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

The surprise and its consequences would have been much less disagreeable to me if he had not been penitent. But he was very penitent indeed, and in a peculiar way⁠—not in the lump, but by instalments. For example: the day after that on which I was obliged to appear against him, he made certain revelations touching a hamper in the cellar, which we believed to be full of wine, but which had nothing in it except bottles and corks. We supposed he had now eased his mind, and told the worst he knew of the cook; but, a day or two afterwards, his conscience sustained a new twinge, and he disclosed how she had a little girl, who, early every morning, took away our bread; and also how he himself had been suborned to maintain the milkman in coals. In two or three days more, I was informed by the authorities of his having led to the discovery of sirloins of beef among the kitchen-stuff, and sheets in the ragbag. A little while afterwards, he broke out in an entirely new direction, and confessed to a knowledge of burglarious intentions as to our premises, on the part of the potboy, who was immediately taken up. I got to be so ashamed of being such a victim, that I would have given him any money to hold his tongue, or would have offered a round bribe for his being permitted to run away. It was an aggravating circumstance in the case that he had no idea of this, but conceived that he was making me amends in every new discovery: not to say, heaping obligations on my head.

At last I ran away myself, whenever I saw an emissary of the police approaching with some new intelligence; and lived a stealthy life until he was tried and ordered to be transported. Even then he couldn’t be quiet, but was always writing us letters; and wanted so much to see Dora before he went away, that Dora went to visit him, and fainted when she found herself inside the iron bars. In short, I had no peace of my life until he was expatriated, and made (as I afterwards heard) a shepherd of, “up the country” somewhere; I have no geographical idea where.

All this led me into some serious reflections, and presented our mistakes in a new aspect; as I could not help communicating to Dora one evening, in spite of my tenderness for her.

“My love,” said I, “it is very painful to me to think that our want of system and management, involves not only ourselves (which we have got used to), but other people.”

“You have been silent for a long time, and now you are going to be cross!” said Dora.

“No, my dear, indeed! Let me explain to you what I mean.”

“I think I don’t want to know,” said Dora.

“But I want you to know, my love. Put Jip down.”

Dora put his nose to mine, and said “Boh!” to drive my seriousness away; but, not succeeding, ordered him into his Pagoda, and sat looking at me, with her hands folded, and a most resigned little expression of countenance.

“The fact is, my dear,” I began, “there is contagion in us. We infect everyone about us.”

I might have gone on in this figurative manner, if Dora’s face had not admonished me that she was wondering with all her might whether I was going to propose any new kind of vaccination, or other medical remedy, for this unwholesome state of ours. Therefore I checked myself, and made my meaning plainer.

“It is not merely, my pet,” said I, “that we lose money and comfort, and even temper sometimes, by not learning to be more careful; but that we incur the serious responsibility of spoiling everyone who comes into our service, or has any dealings with us. I begin to be afraid that the fault is not entirely on one side, but that these people all turn out ill because we don’t turn out very well ourselves.”

“Oh, what an accusation,” exclaimed Dora, opening her eyes wide; “to say that you ever saw me take gold watches! Oh!”

“My dearest,” I remonstrated, “don’t talk preposterous nonsense! Who has made the least allusion to gold watches?”

“You did,” returned Dora. “You know you did. You said I hadn’t turned out well, and compared me to him.”

“To whom?” I asked.

“To the page,” sobbed Dora. “Oh, you cruel fellow, to compare your affectionate wife to a transported page! Why didn’t you tell me your opinion of me before we were married? Why didn’t you say, you hardhearted thing, that you were convinced I was worse than a transported page? Oh, what a dreadful opinion to have of me! Oh, my goodness!”

“Now, Dora, my love,” I returned, gently trying to remove the handkerchief she pressed to her eyes, “this is not only very ridiculous of you, but very wrong. In the first place, it’s not true.”

“You always said he was a storyteller,” sobbed Dora. “And now you say the same of me! Oh, what shall I do! What shall I do!”

“My darling girl,” I retorted, “I really must entreat you to be reasonable, and listen to what I did say, and do say. My dear Dora, unless we learn to do our duty to those whom we employ, they will never learn to do their duty to us. I am afraid we present opportunities to people to do wrong, that never ought to be presented. Even if we were as lax as we are, in all our arrangements, by choice⁠—which we are not⁠—even if we liked it, and found it agreeable to be so⁠—which we don’t⁠—I am persuaded we should have no right to go on in this way. We are positively corrupting people. We are bound to think of that. I can’t help thinking of it, Dora. It is a reflection I am unable to dismiss, and it sometimes makes me