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

“If you please, sir, would you have the goodness to walk in, and speak to Miss Dartle?”

“Has Miss Dartle sent you for me?” I inquired.

“Not tonight, sir, but it’s just the same. Miss Dartle saw you pass a night or two ago; and I was to sit at work on the staircase, and when I saw you pass again, to ask you to step in and speak to her.”

I turned back, and inquired of my conductor, as we went along, how Mrs. Steerforth was. She said her lady was but poorly, and kept her own room a good deal.

When we arrived at the house, I was directed to Miss Dartle in the garden, and left to make my presence known to her myself. She was sitting on a seat at one end of a kind of terrace, overlooking the great city. It was a sombre evening, with a lurid light in the sky; and as I saw the prospect scowling in the distance, with here and there some larger object starting up into the sullen glare, I fancied it was no inapt companion to the memory of this fierce woman.

She saw me as I advanced, and rose for a moment to receive me. I thought her, then, still more colourless and thin than when I had seen her last; the flashing eyes still brighter, and the scar still plainer.

Our meeting was not cordial. We had parted angrily on the last occasion; and there was an air of disdain about her, which she took no pains to conceal.

“I am told you wish to speak to me, Miss Dartle,” said I, standing near her, with my hand upon the back of the seat, and declining her gesture of invitation to sit down.

“If you please,” said she. “Pray has this girl been found?”

“No.”

“And yet she has run away!”

I saw her thin lips working while she looked at me, as if they were eager to load her with reproaches.

“Run away?” I repeated.

“Yes! From him,” she said, with a laugh. “If she is not found, perhaps she never will be found. She may be dead!”

The vaunting cruelty with which she met my glance, I never saw expressed in any other face that ever I have seen.

“To wish her dead,” said I, “may be the kindest wish that one of her own sex could bestow upon her. I am glad that time has softened you so much, Miss Dartle.”

She condescended to make no reply, but, turning on me with another scornful laugh, said:

“The friends of this excellent and much-injured young lady are friends of yours. You are their champion, and assert their rights. Do you wish to know what is known of her?”

“Yes,” said I.

She rose with an ill-favoured smile, and taking a few steps towards a wall of holly that was near at hand, dividing the lawn from a kitchen-garden, said, in a louder voice, “Come here!”⁠—as if she were calling to some unclean beast.

“You will restrain any demonstrative championship or vengeance in this place, of course, Mr. Copperfield?” said she, looking over her shoulder at me with the same expression.

I inclined my head, without knowing what she meant; and she said, “Come here!” again; and returned, followed by the respectable Mr. Littimer, who, with undiminished respectability, made me a bow, and took up his position behind her. The air of wicked grace: of triumph, in which, strange to say, there was yet something feminine and alluring: with which she reclined upon the seat between us, and looked at me, was worthy of a cruel princess in a legend.

“Now,” said she, imperiously, without glancing at him, and touching the old wound as it throbbed: perhaps, in this instance, with pleasure rather than pain. “Tell Mr. Copperfield about the flight.”

“Mr. James and myself, ma’am⁠—”

“Don’t address yourself to me!” she interrupted with a frown.

“Mr. James and myself, sir⁠—”

“Nor to me, if you please,” said I.

Mr. Littimer, without being at all discomposed, signified by a slight obeisance, that anything that was most agreeable to us was most agreeable to him; and began again.

“Mr. James and myself have been abroad with the young woman, ever since she left Yarmouth under Mr. James’s protection. We have been in a variety of places, and seen a deal of foreign country. We have been in France, Switzerland, Italy, in fact, almost all parts.”

He looked at the back of the seat, as if he were addressing himself to that; and softly played upon it with his hands, as if he were striking chords upon a dumb piano.

“Mr. James took quite uncommonly to the young woman; and was more settled, for a length of time, than I have known him to be since I have been in his service. The young woman was very improvable, and spoke the languages; and wouldn’t have been known for the same country-person. I noticed that she was much admired wherever we went.”

Miss Dartle put her hand upon her side. I saw him steal a glance at her, and slightly smile to himself.

“Very much admired, indeed, the young woman was. What with her dress; what with the air and sun; what with being made so much of; what with this, that, and the other; her merits really attracted general notice.”

He made a short pause. Her eyes wandered restlessly over the distant prospect, and she bit her nether lip to stop that busy mouth.

Taking his hands from the seat, and placing one of them within the other, as he settled himself on one leg, Mr. Littimer proceeded, with his eyes cast down, and his respectable head a little advanced, and a little on one side:

“The young woman went on in this manner for some time, being occasionally low in her spirits, until I think she began to weary Mr. James by giving way to her low spirits and tempers of that kind; and things were not so comfortable. Mr. James he began to be restless again. The more restless he got, the worse she got; and I must say, for myself, that I had a very difficult