Chapter 8

"I am here to take David back, Miss Trotwood; to dispose of him as I think proper, and to deal with him as I think right. I am not here to make any promise to anybody. You may possibly have some idea, Miss Trotwood, of abetting him in his running away, and in his complaints to you. Now, I must caution you, that if you abet him once, you abet him for good and all. I cannot trifle, or be trifled with. I am here, for the first and last time, to take him away. Is he ready to go? If you tell me he is not, it is indifferent to me on what pretence,--my doors are shut against him henceforth, and yours, I take it for granted are open to him."

My aunt had listened with the closest attention, her hands folded on her knee, and looking grimly at the speaker. When he had finished, she turned to Miss Murdstone, and said:

"Well, ma'am, have _you_ got anything to remark?"

As she had not, my aunt turned to me.

"And what does the boy say?" she said. "Are you ready to go, David?"

I answered no, and entreated her not to let me go. I begged and prayed my aunt to befriend and protect me, for my father's sake.

My aunt consulted for a moment with Mr. Dick, and then she pulled me towards her, and said to Mr. Murdstone:

"You can go when you like; I'll take my chance with the boy. If he's all you say he is, at least I can do as much for him then, as you have done. But I don't believe a word of it."

There were some additional words on both sides, and then the Murdstones stood ready to leave.

"Good day, sir," said my aunt "and good-bye! Good day to you too, ma'am,"--turning suddenly upon his sister. "Let me see you ride a donkey over my green again, and as sure as you have a head upon your shoulders, I'll knock your bonnet off, and tread upon it!"

The manner and matter of this speech were so fiery, that Miss Murdstone without a word in answer, discreetly put her arm through her brother's, and walked hastily out of the cottage, my aunt remaining at the window, prepared in case of the donkey's re-appearance, to carry her threat into execution. No attempt at defiance being made, however, her face gradually relaxed, and became so pleasant, that I was emboldened to kiss and thank her; which I did with great heartiness. She then told me that she wished my name to be changed to Trotwood Copperfield, and this notion so pleased her, that some ready-made clothes purchased for me that very day, were marked "Trotwood Copperfield," in indelible ink before I put them on, and it was settled that all my clothes thereafter should be marked in the same way.

Thus I began my new life in a new name, and with everything new about me. For many days I felt that it was all a dream, and then the truth came over me in waves of joy that it was no dream, but blessed, blessed reality!

Aunt Betsey soon sent me to Doctor Strong's excellent school at Canterbury. It was decorously ordered on a sound system, with an appeal in everything to the honour and good faith of the boys. We all felt that we had a part in the management of the place, and learnt with a good will, desiring to do it credit. We had noble games out of hours, and plenty of liberty, and the whole plan of the school was as superior to that of Salem House as can be imagined. I soon became warmly attached to the place, the teachers, and the boys, and in a little while the Murdstone and Grinsby life became so strange that I hardly believed in it. Of course I wrote to Peggotty, relating my experiences, and how my aunt had taken me under her care, and returning the half guinea I had borrowed, and Peggotty answered promptly, but although she expressed herself as glad in my gladness, I could see that she did not take quite kindly to my Aunt as yet.

The days glide swiftly on. I am higher in the school,--I am growing great in Latin verse, think dancing school a tiresome affair, and neglect the laces of my boots. Doctor Strong refers to me publicly as a promising young scholar, at which my aunt remits me a guinea by the next post.

The shade of a young butcher crosses my path. He is the terror of Doctor Strong's young gentlemen, whom he publicly disparages. He names individuals (myself included) whom he could undertake to settle with one hand, and the other tied behind him. He waylays the smaller boys to punch their unprotected heads, and calls challenges after me in the streets. For these reasons, I resolve to fight the butcher.

We meet by appointment with a select audience. Soon, I don't know where the wall is, or where I am, or where anybody is, but after a bloody tangle and tussle in the trodden grass, feeling very queer about the head, I awake, and augur justly that the victory is not mine. I am taken home in a sad plight, to have beef-steaks put to my eyes, and am rubbed with vinegar and brandy, and find a great white puffy place on my upper lip, and for several days I remain in the house with a green shade over my eyes, and yet feeling that I did right to fight the butcher.

I change more and more, and now I am the head boy. I wear a gold watch and chain, a ring upon my little finger, and a long-tailed coat. I am seventeen, and am smitten with a violent passion for the eldest Miss Larkins, who is about thirty. She amuses herself with me as with a new toy, wears my ring for a season, and then announces her engagement to a Mr. Chestle. I am terribly dejected for a week or two, then I rally, become a boy once more, fight the butcher again, gloriously defeat him, and feel better,--and soon my school days draw to a close.

My aunt and I had many grave deliberations on the calling to which I should devote myself, but could come to no conclusion, as I had no particular liking that I could discover, for any profession. So my aunt proposed that while I was thinking the matter over, I take a little trip, a breathing spell, as it were.

"What I want you to be, Trot," said my aunt,--"I don't mean physically, but morally; you are very well physically--is, a firm fellow, a fine, firm fellow, with a will of your own, with determination. With character, Trot, with strength of character that is not to be influenced, except on good reason, by anybody, or by anything. That's what I want you to be."

I intimated that I hoped I should be what she described, and she added that it was best for me to go on my trip alone, to learn to rely upon myself.

So I was fitted out with a handsome purse of money, and tenderly dismissed upon my expedition, promising to write three times a week, and to be back in a month's time.

I went first to say farewell to Doctor Strong, and then took my seat on the box of the London coach. It was interesting to be sitting up there, behind four horses; well educated, well dressed, with plenty of money, and to look out for the places where I had slept on my weary journey. I stretched my neck eagerly, looking for old landmarks, and when we passed Salem House I fairly tingled with emotion. At Charing Cross I stopped at the Golden Cross, and as soon as I had taken a room, ordered my dinner, trying to appear as old and dignified as possible. In the evening I went to the Covent Garden Theatre, and saw Julius Caesar and a pantomime. It was new to me, and the mingled reality and mystery of the whole show, lights, music, company, and glittering scenery, were so dazzling that when I went out at midnight into the rain, I felt as if I had been for a time an inmate of another world, and was so excited that instead of going to my room in the hotel I ordered some porter and oysters, and sat revolving the glorious visions in my mind until past one o'clock. Presently, I began to watch a young man near me whose face was very familiar. Finally, I rose, and with a fast-beating heart said,

"Steerforth, won't you speak to me?"

He quickly glanced up, but there was no recognition in his face.

"My God," he suddenly exclaimed, "It's little Copperfield!"

Then ensued a violent shaking of hands, and a volley of questions on both sides. He was studying at Oxford, but was on his way to visit his mother, who lived just out of London. He was as handsome, and fascinating, and gay, as ever, in fact quite bewilderingly so to me; and all those things which I enjoyed, he pronounced dreadful bores, quite like a man of the world. However, we got on famously, and when he invited me to go with him to his home at Highgate, I accepted with pleasure, and spent a delightful week there in the genteel, old-fashioned, quiet home. At the end of the week, Steerforth decided to go with me to Yarmouth, so we travelled on together to the inn there, and took rooms.

As early as possible the next day, I visited Peggotty. She did not recognise me after our seven years' separation, but when at last it dawned on her who I was, she cried, "My darling boy!" and we both burst into tears, and were locked in one another's arms as though I were a child again.

That evening Steerforth and I went to see Mr. Peggotty and my other friends in the boat, and we were so warmly received that it was nearly midnight when we took our leave. We stayed in Yarmouth for more than a fortnight, and I made many pilgrimages to the dear haunts of my childhood, particularly to that place where my mother and father lay, and mingled with my sad thoughts were brighter ones, about my future--and of how in it I was to become a man of whom they might have been proud.

At the end of the fortnight came a letter from Aunt Betsey, saying that she had taken lodgings for a week in London, and that if I would join her, we could discuss her latest plan for me, which was that I become a proctor in Doctors' Commons.

I mentioned the plan to Steerforth, and he advised me to take kindly to it, and by the time that I reached London I had made up my mind to do so. My aunt was greatly pleased when I told her this, whereupon I proceeded to add that my only objection to the plan lay in the great expense it would be to article me,--a thousand pounds at least. I spoke of her past liberality to me, and asked her whether I had not better choose some work which required less expensive preliminaries.

For a time my aunt was deep in thought. Then she replied:

"Trot, my child, if I have any object in life, it is to provide for your being a good, sensible, and happy man. I am bent upon it. It's in vain, Trot, to recall the past, unless it has some influence upon the present. Perhaps I might have been better friends with your father and mother. When you came to me, a little runaway boy, perhaps I thought so. From that time until now, Trot, you have ever been a credit to me, and a pride and pleasure. I have no other claim upon my means,--and you are my adopted child. Only be a loving child to me in my old age, and bear with my whims and fancies, and you will do more for an old woman whose prime of life was not so happy as it might have been, than ever that old woman did for you."

It was the first time I had heard my aunt refer to her past history. Her quiet way of doing it would have exalted her in my respect and affection, if anything could.

"All is agreed and understood between us now, Trot," she said, "and we need talk of this no more. Give me a kiss, and we'll go to the Commons in the morning."

And accordingly at noon the next day we made our way to Doctors' Commons, interviewed Mr. Spenlow, of the firm of Spenlow and Jorkins, and I was accepted on a month's probation as an articled clerk. Mr. Spenlow then conducted me through the Court, that I might see what sort of a place it was. Then my aunt and I set off in search of lodgings for me, and before night I was the proud and happy owner of the key to a little set of chambers in the Adelphi, conveniently situated near the Court, and to my taste in all ways. Seeing how enraptured I was with them, my aunt took them for a month, with the privilege of a year, made arrangements with the landlady about meals and linen, and I was to take possession in two days; during which time I saw Aunt Betsey safely started on her homeward journey towards Dover, dreading to leave me, but exulting in the coming discomfiture of the vagrant donkeys.

It was a wonderfully fine thing to have that lofty castle to myself, and when I had taken possession and shut my outer door, I felt like Robinson Crusoe, when he had got within his fortification, and pulled his ladder up after him. I felt rich, powerful, old, and important, and when I walked out about town, with the keys of my house in my pocket, and able to ask any fellow to come home with me, without giving anybody any inconvenience, I became a quite different personage than ever heretofore.

Whatever there was of happiness or of sorrow, of success or of failure, in my later life, does not belong on these pages. The identity of the child, and of the boy, David Copperfield is now forever merged in the personality of--Trotwood Copperfield, Esquire, householder and Man.

KIT NUBBLES

Christopher, or Kit Nubbles, as he was commonly called, was not handsome in the estimation of anyone except his mother, and mothers are apt to be partial. He was a shock-headed, shambling, awkward lad, with an uncommonly wide mouth, very red cheeks, a turned-up nose, and certainly the most comical expression of face I ever saw.

He was errand-boy at the Old Curiosity Shop, and deeply attached to both little Nell Trent and her grandfather, his employer. And just here let me explain that Nell's grandfather led a curious sort of double life; his days were spent in the shop, but when night fell, he invariably took his cloak, his hat, and his stick, and kissing the child, passed out, leaving her alone through the long hours of the night, and Nell had no knowledge that in those nightly absences he was haunting the gaming table; risking large sums, and ever watching with feverish anticipation for the time when he should win a vast fortune to lay by for the child, his pet and darling, to keep her from want if death should take him away. But of this little Nell knew nothing, or she would have implored him to give up the wicked and dangerous pastime.

Nor did she know that it was from Quilp, a strange, rich, little dwarf, who had many trades and callings, that her grandfather was borrowing the money which he staked nightly in hopes of winning more, pledging his little stock as security for the debt.

It was a lonely life that Nell led, with only the old man for companion, so she had a genuine affection for the awkward errand-boy, Christopher, who was one of the few bits of comedy in her days, and his devotion to her verged on worship. One morning Nell's grandfather sent her with a note to the little dwarf, Quilp; and Kit, who escorted her, while he waited for her, got into a tussle with Quilp's boy, who asserted that Nell was ugly, and that she and her grandfather were entirely in Quilp's power.

That was too much for Kit to bear in silence, and he retorted that Quilp was the ugliest dwarf that could be seen anywheres for a penny.

This enraged Quilp's boy, who sprang upon Kit, and the two were engaged in a hand-to-hand fight, when Quilp appeared and separated them, asking the cause of the quarrel, and was told that Kit had called him, "The ugliest dwarf that could be seen anywheres for a penny." Poor Kit never dreamed that his unguarded remark was to be treasured up against him in the mind of the jealous, vindictive, little dwarf, and used to separate him from his idolised mistress and her grandfather, but it was even so, for there was a power of revenge, a hatred, in the tiny body of the dwarf, entirely out of proportion to his size.

Quilp at this time desired to injure the old man and his grandchild, and soon made several discoveries in a secret way, which, added to what he found out from little Nell's own artless words about her home life, and her grandfather's habits, enabled him to put two and two together, and guess correctly for what purpose the old man borrowed such large sums from him, and he refused him further loans. More than this, he told the old man that he (Quilp) held a bill of sale on his stock and property, and that he and little Nell would be henceforth homeless and penniless.

The old man pleaded, with agony in his face and voice for one more advance,--one more trial,--but Quilp was firm.

"Who is it?" retorted the old man, desperately, "that, notwithstanding all my caution, told you? Come, let me know the name,--the person."

The crafty dwarf stopped short in his answer, and said,----

"Now, who do you think?"

"It was Kit. It must have been the boy. He played the spy, and you tampered with him."

"How came you to think of him?" said the dwarf. "Yes, it was Kit. Poor Kit!" So saying, he nodded in a friendly manner, and took his leave; stopping when he passed the outer door a little distance, and grinning with extraordinary delight.

"Poor Kit!" muttered Quilp. "I think it was Kit who said I was an uglier dwarf than could be seen anywhere for a penny, wasn't it? Ha, ha, ha! Poor Kit!"

And with that he went his way, still chuckling as he went.

That evening Kit spent in his own home. The room in which he sat down, was an extremely poor and homely place, but with that air of comfort about it, nevertheless, which cleanliness and order can always impart in some degree. Late as the Dutch clock showed it to be, Kit's mother was still hard at work at an ironing-table; a young child lay sleeping in a cradle near the fire; and another, a sturdy boy of two or three years old, very wide awake, was sitting bolt upright in a clothes-basket, staring over the rim with his great round eyes. It was rather a queer-looking family; Kit, his mother, and the children, being all strongly alike.

Kit was disposed to be out of temper, but he looked at the youngest child, and from him to his other brother in the clothes-basket, and from him to his mother, who had been at work without complaint since morning, and thought it would be a better and kinder thing to be good-humoured. So he rocked the cradle with his foot, made a face at the rebel in the clothes-basket, which put him in high good-humour directly, and stoutly determined to be talkative, and make himself agreeable.

"Did you tell me just now, that your master hadn't gone out to-night?" inquired Mrs. Nubbles.

"Yes," said Kit, "worse luck!"

"You should say better luck, I think," returned his mother, "because Miss Nelly won't have been left alone."

"Ah!" said Kit, "I forgot that. I said worse luck, because I've been watching ever since eight o'clock, and seen nothing of her. Hark, what's that?"

"It's only somebody outside."

"It's somebody crossing over here," said Kit, standing up to listen, "and coming very fast too. He can't have gone out after I left, and the house caught fire, mother!"

The boy stood for a moment, really bereft, by the apprehension he had conjured up, of the power to move. The footsteps drew nearer, the door was opened with a hasty hand, and the child herself, pale and breathless, hurried into the room.

"Miss Nelly! What is the matter?" cried mother and son together.

"I must not stay a moment," she returned, "grandfather has been taken very ill. I found him in a fit upon the floor."

"I'll run for a doctor----" said Kit, seizing his brimless hat. "I'll be there directly, I'll----"

"No, no," cried Nell, "there is one there, you're not wanted, you--you--must never come near us any more!"

"What!" roared Kit.

"Never again," said the child. "Don't ask me why, for I don't know. Pray don't ask me why, pray don't be sorry, pray don't be vexed with me! I have nothing to do with it indeed!

"He complains of you and raves of you," added the child, "I don't know what you have done, but I hope it's nothing very bad."

"_I_ done!" roared Kit.

"He cries that you're the cause of all his misery," returned the child, with tearful eyes. "He screamed and called for you; they say you must not come near him, or he will die. You must not return to us any more. I came to tell you. I thought it would be better that I should. Oh, Kit, what _have_ you done? You, in whom I trusted so much, and who were almost the only friend I had!"

The unfortunate Kit looked at his young mistress harder and harder, and with eyes growing wider and wider, but was perfectly motionless and still.

"I have brought his money for the week," said the child, looking to the woman, and laying it on the table,--"and--and--a little more, for he was always good and kind to me. I hope he will be sorry and do well somewhere else and not take this to heart too much. It grieves me very much to part with him like this, but there is no help. It must be done. Good-night!"

With the tears streaming down her face, and her slight figure trembling with intense agitation, the child hastened to the door, and disappeared as rapidly as she had come.

The poor woman, who had no cause to doubt her son, but every reason for relying on his honesty and truth, was staggered, notwithstanding, by his not having advanced one word in his own defence.

Visions of gallantry, knavery, robbery, flocked into her brain and rendered her afraid to question him. She rocked herself upon a chair, wringing her hands and weeping bitterly. The baby in the cradle woke up and cried; the boy in the clothes-basket fell over on his back with the basket on him, and was seen no more; the mother wept louder yet and rocked faster; but Kit, insensible to all the din and tumult, remained in a state of utter stupefaction.

Of course, after that there was nothing for him to do but to keep as far away as possible from the shop, which he did, except in the evenings, when he often stole beneath Nell's window on a chance of merely seeing her. One night he was rewarded by a scrap of whispered conversation with her from her window. She told him how sick her grandfather had been, and over and over Kit reiterated all there was for him to say--that he had done nothing to cause that sickness.

"He'll be sure to get better now," said the boy, anxiously, "when he does, say a good word--say a kind word for me, Miss Nell!"

"They tell me I must not even mention your name to him for a long, long time," rejoined the child. "I dare not; and even if I might, what good would a kind word do you, Kit? We shall be very poor they say. We shall scarcely have bread to eat, for everything has been taken from us."

"It's not that I may be taken back," said the boy. "No, it's not that. It isn't for the sake of food and wages that I've been waiting about in hopes of seeing you. Don't think that I'd come in a time of trouble to talk of such things as them. It's something very different from that. Perhaps he might think it over-venturesome of me to say--well then,--to say this," said Kit, with sudden boldness. "This home is gone from you and him. Mother and I have got a poor one, and why not come there, till he's had time to look about and find a better? You think," said the boy, "that it's very small and inconvenient. So it is, but it's very clean. Do try, Miss Nell, do try. The little front room upstairs is very pleasant. Mother says it would be just the thing for you, and so it would; and you'd have her to wait upon you both, and me to run errands. We don't mean money, bless you; you're not to think of that! Will you try him, Miss Nell? Only say you'll try him. Do try to make old master come, and ask him first what I have done. Will you only promise that, Miss Nell?"