No, I replied with the profoundest respect; nor from him.
‘Very well!’ said Mr. Spenlow.
A silence succeeding,I was undecided whether to go or stay.At length I was moving quietly towards the door,with the intention of saying that perhaps I should consult his feelings best by withdrawing: when he said, with his hands in his coat pockets, into which it was as much as he could do to get them; and with what I should call, upon the whole, a decidedly pious air:
‘You are probably aware, Mr. Copperfield,that I am not altogether destitute of worldly possessions,and that my daughter is my nearest and dearest relative?’
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 glasses 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. 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 assured 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.