Charles Dickens - The Man Behind the Classics: Autobiographical Novels, Stories, Memoirs, Letters & Biographies. Charles Dickens
indeed.’
‘You as-tound me, Copperfield!’ cried Mr. Spenlow.
I shook my head. ‘Indeed, sir,’ said I, ‘her affairs are so changed, that I wished to ask you whether it would be possible—at a sacrifice on our part of some portion of the premium, of course,’ I put in this, on the spur of the moment, warned by the blank expression of his face—‘to cancel my articles?’
What it cost me to make this proposal, nobody knows. It was like asking, as a favour, to be sentenced to transportation from Dora.
‘To cancel your articles, Copperfield? Cancel?’
I explained with tolerable firmness, that I really did not know where my means of subsistence were to come from, unless I could earn them for myself. I had no fear for the future, I said—and I laid great emphasis on that, as if to imply that I should still be decidedly eligible for a son-in-law one of these days—but, for the present, I was thrown upon my own resources. ‘I am extremely sorry to hear this, Copperfield,’ said Mr. Spenlow. ‘Extremely sorry. It is not usual to cancel articles for any such reason. It is not a professional course of proceeding. It is not a convenient precedent at all. Far from it. At the same time—’
‘You are very good, sir,’ I murmured, anticipating a concession.
‘Not at all. Don’t mention it,’ said Mr. Spenlow. ‘At the same time, I was going to say, if it had been my lot to have my hands unfettered—if I had not a partner—Mr. Jorkins—’
My hopes were dashed in a moment, but I made another effort.
‘Do you think, sir,’ said I, ‘if I were to mention it to Mr. Jorkins—’
Mr. Spenlow shook his head discouragingly. ‘Heaven forbid, Copperfield,’ he replied, ‘that I should do any man an injustice: still less, Mr. Jorkins. But I know my partner, Copperfield. Mr. Jorkins is not a man to respond to a proposition of this peculiar nature. Mr. Jorkins is very difficult to move from the beaten track. You know what he is!’
I am sure I knew nothing about him, except that he had originally been alone in the business, and now lived by himself in a house near Montagu Square, which was fearfully in want of painting; that he came very late of a day, and went away very early; that he never appeared to be consulted about anything; and that he had a dingy little black-hole of his own upstairs, where no business was ever done, and where there was a yellow old cartridge-paper pad upon his desk, unsoiled by ink, and reported to be twenty years of age.
‘Would you object to my mentioning it to him, sir?’ I asked.
‘By no means,’ said Mr. Spenlow. ‘But I have some experience of Mr. Jorkins, Copperfield. I wish it were otherwise, for I should be happy to meet your views in any respect. I cannot have the objection to your mentioning it to Mr. Jorkins, Copperfield, if you think it worth while.’
Availing myself of this permission, which was given with a warm shake of the hand, I sat thinking about Dora, and looking at the sunlight stealing from the chimney-pots down the wall of the opposite house, until Mr. Jorkins came. I then went up to Mr. Jorkins’s room, and evidently astonished Mr. Jorkins very much by making my appearance there.
‘Come in, Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mr. Jorkins. ‘Come in!’
I went in, and sat down; and stated my case to Mr. Jorkins pretty much as I had stated it to Mr. Spenlow. Mr. Jorkins was not by any means the awful creature one might have expected, but a large, mild, smooth-faced man of sixty, who took so much snuff that there was a tradition in the Commons that he lived principally on that stimulant, having little room in his system for any other article of diet.
‘You have mentioned this to Mr. Spenlow, I suppose?’ said Mr. Jorkins; when he had heard me, very restlessly, to an end.
I answered Yes, and told him that Mr. Spenlow had introduced his name.
‘He said I should object?’ asked Mr. Jorkins.
I was obliged to admit that Mr. Spenlow had considered it probable.
‘I am sorry to say, Mr. Copperfield, I can’t advance your object,’ said Mr. Jorkins, nervously. ‘The fact is—but I have an appointment at the Bank, if you’ll have the goodness to excuse me.’
With that he rose in a great hurry, and was going out of the room, when I made bold to say that I feared, then, there was no way of arranging the matter?
‘No!’ said Mr. Jorkins, stopping at the door to shake his head. ‘Oh, no! I object, you know,’ which he said very rapidly, and went out. ‘You must be aware, Mr. Copperfield,’ he added, looking restlessly in at the door again, ‘if Mr. Spenlow objects—’
‘Personally, he does not object, sir,’ said I.
‘Oh! Personally!’ repeated Mr. Jorkins, in an impatient manner. ‘I assure you there’s an objection, Mr. Copperfield. Hopeless! What you wish to be done, can’t be done. I—I really have got an appointment at the Bank.’ With that he fairly ran away; and to the best of my knowledge, it was three days before he showed himself in the Commons again.
Being very anxious to leave no stone unturned, I waited until Mr. Spenlow came in, and then described what had passed; giving him to understand that I was not hopeless of his being able to soften the adamantine Jorkins, if he would undertake the task.
‘Copperfield,’ returned Mr. Spenlow, with a gracious smile, ‘you have not known my partner, Mr. Jorkins, as long as I have. Nothing is farther from my thoughts than to attribute any degree of artifice to Mr. Jorkins. But Mr. Jorkins has a way of stating his objections which often deceives people. No, Copperfield!’ shaking his head. ‘Mr. Jorkins is not to be moved, believe me!’
I was completely bewildered between Mr. Spenlow and Mr. Jorkins, as to which of them really was the objecting partner; but I saw with sufficient clearness that there was obduracy somewhere in the firm, and that the recovery of my aunt’s thousand pounds was out of the question. In a state of despondency, which I remember with anything but satisfaction, for I know it still had too much reference to myself (though always in connexion with Dora), I left the office, and went homeward.
I was trying to familiarize my mind with the worst, and to present to myself the arrangements we should have to make for the future in their sternest aspect, when a hackney-chariot coming after me, and stopping at my very feet, occasioned me to look up. A fair hand was stretched forth to me from the window; and the face I had never seen without a feeling of serenity and happiness, from the moment when it first turned back on the old oak staircase with the great broad balustrade, and when I associated its softened beauty with the stained-glass window in the church, was smiling on me.
‘Agnes!’ I joyfully exclaimed. ‘Oh, my dear Agnes, of all people in the world, what a pleasure to see you!’
‘Is it, indeed?’ she said, in her cordial voice.
‘I want to talk to you so much!’ said I. ‘It’s such a lightening of my heart, only to look at you! If I had had a conjuror’s cap, there is no one I should have wished for but you!’
‘What?’ returned Agnes.
‘Well! perhaps Dora first,’ I admitted, with a blush.
‘Certainly, Dora first, I hope,’ said Agnes, laughing.
‘But you next!’ said I. ‘Where are you going?’
She was going to my rooms to see my aunt. The day being very fine, she was glad to come out of the chariot, which smelt (I had my head in it all this time) like a stable put under a cucumber-frame. I dismissed the coachman, and she took my arm, and we walked on together. She was like Hope embodied, to me. How different I felt in one short minute, having Agnes at my side!
My aunt had written her one of the odd, abrupt notes—very little longer than a Bank note—to which her epistolary efforts were usually limited. She had stated therein that she had fallen into adversity, and was leaving Dover for good, but had quite made up her mind to it, and was so well that