No More Learning

I
cannot bear to think of what did come, upon that memorable night; of
what must come again, if I go on.

It is no worse, because I write of it. It would be no better, if I
stopped my most unwilling hand. It is done. Nothing can undo it; nothing
can make it otherwise than as it was.

My old nurse was to go to London with me next day, on the business of
the will. Little Emily was passing that day at Mr. Omer's. We were all
to meet in the old boathouse that night. Ham would bring Emily at the
usual hour. I would walk back at my leisure. The brother and sister
would return as they had come, and be expecting us, when the day closed
in, at the fireside.

I parted from them at the wicket-gate, where visionary Strap had rested
with Roderick Random's knapsack in the days of yore; and, instead of
going straight back, walked a little distance on the road to Lowestoft.
Then I turned, and walked back towards Yarmouth. I stayed to dine at
a decent alehouse, some mile or two from the Ferry I have mentioned
before; and thus the day wore away, and it was evening when I reached
it. Rain was falling heavily by that time, and it was a wild night; but
there was a moon behind the clouds, and it was not dark.

I was soon within sight of Mr. Peggotty's house, and of the light within
it shining through the window. A little floundering across the sand,
which was heavy, brought me to the door, and I went in.

It looked very comfortable indeed. Mr. Peggotty had smoked his evening
pipe and there were preparations for some supper by and by. The fire was
bright, the ashes were thrown up, the locker was ready for little Emily
in her old place. In her own old place sat Peggotty, once more, looking
(but for her dress) as if she had never left it. She had fallen back,
already, on the society of the work-box with St. Paul's upon the lid,
the yard-measure in the cottage, and the bit of wax-candle; and there
they all were, just as if they had never been disturbed. Mrs. Gummidge
appeared to be fretting a little, in her old corner; and consequently
looked quite natural, too.

'You're first of the lot, Mas'r Davy! ' said Mr. Peggotty with a happy
face. 'Doen't keep in that coat, sir, if it's wet. '

'Thank you, Mr. Peggotty,' said I, giving him my outer coat to hang up.
'It's quite dry. '

'So 'tis! ' said Mr. Peggotty, feeling my shoulders. 'As a chip! Sit ye
down, sir. It ain't o' no use saying welcome to you, but you're welcome,
kind and hearty. '

'Thank you, Mr. Peggotty, I am sure of that. Well, Peggotty! ' said I,
giving her a kiss. 'And how are you, old woman? '

'Ha, ha! ' laughed Mr. Peggotty, sitting down beside us, and rubbing his
hands in his sense of relief from recent trouble, and in the genuine
heartiness of his nature; 'there's not a woman in the wureld, sir--as I
tell her--that need to feel more easy in her mind than her! She done her
dooty by the departed, and the departed know'd it; and the departed
done what was right by her, as she done what was right by the
departed;--and--and--and it's all right! '

Mrs. Gummidge groaned.

'Cheer up, my pritty mawther! ' said Mr. Peggotty. (But he shook his head
aside at us, evidently sensible of the tendency of the late occurrences
to recall the memory of the old one. ) 'Doen't be down! Cheer up, for
your own self, on'y a little bit, and see if a good deal more doen't
come nat'ral! '

'Not to me, Dan'l,' returned Mrs. Gummidge. 'Nothink's nat'ral to me but
to be lone and lorn. '

'No, no,' said Mr. Peggotty, soothing her sorrows.

'Yes, yes, Dan'l! ' said Mrs. Gummidge. 'I ain't a person to live with
them as has had money left. Thinks go too contrary with me. I had better
be a riddance. '

'Why, how should I ever spend it without you? ' said Mr. Peggotty, with
an air of serious remonstrance. 'What are you a talking on? Doen't I
want you more now, than ever I did? '

'I know'd I was never wanted before! ' cried Mrs. Gummidge, with a
pitiable whimper, 'and now I'm told so! How could I expect to be wanted,
being so lone and lorn, and so contrary! '

Mr. Peggotty seemed very much shocked at himself for having made a
speech capable of this unfeeling construction, but was prevented from
replying, by Peggotty's pulling his sleeve, and shaking her head. After
looking at Mrs. Gummidge for some moments, in sore distress of mind, he
glanced at the Dutch clock, rose, snuffed the candle, and put it in the
window.

'Theer! 'said Mr. Peggotty, cheerily. 'Theer we are, Missis Gummidge! '
Mrs. Gummidge slightly groaned. 'Lighted up, accordin' to custom! You're
a wonderin' what that's fur, sir! Well, it's fur our little Em'ly. You
see, the path ain't over light or cheerful arter dark; and when I'm
here at the hour as she's a comin' home, I puts the light in the winder.
That, you see,' said Mr. Peggotty, bending over me with great glee,
'meets two objects. She says, says Em'ly, "Theer's home! " she says. And
likewise, says Em'ly, "My uncle's theer! " Fur if I ain't theer, I never
have no light showed. '

'You're a baby! ' said Peggotty; very fond of him for it, if she thought
so.

'Well,' returned Mr. Peggotty, standing with his legs pretty wide apart,
and rubbing his hands up and down them in his comfortable satisfaction,
as he looked alternately at us and at the fire. 'I doen't know but I am.
Not, you see, to look at. '

'Not azackly,' observed Peggotty.

'No,' laughed Mr. Peggotty, 'not to look at, but to--to consider on, you
know. I doen't care, bless you! Now I tell you. When I go a looking and
looking about that theer pritty house of our Em'ly's, I'm--I'm Gormed,'
said Mr. Peggotty, with sudden emphasis--'theer! I can't say more--if
I doen't feel as if the littlest things was her, a'most. I takes 'em up
and I put 'em down, and I touches of 'em as delicate as if they was our
Em'ly. So 'tis with her little bonnets and that. I couldn't see one on
'em rough used a purpose--not fur the whole wureld. There's a babby fur
you, in the form of a great Sea Porkypine! ' said Mr. Peggotty, relieving
his earnestness with a roar of laughter.

Peggotty and I both laughed, but not so loud.

'It's my opinion, you see,' said Mr. Peggotty, with a delighted face,
after some further rubbing of his legs, 'as this is along of my havin'
played with her so much, and made believe as we was Turks, and French,
and sharks, and every wariety of forinners--bless you, yes; and lions
and whales, and I doen't know what all! --when she warn't no higher than
my knee. I've got into the way on it, you know. Why, this here candle,
now! ' said Mr. Peggotty, gleefully holding out his hand towards it,
'I know wery well that arter she's married and gone, I shall put that
candle theer, just the same as now. I know wery well that when I'm
here o' nights (and where else should I live, bless your arts, whatever
fortun' I come into! ) and she ain't here or I ain't theer, I shall
put the candle in the winder, and sit afore the fire, pretending I'm
expecting of her, like I'm a doing now. THERE'S a babby for you,' said
Mr. Peggotty, with another roar, 'in the form of a Sea Porkypine! Why,
at the present minute, when I see the candle sparkle up, I says to
myself, "She's a looking at it! Em'ly's a coming! " THERE'S a babby
for you, in the form of a Sea Porkypine! Right for all that,' said Mr.
Peggotty, stopping in his roar, and smiting his hands together; 'fur
here she is! '

It was only Ham. The night should have turned more wet since I came in,
for he had a large sou'wester hat on, slouched over his face.

'Wheer's Em'ly? ' said Mr. Peggotty.

Ham made a motion with his head, as if she were outside. Mr. Peggotty
took the light from the window, trimmed it, put it on the table, and was
busily stirring the fire, when Ham, who had not moved, said:

'Mas'r Davy, will you come out a minute, and see what Em'ly and me has
got to show you? '

We went out. As I passed him at the door, I saw, to my astonishment and
fright, that he was deadly pale. He pushed me hastily into the open air,
and closed the door upon us. Only upon us two.

'Ham! what's the matter? '

'Mas'r Davy! --' Oh, for his broken heart, how dreadfully he wept!

I was paralysed by the sight of such grief. I don't know what I thought,
or what I dreaded. I could only look at him.

'Ham! Poor good fellow! For Heaven's sake, tell me what's the matter! '

'My love, Mas'r Davy--the pride and hope of my art--her that I'd have
died for, and would die for now--she's gone! '

'Gone! '

'Em'ly's run away! Oh, Mas'r Davy, think HOW she's run away, when I
pray my good and gracious God to kill her (her that is so dear above all
things) sooner than let her come to ruin and disgrace! '

The face he turned up to the troubled sky, the quivering of his clasped
hands, the agony of his figure, remain associated with the lonely waste,
in my remembrance, to this hour. It is always night there, and he is the
only object in the scene.

'You're a scholar,' he said, hurriedly, 'and know what's right and
best. What am I to say, indoors? How am I ever to break it to him, Mas'r
Davy? '

I saw the door move, and instinctively tried to hold the latch on the
outside, to gain a moment's time. It was too late. Mr. Peggotty thrust
forth his face; and never could I forget the change that came upon it
when he saw us, if I were to live five hundred years.

I remember a great wail and cry, and the women hanging about him, and we
all standing in the room; I with a paper in my hand, which Ham had given
me; Mr. Peggotty, with his vest torn open, his hair wild, his face and
lips quite white, and blood trickling down his bosom (it had sprung from
his mouth, I think), looking fixedly at me.

'Read it, sir,' he said, in a low shivering voice. 'Slow, please. I
doen't know as I can understand. '

In the midst of the silence of death, I read thus, from a blotted
letter:


'"When you, who love me so much better than I ever have deserved, even
when my mind was innocent, see this, I shall be far away. "'


'I shall be fur away,' he repeated slowly. 'Stop! Em'ly fur away. Well! '


'"When I leave my dear home--my dear home--oh, my dear home! --in the
morning,"'

the letter bore date on the previous night:


'"--it will be never to come back, unless he brings me back a lady. This
will be found at night, many hours after, instead of me. Oh, if you knew
how my heart is torn. If even you, that I have wronged so much, that
never can forgive me, could only know what I suffer! I am too wicked to
write about myself! Oh, take comfort in thinking that I am so bad. Oh,
for mercy's sake, tell uncle that I never loved him half so dear as
now. Oh, don't remember how affectionate and kind you have all been to
me--don't remember we were ever to be married--but try to think as if I
died when I was little, and was buried somewhere. Pray Heaven that I
am going away from, have compassion on my uncle! Tell him that I never
loved him half so dear. Be his comfort. Love some good girl that will
be what I was once to uncle, and be true to you, and worthy of you, and
know no shame but me. God bless all! I'll pray for all, often, on my
knees. If he don't bring me back a lady, and I don't pray for my own
self, I'll pray for all. My parting love to uncle. My last tears, and my
last thanks, for uncle! "'

That was all.

He stood, long after I had ceased to read, still looking at me.
At
length I ventured to take his hand, and to entreat him, as well as
I could, to endeavour to get some command of himself. He replied, 'I
thankee, sir, I thankee! ' without moving.

Ham spoke to him. Mr. Peggotty was so far sensible of HIS affliction,
that he wrung his hand; but, otherwise, he remained in the same state,
and no one dared to disturb him.

Slowly, at last, he moved his eyes from my face, as if he were waking
from a vision, and cast them round the room. Then he said, in a low
voice:

'Who's the man? I want to know his name. '

Ham glanced at me, and suddenly I felt a shock that struck me back.

'There's a man suspected,' said Mr. Peggotty. 'Who is it? '

'Mas'r Davy! ' implored Ham. 'Go out a bit, and let me tell him what I
must. You doen't ought to hear it, sir. '

I felt the shock again. I sank down in a chair, and tried to utter some
reply; but my tongue was fettered, and my sight was weak.

'I want to know his name! ' I heard said once more.

'For some time past,' Ham faltered, 'there's been a servant about here,
at odd times. There's been a gen'lm'n too. Both of 'em belonged to one
another. '

Mr. Peggotty stood fixed as before, but now looking at him.

'The servant,' pursued Ham, 'was seen along with--our poor girl--last
night. He's been in hiding about here, this week or over. He was thought
to have gone, but he was hiding. Doen't stay, Mas'r Davy, doen't! '

I felt Peggotty's arm round my neck, but I could not have moved if the
house had been about to fall upon me.

'A strange chay and hosses was outside town, this morning, on the
Norwich road, a'most afore the day broke,' Ham went on. 'The servant
went to it, and come from it, and went to it again. When he went to it
again, Em'ly was nigh him. The t'other was inside. He's the man. '

'For the Lord's love,' said Mr. Peggotty, falling back, and putting out
his hand, as if to keep off what he dreaded. 'Doen't tell me his name's
Steerforth! '

'Mas'r Davy,' exclaimed Ham, in a broken voice, 'it ain't no fault
of yourn--and I am far from laying of it to you--but his name is
Steerforth, and he's a damned villain! '

Mr. Peggotty uttered no cry, and shed no tear, and moved no more, until
he seemed to wake again, all at once, and pulled down his rough coat
from its peg in a corner.

'Bear a hand with this! I'm struck of a heap, and can't do it,' he said,
impatiently. 'Bear a hand and help me. Well! ' when somebody had done so.
'Now give me that theer hat! '

Ham asked him whither he was going.

'I'm a going to seek my niece. I'm a going to seek my Em'ly. I'm a
going, first, to stave in that theer boat, and sink it where I would
have drownded him, as I'm a living soul, if I had had one thought of
what was in him! As he sat afore me,' he said, wildly, holding out his
clenched right hand, 'as he sat afore me, face to face, strike me down
dead, but I'd have drownded him, and thought it right! --I'm a going to
seek my niece. '

'Where? ' cried Ham, interposing himself before the door.

'Anywhere! I'm a going to seek my niece through the wureld. I'm a going
to find my poor niece in her shame, and bring her back. No one stop me!
I tell you I'm a going to seek my niece! '

'No, no! ' cried Mrs. Gummidge, coming between them, in a fit of crying.
'No, no, Dan'l, not as you are now. Seek her in a little while, my lone
lorn Dan'l, and that'll be but right! but not as you are now. Sit ye
down, and give me your forgiveness for having ever been a worrit to you,
Dan'l--what have my contraries ever been to this! --and let us speak a
word about them times when she was first an orphan, and when Ham was
too, and when I was a poor widder woman, and you took me in. It'll
soften your poor heart, Dan'l,' laying her head upon his shoulder, 'and
you'll bear your sorrow better; for you know the promise, Dan'l, "As
you have done it unto one of the least of these, you have done it unto
me",--and that can never fail under this roof, that's been our shelter
for so many, many year! '

He was quite passive now; and when I heard him crying, the impulse that
had been upon me to go down upon my knees, and ask their pardon for the
desolation I had caused, and curse Steerforth, yielded to a better
feeling, My overcharged heart found the same relief, and I cried too.



CHAPTER 32. THE BEGINNING OF A LONG JOURNEY


What is natural in me, is natural in many other men, I infer, and so
I am not afraid to write that I never had loved Steerforth better than
when the ties that bound me to him were broken. In the keen distress
of the discovery of his unworthiness, I thought more of all that was
brilliant in him, I softened more towards all that was good in him, I
did more justice to the qualities that might have made him a man of a
noble nature and a great name, than ever I had done in the height of
my devotion to him. Deeply as I felt my own unconscious part in his
pollution of an honest home, I believed that if I had been brought face
to face with him, I could not have uttered one reproach. I should have
loved him so well still--though he fascinated me no longer--I should
have held in so much tenderness the memory of my affection for him, that
I think I should have been as weak as a spirit-wounded child, in all
but the entertainment of a thought that we could ever be re-united.
That thought I never had. I felt, as he had felt, that all was at an end
between us. What his remembrances of me were, I have never known--they
were light enough, perhaps, and easily dismissed--but mine of him were
as the remembrances of a cherished friend, who was dead.

Yes, Steerforth, long removed from the scenes of this poor history! My
sorrow may bear involuntary witness against you at the judgement Throne;
but my angry thoughts or my reproaches never will, I know!

The news of what had happened soon spread through the town; insomuch
that as I passed along the streets next morning, I overheard the people
speaking of it at their doors. Many were hard upon her, some few were
hard upon him, but towards her second father and her lover there was
but one sentiment. Among all kinds of people a respect for them in
their distress prevailed, which was full of gentleness and delicacy. The
seafaring men kept apart, when those two were seen early, walking with
slow steps on the beach; and stood in knots, talking compassionately
among themselves.

It was on the beach, close down by the sea, that I found them. It would
have been easy to perceive that they had not slept all last night, even
if Peggotty had failed to tell me of their still sitting just as I
left them, when it was broad day. They looked worn; and I thought Mr.
Peggotty's head was bowed in one night more than in all the years I had
known him. But they were both as grave and steady as the sea itself,
then lying beneath a dark sky, waveless--yet with a heavy roll upon it,
as if it breathed in its rest--and touched, on the horizon, with a strip
of silvery light from the unseen sun.

'We have had a mort of talk, sir,' said Mr. Peggotty to me, when we had
all three walked a little while in silence, 'of what we ought and doen't
ought to do. But we see our course now. '

I happened to glance at Ham, then looking out to sea upon the distant
light, and a frightful thought came into my mind--not that his face
was angry, for it was not; I recall nothing but an expression of stern
determination in it--that if ever he encountered Steerforth, he would
kill him.

'My dooty here, sir,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'is done. I'm a going to seek
my--' he stopped, and went on in a firmer voice: 'I'm a going to seek
her. That's my dooty evermore. '

He shook his head when I asked him where he would seek her, and inquired
if I were going to London tomorrow? I told him I had not gone today,
fearing to lose the chance of being of any service to him; but that I
was ready to go when he would.

'I'll go along with you, sir,' he rejoined, 'if you're agreeable,
tomorrow. '

We walked again, for a while, in silence.

'Ham,'he presently resumed,'he'll hold to his present work, and go and
live along with my sister. The old boat yonder--'

'Will you desert the old boat, Mr. Peggotty? ' I gently interposed.

'My station, Mas'r Davy,' he returned, 'ain't there no longer; and if
ever a boat foundered, since there was darkness on the face of the deep,
that one's gone down. But no, sir, no; I doen't mean as it should be
deserted. Fur from that. '

We walked again for a while, as before, until he explained:

'My wishes is, sir, as it shall look, day and night, winter and summer,
as it has always looked, since she fust know'd it. If ever she should
come a wandering back, I wouldn't have the old place seem to cast her
off, you understand, but seem to tempt her to draw nigher to 't, and to
peep in, maybe, like a ghost, out of the wind and rain, through the old
winder, at the old seat by the fire. Then, maybe, Mas'r Davy, seein'
none but Missis Gummidge there, she might take heart to creep in,
trembling; and might come to be laid down in her old bed, and rest her
weary head where it was once so gay. '

I could not speak to him in reply, though I tried.

'Every night,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'as reg'lar as the night comes, the
candle must be stood in its old pane of glass, that if ever she should
see it, it may seem to say "Come back, my child, come back! " If ever
there's a knock, Ham (partic'ler a soft knock), arter dark, at your
aunt's door, doen't you go nigh it. Let it be her--not you--that sees my
fallen child! '

He walked a little in front of us, and kept before us for some minutes.
During this interval, I glanced at Ham again, and observing the same
expression on his face, and his eyes still directed to the distant
light, I touched his arm.

Twice I called him by his name, in the tone in which I might have tried
to rouse a sleeper, before he heeded me. When I at last inquired on what
his thoughts were so bent, he replied:

'On what's afore me, Mas'r Davy; and over yon. ' 'On the life before you,
do you mean? ' He had pointed confusedly out to sea.

'Ay, Mas'r Davy. I doen't rightly know how 'tis, but from over yon there
seemed to me to come--the end of it like,' looking at me as if he were
waking, but with the same determined face.

'What end? ' I asked, possessed by my former fear.

'I doen't know,'he said, thoughtfully; 'I was calling to mind that the
beginning of it all did take place here--and then the end come. But it's
gone! Mas'r Davy,' he added; answering, as I think, my look; 'you han't
no call to be afeerd of me: but I'm kiender muddled; I don't fare to
feel no matters,'--which was as much as to say that he was not himself,
and quite confounded.

Mr. Peggotty stopping for us to join him: we did so, and said no more.
The remembrance of this, in connexion with my former thought, however,
haunted me at intervals, even until the inexorable end came at its
appointed time.

We insensibly approached the old boat, and entered. Mrs. Gummidge, no
longer moping in her especial corner, was busy preparing breakfast.
She took Mr. Peggotty's hat, and placed his seat for him, and spoke so
comfortably and softly, that I hardly knew her.

'Dan'l, my good man,' said she, 'you must eat and drink, and keep up
your strength, for without it you'll do nowt. Try, that's a dear soul!
An if I disturb you with my clicketten,' she meant her chattering, 'tell
me so, Dan'l, and I won't. '

When she had served us all, she withdrew to the window, where she
sedulously employed herself in repairing some shirts and other clothes
belonging to Mr. Peggotty, and neatly folding and packing them in an old
oilskin bag, such as sailors carry. Meanwhile, she continued talking, in
the same quiet manner:

'All times and seasons, you know, Dan'l,' said Mrs. Gummidge, 'I shall
be allus here, and everythink will look accordin' to your wishes. I'm a
poor scholar, but I shall write to you, odd times, when you're away, and
send my letters to Mas'r Davy. Maybe you'll write to me too, Dan'l, odd
times, and tell me how you fare to feel upon your lone lorn journies. '

'You'll be a solitary woman heer, I'm afeerd! ' said Mr. Peggotty.

'No, no, Dan'l,' she returned, 'I shan't be that. Doen't you mind me. I
shall have enough to do to keep a Beein for you' (Mrs. Gummidge meant a
home), 'again you come back--to keep a Beein here for any that may hap
to come back, Dan'l. In the fine time, I shall set outside the door as I
used to do. If any should come nigh, they shall see the old widder woman
true to 'em, a long way off. '

What a change in Mrs. Gummidge in a little time! She was another woman.
She was so devoted, she had such a quick perception of what it would
be well to say, and what it would be well to leave unsaid; she was so
forgetful of herself, and so regardful of the sorrow about her, that I
held her in a sort of veneration. The work she did that day! There
were many things to be brought up from the beach and stored in the
outhouse--as oars, nets, sails, cordage, spars, lobster-pots, bags of
ballast, and the like; and though there was abundance of assistance
rendered, there being not a pair of working hands on all that shore but
would have laboured hard for Mr. Peggotty, and been well paid in being
asked to do it, yet she persisted, all day long, in toiling under
weights that she was quite unequal to, and fagging to and fro on all
sorts of unnecessary errands. As to deploring her misfortunes, she
appeared to have entirely lost the recollection of ever having had any.
She preserved an equable cheerfulness in the midst of her sympathy,
which was not the least astonishing part of the change that had come
over her. Querulousness was out of the question. I did not even observe
her voice to falter, or a tear to escape from her eyes, the whole day
through, until twilight; when she and I and Mr. Peggotty being alone
together, and he having fallen asleep in perfect exhaustion, she broke
into a half-suppressed fit of sobbing and crying, and taking me to the
door, said, 'Ever bless you, Mas'r Davy, be a friend to him, poor dear! '
Then, she immediately ran out of the house to wash her face, in order
that she might sit quietly beside him, and be found at work there, when
he should awake. In short I left her, when I went away at night, the
prop and staff of Mr. Peggotty's affliction; and I could not meditate
enough upon the lesson that I read in Mrs. Gummidge, and the new
experience she unfolded to me.

It was between nine and ten o'clock when, strolling in a melancholy
manner through the town, I stopped at Mr. Omer's door. Mr. Omer had
taken it so much to heart, his daughter told me, that he had been very
low and poorly all day, and had gone to bed without his pipe.

'A deceitful, bad-hearted girl,' said Mrs. Joram. 'There was no good in
her, ever! '

'Don't say so,' I returned. 'You don't think so. '

'Yes, I do! ' cried Mrs. Joram, angrily.

'No, no,' said I.

Mrs. Joram tossed her head, endeavouring to be very stern and cross; but
she could not command her softer self, and began to cry. I was young,
to be sure; but I thought much the better of her for this sympathy, and
fancied it became her, as a virtuous wife and mother, very well indeed.

'What will she ever do! ' sobbed Minnie. 'Where will she go! What will
become of her! Oh, how could she be so cruel, to herself and him! '

I remembered the time when Minnie was a young and pretty girl; and I was
glad she remembered it too, so feelingly.

'My little Minnie,' said Mrs. Joram, 'has only just now been got to
sleep. Even in her sleep she is sobbing for Em'ly. All day long, little
Minnie has cried for her, and asked me, over and over again, whether
Em'ly was wicked? What can I say to her, when Em'ly tied a ribbon off
her own neck round little Minnie's the last night she was here, and laid
her head down on the pillow beside her till she was fast asleep! The
ribbon's round my little Minnie's neck now. It ought not to be, perhaps,
but what can I do?