CHAPTER 12. LIKING LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT NO BETTER, I FORM A GREAT

RESOLUTION

In due time, Mr. Micawber’s petition was ripe for hearing; and that

gentleman was ordered to be discharged under the Act, to my great joy.

His creditors were not implacable; and Mrs. Micawber informed me that

even the revengeful boot-maker had declared in open court that he bore

him no malice, but that when money was owing to him he liked to be paid.

He said he thought it was human nature.

Mr. Micawber returned to the King’s Bench when his case was over, as

some fees were to be settled, and some formalities observed, before he

could be actually released. The club received him with transport, and

held an harmonic meeting that evening in his honour; while Mrs. Micawber

and I had a lamb’s fry in private, surrounded by the sleeping family.

‘On such an occasion I will give you, Master Copperfield,’ said Mrs.

Micawber, ‘in a little more flip,’ for we had been having some already,

‘the memory of my papa and mama.’

‘Are they dead, ma’am?’ I inquired, after drinking the toast in a

wine-glass.

‘My mama departed this life,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘before Mr. Micawber’s

difficulties commenced, or at least before they became pressing. My papa

lived to bail Mr. Micawber several times, and then expired, regretted by

a numerous circle.’

Mrs. Micawber shook her head, and dropped a pious tear upon the twin who

happened to be in hand.

As I could hardly hope for a more favourable opportunity of putting a

question in which I had a near interest, I said to Mrs. Micawber:

‘May I ask, ma’am, what you and Mr. Micawber intend to do, now that Mr.

Micawber is out of his difficulties, and at liberty? Have you settled

yet?’

‘My family,’ said Mrs. Micawber, who always said those two words with an

air, though I never could discover who came under the denomination, ‘my

family are of opinion that Mr. Micawber should quit London, and exert

his talents in the country. Mr. Micawber is a man of great talent,

Master Copperfield.’

I said I was sure of that.

‘Of great talent,’ repeated Mrs. Micawber. ‘My family are of opinion,

that, with a little interest, something might be done for a man of his

ability in the Custom House. The influence of my family being local, it

is their wish that Mr. Micawber should go down to Plymouth. They think

it indispensable that he should be upon the spot.’

‘That he may be ready?’ I suggested.

‘Exactly,’ returned Mrs. Micawber. ‘That he may be ready--in case of

anything turning up.’

‘And do you go too, ma’am?’

The events of the day, in combination with the twins, if not with the

flip, had made Mrs. Micawber hysterical, and she shed tears as she

replied:

‘I never will desert Mr. Micawber. Mr. Micawber may have concealed his

difficulties from me in the first instance, but his sanguine temper may

have led him to expect that he would overcome them. The pearl necklace

and bracelets which I inherited from mama, have been disposed of for

less than half their value; and the set of coral, which was the wedding

gift of my papa, has been actually thrown away for nothing. But I never

will desert Mr. Micawber. No!’ cried Mrs. Micawber, more affected than

before, ‘I never will do it! It’s of no use asking me!’

I felt quite uncomfortable--as if Mrs. Micawber supposed I had asked her

to do anything of the sort!--and sat looking at her in alarm.

‘Mr. Micawber has his faults. I do not deny that he is improvident. I

do not deny that he has kept me in the dark as to his resources and his

liabilities both,’ she went on, looking at the wall; ‘but I never will

desert Mr. Micawber!’

Mrs. Micawber having now raised her voice into a perfect scream, I

was so frightened that I ran off to the club-room, and disturbed Mr.

Micawber in the act of presiding at a long table, and leading the chorus

of

Gee up, Dobbin,

Gee ho, Dobbin,

Gee up, Dobbin,

Gee up, and gee ho--o--o!

--with the tidings that Mrs. Micawber was in an alarming state, upon

which he immediately burst into tears, and came away with me with his

waistcoat full of the heads and tails of shrimps, of which he had been

partaking.

‘Emma, my angel!’ cried Mr. Micawber, running into the room; ‘what is

the matter?’

‘I never will desert you, Micawber!’ she exclaimed.

‘My life!’ said Mr. Micawber, taking her in his arms. ‘I am perfectly

aware of it.’

‘He is the parent of my children! He is the father of my twins! He is

the husband of my affections,’ cried Mrs. Micawber, struggling; ‘and I

ne--ver--will--desert Mr. Micawber!’

Mr. Micawber was so deeply affected by this proof of her devotion (as

to me, I was dissolved in tears), that he hung over her in a passionate

manner, imploring her to look up, and to be calm. But the more he asked

Mrs. Micawber to look up, the more she fixed her eyes on nothing;

and the more he asked her to compose herself, the more she wouldn’t.

Consequently Mr. Micawber was soon so overcome, that he mingled his

tears with hers and mine; until he begged me to do him the favour of

taking a chair on the staircase, while he got her into bed. I would have

taken my leave for the night, but he would not hear of my doing that

until the strangers’ bell should ring. So I sat at the staircase window,

until he came out with another chair and joined me.

‘How is Mrs. Micawber now, sir?’ I said.

‘Very low,’ said Mr. Micawber, shaking his head; ‘reaction. Ah, this has

been a dreadful day! We stand alone now--everything is gone from us!’

Mr. Micawber pressed my hand, and groaned, and afterwards shed tears.

I was greatly touched, and disappointed too, for I had expected that we

should be quite gay on this happy and long-looked-for occasion. But Mr.

and Mrs. Micawber were so used to their old difficulties, I think, that

they felt quite shipwrecked when they came to consider that they were

released from them. All their elasticity was departed, and I never saw

them half so wretched as on this night; insomuch that when the bell

rang, and Mr. Micawber walked with me to the lodge, and parted from me

there with a blessing, I felt quite afraid to leave him by himself, he

was so profoundly miserable.

But through all the confusion and lowness of spirits in which we had

been, so unexpectedly to me, involved, I plainly discerned that Mr. and

Mrs. Micawber and their family were going away from London, and that a

parting between us was near at hand. It was in my walk home that night,

and in the sleepless hours which followed when I lay in bed, that the

thought first occurred to me--though I don’t know how it came into my

head--which afterwards shaped itself into a settled resolution.

I had grown to be so accustomed to the Micawbers, and had been so

intimate with them in their distresses, and was so utterly friendless

without them, that the prospect of being thrown upon some new shift for

a lodging, and going once more among unknown people, was like being that

moment turned adrift into my present life, with such a knowledge of it

ready made as experience had given me. All the sensitive feelings it

wounded so cruelly, all the shame and misery it kept alive within my

breast, became more poignant as I thought of this; and I determined that

the life was unendurable.

That there was no hope of escape from it, unless the escape was my own

act, I knew quite well. I rarely heard from Miss Murdstone, and never

from Mr. Murdstone: but two or three parcels of made or mended clothes

had come up for me, consigned to Mr. Quinion, and in each there was

a scrap of paper to the effect that J. M. trusted D. C. was applying

himself to business, and devoting himself wholly to his duties--not the

least hint of my ever being anything else than the common drudge into

which I was fast settling down.

The very next day showed me, while my mind was in the first agitation of

what it had conceived, that Mrs. Micawber had not spoken of their going

away without warrant. They took a lodging in the house where I lived,

for a week; at the expiration of which time they were to start for

Plymouth. Mr. Micawber himself came down to the counting-house, in the

afternoon, to tell Mr. Quinion that he must relinquish me on the day

of his departure, and to give me a high character, which I am sure I

deserved. And Mr. Quinion, calling in Tipp the carman, who was a married

man, and had a room to let, quartered me prospectively on him--by our

mutual consent, as he had every reason to think; for I said nothing,

though my resolution was now taken.

I passed my evenings with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, during the remaining

term of our residence under the same roof; and I think we became fonder

of one another as the time went on. On the last Sunday, they invited me

to dinner; and we had a loin of pork and apple sauce, and a pudding. I

had bought a spotted wooden horse over-night as a parting gift to little

Wilkins Micawber--that was the boy--and a doll for little Emma. I had

also bestowed a shilling on the Orfling, who was about to be disbanded.

We had a very pleasant day, though we were all in a tender state about

our approaching separation.

‘I shall never, Master Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘revert to the

period when Mr. Micawber was in difficulties, without thinking of

you. Your conduct has always been of the most delicate and obliging

description. You have never been a lodger. You have been a friend.’

‘My dear,’ said Mr. Micawber; ‘Copperfield,’ for so he had been

accustomed to call me, of late, ‘has a heart to feel for the distresses

of his fellow-creatures when they are behind a cloud, and a head to

plan, and a hand to--in short, a general ability to dispose of such

available property as could be made away with.’

I expressed my sense of this commendation, and said I was very sorry we

were going to lose one another.

‘My dear young friend,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘I am older than you; a man

of some experience in life, and--and of some experience, in short, in

difficulties, generally speaking. At present, and until something turns

up (which I am, I may say, hourly expecting), I have nothing to bestow

but advice. Still my advice is so far worth taking, that--in short, that

I have never taken it myself, and am the’--here Mr. Micawber, who had

been beaming and smiling, all over his head and face, up to the present

moment, checked himself and frowned--‘the miserable wretch you behold.’

‘My dear Micawber!’ urged his wife.

‘I say,’ returned Mr. Micawber, quite forgetting himself, and smiling

again, ‘the miserable wretch you behold. My advice is, never do tomorrow

what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time. Collar

him!’

‘My poor papa’s maxim,’ Mrs. Micawber observed.

‘My dear,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘your papa was very well in his way, and

Heaven forbid that I should disparage him. Take him for all in all, we

ne’er shall--in short, make the acquaintance, probably, of anybody else

possessing, at his time of life, the same legs for gaiters, and able to

read the same description of print, without spectacles. But he applied

that maxim to our marriage, my dear; and that was so far prematurely

entered into, in consequence, that I never recovered the expense.’ Mr.

Micawber looked aside at Mrs. Micawber, and added: ‘Not that I am sorry

for it. Quite the contrary, my love.’ After which, he was grave for a

minute or so.

‘My other piece of advice, Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘you know.

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and

six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure

twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. The blossom is blighted,

the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene,

and--and in short you are for ever floored. As I am!’

To make his example the more impressive, Mr. Micawber drank a glass of

punch with an air of great enjoyment and satisfaction, and whistled the

College Hornpipe.

I did not fail to assure him that I would store these precepts in my

mind, though indeed I had no need to do so, for, at the time, they

affected me visibly. Next morning I met the whole family at the coach

office, and saw them, with a desolate heart, take their places outside,

at the back.

‘Master Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘God bless you! I never can

forget all that, you know, and I never would if I could.’

‘Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘farewell! Every happiness and

prosperity! If, in the progress of revolving years, I could persuade

myself that my blighted destiny had been a warning to you, I should feel

that I had not occupied another man’s place in existence altogether in

vain. In case of anything turning up (of which I am rather confident),

I shall be extremely happy if it should be in my power to improve your

prospects.’

I think, as Mrs. Micawber sat at the back of the coach, with the

children, and I stood in the road looking wistfully at them, a mist

cleared from her eyes, and she saw what a little creature I really was.

I think so, because she beckoned to me to climb up, with quite a new and

motherly expression in her face, and put her arm round my neck, and gave

me just such a kiss as she might have given to her own boy. I had barely

time to get down again before the coach started, and I could hardly see

the family for the handkerchiefs they waved. It was gone in a minute.

The Orfling and I stood looking vacantly at each other in the middle

of the road, and then shook hands and said good-bye; she going back,

I suppose, to St. Luke’s workhouse, as I went to begin my weary day at

Murdstone and Grinby’s.

But with no intention of passing many more weary days there. No. I had

resolved to run away.---To go, by some means or other, down into the

country, to the only relation I had in the world, and tell my story to

my aunt, Miss Betsey. I have already observed that I don’t know how this

desperate idea came into my brain. But, once there, it remained there;

and hardened into a purpose than which I have never entertained a more

determined purpose in my life. I am far from sure that I believed there

was anything hopeful in it, but my mind was thoroughly made up that it

must be carried into execution.

Again, and again, and a hundred times again, since the night when the

thought had first occurred to me and banished sleep, I had gone over

that old story of my poor mother’s about my birth, which it had been one

of my great delights in the old time to hear her tell, and which I knew

by heart. My aunt walked into that story, and walked out of it, a dread

and awful personage; but there was one little trait in her behaviour

which I liked to dwell on, and which gave me some faint shadow of

encouragement. I could not forget how my mother had thought that she

felt her touch her pretty hair with no ungentle hand; and though it

might have been altogether my mother’s fancy, and might have had no

foundation whatever in fact, I made a little picture, out of it, of my

terrible aunt relenting towards the girlish beauty that I recollected so

well and loved so much, which softened the whole narrative. It is very

possible that it had been in my mind a long time, and had gradually

engendered my determination.

As I did not even know where Miss Betsey lived, I wrote a long letter

to Peggotty, and asked her, incidentally, if she remembered; pretending

that I had heard of such a lady living at a certain place I named at

random, and had a curiosity to know if it were the same. In the course

of that letter, I told Peggotty that I had a particular occasion for

half a guinea; and that if she could lend me that sum until I could

repay it, I should be very much obliged to her, and would tell her

afterwards what I had wanted it for.

Peggotty’s answer soon arrived, and was, as usual, full of affectionate

devotion. She enclosed the half guinea (I was afraid she must have had

a world of trouble to get it out of Mr. Barkis’s box), and told me that

Miss Betsey lived near Dover, but whether at Dover itself, at Hythe,

Sandgate, or Folkestone, she could not say. One of our men, however,

informing me on my asking him about these places, that they were all

close together, I deemed this enough for my object, and resolved to set

out at the end of that week.

Being a very honest little creature, and unwilling to disgrace the

memory I was going to leave behind me at Murdstone and Grinby’s, I

considered myself bound to remain until Saturday night; and, as I had

been paid a week’s wages in advance when I first came there, not to

present myself in the counting-house at the usual hour, to receive my

stipend. For this express reason, I had borrowed the half-guinea, that

I might not be without a fund for my travelling-expenses. Accordingly,

when the Saturday night came, and we were all waiting in the warehouse

to be paid, and Tipp the carman, who always took precedence, went in

first to draw his money, I shook Mick Walker by the hand; asked him,

when it came to his turn to be paid, to say to Mr. Quinion that I had

gone to move my box to Tipp’s; and, bidding a last good night to Mealy

Potatoes, ran away.

My box was at my old lodging, over the water, and I had written a

direction for it on the back of one of our address cards that we nailed

on the casks: ‘Master David, to be left till called for, at the Coach

Office, Dover.’ This I had in my pocket ready to put on the box, after I

should have got it out of the house; and as I went towards my lodging,

I looked about me for someone who would help me to carry it to the

booking-office.

There was a long-legged young man with a very little empty donkey-cart,

standing near the Obelisk, in the Blackfriars Road, whose eye I caught

as I was going by, and who, addressing me as ‘Sixpenn’orth of bad

ha’pence,’ hoped ‘I should know him agin to swear to’--in allusion, I

have no doubt, to my staring at him. I stopped to assure him that I had

not done so in bad manners, but uncertain whether he might or might not

like a job.

‘Wot job?’ said the long-legged young man.

‘To move a box,’ I answered.

‘Wot box?’ said the long-legged young man.

I told him mine, which was down that street there, and which I wanted

him to take to the Dover coach office for sixpence.

‘Done with you for a tanner!’ said the long-legged young man, and

directly got upon his cart, which was nothing but a large wooden tray on

wheels, and rattled away at such a rate, that it was as much as I could

do to keep pace with the donkey.

There was a defiant manner about this young man, and particularly about

the way in which he chewed straw as he spoke to me, that I did not much

like; as the bargain was made, however, I took him upstairs to the room

I was leaving, and we brought the box down, and put it on his cart.

Now, I was unwilling to put the direction-card on there, lest any of my

landlord’s family should fathom what I was doing, and detain me; so

I said to the young man that I would be glad if he would stop for a

minute, when he came to the dead-wall of the King’s Bench prison. The

words were no sooner out of my mouth, than he rattled away as if he, my

box, the cart, and the donkey, were all equally mad; and I was quite out

of breath with running and calling after him, when I caught him at the

place appointed.

Being much flushed and excited, I tumbled my half-guinea out of my

pocket in pulling the card out. I put it in my mouth for safety, and

though my hands trembled a good deal, had just tied the card on very

much to my satisfaction, when I felt myself violently chucked under the

chin by the long-legged young man, and saw my half-guinea fly out of my

mouth into his hand.

‘Wot!’ said the young man, seizing me by my jacket collar, with a

frightful grin. ‘This is a pollis case, is it? You’re a-going to bolt,

are you? Come to the pollis, you young warmin, come to the pollis!’

‘You give me my money back, if you please,’ said I, very much

frightened; ‘and leave me alone.’

‘Come to the pollis!’ said the young man. ‘You shall prove it yourn to

the pollis.’

‘Give me my box and money, will you,’ I cried, bursting into tears.

The young man still replied: ‘Come to the pollis!’ and was dragging me

against the donkey in a violent manner, as if there were any affinity

between that animal and a magistrate, when he changed his mind, jumped

into the cart, sat upon my box, and, exclaiming that he would drive to

the pollis straight, rattled away harder than ever.

I ran after him as fast as I could, but I had no breath to call out

with, and should not have dared to call out, now, if I had. I narrowly

escaped being run over, twenty times at least, in half a mile. Now I

lost him, now I saw him, now I lost him, now I was cut at with a whip,

now shouted at, now down in the mud, now up again, now running into

somebody’s arms, now running headlong at a post. At length, confused by

fright and heat, and doubting whether half London might not by this time

be turning out for my apprehension, I left the young man to go where

he would with my box and money; and, panting and crying, but never

stopping, faced about for Greenwich, which I had understood was on

the Dover Road: taking very little more out of the world, towards the

retreat of my aunt, Miss Betsey, than I had brought into it, on the

night when my arrival gave her so much umbrage.