48. CHARLES DICKENS: DAVID COPPERFIELD: CHAPTER 48: DOMESTIC

I laboured hard at my book, without allowing it to interfere with the newspaper duties, and it came out and was successful.  I enjoyed my success.  I have always observed the human nature, that a man has any reason to believe in himself never flourishes before others in order that they may believe in him.  For this reason I retained my modesty.

It is not my purpose, to pursue the history of my fictions in this memoir.  I leave them to express themselves.  Here I refer them as a part of my progress

I had been married, about a year and a half.  After several experiments, we had given up house-keeping as a bad job.  The house kept itself, and we kept a page.  The principal function of the page was to quarrel with the cook. He was a perfect Whittington, without his cat.

He seemed to live in a hail of saucepan-lids.  His all existence was a scuffle.  He would shriek for help on the most important occasions, as when we had a little dinner-party, or a few friends in the evening.  He would come tumbling out of the kitchen, with iron missiles flying after him.  We wanted to get rid of him, but he was very attached to us, and wouldn't go.  He was a tearful boy, and broke into such laments, when we hinted at cessation of his service.  And we were obliged to keep him.  He had no mother, or any other relatives.  The only sister he had, fled to America, the moment we had taken him off her hands.  Thus he was quartered on us like a horrible young changeling.  He was aware of his unfortunate state.  He would rub his nose with the sleeves of his jacket, or stoop to blow his nose in the corner of pocket-handkerchief, which he would never take fully out of his pocket, but always economised and secreted.

This unlucky boy, engaged in an evil hour at six pound ten per annum was a source of continual trouble to me.  I watched him as he grew.  He grew like scarlet-beans - with painful apprehensions of the time when he would begin to shave; even of the time he would be bald or grey.  I saw no prospect of ever getting rid of him; and, projecting myself into the future, used to think that what an inconvenience he would be when he was an old man.

I never expected anything less, than this unfortunate's manner of getting me out of my difficulty.  He stole Dora's watch, which, like everything belonging to us, had no particular place of its own; and converting it to money, and spent it riding up and down between London and Uxbridge.  Even after his fifteenth journey he couldn't spent the whole; when four-and-sixpence and a second-hand fife, which he couldn't play, were found upon his person.

This was very unpleasant, but he was very penitent, he was penitent to the extent of making some revelations not in lump, but in instalments: First the hamper in the cellar was full of empty bottles and corks, and not even a drop of wine; he had now eased his mind and told the worst thing he knew of the cook; but, a day or two afterwards, his conscience sustained a new twinge, how she had a little girl, who early every morning, took away our bread; and also how he himself had been induced to maintain the milkman in coals.  In two or three days more, I was informed by authorities of his having led to the discovery of sirloin of beef among the kitchen stuff, and sheets in the rag-bag.  A little while afterwards, he broke out entirely in a new direction, and confessed to the knowledge of burglary, at our premises, on the part of a pot-boy, who was immediately taken up.  I got to be so ashamed of being such a victim, that I would have given him any money to hold his tongue, or would have offered round bribe for his being permitted to run away.  But he had no such idea, but he thought he was making amends to me in every discovery, and heaping obligations on my head.

At last I ran away from myself, whenever I saw an emissary of the police approaching with new intelligence, and lived a stealthy life, until he was tired and ordered to be transported.  Even then he couldn't be quiet, but was always writing us letters, and wanted so much to see Dora, before he went away, that Dora went to see him, and fainted when she found herself inside the iron bars.  In short, I had no peace of mind until he was expatriated and made a shepherd of  upcountry somewhere, I have no idea where.

All this led me into some serious reflections, and presented our mistakes in a new aspect; and I could not help communicating to Dora one evening, in spite of my tenderness for her.

'My love,' said I, 'it is very painful to me to think that our want of a system and management, involves not only ourselves, but other people too.'

'You have been silent for a long time, and now you are going to be cross!' said Dora.

'No my dear, indeed!  Let me explain to you what I mean.' I said.

'I think I don't want to know.' said Dora.

'But I want you to know, my love.  Put Jip down.'

Dora put his nose to mine, and said 'Boh!' to drive my seriousness away; but, not succeeding ordered him into his Pagoda, and sat looking at me, with her hands folded, and a most resigned expression of countenance.

'The fact is, my dear,' I began, 'there is contagion about us.  We infect everyone about us.'

I might have gone on in this figurative manner, if Dora's face had not admonished me, that she was wondering with all her might whether I was going to propose any new kind of vaccination, or other medical remedy, for this unwholesome state of ours.  Therefore I checked myself, and made my meaning plainer.

'It is not merely, my pet,' said I, 'that we lose money and comfort, and even temper sometimes, by not learning to be more careful; but that we incur serious responsibility of spoiling every one who comes into our service, or had any dealings with us.  I begin to afraid that the fault is not entirely on one side, but that these people turn out ill because we don't put very well ourselves.'

'Oh, what an accusation,' exclaimed Dora, opening her eyes wide; to say me that you ever saw me to take gold watches! Oh!'

'My dearest,' I remonstrated, 'don't talk preposterous nonsense!  Who has made the least allusion to gold watches?:

'You did,' returned Dora.  'You know you did.  You said I hadn't turned out well, and compared me to him.'

'To whom?' I asked.

'To the page,' sobbed Dora.  'Oh, you cruel fellow, to compare your affectionate wife to a transported page!  Why didn't you tell me your opinion of me before we were married?  Why didn't you say, you hard-hearted thing, that you were convinced I was worse than a transported page?  Oh, what a dreadful opinion to have of me!  Oh, my goodness!'

'Now, Dora, my love,' I returned, gently trying to remove the handkerchief she pressed to her eyes, 'this is not only ridiculous of you, but very wrong.  In the first place it is not true.'

'You always said he was a story-teller,' sobbed Dora, and now you say the same of me!  Oh, what shall I do!'

'My darling girl,' I retorted, 'I really must entreat you to be reasonable, and listen to what I did say, and do say.  My dear Dora, unless we learn duty to do our duty to those whom we employ, they will never learn these duty to us.  I am afraid we present opportunities to people to do wrong, that never ought to be presented.  Even if we were less lax as we are, in our all arrangements, by choice - which we are not - even if we liked it and find it agreeable to be so - which we don't - we should have no right to go on in this way.  We are positively corrupting people.  We are bound to think of that.  I can't help thinking of it, Dora.  It's a reflection I am unable to dismiss, and it makes me sometimes very uneasy.  There, dear, that's all.  Come now.  Don't be foolish.

Dora would not allow me, for a long time, to remove the handkerchief.  She sat sobbing and murmuring behind it, that, if I was uneasy, why had I ever been married?  Why hadn't I said even the day before we went to church, that I knew I should be uneasy, and I would rather not?  If I couldn't bear her, why don't I send her away to her aunts at Putney, or to Julia Mills in India?  Julia would be glad to see her, and would not call her a transported page; Julia had never called her anything of the sort.  In short, Dora was afflicted, and so afflicted me by being in that condition, that I felt it was of no use of repeating this kind of effort, though never so mildly, and I must take some other course 

What other course was left?  To form her mind?  This was a common phrase of words which had a fair and promising sound, and I resolved to form Dora's mind.

I began immediately.  When Dora was very childish, and I would have infinitely preferred to humour her, I tried to be grave - and disconcerted her - and myself too.  I talked to her on the subjects which occupied my thoughts; and I read Shakespeare to her - and fatigued her to the last degree.  I accustomed myself to giving her, as if it were casually, little scraps of useful information, or sound opinion - and she started from them when I let them off, as if they had been crackers.  My efforts at formation of her mind brought slow results, since she had instinctive apprehensions about my intentions, and she thought Shakespeare, a terrible fellow.

I pressed Traddles into this mind formation business, without his knowledge, whenever he came to visit us.  But it had no other effect upon Dora than to depress her spirits, and made her always dread that it would be her turn next.  I found myself in the condition of an school master, playing spider to Dora's fly.

At last I found that I was not able to form her mind, that it was already formed, and it was better to adjust to the reality; and I bought a pretty pair of ear-rings for her and a collar for Jip, and went home one day to keep myself agreeable.

Dora was delighted with the presents, and kissed me joyfully; but there was a shadow between us, however slight, and I have made up my mind that it should not be there.  If there must be such a shadow anywhere, I would keep it for the future in my own breast.

I sat down by my wife on the sofa, and put the ear-rings in her ears; and then I told her that I feared we had not been quite as good company lately, as we used to be, and that the fault was mine.  Which I sincerely felt, and which indeed it was.

'The truth is, Dora, my life,' I said, I have been trying to be wise.'

'And to make me wise too,' said Dora, timidly.  'Haven't you Doady?'

I nodded assent to the pretty inquiry of the raised eye-brows, and kissed the parted lips.

'It's of not a bit of use,' said Dora, shaking her head, until.the ear-rings rang again.  'You know what a little thing I am, and what I wanted you to call me from the first.  If you can't do so, I am afraid you'll never like me.  Are you sure you don't think, sometimes, it would be better to have -'

'Done what, my dear?' For she made no effort to proceed.

'Nothing,' said Dora.

'Nothing?' I repeated

She put her arms round my neck, and laughed, and called herself by her favourite name of goose, and hid her face on my shoulder in such a profusion of curls that it was quite a task to clear them away and see it.

'Don't think it would have been better to have done nothing, than to have tried to form my little wife's mind? said I, laughing at myself.  'Is that the question? Yes, indeed, I do.'

'Is that you have been trying?' cried Dora.  'Oh, what a shocking boy!'

'But I shall never try anymore,' said I, 'as I love her dearly as she is.'

'Without a story - really?' inquired Dora, creeping closer to me.

'Why should I seek to change,' said I, what has to be so precious to me for so long!  You never can show better than as your own natural self, my sweet Dora; and we will try no cancelled experiments, but go back to our old ways, and be happy.'

'And be happy!' returned Dora.  'Yes!  all day!  And you won't mind things a tiny morsel wrong, sometimes?'

'No, no,' said I.  'We must do the best we can.'

'And you won't tell me, any more, that we make other people bad,' coaxed Dora.  'Will you?  Because you know it's dreadfully cross!'

'No, no.' said I.

'It is better for me to be stupid, than uncomfortable.  Isn't it?'

'Better to be naturally Dora, than anything else in the world.'

'In the world!  Ah, Doady, it's a large place!'

She shook her head, turned her delighted bright eyes upto mine, kissed me, and broke into merry laugh, and sprang away to put on Jip's new collar.

So ended my last attempt to make any change in Dora.  I had been unhappy in trying it; I could not endure my own solitary wisdom; I could not reconcile it with her former appeal to me as my child-wife.  I resolved to do what I could, in a quiet way, to improve our proceedings myself, but I foresaw that my utmost would be very little, or I must degenerate into the spider again, and be forever lying in wait.

And the shadow I have mentioned, that was not to be between us any more; but was to rest wholly on my own heart?  How did it fall?  

The old unhappy feeling pervaded in my life.  My effort to adapt Dora to myself was a failure. I loved Dora.  And Dora loved me.  She was proud of my achievements.  But she was not capable of assistance, either in my literary efforts or in our house-keeping.  It remained for me to adapt myself to Dora.  Acceptance of this reality made my second year much happier, and what was better still made Dora's life all sunshine.

But, as the year wore on, Dora was not strong.  I had hoped that lighter hands than mine would help to mould her character, and that a baby-smile upon her breast might change my child-wife to a woman.  It was not to be.  The spirit fluttered for a moment on the threshold of its little prison, and, unconscious of captivity, took wing.

'When I can run about again, as I used to do, aunt,' said Dora, 'I shall make Jip race.  He is getting quite slow and lazy.'

'I suspect, my dear,' said my aunt quietly working by her side, 'he has a worst disorder than that.  Age, Dora.'

'Do you think he is old?' said Dora astonished.  'Oh, how strange it seems that Jip should be old.' 

'We are all liable to this, Little One, as we get on in life,' said my aunt cheerfully; I don't feel more free from it, than I used to be, I assure you.'

'But Jip,' said Dora, looking at him with compassion, 'even little Jip! Oh, poor fellow!'

'I dare say he'll last a long time yet, Blossom,' said my aunt, patting Dora on the cheek, as she leaned out of her couch to look at Jip, who responded by standing himself on his hind legs, and baulking himself with various asthmatic attempts to scramble up by the head and shoulders.  'He must have a piece of flannel in his house this winter, and I shouldn't wonder if he came out quite fresh again, with flowers in the spring. Bless the little dog.' exclaimed my aunt, 'if he had as many lives as a cat, and was on the point of losing them all, he would bark at me with his last breath, I believe.'

My aunt suggested that she would give her another dog.  

'I couldn't have another dog, but Jip,' said Dora, it would be unkind to Jip!  I couldn't be friends with another dog but Jip.'

'To be sure!' said my aunt, patting her cheek again.  'You are right.'

'You are not offended,' said Dora.  'Are you?'

'Why, what a sensitive pet it is' cried my aunt, bending over her affectionately.  'To think that I could be offended!'

'No, no, I didn't really think so.' returned Dora, 'but I am a little tired, and it made me a little tired, and it made me silly for a moment - I am always a little silly thing, you know, but it made me more silly - to talk about Jip.  He has known me in all that has happened to me, haven't you, Jip? And I couldn't bear to slight him, because he was a little altered - could I Jip?

Jip nestled to his mistress, and lazily licked her hand.

'You are not so old, Jip, are you, that you'll leave your mistress yet?' said Dora.  We may keep one another company a little longer!'

My pretty Dora!  When she came down to dinner on ensuing Sunday and was glad to see Traddles, we thought she would be 'running about, as she used to do,' in a few days.  But they said, wait a few days more, and then, wait a few days more; and still she neither ran nor walked.  She looked very pretty and was very merry, but the little feet that used to be so nimble when they danced round Jip were dull and motionless.  

I began to carry her downstairs every morning, and upstairs every night.  She would clasp me round the neck and laugh, the while, as if I did it for a wager.  Jip would bark and caper round us, and go on before, and look back on the landing, breathing short, to see that we were coming.  My aunt, the best and most cheerful of nurses, would trudge after us, a moving mass of shawls and pillows.  Mr Dick would not have relinquished his post of candle-bearer to anyone alive.  Traddles would be often at the bottom of the staircase, looking on, and taking charge of sportive messages from Dora to the dearest girl in the world.  We made quite a gay procession of it, and my child-wife was the gayest there.  

But, sometimes when I took her up, and felt that she was lighter in my arms, a dead blank feeling came upon me, as if I were approaching to some frozen region yet unseen, that number my life.  I avoided the recognition of this feeling by any name, or by communing with myself; until one night, when it was very strong upon me, and my aunt had left her with a parting cry of 'good night, Little Blossom,' I sat at my desk alone, and cried to think, Oh what a fatal name it was, and how the blossom withered in the bloom upon the tree!

   THE END OF THE CHAPTER