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I BECOME NEGLECTED, AND AM PROVIDED FOR
The first act of business Miss Murdstone performed when the
day of the solemnity was over, and light was freely admitted into
the house, was to give Peggotty a month's warning. Much as Peggotty
would have disliked such a service, I believe she would have retained
it, for my sake, in preference to the best upon earth. She told
me we must part, and told me why; and we condoled with one another,
in all sincerity.
As to me or my future, not a word was said, or a step taken.
Happy they would have been, I dare say, if they could have dismissed
me at a month's warning too. I mustered courage once, to ask Miss
Murdstone when I was going back to school; and she answered dryly,
she believed I was not going back at all. I was told nothing more.
I was very anxious to know what was going to be done with me, and
so was Peggotty; but neither she nor I could pick up any information
on the subject.
There was one change in my condition, which, while it relieved
me of a great deal of present uneasiness, might have made me, if
I had been capable of considering it closely, yet more uncomfortable
about the future. It was this. The constraint that had been put
upon me, was quite abandoned. I was so far from being required to
keep my dull post in the parlour, that on several occasions, when
I took my seat there, Miss Murdstone frowned to me to go away. I
was so far from being warned off from Peggotty's society, that,
provided I was not in Mr. Murdstone's, I was never sought out or
inquired for. At first I was in daily dread of his taking my education
in hand again, or of Miss Murdstone's devoting herself to it; but
I soon began to think that such fears were groundless, and that
all I had to anticipate was neglect.
I do not conceive that this discovery gave me much pain then.
I was still giddy with the shock of my mother's death, and in a
kind of stunned state as to all tributary things. I can recollect,
indeed, to have speculated, at odd times, on the possibility of
my not being taught any more, or cared for any more; and growing
up to be a shabby, moody man, lounging an idle life away, about
the village; as well as on the feasibility of my getting rid of
this picture by going away somewhere, like the hero in a story,
to seek my fortune: but these were transient visions, daydreams
I sat looking at sometimes, as if they were faintly painted or written
on the wall of my room, and which, as they melted away, left the
wall blank again.
'Peggotty,' I said in a thoughtful whisper, one evening, when
I was warming my hands at the kitchen fire, 'Mr. Murdstone likes
me less than he used to. He never liked me much, Peggotty; but he
would rather not even see me now, if he can help it.'
'Perhaps it's his sorrow,' said Peggotty, stroking my hair.
'I am sure, Peggotty, I am sorry too. If I believed it was his
sorrow, I should not think of it at all. But it's not that; oh,
no, it's not that.'
'How do you know it's not that?' said Peggotty, after a silence.
'Oh, his sorrow is another and quite a different thing. He is
sorry at this moment, sitting by the fireside with Miss Murdstone;
but if I was to go in, Peggotty, he would be something besides.'
'What would he be?' said Peggotty.
'Angry,' I answered, with an involuntary imitation of his dark
frown. 'If he was only sorry, he wouldn't look at me as he does.
I am only sorry, and it makes me feel kinder.'
Peggotty said nothing for a little while; and I warmed my hands,
as silent as she.
'Davy,' she said at length.
'Yes, Peggotty?' 'I have tried, my dear, all ways I could think
of - all the ways there are, and all the ways there ain't, in short
- to get a suitable service here, in Blunderstone; but there's no
such a thing, my love.'
'And what do you mean to do, Peggotty,' says I, wistfully. 'Do
you mean to go and seek your fortune?'
'I expect I shall be forced to go to Yarmouth,' replied Peggotty,
'and live there.'
'You might have gone farther off,' I said, brightening a little,
'and been as bad as lost. I shall see you sometimes, my dear old
Peggotty, there. You won't be quite at the other end of the world,
will you?'
'Contrary ways, please God!' cried Peggotty, with great animation.
'As long as you are here, my pet, I shall come over every week of
my life to see you. One day, every week of my life!'
I felt a great weight taken off my mind by this promise: but
even this was not all, for Peggotty went on to say:
'I'm a-going, Davy, you see, to my brother's, first, for another
fortnight's visit - just till I have had time to look about me,
and get to be something like myself again. Now, I have been thinking
that perhaps, as they don't want you here at present, you might
be let to go along with me.'
If anything, short of being in a different relation to every
one about me, Peggotty excepted, could have given me a sense of
pleasure at that time, it would have been this project of all others.
The idea of being again surrounded by those honest faces, shining
welcome on me; of renewing the peacefulness of the sweet Sunday
morning, when the bells were ringing, the stones dropping in the
water, and the shadowy ships breaking through the mist; of roaming
up and down with little Em'ly, telling her my troubles, and finding
charms against them in the shells and pebbles on the beach; made
a calm in my heart. It was ruffled next moment, to be sure, by a
doubt of Miss Murdstone's giving her consent; but even that was
set at rest soon, for she came out to take an evening grope in the
store-closet while we were yet in conversation, and Peggotty, with
a boldness that amazed me, broached the topic on the spot.
'The boy will be idle there,' said Miss Murdstone, looking into
a pickle-jar, 'and idleness is the root of all evil. But, to be
sure, he would be idle here - or anywhere, in my opinion.'
Peggotty had an angry answer ready, I could see; but she swallowed
it for my sake, and remained silent.
'Humph!' said Miss Murdstone, still keeping her eye on the pickles;
'it is of more importance than anything else - it is of paramount
importance - that my brother should not be disturbed or made uncomfortable.
I suppose I had better say yes.'
I thanked her, without making any demonstration of joy, lest
it should induce her to withdraw her assent. Nor could I help thinking
this a prudent course, since she looked at me out of the pickle-jar,
with as great an access of sourness as if her black eyes had absorbed
its contents. However, the permission was given, and was never retracted;
for when the month was out, Peggotty and I were ready to depart.
Mr. Barkis came into the house for Peggotty's boxes. I had never
known him to pass the garden-gate before, but on this occasion he
came into the house. And he gave me a look as he shouldered the
largest box and went out, which I thought had meaning in it, if
meaning could ever be said to find its way into Mr. Barkis's visage.
Peggotty was naturally in low spirits at leaving what had been
her home so many years, and where the two strong attachments of
her life - for my mother and myself - had been formed. She had been
walking in the churchyard, too, very early; and she got into the
cart, and sat in it with her handkerchief at her eyes.
So long as she remained in this condition, Mr. Barkis gave no
sign of life whatever. He sat in his usual place and attitude like
a great stuffed figure. But when she began to look about her, and
to speak to me, he nodded his head and grinned several times. I
have not the least notion at whom, or what he meant by it.
'It's a beautiful day, Mr. Barkis!' I said, as an act of politeness.
'It ain't bad,' said Mr. Barkis, who generally qualified his
speech, and rarely committed himself.
'Peggotty is quite comfortable now, Mr. Barkis,' I remarked,
for his satisfaction.
'Is she, though?' said Mr. Barkis.
After reflecting about it, with a sagacious air, Mr. Barkis eyed
her, and said:
'ARE you pretty comfortable?'
Peggotty laughed, and answered in the affirmative.
'But really and truly, you know. Are you?' growled Mr. Barkis,
sliding nearer to her on the seat, and nudging her with his elbow.
'Are you? Really and truly pretty comfortable? Are you? Eh?'
At each of these inquiries Mr. Barkis shuffled nearer to her,
and gave her another nudge; so that at last we were all crowded
together in the left-hand corner of the cart, and I was so squeezed
that I could hardly bear it.
Peggotty calling his attention to my sufferings, Mr. Barkis gave
me a little more room at once, and got away by degrees. But I could
not help observing that he seemed to think he had hit upon a wonderful
expedient for expressing himself in a neat, agreeable, and pointed
manner, without the inconvenience of inventing conversation. He
manifestly chuckled over it for some time. By and by he turned to
Peggotty again, and repeating, 'Are you pretty comfortable though?'
bore down upon us as before, until the breath was nearly edged out
of my body. By and by he made another descent upon us with the same
inquiry, and the same result. At length, I got up whenever I saw
him coming, and standing on the foot-board, pretended to look at
the prospect; after which I did very well.
He was so polite as to stop at a public-house, expressly on our
account, and entertain us with broiled mutton and beer. Even when
Peggotty was in the act of drinking, he was seized with one of those
approaches, and almost choked her. But as we drew nearer to the
end of our journey, he had more to do and less time for gallantry;
and when we got on Yarmouth pavement, we were all too much shaken
and jolted, I apprehend, to have any leisure for anything else.
Mr. Peggotty and Ham waited for us at the old place. They received
me and Peggotty in an affectionate manner, and shook hands with
Mr. Barkis, who, with his hat on the very back of his head, and
a shame-faced leer upon his countenance, and pervading his very
legs, presented but a vacant appearance, I thought. They each took
one of Peggotty's trunks, and we were going away, when Mr. Barkis
solemnly made a sign to me with his forefinger to come under an
archway.
'I say,' growled Mr. Barkis, 'it was all right.'
I looked up into his face, and answered, with an attempt to be
very profound: 'Oh!'
'It didn't come to a end there,' said Mr. Barkis, nodding confidentially.
'It was all right.'
Again I answered, 'Oh!'
'You know who was willin',' said my friend. 'It was Barkis, and
Barkis only.'
I nodded assent.
'It's all right,' said Mr. Barkis, shaking hands; 'I'm a friend
of your'n. You made it all right, first. It's all right.'
In his attempts to be particularly lucid, Mr. Barkis was so extremely
mysterious, that I might have stood looking in his face for an hour,
and most assuredly should have got as much information out of it
as out of the face of a clock that had stopped, but for Peggotty's
calling me away. As we were going along, she asked me what he had
said; and I told her he had said it was all right.
'Like his impudence,' said Peggotty, 'but I don't mind that!
Davy dear, what should you think if I was to think of being married?'
'Why - I suppose you would like me as much then, Peggotty, as
you do now?' I returned, after a little consideration.
Greatly to the astonishment of the passengers in the street,
as well as of her relations going on before, the good soul was obliged
to stop and embrace me on the spot, with many protestations of her
unalterable love.
'Tell me what should you say, darling?' she asked again, when
this was over, and we were walking on.
'If you were thinking of being married - to Mr. Barkis, Peggotty?'
'Yes,' said Peggotty.
'I should think it would be a very good thing. For then you know,
Peggotty, you would always have the horse and cart to bring you
over to see me, and could come for nothing, and be sure of coming.'
'The sense of the dear!' cried Peggotty. 'What I have been thinking
of, this month back! Yes, my precious; and I think I should be more
independent altogether, you see; let alone my working with a better
heart in my own house, than I could in anybody else's now. I don't
know what I might be fit for, now, as a servant to a stranger. And
I shall be always near my pretty's resting-place,' said Peggotty,
musing, 'and be able to see it when I like; and when I lie down
to rest, I may be laid not far off from my darling girl!'
We neither of us said anything for a little while.
'But I wouldn't so much as give it another thought,' said Peggotty,
cheerily 'if my Davy was anyways against it - not if I had been
asked in church thirty times three times over, and was wearing out
the ring in my pocket.'
'Look at me, Peggotty,' I replied; 'and see if I am not really
glad, and don't truly wish it!' As indeed I did, with all my heart.
'Well, my life,' said Peggotty, giving me a squeeze, 'I have
thought of it night and day, every way I can, and I hope the right
way; but I'll think of it again, and speak to my brother about it,
and in the meantime we'll keep it to ourselves, Davy, you and me.
Barkis is a good plain creature,' said Peggotty, 'and if I tried
to do my duty by him, I think it would be my fault if I wasn't -
if I wasn't pretty comfortable,' said Peggotty, laughing heartily.
This quotation from Mr. Barkis was so appropriate, and tickled us
both so much, that we laughed again and again, and were quite in
a pleasant humour when we came within view of Mr. Peggotty's cottage.
It looked just the same, except that it may, perhaps, have shrunk
a little in my eyes; and Mrs. Gummidge was waiting at the door as
if she had stood there ever since. All within was the same, down
to the seaweed in the blue mug in my bedroom. I went into the out-house
to look about me; and the very same lobsters, crabs, and crawfish
possessed by the same desire to pinch the world in general, appeared
to be in the same state of conglomeration in the
same old corner.
But there was no little Em'ly to be seen, so I asked Mr. Peggotty
where she was.
'She's at school, sir,' said Mr. Peggotty, wiping the heat consequent
on the porterage of Peggotty's box from his forehead; 'she'll be
home,' looking at the Dutch clock, 'in from twenty minutes to half-an-hour's
time. We all on us feel the loss of her, bless ye!'
Mrs. Gummidge moaned.
'Cheer up, Mawther!' cried Mr. Peggotty.
'I feel it more than anybody else,' said Mrs. Gummidge; 'I'm
a lone lorn creetur', and she used to be a'most the only thing that
didn't go contrary with me.'
Mrs. Gummidge, whimpering and shaking her head, applied herself
to blowing the fire. Mr. Peggotty, looking round upon us while she
was so engaged, said in a low voice, which he shaded with his hand:
'The old 'un!' From this I rightly conjectured that no improvement
had taken place since my last visit in the state of Mrs. Gummidge's
spirits.
Now, the whole place was, or it should have been, quite as delightful
a place as ever; and yet it did not impress me in the same way.
I felt rather disappointed with it. Perhaps it was because little
Em'ly was not at home. I knew the way by which she would come, and
presently found myself strolling along the path to meet her.
A figure appeared in the distance before long, and I soon knew
it to be Em'ly, who was a little creature still in stature, though
she was grown. But when she drew nearer, and I saw her blue eyes
looking bluer, and her dimpled face looking brighter, and her whole
self prettier and gayer, a curious feeling came over me that made
me pretend not to know her, and pass by as if I were looking at
something a long way off. I have done such a thing since in later
life, or I am mistaken.
Little Em'ly didn't care a bit. She saw me well enough; but instead
of turning round and calling after me, ran away laughing. This obliged
me to run after her, and she ran so fast that we were very near
the cottage before I caught her.
'Oh, it's you, is it?' said little Em'ly.
'Why, you knew who it was, Em'ly,' said I.
'And didn't YOU know who it was?' said Em'ly. I was going to
kiss her, but she covered her cherry lips with her hands, and said
she wasn't a baby now, and ran away, laughing more than ever, into
the house.
She seemed to delight in teasing me, which was a change in her
I wondered at very much. The tea table was ready, and our little
locker was put out in its old place, but instead of coming to sit
by me, she went and bestowed her company upon that grumbling Mrs.
Gummidge: and on Mr. Peggotty's inquiring why, rumpled her hair
all over her face to hide it, and could do nothing but laugh.
'A little puss, it is!' said Mr. Peggotty, patting her with his
great hand.
'So sh' is! so sh' is!' cried Ham. 'Mas'r Davy bor', so sh' is!'
and he sat and chuckled at her for some time, in a state of mingled
admiration and delight, that made his face a burning red.
Little Em'ly was spoiled by them all, in fact; and by no one
more than Mr. Peggotty himself, whom she could have coaxed into
anything, by only going and laying her cheek against his rough whisker.
That was my opinion, at least, when I saw her do it; and I held
Mr. Peggotty to be thoroughly in the right. But she was so affectionate
and sweet-natured, and had such a pleasant manner of being both
sly and shy at once, that she captivated me more than ever.
She was tender-hearted, too; for when, as we sat round the fire
after tea, an allusion was made by Mr. Peggotty over his pipe to
the loss I had sustained, the tears stood in her eyes, and she looked
at me so kindly across the table, that I felt quite thankful to
her.
'Ah!' said Mr. Peggotty, taking up her curls, and running them
over his hand like water, 'here's another orphan, you see, sir.
And here,' said Mr. Peggotty, giving Ham a backhanded knock in the
chest, 'is another of 'em, though he don't look much like it.'
'If I had you for my guardian, Mr. Peggotty,' said I, shaking
my head, 'I don't think I should FEEL much like it.'
'Well said, Mas'r Davy bor'!' cried Ham, in an ecstasy. 'Hoorah!
Well said! Nor more you wouldn't! Hor! Hor!' - Here he returned
Mr. Peggotty's back-hander, and little Em'ly got up and kissed Mr.
Peggotty. 'And how's your friend, sir?' said Mr. Peggotty to me.
'Steerforth?' said I.
'That's the name!' cried Mr. Peggotty, turning to Ham. 'I knowed
it was something in our way.'
'You said it was Rudderford,' observed Ham, laughing.
'Well!' retorted Mr. Peggotty. 'And ye steer with a rudder, don't
ye? It ain't fur off. How is he, sir?'
'He was very well indeed when I came away, Mr. Peggotty.'
'There's a friend!' said Mr. Peggotty, stretching out his pipe.
'There's a friend, if you talk of friends! Why, Lord love my heart
alive, if it ain't a treat to look at him!'
'He is very handsome, is he not?' said I, my heart warming with
this praise.
'Handsome!' cried Mr. Peggotty. 'He stands up to you like - like
a - why I don't know what he don't stand up to you like. He's so
bold!'
'Yes! That's just his character,' said I. 'He's as brave as a
lion, and you can't think how frank he is, Mr. Peggotty.'
'And I do suppose, now,' said Mr. Peggotty, looking at me through
the smoke of his pipe, 'that in the way of book-larning he'd take
the wind out of a'most anything.'
'Yes,' said I, delighted; 'he knows everything. He is astonishingly
clever.'
'There's a friend!' murmured Mr. Peggotty, with a grave toss
of his head.
'Nothing seems to cost him any trouble,' said I. 'He knows a
task if he only looks at it. He is the best cricketer you ever saw.
He will give you almost as many men as you like at draughts, and
beat you easily.'
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