It was no matter of wonder to me to find Mrs.Steerforth devoted to her son.She seemed to be able to speak or think about nothing else.She showed me his picture as an infant, in a locket,with some of his baby-hair in it;she showed me his picture as he had been when I first knew him;and she wore at her breast his picture as he was now.All the letters he had ever written to her,she kept in a cabinet near her own chair by the fire;and she would have read me some of them,and I should have been very glad to hear them too,if he had not interposed,and coaxed her out of the design.
‘It was at Mr. Creakle’s, my son tells me,that you first became acquainted,’ said Mrs.Steerforth, as she and I were talking at one table,while they played backgammon at another. ‘Indeed,I recollect his speaking, at that time,of a pupil younger than himself who had taken his fancy there;but your name, as you may suppose,has not lived in my memory.’
‘He was very generous and noble to me in those days,I assure you, ma’am,’ said I,‘and I stood in need of such a friend.I should have been quite crushed without him.’
‘He is always generous and noble,’ said Mrs. Steerforth, proudly.
I subscribed to this with all my heart, God knows.She knew I did; for the stateliness of her manner already abated towards me,except when she spoke in praise of him,and then her air was always lofty.
‘It was not a fit school generally for my son,’ said she; ‘far from it;but there were particular circumstances to be considered at the time,of more importance even than that selection.My son’s high spirit made it desirable that he should be placed with some man who felt its superiority, and would be content to bow himself before it; and we found such a man there.’
I knew that, knowing the fellow.And yet I did not despise him the more for it,but thought it a redeeming quality in him if he could be allowed any grace for not resisting one so irresistible as Steerforth.
‘My son’s great capacity was tempted on, there,by a feeling of voluntary emulation and conscious pride,’ the fond lady went on to say.‘He would have risen against all constraint;but he found himself the monarch of the place,and he haughtily determined to be worthy of his station.It was like himself.’
I echoed, with all my heart and soul,that it was like himself.
‘So my son took, of his own will, and on no compulsion,to the course in which he can always,when it is his pleasure, outstrip every competitor,’ she pursued. ‘My son informs me, Mr. Copperfield,that you were quite devoted to him,and that when you met yesterday you made yourself known to him with tears of joy. I should be an affected woman if I made any pretence of being surprised by my son’s inspiring such emotions; but I cannot be indifferent to anyone who is so sensible of his merit, and I am very glad to see you here, and can assure you that he feels an unusual friendship for you, and that you may rely on his protection.’
Miss Dartle played backgammon as eagerly as she did everything else.If I had seen her, first, at the board,I should have fancied that her figure had got thin,and her eyes had got large, over that pursuit,and no other in the world.But I am very much mistaken if she missed a word of this,or lost a look of mine as I received it with the utmost pleasure,and honoured by Mrs. Steerforth’s confidence,felt older than I had done since I left Canterbury.
When the evening was pretty far spent,and a tray of glasses and decanters came in,Steerforth promised, over the fire,that he would seriously think of going down into the country with me.There was no hurry, he said; a week hence would do;and his mother hospitably said the same.While we were talking,he more than once called me Daisy;which brought Miss Dartle out again.
‘But really, Mr. Copperfield,’ she asked, ‘is it a nickname?And why does he give it you?Is it--eh?--because he thinks you young and innocent?I am so stupid in these things.’
I coloured in replying that I believed it was.
‘Oh!’ said Miss Dartle. ‘Now I am glad to know that!I ask for information, and I am glad to know it.He thinks you young and innocent;and so you are his friend. Well,that’s quite delightful!’
She went to bed soon after this, and Mrs.Steerforth retired too. Steerforth and I,after lingering for half-an-hour over the fire,talking about Traddles and all the rest of them at old Salem House,went upstairs together.Steerforth’s room was next to mine,and I went in to look at it.It was a picture of comfort, full of easy-chairs,cushions and footstools, worked by his mother’s hand,and with no sort of thing omitted that could help to render it complete.Finally, her handsome features looked down on her darling from a portrait on the wall, as if it were even something to her that her likeness should watch him while he slept.
I found the fire burning clear enough in my room by this time,and the curtains drawn before the windows and round the bed,giving it a very snug appearance.I sat down in a great chair upon the hearth to meditate on my happiness;and had enjoyed the contemplation of it for some time,when I found a likeness of Miss Dartle looking eagerly at me from above the chimney-piece.
It was a startling likeness,and necessarily had a startling look.The painter hadn’t made the scar, but I made it;and there it was, coming and going;now confined to the upper lip as I had seen it at dinner,and now showing the whole extent of the wound inflicted by the hammer,as I had seen it when she was passionate.
I wondered peevishly why they couldn’t put her anywhere else instead of quartering her on me. To get rid of her, I undressed quickly, extinguished my light, and went to bed. But, as I fell asleep, I could not forget that she was still there looking, ‘Is it really, though?I want to know’; and when I awoke in the night,I found that I was uneasily asking all sorts of people in my dreams whether it really was or not--without knowing what I meant.
CHAPTER 21. LITTLE EM’LY
There was a servant in that house, a man who,I understood, was usually with Steerforth,and had come into his service at the University,who was in appearance a pattern of respectability.I believe there never existed in his station a more respectable-looking man.He was taciturn, soft-footed, very quiet in his manner,deferential, observant, always at hand when wanted,and never near when not wanted;but his great claim to consideration was his respectability.He had not a pliant face, he had rather a stiff neck,rather a tight smooth head with short hair clinging to it at the sides,a soft way of speaking,with a peculiar habit of whispering the letter S so distinctly,that he seemed to use it oftener than any other man;but every peculiarity that he had he made respectable.If his nose had been upside-down,he would have made that respectable.He surrounded himself with an atmosphere of respectability,and walked secure in it.It would have been next to impossible to suspect him of anything wrong,he was so thoroughly respectable.Nobody could have thought of putting him in a livery,he was so highly respectable.To have imposed any derogatory work upon him,would have been to inflict a wanton insult on the feelings of a most respectable man. And of this, I noticed--the women-servants in the household were so intuitively conscious, that they always did such work themselves, and generally while he read the paper by the pantry fire.
Such a self-contained man I never saw.But in that quality, as in every other he possessed,he only seemed to be the more respectable.Even the fact that no one knew his Christian name,seemed to form a part of his respectability.Nothing could be objected against his surname,Littimer, by which he was known.Peter might have been hanged, or Tom transported;but Littimer was perfectly respectable.