me! Conscientious, is he? Really conscientious, now?’
‘Yes, I am convinced of it,’ said Mrs. Steerforth.
‘How very nice!’ exclaimed Miss Dartle. ‘What a comfort! Really conscientious? Then he’s not—but of course he can’t be, if he’s really conscientious. Well, I shall be quite happy in my opinion of him, from this time. You can’t think how it elevates him in my opinion, to know for certain that he’s really conscientious!’
Her own views of every question, and her correction of everything that was said to which she was opposed, Miss Dartle insinuated in the same way: sometimes, I could not conceal from myself, with great power, though in contradiction even of Steerforth. An instance happened before dinner was done. Mrs. Steerforth speaking to me about my intention of going down into Suffolk, I said at hazard how glad I should be, if Steerforth would only go there with me; and explaining to him that I was going to see my old nurse, and Mr. Peggotty’s family, I reminded him of the boatman whom he had seen at school.
‘Oh! That bluff fellow!’ said Steerforth. ‘He had a son with him, hadn’t he?’
‘No. That was his nephew,’ I replied; ‘whom he adopted, though, as a son. He has a very pretty little niece too, whom he adopted as a daughter. In short, his house—or rather his boat, for he lives in one, on dry land—is full of people who are objects of his generosity and kindness. You would be delighted to see that household.’
‘Should I?’ said Steerforth. ‘Well, I think I should. I must see what can be done. It would be worth a journey (not to mention the pleasure of a journey with you, Daisy), to see that sort of people together, and to make one of ‘em.’
My heart leaped with a new hope of pleasure. But it was in reference to the tone in which he had spoken of ‘that sort of people’, that Miss Dartle, whose sparkling eyes had been watchful of us, now broke in again.
‘Oh, but, really? Do tell me. Are they, though?’ she said.
‘Are they what? And are who what?’ said Steerforth.
‘That sort of people.—-Are they really animals and clods, and beings of another order? I want to know SO much.’
‘Why, there’s a pretty wide separation between them and us,’ said Steerforth, with indifference. ‘They are not to be expected to be as sensitive as we are. Their delicacy is not to be shocked, or hurt easily. They are wonderfully virtuous, I dare say—some people contend for that, at least; and I am sure I don’t want to contradict them—but they have not very fine natures, and they may be thankful that, like their coarse rough skins, they are not easily wounded.’
‘Really!’ said Miss Dartle. ‘Well, I don’t know, now, when I have been better pleased than to hear that. It’s so consoling! It’s such a delight to know that, when they suffer, they don’t feel! Sometimes I have been quite uneasy for that sort of people; but now I shall just dismiss the idea of them, altogether. Live and learn. I had my doubts, I confess, but now they’re cleared up. I didn’t know, and now I do know, and that shows the advantage of asking—don’t it?’
I believed that Steerforth had said what he had, in jest, or to draw Miss Dartle out; and I expected him to say as much when she was gone, and we two were sitting before the fire. But he merely asked me what I thought of her.
‘She is very clever, is she not?’ I asked.
‘Clever! She brings everything to a grindstone,’ said Steerforth, and sharpens it, as she has sharpened her own face and figure these years past. She has worn herself away by constant sharpening. She is all edge.’
‘What a remarkable scar that is upon her lip!’ I said.
Steerforth’s face fell, and he paused a moment.
‘Why, the fact is,’ he returned, ‘I did that.’
‘By an unfortunate accident!’
‘No. I was a young boy, and she exasperated me, and I threw a hammer at her. A promising young angel I must have been!’ I was deeply sorry to have touched on such a painful theme, but that was useless now.
‘She has borne the mark ever since, as you see,’ said Steerforth; ‘and she’ll bear it to her grave, if she ever rests in one—though I can hardly believe she will ever rest anywhere. She was the motherless child of a sort of cousin of my father’s. He died one day. My mother, who was then a widow, brought her here to be company to her. She has a couple of thousand pounds of her own, and saves the interest of it every year, to add to the principal. There’s the history of Miss Rosa Dartle for you.’
‘And I have no doubt she loves you like a brother?’ said I.
‘Humph!’ retorted Steerforth, looking at the fire. ‘Some brothers are not loved over much; and some love—but help yourself, Copperfield! We’ll drink the daisies of the field, in compliment to you; and the lilies of the valley that toil not, neither do they spin, in compliment to me—the more shame for me!’ A moody smile that had overspread his features cleared off as he said this merrily, and he was his own frank, winning self again.
I could not help glancing at the scar with a painful interest when we went in to tea. It was not long before I observed that it was the most susceptible part of her face, and that, when she turned pale, that mark altered first, and became a dull, lead-coloured streak, lengthening out to its full extent, like a mark in invisible ink brought to the fire. There was a little altercation between her and Steerforth about a cast of the dice at back gammon—when I thought her, for one moment, in a storm of rage; and then I saw it start forth like the old writing on the wall.
It was no matter of wonder to me to find Mrs. Steerforth devoted to her son. She seemed to be able to speak or think about nothing else. She showed me his picture as an infant, in a locket, with some of his baby-hair in it; she showed me his picture as he had been when I first knew him; and 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; and she would have read me some of them, and I should have been very glad to hear them too, if he had not interposed, and coaxed her out of the design.
‘It was at Mr. Creakle’s, my son tells me, that you first became acquainted,’ said Mrs. Steerforth, as she and I were talking at one table, while they 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, as you may suppose, has not lived in my memory.’
‘He was very generous and noble to me in those days, I assure you, ma’am,’ said I, ‘and I stood in need of such a friend. I should have been quite crushed without him.’
‘He is always generous and noble,’ said Mrs. Steerforth, proudly.
I subscribed to this with all my heart, God knows. She knew I did; for the stateliness of her manner already abated towards me, except when she spoke in praise of him, and then her air was always lofty.
‘It was not a fit school generally for my son,’ said she; ‘far from it; but there were particular circumstances to be considered at the time, of more importance even than that selection. My son’s high spirit made it desirable that he should be placed with some man who felt its superiority, and would be content to bow himself before it; and we found such a man there.’
I knew that, knowing the fellow. And yet I did not despise him the more for it, but thought it a redeeming quality
