I hurriedly made him a reply to the effect, that I hoped the error into which I had been betrayed by the desperate nature of my love, did not induce him to think me mercenary too?
"I don"t allude to the matter in that light," said Mr. Spenlow. "It would be better for yourself, and all of us, if you WERE mercenary, Mr.
Copperfield--I mean, if you were more discreet and less influenced by all this youthful nonsense. No. I merely say, with quite another view, you are probably aware I have some property to bequeath to my child?"
I certainly supposed so.
"And you can hardly think," said Mr. Spenlow, "having experience of what we see, in the Commons here, every day, of the various unaccountable and negligent proceedings of men, in respect of their testamentary arrangements--of all subjects, the one on which perhaps the strangest revelations of human inconsistency are to be met with--but that mine are made?"
I inclined my head in acquiescence.
"I should not allow," said Mr. Spenlow, with an evident increase of pious sentiment, and slowly shaking his head as he poised himself upon his toes and heels alternately, "my suitable provision for my child to be influenced by a piece of youthful folly like the present. It is mere folly. Mere nonsense. In a little while, it will weigh lighter than any feather. But I might--I might--if this silly business were not completely relinquished altogether, be induced in some anxious moment to guard her from, and surround her with protections against, the consequences of any foolish step in the way of marriage. Now, Mr.
Copperfield, I hope that you will not render it necessary for me to open, even for a quarter of an hour, that closed page in the book of life, and unsettle, even for a quarter of an hour, grave affairs long since composed."
There was a serenity, a tranquillity, a calm sunset air about him, which quite affected me. He was so peaceful and resigned--clearly had his affairs in such perfect train, and so systematically wound up--that he was a man to feel touched in the contemplation of. I really think I saw tears rise to his eyes, from the depth of his own feeling of all this.
But what could I do? I could not deny Dora and my own heart. When he told me I had better take a week to consider of what he had said, how could I say I wouldn"t take a week, yet how could I fail to know that no amount of weeks could influence such love as mine?
"In the meantime, confer with Miss Trotwood, or with any person with any knowledge of life," said Mr. Spenlow, adjusting his cravat with both hands. "Take a week, Mr. Copperfield."
I submitted; and, with a countenance as expressive as I was able to make it of dejected and despairing constancy, came out of the room. Miss Murdstone"s heavy eyebrows followed me to the door--I say her eyebrows rather than her eyes, because they were much more important in her face--and she looked so exactly as she used to look, at about that hour of the morning, in our parlour at Blunderstone, that I could have fancied I had been breaking down in my lessons again, and that the dead weight on my mind was that horrible old spelling-book, with oval woodcuts, shaped, to my youthful fancy, like the gla.s.ses out of spectacles.
When I got to the office, and, shutting out old Tiffey and the rest of them with my hands, sat at my desk, in my own particular nook, thinking of this earthquake that had taken place so unexpectedly, and in the bitterness of my spirit cursing Jip, I fell into such a state of torment about Dora, that I wonder I did not take up my hat and rush insanely to Norwood. The idea of their frightening her, and making her cry, and of my not being there to comfort her, was so excruciating, that it impelled me to write a wild letter to Mr. Spenlow, beseeching him not to visit upon her the consequences of my awful destiny. I implored him to spare her gentle nature--not to crush a fragile flower--and addressed him generally, to the best of my remembrance, as if, instead of being her father, he had been an Ogre, or the Dragon of Wantley.3 This letter I sealed and laid upon his desk before he returned; and when he came in, I saw him, through the half-opened door of his room, take it up and read it.
He said nothing about it all the morning; but before he went away in the afternoon he called me in, and told me that I need not make myself at all uneasy about his daughter"s happiness. He had a.s.sured her, he said, that it was all nonsense; and he had nothing more to say to her. He believed he was an indulgent father (as indeed he was), and I might spare myself any solicitude on her account.
"You may make it necessary, if you are foolish or obstinate, Mr.
Copperfield," he observed, "for me to send my daughter abroad again, for a term; but I have a better opinion of you. I hope you will be wiser than that, in a few days. As to Miss Murdstone," for I had alluded to her in the letter, "I respect that lady"s vigilance, and feel obliged to her; but she has strict charge to avoid the subject. All I desire, Mr.
Copperfield, is, that it should be forgotten. All you have got to do, Mr. Copperfield, is to forget it."
All! In the note I wrote to Miss Mills, I bitterly quoted this sentiment. All I had to do, I said, with gloomy sarcasm, was to forget Dora. That was all, and what was that! I entreated Miss Mills to see me, that evening. If it could not be done with Mr. Mills"s sanction and concurrence, I besought a clandestine interview in the back kitchen where the Mangle was. I informed her that my reason was tottering on its throne, and only she, Miss Mills, could prevent its being deposed.
I signed myself, hers distractedly; and I couldn"t help feeling, while I read this composition over, before sending it by a porter, that it was something in the style of Mr. Micawber.
However, I sent it. At night I repaired to Miss Mills"s street, and walked up and down, until I was stealthily fetched in by Miss Mills"s maid, and taken the area way to the back kitchen. I have since seen reason to believe that there was nothing on earth to prevent my going in at the front door, and being shown up into the drawing-room, except Miss Mills"s love of the romantic and mysterious.
In the back kitchen, I raved as became me. I went there, I suppose, to make a fool of myself, and I am quite sure I did it. Miss Mills had received a hasty note from Dora, telling her that all was discovered, and saying. "Oh pray come to me, Julia, do, do!" But Miss Mills, mistrusting the acceptability of her presence to the higher powers, had not yet gone; and we were all benighted in the Desert of Sahara.
Miss Mills had a wonderful flow of words, and liked to pour them out. I could not help feeling, though she mingled her tears with mine, that she had a dreadful luxury in our afflictions. She petted them, as I may say, and made the most of them. A deep gulf, she observed, had opened between Dora and me, and Love could only span it with its rainbow. Love must suffer in this stern world; it ever had been so, it ever would be so. No matter, Miss Mills remarked. Hearts confined by cobwebs would burst at last, and then Love was avenged.
This was small consolation, but Miss Mills wouldn"t encourage fallacious hopes. She made me much more wretched than I was before, and I felt (and told her with the deepest grat.i.tude) that she was indeed a friend. We resolved that she should go to Dora the first thing in the morning, and find some means of a.s.suring her, either by looks or words, of my devotion and misery. We parted, overwhelmed with grief; and I think Miss Mills enjoyed herself completely.
I confided all to my aunt when I got home; and in spite of all she could say to me, went to bed despairing. I got up despairing, and went out despairing. It was Sat.u.r.day morning, and I went straight to the Commons.
I was surprised, when I came within sight of our office-door, to see the ticket-porters standing outside talking together, and some half-dozen stragglers gazing at the windows which were shut up. I quickened my pace, and, pa.s.sing among them, wondering at their looks, went hurriedly in.
The clerks were there, but n.o.body was doing anything. Old Tiffey, for the first time in his life I should think, was sitting on somebody else"s stool, and had not hung up his hat.
"This is a dreadful calamity, Mr. Copperfield," said he, as I entered.
"What is?" I exclaimed. "What"s the matter?"
"Don"t you know?" cried Tiffey, and all the rest of them, coming round me.
"No!" said I, looking from face to face.
"Mr. Spenlow," said Tiffey.
"What about him!"
"Dead!" I thought it was the office reeling, and not I, as one of the clerks caught hold of me. They sat me down in a chair, untied my neck-cloth, and brought me some water. I have no idea whether this took any time.
"Dead?" said I.
"He dined in town yesterday, and drove down in the phaeton by himself,"
said Tiffey, "having sent his own groom home by the coach, as he sometimes did, you know--"
"Well?"
"The phaeton went home without him. The horses stopped at the stable-gate. The man went out with a lantern. n.o.body in the carriage."
"Had they run away?"
"They were not hot," said Tiffey, putting on his gla.s.ses; "no hotter, I understand, than they would have been, going down at the usual pace. The reins were broken, but they had been dragging on the ground. The house was roused up directly, and three of them went out along the road. They found him a mile off."
"More than a mile off, Mr. Tiffey," interposed a junior.
"Was it? I believe you are right," said Tiffey,--"more than a mile off--not far from the church--lying partly on the roadside, and partly on the path, upon his face. Whether he fell out in a fit, or got out, feeling ill before the fit came on--or even whether he was quite dead then, though there is no doubt he was quite insensible--no one appears to know. If he breathed, certainly he never spoke. Medical a.s.sistance was got as soon as possible, but it was quite useless."
I cannot describe the state of mind into which I was thrown by this intelligence. The shock of such an event happening so suddenly, and happening to one with whom I had been in any respect at variance--the appalling vacancy in the room he had occupied so lately, where his chair and table seemed to wait for him, and his handwriting of yesterday was like a ghost--the in--definable impossibility of separating him from the place, and feeling, when the door opened, as if he might come in--the lazy hush and rest there was in the office, and the insatiable relish with which our people talked about it, and other people came in and out all day, and gorged themselves with the subject--this is easily intelligible to anyone. What I cannot describe is, how, in the innermost recesses of my own heart, I had a lurking jealousy even of Death. How I felt as if its might would push me from my ground in Dora"s thoughts.
How I was, in a grudging way I have no words for, envious of her grief.
How it made me restless to think of her weeping to others, or being consoled by others. How I had a grasping, avaricious wish to shut out everybody from her but myself, and to be all in all to her, at that unseasonable time of all times.
In the trouble of this state of mind--not exclusively my own, I hope, but known to others--I went down to Norwood that night; and finding from one of the servants, when I made my inquiries at the door, that Miss Mills was there, got my aunt to direct a letter to her, which I wrote.
I deplored the untimely death of Mr. Spenlow, most sincerely, and shed tears in doing so. I entreated her to tell Dora, if Dora were in a state to hear it, that he had spoken to me with the utmost kindness and consideration; and had coupled nothing but tenderness, not a single or reproachful word, with her name. I know I did this selfishly, to have my name brought before her; but I tried to believe it was an act of justice to his memory. Perhaps I did believe it.
My aunt received a few lines next day in reply; addressed, outside, to her; within, to me. Dora was overcome by grief; and when her friend had asked her should she send her love to me, had only cried, as she was always crying, "Oh, dear papa! oh, poor papa!" But she had not said No, and that I made the most of.
Mr. jorkins, who had been at Norwood since the occurrence, came to the office a few days afterwards. He and Tiffey were closeted together for some few moments, and then Tiffey looked out at the door and beckoned me in.
"Oh!" said Mr. jorkins. "Mr. Tiffey and myself, Mr. Copperfield, are about to examine the desks, the drawers, and other such repositories of the deceased, with the view of sealing up his private papers, and searching for a Will. There is no trace of any, elsewhere. It may be as well for you to a.s.sist us, if you please."
I had been in agony to obtain some knowledge of the circ.u.mstances in which my Dora would be placed--as, in whose guardianship, and so forth--and this was something towards it. We began the search at once; Mr. jorkins unlocking the drawers and desks, and we all taking out the papers. The office-papers we placed on one side, and the private papers (which were not numerous) on the other. We were very grave; and when we came to a stray seal, or pencil-case, or ring, or any little article of that kind which we a.s.sociated personally with him, we spoke very low.
We had sealed up several packets; and were still going on dustily and quietly, when Mr. jorkins said to us, applying exactly the same words to his late partner as his late partner had applied to him:
"Mr. Spenlow was very difficult to move from the beaten track. You know what he was! I am disposed to think he had made no will."
"Oh, I know he had!" said I.