|
Mr. Peggotty gave his head another toss, as much as to say: 'Of
course he will.'
'He is such a speaker,' I pursued, 'that he can win anybody over;
and I don't know what you'd say if you were to hear him sing, Mr.
Peggotty.'
Mr. Peggotty gave his head another toss, as much as to say: 'I
have no doubt of it.'
'Then, he's such a generous, fine, noble fellow,' said I, quite
carried away by my favourite theme, 'that it's hardly possible to
give him as much praise as he deserves. I am sure I can never feel
thankful enough for the generosity with which he has protected me,
so much younger and lower in the school than himself.'
I was running on, very fast indeed, when my eyes rested on little
Em'ly's face, which was bent forward over the table, listening with
the deepest attention, her breath held, her blue eyes sparkling
like jewels, and the colour mantling in her cheeks. She looked so
extraordinarily earnest and pretty, that I stopped in a sort of
wonder; and they all observed her at the same time, for as I stopped,
they laughed and looked at her.
'Em'ly is like me,' said Peggotty, 'and would like to see him.'
Em'ly was confused by our all observing her, and hung down her
head, and her face was covered with blushes. Glancing up presently
through her stray curls, and seeing that we were all looking at
her still (I am sure I, for one, could have looked at her for hours),
she ran away, and kept away till it was nearly bedtime.
I lay down in the old little bed in the stern of the boat, and
the wind came moaning on across the flat as it had done before.
But I could not help fancying, now, that it moaned of those who
were gone; and instead of thinking that the sea might rise in the
night and float the boat away, I thought of the sea that had risen,
since I last heard those sounds, and drowned my happy home. I recollect,
as the wind and water began to sound fainter in my ears, putting
a short clause into my prayers, petitioning that I might grow up
to marry little Em'ly, and so dropping lovingly asleep.
The days passed pretty much as they had passed before, except
- it was a great exception- that little Em'ly and I seldom wandered
on the beach now. She had tasks to learn, and needle-work to do;
and was absent during a great part of each day. But I felt that
we should not have had those old wanderings, even if it had been
otherwise. Wild and full of childish whims as Em'ly was, she was
more of a little woman than I had supposed. She seemed to have got
a great distance away from me, in little more than a year. She liked
me, but she laughed at me, and tormented me; and when I went to
meet her, stole home another way, and was laughing at the door when
I came back, disappointed. The best times were when she sat quietly
at work in the doorway, and I sat on the wooden step at her feet,
reading to her. It seems to me, at this hour, that I have never
seen such sunlight as on those bright April afternoons; that I have
never seen such a sunny little figure as I used to see, sitting
in the doorway of the old boat; that I have never beheld such sky,
such water, such glorified ships sailing away into golden air.
On the very first evening after our arrival, Mr. Barkis appeared
in an exceedingly vacant and awkward condition, and with a bundle
of oranges tied up in a handkerchief. As he made no allusion of
any kind to this property, he was supposed to have left it behind
him by accident when he went away; until Ham, running after him
to restore it, came back with the information that it was intended
for Peggotty. After that occasion he appeared every evening at exactly
the same hour, and always with a little bundle, to which he never
alluded, and which he regularly put behind the door and left there.
These offerings of affection were of a most various and eccentric
description. Among them I remember a double set of pigs' trotters,
a huge pin-cushion, half a bushel or so of apples, a pair of jet
earrings, some Spanish onions, a box of dominoes, a canary bird
and cage, and a leg of pickled pork.
Mr. Barkis's wooing, as I remember it, was altogether of a peculiar
kind. He very seldom said anything; but would sit by the fire in
much the same attitude as he sat in his cart, and stare heavily
at Peggotty, who was opposite. One night, being, as I suppose, inspired
by love, he made a dart at the bit of wax-candle she kept for her
thread, and put it in his waistcoat-pocket and carried it off. After
that, his great delight was to produce it when it was wanted, sticking
to the lining of his pocket, in a partially melted state, and pocket
it again when it was done with. He seemed to enjoy himself very
much, and not to feel at all called upon to talk. Even when he took
Peggotty out for a walk on the flats, he had no uneasiness on that
head, I believe; contenting himself with now and then asking her
if she was pretty comfortable; and I remember that sometimes, after
he was gone, Peggotty would throw her apron over her face, and laugh
for half-an-hour. Indeed, we were all more or less amused, except
that miserable Mrs. Gummidge, whose courtship would appear to have
been of an exactly parallel nature, she was so continually reminded
by these transactions of the old one.
At length, when the term of my visit was nearly expired, it was
given out that Peggotty and Mr. Barkis were going to make a day's
holiday together, and that little Em'ly and I were to accompany
them. I had but a broken sleep the night before, in anticipation
of the pleasure of a whole day with Em'ly. We were all astir betimes
in the morning; and while we were yet at breakfast, Mr. Barkis appeared
in the distance, driving a chaise-cart towards the object of his
affections.
Peggotty was dressed as usual, in her neat and quiet mourning;
but Mr. Barkis bloomed in a new blue coat, of which the tailor had
given him such good measure, that the cuffs would have rendered
gloves unnecessary in the coldest weather, while the collar was
so high that it pushed his hair up on end on the top of his head.
His bright buttons, too, were of the largest size. Rendered complete
by drab pantaloons and a buff waistcoat, I thought Mr. Barkis a
phenomenon of respectability.
When we were all in a bustle outside the door, I found that Mr.
Peggotty was prepared with an old shoe, which was to be thrown after
us for luck, and which he offered to Mrs. Gummidge for that purpose.
'No. It had better be done by somebody else, Dan'l,' said Mrs.
Gummidge. 'I'm a lone lorn creetur' myself, and everythink that
reminds me of creetur's that ain't lone and lorn, goes contrary
with me.'
'Come, old gal!' cried Mr. Peggotty. 'Take and heave it.'
'No, Dan'l,' returned Mrs. Gummidge, whimpering and shaking her
head. 'If I felt less, I could do more. You don't feel like me,
Dan'l; thinks don't go contrary with you, nor you with them; you
had better do it yourself.'
But here Peggotty, who had been going about from one to another
in a hurried way, kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in
which we all were by this time (Em'ly and I on two little chairs,
side by side), that Mrs. Gummidge must do it. So Mrs. Gummidge did
it; and, I am sorry to relate, cast a damp upon the festive character
of our departure, by immediately bursting into tears, and sinking
subdued into the arms of Ham, with the declaration that she knowed
she was a burden, and had better be carried to the House at once.
Which I really thought was a sensible idea, that Ham might have
acted on.
Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion; and the first
thing we did was to stop at a church, where Mr. Barkis tied the
horse to some rails, and went in with Peggotty, leaving little Em'ly
and me alone in the chaise. I took that occasion to put my arm round
Em'ly's waist, and propose that as I was going away so very soon
now, we should determine to be very affectionate to one another,
and very happy, all day. Little Em'ly consenting, and allowing me
to kiss her, I became desperate; informing her, I recollect, that
I never could love another, and that I was prepared to shed the
blood of anybody who should aspire to her affections.
How merry little Em'ly made herself about it! With what a demure
assumption of being immensely older and wiser than I, the fairy
little woman said I was 'a silly boy'; and then laughed so charmingly
that I forgot the pain of being called by that disparaging name,
in the pleasure of looking at her.
Mr. Barkis and Peggotty were a good while in the church, but
came out at last, and then we drove away into the country. As we
were going along, Mr. Barkis turned to me, and said, with a wink,
- by the by, I should hardly have thought, before, that he could
wink:
'What name was it as I wrote up in the cart?'
'Clara Peggotty,' I answered.
'What name would it be as I should write up now, if there was
a tilt here?'
'Clara Peggotty, again?' I suggested.
'Clara Peggotty BARKIS!' he returned, and burst into a roar of
laughter that shook the chaise.
In a word, they were married, and had gone into the church for
no other purpose. Peggotty was resolved that it should be quietly
done; and the clerk had given her away, and there had been no witnesses
of the ceremony. She was a little confused when Mr. Barkis made
this abrupt announcement of their union, and could not hug me enough
in token of her unimpaired affection; but she soon became herself
again, and said she was very glad it was over.
We drove to a little inn in a by-road, where we were expected,
and where we had a very comfortable dinner, and passed the day with
great satisfaction. If Peggotty had been married every day for the
last ten years, she could hardly have been more at her ease about
it; it made no sort of difference in her: she was just the same
as ever, and went out for a stroll with little Em'ly and me before
tea, while Mr. Barkis philosophically smoked his pipe, and enjoyed
himself, I suppose, with the contemplation of his happiness. If
so, it sharpened his appetite; for I distinctly call to mind that,
although he had eaten a good deal of pork and greens at dinner,
and had finished off with a fowl or two, he was obliged to have
cold boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of a large quantity without
any emotion.
I have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent, out-of-the-way
kind of wedding it must have been! We got into the chaise again
soon after dark, and drove cosily back, looking up at the stars,
and talking about them. I was their chief exponent, and opened Mr.
Barkis's mind to an amazing extent. I told him all I knew, but he
would have believed anything I might have taken it into my head
to impart to him; for he had a profound veneration for my abilities,
and informed his wife in my hearing, on that very occasion, that
I was 'a young Roeshus' - by which I think he meant prodigy.
When we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when
I had exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis, little Em'ly
and I made a cloak of an old wrapper, and sat under it for the rest
of the journey. Ah, how I loved her! What happiness (I thought)
if we were married, and were going away anywhere to live among the
trees and in the fields, never growing older, never growing wiser,
children ever, rambling hand in hand through sunshine and among
flowery meadows, laying down our heads on moss at night, in a sweet
sleep of purity and peace, and buried by the birds when we were
dead! Some such picture, with no real world in it, bright with the
light of our innocence, and vague as the stars afar off, was in
my mind all the way. I am glad to think there were two such guileless
hearts at Peggotty's marriage as little Em'ly's and mine. I am glad
to think the Loves and Graces took such airy forms in its homely
procession.
Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night; and
there Mr. and Mrs. Barkis bade us good-bye, and drove away snugly
to their own home. I felt then, for the first time, that I had lost
Peggotty. I should have gone to bed with a sore heart indeed under
any other roof but that which sheltered little Em'ly's head.
Mr. Peggotty and Ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as
I did, and were ready with some supper and their hospitable faces
to drive it away. Little Em'ly came and sat beside me on the locker
for the only time in all that visit; and it was altogether a wonderful
close to a wonderful day.
It was a night tide; and soon after we went to bed, Mr. Peggotty
and Ham went out to fish. I felt very brave at being left alone
in the solitary house, the protector of Em'ly and Mrs. Gummidge,
and only wished that a lion or a serpent, or any ill-disposed monster,
would make an attack upon us, that I might destroy him, and cover
myself with glory. But as nothing of the sort happened to be walking
about on Yarmouth flats that night, I provided the best substitute
I could by dreaming of dragons until morning.
With morning came Peggotty; who called to me, as usual, under
my window as if Mr. Barkis the carrier had been from first to last
a dream too. After breakfast she took me to her own home, and a
beautiful little home it was. Of all the moveables in it, I must
have been impressed by a certain old bureau of some dark wood in
the parlour (the tile-floored kitchen was the general sitting-room),
with a retreating top which opened, let down, and became a desk,
within which was a large quarto edition of Foxe's Book of Martyrs.
This precious volume, of which I do not recollect one word, I immediately
discovered and immediately applied myself to; and I never visited
the house afterwards, but I kneeled on a chair, opened the casket
where this gem was enshrined, spread my arms over the desk, and
fell to devouring the book afresh. I was chiefly edified, I am afraid,
by the pictures, which were numerous, and represented all kinds
of dismal horrors; but the Martyrs and Peggotty's house have been
inseparable in my mind ever since, and are now.
I took leave of Mr. Peggotty, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge, and
little Em'ly, that day; and passed the night at Peggotty's, in a
little room in the roof (with the Crocodile Book on a shelf by the
bed's head) which was to be always mine, Peggotty said, and should
always be kept for me in exactly the same state.
'Young or old, Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have this
house over my head,' said Peggotty, 'you shall find it as if I expected
you here directly minute. I shall keep it every day, as I used to
keep your old little room, my darling; and if you was to go to China,
you might think of it as being kept just the same, all the time
you were away.'
I felt the truth and constancy of my dear old nurse, with all
my heart, and thanked her as well as I could. That was not very
well, for she spoke to me thus, with her arms round my neck, in
the morning, and I was going home in the morning, and I went home
in the morning, with herself and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left
me at the gate, not easily or lightly; and it was a strange sight
to me to see the cart go on, taking Peggotty away, and leaving me
under the old elm-trees looking at the house, in which there was
no face to look on mine with love or liking any more.
And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I cannot look back
upon without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition,
- apart from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all
other boys of my own age, apart from all companionship but my own
spiritless thoughts, - which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper
as I write.
What would I have given, to have been sent to the hardest school
that ever was kept! - to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere!
No such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me; and they sullenly,
sternly, steadily, overlooked me. I think Mr. Murdstone's means
were straitened at about this time; but it is little to the purpose.
He could not bear me; and in putting me from him he tried, as I
believe, to put away the notion that I had any claim upon him -
and succeeded.
I was not actively ill-used. I was not beaten, or starved; but
the wrong that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and
was done in a systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week
after week, month after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder
sometimes, when I think of it, what they would have done if I had
been taken with an illness; whether I should have lain down in my
lonely room, and languished through it in my usual solitary way,
or whether anybody would have helped me out.
When Mr. and Miss Murdstone were at home, I took my meals with
them; in their absence, I ate and drank by myself. At all times
I lounged about the house and neighbourhood quite disregarded, except
that they were jealous of my making any friends: thinking, perhaps,
that if I did, I might complain to someone. For this reason, though
Mr. Chillip often asked me to go and see him (he was a widower,
having, some years before that, lost a little small light-haired
wife, whom I can just remember connecting in my own thoughts with
a pale tortoise-shell cat), it was but seldom that I enjoyed the
happiness of passing an afternoon in his closet of a surgery; reading
some book that was new to me, with the smell of the whole Pharmacopoeia
coming up my nose, or pounding something in a mortar under his mild
directions.
For the same reason, added no doubt to the old dislike of her,
I was seldom allowed to visit Peggotty. Faithful to her promise,
she either came to see me, or met me somewhere near, once every
week, and never empty-handed; but many and bitter were the disappointments
I had, in being refused permission to pay a visit to her at her
house. Some few times, however, at long intervals, I was allowed
to go there; and then I found out that Mr. Barkis was something
of a miser, or as Peggotty dutifully expressed it, was 'a little
near', and kept a heap of money in a box under his bed, which he
pretended was only full of coats and trousers. In this coffer, his
riches hid themselves with such a tenacious modesty, that the smallest
instalments could only be tempted out by artifice; so that Peggotty
had to prepare a long and elaborate scheme, a very Gunpowder Plot,
for every Saturday's expenses.
All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any promise
I had given, and of my being utterly neglected, that I should have
been perfectly miserable, I have no doubt, but for the old books.
They were my only comfort; and I was as true to them as they were
to me, and read them over and over I don't know how many times more.
I now approach a period of my life, which I can never lose the
remembrance of, while I remember anything: and the recollection
of which has often, without my invocation, come before me like a
ghost, and haunted happier times.
I had been out, one day, loitering somewhere, in the listless,
meditative manner that my way of life engendered, when, turning
the corner of a lane near our house, I came upon Mr. Murdstone walking
with a gentleman. I was confused, and was going by them, when the
gentleman cried:
'What! Brooks!'
'No, sir, David Copperfield,' I said.
'Don't tell me. You are Brooks,' said the gentleman. 'You are
Brooks of Sheffield. That's your name.'
At these words, I observed the gentleman more attentively. His
laugh coming to my remembrance too, I knew him to be Mr. Quinion,
whom I had gone over to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to see, before
- it is no matter - I need not recall when.
'And how do you get on, and where are you being educated, Brooks?'
said Mr. Quinion.
He had put his hand upon my shoulder, and turned me about, to
walk with them. I did not know what to reply, and glanced dubiously
at Mr. Murdstone.
'He is at home at present,' said the latter. 'He is not being
educated anywhere. I don't know what to do with him. He is a difficult
subject.'
That old, double look was on me for a moment; and then his eyes
darkened with a frown, as it turned, in its aversion, elsewhere.
'Humph!' said Mr. Quinion, looking at us both, I thought. 'Fine
weather!'
Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best disengage
my shoulder from his hand, and go away, when he said:
'I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still? Eh, Brooks?'
'Aye! He is sharp enough,' said Mr. Murdstone, impatiently. 'You
had better let him go. He will not thank you for troubling him.'
On this hint, Mr. Quinion released me, and I made the best of
my way home. Looking back as I turned into the front garden, I saw
Mr. Murdstone leaning against the wicket of the churchyard, and
Mr. Quinion talking to him. They were both looking after me, and
I felt that they were speaking of me.
Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. After breakfast, the
next morning, I had put my chair away, and was going out of the
room, when Mr. Murdstone called me back. He then gravely repaired
to another table, where his sister sat herself at her desk. Mr.
Quinion, with his hands in his pockets, stood looking out of window;
and I stood looking at them all.
'David,' said Mr. Murdstone, 'to the young this is a world for
action; not for moping and droning in.'
- 'As you do,' added his sister.
'Jane Murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. I say, David,
to the young this is a world for action, and not for moping and
droning in. It is especially so for a young boy of your disposition,
which requires a great deal of correcting; and to which no greater
service can be done than to force it to conform to the ways of the
working world, and to bend it and break it.'
'For stubbornness won't do here,' said his sister 'What it wants
is, to be crushed. And crushed it must be. Shall be, too!'
He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and
went on:
'I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate,
you know it now. You have received some considerable education already.
Education is costly; and even if it were not, and I could afford
it, I am of opinion that it would not be at all advantageous to
you to be kept at school. What is before you, is a fight with the
world; and the sooner you begin it, the better.'
I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it, in my
poor way: but it occurs to me now, whether or no.
'You have heard the "counting-house" mentioned sometimes,'
said Mr. Murdstone.
'The counting-house, sir?' I repeated. 'Of Murdstone and Grinby,
in the wine trade,' he replied.
I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily:
'You have heard the "counting-house" mentioned, or
the business, or the cellars, or the wharf, or something about it.'
'I think I have heard the business mentioned, sir,' I said, remembering
what I vaguely knew of his and his sister's resources. 'But I don't
know when.'
'It does not matter when,' he returned. 'Mr. Quinion manages
that business.'
I glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood looking out
of window.
'Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other
boys, and that he sees no reason why it shouldn't, on the same terms,
give employment to you.'
'He having,' Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice, and half turning
round, 'no other prospect, Murdstone.'
Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed,
without noticing what he had said:
'Those terms are, that you will earn enough for yourself to provide
for your eating and drinking, and pocket-money. Your lodging (which
I have arranged for) will be paid by me. So will your washing -'
'- Which will be kept down to my estimate,' said his sister.
'Your clothes will be looked after for you, too,' said Mr. Murdstone;
'as you will not be able, yet awhile, to get them for yourself.
So you are now going to London, David, with Mr. Quinion, to begin
the world on your own account.'
'In short, you are provided for,' observed his sister; 'and will
please to do your duty.'
Though I quite understood that the purpose of this announcement
was to get rid of me, I have no distinct remembrance whether it
pleased or frightened me. My impression is, that I was in a state
of confusion about it, and, oscillating between the two points,
touched neither. Nor had I much time for the clearing of my thoughts,
as Mr. Quinion was to go upon the morrow.
Behold me, on the morrow, in a much-worn little white hat, with
a black crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and a pair
of hard, stiff corduroy trousers - which Miss Murdstone considered
the best armour for the legs in that fight with the world which
was now to come off. behold me so attired, and with my little worldly
all before me in a small trunk, sitting, a lone lorn child (as Mrs.
Gummidge might have said), in the post-chaise that was carrying
Mr. Quinion to the London coach at Yarmouth! See, how our house
and church are lessening in the distance; how the grave beneath
the tree is blotted out by intervening objects; how the spire points
upwards from my old playground no more, and the sky is empty!
|
