David Copperfield
your flight to Heaven!’
I heard a distant foot upon the stairs. I knew it, I was certain. It was
his, thank God!
She moved slowly from before the door when she said this, and passed out
of my sight.
‘But mark!’ she added, slowly and sternly, opening the other door to
go away, ‘I am resolved, for reasons that I have and hatreds that
I entertain, to cast you out, unless you withdraw from my reach
altogether, or drop your pretty mask. This is what I had to say; and
what I say, I mean to do!’
The foot upon the stairs came nearer--nearer--passed her as she went
down--rushed into the room!
‘Uncle!’
A fearful cry followed the word. I paused a moment, and looking in, saw
him supporting her insensible figure in his arms. He gazed for a few
seconds in the face; then stooped to kiss it--oh, how tenderly!--and
drew a handkerchief before it.
‘Mas’r Davy,’ he said, in a low tremulous voice, when it was covered, ‘I
thank my Heav’nly Father as my dream’s come true! I thank Him hearty for
having guided of me, in His own ways, to my darling!’
With those words he took her up in his arms; and, with the veiled
face lying on his bosom, and addressed towards his own, carried her,
motionless and unconscious, down the stairs.
CHAPTER 51. THE BEGINNING OF A LONGER JOURNEY
It was yet early in the morning of the following day, when, as I was
walking in my garden with my aunt (who took little other exercise
now, being so much in attendance on my dear Dora), I was told that Mr.
Peggotty desired to speak with me. He came into the garden to meet me
half-way, on my going towards the gate; and bared his head, as it was
always his custom to do when he saw my aunt, for whom he had a high
respect. I had been telling her all that had happened overnight. Without
saying a word, she walked up with a cordial face, shook hands with him,
and patted him on the arm. It was so expressively done, that she had no
need to say a word. Mr. Peggotty understood her quite as well as if she
had said a thousand.
‘I’ll go in now, Trot,’ said my aunt, ‘and look after Little Blossom,
who will be getting up presently.’
‘Not along of my being heer, ma’am, I hope?’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘Unless
my wits is gone a bahd’s neezing’--by which Mr. Peggotty meant to say,
bird’s-nesting--‘this morning, ‘tis along of me as you’re a-going to
quit us?’
‘You have something to say, my good friend,’ returned my aunt, ‘and will
do better without me.’
‘By your leave, ma’am,’ returned Mr. Peggotty, ‘I should take it kind,
pervising you doen’t mind my clicketten, if you’d bide heer.’
‘Would you?’ said my aunt, with short good-nature. ‘Then I am sure I
will!’
So, she drew her arm through Mr. Peggotty’s, and walked with him to a
leafy little summer-house there was at the bottom of the garden, where
she sat down on a bench, and I beside her. There was a seat for Mr.
Peggotty too, but he preferred to stand, leaning his hand on the small
rustic table. As he stood, looking at his cap for a little while before
beginning to speak, I could not help observing what power and force
of character his sinewy hand expressed, and what a good and trusty
companion it was to his honest brow and iron-grey hair.
‘I took my dear child away last night,’ Mr. Peggotty began, as he
raised his eyes to ours, ‘to my lodging, wheer I have a long time been
expecting of her and preparing fur her. It was hours afore she knowed me
right; and when she did, she kneeled down at my feet, and kiender said
to me, as if it was her prayers, how it all come to be. You may believe
me, when I heerd her voice, as I had heerd at home so playful--and see
her humbled, as it might be in the dust our Saviour wrote in with his
blessed hand--I felt a wownd go to my ‘art, in the midst of all its
thankfulness.’
He drew his sleeve across his face, without any pretence of concealing
why; and then cleared his voice.
‘It warn’t for long as I felt that; for she was found. I had on’y to
think as she was found, and it was gone. I doen’t know why I do so much
as mention of it now, I’m sure. I didn’t have it in my mind a minute
ago, to say a word about myself; but it come up so nat’ral, that I
yielded to it afore I was aweer.’
‘You are a self-denying soul,’ said my aunt, ‘and will have your
reward.’
Mr. Peggotty, with the shadows of the leaves playing athwart his
face, made a surprised inclination of the head towards my aunt, as an
acknowledgement of her good opinion; then took up the thread he had
relinquished.
‘When my Em’ly took flight,’ he said, in stern wrath for the moment,
‘from the house wheer she was made a prisoner by that theer spotted
snake as Mas’r Davy see,--and his story’s trew, and may GOD confound
him!--she took flight in the night. It was a dark night, with a many
stars a-shining. She was wild. She ran along the sea beach, believing
the old boat was theer; and calling out to us to turn away our faces,
for she was a-coming by. She heerd herself a-crying out, like as if
it was another person; and cut herself on them sharp-pinted stones and
rocks, and felt it no more than if she had been rock herself. Ever so
fur she run, and there was fire afore her eyes, and roarings in her
ears. Of a sudden--or so she thowt, you unnerstand--the day broke, wet
and windy, and she was lying b’low a heap of stone upon the shore, and
a woman was a-speaking to her, saying, in the language of that country,
what was it as had gone so much amiss?’
He saw everything he related. It passed before him, as he spoke, so
vividly, that, in the intensity of his earnestness, he presented what
he described to me, with greater distinctness than I can express. I can
hardly believe, writing now long afterwards, but that I was actually
present in these scenes; they are impressed upon me with such an
astonishing air of fidelity.
‘As Em’ly’s eyes--which was heavy--see this woman better,’ Mr. Peggotty
went on, ‘she know’d as she was one of them as she had often talked to
on the beach. Fur, though she had run (as I have said) ever so fur in
the night, she had oftentimes wandered long ways, partly afoot, partly
in boats and carriages, and know’d all that country, ‘long the coast,
miles and miles. She hadn’t no children of her own, this woman, being
a young wife; but she was a-looking to have one afore long. And may
my prayers go up to Heaven that ‘twill be a happiness to her, and a
comfort, and a honour, all her life! May it love her and be dootiful to
her, in her old age; helpful of her at the last; a Angel to her heer,
and heerafter!’
‘Amen!’ said my aunt.
‘She had been summat timorous and down,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘and had sat,
at first, a little way off, at her spinning, or such work as it was,
when Em’ly talked to the children. But Em’ly had took notice of her,
and had gone and spoke to her; and as the young woman was partial to
the children herself, they had soon made friends. Sermuchser, that when
Em’ly went that way, she always giv Em’ly flowers. This was her as
now asked what it was that had gone so much amiss. Em’ly told her,
and she--took her home. She did indeed. She took her home,’ said Mr.
Peggotty, covering his face.
He was more affected by this act of kindness, than I had ever seen him
affected by anything since the night she went away. My aunt and I did
not attempt to disturb him.
‘It was a little cottage, you may suppose,’ he said, presently, ‘but she
found space for Em’ly in it,--her husband was away at sea,--and she kep
it secret, and prevailed upon such neighbours as she had (they was not
many near) to keep it secret too. Em’ly was took bad with fever,
and, what is very strange to me is,--maybe ‘tis not so strange to
scholars,--the language of that country went out of her head, and she
could only speak her own, that no one unnerstood. She recollects, as if
she had dreamed it, that she lay there always a-talking her own tongue,
always believing as the old boat was round the next pint in the bay, and
begging and imploring of ‘em to send theer and tell how she was dying,
and bring back a message of forgiveness, if it was on’y a wured. A’most
the whole time, she thowt,--now, that him as I made mention on just now
was lurking for her unnerneath the winder; now that him as had brought
her to this was in the room,--and cried to the good young woman not to
give her up, and know’d, at the same time, that she couldn’t unnerstand,
and dreaded that she must be took away. Likewise the fire was afore
her eyes, and the roarings in her ears; and theer was no today, nor
yesterday, nor yet tomorrow; but everything in her life as ever had
been, or as ever could be, and everything as never had been, and as
never could be, was a crowding on her all at once, and nothing clear nor
welcome, and yet she sang and laughed about it! How long this lasted, I
doen’t know; but then theer come a sleep; and in that sleep, from being
a many times stronger than her own self, she fell into the weakness of
the littlest child.’
Here he stopped, as if for relief from the terrors of his own
description. After being silent for a few moments, he pursued his story.
‘It was a pleasant arternoon when she awoke; and so quiet, that there
warn’t a sound but the rippling of that blue sea without a tide, upon
the shore. It was her belief, at first, that she was at home upon a
Sunday morning; but the vine leaves as she see at the winder, and the
hills beyond, warn’t home, and contradicted of her. Then, come in her
friend to watch alongside of her bed; and then she know’d as the old
boat warn’t round that next pint in the bay no more, but was fur off;
and know’d where she was, and why; and broke out a-crying on that good
young woman’s bosom, wheer I hope her baby is a-lying now, a-cheering of
her with its pretty eyes!’
He could not speak of this good friend of Emily’s without a flow of
tears. It was in vain to try. He broke down again, endeavouring to bless
her!
‘That done my Em’ly good,’ he resumed, after such emotion as I could
not behold without sharing in; and as to my aunt, she wept with all her
heart; ‘that done Em’ly good, and she begun to mend. But, the language
of that country was quite gone from her, and she was forced to make
signs. So she went on, getting better from day to day, slow, but sure,
and trying to learn the names of common things--names as she seemed
never to have heerd in all her life--till one evening come, when she
was a-setting at her window, looking at a little girl at play upon the
beach. And of a sudden this child held out her hand, and said, what
would be in English, “Fisherman’s daughter, here’s a shell!”--for you
are to unnerstand that they used at first to call her “Pretty lady”, as
the general way in that country is, and that she had taught ‘em to
call her “Fisherman’s daughter” instead. The child says of a sudden,
“Fisherman’s daughter, here’s a shell!” Then Em’ly unnerstands her; and
she answers, bursting out a-crying; and it all comes back!
‘When Em’ly got strong again,’ said Mr. Peggotty, after another short
interval of silence, ‘she cast about to leave that good young creetur,
and get to her own country. The husband was come home, then; and the two
together put her aboard a small trader bound to Leghorn, and from that
to France. She had a little money, but it was less than little as they
would take for all they done. I’m a’most glad on it, though they was
so poor! What they done, is laid up wheer neither moth or rust doth
corrupt, and wheer thieves do not break through nor steal. Mas’r Davy,
it’ll outlast all the treasure in the wureld.
‘Em’ly got to France, and took service to wait on travelling ladies at a
inn in the port. Theer, theer come, one day, that snake. --Let him never
come nigh me. I doen’t know what hurt I might do him!--Soon as she see