"There!" cried Uriah, shaking his head. "What a melancholy confirmation, ain't it? Him! Such an old friend! Bless your soul, when I was nothing but a clerk in his office, Copperfield, I've seen him twenty times, if I've seen him once, quite in a taking about it--quite put out, you know (and very proper in him as a father, I'm sure I can't blame him) to think that Miss Agnes was mixing herself up with what oughtn't to be."
"My dear Strong," said Mr. Wickfield in a tremulous voice, "my good friend, I needn't tell you that it has been my vice to look for some one master motive in everybody, and to try all actions by one narrow test. I may have fallen into such doubts as I have had, through this mistake."
"You have had doubts, Wickfield," said the Doctor, without lifting up his head. "You have had doubts."
"Speak up, fellow-partner," urged Uriah.
"I had, at one time, certainly," said Mr. Wickfield. "I--God forgive me--I thought you had."
"No, no, no!" returned the Doctor, in a tone of most pathetic grief.
"I thought, at one time," said Mr. Wickfield, "that you wished to send Maldon abroad to effect a desirable separation."
"No, no, no!" returned the Doctor. "To give Annie pleasure, by making some provision for the companion of her childhood. Nothing else."
"So I found," said Mr. Wickfield. "I couldn't doubt it, when you told me so. But I thought--I implore you to remember the narrow construction which has been my besetting sin--that, in a case where there was so much disparity in point of years--"
"That's the way to put it, you see, Master Copperfield!" observed Uriah, with fawning and offensive pity.
"--a lady of such youth, and such attractions, however real her respect for you, might have been influenced in marrying; by worldly considerations only. I made no allowance for innumerable feelings and circumstances that may have all tended to good. For Heaven's sake remember that!"
"How kind he puts it!" said Uriah, shaking his head.
"Always observing her from one point of view," said Mr. Wickfield, "but by all that is dear to you, my old friend, I entreat you to consider what it was, I am forced to confess now, having no escape--"
"No! There's no way out of it, Mr. Wickfield, sir," observed Uriah, "when it's got to this."
"--that I did," said Mr. Wickfield, glancing helplessly and distractedly at his partner, "that I did doubt her, and think her wanting in her duty to you, and that I did sometimes, if I must say all, feel averse to Agnes being in such a familiar relation towards her, as to see what I saw, or in my diseased theory fancied that I saw. I never mentioned this to anyone. I never meant it to be known to anyone. And, though it is terrible to you to hear," said Mr. Wickfield, quite subdued, "if you knew how terrible it is for me to tell, you would feel compassion for me!"
The Doctor, in the perfect goodness of his nature, put out his hand. Mr. Wickfield held it for a little while in his, with his head bowed down.
"I am sure," said Uriah, writhing himself into the silence like a Conger-eel, "that this is a subject full of unpleasantness to everybody. But since we have got so far, I ought to take the liberty of mentioning that Copperfield has noticed it too."
I turned upon him, and asked him how he dared refer to me!
"Oh! it's very kind of you, Copperfield," returned Uriah, undulating all over, "and we all know what an amiable character yours is, but you know that the moment I spoke to you the other night, you knew what I meant. You know you knew what I meant, Copperfield. Don't deny it! You deny it with the best intentions, but don't do it, Copperfield."
I saw the mild eye of the good old Doctor turned upon me for a moment, and I felt that the confession of my old misgivings and remembrances was too plainly written in my face to be overlooked. It was of no use raging. I could not undo that. Say what I would, I could not unsay it.
We were silent again, and remained so, until the Doctor rose and walked twice or thrice across the room. Presently he returned to where his chair stood, and, leaning on the back of it, and occasionally putting his handkerchief to his eyes, with a simple honesty that did him more honour, to my thinking, than any disguise he could have effected, said:
"I have been much to blame. I believe I have been very much to blame. I have exposed one whom I hold in my heart to trials and aspersions--I call them aspersions, even to have been conceived in anybody's inmost mind--of which she never, but for me, could have been the object."
Uriah Heep gave a kind of snivel. I think to express sympathy.
"Of which my Annie," said the Doctor, "never, but for me, could have been the object. Gentlemen, I am old now, as you know, I do not feel, tonight, that I have much to live for. But my life--my Life--upon the truth and honour of the dear lady who has been the subject of this conversation!"
I do not think that the best embodiment of chivalry, the realization of the handsomest and most romantic figure ever imagined by painter, could have said this with a more impressive and affecting dignity than the plain old Doctor did.
"But I am not prepared," he went on, "to deny--perhaps I may have been, without knowing it, in some degree prepared to admit--that I may have unwittingly ensnared that lady into an unhappy marriage. I am a man quite unaccustomed to observe, and I cannot but believe that the observation of several people, of different ages and positions, all too plainly tending in one direction (and that so natural), is better than mine."
I had often admired, as I have elsewhere described, his benignant manner towards his youthful wife, but the respectful tenderness he manifested in every reference to her on this occasion, and the almost reverential manner in which he put away from him the lightest doubt of her integrity, exalted him, in my eyes, beyond description.
"I married that lady," said the Doctor, "when she was extremely young. I took her to myself when her character was scarcely formed. So far as it was developed, it had been my happiness to form it. I knew her father well. I knew her well. I had taught her what I could, for the love of all her beautiful and virtuous qualities. If I did her wrong, as I fear I did, in taking advantage (but I never meant it) of her gratitude and her affection, I ask pardon of that lady, in my heart!"
He walked across the room, and came back to the same place, holding the chair with a grasp that trembled, like his subdued voice, in its earnestness.
"I regarded myself as a refuge, for her, from the dangers and vicissitudes of life. I persuaded myself that, unequal though we were in years, she would live tranquilly and contentedly with me. I did not shut out of my consideration the time when I should leave her free, and still young and still beautiful, but with her judgment more matured--no, gentlemen--upon my truth!"
His homely figure seemed to be lightened up by his fidelity and generosity. Every word he uttered had a force that no other grace could have imparted to it.
"My life with this lady has been very happy. Until tonight, I have had uninterrupted occasion to bless the day on which I did her great injustice."
His voice, more and more faltering in the utterance of these words, stopped for a few moments, then he went on:
"Once awakened from my dream--I have been a poor dreamer, in one way or other, all my life--I see how natural it is that she should have some regretful feeling towards her old companion and her equal. That she does regard him with some innocent regret, with some blameless thoughts of what might have been, but for me, is, I fear, too true. Much that I have seen, but not noted, has come back upon me with new meaning, during this last trying hour. But, beyond this, gentlemen, the dear lady's name never must be coupled with a word, a breath, of doubt."
For a little while, his eye kindled and his voice was firm; for a little while, he was again silent. Presently, he proceeded as before:
"It only remains, for me, to bear the knowledge of the unhappiness I have occasioned, as submissively as I can. It is she who should reproach, not I. To save her from misconstruction, cruel misconstruction, that even my friends have not been able to avoid, becomes my duty. The more retired we live, the better I sh
all discharge it. And when the time comes--may it come soon, if it be His merciful pleasure!--when my death shall release her from constraint, I shall close my eyes upon her honoured face, with unbounded confidence and love, and leave her, with no sorrow then, to happier and brighter days."
I could not see him for the tears which his earnestness and goodness, so adorned by, and so adorning, the perfect simplicity of his manner, brought into my eyes. He had moved to the door, when he added:
"Gentlemen, I have shown you my heart. I am sure you will respect it. What we have said tonight is never to be said more. Wickfield, give me an old friend's arm upstairs!"
Mr. Wickfield hastened to him. Without interchanging a word they went slowly out of the room together, Uriah looking after them.
"Well, Master Copperfield!" said Uriah, meekly turning to me. "The thing hasn't took quite the turn that might have been expected, for the old Scholar--what an excellent man!--is as blind as a brickbat, but this family's out of the cart, I think!"
I needed but the sound of his voice to be so madly enraged as I never was before, and never have been since.
"You villain," said I, "what do you mean by entrapping me into your schemes? How dare you appeal to me just now, you false rascal, as if we had been in discussion together?"
As we stood, front to front, I saw so plainly, in the stealthy exultation of his face, what I already so plainly knew, I mean that he forced his confidence upon me, expressly to make me miserable, and had set a deliberate trap for me in this very matter, that I couldn't bear it. The whole of his lank cheek was invitingly before me, and I struck it with my open hand with that force that my fingers tingled as if I had burnt them.
He caught the hand in his, and we stood in that connexion, looking at each other. We stood so, a long time, long enough for me to see the white marks of my fingers die out of the deep red of his cheek, and leave it a deeper red.
"Copperfield," he said at length, in a breathless voice, "have 'you taken leave of your senses?"
"I have taken leave of you," said I, wrestling my hand away. "You dog, I'll know no more of you."
"Won't you?" said he, constrained by the pain of his cheek to put his hand there. "Perhaps you won't be able to help it. Isn't this ungrateful of you, now?"
"I have shown you often enough," said I, "that I despise you. I have shown you now, more plainly, that I do. Why should I dread your doing your worst to all about you? What else do you ever do?"
He perfectly understood this allusion to the considerations that had hitherto restrained me in my communications with him. I rather think that neither the blow, nor the allusion, would have escaped me, but for the assurance I had had from Agnes that night. It is no matter.
There was another long pause. His eyes, as he looked at me, seemed to take every shade of colour that could make eyes ugly.
"Copperfield," he said, removing his hand from his cheek, "you have always gone against me. I know you always used to be against me at Mr. Wickfield's."
"You may think what you like," said I, still in a towering rage. "If it is not true, so much the worthier you."
"And yet I always liked you, Copperfield!" he rejoined.
I deigned to make him no reply, and, taking up my hat, was going out to bed, when he came between me and the door.
"Copperfield," he said, "there must be two parties to a quarreL I won't be one."
"You may go to the devil!" said L
"Don't say that!" he replied. "I know you'll be sorry afterwards. How can you make yourself so inferior to me, as to show such a bad spirit? But I forgive you."
"You forgive me!" I repeated disdainfully.
"I do, and you can't help yourself," replied Uriah. "To think of your going and attacking me, that have always been a friend to you! But there can't be a quarrel without two parties, and I won't be one. I will be a friend to you, in spite of you. So now you know what you've got to expect."
The necessity of carrying on this dialogue (his part in which was very slow, mine very quick) in a low tone, that the house might not be disturbed at an unseasonable hour, did not improve my temper, though my passion was cooling down. Merely telling him that I should expect from him what I always had expected, and had never yet been disappointed in, I opened the door upon him, as if he had been a great walnut put there to be cracked, and went out of the house. But he slept out of the house too, at his mother's lodgings, and before I had gone many hundred yards, came up with me.
"You know, Copperfield," he said, in my ear (I did not turn my head), "you're in quite a wrong position," which I felt to be true, and that made me chafe the more, "you can't make this a brave thing, and you can't help being forgiven. I don't intend to mention it to Mother, nor to any living soul. I'm determined to forgive you. But I do wonder that you should lift your hand against a person that you knew to be so umble!"
I felt only less mean than he. He knew me better than I knew myself. If he had retorted or openly exasperated me, it would have been a relief and a justification, but he had put me on a slow fire, on which I lay tormented half the night.
In the morning, when I came out, the early church bell was ringing, and he was walking up and down with his mother. He addressed me as if nothing had happened, and I could do no less than reply. I had struck him hard enough to give him the toothache, I suppose. At all events his face was tied up in a black silk handkerchief, which, with his hat perched on the top of it, was far from improving his appearance. I heard that he went to a dentist's in London on the Monday morning, and had a tooth out. I hope it was a double one.
The Doctor gave out that he was not quite well, and remained alone, for a considerable part of every day, during the remainder of the visit. Agnes and her father had been gone a week, before we resumed our usual work. On the day preceding its resumption, the Doctor gave me with his own hands, a folded note, not sealed. It was addressed to myself, and laid an injunction on me, in a few affectionate words, never to refer to the subject of that evening. I had confided it to my aunt, but to no one else. It was not a subject I could discuss with Agnes, and Agnes certainly had not the least suspicion of what had passed.
Neither, I felt convinced, had Mrs. Strong then. Several weeks elapsed before I saw the least change in her. It came on slowly, like a cloud when there is no wind. At first, she seemed to wonder at the gentle compassion with which the Doctor spoke to her, and at his wish that she should have her mother with her, to relieve the dull monotony of her life. Often, when we were at work, and she was sitting by, I would see her pausing and looking at him with that memorable face. Afterwards, I sometimes observed her rise, with her eyes full of tears, and go out of the room. Gradually, an unhappy shadow fell upon her beauty, and deepened every day. Mrs. Markleham was a regular inmate of the cottage then, but she talked and talked, and saw nothing.
As this change stole on Annie, once like sunshine in the Doctor's house, the Doctor became older in appearance, and more grave, but the sweetness of his temper, the placid kindness of his manner, and his benevolent solicitude for her, if they were capable of any increase, were increased. I saw him once, early on the morning of her birthday, when she came to sit in the window while we were at work (which she had always done, but now began to do with a timid and uncertain air that I thought very touching), take her forehead between his hands, kiss it, and go hurriedly away, too much moved to remain. I saw her stand where he had left her, like a statue, and then bend down her head, and clasp her hands, and weep, I cannot say how sorrowfully.
Sometimes, after that, I fancied that she tried to speak, even to me, in intervals when we were left alone. But she never uttered word. The Doctor always had some new project for her participating in amusements away from home, with her mother, and Mrs. Markleham, who was very fond of amusements, and very easily dissatisfied with anything else, entered into them with great good will, and was loud in her commendations. But Annie, in a spiritless unhappy way, only went whither she was led, and seemed to have no care for anything.<
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I did not know what to think. Neither did my aunt, who must have walked, at various times, a hundred miles in her uncertainty. What was strangest of all was that the only real relief which seemed to make its way into the secret region of this domestic unhappiness, made its way there in the person of Mr. Dick.
What his thoughts were on the subject, or what his observation was, I am as unable to explain, as I dare say he would have been to assist me in the task. But, as I have recorded in the narrative of my school-days, his veneration for the Doctor was unbounded, and there is a subtlety of perception in real attachment, even when it is borne towards man by one of the lower animals, which leaves the highest intellect behind. To this mind of the heart, if I may call it so, in Mr. Dick, some bright ray of the truth shot straight.
He had proudly resumed his privilege, in many of his spare hours, of walking up and down the garden with the Doctor, as he had been accustomed to pace up and down The Doctor's Walk at Canterbury. But matters were no sooner in this state, than he devoted all his spare time (and got up earlier to make it more) to these perambulations. If he had never been so happy as when the Doctor read that marvellous performance, the Dictionary, to him, he was now quite miserable unless the Doctor pulled it out of his pocket, and began. When the Doctor and I were engaged, he now fell into the custom of walking up and down with Mrs. Strong, and helping her to trim her favourite flowers, or weed the beds. I dare say he rarely spoke a dozen words in an hour, but his quiet interest, and his wistful face, found immediate response in both their breasts; each knew that the other liked him, and that he loved both, and he became what no one else could be--a link between them.
When I think of him, with his impenetrably wise face, walking up and down with the Doctor, delighted to be battered by the hard words in the Dictionary, when I think of him carrying huge watering-pots after Annie, kneeling down, in very paws of gloves, at patient microscopic work among the little leaves, expressing as no philosopher could have expressed, in everything he did, a delicate desire to be her friend, showering sympathy, trustfulness, and affection, out of every hole in the watering-pot, when I think of him never wandering in that better mind of his to which unhappiness addressed itself, never bringing the unfortunate King Charles into the garden, never wavering in his grateful service, never diverted from his knowledge that there was something wrong, or from his wish to set it right--I really feel almost ashamed of having known that he was not quite in his wits, taking account of the utmost I have done with mine.
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