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The gloomy taint that was in the Murdstone blood, darkened the
Murdstone religion, which was austere and wrathful. I have thought,
since, that its assuming that character was a necessary consequence
of Mr. Murdstone's firmness, which wouldn't allow him to let anybody
off from the utmost weight of the severest penalties he could find
any excuse for. Be this as it may, I well remember the tremendous
visages with which we used to go to church, and the changed air
of the place. Again, the dreaded Sunday comes round, and I file
into the old pew first, like a guarded captive brought to a condemned
service. Again, Miss Murdstone, in a black velvet gown, that looks
as if it had been made out of a pall, follows close upon me; then
my mother; then her husband. There is no Peggotty now, as in the
old time. Again, I listen to Miss Murdstone mumbling the responses,
and emphasizing all the dread words with a cruel relish. Again,
I see her dark eyes roll round the church when she says 'miserable
sinners', as if she were calling all the congregation names. Again,
I catch rare glimpses of my mother, moving her lips timidly between
the two, with one of them muttering at each ear like low thunder.
Again, I wonder with a sudden fear whether it is likely that our
good old clergyman can be wrong, and Mr. and Miss Murdstone right,
and that all the angels in Heaven can be destroying angels. Again,
if I move a finger or relax a muscle of my face, Miss Murdstone
pokes me with her prayer-book, and makes my side ache.
Yes, and again, as we walk home, I note some neighbours looking
at my mother and at me, and whispering. Again, as the three go on
arm-in-arm, and I linger behind alone, I follow some of those looks,
and wonder if my mother's step be really not so light as I have
seen it, and if the gaiety of her beauty be really almost worried
away. Again, I wonder whether any of the neighbours call to mind,
as I do, how we used to walk home together, she and I; and I wonder
stupidly about that, all the dreary dismal day.
There had been some talk on occasions of my going to boarding-
school. Mr. and Miss Murdstone had originated it, and my mother
had of course agreed with them. Nothing, however, was concluded
on the subject yet. In the meantime, I learnt lessons at home. Shall
I ever forget those lessons! They were presided over nominally by
my mother, but really by Mr. Murdstone and his sister, who were
always present, and found them a favourable occasion for giving
my mother lessons in that miscalled firmness, which was the bane
of both our lives. I believe I was kept at home for that purpose.
I had been apt enough to learn, and willing enough, when my mother
and I had lived alone together. I can faintly remember learning
the alphabet at her knee. To this day, when I look upon the fat
black letters in the primer, the puzzling novelty of their shapes,
and the easy good-nature of O and Q and S, seem to present themselves
again before me as they used to do. But they recall no feeling of
disgust or reluctance. On the contrary, I seem to have walked along
a path of flowers as far as the crocodile-book, and to have been
cheered by the gentleness of my mother's voice and manner all the
way. But these solemn lessons which succeeded those, I remember
as the death-blow of my peace, and a grievous daily drudgery and
misery. They were very long, very numerous, very hard - perfectly
unintelligible, some of them, to me - and I was generally as much
bewildered by them as I believe my poor mother was herself.
Let me remember how it used to be, and bring one morning back
again.
I come into the second-best parlour after breakfast, with my
books, and an exercise-book, and a slate. My mother is ready for
me at her writing-desk, but not half so ready as Mr. Murdstone in
his easy-chair by the window (though he pretends to be reading a
book), or as Miss Murdstone, sitting near my mother stringing steel
beads. The very sight of these two has such an influence over me,
that I begin to feel the words I have been at infinite pains to
get into my head, all sliding away, and going I don't know where.
I wonder where they do go, by the by?
I hand the first book to my mother. Perhaps it is a grammar,
perhaps a history, or geography. I take a last drowning look at
the page as I give it into her hand, and start off aloud at a racing
pace while I have got it fresh. I trip over a word. Mr. Murdstone
looks up. I trip over another word. Miss Murdstone looks up. I redden,
tumble over half-a-dozen words, and stop. I think my mother would
show me the book if she dared, but she does not dare, and she says
softly:
'Oh, Davy, Davy!'
'Now, Clara,' says Mr. Murdstone, 'be firm with the boy. Don't
say, "Oh, Davy, Davy!" That's childish. He knows his lesson,
or he does not know it.'
'He does NOT know it,' Miss Murdstone interposes awfully.
'I am really afraid he does not,' says my mother.
'Then, you see, Clara,' returns Miss Murdstone, 'you should just
give him the book back, and make him know it.'
'Yes, certainly,' says my mother; 'that is what I intend to do,
my dear Jane. Now, Davy, try once more, and don't be stupid.'
I obey the first clause of the injunction by trying once more,
but am not so successful with the second, for I am very stupid.
I tumble down before I get to the old place, at a point where I
was all right before, and stop to think. But I can't think about
the lesson. I think of the number of yards of net in Miss Murdstone's
cap, or of the price of Mr. Murdstone's dressing-gown, or any such
ridiculous problem that I have no business with, and don't want
to have anything at all to do with. Mr. Murdstone makes a movement
of impatience which I have been expecting for a long time. Miss
Murdstone does the same. My mother glances submissively at them,
shuts the book, and lays it by as an arrear to be worked out when
my other tasks are done.
There is a pile of these arrears very soon, and it swells like
a rolling snowball. The bigger it gets, the more stupid I get. The
case is so hopeless, and I feel that I am wallowing in such a bog
of nonsense, that I give up all idea of getting out, and abandon
myself to my fate. The despairing way in which my mother and I look
at each other, as I blunder on, is truly melancholy. But the greatest
effect in these miserable lessons is when my mother (thinking nobody
is observing her) tries to give me the cue by the motion of her
lips. At that instant, Miss Murdstone, who has been lying in wait
for nothing else all along, says in a deep warning voice:
'Clara!'
My mother starts, colours, and smiles faintly. Mr. Murdstone
comes out of his chair, takes the book, throws it at me or boxes
my ears with it, and turns me out of the room by the shoulders.
Even when the lessons are done, the worst is yet to happen, in
the shape of an appalling sum. This is invented for me, and delivered
to me orally by Mr. Murdstone, and begins, 'If I go into a cheesemonger's
shop, and buy five thousand double-Gloucester cheeses at fourpence-halfpenny
each, present payment' - at which I see Miss Murdstone secretly
overjoyed. I pore over these cheeses without any result or enlightenment
until dinner-time, when, having made a Mulatto of myself by getting
the dirt of the slate into the pores of my skin, I have a slice
of bread to help me out with the cheeses, and am considered in disgrace
for the rest of the evening.
It seems to me, at this distance of time, as if my unfortunate
studies generally took this course. I could have done very well
if I had been without the Murdstones; but the influence of the Murdstones
upon me was like the fascination of two snakes on a wretched young
bird. Even when I did get through the morning with tolerable credit,
there was not much gained but dinner; for Miss Murdstone never could
endure to see me untasked, and if I rashly made any show of being
unemployed, called her brother's attention to me by saying, 'Clara,
my dear, there's nothing like work - give your boy an exercise';
which caused me to be clapped down to some new labour, there and
then. As to any recreation with other children of my age, I had
very little of that; for the gloomy theology of the Murdstones made
all children out to be a swarm of little vipers (though there WAS
a child once set in the midst of the Disciples), and held that they
contaminated one another.
The natural result of this treatment, continued, I suppose, for
some six months or more, was to make me sullen, dull, and dogged.
I was not made the less so by my sense of being daily more and more
shut out and alienated from my mother. I believe I should have been
almost stupefied but for one circumstance.
It was this. My father had left a small collection of books in
a little room upstairs, to which I had access (for it adjoined my
own) and which nobody else in our house ever troubled. From that
blessed little room, Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, Humphrey
Clinker, Tom Jones, the Vicar of Wakefield, Don Quixote, Gil Blas,
and Robinson Crusoe, came out, a glorious host, to keep me company.
They kept alive my fancy, and my hope of something beyond that place
and time, - they, and the Arabian Nights, and the Tales of the Genii,
- and did me no harm; for whatever harm was in some of them was
not there for me; I knew nothing of it. It is astonishing to me
now, how I found time, in the midst of my porings and blunderings
over heavier themes, to read those books as I did. It is curious
to me how I could ever have consoled myself under my small troubles
(which were great troubles to me), by impersonating my favourite
characters in them - as I did - and by putting Mr. and Miss Murdstone
into all the bad ones - which I did too. I have been Tom Jones (a
child's Tom Jones, a harmless creature) for a week together. I have
sustained my own idea of Roderick Random for a month at a stretch,
I verily believe. I had a greedy relish for a few volumes of Voyages
and Travels - I forget what, now - that were on those shelves; and
for days and days I can remember to have gone about my region of
our house, armed with the centre-piece out of an old set of boot-trees
- the perfect realization of Captain Somebody, of the Royal British
Navy, in danger of being beset by savages, and resolved to sell
his life at a great price. The Captain never lost dignity, from
having his ears boxed with the Latin Grammar. I did; but the Captain
was a Captain and a hero, in despite of all the grammars of all
the languages in the world, dead or alive.
This was my only and my constant comfort. When I think of it,
the picture always rises in my mind, of a summer evening, the boys
at play in the churchyard, and I sitting on my bed, reading as if
for life. Every barn in the neighbourhood, every stone in the church,
and every foot of the churchyard, had some association of its own,
in my mind, connected with these books, and stood for some locality
made famous in them. I have seen Tom Pipes go climbing up the church-steeple;
I have watched Strap, with the knapsack on his back, stopping to
rest himself upon the wicket-gate; and I know that Commodore Trunnion
held that club with Mr. Pickle, in the parlour of our little village
alehouse.
The reader now understands, as well as I do, what I was when
I came to that point of my youthful history to which I am now coming
again.
One morning when I went into the parlour with my books, I found
my mother looking anxious, Miss Murdstone looking firm, and Mr.
Murdstone binding something round the bottom of a cane - a lithe
and limber cane, which he left off binding when I came in, and poised
and switched in the air.
'I tell you, Clara,' said Mr. Murdstone, 'I have been often flogged
myself.'
'To be sure; of course,' said Miss Murdstone.
'Certainly, my dear Jane,' faltered my mother, meekly. 'But -
but do you think it did Edward good?'
'Do you think it did Edward harm, Clara?' asked Mr. Murdstone,
gravely.
'That's the point,' said his sister.
To this my mother returned, 'Certainly, my dear Jane,' and said
no more.
I felt apprehensive that I was personally interested in this
dialogue, and sought Mr. Murdstone's eye as it lighted on mine.
'Now, David,' he said - and I saw that cast again as he said
it - 'you must be far more careful today than usual.' He gave the
cane another poise, and another switch; and having finished his
preparation of it, laid it down beside him, with an impressive look,
and took up his book.
This was a good freshener to my presence of mind, as a beginning.
I felt the words of my lessons slipping off, not one by one, or
line by line, but by the entire page; I tried to lay hold of them;
but they seemed, if I may so express it, to have put skates on,
and to skim away from me with a smoothness there was no checking.
We began badly, and went on worse. I had come in with an idea
of distinguishing myself rather, conceiving that I was very well
prepared; but it turned out to be quite a mistake. Book after book
was added to the heap of failures, Miss Murdstone being firmly watchful
of us all the time. And when we came at last to the five thousand
cheeses (canes he made it that day, I remember), my mother burst
out crying.
'Clara!' said Miss Murdstone, in her warning voice.
'I am not quite well, my dear Jane, I think,' said my mother.
I saw him wink, solemnly, at his sister, as he rose and said,
taking up the cane:
'Why, Jane, we can hardly expect Clara to bear, with perfect
firmness, the worry and torment that David has occasioned her today.
That would be stoical. Clara is greatly strengthened and improved,
but we can hardly expect so much from her. David, you and I will
go upstairs, boy.'
As he took me out at the door, my mother ran towards us. Miss
Murdstone said, 'Clara! are you a perfect fool?' and interfered.
I saw my mother stop her ears then, and I heard her crying.
He walked me up to my room slowly and gravely - I am certain
he had a delight in that formal parade of executing justice - and
when we got there, suddenly twisted my head under his arm.
'Mr. Murdstone! Sir!' I cried to him. 'Don't! Pray don't beat
me! I have tried to learn, sir, but I can't learn while you and
Miss Murdstone are by. I can't indeed!'
'Can't you, indeed, David?' he said. 'We'll try that.'
He had my head as in a vice, but I twined round him somehow,
and stopped him for a moment, entreating him not to beat me. It
was only a moment that I stopped him, for he cut me heavily an instant
afterwards, and in the same instant I caught the hand with which
he held me in my mouth, between my teeth, and bit it through. It
sets my teeth on edge to think of it.
He beat me then, as if he would have beaten me to death. Above
all the noise we made, I heard them running up the stairs, and crying
out - I heard my mother crying out - and Peggotty. Then he was gone;
and the door was locked outside; and I was lying, fevered and hot,
and torn, and sore, and raging in my puny way, upon the floor.
How well I recollect, when I became quiet, what an unnatural
stillness seemed to reign through the whole house! How well I remember,
when my smart and passion began to cool, how wicked I began to feel!
I sat listening for a long while, but there was not a sound.
I crawled up from the floor, and saw my face in the glass, so swollen,
red, and ugly that it almost frightened me. My stripes were sore
and stiff, and made me cry afresh, when I moved; but they were nothing
to the guilt I felt. It lay heavier on my breast than if I had been
a most atrocious criminal, I dare say.
It had begun to grow dark, and I had shut the window (I had been
lying, for the most part, with my head upon the sill, by turns crying,
dozing, and looking listlessly out), when the key was turned, and
Miss Murdstone came in with some bread and meat, and milk. These
she put down upon the table without a word, glaring at me the while
with exemplary firmness, and then retired, locking the door after
her.
Long after it was dark I sat there, wondering whether anybody
else would come. When this appeared improbable for that night, I
undressed, and went to bed; and, there, I began to wonder fearfully
what would be done to me. Whether it was a criminal act that I had
committed? Whether I should be taken into custody, and sent to prison?
Whether I was at all in danger of being hanged?
I never shall forget the waking, next morning; the being cheerful
and fresh for the first moment, and then the being weighed down
by the stale and dismal oppression of remembrance. Miss Murdstone
reappeared before I was out of bed; told me, in so many words, that
I was free to walk in the garden for half an hour and no longer;
and retired, leaving the door open, that I might avail myself of
that permission.
I did so, and did so every morning of my imprisonment, which
lasted five days. If I could have seen my mother alone, I should
have gone down on my knees to her and besought her forgiveness;
but I saw no one, Miss Murdstone excepted, during the whole time
- except at evening prayers in the parlour; to which I was escorted
by Miss Murdstone after everybody else was placed; where I was stationed,
a young outlaw, all alone by myself near the door; and whence I
was solemnly conducted by my jailer, before any one arose from the
devotional posture. I only observed that my mother was as far off
from me as she could be, and kept her face another way so that I
never saw it; and that Mr. Murdstone's hand was bound up in a large
linen wrapper.
The length of those five days I can convey no idea of to any
one. They occupy the place of years in my remembrance. The way in
which I listened to all the incidents of the house that made themselves
audible to me; the ringing of bells, the opening and shutting of
doors, the murmuring of voices, the footsteps on the stairs; to
any laughing, whistling, or singing, outside, which seemed more
dismal than anything else to me in my solitude and disgrace - the
uncertain pace of the hours, especially at night, when I would wake
thinking it was morning, and find that the family were not yet gone
to bed, and that all the length of night had yet to come - the depressed
dreams and nightmares I had - the return of day, noon, afternoon,
evening, when the boys played in the churchyard, and I watched them
from a distance within the room, being ashamed to show myself at
the window lest they should know I was a prisoner - the strange
sensation of never hearing myself speak - the fleeting intervals
of something like cheerfulness, which came with eating and drinking,
and went away with it - the setting in of rain one evening, with
a fresh smell, and its coming down faster and faster between me
and the church, until it and gathering night seemed to quench me
in gloom, and fear, and remorse - all this appears to have gone
round and round for years instead of days, it is so vividly and
strongly stamped on my remembrance. On the last night of my restraint,
I was awakened by hearing my own name spoken in a whisper. I started
up in bed, and putting out my arms in the dark, said:
'Is that you, Peggotty?'
There was no immediate answer, but presently I heard my name
again, in a tone so very mysterious and awful, that I think I should
have gone into a fit, if it had not occurred to me that it must
have come through the keyhole.
I groped my way to the door, and putting my own lips to the keyhole,
whispered: 'Is that you, Peggotty dear?'
'Yes, my own precious Davy,' she replied. 'Be as soft as a mouse,
or the Cat'll hear us.'
I understood this to mean Miss Murdstone, and was sensible of
the urgency of the case; her room being close by.
'How's mama, dear Peggotty? Is she very angry with me?'
I could hear Peggotty crying softly on her side of the keyhole,
as I was doing on mine, before she answered. 'No. Not very.'
'What is going to be done with me, Peggotty dear? Do you know?'
'School. Near London,' was Peggotty's answer. I was obliged to
get her to repeat it, for she spoke it the first time quite down
my throat, in consequence of my having forgotten to take my mouth
away from the keyhole and put my ear there; and though her words
tickled me a good deal, I didn't hear them.
'When, Peggotty?'
'Tomorrow.'
'Is that the reason why Miss Murdstone took the clothes out of
my drawers?' which she had done, though I have forgotten to mention
it.
'Yes,' said Peggotty. 'Box.'
'Shan't I see mama?'
'Yes,' said Peggotty. 'Morning.'
Then Peggotty fitted her mouth close to the keyhole, and delivered
these words through it with as much feeling and earnestness as a
keyhole has ever been the medium of communicating, I will venture
to assert: shooting in each broken little sentence in a convulsive
little burst of its own.
'Davy, dear. If I ain't been azackly as intimate with you. Lately,
as I used to be. It ain't because I don't love you. just as well
and more, my pretty poppet. It's because I thought it better for
you. And for someone else besides. Davy, my darling, are you listening?
Can you hear?'
'Ye-ye-ye-yes, Peggotty!' I sobbed.
'My own!' said Peggotty, with infinite compassion. 'What I want
to say, is. That you must never forget me. For I'll never forget
you. And I'll take as much care of your mama, Davy. As ever I took
of you. And I won't leave her. The day may come when she'll be glad
to lay her poor head. On her stupid, cross old Peggotty's arm again.
And I'll write to you, my dear. Though I ain't no scholar. And I'll
- I'll -' Peggotty fell to kissing the keyhole, as she couldn't
kiss me.
'Thank you, dear Peggotty!' said I. 'Oh, thank you! Thank you!
Will you promise me one thing, Peggotty? Will you write and tell
Mr. Peggotty and little Em'ly, and Mrs. Gummidge and Ham, that I
am not so bad as they might suppose, and that I sent 'em all my
love - especially to little Em'ly? Will you, if you please, Peggotty?'
The kind soul promised, and we both of us kissed the keyhole
with the greatest affection - I patted it with my hand, I recollect,
as if it had been her honest face - and parted. From that night
there grew up in my breast a feeling for Peggotty which I cannot
very well define. She did not replace my mother; no one could do
that; but she came into a vacancy in my heart, which closed upon
her, and I felt towards her something I have never felt for any
other human being. It was a sort of comical affection, too; and
yet if she had died, I cannot think what I should have done, or
how I should have acted out the tragedy it would have been to me.
In the morning Miss Murdstone appeared as usual, and told me
I was going to school; which was not altogether such news to me
as she supposed. She also informed me that when I was dressed, I
was to come downstairs into the parlour, and have my breakfast.
There, I found my mother, very pale and with red eyes: into whose
arms I ran, and begged her pardon from my suffering soul.
'Oh, Davy!' she said. 'That you could hurt anyone I love! Try
to be better, pray to be better! I forgive you; but I am so grieved,
Davy, that you should have such bad passions in your heart.'
They had persuaded her that I was a wicked fellow, and she was
more sorry for that than for my going away. I felt it sorely. I
tried to eat my parting breakfast, but my tears dropped upon my
bread- and-butter, and trickled into my tea. I saw my mother look
at me sometimes, and then glance at the watchful Miss Murdstone,
and than look down, or look away.
'Master Copperfield's box there!' said Miss Murdstone, when wheels
were heard at the gate.
I looked for Peggotty, but it was not she; neither she nor Mr.
Murdstone appeared. My former acquaintance, the carrier, was at
the door. the box was taken out to his cart, and lifted in.
'Clara!' said Miss Murdstone, in her warning note.
'Ready, my dear Jane,' returned my mother. 'Good-bye, Davy. You
are going for your own good. Good-bye, my child. You will come home
in the holidays, and be a better boy.'
'Clara!' Miss Murdstone repeated.
'Certainly, my dear Jane,' replied my mother, who was holding
me. 'I forgive you, my dear boy. God bless you!'
'Clara!' Miss Murdstone repeated.
Miss Murdstone was good enough to take me out to the cart, and
to say on the way that she hoped I would repent, before I came to
a bad end; and then I got into the cart, and the lazy horse walked
off with it.
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