David Copperfield
to point that way with a ready finger; and I felt, all the more for the
sinking of my spirits, that it was my nest, and that my mother was my
comforter and friend.
This gained upon me as we went along; so that the nearer we drew, the
more familiar the objects became that we passed, the more excited I was
to get there, and to run into her arms. But Peggotty, instead of sharing
in those transports, tried to check them (though very kindly), and
looked confused and out of sorts.
Blunderstone Rookery would come, however, in spite of her, when the
carrier’s horse pleased--and did. How well I recollect it, on a cold
grey afternoon, with a dull sky, threatening rain!
The door opened, and I looked, half laughing and half crying in my
pleasant agitation, for my mother. It was not she, but a strange
servant.
‘Why, Peggotty!’ I said, ruefully, ‘isn’t she come home?’
‘Yes, yes, Master Davy,’ said Peggotty. ‘She’s come home. Wait a bit,
Master Davy, and I’ll--I’ll tell you something.’
Between her agitation, and her natural awkwardness in getting out of the
cart, Peggotty was making a most extraordinary festoon of herself, but
I felt too blank and strange to tell her so. When she had got down, she
took me by the hand; led me, wondering, into the kitchen; and shut the
door.
‘Peggotty!’ said I, quite frightened. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing’s the matter, bless you, Master Davy dear!’ she answered,
assuming an air of sprightliness.
‘Something’s the matter, I’m sure. Where’s mama?’
‘Where’s mama, Master Davy?’ repeated Peggotty.
‘Yes. Why hasn’t she come out to the gate, and what have we come in here
for? Oh, Peggotty!’ My eyes were full, and I felt as if I were going to
tumble down.
‘Bless the precious boy!’ cried Peggotty, taking hold of me. ‘What is
it? Speak, my pet!’
‘Not dead, too! Oh, she’s not dead, Peggotty?’
Peggotty cried out No! with an astonishing volume of voice; and then sat
down, and began to pant, and said I had given her a turn.
I gave her a hug to take away the turn, or to give her another turn
in the right direction, and then stood before her, looking at her in
anxious inquiry.
‘You see, dear, I should have told you before now,’ said Peggotty,
‘but I hadn’t an opportunity. I ought to have made it, perhaps, but
I couldn’t azackly’--that was always the substitute for exactly, in
Peggotty’s militia of words--‘bring my mind to it.’
‘Go on, Peggotty,’ said I, more frightened than before.
‘Master Davy,’ said Peggotty, untying her bonnet with a shaking hand,
and speaking in a breathless sort of way. ‘What do you think? You have
got a Pa!’
I trembled, and turned white. Something--I don’t know what, or
how--connected with the grave in the churchyard, and the raising of the
dead, seemed to strike me like an unwholesome wind.
‘A new one,’ said Peggotty.
‘A new one?’ I repeated.
Peggotty gave a gasp, as if she were swallowing something that was very
hard, and, putting out her hand, said:
‘Come and see him.’
‘I don’t want to see him.’
--‘And your mama,’ said Peggotty.
I ceased to draw back, and we went straight to the best parlour, where
she left me. On one side of the fire, sat my mother; on the other, Mr.
Murdstone. My mother dropped her work, and arose hurriedly, but timidly
I thought.
‘Now, Clara my dear,’ said Mr. Murdstone. ‘Recollect! control yourself,
always control yourself! Davy boy, how do you do?’
I gave him my hand. After a moment of suspense, I went and kissed my
mother: she kissed me, patted me gently on the shoulder, and sat down
again to her work. I could not look at her, I could not look at him,
I knew quite well that he was looking at us both; and I turned to the
window and looked out there, at some shrubs that were drooping their
heads in the cold.
As soon as I could creep away, I crept upstairs. My old dear bedroom was
changed, and I was to lie a long way off. I rambled downstairs to find
anything that was like itself, so altered it all seemed; and roamed into
the yard. I very soon started back from there, for the empty dog-kennel
was filled up with a great dog--deep mouthed and black-haired like
Him--and he was very angry at the sight of me, and sprang out to get at
me.
CHAPTER 4. I FALL INTO DISGRACE
If the room to which my bed was removed were a sentient thing that could
give evidence, I might appeal to it at this day--who sleeps there now,
I wonder!--to bear witness for me what a heavy heart I carried to it.
I went up there, hearing the dog in the yard bark after me all the way
while I climbed the stairs; and, looking as blank and strange upon the
room as the room looked upon me, sat down with my small hands crossed,
and thought.
I thought of the oddest things. Of the shape of the room, of the
cracks in the ceiling, of the paper on the walls, of the flaws in
the window-glass making ripples and dimples on the prospect, of the
washing-stand being rickety on its three legs, and having a discontented
something about it, which reminded me of Mrs. Gummidge under the
influence of the old one. I was crying all the time, but, except that I
was conscious of being cold and dejected, I am sure I never thought
why I cried. At last in my desolation I began to consider that I was
dreadfully in love with little Em’ly, and had been torn away from her to
come here where no one seemed to want me, or to care about me, half as
much as she did. This made such a very miserable piece of business of
it, that I rolled myself up in a corner of the counterpane, and cried
myself to sleep.
I was awoke by somebody saying ‘Here he is!’ and uncovering my hot head.
My mother and Peggotty had come to look for me, and it was one of them
who had done it.
‘Davy,’ said my mother. ‘What’s the matter?’
I thought it was very strange that she should ask me, and answered,
‘Nothing.’ I turned over on my face, I recollect, to hide my trembling
lip, which answered her with greater truth. ‘Davy,’ said my mother.
‘Davy, my child!’
I dare say no words she could have uttered would have affected me
so much, then, as her calling me her child. I hid my tears in the
bedclothes, and pressed her from me with my hand, when she would have
raised me up.
‘This is your doing, Peggotty, you cruel thing!’ said my mother. ‘I have
no doubt at all about it. How can you reconcile it to your conscience,
I wonder, to prejudice my own boy against me, or against anybody who is
dear to me? What do you mean by it, Peggotty?’
Poor Peggotty lifted up her hands and eyes, and only answered, in a
sort of paraphrase of the grace I usually repeated after dinner, ‘Lord
forgive you, Mrs. Copperfield, and for what you have said this minute,
may you never be truly sorry!’
‘It’s enough to distract me,’ cried my mother. ‘In my honeymoon, too,
when my most inveterate enemy might relent, one would think, and not
envy me a little peace of mind and happiness. Davy, you naughty boy!
Peggotty, you savage creature! Oh, dear me!’ cried my mother, turning
from one of us to the other, in her pettish wilful manner, ‘what a
troublesome world this is, when one has the most right to expect it to
be as agreeable as possible!’
I felt the touch of a hand that I knew was neither hers nor Peggotty’s,
and slipped to my feet at the bed-side. It was Mr. Murdstone’s hand, and
he kept it on my arm as he said:
‘What’s this? Clara, my love, have you forgotten?--Firmness, my dear!’
‘I am very sorry, Edward,’ said my mother. ‘I meant to be very good, but
I am so uncomfortable.’
‘Indeed!’ he answered. ‘That’s a bad hearing, so soon, Clara.’
‘I say it’s very hard I should be made so now,’ returned my mother,
pouting; ‘and it is--very hard--isn’t it?’
He drew her to him, whispered in her ear, and kissed her. I knew as
well, when I saw my mother’s head lean down upon his shoulder, and her
arm touch his neck--I knew as well that he could mould her pliant nature
into any form he chose, as I know, now, that he did it.
‘Go you below, my love,’ said Mr. Murdstone. ‘David and I will come
down, together. My friend,’ turning a darkening face on Peggotty, when
he had watched my mother out, and dismissed her with a nod and a smile;
‘do you know your mistress’s name?’
‘She has been my mistress a long time, sir,’ answered Peggotty, ‘I ought
to know it.’ ‘That’s true,’ he answered. ‘But I thought I heard you, as
I came upstairs, address her by a name that is not hers. She has taken
mine, you know. Will you remember that?’
Peggotty, with some uneasy glances at me, curtseyed herself out of the
room without replying; seeing, I suppose, that she was expected to go,
and had no excuse for remaining. When we two were left alone, he shut
the door, and sitting on a chair, and holding me standing before him,
looked steadily into my eyes. I felt my own attracted, no less steadily,
to his. As I recall our being opposed thus, face to face, I seem again
to hear my heart beat fast and high.
‘David,’ he said, making his lips thin, by pressing them together, ‘if I
have an obstinate horse or dog to deal with, what do you think I do?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I beat him.’
I had answered in a kind of breathless whisper, but I felt, in my
silence, that my breath was shorter now.
‘I make him wince, and smart. I say to myself, “I’ll conquer that
fellow”; and if it were to cost him all the blood he had, I should do
it. What is that upon your face?’
‘Dirt,’ I said.
He knew it was the mark of tears as well as I. But if he had asked the
question twenty times, each time with twenty blows, I believe my baby
heart would have burst before I would have told him so.
‘You have a good deal of intelligence for a little fellow,’ he said,
with a grave smile that belonged to him, ‘and you understood me very
well, I see. Wash that face, sir, and come down with me.’
He pointed to the washing-stand, which I had made out to be like Mrs.
Gummidge, and motioned me with his head to obey him directly. I had
little doubt then, and I have less doubt now, that he would have knocked
me down without the least compunction, if I had hesitated.
‘Clara, my dear,’ he said, when I had done his bidding, and he walked me
into the parlour, with his hand still on my arm; ‘you will not be made
uncomfortable any more, I hope. We shall soon improve our youthful
humours.’
God help me, I might have been improved for my whole life, I might have
been made another creature perhaps, for life, by a kind word at that
season. A word of encouragement and explanation, of pity for my childish
ignorance, of welcome home, of reassurance to me that it was home, might
have made me dutiful to him in my heart henceforth, instead of in my
hypocritical outside, and might have made me respect instead of hate
him. I thought my mother was sorry to see me standing in the room so
scared and strange, and that, presently, when I stole to a chair, she
followed me with her eyes more sorrowfully still--missing, perhaps, some
freedom in my childish tread--but the word was not spoken, and the time
for it was gone.
We dined alone, we three together. He seemed to be very fond of my
mother--I am afraid I liked him none the better for that--and she was
very fond of him. I gathered from what they said, that an elder sister
of his was coming to stay with them, and that she was expected that
evening. I am not certain whether I found out then, or afterwards, that,
without being actively concerned in any business, he had some share in,
or some annual charge upon the profits of, a wine-merchant’s house
in London, with which his family had been connected from his
great-grandfather’s time, and in which his sister had a similar
interest; but I may mention it in this place, whether or no.
After dinner, when we were sitting by the fire, and I was meditating an