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Charles Dickens
Chapter 8
Charles Dickens
 
 
1       When we arrived before day at the inn where the mail stopped, which
2  was not the inn where my friend the waiter lived, I was shown up to
3  a nice little bedroom, with DOLPHIN painted on the door. Very cold
4  I was, I know, notwithstanding the hot tea they had given me before
5  a large fire downstairs; and very glad I was to turn into the
6  Dolphin's bed, pull the Dolphin's blankets round my head, and go to
7  sleep.

8       Mr. Barkis the carrier was to call for me in the morning at nine
9  o'clock. I got up at eight, a little giddy from the shortness of
10  my night's rest, and was ready for him before the appointed time.
11  He received me exactly as if not five minutes had elapsed since we
12  were last together, and I had only been into the hotel to get
13  change for sixpence, or something of that sort.

14       As soon as I and my box were in the cart, and the carrier seated,
15  the lazy horse walked away with us all at his accustomed pace.

16       'You look very well, Mr. Barkis,' I said, thinking he would like to
17  know it.

18       Mr. Barkis rubbed his cheek with his cuff, and then looked at his
19  cuff as if he expected to find some of the bloom upon it; but made
20  no other acknowledgement of the compliment.

21       'I gave your message, Mr. Barkis,' I said: 'I wrote to Peggotty.'

22       'Ah!' said Mr. Barkis.

23       Mr. Barkis seemed gruff, and answered drily.

24       'Wasn't it right, Mr. Barkis?' I asked, after a little hesitation.

25       'Why, no,' said Mr. Barkis.

26       'Not the message?'

27       'The message was right enough, perhaps,' said Mr. Barkis; 'but it
28  come to an end there.'

29       Not understanding what he meant, I repeated inquisitively: 'Came to
30  an end, Mr. Barkis?'

31       'Nothing come of it,' he explained, looking at me sideways. 'No
32  answer.'

33       'There was an answer expected, was there, Mr. Barkis?' said I,
34  opening my eyes. For this was a new light to me.

35       'When a man says he's willin',' said Mr. Barkis, turning his glance
36  slowly on me again, 'it's as much as to say, that man's a-waitin'
37  for a answer.'

38       'Well, Mr. Barkis?'

39       'Well,' said Mr. Barkis, carrying his eyes back to his horse's
40  ears; 'that man's been a-waitin' for a answer ever since.'

41       'Have you told her so, Mr. Barkis?'

42       'No - no,' growled Mr. Barkis, reflecting about it. 'I ain't got
43  no call to go and tell her so. I never said six words to her
44  myself, I ain't a-goin' to tell her so.'

45       'Would you like me to do it, Mr. Barkis?' said I, doubtfully.
46  'You might tell her, if you would,' said Mr. Barkis, with another
47  slow look at me, 'that Barkis was a-waitin' for a answer. Says you
48  - what name is it?'

49       'Her name?'

50       'Ah!' said Mr. Barkis, with a nod of his head.

51       'Peggotty.'

52       'Chrisen name? Or nat'ral name?' said Mr. Barkis.

53       'Oh, it's not her Christian name. Her Christian name is Clara.'

54       'Is it though?' said Mr. Barkis.

55       He seemed to find an immense fund of reflection in this
56  circumstance, and sat pondering and inwardly whistling for some
57  time.

58       'Well!' he resumed at length. 'Says you, "Peggotty! Barkis is
59  waitin' for a answer." Says she, perhaps, "Answer to what?" Says
60  you, "To what I told you." "What is that?" says she. "Barkis is
61  willin'," says you.'

62       This extremely artful suggestion Mr. Barkis accompanied with a
63  nudge of his elbow that gave me quite a stitch in my side. After
64  that, he slouched over his horse in his usual manner; and made no
65  other reference to the subject except, half an hour afterwards,
66  taking a piece of chalk from his pocket, and writing up, inside the
67  tilt of the cart, 'Clara Peggotty' - apparently as a private
68  memorandum.

69       Ah, what a strange feeling it was to be going home when it was not
70  home, and to find that every object I looked at, reminded me of the
71  happy old home, which was like a dream I could never dream again!
72  The days when my mother and I and Peggotty were all in all to one
73  another, and there was no one to come between us, rose up before me
74  so sorrowfully on the road, that I am not sure I was glad to be
75  there - not sure but that I would rather have remained away, and
76  forgotten it in Steerforth's company. But there I was; and soon I
77  was at our house, where the bare old elm-trees wrung their many
78  hands in the bleak wintry air, and shreds of the old rooks'-nests
79  drifted away upon the wind.

80       The carrier put my box down at the garden-gate, and left me. I
81  walked along the path towards the house, glancing at the windows,
82  and fearing at every step to see Mr. Murdstone or Miss Murdstone
83  lowering out of one of them. No face appeared, however; and being
84  come to the house, and knowing how to open the door, before dark,
85  without knocking, I went in with a quiet, timid step.

86       God knows how infantine the memory may have been, that was awakened
87  within me by the sound of my mother's voice in the old parlour,
88  when I set foot in the hall. She was singing in a low tone. I
89  think I must have lain in her arms, and heard her singing so to me
90  when I was but a baby. The strain was new to me, and yet it was so
91  old that it filled my heart brim-full; like a friend come back from
92  a long absence.

93       I believed, from the solitary and thoughtful way in which my mother
94  murmured her song, that she was alone. And I went softly into the
95  room. She was sitting by the fire, suckling an infant, whose tiny
96  hand she held against her neck. Her eyes were looking down upon
97  its face, and she sat singing to it. I was so far right, that she
98  had no other companion.

99       I spoke to her, and she started, and cried out. But seeing me, she
100  called me her dear Davy, her own boy! and coming half across the
101  room to meet me, kneeled down upon the ground and kissed me, and
102  laid my head down on her bosom near the little creature that was
103  nestling there, and put its hand to my lips.

104       I wish I had died. I wish I had died then, with that feeling in my
105  heart! I should have been more fit for Heaven than I ever have
106  been since.

107       'He is your brother,' said my mother, fondling me. 'Davy, my
108  pretty boy! My poor child!' Then she kissed me more and more, and
109  clasped me round the neck. This she was doing when Peggotty came
110  running in, and bounced down on the ground beside us, and went mad
111  about us both for a quarter of an hour.

112       It seemed that I had not been expected so soon, the carrier being
113  much before his usual time. It seemed, too, that Mr. and Miss
114  Murdstone had gone out upon a visit in the neighbourhood, and would
115  not return before night. I had never hoped for this. I had never
116  thought it possible that we three could be together undisturbed,
117  once more; and I felt, for the time, as if the old days were come
118  back.

119       We dined together by the fireside. Peggotty was in attendance to
120  wait upon us, but my mother wouldn't let her do it, and made her
121  dine with us. I had my own old plate, with a brown view of a
122  man-of-war in full sail upon it, which Peggotty had hoarded
123  somewhere all the time I had been away, and would not have had
124  broken, she said, for a hundred pounds. I had my own old mug with
125  David on it, and my own old little knife and fork that wouldn't
126  cut.

127       While we were at table, I thought it a favourable occasion to tell
128  Peggotty about Mr. Barkis, who, before I had finished what I had to
129  tell her, began to laugh, and throw her apron over her face.

130       'Peggotty,' said my mother. 'What's the matter?'

131       Peggotty only laughed the more, and held her apron tight over her
132  face when my mother tried to pull it away, and sat as if her head
133  were in a bag.

134       'What are you doing, you stupid creature?' said my mother,
135  laughing.

136       'Oh, drat the man!' cried Peggotty. 'He wants to marry me.'

137       'It would be a very good match for you; wouldn't it?' said my
138  mother.

139       'Oh! I don't know,' said Peggotty. 'Don't ask me. I wouldn't
140  have him if he was made of gold. Nor I wouldn't have anybody.'

141       'Then, why don't you tell him so, you ridiculous thing?' said my
142  mother.

143       'Tell him so,' retorted Peggotty, looking out of her apron. 'He
144  has never said a word to me about it. He knows better. If he was
145  to make so bold as say a word to me, I should slap his face.'

146       Her own was as red as ever I saw it, or any other face, I think;
147  but she only covered it again, for a few moments at a time, when
148  she was taken with a violent fit of laughter; and after two or
149  three of those attacks, went on with her dinner.

150       I remarked that my mother, though she smiled when Peggotty looked
151  at her, became more serious and thoughtful. I had seen at first
152  that she was changed. Her face was very pretty still, but it
153  looked careworn, and too delicate; and her hand was so thin and
154  white that it seemed to me to be almost transparent. But the
155  change to which I now refer was superadded to this: it was in her
156  manner, which became anxious and fluttered. At last she said,
157  putting out her hand, and laying it affectionately on the hand of
158  her old servant,

159       'Peggotty, dear, you are not going to be married?'

160       'Me, ma'am?' returned Peggotty, staring. 'Lord bless you, no!'

161       'Not just yet?' said my mother, tenderly.

162       'Never!' cried Peggotty.

163       My mother took her hand, and said:

164       'Don't leave me, Peggotty. Stay with me. It will not be for long,
165  perhaps. What should I ever do without you!'

166       'Me leave you, my precious!' cried Peggotty. 'Not for all the
167  world and his wife. Why, what's put that in your silly little
168  head?' - For Peggotty had been used of old to talk to my mother
169  sometimes like a child.

170       But my mother made no answer, except to thank her, and Peggotty
171  went running on in her own fashion.

172       'Me leave you? I think I see myself. Peggotty go away from you?
173  I should like to catch her at it! No, no, no,' said Peggotty,
174  shaking her head, and folding her arms; 'not she, my dear. It
175  isn't that there ain't some Cats that would be well enough pleased
176  if she did, but they sha'n't be pleased. They shall be aggravated.
177  I'll stay with you till I am a cross cranky old woman. And when
178  I'm too deaf, and too lame, and too blind, and too mumbly for want
179  of teeth, to be of any use at all, even to be found fault with,
180  than I shall go to my Davy, and ask him to take me in.'

181       'And, Peggotty,' says I, 'I shall be glad to see you, and I'll make
182  you as welcome as a queen.'

183       'Bless your dear heart!' cried Peggotty. 'I know you will!' And
184  she kissed me beforehand, in grateful acknowledgement of my
185  hospitality. After that, she covered her head up with her apron
186  again and had another laugh about Mr. Barkis. After that, she took
187  the baby out of its little cradle, and nursed it. After that, she
188  cleared the dinner table; after that, came in with another cap on,
189  and her work-box, and the yard-measure, and the bit of wax-candle,
190  all just the same as ever.

191       We sat round the fire, and talked delightfully. I told them what
192  a hard master Mr. Creakle was, and they pitied me very much. I
193  told them what a fine fellow Steerforth was, and what a patron of
194  mine, and Peggotty said she would walk a score of miles to see him.
195  I took the little baby in my arms when it was awake, and nursed it
196  lovingly. When it was asleep again, I crept close to my mother's
197  side according to my old custom, broken now a long time, and sat
198  with my arms embracing her waist, and my little red cheek on her
199  shoulder, and once more felt her beautiful hair drooping over me -
200  like an angel's wing as I used to think, I recollect - and was very
201  happy indeed.

202       While I sat thus, looking at the fire, and seeing pictures in the
203  red-hot coals, I almost believed that I had never been away; that
204  Mr. and Miss Murdstone were such pictures, and would vanish when
205  the fire got low; and that there was nothing real in all that I
206  remembered, save my mother, Peggotty, and I.

207       Peggotty darned away at a stocking as long as she could see, and
208  then sat with it drawn on her left hand like a glove, and her
209  needle in her right, ready to take another stitch whenever there
210  was a blaze. I cannot conceive whose stockings they can have been
211  that Peggotty was always darning, or where such an unfailing supply
212  of stockings in want of darning can have come from. From my
213  earliest infancy she seems to have been always employed in that
214  class of needlework, and never by any chance in any other.

215       'I wonder,' said Peggotty, who was sometimes seized with a fit of
216  wondering on some most unexpected topic, 'what's become of Davy's
217  great-aunt?'
218  'Lor, Peggotty!' observed my mother, rousing herself from a
219  reverie, 'what nonsense you talk!'

220       'Well, but I really do wonder, ma'am,' said Peggotty.

221       'What can have put such a person in your head?' inquired my mother.
222  'Is there nobody else in the world to come there?'

223       'I don't know how it is,' said Peggotty, 'unless it's on account of
224  being stupid, but my head never can pick and choose its people.
225  They come and they go, and they don't come and they don't go, just
226  as they like. I wonder what's become of her?'

227       'How absurd you are, Peggotty!' returned my mother. 'One would
228  suppose you wanted a second visit from her.'

229       'Lord forbid!' cried Peggotty.

230       'Well then, don't talk about such uncomfortable things, there's a
231  good soul,' said my mother. 'Miss Betsey is shut up in her cottage
232  by the sea, no doubt, and will remain there. At all events, she is
233  not likely ever to trouble us again.'

234       'No!' mused Peggotty. 'No, that ain't likely at all. - I wonder,
235  if she was to die, whether she'd leave Davy anything?'

236       'Good gracious me, Peggotty,' returned my mother, 'what a
237  nonsensical woman you are! when you know that she took offence at
238  the poor dear boy's ever being born at all.'

239       'I suppose she wouldn't be inclined to forgive him now,' hinted
240  Peggotty.

241       'Why should she be inclined to forgive him now?' said my mother,
242  rather sharply.

243       'Now that he's got a brother, I mean,' said Peggotty.

244       MY mother immediately began to cry, and wondered how Peggotty dared
245  to say such a thing.

246       'As if this poor little innocent in its cradle had ever done any
247  harm to you or anybody else, you jealous thing!' said she. 'You
248  had much better go and marry Mr. Barkis, the carrier. Why don't
249  you?'

250       'I should make Miss Murdstone happy, if I was to,' said Peggotty.

251       'What a bad disposition you have, Peggotty!' returned my mother.
252  'You are as jealous of Miss Murdstone as it is possible for a
253  ridiculous creature to be. You want to keep the keys yourself, and
254  give out all the things, I suppose? I shouldn't be surprised if
255  you did. When you know that she only does it out of kindness and
256  the best intentions! You know she does, Peggotty - you know it
257  well.'

258       Peggotty muttered something to the effect of 'Bother the best
259  intentions!' and something else to the effect that there was a
260  little too much of the best intentions going on.

261       'I know what you mean, you cross thing,' said my mother. 'I
262  understand you, Peggotty, perfectly. You know I do, and I wonder
263  you don't colour up like fire. But one point at a time. Miss
264  Murdstone is the point now, Peggotty, and you sha'n't escape from
265  it. Haven't you heard her say, over and over again, that she
266  thinks I am too thoughtless and too - a - a -'

267       'Pretty,' suggested Peggotty.

268       'Well,' returned my mother, half laughing, 'and if she is so silly
269  as to say so, can I be blamed for it?'

270       'No one says you can,' said Peggotty.

271       'No, I should hope not, indeed!' returned my mother. 'Haven't you
272  heard her say, over and over again, that on this account she wished
273  to spare me a great deal of trouble, which she thinks I am not
274  suited for, and which I really don't know myself that I AM suited
275  for; and isn't she up early and late, and going to and fro
276  continually - and doesn't she do all sorts of things, and grope
277  into all sorts of places, coal-holes and pantries and I don't know
278  where, that can't be very agreeable - and do you mean to insinuate
279  that there is not a sort of devotion in that?'

280       'I don't insinuate at all,' said Peggotty.

281       'You do, Peggotty,' returned my mother. 'You never do anything
282  else, except your work. You are always insinuating. You revel in
283  it. And when you talk of Mr. Murdstone's good intentions -'

284       'I never talked of 'em,' said Peggotty.

285       'No, Peggotty,' returned my mother, 'but you insinuated. That's
286  what I told you just now. That's the worst of you. You WILL
287  insinuate. I said, at the moment, that I understood you, and you
288  see I did. When you talk of Mr. Murdstone's good intentions, and
289  pretend to slight them (for I don't believe you really do, in your
290  heart, Peggotty), you must be as well convinced as I am how good
291  they are, and how they actuate him in everything. If he seems to
292  have been at all stern with a certain person, Peggotty - you
293  understand, and so I am sure does Davy, that I am not alluding to
294  anybody present - it is solely because he is satisfied that it is
295  for a certain person's benefit. He naturally loves a certain
296  person, on my account; and acts solely for a certain person's good.
297  He is better able to judge of it than I am; for I very well know
298  that I am a weak, light, girlish creature, and that he is a firm,
299  grave, serious man. And he takes,' said my mother, with the tears
300  which were engendered in her affectionate nature, stealing down her
301  face, 'he takes great pains with me; and I ought to be very
302  thankful to him, and very submissive to him even in my thoughts;
303  and when I am not, Peggotty, I worry and condemn myself, and feel
304  doubtful of my own heart, and don't know what to do.'

305       Peggotty sat with her chin on the foot of the stocking, looking
306  silently at the fire.

307       'There, Peggotty,' said my mother, changing her tone, 'don't let us
308  fall out with one another, for I couldn't bear it. You are my true
309  friend, I know, if I have any in the world. When I call you a
310  ridiculous creature, or a vexatious thing, or anything of that
311  sort, Peggotty, I only mean that you are my true friend, and always
312  have been, ever since the night when Mr. Copperfield first brought
313  me home here, and you came out to the gate to meet me.'

314       Peggotty was not slow to respond, and ratify the treaty of
315  friendship by giving me one of her best hugs. I think I had some
316  glimpses of the real character of this conversation at the time;
317  but I am sure, now, that the good creature originated it, and took
318  her part in it, merely that my mother might comfort herself with
319  the little contradictory summary in which she had indulged. The
320  design was efficacious; for I remember that my mother seemed more
321  at ease during the rest of the evening, and that Peggotty observed
322  her less.

323       When we had had our tea, and the ashes were thrown up, and the
324  candles snuffed, I read Peggotty a chapter out of the Crocodile
325  Book, in remembrance of old times - she took it out of her pocket:
326  I don't know whether she had kept it there ever since - and then we
327  talked about Salem House, which brought me round again to
328  Steerforth, who was my great subject. We were very happy; and that
329  evening, as the last of its race, and destined evermore to close
330  that volume of my life, will never pass out of my memory.

331       It was almost ten o'clock before we heard the sound of wheels. We
332  all got up then; and my mother said hurriedly that, as it was so
333  late, and Mr. and Miss Murdstone approved of early hours for young
334  people, perhaps I had better go to bed. I kissed her, and went
335  upstairs with my candle directly, before they came in. It appeared
336  to my childish fancy, as I ascended to the bedroom where I had been
337  imprisoned, that they brought a cold blast of air into the house
338  which blew away the old familiar feeling like a feather.

339       I felt uncomfortable about going down to breakfast in the morning,
340  as I had never set eyes on Mr. Murdstone since the day when I
341  committed my memorable offence. However, as it must be done, I
342  went down, after two or three false starts half-way, and as many
343  runs back on tiptoe to my own room, and presented myself in the
344  parlour.

345       He was standing before the fire with his back to it, while Miss
346  Murdstone made the tea. He looked at me steadily as I entered, but
347  made no sign of recognition whatever.
348  I went up to him, after a moment of confusion, and said: 'I beg
349  your pardon, sir. I am very sorry for what I did, and I hope you
350  will forgive me.'

351       'I am glad to hear you are sorry, David,' he replied.

352       The hand he gave me was the hand I had bitten. I could not
353  restrain my eye from resting for an instant on a red spot upon it;
354  but it was not so red as I turned, when I met that sinister
355  expression in his face.

356       'How do you do, ma'am?' I said to Miss Murdstone.

357       'Ah, dear me!' sighed Miss Murdstone, giving me the tea-caddy scoop
358  instead of her fingers. 'How long are the holidays?'

359       'A month, ma'am.'

360       'Counting from when?'

361       'From today, ma'am.'

362       'Oh!' said Miss Murdstone. 'Then here's one day off.'

363       She kept a calendar of the holidays in this way, and every morning
364  checked a day off in exactly the same manner. She did it gloomily
365  until she came to ten, but when she got into two figures she became
366  more hopeful, and, as the time advanced, even jocular.

367       It was on this very first day that I had the misfortune to throw
368  her, though she was not subject to such weakness in general, into
369  a state of violent consternation. I came into the room where she
370  and my mother were sitting; and the baby (who was only a few weeks
371  old) being on my mother's lap, I took it very carefully in my arms.
372  Suddenly Miss Murdstone gave such a scream that I all but dropped
373  it.

374       'My dear Jane!' cried my mother.

375       'Good heavens, Clara, do you see?' exclaimed Miss Murdstone.

376       'See what, my dear Jane?' said my mother; 'where?'

377       'He's got it!' cried Miss Murdstone. 'The boy has got the baby!'

378       She was limp with horror; but stiffened herself to make a dart at
379  me, and take it out of my arms. Then, she turned faint; and was so
380  very ill that they were obliged to give her cherry brandy. I was
381  solemnly interdicted by her, on her recovery, from touching my
382  brother any more on any pretence whatever; and my poor mother, who,
383  I could see, wished otherwise, meekly confirmed the interdict, by
384  saying: 'No doubt you are right, my dear Jane.'

385       On another occasion, when we three were together, this same dear
386  baby - it was truly dear to me, for our mother's sake - was the
387  innocent occasion of Miss Murdstone's going into a passion. My
388  mother, who had been looking at its eyes as it lay upon her lap,
389  said:

390       'Davy! come here!' and looked at mine.

391       I saw Miss Murdstone lay her beads down.

392       'I declare,' said my mother, gently, 'they are exactly alike. I
393  suppose they are mine. I think they are the colour of mine. But
394  they are wonderfully alike.'

395       'What are you talking about, Clara?' said Miss Murdstone.

396       'My dear Jane,' faltered my mother, a little abashed by the harsh
397  tone of this inquiry, 'I find that the baby's eyes and Davy's are
398  exactly alike.'

399       'Clara!' said Miss Murdstone, rising angrily, 'you are a positive
400  fool sometimes.'

401       'My dear Jane,' remonstrated my mother.

402       'A positive fool,' said Miss Murdstone. 'Who else could compare my
403  brother's baby with your boy? They are not at all alike. They are
404  exactly unlike. They are utterly dissimilar in all respects. I
405  hope they will ever remain so. I will not sit here, and hear such
406  comparisons made.' With that she stalked out, and made the door
407  bang after her.

408       In short, I was not a favourite with Miss Murdstone. In short, I
409  was not a favourite there with anybody, not even with myself; for
410  those who did like me could not show it, and those who did not,
411  showed it so plainly that I had a sensitive consciousness of always
412  appearing constrained, boorish, and dull.

413       I felt that I made them as uncomfortable as they made me. If I
414  came into the room where they were, and they were talking together
415  and my mother seemed cheerful, an anxious cloud would steal over
416  her face from the moment of my entrance. If Mr. Murdstone were in
417  his best humour, I checked him. If Miss Murdstone were in her
418  worst, I intensified it. I had perception enough to know that my
419  mother was the victim always; that she was afraid to speak to me or
420  to be kind to me, lest she should give them some offence by her
421  manner of doing so, and receive a lecture afterwards; that she was
422  not only ceaselessly afraid of her own offending, but of my
423  offending, and uneasily watched their looks if I only moved.
424  Therefore I resolved to keep myself as much out of their way as I
425  could; and many a wintry hour did I hear the church clock strike,
426  when I was sitting in my cheerless bedroom, wrapped in my little
427  great-coat, poring over a book.

428       In the evening, sometimes, I went and sat with Peggotty in the
429  kitchen. There I was comfortable, and not afraid of being myself.
430  But neither of these resources was approved of in the parlour. The
431  tormenting humour which was dominant there stopped them both. I
432  was still held to be necessary to my poor mother's training, and,
433  as one of her trials, could not be suffered to absent myself.

434       'David,' said Mr. Murdstone, one day after dinner when I was going
435  to leave the room as usual; 'I am sorry to observe that you are of
436  a sullen disposition.'

437       'As sulky as a bear!' said Miss Murdstone.

438       I stood still, and hung my head.

439       'Now, David,' said Mr. Murdstone, 'a sullen obdurate disposition
440  is, of all tempers, the worst.'

441       'And the boy's is, of all such dispositions that ever I have seen,'
442  remarked his sister, 'the most confirmed and stubborn. I think, my
443  dear Clara, even you must observe it?'

444       'I beg your pardon, my dear Jane,' said my mother, 'but are you
445  quite sure - I am certain you'll excuse me, my dear Jane - that you
446  understand Davy?'

447       'I should be somewhat ashamed of myself, Clara,' returned Miss
448  Murdstone, 'if I could not understand the boy, or any boy. I don't
449  profess to be profound; but I do lay claim to common sense.'

450       'No doubt, my dear Jane,' returned my mother, 'your understanding
451  is very vigorous -'

452       'Oh dear, no! Pray don't say that, Clara,' interposed Miss
453  Murdstone, angrily.

454       'But I am sure it is,' resumed my mother; 'and everybody knows it
455  is. I profit so much by it myself, in many ways - at least I ought
456  to - that no one can be more convinced of it than myself; and
457  therefore I speak with great diffidence, my dear Jane, I assure
458  you.'

459       'We'll say I don't understand the boy, Clara,' returned Miss
460  Murdstone, arranging the little fetters on her wrists. 'We'll
461  agree, if you please, that I don't understand him at all. He is
462  much too deep for me. But perhaps my brother's penetration may
463  enable him to have some insight into his character. And I believe
464  my brother was speaking on the subject when we - not very decently
465  - interrupted him.'

466       'I think, Clara,' said Mr. Murdstone, in a low grave voice, 'that
467  there may be better and more dispassionate judges of such a
468  question than you.'

469       'Edward,' replied my mother, timidly, 'you are a far better judge
470  of all questions than I pretend to be. Both you and Jane are. I
471  only said -'

472       'You only said something weak and inconsiderate,' he replied. 'Try
473  not to do it again, my dear Clara, and keep a watch upon yourself.'

474       MY mother's lips moved, as if she answered 'Yes, my dear Edward,'
475  but she said nothing aloud.

476       'I was sorry, David, I remarked,' said Mr. Murdstone, turning his
477  head and his eyes stiffly towards me, 'to observe that you are of
478  a sullen disposition. This is not a character that I can suffer to
479  develop itself beneath my eyes without an effort at improvement.
480  You must endeavour, sir, to change it. We must endeavour to change
481  it for you.'

482       'I beg your pardon, sir,' I faltered. 'I have never meant to be
483  sullen since I came back.'

484       'Don't take refuge in a lie, sir!' he returned so fiercely, that I
485  saw my mother involuntarily put out her trembling hand as if to
486  interpose between us. 'You have withdrawn yourself in your
487  sullenness to your own room. You have kept your own room when you
488  ought to have been here. You know now, once for all, that I
489  require you to be here, and not there. Further, that I require you
490  to bring obedience here. You know me, David. I will have it
491  done.'

492       Miss Murdstone gave a hoarse chuckle.

493       'I will have a respectful, prompt, and ready bearing towards
494  myself,' he continued, 'and towards Jane Murdstone, and towards
495  your mother. I will not have this room shunned as if it were
496  infected, at the pleasure of a child. Sit down.'

497       He ordered me like a dog, and I obeyed like a dog.

498       'One thing more,' he said. 'I observe that you have an attachment
499  to low and common company. You are not to associate with servants.
500  The kitchen will not improve you, in the many respects in which you
501  need improvement. Of the woman who abets you, I say nothing -
502  since you, Clara,' addressing my mother in a lower voice, 'from old
503  associations and long-established fancies, have a weakness
504  respecting her which is not yet overcome.'

505       'A most unaccountable delusion it is!' cried Miss Murdstone.

506       'I only say,' he resumed, addressing me, 'that I disapprove of your
507  preferring such company as Mistress Peggotty, and that it is to be
508  abandoned. Now, David, you understand me, and you know what will
509  be the consequence if you fail to obey me to the letter.'

510       I knew well - better perhaps than he thought, as far as my poor
511  mother was concerned - and I obeyed him to the letter. I retreated
512  to my own room no more; I took refuge with Peggotty no more; but
513  sat wearily in the parlour day after day, looking forward to night,
514  and bedtime.

515       What irksome constraint I underwent, sitting in the same attitude
516  hours upon hours, afraid to move an arm or a leg lest Miss
517  Murdstone should complain (as she did on the least pretence) of my
518  restlessness, and afraid to move an eye lest she should light on
519  some look of dislike or scrutiny that would find new cause for
520  complaint in mine! What intolerable dulness to sit listening to
521  the ticking of the clock; and watching Miss Murdstone's little
522  shiny steel beads as she strung them; and wondering whether she
523  would ever be married, and if so, to what sort of unhappy man; and
524  counting the divisions in the moulding of the chimney-piece; and
525  wandering away, with my eyes, to the ceiling, among the curls and
526  corkscrews in the paper on the wall!

527       What walks I took alone, down muddy lanes, in the bad winter
528  weather, carrying that parlour, and Mr. and Miss Murdstone in it,
529  everywhere: a monstrous load that I was obliged to bear, a daymare
530  that there was no possibility of breaking in, a weight that brooded
531  on my wits, and blunted them!

532       What meals I had in silence and embarrassment, always feeling that
533  there were a knife and fork too many, and that mine; an appetite
534  too many, and that mine; a plate and chair too many, and those
535  mine; a somebody too many, and that I!

536       What evenings, when the candles came, and I was expected to employ
537  myself, but, not daring to read an entertaining book, pored over
538  some hard-headed, harder-hearted treatise on arithmetic; when the
539  tables of weights and measures set themselves to tunes, as 'Rule
540  Britannia', or 'Away with Melancholy'; when they wouldn't stand
541  still to be learnt, but would go threading my grandmother's needle
542  through my unfortunate head, in at one ear and out at the other!
543  What yawns and dozes I lapsed into, in spite of all my care; what
544  starts I came out of concealed sleeps with; what answers I never
545  got, to little observations that I rarely made; what a blank space
546  I seemed, which everybody overlooked, and yet was in everybody's
547  way; what a heavy relief it was to hear Miss Murdstone hail the
548  first stroke of nine at night, and order me to bed!

549       Thus the holidays lagged away, until the morning came when Miss
550  Murdstone said: 'Here's the last day off!' and gave me the closing
551  cup of tea of the vacation.

552       I was not sorry to go. I had lapsed into a stupid state; but I was
553  recovering a little and looking forward to Steerforth, albeit Mr.
554  Creakle loomed behind him. Again Mr. Barkis appeared at the gate,
555  and again Miss Murdstone in her warning voice, said: 'Clara!' when
556  my mother bent over me, to bid me farewell.

557       I kissed her, and my baby brother, and was very sorry then; but not
558  sorry to go away, for the gulf between us was there, and the
559  parting was there, every day. And it is not so much the embrace
560  she gave me, that lives in my mind, though it was as fervent as
561  could be, as what followed the embrace.

562       I was in the carrier's cart when I heard her calling to me. I
563  looked out, and she stood at the garden-gate alone, holding her
564  baby up in her arms for me to see. It was cold still weather; and
565  not a hair of her head, nor a fold of her dress, was stirred, as
566  she looked intently at me, holding up her child.

567       So I lost her. So I saw her afterwards, in my sleep at school - a
568  silent presence near my bed - looking at me with the same intent
569  face - holding up her baby in her arms.

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