CHAPTER 18 - A RETROSPECT

My school-days! The silent gliding on of my existence - the

unseen, unfelt progress of my life - from childhood up to youth!

Let me think, as I look back upon that flowing water, now a dry

channel overgrown with leaves, whether there are any marks along

its course, by which I can remember how it ran.

A moment, and I occupy my place in the Cathedral, where we all went

together, every Sunday morning, assembling first at school for that

purpose. The earthy smell, the sunless air, the sensation of the

world being shut out, the resounding of the organ through the black

and white arched galleries and aisles, are wings that take me back,

and hold me hovering above those days, in a half-sleeping and

half-waking dream.

I am not the last boy in the school. I have risen in a few months,

over several heads. But the first boy seems to me a mighty

creature, dwelling afar off, whose giddy height is unattainable.

Agnes says 'No,' but I say 'Yes,' and tell her that she little

thinks what stores of knowledge have been mastered by the wonderful

Being, at whose place she thinks I, even I, weak aspirant, may

arrive in time. He is not my private friend and public patron, as

Steerforth was, but I hold him in a reverential respect. I chiefly

wonder what he'll be, when he leaves Doctor Strong's, and what

mankind will do to maintain any place against him.

But who is this that breaks upon me? This is Miss Shepherd, whom

I love.

Miss Shepherd is a boarder at the Misses Nettingalls'

establishment. I adore Miss Shepherd. She is a little girl, in a

spencer, with a round face and curly flaxen hair. The Misses

Nettingalls' young ladies come to the Cathedral too. I cannot look

upon my book, for I must look upon Miss Shepherd. When the

choristers chaunt, I hear Miss Shepherd. In the service I mentally

insert Miss Shepherd's name - I put her in among the Royal Family.

At home, in my own room, I am sometimes moved to cry out, 'Oh, Miss

Shepherd!' in a transport of love.

For some time, I am doubtful of Miss Shepherd's feelings, but, at

length, Fate being propitious, we meet at the dancing-school. I

have Miss Shepherd for my partner. I touch Miss Shepherd's glove,

and feel a thrill go up the right arm of my jacket, and come out at

my hair. I say nothing to Miss Shepherd, but we understand each

other. Miss Shepherd and myself live but to be united.

Why do I secretly give Miss Shepherd twelve Brazil nuts for a

present, I wonder? They are not expressive of affection, they are

difficult to pack into a parcel of any regular shape, they are hard

to crack, even in room doors, and they are oily when cracked; yet

I feel that they are appropriate to Miss Shepherd. Soft, seedy

biscuits, also, I bestow upon Miss Shepherd; and oranges

innumerable. Once, I kiss Miss Shepherd in the cloak-room.

Ecstasy! What are my agony and indignation next day, when I hear

a flying rumour that the Misses Nettingall have stood Miss Shepherd

in the stocks for turning in her toes!

Miss Shepherd being the one pervading theme and vision of my life,

how do I ever come to break with her? I can't conceive. And yet

a coolness grows between Miss Shepherd and myself. Whispers reach

me of Miss Shepherd having said she wished I wouldn't stare so, and

having avowed a preference for Master Jones - for Jones! a boy of

no merit whatever! The gulf between me and Miss Shepherd widens.

At last, one day, I meet the Misses Nettingalls' establishment out

walking. Miss Shepherd makes a face as she goes by, and laughs to

her companion. All is over. The devotion of a life - it seems a

life, it is all the same - is at an end; Miss Shepherd comes out of

the morning service, and the Royal Family know her no more.

I am higher in the school, and no one breaks my peace. I am not at

all polite, now, to the Misses Nettingalls' young ladies, and

shouldn't dote on any of them, if they were twice as many and

twenty times as beautiful. I think the dancing-school a tiresome

affair, and wonder why the girls can't dance by themselves and

leave us alone. I am growing great in Latin verses, and neglect

the laces of my boots. Doctor Strong refers to me in public as a

promising young scholar. Mr. Dick is wild with joy, and my aunt

remits me a guinea by the next post.

The shade of a young butcher rises, like the apparition of an armed

head in Macbeth. Who is this young butcher? He is the terror of

the youth of Canterbury. There is a vague belief abroad, that the

beef suet with which he anoints his hair gives him unnatural

strength, and that he is a match for a man. He is a broad-faced,

bull-necked, young butcher, with rough red cheeks, an

ill-conditioned mind, and an injurious tongue. His main use of

this tongue, is, to disparage Doctor Strong's young gentlemen. He

says, publicly, that if they want anything he'll give it 'em. He

names individuals among them (myself included), whom he could

undertake to settle with one hand, and the other tied behind him.

He waylays the smaller boys to punch their unprotected heads, and

calls challenges after me in the open streets. For these

sufficient reasons I resolve to fight the butcher.

It is a summer evening, down in a green hollow, at the corner of a

wall. I meet the butcher by appointment. I am attended by a

select body of our boys; the butcher, by two other butchers, a

young publican, and a sweep. The preliminaries are adjusted, and

the butcher and myself stand face to face. In a moment the butcher

lights ten thousand candles out of my left eyebrow. In another

moment, I don't know where the wall is, or where I am, or where

anybody is. I hardly know which is myself and which the butcher,

we are always in such a tangle and tussle, knocking about upon the

trodden grass. Sometimes I see the butcher, bloody but confident;

sometimes I see nothing, and sit gasping on my second's knee;

sometimes I go in at the butcher madly, and cut my knuckles open

against his face, without appearing to discompose him at all. At

last I awake, very queer about the head, as from a giddy sleep, and

see the butcher walking off, congratulated by the two other

butchers and the sweep and publican, and putting on his coat as he

goes; from which I augur, justly, that the victory is his.

I am taken home in a sad plight, and I have beef-steaks put to my

eyes, and am rubbed with vinegar and brandy, and find a great puffy

place bursting out on my upper lip, which swells immoderately. For

three or four days I remain at home, a very ill-looking subject,

with a green shade over my eyes; and I should be very dull, but

that Agnes is a sister to me, and condoles with me, and reads to

me, and makes the time light and happy. Agnes has my confidence

completely, always; I tell her all about the butcher, and the

wrongs he has heaped upon me; she thinks I couldn't have done

otherwise than fight the butcher, while she shrinks and trembles at

my having fought him.

Time has stolen on unobserved, for Adams is not the head-boy in the

days that are come now, nor has he been this many and many a day.

Adams has left the school so long, that when he comes back, on a

visit to Doctor Strong, there are not many there, besides myself,

who know him. Adams is going to be called to the bar almost

directly, and is to be an advocate, and to wear a wig. I am

surprised to find him a meeker man than I had thought, and less

imposing in appearance. He has not staggered the world yet,

either; for it goes on (as well as I can make out) pretty much the

same as if he had never joined it.

A blank, through which the warriors of poetry and history march on

in stately hosts that seem to have no end - and what comes next!

I am the head-boy, now! 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 - as something I have passed, rather than

have actually been - and almost think of him as of someone else.

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 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.

What other changes have come upon me, besides 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 I use a great deal of bear's

grease - which, taken in conjunction with the ring, looks bad. Am

I in love again? I am. I worship the eldest Miss Larkins.

The eldest Miss Larkins is not a little girl. She is a tall, dark,

black-eyed, fine figure of a woman. The eldest Miss Larkins is not

a chicken; for the youngest Miss Larkins is not that, and the

eldest must be three or four years older. Perhaps the eldest Miss

Larkins may be about thirty. My passion for her is beyond all

bounds.

The eldest Miss Larkins knows officers. It is an awful thing to

bear. I see them speaking to her in the street. I see them cross

the way to meet her, when her bonnet (she has a bright taste in

bonnets) is seen coming down the pavement, accompanied by her

sister's bonnet. She laughs and talks, and seems to like it. I

spend a good deal of my own spare time in walking up and down to

meet her. If I can bow to her once in the day (I know her to bow

to, knowing Mr. Larkins), I am happier. I deserve a bow now and

then. The raging agonies I suffer on the night of the Race Ball,

where I know the eldest Miss Larkins will be dancing with the

military, ought to have some compensation, if there be even-handed

justice in the world.

My passion takes away my appetite, and makes me wear my newest silk

neckerchief continually. I have no relief but in putting on my

best clothes, and having my boots cleaned over and over again. I

seem, then, to be worthier of the eldest Miss Larkins. Everything

that belongs to her, or is connected with her, is precious to me.

Mr. Larkins (a gruff old gentleman with a double chin, and one of

his eyes immovable in his head) is fraught with interest to me.

When I can't meet his daughter, I go where I am likely to meet him.

To say 'How do you do, Mr. Larkins? Are the young ladies and all

the family quite well?' seems so pointed, that I blush.

I think continually about my age. Say I am seventeen, and say that

seventeen is young for the eldest Miss Larkins, what of that?

Besides, I shall be one-and-twenty in no time almost. I regularly

take walks outside Mr. Larkins's house in the evening, though it

cuts me to the heart to see the officers go in, or to hear them up

in the drawing-room, where the eldest Miss Larkins plays the harp.

I even walk, on two or three occasions, in a sickly, spoony manner,

round and round the house after the family are gone to bed,

wondering which is the eldest Miss Larkins's chamber (and pitching,

I dare say now, on Mr. Larkins's instead); wishing that a fire

would burst out; that the assembled crowd would stand appalled;

that I, dashing through them with a ladder, might rear it against

her window, save her in my arms, go back for something she had left

behind, and perish in the flames. For I am generally disinterested

in my love, and think I could be content to make a figure before

Miss Larkins, and expire.

Generally, but not always. Sometimes brighter visions rise before

me. When I dress (the occupation of two hours), for a great ball

given at the Larkins's (the anticipation of three weeks), I indulge

my fancy with pleasing images. I picture myself taking courage to

make a declaration to Miss Larkins. I picture Miss Larkins sinking

her head upon my shoulder, and saying, 'Oh, Mr. Copperfield, can I

believe my ears!' I picture Mr. Larkins waiting on me next morning,

and saying, 'My dear Copperfield, my daughter has told me all.

Youth is no objection. Here are twenty thousand pounds. Be

happy!' I picture my aunt relenting, and blessing us; and Mr. Dick

and Doctor Strong being present at the marriage ceremony. I am a

sensible fellow, I believe - I believe, on looking back, I mean -

and modest I am sure; but all this goes on notwithstanding.

I repair to the enchanted house, where there are lights,

chattering, music, flowers, officers (I am sorry to see), and the

eldest Miss Larkins, a blaze of beauty. She is dressed in blue,

with blue flowers in her hair - forget-me-nots - as if SHE had any

need to wear forget-me-nots. It is the first really grown-up party

that I have ever been invited to, and I am a little uncomfortable;

for I appear not to belong to anybody, and nobody appears to have

anything to say to me, except Mr. Larkins, who asks me how my

schoolfellows are, which he needn't do, as I have not come there to

be insulted.

But after I have stood in the doorway for some time, and feasted my

eyes upon the goddess of my heart, she approaches me - she, the

eldest Miss Larkins! - and asks me pleasantly, if I dance?

I stammer, with a bow, 'With you, Miss Larkins.'

'With no one else?' inquires Miss Larkins.

'I should have no pleasure in dancing with anyone else.'

Miss Larkins laughs and blushes (or I think she blushes), and says,

'Next time but one, I shall be very glad.'

The time arrives. 'It is a waltz, I think,' Miss Larkins

doubtfully observes, when I present myself. 'Do you waltz? If

not, Captain Bailey -'

But I do waltz (pretty well, too, as it happens), and I take Miss

Larkins out. I take her sternly from the side of Captain Bailey.

He is wretched, I have no doubt; but he is nothing to me. I have

been wretched, too. I waltz with the eldest Miss Larkins! I don't

know where, among whom, or how long. I only know that I swim about

in space, with a blue angel, in a state of blissful delirium, until

I find myself alone with her in a little room, resting on a sofa.

She admires a flower (pink camellia japonica, price half-a-crown),

in my button-hole. I give it her, and say:

'I ask an inestimable price for it, Miss Larkins.'

'Indeed! What is that?' returns Miss Larkins.

'A flower of yours, that I may treasure it as a miser does gold.'

'You're a bold boy,' says Miss Larkins. 'There.'

She gives it me, not displeased; and I put it to my lips, and then

into my breast. Miss Larkins, laughing, draws her hand through my

arm, and says, 'Now take me back to Captain Bailey.'

I am lost in the recollection of this delicious interview, and the

waltz, when she comes to me again, with a plain elderly gentleman

who has been playing whist all night, upon her arm, and says:

'Oh! here is my bold friend! Mr. Chestle wants to know you, Mr.

Copperfield.'

I feel at once that he is a friend of the family, and am much

gratified.

'I admire your taste, sir,' says Mr. Chestle. 'It does you credit.

I suppose you don't take much interest in hops; but I am a pretty

large grower myself; and if you ever like to come over to our

neighbourhood - neighbourhood of Ashford - and take a run about our

place, -we shall be glad for you to stop as long as you like.'

I thank Mr. Chestle warmly, and shake hands. I think I am in a

happy dream. I waltz with the eldest Miss Larkins once again. She

says I waltz so well! I go home in a state of unspeakable bliss,

and waltz in imagination, all night long, with my arm round the

blue waist of my dear divinity. For some days afterwards, I am

lost in rapturous reflections; but I neither see her in the street,

nor when I call. I am imperfectly consoled for this disappointment

by the sacred pledge, the perished flower.

'Trotwood,' says Agnes, one day after dinner. 'Who do you think is

going to be married tomorrow? Someone you admire.'

'Not you, I suppose, Agnes?'

'Not me!' raising her cheerful face from the music she is copying.

'Do you hear him, Papa? - The eldest Miss Larkins.'

'To - to Captain Bailey?' I have just enough power to ask.

'No; to no Captain. To Mr. Chestle, a hop-grower.'

I am terribly dejected for about a week or two. I take off my

ring, I wear my worst clothes, I use no bear's grease, and I

frequently lament over the late Miss Larkins's faded flower.

Being, by that time, rather tired of this kind of life, and having

received new provocation from the butcher, I throw the flower away,

go out with the butcher, and gloriously defeat him.

This, and the resumption of my ring, as well as of the bear's

grease in moderation, are the last marks I can discern, now, in my

progress to seventeen.

Read next: CHAPTER 19 - I LOOK ABOUT ME, AND MAKE A DISCOVERY

Read previous: CHAPTER 17 - SOMEBODY TURNS UP

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