I thank Mr. Chestle warmly, and shake hands.I think I am in a happy dream.I waltz with the eldest Miss Larkins once again.She says I waltz so well!I go home in a state of unspeakable bliss,and waltz in imagination, all night long,with my arm round the blue waist of my dear divinity.For some days afterwards,I am lost in rapturous reflections;but I neither see her in the street, nor when I call.I am imperfectly consoled for this disappointment by the sacred pledge,the perished flower.
‘Trotwood,’ says Agnes, one day after dinner.‘Who do you think is going to be married tomorrow?Someone you admire.’
‘Not you, I suppose, Agnes?’
‘Not me!’ raising her cheerful face from the music she is copying.‘Do you hear him, Papa?--The eldest Miss Larkins.’
‘To--to Captain Bailey?’ I have just enough power to ask.
‘No; to no Captain. To Mr. Chestle, a hop-grower.’
I am terribly dejected for about a week or two.I take off my ring, I wear my worst clothes,I use no bear’s grease,and I frequently lament over the late Miss Larkins’s faded flower.Being, by that time, rather tired of this kind of life,and having received new provocation from the butcher,I throw the flower away, go out with the butcher,and gloriously defeat him.
This, and the resumption of my ring,as well as of the bear’s grease in moderation,are the last marks I can discern, now,in my progress to seventeen.
CHAPTER 19. I LOOK ABOUT ME, AND MAKE A DISCOVERY
I am doubtful whether I was at heart glad or sorry,when my school-days drew to an end,and the time came for my leaving Doctor Strong’s.I had been very happy there,I had a great attachment for the Doctor,and I was eminent and distinguished in that little world.For these reasons I was sorry to go;but for other reasons, unsubstantial enough,I was glad. Misty ideas of being a young man at my own disposal,of the importance attaching to a young man at his own disposal,of the wonderful things to be seen and done by that magnificent animal,and the wonderful effects he could not fail to make upon society,lured me away. So powerful were these visionary considerations in my boyish mind, that I seem, according to my present way of thinking, to have left school without natural regret. The separation has not made the impression on me, that other separations have. I try in vain to recall how I felt about it, and what its circumstances were; but it is not momentous in my recollection. I suppose the opening prospect confused me. I know that my juvenile experiences went for little or nothing then; and that life was more like a great fairy story, which I was just about to begin to read, than anything else.
My aunt and I had held many grave deliberations on the calling to which I should be devoted. For a year or more I had endeavoured to find a satisfactory answer to her often-repeated question, ‘What I would like to be?’ But I had no particular liking, that I could discover,for anything. If I could have been inspired with a knowledge of the science of navigation, taken the command of a fast-sailing expedition, and gone round the world on a triumphant voyage of discovery, I think I might have considered myself completely suited. But, in the absence of any such miraculous provision, my desire was to apply myself to some pursuit that would not lie too heavily upon her purse; and to do my duty in it, whatever it might be.
Mr. Dick had regularly assisted at our councils,with a meditative and sage demeanour.He never made a suggestion but once;and on that occasion (I don’t know what put it in his head),he suddenly proposed that I should be ‘a Brazier’.My aunt received this proposal so very ungraciously,that he never ventured on a second;but ever afterwards confined himself to looking watchfully at her for her suggestions, and rattling his money.
‘Trot, I tell you what, my dear,’ said my aunt,one morning in the Christmas season when I left school:‘as this knotty point is still unsettled,and as we must not make a mistake in our decision if we can help it,I think we had better take a little breathing-time.In the meanwhile, you must try to look at it from a new point of view,and not as a schoolboy.’
‘I will, aunt.’
‘It has occurred to me,’ pursued my aunt,‘that a little change,and a glimpse of life out of doors,may be useful in helping you to know your own mind,and form a cooler judgement.Suppose you were to go down into the old part of the country again,for instance, and see that--that out-of-the-way woman with the savagest of names,’ said my aunt, rubbing her nose, for she could never thoroughly forgive Peggotty for being so called.
‘Of all things in the world, aunt,I should like it best!’
‘Well,’ said my aunt, ‘that’s lucky,for I should like it too.But it’s natural and rational that you should like it.And I am very well persuaded that whatever you do,Trot, will always be natural and rational.’
‘I hope so, aunt.’
‘Your sister, Betsey Trotwood,’ said my aunt,‘would have been as natural and rational a girl as ever breathed.You’ll be worthy of her, won’t you?’
‘I hope I shall be worthy of YOU, aunt.That will be enough for me.’
‘It’s a mercy that poor dear baby of a mother of yours didn’t live,’ said my aunt, looking at me approvingly,‘or she’d have been so vain of her boy by this time,that her soft little head would have been completely turned,if there was anything of it left to turn.’ (My aunt always excused any weakness of her own in my behalf,by transferring it in this way to my poor mother.) ‘Bless me,Trotwood, how you do remind me of her!’
‘Pleasantly, I hope, aunt?’ said I.
‘He’s as like her, Dick,’ said my aunt, emphatically,‘he’s as like her, as she was that afternoon before she began to fret--bless my heart, he’s as like her, as he can look at me out of his two eyes!’
‘Is he indeed?’ said Mr. Dick.
‘And he’s like David, too,’ said my aunt, decisively.
‘He is very like David!’ said Mr. Dick.
‘But what I want you to be, Trot,’ resumed my aunt,‘--I don’t mean physically, but morally;you are very well physically--is, a firm fellow.A fine firm fellow, with a will of your own.With resolution,’ said my aunt, shaking her cap at me,and clenching her hand. ‘With determination.With character, Trot--with strength of character that is not to be influenced,except on good reason, by anybody, or by anything.That’s what I want you to be.That’s what your father and mother might both have been,Heaven knows, and been the better for it.’
I intimated that I hoped I should be what she described.
‘That you may begin, in a small way,to have a reliance upon yourself,and to act for yourself,’ said my aunt,‘I shall send you upon your trip, alone. I did think,once, of Mr. Dick’s going with you; but,on second thoughts,I shall keep him to take care of me.’
Mr. Dick, for a moment, looked a little disappointed;until the honour and dignity of having to take care of the most wonderful woman in the world, restored the sunshine to his face.
‘Besides,’ said my aunt, ‘there’s the Memorial--’
‘Oh, certainly,’ said Mr. Dick, in a hurry, ‘I intend,Trotwood, to get that done immediately--it really must be done immediately!And then it will go in, you know--and then--’ said Mr.Dick, after checking himself, and pausing a long time,‘there’ll be a pretty kettle of fish!’