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

Copperfield - and then we’ll journey out to Highgate by the coach.’

I could hardly believe but that I was in a dream, and that I should wake presently in number forty-four, to the solitary box in the coffee-room and the familiar waiter again. After I had written to my aunt and told her of my fortunate meeting with my admired old schoolfellow, and my acceptance of his invitation, we went out in a hackney-chariot, and saw a Panorama and some other sights, and took a walk through the Museum, where I could not help observing how much Steerforth knew, on an infinite variety of subjects, and of how little account he seemed to make his knowledge.

‘You’ll take a high degree at college, Steerforth,’ said I, ‘if you have not done so already; and they will have good reason to be proud of you.’

‘I take a degree!’ cried Steerforth. ‘Not I! my dear Daisy - will you mind my calling you Daisy?’

‘Not at all!’ said I.

‘That’s a good fellow! My dear Daisy,’ said Steerforth, laughing. ‘I have not the least desire or intention to distinguish myself in that way. I have done quite sufficient for my purpose. I find that I am heavy company enough for myself as I am.’

‘But the fame -‘ I was beginning.

‘You romantic Daisy!’ said Steerforth, laughing still more heartily: ‘why should I trouble myself, that a parcel of heavy-headed fellows may gape and hold up their hands? Let them do it at some other man. There’s fame for him, and he’s welcome to it.’

I was abashed at having made so great a mistake, and was glad to change the subject. Fortunately it was not difficult to do, for Steerforth could always pass from one subject to another with a carelessness and lightness that were his own.

Lunch succeeded to our sight-seeing, and the short winter day wore away so fast, that it was dusk when the stage-coach stopped with us at an old brick house at Highgate on the summit of the hill. An elderly lady, though not very far advanced in years, with a proud carriage and a handsome face, was in the doorway as we alighted; and greeting Steerforth as ‘My dearest James,’ folded him in her arms. To this lady he presented me as his mother, and she gave me a stately welcome.

It was a genteel old-fashioned house, very quiet and orderly. From the windows of my room I saw all London lying in the distance like a great vapour, with here and there some lights twinkling through it. I had only time, in dressing, to glance at the solid furniture, the framed pieces of work (done, I supposed, by Steerforth’s mother when she was a girl), and some pictures in crayons of ladies with powdered hair and bodices, coming and going on the walls, as the newly-kindled fire crackled and sputtered, when I was called to dinner.

There was a second lady in the dining-room, of a slight short figure, dark, and not agreeable to look at, but with some appearance of good looks too, who attracted my attention: perhaps because I had not expected to see her; perhaps because I found myself sitting opposite to her; perhaps because of something really remarkable in her. She had black hair and eager black eyes, and was thin, and had a scar upon her lip. It was an old scar - I should rather call it seam, for it was not discoloured, and had healed years ago - which had once cut through her mouth, downward towards the chin, but was now barely visible across the table, except above and on her upper lip, the shape of which it had altered. I concluded in my own mind that she was about thirty years of age, and that she wished to be married. She was a little dilapidated - like a house - with having been so long to let; yet had, as I have said, an appearance of good looks. Her thinness seemed to be the effect of some wasting fire within her, which found a vent in her gaunt eyes.

She was introduced as Miss Dartle, and both Steerforth and his mother called her Rosa. I found that she lived there, and had been for a long time Mrs. Steerforth’s companion. It appeared to me that she never said anything she wanted to say, outright; but hinted it, and made a great deal more of it by this practice. For example, when Mrs. Steerforth observed, more in jest than earnest, that she feared her son led but a wild life at college, Miss Dartle put in thus:

‘Oh, really? You know how ignorant I am, and that I only ask for information, but isn’t it always so? I thought that kind of life was on all hands understood to be - eh?’ ‘It is education for a very grave profession, if you mean that, Rosa,’ Mrs. Steerforth answered with some coldness.

‘Oh! Yes! That’s very true,’ returned Miss Dartle. ‘But isn’t it, though? - I want to be put right, if I am wrong - isn’t it, really?’

‘Really what?’ said Mrs. Steerforth.

‘Oh! You mean it’s not!’ returned Miss Dartle. ‘Well, I’m very glad to hear it! Now, I know what to do! That’s the advantage of asking. I shall never allow people to talk before me about wastefulness and profligacy, and so forth, in connexion with that life, any more.’

‘And you will be right,’ said Mrs. Steerforth. ‘My son’s tutor is a conscientious gentleman; and if I had not implicit reliance on my son, I should have reliance on him.’

‘Should you?’ said Miss Dartle. ‘Dear me! Conscientious, is he? Really conscientious, now?’

‘Yes, I am convinced of it,’ said Mrs. Steerforth.

‘How very nice!’ exclaimed Miss Dartle. ‘What a comfort! Really conscientious? Then he’s not - but of course he can’t be, if he’s really conscientious. Well, I shall be quite happy in my opinion of him, from this time. You can’t think how it elevates him in my opinion, to know for certain that he’s really conscientious!’

Her own views of every question, and her correction of everything that was said to which she was opposed, Miss Dartle insinuated in the same way: sometimes, I could not conceal from myself, with great power, though in contradiction even of Steerforth. An instance happened before dinner was done. Mrs. Steerforth speaking to me about my intention of going down into Suffolk, I said at hazard how glad I should be, if Steerforth would only go there with me; and explaining to him that I was going to see my old nurse, and Mr. Peggotty’s family, I reminded him of the boatman whom he had seen at school.

‘Oh! That bluff fellow!’ said Steerforth. ‘He had a son with him, hadn’t he?’

‘No. That was his nephew,’ I replied; ‘whom he adopted, though, as a son. He has a very pretty little niece too, whom he adopted as a daughter. In short, his house - or rather his boat, for he lives in one, on dry land - is full of people who are objects of his generosity and kindness. You would be delighted to see that household.’

‘Should I?’ said Steerforth. ‘Well, I think I should. I must see what can be done. It would be worth a journey (not to mention the pleasure of a journey with you, Daisy), to see that sort of people together, and to make one of ‘em.’

My heart leaped with a new hope of pleasure. But it was in reference to the tone in which he had spoken of ‘that sort of people’, that Miss Dartle, whose sparkling eyes had been watchful of us, now broke in again.

‘Oh, but, really? Do tell me. Are they, though?’ she said.

‘Are they what? And are who what?’ said Steerforth.

‘That sort of people. - Are they really animals and clods, and beings of another order? I want to know SO much.’

‘Why, there’s a pretty wide separation between them and us,’ said Steerforth, with indifference. ‘They are not to be expected to be as sensitive as we are. Their delicacy is not to be shocked, or hurt easily. They are wonderfully virtuous, I dare say - some people contend for that, at least; and I am sure I don’t want to contradict them - but they have not very fine natures, and they may be thankful that, like their coarse rough skins, they are not easily wounded.’

‘Really!’ said Miss Dartle. ‘Well, I don’t know, now, when I have been better pleased than to hear that. It’s so consoling! It’s such a delight to know that, when they suffer, they don’t feel! Sometimes I have been quite uneasy for that sort of people; but now I shall just dismiss the idea of them, altogether. Live and learn. I had my doubts, I confess, but now they’re cleared up. I didn’t know, and now I do know, and that shows the advantage of asking - don’t it?’

I believed that Steerforth had said what he had, in jest, or to draw Miss Dartle out; and I expected him to say as much when she was gone, and we two were sitting before the fire. But he merely asked me what I thought of her.

‘She is very clever, is she not?’ I asked.

‘Clever! She brings everything to a grindstone,’ said Steerforth, and sharpens it, as she has sharpened her own face and figure these years past. She has worn herself away by constant sharpening. She is all edge.’

‘What a remarkable scar that is upon her lip!’ I said.

Steerforth’s face fell, and he paused a moment.

‘Why, the fact is,’ he returned, ‘I did that.’

‘By an unfortunate accident!’

‘No. I was a young boy, and she exasperated me, and I threw a hammer at her. A promising young angel I must have been!’ I was deeply sorry to have touched on such a painful theme, but that was useless now.

‘She has borne the mark ever since, as you see,’ said Steerforth; ‘and she’ll bear it to her grave, if she ever rests in one - though I can hardly believe she will ever rest anywhere. She was the motherless child of a sort of cousin of my father’s. He died one day. My mother, who was then a widow, brought her here to be company to her. She has a couple of thousand pounds of her own, and saves the interest of it every year, to add to the principal. There’s the history of Miss Rosa Dartle for you.’

‘And I have no doubt she loves you like a brother?’ said I.

‘Humph!’ retorted Steerforth, looking at the fire. ‘Some brothers are not loved over much; and some love - but help yourself, Copperfield! We’ll drink the daisies of the field, in compliment to you; and the lilies of the valley that toil not, neither do they spin, in compliment to me - the more shame for me!’ A moody smile that had overspread his features cleared off as he said this merrily, and he was his own frank, winning self again.

I could not help glancing at the scar with a painful interest when we went in to tea. It was not long before I observed that it was the most susceptible part of her face, and that, when she turned pale, that mark altered first, and became a dull, lead-coloured streak, lengthening out to its full extent, like a mark in invisible ink brought to the fire. There was a little altercation between her and Steerforth about a cast of the dice at back gammon - when I thought her, for one moment, in a storm of rage; and then I saw it start forth like the old writing on the wall.

It was no matter of wonder to me