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

“Capital?” cried my aunt. “But you are doing us a great service⁠—have done us a great service, I may say, for surely much will come out of the fire⁠—and what could we do for you, that would be half so good as to find the capital?”

“I could not receive it as a gift,” said Mr. Micawber, full of fire and animation, “but if a sufficient sum could be advanced, say at five percent interest, per annum, upon my personal liability⁠—say my notes of hand, at twelve, eighteen, and twenty-four months, respectively, to allow time for something to turn up⁠—”

“Could be? Can be and shall be, on your own terms,” returned my aunt, “if you say the word. Think of this now, both of you. Here are some people David knows, going out to Australia shortly. If you decide to go, why shouldn’t you go in the same ship? You may help each other. Think of this now, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. Take your time, and weigh it well.”

“There is but one question, my dear ma’am, I could wish to ask,” said Mrs. Micawber. “The climate, I believe, is healthy?”

“Finest in the world!” said my aunt.

“Just so,” returned Mrs. Micawber. “Then my question arises. Now, are the circumstances of the country such, that a man of Mr. Micawber’s abilities would have a fair chance of rising in the social scale? I will not say, at present, might he aspire to be Governor, or anything of that sort; but would there be a reasonable opening for his talents to develop themselves⁠—that would be amply sufficient⁠—and find their own expansion?”

“No better opening anywhere,” said my aunt, “for a man who conducts himself well, and is industrious.”

“For a man who conducts himself well,” repeated Mrs. Micawber, with her clearest business manner, “and is industrious. Precisely. It is evident to me that Australia is the legitimate sphere of action for Mr. Micawber!”

“I entertain the conviction, my dear madam,” said Mr. Micawber, “that it is, under existing circumstances, the land, the only land, for myself and family; and that something of an extraordinary nature will turn up on that shore. It is no distance⁠—comparatively speaking; and though consideration is due to the kindness of your proposal, I assure you that is a mere matter of form.”

Shall I ever forget how, in a moment, he was the most sanguine of men, looking on to fortune; or how Mrs. Micawber presently discoursed about the habits of the kangaroo! Shall I ever recall that street of Canterbury on a market-day, without recalling him, as he walked back with us; expressing, in the hardy roving manner he assumed, the unsettled habits of a temporary sojourner in the land; and looking at the bullocks, as they came by, with the eye of an Australian farmer!

I must pause yet once again. O, my child-wife, there is a figure in the moving crowd before my memory, quiet and still, saying in its innocent love and childish beauty, Stop to think of me⁠—turn to look upon the little blossom, as it flutters to the ground!

I do. All else grows dim, and fades away. I am again with Dora, in our cottage. I do not know how long she has been ill. I am so used to it in feeling, that I cannot count the time. It is not really long, in weeks or months; but, in my usage and experience, it is a weary, weary while.

They have left off telling me to “wait a few days more.” I have begun to fear, remotely, that the day may never shine, when I shall see my child-wife running in the sunlight with her old friend Jip.

He is, as it were suddenly, grown very old. It may be that he misses in his mistress, something that enlivened him and made him younger; but he mopes, and his sight is weak, and his limbs are feeble, and my aunt is sorry that he objects to her no more, but creeps near her as he lies on Dora’s bed⁠—she sitting at the bedside⁠—and mildly licks her hand.

Dora lies smiling on us, and is beautiful, and utters no hasty or complaining word. She says that we are very good to her; that her dear old careful boy is tiring himself out, she knows; that my aunt has no sleep, yet is always wakeful, active, and kind. Sometimes, the little birdlike ladies come to see her; and then we talk about our wedding day, and all that happy time.

What a strange rest and pause in my life there seems to be⁠—and in all life, within doors and without⁠—when I sit in the quiet, shaded, orderly room, with the blue eyes of my child-wife turned towards me, and her little fingers twining round my hand! Many and many an hour I sit thus; but, of all those times, three times come the freshest on my mind.

It is morning; and Dora, made so trim by my aunt’s hands, shows me how her pretty hair will curl upon the pillow yet, an how long and bright it is, and how she likes to have it loosely gathered in that net she wears.

“Not that I am vain of it, now, you mocking boy,” she says, when I smile; “but because you used to say you thought it so beautiful; and because, when I first began to think about you, I used to peep in the glass, and wonder whether you would like very much to have a lock of it. Oh what a foolish fellow you were, Doady, when I gave you one!”

“That was on the day when you were painting the flowers I had given you, Dora, and when I told you how much in love I was.”

“Ah! but I didn’t like to tell you,” says Dora, “then, how I had cried over them, because I believed you really liked me! When I can run about again as I used to do, Doady, let us go and see those places where