There was a lovely garden to Mr. Spenlow’s house; and though that was not the best time of the year for seeing a garden, it was so beautifully kept, that I was quite enchanted.
There was a charming lawn, there were clusters of trees, and there were perspective walks that I could just distinguish in the dark, arched over with trellis-work, on which shrubs and flowers grew in the growing season.
‘Here Miss Spenlow walks by herself,’ I thought. ‘Dear me!’
We went into the house, which was cheerfully lighted up, and into a hall where there were all sorts of hats, caps, great-coats, plaids, gloves, whips, and walking-sticks.
‘Where is Miss Dora?’ said Mr. Spenlow to the servant.
‘Dora!’
I thought. ‘What a beautiful name!’
We turned into a room near at hand (I think it was the identical breakfast-room, made memorable by the brown East Indian sherry), and I heard a voice say,
‘Mr. Copperfield, my daughter Dora, and my daughter Dora’s confidential friend!’
It was, no doubt, Mr. Spenlow’s voice, but I didn’t know it, and I didn’t care whose it was.
All was over in a moment.
I had fulfilled my destiny.
I was a captive and a slave.
I loved Dora Spenlow to distraction!
She was more than human to me.
She was a Fairy, a Sylph, I don’t know what she was—anything that no one ever saw, and everything that everybody ever wanted.
I was swallowed up in an abyss of love in an instant.
There was no pausing on the brink; no looking down, or looking back; I was gone, headlong, before I had sense to say a word to her.
‘I,’ observed a well-remembered voice, when I had bowed and murmured something, ‘have seen Mr. Copperfield before.’
The speaker was not Dora.
No; the confidential friend, Miss Murdstone!
I don’t think I was much astonished.
To the best of my judgement, no capacity of astonishment was left in me.
There was nothing worth mentioning in the material world, but Dora Spenlow, to be astonished about.
I said,
‘How do you do, Miss Murdstone?
I hope you are well.’
She answered,
‘Very well.’
I said,
‘How is Mr. Murdstone?’
She replied,
‘My brother is robust, I am obliged to you.’
Mr. Spenlow, who, I suppose, had been surprised to see us recognize each other, then put in his word.
‘I am glad to find,’ he said, ‘Copperfield, that you and Miss Murdstone are already acquainted.’
‘Mr. Copperfield and myself,’ said Miss Murdstone, with severe composure, ‘are connexions. We were once slightly acquainted.
It was in his childish days.
Circumstances have separated us since.
I should not have known him.’
I replied that I should have known her, anywhere.
Which was true enough.
‘Miss Murdstone has had the goodness,’ said Mr. Spenlow to me, ‘to accept the office—if I may so describe it—of my daughter Dora’s confidential friend. My daughter Dora having, unhappily, no mother, Miss Murdstone is obliging enough to become her companion and protector.’
A passing thought occurred to me that Miss Murdstone, like the pocket instrument called a life-preserver, was not so much designed for purposes of protection as of assault.
But as I had none but passing thoughts for any subject save Dora, I glanced at her, directly afterwards, and was thinking that I saw, in her prettily pettish manner, that she was not very much inclined to be particularly confidential to her companion and protector, when a bell rang, which Mr. Spenlow said was the first dinner-bell, and so carried me off to dress.
The idea of dressing one’s self, or doing anything in the way of action, in that state of love, was a little too ridiculous.
I could only sit down before my fire, biting the key of my carpet-bag, and think of the captivating, girlish, bright-eyed lovely Dora.
What a form she had, what a face she had, what a graceful, variable, enchanting manner!
The bell rang again so soon that I made a mere scramble of my dressing, instead of the careful operation I could have wished under the circumstances, and went downstairs.
There was some company.
Dora was talking to an old gentleman with a grey head.