I hardly knew what I did,I was burning all over to that extraordinary extent;but I took Dora’s little hand and kissed it--and she let me!I kissed Miss Mills’s hand; and we all seemed,to my thinking, to go straight up to the seventh heaven.We did not come down again.We stayed up there all the evening.At first we strayed to and fro among the trees:I with Dora’s shy arm drawn through mine:and Heaven knows, folly as it all was,it would have been a happy fate to have been struck immortal with those foolish feelings, and have stayed among the trees for ever!
But, much too soon, we heard the others laughing and talking,and calling ‘where’s Dora?’ So we went back, and they wanted Dora to sing.Red Whisker would have got the guitar-case out of the carriage,but Dora told him nobody knew where it was, but I.So Red Whisker was done for in a moment; and I got it,and I unlocked it, and I took the guitar out,and I sat by her, and I held her handkerchief and gloves,and I drank in every note of her dear voice,and she sang to ME who loved her,and all the others might applaud as much as they liked,but they had nothing to do with it!
I was intoxicated with joy.I was afraid it was too happy to be real,and that I should wake in Buckingham Street presently,and hear Mrs. Crupp clinking the teacups in getting breakfast ready.But Dora sang, and others sang,and Miss Mills sang--about the slumbering echoes in the caverns of Memory;as if she were a hundred years old--and the evening came on;and we had tea, with the kettle boiling gipsy-fashion;and I was still as happy as ever.
I was happier than ever when the party broke up,and the other people, defeated Red Whisker and all,went their several ways,and we went ours through the still evening and the dying light,with sweet scents rising up around us. Mr.Spenlow being a little drowsy after the champagne--honour to the soil that grew the grape, to the grape that made the wine, to the sun that ripened it, and to the merchant who adulterated it!--and being fast asleep in a corner of the carriage,I rode by the side and talked to Dora.She admired my horse and patted him--oh,what a dear little hand it looked upon a horse!--and her shawl would not keep right,and now and then I drew it round her with my arm;and I even fancied that Jip began to see how it was,and to understand that he must make up his mind to be friends with me.
That sagacious Miss Mills, too; that amiable,though quite used up, recluse;that little patriarch of something less than twenty,who had done with the world,and mustn’t on any account have the slumbering echoes in the caverns of Memory awakened; what a kind thing she did!
‘Mr. Copperfield,’ said Miss Mills,‘come to this side of the carriage a moment--if you can spare a moment.I want to speak to you.’
Behold me, on my gallant grey,bending at the side of Miss Mills,with my hand upon the carriage door!
‘Dora is coming to stay with me.She is coming home with me the day after tomorrow.If you would like to call,I am sure papa would be happy to see you.’ What could I do but invoke a silent blessing on Miss Mills’s head,and store Miss Mills’s address in the securest corner of my memory!What could I do but tell Miss Mills,with grateful looks and fervent words,how much I appreciated her good offices,and what an inestimable value I set upon her friendship!
Then Miss Mills benignantly dismissed me, saying, ‘Go back to Dora!’ and I went; and Dora leaned out of the carriage to talk to me,and we talked all the rest of the way;and I rode my gallant grey so close to the wheel that I grazed his near fore leg against it, and ‘took the bark off’, as his owner told me, ‘to the tune of three pun’ sivin’--which I paid, and thought extremely cheap for so much joy. What time Miss Mills sat looking at the moon, murmuring verses--and recalling, I suppose, the ancient days when she and earth had anything in common.
Norwood was many miles too near,and we reached it many hours too soon; but Mr.Spenlow came to himself a little short of it, and said,‘You must come in, Copperfield, and rest!’ and I consenting, we had sandwiches and wine-and-water.In the light room, Dora blushing looked so lovely,that I could not tear myself away,but sat there staring, in a dream,until the snoring of Mr.Spenlow inspired me with sufficient consciousness to take my leave.So we parted; I riding all the way to London with the farewell touch of Dora’s hand still light on mine, recalling every incident and word ten thousand times; lying down in my own bed at last, as enraptured a young noodle as ever was carried out of his five wits by love.
When I awoke next morning,I was resolute to declare my passion to Dora,and know my fate. Happiness or misery was now the question.There was no other question that I knew of in the world,and only Dora could give the answer to it.I passed three days in a luxury of wretchedness,torturing myself by putting every conceivable variety of discouraging construction on all that ever had taken place between Dora and me. At last, arrayed for the purpose at a vast expense, I went to Miss Mills’s, fraught with a declaration.
How many times I went up and down the street,and round the square--painfully aware of being a much better answer to the old riddle than the original one--before I could persuade myself to go up the steps and knock, is no matter now. Even when, at last, I had knocked, and was waiting at the door, I had some flurried thought of asking if that were Mr. Blackboy’s (in imitation of poor Barkis), begging pardon, and retreating. But I kept my ground.
Mr. Mills was not at home. I did not expect he would be.Nobody wanted HIM. Miss Mills was at home.Miss Mills would do.
I was shown into a room upstairs,where Miss Mills and Dora were. Jip was there.Miss Mills was copying music (I recollect,it was a new song, called ‘Affection’s Dirge’),and Dora was painting flowers. What were my feelings,when I recognized my own flowers;the identical Covent Garden Market purchase!I cannot say that they were very like,or that they particularly resembled any flowers that have ever come under my observation; but I knew from the paper round them which was accurately copied, what the composition was.
Miss Mills was very glad to see me,and very sorry her papa was not at home:though I thought we all bore that with fortitude.Miss Mills was conversational for a few minutes,and then, laying down her pen upon ‘Affection’s Dirge’,got up, and left the room.
I began to think I would put it off till tomorrow.
‘I hope your poor horse was not tired,when he got home at night,’ said Dora,lifting up her beautiful eyes.‘It was a long way for him.’
I began to think I would do it today.
‘It was a long way for him,’ said I,‘for he had nothing to uphold him on the journey.’
‘Wasn’t he fed, poor thing?’ asked Dora.
I began to think I would put it off till tomorrow.
‘Ye-yes,’ I said, ‘he was well taken care of.I mean he had not the unutterable happiness that I had in being so near you. ’
Dora bent her head over her drawing and said,after a little while--I had sat, in the interval,in a burning fever,and with my legs in a very rigid state--
‘You didn’t seem to be sensible of that happiness yourself,at one time of the day.’
I saw now that I was in for it,and it must be done on the spot.
‘You didn’t care for that happiness in the least,’ said Dora, slightly raising her eyebrows,and shaking her head,‘when you were sitting by Miss Kitt.’
Kitt, I should observe,was the name of the creature in pink,with the little eyes.
‘Though certainly I don’t know why you should,’ said Dora, ‘or why you should call it a happiness at all.But of course you don’t mean what you say.And I am sure no one doubts your being at liberty to do whatever you like.Jip, you naughty boy, come here!’