Miss Murdstone, during the latter portion of the contest,had dismounted, and was now waiting with her brother at the bottom of the steps, until my aunt should be at leisure to receive them. My aunt, a little ruffled by the combat, marched past them into the house, with great dignity, and took no notice of their presence, until they were announced by Janet.
‘Shall I go away, aunt?’ I asked, trembling.
‘No, sir,’ said my aunt. ‘Certainly not!’ With which she pushed me into a corner near her,and fenced Me in with a chair,as if it were a prison or a bar of justice.This position I continued to occupy during the whole interview,and from it I now saw Mr.and Miss Murdstone enter the room.
‘Oh!’ said my aunt, ‘I was not aware at first to whom I had the pleasure of objecting. But I don’t allow anybody to ride over that turf. I make no exceptions. I don’t allow anybody to do it.’
‘Your regulation is rather awkward to strangers,’ said Miss Murdstone.
‘Is it!’ said my aunt.
Mr. Murdstone seemed afraid of a renewal of hostilities,and interposing began:
‘Miss Trotwood!’
‘I beg your pardon,’ observed my aunt with a keen look.‘You are the Mr. Murdstone who married the widow of my late nephew,David Copperfield, of Blunderstone Rookery!--Though why Rookery, I don’t know!’
‘I am,’ said Mr. Murdstone.
‘You’ll excuse my saying, sir,’ returned my aunt,‘that I think it would have been a much better and happier thing if you had left that poor child alone.’
‘I so far agree with what Miss Trotwood has remarked,’ observed Miss Murdstone, bridling,‘that I consider our lamented Clara to have been,in all essential respects, a mere child.’
‘It is a comfort to you and me, ma’am,’ said my aunt,‘who are getting on in life,and are not likely to be made unhappy by our personal attractions,that nobody can say the same of us.’
‘No doubt!’ returned Miss Murdstone, though, I thought,not with a very ready or gracious assent.‘And it certainly might have been, as you say,a better and happier thing for my brother if he had never entered into such a marriage. I have always been of that opinion.’
‘I have no doubt you have,’ said my aunt. ‘Janet,’ ringing the bell, ‘my compliments to Mr. Dick,and beg him to come down.’
Until he came, my aunt sat perfectly upright and stiff,frowning at the wall. When he came,my aunt performed the ceremony of introduction.
‘Mr. Dick. An old and intimate friend.On whose judgement,’ said my aunt, with emphasis,as an admonition to Mr. Dick,who was biting his forefinger and looking rather foolish, ‘I rely.’
Mr. Dick took his finger out of his mouth, on this hint,and stood among the group,with a grave and attentive expression of face.
My aunt inclined her head to Mr. Murdstone, who went on:
‘Miss Trotwood: on the receipt of your letter,I considered it an act of greater justice to myself,and perhaps of more respect to you--’
‘Thank you,’ said my aunt, still eyeing him keenly.‘You needn’t mind me.’
‘To answer it in person,however inconvenient the journey,’ pursued Mr.Murdstone, ‘rather than by letter.This unhappy boy who has run away from his friends and his occupation--’
‘And whose appearance,’ interposed his sister,directing general attention to me in my indefinable costume,‘is perfectly scandalous and disgraceful.’
‘Jane Murdstone,’ said her brother,‘have the goodness not to interrupt me.This unhappy boy, Miss Trotwood,has been the occasion of much domestic trouble and uneasiness;both during the lifetime of my late dear wife,and since. He has a sullen, rebellious spirit;a violent temper; and an untoward,intractable disposition.Both my sister and myself have endeavoured to correct his vices,but ineffectually. And I have felt--we both have felt,I may say; my sister being fully in my confidence--that it is right you should receive this grave and dispassionate assurance from our lips.’
‘It can hardly be necessary for me to confirm anything stated by my brother,’ said Miss Murdstone; ‘but I beg to observe, that,of all the boys in the world,I believe this is the worst boy.’
‘Strong!’ said my aunt, shortly.
‘But not at all too strong for the facts,’ returned Miss Murdstone.
‘Ha!’ said my aunt. ‘Well, sir?’
‘I have my own opinions,’ resumed Mr. Murdstone,whose face darkened more and more,the more he and my aunt observed each other,which they did very narrowly,‘as to the best mode of bringing him up;they are founded, in part, on my knowledge of him,and in part on my knowledge of my own means and resources.I am responsible for them to myself, I act upon them,and I say no more about them.It is enough that I place this boy under the eye of a friend of my own,in a respectable business; that it does not please him;that he runs away from it;makes himself a common vagabond about the country;and comes here, in rags, to appeal to you,Miss Trotwood. I wish to set before you, honourably,the exact consequences--so far as they are within my knowledge--of your abetting him in this appeal.’
‘But about the respectable business first,’ said my aunt. ‘If he had been your own boy,you would have put him to it, just the same, I suppose?’
‘If he had been my brother’s own boy,’ returned Miss Murdstone, striking in, ‘his character,I trust, would have been altogether different.’
‘Or if the poor child, his mother, had been alive,he would still have gone into the respectable business, would he?’ said my aunt.
‘I believe,’ said Mr. Murdstone,with an inclination of his head,‘that Clara would have disputed nothing which myself and my sister Jane Murdstone were agreed was for the best.’
Miss Murdstone confirmed this with an audible murmur.
‘Humph!’ said my aunt. ‘Unfortunate baby!’
Mr. Dick, who had been rattling his money all this time,was rattling it so loudly now,that my aunt felt it necessary to check him with a look, before saying:
‘The poor child’s annuity died with her?’
‘Died with her,’ replied Mr. Murdstone.
‘And there was no settlement of the little property--the house and garden--the what’s-its-name Rookery without any rooks in it--upon her boy?’
‘It had been left to her, unconditionally,by her first husband,’ Mr. Murdstone began,when my aunt caught him up with the greatest irascibility and impatience.
‘Good Lord, man, there’s no occasion to say that.Left to her unconditionally!I think I see David Copperfield looking forward to any condition of any sort or kind, though it stared him point-blank in the face!Of course it was left to her unconditionally.But when she married again--when she took that most disastrous step of marrying you, in short,’ said my aunt, ‘to be plain--did no one put in a word for the boy at that time?’
‘My late wife loved her second husband, ma’am,’ said Mr.Murdstone, ‘and trusted implicitly in him.’
‘Your late wife, sir, was a most unworldly,most unhappy, most unfortunate baby,’ returned my aunt,shaking her head at him. ‘That’s what she was. And now,what have you got to say next?’
‘Merely this, Miss Trotwood,’ he returned.‘I am here to take David back--to take him back unconditionally,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,or give any pledge to anybody.You may possibly have some idea, Miss Trotwood,of abetting him in his running away,and in his complaints to you. Your manner,which I must say does not seem intended to propitiate,induces me to think it possible.Now I must caution you that if you abet him once,you abet him for good and all;if you step in between him and me, now,you must step in, Miss Trotwood, for ever.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 he is not--and you tell me he is not;on any pretence; it is indifferent to me what--my doors are shut against him henceforth, and yours, I take it for granted, are open to him.’