Whatever I know, you shall know. If ever I can do anything to serve the poor betrayed girl, I will do it faithfully, please Heaven! And Littimer had better have a bloodhound at his back, than little Mowcher!"
I placed implicit faith in this last statement, when I marked the look with which it was accompanied.
"Trust me no more, but trust me no less, than you would trust a full-sized woman," said the little creature, touching me appealingly on the wrist. "If ever you see me again, unlike what I am now, and like what I was when you first saw me, observe what company I am in. Call to mind that I am a very helpless and defenceless little thing. Think of me at home with my brother like myself and sister like myself, when my day"s work is done. Perhaps you won"t, then, be very hard upon me, or surprised if I can be distressed and serious. Good night!"
I gave Miss Mowcher my hand, with a very different opinion of her from that which I had hitherto entertained, and opened the door to let her out. It was not a trifling business to get the great umbrella up, and properly balanced in her grasp; but at last I successfully accomplished this, and saw it go bobbing down the street through the rain, without the least appearance of having anybody underneath it, except when a heavier fall than usual from some over-charged water-spout sent it toppling over, on one side, and discovered Miss Mowcher struggling violently to get it right. After making one or two sallies to her relief, which were rendered futile by the umbrella"s hopping on again, like an immense bird, before I could reach it, I came in, went to bed, and slept till morning.
In the morning I was joined by Mr. Peggotty and by my old nurse, and we went at an early hour to the coach office, where Mrs. Gummidge and Ham were waiting to take leave of us.
"Mas"r Davy," Ham whispered, drawing me aside, while Mr. Peggotty was stowing his bag among the luggage, "his life is quite broke up. He doen"t know wheer he"s going; he doen"t know--what"s afore him; he"s bound upon a voyage that"ll last, on and off, all the rest of his days, take my wured for "t, unless he finds what he"s a seeking of. I am sure you"ll be a friend to him, Mas"r Davy?"
"Trust me, I will indeed," said I, shaking hands with Ham earnestly.
"Thankee. Thankee, very kind, sir. One thing furder. I"m in good employ, you know, Mas"r Davy, and I han"t no way now of spending what I gets.
Money"s of no use to me no more, except to live. If you can lay it out for him, I shall do my work with a better art. Though as to that, sir,"
and he spoke very steadily and mildly, "you"re not to think but I shall work at all times, like a man, and act the best that lays in my power!"
I told him I was well convinced of it; and I hinted that I hoped the time might even come, when he would cease to lead the lonely life he naturally contemplated now.
"No, sir," he said, shaking his head, "all that"s past and over with me, sir. No one can never fill the place that"s empty. But you"ll bear in mind about the money, as theer"s at all times some laying by for him?"
Reminding him of the fact, that Mr. Peggotty derived a steady, though certainly a very moderate income from the bequest of his late brother-in-law, I promised to do so. We then took leave of each other. I cannot leave him even now, without remembering with a pang, at once his modest fort.i.tude and his great sorrow.
As to Mrs. Gummidge, if I were to endeavour to describe how she ran down the street by the side of the coach, seeing nothing but Mr. Peggotty on the roof, through the tears she tried to repress, and dashing herself against the people who were coming in the opposite direction, I should enter on a task of some difficulty. Therefore I had better leave her sitting on a baker"s door-step, out of breath, with no shape at all remaining in her bonnet, and one of her shoes off, lying on the pavement at a considerable distance.
When we got to our journey"s end, our first pursuit was to look about for a little lodging for Peggotty, where her brother could have a bed. We were so fortunate as to find one, of a very clean and cheap description, over a chandler"s shop, only two streets removed from me. When we had engaged this domicile, I bought some cold meat at an eating-house, and took my fellow-travellers home to tea; a proceeding, I regret to state, which did not meet with Mrs. Crupp"s approval, but quite the contrary. I ought to observe, however, in explanation of that lady"s state of mind, that she was much offended by Peggotty"s tucking up her widow"s gown before she had been ten minutes in the place, and setting to work to dust my bedroom. This Mrs. Crupp regarded in the light of a liberty, and a liberty, she said, was a thing she never allowed.
Mr. Peggotty had made a communication to me on the way to London for which I was not unprepared. It was, that he purposed first seeing Mrs.
Steerforth. As I felt bound to a.s.sist him in this, and also to mediate between them; with the view of sparing the mother"s feelings as much as possible, I wrote to her that night. I told her as mildly as I could what his wrong was, and what my own share in his injury. I said he was a man in very common life, but of a most gentle and upright character; and that I ventured to express a hope that she would not refuse to see him in his heavy trouble. I mentioned two o"clock in the afternoon as the hour of our coming, and I sent the letter myself by the first coach in the morning.
At the appointed time, we stood at the door--the door of that house where I had been, a few days since, so happy: where my youthful confidence and warmth of heart had been yielded up so freely: which was closed against me henceforth: which was now a waste, a ruin.
No Littimer appeared. The pleasanter face which had replaced his, on the occasion of my last visit, answered to our summons, and went before us to the drawing-room. Mrs. Steerforth was sitting there. Rosa Dartle glided, as we went in, from another part of the room and stood behind her chair.
I saw, directly, in his mother"s face, that she knew from himself what he had done. It was very pale; and bore the traces of deeper emotion than my letter alone, weakened by the doubts her fondness would have raised upon it, would have been likely to create. I thought her more like him than ever I had thought her; and I felt, rather than saw, that the resemblance was not lost on my companion.
She sat upright in her arm-chair, with a stately, immovable, pa.s.sionless air, that it seemed as if nothing could disturb. She looked very steadfastly at Mr. Peggotty when he stood before her; and he looked quite as steadfastly at her. Rosa Dartle"s keen glance comprehended all of us. For some moments not a word was spoken.
She motioned to Mr. Peggotty to be seated. He said, in a low voice, "I shouldn"t feel it nat"ral, ma"am, to sit down in this house. I"d sooner stand." And this was succeeded by another silence, which she broke thus:
"I know, with deep regret, what has brought you here. What do you want of me? What do you ask me to do?"
He put his hat under his arm, and feeling in his breast for Emily"s letter, took it out, unfolded it, and gave it to her. "Please to read that, ma"am. That"s my niece"s hand!"
She read it, in the same stately and impa.s.sive way,--untouched by its contents, as far as I could see,--and returned it to him.
""Unless he brings me back a lady,"" said Mr. Peggotty, tracing out that part with his finger. "I come to know, ma"am, whether he will keep his wured?"
"No," she returned.
"Why not?" said Mr. Peggotty.
"It is impossible. He would disgrace himself. You cannot fail to know that she is far below him."
"Raise her up!" said Mr. Peggotty.
"She is uneducated and ignorant."
"Maybe she"s not; maybe she is," said Mr. Peggotty. "I think not, ma"am; but I"m no judge of them things. Teach her better!"
"Since you oblige me to speak more plainly, which I am very unwilling to do, her humble connexions would render such a thing impossible, if nothing else did."
"Hark to this, ma"am," he returned, slowly and quietly. "You know what it is to love your child. So do I. If she was a hundred times my child, I couldn"t love her more. You doen"t know what it is to lose your child.
I do. All the heaps of riches in the wureld would be nowt to me (if they was mine) to buy her back! But, save her from this disgrace, and she shall never be disgraced by us. Not one of us that she"s growed up among, not one of us that"s lived along with her and had her for their all in all, these many year, will ever look upon her pritty face again.
We"ll be content to let her be; we"ll be content to think of her, far off, as if she was underneath another sun and sky; we"ll be content to trust her to her husband,--to her little children, p"raps,--and bide the time when all of us shall be alike in quality afore our G.o.d!"
The rugged eloquence with which he spoke, was not devoid of all effect.
She still preserved her proud manner, but there was a touch of softness in her voice, as she answered:
"I justify nothing. I make no counter-accusations. But I am sorry to repeat, it is impossible. Such a marriage would irretrievably blight my son"s career, and ruin his prospects. Nothing is more certain than that it never can take place, and never will. If there is any other compensation--"
"I am looking at the likeness of the face," interrupted Mr. Peggotty, with a steady but a kindling eye, "that has looked at me, in my home, at my fireside, in my boat--wheer not?---smiling and friendly, when it was so treacherous, that I go half wild when I think of it. If the likeness of that face don"t turn to burning fire, at the thought of offering money to me for my child"s blight and ruin, it"s as bad. I doen"t know, being a lady"s, but what it"s worse."
She changed now, in a moment. An angry flush overspread her features; and she said, in an intolerant manner, grasping the arm-chair tightly with her hands:
"What compensation can you make to ME for opening such a pit between me and my son? What is your love to mine? What is your separation to ours?"
Miss Dartle softly touched her, and bent down her head to whisper, but she would not hear a word.
"No, Rosa, not a word! Let the man listen to what I say! My son, who has been the object of my life, to whom its every thought has been devoted, whom I have gratified from a child in every wish, from whom I have had no separate existence since his birth,--to take up in a moment with a miserable girl, and avoid me! To repay my confidence with systematic deception, for her sake, and quit me for her! To set this wretched fancy, against his mother"s claims upon his duty, love, respect, grat.i.tude--claims that every day and hour of his life should have strengthened into ties that nothing could be proof against! Is this no injury?"
Again Rosa Dartle tried to soothe her; again ineffectually.
"I say, Rosa, not a word! If he can stake his all upon the lightest object, I can stake my all upon a greater purpose. Let him go where he will, with the means that my love has secured to him! Does he think to reduce me by long absence? He knows his mother very little if he does.
Let him put away his whim now, and he is welcome back. Let him not put her away now, and he never shall come near me, living or dying, while I can raise my hand to make a sign against it, unless, being rid of her for ever, he comes humbly to me and begs for my forgiveness. This is my right. This is the acknowledgement I WILL HAVE. This is the separation that there is between us! And is this," she added, looking at her visitor with the proud intolerant air with which she had begun, "no injury?"
While I heard and saw the mother as she said these words, I seemed to hear and see the son, defying them. All that I had ever seen in him of an unyielding, wilful spirit, I saw in her. All the understanding that I had now of his misdirected energy, became an understanding of her character too, and a perception that it was, in its strongest springs, the same.
She now observed to me, aloud, resuming her former restraint, that it was useless to hear more, or to say more, and that she begged to put an end to the interview. She rose with an air of dignity to leave the room, when Mr. Peggotty signified that it was needless.
"Doen"t fear me being any hindrance to you, I have no more to say, ma"am," he remarked, as he moved towards the door. "I come beer with no hope, and I take away no hope. I have done what I thowt should be done, but I never looked fur any good to come of my stan"ning where I do.
This has been too evil a house fur me and mine, fur me to be in my right senses and expect it."
With this, we departed; leaving her standing by her elbow-chair, a picture of a n.o.ble presence and a handsome face.
We had, on our way out, to cross a paved hall, with gla.s.s sides and roof, over which a vine was trained. Its leaves and shoots were green then, and the day being sunny, a pair of gla.s.s doors leading to the garden were thrown open. Rosa Dartle, entering this way with a noiseless step, when we were close to them, addressed herself to me:
"You do well," she said, "indeed, to bring this fellow here!"