http://www.arcamax.com/fiction/b-1352-53
David Copperfield
CHAPTER 53 ANOTHER RETROSPECT
I must pause yet once again. O, my child-wife, there is a figure in
the moving crowd before my memory, quiet and still, saying in its
innocent love and childish beauty, Stop to think of me - turn to look
upon the Little Blossom, as it flutters to the ground!
I do. All else grows dim, and fades away. I am again with Dora, in
our cottage. I do not know how long she has been ill. I am so used
to it in feeling, that I cannot count the time. It is not really
long, in weeks or months; but, in my usage and experience, it is a
weary, weary while.
They have left off telling me to 'wait a few days more'. I have begun
to fear, remotely, that the day may never shine, when I shall see my
child-wife running in the sunlight with her old friend Jip.
He is, as it were suddenly, grown very old. It may be that he misses
in his mistress, something that enlivened him and made him younger;
but he mopes, and his sight is weak, and his limbs are feeble, and my
aunt is sorry that he objects to her no more, but creeps near her as
he lies on Dora's bed - she sitting at the bedside - and mildly licks
her hand.
Dora lies smiling on us, and is beautiful, and utters no hasty or
complaining word. She says that we are very good to her; that her
dear old careful boy is tiring himself out, she knows; that my aunt
has no sleep, yet is always wakeful, active, and kind. Sometimes, the
little bird-like ladies come to see her; and then we talk about our
wedding-day, and all that happy time.
What a strange rest and pause in my life there seems to be - and in
all life, within doors and without - when I sit in the quiet, shaded,
orderly room, with the blue eyes of my child-wife turned towards me,
and her little fingers twining round my hand! Many and many an hour I
sit thus; but, of all those times, three times come the freshest on my
mind.
It is morning; and Dora, made so trim by my aunt's hands, shows me how
her pretty hair will curl upon the pillow yet, an how long and bright
it is, and how she likes to have it loosely gathered in that net she
wears.
'Not that I am vain of it, now, you mocking boy,' she says, when I
smile; 'but because you used to say you thought it so beautiful; and
because, when I first began to think about you, I used to peep in the
glass, and wonder whether you would like very much to have a lock of
it. Oh what a foolish fellow you were, Doady, when I gave you one!'
'That was on the day when you were painting the flowers I had given
you, Dora, and when I told you how much in love I was.'
'Ah! but I didn't like to tell you,' says Dora, 'then, how I had cried
over them, because I believed you really liked me! When I can run
about again as I used to do, Doady, let us go and see those places
where we were such a silly couple, shall we? And take some of the old
walks? And not forget poor papa?'
'Yes, we will, and have some happy days. So you must make haste to
get well, my dear.'
'Oh, I shall soon do that! I am so much better, you don't know!'
It is evening; and I sit in the same chair, by the same bed, with the
same face turned towards me. We have been silent, and there is a
smile upon her face. I have ceased to carry my light burden up and
down stairs now. She lies here all the day.
'Doady!'
'My dear Dora!'
'You won't think what I am going to say, unreasonable, after what you
told me, such a little while ago, of Mr. Wickfield's not being well?
I want to see Agnes. Very much I want to see her.'
'I will write to her, my dear.'
'Will you?'
'Directly.'
'What a good, kind boy! Doady, take me on your arm. Indeed, my dear,
it's not a whim. It's not a foolish fancy. I want, very much indeed,
to see her!'
'I am certain of it. I have only to tell her so, and she is sure to
come.'
'You are very lonely when you go downstairs, now?' Dora whispers, with
her arm about my neck.
'How can I be otherwise, my own love, when I see your empty chair?'
'My empty chair!' She clings to me for a little while, in silence.
'And you really miss me, Doady?' looking up, and brightly smiling.
'Even poor, giddy, stupid me?'
'My heart, who is there upon earth that I could miss so much?'
'Oh, husband! I am so glad, yet so sorry!' creeping closer to me, and
folding me in both her arms. She laughs and sobs, and then is quiet,
and quite happy.
'Quite!' she says. 'Only give Agnes my dear love, and tell her that I
want very, very, much to see her; and I have nothing left to wish
for.'
'Except to get well again, Dora.'
'Ah, Doady! Sometimes I think - you know I always was a silly little
thing! - that that will never be!'
'Don't say so, Dora! Dearest love, don't think so!'
'I won't, if I can help it, Doady. But I am very happy; though my
dear boy is so lonely by himself, before his child-wife's empty
chair!'
It is night; and I am with her still. Agnes has arrived; has been
among us for a whole day and an evening. She, my aunt, and I, have
sat with Dora since the morning, all together. We have not talked
much, but Dora has been perfectly contented and cheerful. We are now
alone.
Do I know, now, that my child-wife will soon leave me? They have told
me so; they have told me nothing new to my thoughts- but I am far from
sure that I have taken that truth to heart. I cannot master it. I
have withdrawn by myself, many times today, to weep. I have remembered
Who wept for a parting between the living and the dead. I have
bethought me of all that gracious and compassionate history. I have
tried to resign myself, and to console myself; and that, I hope, I may
have done imperfectly; but what I cannot firmly settle in my mind is,
that the end will absolutely come. I hold her hand in mine, I hold
her heart in mine, I see her love for me, alive in all its strength.
I cannot shut out a pale lingering shadow of belief that she will be
spared.
'I am going to speak to you, Doady. I am going to say something I
have often thought of saying, lately. You won't mind?' with a gentle
look.
'Mind, my darling?'
'Because I don't know what you will think, or what you may have
thought sometimes. Perhaps you have often thought the same. Doady,
dear, I am afraid I was too young.'
I lay my face upon the pillow by her, and she looks into my eyes, and
speaks very softly. Gradually, as she goes on, I feel, with a
stricken heart, that she is speaking of herself as past.
'I am afraid, dear, I was too young. I don't mean in years only, but
in experience, and thoughts, and everything. I was such a silly
little creature! I am afraid it would have been better, if we had only
loved each other as a boy and girl, and forgotten it. I have begun to
think I was not fit to be a wife.'
I try to stay my tears, and to reply, 'Oh, Dora, love, as fit as I to
be a husband!'
'I don't know,' with the old shake of her curls. 'Perhaps! But if I
had been more fit to be married I might have made you more so, too.
Besides, you are very clever, and I never was.'
'We have been very happy, my sweet Dora.'
'I was very happy, very. But, as years went on, my dear boy would
have wearied of his child-wife. She would have been less and less a
companion for him. He would have been more and more sensible of what
was wanting in his home. She wouldn't have improved. It is better as
it is.'
'Oh, Dora, dearest, dearest, do not speak to me so. Every word seems
a reproach!'
'No, not a syllable!' she answers, kissing me. 'Oh, my dear, you
never deserved it, and I loved you far too well to say a reproachful
word to you, in earnest - it was all the merit I had, except being
pretty - or you thought me so. Is it lonely, down- stairs, Doady?'
'Very! Very!'
'Don't cry! Is my chair there?'
'In its old place.'
'Oh, how my poor boy cries! Hush, hush! Now, make me one promise. I
want to speak to Agnes. When you go downstairs, tell Agnes so, and
send her up to me; and while I speak to her, let no one come - not
even aunt. I want to speak to Agnes by herself. I want to speak to
Agnes, quite alone.'
I promise that she shall, immediately; but I cannot leave her, for my
grief.
'I said that it was better as it is!' she whispers, as she holds me in
her arms. 'Oh, Doady, after more years, you never could have loved
your child-wife better than you do; and, after more years, she would
so have tried and disappointed you, that you might not have been able
to love her half so well! I know I was too young and foolish. It is
much better as it is!'
Agnes is downstairs, when I go into the parlour; and I give her the
message. She disappears, leaving me alone with Jip.
His Chinese house is by the fire; and he lies within it, on his bed of
flannel, querulously trying to sleep. The bright moon is high and
clear. As I look out on the night, my tears fall fast, and my
undisciplined heart is chastened heavily - heavily.
I sit down by the fire, thinking with a blind remorse of all those
secret feelings I have nourished since my marriage. I think of every
little trifle between me and Dora, and feel the truth, that trifles
make the sum of life. Ever rising from the sea of my remembrance, is
the image of the dear child as I knew her first, graced by my young
love, and by her own, with every fascination wherein such love is
rich. Would it, indeed, have been better if we had loved each other
as a boy and a girl, and forgotten it? Undisciplined heart, reply!
How the time wears, I know not; until I am recalled by my child-wife's
old companion. More restless than he was, he crawls out of his house,
and looks at me, and wanders to the door, and whines to go upstairs.
'Not tonight, Jip! Not tonight!'
He comes very slowly back to me, licks my hand, and lifts his dim eyes
to my face.
'Oh, Jip! It may be, never again!'
He lies down at my feet, stretches himself out as if to sleep, and
with a plaintive cry, is dead.
'Oh, Agnes! Look, look, here!'
- That face, so full of pity, and of grief, that rain of tears, that
awful mute appeal to me, that solemn hand upraised towards Heaven!
'Agnes?'
It is over. Darkness comes before my eyes; and, for a time, all
things are blotted out of my remembrance.