David Copperfield Charles Dickens (100 best novels of all time .TXT) 📖

meanness, Uriah Heep. The reversal of the two natures, in their relative positions, Uriah’s of power and Mr. Wickfield’s of dependence, was a sight more painful to me than I can express. If I had seen an ape taking command of a man, I should hardly have thought it a more degrading spectacle.

He appeared to be only too conscious of it himself. When he came in, he stood still; and with his head bowed, as if he felt it. This was only for a moment; for Agnes softly said to him, “Papa! Here is Miss Trotwood⁠—and Trotwood, whom you have not seen for a long while!” and then he approached, and constrainedly gave my aunt his hand, and shook hands more cordially with me. In the moment’s pause I speak of, I saw Uriah’s countenance form itself into a most ill-favoured smile. Agnes saw it too, I think, for she shrank from him.

What my aunt saw, or did not see, I defy the science of physiognomy to have made out, without her own consent. I believe there never was anybody with such an imperturbable countenance when she chose. Her face might have been a dead-wall on the occasion in question, for any light it threw upon her thoughts; until she broke silence with her usual abruptness.

“Well, Wickfield!” said my aunt; and he looked up at her for the first time. “I have been telling your daughter how well I have been disposing of my money for myself, because I couldn’t trust it to you, as you were growing rusty in business matters. We have been taking counsel together, and getting on very well, all things considered. Agnes is worth the whole firm, in my opinion.”

“If I may ’umbly make the remark,” said Uriah Heep, with a writhe, “I fully agree with Miss Betsey Trotwood, and should be only too ’appy if Miss Agnes was a partner.”

“You’re a partner yourself, you know,” returned my aunt, “and that’s about enough for you, I expect. How do you find yourself, sir?”

In acknowledgement of this question, addressed to him with extraordinary curtness, Mr. Heep, uncomfortably clutching the blue bag he carried, replied that he was pretty well, he thanked my aunt, and hoped she was the same.

“And you, Master⁠—I should say, Mister Copperfield,” pursued Uriah. “I hope I see you well! I am rejoiced to see you, Mister Copperfield, even under present circumstances.” I believed that; for he seemed to relish them very much. “Present circumstances is not what your friends would wish for you, Mister Copperfield, but it isn’t money makes the man: it’s⁠—I am really unequal with my ’umble powers to express what it is,” said Uriah, with a fawning jerk, “but it isn’t money!”

Here he shook hands with me: not in the common way, but standing at a good distance from me, and lifting my hand up and down like a pump handle, that he was a little afraid of.

“And how do you think we are looking, Master Copperfield⁠—I should say, Mister?” fawned Uriah. “Don’t you find Mr. Wickfield blooming, sir? Years don’t tell much in our firm, Master Copperfield, except in raising up the ’umble, namely, mother and self⁠—and in developing,” he added, as an afterthought, “the beautiful, namely, Miss Agnes.”

He jerked himself about, after this compliment, in such an intolerable manner, that my aunt, who had sat looking straight at him, lost all patience.

“Deuce take the man!” said my aunt, sternly, “what’s he about? Don’t be galvanic, sir!”

“I ask your pardon, Miss Trotwood,” returned Uriah; “I’m aware you’re nervous.”

“Go along with you, sir!” said my aunt, anything but appeased. “Don’t presume to say so! I am nothing of the sort. If you’re an eel, sir, conduct yourself like one. If you’re a man, control your limbs, sir! Good God!” said my aunt, with great indignation, “I am not going to be serpentined and corkscrewed out of my senses!”

Mr. Heep was rather abashed, as most people might have been, by this explosion; which derived great additional force from the indignant manner in which my aunt afterwards moved in her chair, and shook her head as if she were making snaps or bounces at him. But he said to me aside in a meek voice:

“I am well aware, Master Copperfield, that Miss Trotwood, though an excellent lady, has a quick temper (indeed I think I had the pleasure of knowing her, when I was a numble clerk, before you did, Master Copperfield), and it’s only natural, I am sure, that it should be made quicker by present circumstances. The wonder is, that it isn’t much worse! I only called to say that if there was anything we could do, in present circumstances, mother or self, or Wickfield and Heep⁠—we should be really glad. I may go so far?” said Uriah, with a sickly smile at his partner.

“Uriah Heep,” said Mr. Wickfield, in a monotonous forced way, “is active in the business, Trotwood. What he says, I quite concur in. You know I had an old interest in you. Apart from that, what Uriah says I quite concur in!”

“Oh, what a reward it is,” said Uriah, drawing up one leg, at the risk of bringing down upon himself another visitation from my aunt, “to be so trusted in! But I hope I am able to do something to relieve him from the fatigues of business, Master Copperfield!”

“Uriah Heep is a great relief to me,” said Mr. Wickfield, in the same dull voice. “It’s a load off my mind, Trotwood, to have such a partner.”

The red fox made him say all this, I knew, to exhibit him to me in the light he had indicated on the night when he poisoned my rest. I saw the same ill-favoured smile upon his face again, and saw how he watched me.

“You are not going, papa?” said Agnes, anxiously. “Will you not walk back with Trotwood and me?”

He would have looked to Uriah, I believe, before replying, if that worthy had not anticipated him.

“I am bespoke myself,” said Uriah, “on business; otherwise