29. CHARLES DICKENS: DAVID COPPERFIELD: CHAPTER 29: I VISIT STEERFORTH AGAIN AT HIS HOME

Morning.  I met Spenlow, and requested him that I want a leave of absence for a few days.  As I was not in the receipt of my salary, there was no difficulty about it. I took the opportunity, with my voice sticking in my throat, and my sight failing, as I uttered the words to express my hope that Miss Spenlow was quite well.  Mr Spenlow replied, with no more emotion than he had of speaking an ordinary human being, that he was much obliged to me, and she was very well.  

We articled clerks, as germs of patrician order of proctors, were treated with so much consideration, that I was always my own master at all times.  However as I need not get to Highgate before one o'clock in the day, I passed an hour or two with Mr Spenlow.  There was a little excommunication case in that morning.  There was a scuffle between two church wardens.  One of them pushed the other against a pump.  The handle of the pump was projecting into a school house, which was under a gable of the church roof. 

I went to Highgate, in a stage coach, thinking about the case, the Commons, and what Mr Spenlow said about touching the Commons and bringing down the country.

Mrs Steerforth was pleased to see me, and so was Rosa Dartle.  Littimer was not there.  We were attended by modest little parlour maid, with blue ribbons in her cap, and with pleasant eyes.  I found that Miss Dartle had been keeping a close and attentive watch upon me.  All the time she had been watching, either me or Steerforth, with her gaunt black eyes and searching brows.  I found that my observation of her did not deter her observation of us.  I shrunk before her strange eyes, even though I was blameless of any wrong to her.

All day, she seemed to pervade the house.  When I talked to Steerforth in his room, I heard her dress rustle in the little gallery outside.  When we were engaged in some of our old exercises on the lawn behind the house, the shadow of her face lingered in windows like wandering flame, until it fixed itself in one, and watched us.  When we all four went out walking in the afternoon, she closed her thin hand on my arm like a spring, to keep me back, while Steerforth and his mother went out of hearing: and then spoke to me.

'You have been a long time,' she said, 'without coming here.  Is your profession really so engaging and interesting as to your whole attention?  I ask because I always want to be informed, when I am ignorant.  Is it really though?'

I replied that I liked it well enough, but that I certainly could not claim so much for it.

'Oh! I am glad to know that, because I always like to be put right when I am wrong,' said Rosa Dartle.  'You mean it's a little dry, perhaps?'

'Well,' I replied, 'perhaps it is a little dry.'

'Oh!  That's a reason you want relief and change - excitement and all that?' said she.  'Ah! Very true!  But isn't it a little - Eh? - for him; I don't mean you.'

A quick glance of her eyes towards the spot where Steerforth was walking, with his mother leaning on his arm, showed me whom she meant; but beyond that, I was quite lost.  

'Don't it - I don't say it does, mind I want to know- don't it rather engrossed him?  Don't it make him, perhaps, a little more remiss than usual in his visits to his blindly-doing - eh?'  With another quick glance at them, and such a glance at me as seemed to look into my innermost thoughts.

'Miss Dartle,' I returned, 'pray do not think.'

'I don't!' she said.  'Oh, dear me, don't suppose that I think anything!  I am not suspicious.  I only ask a question.  I don't state any opinion.  I want to found an opinion on what you tell me.  Then it is not so?  Well! I am very glad to know it.

'It certainly is not the fact,' said I perplexed, 'that I am accountable for Steerforth's having been away from home longer than usual - if he has been: which I really don't know at this moment, unless I understand from you.  I have not seen him this long while, until last night.'

'No?'

'Indeed Miss Dartle, no!'

As she looked full at me, I saw her face sharper and paler, and the marks of the old wound lengthen out until it cut  through the disfigured lip, and deep into nether lip, and slanted down the face.  There was something positively awful to me in this, and the brightness of her eyes, as she said, looking fixedly at me.

'What is he doing?'

I repeated the words more to myself than to her, being so amazed.

'What is he doing?' she said with an eagerness that seemed to consume her like a fire, 'in what is that man assisting him, who never looks at me without an inscrutable falsehood in his eyes? If you are honourable and faithful, I don't ask you to betray your friend.  I ask you only to tell me, is it anger, is it hatred, is it pride, is it restlessness, is it some wild fancy, is it love, what is it that is leading him?'

'Miss Dartle,' I returned, 'how shall I tell you, so that you will believe me, that I know nothing in Steerforth different from what there was when I first came here?  I can think of nothing.  I hardly understand even what you mean.'

As she stood still looking fixedly at me, a twitching or throbbing from which I could not dissociate the idea of pain, came into that cruel mark; and lifted up the corner of her lip as if with scorn or a pity that despised its object.  She put her hand upon it hurriedly - a hand so thin and delicate, that when I had seen her hold it up before the fire to shade her face, I had compared it in my thoughts to white porcelain - and saying in a quick, fierce, passionate way, 'I swear you to secrecy about this!' said not a word more.

Mrs Steerforth was was particularly happy in her son's society, and Steerforth was, on this occassion, particularly attentive and respectful to her.  It was very interesting to me to see them together, not only on account of their mutual affection, but because of the strong resemblance between them, and the manner in which what was haughty or impetuous in him was softened by age and sex, in her, to a gracious dignity.  I thought, more than once, whether there was any serious cause of division between them.  They are of two shades of same nature.  In such a case it is hard to reconcile should any division arise.  This idea came to me from Rosa Dartle at dinner table.

It all started with her, 'Oh, but do tell me, though, somebody, because I have been thinking about it the whole day, and I want to know.'

'You want to know what Rosa,' returned Mrs Steerforth , 'pray, pray Rosa, do not be mysterious.'

'Mysterious!' she cried.  'Oh!  Really?  Do you consider me so?'

'Do I constantly entreat you,' said Mrs Steerforth, 'to speak plainly, in your own natural manner?' 

'Oh! then, this is not my natural manner?' she rejoined.  'Now you must really bear with me, because I ask for information.  We never know ourselves.' 

'It has become a second nature,' said Mrs Steerforth, without any displesure ; 'but remember, - and so must you, I think - when your name was different, Rosa; when all it was not guarded, and was more trustful.'

'I am sure you are right,' she returned; 'and so it is that bad habit grow upon one! Really? Less guarded and more trustful? How can I imperceptibly, have changed, I wonder!  Well, that's very odd!  I must study to regain my former self.'

'I wish you would,' said Mrs Steerforth, with a smile.

'Oh, I really will, you know!' she answered.  'I will learn frankness from - let me see- James.' 

'You cannot learn frankness, Rosa,' said Mrs Steerforth quickly - for there was always some effect of sarcasm in what Rosa Dartle said, though it was said, in the most unconscious manner in the world - 'in a better school.'

'That I am sure of,' she answered, in uncommon fervour.  'If I am sure of anything, of course, you know, I am sure of that.'

Mrs Steerforth appeared to me to regret having been a little nettled; for she presently said in a kind tone:  'Well my dear Rosa, we have not heard what it is that you want to be satisfied about.'

'That I want to be satisfied about? she replied, with provoking coldness.  'Oh!  It was only whether people, who are like each other in their moral constitution - is that the phrase?' 

'It's as good a phrase as another,' said Steerforth.'

'Thank you: whether people who are like each other in their moral constitution, are in greater danger than people not so circumstanced, supposing any serious cause of variance to arise between them, of being divided angrily and deeply?'

'I should say yes,' said Steerforth.

'Should you?' she retorted.  'Dear me! supposing then, for instance -any unlikely thing will do for a supposition - that you and your mother were to have a serious quarrel.' 

'My dear Rosa,' interposed Mrs Steerforth, laughing good naturedly, 'suggest some other supposition! James and I know our duty to each other better, I pray heaven!' 

'Oh!' said Miss Dartle, nodding her head thoughtfully.  ' To be sure.  That would prevent it?  Why, of course it would.  Exactly.  Now, I am glad to have been so foolish as to put the case, for it is so very good to know that your duty to each other would prevent it!  Thank you very much.'   

One other little circumstance connected with Miss Dartle, I must not omit, for I had reason to remember it thereafter, when all the past beyond remedy was rendered plain.  During the whole of this day, but especially from this period of it, Steerforth exerted himself with utmost skill, and that was with utmost ease, to charm this singular creature into a pleasant and pleased companion.  That he should succeed, was no matter of surprise to me.  That she should struggle against the fascinating of his delightful art - a delightful nature I thought it then- did not surprise me either; for I knew that she was sometimes jaundiced and perverse.  I saw her features  and her manner slowly change; I saw her look at him with growing admiration, I saw her try more and more faintly, but always angrily, as if she condemned a weakness in herself, to resist the captivating power that he possessed; and finally, I saw her sharp glance soften, and her smile become quite gentle, and I ceased to be afraid of her as I really been all the day, and we all sat about the fire, talking and laughing together, with as little reserve as if we had been children.

We sat there till she remained there.  When she left the dining room we did not remain there less than five minutes. Her leaving and our leaving had no connection, I think, for we had remained there quite a long time. 

'She is playing her harp,' said Steerforth, softly, at the drawing room door, 'but nobody but my mother has heard her do that, I believe these three years.'  We went into the room and found her alone.

She was getting up, and Steerforth said, 'don't get up, my dear Rosa, don't.  Be kind for once and sing us an Irish song.'

'What do you care for an Irish song?' she returned.

'Much!' said Steerforth.  'Much more than for any other.  Here is Daisy, too, loves music from his soul.  Sing us an Irish song, Rosa! and let me sit and listen as I used to do.'

He did not touch her, or the chair from which she had risen, but sat himself near the harp.  She stood beside it for some little while, in a curious way, going through the motion of playing it with right hand, but not sounding it.  At length she sat down and drew it to her with one sudden action, and played and sang.

I don't know what it was, in her touch or voice, that made that song most unearthly I have ever heard in my life, or can imagine.  There was something fearful in the reality of it.  It was as if it had never been written, or set to music, but spring out of passion within her; which found imperfect utterance in the low sounds of her voice, and crouched again when all was still.  I was dumb when she leaned beside the harp again, playing it, but not sounding it, with her right hand.  

A minute more, and this had roused me from my trance:- Steerforth had left his seat, and gone to her, and had put his arm laughingly about her, and said, 'come, Rosa, for the future we will love each other very much!'  And she had struck him, and had thrown him off with the fury of a wild cat, and had burst out of the room. 

'What is the matter with Rosa?' said Mrs Steerforth coming in.

'She had been an angel, mother,' returned Steerforth, 'and for a little while she has run into the opposite extreme, since, by way of compensation.'

'You should be careful not to irritate her, James.  Her temper has been soured, remember, and not to be tried.'

Rosa did not come back; and no other mention was made of her, until I went  with Steerforth to his room to say goodnight.  Then he laughed about her, and asked me if I had ever seen such a fierce little piece of incomprehensibility.

I expressed as such of my astonishment as was then capable of expression, and asked if he could guess what it was that she had taken so much amiss, so suddenly. 

'Oh, Heaven knows,' said Steerforth.  'Anything you like - or nothing!  I told you she took everything, herself included, to a grindstone, and sharpened it.  She is an edge tool, and requires great care in dealing with.  She is always dangerous.  Goodnight!'

'Goodnight!' said I, 'I shall be gone before you wake in the morning.  Goodnight!'

He was unwilling to let me go; and stood me holding out, with a hand on each of my shoulders, as he had done in my own room.

'Daisy,' he said, with a smile 'for though that is not the name your godfathers and godmothers gave you, it is the name I like best to call you by - and I wish, I wish, I wish you could give it to me!' 

'Why so I can, if I choose,' said I 

'Daisy, if anything should ever seperate us, you must think of me at my best, old boy.  Come! Let us make that bargain.  Think of me at my best, if circumstances should ever part us!' 

'You have no best to me, Steerforth,' said I, 'and no worst.  You are always equally loved, and cherished in my heart.'

So much compunction for having ever wronged him, even by a shapeless thought, did I feel within me, that the confession of having done so was rising to my lips.  But for the reluctance I had to betray the confidence of Agnes, but my uncertainty how to approach the subject with no risk of doing so, it would have reached them before he said, 'God bless you, Daisy, and goodnight!'  In my doubt it did not reach them; and we shook hands and we parted.

I was up with full dawn, and having dressed as quietly as I could, looked into his room.  He was fast asleep; lying, easily, with his head upon his arm, as I  had often seen him lie at school.

The time came in its season, and that was very soon, when I almost wondered that nothing troubled his repose, as I looked at him.  But he slept- let me think of him so again - as I had often seen him sleep at school; and thus, in this silent hour, I left him.

-Never more, oh God forgive you, Steerforth! to touch that passive hand in love and friendship.  Never, never more!

THE END OF CHAPTER 29