Tales from Dickens Part 11

They found a good deal of trouble in their love-making, for Dora was under the care of none other than the terrible sister of Mr. Murdstone, who had made David so miserable in his childhood, but he and Dora used to meet sometimes, and they sent each other letters through one of Dora's girl friends. David, perhaps, would not have done this if he had thought he would have a fair chance to win Dora; but with his old enemy, Miss Murdstone, against him, he was afraid to tell her father of his love. But one day he told it to Dora, and she promised to marry him.

Good luck, however, never comes without a bit of bad luck. Soon after this David came home to his rooms one night to find his aunt, Miss Betsy Trotwood, there, with her trunk and Mr. d.i.c.k, kites and all. She told David she had no other place to go; that she had lost all of her money and was quite ruined.

This was misfortune indeed, for it seemed to put his hope of marrying Dora a great deal further away; but David faced the situation bravely and began at once to look for something to do outside of the law office to earn money enough to support them all.

In this trouble Agnes was his true friend. He had written her already of his love for Dora and she had advised him. Through her now he found employment as secretary to his old schoolmaster, Doctor Strong, who had given up the school at Dover and had moved to London. He told Dora, of course, all about his changed prospects, but Dora was like a little b.u.t.terfly who knew only how to fly about among flowers; she hardly knew what poverty meant, and thought he was scolding when he told her.

David worked hard in the morning at Doctor Strong's, in the afternoons at the law office, and in the evenings he studied shorthand so he might come to be a newspaper reporter. And all this while he wrote to Dora every day.

It was one of these letters that at last betrayed their secret. Dora dropped it from her pocket and Miss Murdstone picked it up. She showed it to Dora's father and he sent at once for David and told him angrily that he could never marry his child and that he must not see Dora any more. And David went home disconsolate.

This might have ended their engagement for ever, but that same day Dora's father dropped dead of heart-disease. Instead of being rich he was found to have left no money at all, and Dora was taken to live with two aunts on the outskirts of London. David did not know what was best to do now, so he went to Dover to ask Agnes's advice.

He was shocked at the changes he found there. Her father looked ill and scarcely seemed himself. Uriah Heep, his new partner, with his ugly, fawning way and clammy hands, was living in their house and eating with them at their table. He had obtained more and more power over Mr.

Wickfield and gloried in it. And the other seemed no longer to dare to oppose Uriah in anything.

But in spite of all this, Agnes talked bravely and cheerfully with David. Under her direction, he wrote a letter to Dora's aunts, declaring his love and asking permission to call, and they, pleased with his frankness, gave their permission. Before the year was out David began to earn money with his shorthand, reporting speeches in Parliament for a newspaper. He had discovered besides that he could write stories that the magazines were glad to buy. So one day David married Dora and they went to housekeeping in a tiny house of their own.

Life seemed very sweet to them both, though Dora, while she was the most loving little wife in the world, knew no more about housekeeping than a bird. The servants stole the silver spoons, and the storekeepers overcharged them, and the house was never tidy or comfortable. For a while David tried to make Dora learn these things, but when he chid her the tears would come, and she would throw her arms around his neck and sob that she was only his child-wife after all, and he would end by kissing her and telling her not to mind. She was most like a beautiful toy; and like a toy, she seemed made only to play with, just as she played with her dog Jip, instead of helping and encouraging David in his work.

But at length Dora fell ill--so ill that they knew she was too frail and weak to get well and strong again. David carried her down stairs every day, and every day the burden grew lighter. She never complained, but called him her poor, dear boy, and one day she whispered that she was only his child-wife and could never have been more, so that it was better as it was!

Agnes came, and was there when Dora died. But for her comfort all the world would have been blank for poor David as he sat alone, longing for the child-wife who could never be his again!

IV

DAVID FINDS ALL WELL AT LAST

More than once during this life of David's with his child-wife he had seen Mr. Peggotty. The brave old man had searched Europe for little Em'ly in vain; then he had come back to London, feeling somehow that some day she would stray there. He used to walk the streets by night, looking at every face he pa.s.sed. In the room where he lived he kept a candle always lighted and one of her dresses hanging on a chair for her.

After Dora's death David joined in the search, and at length they did find poor little Em'ly. Steerforth had treated her cruelly and finally deserted her, and she had crept back to London heartbroken and repentant, hoping for nothing but to die within sight of those who had loved her so.

But nothing had dimmed Mr. Peggotty's love. Wretched as she was, he caught her in his arms, held her to his breast as he had done so often when she was a child, and told her she was still his own little Em'ly, just as she had always been.

She was ill, but he nursed her back to health. Then he went to Yarmouth to fetch Mrs. Gummidge, and they and the little Em'ly that had been found took pa.s.sage for Australia, where they might forget the dark past and find happiness in a new life.

But before they sailed fate had brought to naught the villainous plot that had been woven by Uriah Heep about Agnes and her father. And the one whom they had most to thank for this was Mr. Micawber.

Heep had met Mr. Micawber once, when the latter, as usual, was in money difficulties, and, thinking to make a tool of him, had hired him for his clerk. Little by little Heep had then got the other into his debt, till Mr. Micawber saw no prospect before him but the debtors' prison.

Threatening him with this, Heep tried to compel him to do various bits of dirty and dishonest work, at which the other's soul revolted until at length he made up his mind to expose his employer. So, pretending obedience, Mr. Micawber wormed himself into all of the sneaking Heep's affairs, found out the evidence of his guilt, and finally taking all the books and papers from the office safe, sent for David and his friend Tommy Traddles and told them all he had discovered. They found it was by forgery that Heep had got Agnes's father into his power in the first place, and that among others whom he had robbed was David's aunt, Miss Betsy Trotwood, whose fortune he had stolen.

David and Tommy Traddles sent for Miss Betsy and for Agnes and her father, and they faced Uriah all together. He tried to brazen it out, but when he saw the empty safe he knew that all was known. They told him the only way he could save himself from prison was by giving back the business to Agnes's father, just as it had been years before, when David had lived there, and by restoring to Miss Betsy Trotwood every cent he had robbed her of. This he did with no very good grace and with an especial curse for David, whom he seemed to blame for it all.

In reward for Mr. Micawber's good services, Miss Betsy and Agnes's father paid off all his debts and gave him money enough to take him and his family to Australia. They sailed in the same vessel that carried Mr.

Peggotty and little Em'ly.

Before it sailed little Em'ly had written a letter to Ham, whose promised wife she had been before she ran away with Steerforth, begging his forgiveness, and this letter she had asked David to give him after they had gone. Accordingly one day he went to Yarmouth to do this.

That night a terrible storm arose. The wind was so strong that it uprooted trees and threw down chimneys and rolled waves mountain high on the sand where stood the old deserted house-boat of the Peggottys. Next morning David was awakened with the news that a Spanish s.h.i.+p had gone ash.o.r.e and was fast going to pieces, and he ran to the beach, where all the town was gathered.

He could see the doomed vessel plainly where the surf broke over her.

Her masts had snapped short off and at every wave she rolled and beat the sand as if she would pound herself to fragments. Several figures were clinging to the broken masts, and one by one the waves beat them off, and they went down for ever.

At length but one was left, and he held on so long that a shout of encouragement went up from the throng. At this Ham, the bravest and strongest of all the hardy boatmen there, tied a rope about his waist and plunged into the sea to try to save him. But it was not to be. The same huge wave that dashed the vessel to pieces threw the rescuer back on the sand, dead. The body of the man he had tried to save was washed ash.o.r.e, too, and it was that of James Steerforth, who had so wronged little Em'ly!

So poor, great-souled Ham died, honest and faithful to the last, giving his life for the man who had injured him. And so, too, James Steerforth met his fate on the very spot where he had done such evil, for his corpse was found among the fragments of the old Peggotty house-boat, which the tempest tore down that night.

After this David went abroad and stayed three years. He lived in Switzerland, and wrote novels that were printed in London and made him famous there.

And now, alone, he had time to think of all that made up his past. He thought of Dora, his child-wife, and sorrowed for her, and of the Peggottys and little Em'ly; but most of all he found himself thinking of Agnes, who, throughout his youth, had seemed like his guiding star.

So one day he went back to England and told her, and asked her if she would marry him. And with her sweet face on his breast she whispered that she had loved him all her life!

David and Agnes lived long and happily, and their children had three guardians who loved them all--Miss Betsy Trotwood, David's old nurse, Peggotty, and white-haired Mr. d.i.c.k, who taught them to fly kites and thought them the greatest children in the world. Tommy Traddles, when he had become a famous lawyer, often visited them, and once, too, Mr.

Peggotty, older, but still hale and strong, came back from Australia to tell them how he had prospered and grown rich, and had always his little Em'ly beside him, and how Mr. Micawber had ceased to owe everybody money and had become a magistrate, and many other things.

David had one thing, however, to tell Mr. Peggotty, and that was of a certain prisoner he had seen in one of the country's greatest prisons, sentenced for life for an attempt to rob the Bank of England, and whose name was--Uriah Heep.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Published 1860-1861

_Scene_: London, Neighboring Towns and the Country

_Time_: 1830 to 1860

CHARACTERS

Philip Pirrip An orphan boy Known as "Pip"

Joe Gargery A blacksmith

"Mrs. Joe" His wife Pip's sister

Uncle Pumblechook Joe's pompous uncle

Wopsle Clerk of the village church Later, an actor

Orlick A workman of Joe's

Biddy A girl friend of Pip's and Mrs. Joe's nurse Later, Joe's wife