40. CHARLES DICKENS: DAVID COPPERFIELD: CHAPTER 40: THE WANDERER

We had a serious conversation in Buckingham Street that night, about the domestic occurences I have detailed in the last chapter.  My aunt was deeply interested in them, and walked up and down in the room with her arms folded, for more than two hours afterwards.  Whenever she was particularly discomposed, she always performed one of these pedestrian feats; and the amount of her discomposure might always be estimated by the duration of her walk.  On this occasion she was so much disturbed in mind as to find it necessary to open the bedroom door, and make a course for herself, comprising the full extend of the bedroom from wall to wall; while Mr Dick and I sat quietly by the fire, she kept passing in and out, along the measured track, at an unchanging pace, with the regularity of a clock-pendulum.

When my aunt and I were left to ourselves by Mr Dick's going out to bed, I sat down to write my letter to the two old ladies.  By that time she was tired of walking, and sat by the fire with her dress tucked up as usual.  But instead of sitting in her usual manner, holding her glass upon her knee, she suffered it to stand neglected on the chimney-piece; and, resting her left elbow on right arm, and her chin on her left hand, looked thoughtfully at me.  As often as I raised my eyes from what I was about, I met hers.  'I am in the lovingest of my tempers, my dear,' she would assure me with a nod, 'but I am fidgeted and sorry!'

I had been too busy to observe, until after she was gone to bed, that she had left her night-mixture, as she always called it, untasted on the chimney-piece.  She came to her door, with even more than her usual affection of manner, when I knocked to acquaint her with this discovery, but only said, 'I have not the heart to take it, Trot, tonight,' and shook her head, and went in again.

She read my letter to the two old ladies, in the morning, and approved of it.  I posted it, and had nothing to do then, but wait as patiently as I could, for the reply.  I was still in this state of expectation, and had been, for nearly a week; when I left the Doctor's, one snowy night, to walk home.

It had been a bitter day, and the cutting north-east wind had blown for sometime.  The wind had gone down with the light, and the snow had come on.  It was a heavy, settled fall, I recollect, in heavy flakes, and it lay thick,  The noise of wheels and tread of people were as hushed, as if the streets had been strewn that depth with feathers.

My shortest way home, and I naturally took the shortest way on such a night - was through St Martin's Lane.  Now, the church which give its name to the lane, stood in a less free situation at that time; there being no open space before it, and the lane winding down to the Strand.  As I passed the steps of the portico, I encountered at the corner a woman's face.  It looked in mine, passed accross the narrow lane, and disappeared.  I knew it.  I had seen it somewhere.  But I could not remember where.  I had some association with it, that struck upon my heart directly; but I was thinking of anything else when it came upon me, and I was confused.

On the steps of the church, there was the stooping figure of a man, who had put down some burden on the smooth snow to adjust it; my seeing the face, and my seeing the man were simultaneous.  I don't think I had stopped in my surprise; but, in any case, as I went on, he rose, turned, and came down towards me.  I stood face to face with Mr Peggotty!

Then I remembered the woman.  It was Martha to whom Emily had given money that night in the kitchen.  Martha Endell - side by by side with whom, he would not have seen his dear niece, Ham had told me, for all the treasures wrecked in the sea.

We shook hands heartily.  At first neither of us could speak a word.

'Masr Davy,' he said, gripping me tight, 'it do my art good to see you sir. Well met. Well met.'

'Well met, my dear old friend,' said I.

'I had the thought of coming to inquire you, sir, tonight,' he said, 'but knowing your aunt was living along with you - for I have been down yonder - Yarmouth way - I was afraid it was too late.  I should have come early in the morning, alone, going away.' 

'Again?' said I

'Yes, sir,' he replied, patiently shaking his head, I am away tomorrow.

'Where are you going now?' I asked.

'Well,' he replied, shaking the snow out of his long hair. 'I was going to turn in somewhere.'

In those days there was a side entrance to the stable-yard of the Golden Cross, the inn so memorable to me in connection with his misfortune, nearly opposite to where he stood.  I pointed out the gateway, put my arm through his, and we went accross.  Two or three public-rooms opened out of the stable yard, and looking into one of them, and finding it empty, and a good fire burning, I took him in there.

When I saw him in the light, I observed, not only that his hair was long and ragged, but his face was burnt and dark by the sun.  He was greyer, the lines in his face and forehead were deeper, and he had every appearance of having toiled and wandered through all the varieties of weather; but he looked strong, and like a man upheld by steadfastness of purpose, whom nothing could tire out.  He shook the snow from his hat and clothes, and brushed it away from his face, while I was inwardly making these remarks.  As he sat down opposite to me at a table, with his back to the door by which we had entered, he put out his rough hand again and grasped mine warmly.

'I will tell you Master Davy,' said he,  'where all I have been and what all we have heard.  I have been for, and we have heard a little, but I will tell you.'

I rang the bell for something hot to drink.  He would have nothing stronger than ale; and while it was being brought, and being warmed at the fire, he sat thinking.  There was a fine, massive gravity in his face.  I did not venture to disturb.

'when she was a child,' he said, lifting up his head, soon after we were left alone, 'she used to talk to me a deal about sea and about the coasts where the sea got to be dark blue, and lay shining and shining in the sun.  I thought of old times, when her father had drowned made her think of it much.  I don't know, whether she believed he had drifted out to those parts, where the flowers always blow and the country bright.'

'It is likely to have been a childish fancy,' I said.

'When she was lost,' said Mr Peggotty, I knew in my mind that he would take her to those countries.  He would have told her of the wonders of those countries, and how she was to be a lady there, and how he got her listen to him first, along of such like.  When we saw his mother, I knew quite well as I was right.  I went accross channel to France, and landed there, as if I had fell down from the sky.' 

I saw the door move, and the snow drift in.  I saw it move a little more, and a hand move slowly to interpose to keep it open.  

'I found an English gentleman as was in authority,' said Mr Peggotty, and told him I was going to seek my niece.  He got me papers to carry me through - I don't rightly know how they are called - and he would have given me the money, but I was thankful to have no need on.  I thanked him for his kindness.  I am sure!  "I have wrote to you before," he said to me, "and I shall speak to many who will come my way, and many will know you, when you are travelling distant seas, alone." I told him, best as I was able, and with gratitude, I went away through France.'

'Alone, and on foot?' said I.

'Mostly on foot,' he rejoined; sometimes in carts along with people going to market; sometimes in empty coaches, many miles a day on foot, and often with some poor soldier or another, travelling to see his friends.  I couldn't talk to him,' said Mr Peggotty, 'nor he to me; but we were company for one another, too, along the dusty roads.'

I should have known that by his friendly tone.

'When I come to any town,' he pursued, 'I found the inn, and waited about the yard till some one turned up.  Then, I told them how that I was on my way to seek my niece, and they told me what manner of gentlefolk was in the house, and I waited to see any as seemed like her going in or out.  When it weren't Emily, I went again. By little and little, when I come to a new village, or that among the poor people, I found they knew about me.  They would set me down at their cottage doors, and gave gave me what not for to eat and drink, and showed me where to sleep, and many a woman, Master Davy, as had a daughter about Emily's age, I have found waiting for me at Our  Saviour's Cross outside the village, to do me similar kindness.  Some has had daughters as was dead.  And God only knows how good those mothers to me!'

It was Martha at th door.  I saw her haggard listening face distinctly.  My dread was lest he should turn his head and see her too.

'They would often put her children - particularly their little girls,' said Peggotty, 'upon my knee, and many a time you might have seen me, sitting at their doors, when night was coming in, almost they had been my darling's children.  Oh, my darling!'

Overpowered by sudden grief, he sobbed aloud.  I laid my trembling hand upon the hand he put before his face.  'Thank you sir,' he said, 'please don't mind.'

In a very little while, he took his hand away and put it on his breast, and went on with his story.

'They often walked with me,' he said, 'in the morning, may be a mile or two upon my road, and when we parted, I said, "I am very thankful to you, God bless you!" they always seemed to understand and answered pleasant.  At last I come to the sea.  It wasn't hard, you suppose, for a seafaring man like me to work his way over to Italy.  When I got there, I wandered on as I had done before.  The people was just as good to me, and I should have gone from town, may be the country through, but I got news her being seen among the Swiss mountains yonder.  One knew his servant saw them there, and told me, how they travelled, and where they were.  I made for those mountains, Master Davy, day and night.  Ever so far I went, ever so far the mountains seemed to shift away from me.  But I came up them and crossed them.  When I got almost the place, I began to think myself, "what shall I do when I see her?"

The listening face, insensible to the inclement night, still drooped at the door, and the hands begged me - prayed me - not to cast it forth.

'I never doubted her,' said Mr Peggotty.  'No! Not a bit!  Only let her see my face - only let her hear my voice- only let me standing before her, bring to her the thoughts of home she had fled away from home, and the child she had been - and if she had grown to be a royal lady, she would have fell down at my feet!  I knew it well!  Many a time in my sleep had I heard her cry out, "uncle" and seen her fall like death before me.  Many a time in my sleep had I raised her up, and whispered to her, "Emily, my dear, I am come to bring forgiveness and to take you home!"'

He stopped and shook his head and went on with a sigh.  

'He was nothing to me now.  Emily was all.  I bought a country dress to put upon her, and I knew that once found she would walk beside me over the stony roads, go where I would, and never, never, leave me more.  To put that dress upon her, and to cast off what she wore - to take her on my arm again and wander towards home - to stop sometimes upon the road and heal her bruised feet and her worse bruised heart - was all that I thought of now.  I don't believe I should have done so much as look at him.  But Master Davy, it weren't to be - not yet!  I was too late and they were gone.  Where I couldn't learn.  Some said here and some said there.  I travelled here, and I travelled there, but I found no Emily, and I travelled home.' 

'How long ago?' I asked.

'A matter of few days,' said Peggotty.  I sighted the old boat after dark, and the light shining in the window.  When I came near and looked in through the glass, I saw the faithful creature Miss Gummidge sitting by the fire, as we had fixed upon, alone.  I called out, "Don't be afraid, I am Dan'll" and I went in.  I never could have thought the old boat would have been so strange!'

 

From some pocket in his breast, he took out, with a very careful hand a small paper bundle containing two or three letters or little packets, which he laid on the table.

'This first one came,' he said, selecting it from the rest, 'before I had been gone.  A fifty pound Bank note, in a sheet of paper directed to me, and put underneath the door in the night.  She tried to hide her writing, but she couldn't hide it from me!'

He folded up it again, with great patience and care, in exactly the same form, and laid it on one side.

'This comes to Miss Gummidge, he said, opening the another, two or three months ago.'  After looking at it for some moments, he gave it to me, and added in a low voice.  'Be so good as read it, sir.'

I read as follows:

'Oh what will you feel when you see this writing, and know it comes from my wicked hand!  But try, try - not for my sake, but for uncle's goodness, try to let your heart softens to me, only for a little little time!  Try, pray do to relent towards a miserable girl, and write down on a bit of paper whether he is well, and what he said about me before you left off ever naming me among yourselves - and whether, of a night, when it is my old of coming home, you ever see him look as if he thought of one he used to love so dear.  Oh, my heart is breaking when I think about it!  I am kneeling down to you, begging and praying you not to be as hard with me as I deserve - as I well, well know I deserve - but to be so gentle and so good, as to write down something of him, and send it to me.  You need not call me Little, you need not call me by the name I have disgraced; but ho, listen to my agony, and have mercy on me so far as to write me some word of uncle, never, never to be seen in the world by my eyes again!

'Dear, if your heart is hard towards me - justly hard, I know - but, listen, if it is hard, dear, ask him I have wronged the most - him whose wife I was to have been - before you quite decide against my poor poor prayer, if he should be so compassionate as to say that you might write something for me to read - I think he would, oh, I think he would, if you would only ask him, for he always was so brave and so forgiving - tell him then (and not else), that when I hear the wind blowing at night, I feel as if it were passing angrily from seeing him and uncle, and was going upto God against me.  Tell him that if I was to die tomorrow ( and ho, if I was fit, I would be so glad to die) I would bless him and uncle with my last words, and pray for his happy home with my last breath!'

Some money was enclosed in this letter also.  Five pounds.  It was untouched like the previous sum, and he refolded it in the same way.  Detailed instructions were added relative to the address of a reply, which, although they betrayed the intervention of several hands, and made it difficult to arrive at any very probable conclusion in reference to her place of concealment, made it at least not unlikely that she had written from that spot where she was stated to have been seen.

'What answer was sent?' I inquired of Mr Peggotty.

'Miss Gummidge,' he returned, 'not being a good scholar, sir, Ham kindly drew it out, and she made a copy on it.  They told her I was gone to seek her, and what my parting words were.'

'Is that another letter in your hand?' said I.

'It's money, sir,' said Mr Peggotty, unfolding it a little way.  'Ten pound, you see.  And wrote inside.  "From a true friend," like the first.  But the first was put underneath the door, and this come by post, day before yesterday.  I am going to seek her at the post mark.'

He showed it to me.  It was a town on the Upper Rhine.  He had found out at Yarmouth, some foreign dealers who knew that country, and they had drawn a rude map on the paper, which he could very well understand.  He laid it between us on the table; and, with his chin resting on one hand, tracked his course upon it with the other.

I asked him how Ham was.  He shook his head.

'He works,' he said, 'as bold as a man can.  His name is as good in all that part, as any man's is, anywhere in the world.  Anyone's hand is ready to help him, you understand, and he is ready to help them. He is never heard to complain.  But my sister's belief is as it has cut him deep.'

'Poor fellow, I can believe it!'

'He ain't no care, Master Davy,' said Mr Peggotty in a solemn whisper - kind of no care, no-how of his life.  When a man's wanted for rough service in rough weather, he is there.  When there is hard duty to be done with danger in it he steps forward before all his mates.  And yet he is gentle as a child. There ain't a child in Yarmouth who doesn't know him.'

He gathered up the letters thoughtfully, smoothing them with his hand; put them into their little bundle; and placed it tenderly in his breast again.  The face was gone from the door.  I still saw the snow drifting in; but nothing else was there.

'Well,' he said, looking to his bag, 'having seen you tonight, Master Davy, I shall away early morning tomorrow. You have seen what I have got here,' putting his hand on where the little packet lay, 'all that troubles me is, to think that any harm might come to me, before that money is given back.  If I was to die, and it was lost, or stole, or else ways made away with it, and it was never knew by him, but I had taken it, I believe the other world would not hold me!  I believe I must come back.'

He rose, and I rose too; we grasped each other by hand again, before going out.

'To go ten thousand miles,' he said, 'I would go till I dropped dead, to lay that money down before him.  If I do that, and find my Emily, I am content. If I don't find her, may be she will come  here sometime, as her loving uncle only ended his search for her when he ended his life; and if I know her, even that will turn her home at last!'

As he went out into the vigorous night, I saw the lonely figure flit away before us.  I turned him hastily on some preference, and held him in conversation until it was gone.

He spoke of a traveller's house on the Dover Road, where he knew he could find a clean, plain lodging for the night.  I went with him over Westminster Bridge and parted from him from Surrey shore.

Everything seemed, to my imagination, to be hushed in reverence for him, as he resumed his solitary journey through the snow.

I returned to the inn yard, and, impressed by my remembrance of the face, looked awfully around for it.  It was not there.  The snow had covered our late footprints; My new track was the only one to be seen; and even that began to die away, as I looked back over my shoulders.

THE END OF CHAPTER 40