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I AM SHOWN TWO INTERESTING PENITENTS
For a time - at all events until my book should be completed,
which would be the work of several months - I took up my abode in
my aunt's house at Dover; and there, sitting in the window from
which I had looked out at the moon upon the sea, when that roof
first gave me shelter, I quietly pursued my task.
In pursuance of my intention of referring to my own fictions
only when their course should incidentally connect itself with the
progress of my story, I do not enter on the aspirations, the delights,
anxieties, and triumphs of my art. That I truly devoted myself to
it with my strongest earnestness, and bestowed upon it every energy
of my soul, I have already said. If the books I have written be
of any worth, they will supply the rest. I shall otherwise have
written to poor purpose, and the rest will be of interest to no
one.
Occasionally, I went to London; to lose myself in the swarm of
life there, or to consult with Traddles on some business point.
He had managed for me, in my absence, with the soundest judgement;
and my worldly affairs were prospering. As my notoriety began to
bring upon me an enormous quantity of letters from people of whom
I had no knowledge - chiefly about nothing, and extremely difficult
to answer - I agreed with Traddles to have my name painted up on
his door. There, the devoted postman on that beat delivered bushels
of letters for me; and there, at intervals, I laboured through them,
like a Home Secretary of State without the salary.
Among this correspondence, there dropped in, every now and then,
an obliging proposal from one of the numerous outsiders always lurking
about the Commons, to practise under cover of my name (if I would
take the necessary steps remaining to make a proctor of myself),
and pay me a percentage on the profits. But I declined these offers;
being already aware that there were plenty of such covert practitioners
in existence, and considering the Commons quite bad enough, without
my doing anything to make it worse.
The girls had gone home, when my name burst into bloom on Traddles's
door; and the sharp boy looked, all day, as if he had never heard
of Sophy, shut up in a back room, glancing down from her work into
a sooty little strip of garden with a pump in it. But there I always
found her, the same bright housewife; often humming her Devonshire
ballads when no strange foot was coming up the stairs, and blunting
the sharp boy in his official closet with melody.
I wondered, at first, why I so often found Sophy writing in a
copy-book; and why she always shut it up when I appeared, and hurried
it into the table-drawer. But the secret soon came out. One day,
Traddles (who had just come home through the drizzling sleet from
Court) took a paper out of his desk, and asked me what I thought
of that handwriting?
'Oh, DON'T, Tom!' cried Sophy, who was warming his slippers before
the fire.
'My dear,' returned Tom, in a delighted state, 'why not? What
do you say to that writing, Copperfield?'
'It's extraordinarily legal and formal,' said I. 'I don't think
I ever saw such a stiff hand.'
'Not like a lady's hand, is it?' said Traddles.
'A lady's!' I repeated. 'Bricks and mortar are more like a lady's
hand!'
Traddles broke into a rapturous laugh, and informed me that it
was Sophy's writing; that Sophy had vowed and declared he would
need a copying-clerk soon, and she would be that clerk; that she
had acquired this hand from a pattern; and that she could throw
off - I forget how many folios an hour. Sophy was very much confused
by my being told all this, and said that when 'Tom' was made a judge
he wouldn't be so ready to proclaim it. Which 'Tom' denied; averring
that he should always be equally proud of it, under all circumstances.
'What a thoroughly good and charming wife she is, my dear Traddles!'
said I, when she had gone away, laughing.
'My dear Copperfield,' returned Traddles, 'she is, without any
exception, the dearest girl! The way she manages this place; her
punctuality, domestic knowledge, economy, and order; her cheerfulness,
Copperfield!'
'Indeed, you have reason to commend her!' I returned. 'You are
a happy fellow. I believe you make yourselves, and each other, two
of the happiest people in the world.'
'I am sure we ARE two of the happiest people,' returned Traddles.
'I admit that, at all events. Bless my soul, when I see her getting
up by candle-light on these dark mornings, busying herself in the
day's arrangements, going out to market before the clerks come into
the Inn, caring for no weather, devising the most capital little
dinners out of the plainest materials, making puddings and pies,
keeping everything in its right place, always so neat and ornamental
herself, sitting up at night with me if it's ever so late, sweet-tempered
and encouraging always, and all for me, I positively sometimes can't
believe it, Copperfield!'
He was tender of the very slippers she had been warming, as he
put them on, and stretched his feet enjoyingly upon the fender.
'I positively sometimes can't believe it,' said Traddles. 'Then
our pleasures! Dear me, they are inexpensive, but they are quite
wonderful! When we are at home here, of an evening, and shut the
outer door, and draw those curtains - which she made - where could
we be more snug? When it's fine, and we go out for a walk in the
evening, the streets abound in enjoyment for us. We look into the
glittering windows of the jewellers' shops; and I show Sophy which
of the diamond-eyed serpents, coiled up on white satin rising grounds,
I would give her if I could afford it; and Sophy shows me which
of the gold watches that are capped and jewelled and engine-turned,
and possessed of the horizontal lever- escape-movement, and all
sorts of things, she would buy for me if she could afford it; and
we pick out the spoons and forks, fish-slices, butter-knives, and
sugar-tongs, we should both prefer if we could both afford it; and
really we go away as if we had got them! Then, when we stroll into
the squares, and great streets, and see a house to let, sometimes
we look up at it, and say, how would THAT do, if I was made a judge?
And we parcel it out - such a room for us, such rooms for the girls,
and so forth; until we settle to our satisfaction that it would
do, or it wouldn't do, as the case may be. Sometimes, we go at half-price
to the pit of the theatre - the very smell of which is cheap, in
my opinion, at the money - and there we thoroughly enjoy the play:
which Sophy believes every word of, and so do I. In walking home,
perhaps we buy a little bit of something at a cook's-shop, or a
little lobster at the fishmongers, and bring it here, and make a
splendid supper, chatting about what we have seen. Now, you know,
Copperfield, if I was Lord Chancellor, we couldn't do this!'
'You would do something, whatever you were, my dear Traddles,'
thought I, 'that would be pleasant and amiable. And by the way,'
I said aloud, 'I suppose you never draw any skeletons now?'
'Really,' replied Traddles, laughing, and reddening, 'I can't
wholly deny that I do, my dear Copperfield. For being in one of
the back rows of the King's Bench the other day, with a pen in my
hand, the fancy came into my head to try how I had preserved that
accomplishment. And I am afraid there's a skeleton - in a wig -
on the ledge of the desk.'
After we had both laughed heartily, Traddles wound up by looking
with a smile at the fire, and saying, in his forgiving way, 'Old
Creakle!'
'I have a letter from that old - Rascal here,' said I. For I
never was less disposed to forgive him the way he used to batter
Traddles, than when I saw Traddles so ready to forgive him himself.
'From Creakle the schoolmaster?' exclaimed Traddles. 'No!'
'Among the persons who are attracted to me in my rising fame
and fortune,' said I, looking over my letters, 'and who discover
that they were always much attached to me, is the self-same Creakle.
He is not a schoolmaster now, Traddles. He is retired. He is a Middlesex
Magistrate.'
I thought Traddles might be surprised to hear it, but he was
not so at all.
'How do you suppose he comes to be a Middlesex Magistrate?' said
I.
'Oh dear me!' replied Traddles, 'it would be very difficult to
answer that question. Perhaps he voted for somebody, or lent money
to somebody, or bought something of somebody, or otherwise obliged
somebody, or jobbed for somebody, who knew somebody who got the
lieutenant of the county to nominate him for the commission.'
'On the commission he is, at any rate,' said I. 'And he writes
to me here, that he will be glad to show me, in operation, the only
true system of prison discipline; the only unchallengeable way of
making sincere and lasting converts and penitents - which, you know,
is by solitary confinement. What do you say?'
'To the system?' inquired Traddles, looking grave.
'No. To my accepting the offer, and your going with me?'
'I don't object,' said Traddles.
'Then I'll write to say so. You remember (to say nothing of our
treatment) this same Creakle turning his son out of doors, I suppose,
and the life he used to lead his wife and daughter?'
'Perfectly,' said Traddles.
'Yet, if you'll read his letter, you'll find he is the tenderest
of men to prisoners convicted of the whole calendar of felonies,'
said I; 'though I can't find that his tenderness extends to any
other class of created beings.'
Traddles shrugged his shoulders, and was not at all surprised.
I had not expected him to be, and was not surprised myself; or my
observation of similar practical satires would have been but scanty.
We arranged the time of our visit, and I wrote accordingly to Mr.
Creakle that evening.
On the appointed day - I think it was the next day, but no matter
- Traddles and I repaired to the prison where Mr. Creakle was powerful.
It was an immense and solid building, erected at a vast expense.
I could not help thinking, as we approached the gate, what an uproar
would have been made in the country, if any deluded man had proposed
to spend one half the money it had cost, on the erection of an industrial
school for the young, or a house of refuge for the deserving old.
In an office that might have been on the ground-floor of the
Tower of Babel, it was so massively constructed, we were presented
to our old schoolmaster; who was one of a group, composed of two
or three of the busier sort of magistrates, and some visitors they
had brought. He received me, like a man who had formed my mind in
bygone years, and had always loved me tenderly. On my introducing
Traddles, Mr. Creakle expressed, in like manner, but in an inferior
degree, that he had always been Traddles's guide, philosopher, and
friend. Our venerable instructor was a great deal older, and not
improved in appearance. His face was as fiery as ever; his eyes
were as small, and rather deeper set. The scanty, wet-looking grey
hair, by which I remembered him, was almost gone; and the thick
veins in his bald head were none the more agreeable to look at.
After some conversation among these gentlemen, from which I might
have supposed that there was nothing in the world to be legitimately
taken into account but the supreme comfort of prisoners, at any
expense, and nothing on the wide earth to be done outside prison-doors,
we began our inspection. It being then just dinner-time, we went,
first into the great kitchen, where every prisoner's dinner was
in course of being set out separately (to be handed to him in his
cell), with the regularity and precision of clock-work. I said aside,
to Traddles, that I wondered whether it occurred to anybody, that
there was a striking contrast between these plentiful repasts of
choice quality, and the dinners, not to say of paupers, but of soldiers,
sailors, labourers, the great bulk of the honest, working community;
of whom not one man in five hundred ever dined half so well. But
I learned that the 'system' required high living; and, in short,
to dispose of the system, once for all, I found that on that head
and on all others, 'the system' put an end to all doubts, and disposed
of all anomalies. Nobody appeared to have the least idea that there
was any other system, but THE system, to be considered.
As we were going through some of the magnificent passages, I
inquired of Mr. Creakle and his friends what were supposed to be
the main advantages of this all-governing and universally over-riding
system? I found them to be the perfect isolation of prisoners -
so that no one man in confinement there, knew anything about another;
and the reduction of prisoners to a wholesome state of mind, leading
to sincere contrition and repentance.
Now, it struck me, when we began to visit individuals in their
cells, and to traverse the passages in which those cells were, and
to have the manner of the going to chapel and so forth, explained
to us, that there was a strong probability of the prisoners knowing
a good deal about each other, and of their carrying on a pretty
complete system of intercourse. This, at the time I write, has been
proved, I believe, to be the case; but, as it would have been flat
blasphemy against the system to have hinted such a doubt then, I
looked out for the penitence as diligently as I could.
And here again, I had great misgivings. I found as prevalent
a fashion in the form of the penitence, as I had left outside in
the forms of the coats and waistcoats in the windows of the tailors'
shops. I found a vast amount of profession, varying very little
in character: varying very little (which I thought exceedingly suspicious),
even in words. I found a great many foxes, disparaging whole vineyards
of inaccessible grapes; but I found very few foxes whom I would
have trusted within reach of a bunch. Above all, I found that the
most professing men were the greatest objects of interest; and that
their conceit, their vanity, their want of excitement, and their
love of deception (which many of them possessed to an almost incredible
extent, as their histories showed), all prompted to these professions,
and were all gratified by them.
However, I heard so repeatedly, in the course of our goings to
and fro, of a certain Number Twenty Seven, who was the Favourite,
and who really appeared to be a Model Prisoner, that I resolved
to suspend my judgement until I should see Twenty Seven. Twenty
Eight, I understood, was also a bright particular star; but it was
his misfortune to have his glory a little dimmed by the extraordinary
lustre of Twenty Seven. I heard so much of Twenty Seven, of his
pious admonitions to everybody around him, and of the beautiful
letters he constantly wrote to his mother (whom he seemed to consider
in a very bad way), that I became quite impatient to see him.
I had to restrain my impatience for some time, on account of
Twenty Seven being reserved for a concluding effect. But, at last,
we came to the door of his cell; and Mr. Creakle, looking through
a little hole in it, reported to us, in a state of the greatest
admiration, that he was reading a Hymn Book.
There was such a rush of heads immediately, to see Number Twenty
Seven reading his Hymn Book, that the little hole was blocked up,
six or seven heads deep. To remedy this inconvenience, and give
us an opportunity of conversing with Twenty Seven in all his purity,
Mr. Creakle directed the door of the cell to be unlocked, and Twenty
Seven to be invited out into the passage. This was done; and whom
should Traddles and I then behold, to our amazement, in this converted
Number Twenty Seven, but Uriah Heep!
He knew us directly; and said, as he came out - with the old
writhe, -
'How do you do, Mr. Copperfield? How do you do, Mr. Traddles?'
This recognition caused a general admiration in the party. I
rather thought that everyone was struck by his not being proud,
and taking notice of us.
'Well, Twenty Seven,' said Mr. Creakle, mournfully admiring him.
'How do you find yourself today?'
'I am very umble, sir!' replied Uriah Heep.
'You are always so, Twenty Seven,' said Mr. Creakle.
Here, another gentleman asked, with extreme anxiety: 'Are you
quite comfortable?'
'Yes, I thank you, sir!' said Uriah Heep, looking in that direction.
'Far more comfortable here, than ever I was outside. I see my follies,
now, sir. That's what makes me comfortable.'
Several gentlemen were much affected; and a third questioner,
forcing himself to the front, inquired with extreme feeling: 'How
do you find the beef?'
'Thank you, sir,' replied Uriah, glancing in the new direction
of this voice, 'it was tougher yesterday than I could wish; but
it's my duty to bear. I have committed follies, gentlemen,' said
Uriah, looking round with a meek smile, 'and I ought to bear the
consequences without repining.' A murmur, partly of gratification
at Twenty Seven's celestial state of mind, and partly of indignation
against the Contractor who had given him any cause of complaint
(a note of which was immediately made by Mr. Creakle), having subsided,
Twenty Seven stood in the midst of us, as if he felt himself the
principal object of merit in a highly meritorious museum. That we,
the neophytes, might have an excess of light shining upon us all
at once, orders were given to let out Twenty Eight.
I had been so much astonished already, that I only felt a kind
of resigned wonder when Mr. Littimer walked forth, reading a good
book!
'Twenty Eight,' said a gentleman in spectacles, who had not yet
spoken, 'you complained last week, my good fellow, of the cocoa.
How has it been since?'
'I thank you, sir,' said Mr. Littimer, 'it has been better made.
If I might take the liberty of saying so, sir, I don't think the
milk which is boiled with it is quite genuine; but I am aware, sir,
that there is a great adulteration of milk, in London, and that
the article in a pure state is difficult to be obtained.'
It appeared to me that the gentleman in spectacles backed his
Twenty Eight against Mr. Creakle's Twenty Seven, for each of them
took his own man in hand.
'What is your state of mind, Twenty Eight?' said the questioner
in spectacles.
'I thank you, sir,' returned Mr. Littimer; 'I see my follies
now, sir. I am a good deal troubled when I think of the sins of
my former companions, sir; but I trust they may find forgiveness.'
'You are quite happy yourself?' said the questioner, nodding
encouragement.
'I am much obliged to you, sir,' returned Mr. Littimer. 'Perfectly
so.'
'Is there anything at all on your mind now?' said the questioner.
'If so, mention it, Twenty Eight.'
'Sir,' said Mr. Littimer, without looking up, 'if my eyes have
not deceived me, there is a gentleman present who was acquainted
with me in my former life. It may be profitable to that gentleman
to know, sir, that I attribute my past follies, entirely to having
lived a thoughtless life in the service of young men; and to having
allowed myself to be led by them into weaknesses, which I had not
the strength to resist. I hope that gentleman will take warning,
sir, and will not be offended at my freedom. It is for his good.
I am conscious of my own past follies. I hope he may repent of all
the wickedness and sin to which he has been a party.'
I observed that several gentlemen were shading their eyes, each
with one hand, as if they had just come into church.
'This does you credit, Twenty Eight,' returned the questioner.
'I should have expected it of you. Is there anything else?'
'Sir,' returned Mr. Littimer, slightly lifting up his eyebrows,
but not his eyes, 'there was a young woman who fell into dissolute
courses, that I endeavoured to save, sir, but could not rescue.
I beg that gentleman, if he has it in his power, to inform that
young woman from me that I forgive her her bad conduct towards myself,
and that I call her to repentance - if he will be so good.'
'I have no doubt, Twenty Eight,' returned the questioner, 'that
the gentleman you refer to feels very strongly - as we all must
- what you have so properly said. We will not detain you.'
'I thank you, sir,' said Mr. Littimer. 'Gentlemen, I wish you
a good day, and hoping you and your families will also see your
wickedness, and amend!'
With this, Number Twenty Eight retired, after a glance between
him and Uriah; as if they were not altogether unknown to each other,
through some medium of communication; and a murmur went round the
group, as his door shut upon him, that he was a most respectable
man, and a beautiful case.
'Now, Twenty Seven,' said Mr. Creakle, entering on a clear stage
with his man, 'is there anything that anyone can do for you? If
so, mention it.'
'I would umbly ask, sir,' returned Uriah, with a jerk of his
malevolent head, 'for leave to write again to mother.'
'It shall certainly be granted,' said Mr. Creakle.
'Thank you, sir! I am anxious about mother. I am afraid she ain't
safe.'
Somebody incautiously asked, what from? But there was a scandalized
whisper of 'Hush!'
'Immortally safe, sir,' returned Uriah, writhing in the direction
of the voice. 'I should wish mother to be got into my state. I never
should have been got into my present state if I hadn't come here.
I wish mother had come here. It would be better for everybody, if
they got took up, and was brought here.'
This sentiment gave unbounded satisfaction - greater satisfaction,
I think, than anything that had passed yet.
'Before I come here,' said Uriah, stealing a look at us, as if
he would have blighted the outer world to which we belonged, if
he could, 'I was given to follies; but now I am sensible of my follies.
There's a deal of sin outside. There's a deal of sin in mother.
There's nothing but sin everywhere - except here.'
'You are quite changed?' said Mr. Creakle.
'Oh dear, yes, sir!' cried this hopeful penitent.
'You wouldn't relapse, if you were going out?' asked somebody
else.
'Oh de-ar no, sir!'
'Well!' said Mr. Creakle, 'this is very gratifying. You have
addressed Mr. Copperfield, Twenty Seven. Do you wish to say anything
further to him?'
'You knew me, a long time before I came here and was changed,
Mr. Copperfield,' said Uriah, looking at me; and a more villainous
look I never saw, even on his visage. 'You knew me when, in spite
of my follies, I was umble among them that was proud, and meek among
them that was violent - you was violent to me yourself, Mr. Copperfield.
Once, you struck me a blow in the face, you know.'
General commiseration. Several indignant glances directed at
me.
'But I forgive you, Mr. Copperfield,' said Uriah, making his
forgiving nature the subject of a most impious and awful parallel,
which I shall not record. 'I forgive everybody. It would ill become
me to bear malice. I freely forgive you, and I hope you'll curb
your passions in future. I hope Mr. W. will repent, and Miss W.,
and all of that sinful lot. You've been visited with affliction,
and I hope it may do you good; but you'd better have come here.
Mr. W. had better have come here, and Miss W. too. The best wish
I could give you, Mr. Copperfield, and give all of you gentlemen,
is, that you could be took up and brought here. When I think of
my past follies, and my present state, I am sure it would be best
for you. I pity all who ain't brought here!'
He sneaked back into his cell, amidst a little chorus of approbation;
and both Traddles and I experienced a great relief when he was locked
in.
It was a characteristic feature in this repentance, that I was
fain to ask what these two men had done, to be there at all. That
appeared to be the last thing about which they had anything to say.
I addressed myself to one of the two warders, who, I suspected from
certain latent indications in their faces, knew pretty well what
all this stir was worth.
'Do you know,' said I, as we walked along the passage, 'what
felony was Number Twenty Seven's last "folly"?'
The answer was that it was a Bank case.
'A fraud on the Bank of England?' I asked. 'Yes, sir. Fraud,
forgery, and conspiracy. He and some others. He set the others on.
It was a deep plot for a large sum. Sentence, transportation for
life. Twenty Seven was the knowingest bird of the lot, and had very
nearly kept himself safe; but not quite. The Bank was just able
to put salt upon his tail - and only just.'
'Do you know Twenty Eight's offence?'
'Twenty Eight,' returned my informant, speaking throughout in
a low tone, and looking over his shoulder as we walked along the
passage, to guard himself from being overheard, in such an unlawful
reference to these Immaculates, by Creakle and the rest; 'Twenty
Eight (also transportation) got a place, and robbed a young master
of a matter of two hundred and fifty pounds in money and valuables,
the night before they were going abroad. I particularly recollect
his case, from his being took by a dwarf.'
'A what?'
'A little woman. I have forgot her name?'
'Not Mowcher?'
'That's it! He had eluded pursuit, and was going to America in
a flaxen wig, and whiskers, and such a complete disguise as never
you see in all your born days; when the little woman, being in Southampton,
met him walking along the street - picked him out with her sharp
eye in a moment - ran betwixt his legs to upset him - and held on
to him like grim Death.'
'Excellent Miss Mowcher!' cried I.
'You'd have said so, if you had seen her, standing on a chair
in the witness-box at the trial, as I did,' said my friend. 'He
cut her face right open, and pounded her in the most brutal manner,
when she took him; but she never loosed her hold till he was locked
up. She held so tight to him, in fact, that the officers were obliged
to take 'em both together. She gave her evidence in the gamest way,
and was highly complimented by the Bench, and cheered right home
to her lodgings. She said in Court that she'd have took him single-handed
(on account of what she knew concerning him), if he had been Samson.
And it's my belief she would!'
It was mine too, and I highly respected Miss Mowcher for it.
We had now seen all there was to see. It would have been in vain
to represent to such a man as the Worshipful Mr. Creakle, that Twenty
Seven and Twenty Eight were perfectly consistent and unchanged;
that exactly what they were then, they had always been; that the
hypocritical knaves were just the subjects to make that sort of
profession in such a place; that they knew its market-value at least
as well as we did, in the immediate service it would do them when
they were expatriated; in a word, that it was a rotten, hollow,
painfully suggestive piece of business altogether. We left them
to their system and themselves, and went home wondering.
'Perhaps it's a good thing, Traddles,' said I, 'to have an unsound
Hobby ridden hard; for it's the sooner ridden to death.'
'I hope so,' replied Traddles.
CHAPTER 62 A LIGHT SHINES ON MY WAY
The year came round to Christmas-time, and I had been at home
above two months. I had seen Agnes frequently. However loud the
general voice might be in giving me encouragement, and however fervent
the emotions and endeavours to which it roused me, I heard her lightest
word of praise as I heard nothing else.
At least once a week, and sometimes oftener, I rode over there,
and passed the evening. I usually rode back at night; for the old
unhappy sense was always hovering about me now - most sorrowfully
when I left her - and I was glad to be up and out, rather than wandering
over the past in weary wakefulness or miserable dreams. I wore away
the longest part of many wild sad nights, in those rides; reviving,
as I went, the thoughts that had occupied me in my long absence.
Or, if I were to say rather that I listened to the echoes of
those thoughts, I should better express the truth. They spoke to
me from afar off. I had put them at a distance, and accepted my
inevitable place. When I read to Agnes what I wrote; when I saw
her listening face; moved her to smiles or tears; and heard her
cordial voice so earnest on the shadowy events of that imaginative
world in which I lived; I thought what a fate mine might have been
- but only thought so, as I had thought after I was married to Dora,
what I could have wished my wife to be.
My duty to Agnes, who loved me with a love, which, if I disquieted,
I wronged most selfishly and poorly, and could never restore; my
matured assurance that I, who had worked out my own destiny, and
won what I had impetuously set my heart on, had no right to murmur,
and must bear; comprised what I felt and what I had learned. But
I loved her: and now it even became some consolation to me, vaguely
to conceive a distant day when I might blamelessly avow it; when
all this should be over; when I could say 'Agnes, so it was when
I came home; and now I am old, and I never have loved since!'
She did not once show me any change in herself. What she always
had been to me, she still was; wholly unaltered.
Between my aunt and me there had been something, in this connexion,
since the night of my return, which I cannot call a restraint, or
an avoidance of the subject, so much as an implied understanding
that we thought of it together, but did not shape our thoughts into
words. When, according to our old custom, we sat before the fire
at night, we often fell into this train; as naturally, and as consciously
to each other, as if we had unreservedly said so. But we preserved
an unbroken silence. I believed that she had read, or partly read,
my thoughts that night; and that she fully comprehended why I gave
mine no more distinct expression.
This Christmas-time being come, and Agnes having reposed no new
confidence in me, a doubt that had several times arisen in my mind
- whether she could have that perception of the true state of my
breast, which restrained her with the apprehension of giving me
pain - began to oppress me heavily. If that were so, my sacrifice
was nothing; my plainest obligation to her unfulfilled; and every
poor action I had shrunk from, I was hourly doing. I resolved to
set this right beyond all doubt; - if such a barrier were between
us, to break it down at once with a determined hand.
It was - what lasting reason have I to remember it! - a cold,
harsh, winter day. There had been snow, some hours before; and it
lay, not deep, but hard-frozen on the ground. Out at sea, beyond
my window, the wind blew ruggedly from the north. I had been thinking
of it, sweeping over those mountain wastes of snow in Switzerland,
then inaccessible to any human foot; and had been speculating which
was the lonelier, those solitary regions, or a deserted ocean.
'Riding today, Trot?' said my aunt, putting her head in at the
door.
'Yes,' said I, 'I am going over to Canterbury. It's a good day
for a ride.'
'I hope your horse may think so too,' said my aunt; 'but at present
he is holding down his head and his ears, standing before the door
there, as if he thought his stable preferable.'
My aunt, I may observe, allowed my horse on the forbidden ground,
but had not at all relented towards the donkeys.
'He will be fresh enough, presently!' said I.
'The ride will do his master good, at all events,' observed my
aunt, glancing at the papers on my table. 'Ah, child, you pass a
good many hours here! I never thought, when I used to read books,
what work it was to write them.'
'It's work enough to read them, sometimes,' I returned. 'As to
the writing, it has its own charms, aunt.'
'Ah! I see!' said my aunt. 'Ambition, love of approbation, sympathy,
and much more, I suppose? Well: go along with you!'
'Do you know anything more,' said I, standing composedly before
her - she had patted me on the shoulder, and sat down in my chair
- 'of that attachment of Agnes?'
She looked up in my face a little while, before replying:
'I think I do, Trot.'
'Are you confirmed in your impression?' I inquired.
'I think I am, Trot.'
She looked so steadfastly at me: with a kind of doubt, or pity,
or suspense in her affection: that I summoned the stronger determination
to show her a perfectly cheerful face.
'And what is more, Trot -' said my aunt.
'Yes!'
'I think Agnes is going to be married.'
'God bless her!' said I, cheerfully.
'God bless her!' said my aunt, 'and her husband too!'
I echoed it, parted from my aunt, and went lightly downstairs,
mounted, and rode away. There was greater reason than before to
do what I had resolved to do.
How well I recollect the wintry ride! The frozen particles of
ice, brushed from the blades of grass by the wind, and borne across
my face; the hard clatter of the horse's hoofs, beating a tune upon
the ground; the stiff-tilled soil; the snowdrift, lightly eddying
in the chalk-pit as the breeze ruffled it; the smoking team with
the waggon of old hay, stopping to breathe on the hill-top, and
shaking their bells musically; the whitened slopes and sweeps of
Down-land lying against the dark sky, as if they were drawn on a
huge slate!
I found Agnes alone. The little girls had gone to their own homes
now, and she was alone by the fire, reading. She put down her book
on seeing me come in; and having welcomed me as usual, took her
work-basket and sat in one of the old-fashioned windows.
I sat beside her on the window-seat, and we talked of what I
was doing, and when it would be done, and of the progress I had
made since my last visit. Agnes was very cheerful; and laughingly
predicted that I should soon become too famous to be talked to,
on such subjects.
'So I make the most of the present time, you see,' said Agnes,
'and talk to you while I may.'
As I looked at her beautiful face, observant of her work, she
raised her mild clear eyes, and saw that I was looking at her.
'You are thoughtful today, Trotwood!'
'Agnes, shall I tell you what about? I came to tell you.'
She put aside her work, as she was used to do when we were seriously
discussing anything; and gave me her whole attention.
'My dear Agnes, do you doubt my being true to you?'
'No!' she answered, with a look of astonishment.
'Do you doubt my being what I always have been to you?'
'No!' she answered, as before.
'Do you remember that I tried to tell you, when I came home,
what a debt of gratitude I owed you, dearest Agnes, and how fervently
I felt towards you?'
'I remember it,' she said, gently, 'very well.'
'You have a secret,' said I. 'Let me share it, Agnes.'
She cast down her eyes, and trembled.
'I could hardly fail to know, even if I had not heard - but from
other lips than yours, Agnes, which seems strange - that there is
someone upon whom you have bestowed the treasure of your love. Do
not shut me out of what concerns your happiness so nearly! If you
can trust me, as you say you can, and as I know you may, let me
be your friend, your brother, in this matter, of all others!'
With an appealing, almost a reproachful, glance, she rose from
the window; and hurrying across the room as if without knowing where,
put her hands before her face, and burst into such tears as smote
me to the heart.
And yet they awakened something in me, bringing promise to my
heart. Without my knowing why, these tears allied themselves with
the quietly sad smile which was so fixed in my remembrance, and
shook me more with hope than fear or sorrow.
'Agnes! Sister! Dearest! What have I done?'
'Let me go away, Trotwood. I am not well. I am not myself. I
will speak to you by and by - another time. I will write to you.
Don't speak to me now. Don't! don't!'
I sought to recollect what she had said, when I had spoken to
her on that former night, of her affection needing no return. It
seemed a very world that I must search through in a moment. 'Agnes,
I cannot bear to see you so, and think that I have been the cause.
My dearest girl, dearer to me than anything in life, if you are
unhappy, let me share your unhappiness. If you are in need of help
or counsel, let me try to give it to you. If you have indeed a burden
on your heart, let me try to lighten it. For whom do I live now,
Agnes, if it is not for you!'
'Oh, spare me! I am not myself! Another time!' was all I could
distinguish.
Was it a selfish error that was leading me away? Or, having once
a clue to hope, was there something opening to me that I had not
dared to think of?
'I must say more. I cannot let you leave me so! For Heaven's
sake, Agnes, let us not mistake each other after all these years,
and all that has come and gone with them! I must speak plainly.
If you have any lingering thought that I could envy the happiness
you will confer; that I could not resign you to a dearer protector,
of your own choosing; that I could not, from my removed place, be
a contented witness of your joy; dismiss it, for I don't deserve
it! I have not suffered quite in vain. You have not taught me quite
in vain. There is no alloy of self in what I feel for you.'
She was quiet now. In a little time, she turned her pale face
towards me, and said in a low voice, broken here and there, but
very clear:
'I owe it to your pure friendship for me, Trotwood - which, indeed,
I do not doubt - to tell you, you are mistaken. I can do no more.
If I have sometimes, in the course of years, wanted help and counsel,
they have come to me. If I have sometimes been unhappy, the feeling
has passed away. If I have ever had a burden on my heart, it has
been lightened for me. If I have any secret, it is - no new one;
and is - not what you suppose. I cannot reveal it, or divide it.
It has long been mine, and must remain mine.'
'Agnes! Stay! A moment!'
She was going away, but I detained her. I clasped my arm about
her waist. 'In the course of years!' 'It is not a new one!' New
thoughts and hopes were whirling through my mind, and all the colours
of my life were changing.
'Dearest Agnes! Whom I so respect and honour - whom I so devotedly
love! When I came here today, I thought that nothing could have
wrested this confession from me. I thought I could have kept it
in my bosom all our lives, till we were old. But, Agnes, if I have
indeed any new-born hope that I may ever call you something more
than Sister, widely different from Sister! -'
Her tears fell fast; but they were not like those she had lately
shed, and I saw my hope brighten in them.
'Agnes! Ever my guide, and best support! If you had been more
mindful of yourself, and less of me, when we grew up here together,
I think my heedless fancy never would have wandered from you. But
you were so much better than I, so necessary to me in every boyish
hope and disappointment, that to have you to confide in, and rely
upon in everything, became a second nature, supplanting for the
time the first and greater one of loving you as I do!'
Still weeping, but not sadly - joyfully! And clasped in my arms
as she had never been, as I had thought she never was to be!
'When I loved Dora - fondly, Agnes, as you know -'
'Yes!' she cried, earnestly. 'I am glad to know it!'
'When I loved her - even then, my love would have been incomplete,
without your sympathy. I had it, and it was perfected. And when
I lost her, Agnes, what should I have been without you, still!'
Closer in my arms, nearer to my heart, her trembling hand upon
my shoulder, her sweet eyes shining through her tears, on mine!
'I went away, dear Agnes, loving you. I stayed away, loving you.
I returned home, loving you!'
And now, I tried to tell her of the struggle I had had, and the
conclusion I had come to. I tried to lay my mind before her, truly,
and entirely. I tried to show her how I had hoped I had come into
the better knowledge of myself and of her; how I had resigned myself
to what that better knowledge brought; and how I had come there,
even that day, in my fidelity to this. If she did so love me (I
said) that she could take me for her husband, she could do so, on
no deserving of mine, except upon the truth of my love for her,
and the trouble in which it had ripened to be what it was; and hence
it was that I revealed it. And O, Agnes, even out of thy true eyes,
in that same time, the spirit of my child-wife looked upon me, saying
it was well; and winning me, through thee, to tenderest recollections
of the Blossom that had withered in its bloom!
'I am so blest, Trotwood - my heart is so overcharged - but there
is one thing I must say.'
'Dearest, what?'
She laid her gentle hands upon my shoulders, and looked calmly
in my face.
'Do you know, yet, what it is?'
'I am afraid to speculate on what it is. Tell me, my dear.'
'I have loved you all my life!'
O, we were happy, we were happy! Our tears were not for the trials
(hers so much the greater) through which we had come to be thus,
but for the rapture of being thus, never to be divided more!
We walked, that winter evening, in the fields together; and the
blessed calm within us seemed to be partaken by the frosty air.
The early stars began to shine while we were lingering on, and looking
up to them, we thanked our GOD for having guided us to this tranquillity.
We stood together in the same old-fashioned window at night,
when the moon was shining; Agnes with her quiet eyes raised up to
it; I following her glance. Long miles of road then opened out before
my mind; and, toiling on, I saw a ragged way-worn boy, forsaken
and neglected, who should come to call even the heart now beating
against mine, his own.
It was nearly dinner-time next day when we appeared before my
aunt. She was up in my study, Peggotty said: which it was her pride
to keep in readiness and order for me. We found her, in her spectacles,
sitting by the fire.
'Goodness me!' said my aunt, peering through the dusk, 'who's
this you're bringing home?'
'Agnes,' said I.
As we had arranged to say nothing at first, my aunt was not a
little discomfited. She darted a hopeful glance at me, when I said
'Agnes'; but seeing that I looked as usual, she took off her spectacles
in despair, and rubbed her nose with them.
She greeted Agnes heartily, nevertheless; and we were soon in
the lighted parlour downstairs, at dinner. My aunt put on her spectacles
twice or thrice, to take another look at me, but as often took them
off again, disappointed, and rubbed her nose with them. Much to
the discomfiture of Mr. Dick, who knew this to be a bad symptom.
'By the by, aunt,' said I, after dinner; 'I have been speaking
to Agnes about what you told me.'
'Then, Trot,' said my aunt, turning scarlet, 'you did wrong,
and broke your promise.'
'You are not angry, aunt, I trust? I am sure you won't be, when
you learn that Agnes is not unhappy in any attachment.'
'Stuff and nonsense!' said my aunt.
As my aunt appeared to be annoyed, I thought the best way was
to cut her annoyance short. I took Agnes in my arm to the back of
her chair, and we both leaned over her. My aunt, with one clap of
her hands, and one look through her spectacles, immediately went
into hysterics, for the first and only time in all my knowledge
of her.
The hysterics called up Peggotty. The moment my aunt was restored,
she flew at Peggotty, and calling her a silly old creature, hugged
her with all her might. After that, she hugged Mr. Dick (who was
highly honoured, but a good deal surprised); and after that, told
them why. Then, we were all happy together.
I could not discover whether my aunt, in her last short conversation
with me, had fallen on a pious fraud, or had really mistaken the
state of my mind. It was quite enough, she said, that she had told
me Agnes was going to be married; and that I now knew better than
anyone how true it was.
We were married within a fortnight. Traddles and Sophy, and
Doctor and Mrs. Strong, were the only guests at our quiet wedding.
We left them full of joy; and drove away together. Clasped in my
embrace, I held the source of every worthy aspiration I had ever
had; the centre of myself, the circle of my life, my own, my wife;
my love of whom was founded on a rock!
'Dearest husband!' said Agnes. 'Now that I may call you by that
name, I have one thing more to tell you.'
'Let me hear it, love.'
'It grows out of the night when Dora died. She sent you for me.'
'She did.'
'She told me that she left me something. Can you think what it
was?'
I believed I could. I drew the wife who had so long loved me,
closer to my side.
'She told me that she made a last request to me, and left me
a last charge.'
'And it was -'
'That only I would occupy this vacant place.'
And Agnes laid her head upon my breast, and wept; and I wept
with her, though we were so happy.
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