The Personal History of David Copperfield

I had always felt my weakness, in comparison with her constancy and fortitude; and now I felt it more and more. Whatever I might have been to her, or she to me, if I had been more worthy of her long ago, I was not now, and she was not. The time was past. I had let it go by, and had deservedly lost her.

That I suffered much in these contentions, that they filled me with unhappiness and remorse, and yet that I had a sustaining sense that it was required of me, in right and honor, to keep away from myself, with shame, the thought of turning to the dear girl in the withering of my hopes, from whom I had frivolously turned when they were bright and fresh – which consideration was at the root of every thought I had concerning her – is all equally true. I made no effort to conceal from myself, now, that I loved her, that I was devoted to her; but I brought the assurance home to myself, that it was now too late, and that our long-subsisting relation must be undisturbed.

I had thought, much and often, of my Dora’s shadowing out to me what might have happened, in those years that were destined not to try us; I had considered how the things that never happen, are often as much realities to us, in their effects, as those that are accomplished. The very years she spoke of, were realities now, for my correction; and would have been, one day, a little later perhaps, though we had parted in our earliest folly. I endeavoured to convert what might have been between myself and Agnes, into a means of making me more self-denying, more resolved, more conscious of myself, and my defects and errors. Thus, through the reflection that it might have been, I arrived at the conviction that it could never be.

These, with their perplexities and inconsistencies, were the shifting quicksands of my mind, from the time of my departure to the time of my return home, three years afterwards. Three years had elapsed since the sailing of the emigrant ship; when, at that same hour of sunset, and in the same place, I stood on the deck of the packet vessel that brought me home, looking on the rosy water where I had seen the image of that ship reflected.

Three years. Long in the aggregate, though short as they went by. And home was very dear to me, and Agnes too – but she was not mine – she was never to be mine. She might have been, but that was past!

CHAPTER LIX.

RETURN

I landed in London on a wintry autumn evening. It was dark and raining, and I saw more fog and mud in a minute than I had seen in a year. I walked from the Custom House to the Monument before I found a coach; and although the very house-fronts, looking on the swollen gutters, were like old friends to me, I could not but admit that they were very dingy friends.

I have often remarked – I suppose everybody has – that one’s going away from a familiar place, would seem to be the signal for change in it. As I looked out of the coach-window, and observed that an old house on Fish-street Hill, which had stood untouched by painter, carpenter, or bricklayer, for a century, had been pulled down in my absence; and that a neighbouring street, of time-honored insalubrity and inconvenience, was being drained and widened; I half expected to find St. Paul’s Cathedral looking older.

For some changes in the fortunes of my friends, I was prepared. My aunt had long been re-established at Dover, and Traddles had begun to get into some little practice at the Bar, in the very first term after my departure. He had chambers in Gray’s Inn, now; and had told me, in his last letters, that he was not without hopes of being soon united to the dearest girl in the world.

They expected me home before Christmas; but had no idea of my returning so soon. I had purposely misled them, that I might have the pleasure of taking them by surprise. And yet, I was perverse enough to feel a chill and disappointment in receiving no welcome, and rattling, alone and silent, through the misty streets.

The well-known shops, however, with their cheerful lights, did something for me; and when I alighted at the door of the Gray’s Inn Coffee-house, I had recovered my spirits. It recalled, at first, that so-different time when I had put up at the Golden Cross, and reminded me of the changes that had come to pass since then; but that was natural.

“Do you know where Mr. Traddles lives in the Inn?” I asked the waiter, as I warmed myself by the coffee-room fire.

“Holborn Court, sir. Number two.”

“Mr. Traddles has a rising reputation among the lawyers, I believe?” said I.

“Well, sir,” returned the waiter, “probably he has, sir; but I am not aware of it myself.”

This waiter, who was middle-aged and spare, looked for help to a waiter of more authority – a stout, potential old man, with a double-chin, in black breeches and stockings, who came out of a place like a churchwarden’s pew, at the end of the coffee-room, where he kept company with a cash-box, a Directory, a Law-list, and other books and papers.

“Mr. Traddles,” said the spare waiter. “Number two in the Court.”

The potential waiter waved him away, and turned, gravely, to me.

“I was inquiring,” said I, “whether Mr. Traddles at number two in the Court, has not a rising reputation among the lawyers?”

“Never heard his name,” said the waiter, in a rich husky voice.

I felt quite apologetic for Traddles.

“He’s a young man, sure?” said the portentous waiter, fixing his eyes severely on me. “How long has he been in the Inn?”

“Not above three years,” said I.

The waiter, who I supposed had lived in his churchwarden’s pew for forty years, could not pursue such an insignificant subject. He asked me what I would have for dinner?

I felt I was in England again, and really was quite cast down on Traddles’s account. There seemed to be no hope for him. I meekly ordered a bit of fish and a steak, and stood before the fire musing on his obscurity.

As I followed the chief waiter with my eyes, I could not help thinking that the garden in which he had gradually blown to be the flower he was, was an arduous place to rise in. It had such a prescriptive, stiff-necked, long-established, solemn, elderly air. I glanced about the room, which had had its sanded floor sanded, no doubt, in exactly the same manner when the chief waiter was a boy – if he ever was a boy, which appeared improbable; and at the shining tables, where I saw myself reflected, in unruffled depths of old mahogany; and at the lamps, without a flaw in their trimming or cleaning; and at the comfortable green curtains, with their pure brass rods, snugly enclosing the boxes; and at the two large coal fires, brightly burning; and at the rows of decanters, burly as if with the consciousness of pipes of expensive old port wine below; and both England, and the law, appeared to me to be very difficult indeed to be taken by storm. I went up to my bed-room to change my wet clothes; and the vast extent of that old wainscotted apartment (which was over the archway leading to the Inn, I remember), and the sedate immensity of the four-post bedstead, and the indomitable gravity of the chests of drawers, all seemed to unite in sternly frowning on the fortunes of Traddles, or on any such daring youth. I came down again to my dinner; and even the slow comfort of the meal, and the orderly silence of the place – which was bare of guests, the Long Vacation not yet being over – were eloquent on the audacity of Traddles, and his small hopes of a livelihood for twenty years to come.

I had seen nothing like this since I went away, and it quite dashed my hopes for my friend. The chief waiter had had enough of me. He came near me no more; but devoted himself to an old gentleman in long gaiters, to meet whom a pint of special port seemed to come out of the cellar of its own accord, for he gave no order. The second waiter informed me, in a whisper, that this old gentleman was a retired conveyancer living in the Square, and worth a mint of money, which it was expected he would leave to his laundress’s daughter; likewise that it was rumoured that he had a service of plate in a bureau, all tarnished with lying by, though more than one spoon and a fork had never yet been beheld in his chambers by mortal vision. By this time, I quite gave Traddles up for lost; and settled in my own mind that there was no hope for him.

Being very anxious to see the dear old fellow, nevertheless, I despatched my dinner; in a manner not at all calculated to raise me in the opinion of the chief waiter, and hurried out by the back way. Number two in the Court was soon reached; and an inscription on the door-post informing me that Mr. Traddles occupied a set of chambers on the top story, I ascended the staircase. A crazy old staircase I found it to be, feebly lighted on each landing by a club-headed little oil wick, dying away in a little dungeon of dirty glass.

In the course of my stumbling up stairs, I fancied I heard a pleasant sound of laughter; and not the laughter of an attorney or barrister, or attorney’s clerk or barrister’s clerk, but of two or three merry girls. Happening, however, as I stopped to listen, to put my foot in a hole where the Honorable Society of Gray’s Inn had left a plank deficient, I fell down with some noise, and when I recovered my footing all was silent.

Groping my way more carefully, for the rest of the journey, my heart beat high when I found the outer door, which had Mr. Traddles painted on it, open. I knocked. A considerable scuffling within ensued, but nothing else. I therefore knocked again.

A small sharp-looking lad, half-footboy and half-clerk, who was very much out of breath, but who looked at me as if he defied me to prove it legally, presented himself.

“Is Mr. Traddles within?” said I.

“Yes, sir, but he’s engaged.”

“I want to see him.”

After a moment’s survey of me, the sharp-looking lad decided to let me in; and opening the door wider for that purpose, admitted me, first, into a little closet of a hall, and next into a little sitting-room; where I came into the presence of my old friend (also out of breath), seated at a table, and bending over papers.

“Good God!” cried Traddles, looking up. “It’s Copperfield!” and rushed into my arms, where I held him tight.

“All well, my dear Traddles?”

“All well, my dear, dear Copperfield, and nothing but good news!”

We cried with pleasure, both of us.

“My dear fellow,” said Traddles, rumpling his hair in his excitement, which was a most unnecessary operation, “my dearest Copperfield, my long-lost and most welcome friend, how glad I am to see you! How brown you are! How glad I am! Upon my life and honor, I never was so rejoiced, my beloved Copperfield, never!”

I was equally at a loss to express my emotions. I was quite unable to speak, at first.

“My dear fellow!” said Traddles. “And grown so famous! My glorious Copperfield! Good gracious me, when did you come, where have you come from, what have you been doing?”

Never pausing for an answer to anything he said, Traddles, who had clapped me into an easy chair by the fire, all this time impetuously stirred the fire with one hand, and pulled at my neck-kerchief with the other, under some wild delusion that it was a great coat. Without putting down the poker, he now hugged me again; and I hugged him; and, both laughing, and both wiping our eyes, we both sat down, and shook hands across the hearth.

“To think,” said Traddles, “that you should have been so nearly coming home as you must have been, my dear old boy, and not at the ceremony!”

“What ceremony, my dear Traddles?”

“Good gracious me!” cried Traddles, opening his eyes in his old way. “Didn’t you get my last letter?”

“Certainly not, if it referred to any ceremony.”

“Why, my dear Copperfield,” said Traddles, sticking his hair upright with both hands, and then putting his hands on my knees, “I am married!”

“Married!” I cried, joyfully!

“Lord bless me, yes!” said Traddles – “by the Reverend Horace – to Sophy – down in Devonshire. Why, my dear boy, she’s behind the window curtain! Look here!”

To my amazement, the dearest girl in the world came at that same instant, laughing and blushing, from her place of concealment. And a more cheerful, amiable, honest, happy, bright-looking bride, I believe (as I could not help saying on the spot) the world never saw. I kissed her as an old acquaintance should, and wished them joy with all my might of heart.

“Dear me,” said Traddles, “what a delightful re-union this is! You are so extremely brown, my dear Copperfield! God bless my soul, how happy I am!”

“And so am I,” said I.

“And I am sure I am!” said the blushing and laughing Sophy.

“We are all as happy as possible!” said Traddles. “Even the girls are happy. Dear me, I declare I forgot them!”

“Forgot?” said I.

“The girls,” said Traddles. “Sophy’s sisters. They are staying with us. They have come to have a peep at London. The fact is, when – was it you that tumbled up stairs, Copperfield?”

“It was,” said I, laughing.

“Well then, when you tumbled up stairs,” said Traddles, “I was romping with the girls. In point of fact, we were playing at Puss in the Corner. But as that wouldn’t do in Westminster Hall, and as it wouldn’t look quite professional if they were seen by a client, they decamped. And they are now – listening, I have no doubt,” said Traddles, glancing at the door of another room.

“I am sorry,” said I, laughing afresh, “to have occasioned such a dispersion.”

“Upon my word,” rejoined Traddles, greatly delighted, “if you had seen them running away, and running back again, after you had knocked, to pick up the combs they had dropped out of their hair, and going on in the maddest manner, you wouldn’t have said so. My love, will you fetch the girls?”

Sophy tripped away, and we heard her received in the adjoining room with a peal of laughter.

“Really musical, isn’t it, my dear Copperfield?” said Traddles. “It’s very agreeable to hear. It quite lights up these old rooms. To an unfortunate bachelor of a fellow who has lived alone all his life, you know, it’s positively delicious. It’s charming. Poor things, they have had a great loss in Sophy – who, I do assure you, Copperfield, is, and ever was, the dearest girl! – and it gratifies me beyond expression to find them in such good spirits. The society of girls is a very delightful thing, Copperfield. It’s not professional, but it’s very delightful.”

Observing that he slightly faltered, and comprehending that in the goodness of his heart he was fearful of giving me some pain by what he had said, I expressed my concurrence with a heartiness that evidently relieved and pleased him greatly.

“But then,” said Traddles, “our domestic arrangements are, to say the truth, quite unprofessional altogether, my dear Copperfield. Even Sophy’s being here, is unprofessional. And we have no other place of abode. We have put to sea in a cockboat, but we are quite prepared to rough it. And Sophy’s an extraordinary manager! You’ll be surprised how those girls are stowed away. I am sure I hardly know how it’s done.”

“Are many of the young ladies with you?” I inquired.

“The eldest, the Beauty is here,” said Traddles, in a low confidential voice, “Caroline. And Sarah’s here – the one I mentioned to you as having something the matter with her spine, you know. Immensely better! And the two youngest that Sophy educated are with us. And Louisa’s here.”

“Indeed!” cried I.

“Yes,” said Traddles. “Now the whole set – I mean the chambers – is only three rooms; but Sophy arranges for the girls in the most wonderful way, and they sleep as comfortably as possible. Three in that room,” said Traddles, pointing. “Two in that.”

I could not help glancing round, in search of the accommodation remaining for Mr. and Mrs. Traddles. Traddles understood me.

“Well!” said Traddles, “we are prepared to rough it, as I said just now; and we did improvise a bed last week, upon the floor here. But there’s a little room in the roof – a very nice room, when you’re up there – which Sophy papered herself, to surprise me; and that’s our room at present. It’s a capital little gipsey sort of place. There’s quite a view from it.”

“And you are happily married at last, my dear Traddles!” said I. “How rejoiced I am!”

“Thank you, my dear Copperfield,” said Traddles, as we shook hands once more. “Yes, I am as happy as it’s possible to be. There’s your old friend, you see,” said Traddles, nodding triumphantly at the flower-pot and stand; “and there’s the table with the marble top! All the other furniture is plain and serviceable, you perceive. And as to plate, Lord bless you, we haven’t so much as a tea-spoon.”

“All to be earned?” said I, cheerfully.

“Exactly so,” replied Traddles, “all to be earned. Of course we have something in the shape of tea-spoons, because we stir our tea. But they’re Britannia metal.”

“The silver will be the brighter when it comes,” said I.

“The very thing we say!” cried Traddles. “You see, my dear Copperfield,” falling again into the low confidential tone, “after I had delivered my argument in Doe dem Jipes versus Wigzell, which did me great service with the profession, I went down into Devonshire, and had some serious conversation in private with the Reverend Horace. I dwelt upon the fact that Sophy – who I do assure you, Copperfield, is the dearest girl! – ”

“I am certain she is!” said I.

“She is, indeed!” rejoined Traddles. “But I am afraid I am wandering from the subject. Did I mention the Reverend Horace?”

“You said that you dwelt upon the fact – ”

“True! Upon the fact that Sophy and I had been engaged for a long period, and that Sophy, with the permission of her parents, was more than content to take me – in short,” said Traddles, with his old frank smile, “on our present Britannia-metal footing. Very well. I then proposed to the Reverend Horace – who is a most excellent clergyman, Copperfield, and ought to be a Bishop; or at least ought to have enough to live upon, without pinching himself – that if I could turn the corner, say of two hundred and fifty pounds, in one year; and could see my way pretty clearly to that, or something better, next year; and could plainly furnish a little place like this, besides; then, and in that case, Sophy and I should be united. I took the liberty of representing that we had been patient for a good many years; and that the circumstance of Sophy’s being extraordinarily useful at home, ought not to operate, with her affectionate parents, against her establishment in life – don’t you see?”

“Certainly it ought not,” said I.

“I am glad you think so, Copperfield,” rejoined Traddles, “because, without any imputation on the Reverend Horace, I do think parents, and brothers, and so forth, are sometimes rather selfish in such cases. Well! I also pointed out, that my most earnest desire was, to be useful to the family; and that if I got on in the world, and anything should happen to him – I refer to the Reverend Horace – ”

“I understand,” said I.

“ – Or to Mrs. Crewler – it would be the utmost gratification of my wishes, to be a parent to the girls. He replied in a most admirable manner, exceedingly flattering to my feelings, and undertook to obtain the consent of Mrs. Crewler to this arrangement. They had a dreadful time of it with her. It mounted from her legs into her chest, and then into her head – ”

“What mounted?” I asked.

“Her grief,” replied Traddles, with a serious look. “Her feelings generally. As I mentioned on a former occasion, she is a very superior woman, but has lost the use of her limbs. Whatever occurs to harass her, usually settles in her legs; but on this occasion it mounted to the chest, and then to the head, and, in short, pervaded the whole system in a most alarming manner. However, they brought her through it by unremitting and affectionate attention; and we were married yesterday six weeks. You have no idea what a Monster I felt, Copperfield, when I saw the whole family crying and fainting away in every direction! Mrs. Crewler couldn’t see me before we left – couldn’t forgive me, then, for depriving her of her child – but she is a good creature, and has done so since. I had a delightful letter from her, only this morning.”

“And in short, my dear friend,” said I, “you feel as blest as you deserve to feel!”

“Oh! That’s your partiality!” laughed Traddles. “But, indeed, I am in a most enviable state. I work hard, and read Law insatiably. I get up at five every morning, and don’t mind it at all. I hide the girls in the day-time, and make merry with them in the evening. And I assure you I am quite sorry that they are going home on Tuesday, which is the day before the first day of Michaelmas Term. But here,” said Traddles, breaking off in his confidence, and speaking aloud, “are the girls! Mr. Copperfield, Miss Crewler – Miss Sarah – Miss Louisa – Margaret and Lucy!”

They were a perfect nest of roses; they looked so wholesome and fresh. They were all pretty, and Miss Caroline was very handsome; but there was a loving, cheerful, fireside quality in Sophy’s bright looks, which was better than that, and which assured me that my friend had chosen well. We all sat round the fire; while the sharp boy, who I now divined had lost his breath in putting the papers out, cleared them away again, and produced the tea-things. After that, he retired for the night, shutting the outer-door upon us with a bang. Mrs. Traddles, with perfect pleasure and composure beaming from her household eyes, having made the tea, then quietly made the toast as she sat in a corner by the fire.

She had seen Agnes, she told me while she was toasting. “Tom” had taken her down into Kent for a wedding trip, and there she had seen my aunt, too; and both my aunt and Agnes were well, and they had all talked of nothing but me. “Tom” had never had me out of his thoughts, she really believed, all the time I had been away. “Tom” was the authority for everything. “Tom” was evidently the idol of her life; never to be shaken on his pedestal by any commotion; always to be believed in, and done homage to with the whole faith of her heart, come what might.

The deference which both she and Traddles showed towards the Beauty, pleased me very much. I don’t know that I thought it very reasonable; but I thought it very delightful, and essentially a part of their character. If Traddles ever for an instant missed the teaspoons that were still to be won, I have no doubt it was when he handed the Beauty her tea. If his sweet-tempered wife could have got up any self-assertion against any one, I am satisfied it could only have been because she was the Beauty’s sister. A few slight indications of a rather petted and capricious manner, which I observed in the Beauty, were manifestly considered, by Traddles and his wife, as her birthright and natural endowment. If she had been born a Queen Bee, and they laboring Bees, they could not have been more satisfied of that.

But their self-forgetfulness charmed me. Their pride in these girls, and their submission of themselves to all their whims, was the pleasantest little testimony to their own worth I could have desired to see. If Traddles were addressed as “a darling,” once in the course of that evening; and besought to bring something here, or carry something there, or take something up, or put something down, or find something, or fetch something; he was so addressed, by one or other of his sisters-in-law, at least twelve times in an hour. Neither could they do anything without Sophy. Somebody’s hair fell down, and nobody but Sophy could put it up. Somebody forgot how a particular tune went, and nobody but Sophy could hum that tune right. Somebody wanted to recal the name of a place in Devonshire, and only Sophy knew it. Something was wanted to be written home, and Sophy alone could be trusted to write before breakfast in the morning. Somebody broke down in a piece of knitting, and no one but Sophy was able to put the defaulter in the right direction. They were entire mistresses of the place, and Sophy and Traddles waited on them. How many children Sophy could have taken care of in her time, I can’t imagine; but she seemed to be famous for knowing every sort of song that ever was addressed to a child in the English tongue; and she sang dozens to order with the clearest little voice in the world, one after another (every sister issuing directions for a different tune, and the Beauty generally striking in last), so that I was quite fascinated. The best of all was, that, in the midst of their exactions, all the sisters had a great tenderness and respect both for Sophy and Traddles. I am sure, when I took my leave, and Traddles was coming out to walk with me to the coffee-house, I thought I had never seen an obstinate head of hair, or any other head of hair, rolling about in such a shower of kisses.