‘Yes, I can,’ said Dora. ‘You are no use to me at all.You never run up and down stairs for me, all day long.You never sit and tell me stories about Doady,when his shoes were worn out,and he was covered with dust--oh,what a poor little mite of a fellow!You never do anything at all to please me, do you, dear?’ Dora made haste to kiss my aunt, and say, ‘Yes, you do!I’m only joking!’-lest my aunt should think she really meant it.
‘But, aunt,’ said Dora, coaxingly, ‘now listen.You must go. I shall tease you,‘till you let me have my own way about it.I shall lead my naughty boy such a life,if he don’t make you go.I shall make myself so disagreeable--and so will Jip!You’ll wish you had gone, like a good thing,for ever and ever so long, if you don’t go. Besides,’ said Dora, putting back her hair,and looking wonderingly at my aunt and me,‘why shouldn’t you both go?I am not very ill indeed. Am I?’
‘Why, what a question!’ cried my aunt.
‘What a fancy!’ said I.
‘Yes!I know I am a silly little thing!’ said Dora, slowly looking from one of us to the other,and then putting up her pretty lips to kiss us as she lay upon her couch.‘Well, then, you must both go,or I shall not believe you; and then I shall cry!’
I saw, in my aunt’s face,that she began to give way now,and Dora brightened again, as she saw it too.
‘You’ll come back with so much to tell me,that it’ll take at least a week to make me understand!’ said Dora. ‘Because I know I shan’t understand,for a length of time, if there’s any business in it.And there’s sure to be some business in it!If there’s anything to add up, besides,I don’t know when I shall make it out;and my bad boy will look so miserable all the time. There!Now you’ll go, won’t you?You’ll only be gone one night,and Jip will take care of me while you are gone.Doady will carry me upstairs before you go,and I won’t come down again till you come back;and you shall take Agnes a dreadfully scolding letter from me,because she has never been to see us!’
We agreed, without any more consultation,that we would both go,and that Dora was a little Impostor,who feigned to be rather unwell,because she liked to be petted.She was greatly pleased, and very merry; and we four,that is to say, my aunt, Mr. Dick, Traddles, and I,went down to Canterbury by the Dover mail that night.
At the hotel where Mr.Micawber had requested us to await him,which we got into, with some trouble,in the middle of the night, I found a letter,importing that he would appear in the morning punctually at half past nine.After which, we went shivering,at that uncomfortable hour, to our respective beds,through various close passages;which smelt as if they had been steeped, for ages,in a solution of soup and stables.
Early in the morning,I sauntered through the dear old tranquil streets,and again mingled with the shadows of the venerable gateways and churches.The rooks were sailing about the cathedral towers;and the towers themselves,overlooking many a long unaltered mile of the rich country and its pleasant streams, were cutting the bright morning air, as if there were no such thing as change on earth. Yet the bells, when they sounded, told me sorrowfully of change in everything; told me of their own age, and my pretty Dora’s youth; and of the many, never old, who had lived and loved and died, while the reverberations of the bells had hummed through the rusty armour of the Black Prince hanging up within, and, motes upon the deep of Time, had lost themselves in air, as circles do in water.
I looked at the old house from the corner of the street,but did not go nearer to it, lest, being observed,I might unwittingly do any harm to the design I had come to aid.The early sun was striking edgewise on its gables and lattice-windows,touching them with gold;and some beams of its old peace seemed to touch my heart.
I strolled into the country for an hour or so,and then returned by the main street,which in the interval had shaken off its last night’s sleep.Among those who were stirring in the shops,I saw my ancient enemy the butcher,now advanced to top-boots and a baby,and in business for himself. He was nursing the baby,and appeared to be a benignant member of society.
We all became very anxious and impatient,when we sat down to breakfast.As it approached nearer and nearer to half past nine o’clock,our restless expectation of Mr. Micawber increased.At last we made no more pretence of attending to the meal,which, except with Mr. Dick,had been a mere form from the first;but my aunt walked up and down the room.Traddles sat upon the sofa affecting to read the paper with his eyes on the ceiling; and I looked out of the window to give early notice of Mr. Micawber’s coming. Nor had I long to watch, for, at the first chime of the half hour, he appeared in the street.
‘Here he is,’ said I, ‘and not in his legal attire!’
My aunt tied the strings of her bonnet (she had come down to breakfast in it),and put on her shawl,as if she were ready for anything that was resolute and uncompromising.Traddles buttoned his coat with a determined air. Mr.Dick, disturbed by these formidable appearances,but feeling it necessary to imitate them,pulled his hat, with both hands,as firmly over his ears as he possibly could;and instantly took it off again, to welcome Mr. Micawber.
‘Gentlemen, and madam,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘good morning!My dear sir,’ to Mr. Dick,who shook hands with him violently,‘you are extremely good.’
‘Have you breakfasted?’ said Mr. Dick. ‘Have a chop!’
‘Not for the world, my good sir!’ cried Mr. Micawber,stopping him on his way to the bell;‘appetite and myself, Mr. Dixon,have long been strangers.’
Mr. Dixon was so well pleased with his new name,and appeared to think it so obliging in Mr.Micawber to confer it upon him,that he shook hands with him again,and laughed rather childishly.
‘Dick,’ said my aunt, ‘attention!’
Mr. Dick recovered himself, with a blush.
‘Now, sir,’ said my aunt to Mr. Micawber,as she put on her gloves,‘we are ready for Mount Vesuvius, or anything else,as soon as YOU please.’
‘Madam,’ returned Mr. Micawber,‘I trust you will shortly witness an eruption. Mr.Traddles, I have your permission, I believe,to mention here that we have been in communication together?’
‘It is undoubtedly the fact, Copperfield,’ said Traddles, to whom I looked in surprise. ‘Mr.Micawber has consulted me in reference to what he has in contemplation;and I have advised him to the best of my judgement.’
‘Unless I deceive myself, Mr. Traddles,’ pursued Mr.Micawber, ‘what I contemplate is a disclosure of an important nature. ’
‘Highly so,’ said Traddles.
‘Perhaps, under such circumstances, madam and gentlemen,’ said Mr. Micawber,‘you will do me the favour to submit yourselves,for the moment, to the direction of one who,however unworthy to be regarded in any other light but as a Waif and Stray upon the shore of human nature, is still your fellow-man, though crushed out of his original form by individual errors, and the accumulative force of a combination of circumstances?’
‘We have perfect confidence in you, Mr. Micawber,’ said I, ‘and will do what you please.’
‘Mr. Copperfield,’ returned Mr. Micawber,‘your confidence is not, at the existing juncture,ill-bestowed. I would beg to be allowed a start of five minutes by the clock;and then to receive the present company,inquiring for Miss Wickfield,at the office of Wickfield and Heep,whose Stipendiary I am.’
My aunt and I looked at Traddles,who nodded his approval.
‘I have no more,’ observed Mr. Micawber,‘to say at present.’
With which, to my infinite surprise,he included us all in a comprehensive bow,and disappeared; his manner being extremely distant,and his face extremely pale.