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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 escape to Peggotty without having the hardihood to slip away,
lest it should offend the master of the house, a coach drove up
to the garden-gate and he went out to receive the visitor. My mother
followed him. I was timidly following her, when she turned round
at the parlour door, in the dusk, and taking me in her embrace as
she had been used to do, whispered me to love my new father and
be obedient to him. She did this hurriedly and secretly, as if it
were wrong, but tenderly; and, putting out her hand behind her,
held mine in it, until we came near to where he was standing in
the garden, where she let mine go, and drew hers through his arm.
It was Miss Murdstone who was arrived, and a gloomy-looking lady
she was; dark, like her brother, whom she greatly resembled in face
and voice; and with very heavy eyebrows, nearly meeting over her
large nose, as if, being disabled by the wrongs of her sex from
wearing whiskers, she had carried them to that account. She brought
with her two uncompromising hard black boxes, with her initials
on the lids in hard brass nails. When she paid the coachman she
took her money out of a hard steel purse, and she kept the purse
in a very jail of a bag which hung upon her arm by a heavy chain,
and shut up like a bite. I had never, at that time, seen such a
metallic lady altogether as Miss Murdstone was.
She was brought into the parlour with many tokens of welcome,
and there formally recognized my mother as a new and near relation.
Then she looked at me, and said:
'Is that your boy, sister-in-law?'
My mother acknowledged me.
'Generally speaking,' said Miss Murdstone, 'I don't like boys.
How d'ye do, boy?'
Under these encouraging circumstances, I replied that I was very
well, and that I hoped she was the same; with such an indifferent
grace, that Miss Murdstone disposed of me in two words:
'Wants manner!'
Having uttered which, with great distinctness, she begged the
favour of being shown to her room, which became to me from that
time forth a place of awe and dread, wherein the two black boxes
were never seen open or known to be left unlocked, and where (for
I peeped in once or twice when she was out) numerous little steel
fetters and rivets, with which Miss Murdstone embellished herself
when she was dressed, generally hung upon the looking-glass in formidable
array.
As well as I could make out, she had come for good, and had no
intention of ever going again. She began to 'help' my mother next
morning, and was in and out of the store-closet all day, putting
things to rights, and making havoc in the old arrangements. Almost
the first remarkable thing I observed in Miss Murdstone was, her
being constantly haunted by a suspicion that the servants had a
man secreted somewhere on the premises. Under the influence of this
delusion, she dived into the coal-cellar at the most untimely hours,
and scarcely ever opened the door of a dark cupboard without clapping
it to again, in the belief that she had got him.
Though there was nothing very airy about Miss Murdstone, she
was a perfect Lark in point of getting up. She was up (and, as I
believe to this hour, looking for that man) before anybody in the
house was stirring. Peggotty gave it as her opinion that she even
slept with one eye open; but I could not concur in this idea; for
I tried it myself after hearing the suggestion thrown out, and found
it couldn't be done.
On the very first morning after her arrival she was up and ringing
her bell at cock-crow. When my mother came down to breakfast and
was going to make the tea, Miss Murdstone gave her a kind of peck
on the cheek, which was her nearest approach to a kiss, and said:
'Now, Clara, my dear, I am come here, you know, to relieve you
of all the trouble I can. You're much too pretty and thoughtless'
- my mother blushed but laughed, and seemed not to dislike this
character - 'to have any duties imposed upon you that can be undertaken
by me. If you'll be so good as give me your keys, my dear, I'll
attend to all this sort of thing in future.'
From that time, Miss Murdstone kept the keys in her own little
jail all day, and under her pillow all night, and my mother had
no more to do with them than I had.
My mother did not suffer her authority to pass from her without
a shadow of protest. One night when Miss Murdstone had been developing
certain household plans to her brother, of which he signified his
approbation, my mother suddenly began to cry, and said she thought
she might have been consulted.
'Clara!' said Mr. Murdstone sternly. 'Clara! I wonder at you.'
'Oh, it's very well to say you wonder, Edward!' cried my mother,
'and it's very well for you to talk about firmness, but you wouldn't
like it yourself.'
Firmness, I may observe, was the grand quality on which both
Mr. and Miss Murdstone took their stand. However I might have expressed
my comprehension of it at that time, if I had been called upon,
I nevertheless did clearly comprehend in my own way, that it was
another name for tyranny; and for a certain gloomy, arrogant, devil's
humour, that was in them both. The creed, as I should state it now,
was this. Mr. Murdstone was firm; nobody in his world was to be
so firm as Mr. Murdstone; nobody else in his world was to be firm
at all, for everybody was to be bent to his firmness. Miss Murdstone
was an exception. She might be firm, but only by relationship, and
in an inferior and tributary degree. My mother was another exception.
She might be firm, and must be; but only in bearing their firmness,
and firmly believing there was no other firmness upon earth.
'It's very hard,' said my mother, 'that in my own house -'
'My own house?' repeated Mr. Murdstone. 'Clara!'
'OUR own house, I mean,' faltered my mother, evidently frightened
- 'I hope you must know what I mean, Edward - it's very hard that
in YOUR own house I may not have a word to say about domestic matters.
I am sure I managed very well before we were married. There's evidence,'
said my mother, sobbing; 'ask Peggotty if I didn't do very well
when I wasn't interfered with!'
'Edward,' said Miss Murdstone, 'let there be an end of this.
I go tomorrow.'
'Jane Murdstone,' said her brother, 'be silent! How dare you
to insinuate that you don't know my character better than your words
imply?'
'I am sure,' my poor mother went on, at a grievous disadvantage,
and with many tears, 'I don't want anybody to go. I should be very
miserable and unhappy if anybody was to go. I don't ask much. I
am not unreasonable. I only want to be consulted sometimes. I am
very much obliged to anybody who assists me, and I only want to
be consulted as a mere form, sometimes. I thought you were pleased,
once, with my being a little inexperienced and girlish, Edward -
I am sure you said so - but you seem to hate me for it now, you
are so severe.'
'Edward,' said Miss Murdstone, again, 'let there be an end of
this. I go tomorrow.'
'Jane Murdstone,' thundered Mr. Murdstone. 'Will you be silent?
How dare you?'
Miss Murdstone made a jail-delivery of her pocket-handkerchief,
and held it before her eyes.
'Clara,' he continued, looking at my mother, 'you surprise me!
You astound me! Yes, I had a satisfaction in the thought of marrying
an inexperienced and artless person, and forming her character,
and infusing into it some amount of that firmness and decision of
which it stood in need. But when Jane Murdstone is kind enough to
come to my assistance in this endeavour, and to assume, for my sake,
a condition something like a housekeeper's, and when she meets with
a base return -'
'Oh, pray, pray, Edward,' cried my mother, 'don't accuse me of
being ungrateful. I am sure I am not ungrateful. No one ever said
I was before. I have many faults, but not that. Oh, don't, my dear!'
'When Jane Murdstone meets, I say,' he went on, after waiting
until my mother was silent, 'with a base return, that feeling of
mine is chilled and altered.'
'Don't, my love, say that!' implored my mother very piteously.
'Oh, don't, Edward! I can't bear to hear it. Whatever I am, I am
affectionate. I know I am affectionate. I wouldn't say it, if I
wasn't sure that I am. Ask Peggotty. I am sure she'll tell you I'm
affectionate.'
'There is no extent of mere weakness, Clara,' said Mr. Murdstone
in reply, 'that can have the least weight with me. You lose breath.'
'Pray let us be friends,' said my mother, 'I couldn't live under
coldness or unkindness. I am so sorry. I have a great many defects,
I know, and it's very good of you, Edward, with your strength of
mind, to endeavour to correct them for me. Jane, I don't object
to anything. I should be quite broken-hearted if you thought of
leaving -' My mother was too much overcome to go on.
'Jane Murdstone,' said Mr. Murdstone to his sister, 'any harsh
words between us are, I hope, uncommon. It is not my fault that
so unusual an occurrence has taken place tonight. I was betrayed
into it by another. Nor is it your fault. You were betrayed into
it by another. Let us both try to forget it. And as this,' he added,
after these magnanimous words, 'is not a fit scene for the boy -
David, go to bed!' I could hardly find the door, through the tears
that stood in my eyes. I was so sorry for my mother's distress;
but I groped my way out, and groped my way up to my room in the
dark, without even having the heart to say good night to Peggotty,
or to get a candle from her. When her coming up to look for me,
an hour or so afterwards, awoke me, she said that my mother had
gone to bed poorly, and that Mr. and Miss Murdstone were sitting
alone.
Going down next morning rather earlier than usual, I paused outside
the parlour door, on hearing my mother's voice. She was very earnestly
and humbly entreating Miss Murdstone's pardon, which that lady granted,
and a perfect reconciliation took place. I never knew my mother
afterwards to give an opinion on any matter, without first appealing
to Miss Murdstone, or without having first ascertained by some sure
means, what Miss Murdstone's opinion was; and I never saw Miss Murdstone,
when out of temper (she was infirm that way), move her hand towards
her bag as if she were going to take out the keys and offer to resign
them to my mother, without seeing that my mother was in a terrible
fright.
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