DAVID
COPPERFIELD
PART 50
CHAPTER 50. Mr. PEGGOTTY'S DREAM COMES TRUE
By this
time, some months had passed since our interview on the bank of the river with
Martha. I had never seen her since, but she had communicated with Mr. Peggotty
on several occasions. Nothing had come of her zealous intervention; nor could I
infer, from what he told me, that any clue had been obtained, for a moment, to
Emily's fate. I confess that I began to despair of her recovery, and gradually
to sink deeper and deeper into the belief that she was dead.
His
conviction remained unchanged. So far as I know—and I believe his honest heart
was transparent to me—he never wavered again, in his solemn certainty of
finding her. His patience never tired. And, although I trembled for the agony
it might one day be to him to have his strong assurance shivered at a blow,
there was something so religious in it, so affectingly expressive of its anchor
being in the purest depths of his fine nature, that the respect and honour in
which I held him were exalted every day.
His was
not a lazy trustfulness that hoped, and did no more. He had been a man of
sturdy action all his life, and he knew that in all things wherein he wanted
help he must do his own part faithfully, and help himself. I have known him set
out in the night, on a misgiving that the light might not be, by some accident,
in the window of the old boat, and walk to Yarmouth. I have known him, on
reading something in the newspaper that might apply to her, take up his stick,
and go forth on a journey of three—or four-score miles. He made his way by sea
to Naples, and back, after hearing the narrative to which Miss Dartle had
assisted me. All his journeys were ruggedly performed; for he was always
steadfast in a purpose of saving money for Emily's sake, when she should be
found. In all this long pursuit, I never heard him repine; I never heard him
say he was fatigued, or out of heart.
Dora had
often seen him since our marriage, and was quite fond of him. I fancy his
figure before me now, standing near her sofa, with his rough cap in his hand,
and the blue eyes of my child-wife raised, with a timid wonder, to his face.
Sometimes of an evening, about twilight, when he came to talk with me, I would
induce him to smoke his pipe in the garden, as we slowly paced to and fro
together; and then, the picture of his deserted home, and the comfortable air
it used to have in my childish eyes of an evening when the fire was burning,
and the wind moaning round it, came most vividly into my mind.
One
evening, at this hour, he told me that he had found Martha waiting near his lodging
on the preceding night when he came out, and that she had asked him not to
leave London on any account, until he should have seen her again.
'Did she
tell you why?' I inquired.
'I asked
her, Mas'r Davy,' he replied, 'but it is but few words as she ever says, and
she on'y got my promise and so went away.'
'Did she
say when you might expect to see her again?' I demanded.
'No,
Mas'r Davy,' he returned, drawing his hand thoughtfully down his face. 'I asked
that too; but it was more (she said) than she could tell.'
As I had
long forborne to encourage him with hopes that hung on threads, I made no other
comment on this information than that I supposed he would see her soon. Such
speculations as it engendered within me I kept to myself, and those were faint
enough.
I was
walking alone in the garden, one evening, about a fortnight afterwards. I
remember that evening well. It was the second in Mr. Micawber's week of
suspense. There had been rain all day, and there was a damp feeling in the air.
The leaves were thick upon the trees, and heavy with wet; but the rain had
ceased, though the sky was still dark; and the hopeful birds were singing
cheerfully. As I walked to and fro in the garden, and the twilight began to
close around me, their little voices were hushed; and that peculiar silence
which belongs to such an evening in the country when the lightest trees are
quite still, save for the occasional droppings from their boughs, prevailed.
There was
a little green perspective of trellis-work and ivy at the side of our cottage,
through which I could see, from the garden where I was walking, into the road
before the house. I happened to turn my eyes towards this place, as I was
thinking of many things; and I saw a figure beyond, dressed in a plain cloak.
It was bending eagerly towards me, and beckoning.
'Martha!'
said I, going to it.
'Can you
come with me?' she inquired, in an agitated whisper. 'I have been to him, and
he is not at home. I wrote down where he was to come, and left it on his table
with my own hand. They said he would not be out long. I have tidings for him.
Can you come directly?'
My answer
was, to pass out at the gate immediately. She made a hasty gesture with her
hand, as if to entreat my patience and my silence, and turned towards London,
whence, as her dress betokened, she had come expeditiously on foot.
I asked
her if that were not our destination? On her motioning Yes, with the same hasty
gesture as before, I stopped an empty coach that was coming by, and we got into
it. When I asked her where the coachman was to drive, she answered, 'Anywhere
near Golden Square! And quick!'—then shrunk into a corner, with one trembling
hand before her face, and the other making the former gesture, as if she could
not bear a voice.
Now much
disturbed, and dazzled with conflicting gleams of hope and dread, I looked at
her for some explanation. But seeing how strongly she desired to remain quiet,
and feeling that it was my own natural inclination too, at such a time, I did
not attempt to break the silence. We proceeded without a word being spoken.
Sometimes she glanced out of the window, as though she thought we were going
slowly, though indeed we were going fast; but otherwise remained exactly as at
first.
We
alighted at one of the entrances to the Square she had mentioned, where I
directed the coach to wait, not knowing but that we might have some occasion
for it. She laid her hand on my arm, and hurried me on to one of the sombre streets,
of which there are several in that part, where the houses were once fair
dwellings in the occupation of single families, but have, and had, long
degenerated into poor lodgings let off in rooms. Entering at the open door of
one of these, and releasing my arm, she beckoned me to follow her up the common
staircase, which was like a tributary channel to the street.
The house
swarmed with inmates. As we went up, doors of rooms were opened and people's
heads put out; and we passed other people on the stairs, who were coming down.
In glancing up from the outside, before we entered, I had seen women and
children lolling at the windows over flower-pots; and we seemed to have
attracted their curiosity, for these were principally the observers who looked
out of their doors. It was a broad panelled staircase, with massive balustrades
of some dark wood; cornices above the doors, ornamented with carved fruit and
flowers; and broad seats in the windows. But all these tokens of past grandeur
were miserably decayed and dirty; rot, damp, and age, had weakened the
flooring, which in many places was unsound and even unsafe. Some attempts had
been made, I noticed, to infuse new blood into this dwindling frame, by
repairing the costly old wood-work here and there with common deal; but it was
like the marriage of a reduced old noble to a plebeian pauper, and each party
to the ill-assorted union shrunk away from the other. Several of the back
windows on the staircase had been darkened or wholly blocked up. In those that
remained, there was scarcely any glass; and, through the crumbling frames by
which the bad air seemed always to come in, and never to go out, I saw, through
other glassless windows, into other houses in a similar condition, and looked
giddily down into a wretched yard, which was the common dust-heap of the
mansion.
We
proceeded to the top-storey of the house. Two or three times, by the way, I
thought I observed in the indistinct light the skirts of a female figure going
up before us. As we turned to ascend the last flight of stairs between us and
the roof, we caught a full view of this figure pausing for a moment, at a door.
Then it turned the handle, and went in.
'What's
this!' said Martha, in a whisper. 'She has gone into my room. I don't know
her!'
I knew
her. I had recognized her with amazement, for Miss Dartle.
I said
something to the effect that it was a lady whom I had seen before, in a few
words, to my conductress; and had scarcely done so, when we heard her voice in
the room, though not, from where we stood, what she was saying. Martha, with an
astonished look, repeated her former action, and softly led me up the stairs;
and then, by a little back-door which seemed to have no lock, and which she
pushed open with a touch, into a small empty garret with a low sloping roof,
little better than a cupboard. Between this, and the room she had called hers,
there was a small door of communication, standing partly open. Here we stopped,
breathless with our ascent, and she placed her hand lightly on my lips. I could
only see, of the room beyond, that it was pretty large; that there was a bed in
it; and that there were some common pictures of ships upon the walls. I could
not see Miss Dartle, or the person whom we had heard her address. Certainly, my
companion could not, for my position was the best. A dead silence prevailed for
some moments. Martha kept one hand on my lips, and raised the other in a
listening attitude.
'It
matters little to me her not being at home,' said Rosa Dartle haughtily, 'I
know nothing of her. It is you I come to see.'
'Me?'
replied a soft voice.
At the
sound of it, a thrill went through my frame. For it was Emily's!
'Yes,'
returned Miss Dartle, 'I have come to look at you. What? You are not ashamed of
the face that has done so much?'
The
resolute and unrelenting hatred of her tone, its cold stern sharpness, and its
mastered rage, presented her before me, as if I had seen her standing in the
light. I saw the flashing black eyes, and the passion-wasted figure; and I saw
the scar, with its white track cutting through her lips, quivering and
throbbing as she spoke.
'I have
come to see,' she said, 'James Steerforth's fancy; the girl who ran away with
him, and is the town-talk of the commonest people of her native place; the
bold, flaunting, practised companion of persons like James Steerforth. I want
to know what such a thing is like.'
There was
a rustle, as if the unhappy girl, on whom she heaped these taunts, ran towards
the door, and the speaker swiftly interposed herself before it. It was
succeeded by a moment's pause.
When Miss
Dartle spoke again, it was through her set teeth, and with a stamp upon the
ground.
'Stay
there!' she said, 'or I'll proclaim you to the house, and the whole street! If
you try to evade me, I'll stop you, if it's by the hair, and raise the very
stones against you!'
A
frightened murmur was the only reply that reached my ears. A silence succeeded.
I did not know what to do. Much as I desired to put an end to the interview, I
felt that I had no right to present myself; that it was for Mr. Peggotty alone
to see her and recover her. Would he never come? I thought impatiently.
'So!'
said Rosa Dartle, with a contemptuous laugh, 'I see her at last! Why, he was a
poor creature to be taken by that delicate mock-modesty, and that hanging
head!'
'Oh, for
Heaven's sake, spare me!' exclaimed Emily. 'Whoever you are, you know my
pitiable story, and for Heaven's sake spare me, if you would be spared
yourself!'
'If I
would be spared!' returned the other fiercely; 'what is there in common between
US, do you think!'
'Nothing
but our sex,' said Emily, with a burst of tears.
'And
that,' said Rosa Dartle, 'is so strong a claim, preferred by one so infamous,
that if I had any feeling in my breast but scorn and abhorrence of you, it
would freeze it up. Our sex! You are an honour to our sex!'
'I have
deserved this,' said Emily, 'but it's dreadful! Dear, dear lady, think what I
have suffered, and how I am fallen! Oh, Martha, come back! Oh, home, home!'
Miss
Dartle placed herself in a chair, within view of the door, and looked downward,
as if Emily were crouching on the floor before her. Being now between me and
the light, I could see her curled lip, and her cruel eyes intently fixed on one
place, with a greedy triumph.
'Listen
to what I say!' she said; 'and reserve your false arts for your dupes. Do you
hope to move me by your tears? No more than you could charm me by your smiles,
you purchased slave.'
'Oh, have
some mercy on me!' cried Emily. 'Show me some compassion, or I shall die mad!'
'It would
be no great penance,' said Rosa Dartle, 'for your crimes. Do you know what you
have done? Do you ever think of the home you have laid waste?'
'Oh, is
there ever night or day, when I don't think of it!' cried Emily; and now I
could just see her, on her knees, with her head thrown back, her pale face
looking upward, her hands wildly clasped and held out, and her hair streaming
about her. 'Has there ever been a single minute, waking or sleeping, when it
hasn't been before me, just as it used to be in the lost days when I turned my
back upon it for ever and for ever! Oh, home, home! Oh dear, dear uncle, if you
ever could have known the agony your love would cause me when I fell away from
good, you never would have shown it to me so constant, much as you felt it; but
would have been angry to me, at least once in my life, that I might have had some
comfort! I have none, none, no comfort upon earth, for all of them were always
fond of me!' She dropped on her face, before the imperious figure in the chair,
with an imploring effort to clasp the skirt of her dress.
Rosa
Dartle sat looking down upon her, as inflexible as a figure of brass. Her lips
were tightly compressed, as if she knew that she must keep a strong constraint
upon herself—I write what I sincerely believe—or she would be tempted to strike
the beautiful form with her foot. I saw her, distinctly, and the whole power of
her face and character seemed forced into that expression.—-Would he never
come?
'The
miserable vanity of these earth-worms!' she said, when she had so far
controlled the angry heavings of her breast, that she could trust herself to
speak. 'YOUR home! Do you imagine that I bestow a thought on it, or suppose you
could do any harm to that low place, which money would not pay for, and
handsomely? YOUR home! You were a part of the trade of your home, and were
bought and sold like any other vendible thing your people dealt in.'
'Oh, not
that!' cried Emily. 'Say anything of me; but don't visit my disgrace and shame,
more than I have done, on folks who are as honourable as you! Have some respect
for them, as you are a lady, if you have no mercy for me.'
'I
speak,' she said, not deigning to take any heed of this appeal, and drawing
away her dress from the contamination of Emily's touch, 'I speak of HIS
home—where I live. Here,' she said, stretching out her hand with her contemptuous
laugh, and looking down upon the prostrate girl, 'is a worthy cause of division
between lady-mother and gentleman-son; of grief in a house where she wouldn't
have been admitted as a kitchen-girl; of anger, and repining, and reproach.
This piece of pollution, picked up from the water-side, to be made much of for
an hour, and then tossed back to her original place!'
'No! no!'
cried Emily, clasping her hands together. 'When he first came into my way—that
the day had never dawned upon me, and he had met me being carried to my
grave!—I had been brought up as virtuous as you or any lady, and was going to
be the wife of as good a man as you or any lady in the world can ever marry. If
you live in his home and know him, you know, perhaps, what his power with a
weak, vain girl might be. I don't defend myself, but I know well, and he knows
well, or he will know when he comes to die, and his mind is troubled with it,
that he used all his power to deceive me, and that I believed him, trusted him,
and loved him!'
Rosa
Dartle sprang up from her seat; recoiled; and in recoiling struck at her, with
a face of such malignity, so darkened and disfigured by passion, that I had
almost thrown myself between them. The blow, which had no aim, fell upon the
air. As she now stood panting, looking at her with the utmost detestation that
she was capable of expressing, and trembling from head to foot with rage and
scorn, I thought I had never seen such a sight, and never could see such
another.
'YOU love
him? You?' she cried, with her clenched hand, quivering as if it only wanted a
weapon to stab the object of her wrath.
Emily had
shrunk out of my view. There was no reply.
'And tell
that to ME,' she added, 'with your shameful lips? Why don't they whip these
creatures? If I could order it to be done, I would have this girl whipped to
death.'
And so
she would, I have no doubt. I would not have trusted her with the rack itself,
while that furious look lasted. She slowly, very slowly, broke into a laugh,
and pointed at Emily with her hand, as if she were a sight of shame for gods
and men.
'SHE love!'
she said. 'THAT carrion! And he ever cared for her, she'd tell me. Ha, ha! The
liars that these traders are!'
Her
mockery was worse than her undisguised rage. Of the two, I would have much
preferred to be the object of the latter. But, when she suffered it to break
loose, it was only for a moment. She had chained it up again, and however it
might tear her within, she subdued it to herself.
'I came
here, you pure fountain of love,' she said, 'to see—as I began by telling
you—what such a thing as you was like. I was curious. I am satisfied. Also to
tell you, that you had best seek that home of yours, with all speed, and hide
your head among those excellent people who are expecting you, and whom your
money will console. When it's all gone, you can believe, and trust, and love
again, you know! I thought you a broken toy that had lasted its time; a
worthless spangle that was tarnished, and thrown away. But, finding you true
gold, a very lady, and an ill-used innocent, with a fresh heart full of love and
trustfulness—which you look like, and is quite consistent with your story!—I
have something more to say. Attend to it; for what I say I'll do. Do you hear
me, you fairy spirit? What I say, I mean to do!'
Her rage
got the better of her again, for a moment; but it passed over her face like a
spasm, and left her smiling.
'Hide
yourself,' she pursued, 'if not at home, somewhere. Let it be somewhere beyond
reach; in some obscure life—or, better still, in some obscure death. I wonder,
if your loving heart will not break, you have found no way of helping it to be
still! I have heard of such means sometimes. I believe they may be easily
found.'
A low
crying, on the part of Emily, interrupted her here. She stopped, and listened
to it as if it were music.
'I am of
a strange nature, perhaps,' Rosa Dartle went on; 'but I can't breathe freely in
the air you breathe. I find it sickly. Therefore, I will have it cleared; I
will have it purified of you. If you live here tomorrow, I'll have your story
and your character proclaimed on the common stair. There are decent women in
the house, I am told; and it is a pity such a light as you should be among
them, and concealed. If, leaving here, you seek any refuge in this town in any
character but your true one (which you are welcome to bear, without molestation
from me), the same service shall be done you, if I hear of your retreat. Being
assisted by a gentleman who not long ago aspired to the favour of your hand, I
am sanguine as to that.'
Would he
never, never come? How long was I to bear this? How long could I bear it? 'Oh
me, oh me!' exclaimed the wretched Emily, in a tone that might have touched the
hardest heart, I should have thought; but there was no relenting in Rosa
Dartle's smile. 'What, what, shall I do!'
'Do?'
returned the other. 'Live happy in your own reflections! Consecrate your
existence to the recollection of James Steerforth's tenderness—he would have
made you his serving-man's wife, would he not?—-or to feeling grateful to the
upright and deserving creature who would have taken you as his gift. Or, if
those proud remembrances, and the consciousness of your own virtues, and the
honourable position to which they have raised you in the eyes of everything
that wears the human shape, will not sustain you, marry that good man, and be
happy in his condescension. If this will not do either, die! There are doorways
and dust-heaps for such deaths, and such despair—find one, and take your flight
to Heaven!'
I heard a
distant foot upon the stairs. I knew it, I was certain. It was his, thank God!
She moved
slowly from before the door when she said this, and passed out of my sight.
'But
mark!' she added, slowly and sternly, opening the other door to go away, 'I am
resolved, for reasons that I have and hatreds that I entertain, to cast you
out, unless you withdraw from my reach altogether, or drop your pretty mask.
This is what I had to say; and what I say, I mean to do!'
The foot
upon the stairs came nearer—nearer—passed her as she went down—rushed into the
room!
'Uncle!'
A fearful
cry followed the word. I paused a moment, and looking in, saw him supporting
her insensible figure in his arms. He gazed for a few seconds in the face; then
stooped to kiss it—oh, how tenderly!—and drew a handkerchief before it.
'Mas'r
Davy,' he said, in a low tremulous voice, when it was covered, 'I thank my
Heav'nly Father as my dream's come true! I thank Him hearty for having guided
of me, in His own ways, to my darling!'
With
those words he took her up in his arms; and, with the veiled face lying on his
bosom, and addressed towards his own, carried her, motionless and unconscious,
down the stairs.
To be continued
