David Copperfield, Charles Dickens [best historical fiction books of all time TXT] 📗

“God bless her, she is as easily scared as a bird,” said I. “It might be! Or if the two Miss Spenlows (elderly ladies of that sort are odd characters sometimes) should not be likely persons to address in that way!”

“I don’t think, Trotwood,” returned Agnes, raising her soft eyes to mine, “I would consider that. Perhaps it would be better only to consider whether it is right to do this; and, if it is, to do it.”

I had no longer any doubt on the subject. With a lightened heart, though with a profound sense of the weighty importance of my task, I devoted the whole afternoon to the composition of the draft of this letter; for which great purpose, Agnes relinquished her desk to me. But first I went downstairs to see Mr. Wickfield and Uriah Heep.

I found Uriah in possession of a new, plaster-smelling office, built out in the garden; looking extraordinarily mean, in the midst of a quantity of books and papers. He received me in his usual fawning way, and pretended not to have heard of my arrival from Mr. Micawber; a pretence I took the liberty of disbelieving. He accompanied me into Mr. Wickfield’s room, which was the shadow of its former self⁠—having been divested of a variety of conveniences, for the accommodation of the new partner⁠—and stood before the fire, warming his back, and shaving his chin with his bony hand, while Mr. Wickfield and I exchanged greetings.

“You stay with us, Trotwood, while you remain in Canterbury?” said Mr. Wickfield, not without a glance at Uriah for his approval.

“Is there room for me?” said I.

“I am sure, Master Copperfield⁠—I should say Mister, but the other comes so natural,” said Uriah⁠—“I would turn out of your old room with pleasure, if it would be agreeable.”

“No, no,” said Mr. Wickfield. “Why should you be inconvenienced? There’s another room. There’s another room.”

“Oh, but you know,” returned Uriah, with a grin, “I should really be delighted!”

To cut the matter short, I said I would have the other room or none at all; so it was settled that I should have the other room; and, taking my leave of the firm until dinner, I went upstairs again.

I had hoped to have no other companion than Agnes. But Mrs. Heep had asked permission to bring herself and her knitting near the fire, in that room; on pretence of its having an aspect more favourable for her rheumatics, as the wind then was, than the drawing room or dining parlour. Though I could almost have consigned her to the mercies of the wind on the topmost pinnacle of the Cathedral, without remorse, I made a virtue of necessity, and gave her a friendly salutation.

“I’m ’umbly thankful to you, sir,” said Mrs. Heep, in acknowledgement of my inquiries concerning her health, “but I’m only pretty well. I haven’t much to boast of. If I could see my Uriah well settled in life, I couldn’t expect much more I think. How do you think my Ury looking, sir?”

I thought him looking as villainous as ever, and I replied that I saw no change in him.

“Oh, don’t you think he’s changed?” said Mrs. Heep. “There I must ’umbly beg leave to differ from you. Don’t you see a thinness in him?”

“Not more than usual,” I replied.

“Don’t you though!” said Mrs. Heep. “But you don’t take notice of him with a mother’s eye!”

His mother’s eye was an evil eye to the rest of the world, I thought as it met mine, howsoever affectionate to him; and I believe she and her son were devoted to one another. It passed me, and went on to Agnes.

“Don’t you see a wasting and a wearing in him, Miss Wickfield?” inquired Mrs. Heep.

“No,” said Agnes, quietly pursuing the work on which she was engaged. “You are too solicitous about him. He is very well.”

Mrs. Heep, with a prodigious sniff, resumed her knitting.

She never left off, or left us for a moment. I had arrived early in the day, and we had still three or four hours before dinner; but she sat there, plying her knitting-needles as monotonously as an hourglass might have poured out its sands. She sat on one side of the fire; I sat at the desk in front of it; a little beyond me, on the other side, sat Agnes. Whensoever, slowly pondering over my letter, I lifted up my eyes, and meeting the thoughtful face of Agnes, saw it clear, and beam encouragement upon me, with its own angelic expression, I was conscious presently of the evil eye passing me, and going on to her, and coming back to me again, and dropping furtively upon the knitting. What the knitting was, I don’t know, not being learned in that art; but it looked like a net; and as she worked away with those Chinese chopsticks of knitting-needles, she showed in the firelight like an ill-looking enchantress, baulked as yet by the radiant goodness opposite, but getting ready for a cast of her net by and by.

At dinner she maintained her watch, with the same unwinking eyes. After dinner, her son took his turn; and when Mr. Wickfield, himself, and I were left alone together, leered at me, and writhed until I could hardly bear it. In the drawing room, there was the mother knitting and watching again. All the time that Agnes sang and played, the mother sat at the piano. Once she asked for a particular ballad, which she said her Ury (who was yawning in a great chair) doted on; and at intervals she looked round at him, and reported to Agnes that he was in raptures with the music. But she hardly ever spoke⁠—I question if she ever did⁠—without making some mention of him. It was evident to me that this was the duty assigned to her.

This lasted until bedtime. To have seen the mother and son, like two great bats hanging over the whole house, and darkening it with their ugly forms, made me so uncomfortable, that I would