[CHAPTER XXII.]
AN HOUR WITH DICKENS.
Alice felt that she could see a new light come into the window, into the old home, into her soul; that a peace had come visibly into the shadowed mansion, now that Aleck and Ephraim and the negro constable were dead in the mud of the river; now that the Federal head had been removed by the battle-axe of the fearless judge. She began to hope again, perhaps to love again, who shall say? There was, it may be, a tiny sunbeam coquetting with the old shadows that had so long overlaid every approach to her young heart, and perhaps a little be-jewelled goldsmith was tinkering and hammering upon a tiny arrow pointed with a ruby, and feathered with tiny pinions of some diminutive bird, that nested among fragrant mangoes far away in the isles of the sea, with which he was to shoot down those unsightly idols that had long pre-empted her heart. The days were loitering, she thought, in their flight, and the little brownie who had been counting the numerals of time in their flight had fallen asleep, and the old clock in the great hall ticked languidly as if it were tired to death with its unvarying round of toil.
In this awakening to the brighter possibilities whom should she clasp to her heart but her old friend, Charles Dickens? The Dickens of Dombey, of Bleakhouse, of David Copperfield. She remembered how this marvellous story-teller, so familiar to all young readers, who had so many children of his own, the offspring of an overflowing fancy, one bleak day had passed up and down Westminster Hall, clasping to his heart the magazine that contained his first effusions, with eyes dimmed with pride and joy, as he dropped stealthily, at twilight, a suspicious package into a dark letter box down a dark alley. How many times the narrative had woven golden filaments here and there through the warp of reconstruction! What a bright filagree into the shadows that were unceasingly coming and going! How many happy hours she had whiled away with Mr. Pickwick and his admiring friends! How delightfully she had been entertained by the wit of Samuel Weller, the eloquence of Sergeant Buzfuz, of Captain Bunsby! Many a hypochondriac had laughed immoderately at the ludicrous exercises of Crummles and the infant phenomenon! What a charming companion is Dick Swiveller, the inimitable! Dear old Dick; reeling now and then from excess of wine, but great hearted withal. Who does not even now occasionally inhale the fragrant odors of the delicious punches compounded by that blighted being, Mr. Wilkins Micawber, as he listens to Sairy Gamp and laughs at Mrs. Harriss? Where is the tender-hearted Christian who would shout for a policeman, while they are ducking Shepherd, or pommelling Squeers, or cudgelling Pecksniff, or inflicting divers and deserved assaults upon Uriah Heep? With what a motley crowd of living characters Dickens has peopled our literature? What children were ever like his children? What homes were ever like their homes? There is little Pip and honest old Joe Gargery, who pauses for a moment at his anvil to observe with animation, "Which I mean ter say, that if you come into my place bull baiting and badgering me, come out! Which I mean ter say, as sech, if yu're a man, come on! which I mean to say that what I mean ter say, I mean to say and stand or fall by;" and Mrs. Joe over watchful and over masterful always, who in the alembic of nature had discovered no better way of bringing little Pip up than "by hand." Then there is little Oliver Twist, a poor little waif, always hungry, licking the platter and now and then, embarrassingly asking "for more;" and poor Smikes is more terribly tragic, for he lived longer; and little Nell the heart child of unnumbered thousands, tramping along the roads, footsore and ever so weary, a poor little wanderer without home, until the good Lord looks down into her tearful eyes and says one day, "Little Nell your little hands and your little feet and your little heart are so tired, will you not come with me, child?" And little Paul Dombey lying wearily in the trundle bed, within sound of the manifold voices of the sea, turns languidly to his sister Florence and asks with the natural inquisitiveness of a child, "What are the wild waves saying?" And Joe All Jones moves almost heedlessly on to death through more streets than those of London; and Tom Pinch, Betsy Trotwood and faithful old Peggotty and Ham, whose very oddities and deficiencies are turned into a crown of glory; and the sneering melodramatic villains and scape-graces, Monck and Quilp, and the blind man in Barnaby Rudge, and the Jew Fagan and Murdstone and Carker; and the high spirited Steerforth and Nickleby and Creakle, and Stiggins and Chadband and Sampson Brass and Snawley; and poor little idiotic Barnaby, as on the way to the gallows he points to the stars, and says to Hugh of the Maypole, "I guess we shall know who made the stars now;" and last of all, but not least, Pecksniff, the masterpiece of them all. From boot to hat he is all over and all under, Pecksniff; drunk or sober he is Pecksniff. He is the virtuous Pecksniff all the time, and altogether. He hugs himself to his own heart as the embodiment of all the virtues of the decalogue and the beatitudes. No matter into what rascality he may be plunging, his serene self conscious virtue never forsakes him. The child wife, too, passes by us into the spirit land, and there is the beautiful, dreamy eyed Agnes, who quite charms us with her love and trust, and the sad, calm face of Florence looks timidly upon us; and Mrs. Jellyby tells us to look out for Borioboola Gha; and poor Micawber informs us that nothing has turned up yet, and hinting darkly about laudanum and razors. What a marvellous characterization! Will the world ever tire of this man and his children, that he has materialized out of ideals so unpromising; whom he has reared up in the slums of London, many of them upon garbage?
The blessed Sabbath day was passing uneventfully. There were no alarms from any source. Old Hannah in her gloom was moving in and out of the office and the "ole master" who had retired to his bed chamber was weakening as the days would come and go. Alice, with the acumen of an experienced physician, was noting the changes from time to time, and realized that the final change would come some day and perhaps at an hour least expected. The sad life of little Nell had wrought upon her womanly feelings and she began to think of herself, her situation, of her loneliness should her father be taken from her, and she thought of the crude inelegant suggestion of old Clarissa.
"De crowsfoot is ergwine to cum into yer lubly face, und kurlykus and frowns under yer eyes, und what wud you do in dis grate big grate house, und dis great big plantashun by yer lone lorn self."
The contemplation of such a situation could only harrow her heart more and more, but there was the gallant Arthur lying over in Virginia, and she had plighted her troth to him that day, that she reviewed the cavalry parade, when he stood by her side so handsome, so happy, in his Confederate uniform, with the nodding plumes in his hat, when he said to her, "Sweet Alice, will you be true to me until I return from the war?" And she promised him with a kiss that she would; "and if dear Arthur you shall never return, Alice will still be true to you."
Is there no limitation to such a contract; are not its conditions already performed? She asked herself. Assuredly there are no marriages in Heaven. She remembered that the Saviour of the world had said to the Sadducees, "Ye do err not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in Heaven." "Arthur knew that I loved him—that I loved him from our childhood, and I am sure that our friends as they enter the gates, are greeted by our friends up there, and that they ask with so much interest and affection about their loved ones in this sad, lonely terrene.