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.