Highgate, London

Trotwood Copperfield was on a trip after the completion of his education in Doctor Strong's School.  After the schooling, he was uncertain about which career he should choose.  Aunt Betsey suggested him to go on a trip and gave him necessary money to meet his expenses.

The first point of his trip was Canterbury, and after it he was in London.  The trip to London manifested him a novice fresh from school.  Though he pretended to appear as a seasoned traveller, he lost his box seat to a shabbily dressed co-passenger.  Arrived in London, the waiter of the Golden Cross Hotel in Charing Cross junction deliberately put him in a stable like room. 

Fortunately, he met his Salem House school friend James Steerforth in the coffee-room of the hotel after his return from Convent Garden Theatre.  Steerforth could see that his friend was still the school boy of Salem House.  He asked the waiter in which room he put Copperfield, and got him changed to a comfortable room.  Steerforth invited him to a breakfast next morning.

In the morning the chambermaid tapped at his door and informed that shaving water was outside, Trotwood felt severely having no occasion for it, and blushed in his bed.  While dressing he suspected it was her taunt upon him.  So he sneaked his way downstairs while she was looking at the statue of King Charles on horseback.  

Steerforth was waiting him in a cosy apartment, red-curtained and Turkey-carpeted.  The fire burnt bright.  Breakfast was set forth on a table covered with clean cloth.  Over the sideboard was a little round mirror on which the fire, the breakfast, Steerforth and all reflected.

Trotwood felt himself very inferior to Steerforth, but his patronage put him at ease.

'Now Mr Copperfield,' said Steerforth, 'I should like to hear what you are doing, and where you are going, and all about you.  I feel as if you were my property.' 

Trotwood brightened with pleasure, and told him what aunt Betsey had proposed.

'As you are in no hurry, then,' said Steerforth, 'come home with me to Highgate, and stay a day or two.  You will be pleased with my mother - she is a little vain and prosy about me, but that you can forgive her - and she will be pleased with you.'

Since Trotwood had enough time he agreed to his proposal.  They spent the day sightseeing the local places, followed by lunch, and it was dusk when the stage coach stopped at an old brick house at Highgate on the summit of the hill.  An elderly handsome lady with proud carriage was in the doorway.  When they alighted she came forward and embraced Steerforth greeting him 'my dearest James', and welcomed Trotwood warmly.

It was a genteel, old-fashioned, quiet and orderly house.  Trotwood could see from the windows of his room all the London lying in a distance like a great vapour, with some lights twinkling here and there.  The picture in crayons of ladies with powdered hair and bodices, and the solid furniture in the room seemed coming and going, as the newly kindled fire crackled and sputtered.  Trotwood was called for dinner.

There was a second lady in the dining.  She was slightly short and dark. Trotwood sat opposite to her and and so she attracted his attention.  She had black hair and eager black eyes, and was thin, and had a scar upon her upper lip.

She was introduced as Miss Dartle, and both Steerforth and his mother called her Rosa.  She lived there, and had been for a long time Mrs Steerforth's companion.  She was very sarcastic and argumentative.  She looked worn-out.  She was lean and looked exhausted.  She was a motherless child of a sort of cousin of Steerforth's father.  Her father died one day. Mrs Steerforth, who was a widow by then brought her to Highgate to be a companion.  She had a couple of thousand pounds of her own, and saves the interest on it.

The scar upon her upper lip was the result of an accident.  She provoked Steerforth when they were children  and he threw a hammer at her.  He said that she will bear it to her grave.

Mrs Steerforth was fully devoted to her son.  She showed Trotwood his picture as an infant, in a locket, with some of his baby hair in it.   The picture of him when he was a student in Salem House when Trotwood first met him.  She wore at her breast his picture as he was now.  All the letters he had ever written to her, she kept in a cabinet near her own chair by the fire.

'It was at Mr Creakle's, my son told me, that you first became acquainted,' said Mrs Steerforth as they were talking at one table, while Steerforth and Rosa Dartle played backgammon at another.  'Indeed I recollect his speaking, at that time of a pupil younger than himself who had taken his fancy there; but your name, has not lived in my memory.'

Copperfield said that Steerforth was very generous to him in those days, and that he stood in need of such a friend, and he should have been quite crushed without his friend.

Mrs Steerforth said that Salem House was not a fit school for his son.  Her son's high spirit made it desirable that he should be placed with some man who felt its superiority, and would be contented to bow himself before it.  She found  such a man in Mr Creakle.  He would have risen against all constraints.  But he found himself a monarch of the place.  And he haughtily determined to be worthy of his station.  Her son had told her that Trotwood was quite devoted to him.  And she was very glad to see his friend in her home and assured him of his son's protection.

Miss Dartle played backgammon as eagerly as she did everything else.  By the evening a tray of glasses and decanters came in, Steerforth promised over the fire that he was thinking of going to Yarmouth. 

Steerforth used to call him Daisy, and Miss Dartle had a doubt why he was called Daisy.  She had the answer too, that Copperfield was young and innocent, and so he is the friend of Steerforth.

She went to bed soon after this; Mrs Steerforth retired too.  The friends lingered for some more time, over the fire, talking about Traddles and all the rest of them at old Salem House school.

Steerforth's room was next to Trotwood's, a cozy room full of easy-chairs, cushions and footstools worked by his mother's hand.  A portrait of hers looked down from the wall.

The fire was burning clear enough, and the curtains were drawn before the windows and round the bed when Trotwood entered his room.  He sat down in a great chair upon the hearth contemplating on his immediate happiness, when he saw the portrait of Miss Dartle on the chimney piece looking looking at him.  It had a startling likeness and a startling look.  The painting had no scar on the lips.

Next morning appeared Littimer, a servant without any Christian name. He appeared respectable from top to bottom.  He said that Steerforth would be glad to hear how his guest had rested.  

He arranged horses.  And Steerforth gave his friend lessons in riding.  He provided foils. Foil is a kind of flexible sword used in the sport of fencing.  And Steerforth gave him lessons in fencing. And Trotwood found himself improving in boxing of the same master.  He was very much impressed by Littimer.

The week passed away rapidly and delightfully.  It offered Trotwood the opportunity to know Steerforth better than before, and he believed that they were close friends.

Steerforth decided to go with Trotwood to Yarmouth.  They first went to London by a little carriage.  The mail took them to Yarmouth.  They reached there by the evening, and stayed at the inn where Copperfield used to stay during his previous journeys.

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