CHAPTER 25. GOOD AND BAD ANGELS
I was going out at my door on the morning after that deplorable day of headache, sickness, and repentance, with an odd confusion in my mind relative to the date of my dinner-party, as if a body of Titans had taken an enormous lever and pushed the day before yesterday some months back, when I saw a ticket-porter coming upstairs, with a letter in his hand. He was taking his time about his errand, then; but when he saw me on the top of the staircase, looking at him over the banisters, he swung into a trot, and came up panting as if he had run himself into a state of exhaustion.
‘T. Copperfield, Esquire,’ said the ticket-porter, touching his hat with his little cane.
I could scarcely lay claim to the name: I was so disturbed by the conviction that the letter came from Agnes. However, I told him I was T. Copperfield, Esquire, and he believed it, and gave me the letter, which he said required an answer. I shut him out on the landing to wait for the answer, and went into my chambers again, in such a nervous state that I was fain to lay the letter down on my breakfast table, and familiarize myself with the outside of it a little, before I could resolve to break the seal.
I found, when I did open it, that it was a very kind note, containing no reference to my condition at the theatre. All it said was, ‘My dear Trotwood. I am staying at the house of papa’s agent, Mr. Waterbrook, in Ely Place, Holborn. Will you come and see me today, at any time you like to appoint? Ever yours affectionately, AGNES.’
It took me such a long time to write an answer at all to my satisfaction, that I don’t know what the ticket-porter can have thought, unless he thought I was learning to write. I must have written half-a-dozen answers at least. I began one, ‘How can I ever hope, my dear Agnes, to efface from your remembrance the disgusting impression’—there I didn’t like it, and then I tore it up. I began another, ‘Shakespeare has observed, my dear Agnes, how strange it is that a man should put an enemy into his mouth’—that reminded me of Markham, and it got no farther. I even tried poetry. I began one note, in a six-syllable line, ‘Oh, do not remember’—but that associated itself with the fifth of November, and became an absurdity. After many attempts, I wrote, ‘My dear Agnes. Your letter is like you, and what could I say of it that would be higher praise than that? I will come at four o’clock. Affectionately and sorrowfully, T.C.’ With this missive (which I was in twenty minds at once about recalling, as soon as it was out of my hands), the ticket-porter at last departed.
If the day were half as tremendous to any other professional gentleman in Doctors’ Commons as it was to me, I sincerely believe he made some expiation for his share in that rotten old ecclesiastical cheese. Although I left the office at half past three, and was prowling about the place of appointment within a few minutes afterwards, the appointed time was exceeded by a full quarter of an hour, according to the clock of St. Andrew’s, Holborn, before I could muster up sufficient desperation to pull the private bell-handle let into the left-hand door-post of Mr. Waterbrook’s house.
The professional business of Mr. Waterbrook’s establishment was done on the ground-floor, and the genteel business (of which there was a good deal) in the upper part of the building. I was shown into a pretty but rather close drawing-room, and there sat Agnes, netting a purse.
She looked so quiet and good, and reminded me so strongly of my airy fresh school days at Canterbury, and the sodden, smoky, stupid wretch I had been the other night, that, nobody being by, I yielded to my self-reproach and shame, and—in short, made a fool of myself. I cannot deny that I shed tears. To this hour I am undecided whether it was upon the whole the wisest thing I could have done, or the most ridiculous.
‘If it had been anyone but you, Agnes,’ said I, turning away my head, ‘I should not have minded it half so much. But that it should have been you who saw me! I almost wish I had been dead, first.’
She put her hand—its touch was like no other hand—upon my arm for a moment; and I felt so befriended and comforted, that I could not help moving it to my lips, and gratefully kissing it.
‘Sit down,’ said Agnes, cheerfully. ‘Don’t be unhappy, Trotwood. If you cannot confidently trust me, whom will you trust?’
‘Ah, Agnes!’ I returned. ‘You are my good Angel!’
She smiled rather sadly, I thought, and shook her head.
‘Yes, Agnes, my good Angel! Always my good Angel!’
‘If I were, indeed, Trotwood,’ she returned, ‘there is one thing that I should set my heart on very much.’
I looked at her inquiringly; but already with a foreknowledge of her meaning.
‘On warning you,’ said Agnes, with a steady glance, ‘against your bad Angel.’
‘My dear Agnes,’ I began, ‘if you mean Steerforth—’
‘I do, Trotwood,’ she returned. ‘Then, Agnes, you wrong him very much. He my bad Angel, or anyone’s! He, anything but a guide, a support, and a friend to me! My dear Agnes! Now, is it not unjust, and unlike you, to judge him from what you saw of me the other night?’
‘I do not judge him from what I saw of you the other night,’ she quietly replied.
‘From what, then?’
‘From many things—trifles in themselves, but they do not seem to me to be so, when they are put together. I judge him, partly from your account of him, Trotwood, and your character, and the influence he has over you.’
There was always something in her modest voice that seemed to touch a chord within me, answering to that sound alone. It was always earnest; but when it was very earnest, as it was now, there was a thrill in it that quite subdued me. I sat looking at her as she cast her eyes down on her work; I sat seeming still to listen to her; and Steerforth, in spite of all my attachment to him, darkened in that tone.
‘It is very bold in me,’ said Agnes, looking up again, ‘who have lived in such seclusion, and can know so little of the world, to give you my advice so confidently, or even to have this strong opinion. But I know in what it is engendered, Trotwood,—in how true a remembrance of our having grown up together, and in how true an interest in all relating to you. It is that which makes me bold. I am certain that what I say is right. I am quite sure it is. I feel as if it were someone else speaking to you, and not I, when I caution you that you have made a dangerous friend.’
Again I looked at her, again I listened to her after she was silent, and again his image, though it was still fixed in my heart, darkened.
‘I am not so unreasonable as to expect,’ said Agnes, resuming her usual tone, after a little while, ‘that you will, or that you can, at once, change any sentiment that has become a conviction to you; least of all a sentiment that is rooted in your trusting disposition. You ought not hastily to do that. I only ask you, Trotwood, if you ever think of me—I mean,’ with a quiet smile, for I was going to interrupt her, and she knew why, ‘as often as you think of me—to think of what I have said. Do you forgive me for all this?’
‘I will forgive you, Agnes,’ I replied, ‘when you come to do Steerforth justice, and to like him as well as I do.’
‘Not until then?’ said Agnes.
I saw a passing shadow on her face when I made this mention of him, but she returned my smile, and we were again as unreserved in our mutual confidence as of old.
‘And when, Agnes,’ said I, ‘will you forgive me the other night?’
‘When I recall it,’ said Agnes.
She would have dismissed the subject so, but I was too full of it to allow that, and insisted on telling her how it happened that I had disgraced myself, and what chain of accidental circumstances had had the theatre for its final link. It was a great relief to me to do this, and to enlarge on the obligation that I owed to Steerforth for his care of me when I was unable to take care of myself.
‘You must not forget,’ said Agnes, calmly changing the conversation as soon as I had concluded, ‘that you are always to tell me, not only when you fall into trouble, but when you fall in love. Who has succeeded to Miss Larkins, Trotwood?’
‘No one, Agnes.’
‘Someone, Trotwood,’ said Agnes, laughing, and holding up her finger.
‘No, Agnes, upon my word! There is a lady, certainly, at Mrs. Steerforth’s house, who is very clever, and whom I like to talk to—Miss Dartle—but I don’t adore her.’
Agnes laughed again at her own penetration, and told me that if I were faithful to her in my confidence she thought she should keep a little register of my violent attachments, with the date, duration, and termination of each, like the table of the reigns of the kings and queens, in the History of England. Then she asked me if I had seen Uriah.
‘Uriah Heep?’ said I. ‘No. Is he in London?’
‘He comes to the office downstairs, every day,’ returned Agnes. ‘He was in London a week before me. I am afraid on disagreeable business, Trotwood.’
‘On some business that makes you uneasy, Agnes, I see,’ said I. ‘What can that be?’
Agnes laid aside her work, and replied, folding her hands upon one another, and looking pensively at me out of those beautiful soft eyes of hers:
‘I believe he is going to enter into partnership with papa.’
‘What? Uriah? That mean, fawning fellow, worm himself into such promotion!’ I cried, indignantly. ‘Have you made no remonstrance about it, Agnes? Consider what a connexion it is likely to be. You must speak out. You must not allow your father to take such a mad step. You must prevent it, Agnes, while there’s time.’
Still looking at me, Agnes shook her head while I was speaking, with a faint smile at my warmth: and then replied:
‘You remember our last conversation about papa? It was not long after that—not more than two or three days—when he gave me the first intimation of what I tell you. It was sad to see him struggling between his desire to represent it to me as a matter of choice on his part, and his inability to conceal that it was forced upon him. I felt very sorry.’
‘Forced upon him, Agnes! Who forces it upon him?’
‘Uriah,’ she replied, after a moment’s hesitation, ‘has made himself indispensable to papa. He is subtle and watchful. He has mastered papa’s weaknesses, fostered them, and taken advantage of them, until—to say all that I mean in a word, Trotwood,—until papa is afraid of him.’
There was more that she might have said; more that she knew, or that she suspected; I clearly saw. I could not give her pain by asking what it was, for I knew that she withheld it from me, to spare her father. It had long been going on to this, I was sensible: yes, I could not but feel, on the least reflection, that it had been going on to this for a long time. I remained silent.
‘His ascendancy over papa,’ said Agnes, ‘is very great. He professes humility and gratitude—with truth, perhaps: I hope so—but his position is really one of power, and I fear he makes a hard use of his power.’
I said he was a hound, which, at the moment, was a great satisfaction to me.
‘At the time I speak of, as the time when papa spoke to me,’ pursued Agnes, ‘he had told papa that he was going away; that he was very sorry, and unwilling to leave, but that he had better prospects. Papa was very much depressed then, and more bowed down by care than ever you or I have seen him; but he seemed relieved by this expedient of the partnership, though at the same time he seemed hurt by it and ashamed of it.’
‘And how did you receive it, Agnes?’
‘I did, Trotwood,’ she replied, ‘what I hope was right. Feeling sure that it was necessary for papa’s peace that the sacrifice should be made, I entreated him to make it. I said it would lighten the load of his life—I hope it will!—and that it would give me increased opportunities of being his companion. Oh, Trotwood!’ cried Agnes, putting her hands before her face, as her tears started on it, ‘I almost feel as if I had been papa’s enemy, instead of his loving child. For I know how he has altered, in his devotion to me. I know how he has narrowed the circle of his sympathies and duties, in the concentration of his whole mind upon me. I know what a multitude of things he has shut out for my sake, and how his anxious thoughts of me have shadowed his life, and weakened his strength and energy, by turning them always upon one idea. If I could ever set this right! If I could ever work out his restoration, as I have so innocently been the cause of his decline!’
I had never before seen Agnes cry. I had seen tears in her eyes when I had brought new honours home from school, and I had seen them there when we last spoke about her father, and I had seen her turn her gentle head aside when we took leave of one another; but I had never seen her grieve like this. It made me so sorry that I could only say, in a foolish, helpless manner, ‘Pray, Agnes, don’t! Don’t, my dear sister!’
But Agnes was too superior to me in character and purpose, as I know well now, whatever I might know or not know then, to be long in need of my entreaties. The beautiful, calm manner, which makes her so different in my remembrance from everybody else, came back again, as if a cloud had passed from a serene sky.
‘We are not likely to remain alone much longer,’ said Agnes, ‘and while I have an opportunity, let me earnestly entreat you, Trotwood, to be friendly to Uriah. Don’t repel him. Don’t resent (as I think you have a general disposition to do) what may be uncongenial to you in him. He may not deserve it, for we know no certain ill of him. In any case, think first of papa and me!’
Agnes had no time to say more, for the room door opened, and Mrs. Waterbrook, who was a large lady—or who wore a large dress: I don’t exactly know which, for I don’t know which was dress and which was lady—came sailing in. I had a dim recollection of having seen her at the theatre, as if I had seen her in a pale magic lantern; but she appeared to remember me perfectly, and still to suspect me of being in a state of intoxication.
Finding by degrees, however, that I was sober, and (I hope) that I was a modest young gentleman, Mrs. Waterbrook softened towards me considerably, and inquired, firstly, if I went much into the parks, and secondly, if I went much into society. On my replying to both these questions in the negative, it occurred to me that I fell again in her good opinion; but she concealed the fact gracefully, and invited me to dinner next day. I accepted the invitation, and took my leave, making a call on Uriah in the office as I went out, and leaving a card for him in his absence.
When I went to dinner next day, and on the street door being opened, plunged into a vapour-bath of haunch of mutton, I divined that I was not the only guest, for I immediately identified the ticket-porter in disguise, assisting the family servant, and waiting at the foot of the stairs to carry up my name. He looked, to the best of his ability, when he asked me for it confidentially, as if he had never seen me before; but well did I know him, and well did he know me. Conscience made cowards of us both.
I found Mr. Waterbrook to be a middle-aged gentleman, with a short throat, and a good deal of shirt-collar, who only wanted a black nose to be the portrait of a pug-dog. He told me he was happy to have the honour of making my acquaintance; and when I had paid my homage to Mrs. Waterbrook, presented me, with much ceremony, to a very awful lady in a black velvet dress, and a great black velvet hat, whom I remember as looking like a near relation of Hamlet’s—say his aunt.
Mrs. Henry Spiker was this lady’s name; and her husband was there too: so cold a man, that his head, instead of being grey, seemed to be sprinkled with hoar-frost. Immense deference was shown to the Henry Spikers, male and female; which Agnes told me was on account of Mr. Henry Spiker being solicitor to something or to somebody, I forget what or which, remotely connected with the Treasury.
I found Uriah Heep among the company, in a suit of black, and in deep humility. He told me, when I shook hands with him, that he was proud to be noticed by me, and that he really felt obliged to me for my condescension. I could have wished he had been less obliged to me, for he hovered about me in his gratitude all the rest of the evening; and whenever I said a word to Agnes, was sure, with his shadowless eyes and cadaverous face, to be looking gauntly down upon us from behind.
There were other guests—all iced for the occasion, as it struck me, like the wine. But there was one who attracted my attention before he came in, on account of my hearing him announced as Mr. Traddles! My mind flew back to Salem House; and could it be Tommy, I thought, who used to draw the skeletons!
I looked for Mr. Traddles with unusual interest. He was a sober, steady-looking young man of retiring manners, with a comic head of hair, and eyes that were rather wide open; and he got into an obscure corner so soon, that I had some difficulty in making him out. At length I had a good view of him, and either my vision deceived me, or it was the old unfortunate Tommy.
I made my way to Mr. Waterbrook, and said, that I believed I had the pleasure of seeing an old schoolfellow there.
‘Indeed!’ said Mr. Waterbrook, surprised. ‘You are too young to have been at school with Mr. Henry Spiker?’
‘Oh, I don’t mean him!’ I returned. ‘I mean the gentleman named Traddles.’
‘Oh! Aye, aye! Indeed!’ said my host, with much diminished interest. ‘Possibly.’
‘If it’s really the same person,’ said I, glancing towards him, ‘it was at a place called Salem House where we were together, and he was an excellent fellow.’
‘Oh yes. Traddles is a good fellow,’ returned my host nodding his head with an air of toleration. ‘Traddles is quite a good fellow.’
‘It’s a curious coincidence,’ said I.
‘It is really,’ returned my host, ‘quite a coincidence, that Traddles should be here at all: as Traddles was only invited this morning, when the place at table, intended to be occupied by Mrs. Henry Spiker’s brother, became vacant, in consequence of his indisposition. A very gentlemanly man, Mrs. Henry Spiker’s brother, Mr. Copperfield.’
I murmured an assent, which was full of feeling, considering that I knew nothing at all about him; and I inquired what Mr. Traddles was by profession.
‘Traddles,’ returned Mr. Waterbrook, ‘is a young man reading for the bar. Yes. He is quite a good fellow—nobody’s enemy but his own.’
‘Is he his own enemy?’ said I, sorry to hear this.
‘Well,’ returned Mr. Waterbrook, pursing up his mouth, and playing with his watch-chain, in a comfortable, prosperous sort of way. ‘I should say he was one of those men who stand in their own light. Yes, I should say he would never, for example, be worth five hundred pound. Traddles was recommended to me by a professional friend. Oh yes. Yes. He has a kind of talent for drawing briefs, and stating a case in writing, plainly. I am able to throw something in Traddles’s way, in the course of the year; something—for him—considerable. Oh yes. Yes.’
I was much impressed by the extremely comfortable and satisfied manner in which Mr. Waterbrook delivered himself of this little word ‘Yes’, every now and then. There was wonderful expression in it. It completely conveyed the idea of a man who had been born, not to say with a silver spoon, but with a scaling-ladder, and had gone on mounting all the heights of life one after another, until now he looked, from the top of the fortifications, with the eye of a philosopher and a patron, on the people down in the trenches.
My reflections on this theme were still in progress when dinner was announced. Mr. Waterbrook went down with Hamlet’s aunt. Mr. Henry Spiker took Mrs. Waterbrook. Agnes, whom I should have liked to take myself, was given to a simpering fellow with weak legs. Uriah, Traddles, and I, as the junior part of the company, went down last, how we could. I was not so vexed at losing Agnes as I might have been, since it gave me an opportunity of making myself known to Traddles on the stairs, who greeted me with great fervour; while Uriah writhed with such obtrusive satisfaction and self-abasement, that I could gladly have pitched him over the banisters. Traddles and I were separated at table, being billeted in two remote corners: he in the glare of a red velvet lady; I, in the gloom of Hamlet’s aunt. The dinner was very long, and the conversation was about the Aristocracy—and Blood. Mrs. Waterbrook repeatedly told us, that if she had a weakness, it was Blood.
It occurred to me several times that we should have got on better, if we had not been quite so genteel. We were so exceedingly genteel, that our scope was very limited. A Mr. and Mrs. Gulpidge were of the party, who had something to do at second-hand (at least, Mr. Gulpidge had) with the law business of the Bank; and what with the Bank, and what with the Treasury, we were as exclusive as the Court Circular. To mend the matter, Hamlet’s aunt had the family failing of indulging in soliloquy, and held forth in a desultory manner, by herself, on every topic that was introduced. These were few enough, to be sure; but as we always fell back upon Blood, she had as wide a field for abstract speculation as her nephew himself.
We might have been a party of Ogres, the conversation assumed such a sanguine complexion.
‘I confess I am of Mrs. Waterbrook’s opinion,’ said Mr. Waterbrook, with his wine-glass at his eye. ‘Other things are all very well in their way, but give me Blood!’
‘Oh! There is nothing,’ observed Hamlet’s aunt, ‘so satisfactory to one! There is nothing that is so much one’s beau-ideal of—of all that sort of thing, speaking generally. There are some low minds (not many, I am happy to believe, but there are some) that would prefer to do what I should call bow down before idols. Positively Idols! Before service, intellect, and so on. But these are intangible points. Blood is not so. We see Blood in a nose, and we know it. We meet with it in a chin, and we say, “There it is! That’s Blood!” It is an actual matter of fact. We point it out. It admits of no doubt.’
The simpering fellow with the weak legs, who had taken Agnes down, stated the question more decisively yet, I thought.
‘Oh, you know, deuce take it,’ said this gentleman, looking round the board with an imbecile smile, ‘we can’t forego Blood, you know. We must have Blood, you know. Some young fellows, you know, may be a little behind their station, perhaps, in point of education and behaviour, and may go a little wrong, you know, and get themselves and other people into a variety of fixes—and all that—but deuce take it, it’s delightful to reflect that they’ve got Blood in ‘em! Myself, I’d rather at any time be knocked down by a man who had got Blood in him, than I’d be picked up by a man who hadn’t!’
This sentiment, as compressing the general question into a nutshell, gave the utmost satisfaction, and brought the gentleman into great notice until the ladies retired. After that, I observed that Mr. Gulpidge and Mr. Henry Spiker, who had hitherto been very distant, entered into a defensive alliance against us, the common enemy, and exchanged a mysterious dialogue across the table for our defeat and overthrow.
‘That affair of the first bond for four thousand five hundred pounds has not taken the course that was expected, Spiker,’ said Mr. Gulpidge.
‘Do you mean the D. of A.‘s?’ said Mr. Spiker.
‘The C. of B.‘s!’ said Mr. Gulpidge.
Mr. Spiker raised his eyebrows, and looked much concerned.
‘When the question was referred to Lord—I needn’t name him,’ said Mr. Gulpidge, checking himself—
‘I understand,’ said Mr. Spiker, ‘N.’
Mr. Gulpidge darkly nodded—‘was referred to him, his answer was, “Money, or no release.” ’
‘Lord bless my soul!’ cried Mr. Spiker.
“‘Money, or no release,” ’ repeated Mr. Gulpidge, firmly. ‘The next in reversion—you understand me?’
‘K.,’ said Mr. Spiker, with an ominous look.
‘—K. then positively refused to sign. He was attended at Newmarket for that purpose, and he point-blank refused to do it.’
Mr. Spiker was so interested, that he became quite stony.
‘So the matter rests at this hour,’ said Mr. Gulpidge, throwing himself back in his chair. ‘Our friend Waterbrook will excuse me if I forbear to explain myself generally, on account of the magnitude of the interests involved.’
Mr. Waterbrook was only too happy, as it appeared to me, to have such interests, and such names, even hinted at, across his table. He assumed an expression of gloomy intelligence (though I am persuaded he knew no more about the discussion than I did), and highly approved of the discretion that had been observed. Mr. Spiker, after the receipt of such a confidence, naturally desired to favour his friend with a confidence of his own; therefore the foregoing dialogue was succeeded by another, in which it was Mr. Gulpidge’s turn to be surprised, and that by another in which the surprise came round to Mr. Spiker’s turn again, and so on, turn and turn about. All this time we, the outsiders, remained oppressed by the tremendous interests involved in the conversation; and our host regarded us with pride, as the victims of a salutary awe and astonishment. I was very glad indeed to get upstairs to Agnes, and to talk with her in a corner, and to introduce Traddles to her, who was shy, but agreeable, and the same good-natured creature still. As he was obliged to leave early, on account of going away next morning for a month, I had not nearly so much conversation with him as I could have wished; but we exchanged addresses, and promised ourselves the pleasure of another meeting when he should come back to town. He was greatly interested to hear that I knew Steerforth, and spoke of him with such warmth that I made him tell Agnes what he thought of him. But Agnes only looked at me the while, and very slightly shook her head when only I observed her.
As she was not among people with whom I believed she could be very much at home, I was almost glad to hear that she was going away within a few days, though I was sorry at the prospect of parting from her again so soon. This caused me to remain until all the company were gone. Conversing with her, and hearing her sing, was such a delightful reminder to me of my happy life in the grave old house she had made so beautiful, that I could have remained there half the night; but, having no excuse for staying any longer, when the lights of Mr. Waterbrook’s society were all snuffed out, I took my leave very much against my inclination. I felt then, more than ever, that she was my better Angel; and if I thought of her sweet face and placid smile, as though they had shone on me from some removed being, like an Angel, I hope I thought no harm.
I have said that the company were all gone; but I ought to have excepted Uriah, whom I don’t include in that denomination, and who had never ceased to hover near us. He was close behind me when I went downstairs. He was close beside me, when I walked away from the house, slowly fitting his long skeleton fingers into the still longer fingers of a great Guy Fawkes pair of gloves.
It was in no disposition for Uriah’s company, but in remembrance of the entreaty Agnes had made to me, that I asked him if he would come home to my rooms, and have some coffee.
‘Oh, really, Master Copperfield,’ he rejoined—‘I beg your pardon, Mister Copperfield, but the other comes so natural, I don’t like that you should put a constraint upon yourself to ask a numble person like me to your ouse.’
‘There is no constraint in the case,’ said I. ‘Will you come?’
‘I should like to, very much,’ replied Uriah, with a writhe.
‘Well, then, come along!’ said I.
I could not help being rather short with him, but he appeared not to mind it. We went the nearest way, without conversing much upon the road; and he was so humble in respect of those scarecrow gloves, that he was still putting them on, and seemed to have made no advance in that labour, when we got to my place.
I led him up the dark stairs, to prevent his knocking his head against anything, and really his damp cold hand felt so like a frog in mine, that I was tempted to drop it and run away. Agnes and hospitality prevailed, however, and I conducted him to my fireside. When I lighted my candles, he fell into meek transports with the room that was revealed to him; and when I heated the coffee in an unassuming block-tin vessel in which Mrs. Crupp delighted to prepare it (chiefly, I believe, because it was not intended for the purpose, being a shaving-pot, and because there was a patent invention of great price mouldering away in the pantry), he professed so much emotion, that I could joyfully have scalded him.
‘Oh, really, Master Copperfield,—I mean Mister Copperfield,’ said Uriah, ‘to see you waiting upon me is what I never could have expected! But, one way and another, so many things happen to me which I never could have expected, I am sure, in my umble station, that it seems to rain blessings on my ed. You have heard something, I des-say, of a change in my expectations, Master Copperfield,—I should say, Mister Copperfield?’
As he sat on my sofa, with his long knees drawn up under his coffee-cup, his hat and gloves upon the ground close to him, his spoon going softly round and round, his shadowless red eyes, which looked as if they had scorched their lashes off, turned towards me without looking at me, the disagreeable dints I have formerly described in his nostrils coming and going with his breath, and a snaky undulation pervading his frame from his chin to his boots, I decided in my own mind that I disliked him intensely. It made me very uncomfortable to have him for a guest, for I was young then, and unused to disguise what I so strongly felt.
‘You have heard something, I des-say, of a change in my expectations, Master Copperfield,—I should say, Mister Copperfield?’ observed Uriah.
‘Yes,’ said I, ‘something.’
‘Ah! I thought Miss Agnes would know of it!’ he quietly returned. ‘I’m glad to find Miss Agnes knows of it. Oh, thank you, Master—Mister Copperfield!’
I could have thrown my bootjack at him (it lay ready on the rug), for having entrapped me into the disclosure of anything concerning Agnes, however immaterial. But I only drank my coffee.
‘What a prophet you have shown yourself, Mister Copperfield!’ pursued Uriah. ‘Dear me, what a prophet you have proved yourself to be! Don’t you remember saying to me once, that perhaps I should be a partner in Mr. Wickfield’s business, and perhaps it might be Wickfield and Heep? You may not recollect it; but when a person is umble, Master Copperfield, a person treasures such things up!’
‘I recollect talking about it,’ said I, ‘though I certainly did not think it very likely then.’ ‘Oh! who would have thought it likely, Mister Copperfield!’ returned Uriah, enthusiastically. ‘I am sure I didn’t myself. I recollect saying with my own lips that I was much too umble. So I considered myself really and truly.’
He sat, with that carved grin on his face, looking at the fire, as I looked at him.
‘But the umblest persons, Master Copperfield,’ he presently resumed, ‘may be the instruments of good. I am glad to think I have been the instrument of good to Mr. Wickfield, and that I may be more so. Oh what a worthy man he is, Mister Copperfield, but how imprudent he has been!’
‘I am sorry to hear it,’ said I. I could not help adding, rather pointedly, ‘on all accounts.’
‘Decidedly so, Mister Copperfield,’ replied Uriah. ‘On all accounts. Miss Agnes’s above all! You don’t remember your own eloquent expressions, Master Copperfield; but I remember how you said one day that everybody must admire her, and how I thanked you for it! You have forgot that, I have no doubt, Master Copperfield?’
‘No,’ said I, drily.
‘Oh how glad I am you have not!’ exclaimed Uriah. ‘To think that you should be the first to kindle the sparks of ambition in my umble breast, and that you’ve not forgot it! Oh!—Would you excuse me asking for a cup more coffee?’
Something in the emphasis he laid upon the kindling of those sparks, and something in the glance he directed at me as he said it, had made me start as if I had seen him illuminated by a blaze of light. Recalled by his request, preferred in quite another tone of voice, I did the honours of the shaving-pot; but I did them with an unsteadiness of hand, a sudden sense of being no match for him, and a perplexed suspicious anxiety as to what he might be going to say next, which I felt could not escape his observation.
He said nothing at all. He stirred his coffee round and round, he sipped it, he felt his chin softly with his grisly hand, he looked at the fire, he looked about the room, he gasped rather than smiled at me, he writhed and undulated about, in his deferential servility, he stirred and sipped again, but he left the renewal of the conversation to me.
‘So, Mr. Wickfield,’ said I, at last, ‘who is worth five hundred of you—or me’; for my life, I think, I could not have helped dividing that part of the sentence with an awkward jerk; ‘has been imprudent, has he, Mr. Heep?’
‘Oh, very imprudent indeed, Master Copperfield,’ returned Uriah, sighing modestly. ‘Oh, very much so! But I wish you’d call me Uriah, if you please. It’s like old times.’
‘Well! Uriah,’ said I, bolting it out with some difficulty.
‘Thank you,’ he returned, with fervour. ‘Thank you, Master Copperfield! It’s like the blowing of old breezes or the ringing of old bellses to hear YOU say Uriah. I beg your pardon. Was I making any observation?’
‘About Mr. Wickfield,’ I suggested.
‘Oh! Yes, truly,’ said Uriah. ‘Ah! Great imprudence, Master Copperfield. It’s a topic that I wouldn’t touch upon, to any soul but you. Even to you I can only touch upon it, and no more. If anyone else had been in my place during the last few years, by this time he would have had Mr. Wickfield (oh, what a worthy man he is, Master Copperfield, too!) under his thumb. Un—der—his thumb,’ said Uriah, very slowly, as he stretched out his cruel-looking hand above my table, and pressed his own thumb upon it, until it shook, and shook the room.
If I had been obliged to look at him with him splay foot on Mr. Wickfield’s head, I think I could scarcely have hated him more.
‘Oh, dear, yes, Master Copperfield,’ he proceeded, in a soft voice, most remarkably contrasting with the action of his thumb, which did not diminish its hard pressure in the least degree, ‘there’s no doubt of it. There would have been loss, disgrace, I don’t know what at all. Mr. Wickfield knows it. I am the umble instrument of umbly serving him, and he puts me on an eminence I hardly could have hoped to reach. How thankful should I be!’ With his face turned towards me, as he finished, but without looking at me, he took his crooked thumb off the spot where he had planted it, and slowly and thoughtfully scraped his lank jaw with it, as if he were shaving himself.
I recollect well how indignantly my heart beat, as I saw his crafty face, with the appropriately red light of the fire upon it, preparing for something else.
‘Master Copperfield,’ he began—‘but am I keeping you up?’
‘You are not keeping me up. I generally go to bed late.’
‘Thank you, Master Copperfield! I have risen from my umble station since first you used to address me, it is true; but I am umble still. I hope I never shall be otherwise than umble. You will not think the worse of my umbleness, if I make a little confidence to you, Master Copperfield? Will you?’
‘Oh no,’ said I, with an effort.
‘Thank you!’ He took out his pocket-handkerchief, and began wiping the palms of his hands. ‘Miss Agnes, Master Copperfield—’ ‘Well, Uriah?’
‘Oh, how pleasant to be called Uriah, spontaneously!’ he cried; and gave himself a jerk, like a convulsive fish. ‘You thought her looking very beautiful tonight, Master Copperfield?’
‘I thought her looking as she always does: superior, in all respects, to everyone around her,’ I returned.
‘Oh, thank you! It’s so true!’ he cried. ‘Oh, thank you very much for that!’
‘Not at all,’ I said, loftily. ‘There is no reason why you should thank me.’
‘Why that, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah, ‘is, in fact, the confidence that I am going to take the liberty of reposing. Umble as I am,’ he wiped his hands harder, and looked at them and at the fire by turns, ‘umble as my mother is, and lowly as our poor but honest roof has ever been, the image of Miss Agnes (I don’t mind trusting you with my secret, Master Copperfield, for I have always overflowed towards you since the first moment I had the pleasure of beholding you in a pony-shay) has been in my breast for years. Oh, Master Copperfield, with what a pure affection do I love the ground my Agnes walks on!’
I believe I had a delirious idea of seizing the red-hot poker out of the fire, and running him through with it. It went from me with a shock, like a ball fired from a rifle: but the image of Agnes, outraged by so much as a thought of this red-headed animal’s, remained in my mind when I looked at him, sitting all awry as if his mean soul griped his body, and made me giddy. He seemed to swell and grow before my eyes; the room seemed full of the echoes of his voice; and the strange feeling (to which, perhaps, no one is quite a stranger) that all this had occurred before, at some indefinite time, and that I knew what he was going to say next, took possession of me.
A timely observation of the sense of power that there was in his face, did more to bring back to my remembrance the entreaty of Agnes, in its full force, than any effort I could have made. I asked him, with a better appearance of composure than I could have thought possible a minute before, whether he had made his feelings known to Agnes.
‘Oh no, Master Copperfield!’ he returned; ‘oh dear, no! Not to anyone but you. You see I am only just emerging from my lowly station. I rest a good deal of hope on her observing how useful I am to her father (for I trust to be very useful to him indeed, Master Copperfield), and how I smooth the way for him, and keep him straight. She’s so much attached to her father, Master Copperfield (oh, what a lovely thing it is in a daughter!), that I think she may come, on his account, to be kind to me.’
I fathomed the depth of the rascal’s whole scheme, and understood why he laid it bare.
‘If you’ll have the goodness to keep my secret, Master Copperfield,’ he pursued, ‘and not, in general, to go against me, I shall take it as a particular favour. You wouldn’t wish to make unpleasantness. I know what a friendly heart you’ve got; but having only known me on my umble footing (on my umblest I should say, for I am very umble still), you might, unbeknown, go against me rather, with my Agnes. I call her mine, you see, Master Copperfield. There’s a song that says, “I’d crowns resign, to call her mine!” I hope to do it, one of these days.’
Dear Agnes! So much too loving and too good for anyone that I could think of, was it possible that she was reserved to be the wife of such a wretch as this!
‘There’s no hurry at present, you know, Master Copperfield,’ Uriah proceeded, in his slimy way, as I sat gazing at him, with this thought in my mind. ‘My Agnes is very young still; and mother and me will have to work our way upwards, and make a good many new arrangements, before it would be quite convenient. So I shall have time gradually to make her familiar with my hopes, as opportunities offer. Oh, I’m so much obliged to you for this confidence! Oh, it’s such a relief, you can’t think, to know that you understand our situation, and are certain (as you wouldn’t wish to make unpleasantness in the family) not to go against me!’
He took the hand which I dared not withhold, and having given it a damp squeeze, referred to his pale-faced watch.
‘Dear me!’ he said, ‘it’s past one. The moments slip away so, in the confidence of old times, Master Copperfield, that it’s almost half past one!’
I answered that I had thought it was later. Not that I had really thought so, but because my conversational powers were effectually scattered.
‘Dear me!’ he said, considering. ‘The ouse that I am stopping at—a sort of a private hotel and boarding ouse, Master Copperfield, near the New River ed—will have gone to bed these two hours.’
‘I am sorry,’ I returned, ‘that there is only one bed here, and that I—’
‘Oh, don’t think of mentioning beds, Master Copperfield!’ he rejoined ecstatically, drawing up one leg. ‘But would you have any objections to my laying down before the fire?’
‘If it comes to that,’ I said, ‘pray take my bed, and I’ll lie down before the fire.’
His repudiation of this offer was almost shrill enough, in the excess of its surprise and humility, to have penetrated to the ears of Mrs. Crupp, then sleeping, I suppose, in a distant chamber, situated at about the level of low-water mark, soothed in her slumbers by the ticking of an incorrigible clock, to which she always referred me when we had any little difference on the score of punctuality, and which was never less than three-quarters of an hour too slow, and had always been put right in the morning by the best authorities. As no arguments I could urge, in my bewildered condition, had the least effect upon his modesty in inducing him to accept my bedroom, I was obliged to make the best arrangements I could, for his repose before the fire. The mattress of the sofa (which was a great deal too short for his lank figure), the sofa pillows, a blanket, the table-cover, a clean breakfast-cloth, and a great-coat, made him a bed and covering, for which he was more than thankful. Having lent him a night-cap, which he put on at once, and in which he made such an awful figure, that I have never worn one since, I left him to his rest.
I never shall forget that night. I never shall forget how I turned and tumbled; how I wearied myself with thinking about Agnes and this creature; how I considered what could I do, and what ought I to do; how I could come to no other conclusion than that the best course for her peace was to do nothing, and to keep to myself what I had heard. If I went to sleep for a few moments, the image of Agnes with her tender eyes, and of her father looking fondly on her, as I had so often seen him look, arose before me with appealing faces, and filled me with vague terrors. When I awoke, the recollection that Uriah was lying in the next room, sat heavy on me like a waking nightmare; and oppressed me with a leaden dread, as if I had had some meaner quality of devil for a lodger.
The poker got into my dozing thoughts besides, and wouldn’t come out. I thought, between sleeping and waking, that it was still red hot, and I had snatched it out of the fire, and run him through the body. I was so haunted at last by the idea, though I knew there was nothing in it, that I stole into the next room to look at him. There I saw him, lying on his back, with his legs extending to I don’t know where, gurglings taking place in his throat, stoppages in his nose, and his mouth open like a post-office. He was so much worse in reality than in my distempered fancy, that afterwards I was attracted to him in very repulsion, and could not help wandering in and out every half-hour or so, and taking another look at him. Still, the long, long night seemed heavy and hopeless as ever, and no promise of day was in the murky sky.
When I saw him going downstairs early in the morning (for, thank Heaven! he would not stay to breakfast), it appeared to me as if the night was going away in his person. When I went out to the Commons, I charged Mrs. Crupp with particular directions to leave the windows open, that my sitting-room might be aired, and purged of his presence.