David Copperfield
Charles Dickens
CHAPTER 28 Mr. MICAWBER'S GAUNTLET Page 3
It was between ten and eleven o'clock when Mrs. Micawber rose to replace her cap in the whitey-brown paper parcel, and to put on her bonnet. Mr. Micawber took the opportunity of Traddles putting on his great-coat, to slip a letter into my hand, with a whispered request that I would read it at my leisure. I also took the opportunity of my holding a candle over the banisters to light them down, when Mr. Micawber was going first, leading Mrs. Micawber, and Traddles was following with the cap, to detain Traddles for a moment on the top of the stairs.
'Traddles,' said I, 'Mr. Micawber don't mean any harm, poor fellow: but, if I were you, I wouldn't lend him anything.'
'My dear Copperfield,' returned Traddles, smiling, 'I haven't got anything to lend.'
'You have got a name, you know,' said I.
'Certainly.'
'Oh!' said Traddles. 'Yes, to be sure! I am very much obliged to you, Copperfield; but - I am afraid I have lent him already.'
'For the bill that is to be a certain investment?' I inquired.
'No,' said Traddles. 'Not for that one. This is the first I have heard of that one. I have been thinking that he will most likely propose that one, on the way home. Mine's another.'
'I hope there will be nothing wrong about it,' said I. 'I hope not,' said Traddles. 'I should think not, though, because he told me, only the other day, that it was provided for. That was Mr. Micawber's expression, "Provided for."'
Mr. Micawber looking up at this juncture to where we were standing, I had only time to repeat my caution. Traddles thanked me, and descended. But I was much afraid, when I observed the good-natured manner in which he went down with the cap in his hand, and gave Mrs. Micawber his arm, that he would be carried into the Money Market neck and heels.
I returned to my fireside, and was musing, half gravely and half laughing, on the character of Mr. Micawber and the old relations between us, when I heard a quick step ascending the stairs. At first, I thought it was Traddles coming back for something Mrs. Micawber had left behind; but as the step approached, I knew it, and felt my heart beat high, and the blood rush to my face, for it was Steerforth's.
'Why, Daisy, old boy, dumb-foundered!' laughed Steerforth, shaking my hand heartily, and throwing it gaily away. 'Have I detected you in another feast, you Sybarite! These Doctors' Commons fellows are the gayest men in town, I believe, and beat us sober Oxford people all to nothing!' His bright glance went merrily round the room, as he took the seat on the sofa opposite to me, which Mrs. Micawber had recently vacated, and stirred the fire into a blaze.
'I was so surprised at first,' said I, giving him welcome with all the cordiality I felt, 'that I had hardly breath to greet you with, Steerforth.'
'Well, the sight of me is good for sore eyes, as the Scotch say,' replied Steerforth, 'and so is the sight of you, Daisy, in full bloom. How are you, my Bacchanal?'
'I am very well,' said I; 'and not at all Bacchanalian tonight, though I confess to another party of three.'
'All of whom I met in the street, talking loud in your praise,' returned Steerforth. 'Who's our friend in the tights?'
I gave him the best idea I could, in a few words, of Mr. Micawber. He laughed heartily at my feeble portrait of that gentleman, and said he was a man to know, and he must know him. 'But who do you suppose our other friend is?' said I, in my turn.
'Heaven knows,' said Steerforth. 'Not a bore, I hope? I thought he looked a little like one.'
'Traddles!' I replied, triumphantly.
'Who's he?' asked Steerforth, in his careless way.
'Don't you remember Traddles? Traddles in our room at Salem House?'
'Oh! That fellow!' said Steerforth, beating a lump of coal on the top of the fire, with the poker. 'Is he as soft as ever? And where the deuce did you pick him up?'
I extolled Traddles in reply, as highly as I could; for I felt that Steerforth rather slighted him. Steerforth, dismissing the subject with a light nod, and a smile, and the remark that he would be glad to see the old fellow too, for he had always been an odd fish, inquired if I could give him anything to eat? During most of this short dialogue, when he had not been speaking in a wild vivacious manner, he had sat idly beating on the lump of coal with the poker. I observed that he did the same thing while I was getting out the remains of the pigeon-pie, and so forth.
'Why, Daisy, here's a supper for a king!' he exclaimed, starting out of his silence with a burst, and taking his seat at the table. 'I shall do it justice, for I have come from Yarmouth.'
'I thought you came from Oxford?' I returned.
'Not I,' said Steerforth. 'I have been seafaring - better employed.'
'Littimer was here today, to inquire for you,' I remarked, 'and I understood him that you were at Oxford; though, now I think of it, he certainly did not say so.'
'Littimer is a greater fool than I thought him, to have been inquiring for me at all,' said Steerforth, jovially pouring out a glass of wine, and drinking to me. 'As to understanding him, you are a cleverer fellow than most of us, Daisy, if you can do that.'
'That's true, indeed,' said I, moving my chair to the table. 'So you have been at Yarmouth, Steerforth!' interested to know all about it. 'Have you been there long?'
'No,' he returned. 'An escapade of a week or so.'
'And how are they all? Of course, little Emily is not married yet?'
'Not yet. Going to be, I believe - in so many weeks, or months, or something or other. I have not seen much of 'em. By the by'; he laid down his knife and fork, which he had been using with great diligence, and began feeling in his pockets; 'I have a letter for you.'
'From whom?'
'Why, from your old nurse,' he returned, taking some papers out of his breast pocket. "'J. Steerforth, Esquire, debtor, to The Willing Mind"; that's not it. Patience, and we'll find it presently. Old what's-his-name's in a bad way, and it's about that, I believe.'
'Yes!' still feeling in his pockets, and looking over their contents: 'it's all over with poor Barkis, I am afraid. I saw a little apothecary there - surgeon, or whatever he is - your worship into the world. He was mighty learned about the case, to me; but the upshot of his opinion was, that the carrier was making his last journey rather fast. - Put your hand into the breast pocket of my great-coat on the chair yonder, and I think you'll find the letter. Is it there?'
'Here it is!' said I.
'That's right!'
It was from Peggotty; something less legible than usual, and brief. It informed me of her husband's hopeless state, and hinted at his being 'a little nearer' than heretofore, and consequently more difficult to manage for his own comfort. It said nothing of her weariness and watching, and praised him highly. It was written with a plain, unaffected, homely piety that I knew to be genuine, and ended with 'my duty to my ever darling' - meaning myself.
'It's a bad job,' he said, when I had done; 'but the sun sets every day, and people die every minute, and we mustn't be scared by the common lot. If we failed to hold our own, because that equal foot at all men's doors was heard knocking somewhere, every object in this world would slip from us. No! Ride on! Rough-shod if need be, smooth-shod if that will do, but ride on! Ride on over all obstacles, and win the race!'
'And win what race?' said I.
'The race that one has started in,' said he. 'Ride on!'
'I tell you what, Steerforth,' said I, 'if your high spirits will listen to me -'
'They are potent spirits, and will do whatever you like,' he answered, moving from the table to the fireside again.
'Then I tell you what, Steerforth. I think I will go down and see my old nurse. It is not that I can do her any good, or render her any real service; but she is so attached to me that my visit will have as much effect on her, as if I could do both. She will take it so kindly that it will be a comfort and support to her. It is no great effort to make, I am sure, for such a friend as she has been to me. Wouldn't you go a day's journey, if you were in my place?'
His face was thoughtful, and he sat considering a little before he answered, in a low voice, 'Well! Go. You can do no harm.'
'You have just come back,' said I, 'and it would be in vain to ask you to go with me?'
'Well, then, don't go till next day. I wanted you to come and stay a few days with us. Here I am, on purpose to bid you, and you fly off to Yarmouth!'
'You are a nice fellow to talk of flying off, Steerforth, who are always running wild on some unknown expedition or other!'
He looked at me for a moment without speaking, and then rejoined, still holding me as before, and giving me a shake:
'Come! Say the next day, and pass as much of tomorrow as you can us! Who knows when we may meet again, else? Come! Say the next day! I want you to stand between Rosa Dartle and me, and keep us asunder.'
'Would you love each other too much, without me?'
'Yes; or hate,' laughed Steerforth; 'no matter which. Come! Say the next day!'
I was undressing in my own room, when Mr. Micawber's letter tumbled on the floor. Thus reminded of it, I broke the seal and read as follows. It was dated an hour and a half before dinner. I am not sure whether I have mentioned that, when Mr. Micawber was at any particularly desperate crisis, he used a sort of legal phraseology, which he seemed to think equivalent to winding up his affairs.
'SIR - for I dare not say my dear Copperfield,
'It is expedient that I should inform you that the undersigned is Crushed. Some flickering efforts to spare you the premature knowledge of his calamitous position, you may observe in him this day; but hope has sunk beneath the horizon, and the undersigned is Crushed.
'If any drop of gloom were wanting in the overflowing cup, which is now "commended" (in the language of an immortal Writer) to the lips of the undersigned, it would be found in the fact, that a friendly acceptance granted to the undersigned, by the before-mentioned Mr. Thomas Traddles, for the sum Of 23l 4s 9 1/2d is over due, and is NOT provided for. Also, in the fact that the living responsibilities clinging to the undersigned will, in the course of nature, be increased by the sum of one more helpless victim; whose miserable appearance may be looked for - in round numbers - at the expiration of a period not exceeding six lunar months from the present date.
'After premising thus much, it would be a work of supererogation to add, that dust and ashes are for ever scattered
'On 'The 'Head 'Of 'WILKINS MICAWBER.'
Poor Traddles! I knew enough of Mr. Micawber by this time, to foresee that he might be expected to recover the blow; but my night's rest was sorely distressed by thoughts of Traddles, and of the curate's daughter, who was one of ten, down in Devonshire, and who was such a dear girl, and who would wait for Traddles (ominous praise!) until she was sixty, or any age that could be mentioned.