I’m not an English professor, but I believe I’m in good company in saying that Charles Dickens is the greatest English novelist. His work is particularly prominent at Christmas, due to his most famous story, A Christmas Carol.
As a writer of the Victorian era, Dickens’ prose rambles and may not immediately hold the attention of IG and X scrollers. His writing is not as dense as Homer, Virgil, Dante, or Milton, but like those classics of the Western Canon, you will find great wisdom and truth in his stories. His rabbit-trail accounts of the human experience reveal the quiet suffering, hopes, disappointment, and redemption of ordinary people. Interestingly, one of his recurring themes is estate planning. Why? Because estate planning is often a major plot line in great stories, and real life.
While almost all of Dickens' novels have estate planning as at least a sub-plot, this article will focus on the book entitled David Copperfield and how Uriah Heep nearly stole Mr. Wickfield's estate and daughter.
David Copperfield is the main character and narrator of the novel also named David Copperfield. Copperfield is a young man finding his way through life. Other key characters include his friends, Traddles and Micawber, and Mr. Wickfield and his daughter, Agnes, and the evil antagonist, Uriah Heep.
Mr. Wickfield is an estate-planning attorney, financial advisor, and professional fiduciary, and he has been highly successful. However, tragedy brought him low when his wife died, and he fell into depression. His only child, his teenage daughter, Agnes, tries as she might to raise his spirits. But Mr. Wickfield is beyond consolation. While still competent and amiable to his clients and friends, his drinking and low spirits have dragged him into lethargy.
Meanwhile, Mr. Wickfield's young law clerk, Uriah Heep, while presenting himself to Mr. Wickfield and his circle of acquaintances as a humble servant whose only purpose was to advance Mr. Wickfield’s business, is secretly plotting to exploit Mr. Wickfield’s weakened state.
Heep worked diligently to ingratiate himself with Mr. Wickfield, to the extent that Mr. Wickfield began to rely on him. But Copperfield saw right through Heep from the beginning:
...I saw Uriah Heep shutting up the office and feeling friendly towards everybody, went in and spoke to him, and at parting, gave him my hand. But oh, what a clammy hand his was! As ghostly to the touch as to the sight! I rubbed mine afterward, to warm it, and to rub his off.
As Mr. Wickfield became more despondent, he paid less and less attention to his business, and Heep pounced. Heep convinced Mr. Wickfield that he was indispensable. When Copperfield questioned Mr. Wickfield about Heep, Mr. Wickfield was adamant that, “Uriah Heep is a great relief to me and it’s a load off my mind to have such a partner.”
Like Copperfield, Agnes knew something was seriously amiss, and she confided to him:
The reversal of the two natures in their relative positions, Uriah’s of power and [my father’s] of dependence, was a sight more painful to me than I can express. If I had seen an ape taking control of a man, I should have hardly have thought it a more degrading spectacle.
Heep had total control of Mr. Wickfield. Under false pretenses, Heep had Mr. Wickfield sign over deeds and accounts to himself and forged his signature on many legal documents. In a period of a few years, Heep had taken complete control of Mr. Wickfield’s business and his assets - all without anyone the wiser, or so it seemed.
But just as Heep was becoming comfortable in his ascendancy and plotting to manipulate Agnes into marriage (Heep and his mother had even moved into Mr. Wickfield’s home), Micawber had discovered the deceit.
Micawber revealed Heep’s fraud and deception to Copperfield and Agnes:
Then it was that I began, if I may so Shakespeareanly express myself, to dwindle, peak, and pine. I found that my services were constantly called into requisition for the falsification of business and the mystification of Mr. Wickfield. That Mr. Wickfield was imposed upon, kept in ignorance, and deluded, in every possible way; yet, that all this while the rufian Heep - was professing unbounded gratitude to, and unbounded friendship for, that much abused gentleman. This was bad enough, but as the philosophic Dane observes, with that universal applicability which distinguishes the illustrious ornament of the Elizabethian Era, worse remains behind!
Micawber then detailed Heep’s treachery:
When Mr. Wickfield was least fit to enter on business, Heep was always at hand to force him to enter on it. He obtained Mr. Wickfield’s signature under such circumstances to documents of importance, representing them to be other documents of no importance.
Heep systematically forged, to various entire books, and documents, the signature of Mr. Wickfield
Heep had for years deluded and plundered in every conceivable manner, the pecuniary aggrandisement of the avaricious, false and grasping Heep. And that his last act, completed by a few months since, was to induce Mr. Wickfield to execute a relinquishment of his share in the partnership, and even a bill of sale on the very furniture of his house, in consideration of a certain annuity, to be well and truly paid by Heep on the four common quarter days in each and every year.
What Micawber disclosed was pure evil. Heep had taken advantage of his boss’s weakened faculties to exert undue influence to make himself a partner of the business and eventually take over the business and Mr. Wickfield’s assets.
Right before Micawber confronted Heep, Traddles, who was an attorney, had secured a power of attorney from Mr. Wickfield, who was still competent, which gave Traddles authority to act on Mr. Wickfield’s behalf. With the power of attorney in hand, Micawber and Traddles were able to start the process of recovering Mr. Wickfield’s business and assets from Heep.
Under today’s laws, Heep could be found guilty of many crimes and civil causes of action, including:
Criminal: Forgery, embezzlement, financial elder abuse, extortion, and backmail.
Civil: Fraud, intentional misrepresentation, breach of fiduciary duty, elder abuse, and conversion (embezzlement).
In David Copperfield, Dickens teaches us many lessons relevant to estate planning:
When tragedy strikes, and it strikes us all at one point or another, keep your wits about you. But if you feel your resolve faltering, don’t simply lean in to the toadying person nearby. Pull in your trusted family and friends to help you.
If Mr. Wickfield had enlisted Traddles as his agent under a durable power of attorney early on, Heep would not have been able to cheat and manipulate him. Traddles would have had his back.
Be very careful who you hire in your business, who you allow in as a confidant, and who you allow to rise to a position of power. Pay attention and only bring on high-character people. Micawber was not as clever and nuanced in the practice of law as Heep, but he was loyal and trustworthy, and his character ultimately saved the day.
Watch your parents as they get older. Financial elder abuse is on the rise. People are living longer and are in many cases, wealthier; they can be easy prey for fraudsters. Keep your parents close. If you can, offer to help them oversee their finances, but do it in a spirit of love and gratitude.
While Agnes provided great emotional support to her father, she had no idea about his business dealings and was therefore not in a position to defend him against the scheming Heep.
BTW, the good guys won in David Copperfield. Mr. Wickfield recovered his wits and his estate, Agnes escaped the clutches of Uriah Heep and married Copperfield to live happily ever after, and Heep was turned out and exposed as the villain he was.
The magic of Charles Dickens is that he can spin a story (albeit long stories) about the joys, sorrows, dangers, and grace in the everyday life of normal people. Like Dickens' stories, life can be wonderful, full of beauty and grace, but we must keep on our guard. The nature of life is that there are bad guys, and if you open yourself to them, you can be fleeced.
One of the best and easiest ways to protect yourself, your family, and your assets is to have an updated and complete living trust estate plan which includes a living trust, pour-over will, durable power of attorney, advance health care directive and HIPAA that installs people of character that you trust to help you in your time of need as your successor trustee and agent.
And the best time to do your estate planning is before tragedy strikes, while you are still sharp and strong. Don't wait until you are vulnerable to the undue influence of malicious actors.