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

for my selfishness, when I witnessed their effect on Mr. Dick, who was so low-spirited at the prospect of our separation, and played so ill in consequence, that my aunt, after giving him several admonitory raps on the knuckles with her dice-box, shut up the board, and declined to play with him any more. But, on hearing from my aunt that I should sometimes come over on a Saturday, and that he could sometimes come and see me on a Wednesday, he revived; and vowed to make another kite for those occasions, of proportions greatly surpassing the present one. In the morning he was downhearted again, and would have sustained himself by giving me all the money he had in his possession, gold and silver too, if my aunt had not interposed, and limited the gift to five shillings, which, at his earnest petition, were afterwards increased to ten. We parted at the garden-gate in a most affectionate manner, and Mr. Dick did not go into the house until my aunt had driven me out of sight of it.

My aunt, who was perfectly indifferent to public opinion, drove the grey pony through Dover in a masterly manner; sitting high and stiff like a state coachman, keeping a steady eye upon him wherever he went, and making a point of not letting him have his own way in any respect. When we came into the country road, she permitted him to relax a little, however; and looking at me down in a valley of cushion by her side, asked me whether I was happy?

‘Very happy indeed, thank you, aunt,’ I said.

She was much gratified; and both her hands being occupied, patted me on the head with her whip.

‘Is it a large school, aunt?’ I asked.

‘Why, I don’t know,’ said my aunt. ‘We are going to Mr. Wickfield’s first.’

‘Does he keep a school?’ I asked.

‘No, Trot,’ said my aunt. ‘He keeps an office.’

I asked for no more information about Mr. Wickfield, as she offered none, and we conversed on other subjects until we came to Canterbury, where, as it was market-day, my aunt had a great opportunity of insinuating the grey pony among carts, baskets, vegetables, and huckster’s goods. The hair-breadth turns and twists we made, drew down upon us a variety of speeches from the people standing about, which were not always complimentary; but my aunt drove on with perfect indifference, and I dare say would have taken her own way with as much coolness through an enemy’s country.

At length we stopped before a very old house bulging out over the road; a house with long low lattice-windows bulging out still farther, and beams with carved heads on the ends bulging out too, so that I fancied the whole house was leaning forward, trying to see who was passing on the narrow pavement below. It was quite spotless in its cleanliness. The old-fashioned brass knocker on the low arched door, ornamented with carved garlands of fruit and flowers, twinkled like a star; the two stone steps descending to the door were as white as if they had been covered with fair linen; and all the angles and corners, and carvings and mouldings, and quaint little panes of glass, and quainter little windows, though as old as the hills, were as pure as any snow that ever fell upon the hills.

When the pony-chaise stopped at the door, and my eyes were intent upon the house, I saw a cadaverous face appear at a small window on the ground floor (in a little round tower that formed one side of the house), and quickly disappear. The low arched door then opened, and the face came out. It was quite as cadaverous as it had looked in the window, though in the grain of it there was that tinge of red which is sometimes to be observed in the skins of red-haired people. It belonged to a red-haired person - a youth of fifteen, as I take it now, but looking much older - whose hair was cropped as close as the closest stubble; who had hardly any eyebrows, and no eyelashes, and eyes of a red-brown, so unsheltered and unshaded, that I remember wondering how he went to sleep. He was high-shouldered and bony; dressed in decent black, with a white wisp of a neckcloth; buttoned up to the throat; and had a long, lank, skeleton hand, which particularly attracted my attention, as he stood at the pony’s head, rubbing his chin with it, and looking up at us in the chaise.

‘Is Mr. Wickfield at home, Uriah Heep?’ said my aunt.

‘Mr. Wickfield’s at home, ma’am,’ said Uriah Heep, ‘if you’ll please to walk in there’ - pointing with his long hand to the room he meant.

We got out; and leaving him to hold the pony, went into a long low parlour looking towards the street, from the window of which I caught a glimpse, as I went in, of Uriah Heep breathing into the pony’s nostrils, and immediately covering them with his hand, as if he were putting some spell upon him. Opposite to the tall old chimney-piece were two portraits: one of a gentleman with grey hair (though not by any means an old man) and black eyebrows, who was looking over some papers tied together with red tape; the other, of a lady, with a very placid and sweet expression of face, who was looking at me.

I believe I was turning about in search of Uriah’s picture, when, a door at the farther end of the room opening, a gentleman entered, at sight of whom I turned to the first-mentioned portrait again, to make quite sure that it had not come out of its frame. But it was stationary; and as the gentleman advanced into the light, I saw that he was some years older than when he had had his picture painted.

‘Miss Betsey Trotwood,’ said the gentleman, ‘pray walk in. I was engaged for a moment, but you’ll excuse my being busy. You know my motive. I have but one in life.’

Miss Betsey thanked him, and we went into his room, which was furnished as an office, with books, papers, tin boxes, and so forth. It looked into a garden, and had an iron safe let into the wall; so immediately over the mantelshelf, that I wondered, as I sat down, how the sweeps got round it when they swept the chimney.

‘Well, Miss Trotwood,’ said Mr. Wickfield; for I soon found that it was he, and that he was a lawyer, and steward of the estates of a rich gentleman of the county; ‘what wind blows you here? Not an ill wind, I hope?’

‘No,’ replied my aunt. ‘I have not come for any law.’

‘That’s right, ma’am,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘You had better come for anything else.’ His hair was quite white now, though his eyebrows were still black. He had a very agreeable face, and, I thought, was handsome. There was a certain richness in his complexion, which I had been long accustomed, under Peggotty’s tuition, to connect with port wine; and I fancied it was in his voice too, and referred his growing corpulency to the same cause. He was very cleanly dressed, in a blue coat, striped waistcoat, and nankeen trousers; and his fine frilled shirt and cambric neckcloth looked unusually soft and white, reminding my strolling fancy (I call to mind) of the plumage on the breast of a swan.

‘This is my nephew,’ said my aunt.

‘Wasn’t aware you had one, Miss Trotwood,’ said Mr. Wickfield.

‘My grand-nephew, that is to say,’ observed my aunt.

‘Wasn’t aware you had a grand-nephew, I give you my word,’ said Mr. Wickfield.

‘I have adopted him,’ said my aunt, with a wave of her hand, importing that his knowledge and his ignorance were all one to her, ‘and I have brought him here, to put to a school where he may be thoroughly well taught, and well treated. Now tell me where that school is, and what it is, and all about it.’

‘Before I can advise you properly,’ said Mr. Wickfield - ‘the old question, you know. What’s your motive in this?’

‘Deuce take the man!’ exclaimed my aunt. ‘Always fishing for motives, when they’re on the surface! Why, to make the child happy and useful.’

‘It must be a mixed motive, I think,’ said Mr. Wickfield, shaking his head and smiling incredulously.

‘A mixed fiddlestick,’ returned my aunt. ‘You claim to have one plain motive in all you do yourself. You don’t suppose, I hope, that you are the only plain dealer in the world?’

‘Ay, but I have only one motive in life, Miss Trotwood,’ he rejoined, smiling. ‘Other people have dozens, scores, hundreds. I have only one. There’s the difference. However, that’s beside the question. The best school? Whatever the motive, you want the best?’

My aunt nodded assent.

‘At the best we have,’ said Mr. Wickfield, considering, ‘your nephew couldn’t board just now.’

‘But he could board somewhere else, I suppose?’ suggested my aunt.

Mr. Wickfield thought I could. After a little discussion, he proposed to take my aunt to the school, that she might see it and judge for herself; also, to take her, with the same object, to two or three houses where he thought I could be boarded. My aunt embracing the proposal, we were all three going out together, when he stopped and said:

‘Our little friend here might have some motive, perhaps, for objecting to the arrangements. I think we had better leave him behind?’

My aunt seemed disposed to contest the point; but to facilitate matters I said I would gladly remain behind, if they pleased; and returned into Mr. Wickfield’s office, where I sat down again, in the chair I had first occupied, to await their return.

It so happened that this chair was opposite a narrow passage, which ended in the little circular room where I had seen Uriah Heep’s pale face looking out of the window. Uriah, having taken the pony to a neighbouring stable, was at work at a desk in this room, which had a brass frame on the top to hang paper upon, and on which the writing he was making a copy of was then hanging. Though his face was towards me, I thought, for some time, the writing being between us, that he could not see me; but looking that way more attentively, it made me uncomfortable to observe that, every now and then, his sleepless eyes would come below the writing, like two red suns, and stealthily stare at me for I dare say a whole minute at a time, during which his pen went, or pretended to go, as cleverly as ever. I made several attempts to get out of their way - such as standing on a chair to look at a map on the other side of the room, and poring over the columns of a Kentish newspaper - but they always attracted me back again; and whenever I looked towards those two red suns, I was sure to find them, either just rising or just setting.

At length, much to my relief, my aunt and Mr. Wickfield came back, after a pretty long absence. They were not so successful as I could have wished; for though the advantages of the school were undeniable, my aunt had not approved of any of the boarding-houses proposed for me.

‘It’s very unfortunate,’ said my aunt. ‘I don’t know what to do, Trot.’

‘It does happen unfortunately,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘But I’ll tell you what you can do, Miss Trotwood.’

‘What’s that?’ inquired my aunt.

‘Leave your nephew here, for the present. He’s a quiet fellow. He won’t disturb me at all. It’s a capital house for study. As quiet as a monastery, and almost as roomy. Leave him here.’