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

rather have remained downstairs, knitting and all, than gone to bed. I hardly got any sleep. Next day the knitting and watching began again, and lasted all day.

I had not an opportunity of speaking to Agnes, for ten minutes. I could barely show her my letter. I proposed to her to walk out with me; but Mrs. Heep repeatedly complaining that she was worse, Agnes charitably remained within, to bear her company. Towards the twilight I went out by myself, musing on what I ought to do, and whether I was justified in withholding from Agnes, any longer, what Uriah Heep had told me in London; for that began to trouble me again, very much.

I had not walked out far enough to be quite clear of the town, upon the Ramsgate road, where there was a good path, when I was hailed, through the dust, by somebody behind me. The shambling figure, and the scanty greatcoat, were not to be mistaken. I stopped, and Uriah Heep came up.

“Well?” said I.

“How fast you walk!” said he. “My legs are pretty long, but you’ve given ’em quite a job.”

“Where are you going?” said I.

“I am going with you, Master Copperfield, if you’ll allow me the pleasure of a walk with an old acquaintance.” Saying this, with a jerk of his body, which might have been either propitiatory or derisive, he fell into step beside me.

“Uriah!” said I, as civilly as I could, after a silence.

“Master Copperfield!” said Uriah.

“To tell you the truth (at which you will not be offended), I came out to walk alone, because I have had so much company.”

He looked at me sideways, and said with his hardest grin, “You mean mother.”

“Why yes, I do,” said I.

“Ah! But you know we’re so very ’umble,” he returned. “And having such a knowledge of our own ’umbleness, we must really take care that we’re not pushed to the wall by them as isn’t ’umble. All stratagems are fair in love, sir.”

Raising his great hands until they touched his chin, he rubbed them softly, and softly chuckled; looking as like a malevolent baboon, I thought, as anything human could look.

“You see,” he said, still hugging himself in that unpleasant way, and shaking his head at me, “you’re quite a dangerous rival, Master Copperfield. You always was, you know.”

“Do you set a watch upon Miss Wickfield, and make her home no home, because of me?” said I.

“Oh! Master Copperfield! Those are very ’arsh words,” he replied.

“Put my meaning into any words you like,” said I. “You know what it is, Uriah, as well as I do.”

“Oh no! You must put it into words,” he said. “Oh, really! I couldn’t myself.”

“Do you suppose,” said I, constraining myself to be very temperate and quiet with him, on account of Agnes, “that I regard Miss Wickfield otherwise than as a very dear sister?”

“Well, Master Copperfield,” he replied, “you perceive I am not bound to answer that question. You may not, you know. But then, you see, you may!”

Anything to equal the low cunning of his visage, and of his shadowless eyes without the ghost of an eyelash, I never saw.

“Come then!” said I. “For the sake of Miss Wickfield⁠—”

“My Agnes!” he exclaimed, with a sickly, angular contortion of himself. “Would you be so good as call her Agnes, Master Copperfield!”

“For the sake of Agnes Wickfield⁠—Heaven bless her!”

“Thank you for that blessing, Master Copperfield!”he interposed.

“I will tell you what I should, under any other circumstances, as soon have thought of telling to⁠—Jack Ketch.”

“To who, sir?” said Uriah, stretching out his neck, and shading his ear with his hand.

“To the hangman,” I returned. “The most unlikely person I could think of,”⁠—though his own face had suggested the allusion quite as a natural sequence. “I am engaged to another young lady. I hope that contents you.”

“Upon your soul?” said Uriah.

I was about indignantly to give my assertion the confirmation he required, when he caught hold of my hand, and gave it a squeeze.

“Oh, Master Copperfield!” he said. “If you had only had the condescension to return my confidence when I poured out the fullness of my art, the night I put you so much out of the way by sleeping before your sitting room fire, I never should have doubted you. As it is, I’m sure I’ll take off mother directly, and only too ’appy. I know you’ll excuse the precautions of affection, won’t you? What a pity, Master Copperfield, that you didn’t condescend to return my confidence! I’m sure I gave you every opportunity. But you never have condescended to me, as much as I could have wished. I know you have never liked me, as I have liked you!”

All this time he was squeezing my hand with his damp fishy fingers, while I made every effort I decently could to get it away. But I was quite unsuccessful. He drew it under the sleeve of his mulberry-coloured greatcoat, and I walked on, almost upon compulsion, arm-in-arm with him.

“Shall we turn?” said Uriah, by and by wheeling me face about towards the town, on which the early moon was now shining, silvering the distant windows.

“Before we leave the subject, you ought to understand,” said I, breaking a pretty long silence, “that I believe Agnes Wickfield to be as far above you, and as far removed from all your aspirations, as that moon herself!”

“Peaceful! Ain’t she!” said Uriah. “Very! Now confess, Master Copperfield, that you haven’t liked me quite as I have liked you. All along you’ve thought me too ’umble now, I shouldn’t wonder?”

“I am not fond of professions of humility,” I returned, “or professions of anything else.”

“There now!” said Uriah, looking flabby and lead-coloured in the moonlight. “Didn’t I know it! But how little you think of the rightful ’umbleness of a person in my station, Master Copperfield! Father and me was both brought up at a foundation school for boys; and mother, she was likewise brought up at a public, sort of charitable, establishment. They taught us