--"My pet."
(The two last words were to the dog. Oh, if they had only been to me!)
"No," I replied. "Not at all so."
"She is a tiresome creature," said Dora, pouting. "I can"t think what papa can have been about, when he chose such a vexatious thing to be my companion. Who wants a protector? I am sure I don"t want a protector.
Jip can protect me a great deal better than Miss Murdstone,--can"t you, Jip, dear?"
He only winked lazily, when she kissed his ball of a head.
"Papa calls her my confidential friend, but I am sure she is no such thing--is she, Jip? We are not going to confide in any such cross people, Jip and I. We mean to bestow our confidence where we like, and to find out our own friends, instead of having them found out for us--don"t we, Jip?"
Jip made a comfortable noise, in answer, a little like a tea-kettle when it sings. As for me, every word was a new heap of fetters, riveted above the last.
"It is very hard, because we have not a kind Mama, that we are to have, instead, a sulky, gloomy old thing like Miss Murdstone, always following us about--isn"t it, Jip? Never mind, Jip. We won"t be confidential, and we"ll make ourselves as happy as we can in spite of her, and we"ll tease her, and not please her--won"t we, Jip?"
If it had lasted any longer, I think I must have gone down on my knees on the gravel, with the probability before me of grazing them, and of being presently ejected from the premises besides. But, by good fortune the greenhouse was not far off, and these words brought us to it.
It contained quite a show of beautiful geraniums. We loitered along in front of them, and Dora often stopped to admire this one or that one, and I stopped to admire the same one, and Dora, laughing, held the dog up childishly, to smell the flowers; and if we were not all three in Fairyland, certainly I was. The scent of a geranium leaf, at this day, strikes me with a half comical half serious wonder as to what change has come over me in a moment; and then I see a straw hat and blue ribbons, and a quant.i.ty of curls, and a little black dog being held up, in two slender arms, against a bank of blossoms and bright leaves.
Miss Murdstone had been looking for us. She found us here; and presented her uncongenial cheek, the little wrinkles in it filled with hair powder, to Dora to be kissed. Then she took Dora"s arm in hers, and marched us into breakfast as if it were a soldier"s funeral.
How many cups of tea I drank, because Dora made it, I don"t know. But, I perfectly remember that I sat swilling tea until my whole nervous system, if I had had any in those days, must have gone by the board. By and by we went to church. Miss Murdstone was between Dora and me in the pew; but I heard her sing, and the congregation vanished. A sermon was delivered--about Dora, of course--and I am afraid that is all I know of the service.
We had a quiet day. No company, a walk, a family dinner of four, and an evening of looking over books and pictures; Miss Murdstone with a homily before her, and her eye upon us, keeping guard vigilantly. Ah! little did Mr. Spenlow imagine, when he sat opposite to me after dinner that day, with his pocket-handkerchief over his head, how fervently I was embracing him, in my fancy, as his son-in-law! Little did he think, when I took leave of him at night, that he had just given his full consent to my being engaged to Dora, and that I was invoking blessings on his head!
We departed early in the morning, for we had a Salvage case coming on in the Admiralty Court, requiring a rather accurate knowledge of the whole science of navigation, in which (as we couldn"t be expected to know much about those matters in the Commons) the judge had entreated two old Trinity Masters, for charity"s sake, to come and help him out. Dora was at the breakfast-table to make the tea again, however; and I had the melancholy pleasure of taking off my hat to her in the phaeton, as she stood on the door-step with Jip in her arms.
What the Admiralty was to me that day; what nonsense I made of our case in my mind, as I listened to it; how I saw "DORA" engraved upon the blade of the silver oar which they lay upon the table, as the emblem of that high jurisdiction; and how I felt when Mr. Spenlow went home without me (I had had an insane hope that he might take me back again), as if I were a mariner myself, and the ship to which I belonged had sailed away and left me on a desert island; I shall make no fruitless effort to describe. If that sleepy old court could rouse itself, and present in any visible form the daydreams I have had in it about Dora, it would reveal my truth.
I don"t mean the dreams that I dreamed on that day alone, but day after day, from week to week, and term to term. I went there, not to attend to what was going on, but to think about Dora. If ever I bestowed a thought upon the cases, as they dragged their slow length before me, it was only to wonder, in the matrimonial cases (remembering Dora), how it was that married people could ever be otherwise than happy; and, in the Prerogative cases, to consider, if the money in question had been left to me, what were the foremost steps I should immediately have taken in regard to Dora. Within the first week of my pa.s.sion, I bought four sumptuous waistcoats--not for myself; I had no pride in them; for Dora--and took to wearing straw-coloured kid gloves in the streets, and laid the foundations of all the corns I have ever had. If the boots I wore at that period could only be produced and compared with the natural size of my feet, they would show what the state of my heart was, in a most affecting manner.
And yet, wretched cripple as I made myself by this act of homage to Dora, I walked miles upon miles daily in the hope of seeing her. Not only was I soon as well known on the Norwood Road as the postmen on that beat, but I pervaded London likewise. I walked about the streets where the best shops for ladies were, I haunted the Bazaar like an unquiet spirit, I f.a.gged through the Park again and again, long after I was quite knocked up. Sometimes, at long intervals and on rare occasions, I saw her. Perhaps I saw her glove waved in a carriage window; perhaps I met her, walked with her and Miss Murdstone a little way, and spoke to her. In the latter case I was always very miserable afterwards, to think that I had said nothing to the purpose; or that she had no idea of the extent of my devotion, or that she cared nothing about me. I was always looking out, as may be supposed, for another invitation to Mr. Spenlow"s house. I was always being disappointed, for I got none.
Mrs. Crupp must have been a woman of penetration; for when this attachment was but a few weeks old, and I had not had the courage to write more explicitly even to Agnes, than that I had been to Mr.
Spenlow"s house, "whose family," I added, "consists of one daughter";--I say Mrs. Crupp must have been a woman of penetration, for, even in that early stage, she found it out. She came up to me one evening, when I was very low, to ask (she being then afflicted with the disorder I have mentioned) if I could oblige her with a little tincture of cardamums mixed with rhubarb, and flavoured with seven drops of the essence of cloves, which was the best remedy for her complaint;--or, if I had not such a thing by me, with a little brandy, which was the next best. It was not, she remarked, so palatable to her, but it was the next best. As I had never even heard of the first remedy, and always had the second in the closet, I gave Mrs. Crupp a gla.s.s of the second, which (that I might have no suspicion of its being devoted to any improper use) she began to take in my presence.
"Cheer up, sir," said Mrs. Crupp. "I can"t abear to see you so, sir: I"m a mother myself."
I did not quite perceive the application of this fact to myself, but I smiled on Mrs. Crupp, as benignly as was in my power.
"Come, sir," said Mrs. Crupp. "Excuse me. I know what it is, sir.
There"s a lady in the case."
"Mrs. Crupp?" I returned, reddening.
"Oh, bless you! Keep a good heart, sir!" said Mrs. Crupp, nodding encouragement. "Never say die, sir! If She don"t smile upon you, there"s a many as will. You are a young gentleman to be smiled on, Mr.
Copperfull, and you must learn your walue, sir."
Mrs. Crupp always called me Mr. Copperfull: firstly, no doubt, because it was not my name; and secondly, I am inclined to think, in some indistinct a.s.sociation with a washing-day.
"What makes you suppose there is any young lady in the case, Mrs.
Crupp?" said I.
"Mr. Copperfull," said Mrs. Crupp, with a great deal of feeling, "I"m a mother myself."
For some time Mrs. Crupp could only lay her hand upon her nankeen bosom, and fortify herself against returning pain with sips of her medicine. At length she spoke again.
"When the present set were took for you by your dear aunt, Mr.
Copperfull," said Mrs. Crupp, "my remark were, I had now found summun I could care for. "Thank Ev"in!" were the expression, "I have now found summun I can care for!"--You don"t eat enough, sir, nor yet drink."
"Is that what you found your supposition on, Mrs. Crupp?" said I.
"Sir," said Mrs. Crupp, in a tone approaching to severity, "I"ve laundressed other young gentlemen besides yourself. A young gentleman may be over-careful of himself, or he may be under-careful of himself.
He may brush his hair too regular, or too un-regular. He may wear his boots much too large for him, or much too small. That is according as the young gentleman has his original character formed. But let him go to which extreme he may, sir, there"s a young lady in both of "em."
Mrs. Crupp shook her head in such a determined manner, that I had not an inch of vantage-ground left.
"It was but the gentleman which died here before yourself," said Mrs.
Crupp, "that fell in love--with a barmaid--and had his waistcoats took in directly, though much swelled by drinking."
"Mrs. Crupp," said I, "I must beg you not to connect the young lady in my case with a barmaid, or anything of that sort, if you please."
"Mr. Copperfull," returned Mrs. Crupp, "I"m a mother myself, and not likely. I ask your pardon, sir, if I intrude. I should never wish to intrude where I were not welcome. But you are a young gentleman, Mr.
Copperfull, and my adwice to you is, to cheer up, sir, to keep a good heart, and to know your own walue. If you was to take to something, sir," said Mrs. Crupp, "if you was to take to skittles, now, which is healthy, you might find it divert your mind, and do you good."
With these words, Mrs. Crupp, affecting to be very careful of the brandy--which was all gone--thanked me with a majestic curtsey, and retired. As her figure disappeared into the gloom of the entry, this counsel certainly presented itself to my mind in the light of a slight liberty on Mrs. Crupp"s part; but, at the same time, I was content to receive it, in another point of view, as a word to the wise, and a warning in future to keep my secret better.
CHAPTER 27. TOMMY TRADDLES
It may have been in consequence of Mrs. Crupp"s advice, and, perhaps, for no better reason than because there was a certain similarity in the sound of the word skittles and Traddles, that it came into my head, next day, to go and look after Traddles. The time he had mentioned was more than out, and he lived in a little street near the Veterinary College at Camden Town, which was princ.i.p.ally tenanted, as one of our clerks who lived in that direction informed me, by gentlemen students, who bought live donkeys, and made experiments on those quadrupeds in their private apartments. Having obtained from this clerk a direction to the academic grove in question, I set out, the same afternoon, to visit my old schoolfellow.
I found that the street was not as desirable a one as I could have wished it to be, for the sake of Traddles. The inhabitants appeared to have a propensity to throw any little trifles they were not in want of, into the road: which not only made it rank and sloppy, but untidy too, on account of the cabbage-leaves. The refuse was not wholly vegetable either, for I myself saw a shoe, a doubled-up saucepan, a black bonnet, and an umbrella, in various stages of decomposition, as I was looking out for the number I wanted.
The general air of the place reminded me forcibly of the days when I lived with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. An indescribable character of faded gentility that attached to the house I sought, and made it unlike all the other houses in the street--though they were all built on one monotonous pattern, and looked like the early copies of a blundering boy who was learning to make houses, and had not yet got out of his cramped brick-and-mortar pothooks--reminded me still more of Mr. and Mrs.
Micawber. Happening to arrive at the door as it was opened to the afternoon milkman, I was reminded of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber more forcibly yet.
"Now," said the milkman to a very youthful servant girl. "Has that there little bill of mine been heerd on?"
"Oh, master says he"ll attend to it immediate," was the reply.
"Because," said the milkman, going on as if he had received no answer, and speaking, as I judged from his tone, rather for the edification of somebody within the house, than of the youthful servant--an impression which was strengthened by his manner of glaring down the pa.s.sage--"because that there little bill has been running so long, that I begin to believe it"s run away altogether, and never won"t be heerd of. Now, I"m not a going to stand it, you know!" said the milkman, still throwing his voice into the house, and glaring down the pa.s.sage.
As to his dealing in the mild article of milk, by the by, there never was a greater anomaly. His deportment would have been fierce in a butcher or a brandy-merchant.
The voice of the youthful servant became faint, but she seemed to me, from the action of her lips, again to murmur that it would be attended to immediate.