David Copperfield

by Charles Dickens

  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 m impressive cough, "as between man and man."

  "I propose," said Mr. Micawber, "Bills--a convenience o the mercantile world, for which, I believe, we are originally ndebted to the Jews, who appear to me to have had a devilish deal too much to do with them ever since--because hey 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 business-like 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 enthralled him," said Mrs. Micawber, "and of commencing a new career in a country where there is sufficient range for his abilities--which, in my opinion, is exceedingly important, Mr. Micawber's abilities peculiarly requiring space--it seems to me that my family should signalize the occasion by coming forward. What I could wish to see would be a meeting between Mr. Micawber and my family at a festive entertainment, to be given at any family's expense, where Mr. Micawber's health and prosperity being proposed, by some leading member of my family, Mr. Micawber might have an opportunity of developing his views."

  "My dear," said Mr. Micawber, with some heat, "it may be better for me to state distinctly, at once, that if I were to develop my views to that assembled group, they would possibly be found of an offensive nature, my impression being that your family are, in the aggregate, impertinent Snobs, and, in detail, unmitigated Ruffians."

  "Micawber," said Mrs. Micawber, shaking her head, "no! You have never understood them, and they have never understood you."

  Mr. Micawber coughed.

  "They have never understood you, Micawber," said his wife. "They may be incapable of it. If so, that is their misfortune. I can pity their misfortune."

  "I am extremely sorry, my dear Emma," said Mr. Micawber, relenting, "to have been betrayed into any expressions that might, even remotely, have the appearance of being strong expressions. All I would say is that I can go abroad without your family coming forward to favour me--in short, with a parting Shove of their cold shoulders, and that, upon the whole, I would rather leave England with such impetus as I possess, than derive any acceleration of it from that quarter. At the same time, my dear, if they should condescend to reply to your communications--which our joint experience renders most improbable--far be it from me to be a barrier to your wishes."

  The matter being thus amicably settled, Mr. Micawber gave Mrs. Micawber his arm, and, glancing at the heap of books and papers lying before Traddles on the table, said they would leave us to ourselves, which they ceremoniously did.

  "My dear Copperfield," said Traddles, leaning back in his chair when they were gone, and looking at me with an affection that made his eyes red, and his hair all kinds of shapes, "I don't make any excuse for troubling you with business, because I know you are deeply interested in it, and it may divert your thoughts. My dear boy, I hope you are not worn."

  "I am quite myself," said I, after a pause. "We have more cause to think of my aunt than of anyone. You know how much she has done."

  "Surely, surely," answered Traddles. "Who can forget it!"

  "But even that is not all," said I. "During the last fortnight, some new trouble has vexed her, and she has been in and out of London every day. Several times she has gone out early, and been absent until evening. Last night, Traddles, with this journey before her, it was almost midnight before she came home. You know what her consideration for others is. She will not tell me what has happened to distress her."

  My aunt, very pale, and with deep lines in her face, sat immovable until I had finished, when some stray tears found their way to her cheeks, and she put her hand on mine.

  "It's nothing, Trot, it's nothing. There will be no more of it. You shall know by-and-by. Now, Agnes, my dear, let us attend to these affairs."

  "I must do Mr. Micawber the justice to say," Traddles began, "that although he would appear not to have worked to any good account for himself, he is a most untiring man when he works for other people. I never saw such a fellow. If he always goes on in the same way, he must be, virtually, about two hundred years old, at present. The heat into which he has been continually putting himself, and the distracted and impetuous manner in which he has been diving, day and night, among papers and books, to say nothing of the immense number of letters he has written me between this house and Mr. Wickfield's, and often across the table when he has been sitting opposite, and might much more easily have spoken, is quite extraordinary."

 
"Letters!" cried my aunt. "I believe he dreams in letters!"

  "There's Mr. Dick, too," said Traddles, "has been doing wonders! As soon as he was released from overlooking Uriah Heep, whom he kept in such charge as I never saw exceeded, he began to devote himself to Mr. Wickfield. And really his anxiety to be of use in the investigations we have been making, and his real usefulness in extracting, and copying, and fetching, and carrying, have been quite stimulating to us."

  "Dick is a very remarkable man," exclaimed my aunt, "and I always said he was. Trot, you know it."

  "I am happy to say, Miss Wickfield," pursued Traddles, at once with great delicacy and with great earnestness, "that in your absence Mr. Wickfield has considerably improved. Relieved of the incubus that had fastened upon him for so long a time, and of the dreadful apprehensions under which he had lived, he is hardly the same person. At times, even his impaired power of concentrating his memory and attention on particular points of business, has recovered itself very much, and he has been able to assist us in making some things clear, that we should have found very difficult indeed, if not hopeless, without him. But, what I have to do is to come to results, which are short enough, not to gossip on all the hopeful circumstances I have observed, or I shall never have done."

  His natural manner and agreeable simplicity made it transparent that he said this to put us in good heart, and to enable Agnes to hear her father mentioned with greater confidence, but it was not the less pleasant for that.

  "Now, let me see," said Traddles, looking among the papers on the table. "Having counted our funds, and reduced to order a great mass of unintentional confusion in the first place, and of wilful confusion and falsification in the second, we take it to be clear that Mr. Wickfield might now wind up his business, and his agency-trust, and exhibit no deficiency or defalcation whatever."

  "Oh, thank Heaven!" cried Agnes, fervently.

  "But," said Traddles, "the surplus that would be left as his means of support--and I suppose the house to be sold, even in saying this--would be so small, not exceeding in all probability some hundreds of pounds, that perhaps, Miss Wickfield, it would be best to consider whether he might not retain his agency of the estate to which he has so long been receiver. His friends might advise him, you know, now he is free. You yourself, Miss WickBeld--Copperneld--I--" "

  "I have considered it, Trotwood," said Agnes, looking to me, "and I feel that it ought not to be, and must not be, even on the recommendation of a friend to whom I am so grateful, and owe so much."

  "I will not say that I recommend it," observed Traddles. "I think it right to suggest it. No more."

  "I am happy to hear you say so," answered Agnes, steadily, "for it gives me hope, almost assurance, that we think alike. Dear Mr. Traddles and dear Trotwood, Papa once free with honour, what could I wish for! I have always aspired, if I could have released him from the toils in which he was held, to render back some little portion of the love and care I owe him, and to devote my life to him. It has been, for years, the utmost height of my hopes. To take our future on myself will be the next great happiness--the next to his release from all trust and responsibility--that I can know."

  "Have you thought how, Agnes?"

  "Often! I am not afraid, dear Trotwood. I am certain of success. So many people know me here, and think kindly of me, that I am certain. Don't mistrust me. Our wants are not many. If I rent the dear old house, and keep a school, I shall be useful and happy."

  The calm fervour of her cheerful voice brought back so vividly, first the dear old house itself, and then my solitary home, that my heart was too full for speech. Traddles pretended for a little while to be busily looking among the papers.

  "Next, Miss Trotwood," said Traddles, "that property of yours."

  "Well, sir," sighed my aunt, "all I have got to say about it is that, if it's gone, I can bear it, and if it's not gone, I shall be glad to get it back."

  "It was originally, I think, eight thousand pounds, Consols?" said Traddles.

  "Right!" replied my aunt.

  "I can't account for more than five," said Traddles, with an air of perplexity.

  "--thousand, do you mean?" inquired my aunt, with uncommon composure, "or pounds?"

  "Five thousand pounds," said Traddles.

  "It was all there was," returned my aunt. "I sold three, myself. One, I paid for your articles, Trot, my dear, and the other two I have by me. When I lost the rest, I thought it wise to say nothing about that sum, but to keep it secretly for a rainy day. I wanted to see how you would come out of the trial, Trot, and you came out nobly--persevering, self-reliant, self-denying! So did Dick. Don't speak to me, for I find my nerves a little shaken!"

  Nobody would have thought so, to see her sitting upright, with her arms folded, but she had wonderful self-command.

  "Then I am delighted to say," cried Traddles, beaming with joy, "that we have recovered the whole money!"

  "Don't congratulate me, anybody!" exclaimed my aunt. "How so, sir?"

  "You believed it had been misappropriated-by Mr. Wickfield?" said Traddles.

  "Of course I did," said my aunt, "and was therefore easily silenced. Agnes, not a word!"

  "And indeed," said Traddles, "it was sold, by virtue of the power of management he held from you, but I needn't say by whom sold, or on whose actual signature. It was afterwards pretended to Mr. Wickfield, by that rascal--and proved, too, by figures--that he had possessed himself of the money (on general instructions, he said) to keep other deficiencies and difficulties from the light. Mr. Wickfield, being so weak and helpless in his hands as to pay you, afterwards, several sums of interest on a pretended principal which he knew did not exist, made himself, unhappily, a party to the fraud."

  "And at last took the blame upon himself," added my aunt, "and wrote me a mad letter, charging himself with robbery, and wrong unheard of. Upon which I paid him a visit early one morning, called for a candle, burnt the letter, and told him if he ever could right me and himself, to do it, and if he couldn't, to keep his own counsel for his daughter's sake.--If anybody speaks to me, I'll leave the house!"

  We all remained quiet, Agnes covering her face.

  "Well, my dear friend," said my aunt, after a pause, "and you have really extorted the money back from him?"

  "Why, the fact is," returned Traddles, "Mr. Micawber had so completely hemmed him in, and was always ready with so many new points if an old one failed, that he could not escape from us. A most remarkable circumstance is that I really don't think he grasped this sum even so much for the gratification of his avarice, which was inordinate, as in the hatred he felt for Copperfield. He said so to me, plainly. He said he would even have spent as much, to baulk or injure Copperfield."

  "Ha!" said my aunt, knitting her brows thoughtfully, and glancing at Agnes. "And what's become of him?"

  "I don't know. He left here," said Traddles, "with his mother, who had been clamouring, and beseeching, and disclosing, the whole time. They went away by one of the London night-coaches, and I know no more about him, except that his malevolence to me at parting was audacious. He seemed to consider himself hardly less indebted to me, than to Mr. Micawber, which I consider (as I told him) quite a compliment."

  "Do you suppose he has any money, Traddles?" I asked.

  "Oh dear, yes, I should think so," he replied, shaking his head, seriously. "I should say he must have pocketed a good deal, in one way or other. But, I think you would find, Copperfield, if you had an opportunity of observing his course, that money would never keep that man out of mischief. He is such an incarnate hypocrite that whatever object he pursues, he must pursue crookedly. It's his only compensation for the outward restraints he puts upon himself. Always creeping along the ground to some small end or other, he will always magnify every object in the way, and consequently will hate and suspect everybody that comes, in the most innocent manner, between him and it. So, the crooked courses will become crookeder, at any moment, for the least reason, or for none. It's only necessar
y to consider his history here," said Traddles, "to know that."

  "He's a monster of meanness!" said my aunt.

  "Really I don't know about that," observed Traddles, thoughtfully. "Many people can be very mean, when they give their minds to it."

  "And now, touching Mr. Micawber," said my aunt.

  "Well, really," said Traddles, cheerfully, "I must, once more, give Mr. Micawber high praise. But for his having been so patient and persevering for so long a time, we never could have hoped to do anything worth speaking of. And I think we ought to consider that Mr. Micawber did right, for right's sake, when we reflect what terms he might have made with Uriah Heep himself, for his silence."

  "I think so too," said I.

  "Now, what would you give him?" inquired my aunt.

  "Ohl Before you come to that," said Traddles, a little disconcerted, "I am afraid I thought it discreet to omit (not being able to carry everything before me) two points, in making this lawless adjustment--for it's perfectly lawless from beginning to end--of a difficult affair. ThoseIOU's, and so forth, which Mr. Micawber gave him for the advances he had--"

  "Well! They must be paid," said my aunt.

  "Yes, but I don't know when they may be proceeded on, or where they are," rejoined Traddles, opening his eyes, "and I anticipate, that, between this time and his departure, Mr. Micawber will be constantly arrested, or taken in execution."

  "Then he must be constantly set free again, and taken out of execution," said my aunt. "What's the amount altogether?"

  "Why, Mr. Micawber has entered the transactions--he calls them transactions--with great form, in a book," rejoined Traddles, smiling, "and he makes the amount a hundred and three pounds, five."

  "Now, what shall we give him, that sum included?" said my aunt. "Agnes, my dear, you and I can talk about division of it afterwards. What should it be? Five hundred pounds?"

  Upon this, Traddles and I both struck in at once. We both recommended a small sum in money, and the payment, without stipulation to Mr. Micawber, of the Uriah claims as they came in. We proposed that the family should have their passage and their outfit, and a hundred pounds, and that Mr. Micawber's arrangement for the repayment of the advances should be gravely entered into, as it might be wholesome for him to suppose himself under that responsibility. To this I added the suggestion that I should give some explanation of his character and history to Mr. Peggotty, who I knew could be relied on, and that to Mr. Peggotty should be quietly entrusted the discretion of advancing another hundred. I further proposed to interest Mr. Micawber in Mr. Peggotty, by confiding so much of Mr. Peggotty's story to him as I might feel justified in relating, or might think expedient, and to endeavour to bring each of them to bear upon the other, for the common advantage. We all entered warmly into these views, and I may mention at once that the principals themselves did so, shortly afterwards, with perfect good will and harmony.