She gave me one piece of intelligence which affected me very much,namely, that there had been a sale of the furniture at our old home,and that Mr. and Miss Murdstone were gone away,and the house was shut up, to be let or sold.God knows I had no part in it while they remained there,but it pained me to think of the dear old place as altogether abandoned;of the weeds growing tall in the garden,and the fallen leaves lying thick and wet upon the paths.I imagined how the winds of winter would howl round it,how the cold rain would beat upon the window-glass,how the moon would make ghosts on the walls of the empty rooms,watching their solitude all night.I thought afresh of the grave in the churchyard,underneath the tree:and it seemed as if the house were dead too, now,and all connected with my father and mother were faded away.
There was no other news in Peggotty’s letters. Mr.Barkis was an excellent husband, she said,though still a little near; but we all had our faults,and she had plenty (though I am sure I don’t know what they were);and he sent his duty,and my little bedroom was always ready for me. Mr.Peggotty was well, and Ham was well, and Mrs.Gummidge was but poorly,and little Em’ly wouldn’t send her love,but said that Peggotty might send it, if she liked.
All this intelligence I dutifully imparted to my aunt,only reserving to myself the mention of little Em’ly,to whom I instinctively felt that she would not very tenderly incline.While I was yet new at Doctor Strong’s,she made several excursions over to Canterbury to see me,and always at unseasonable hours: with the view,I suppose, of taking me by surprise. But,finding me well employed, and bearing a good character,and hearing on all hands that I rose fast in the school,she soon discontinued these visits.I saw her on a Saturday, every third or fourth week,when I went over to Dover for a treat; and I saw Mr.Dick every alternate Wednesday,when he arrived by stage-coach at noon,to stay until next morning.
On these occasions Mr.Dick never travelled without a leathern writing-desk,containing a supply of stationery and the Memorial;in relation to which document he had a notion that time was beginning to press now, and that it really must be got out of hand.
Mr. Dick was very partial to gingerbread.To render his visits the more agreeable,my aunt had instructed me to open a credit for him at a cake shop,which was hampered with the stipulation that he should not be served with more than one shilling’s-worth in the course of any one day. This, and the reference of all his little bills at the county inn where he slept, to my aunt, before they were paid, induced me to suspect that he was only allowed to rattle his money, and not to spend it. I found on further investigation that this was so, or at least there was an agreement between him and my aunt that he should account to her for all his disbursements. As he had no idea of deceiving her, and always desired to please her, he was thus made chary of launching into expense. On this point, as well as on all other possible points, Mr. Dick was convinced that my aunt was the wisest and most wonderful of women; as he repeatedly told me with infinite secrecy, and always in a whisper.
‘Trotwood,’ said Mr. Dick, with an air of mystery,after imparting this confidence to me, one Wednesday;‘who’s the man that hides near our house and frightens her?’
‘Frightens my aunt, sir?’
Mr. Dick nodded. ‘I thought nothing would have frightened her,’ he said, ‘for she’s--’ here he whispered softly,‘don’t mention it--the wisest and most wonderful of women.’ Having said which, he drew back,to observe the effect which this description of her made upon me.
‘The first time he came,’ said Mr. Dick,‘was--let me see--sixteen hundred and forty-nine was the date of King Charles’s execution. I think you said sixteen hundred and forty-nine?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I don’t know how it can be,’ said Mr. Dick,sorely puzzled and shaking his head.‘I don’t think I am as old as that.’
‘Was it in that year that the man appeared, sir?’ I asked.
‘Why, really’ said Mr. Dick,‘I don’t see how it can have been in that year,Trotwood. Did you get that date out of history?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I suppose history never lies, does it?’ said Mr. Dick, with a gleam of hope.
‘Oh dear, no, sir!’ I replied, most decisively. I was ingenuous and young, and I thought so.
‘I can’t make it out,’ said Mr. Dick, shaking his head.‘There’s something wrong, somewhere. However,it was very soon after the mistake was made of putting some of the trouble out of King Charles’s head into my head, that the man first came. I was walking out with Miss Trotwood after tea, just at dark, and there he was, close to our house.’
‘Walking about?’ I inquired.
‘Walking about?’ repeated Mr. Dick. ‘Let me see,I must recollect a bit. N-no, no;he was not walking about.’
I asked, as the shortest way to get at it, what he WAS doing.
‘Well, he wasn’t there at all,’ said Mr. Dick,‘until he came up behind her, and whispered.Then she turned round and fainted,and I stood still and looked at him,and he walked away;but that he should have been hiding ever since (in the ground or somewhere),is the most extraordinary thing!’
‘HAS he been hiding ever since?’ I asked.
‘To be sure he has,’ retorted Mr. Dick,nodding his head gravely. ‘Never came out, till last night!We were walking last night,and he came up behind her again, and I knew him again.’
‘And did he frighten my aunt again?’
‘All of a shiver,’ said Mr. Dick,counterfeiting that affection and making his teeth chatter.‘Held by the palings. Cried. But, Trotwood, come here,’ getting me close to him,that he might whisper very softly;‘why did she give him money, boy, in the moonlight?’
‘He was a beggar, perhaps.’
Mr. Dick shook his head,as utterly renouncing the suggestion;and having replied a great many times,and with great confidence, ‘No beggar, no beggar, no beggar, sir!’ went on to say, that from his window he had afterwards,and late at night, seen my aunt give this person money outside the garden rails in the moonlight, who then slunk away--into the ground again, as he thought probable--and was seen no more: while my aunt came hurriedly and secretly back into the house, and had, even that morning, been quite different from her usual self; which preyed on Mr. Dick’s mind.
I had not the least belief, in the outset of this story,that the unknown was anything but a delusion of Mr.Dick’s, and one of the line of that ill-fated Prince who occasioned him so much difficulty; but after some reflection I began to entertain the question whether an attempt, or threat of an attempt, might have been twice made to take poor Mr. Dick himself from under my aunt’s protection, and whether my aunt, the strength of whose kind feeling towards him I knew from herself, might have been induced to pay a price for his peace and quiet. As I was already much attached to Mr. Dick, and very solicitous for his welfare, my fears favoured this supposition; and for a long time his Wednesday hardly ever came round, without my entertaining a misgiving that he would not be on the coach-box as usual. There he always appeared, however, grey-headed, laughing, and happy; and he never had anything more to tell of the man who could frighten my aunt.