Wickfield and Heep

Chapter-11

My aunt asked me to go to Dover to look after the rental of her home. I thought she knew if I got to Dover I’d go all the way to Canterbury and there see Agnes—a certain cure for worry and depression.
I found everything in good condition at the cottage, settled the few details with her new tenant, and in the morning walked to Canterbury. It was the early edge of winter and a fresh, cold wind was sweeping downland. Canterbury was hardly changed from the days of my schooling there, the same shops with the same people.
Well, not everyone was the same. There was a new employee at the offices of Wickfield and Heep—none other than Mr Micawber, now serving as Uriah’s confidential clerk. He and I were both surprised when I walked into the office that used to be Heep’s.
“Something turned up!” Micawber exclaimed, shaking my hand like a pump handle, “I never doubted it would, did I?”
“How do you like the law?” I asked.
“Well, it’s not the place for a man with any imagination,” he sighed, “So many details weigh down the soul. Still, it’s good work.”
I asked where he and the family were living, and he said they were renting the house that Uriah and his mother had vacated. “It’s very humble,” he said with a wink.
“And how is Uriah treating you?”
“Davy, beggars can’t be choosers, you know. But I’ve found Heep to be very generous with me in my misfortunes, and when I’ve needed a little extra cash a time or two, he’s given it to me. I have nothing ill to say of him.”
Although I sensed some discomfort in Mr Micawber’s manner yet it wasn’t my place to prod him for more information. It seemed there was some barrier now between us that kept away our old friendliness.
Agnes was sitting by the fire in the parlour, her pen gliding smoothly over a tablet on her lap. The bright changes in her face when she saw me at the door was a huge boost to my low spirits.
“I’ve missed you so much, Agnes,” I said when we were seated, “Seeing you here in these rooms where we spent so much time before reminds me how naturally I used to come to you for advice and support—and how much I feel the lack of it. Here in this room with you, I’m home, in peace and happiness, like a very tired traveller about to get some rest.”
“Trotwood, I shouldn’t be the source of advice and reliance for you,” Agnes replied with a pleasant smile, “That you must get from Dora.”
“In any other world, I’d agree, Agnes,” I said, “But Dora is rather difficult to rely upon. She’s timid and easily frightened.”
I told Agnes all that had happened—the engagement, my declaration of poverty, Mr Spenlow’s death, and Dora’s move to Putney in the care of her aunts. “What do I do now that I’ve made a mess of it all?”
She suggested I should write the two aunts and ask them to visit them, and I set my mind to write and mail the letter that afternoon.
“And on the subject of couples, Agnes,” I said, “Promise me you won’t marry Heep.”
She looked at me as if I’d gone crazy. “Marry him?”she questioned, “I despise him.”
“But don’t let him use your father’s welfare to win you,” I pleaded.
“Trot!” she said firmly, “there’ll be no further partnerships between Wickfield and Heep.”
The winter stretched ahead and behind in equal measure. I’d come back from Canterbury and dug myself into my many jobs. One bitter cold evening, I walked home along St. Martin’s Lane. The snow lay so thick that the noise of wheels and people’s footsteps were hushed as if the streets had been covered knee-deep with feathers.
I stopped to let a carriage pass before I crossed the street and a woman stepped up beside me. I briefly saw her face before she pulled her scarf over her hair, turned in the other direction, and was gone. I knew the face—from somewhere, some time. Where?
On the church steps a man was stooping over and straightening up, shifting the weight of some large sack to his shoulder. At the very moment I recognized Peggotty’s brother Daniel. I knew the woman had been Martha Endell of Yarmouth, to whom Em’ly had given money that night in Peggotty’s kitchen.
“Davy!” Daniel’s shout was muffled in floating snow. We clasped hands and stood for several seconds, too surprised to talk. “I was coming to see you in the morning,” he said.
There was a coffee house at the corner with a blazing fire and lots of empty tables so we settled overselves there to warm away the frozen night. I studied Daniel as he shed several wet layers of clothing. His hair was long and ragged, greyer than before. Sun and wind had darkened his skin and deepened the lines around his eyes and mouth. But strong. He looked stronger than I’d ever seen him.
He told me of his journey across the English Channel to France, travelling there on foot and by horsecart. In every town he would tell his story and ask if Em’ly’d been seen—he told it so much it began to spread on its own, sometimes getting to the next town before he did. People took him in, fed him, gave him a bed every place he went. But there was no news of Em’ly until one man said he’d seen the servant with a man and a woman and heard the two men speak of going to a village in the Swiss mountains.
“I went there direct, Davy. But I was too late,” Daniel explained. Em’ly had been and gone off to a place in Germany near the Upper Rhine. Daniel was bound there in the morning.
We went into the snowy night and Daniel crossed the road, turning back once to wave. Everything seemed, in my imagination, to be hushed in reverence for him as he took up again his lonely journey in the snow.

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