CHAPTER 32. THE BEGINNING OF A LONG JOURNEY

What is natural in me, is natural in many other men, I infer, and so

I am not afraid to write that I never had loved Steerforth better than

when the ties that bound me to him were broken. In the keen distress

of the discovery of his unworthiness, I thought more of all that was

brilliant in him, I softened more towards all that was good in him, I

did more justice to the qualities that might have made him a man of a

noble nature and a great name, than ever I had done in the height of

my devotion to him. Deeply as I felt my own unconscious part in his

pollution of an honest home, I believed that if I had been brought face

to face with him, I could not have uttered one reproach. I should have

loved him so well still--though he fascinated me no longer--I should

have held in so much tenderness the memory of my affection for him, that

I think I should have been as weak as a spirit-wounded child, in all

but the entertainment of a thought that we could ever be re-united.

That thought I never had. I felt, as he had felt, that all was at an end

between us. What his remembrances of me were, I have never known--they

were light enough, perhaps, and easily dismissed--but mine of him were

as the remembrances of a cherished friend, who was dead.

Yes, Steerforth, long removed from the scenes of this poor history! My

sorrow may bear involuntary witness against you at the judgement Throne;

but my angry thoughts or my reproaches never will, I know!

The news of what had happened soon spread through the town; insomuch

that as I passed along the streets next morning, I overheard the people

speaking of it at their doors. Many were hard upon her, some few were

hard upon him, but towards her second father and her lover there was

but one sentiment. Among all kinds of people a respect for them in

their distress prevailed, which was full of gentleness and delicacy. The

seafaring men kept apart, when those two were seen early, walking with

slow steps on the beach; and stood in knots, talking compassionately

among themselves.

It was on the beach, close down by the sea, that I found them. It would

have been easy to perceive that they had not slept all last night, even

if Peggotty had failed to tell me of their still sitting just as I

left them, when it was broad day. They looked worn; and I thought Mr.

Peggotty’s head was bowed in one night more than in all the years I had

known him. But they were both as grave and steady as the sea itself,

then lying beneath a dark sky, waveless--yet with a heavy roll upon it,

as if it breathed in its rest--and touched, on the horizon, with a strip

of silvery light from the unseen sun.

‘We have had a mort of talk, sir,’ said Mr. Peggotty to me, when we had

all three walked a little while in silence, ‘of what we ought and doen’t

ought to do. But we see our course now.’

I happened to glance at Ham, then looking out to sea upon the distant

light, and a frightful thought came into my mind--not that his face

was angry, for it was not; I recall nothing but an expression of stern

determination in it--that if ever he encountered Steerforth, he would

kill him.

‘My dooty here, sir,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘is done. I’m a going to seek

my--’ he stopped, and went on in a firmer voice: ‘I’m a going to seek

her. That’s my dooty evermore.’

He shook his head when I asked him where he would seek her, and inquired

if I were going to London tomorrow? I told him I had not gone today,

fearing to lose the chance of being of any service to him; but that I

was ready to go when he would.

‘I’ll go along with you, sir,’ he rejoined, ‘if you’re agreeable,

tomorrow.’

We walked again, for a while, in silence.

‘Ham,’ he presently resumed, ‘he’ll hold to his present work, and go and

live along with my sister. The old boat yonder--’

‘Will you desert the old boat, Mr. Peggotty?’ I gently interposed.

‘My station, Mas’r Davy,’ he returned, ‘ain’t there no longer; and if

ever a boat foundered, since there was darkness on the face of the deep,

that one’s gone down. But no, sir, no; I doen’t mean as it should be

deserted. Fur from that.’

We walked again for a while, as before, until he explained:

‘My wishes is, sir, as it shall look, day and night, winter and summer,

as it has always looked, since she fust know’d it. If ever she should

come a wandering back, I wouldn’t have the old place seem to cast her

off, you understand, but seem to tempt her to draw nigher to ‘t, and to

peep in, maybe, like a ghost, out of the wind and rain, through the old

winder, at the old seat by the fire. Then, maybe, Mas’r Davy, seein’

none but Missis Gummidge there, she might take heart to creep in,

trembling; and might come to be laid down in her old bed, and rest her

weary head where it was once so gay.’

I could not speak to him in reply, though I tried.

‘Every night,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘as reg’lar as the night comes, the

candle must be stood in its old pane of glass, that if ever she should

see it, it may seem to say “Come back, my child, come back!” If ever

there’s a knock, Ham (partic’ler a soft knock), arter dark, at your

aunt’s door, doen’t you go nigh it. Let it be her--not you--that sees my

fallen child!’

He walked a little in front of us, and kept before us for some minutes.

During this interval, I glanced at Ham again, and observing the same

expression on his face, and his eyes still directed to the distant

light, I touched his arm.

Twice I called him by his name, in the tone in which I might have tried

to rouse a sleeper, before he heeded me. When I at last inquired on what

his thoughts were so bent, he replied:

‘On what’s afore me, Mas’r Davy; and over yon.’ ‘On the life before you,

do you mean?’ He had pointed confusedly out to sea.

‘Ay, Mas’r Davy. I doen’t rightly know how ‘tis, but from over yon there

seemed to me to come--the end of it like,’ looking at me as if he were

waking, but with the same determined face.

‘What end?’ I asked, possessed by my former fear.

‘I doen’t know,’ he said, thoughtfully; ‘I was calling to mind that the

beginning of it all did take place here--and then the end come. But it’s

gone! Mas’r Davy,’ he added; answering, as I think, my look; ‘you han’t

no call to be afeerd of me: but I’m kiender muddled; I don’t fare to

feel no matters,’--which was as much as to say that he was not himself,

and quite confounded.

Mr. Peggotty stopping for us to join him: we did so, and said no more.

The remembrance of this, in connexion with my former thought, however,

haunted me at intervals, even until the inexorable end came at its

appointed time.

We insensibly approached the old boat, and entered. Mrs. Gummidge, no

longer moping in her especial corner, was busy preparing breakfast.

She took Mr. Peggotty’s hat, and placed his seat for him, and spoke so

comfortably and softly, that I hardly knew her.

‘Dan’l, my good man,’ said she, ‘you must eat and drink, and keep up

your strength, for without it you’ll do nowt. Try, that’s a dear soul!

An if I disturb you with my clicketten,’ she meant her chattering, ‘tell

me so, Dan’l, and I won’t.’

When she had served us all, she withdrew to the window, where she

sedulously employed herself in repairing some shirts and other clothes

belonging to Mr. Peggotty, and neatly folding and packing them in an old

oilskin bag, such as sailors carry. Meanwhile, she continued talking, in

the same quiet manner:

‘All times and seasons, you know, Dan’l,’ said Mrs. Gummidge, ‘I shall

be allus here, and everythink will look accordin’ to your wishes. I’m a

poor scholar, but I shall write to you, odd times, when you’re away, and

send my letters to Mas’r Davy. Maybe you’ll write to me too, Dan’l, odd

times, and tell me how you fare to feel upon your lone lorn journies.’

‘You’ll be a solitary woman heer, I’m afeerd!’ said Mr. Peggotty.

‘No, no, Dan’l,’ she returned, ‘I shan’t be that. Doen’t you mind me. I

shall have enough to do to keep a Beein for you’ (Mrs. Gummidge meant a

home), ‘again you come back--to keep a Beein here for any that may hap

to come back, Dan’l. In the fine time, I shall set outside the door as I

used to do. If any should come nigh, they shall see the old widder woman

true to ‘em, a long way off.’

What a change in Mrs. Gummidge in a little time! She was another woman.

She was so devoted, she had such a quick perception of what it would

be well to say, and what it would be well to leave unsaid; she was so

forgetful of herself, and so regardful of the sorrow about her, that I

held her in a sort of veneration. The work she did that day! There

were many things to be brought up from the beach and stored in the

outhouse--as oars, nets, sails, cordage, spars, lobster-pots, bags of

ballast, and the like; and though there was abundance of assistance

rendered, there being not a pair of working hands on all that shore but

would have laboured hard for Mr. Peggotty, and been well paid in being

asked to do it, yet she persisted, all day long, in toiling under

weights that she was quite unequal to, and fagging to and fro on all

sorts of unnecessary errands. As to deploring her misfortunes, she

appeared to have entirely lost the recollection of ever having had any.

She preserved an equable cheerfulness in the midst of her sympathy,

which was not the least astonishing part of the change that had come

over her. Querulousness was out of the question. I did not even observe

her voice to falter, or a tear to escape from her eyes, the whole day

through, until twilight; when she and I and Mr. Peggotty being alone

together, and he having fallen asleep in perfect exhaustion, she broke

into a half-suppressed fit of sobbing and crying, and taking me to the

door, said, ‘Ever bless you, Mas’r Davy, be a friend to him, poor dear!’

Then, she immediately ran out of the house to wash her face, in order

that she might sit quietly beside him, and be found at work there, when

he should awake. In short I left her, when I went away at night, the

prop and staff of Mr. Peggotty’s affliction; and I could not meditate

enough upon the lesson that I read in Mrs. Gummidge, and the new

experience she unfolded to me.

It was between nine and ten o’clock when, strolling in a melancholy

manner through the town, I stopped at Mr. Omer’s door. Mr. Omer had

taken it so much to heart, his daughter told me, that he had been very

low and poorly all day, and had gone to bed without his pipe.

‘A deceitful, bad-hearted girl,’ said Mrs. Joram. ‘There was no good in

her, ever!’

‘Don’t say so,’ I returned. ‘You don’t think so.’

‘Yes, I do!’ cried Mrs. Joram, angrily.

‘No, no,’ said I.

Mrs. Joram tossed her head, endeavouring to be very stern and cross; but

she could not command her softer self, and began to cry. I was young,

to be sure; but I thought much the better of her for this sympathy, and

fancied it became her, as a virtuous wife and mother, very well indeed.

‘What will she ever do!’ sobbed Minnie. ‘Where will she go! What will

become of her! Oh, how could she be so cruel, to herself and him!’

I remembered the time when Minnie was a young and pretty girl; and I was

glad she remembered it too, so feelingly.

‘My little Minnie,’ said Mrs. Joram, ‘has only just now been got to

sleep. Even in her sleep she is sobbing for Em’ly. All day long, little

Minnie has cried for her, and asked me, over and over again, whether

Em’ly was wicked? What can I say to her, when Em’ly tied a ribbon off

her own neck round little Minnie’s the last night she was here, and laid

her head down on the pillow beside her till she was fast asleep! The

ribbon’s round my little Minnie’s neck now. It ought not to be, perhaps,

but what can I do? Em’ly is very bad, but they were fond of one another.

And the child knows nothing!’

Mrs. Joram was so unhappy that her husband came out to take care of

her. Leaving them together, I went home to Peggotty’s; more melancholy

myself, if possible, than I had been yet.

That good creature--I mean Peggotty--all untired by her late anxieties

and sleepless nights, was at her brother’s, where she meant to stay till

morning. An old woman, who had been employed about the house for some

weeks past, while Peggotty had been unable to attend to it, was the

house’s only other occupant besides myself. As I had no occasion for her

services, I sent her to bed, by no means against her will, and sat down

before the kitchen fire a little while, to think about all this.

I was blending it with the deathbed of the late Mr. Barkis, and was

driving out with the tide towards the distance at which Ham had looked

so singularly in the morning, when I was recalled from my wanderings by

a knock at the door. There was a knocker upon the door, but it was not

that which made the sound. The tap was from a hand, and low down upon

the door, as if it were given by a child.

It made me start as much as if it had been the knock of a footman to a

person of distinction. I opened the door; and at first looked down,

to my amazement, on nothing but a great umbrella that appeared to be

walking about of itself. But presently I discovered underneath it, Miss

Mowcher.

I might not have been prepared to give the little creature a very kind

reception, if, on her removing the umbrella, which her utmost efforts

were unable to shut up, she had shown me the ‘volatile’ expression of

face which had made so great an impression on me at our first and last

meeting. But her face, as she turned it up to mine, was so earnest;

and when I relieved her of the umbrella (which would have been an

inconvenient one for the Irish Giant), she wrung her little hands in

such an afflicted manner; that I rather inclined towards her.

‘Miss Mowcher!’ said I, after glancing up and down the empty street,

without distinctly knowing what I expected to see besides; ‘how do you

come here? What is the matter?’ She motioned to me with her short right

arm, to shut the umbrella for her; and passing me hurriedly, went into

the kitchen. When I had closed the door, and followed, with the umbrella

in my hand, I found her sitting on the corner of the fender--it was a

low iron one, with two flat bars at top to stand plates upon--in the

shadow of the boiler, swaying herself backwards and forwards, and

chafing her hands upon her knees like a person in pain.

Quite alarmed at being the only recipient of this untimely visit, and

the only spectator of this portentous behaviour, I exclaimed again,

‘Pray tell me, Miss Mowcher, what is the matter! are you ill?’

‘My dear young soul,’ returned Miss Mowcher, squeezing her hands upon

her heart one over the other. ‘I am ill here, I am very ill. To think

that it should come to this, when I might have known it and perhaps

prevented it, if I hadn’t been a thoughtless fool!’

Again her large bonnet (very disproportionate to the figure) went

backwards and forwards, in her swaying of her little body to and fro;

while a most gigantic bonnet rocked, in unison with it, upon the wall.

‘I am surprised,’ I began, ‘to see you so distressed and serious’--when

she interrupted me.

‘Yes, it’s always so!’ she said. ‘They are all surprised, these

inconsiderate young people, fairly and full grown, to see any natural

feeling in a little thing like me! They make a plaything of me, use me

for their amusement, throw me away when they are tired, and wonder that

I feel more than a toy horse or a wooden soldier! Yes, yes, that’s the

way. The old way!’

‘It may be, with others,’ I returned, ‘but I do assure you it is not

with me. Perhaps I ought not to be at all surprised to see you as you

are now: I know so little of you. I said, without consideration, what I

thought.’

‘What can I do?’ returned the little woman, standing up, and holding out

her arms to show herself. ‘See! What I am, my father was; and my sister

is; and my brother is. I have worked for sister and brother these many

years--hard, Mr. Copperfield--all day. I must live. I do no harm. If

there are people so unreflecting or so cruel, as to make a jest of

me, what is left for me to do but to make a jest of myself, them, and

everything? If I do so, for the time, whose fault is that? Mine?’

No. Not Miss Mowcher’s, I perceived.

‘If I had shown myself a sensitive dwarf to your false friend,’ pursued

the little woman, shaking her head at me, with reproachful earnestness,

‘how much of his help or good will do you think I should ever have had?

If little Mowcher (who had no hand, young gentleman, in the making of

herself) addressed herself to him, or the like of him, because of her

misfortunes, when do you suppose her small voice would have been heard?

Little Mowcher would have as much need to live, if she was the bitterest

and dullest of pigmies; but she couldn’t do it. No. She might whistle

for her bread and butter till she died of Air.’

Miss Mowcher sat down on the fender again, and took out her

handkerchief, and wiped her eyes.

‘Be thankful for me, if you have a kind heart, as I think you have,’ she

said, ‘that while I know well what I am, I can be cheerful and endure it

all. I am thankful for myself, at any rate, that I can find my tiny way

through the world, without being beholden to anyone; and that in return

for all that is thrown at me, in folly or vanity, as I go along, I can

throw bubbles back. If I don’t brood over all I want, it is the better

for me, and not the worse for anyone. If I am a plaything for you

giants, be gentle with me.’

Miss Mowcher replaced her handkerchief in her pocket, looking at me with

very intent expression all the while, and pursued:

‘I saw you in the street just now. You may suppose I am not able to

walk as fast as you, with my short legs and short breath, and I couldn’t

overtake you; but I guessed where you came, and came after you. I have

been here before, today, but the good woman wasn’t at home.’

‘Do you know her?’ I demanded.

‘I know of her, and about her,’ she replied, ‘from Omer and Joram. I

was there at seven o’clock this morning. Do you remember what Steerforth

said to me about this unfortunate girl, that time when I saw you both at

the inn?’

The great bonnet on Miss Mowcher’s head, and the greater bonnet on

the wall, began to go backwards and forwards again when she asked this

question.

I remembered very well what she referred to, having had it in my

thoughts many times that day. I told her so.

‘May the Father of all Evil confound him,’ said the little woman,

holding up her forefinger between me and her sparkling eyes, ‘and ten

times more confound that wicked servant; but I believed it was YOU who

had a boyish passion for her!’

‘I?’ I repeated.

‘Child, child! In the name of blind ill-fortune,’ cried Miss Mowcher,

wringing her hands impatiently, as she went to and fro again upon the

fender, ‘why did you praise her so, and blush, and look disturbed?’

I could not conceal from myself that I had done this, though for a

reason very different from her supposition.

‘What did I know?’ said Miss Mowcher, taking out her handkerchief again,

and giving one little stamp on the ground whenever, at short intervals,

she applied it to her eyes with both hands at once. ‘He was crossing you

and wheedling you, I saw; and you were soft wax in his hands, I saw. Had

I left the room a minute, when his man told me that “Young Innocence”

(so he called you, and you may call him “Old Guilt” all the days of your

life) had set his heart upon her, and she was giddy and liked him, but

his master was resolved that no harm should come of it--more for your

sake than for hers--and that that was their business here? How could I

BUT believe him? I saw Steerforth soothe and please you by his praise

of her! You were the first to mention her name. You owned to an old

admiration of her. You were hot and cold, and red and white, all at once

when I spoke to you of her. What could I think--what DID I think--but

that you were a young libertine in everything but experience, and had

fallen into hands that had experience enough, and could manage you

(having the fancy) for your own good? Oh! oh! oh! They were afraid of my

finding out the truth,’ exclaimed Miss Mowcher, getting off the

fender, and trotting up and down the kitchen with her two short arms

distressfully lifted up, ‘because I am a sharp little thing--I need be,

to get through the world at all!--and they deceived me altogether, and

I gave the poor unfortunate girl a letter, which I fully believe was

the beginning of her ever speaking to Littimer, who was left behind on

purpose!’

I stood amazed at the revelation of all this perfidy, looking at Miss

Mowcher as she walked up and down the kitchen until she was out of

breath: when she sat upon the fender again, and, drying her face with

her handkerchief, shook her head for a long time, without otherwise

moving, and without breaking silence.

‘My country rounds,’ she added at length, ‘brought me to Norwich, Mr.

Copperfield, the night before last. What I happened to find there,

about their secret way of coming and going, without you--which was

strange--led to my suspecting something wrong. I got into the coach

from London last night, as it came through Norwich, and was here this

morning. Oh, oh, oh! too late!’

Poor little Mowcher turned so chilly after all her crying and fretting,

that she turned round on the fender, putting her poor little wet feet in

among the ashes to warm them, and sat looking at the fire, like a large

doll. I sat in a chair on the other side of the hearth, lost in unhappy

reflections, and looking at the fire too, and sometimes at her.

‘I must go,’ she said at last, rising as she spoke. ‘It’s late. You

don’t mistrust me?’

Meeting her sharp glance, which was as sharp as ever when she asked me,

I could not on that short challenge answer no, quite frankly.

‘Come!’ said she, accepting the offer of my hand to help her over the

fender, and looking wistfully up into my face, ‘you know you wouldn’t

mistrust me, if I was a full-sized woman!’

I felt that there was much truth in this; and I felt rather ashamed of

myself.

‘You are a young man,’ she said, nodding. ‘Take a word of advice,

even from three foot nothing. Try not to associate bodily defects with

mental, my good friend, except for a solid reason.’

She had got over the fender now, and I had got over my suspicion. I told

her that I believed she had given me a faithful account of herself,

and that we had both been hapless instruments in designing hands. She

thanked me, and said I was a good fellow.

‘Now, mind!’ she exclaimed, turning back on her way to the door, and

looking shrewdly at me, with her forefinger up again.--‘I have some

reason to suspect, from what I have heard--my ears are always open; I

can’t afford to spare what powers I have--that they are gone abroad. But

if ever they return, if ever any one of them returns, while I am alive,

I am more likely than another, going about as I do, to find it out soon.

Whatever I know, you shall know. If ever I can do anything to serve the

poor betrayed girl, I will do it faithfully, please Heaven! And Littimer

had better have a bloodhound at his back, than little Mowcher!’

I placed implicit faith in this last statement, when I marked the look

with which it was accompanied.

‘Trust me no more, but trust me no less, than you would trust a

full-sized woman,’ said the little creature, touching me appealingly

on the wrist. ‘If ever you see me again, unlike what I am now, and like

what I was when you first saw me, observe what company I am in. Call to

mind that I am a very helpless and defenceless little thing. Think of

me at home with my brother like myself and sister like myself, when my

day’s work is done. Perhaps you won’t, then, be very hard upon me, or

surprised if I can be distressed and serious. Good night!’

I gave Miss Mowcher my hand, with a very different opinion of her from

that which I had hitherto entertained, and opened the door to let her

out. It was not a trifling business to get the great umbrella up, and

properly balanced in her grasp; but at last I successfully accomplished

this, and saw it go bobbing down the street through the rain, without

the least appearance of having anybody underneath it, except when a

heavier fall than usual from some over-charged water-spout sent it

toppling over, on one side, and discovered Miss Mowcher struggling

violently to get it right. After making one or two sallies to her

relief, which were rendered futile by the umbrella’s hopping on again,

like an immense bird, before I could reach it, I came in, went to bed,

and slept till morning.

In the morning I was joined by Mr. Peggotty and by my old nurse, and we

went at an early hour to the coach office, where Mrs. Gummidge and Ham

were waiting to take leave of us.

‘Mas’r Davy,’ Ham whispered, drawing me aside, while Mr. Peggotty was

stowing his bag among the luggage, ‘his life is quite broke up. He

doen’t know wheer he’s going; he doen’t know--what’s afore him; he’s

bound upon a voyage that’ll last, on and off, all the rest of his days,

take my wured for ‘t, unless he finds what he’s a seeking of. I am sure

you’ll be a friend to him, Mas’r Davy?’

‘Trust me, I will indeed,’ said I, shaking hands with Ham earnestly.

‘Thankee. Thankee, very kind, sir. One thing furder. I’m in good employ,

you know, Mas’r Davy, and I han’t no way now of spending what I gets.

Money’s of no use to me no more, except to live. If you can lay it out

for him, I shall do my work with a better art. Though as to that, sir,’

and he spoke very steadily and mildly, ‘you’re not to think but I shall

work at all times, like a man, and act the best that lays in my power!’

I told him I was well convinced of it; and I hinted that I hoped the

time might even come, when he would cease to lead the lonely life he

naturally contemplated now.

‘No, sir,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘all that’s past and over with me,

sir. No one can never fill the place that’s empty. But you’ll bear in

mind about the money, as theer’s at all times some laying by for him?’

Reminding him of the fact, that Mr. Peggotty derived a steady,

though certainly a very moderate income from the bequest of his late

brother-in-law, I promised to do so. We then took leave of each other. I

cannot leave him even now, without remembering with a pang, at once his

modest fortitude and his great sorrow.

As to Mrs. Gummidge, if I were to endeavour to describe how she ran down

the street by the side of the coach, seeing nothing but Mr. Peggotty on

the roof, through the tears she tried to repress, and dashing herself

against the people who were coming in the opposite direction, I should

enter on a task of some difficulty. Therefore I had better leave her

sitting on a baker’s door-step, out of breath, with no shape at all

remaining in her bonnet, and one of her shoes off, lying on the pavement

at a considerable distance.

When we got to our journey’s end, our first pursuit was to look about

for a little lodging for Peggotty, where her brother could have a

bed. We were so fortunate as to find one, of a very clean and cheap

description, over a chandler’s shop, only two streets removed from

me. When we had engaged this domicile, I bought some cold meat at an

eating-house, and took my fellow-travellers home to tea; a proceeding,

I regret to state, which did not meet with Mrs. Crupp’s approval, but

quite the contrary. I ought to observe, however, in explanation of that

lady’s state of mind, that she was much offended by Peggotty’s tucking

up her widow’s gown before she had been ten minutes in the place, and

setting to work to dust my bedroom. This Mrs. Crupp regarded in the

light of a liberty, and a liberty, she said, was a thing she never

allowed.

Mr. Peggotty had made a communication to me on the way to London for

which I was not unprepared. It was, that he purposed first seeing Mrs.

Steerforth. As I felt bound to assist him in this, and also to mediate

between them; with the view of sparing the mother’s feelings as much

as possible, I wrote to her that night. I told her as mildly as I could

what his wrong was, and what my own share in his injury. I said he was a

man in very common life, but of a most gentle and upright character; and

that I ventured to express a hope that she would not refuse to see him

in his heavy trouble. I mentioned two o’clock in the afternoon as the

hour of our coming, and I sent the letter myself by the first coach in

the morning.

At the appointed time, we stood at the door--the door of that house

where I had been, a few days since, so happy: where my youthful

confidence and warmth of heart had been yielded up so freely: which was

closed against me henceforth: which was now a waste, a ruin.

No Littimer appeared. The pleasanter face which had replaced his, on the

occasion of my last visit, answered to our summons, and went before

us to the drawing-room. Mrs. Steerforth was sitting there. Rosa Dartle

glided, as we went in, from another part of the room and stood behind

her chair.

I saw, directly, in his mother’s face, that she knew from himself what

he had done. It was very pale; and bore the traces of deeper emotion

than my letter alone, weakened by the doubts her fondness would have

raised upon it, would have been likely to create. I thought her more

like him than ever I had thought her; and I felt, rather than saw, that

the resemblance was not lost on my companion.

She sat upright in her arm-chair, with a stately, immovable, passionless

air, that it seemed as if nothing could disturb. She looked very

steadfastly at Mr. Peggotty when he stood before her; and he looked

quite as steadfastly at her. Rosa Dartle’s keen glance comprehended all

of us. For some moments not a word was spoken.

She motioned to Mr. Peggotty to be seated. He said, in a low voice, ‘I

shouldn’t feel it nat’ral, ma’am, to sit down in this house. I’d sooner

stand.’ And this was succeeded by another silence, which she broke thus:

‘I know, with deep regret, what has brought you here. What do you want

of me? What do you ask me to do?’

He put his hat under his arm, and feeling in his breast for Emily’s

letter, took it out, unfolded it, and gave it to her. ‘Please to read

that, ma’am. That’s my niece’s hand!’

She read it, in the same stately and impassive way,--untouched by its

contents, as far as I could see,--and returned it to him.

‘“Unless he brings me back a lady,”’ said Mr. Peggotty, tracing out that

part with his finger. ‘I come to know, ma’am, whether he will keep his

wured?’

‘No,’ she returned.

‘Why not?’ said Mr. Peggotty.

‘It is impossible. He would disgrace himself. You cannot fail to know

that she is far below him.’

‘Raise her up!’ said Mr. Peggotty.

‘She is uneducated and ignorant.’

‘Maybe she’s not; maybe she is,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘I think not, ma’am;

but I’m no judge of them things. Teach her better!’

‘Since you oblige me to speak more plainly, which I am very unwilling

to do, her humble connexions would render such a thing impossible, if

nothing else did.’

‘Hark to this, ma’am,’ he returned, slowly and quietly. ‘You know what

it is to love your child. So do I. If she was a hundred times my child,

I couldn’t love her more. You doen’t know what it is to lose your child.

I do. All the heaps of riches in the wureld would be nowt to me (if they

was mine) to buy her back! But, save her from this disgrace, and she

shall never be disgraced by us. Not one of us that she’s growed up

among, not one of us that’s lived along with her and had her for their

all in all, these many year, will ever look upon her pritty face again.

We’ll be content to let her be; we’ll be content to think of her, far

off, as if she was underneath another sun and sky; we’ll be content to

trust her to her husband,--to her little children, p’raps,--and bide the

time when all of us shall be alike in quality afore our God!’

The rugged eloquence with which he spoke, was not devoid of all effect.

She still preserved her proud manner, but there was a touch of softness

in her voice, as she answered:

‘I justify nothing. I make no counter-accusations. But I am sorry to

repeat, it is impossible. Such a marriage would irretrievably blight my

son’s career, and ruin his prospects. Nothing is more certain than

that it never can take place, and never will. If there is any other

compensation--’

‘I am looking at the likeness of the face,’ interrupted Mr. Peggotty,

with a steady but a kindling eye, ‘that has looked at me, in my home, at

my fireside, in my boat--wheer not?---smiling and friendly, when it was

so treacherous, that I go half wild when I think of it. If the likeness

of that face don’t turn to burning fire, at the thought of offering

money to me for my child’s blight and ruin, it’s as bad. I doen’t know,

being a lady’s, but what it’s worse.’

She changed now, in a moment. An angry flush overspread her features;

and she said, in an intolerant manner, grasping the arm-chair tightly

with her hands:

‘What compensation can you make to ME for opening such a pit between me

and my son? What is your love to mine? What is your separation to ours?’

Miss Dartle softly touched her, and bent down her head to whisper, but

she would not hear a word.

‘No, Rosa, not a word! Let the man listen to what I say! My son, who has

been the object of my life, to whom its every thought has been devoted,

whom I have gratified from a child in every wish, from whom I have had

no separate existence since his birth,--to take up in a moment with a

miserable girl, and avoid me! To repay my confidence with systematic

deception, for her sake, and quit me for her! To set this wretched

fancy, against his mother’s claims upon his duty, love, respect,

gratitude--claims that every day and hour of his life should have

strengthened into ties that nothing could be proof against! Is this no

injury?’

Again Rosa Dartle tried to soothe her; again ineffectually.

‘I say, Rosa, not a word! If he can stake his all upon the lightest

object, I can stake my all upon a greater purpose. Let him go where he

will, with the means that my love has secured to him! Does he think to

reduce me by long absence? He knows his mother very little if he does.

Let him put away his whim now, and he is welcome back. Let him not put

her away now, and he never shall come near me, living or dying, while

I can raise my hand to make a sign against it, unless, being rid of her

for ever, he comes humbly to me and begs for my forgiveness. This is my

right. This is the acknowledgement I WILL HAVE. This is the separation

that there is between us! And is this,’ she added, looking at her

visitor with the proud intolerant air with which she had begun, ‘no

injury?’

While I heard and saw the mother as she said these words, I seemed to

hear and see the son, defying them. All that I had ever seen in him of

an unyielding, wilful spirit, I saw in her. All the understanding that

I had now of his misdirected energy, became an understanding of her

character too, and a perception that it was, in its strongest springs,

the same.

She now observed to me, aloud, resuming her former restraint, that it

was useless to hear more, or to say more, and that she begged to put an

end to the interview. She rose with an air of dignity to leave the room,

when Mr. Peggotty signified that it was needless.

‘Doen’t fear me being any hindrance to you, I have no more to say,

ma’am,’ he remarked, as he moved towards the door. ‘I come heer with no

hope, and I take away no hope. I have done what I thowt should be done,

but I never looked fur any good to come of my stan’ning where I do.

This has been too evil a house fur me and mine, fur me to be in my right

senses and expect it.’

With this, we departed; leaving her standing by her elbow-chair, a

picture of a noble presence and a handsome face.

We had, on our way out, to cross a paved hall, with glass sides and

roof, over which a vine was trained. Its leaves and shoots were green

then, and the day being sunny, a pair of glass doors leading to the

garden were thrown open. Rosa Dartle, entering this way with a noiseless

step, when we were close to them, addressed herself to me:

‘You do well,’ she said, ‘indeed, to bring this fellow here!’

Such a concentration of rage and scorn as darkened her face, and flashed

in her jet-black eyes, I could not have thought compressible even into

that face. The scar made by the hammer was, as usual in this excited

state of her features, strongly marked. When the throbbing I had seen

before, came into it as I looked at her, she absolutely lifted up her

hand, and struck it.

‘This is a fellow,’ she said, ‘to champion and bring here, is he not?

You are a true man!’

‘Miss Dartle,’ I returned, ‘you are surely not so unjust as to condemn

ME!’

‘Why do you bring division between these two mad creatures?’ she

returned. ‘Don’t you know that they are both mad with their own

self-will and pride?’

‘Is it my doing?’ I returned.

‘Is it your doing!’ she retorted. ‘Why do you bring this man here?’

‘He is a deeply-injured man, Miss Dartle,’ I replied. ‘You may not know

it.’

‘I know that James Steerforth,’ she said, with her hand on her bosom, as

if to prevent the storm that was raging there, from being loud, ‘has

a false, corrupt heart, and is a traitor. But what need I know or care

about this fellow, and his common niece?’

‘Miss Dartle,’ I returned, ‘you deepen the injury. It is sufficient

already. I will only say, at parting, that you do him a great wrong.’

‘I do him no wrong,’ she returned. ‘They are a depraved, worthless set.

I would have her whipped!’

Mr. Peggotty passed on, without a word, and went out at the door.

‘Oh, shame, Miss Dartle! shame!’ I said indignantly. ‘How can you bear

to trample on his undeserved affliction!’

‘I would trample on them all,’ she answered. ‘I would have his house

pulled down. I would have her branded on the face, dressed in rags,

and cast out in the streets to starve. If I had the power to sit in

judgement on her, I would see it done. See it done? I would do it! I

detest her. If I ever could reproach her with her infamous condition, I

would go anywhere to do so. If I could hunt her to her grave, I would.

If there was any word of comfort that would be a solace to her in her

dying hour, and only I possessed it, I wouldn’t part with it for Life

itself.’

The mere vehemence of her words can convey, I am sensible, but a weak

impression of the passion by which she was possessed, and which made

itself articulate in her whole figure, though her voice, instead of

being raised, was lower than usual. No description I could give of her

would do justice to my recollection of her, or to her entire deliverance

of herself to her anger. I have seen passion in many forms, but I have

never seen it in such a form as that.

When I joined Mr. Peggotty, he was walking slowly and thoughtfully down

the hill. He told me, as soon as I came up with him, that having now

discharged his mind of what he had purposed doing in London, he meant

‘to set out on his travels’, that night. I asked him where he meant to

go? He only answered, ‘I’m a going, sir, to seek my niece.’

We went back to the little lodging over the chandler’s shop, and there

I found an opportunity of repeating to Peggotty what he had said to

me. She informed me, in return, that he had said the same to her that

morning. She knew no more than I did, where he was going, but she

thought he had some project shaped out in his mind.

I did not like to leave him, under such circumstances, and we all three

dined together off a beefsteak pie--which was one of the many good

things for which Peggotty was famous--and which was curiously flavoured

on this occasion, I recollect well, by a miscellaneous taste of tea,

coffee, butter, bacon, cheese, new loaves, firewood, candles, and walnut

ketchup, continually ascending from the shop. After dinner we sat for an

hour or so near the window, without talking much; and then Mr. Peggotty

got up, and brought his oilskin bag and his stout stick, and laid them

on the table.

He accepted, from his sister’s stock of ready money, a small sum on

account of his legacy; barely enough, I should have thought, to keep him

for a month. He promised to communicate with me, when anything befell

him; and he slung his bag about him, took his hat and stick, and bade us

both ‘Good-bye!’

‘All good attend you, dear old woman,’ he said, embracing Peggotty, ‘and

you too, Mas’r Davy!’ shaking hands with me. ‘I’m a-going to seek her,

fur and wide. If she should come home while I’m away--but ah, that ain’t

like to be!--or if I should bring her back, my meaning is, that she

and me shall live and die where no one can’t reproach her. If any hurt

should come to me, remember that the last words I left for her was, “My

unchanged love is with my darling child, and I forgive her!”’

He said this solemnly, bare-headed; then, putting on his hat, he went

down the stairs, and away. We followed to the door. It was a warm, dusty

evening, just the time when, in the great main thoroughfare out of which

that by-way turned, there was a temporary lull in the eternal tread of

feet upon the pavement, and a strong red sunshine. He turned, alone, at

the corner of our shady street, into a glow of light, in which we lost

him.

Rarely did that hour of the evening come, rarely did I wake at night,

rarely did I look up at the moon, or stars, or watch the falling rain,

or hear the wind, but I thought of his solitary figure toiling on, poor

pilgrim, and recalled the words:

‘I’m a going to seek her, fur and wide. If any hurt should come to me,

remember that the last words I left for her was, “My unchanged love is

with my darling child, and I forgive her!”’