that I think I should have been
as weak as a spirit-wounded child, in all but the entertainment
of a thought that we could ever be re-united. That thought I never
had. I felt, as he had felt, that all was at an end between us.
What his remembrances of me were, I have never known - they were
light enough, perhaps, and easily dismissed - but mine of him were
as the remembrances of a cherished friend, who was dead.
Yes, Steerforth, long removed from the scenes of this poor history!
My sorrow may bear involuntary witness against you at the judgement
Throne; but my angry thoughts or my reproaches never will, I know!
The news of what had happened soon spread through the town; insomuch
that as I passed along the streets next morning, I overheard the
people speaking of it at their doors. Many were hard upon her, some
few were hard upon him, but towards her second father and her lover
there was but one sentiment. Among all kinds of people a respect
for them in their distress prevailed, which was full of gentleness
and delicacy. The seafaring men kept apart, when those two were
seen early, walking with slow steps on the beach; and stood in knots,
talking compassionately among themselves.
It was on the beach, close down by the sea, that I found them.
It would have been easy to perceive that they had not slept all
last night, even if Peggotty had failed to tell me of their still
sitting just as I left them, when it was broad day. They looked
worn; and I thought Mr. Peggotty's head was bowed in one night more
than in all the years I had known him. But they were both as grave
and steady as the sea itself, then lying beneath a dark sky, waveless
- yet with a heavy roll upon it, as if it breathed in its rest -
and touched, on the horizon, with a strip of silvery light from
the unseen sun.
'We have had a mort of talk, sir,' said Mr. Peggotty to me, when
we had all three walked a little while in silence, 'of what we ought
and doen't ought to do. But we see our course now.'
I happened to glance at Ham, then looking out to sea upon the
distant light, and a frightful thought came into my mind - not that
his face was angry, for it was not; I recall nothing but an expression
of stern determination in it - that if ever he encountered Steerforth,
he would kill him.
'My dooty here, sir,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'is done. I'm a going
to seek my -' he stopped, and went on in a firmer voice: 'I'm a
going to seek her. That's my dooty evermore.'
He shook his head when I asked him where he would seek her, and
inquired if I were going to London tomorrow? I told him I had not
gone today, fearing to lose the chance of being of any service to
him; but that I was ready to go when he would.
'I'll go along with you, sir,' he rejoined, 'if you're agreeable,
tomorrow.'
We walked again, for a while, in silence.
'Ham,'he presently resumed,'he'll hold to his present work, and
go and live along with my sister. The old boat yonder -'
'Will you desert the old boat, Mr. Peggotty?' I gently interposed.
'My station, Mas'r Davy,' he returned, 'ain't there no longer;
and if ever a boat foundered, since there was darkness on the face
of the deep, that one's gone down. But no, sir, no; I doen't mean
as it should be deserted. Fur from that.'
We walked again for a while, as before, until he explained:
'My wishes is, sir, as it shall look, day and night, winter and
summer, as it has always looked, since she fust know'd it. If ever
she should come a wandering back, I wouldn't have the old place
seem to cast her off, you understand, but seem to tempt her to draw
nigher to 't, and to peep in, maybe, like a ghost, out of the wind
and rain, through the old winder, at the old seat by the fire. Then,
maybe, Mas'r Davy, seein' none but Missis Gummidge there, she might
take heart to creep in, trembling; and might come to be laid down
in her old bed, and rest her weary head where it was once so gay.'
I could not speak to him in reply, though I tried.
'Every night,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'as reg'lar as the night comes,
the candle must be stood in its old pane of glass, that if ever
she should see it, it may seem to say "Come back, my child,
come back!" If ever there's a knock, Ham (partic'ler a soft
knock), arter dark, at your aunt's door, doen't you go nigh it.
Let it be her - not you - that sees my fallen child!'
He walked a little in front of us, and kept before us for some
minutes. During this interval, I glanced at Ham again, and observing
the same expression on his face, and his eyes still directed to
the distant light, I touched his arm.
Twice I called him by his name, in the tone in which I might
have tried to rouse a sleeper, before he heeded me. When I at last
inquired on what his thoughts were so bent, he replied:
'On what's afore me, Mas'r Davy; and over yon.' 'On the life
before you, do you mean?' He had pointed confusedly out to sea.
'Ay, Mas'r Davy. I doen't rightly know how 'tis, but from over
yon there seemed to me to come - the end of it like,' looking at
me as if he were waking, but with the same determined face.
'What end?' I asked, possessed by my former fear.
'I doen't know,'he said, thoughtfully; 'I was calling to mind
that the beginning of it all did take place here - and then the
end come. But it's gone! Mas'r Davy,' he added; answering, as I
think, my look; 'you han't no call to be afeerd of me: but I'm kiender
muddled; I don't fare to feel no matters,' - which was as much as
to say that he was not himself, and quite confounded.
Mr. Peggotty stopping for us to join him: we did so, and said
no more. The remembrance of this, in connexion with my former thought,
however, haunted me at intervals, even until the inexorable end
came at its appointed time.
We insensibly approached the old boat, and entered. Mrs. Gummidge,
no longer moping in her especial corner, was busy preparing breakfast.
She took Mr. Peggotty's hat, and placed his seat for him, and spoke
so comfortably and softly, that I hardly knew her.
'Dan'l, my good man,' said she, 'you must eat and drink, and
keep up your strength, for without it you'll do nowt. Try, that's
a dear soul! An if I disturb you with my clicketten,' she meant
her chattering, 'tell me so, Dan'l, and I won't.'
When she had served us all, she withdrew to the window, where
she sedulously employed herself in repairing some shirts and other
clothes belonging to Mr. Peggotty, and neatly folding and packing
them in an old oilskin bag, such as sailors carry. Meanwhile, she
continued talking, in the same quiet manner:
'All times and seasons, you know, Dan'l,' said Mrs. Gummidge,
'I shall be allus here, and everythink will look accordin' to your
wishes. I'm a poor scholar, but I shall write to you, odd times,
when you're away, and send my letters to Mas'r Davy. Maybe you'll
write to me too, Dan'l, odd times, and tell me how you fare to feel
upon your lone lorn journies.'
'You'll be a solitary woman heer, I'm afeerd!' said Mr. Peggotty.
'No, no, Dan'l,' she returned, 'I shan't be that. Doen't you
mind me. I shall have enough to do to keep a Beein for you' (Mrs.
Gummidge meant a home), 'again you come back - to keep a Beein here
for any that may hap to come back, Dan'l. In the fine time, I shall
set outside the door as I used to do. If any should come nigh, they
shall see the old widder woman true to 'em, a long way off.'
What a change in Mrs. Gummidge in a little time! She was another
woman. She was so devoted, she had such a quick perception of what
it would be well to say, and what it would be well to leave unsaid;
she was so forgetful of herself, and so regardful of the sorrow
about her, that I held her in a sort of veneration. The work she
did that day! There were many things to be brought up from the beach
and stored in the outhouse - as oars, nets, sails, cordage, spars,
lobster-pots, bags of ballast, and the like; and though there was
abundance of assistance rendered, there being not a pair of working
hands on all that shore but would have laboured hard for Mr. Peggotty,
and been well paid in being asked to do it, yet she persisted, all
day long, in toiling under weights that she was quite unequal to,
and fagging to and fro on all sorts of unnecessary errands. As to
deploring her misfortunes, she appeared to have entirely lost the
recollection of ever having had any. She preserved an equable cheerfulness
in the midst of her sympathy, which was not the least astonishing
part of the change that had come over her. Querulousness was out
of the question. I did not even observe her voice to falter, or
a tear to escape from her eyes, the whole day through, until twilight;
when she and I and Mr. Peggotty being alone together, and he having
fallen asleep in perfect exhaustion, she broke into a half-suppressed
fit of sobbing and crying, and taking me to the door, said, 'Ever
bless you, Mas'r Davy, be a friend to him, poor dear!' Then, she
immediately ran out of the house to wash her face, in order that
she might sit quietly beside him, and be found at work there, when
he should awake. In short I left her, when I went away at night,
the prop and staff of Mr. Peggotty's affliction; and I could not
meditate enough upon the lesson that I read in Mrs. Gummidge, and
the new experience she unfolded to me.
It was between nine and ten o'clock when, strolling in a melancholy
manner through the town, I stopped at Mr. Omer's door. Mr. Omer
had taken it so much to heart, his daughter told me, that he had
been very low and poorly all day, and had gone to bed without his
pipe.
'A deceitful, bad-hearted girl,' said Mrs. Joram. 'There was
no good in her, ever!'
'Don't say so,' I returned. 'You don't think so.'
'Yes, I do!' cried Mrs. Joram, angrily.
'No, no,' said I.
Mrs. Joram tossed her head, endeavouring to be very stern and
cross; but she could not command her softer self, and began to cry.
I was young, to be sure; but I thought much the better of her for
this sympathy, and fancied it became her, as a virtuous wife and
mother, very well indeed.
'What will she ever do!' sobbed Minnie. 'Where will she go! What
will become of her! Oh, how could she be so cruel, to herself and
him!'
I remembered the time when Minnie was a young and pretty girl;
and I was glad she remembered it too, so feelingly.
'My little Minnie,' said Mrs. Joram, 'has only just now been
got to sleep. Even in her sleep she is sobbing for Em'ly. All day
long, little Minnie has cried for her, and asked me, over and over
again, whether Em'ly was wicked? What can I say to her, when Em'ly
tied a ribbon off her own neck round little Minnie's the last night
she was here, and laid her head down on the pillow beside her till
she was fast asleep! The ribbon's round my little Minnie's neck
now. It ought not to be, perhaps, but what can I do? Em'ly is very
bad, but they were fond of one another. And the child knows nothing!'
Mrs. Joram was so unhappy that her husband came out to take care
of her. Leaving them together, I went home to Peggotty's; more melancholy
myself, if possible, than I had been yet.
That good creature - I mean Peggotty - all untired by her late
anxieties and sleepless nights, was at her brother's, where she
meant to stay till morning. An old woman, who had been employed
about the house for some weeks past, while Peggotty had been unable
to attend to it, was the house's only other occupant besides myself.
As I had no occasion for her services, I sent her to bed, by no
means against her will, and sat down before the kitchen fire a little
while, to think about all this.
I was blending it with the deathbed of the late Mr. Barkis, and
was driving out with the tide towards the distance at which Ham
had looked so singularly in the morning, when I was recalled from
my wanderings by a knock at the door. There was a knocker upon the
door, but it was not that which made the sound. The tap was from
a hand, and low down upon the door, as if it were given by a child.
It made me start as much as if it had been the knock of a footman
to a person of distinction. I opened the door; and at first looked
down, to my amazement, on nothing but a great umbrella that appeared
to be walking about of itself. But presently I discovered underneath
it, Miss Mowcher.
I might not have been prepared to give the little creature a
very kind reception, if, on her removing the umbrella, which her
utmost efforts were unable to shut up, she had shown me the 'volatile'
expression of face which had made so great an impression on me at
our first and last meeting. But her face, as she turned it up to
mine, was so earnest; and when I relieved her of the umbrella (which
would have been an inconvenient one for the Irish Giant), she wrung
her little hands in such an afflicted manner; that I rather inclined
towards her.
'Miss Mowcher!' said I, after glancing up and down the empty
street, without distinctly knowing what I expected to see besides;
'how do you come here? What is the matter?' She motioned to me with
her short right arm, to shut the umbrella for her; and passing me
hurriedly, went into the kitchen. When I had closed the door, and
followed, with the umbrella in my hand, I found her sitting on the
corner of the fender - it was a low iron one, with two flat bars
at top to stand plates upon - in the shadow of the boiler, swaying
herself backwards and forwards, and chafing her hands upon her knees
like a person in pain.
Quite alarmed at being the only recipient of this untimely visit,
and the only spectator of this portentous behaviour, I exclaimed
again, 'Pray tell me, Miss Mowcher, what is the matter! are you
ill?'
'My dear young soul,' returned Miss Mowcher, squeezing her hands
upon her heart one over the other. 'I am ill here, I am very ill.
To think that it should come to this, when I might have known it
and perhaps prevented it, if I hadn't been a thoughtless fool!'
Again her large bonnet (very disproportionate to the figure)
went backwards and forwards, in her swaying of her little body to
and fro; while a most gigantic bonnet rocked, in unison with it,
upon the wall.
'I am surprised,' I began, 'to see you so distressed and serious'-
when she interrupted me.
'Yes, it's always so!' she said. 'They are all surprised, these
inconsiderate young people, fairly and full grown, to see any natural
feeling in a little thing like me! They make a plaything of me,
use me for their amusement, throw me away when they are tired, and
wonder that I feel more than a toy horse or a wooden soldier! Yes,
yes, that's the way. The old way!'
'It may be, with others,' I returned, 'but I do assure you it
is not with me. Perhaps I ought not to be at all surprised to see
you as you are now: I know so little of you. I said, without consideration,
what I thought.'
'What can I do?' returned the little woman, standing up, and
holding out her arms to show herself. 'See! What I am, my father
was; and my sister is; and my brother is. I have worked for sister
and brother these many years - hard, Mr. Copperfield - all day.
I must live. I do no harm. If there are people so unreflecting or
so cruel, as to make a jest of me, what is left for me to do but
to make a jest of myself, them, and everything? If I do so, for
the time, whose fault is that? Mine?'
No. Not Miss Mowcher's, I perceived.
'If I had shown myself a sensitive dwarf to your false friend,'
pursued the little woman, shaking her head at me, with reproachful
earnestness, 'how much of his help or good will do you think I should
ever have had? If little Mowcher (who had no hand, young gentleman,
in the making of herself) addressed herself to him, or the like
of him, because of her misfortunes, when do you suppose her small
voice would have been heard? Little Mowcher would have as much need
to live, if she was the bitterest and dullest of pigmies; but she
couldn't do it. No. She might whistle for her bread and butter till
she died of Air.'
Miss Mowcher sat down on the fender again, and took out her handkerchief,
and wiped her eyes.
'Be thankful for me, if you have a kind heart, as I think you
have,' she said, 'that while I know well what I am, I can be cheerful
and endure it all. I am thankful for myself, at any rate, that I
can find my tiny way through the world, without being beholden to
anyone; and that in return for all that is thrown at me, in folly
or vanity, as I go along, I can throw bubbles back. If I don't brood
over all I want, it is the better for me, and not the worse for
anyone. If I am a plaything for you giants, be gentle with me.'
Miss Mowcher replaced her handkerchief in her pocket, looking
at me with very intent expression all the while, and pursued:
'I saw you in the street just now. You may suppose I am not able
to walk as fast as you, with my short legs and short breath, and
I couldn't overtake you; but I guessed where you came, and came
after you. I have been here before, today, but the good woman wasn't
at home.'
'Do you know her?' I demanded.
'I know of her, and about her,' she replied, 'from Omer and Joram.
I was there at seven o'clock this morning. Do you remember what
Steerforth said to me about this unfortunate girl, that time when
I saw you both at the inn?'
The great bonnet on Miss Mowcher's head, and the greater bonnet
on the wall, began to go backwards and forwards again when she asked
this question.
I remembered very well what she referred to, having had it in
my thoughts many times that day. I told her so.
'May the Father of all Evil confound him,' said the little woman,
holding up her forefinger between me and her sparkling eyes, 'and
ten times more confound that wicked servant; but I believed it was
YOU who had a boyish passion for her!'
'I?' I repeated.
'Child, child! In the name of blind ill-fortune,' cried Miss
Mowcher, wringing her hands impatiently, as she went to and fro
again upon the fender, 'why did you praise her so, and blush, and
look disturbed? '
I could not conceal from myself that I had done this, though
for a reason very different from her supposition.
'What did I know?' said Miss Mowcher, taking out her handkerchief
again, and giving one little stamp on the ground whenever, at short
intervals, she applied it to her eyes with both hands at once. 'He
was crossing you and wheedling you, I saw; and you were soft wax
in his hands, I saw. Had I left the room a minute, when his man
told me that "Young Innocence" (so he called you, and
you may call him "Old Guilt" all the days of your life)
had set his heart upon her, and she was giddy and liked him, but
his master was resolved that no harm should come of it - more for
your sake than for hers - and that that was their business here?
How could I BUT believe him? I saw Steerforth soothe and please
you by his praise of her! You were the first to mention her name.
You owned to an old admiration of her. You were hot and cold, and
red and white, all at once when I spoke to you of her. What could
I think - what DID I think - but that you were a young libertine
in everything but experience, and had fallen into hands that had
experience enough, and could manage you (having the fancy) for your
own good? Oh! oh! oh! They were afraid of my finding out the truth,'
exclaimed Miss Mowcher, getting off the fender, and trotting up
and down the kitchen with her two short arms distressfully lifted
up, 'because I am a sharp little thing - I need be, to get through
the world at all! - and they deceived me altogether, and I gave
the poor unfortunate girl a letter, which I fully believe was the
beginning of her ever speaking to Littimer, who was left behind
on purpose!'
I stood amazed at the revelation of all this perfidy, looking
at Miss Mowcher as she walked up and down the kitchen until she
was out of breath: when she sat upon the fender again, and, drying
her face with her handkerchief, shook her head for a long time,
without otherwise moving, and without breaking silence.
'My country rounds,' she added at length, 'brought me to Norwich,
Mr. Copperfield, the night before last. What I happened to find
there, about their secret way of coming and going, without you -
which was strange - led to my suspecting something wrong. I got
into the coach from London last night, as it came through Norwich,
and was here this morning. Oh, oh, oh! too late!'
Poor little Mowcher turned so chilly after all her crying and
fretting, that she turned round on the fender, putting her poor
little wet feet in among the ashes to warm them, and sat looking
at the fire, like a large doll. I sat in a chair on the other side
of the hearth, lost in unhappy reflections, and looking at the fire
too, and sometimes at her.
'I must go,' she said at last, rising as she spoke. 'It's late.
You don't mistrust me?'
Meeting her sharp glance, which was as sharp as ever when she
asked me, I could not on that short challenge answer no, quite frankly.
'Come!' said she, accepting the offer of my hand to help her
over the fender, and looking wistfully up into my face, 'you know
you wouldn't mistrust me, if I was a full-sized woman!'
I felt that there was much truth in this; and I felt rather ashamed
of myself.
'You are a young man,' she said, nodding. 'Take a word of advice,
even from three foot nothing. Try not to associate bodily defects
with mental, my good friend, except for a solid reason.'
She had got over the fender now, and I had got over my suspicion.
I told her that I believed she had given me a faithful account of
herself, and that we had both been hapless instruments in designing
hands. She thanked me, and said I was a good fellow.
'Now, mind!' she exclaimed, turning back on her way to the door,
and looking shrewdly at me, with her forefinger up again.- 'I have
some reason to suspect, from what I have heard - my ears are always
open; I can't afford to spare what powers I have - that they are
gone abroad. But if ever they return, if ever any one of them returns,
while I am alive, I am more likely than another, going about as
I do, to find it out soon. Whatever I know, you shall know. If ever
I can do anything to serve the poor betrayed girl, I will do it
faithfully, please Heaven! And Littimer had better have a bloodhound
at his back, than little Mowcher!'
I placed implicit faith in this last statement, when I marked
the look with which it was accompanied.
'Trust me no more, but trust me no less, than you would trust
a full-sized woman,' said the little creature, touching me appealingly
on the wrist. 'If ever you see me again, unlike what I am now, and
like what I was when you first saw me, observe what company I am
in. Call to mind that I am a very helpless and defenceless little
thing. Think of me at home with my brother like myself and sister
like myself, when my day's work is done. Perhaps you won't, then,
be very hard upon me, or surprised if I can be distressed and serious.
Good night!'
I gave Miss Mowcher my hand, with a very different opinion of
her from that which I had hitherto entertained, and opened the door
to let her out. It was not a trifling business to get the great
umbrella up, and properly balanced in her grasp; but at last I successfully
accomplished this, and saw it go bobbing down the street through
the rain, without the least appearance of having anybody underneath
it, except when a heavier fall than usual from some over-charged
water-spout sent it toppling over, on one side, and discovered Miss
Mowcher struggling violently to get it right. After making one or
two sallies to her relief, which were rendered futile by the umbrella's
hopping on again, like an immense bird, before I could reach it,
I came in, went to bed, and slept till morning.
In the morning I was joined by Mr. Peggotty and by my old nurse,
and we went at an early hour to the coach office, where Mrs. Gummidge
and Ham were waiting to take leave of us.
'Mas'r Davy,' Ham whispered, drawing me aside, while Mr. Peggotty
was stowing his bag among the luggage, 'his life is quite broke
up. He doen't know wheer he's going; he doen't know -what's afore
him; he's bound upon a voyage that'll last, on and off, all the
rest of his days, take my wured for 't, unless he finds what he's
a seeking of. I am sure you'll be a friend to him, Mas'r Davy?'
'Trust me, I will indeed,' said I, shaking hands with Ham earnestly.
'Thankee. Thankee, very kind, sir. One thing furder. I'm in good
employ, you know, Mas'r Davy, and I han't no way now of spending
what I gets. Money's of no use to me no more, except to live. If
you can lay it out for him, I shall do my work with a better art.
Though as to that, sir,' and he spoke very steadily and mildly,
'you're not to think but I shall work at all times, like a man,
and act the best that lays in my power!'
I told him I was well convinced of it; and I hinted that I hoped
the time might even come, when he would cease to lead the lonely
life he naturally contemplated now.
'No, sir,' he said, shaking his head, 'all that's past and over
with me, sir. No one can never fill the place that's empty. But
you'll bear in mind about the money, as theer's at all times some
laying by for him?'
Reminding him of the fact, that Mr. Peggotty derived a steady,
though certainly a very moderate income from the bequest of his
late brother-in-law, I promised to do so. We then took leave of
each other. I cannot leave him even now, without remembering with
a pang, at once his modest fortitude and his great sorrow.
As to Mrs. Gummidge, if I were to endeavour to describe how she
ran down the street by the side of the coach, seeing nothing but
Mr. Peggotty on the roof, through the tears she tried to repress,
and dashing herself against the people who were coming in the opposite
direction, I should enter on a task of some difficulty. Therefore
I had better leave her sitting on a baker's door-step, out of breath,
with no shape at all remaining in her bonnet, and one of her shoes
off, lying on the pavement at a considerable distance.
When we got to our journey's end, our first pursuit was to look
about for a little lodging for Peggotty, where her brother could
have a bed. We were so fortunate as to find one, of a very clean
and cheap description, over a chandler's shop, only two streets
removed from me. When we had engaged this domicile, I bought some
cold meat at an eating-house, and took my fellow-travellers home
to tea; a proceeding, I regret to state, which did not meet with
Mrs. Crupp's approval, but quite the contrary. I ought to observe,
however, in explanation of that lady's state of mind, that she was
much offended by Peggotty's tucking up her widow's gown before she
had been ten minutes in the place, and setting to work to dust my
bedroom. This Mrs. Crupp regarded in the light of a liberty, and
a liberty, she said, was a thing she never allowed.
Mr. Peggotty had made a communication to me on the way to London
for which I was not unprepared. It was, that he purposed first seeing
Mrs. Steerforth. As I felt bound to assist him in this, and also
to mediate between them; with the view of sparing the mother's feelings
as much as possible, I wrote to her that night. I told her as mildly
as I could what his wrong was, and what my own share in his injury.
I said he was a man in very common life, but of a most gentle and
upright character; and that I ventured to express a hope that she
would not refuse to see him in his heavy trouble. I mentioned two
o'clock in the afternoon as the hour of our coming, and I sent the
letter myself by the first coach in the morning.
At the appointed time, we stood at the door - the door of that
house where I had been, a few days since, so happy: where my youthful
confidence and warmth of heart had been yielded up so freely: which
was closed against me henceforth: which was now a waste, a ruin.
No Littimer appeared. The pleasanter face which had replaced
his, on the occasion of my last visit, answered to our summons,
and went before us to the drawing-room. Mrs. Steerforth was sitting
there. Rosa Dartle glided, as we went in, from another part of the
room and stood behind her chair.
I saw, directly, in his mother's face, that she knew from himself
what he had done. It was very pale; and bore the traces of deeper
emotion than my letter alone, weakened by the doubts her fondness
would have raised upon it, would have been likely to create. I thought
her more like him than ever I had thought her; and I felt, rather
than saw, that the resemblance was not lost on my companion.
She sat upright in her arm-chair, with a stately, immovable,
passionless air, that it seemed as if nothing could disturb. She
looked very steadfastly at Mr. Peggotty when he stood before her;
and he looked quite as steadfastly at her. Rosa Dartle's keen glance
comprehended all of us. For some moments not a word was spoken.
She motioned to Mr. Peggotty to be seated. He said, in a low
voice, 'I shouldn't feel it nat'ral, ma'am, to sit down in this
house. I'd sooner stand.' And this was succeeded by another silence,
which she broke thus:
'I know, with deep regret, what has brought you here. What do
you want of me? What do you ask me to do?'
He put his hat under his arm, and feeling in his breast for Emily's
letter, took it out, unfolded it, and gave it to her. 'Please to
read that, ma'am. That's my niece's hand!'
She read it, in the same stately and impassive way, - untouched
by its contents, as far as I could see, - and returned it to him.
'"Unless he brings me back a lady,"' said Mr. Peggotty,
tracing out that part with his finger. 'I come to know, ma'am, whether
he will keep his wured?'
'No,' she returned.
'Why not?' said Mr. Peggotty.
'It is impossible. He would disgrace himself. You cannot fail
to know that she is far below him.'
'Raise her up!' said Mr. Peggotty.
'She is uneducated and ignorant.'
'Maybe she's not; maybe she is,' said Mr. Peggotty. 'I think
not, ma'am; but I'm no judge of them things. Teach her better!'
'Since you oblige me to speak more plainly, which I am very unwilling
to do, her humble connexions would render such a thing impossible,
if nothing else did.'
'Hark to this, ma'am,' he returned, slowly and quietly. 'You
know what it is to love your child. So do I. If she was a hundred
times my child, I couldn't love her more. You doen't know what it
is to lose your child. I do. All the heaps of riches in the wureld
would be nowt to me (if they was mine) to buy her back! But, save
her from this disgrace, and she shall never be disgraced by us.
Not one of us that she's growed up among, not one of us that's lived
along with her and had her for their all in all, these many year,
will ever look upon her pritty face again. We'll be content to let
her be; we'll be content to think of her, far off, as if she was
underneath another sun and sky; we'll be content to trust her to
her husband, - to her little children, p'raps, - and bide the time
when all of us shall be alike in quality afore our God!'
The rugged eloquence with which he spoke, was not devoid of all
effect. She still preserved her proud manner, but there was a touch
of softness in her voice, as she answered:
'I justify nothing. I make no counter-accusations. But I am sorry
to repeat, it is impossible. Such a marriage would irretrievably
blight my son's career, and ruin his prospects. Nothing is more
certain than that it never can take place, and never will. If there
is any other compensation -'
'I am looking at the likeness of the face,' interrupted Mr. Peggotty,
with a steady but a kindling eye, 'that has looked at me, in my
home, at my fireside, in my boat - wheer not? - smiling and friendly,
when it was so treacherous, that I go half wild when I think of
it. If the likeness of that face don't turn to burning fire, at
the thought of offering money to me for my child's blight and ruin,
it's as bad. I doen't know, being a lady's, but what it's worse.'
She changed now, in a moment. An angry flush overspread her features;
and she said, in an intolerant manner, grasping the arm-chair tightly
with her hands:
'What compensation can you make to ME for opening such a pit
between me and my son? What is your love to mine? What is your separation
to ours?'
Miss Dartle softly touched her, and bent down her head to whisper,
but she would not hear a word.
'No, Rosa, not a word! Let the man listen to what I say! My son,
who has been the object of my life, to whom its every thought has
been devoted, whom I have gratified from a child in every wish,
from whom I have had no separate existence since his birth, - to
take up in a moment with a miserable girl, and avoid me! To repay
my confidence with systematic deception, for her sake, and quit
me for her! To set this wretched fancy, against his mother's claims
upon his duty, love, respect, gratitude - claims that every day
and hour of his life should have strengthened into ties that nothing
could be proof against! Is this no injury?'
Again Rosa Dartle tried to soothe her; again ineffectually.
'I say, Rosa, not a word! If he can stake his all upon the lightest
object, I can stake my all upon a greater purpose. Let him go where
he will, with the means that my love has secured to him! Does he
think to reduce me by long absence? He knows his mother very little
if he does. Let him put away his whim now, and he is welcome back.
Let him not put her away now, and he never shall come near me, living
or dying, while I can raise my hand to make a sign against it, unless,
being rid of her for ever, he comes humbly to me and begs for my
forgiveness. This is my right. This is the acknowledgement I WILL
HAVE. This is the separation that there is between us! And is this,'
she added, looking at her visitor with the proud intolerant air
with which she had begun, 'no injury?'
While I heard and saw the mother as she said these words, I seemed
to hear and see the son, defying them. All that I had ever seen
in him of an unyielding, wilful spirit, I saw in her. All the understanding
that I had now of his misdirected energy, became an understanding
of her character too, and a perception that it was, in its strongest
springs, the same.
She now observed to me, aloud, resuming her former restraint,
that it was useless to hear more, or to say more, and that she begged
to put an end to the interview. She rose with an air of dignity
to leave the room, when Mr. Peggotty signified that it was needless.
'Doen't fear me being any hindrance to you, I have no more to
say, ma'am,' he remarked, as he moved towards the door. 'I come
beer with no hope, and I take away no hope. I have done what I thowt
should be done, but I never looked fur any good to come of my stan'ning
where I do. This has been too evil a house fur me and mine, fur
me to be in my right senses and expect it.'
With this, we departed; leaving her standing by her elbow-chair,
a picture of a noble presence and a handsome face.
We had, on our way out, to cross a paved hall, with glass sides
and roof, over which a vine was trained. Its leaves and shoots were
green then, and the day being sunny, a pair of glass doors leading
to the garden were thrown open. Rosa Dartle, entering this way with
a noiseless step, when we were close to them, addressed herself
to me:
'You do well,' she said, 'indeed, to bring this fellow here!'
Such a concentration of rage and scorn as darkened her face,
and flashed in her jet-black eyes, I could not have thought compressible
even into that face. The scar made by the hammer was, as usual in
this excited state of her features, strongly marked. When the throbbing
I had seen before, came into it as I looked at her, she absolutely
lifted up her hand, and struck it.
'This is a fellow,' she said, 'to champion and bring here, is
he not? You are a true man!'
'Miss Dartle,' I returned, 'you are surely not so unjust as to
condemn ME!'
'Why do you bring division between these two mad creatures?'
she returned. 'Don't you know that they are both mad with their
own self-will and pride?'
'Is it my doing?' I returned.
'Is it your doing!' she retorted. 'Why do you bring this man
here?'
'He is a deeply-injured man, Miss Dartle,' I replied. 'You may
not know it.'
'I know that James Steerforth,' she said, with her hand on her
bosom, as if to prevent the storm that was raging there, from being
loud, 'has a false, corrupt heart, and is a traitor. But what need
I know or care about this fellow, and his common niece?'
'Miss Dartle,' I returned, 'you deepen the injury. It is sufficient
already. I will only say, at parting, that you do him a great wrong.'
'I do him no wrong,' she returned. 'They are a depraved, worthless
set. I would have her whipped!'
Mr. Peggotty passed on, without a word, and went out at the door.
'Oh, shame, Miss Dartle! shame!' I said indignantly. 'How can
you bear to trample on his undeserved affliction!'
'I would trample on them all,' she answered. 'I would have his
house pulled down. I would have her branded on the face, dressed
in rags, and cast out in the streets to starve. If I had the power
to sit in judgement on her, I would see it done. See it done? I
would do it! I detest her. If I ever could reproach her with her
infamous condition, I would go anywhere to do so. If I could hunt
her to her grave, I would. If there was any word of comfort that
would be a solace to her in her dying hour, and only I possessed
it, I wouldn't part with it for Life itself.'
The mere vehemence of her words can convey, I am sensible, but
a weak impression of the passion by which she was possessed, and
which made itself articulate in her whole figure, though her voice,
instead of being raised, was lower than usual. No description I
could give of her would do justice to my recollection of her, or
to her entire deliverance of herself to her anger. I have seen passion
in many forms, but I have never seen it in such a form as that.
When I joined Mr. Peggotty, he was walking slowly and thoughtfully
down the hill. He told me, as soon as I came up with him, that having
now discharged his mind of what he had purposed doing in London,
he meant 'to set out on his travels', that night. I asked him where
he meant to go? He only answered, 'I'm a going, sir, to seek my
niece.'
We went back to the little lodging over the chandler's shop,
and there I found an opportunity of repeating to Peggotty what he
had said to me. She informed me, in return, that he had said the
same to her that morning. She knew no more than I did, where he
was going, but she thought he had some project shaped out in his
mind.
I did not like to leave him, under such circumstances, and we
all three dined together off a beefsteak pie - which was one of
the many good things for which Peggotty was famous - and which was
curiously flavoured on this occasion, I recollect well, by a miscellaneous
taste of tea, coffee, butter, bacon, cheese, new loaves, firewood,
candles, and walnut ketchup, continually ascending from the shop.
After dinner we sat for an hour or so near the window, without talking
much; and then Mr. Peggotty got up, and brought his oilskin bag
and his stout stick, and laid them on the table.
He accepted, from his sister's stock of ready money, a small
sum on account of his legacy; barely enough, I should have thought,
to keep him for a month. He promised to communicate with me, when
anything befell him; and he slung his bag about him, took his hat
and stick, and bade us both 'Good-bye!'
'All good attend you, dear old woman,' he said, embracing Peggotty,
'and you too, Mas'r Davy!' shaking hands with me. 'I'm a-going to
seek her, fur and wide. If she should come home while I'm away -
but ah, that ain't like to be! - or if I should bring her back,
my meaning is, that she and me shall live and die where no one can't
reproach her. 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!"'
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!"'
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