The children of Dickens

I DO not think that I should devote a chapter in The Children of Dickens to Wilkins Micawber Junior if it were not for his parents, who were very amusing persons whom everybody ought to know. Wilkins Micawber Junior never did anything or said anything in particular. He was a child who was seen and not heard. He was always standing around listening to his father and mother, and he had to do a good deal of listening, for they talked incessantly, chiefly about themselves. And then he was always pointed at, when they wanted to tell of their troubles. He was about four years old when we first see him pointed at, and he had a sister who was a year younger. Then there were the twins, who were always in their mother’s arms.

The Micawbers lived in a shabby house on Windsor Terrace, where they took David Copperfield to board. That is, they lived there when Mr. Micawber was not in the Debtors’ Prison. David Copperfield found it a great relief to get away from the company of Mealy Potatoes, the boy he worked with in Murdstone’s establishment, and get into the friendly company of the Micawbers.

The Micawbers were always in trouble, but they enjoyed their troubles and were willing to share their enjoyment with anybody who would listen to them. Though David Copperfield was only twelve years old, Mr. Micawber always treated him as an equal, and used the largest words he could think of. David liked to be talked to that way, so they became great friends. Wilkins Micawber Junior stood by and listened, and thought his father was the most wonderful talker in the world. When he grew up and had a family to support and couldn’t do it, he would talk that way.

David Copperfield tells how he first met Mr. Micawber at the office of Murdstone and Grinby and went home with him to Windsor Terrace.

The counting-house clock was at half-past twelve, and there was general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at the counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in, and found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his coat,—for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very seldom looked through it, and couldn’t see anything when he did.

“This,” said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, “is he.”

“This,” said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which impressed me very much “is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well, Sir?”

I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill at ease, Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much at that time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he was.

“I am,” said the stranger, “thank Heaven, quite well. I have received a letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at present unoccupied—and is, in short, to be let as a—in short,” said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, “as a bedroom—the young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to—” and the stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt-collar.

“This is Mr. Micawber,” said Mr. Quinion to me.

“Ahem!” said the stranger, “that is my name.”

“Mr. Micawber,” said Mr. Quinion, “is known to Mr. Murdstone. He takes orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has been written to by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, and he will receive you as a lodger.”

“My address,” said Mr. Micawber, “is Windsor Terrace, City Road. I—in short,” said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in another burst of confidence—“I live there.”

I made him a bow.

“Under the impression,” said Mr. Micawber, “that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road—in short,” said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, “that you might lose yourself—I shall be happy to call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way.”

I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to offer to take that trouble.

“At what hour,” said Mr. Micawber, “shall I——”

“At about eight,” said Mr. Quinion.

“At about eight,” said Mr. Micawber. “I beg to wish you good day, Mr. Quinion. I will intrude no longer.”

So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm: very upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house.

Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of six shillings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I am inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six at first and seven afterwards. He paid me a week down (from his own pocket, I believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out of it to get my trunk carried to Windsor Terrace at night: it being too heavy for my strength, small as it was. I paid sixpence more for my dinner, which was a meat pie and a turn at a neighboring pump; and passed the hour which was allowed for that meal, in walking about the streets.

At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I washed my hands and face, to do the greater honor to his gentility, and we walked to our house, as I suppose I must now call it, together; Mr. Micawber impressing the names of streets, and the shapes of corner houses upon me, as we went along, that I might find my way back, easily, in the morning.

Arrived at his house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was shabby like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it could), he presented me to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady, not at all young, who was sitting in the parlor (the first floor was altogether unfurnished, and the blinds were kept down to delude the neighbors), with a baby at her breast. This baby was one of twins; and I may remark here that I hardly ever, in all my experience of the family, saw both the twins detached from Mrs. Micawber at the same time. One of them was always taking refreshment.

There were two other children; Master Micawber, aged about four, and Miss Micawber, aged about three. These, and a dark-complexioned young woman, with a habit of snorting, who was servant to the family, and informed me, before half-an-hour had expired, that she was “a Orfling,” and came from St. Luke’s workhouse, in the neighborhood, completed the establishment. My room was at the top of the house, at the back: a close chamber; stencilled all over with an ornament which my young imagination represented as a blue muffin; and very scantily furnished.

“I never thought,” said Mrs. Micawber, when she came up, twin and all, to show me the apartment, and sat down to take breath, “before I was married, when I lived with papa and mama, that I should ever find it necessary to take a lodger. But Mr. Micawber being in difficulties, all considerations of private feelings must give way.”

I said: “Yes, ma’am.”

“Mr. Micawber’s difficulties are almost overwhelming just at present,” said Mrs. Micawber, “and whether it is possible to bring him through them, I don’t know. When I lived at home with papa and mama, I really should have hardly understood what the word meant, in the sense in which I now employ it, but experientia does it—as papa used to say.”

I cannot satisfy myself whether she told me that Mr. Micawber had been an officer in the Marines, or whether I have imagined it. I only know that I believe to this hour that he was in the Marines once upon a time, without knowing why. He was a sort of town traveller for a number of miscellaneous houses, now; but made little or nothing of it, I am afraid.

“If Mr. Micawber’s creditors will not give him time,” said Mrs. Micawber, “they must take the consequences; and the sooner they bring it to an issue the better. Blood cannot be obtained from a stone, neither can anything on account be obtained at present (not to mention law expenses) from Mr. Micawber.”

I never can quite understand whether my precocious self-dependence confused Mrs. Micawber in reference to my age, or whether she was so full of the subject that she would have talked about it to the very twins if there had been nobody else to communicate with, but this was the strain in which she began, and she went on accordingly all the time I knew her.

Poor Mrs. Micawber! She said she had tried to exert herself; and so, I have no doubt, she had. The centre of the street door was perfectly covered with a great brass plate, on which was engraved, “Mrs. Micawber’s Boarding Establishment for Young Ladies,” but I never found that any young lady had ever been to school there; or that any young lady ever came, or proposed to come; or that the least preparation was ever made to receive any young lady. The only visitors I ever saw or heard of, were creditors. They used to come at all hours, and some of them were quite ferocious. One dirty-faced man, I think he was a bootmaker, used to edge himself into the passage as early as seven o’clock in the morning, and call up the stairs to Mr. Micawber—“Come! You ain’t out yet, you know. Pay us, will you? Don’t hide, you know; that’s mean. I wouldn’t be mean if I was you. Pay us, will you? You just pay us, d’ye hear? Come!” Receiving no answer to these taunts, he would mount in his wrath to the words “swindlers” and “robbers”; and these being ineffectual, too, would sometimes go to the extremity of crossing the street, and roaring up at the windows of the second floor, where he knew Mr. Micawber was. At these times, Mr. Micawber would be transported with grief and mortification, even to the length (as I was once made aware by a scream from his wife) of making motions at himself with a razor; but within half an hour afterwards, he would polish up his shoes with extraordinary pains, and go out, humming a tune with a greater air of gentility than ever. Mrs. Micawber was quite as elastic. I have known her to be thrown into fainting fits by the King’s taxes at three o’clock, and to eat lamb chops, breaded, and drink warm ale (paid for with two teaspoons that had gone to the pawnbroker’s) at four. On one occasion, when an execution had just been put in, coming home through some chance as early as six o’clock, I saw her lying (of course with a twin) under the grate in a swoon, with her hair all torn about her face; but I never knew her more cheerful than she was, that very same night, over a veal cutlet before the kitchen fire, telling me stories about her papa and mama, and the company they used to keep.

The Micawbers’ affairs went from bad to worse, and Mrs. Micawber called David into consultation.

“Master Copperfield,” said Mrs. Micawber, “I make no stranger of you, and therefore do not hesitate to say that Mr. Micawber’s difficulties are coming to a crisis.”

It made me very miserable to hear it, and I looked at Mrs. Micawber’s red eyes with the utmost sympathy.

“With the exception of the heel of a Dutch cheese—which is not adapted to the wants of a young family,” said Mrs. Micawber—“there is really not a scrap of anything in the larder. I was accustomed to speak of the larder when I lived with papa and mama, and I use the word almost unconsciously. What I mean to express is, that there is nothing to eat in the house.”

“Dear me!” I said, in great concern.

I had two or three shillings of my week’s money in my pocket—from which I presume that it must have been on a Wednesday night when we held this conversation—and I hastily produced them, and with heartfelt emotion begged Mrs. Micawber to accept of them as a loan. But that lady, kissing me, and making me put them back in my pocket, replied that she couldn’t think of it.

“No, my dear Master Copperfield,” said she, “far be it from my thoughts! But you have a discretion beyond your years, and can render me another kind of service, if you will; and a service I will thankfully accept of.”

I begged Mrs. Micawber to name it.

“I have parted with the plate myself,” said Mrs. Micawber. “Six tea, two salt, and a pair of sugars, I have at different times borrowed money on, in secret, with my own hands. But the twins are a great tie; and to me, with my recollections of papa and mama, these transactions are very painful. There are still a few trifles that we could part with. Mr. Micawber’s feelings would never allow him to dispose of them; and Clickett”—this was the girl from the workhouse—“being of a vulgar mind, would take painful liberties if so much confidence was reposed in her. Master Copperfield, if I might ask you——”

I understood Mrs. Micawber now, and begged her to make use of me to any extent. I began to dispose of the more portable articles of property that very evening; and went out on a similar expedition almost every morning, before I went to Murdstone and Grinby’s.

At last Mr. Micawber’s affairs got into such a bad state that he had to leave London. David tells of the parting.

I passed my evenings with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, during the remaining term of our residence under the same roof; and I think we became fonder of one another as the time went on. On the last Sunday, they invited me to dinner; and we had a loin of pork and apple sauce, and a pudding. I had bought a spotted wooden horse overnight as a parting gift to little Wilkins Micawber—that was the boy—and a doll for little Emma. I had also bestowed a shilling on the Orfling, who was about to be disbanded.

We had a very pleasant day, though we were all in a tender state about our approaching separation.

“I shall never, Master Copperfield,” said Mrs. Micawber, “revert to the period when Mr. Micawber was in difficulties without thinking of you. Your conduct has always been of the most delicate and obliging description. You have never been a lodger. You have been a friend.”

“My dear,” said Mr. Micawber, “Copperfield,” for so he had been accustomed to call me of late, “has a heart to feel for the distresses of his fellow-creatures when they are behind a cloud, and a head to plan, and a hand to—in short, a general ability to dispose of such available property as could be made away with.”

I expressed my sense of this commendation, and said I was very sorry we were going to lose one another.

“My dear young friend,” said Mr. Micawber, “I am older than you; a man of some experience in life, and—and of some experience, in short, in difficulties, generally speaking. At present, and until something turns up (which I am, I may say, hourly expecting), I have nothing to bestow but advice. Still, my advice is so far worth taking, that—in short, that I have never taken it myself, and am the”—here Mr. Micawber, who had been beaming and smiling, all over his head and face, up to the present moment, checked himself and frowned—“the miserable wretch you behold.”

“My dear Micawber!” urged his wife.

“I say,” returned Mr. Micawber, quite forgetting himself, and smiling again, “the miserable wretch you behold. My advice is, never do to-morrow what you can do to-day. Procrastination is the thief of time. Collar him!”

“My poor papa’s maxim,” Mrs. Micawber observed.

“My dear,” said Mr. Micawber, “your papa was very well in his way, and Heaven forbid that I should disparage him. Take him for all in all, we ne’er shall—in short, make the acquaintance, probably, of anybody else possessing, at his time of life, the same legs for gaiters, and able to read the same description of print without spectacles. But he applied that maxim to our marriage, my dear; and that was so far prematurely entered into, in consequence, that I never recovered the expense.”

Mr. Micawber looked aside at Mrs. Micawber, and added: “Not that I am sorry for it. Quite the contrary, my love.” After which he was grave for a minute or so.

“My other piece of advice, Copperfield,” said Mr. Micawber, “you know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen ought and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the God of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and—and in short you are for ever floored. As I am!”

To make his example the more impressive, Mr. Micawber drank a glass of punch with an air of great enjoyment and satisfaction and whistled the College Hornpipe.

I did not fail to assure him that I would store these precepts in my mind, though indeed I had no need to do so, for, at the time, they affected me visibly. Next morning I met the whole family at the coach office, and saw them, with a desolate heart, take their places outside, at the back.

“Master Copperfield,” said Mrs. Micawber, “God bless you! I never can forget all that, you know, and I never would if I could.”

“Copperfield,” said Mr. Micawber, “farewell. Every happiness and prosperity. If, in the progress of revolving years, I could persuade myself that my blighted destiny had been a warning to you, I should feel that I had not occupied another man’s place in existence altogether in vain. In case of anything turning up (of which I am rather confident), I shall be extremely happy if it should be in my power to improve your prospects.”

I think, as Mrs. Micawber sat at the back of the coach, with the children, and I stood in the road looking wistfully at them, a mist cleared from her eyes, and she saw what a little creature I really was. I think so, because she beckoned to me to climb up, with quite a new and motherly expression in her face, and put her arm round my neck, and gave me just such a kiss as she might have given to her own boy. I had barely time to get down again before the coach started, and I could hardly see the family for the handkerchiefs they waved. It was gone in a minute.