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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 by the registrars for their Own
private emolument, unsafe, not even ascertained to be fire-proof,
choked with the important documents it held, and positively, from
the roof to the basement, a mercenary speculation of the registrars,
who took great fees from the public, and crammed the public's wills
away anyhow and anywhere, having no other object than to get rid
of them cheaply. That, perhaps, it was a little unreasonable that
these registrars in the receipt of profits amounting to eight or
nine thousand pounds a year (to say nothing of the profits of the
deputy registrars, and clerks of seats), should not be obliged to
spend a little of that money, in finding a reasonably safe place
for the important documents which all classes of people were compelled
to hand over to them, whether they would or no. That, perhaps, it
was a little unjust, that all the great offices in this great office
should be magnificent sinecures, while the unfortunate working-clerks
in the cold dark room upstairs were the worst rewarded, and the
least considered men, doing important services, in London. That
perhaps it was a little indecent that the principal registrar of
all, whose duty it was to find the public, constantly resorting
to this place, all needful accommodation, should be an enormous
sinecurist in virtue of that post (and might be, besides, a clergyman,
a pluralist, the holder of a staff in a cathedral, and what not),
- while the public was put to the inconvenience of which we had
a specimen every afternoon when the office was busy, and which we
knew to be quite monstrous. That, perhaps, in short, this Prerogative
Office of the diocese of Canterbury was altogether such a pestilent
job, and such a pernicious absurdity, that but for its being squeezed
away in a corner of St. Paul's Churchyard, which few people knew,
it must have been turned completely inside out, and upside down,
long ago.
Mr. Spenlow smiled as I became modestly warm on the subject,
and then argued this question with me as he had argued the other.
He said, what was it after all? It was a question of feeling. If
the public felt that their wills were in safe keeping, and took
it for granted that the office was not to be made better, who was
the worse for it? Nobody. Who was the better for it? All the Sinecurists.
Very well. Then the good predominated. It might not be a perfect
system; nothing was perfect; but what he objected to, was, the insertion
of the wedge. Under the Prerogative Office, the country had been
glorious. Insert the wedge into the Prerogative Office, and the
country would cease to be glorious. He considered it the principle
of a gentleman to take things as he found them; and he had no doubt
the Prerogative Office would last our time. I deferred to his opinion,
though I had great doubts of it myself. I find he was right, however;
for it has not only lasted to the present moment, but has done so
in the teeth of a great parliamentary report made (not too willingly)
eighteen years ago, when all these objections of mine were set forth
in detail, and when the existing stowage for wills was described
as equal to the accumulation of only two years and a half more.
What they have done with them since; whether they have lost many,
or whether they sell any, now and then, to the butter shops; I don't
know. I am glad mine is not there, and I hope it may not go there,
yet awhile.
I have set all this down, in my present blissful chapter, because
here it comes into its natural place. Mr. Spenlow and I falling
into this conversation, prolonged it and our saunter to and fro,
until we diverged into general topics. And so it came about, in
the end, that Mr. Spenlow told me this day week was Dora's birthday,
and he would be glad if I would come down and join a little picnic
on the occasion. I went out of my senses immediately; became a mere
driveller next day, on receipt of a little lace-edged sheet of note-paper,
'Favoured by papa. To remind'; and passed the intervening period
in a state of dotage.
I think I committed every possible absurdity in the way of preparation
for this blessed event. I turn hot when I remember the cravat I
bought. My boots might be placed in any collection of instruments
of torture. I provided, and sent down by the Norwood coach the night
before, a delicate little hamper, amounting in itself, I thought,
almost to a declaration. There were crackers in it with the tenderest
mottoes that could be got for money. At six in the morning, I was
in Covent Garden Market, buying a bouquet for Dora. At ten I was
on horseback (I hired a gallant grey, for the occasion), with the
bouquet in my hat, to keep it fresh, trotting down to Norwood.
I suppose that when I saw Dora in the garden and pretended not
to see her, and rode past the house pretending to be anxiously looking
for it, I committed two small fooleries which other young gentlemen
in my circumstances might have committed - because they came so
very natural to me. But oh! when I DID find the house, and DID dismount
at the garden-gate, and drag those stony-hearted boots across the
lawn to Dora sitting on a garden-seat under a lilac tree, what a
spectacle she was, upon that beautiful morning, among the butterflies,
in a white chip bonnet and a dress of celestial blue! There was
a young lady with her - comparatively stricken in years - almost
twenty, I should say. Her name was Miss Mills. and Dora called her
Julia. She was the bosom friend of Dora. Happy Miss Mills!
Jip was there, and Jip WOULD bark at me again. When I presented
my bouquet, he gnashed his teeth with jealousy. Well he might. If
he had the least idea how I adored his mistress, well he might!
'Oh, thank you, Mr. Copperfield! What dear flowers!' said Dora.
I had had an intention of saying (and had been studying the best
form of words for three miles) that I thought them beautiful before
I saw them so near HER. But I couldn't manage it. She was too bewildering.
To see her lay the flowers against her little dimpled chin, was
to lose all presence of mind and power of language in a feeble ecstasy.
I wonder I didn't say, 'Kill me, if you have a heart, Miss Mills.
Let me die here!'
Then Dora held my flowers to Jip to smell. Then Jip growled,
and wouldn't smell them. Then Dora laughed, and held them a little
closer to Jip, to make him. Then Jip laid hold of a bit of geranium
with his teeth, and worried imaginary cats in it. Then Dora beat
him, and pouted, and said, 'My poor beautiful flowers!' as compassionately,
I thought, as if Jip had laid hold of me. I wished he had!
'You'll be so glad to hear, Mr. Copperfield,' said Dora, 'that
that cross Miss Murdstone is not here. She has gone to her brother's
marriage, and will be away at least three weeks. Isn't that delightful?'
I said I was sure it must be delightful to her, and all that
was delightful to her was delightful to me. Miss Mills, with an
air of superior wisdom and benevolence, smiled upon us.
'She is the most disagreeable thing I ever saw,' said Dora. 'You
can't believe how ill-tempered and shocking she is, Julia.'
'Yes, I can, my dear!' said Julia.
'YOU can, perhaps, love,' returned Dora, with her hand on julia's.
'Forgive my not excepting you, my dear, at first.'
I learnt, from this, that Miss Mills had had her trials in the
course of a chequered existence; and that to these, perhaps, I might
refer that wise benignity of manner which I had already noticed.
i found, in the course of the day, that this was the case: Miss
Mills having been unhappy in a misplaced affection, and being understood
to have retired from the world on her awful stock of experience,
but still to take a calm interest in the unblighted hopes and loves
of youth.
But now Mr. Spenlow came out of the house, and Dora went to him,
saying, 'Look, papa, what beautiful flowers!' And Miss Mills smiled
thoughtfully, as who should say, 'Ye Mayflies, enjoy your brief
existence in the bright morning of life!' And we all walked from
the lawn towards the carriage, which was getting ready.
I shall never have such a ride again. I have never had such another.
There were only those three, their hamper, my hamper, and the guitar-case,
in the phaeton; and, of course, the phaeton was open; and I rode
behind it, and Dora sat with her back to the horses, looking towards
me. She kept the bouquet close to her on the cushion, and wouldn't
allow Jip to sit on that side of her at all, for fear he should
crush it. She often carried it in her hand, often refreshed herself
with its fragrance. Our eyes at those times often met; and my great
astonishment is that I didn't go over the head of my gallant grey
into the carriage.
There was dust, I believe. There was a good deal of dust, I believe.
I have a faint impression that Mr. Spenlow remonstrated with me
for riding in it; but I knew of none. I was sensible of a mist of
love and beauty about Dora, but of nothing else. He stood up sometimes,
and asked me what I thought of the prospect. I said it was delightful,
and I dare say it was; but it was all Dora to me. The sun shone
Dora, and the birds sang Dora. The south wind blew Dora, and the
wild flowers in the hedges were all Doras, to a bud. My comfort
is, Miss Mills understood me. Miss Mills alone could enter into
my feelings thoroughly.
I don't know how long we were going, and to this hour I know
as little where we went. Perhaps it was near Guildford. Perhaps
some Arabian-night magician, opened up the place for the day, and
shut it up for ever when we came away. It was a green spot, on a
hill, carpeted with soft turf. There were shady trees, and heather,
and, as far as the eye could see, a rich landscape.
It was a trying thing to find people here, waiting for us; and
my jealousy, even of the ladies, knew no bounds. But all of my own
sex - especially one impostor, three or four years my elder, with
a red whisker, on which he established an amount of presumption
not to be endured - were my mortal foes.
We all unpacked our baskets, and employed ourselves in getting
dinner ready. Red Whisker pretended he could make a salad (which
I don't believe), and obtruded himself on public notice. Some of
the young ladies washed the lettuces for him, and sliced them under
his directions. Dora was among these. I felt that fate had pitted
me against this man, and one of us must fall.
Red Whisker made his salad (I wondered how they could eat it.
Nothing should have induced ME to touch it!) and voted himself into
the charge of the wine-cellar, which he constructed, being an ingenious
beast, in the hollow trunk of a tree. By and by, I saw him, with
the majority of a lobster on his plate, eating his dinner at the
feet of Dora!
I have but an indistinct idea of what happened for some time
after this baleful object presented itself to my view. I was very
merry, I know; but it was hollow merriment. I attached myself to
a young creature in pink, with little eyes, and flirted with her
desperately. She received my attentions with favour; but whether
on my account solely, or because she had any designs on Red Whisker,
I can't say. Dora's health was drunk. When I drank it, I affected
to interrupt my conversation for that purpose, and to resume it
immediately afterwards. I caught Dora's eye as I bowed to her, and
I thought it looked appealing. But it looked at me over the head
of Red Whisker, and I was adamant.
The young creature in pink had a mother in green; and I rather
think the latter separated us from motives of policy. Howbeit, there
was a general breaking up of the party, while the remnants of the
dinner were being put away; and I strolled off by myself among the
trees, in a raging and remorseful state. I was debating whether
I should pretend that I was not well, and fly - I don't know where
- upon my gallant grey, when Dora and Miss Mills met me.
'Mr. Copperfield,' said Miss Mills, 'you are dull.'
I begged her pardon. Not at all.
'And Dora,' said Miss Mills, 'YOU are dull.'
Oh dear no! Not in the least.
'Mr. Copperfield and Dora,' said Miss Mills, with an almost venerable
air. 'Enough of this. Do not allow a trivial misunderstanding to
wither the blossoms of spring, which, once put forth and blighted,
cannot be renewed. I speak,' said Miss Mills, 'from experience of
the past - the remote, irrevocable past. The gushing fountains which
sparkle in the sun, must not be stopped in mere caprice; the oasis
in the desert of Sahara must not be plucked up idly.'
I hardly knew what I did, I was burning all over to that extraordinary
extent; but I took Dora's little hand and kissed it - and she let
me! I kissed Miss Mills's hand; and we all seemed, to my thinking,
to go straight up to the seventh heaven. We did not come down again.
We stayed up there all the evening. At first we strayed to and fro
among the trees: I with Dora's shy arm drawn through mine: and Heaven
knows, folly as it all was, it would have been a happy fate to have
been struck immortal with those foolish feelings, and have stayed
among the trees for ever!
But, much too soon, we heard the others laughing and talking,
and calling 'where's Dora?' So we went back, and they wanted Dora
to sing. Red Whisker would have got the guitar-case out of the carriage,
but Dora told him nobody knew where it was, but I. So Red Whisker
was done for in a moment; and I got it, and I unlocked it, and I
took the guitar out, and I sat by her, and I held her handkerchief
and gloves, and I drank in every note of her dear voice, and she
sang to ME who loved her, and all the others might applaud as much
as they liked, but they had nothing to do with it!
I was intoxicated with joy. I was afraid it was too happy to
be real, and that I should wake in Buckingham Street presently,
and hear Mrs. Crupp clinking the teacups in getting breakfast ready.
But Dora sang, and others sang, and Miss Mills sang - about the
slumbering echoes in the caverns of Memory; as if she were a hundred
years old - and the evening came on; and we had tea, with the kettle
boiling gipsy-fashion; and I was still as happy as ever.
I was happier than ever when the party broke up, and the other
people, defeated Red Whisker and all, went their several ways, and
we went ours through the still evening and the dying light, with
sweet scents rising up around us. Mr. Spenlow being a little drowsy
after the champagne - honour to the soil that grew the grape, to
the grape that made the wine, to the sun that ripened it, and to
the merchant who adulterated it! - and being fast asleep in a corner
of the carriage, I rode by the side and talked to Dora. She admired
my horse and patted him - oh, what a dear little hand it looked
upon a horse! - and her shawl would not keep right, and now and
then I drew it round her with my arm; and I even fancied that Jip
began to see how it was, and to understand that he must make up
his mind to be friends with me. That sagacious Miss Mills, too;
that amiable, though quite used up, recluse; that little patriarch
of something less than twenty, who had done with the world, and
mustn't on any account have the slumbering echoes in the caverns
of Memory awakened; what a kind thing she did!
'Mr. Copperfield,' said Miss Mills, 'come to this side of the
carriage a moment - if you can spare a moment. I want to speak to
you.'
Behold me, on my gallant grey, bending at the side of Miss Mills,
with my hand upon the carriage door!
'Dora is coming to stay with me. She is coming home with me the
day after tomorrow. If you would like to call, I am sure papa would
be happy to see you.' What could I do but invoke a silent blessing
on Miss Mills's head, and store Miss Mills's address in the securest
corner of my memory! What could I do but tell Miss Mills, with grateful
looks and fervent words, how much I appreciated her good offices,
and what an inestimable value I set upon her friendship!
Then Miss Mills benignantly dismissed me, saying, 'Go back to
Dora!' and I went; and Dora leaned out of the carriage to talk to
me, and we talked all the rest of the way; and I rode my gallant
grey so close to the wheel that I grazed his near fore leg against
it, and 'took the bark off', as his owner told me, 'to the tune
of three pun' sivin' - which I paid, and thought extremely cheap
for so much joy. What time Miss Mills sat looking at the moon, murmuring
verses- and recalling, I suppose, the ancient days when she and
earth had anything in common.
Norwood was many miles too near, and we reached it many hours
too soon; but Mr. Spenlow came to himself a little short of it,
and said, 'You must come in, Copperfield, and rest!' and I consenting,
we had sandwiches and wine-and-water. In the light room, Dora blushing
looked so lovely, that I could not tear myself away, but sat there
staring, in a dream, until the snoring of Mr. Spenlow inspired me
with sufficient consciousness to take my leave. So we parted; I
riding all the way to London with the farewell touch of Dora's hand
still light on mine, recalling every incident and word ten thousand
times; lying down in my own bed at last, as enraptured a young noodle
as ever was carried out of his five wits by love.
When I awoke next morning, I was resolute to declare my passion
to Dora, and know my fate. Happiness or misery was now the question.
There was no other question that I knew of in the world, and only
Dora could give the answer to it. I passed three days in a luxury
of wretchedness, torturing myself by putting every conceivable variety
of discouraging construction on all that ever had taken place between
Dora and me. At last, arrayed for the purpose at a vast expense,
I went to Miss Mills's, fraught with a declaration.
How many times I went up and down the street, and round the square
- painfully aware of being a much better answer to the old riddle
than the original one - before I could persuade myself to go up
the steps and knock, is no matter now. Even when, at last, I had
knocked, and was waiting at the door, I had some flurried thought
of asking if that were Mr. Blackboy's (in imitation of poor Barkis),
begging pardon, and retreating. But I kept my ground.
Mr. Mills was not at home. I did not expect he would be. Nobody
wanted HIM. Miss Mills was at home. Miss Mills would do.
I was shown into a room upstairs, where Miss Mills and Dora were.
Jip was there. Miss Mills was copying music (I recollect, it was
a new song, called 'Affection's Dirge'), and Dora was painting flowers.
What were my feelings, when I recognized my own flowers; the identical
Covent Garden Market purchase! I cannot say that they were very
like, or that they particularly resembled any flowers that have
ever come under my observation; but I knew from the paper round
them which was accurately copied, what the composition was.
Miss Mills was very glad to see me, and very sorry her papa was
not at home: though I thought we all bore that with fortitude. Miss
Mills was conversational for a few minutes, and then, laying down
her pen upon 'Affection's Dirge', got up, and left the room.
I began to think I would put it off till tomorrow.
'I hope your poor horse was not tired, when he got home at night,'
said Dora, lifting up her beautiful eyes. 'It was a long way for
him.'
I began to think I would do it today.
'It was a long way for him,' said I, 'for he had nothing to uphold
him on the journey.'
'Wasn't he fed, poor thing?' asked Dora.
I began to think I would put it off till tomorrow.
'Ye-yes,' I said, 'he was well taken care of. I mean he had not
the unutterable happiness that I had in being so near you.'
Dora bent her head over her drawing and said, after a little
while - I had sat, in the interval, in a burning fever, and with
my legs in a very rigid state -
'You didn't seem to be sensible of that happiness yourself, at
one time of the day.'
I saw now that I was in for it, and it must be done on the spot.
'You didn't care for that happiness in the least,' said Dora,
slightly raising her eyebrows, and shaking her head, 'when you were
sitting by Miss Kitt.'
Kitt, I should observe, was the name of the creature in pink,
with the little eyes.
'Though certainly I don't know why you should,' said Dora, or
why you should call it a happiness at all. But of course you don't
mean what you say. And I am sure no one doubts your being at liberty
to do whatever you like. Jip, you naughty boy, come here!'
I don't know how I did it. I did it in a moment. I intercepted
Jip. I had Dora in my arms. I was full of eloquence. I never stopped
for a word. I told her how I loved her. I told her I should die
without her. I told her that I idolized and worshipped her. Jip
barked madly all the time.
When Dora hung her head and cried, and trembled, my eloquence
increased so much the more. If she would like me to die for her,
she had but to say the word, and I was ready. Life without Dora's
love was not a thing to have on any terms. I couldn't bear it, and
I wouldn't. I had loved her every minute, day and night, since I
first saw her. I loved her at that minute to distraction. I should
always love her, every minute, to distraction. Lovers had loved
before, and lovers would love again; but no lover had loved, might,
could, would, or should ever love, as I loved Dora. The more I raved,
the more Jip barked. Each of us, in his own way, got more mad every
moment.
Well, well! Dora and I were sitting on the sofa by and by, quiet
enough, and Jip was lying in her lap, winking peacefully at me.
It was off my mind. I was in a state of perfect rapture. Dora and
I were engaged.
I suppose we had some notion that this was to end in marriage.
We must have had some, because Dora stipulated that we were never
to be married without her papa's consent. But, in our youthful ecstasy,
I don't think that we really looked before us or behind us; or had
any aspiration beyond the ignorant present. We were to keep our
secret from Mr. Spenlow; but I am sure the idea never entered my
head, then, that there was anything dishonourable in that.
Miss Mills was more than usually pensive when Dora, going to
find her, brought her back; - I apprehend, because there was a tendency
in what had passed to awaken the slumbering echoes in the caverns
of Memory. But she gave us her blessing, and the assurance of her
lasting friendship, and spoke to us, generally, as became a Voice
from the Cloister.
What an idle time it was! What an insubstantial, happy, foolish
time it was!
When I measured Dora's finger for a ring that was to be made
of Forget-me-nots, and when the jeweller, to whom I took the measure,
found me out, and laughed over his order-book, and charged me anything
he liked for the pretty little toy, with its blue stones - so associated
in my remembrance with Dora's hand, that yesterday, when I saw such
another, by chance, on the finger of my own daughter, there was
a momentary stirring in my heart, like pain!
When I walked about, exalted with my secret, and full of my own
interest, and felt the dignity of loving Dora, and of being beloved,
so much, that if I had walked the air, I could not have been more
above the people not so situated, who were creeping on the earth!
When we had those meetings in the garden of the square, and sat
within the dingy summer-house, so happy, that I love the London
sparrows to this hour, for nothing else, and see the plumage of
the tropics in their smoky feathers! When we had our first great
quarrel (within a week of our betrothal), and when Dora sent me
back the ring, enclosed in a despairing cocked-hat note, wherein
she used the terrible expression that 'our love had begun in folly,
and ended in madness!' which dreadful words occasioned me to tear
my hair, and cry that all was over!
When, under cover of the night, I flew to Miss Mills, whom I
saw by stealth in a back kitchen where there was a mangle, and implored
Miss Mills to interpose between us and avert insanity. When Miss
Mills undertook the office and returned with Dora, exhorting us,
from the pulpit of her own bitter youth, to mutual concession, and
the avoidance of the Desert of Sahara!
When we cried, and made it up, and were so blest again, that
the back kitchen, mangle and all, changed to Love's own temple,
where we arranged a plan of correspondence through Miss Mills, always
to comprehend at least one letter on each side every day!
What an idle time! What an insubstantial, happy, foolish time!
Of all the times of mine that Time has in his grip, there is none
that in one retrospect I can smile at half so much, and think of
half so tenderly.
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