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

deal of honour,” he rejoined. He then referred to a memorandum. “With respect to the pecuniary assistance enabling us to launch our frail canoe on the ocean of enterprise, I have reconsidered that important business-point; and would beg to propose my notes of hand⁠—drawn, it is needless to stipulate, on stamps of the amounts respectively required by the various Acts of Parliament applying to such securities⁠—at eighteen, twenty-four, and thirty months. The proposition I originally submitted, was twelve, eighteen, and twenty-four; but I am apprehensive that such an arrangement might not allow sufficient time for the requisite amount of⁠—something⁠—to turn up. We might not,” said Mr. Micawber, looking round the room as if it represented several hundred acres of highly cultivated land, “on the first responsibility becoming due, have been successful in our harvest, or we might not have got our harvest in. Labour, I believe, is sometimes difficult to obtain in that portion of our colonial possessions where it will be our lot to combat with the teeming soil.”

“Arrange it in any way you please, sir,” said my aunt.

“Madam,” he replied, “Mrs. Micawber and myself are deeply sensible of the very considerate kindness of our friends and patrons. What I wish is, to be perfectly businesslike, and perfectly punctual. Turning over, as we are about to turn over, an entirely new leaf; and falling back, as we are now in the act of falling back, for a spring of no common magnitude; it is important to my sense of self-respect, besides being an example to my son, that these arrangements should be concluded as between man and man.”

I don’t know that Mr. Micawber attached any meaning to this last phrase; I don’t know that anybody ever does, or did; but he appeared to relish it uncommonly, and repeated, with an impressive cough, “as between man and man.”

“I propose,” said Mr. Micawber, “Bills⁠—a convenience to the mercantile world, for which, I believe, we are originally indebted to the Jews, who appear to me to have had a devilish deal too much to do with them ever since⁠—because they are negotiable. But if a bond, or any other description of security, would be preferred, I should be happy to execute any such instrument. As between man and man.”

My aunt observed, that in a case where both parties were willing to agree to anything, she took it for granted there would be no difficulty in settling this point. Mr. Micawber was of her opinion.

“In reference to our domestic preparations, madam,” said Mr. Micawber, with some pride, “for meeting the destiny to which we are now understood to be self-devoted, I beg to report them. My eldest daughter attends at five every morning in a neighbouring establishment, to acquire the process⁠—if process it may be called⁠—of milking cows. My younger children are instructed to observe, as closely as circumstances will permit, the habits of the pigs and poultry maintained in the poorer parts of this city: a pursuit from which they have, on two occasions, been brought home, within an inch of being run over. I have myself directed some attention, during the past week, to the art of baking; and my son Wilkins has issued forth with a walking stick and driven cattle, when permitted, by the rugged hirelings who had them in charge, to render any voluntary service in that direction⁠—which I regret to say, for the credit of our nature, was not often; he being generally warned, with imprecations, to desist.”

“All very right indeed,” said my aunt, encouragingly. “Mrs. Micawber has been busy, too, I have no doubt.”

“My dear madam,” returned Mrs. Micawber, with her businesslike air. “I am free to confess that I have not been actively engaged in pursuits immediately connected with cultivation or with stock, though well aware that both will claim my attention on a foreign shore. Such opportunities as I have been enabled to alienate from my domestic duties, I have devoted to corresponding at some length with my family. For I own it seems to me, my dear Mr. Copperfield,” said Mrs. Micawber, who always fell back on me, I suppose from old habit, to whomsoever else she might address her discourse at starting, “that the time is come when the past should be buried in oblivion; when my family should take Mr. Micawber by the hand, and Mr. Micawber should take my family by the hand; when the lion should lie down with the lamb, and my family be on terms with Mr. Micawber.”

I said I thought so too.

“This, at least, is the light, my dear Mr. Copperfield,” pursued Mrs. Micawber, “in which I view the subject. When I lived at home with my papa and mama, my papa was accustomed to ask, when any point was under discussion in our limited circle, ‘In what light does my Emma view the subject?’ That my papa was too partial, I know; still, on such a point as the frigid coldness which has ever subsisted between Mr. Micawber and my family, I necessarily have formed an opinion, delusive though it may be.”

“No doubt. Of course you have, ma’am,” said my aunt.

“Precisely so,” assented Mrs. Micawber. “Now, I may be wrong in my conclusions; it is very likely that I am, but my individual impression is, that the gulf between my family and Mr. Micawber may be traced to an apprehension, on the part of my family, that Mr. Micawber would require pecuniary accommodation. I cannot help thinking,” said Mrs. Micawber, with an air of deep sagacity, “that there are members of my family who have been apprehensive that Mr. Micawber would solicit them for their names.⁠—I do not mean to be conferred in baptism upon our children, but to be inscribed on Bills of Exchange, and negotiated in the Money Market.”

The look of penetration with which Mrs. Micawber announced this discovery, as if no one had ever thought of it before, seemed rather to astonish my aunt; who abruptly replied, “Well, ma’am, upon the whole, I shouldn’t wonder if you were right!”

“Mr. Micawber being now on the eve of casting off the pecuniary shackles that have so long