tune. Inspired by infectious joy, old and young get up and join the
whirling throng. Suddenly Caleb Plummer clutches Tilly Slowboy by both
hands and goes off at score, Miss Slowboy firm in the belief that diving
hotly in among the couples, and effecting any number of concussions with
them, is your only principle of footing it, and ecstatically glad to
abandon herself to the delights of the occasion, so long as she sees joy
written again on the pretty face of her beloved little mistress, and
feels that happiness has been restored to honest John Peerybingle and
his family.
Hark! How the Cricket on the Hearth joins in the music, with its Chirp,
Chirp, Chirp, and how the kettle hums!
AGNES WICKFIELD
[Illustration: AGNES WICKFIELD]
AGNES WICKFIELD
When I became the adopted son of my aunt, Miss Betsy Trotwood, my new
clothes were marked Trotwood Copperfield, instead of the old familiar
David of my childhood; and I began my new life, not only in the new
name, but with everything new about me, and felt for many days like one
in a dream, until I had proved the happy reality to be a fact.
My aunt's first desire was to place me in a good school at Canterbury,
and, lack of education having been my chief source of anxiety, this
resolve gave me unbounded delight. So it was with a flutter of joyful
anticipation that I accompanied her to Canterbury to call upon her agent
and friend Mr. Wickfield, and to confer with him upon the all-important
subject of schools and boarding places.
Arriving at Canterbury, we stopped before a very old house, bulging out
over the road, with long low latticed windows bulging out still further,
and beams with carved heads on the ends bulging out too; so that I
fancied the whole house was leaning forward, trying to see who was
passing on the pavement below. It was quite spotless in its cleanliness.
The old-fashioned brass knocker on the low arched door, ornamented with
carved garlands of fruit and flowers, twinkled like a star; the two
stone steps descending to the door were as white as if they had been
covered with fair linen, and all the angles, and corners, and carvings,
and mouldings, and quaint little panes of glass, and quainter little
windows, were as pure as any snow that ever fell upon the hills.
When the pony chaise stopped at the door, we alighted and had a long
conference with Mr. Wickfield, an elderly gentleman with grey hair and
black eyebrows. He approved of my aunt's selection of Dr. Strong's
school, and in regard to a home for me, made the following proposal:
"Leave your nephew here for the present. He's a quiet fellow. He won't
disturb me at all. It's a capital house for study. As quiet as a
monastery, and almost as roomy. Leave him here."
My aunt evidently liked the offer, but was delicate of accepting it,
until Mr. Wickfield cried, "Come! I know how you feel, you shall not be
oppressed by the receipt of favors, Miss Trotwood. You may pay for him
if you like."
"On that understanding," said my aunt, "though it doesn't lessen the
real obligation, I shall be very glad to leave him."
"Then come and see my little housekeeper," said Mr. Wickfield.
We accordingly went up a wonderful old staircase, with a balustrade so
broad that we might have gone up that, almost as easily, and into a
shady old drawing-room, lighted by three or four quaint windows which
had old oak seats in them, that seemed to have come of the same trees as
the shining oak floor, and the great beams in the ceiling. It was a
prettily furnished room, with a piano, and some lively furniture in red
and green, and some flowers. It seemed to be all odd nooks and corners;
and in every nook and corner there was some queer little table, or
cupboard, or bookcase, or seat, or something or other, that made me
think there was not such another corner in the room, until I looked at
the next one and found it equal to it if not better. On everything
there was the same air of refinement and cleanliness that marked the
house outside.
Mr. Wickfield tapped at a door in a corner of the panelled wall, and a
girl of about my own age came quickly out and kissed him. On her face, I
saw immediately the placid and sweet expression of a lady whose portrait
I had seen downstairs. It seemed to my imagination as if the portrait
had grown womanly, and the original had remained a child. Although her
face was quite bright and happy, there was a tranquillity about it, and
about her--a quiet, good, calm, spirit--that I never have forgotten;
that I never shall forget.
This was his little housekeeper, his daughter Agnes, Mr. Wickfield said.
When I heard how he said it, and saw how he held her hand, I guessed
what the one motive of his life was.
She had a little basket-trifle hanging at her side with keys in it; and
she looked as staid and discreet a housekeeper as the old house could
have. She listened to her father as he told her about me, with a
pleasant face; and when he had concluded, proposed to my aunt that we
should go upstairs, and see my room. We all went together, she before
us. A glorious old room it was, with more oak beams, and diamond panes;
and the broad balustrade going all the way up to it.
I cannot call to mind where or when, in my childhood, I had seen a
stained-glass window in a church. Nor do I recollect its subject. But I
know that when I saw her turn round, in the grave light of the old
staircase, and wait for us above, I thought of that window; and I
associated something of its tranquil brightness with Agnes Wickfield
ever afterwards.
My aunt was as happy as I was, in the arrangement made for me, and we
went down to the drawing-room again, well pleased and gratified, and
shortly after this my aunt took her departure, in consequence of which
for some hours I was very much dejected. But by five o'clock, which was
Mr. Wickfield's dinner hour, I had mustered up my spirits again, and was
ready for my knife and fork. The cloth was only laid for us two; but
Agnes was waiting in the drawing-room before dinner, and went down with
her father, and sat opposite to him at table. I doubted whether he could
have dined without her.
We did not stay there after dinner, but came upstairs into the
drawing-room again, in one snug corner of which Agnes set glasses for
her father, and a decanter of port wine. There he sat, taking his wine,
while Agnes played on the piano, worked, and talked to him and me. Later
Agnes made the tea, and presided over it; and the time passed away after
it as after dinner, until she went to bed; when her father took her in
his arms and kissed her, and, she being gone, ordered candles in his
office. Then I went to bed too.
Next morning I entered on my new school life at Dr. Strong's, and began
a happy existence in an excellent establishment, the character and
dignity of which we each felt it our duty to maintain. We felt that we
had a part in the management of the school, and learned with a good
will, desiring to do it credit. We had noble games out of hours, and
plenty of liberty; but were well spoken of in the town, and rarely did
any disgrace by our appearance or manner, to the reputation of Dr.
Strong or Dr. Strong's boys, and the Doctor himself was the idol of the
whole school.
On that first day when I returned home from school, Agnes was in the
drawing-room, waiting for her father. She met me with her pleasant
smile, and asked me how I liked the school. I told her I should like it
very much, I hoped; but I was a little strange to it at first.
"You have never been to school," I said, "have you?"
"Oh yes! every day."
"Ah, but you mean here, at your own home?"
"Papa couldn't spare me to go anywhere else," she answered smiling and
shaking her head, "His housekeeper must be in his house, you know."
"He's very fond of you, I am sure," I said.
She nodded, "Yes," and went to the door to listen for his coming up,
that she might meet him on the stairs. But as he was not there, she came
back again.
"Mamma has been dead ever since I was born," she said in her quiet way.
"I only know her picture, downstairs. I saw you looking at it yesterday.
Did you think whose it was?"
I told her yes, because it was so like herself.
"Papa says so, too," said Agnes, pleased. "Hark! that's Papa now!"
Her bright calm face lighted up with pleasure as she went to meet him,
and as they came in, hand in hand; and from that time as I watched her
day by day, I saw no trace in Agnes of anything but single-hearted
devotion to that father, whose wants she cared for so untiringly in her
beautiful quiet way.
When we had dined that night, we went upstairs again, where everything
went on exactly as on the previous day. Agnes set the glasses and
decanters in the same corner, and Mr. Wickfield sat down to drink. Agnes
played the piano to him, sat by him, and worked and talked, and played
some games at dominoes with me. In good time she made tea; and
afterwards, when I brought down my books, looked into them, and showed
me what she knew of them (which was no slight matter, though she said it
was), and what was the best way to learn and understand them. I see her,
with her modest, orderly, placid, manner, and I hear her beautiful,
calm voice, as I write these words. The influence for all good, which
she came to exercise over me at a later time begins already to descend
upon my breast. I love little Emily, and I don't love Agnes--no, not at
all in that way--but I feel that there are goodness, peace, and truth
wherever Agnes is; and that the soft light of the colored window in the
church, seen long ago, falls on her always, and on me when I am near
her, and on everything around.
The time having come for her withdrawal for the night, as I gave Mr.
Wickfield my hand, preparatory to going away myself, he checked me and
said; "Should you like to stay with us, Trotwood, or go elsewhere?"
"To stay," I answered quickly.
"You are sure?"
"If you please. If I may."
"Why, it's but a dull life that we lead here, boy, I'm afraid," he said.
"Not more dull for me than Agnes, sir. Not dull at all!"
"Than Agnes," he repeated, walking slowly to the great chimney-piece,
and leaning against it. "Than Agnes! Now I wonder," he muttered,
"whether my Agnes tires of me. When should I ever tire of her? But
that's different, that's quite different."
He was musing, not speaking to me; so I remained quiet.
"A dull, old house," he said, "and a monotonous life, Stay with us,
Trotwood, eh?" he added in his usual manner, and as if he were
answering something I had just said. "I'm glad of it. You are company to
us both. It is wholesome to have you here. Wholesome for me, wholesome
for Agnes wholesome perhaps for all of us."
"I'm sure it is for me, sir," I said, "I'm so glad to be here."
"That's a fine fellow!" said Mr. Wickfield. "As long as you are glad to
be here, you shall stay here."
And so I lived at Mr. Wickfield's through the remainder of my
schooldays, and to Agnes, as the months went by, I turned more and more
often for advice and counsel.
We saw a good deal of Dr. Strong's wife, both because she had taken a
liking to me, and because she was very fond of Agnes, and was often
backwards and forwards at our house, and we had pleasant evenings at the
doctor's too, with other guests, when we had merry round games of cards,
or music--for both Mrs. Strong and Agnes sang sweetly--and so, with
weekly visits from my aunt, and walks and talks with Agnes, and the
events and phases of feeling too numerous to chronicle, which make up a
boy's existence, my schooldays glided all too swiftly by.
Time has stolen on unobserved. I am higher in the school and no one
breaks my peace. Dr. Strong refers to me in public as a promising young
scholar, and my aunt remits me a guinea by next post. And what comes
now? I am the head boy! I look down on the line of boys below me, with a
condescending interest in such of them as bring to my mind the boy I was
myself, when I first came there. That little fellow seems to be no part
of me; I remember him as something left behind upon the road of
life--and almost think of him as of some one else.
What other changes have come upon me, beside the changes in my growth
and looks, and in the knowledge I have garnered all this while? I wear a
gold watch and chain, a ring upon my little finger, and a long-tailed
coat; and twice have I been desperately in love with a fair damsel, and
have twice recovered.
And the little girl I saw on that first day at Mr. Wickfield's, where
is she? Gone also. In her stead, the perfect likeness of the picture, a
child's likeness no more, moves about the house; and Agnes, my sweet
sister, as I call her in my thoughts, my counsellor and friend, the
better angel of the lives of all who come within her calm, good,
self-denying influence--is quite a woman.
When the time came to take leave of Agnes and her father, though it
saddened me, my mind was so filled with thoughts of self that I paid
little heed to Agnes and her brave farewell, nor did I realize what her
loneliness would be when the old and silent house was made doubly silent
by the removal of a boy's presence. I did not then understand what her
devotion to the elderly father and his interests held of sacrifice for
one so young, nor of what fine clay the girl was moulded. But in later
years I realized it fully, and looking back, I always saw her as when on
that first day, in the grave light of the old staircase, I thought of
the stained-glass window, associating something of its tranquil
brightness with her ever afterwards.
With Agnes the woman, and the influence for all good which she came to
exercise over me at a later time, this story does not deal. It need only
record the simple details of the girl's quiet life,--of the girl's calm
strong nature,--that there were goodness, peace and truth wherever Agnes
was,--Agnes, my boyhood's sister, counsellor and friend.