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

Occasionally, I went to London; to lose myself in the swarm of life there, or to consult with Traddles on some business point. He had managed for me, in my absence, with the soundest judgement; and my worldly affairs were prospering. As my notoriety began to bring upon me an enormous quantity of letters from people of whom I had no knowledge⁠—chiefly about nothing, and extremely difficult to answer⁠—I agreed with Traddles to have my name painted up on his door. There, the devoted postman on that beat delivered bushels of letters for me; and there, at intervals, I laboured through them, like a Home Secretary of State without the salary.

Among this correspondence, there dropped in, every now and then, an obliging proposal from one of the numerous outsiders always lurking about the Commons, to practise under cover of my name (if I would take the necessary steps remaining to make a proctor of myself), and pay me a percentage on the profits. But I declined these offers; being already aware that there were plenty of such covert practitioners in existence, and considering the Commons quite bad enough, without my doing anything to make it worse.

The girls had gone home, when my name burst into bloom on Traddles’s door; and the sharp boy looked, all day, as if he had never heard of Sophy, shut up in a back room, glancing down from her work into a sooty little strip of garden with a pump in it. But there I always found her, the same bright housewife; often humming her Devonshire ballads when no strange foot was coming up the stairs, and blunting the sharp boy in his official closet with melody.

I wondered, at first, why I so often found Sophy writing in a copybook; and why she always shut it up when I appeared, and hurried it into the table-drawer. But the secret soon came out. One day, Traddles (who had just come home through the drizzling sleet from Court) took a paper out of his desk, and asked me what I thought of that handwriting?

“Oh, don’t, Tom!” cried Sophy, who was warming his slippers before the fire.

“My dear,” returned Tom, in a delighted state, “why not? What do you say to that writing, Copperfield?”

“It’s extraordinarily legal and formal,” said I. “I don’t think I ever saw such a stiff hand.”

“Not like a lady’s hand, is it?” said Traddles.

“A lady’s!” I repeated. “Bricks and mortar are more like a lady’s hand!”

Traddles broke into a rapturous laugh, and informed me that it was Sophy’s writing; that Sophy had vowed and declared he would need a copying-clerk soon, and she would be that clerk; that she had acquired this hand from a pattern; and that she could throw off⁠—I forget how many folios an hour. Sophy was very much confused by my being told all this, and said that when “Tom” was made a judge he wouldn’t be so ready to proclaim it. Which “Tom” denied; averring that he should always be equally proud of it, under all circumstances.

“What a thoroughly good and charming wife she is, my dear Traddles!” said I, when she had gone away, laughing.

“My dear Copperfield,” returned Traddles, “she is, without any exception, the dearest girl! The way she manages this place; her punctuality, domestic knowledge, economy, and order; her cheerfulness, Copperfield!”

“Indeed, you have reason to commend her!” I returned. “You are a happy fellow. I believe you make yourselves, and each other, two of the happiest people in the world.”

“I am sure we are two of the happiest people,” returned Traddles. “I admit that, at all events. Bless my soul, when I see her getting up by candlelight on these dark mornings, busying herself in the day’s arrangements, going out to market before the clerks come into the Inn, caring for no weather, devising the most capital little dinners out of the plainest materials, making puddings and pies, keeping everything in its right place, always so neat and ornamental herself, sitting up at night with me if it’s ever so late, sweet-tempered and encouraging always, and all for me, I positively sometimes can’t believe it, Copperfield!”

He was tender of the very slippers she had been warming, as he put them on, and stretched his feet enjoyingly upon the fender.

“I positively sometimes can’t believe it,” said Traddles. “Then our pleasures! Dear me, they are inexpensive, but they are quite wonderful! When we are at home here, of an evening, and shut the outer door, and draw those curtains⁠—which she made⁠—where could we be more snug? When it’s fine, and we go out for a walk in the evening, the streets abound in enjoyment for us. We look into the glittering windows of the jewellers’ shops; and I show Sophy which of the diamond-eyed serpents, coiled up on white satin rising grounds, I would give her if I could afford it; and Sophy shows me which of the gold watches that are capped and jewelled and engine-turned, and possessed of the horizontal lever-escape-movement, and all sorts of things, she would buy for me if she could afford it; and we pick out the spoons and forks, fish-slices, butter-knives, and sugar-tongs, we should both prefer if we could both afford it; and really we go away as if we had got them! Then, when we stroll into the squares, and great streets, and see a house to let, sometimes we look up at it, and say, how would that do, if I was made a judge? And we parcel it out⁠—such a room for us, such rooms for the girls, and so forth; until we settle to our satisfaction that it would do, or it wouldn’t do, as the case may be. Sometimes, we go at half-price to the pit of the theatre⁠—the very smell of which is cheap, in my opinion, at the money⁠—and there we thoroughly enjoy the play: which Sophy believes every word of, and so do I. In walking home, perhaps we buy