"That ain"t a sort of man to see sitting behind a coach-box, is it though?" said William in my ear, as he handled the reins.
I construed this remark into an indication of a wish that he should have my place, so I blushingly offered to resign it.
"Well, if you don"t mind, sir," said William, "I think it would be more correct."
I have always considered this as the first fall I had in life. When I booked my place at the coach office I had had "Box Seat" written against the entry, and had given the book-keeper half-a-crown. I was got up in a special great-coat and shawl, expressly to do honour to that distinguished eminence; had glorified myself upon it a good deal; and had felt that I was a credit to the coach. And here, in the very first stage, I was supplanted by a shabby man with a squint, who had no other merit than smelling like a livery-stables, and being able to walk across me, more like a fly than a human being, while the horses were at a canter!
A distrust of myself, which has often beset me in life on small occasions, when it would have been better away, was a.s.suredly not stopped in its growth by this little incident outside the Canterbury coach. It was in vain to take refuge in gruffness of speech. I spoke from the pit of my stomach for the rest of the journey, but I felt completely extinguished, and dreadfully young.
It was curious and interesting, nevertheless, to be sitting up there behind four horses: well educated, well dressed, and with plenty of money in my pocket; and to look out for the places where I had slept on my weary journey. I had abundant occupation for my thoughts, in every conspicuous landmark on the road. When I looked down at the trampers whom we pa.s.sed, and saw that well-remembered style of face turned up, I felt as if the tinker"s blackened hand were in the bosom of my shirt again. When we clattered through the narrow street of Chatham, and I caught a glimpse, in pa.s.sing, of the lane where the old monster lived who had bought my jacket, I stretched my neck eagerly to look for the place where I had sat, in the sun and in the shade, waiting for my money. When we came, at last, within a stage of London, and pa.s.sed the veritable Salem House where Mr. Creakle had laid about him with a heavy hand, I would have given all I had, for lawful permission to get down and thrash him, and let all the boys out like so many caged sparrows.
We went to the Golden Cross at Charing Cross, then a mouldy sort of establishment in a close neighbourhood. A waiter showed me into the coffee-room; and a chambermaid introduced me to my small bedchamber, which smelt like a hackney-coach, and was shut up like a family vault.
I was still painfully conscious of my youth, for n.o.body stood in any awe of me at all: the chambermaid being utterly indifferent to my opinions on any subject, and the waiter being familiar with me, and offering advice to my inexperience.
"Well now," said the waiter, in a tone of confidence, "what would you like for dinner? Young gentlemen likes poultry in general: have a fowl!"
I told him, as majestically as I could, that I wasn"t in the humour for a fowl.
"Ain"t you?" said the waiter. "Young gentlemen is generally tired of beef and mutton: have a weal cutlet!"
I a.s.sented to this proposal, in default of being able to suggest anything else.
"Do you care for taters?" said the waiter, with an insinuating smile, and his head on one side. "Young gentlemen generally has been overdosed with taters."
I commanded him, in my deepest voice, to order a veal cutlet and potatoes, and all things fitting; and to inquire at the bar if there were any letters for Trotwood Copperfield, Esquire--which I knew there were not, and couldn"t be, but thought it manly to appear to expect.
He soon came back to say that there were none (at which I was much surprised) and began to lay the cloth for my dinner in a box by the fire. While he was so engaged, he asked me what I would take with it; and on my replying "Half a pint of sherry,"thought it a favourable opportunity, I am afraid, to extract that measure of wine from the stale leavings at the bottoms of several small decanters. I am of this opinion, because, while I was reading the newspaper, I observed him behind a low wooden part.i.tion, which was his private apartment, very busy pouring out of a number of those vessels into one, like a chemist and druggist making up a prescription. When the wine came, too, I thought it flat; and it certainly had more English crumbs in it, than were to be expected in a foreign wine in anything like a pure state, but I was bashful enough to drink it, and say nothing.
Being then in a pleasant frame of mind (from which I infer that poisoning is not always disagreeable in some stages of the process), I resolved to go to the play. It was Covent Garden Theatre that I chose; and there, from the back of a centre box, I saw Julius Caesar and the new Pantomime. To have all those n.o.ble Romans alive before me, and walking in and out for my entertainment, instead of being the stern taskmasters they had been at school, was a most novel and delightful effect. But the mingled reality and mystery of the whole show, the influence upon me of the poetry, the lights, the music, the company, the smooth stupendous changes of glittering and brilliant scenery, were so dazzling, and opened up such illimitable regions of delight, that when I came out into the rainy street, at twelve o"clock at night, I felt as if I had come from the clouds, where I had been leading a romantic life for ages, to a bawling, splashing, link-lighted, umbrella-struggling, hackney-coach-jostling, patten-clinking, muddy, miserable world.
I had emerged by another door, and stood in the street for a little while, as if I really were a stranger upon earth: but the unceremonious pushing and hustling that I received, soon recalled me to myself, and put me in the road back to the hotel; whither I went, revolving the glorious vision all the way; and where, after some porter and oysters, I sat revolving it still, at past one o"clock, with my eyes on the coffee-room fire.
I was so filled with the play, and with the past--for it was, in a manner, like a shining transparency, through which I saw my earlier life moving along--that I don"t know when the figure of a handsome well-formed young man dressed with a tasteful easy negligence which I have reason to remember very well, became a real presence to me. But I recollect being conscious of his company without having noticed his coming in--and my still sitting, musing, over the coffee-room fire.
At last I rose to go to bed, much to the relief of the sleepy waiter, who had got the fidgets in his legs, and was twisting them, and hitting them, and putting them through all kinds of contortions in his small pantry. In going towards the door, I pa.s.sed the person who had come in, and saw him plainly. I turned directly, came back, and looked again. He did not know me, but I knew him in a moment.
At another time I might have wanted the confidence or the decision to speak to him, and might have put it off until next day, and might have lost him. But, in the then condition of my mind, where the play was still running high, his former protection of me appeared so deserving of my grat.i.tude, and my old love for him overflowed my breast so freshly and spontaneously, that I went up to him at once, with a fast-beating heart, and said:
"Steerforth! won"t you speak to me?"
He looked at me--just as he used to look, sometimes--but I saw no recognition in his face.
"You don"t remember me, I am afraid," said I.
"My G.o.d!" he suddenly exclaimed. "It"s little Copperfield!"
I grasped him by both hands, and could not let them go. But for very shame, and the fear that it might displease him, I could have held him round the neck and cried.
"I never, never, never was so glad! My dear Steerforth, I am so overjoyed to see you!"
"And I am rejoiced to see you, too!" he said, shaking my hands heartily.
"Why, Copperfield, old boy, don"t be overpowered!" And yet he was glad, too, I thought, to see how the delight I had in meeting him affected me.
I brushed away the tears that my utmost resolution had not been able to keep back, and I made a clumsy laugh of it, and we sat down together, side by side.
"Why, how do you come to be here?" said Steerforth, clapping me on the shoulder.
"I came here by the Canterbury coach, today. I have been adopted by an aunt down in that part of the country, and have just finished my education there. How do YOU come to be here, Steerforth?"
"Well, I am what they call an Oxford man," he returned; "that is to say, I get bored to death down there, periodically--and I am on my way now to my mother"s. You"re a devilish amiable-looking fellow, Copperfield. Just what you used to be, now I look at you! Not altered in the least!"
"I knew you immediately," I said; "but you are more easily remembered."
He laughed as he ran his hand through the cl.u.s.tering curls of his hair, and said gaily:
"Yes, I am on an expedition of duty. My mother lives a little way out of town; and the roads being in a beastly condition, and our house tedious enough, I remained here tonight instead of going on. I have not been in town half-a-dozen hours, and those I have been dozing and grumbling away at the play."
"I have been at the play, too," said I. "At Covent Garden. What a delightful and magnificent entertainment, Steerforth!"
Steerforth laughed heartily.
"My dear young Davy," he said, clapping me on the shoulder again, "you are a very Daisy. The daisy of the field, at sunrise, is not fresher than you are. I have been at Covent Garden, too, and there never was a more miserable business. Holloa, you sir!"
This was addressed to the waiter, who had been very attentive to our recognition, at a distance, and now came forward deferentially.
"Where have you put my friend, Mr. Copperfield?" said Steerforth.
"Beg your pardon, sir?"
"Where does he sleep? What"s his number? You know what I mean," said Steerforth.
"Well, sir," said the waiter, with an apologetic air. "Mr. Copperfield is at present in forty-four, sir."
"And what the devil do you mean," retorted Steerforth, "by putting Mr.
Copperfield into a little loft over a stable?"
"Why, you see we wasn"t aware, sir," returned the waiter, still apologetically, "as Mr. Copperfield was anyways particular. We can give Mr. Copperfield seventy-two, sir, if it would be preferred. Next you, sir."
"Of course it would be preferred," said Steerforth. "And do it at once."
The waiter immediately withdrew to make the exchange. Steerforth, very much amused at my having been put into forty-four, laughed again, and clapped me on the shoulder again, and invited me to breakfast with him next morning at ten o"clock--an invitation I was only too proud and happy to accept. It being now pretty late, we took our candles and went upstairs, where we parted with friendly heartiness at his door, and where I found my new room a great improvement on my old one, it not being at all musty, and having an immense four-post bedstead in it, which was quite a little landed estate. Here, among pillows enough for six, I soon fell asleep in a blissful condition, and dreamed of ancient Rome, Steerforth, and friendship, until the early morning coaches, rumbling out of the archway underneath, made me dream of thunder and the G.o.ds.
CHAPTER 20. STEERFORTH"S HOME
When the chambermaid tapped at my door at eight o"clock, and informed me that my shaving-water was outside, I felt severely the having no occasion for it, and blushed in my bed. The suspicion that she laughed too, when she said it, preyed upon my mind all the time I was dressing; and gave me, I was conscious, a sneaking and guilty air when I pa.s.sed her on the staircase, as I was going down to breakfast. I was so sensitively aware, indeed, of being younger than I could have wished, that for some time I could not make up my mind to pa.s.s her at all, under the ign.o.ble circ.u.mstances of the case; but, hearing her there with a broom, stood peeping out of window at King Charles on horseback, surrounded by a maze of hackney-coaches, and looking anything but regal in a drizzling rain and a dark-brown fog, until I was admonished by the waiter that the gentleman was waiting for me.
It was not in the coffee-room that I found Steerforth expecting me, but in a snug private apartment, red-curtained and Turkey-carpeted, where the fire burnt bright, and a fine hot breakfast was set forth on a table covered with a clean cloth; and a cheerful miniature of the room, the fire, the breakfast, Steerforth, and all, was shining in the little round mirror over the sideboard. I was rather bashful at first, Steerforth being so self-possessed, and elegant, and superior to me in all respects (age included); but his easy patronage soon put that to rights, and made me quite at home. I could not enough admire the change he had wrought in the Golden Cross; or compare the dull forlorn state I had held yesterday, with this morning"s comfort and this morning"s entertainment. As to the waiter"s familiarity, it was quenched as if it had never been. He attended on us, as I may say, in sackcloth and ashes.