David Copperfield, Charles Dickens [books to read for 13 year olds txt] 📗

Wickfield for some time. I was prepared for a great change in him, after what I had heard from Agnes, but his appearance shocked me.

It was not that he looked many years older, though still dressed with the old scrupulous cleanliness; or that there was an unwholesome ruddiness upon his face; or that his eyes were full and bloodshot; or that there was a nervous trembling in his hand, the cause of which I knew, and had for some years seen at work. It was not that he had lost his good looks, or his old bearing of a gentleman - for that he had not - but the thing that struck me most, was, that with the evidences of his native superiority still upon him, he should submit himself to that crawling impersonation of meanness, Uriah Heep. The reversal of the two natures, in their relative positions, Uriah’s of power and Mr. Wickfield’s of dependence, was a sight more painful to me than I can express. If I had seen an Ape taking command of a Man, I should hardly have thought it a more degrading spectacle.

He appeared to be only too conscious of it himself. When he came in, he stood still; and with his head bowed, as if he felt it. This was only for a moment; for Agnes softly said to him, ‘Papa! Here is Miss Trotwood - and Trotwood, whom you have not seen for a long while!’ and then he approached, and constrainedly gave my aunt his hand, and shook hands more cordially with me. In the moment’s pause I speak of, I saw Uriah’s countenance form itself into a most ill-favoured smile. Agnes saw it too, I think, for she shrank from him.

What my aunt saw, or did not see, I defy the science of physiognomy to have made out, without her own consent. I believe there never was anybody with such an imperturbable countenance when she chose. Her face might have been a dead-wall on the occasion in question, for any light it threw upon her thoughts; until she broke silence with her usual abruptness.

‘Well, Wickfield!’ said my aunt; and he looked up at her for the first time. ‘I have been telling your daughter how well I have been disposing of my money for myself, because I couldn’t trust it to you, as you were growing rusty in business matters. We have been taking counsel together, and getting on very well, all things considered. Agnes is worth the whole firm, in my opinion.’

‘If I may umbly make the remark,’ said Uriah Heep, with a writhe, ‘I fully agree with Miss Betsey Trotwood, and should be only too appy if Miss Agnes was a partner.’

‘You’re a partner yourself, you know,’ returned my aunt, ‘and that’s about enough for you, I expect. How do you find yourself, sir?’

In acknowledgement of this question, addressed to him with extraordinary curtness, Mr. Heep, uncomfortably clutching the blue bag he carried, replied that he was pretty well, he thanked my aunt, and hoped she was the same.

‘And you, Master - I should say, Mister Copperfield,’ pursued Uriah. ‘I hope I see you well! I am rejoiced to see you, Mister Copperfield, even under present circumstances.’ I believed that; for he seemed to relish them very much. ‘Present circumstances is not what your friends would wish for you, Mister Copperfield, but it isn’t money makes the man: it’s - I am really unequal with my umble powers to express what it is,’ said Uriah, with a fawning jerk, ‘but it isn’t money!’

Here he shook hands with me: not in the common way, but standing at a good distance from me, and lifting my hand up and down like a pump handle, that he was a little afraid of.

‘And how do you think we are looking, Master Copperfield, - I should say, Mister?’ fawned Uriah. ‘Don’t you find Mr. Wickfield blooming, sir? Years don’t tell much in our firm, Master Copperfield, except in raising up the umble, namely, mother and self - and in developing,’ he added, as an afterthought, ‘the beautiful, namely, Miss Agnes.’

He jerked himself about, after this compliment, in such an intolerable manner, that my aunt, who had sat looking straight at him, lost all patience.

‘Deuce take the man!’ said my aunt, sternly, ‘what’s he about? Don’t be galvanic, sir!’

‘I ask your pardon, Miss Trotwood,’ returned Uriah; ‘I’m aware you’re nervous.’

‘Go along with you, sir!’ said my aunt, anything but appeased. ‘Don’t presume to say so! I am nothing of the sort. If you’re an eel, sir, conduct yourself like one. If you’re a man, control your limbs, sir! Good God!’ said my aunt, with great indignation, ‘I am not going to be serpentined and corkscrewed out of my senses!’

Mr. Heep was rather abashed, as most people might have been, by this explosion; which derived great additional force from the indignant manner in which my aunt afterwards moved in her chair, and shook her head as if she were making snaps or bounces at him. But he said to me aside in a meek voice:

‘I am well aware, Master Copperfield, that Miss Trotwood, though an excellent lady, has a quick temper (indeed I think I had the pleasure of knowing her, when I was a numble clerk, before you did, Master Copperfield), and it’s only natural, I am sure, that it should be made quicker by present circumstances. The wonder is, that it isn’t much worse! I only called to say that if there was anything we could do, in present circumstances, mother or self, or Wickfield and Heep, -we should be really glad. I may go so far?’ said Uriah, with a sickly smile at his partner.

‘Uriah Heep,’ said Mr. Wickfield, in a monotonous forced way, ‘is active in the business, Trotwood. What he says, I quite concur in. You know I had an old interest in you. Apart from that, what Uriah says I quite concur in!’

‘Oh, what a reward it is,’ said Uriah, drawing up one leg, at the risk of bringing down upon himself another visitation from my aunt, ‘to be so trusted in! But I hope I am able to do something to relieve him from the fatigues of business, Master Copperfield!’

‘Uriah Heep is a great relief to me,’ said Mr. Wickfield, in the same dull voice. ‘It’s a load off my mind, Trotwood, to have such a partner.’

The red fox made him say all this, I knew, to exhibit him to me in the light he had indicated on the night when he poisoned my rest. I saw the same ill-favoured smile upon his face again, and saw how he watched me.

‘You are not going, papa?’ said Agnes, anxiously. ‘Will you not walk back with Trotwood and me?’

He would have looked to Uriah, I believe, before replying, if that worthy had not anticipated him.

‘I am bespoke myself,’ said Uriah, ‘on business; otherwise I should have been appy to have kept with my friends. But I leave my partner to represent the firm. Miss Agnes, ever yours! I wish you good-day, Master Copperfield, and leave my umble respects for Miss Betsey Trotwood.’

With those words, he retired, kissing his great hand, and leering at us like a mask.

We sat there, talking about our pleasant old Canterbury days, an hour or two. Mr. Wickfield, left to Agnes, soon became more like his former self; though there was a settled depression upon him, which he never shook off. For all that, he brightened; and had an evident pleasure in hearing us recall the little incidents of our old life, many of which he remembered very well. He said it was like those times, to be alone with Agnes and me again; and he wished to Heaven they had never changed. I am sure there was an influence in the placid face of Agnes, and in the very touch of her hand upon his arm, that did wonders for him.

My aunt (who was busy nearly all this while with Peggotty, in the inner room) would not accompany us to the place where they were staying, but insisted on my going; and I went. We dined together. After dinner, Agnes sat beside him, as of old, and poured out his wine. He took what she gave him, and no more - like a child - and we all three sat together at a window as the evening gathered in. When it was almost dark, he lay down on a sofa, Agnes pillowing his head and bending over him a little while; and when she came back to the window, it was not so dark but I could see tears glittering in her eyes.

I pray Heaven that I never may forget the dear girl in her love and truth, at that time of my life; for if I should, I must be drawing near the end, and then I would desire to remember her best! She filled my heart with such good resolutions, strengthened my weakness so, by her example, so directed - I know not how, she was too modest and gentle to advise me in many words - the wandering ardour and unsettled purpose within me, that all the little good I have done, and all the harm I have forborne, I solemnly believe I may refer to her.

And how she spoke to me of Dora, sitting at the window in the dark; listened to my praises of her; praised again; and round the little fairy-figure shed some glimpses of her own pure light, that made it yet more precious and more innocent to me! Oh, Agnes, sister of my boyhood, if I had known then, what I knew long afterwards! -

There was a beggar in the street, when I went down; and as I turned my head towards the window, thinking of her calm seraphic eyes, he made me start by muttering, as if he were an echo of the morning: ‘Blind! Blind! Blind!’