"Here's Mr. Maldon begs the favour of a word, sir."
"I am but this moment quit of Mr. Maldon," said his master.
"Yes, sir," returned Uriah, "but Mr. Maldon has come back, and he begs the favour of a word."
As he held the door open with his hand, Uriah looked at me, and looked at Agnes, and looked at the dishes, and looked at the plates, and looked at every object in the room, I thought, yet seemed to look at nothing: he made such an appearance all the while of keeping his red eyes dutifully on his master.
"I beg your pardon. It's only to say, on reflection," observed a voice behind Uriah, as Uriah's head was pushed away, and the speaker's substituted--"pray excuse me for this intrusion--that, as it seems I have no choice in the matter, the sooner I go abroad the better. My cousin Annie did say, when we talked of it, that she liked to have her friends within-reach rather than to have them banished, and the old Doctor--"
"Doctor Strong was that?" Mr. Wickfield interposed, gravely.
"Doctor Strong, of course," returned the other, "I call him the old Doctor; it's all the same, you know."
"I don't know," returned Mr. Wickfield.
"Well, Doctor Strong," said the other. "Doctor Strong was of the same mind, I believed. But as it appears from the course you take with me that he has changed his mind, why there's no more to be said, except that the sooner I am off, the better. Therefore, I thought I'd come back and say that the sooner I am off the better. When a plunge is to be made into the water, it's of no use lingering on the bank."
"There shall be as little lingering as possible, in your case, Mr. Maldon, you may depend upon it," said Mr. Wickfield.
"Thank'ee," said the other. "Much obliged. I don't want to look a gift-horse in the mouth, which is not a gracious thing to do; otherwise, I dare say, my cousin Annie could easily arrange it in her own way. I suppose Annie would only have to say to the old Doctor--"
"Meaning that Mrs. Strong would only have to say to her husband--do I follow you?" said Mr. Wickfield.
"Quite so," returned the other, "--would only have to say that she wanted such and such a thing to be so and so, and it would be so and so, as a matter of course."
"And why as a matier of course, Mr. Maldon?" asked Mr. Wickfield, sedately eating his dinner.
"Why, because Annie's a charming young girl, and the old Doctor--Doctor Strong, I mean--is not quite a charming young boy," said Mr. Jack Maldon, laughing. "No offence to anybody, Mr. Wickfield. I only mean that I suppose some compensation is fair and reasonable in that sort of marriage."
"Compensation to the lady, sir?" asked Mr. Wickfield gravely.
"To the lady, sir," Mr. Jack Maldon answered, laughing. But, appearing to remark that Mr. Wickfield went on with his dinner in the same sedate, immovable manner, and that there was no hope of making him relax a muscle of his face, he added:
"However, I have said what I came back to say, and, with another apology for this intrusion, I may take myself off. Of course I shall observe your directions, in considering the matter as one to be arranged between you and me solely, and not to be referred to, up at the Doctor's."
"Have you dined?" asked Mr. Wickfield, with a motion of his hand towards the table.
"Thank'ee. I am going to dine," said Mr. Maldon, "with my cousin Annie. Good-bye!"
Mr. Wickfield, without rising, looked after him thoughtfully as he went out. He was rather a shallow sort of young gentleman, I thought, with a handsome face, a rapid utterance, and a confident bold air. And this was the first I ever saw of Mr. Jack Maldon, whom I had not expected to see so soon, when I heard the Doctor speak of him that morning.
When we had dined, we went upstairs again, where everything went on exactly as on the previous day. Agnes set the glasses and decanters in the same comer, and Mr. Wickfield sat down to drink, and drank a good deal. Agnes played the piano to him, sat by him, and worked and talked, and played some games at dominoes with me. In good time she made tea, and afterwards, when I brought down my books, looked into them, and showed me what she knew of them (which was no slight matter, though she said it was), and what was the best way to learn and understand them. I see her, with her modest, orderly, placid manner, and I hear her beautiful calm voice, as I write these words. The influence for all good, which she came to exercise over me at a later time, begins already to descend upon my breast. I love little Em'ly, and I don't love Agnes--no, not at all in that way--but I feel that there are goodness, peace, and truth, wherever Agnes is, and that the soft light of the coloured window in the church, seen long ago, falls on her always, and on me when I am near her, and on everything around.
The time having come for her withdrawal for the night, and she having left us, I gave Mr. Wickfield my hand, preparatory to going away myself. But he checked me and said: "Should you like to stay with us, Trotwood, or to go elsewhere?"
"To stay!" I answered, quickly.
"You are sure?"
"If you please. If I mayl"
"Why, it's but a dull life that we lead here, boy, I am afraid," he said.
"Not more dull for me than Agnes, sir. Not dull at all!"
"Than Agnes," he repeated, walking slowly to the great chimney-piece, and leaning against it. "Than Agnes!"
He had drank wine that evening (or I fancied it) until his eyes were bloodshot. Not that I could see them now, for they were cast down, and shaded by his hand, but I had noticed them a little while before.
"Now I wonder," he muttered, "whether my Agnes tires of me. When should I ever tire of her! But that's different, that's quite different."
He was musing, not speaking to me, so I remained quiet.
"A dull old house," he said, "and a monotonous life, but I must have her near me. I must keep her near me. If the thought that I may die and leave my darling, or that my darling may die and leave me, comes like a spectre, to distress my happiest hours, and is only to be drowned in--"
He did not supply the word, but, pacing slowly to the place where he had sat, and mechanically going through the action of pouring wine from the empty decanter, set it down, and paced back again.
"If it is miserable to bear when she is here," he said, "what would it be, and she away? No, no, no. I cannot try that."
He leaned against the chimney-piece, brooding so long that I could not decide whether to run the risk of disturbing him by going, or to remain quietly where I was until he should come out of his reverie. At length he aroused himself, and looked about the room until his eyes encountered mine.
"Stay with us, Trotwood, eh?" he said in his usual manner, and as if he were answering something I had just said. "I am glad of it. You are company to us both. It is wholesome to have you here. Wholesome for me, wholesome for Agnes, wholesome perhaps for all of us."
"I am sure it is for me, sir, "I said. "I am so glad to be here."
"That's a fine fellow!" said Mr. Wickfield. "As long as you are glad to be here, you shall stay here." He shook hands with me upon it, and clapped me on the back, and told me that when I had anything to do at night after Agnes had left us, or when I wished to read for my own pleasure, I was free to come down to his room, if he were there, and if I desired it for company's sake, and to sit with him. I thanked him for his consideration, and, as he went down soon afterwards, and I was not tired, went down too, with a book in my hand, to avail myself, for half-an-hour, of his permission.
But, seeing a light in the little round office, and immediately feeling myself attracted towards Uriah Heep, who had a sort of fascination for me, I went in there instead. I found Uriah reading a great fat book, with such demonstrative attention that his lank forefinger followed up every line as he read, and made clammy tracks along the page (or so I fully believed) like a snail.
"You are working late tonight, Uriah," says I.
"Yes, Master Copperfield," says Uriah.
As I was getting on the stool opposite, to talk to him more conveniently, I observed that he had not such a thing as a smile about him, and that he could only widen his mouth and
make two hard creases down his cheeks, one on each side, to stand for one.
"I am not doing office-work, Master Copperfield," said Uriah.
"What work, then?" I asked.
"I am improving my legal knowledge, Master Copperfield," said Uriah. "I am going through Tidd's Practice. Oh, what a writer Mr. Tidd is, Master Copperfield!"
My stool was such a tower of observation, that, as I watched him reading on again, after this rapturous exclamation, and following up the lines with his forefinger, I observed that his nostrils, which were thin and pointed, with sharp dints in them, had a singular and most uncomfortable way of expanding and contracting themselves, that they seemed to twinkle instead of his eyes, which hardly ever twinkled at all.
"I suppose you are quite a great lawyer?" I said, after looking at him for some time.
"Me, Master Copperfield?" said Uriah. "Oh, no! I'm a very umble person."
It was no fancy of mine about his hands, I observed, for he frequently ground the palms against each other as if to squeeze them dry and warm, besides often wiping them, in a stealthy way, on his pocket-handkerchief.
"I am well aware that I am the umblest person going," said Uriah Heep, modestly, "let the other be where he may. My mother is likewise a very umble person. We live in an umble abode, Master Copperfield, but have much to be thankful for. My father's former calling was umble. He was a sexton."
"What is he now?" I asked.
"He is a partaker of glory at present, Master Copperfield," said Uriah Heep. "But we have much to be thankful for. How much have I to be thankful for in living with Mr. Wickfield!"
I asked Uriah if he had been with Mr. Wickfield long?
"I have been with him going on four year, Master Copperfield," said Uriah, shutting up his book, after carefully marking the place where he had left off. "Since a year after my father's death. How much have I to be thankful for, in that! How much have I to be thankful for, in Mr. Wickfield's kind intention to give me my articles, which would otherwise not lay within the umble means of mother and self!"
"Then, when your articled time is over, you'll be a regular lawyer, I suppose?" said I.
"With the blessing of Providence, Master Copperfield," returned Uriah.
"Perhaps you'll be a partner in Mr. Wickfield's business, one of these days," I said, to make myself agreeable, "and it will be Wickfield and Heep, or Heep late Wickfield."
"Oh no, Master Copperfield," returned Uriah, shaking his head, "I am much too umble for that!"
He certainly did look uncommonly like the carved face on the beam outside my window, as he sat, in his humility, eyeing me sideways, with his mouth widened, and the creases in his cheeks.
"Mr. Wickfield is a most excellent man, Master Copperfield," said Uriah. "If you have known him long, you know it, I am sure, much better than I can inform you."
I replied that I was certain he was, but that I had not known him long myself, though he was a friend of my aunt's.
"Oh, indeed, Master Copperfield," said Uriah. "Your aunt is a sweet lady, Master Copperfield!"
He had a way of writhing when he wanted to express enthusiasm, which was very ugly, and which diverted my attention from the compliment he had paid my relation, to the snaky twistings of his throat and body.
"A sweet lady, Master Copperfield!" said Uriah Heep. "She has a great admiration for Miss Agnes, Master Copperfield, I believe?"
I said, "Yes," boldly, not that I knew anything about it, Heaven forgive me!
"I hope you have, too, Master Copperfield," said Uriah. "But I am sure you must have."
"Everybody must have," I returned.
"Oh, thank you, Master Copperfield," said Uriah Heep, "for that remark! It is so true! Umble as I am, I know it is so true! Oh, thank you, Master Copperfield!"
He writhed himself quite off his stool in the excitement of his feelings, and, being off, began to make arrangements for going home.
"Mother will be expecting me," he said, referring to a pale, inexpressive-faced watch in his pocket, "and getting uneasy, for, though we are very umble, Master Copperfield, we are much attached to one another. If you would come and see us, any afternoon, and take a cup of tea at our lowly dwelling, mother would be as proud of your company as I should be."
I said I should be glad to come.
"Thank you, Master Copperfield," returned Uriah, putting his book away upon the shelf. "I suppose you stop here some time, Master Copperfield?"
I said I was going to be brought up there, I believed, as long as I remained at school.
"Oh, indeed!" exclaimed Uriah. "I should think you would come into the business at last, Master Copperfield!"
I protested that I had no views of that sort, and that no such scheme was entertained in my behalf by anybody, but Uriah insisted on blandly replying to all my assurances, "Oh, yes, Master Copperfield, I should think you would, indeed!" and, "Oh, indeed, Master Copperfield, I should think you would, certainly!" over and over again. Being, at last, ready to leave the office for the night, he asked me if it would suit my convenience to have the light put out, and, on my answering "Yes," instantly extinguished it. After shaking hands with me--his hand felt like a fish in the dark--he opened the door into the street a very little, and crept out, and shut it, leaving me to grope my way back into the house, which cost me some trouble and a fall over his stool. This was the proximate cause, I suppose, of my dreaming about him, for what appeared to me to be half the night, and dreaming, among other things, that he had launched Mr. Peggotty's house on a piratical expedition, with a black flag at the mast-head, bearing the inscription "Tidd's Practice," under which diabolical ensign he was carrying me and little Em'ly to the Spanish Main, to be drowned.
I got a little the better of my uneasiness when I went to school next day, and a good deal the better next day, and so shook it off by degrees, that, in less then a fortnight I was quite at home, and happy, among my new companions. I was awkward enough in their games, and backward enough in their studies, but custom would improve me in the first respect, I hoped, and hard work in the second. Accordingly, I went to work very hard, both in play and in earnest, and gained great commendation. And, in a very little while, the Murdstone and Grinby life became so strange to me that I hardly believed in it, while my present life grew so familiar that I seemed to have been leading it a long time.
Doctor Strong's was an excellent school, as different from Mr. Creakle's as good is from evil. It was very gravely and decorously ordered, and on a sound system, with an appeal, in everything, to the honour and good faith of the boys, and an avowed intention to rely on their possession of those qualities unless they proved themselves unworthy of it, which worked wonders. We all felt that we had a part in the management of the place, and in sustaining its character and dignity. Hence, we soon became warmly attached to it-I am sure I did for one, and I never knew, in all my time, of any other boy being otherwise--and learnt with a good will, desiring to do it credit. We had noble games out of hours, and plenty of liberty, but even then, as I remember, we were well spoken of in the town, and rarely did any disgrace, by our appearance or manner, to the reputation of Doctor Strong and Doctor Strong's boys.
Some of the higher scholars boarded in the Doctor's house, and through them I learned, at second-hand, some particulars of the Doctor's history. As, how he had not yet been married twelve months to the beautiful young lady I had seen in the study, whom he had married for love, for she had not a sixpence, and had a world of poor relations (so our fellows said) ready to swarm the Doctor out of house and home. Also, how the Doctor's cogitating manner was attributable to his being always engaged in looking out for Greek roots, which, in my innocence and ignorance, I supposed to be a botanical furore on the Doctor's part, especially as he always looked at the ground when he walked about, until I understood that they were roots of words, with a view to a new Dictionary which he had in contemplation. Adams, our head-boy, who had a turn for mathematics, had made a calculation, I was informed, of the time this
Dictionary would take in completing, on the Doctor's plan, and at the Doctor's rate of going. He considered that it might be done in one thousand six hundred and forty-nine years, counting from the Doctor's last, or sixty-second, birthday.
But the Doctor himself was the idol of the whole school, and it must have been a badly composed school if he had been anything else, for he was the kindest of men, with a simple faith in him that might have touched the stone hearts of the very urns upon the wall. As he walked up and down that part of the courtyard which was at the side of the house, with the stray rooks and jackdaws looking after him with their heads cocked slyly, as if they knew how much more knowing they were in worldly affairs than he, if any sort of vagabond could only get near enough to his creaking shoes to attract his attention to one sentence of a tale of distress, that vagabond was made for the next two days. It was so notorious in the house that the masters and head-boys took pains to cut these marauders off at angles, and to get out of windows, and turn them out of the courtyard, before they could make the Doctor aware of their presence, which was sometimes happily effected within a few yards of him, without his knowing anything of the matter, as he jogged to and fro. Outside his own domain, and unprotected, he was a very sheep for the shearers. He would have taken his gaiters off his legs, to give away. In fact, there was a story current among us (I have no idea, and never had, on what authority, but I have believed it for so many years that I feel quite certain it is true), that on a frosty day, one winter-time, he actually did bestow his gaiters on a beggar-woman, who occasioned some scandal in the neighbourhood by exhibiting a fine infant from door to door, wrapped in those garments, which were universally recognized, being as well-known in the vicinity as the Cathedral. The legend added that the only person who did not identify them was the Doctor himself, who, when they were shortly afterwards displayed at the door of a little second-hand shop of no very good repute, where such things were taken in exchange for gin, was more than once observed to handle them approvingly, as if admiring some curious novelty in the pattern, and considering them an improvement on his own.
It was very pleasant to see the Doctor with his pretty young wife. He had a fatherly, benignant way of showing his fondness for her, which seemed in itself to express a good man. I often saw them walking in the garden where the peaches were, and I sometimes had a nearer observation of them in the study or the parlour. She appeared to me to take great care of the Doctor, and to like him very much, though I never thought her vitally interested in the Dictionary, some cumbrous fragments of which work the Doctor always carried in his pockets, and in the lining of his hat, and generally seemed to be expounding to her as they walked about.
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