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| 1 | My aunt and I, when we were left alone, talked far into the night.
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| 2 | How the emigrants never wrote home, otherwise than cheerfully and
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| 3 | hopefully; how Mr. Micawber had actually remitted divers small sums
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| 4 | of money, on account of those 'pecuniary liabilities', in reference
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| 5 | to which he had been so business-like as between man and man; how
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| 6 | Janet, returning into my aunt's service when she came back to
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| 7 | Dover, had finally carried out her renunciation of mankind by
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| 8 | entering into wedlock with a thriving tavern-keeper; and how my
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| 9 | aunt had finally set her seal on the same great principle, by
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| 10 | aiding and abetting the bride, and crowning the marriage-ceremony
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| 11 | with her presence; were among our topics - already more or less
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| 12 | familiar to me through the letters I had had. Mr. Dick, as usual,
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| 13 | was not forgotten. My aunt informed me how he incessantly occupied
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| 14 | himself in copying everything he could lay his hands on, and kept
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| 15 | King Charles the First at a respectful distance by that semblance
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| 16 | of employment; how it was one of the main joys and rewards of her
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| 17 | life that he was free and happy, instead of pining in monotonous
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| 18 | restraint; and how (as a novel general conclusion) nobody but she
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| 19 | could ever fully know what he was.
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| 20 | 'And when, Trot,' said my aunt, patting the back of my hand, as we
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| 21 | sat in our old way before the fire, 'when are you going over to
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| 22 | Canterbury?'
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| 23 | 'I shall get a horse, and ride over tomorrow morning, aunt, unless
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| 24 | you will go with me?'
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| 25 | 'No!' said my aunt, in her short abrupt way. 'I mean to stay where
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| 26 | I am.'
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| 27 | Then, I should ride, I said. I could not have come through
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| 28 | Canterbury today without stopping, if I had been coming to anyone
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| 29 | but her.
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| 30 | She was pleased, but answered, 'Tut, Trot; MY old bones would have
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| 31 | kept till tomorrow!' and softly patted my hand again, as I sat
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| 32 | looking thoughtfully at the fire.
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| 33 | Thoughtfully, for I could not be here once more, and so near Agnes,
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| 34 | without the revival of those regrets with which I had so long been
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| 35 | occupied. Softened regrets they might be, teaching me what I had
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| 36 | failed to learn when my younger life was all before me, but not the
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| 37 | less regrets. 'Oh, Trot,' I seemed to hear my aunt say once more;
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| 38 | and I understood her better now - 'Blind, blind, blind!'
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| 39 | We both kept silence for some minutes. When I raised my eyes, I
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| 40 | found that she was steadily observant of me. Perhaps she had
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| 41 | followed the current of my mind; for it seemed to me an easy one to
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| 42 | track now, wilful as it had been once.
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| 43 | 'You will find her father a white-haired old man,' said my aunt,
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| 44 | 'though a better man in all other respects - a reclaimed man.
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| 45 | Neither will you find him measuring all human interests, and joys,
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| 46 | and sorrows, with his one poor little inch-rule now. Trust me,
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| 47 | child, such things must shrink very much, before they can be
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| 48 | measured off in that way.'
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| 49 | 'Indeed they must,' said I.
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| 50 | 'You will find her,' pursued my aunt, 'as good, as beautiful, as
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| 51 | earnest, as disinterested, as she has always been. If I knew
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| 52 | higher praise, Trot, I would bestow it on her.'
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| 53 | There was no higher praise for her; no higher reproach for me. Oh,
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| 54 | how had I strayed so far away!
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| 55 | 'If she trains the young girls whom she has about her, to be like
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| 56 | herself,' said my aunt, earnest even to the filling of her eyes
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| 57 | with tears, 'Heaven knows, her life will be well employed! Useful
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| 58 | and happy, as she said that day! How could she be otherwise than
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| 59 | useful and happy!'
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| 60 | 'Has Agnes any -' I was thinking aloud, rather than speaking.
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| 61 | 'Well? Hey? Any what?' said my aunt, sharply.
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| 62 | 'Any lover,' said I.
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| 63 | 'A score,' cried my aunt, with a kind of indignant pride. 'She
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| 64 | might have married twenty times, my dear, since you have been
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| 65 | gone!'
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| 66 | 'No doubt,' said I. 'No doubt. But has she any lover who is
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| 67 | worthy of her? Agnes could care for no other.'
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| 68 | My aunt sat musing for a little while, with her chin upon her hand.
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| 69 | Slowly raising her eyes to mine, she said:
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| 70 | 'I suspect she has an attachment, Trot.'
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| 71 | 'A prosperous one?' said I.
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| 72 | 'Trot,' returned my aunt gravely, 'I can't say. I have no right to
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| 73 | tell you even so much. She has never confided it to me, but I
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| 74 | suspect it.'
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| 75 | She looked so attentively and anxiously at me (I even saw her
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| 76 | tremble), that I felt now, more than ever, that she had followed my
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| 77 | late thoughts. I summoned all the resolutions I had made, in all
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| 78 | those many days and nights, and all those many conflicts of my
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| 79 | heart.
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| 80 | 'If it should be so,' I began, 'and I hope it is-'
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| 81 | 'I don't know that it is,' said my aunt curtly. 'You must not be
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| 82 | ruled by my suspicions. You must keep them secret. They are very
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| 83 | slight, perhaps. I have no right to speak.'
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| 84 | 'If it should be so,' I repeated, 'Agnes will tell me at her own
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| 85 | good time. A sister to whom I have confided so much, aunt, will
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| 86 | not be reluctant to confide in me.'
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| 87 | My aunt withdrew her eyes from mine, as slowly as she had turned
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| 88 | them upon me; and covered them thoughtfully with her hand. By and
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| 89 | by she put her other hand on my shoulder; and so we both sat,
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| 90 | looking into the past, without saying another word, until we parted
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| 91 | for the night.
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| 92 | I rode away, early in the morning, for the scene of my old
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| 93 | school-days. I cannot say that I was yet quite happy, in the hope
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| 94 | that I was gaining a victory over myself; even in the prospect of
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| 95 | so soon looking on her face again.
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| 96 | The well-remembered ground was soon traversed, and I came into the
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| 97 | quiet streets, where every stone was a boy's book to me. I went on
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| 98 | foot to the old house, and went away with a heart too full to
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| 99 | enter. I returned; and looking, as I passed, through the low
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| 100 | window of the turret-room where first Uriah Heep, and afterwards
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| 101 | Mr. Micawber, had been wont to sit, saw that it was a little
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| 102 | parlour now, and that there was no office. Otherwise the staid old
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| 103 | house was, as to its cleanliness and order, still just as it had
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| 104 | been when I first saw it. I requested the new maid who admitted
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| 105 | me, to tell Miss Wickfield that a gentleman who waited on her from
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| 106 | a friend abroad, was there; and I was shown up the grave old
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| 107 | staircase (cautioned of the steps I knew so well), into the
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| 108 | unchanged drawing-room. The books that Agnes and I had read
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| 109 | together, were on their shelves; and the desk where I had laboured
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| 110 | at my lessons, many a night, stood yet at the same old corner of
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| 111 | the table. All the little changes that had crept in when the Heeps
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| 112 | were there, were changed again. Everything was as it used to be,
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| 113 | in the happy time.
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| 114 | I stood in a window, and looked across the ancient street at the
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| 115 | opposite houses, recalling how I had watched them on wet
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| 116 | afternoons, when I first came there; and how I had used to
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| 117 | speculate about the people who appeared at any of the windows, and
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| 118 | had followed them with my eyes up and down stairs, while women went
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| 119 | clicking along the pavement in pattens, and the dull rain fell in
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| 120 | slanting lines, and poured out of the water-spout yonder, and
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| 121 | flowed into the road. The feeling with which I used to watch the
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| 122 | tramps, as they came into the town on those wet evenings, at dusk,
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| 123 | and limped past, with their bundles drooping over their shoulders
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| 124 | at the ends of sticks, came freshly back to me; fraught, as then,
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| 125 | with the smell of damp earth, and wet leaves and briar, and the
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| 126 | sensation of the very airs that blew upon me in my own toilsome
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| 127 | journey.
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| 128 | The opening of the little door in the panelled wall made me start
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| 129 | and turn. Her beautiful serene eyes met mine as she came towards
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| 130 | me. She stopped and laid her hand upon her bosom, and I caught her
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| 131 | in my arms.
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| 132 | 'Agnes! my dear girl! I have come too suddenly upon you.'
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| 133 | 'No, no! I am so rejoiced to see you, Trotwood!'
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| 134 | 'Dear Agnes, the happiness it is to me, to see you once again!'
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| 135 | I folded her to my heart, and, for a little while, we were both
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| 136 | silent. Presently we sat down, side by side; and her angel-face
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| 137 | was turned upon me with the welcome I had dreamed of, waking and
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| 138 | sleeping, for whole years.
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| 139 | She was so true, she was so beautiful, she was so good, - I owed
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| 140 | her so much gratitude, she was so dear to me, that I could find no
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| 141 | utterance for what I felt. I tried to bless her, tried to thank
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| 142 | her, tried to tell her (as I had often done in letters) what an
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| 143 | influence she had upon me; but all my efforts were in vain. My
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| 144 | love and joy were dumb.
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| 145 | With her own sweet tranquillity, she calmed my agitation; led me
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| 146 | back to the time of our parting; spoke to me of Emily, whom she had
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| 147 | visited, in secret, many times; spoke to me tenderly of Dora's
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| 148 | grave. With the unerring instinct of her noble heart, she touched
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| 149 | the chords of my memory so softly and harmoniously, that not one
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| 150 | jarred within me; I could listen to the sorrowful, distant music,
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| 151 | and desire to shrink from nothing it awoke. How could I, when,
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| 152 | blended with it all, was her dear self, the better angel of my
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| 153 | life?
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| 154 | 'And you, Agnes,' I said, by and by. 'Tell me of yourself. You
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| 155 | have hardly ever told me of your own life, in all this lapse of
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| 156 | time!'
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| 157 | 'What should I tell?' she answered, with her radiant smile. 'Papa
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| 158 | is well. You see us here, quiet in our own home; our anxieties set
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| 159 | at rest, our home restored to us; and knowing that, dear Trotwood,
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| 160 | you know all.'
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| 161 | 'All, Agnes?' said I.
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| 162 | She looked at me, with some fluttering wonder in her face.
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| 163 | 'Is there nothing else, Sister?' I said.
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| 164 | Her colour, which had just now faded, returned, and faded again.
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| 165 | She smiled; with a quiet sadness, I thought; and shook her head.
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| 166 | I had sought to lead her to what my aunt had hinted at; for,
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| 167 | sharply painful to me as it must be to receive that confidence, I
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| 168 | was to discipline my heart, and do my duty to her. I saw, however,
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| 169 | that she was uneasy, and I let it pass.
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| 170 | 'You have much to do, dear Agnes?'
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| 171 | 'With my school?' said she, looking up again, in all her bright
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| 172 | composure.
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| 173 | 'Yes. It is laborious, is it not?'
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| 174 | 'The labour is so pleasant,' she returned, 'that it is scarcely
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| 175 | grateful in me to call it by that name.'
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| 176 | 'Nothing good is difficult to you,' said I.
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| 177 | Her colour came and went once more; and once more, as she bent her
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| 178 | head, I saw the same sad smile.
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| 179 | 'You will wait and see papa,' said Agnes, cheerfully, 'and pass the
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| 180 | day with us? Perhaps you will sleep in your own room? We always
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| 181 | call it yours.'
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| 182 | I could not do that, having promised to ride back to my aunt's at
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| 183 | night; but I would pass the day there, joyfully.
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| 184 | 'I must be a prisoner for a little while,' said Agnes, 'but here
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| 185 | are the old books, Trotwood, and the old music.'
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| 186 | 'Even the old flowers are here,' said I, looking round; 'or the old
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| 187 | kinds.'
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| 188 | 'I have found a pleasure,' returned Agnes, smiling, 'while you have
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| 189 | been absent, in keeping everything as it used to be when we were
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| 190 | children. For we were very happy then, I think.'
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| 191 | 'Heaven knows we were!' said I.
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| 192 | 'And every little thing that has reminded me of my brother,' said
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| 193 | Agnes, with her cordial eyes turned cheerfully upon me, 'has been
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| 194 | a welcome companion. Even this,' showing me the basket-trifle,
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| 195 | full of keys, still hanging at her side, 'seems to jingle a kind of
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| 196 | old tune!'
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| 197 | She smiled again, and went out at the door by which she had come.
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| 198 | It was for me to guard this sisterly affection with religious care.
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| 199 | It was all that I had left myself, and it was a treasure. If I
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| 200 | once shook the foundations of the sacred confidence and usage, in
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| 201 | virtue of which it was given to me, it was lost, and could never be
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| 202 | recovered. I set this steadily before myself. The better I loved
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| 203 | her, the more it behoved me never to forget it.
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| 204 | I walked through the streets; and, once more seeing my old
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| 205 | adversary the butcher - now a constable, with his staff hanging up
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| 206 | in the shop - went down to look at the place where I had fought
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| 207 | him; and there meditated on Miss Shepherd and the eldest Miss
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| 208 | Larkins, and all the idle loves and likings, and dislikings, of
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| 209 | that time. Nothing seemed to have survived that time but Agnes;
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| 210 | and she, ever a star above me, was brighter and higher.
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| 211 | When I returned, Mr. Wickfield had come home, from a garden he had,
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| 212 | a couple of miles or so out of town, where he now employed himself
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| 213 | almost every day. I found him as my aunt had described him. We
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| 214 | sat down to dinner, with some half-dozen little girls; and he
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| 215 | seemed but the shadow of his handsome picture on the wall.
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| 216 | The tranquillity and peace belonging, of old, to that quiet ground
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| 217 | in my memory, pervaded it again. When dinner was done, Mr.
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| 218 | Wickfield taking no wine, and I desiring none, we went up-stairs;
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| 219 | where Agnes and her little charges sang and played, and worked.
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| 220 | After tea the children left us; and we three sat together, talking
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| 221 | of the bygone days.
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| 222 | 'My part in them,' said Mr. Wickfield, shaking his white head, 'has
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| 223 | much matter for regret - for deep regret, and deep contrition,
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| 224 | Trotwood, you well know. But I would not cancel it, if it were in
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| 225 | my power.'
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| 226 | I could readily believe that, looking at the face beside him.
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| 227 | 'I should cancel with it,' he pursued, 'such patience and devotion,
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| 228 | such fidelity, such a child's love, as I must not forget, no! even
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| 229 | to forget myself.'
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| 230 | 'I understand you, sir,' I softly said. 'I hold it - I have always
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| 231 | held it - in veneration.'
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| 232 | 'But no one knows, not even you,' he returned, 'how much she has
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| 233 | done, how much she has undergone, how hard she has striven. Dear
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| 234 | Agnes!'
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| 235 | She had put her hand entreatingly on his arm, to stop him; and was
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| 236 | very, very pale.
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| 237 | 'Well, well!' he said with a sigh, dismissing, as I then saw, some
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| 238 | trial she had borne, or was yet to bear, in connexion with what my
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| 239 | aunt had told me. 'Well! I have never told you, Trotwood, of her
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| 240 | mother. Has anyone?'
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| 241 | 'Never, sir.'
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| 242 | 'It's not much - though it was much to suffer. She married me in
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| 243 | opposition to her father's wish, and he renounced her. She prayed
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| 244 | him to forgive her, before my Agnes came into this world. He was
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| 245 | a very hard man, and her mother had long been dead. He repulsed
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| 246 | her. He broke her heart.'
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| 247 | Agnes leaned upon his shoulder, and stole her arm about his neck.
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| 248 | 'She had an affectionate and gentle heart,' he said; 'and it was
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| 249 | broken. I knew its tender nature very well. No one could, if I
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| 250 | did not. She loved me dearly, but was never happy. She was always
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| 251 | labouring, in secret, under this distress; and being delicate and
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| 252 | downcast at the time of his last repulse - for it was not the
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| 253 | first, by many - pined away and died. She left me Agnes, two weeks
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| 254 | old; and the grey hair that you recollect me with, when you first
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| 255 | came.' He kissed Agnes on her cheek.
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| 256 | 'My love for my dear child was a diseased love, but my mind was all
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| 257 | unhealthy then. I say no more of that. I am not speaking of
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| 258 | myself, Trotwood, but of her mother, and of her. If I give you any
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| 259 | clue to what I am, or to what I have been, you will unravel it, I
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| 260 | know. What Agnes is, I need not say. I have always read something
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| 261 | of her poor mother's story, in her character; and so I tell it you
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| 262 | tonight, when we three are again together, after such great
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| 263 | changes. I have told it all.'
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| 264 | His bowed head, and her angel-face and filial duty, derived a more
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| 265 | pathetic meaning from it than they had had before. If I had wanted
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| 266 | anything by which to mark this night of our re-union, I should have
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| 267 | found it in this.
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| 268 | Agnes rose up from her father's side, before long; and going softly
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| 269 | to her piano, played some of the old airs to which we had often
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| 270 | listened in that place.
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| 271 | 'Have you any intention of going away again?' Agnes asked me, as I
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| 272 | was standing by.
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| 273 | 'What does my sister say to that?'
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| 274 | 'I hope not.'
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| 275 | 'Then I have no such intention, Agnes.'
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| 276 | 'I think you ought not, Trotwood, since you ask me,' she said,
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| 277 | mildly. 'Your growing reputation and success enlarge your power of
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| 278 | doing good; and if I could spare my brother,' with her eyes upon
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| 279 | me, 'perhaps the time could not.'
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| 280 | 'What I am, you have made me, Agnes. You should know best.'
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| 281 | 'I made you, Trotwood?'
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| 282 | 'Yes! Agnes, my dear girl!' I said, bending over her. 'I tried to
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| 283 | tell you, when we met today, something that has been in my thoughts
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| 284 | since Dora died. You remember, when you came down to me in our
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| 285 | little room - pointing upward, Agnes?'
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| 286 | 'Oh, Trotwood!' she returned, her eyes filled with tears. 'So
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| 287 | loving, so confiding, and so young! Can I ever forget?'
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| 288 | 'As you were then, my sister, I have often thought since, you have
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| 289 | ever been to me. Ever pointing upward, Agnes; ever leading me to
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| 290 | something better; ever directing me to higher things!'
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| 291 | She only shook her head; through her tears I saw the same sad quiet
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| 292 | smile.
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| 293 | 'And I am so grateful to you for it, Agnes, so bound to you, that
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| 294 | there is no name for the affection of my heart. I want you to
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| 295 | know, yet don't know how to tell you, that all my life long I shall
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| 296 | look up to you, and be guided by you, as I have been through the
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| 297 | darkness that is past. Whatever betides, whatever new ties you may
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| 298 | form, whatever changes may come between us, I shall always look to
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| 299 | you, and love you, as I do now, and have always done. You will
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| 300 | always be my solace and resource, as you have always been. Until
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| 301 | I die, my dearest sister, I shall see you always before me,
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| 302 | pointing upward!'
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| 303 | She put her hand in mine, and told me she was proud of me, and of
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| 304 | what I said; although I praised her very far beyond her worth.
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| 305 | Then she went on softly playing, but without removing her eyes from
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| 306 | me.
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| 307 | 'Do you know, what I have heard tonight, Agnes,' said I, strangely
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| 308 | seems to be a part of the feeling with which I regarded you when I
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| 309 | saw you first - with which I sat beside you in my rough
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| 310 | school-days?'
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| 311 | 'You knew I had no mother,' she replied with a smile, 'and felt
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| 312 | kindly towards me.'
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| 313 | 'More than that, Agnes, I knew, almost as if I had known this
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| 314 | story, that there was something inexplicably gentle and softened,
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| 315 | surrounding you; something that might have been sorrowful in
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| 316 | someone else (as I can now understand it was), but was not so in
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| 317 | you.'
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| 318 | She softly played on, looking at me still.
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| 319 | 'Will you laugh at my cherishing such fancies, Agnes?'
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| 320 | 'No!'
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| 321 | 'Or at my saying that I really believe I felt, even then, that you
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| 322 | could be faithfully affectionate against all discouragement, and
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| 323 | never cease to be so, until you ceased to live? - Will you laugh
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| 324 | at such a dream?'
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| 325 | 'Oh, no! Oh, no!'
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| 326 | For an instant, a distressful shadow crossed her face; but, even in
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| 327 | the start it gave me, it was gone; and she was playing on, and
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| 328 | looking at me with her own calm smile.
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| 329 | As I rode back in the lonely night, the wind going by me like a
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| 330 | restless memory, I thought of this, and feared she was not happy.
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| 331 | I was not happy; but, thus far, I had faithfully set the seal upon
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| 332 | the Past, and, thinking of her, pointing upward, thought of her as
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| 333 | pointing to that sky above me, where, in the mystery to come, I
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| 334 | might yet love her with a love unknown on earth, and tell her what
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| 335 | the strife had been within me when I loved her here.
|
