CHAPTER 12 - LIKING LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT NO BETTER, I FORM A GREAT RESOLUTION

In due time, Mr. Micawber's petition was ripe for hearing; and that

gentleman was ordered to be discharged under the Act, to my great

joy. His creditors were not implacable; and Mrs. Micawber informed

me that even the revengeful boot-maker had declared in open court

that he bore him no malice, but that when money was owing to him he

liked to be paid. He said he thought it was human nature.

M r Micawber returned to the King's Bench when his case was over,

as some fees were to be settled, and some formalities observed,

before he could be actually released. The club received him with

transport, and held an harmonic meeting that evening in his honour;

while Mrs. Micawber and I had a lamb's fry in private, surrounded

by the sleeping family.

'On such an occasion I will give you, Master Copperfield,' said

Mrs. Micawber, 'in a little more flip,' for we had been having some

already, 'the memory of my papa and mama.'

'Are they dead, ma'am?' I inquired, after drinking the toast in a

wine-glass.

'My mama departed this life,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'before Mr.

Micawber's difficulties commenced, or at least before they became

pressing. My papa lived to bail Mr. Micawber several times, and

then expired, regretted by a numerous circle.'

Mrs. Micawber shook her head, and dropped a pious tear upon the

twin who happened to be in hand.

As I could hardly hope for a more favourable opportunity of putting

a question in which I had a near interest, I said to Mrs. Micawber:

'May I ask, ma'am, what you and Mr. Micawber intend to do, now that

Mr. Micawber is out of his difficulties, and at liberty? Have you

settled yet?'

'My family,' said Mrs. Micawber, who always said those two words

with an air, though I never could discover who came under the

denomination, 'my family are of opinion that Mr. Micawber should

quit London, and exert his talents in the country. Mr. Micawber is

a man of great talent, Master Copperfield.'

I said I was sure of that.

'Of great talent,' repeated Mrs. Micawber. 'My family are of

opinion, that, with a little interest, something might be done for

a man of his ability in the Custom House. The influence of my

family being local, it is their wish that Mr. Micawber should go

down to Plymouth. They think it indispensable that he should be

upon the spot.'

'That he may be ready?' I suggested.

'Exactly,' returned Mrs. Micawber. 'That he may be ready - in case

of anything turning up.'

'And do you go too, ma'am?'

The events of the day, in combination with the twins, if not with

the flip, had made Mrs. Micawber hysterical, and she shed tears as

she replied:

'I never will desert Mr. Micawber. Mr. Micawber may have concealed

his difficulties from me in the first instance, but his sanguine

temper may have led him to expect that he would overcome them. The

pearl necklace and bracelets which I inherited from mama, have been

disposed of for less than half their value; and the set of coral,

which was the wedding gift of my papa, has been actually thrown

away for nothing. But I never will desert Mr. Micawber. No!'

cried Mrs. Micawber, more affected than before, 'I never will do

it! It's of no use asking me!'

I felt quite uncomfortable - as if Mrs. Micawber supposed I had

asked her to do anything of the sort! - and sat looking at her in

alarm.

'Mr. Micawber has his faults. I do not deny that he is

improvident. I do not deny that he has kept me in the dark as to

his resources and his liabilities both,' she went on, looking at

the wall; 'but I never will desert Mr. Micawber!'

Mrs. Micawber having now raised her voice into a perfect scream, I

was so frightened that I ran off to the club-room, and disturbed

Mr. Micawber in the act of presiding at a long table, and leading

the chorus of

Gee up, Dobbin,

Gee ho, Dobbin,

Gee up, Dobbin,

Gee up, and gee ho - o - o!

with the tidings that Mrs. Micawber was in an alarming state, upon

which he immediately burst into tears, and came away with me with

his waistcoat full of the heads and tails of shrimps, of which he

had been partaking.

'Emma, my angel!' cried Mr. Micawber, running into the room; 'what

is the matter?'

'I never will desert you, Micawber!' she exclaimed.

'My life!' said Mr. Micawber, taking her in his arms. 'I am

perfectly aware of it.'

'He is the parent of my children! He is the father of my twins!

He is the husband of my affections,' cried Mrs. Micawber,

struggling; 'and I ne - ver - will - desert Mr. Micawber!'

Mr. Micawber was so deeply affected by this proof of her devotion

(as to me, I was dissolved in tears), that he hung over her in a

passionate manner, imploring her to look up, and to be calm. But

the more he asked Mrs. Micawber to look up, the more she fixed her

eyes on nothing; and the more he asked her to compose herself, the

more she wouldn't. Consequently Mr. Micawber was soon so overcome,

that he mingled his tears with hers and mine; until he begged me to

do him the favour of taking a chair on the staircase, while he got

her into bed. I would have taken my leave for the night, but he

would not hear of my doing that until the strangers' bell should

ring. So I sat at the staircase window, until he came out with

another chair and joined me.

'How is Mrs. Micawber now, sir?' I said.

'Very low,' said Mr. Micawber, shaking his head; 'reaction. Ah,

this has been a dreadful day! We stand alone now - everything is

gone from us!'

Mr. Micawber pressed my hand, and groaned, and afterwards shed

tears. I was greatly touched, and disappointed too, for I had

expected that we should be quite gay on this happy and

long-looked-for occasion. But Mr. and Mrs. Micawber were so used

to their old difficulties, I think, that they felt quite

shipwrecked when they came to consider that they were released from

them. All their elasticity was departed, and I never saw them half

so wretched as on this night; insomuch that when the bell rang, and

Mr. Micawber walked with me to the lodge, and parted from me there

with a blessing, I felt quite afraid to leave him by himself, he

was so profoundly miserable.

But through all the confusion and lowness of spirits in which we

had been, so unexpectedly to me, involved, I plainly discerned that

Mr. and Mrs. Micawber and their family were going away from London,

and that a parting between us was near at hand. It was in my walk

home that night, and in the sleepless hours which followed when I

lay in bed, that the thought first occurred to me - though I don't

know how it came into my head - which afterwards shaped itself into

a settled resolution.

I had grown to be so accustomed to the Micawbers, and had been so

intimate with them in their distresses, and was so utterly

friendless without them, that the prospect of being thrown upon

some new shift for a lodging, and going once more among unknown

people, was like being that moment turned adrift into my present

life, with such a knowledge of it ready made as experience had

given me. All the sensitive feelings it wounded so cruelly, all

the shame and misery it kept alive within my breast, became more

poignant as I thought of this; and I determined that the life was

unendurable.

That there was no hope of escape from it, unless the escape was my

own act, I knew quite well. I rarely heard from Miss Murdstone,

and never from Mr. Murdstone: but two or three parcels of made or

mended clothes had come up for me, consigned to Mr. Quinion, and in

each there was a scrap of paper to the effect that J. M. trusted D.

C. was applying himself to business, and devoting himself wholly to

his duties - not the least hint of my ever being anything else than

the common drudge into which I was fast settling down.

The very next day showed me, while my mind was in the first

agitation of what it had conceived, that Mrs. Micawber had not

spoken of their going away without warrant. They took a lodging in

the house where I lived, for a week; at the expiration of which

time they were to start for Plymouth. Mr. Micawber himself came

down to the counting-house, in the afternoon, to tell Mr. Quinion

that he must relinquish me on the day of his departure, and to give

me a high character, which I am sure I deserved. And Mr. Quinion,

calling in Tipp the carman, who was a married man, and had a room

to let, quartered me prospectively on him - by our mutual consent,

as he had every reason to think; for I said nothing, though my

resolution was now taken.

I passed my evenings with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, during the

remaining term of our residence under the same roof; and I think we

became fonder of one another as the time went on. On the last

Sunday, they invited me to dinner; and we had a loin of pork and

apple sauce, and a pudding. I had bought a spotted wooden horse

over-night as a parting gift to little Wilkins Micawber - that was

the boy - and a doll for little Emma. I had also bestowed a

shilling on the Orfling, who was about to be disbanded.

We had a very pleasant day, though we were all in a tender state

about our approaching separation.

'I shall never, Master Copperfield,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'revert to

the period when Mr. Micawber was in difficulties, without thinking

of you. Your conduct has always been of the most delicate and

obliging description. You have never been a lodger. You have been

a friend.'

'My dear,' said Mr. Micawber; 'Copperfield,' for so he had been

accustomed to call me, of late, 'has a heart to feel for the

distresses of his fellow-creatures when they are behind a cloud,

and a head to plan, and a hand to - in short, a general ability to

dispose of such available property as could be made away with.'

I expressed my sense of this commendation, and said I was very

sorry we were going to lose one another.

'My dear young friend,' said Mr. Micawber, 'I am older than you; a

man of some experience in life, and - and of some experience, in

short, in difficulties, generally speaking. At present, and until

something turns up (which I am, I may say, hourly expecting), I

have nothing to bestow but advice. Still my advice is so far worth

taking, that - in short, that I have never taken it myself, and am

the' - here Mr. Micawber, who had been beaming and smiling, all

over his head and face, up to the present moment, checked himself

and frowned - 'the miserable wretch you behold.'

'My dear Micawber!' urged his wife.

'I say,' returned Mr. Micawber, quite forgetting himself, and

smiling again, 'the miserable wretch you behold. My advice is,

never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the

thief of time. Collar him!'

'My poor papa's maxim,' Mrs. Micawber observed.

'My dear,' said Mr. Micawber, 'your papa was very well in his way,

and Heaven forbid that I should disparage him. Take him for all in

all, we ne'er shall - in short, make the acquaintance, probably, of

anybody else possessing, at his time of life, the same legs for

gaiters, and able to read the same description of print, without

spectacles. But he applied that maxim to our marriage, my dear;

and that was so far prematurely entered into, in consequence, that

I never recovered the expense.' Mr. Micawber looked aside at Mrs.

Micawber, and added: 'Not that I am sorry for it. Quite the

contrary, my love.' After which, he was grave for a minute or so.

'My other piece of advice, Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, 'you

know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen

nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds,

annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. The

blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down

upon the dreary scene, and - and in short you are for ever floored.

As I am!'

To make his example the more impressive, Mr. Micawber drank a glass

of punch with an air of great enjoyment and satisfaction, and

whistled the College Hornpipe.

I did not fail to assure him that I would store these precepts in

my mind, though indeed I had no need to do so, for, at the time,

they affected me visibly. Next morning I met the whole family at

the coach office, and saw them, with a desolate heart, take their

places outside, at the back.

'Master Copperfield,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'God bless you! I never

can forget all that, you know, and I never would if I could.'

'Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, 'farewell! Every happiness and

prosperity! If, in the progress of revolving years, I could

persuade myself that my blighted destiny had been a warning to you,

I should feel that I had not occupied another man's place in

existence altogether in vain. In case of anything turning up (of

which I am rather confident), I shall be extremely happy if it

should be in my power to improve your prospects.'

I think, as Mrs. Micawber sat at the back of the coach, with the

children, and I stood in the road looking wistfully at them, a mist

cleared from her eyes, and she saw what a little creature I really

was. I think so, because she beckoned to me to climb up, with

quite a new and motherly expression in her face, and put her arm

round my neck, and gave me just such a kiss as she might have given

to her own boy. I had barely time to get down again before the

coach started, and I could hardly see the family for the

handkerchiefs they waved. It was gone in a minute. The Orfling

and I stood looking vacantly at each other in the middle of the

road, and then shook hands and said good-bye; she going back, I

suppose, to St. Luke's workhouse, as I went to begin my weary day

at Murdstone and Grinby's.

But with no intention of passing many more weary days there. No.

I had resolved to run away. - To go, by some means or other, down

into the country, to the only relation I had in the world, and tell

my story to my aunt, Miss Betsey.

I have already observed that I don't know how this desperate idea

came into my brain. But, once there, it remained there; and

hardened into a purpose than which I have never entertained a more

determined purpose in my life. I am far from sure that I believed

there was anything hopeful in it, but my mind was thoroughly made

up that it must be carried into execution.

Again, and again, and a hundred times again, since the night when

the thought had first occurred to me and banished sleep, I had gone

over that old story of my poor mother's about my birth, which it

had been one of my great delights in the old time to hear her tell,

and which I knew by heart. My aunt walked into that story, and

walked out of it, a dread and awful personage; but there was one

little trait in her behaviour which I liked to dwell on, and which

gave me some faint shadow of encouragement. I could not forget how

my mother had thought that she felt her touch her pretty hair with

no ungentle hand; and though it might have been altogether my

mother's fancy, and might have had no foundation whatever in fact,

I made a little picture, out of it, of my terrible aunt relenting

towards the girlish beauty that I recollected so well and loved so

much, which softened the whole narrative. It is very possible that

it had been in my mind a long time, and had gradually engendered my

determination.

As I did not even know where Miss Betsey lived, I wrote a long

letter to Peggotty, and asked her, incidentally, if she remembered;

pretending that I had heard of such a lady living at a certain

place I named at random, and had a curiosity to know if it were the

same. In the course of that letter, I told Peggotty that I had a

particular occasion for half a guinea; and that if she could lend

me that sum until I could repay it, I should be very much obliged

to her, and would tell her afterwards what I had wanted it for.

Peggotty's answer soon arrived, and was, as usual, full of

affectionate devotion. She enclosed the half guinea (I was afraid

she must have had a world of trouble to get it out of Mr. Barkis's

box), and told me that Miss Betsey lived near Dover, but whether at

Dover itself, at Hythe, Sandgate, or Folkestone, she could not say.

One of our men, however, informing me on my asking him about these

places, that they were all close together, I deemed this enough for

my object, and resolved to set out at the end of that week.

Being a very honest little creature, and unwilling to disgrace the

memory I was going to leave behind me at Murdstone and Grinby's, I

considered myself bound to remain until Saturday night; and, as I

had been paid a week's wages in advance when I first came there,

not to present myself in the counting-house at the usual hour, to

receive my stipend. For this express reason, I had borrowed the

half-guinea, that I might not be without a fund for my

travelling-expenses. Accordingly, when the Saturday night came,

and we were all waiting in the warehouse to be paid, and Tipp the

carman, who always took precedence, went in first to draw his

money, I shook Mick Walker by the hand; asked him, when it came to

his turn to be paid, to say to Mr. Quinion that I had gone to move

my box to Tipp's; and, bidding a last good night to Mealy Potatoes,

ran away.

My box was at my old lodging, over the water, and I had written a

direction for it on the back of one of our address cards that we

nailed on the casks: 'Master David, to be left till called for, at

the Coach Office, Dover.' This I had in my pocket ready to put on

the box, after I should have got it out of the house; and as I went

towards my lodging, I looked about me for someone who would help me

to carry it to the booking-office.

There was a long-legged young man with a very little empty

donkey-cart, standing near the Obelisk, in the Blackfriars Road,

whose eye I caught as I was going by, and who, addressing me as

'Sixpenn'orth of bad ha'pence,' hoped 'I should know him agin to

swear to' - in allusion, I have no doubt, to my staring at him. I

stopped to assure him that I had not done so in bad manners, but

uncertain whether he might or might not like a job.

'Wot job?' said the long-legged young man.

'To move a box,' I answered.

'Wot box?' said the long-legged young man.

I told him mine, which was down that street there, and which I

wanted him to take to the Dover coach office for sixpence.

'Done with you for a tanner!' said the long-legged young man, and

directly got upon his cart, which was nothing but a large wooden

tray on wheels, and rattled away at such a rate, that it was as

much as I could do to keep pace with the donkey.

There was a defiant manner about this young man, and particularly

about the way in which he chewed straw as he spoke to me, that I

did not much like; as the bargain was made, however, I took him

upstairs to the room I was leaving, and we brought the box down,

and put it on his cart. Now, I was unwilling to put the

direction-card on there, lest any of my landlord's family should

fathom what I was doing, and detain me; so I said to the young man

that I would be glad if he would stop for a minute, when he came to

the dead-wall of the King's Bench prison. The words were no sooner

out of my mouth, than he rattled away as if he, my box, the cart,

and the donkey, were all equally mad; and I was quite out of breath

with running and calling after him, when I caught him at the place

appointed.

Being much flushed and excited, I tumbled my half-guinea out of my

pocket in pulling the card out. I put it in my mouth for safety,

and though my hands trembled a good deal, had just tied the card on

very much to my satisfaction, when I felt myself violently chucked

under the chin by the long-legged young man, and saw my half-guinea

fly out of my mouth into his hand.

'Wot!' said the young man, seizing me by my jacket collar, with a

frightful grin. 'This is a pollis case, is it? You're a-going to

bolt, are you? Come to the pollis, you young warmin, come to the

pollis!'

'You give me my money back, if you please,' said I, very much

frightened; 'and leave me alone.'

'Come to the pollis!' said the young man. 'You shall prove it

yourn to the pollis.'

'Give me my box and money, will you,' I cried, bursting into tears.

The young man still replied: 'Come to the pollis!' and was dragging

me against the donkey in a violent manner, as if there were any

affinity between that animal and a magistrate, when he changed his

mind, jumped into the cart, sat upon my box, and, exclaiming that

he would drive to the pollis straight, rattled away harder than

ever.

I ran after him as fast as I could, but I had no breath to call out

with, and should not have dared to call out, now, if I had. I

narrowly escaped being run over, twenty times at least, in half a

mile. Now I lost him, now I saw him, now I lost him, now I was cut

at with a whip, now shouted at, now down in the mud, now up again,

now running into somebody's arms, now running headlong at a post.

At length, confused by fright and heat, and doubting whether half

London might not by this time be turning out for my apprehension,

I left the young man to go where he would with my box and money;

and, panting and crying, but never stopping, faced about for

Greenwich, which I had understood was on the Dover Road: taking

very little more out of the world, towards the retreat of my aunt,

Miss Betsey, than I had brought into it, on the night when my

arrival gave her so much umbrage.

Read next: CHAPTER 13 - THE SEQUEL OF MY RESOLUTION

Read previous: CHAPTER 11 - I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON'T LIKE IT

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