MY FIRST DISSIPATION.
It was a wonderfully fine thing to have that lofty castle to myself, and
to feel, when I shut my outer door, like Robinson Crusoe, when he had
got into his fortification, and pulled his ladder up after him. It was a
wonderfully fine thing to walk about town with the key of my house in my
pocket, and to know that I could ask any fellow to come home, and make
quite sure of its being inconvenient to nobody, if it were not so to me.
It was a wonderfully fine thing to let myself in and out, and to come
and go without a word to any one, and to ring Mrs. Crupp up, gasping,
from the depths of the earth, when I wanted her--and when she was
disposed to come. All this, I say, was wonderfully fine; but I must say,
too, that there were times when it was very dreary.
It was fine in the morning, particularly in the fine mornings. It looked
a very fresh, free life, by daylight: still fresher, and more free, by
sunlight. But as the day declined, the life seemed to go down too. I
don't know how it was; it seldom looked well by candle-light. I wanted
somebody to talk to, then. I missed Agnes. I found a tremendous blank,
in the place of that smiling repository of my confidence. Mrs. Crupp
appeared to be a long way off. I thought about my predecessor, who had
died of drink and smoke; and I could have wished he had been so good as
to live, and not bother me with his decease.
After two days and nights, I felt as if I had lived there for a year,
and yet I was not an hour older, but was quite as much tormented by my
own youthfulness as ever.
Steerforth not yet appearing, which induced me to apprehend that he must
be ill, I left the Commons early on the third day, and walked out to
Highgate. Mrs. Steerforth was very glad to see me, and said that he had
gone away with one of his Oxford friends to see another who lived near
St. Albans, but that she expected him to return to-morrow. I was so fond
of him, that I felt quite jealous of his Oxford friends.
As she pressed me to stay to dinner, I remained, and I believe we talked
about nothing but him all day. I told her how much the people liked him
at Yarmouth, and what a delightful companion he had been. Miss Dartle
was full of hints and mysterious questions, but took a great interest in
all our proceedings there, and said, "Was it really, though?" and so
forth, so often, that she got everything out of me she wanted to know.
Her appearance was exactly what I have described it, when I first saw
her; but the society of the two ladies was so agreeable, and came so
natural to me, that I felt myself falling a little in love with her. I
could not help thinking, several times in the course of the evening, and
particularly when I walked home at night, what delightful company she
would be in Buckingham Street.
I was taking my coffee and roll in the morning, before going to the
Commons--and I may observe in this place that it is surprising how much
coffee Mrs. Crupp used, and how weak it was, considering--when
Steerforth himself walked in, to my unbounded joy.
"My dear Steerforth," cried I, "I began to think I should never see you
again!"
"I was carried off, by force of arms," said Steerforth, "the very next
morning after I got home. Why, Daisy, what a rare old bachelor you are
here!"
I showed him over the establishment, not omitting the pantry, with no
little pride, and he commended it highly. "I tell you what, old boy," he
added, "I shall make quite a town-house of this place, unless you give
me notice to quit."
This was a delightful hearing. I told him if he waited for that, he
would have to wait till doomsday.
"But you shall have some breakfast!" said I, with my hand on the
bell-rope, "and Mrs. Crupp shall make you some fresh coffee, and I'll
toast you some bacon in a bachelor's Dutch-oven that I have got here."
"No, no!" said Steerforth. "Don't ring! I can't! I am going to breakfast
with one of these fellows who is at the Piazza Hotel, in Covent Garden."
"But you'll come back to dinner?" said I.
"I can't, upon my life. There's nothing I should like better, but I
_must_ remain with these two fellows. We are all three off together
to-morrow morning."
"Then bring them here to dinner," I returned. "Do you think they would
come?"
"Oh! they would come fast enough," said Steerforth; "but we should
inconvenience you. You had better come and dine with us somewhere."
I would not by any means consent to this, for it occurred to me that I
really ought to have a little housewarming, and that there never could
be a better opportunity. I had a new pride in my rooms after his
approval of them, and burned with a desire to develop their utmost
resources. I therefore made him promise positively in the names of his
two friends, and we appointed six o'clock as the dinner-hour.
When he was gone, I rang for Mrs. Crupp, and acquainted her with my
desperate design. Mrs. Crupp said, in the first place, of course it
was well known she couldn't be expected to wait, but she knew a handy
young man, who she thought could be prevailed upon to do it, and whose
terms would be five shillings, and what I pleased. I said, certainly we
would have him. Next, Mrs. Crupp said it was clear she couldn't be in
two places at once (which I felt to be reasonable), and that "a young
gal" stationed in the pantry with a bed-room candle, there never to
desist from washing plates, would be indispensable. I said, what would
be the expense of this young female, and Mrs. Crupp said she supposed
eighteen-pence would neither make me nor break me. I said I supposed
not; and _that_ was settled. Then Mrs. Crupp said, Now about the dinner.
It was a remarkable instance of want of forethought on the part of
the ironmonger who had made Mrs. Crupp's kitchen fire-place, that it
was capable of cooking nothing but chops and mashed potatoes. As to a
fish-kittle, Mrs. Crupp said, well! would I only come and look at the
range. She couldn't say fairer than that. Would I come and look at it?
As I should not have been much the wiser if I _had_ looked at it, I
declined, and said, "Never mind fish." But Mrs. Crupp said, Don't say
that; oysters was in, and why not them? So _that_ was settled. Mrs.
Crupp then said what she would recommend would be this. A pair of
hot roast fowls--from the pastry-cook's; a dish of stewed beef, with
vegetables--from the pastry-cook's; two little corner things, as a
raised pie and a dish of kidneys--from the pastry-cook's; a tart, and
(if I liked) a shape of jelly--from the pastry-cook's. This, Mrs. Crupp
said, would leave her at full liberty to concentrate her mind on the
potatoes, and to serve up the cheese and celery as she could wish to
see it done.
I acted on Mrs. Crupp's opinion, and gave the order at the pastry-cook's
myself. Walking along the Strand, afterwards, and observing a hard
mottled substance in the window of a ham and beef shop, which resembled
marble, but was labelled "Mock Turtle," I went in and bought a slab of
it, which I have since seen reason to believe would have sufficed for
fifteen people. This preparation, Mrs. Crupp, after some difficulty,
consented to warm up; and it shrunk so much in a liquid state, that we
found it what Steerforth called "rather a tight fit" for four.
These preparations happily completed, I bought a little dessert in
Covent Garden Market, and gave a rather extensive order at a retail
wine-merchant's in that vicinity. When I came home in the afternoon, and
saw the bottles drawn up in a square on the pantry-floor, they looked so
numerous (though there were two missing, which made Mrs. Crupp very
uncomfortable), that I was absolutely frightened at them.
One of Steerforth's friends was named Grainger, and the other Markham.
They were both very gay and lively fellows; Grainger, something older
than Steerforth; Markham, youthful-looking, and I should say not more
than twenty. I observed that the latter always spoke of himself
indefinitely, as "a man," and seldom or never in the first person
singular.
"A man might get on very well here, Mr. Copperfield," said
Markham--meaning himself.
"It's not a bad situation," said I, "and the rooms are really
commodious."
"I hope you have both brought appetites with you?" said Steerforth.
"Upon my honour," returned Markham, "town seems to sharpen a man's
appetite. A man is hungry all day long. A man is perpetually eating."
Being a little embarrassed at first, and feeling much too young to
preside, I made Steerforth take the head of the table when dinner was
announced, and seated myself opposite to him. Everything was very good;
we did not spare the wine; and he exerted himself so brilliantly to make
the thing pass off well, that there was no pause in our festivity. I was
not quite such good company during dinner, as I could have wished to be,
for my chair was opposite the door, and my attention was distracted by
observing that the handy young man went out of the room very often, and
that his shadow always presented itself, immediately afterwards, on the
wall of the entry, with a bottle at its mouth. The "young gal" likewise
occasioned me some uneasiness: not so much by neglecting to wash the
plates, as by breaking them. For being of an inquisitive disposition,
and unable to confine herself (as her positive instructions were) to the
pantry, she was constantly peering in at us, and constantly imagining
herself detected; in which belief, she several times retired upon the
plates (with which she had carefully paved the floor), and did a great
deal of destruction.
These, however, were small drawbacks, and easily forgotten when the
cloth was cleared, and the dessert put on the table; at which period of
the entertainment the handy young man was discovered to be speechless.
Giving him private directions to seek the society of Mrs. Crupp, and to
remove the "young gal" to the basement also, I abandoned myself to
enjoyment.
I began, by being singularly cheerful and light-hearted; all sorts of
half-forgotten things to talk about, came rushing into my mind, and made
me hold forth in a most unwonted manner. I laughed heartily at my own
jokes, and everybody else's; called Steerforth to order for not passing
the wine; made several engagements to go to Oxford; announced that I
meant to have a dinner party exactly like that, once a week until
further notice; and madly took so much snuff out of Grainger's box, that
I was obliged to go into the pantry, and have a private fit of sneezing
ten minutes long.
I went on, by passing the wine faster and faster yet, and continually
starting up with a corkscrew to open more wine, long before any was
needed. I proposed Steerforth's health. I said he was my dearest
friend, the protector of my boyhood, and the companion of my prime.
I said I was delighted to propose his health. I said I owed him
more obligations than I could ever repay, and held him in a higher
admiration than I could ever express. I finished by saying, "I'll give
you Steerforth! God bless him! Hurrah!" We gave him three times three,
and another, and a good one to finish with. I broke my glass in going
round the table to shake hands with him, and I said (in two words)
"Steerforthyou'retheguidingstarofmyexist ence."
I went on, by finding suddenly that somebody was in the middle of a
song. Markham was the singer, and he sang "When the heart of a man is
depressed with care." He said, when he had sung it, he would give us
"Woman!" I took objection to that, and I couldn't allow it. I said it
was not a respectful way of proposing the toast, and I would never
permit that toast to be drunk in my house otherwise than as "The
Ladies!" I was very high with him, mainly I think because I saw
Steerforth and Grainger laughing at me--or at him--or at both of us. He
said a man was not to be dictated to. I said a man _was_. He said a man
was not to be insulted, then. I said he was right there--never under my
roof, where the Lares were sacred, and the laws of hospitality
paramount. He said it was no derogation from a man's dignity to confess
that I was a devilish good fellow. I instantly proposed his health.
Somebody was smoking. We were all smoking. _I_ was smoking, and trying
to suppress a rising tendency to shudder. Steerforth had made a speech
about me, in the course of which I had been affected almost to tears.
I returned thanks, and hoped the present company would dine with me
to-morrow, and the day after--each day at five o'clock, that we might
enjoy the pleasures of conversation and society through a long evening.
I felt called upon to propose an individual. I would give them my aunt.
Miss Betsey Trotwood, the best of her sex!
Somebody was leaning out of my bed-room window, refreshing his forehead
against the cool stone of the parapet, and feeling the air upon his
face. It was myself. I was addressing myself as "Copperfield," and
saying, "Why did you try to smoke? You might have known you couldn't
do it." Now, somebody was unsteadily contemplating his features in the
looking-glass. That was I too. I was very pale in the looking-glass;
my eyes had a vacant appearance; and my hair--only my hair, nothing
else--looked drunk.
Somebody said to me, "Let us go to the theatre, Copperfield!" There was
no bed-room before me, but again the jingling table covered with
glasses; the lamp; Grainger on my right hand, Markham on my left, and
Steerforth opposite--all sitting in a mist, and a long way off. The
theatre? To be sure. The very thing. Come along! But they must excuse me
if I saw everybody out first, and turned the lamp off--in case of fire.
Owing to some confusion in the dark, the door was gone. I was feeling
for it in the window-curtains, when Steerforth, laughing, took me by the
arm and led me out. We went down-stairs, one behind another. Near the
bottom, somebody fell, and rolled down. Somebody else said it was
Copperfield. I was angry at that false report, until, finding myself on
my back in the passage, I began to think there might be some foundation
for it.
A very foggy night, with great rings round the lamps in the streets!
There was an indistinct talk of its being wet. _I_ considered it frosty.
Steerforth dusted me under a lamp-post, and put my hat into shape, which
somebody produced from somewhere in a most extraordinary manner, for I
hadn't had it on before. Steerforth then said, "You are all right,
Copperfield, are you not?" and I told him, "Neverberrer."
A man, sitting in a pigeon-hole-place, looked out of the fog, and took
money from somebody, inquiring if I was one of the gentlemen paid for,
and appearing rather doubtful (as I remember in the glimpse I had of
him) whether to take the money for me or not. Shortly afterwards, we
were very high up in a very hot theatre, looking down into a large pit,
that seemed to me to smoke; the people with whom it was crammed were so
indistinct. There was a great stage, too, looking very clean and smooth
after the streets; and there were people upon it, talking about
something or other, but not at all intelligibly. There was an abundance
of bright lights, and there was music, and there were ladies down in the
boxes, and I don't know what more. The whole building looked to me, as
if it were learning to swim; it conducted itself in such an
unaccountable manner, when I tried to steady it.
On somebody's motion, we resolved to go down-stairs to the dress-boxes,
where the ladies were. A gentleman lounging, full dressed, on a sofa,
with an opera-glass in his hand, passed before my view, and also my own
figure at full length in a glass. Then I was being ushered into one of
these boxes, and found myself saying something as I sat down, and people
about me crying "Silence!" to somebody, and ladies casting indignant
glances at me, and--what! yes!--Agnes, sitting on the seat before me, in
the same box, with a lady and gentleman beside her, whom I didn't know.
I see her face now, better than I did then I dare say, with its
indelible look of regret and wonder turned upon me.
"Agnes!" I said, thickly, "Lorblessmer! Agnes!"
"Hush! Pray!" she answered, I could not conceive why. "You disturb the
company. Look at the stage!"
I tried, on her injunction, to fix it, and to hear something of what was
going on there, but quite in vain. I looked at her again by-and-by, and
saw her shrink into her corner, and put her gloved hand to her forehead.
"Agnes!" I said. "I'mafraidyou'renorwell."
"Yes, yes. Do not mind me, Trotwood," she returned. "Listen! Are you
going away soon?"
"Amigoarawaysoo?" I repeated.
"Yes."
I had a stupid intention of replying that I was going to wait, to hand
her down-stairs. I suppose I expressed it, somehow; for after she had
looked at me attentively for a little while, she appeared to understand,
and replied in a low tone:
"I know you will do as I ask you, if I tell you I am very earnest in it.
Go away now, Trotwood, for my sake, and ask your friends to take you
home."
She had so far improved me, for the time, that though I was angry with
her, I felt ashamed, and with a short "Goori!" (which I intended for
"Good night!") got up and went away. They followed, and I stepped at
once out of the box-door into my bedroom, where only Steerforth was with
me, helping me to undress, and where I was by turns telling him that
Agnes was my sister, and adjuring him to bring the corkscrew, that I
might open another bottle of wine.
How somebody, lying in my bed, lay saying and doing all this over again,
at cross purposes, in a feverish dream all night--the bed a rocking sea
that was never still! How, as that somebody slowly settled down into
myself, did I begin to parch, and feel as if my outer covering of skin
were a hard board; my tongue the bottom of an empty kettle, furred with
long service, and burning up over a slow fire; the palms of my hands,
hot plates of metal which no ice could cool!
But the agony of mind, the remorse, and shame I felt, when I became
conscious next day! My horror of having committed a thousand offences
I had forgotten, and which nothing could ever expiate--my recollection
of that indelible look which Agnes had given me--the torturing
impossibility of communicating with her, not knowing, Beast that I
was, how she came to be in London, or where she stayed--my disgust of
the very sight of the room where the revel had been held--my racking
head--the smell of smoke, the sight of glasses, the impossibility of
going out, or even getting up! Oh, what a day it was!
Oh, what an evening, when I sat down by my fire to a basin of mutton
broth, dimpled all over with fat, and thought I was going the way of
my predecessor, and should succeed to his dismal story as well as
to his chambers, and had half a mind to rush express to Dover and
reveal all! What an evening, when Mrs. Crupp, coming in to take away
the broth-basin, produced one kidney on a cheese-plate as the entire
remains of yesterday's feast, and I was really inclined to fall upon
her nankeen breast, and say, in heartfelt penitence, "Oh, Mrs. Crupp,
Mrs. Crupp, never mind the broken meats! I am very miserable!"--only
that I doubted, even at that pass, if Mrs. Crupp were quite the sort of
woman to confide in!