24. CHARLES DICKENS: DAVID COPPERFIELD: CHAPTER 24: I LIVE BY MYSELF IN ADELPHI

It was a wonderful thing to have a lofty castle to myself.  It was fine to walk about the town with the key of the house in my pocket, thinking that I could ask any fellow to come home.  It was a wonderful thing to let myself in and out, and to come and go without a word to anyone, and to ring Mrs Crupp up, gasping, from the depths of the earth, when I wanted her - and when she was disposed to come. But there were times when it was very dreary.

It was fine in the morning. It looked fresh and free by daylight.  Still fresher and more free by sunlight.  But as the day declined, the life seemed to go down.  I don't know how it was.  It seldom looked well by the candle light. I wanted somebody to talk to.  I missed Agnes.  I found a tremendous blank, in the place of smiling repository of my confidence.  Mrs Crupp appears to be a long way off.  I thought about the previous occupant of the chamber.  He died of drink and smoke.  I wished he had been so good as to live and not bother me with his decease.

After two days and nights, I felt as if I had lived there for a year, and yet I was not an hour older, but was quite as much tormented by my own youthfulness as ever.

Steerforth not yet appearing, I thought he must be ill. I left the Commons early on the third day, and walked out to Highgate. Mrs Steerforth was very glad to see me.  She told me that he had gone with an Oxford friend of him to meet another friend who lived at St Albans.  She expected him to return tomorrow.  Since I was fond of him I felt jealous of his Oxford friend.

As she pressed me to stay to dinner, I remained.  We talked about him the whole day.  I told her how much the people liked him in Yarmouth, what a delightful companion he had been. Miss Dartle was full of hints and mysterious questions.  But she took great interest in all our proceedings and asked questions, 'Was it really though? and so forth, and so often, that she got everything out of me, that she wanted to know.  Her appearance was exactly what I have described it, when I first saw her; but the society of two ladies was, so agreeable, and came so natural to me, that I felt falling in love with her.  I could not help thinking, several times in the course of the evening and particularly, when I walked home at night, what delightful she would be in the Buckingham street.

I was taking my coffee and roll in the morning, before going to the Commons, when Steerforth himself walked in, to my unbounded joy.

'My dear Steerforth,' cried I, 'I begin to think I should never see you again!'

'I was carried off by force of arms,' said Steerforth, 'the very next morning I got home.  Why, Daisy, what a rare old bachelor you are here!'

I showed him over the establishment, not omitting the pantry, with no little pride, and he commended it highly.  'I tell you what, old boy,' he added, 'I shall make quite a town - house of this place unless you give me notice to quit.'

This is a delightful hearing, I told him if he waited for that, he will have to wait till dooms day. 

'But you should have some breakfast,' said I, with my hand on the bell-rope, and Mrs Crupp shall make you some coffee, and I will toast you some bacon in a bachelor's Dutch-oven, that I have got here.' 

'No, no,' said Steerforth, 'Don't ring! I can't! I am going to breakfast with one of these fellows who is at the Pizza Hotel in Covent Garden 

'But you will come back to dinner?' said I

'I can't, upon my life.  There is nothing I should like better, but I must remain with these two fellows.  We are all three off together, tomorrow morning.'

'Then bring them here to dinner,' I returned.  'Do you think they would come?' 

'Oh, they would come fast enough,' said Steerforth, 'but we should inconvenience you.  You had better come and dine with us somewhere.'

I would not by any means consent to this, for it occured to me that I really ought to have a little house warming, and there never could be a better opportunity.  I had a new pride in my rooms after his approval of them, and burnt with a desire to develop their utmost resources.  I therefore made him promise positively in the name of his two friends, and we appointed six o'clock as dinner hour. 

When he was gone, I rang Mrs Crupp, and acquainted her with the desperate design.  Mrs Crupp said, in the first place, of course it was well known she could not be expected to wait, but she knew a handy young man, whom she thought could be prevailed upon to do it, and his terms would be five shillings, and what I pleased.  I said, certainly we would have him.  Next Mrs Crupp said it was clear she couldn't be in two places at once ( which I felt to be reasonable), and a 'young gal' stationed in the pantry with a bedroom candle, there never to desist from washing plates, would be indispensable.  I said, what would be the expense of this young female? and she supposed eighteen pence would neither make me nor break me.  I said I supposed not and that was settled.  And then Mrs Crupp said now about dinner.

It was a remarkable instance of want of forethought on the part of iron-monger who had made Mrs Crupp's kitchen fireplace, that it was capable of cooking chops and mashed potatoes.  As a fish-kittle, Mrs Crupp said, 'well! would I only come and look at the range?' She couldn't say fairer than that.

Suppose I go and look at it? I know nothing about it.  So better leave it. I said 'never mind fish.' But Mrs Crupp said, 'Don't say that, oysters was in, why not them?'  So that was settled.  Then came the recommendation from Mrs Crupp's: A pair of hot roast fowl, a dish of stewed beef with vegetables, two little corner things as a raised pie and a dish of kidneys, a tart and a shape of jelly- all from pastry cooks.  This would leave her at full liberty to concentrate on the potatoes, and to serve up the cheese and celery as she could wish to see it done. 

I acted on Mrs Crupp's opinion, and gave the order at pastry cook's myself.  Walking along the Strands, afterwards, and observing a hard mottled substance in the window of a ham and beef shop, which resembled marble, but was labelled 'Mock Turtle', I went in and bought a slab of it, which I have since seen reason to believe would have suffice for fifteen people.  This preparation, Mrs Crupp, after some difficulty, consented to warm up; and it shrunk so much in a liquid state we found it what Steerforth called 'rather a tight fit for four'.

The preparations happily completed, I bought a little dessert in Covent Garden Market, and gave a rather extensive order at a retail wine merchant's in that vicinity.  When I came home in the afternoon, and saw the bottles drawn up in a square on the pantry floor, they looked so numerous (though there were two missing, which made Mrs Crupp very uncomfortable), that I was absolutely frightened at them. 

One of Steerforth's friends was named Grainger, and other Markham.  They were very gay and lively fellows, Grainger something older than Steerforth, Markham youthful looking, not more than twenty.  Markham always spoke of himself indefinitely, as 'a man' and seldom or never in the first person singular. 

'A man might get on very well here, Mr Copperfield,' said Mr Markham meaning himself. 

'It is not a bad situation,' said I, ' and the rooms are really commodious.'

'I hope you have both brought appetites with you?' said Steerforth.

'Upon my honour,' said Markham, 'town seems to sharpen a man's appetite.  A man is hungry all day long.  A man is perpetually eating.'

Being a little embarassed at first, and feeling much too young to preside, I made Steerforth take the head of the table when dinner was announced, and seated myself opposite to him. Everything was very good; we did not spare the wine, and he exerted himself so brilliantly to make the things pass off well, that there was no pause in our festivity.  I was not quite such good company during dinner as I could have wished to be; for my chair was opposite the door, and my attention was distracted by observing that the handy young man went out of the room very often, and that his shadow always presented itself, immediately afterwards on the wall of the entry with a bottle at its mouth.  The 'young gal' likewise occasioned me some uneasiness; not so much by neglecting to wash the plates as by breaking them.  The girl was of inquisitive nature, and could not confine herself to the pantry, but was constantly peering in at us, and afraid of being  detected, brought back her attention intermittently to the plates, which were placed here and there on the floor.  When she cleaned the clothes on the table, the dessert was put on the table causing the handy man to stand speechless.  I gave him private instructions to seek the company of Mrs Crupp, and to remove the 'young gal to the basement.  I abandoned myself to enjoyment. 

I began by being singularly cheerful and light hearted.  All sorts of half forgotten things came to my mind to talk about.  I laughed heartily at my own and at everybody else's jokes.  Called Steerforth to order for not passing the wine.  Made several engagements to go to Oxford.  Made an announcement that I intend to hold a dinner party exactly like that once a week.  Madly took so much of snuff out of Grainger's box, and I was obliged to go into pantry, and have a private fit of sneezing ten minutes long.

I went on, by passing the wine faster and faster yet, and continually starting up with a corkscrew to open more and more wine long before any was needed.  I proposed Steerforth's health, I said he was my best friend, the protector of my boyhood, and the companion of my prime.  I said I was delighted to propose his health.  I said I owed him more than I could ever repay and held him in a higher administration than I could ever express.  I finished by saying, 'I'll give you Steerforth! God bless him! Hurrah!' We gave him three times three, and another, and a good one to finish with.  I broke the glass in going round the table to shake hands with him, and I said, in two words, 'Steerforth - youaretheguidingstarofmyexistence.' 

I went on, by finding suddenly that somebody was in the middle of a song - Markham was the singer, and he sang, 'when the heart of a man is depressed with care'.  He said when he had sung it, he would give us 'Woman!' I took objection to that, and I couldn't allow it.  I said it was not a respectful way of  proposing the toast, and I would never permit that toast to be drunk in my house otherwise than as 'The Ladies'.  I was very high with him, mainly I think because I saw Steerforth and Grainger laughing at me - at him - or at both of us He said a man was not to be dictated to.  I said a man was.  He said a man was not to be insulted.  I said he was right there -  never under my roof, where the Lares were sacred and the laws of hospitality, paramount.  He said it was no derogation from a man's dignity to confess that I was a devilish good fellow.  I instantly proposed his health. 

Somebody was smoking, we were all smoking.  I was smoking, and trying to suppress a rising tendency to shudder.  Steerforth had made a speech about me, in the course of which I had been  affected almost to tears.  I returned the thanks, and hoped the present company would dine tomorrow, and the day after - each day at five o'clock, that we might enjoy the pleasures of conversation and society through a long evening.  I felt called upon to propose an individual.  I would give them my aunt.  Miss Betsey Trotwood. The best of her sex.

Somebody was leaning out of my bed room window, refreshing his head against the cool stone of the parapet, and feeling the air upon his face.  It was myself.  I was addressing myself as 'Copperfield' and saying, 'Why did you try to smoke?  You might have known you couldn't do it.'  Now somebody was unsteadily contemplating his features in the looking glass.  That too was I.  I was very pale in the looking glass, my eyes had a vacant appearance; and my hair, only my hair, nothing else - looked drunk. Somebody said to me, 'Let us go to theatre Copperfield!'  There was no bedroom before me, but the jingling table covered with glasses; the lamp; Grainger on my right hand; Markham on my left, and Steerforth opposite - all sitting in a mist, and a long way off.  The theatre?  To be sure.  The very thing. Come along!  But they must excuse me if I saw everybody first, and the lamp off - in ceasefire.  

Owing to some conclusion in the dark, the door was gone.  I was feeling for it in the window curtains, when Steerforth,  laughing, took me by the arm and led me out.  We went downstairs, one behind another.  Behind the bottom, somebody fell, and rolled down.  And somebody else said it was Copperfield.  I was angry at that false report, until, finding myself on my back in the passage, I began to think there might be some foundation for it. 

A very foggy night, with great rings round the lamps in the streets!  There was an indistinct talk of it being wet.  I considered it frosty.  Steerforth dusted me under a lamp post and put my hat into shape, which somebody produced from somewhere, in a most extraordinary manner, for I hadn't had it before.  Steerforth then said, 'You are alright, Copperfield, are you not?', and I told him, ' Neverberrer.' 

A man sitting in a pigeon-hole place, looked out of the fog, and took money from somebody, inquiring I was the gentle man paid for, and appearing rather doubtful, whether to take the money for me or not. - I had only a glimpse of him.  Shortly afterwards we were very high up in a very hot theatre, looking down into a large pit that seemed to me to smoke; the people with whom it was crammed were so indistinct.  There was a great stage, too, looking very clean and smooth after streets; and there were people upon it, talking about something or other, but not at all intelligent.  There was an abundance of bright lights, and there was music, and there were ladies down in the boxes, and I don't know what more.  The whole building looked to me as if it were learning to swim; it conducted itself in such an unacceptable manner, when I tried to study it.

On somebody's motion, we resolved to go downstairs to the dress-boxes, where the ladies were.  A gentleman, lounging full dressed, on a sofa, with an opera-glass in his hand, passed before my view, and also my own figure at full length in a glass.  Then I was being ushered into one of these boxes, and found myself saying something as I sat down, and people about me crying 'silence!' to somebody, and ladies casting indignant glances at me, and -what! Yes!- Agnes, sitting on the seat before me, in the same box, with a lady and gentleman beside her, whom I didn't know.  I saw her face now, better than I did then.  I dare say, with its indelible of regret and wonder turned upon me.  

'Agnes!' I said, thickly, 'Lorblessmer! Agnes!'

'Hush! Pray!' she answered, I could not conceive why.  

'You disturb the company.  Look at the stage,' she said.

I tried, on her injunction, to fix it, and to hear something of what was going on there, but quite in vain,  I looked at her again by and by, and saw her shrink into a corner, and put her gloved hand to her forehead. 

'Agnes!' I said 'I'mafraidy'renwell.'

'Yes,yes.  Do not mind me.  Trotwood, she returned, 'Listen!  Are you going away soon?'

'Amigoarawaysoo?' I repeated.

I had a stupid intention of replying that I was going to wait, to hand her downstairs.  I suppose I expressed it, somehow; for after she had looked at me attentively for a little while, she appeared to understand, and replied in a low tone:

'I know you will do as I ask you, if I tell you I am very earnest in it.  Go away now, Trotwood, for my sake, and ask your friends to take you home.' 

She had so far improved me for the time, that though I was angry with her, I felt ashamed, and with a short 'Goori!' (which I intended for good night) got up and went away.  They followed, and I stepped at once out of the box door into my bed room, where only Steerforth was with me, helping to undress, and where I was  by turns telling him Agnes was my sister, and adjuring him to bring the corkscrew, that I might open another bottle of wine. 

How somebody lying in my bed lay saying  and doing all this over again, at cross purposes in a feverish dream all night - the bed a rocking sea that was never still!  How as that somebody slowly settled down into myself, did I begin to parch, and feel as if my outer covering of skin were a hard board, my toung the bottom of an empty kettle, furred with long service, and burning up over a slow fire; the palms of my hands hot plates of metal which no ice could cool! 

But the agony of mind, the remorse, and shame I felt when I became conscious next day!  My horror of having committed a thousand offences I had forgotten, which nothing could ever expiate - my recollection of that indelible look which Agnes had given me - the torturing impossibility of communicating with her, not knowing the beast that I was, how she came to be in London, or where she stayed - my disgust of the very sight of room where the revel had been held - my racking head- the smell of smoke, the sight of glasses, the impossibility of going out, or even getting up!  Oh, what a day it was!

Oh, what an evening, when I sat down by the fire to a basin of mutton broth, dimpled all over with fat, and I thought I was going the way of my predecessor, and should succeed to his dismal story as well as to his chambers, and had half a mind to rush express to Dover and reveal all!  What an evening when Mrs Crupp, coming in to take away the broth basin, produced one kidney on a cheese plate as the entire remains of yesterday's feast, and I was really inclined to fall upon her nankeen breast and say in heartfelt penitence, 'Oh, Mrs Crupp, Mrs Crupp, never mind the broken meats! I am very miserable! - only that I doubted, even at that pass, if Mrs Crupp were quite the sort of woman to confide in!

END OF CHAPTER 24