"I look back on my life, child," said my aunt, "and I think of some who are in their graves, with whom I might have been on kinder terms. If I judged harshly of other people"s mistakes in marriage, it may have been because I had bitter reason to judge harshly of my own. Let that pa.s.s. I have been a grumpy, frumpy, wayward sort of a woman, a good many years.
I am still, and I always shall be. But you and I have done one another some good, Trot,--at all events, you have done me good, my dear; and division must not come between us, at this time of day."
"Division between us!" cried I.
"Child, child!" said my aunt, smoothing her dress, "how soon it might come between us, or how unhappy I might make our Little Blossom, if I meddled in anything, a prophet couldn"t say. I want our pet to like me, and be as gay as a b.u.t.terfly. Remember your own home, in that second marriage; and never do both me and her the injury you have hinted at!"
I comprehended, at once, that my aunt was right; and I comprehended the full extent of her generous feeling towards my dear wife.
"These are early days, Trot," she pursued, "and Rome was not built in a day, nor in a year. You have chosen freely for yourself"; a cloud pa.s.sed over her face for a moment, I thought; "and you have chosen a very pretty and a very affectionate creature. It will be your duty, and it will be your pleasure too--of course I know that; I am not delivering a lecture--to estimate her (as you chose her) by the qualities she has, and not by the qualities she may not have. The latter you must develop in her, if you can. And if you cannot, child," here my aunt rubbed her nose, "you must just accustom yourself to do without "em. But remember, my dear, your future is between you two. No one can a.s.sist you; you are to work it out for yourselves. This is marriage, Trot; and Heaven bless you both, in it, for a pair of babes in the wood as you are!"
My aunt said this in a sprightly way, and gave me a kiss to ratify the blessing.
"Now," said she, "light my little lantern, and see me into my bandbox by the garden path"; for there was a communication between our cottages in that direction. "Give Betsey Trotwood"s love to Blossom, when you come back; and whatever you do, Trot, never dream of setting Betsey up as a scarecrow, for if I ever saw her in the gla.s.s, she"s quite grim enough and gaunt enough in her private capacity!"
With this my aunt tied her head up in a handkerchief, with which she was accustomed to make a bundle of it on such occasions; and I escorted her home. As she stood in her garden, holding up her little lantern to light me back, I thought her observation of me had an anxious air again; but I was too much occupied in pondering on what she had said, and too much impressed--for the first time, in reality--by the conviction that Dora and I had indeed to work out our future for ourselves, and that no one could a.s.sist us, to take much notice of it.
Dora came stealing down in her little slippers, to meet me, now that I was alone; and cried upon my shoulder, and said I had been hard-hearted and she had been naughty; and I said much the same thing in effect, I believe; and we made it up, and agreed that our first little difference was to be our last, and that we were never to have another if we lived a hundred years.
The next domestic trial we went through, was the Ordeal of Servants.
Mary Anne"s cousin deserted into our coal-hole, and was brought out, to our great amazement, by a piquet of his companions in arms, who took him away handcuffed in a procession that covered our front-garden with ignominy. This nerved me to get rid of Mary Anne, who went so mildly, on receipt of wages, that I was surprised, until I found out about the tea-spoons, and also about the little sums she had borrowed in my name of the tradespeople without authority. After an interval of Mrs.
Kidgerbury--the oldest inhabitant of Kentish Town, I believe, who went out charing, but was too feeble to execute her conceptions of that art--we found another treasure, who was one of the most amiable of women, but who generally made a point of falling either up or down the kitchen stairs with the tray, and almost plunged into the parlour, as into a bath, with the tea-things. The ravages committed by this unfortunate, rendering her dismissal necessary, she was succeeded (with intervals of Mrs. Kidgerbury) by a long line of Incapables; terminating in a young person of genteel appearance, who went to Greenwich Fair in Dora"s bonnet. After whom I remember nothing but an average equality of failure.
Everybody we had anything to do with seemed to cheat us. Our appearance in a shop was a signal for the damaged goods to be brought out immediately. If we bought a lobster, it was full of water. All our meat turned out to be tough, and there was hardly any crust to our loaves.
In search of the principle on which joints ought to be roasted, to be roasted enough, and not too much, I myself referred to the Cookery Book, and found it there established as the allowance of a quarter of an hour to every pound, and say a quarter over. But the principle always failed us by some curious fatality, and we never could hit any medium between redness and cinders.
I had reason to believe that in accomplishing these failures we incurred a far greater expense than if we had achieved a series of triumphs. It appeared to me, on looking over the tradesmen"s books, as if we might have kept the bas.e.m.e.nt storey paved with b.u.t.ter, such was the extensive scale of our consumption of that article. I don"t know whether the Excise returns of the period may have exhibited any increase in the demand for pepper; but if our performances did not affect the market, I should say several families must have left off using it. And the most wonderful fact of all was, that we never had anything in the house.
As to the washerwoman p.a.w.ning the clothes, and coming in a state of penitent intoxication to apologize, I suppose that might have happened several times to anybody. Also the chimney on fire, the parish engine, and perjury on the part of the Beadle. But I apprehend that we were personally fortunate in engaging a servant with a taste for cordials, who swelled our running account for porter at the public-house by such inexplicable items as "quartern rum shrub (Mrs. C.)"; "Half-quartern gin and cloves (Mrs. C.)"; "Gla.s.s rum and peppermint (Mrs. C.)"--the parentheses always referring to Dora, who was supposed, it appeared on explanation, to have imbibed the whole of these refreshments.
One of our first feats in the housekeeping way was a little dinner to Traddles. I met him in town, and asked him to walk out with me that afternoon. He readily consenting, I wrote to Dora, saying I would bring him home. It was pleasant weather, and on the road we made my domestic happiness the theme of conversation. Traddles was very full of it; and said, that, picturing himself with such a home, and Sophy waiting and preparing for him, he could think of nothing wanting to complete his bliss.
I could not have wished for a prettier little wife at the opposite end of the table, but I certainly could have wished, when we sat down, for a little more room. I did not know how it was, but though there were only two of us, we were at once always cramped for room, and yet had always room enough to lose everything in. I suspect it may have been because nothing had a place of its own, except Jip"s paG.o.da, which invariably blocked up the main thoroughfare. On the present occasion, Traddles was so hemmed in by the paG.o.da and the guitar-case, and Dora"s flower-painting, and my writing-table, that I had serious doubts of the possibility of his using his knife and fork; but he protested, with his own good-humour, "Oceans of room, Copperfield! I a.s.sure you, Oceans!"
There was another thing I could have wished, namely, that Jip had never been encouraged to walk about the tablecloth during dinner. I began to think there was something disorderly in his being there at all, even if he had not been in the habit of putting his foot in the salt or the melted b.u.t.ter. On this occasion he seemed to think he was introduced expressly to keep Traddles at bay; and he barked at my old friend, and made short runs at his plate, with such undaunted pertinacity, that he may be said to have engrossed the conversation.
However, as I knew how tender-hearted my dear Dora was, and how sensitive she would be to any slight upon her favourite, I hinted no objection. For similar reasons I made no allusion to the skirmishing plates upon the floor; or to the disreputable appearance of the castors, which were all at sixes and sevens, and looked drunk; or to the further blockade of Traddles by wandering vegetable dishes and jugs. I could not help wondering in my own mind, as I contemplated the boiled leg of mutton before me, previous to carving it, how it came to pa.s.s that our joints of meat were of such extraordinary shapes--and whether our butcher contracted for all the deformed sheep that came into the world; but I kept my reflections to myself.
"My love," said I to Dora, "what have you got in that dish?"
I could not imagine why Dora had been making tempting little faces at me, as if she wanted to kiss me.
"Oysters, dear," said Dora, timidly.
"Was that YOUR thought?" said I, delighted.
"Ye-yes, Doady," said Dora.
"There never was a happier one!" I exclaimed, laying down the carving-knife and fork. "There is nothing Traddles likes so much!"
"Ye-yes, Doady," said Dora, "and so I bought a beautiful little barrel of them, and the man said they were very good. But I--I am afraid there"s something the matter with them. They don"t seem right." Here Dora shook her head, and diamonds twinkled in her eyes.
"They are only opened in both sh.e.l.ls," said I. "Take the top one off, my love."
"But it won"t come off!" said Dora, trying very hard, and looking very much distressed.
"Do you know, Copperfield," said Traddles, cheerfully examining the dish, "I think it is in consequence--they are capital oysters, but I think it is in consequence--of their never having been opened."
They never had been opened; and we had no oyster-knives--and couldn"t have used them if we had; so we looked at the oysters and ate the mutton. At least we ate as much of it as was done, and made up with capers. If I had permitted him, I am satisfied that Traddles would have made a perfect savage of himself, and eaten a plateful of raw meat, to express enjoyment of the repast; but I would hear of no such immolation on the altar of friendship, and we had a course of bacon instead; there happening, by good fortune, to be cold bacon in the larder.
My poor little wife was in such affliction when she thought I should be annoyed, and in such a state of joy when she found I was not, that the discomfiture I had subdued, very soon vanished, and we pa.s.sed a happy evening; Dora sitting with her arm on my chair while Traddles and I discussed a gla.s.s of wine, and taking every opportunity of whispering in my ear that it was so good of me not to be a cruel, cross old boy. By and by she made tea for us; which it was so pretty to see her do, as if she was busying herself with a set of doll"s tea-things, that I was not particular about the quality of the beverage. Then Traddles and I played a game or two at cribbage; and Dora singing to the guitar the while, it seemed to me as if our courtship and marriage were a tender dream of mine, and the night when I first listened to her voice were not yet over.
When Traddles went away, and I came back into the parlour from seeing him out, my wife planted her chair close to mine, and sat down by my side. "I am very sorry," she said. "Will you try to teach me, Doady?"
"I must teach myself first, Dora," said I. "I am as bad as you, love."
"Ah! But you can learn," she returned; "and you are a clever, clever man!"
"Nonsense, mouse!" said I.
"I wish," resumed my wife, after a long silence, "that I could have gone down into the country for a whole year, and lived with Agnes!"
Her hands were clasped upon my shoulder, and her chin rested on them, and her blue eyes looked quietly into mine.
"Why so?" I asked.
"I think she might have improved me, and I think I might have learned from her," said Dora.
"All in good time, my love. Agnes has had her father to take care of for these many years, you should remember. Even when she was quite a child, she was the Agnes whom we know," said I.
"Will you call me a name I want you to call me?" inquired Dora, without moving.
"What is it?" I asked with a smile.
"It"s a stupid name," she said, shaking her curls for a moment.
"Child-wife."
I laughingly asked my child-wife what her fancy was in desiring to be so called. She answered without moving, otherwise than as the arm I twined about her may have brought her blue eyes nearer to me:
"I don"t mean, you silly fellow, that you should use the name instead of Dora. I only mean that you should think of me that way. When you are going to be angry with me, say to yourself, "it"s only my child-wife!"
When I am very disappointing, say, "I knew, a long time ago, that she would make but a child-wife!" When you miss what I should like to be, and I think can never be, say, "still my foolish child-wife loves me!"
For indeed I do."
I had not been serious with her; having no idea until now, that she was serious herself. But her affectionate nature was so happy in what I now said to her with my whole heart, that her face became a laughing one before her glittering eyes were dry. She was soon my child-wife indeed; sitting down on the floor outside the Chinese House, ringing all the little bells one after another, to punish Jip for his recent bad behaviour; while Jip lay blinking in the doorway with his head out, even too lazy to be teased.
This appeal of Dora"s made a strong impression on me. I look back on the time I write of; I invoke the innocent figure that I dearly loved, to come out from the mists and shadows of the past, and turn its gentle head towards me once again; and I can still declare that this one little speech was constantly in my memory. I may not have used it to the best account; I was young and inexperienced; but I never turned a deaf ear to its artless pleading.
Dora told me, shortly afterwards, that she was going to be a wonderful housekeeper. Accordingly, she polished the tablets, pointed the pencil, bought an immense account-book, carefully st.i.tched up with a needle and thread all the leaves of the Cookery Book which Jip had torn, and made quite a desperate little attempt "to be good", as she called it. But the figures had the old obstinate propensity--they WOULD NOT add up. When she had entered two or three laborious items in the account-book, Jip would walk over the page, wagging his tail, and smear them all out. Her own little right-hand middle finger got steeped to the very bone in ink; and I think that was the only decided result obtained.
Sometimes, of an evening, when I was at home and at work--for I wrote a good deal now, and was beginning in a small way to be known as a writer--I would lay down my pen, and watch my child-wife trying to be good. First of all, she would bring out the immense account-book, and lay it down upon the table, with a deep sigh. Then she would open it at the place where Jip had made it illegible last night, and call Jip up, to look at his misdeeds. This would occasion a diversion in Jip"s favour, and some inking of his nose, perhaps, as a penalty. Then she would tell Jip to lie down on the table instantly, "like a lion"--which was one of his tricks, though I cannot say the likeness was striking--and, if he were in an obedient humour, he would obey. Then she would take up a pen, and begin to write, and find a hair in it. Then she would take up another pen, and begin to write, and find that it spluttered. Then she would take up another pen, and begin to write, and say in a low voice, "Oh, it"s a talking pen, and will disturb Doady!"