David Copperfield

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MY aunt was a tall, hard-featured lady, but by no means
ill-looking. There was an inflexibility in her face, in her voice,
in her gait and carriage, amply sufficient to account for the
effect she had made upon a gentle creature like my mother; but her
features were rather handsome than otherwise, though unbending and
austere. I particularly noticed that she had a very quick, bright
eye. Her hair, which was grey, was arranged in two plain
divisions, under what I believe would be called a mob-cap; I mean
a cap, much more common then than now, with side-pieces fastening
under the chin. Her dress was of a lavender colour, and perfectly
neat; but scantily made, as if she desired to be as little
encumbered as possible. I remember that I thought it, in form,
more like a riding-habit with the superfluous skirt cut off, than
anything else. She wore at her side a gentleman's gold watch, if
I might judge from its size and make, with an appropriate chain and
seals; she had some linen at her throat not unlike a shirt-collar,
and things at her wrists like little shirt-wristbands.

Mr. Dick, as I have already said, was grey-headed, and florid: I
should have said all about him, in saying so, had not his head been
curiously bowed - not by age; it reminded me of one of Mr.
Creakle's boys' heads after a beating - and his grey eyes prominent
and large, with a strange kind of watery brightness in them that
made me, in combination with his vacant manner, his submission to
my aunt, and his childish delight when she praised him, suspect him
of being a little mad; though, if he were mad, how he came to be
there puzzled me extremely. He was dressed like any other ordinary
gentleman, in a loose grey morning coat and waistcoat, and white
trousers; and had his watch in his fob, and his money in his
pockets: which he rattled as if he were very proud of it.

Janet was a pretty blooming girl, of about nineteen or twenty, and
a perfect picture of neatness. Though I made no further
observation of her at the moment, I may mention here what I did not
discover until afterwards, namely, that she was one of a series of
protegees whom my aunt had taken into her service expressly to
educate in a renouncement of mankind, and who had generally
completed their abjuration by marrying the baker.

The room was as neat as Janet or my aunt. As I laid down my pen,
a moment since, to think of it, the air from the sea came blowing
in again, mixed with the perfume of the flowers; and I saw the
old-fashioned furniture brightly rubbed and polished, my aunt's
inviolable chair and table by the round green fan in the
bow-window, the drugget-covered carpet, the cat, the kettle-holder,
the two canaries, the old china, the punchbowl full of dried
rose-leaves, the tall press guarding all sorts of bottles and pots,
and, wonderfully out of keeping with the rest, my dusty self upon
the sofa, taking note of everything.

Janet had gone away to get the bath ready, when my aunt, to my
great alarm, became in one moment rigid with indignation, and had
hardly voice to cry out, 'Janet! Donkeys!'

Upon which, Janet came running up the stairs as if the house were
in flames, darted out on a little piece of green in front, and
warned off two saddle-donkeys, lady-ridden, that had presumed to
set hoof upon it; while my aunt, rushing out of the house, seized
the bridle of a third animal laden with a bestriding child, turned
him, led him forth from those sacred precincts, and boxed the ears
of the unlucky urchin in attendance who had dared to profane that
hallowed ground.

To this hour I don't know whether my aunt had any lawful right of
way over that patch of green; but she had settled it in her own
mind that she had, and it was all the same to her. The one great
outrage of her life, demanding to be constantly avenged, was the
passage of a donkey over that immaculate spot. In whatever
occupation she was engaged, however interesting to her the
conversation in which she was taking part, a donkey turned the
current of her ideas in a moment, and she was upon him straight.
Jugs of water, and watering-pots, were kept in secret places ready
to be discharged on the offending boys; sticks were laid in ambush
behind the door; sallies were made at all hours; and incessant war
prevailed. Perhaps this was an agreeable excitement to the
donkey-boys; or perhaps the more sagacious of the donkeys,
understanding how the case stood, delighted with constitutional
obstinacy in coming that way. I only know that there were three
alarms before the bath was ready; and that on the occasion of the
last and most desperate of all, I saw my aunt engage,
single-handed, with a sandy-headed lad of fifteen, and bump his
sandy head against her own gate, before he seemed to comprehend
what was the matter. These interruptions were of the more
ridiculous to me, because she was giving me broth out of a
table-spoon at the time (having firmly persuaded herself that I was
actually starving, and must receive nourishment at first in very
small quantities), and, while my mouth was yet open to receive the
spoon, she would put it back into the basin, cry 'Janet! Donkeys!'
and go out to the assault.

The bath was a great comfort. For I began to be sensible of acute
pains in my limbs from lying out in the fields, and was now so
tired and low that I could hardly keep myself awake for five
minutes together. When I had bathed, they (I mean my aunt and
Janet) enrobed me in a shirt and a pair of trousers belonging to
Mr. Dick, and tied me up in two or three great shawls. What sort
of bundle I looked like, I don't know, but I felt a very hot one.
Feeling also very faint and drowsy, I soon lay down on the sofa
again and fell asleep.

It might have been a dream, originating in the fancy which had
occupied my mind so long, but I awoke with the impression that my
aunt had come and bent over me, and had put my hair away from my
face, and laid my head more comfortably, and had then stood looking
at me. The words, 'Pretty fellow,' or 'Poor fellow,' seemed to be
in my ears, too; but certainly there was nothing else, when I
awoke, to lead me to believe that they had been uttered by my aunt,
who sat in the bow-window gazing at the sea from behind the green
fan, which was mounted on a kind of swivel, and turned any way.

We dined soon after I awoke, off a roast fowl and a pudding; I
sitting at table, not unlike a trussed bird myself, and moving my
arms with considerable difficulty. But as my aunt had swathed me
up, I made no complaint of being inconvenienced. All this time I
was deeply anxious to know what she was going to do with me; but
she took her dinner in profound silence, except when she
occasionally fixed her eyes on me sitting opposite, and said,
'Mercy upon us!' which did not by any means relieve my anxiety.

The cloth being drawn, and some sherry put upon the table (of which
I had a glass), my aunt sent up for Mr. Dick again, who joined us,
and looked as wise as he could when she requested him to attend to
my story, which she elicited from me, gradually, by a course of
questions. During my recital, she kept her eyes on Mr. Dick, who
I thought would have gone to sleep but for that, and who,
whensoever he lapsed into a smile, was checked by a frown from my
aunt.

'Whatever possessed that poor unfortunate Baby, that she must go
and be married again,' said my aunt, when I had finished, 'I can't
conceive.'

'Perhaps she fell in love with her second husband,' Mr. Dick
suggested.

'Fell in love!' repeated my aunt. 'What do you mean? What
business had she to do it?'

'Perhaps,' Mr. Dick simpered, after thinking a little, 'she did it
for pleasure.'

'Pleasure, indeed!' replied my aunt. 'A mighty pleasure for the
poor Baby to fix her simple faith upon any dog of a fellow, certain
to ill-use her in some way or other. What did she propose to
herself, I should like to know! She had had one husband. She had
seen David Copperfield out of the world, who was always running
after wax dolls from his cradle. She had got a baby - oh, there
were a pair of babies when she gave birth to this child sitting
here, that Friday night! - and what more did she want?'

Mr. Dick secretly shook his head at me, as if he thought there was
no getting over this.

'She couldn't even have a baby like anybody else,' said my aunt.
'Where was this child's sister, Betsey Trotwood? Not forthcoming.
Don't tell me!'

Mr. Dick seemed quite frightened.

'That little man of a doctor, with his head on one side,' said my
aunt, 'Jellips, or whatever his name was, what was he about? All
he could do, was to say to me, like a robin redbreast - as he is -
"It's a boy." A boy! Yah, the imbecility of the whole set of
'em!'

The heartiness of the ejaculation startled Mr. Dick exceedingly;
and me, too, if I am to tell the truth.

'And then, as if this was not enough, and she had not stood
sufficiently in the light of this child's sister, Betsey Trotwood,'
said my aunt, 'she marries a second time - goes and marries a
Murderer - or a man with a name like it - and stands in THIS
child's light! And the natural consequence is, as anybody but a
baby might have foreseen, that he prowls and wanders. He's as like
Cain before he was grown up, as he can be.'

Mr. Dick looked hard at me, as if to identify me in this character.

'And then there's that woman with the Pagan name,' said my aunt,
'that Peggotty, she goes and gets married next. Because she has
not seen enough of the evil attending such things, she goes and
gets married next, as the child relates. I only hope,' said my
aunt, shaking her head, 'that her husband is one of those Poker
husbands who abound in the newspapers, and will beat her well with
one.'

I could not bear to hear my old nurse so decried, and made the
subject of such a wish. I told my aunt that indeed she was
mistaken. That Peggotty was the best, the truest, the most
faithful, most devoted, and most self-denying friend and servant in
the world; who had ever loved me dearly, who had ever loved my
mother dearly; who had held my mother's dying head upon her arm, on
whose face my mother had imprinted her last grateful kiss. And my
remembrance of them both, choking me, I broke down as I was trying
to say that her home was my home, and that all she had was mine,
and that I would have gone to her for shelter, but for her humble
station, which made me fear that I might bring some trouble on her
- I broke down, I say, as I was trying to say so, and laid my face
in my hands upon the table.

'Well, well!' said my aunt, 'the child is right to stand by those
who have stood by him - Janet! Donkeys!'

I thoroughly believe that but for those unfortunate donkeys, we
should have come to a good understanding; for my aunt had laid her
hand on my shoulder, and the impulse was upon me, thus emboldened,
to embrace her and beseech her protection. But the interruption,
and the disorder she was thrown into by the struggle outside, put
an end to all softer ideas for the present, and kept my aunt
indignantly declaiming to Mr. Dick about her determination to
appeal for redress to the laws of her country, and to bring actions
for trespass against the whole donkey proprietorship of Dover,
until tea-time.

After tea, we sat at the window - on the look-out, as I imagined,
from my aunt's sharp expression of face, for more invaders - until
dusk, when Janet set candles, and a backgammon-board, on the table,
and pulled down the blinds.

'Now, Mr. Dick,' said my aunt, with her grave look, and her
forefinger up as before, 'I am going to ask you another question.
Look at this child.'

'David's son?' said Mr. Dick, with an attentive, puzzled face.

'Exactly so,' returned my aunt. 'What would you do with him, now?'

'Do with David's son?' said Mr. Dick.

'Ay,' replied my aunt, 'with David's son.'

'Oh!' said Mr. Dick. 'Yes. Do with - I should put him to bed.'

'Janet!' cried my aunt, with the same complacent triumph that I had
remarked before. 'Mr. Dick sets us all right. If the bed is
ready, we'll take him up to it.'

Janet reporting it to be quite ready, I was taken up to it; kindly,
but in some sort like a prisoner; my aunt going in front and Janet
bringing up the rear. The only circumstance which gave me any new
hope, was my aunt's stopping on the stairs to inquire about a smell
of fire that was prevalent there; and janet's replying that she had
been making tinder down in the kitchen, of my old shirt. But there
were no other clothes in my room than the odd heap of things I
wore; and when I was left there, with a little taper which my aunt
forewarned me would burn exactly five minutes, I heard them lock my
door on the outside. Turning these things over in my mind I deemed
it possible that my aunt, who could know nothing of me, might
suspect I had a habit of running away, and took precautions, on
that account, to have me in safe keeping.

The room was a pleasant one, at the top of the house, overlooking
the sea, on which the moon was shining brilliantly. After I had
said my prayers, and the candle had burnt out, I remember how I
still sat looking at the moonlight on the water, as if I could hope
to read my fortune in it, as in a bright book; or to see my mother
with her child, coming from Heaven, along that shining path, to
look upon me as she had looked when I last saw her sweet face. I
remember how the solemn feeling with which at length I turned my
eyes away, yielded to the sensation of gratitude and rest which the
sight of the white-curtained bed - and how much more the lying
softly down upon it, nestling in the snow-white sheets! - inspired.
I remember how I thought of all the solitary places under the night
sky where I had slept, and how I prayed that I never might be
houseless any more, and never might forget the houseless. I
remember how I seemed to float, then, down the melancholy glory of
that track upon the sea, away into the world of dreams.

CHAPTER 14
MY AUNT MAKES UP HER MIND ABOUT ME

On going down in the morning, I found my aunt musing so profoundly
over the breakfast table, with her elbow on the tray, that the
contents of the urn had overflowed the teapot and were laying the
whole table-cloth under water, when my entrance put her meditations
to flight. I felt sure that I had been the subject of her
reflections, and was more than ever anxious to know her intentions
towards me. Yet I dared not express my anxiety, lest it should
give her offence.

My eyes, however, not being so much under control as my tongue,
were attracted towards my aunt very often during breakfast. I
never could look at her for a few moments together but I found her
looking at me - in an odd thoughtful manner, as if I were an
immense way off, instead of being on the other side of the small
round table. When she had finished her breakfast, my aunt very
deliberately leaned back in her chair, knitted her brows, folded
her arms, and contemplated me at her leisure, with such a fixedness
of attention that I was quite overpowered by embarrassment. Not
having as yet finished my own breakfast, I attempted to hide my
confusion by proceeding with it; but my knife tumbled over my fork,
my fork tripped up my knife, I chipped bits of bacon a surprising
height into the air instead of cutting them for my own eating, and
choked myself with my tea, which persisted in going the wrong way
instead of the right one, until I gave in altogether, and sat
blushing under my aunt's close scrutiny.

'Hallo!' said my aunt, after a long time.

I looked up, and met her sharp bright glance respectfully.

'I have written to him,' said my aunt.

'To -?'

'To your father-in-law,' said my aunt. 'I have sent him a letter
that I'll trouble him to attend to, or he and I will fall out, I
can tell him!'

'Does he know where I am, aunt?' I inquired, alarmed.

'I have told him,' said my aunt, with a nod.

'Shall I - be - given up to him?' I faltered.

'I don't know,' said my aunt. 'We shall see.'

'Oh! I can't think what I shall do,' I exclaimed, 'if I have to go
back to Mr. Murdstone!'

'I don't know anything about it,' said my aunt, shaking her head.
'I can't say, I am sure. We shall see.'

My spirits sank under these words, and I became very downcast and
heavy of heart. My aunt, without appearing to take much heed of
me, put on a coarse apron with a bib, which she took out of the
press; washed up the teacups with her own hands; and, when
everything was washed and set in the tray again, and the cloth
folded and put on the top of the whole, rang for Janet to remove
it. She next swept up the crumbs with a little broom (putting on
a pair of gloves first), until there did not appear to be one
microscopic speck left on the carpet; next dusted and arranged the
room, which was dusted and arranged to a hair's breadth already.
When all these tasks were performed to her satisfaction, she took
off the gloves and apron, folded them up, put them in the
particular corner of the press from which they had been taken,
brought out her work-box to her own table in the open window, and
sat down, with the green fan between her and the light, to work.

'I wish you'd go upstairs,' said my aunt, as she threaded her
needle, 'and give my compliments to Mr. Dick, and I'll be glad to
know how he gets on with his Memorial.'

I rose with all alacrity, to acquit myself of this commission.

'I suppose,' said my aunt, eyeing me as narrowly as she had eyed
the needle in threading it, 'you think Mr. Dick a short name, eh?'

'I thought it was rather a short name, yesterday,' I confessed.

'You are not to suppose that he hasn't got a longer name, if he
chose to use it,' said my aunt, with a loftier air. 'Babley - Mr.
Richard Babley - that's the gentleman's true name.'

I was going to suggest, with a modest sense of my youth and the
familiarity I had been already guilty of, that I had better give
him the full benefit of that name, when my aunt went on to say:

'But don't you call him by it, whatever you do. He can't bear his
name. That's a peculiarity of his. Though I don't know that it's
much of a peculiarity, either; for he has been ill-used enough, by
some that bear it, to have a mortal antipathy for it, Heaven knows.
Mr. Dick is his name here, and everywhere else, now - if he ever
went anywhere else, which he don't. So take care, child, you don't
call him anything BUT Mr. Dick.'

I promised to obey, and went upstairs with my message; thinking, as
I went, that if Mr. Dick had been working at his Memorial long, at
the same rate as I had seen him working at it, through the open
door, when I came down, he was probably getting on very well
indeed. I found him still driving at it with a long pen, and his
head almost laid upon the paper. He was so intent upon it, that I
had ample leisure to observe the large paper kite in a corner, the
confusion of bundles of manuscript, the number of pens, and, above
all, the quantity of ink (which he seemed to have in, in
half-gallon jars by the dozen), before he observed my being
present.

'Ha! Phoebus!' said Mr. Dick, laying down his pen. 'How does the
world go? I'll tell you what,' he added, in a lower tone, 'I
shouldn't wish it to be mentioned, but it's a -' here he beckoned
to me, and put his lips close to my ear - 'it's a mad world. Mad
as Bedlam, boy!' said Mr. Dick, taking snuff from a round box on
the table, and laughing heartily.

Without presuming to give my opinion on this question, I delivered
my message.

'Well,' said Mr. Dick, in answer, 'my compliments to her, and I -
I believe I have made a start. I think I have made a start,' said
Mr. Dick, passing his hand among his grey hair, and casting
anything but a confident look at his manuscript. 'You have been to
school?'

'Yes, sir,' I answered; 'for a short time.'

'Do you recollect the date,' said Mr. Dick, looking earnestly at
me, and taking up his pen to note it down, 'when King Charles the
First had his head cut off?'
I said I believed it happened in the year sixteen hundred and
forty-nine.

'Well,' returned Mr. Dick, scratching his ear with his pen, and
looking dubiously at me. 'So the books say; but I don't see how
that can be. Because, if it was so long ago, how could the people
about him have made that mistake of putting some of the trouble out
of his head, after it was taken off, into mine?'

I was very much surprised by the inquiry; but could give no
information on this point.

'It's very strange,' said Mr. Dick, with a despondent look upon his
papers, and with his hand among his hair again, 'that I never can
get that quite right. I never can make that perfectly clear. But
no matter, no matter!' he said cheerfully, and rousing himself,
'there's time enough! My compliments to Miss Trotwood, I am
getting on very well indeed.'

I was going away, when he directed my attention to the kite.

'What do you think of that for a kite?' he said.

I answered that it was a beautiful one. I should think it must
have been as much as seven feet high.

'I made it. We'll go and fly it, you and I,' said Mr. Dick. 'Do
you see this?'

He showed me that it was covered with manuscript, very closely and
laboriously written; but so plainly, that as I looked along the
lines, I thought I saw some allusion to King Charles the First's
head again, in one or two places.

'There's plenty of string,' said Mr. Dick, 'and when it flies high,
it takes the facts a long way. That's my manner of diffusing 'em.
I don't know where they may come down. It's according to
circumstances, and the wind, and so forth; but I take my chance of
that.'

His face was so very mild and pleasant, and had something so
reverend in it, though it was hale and hearty, that I was not sure
but that he was having a good-humoured jest with me. So I laughed,
and he laughed, and we parted the best friends possible.

'Well, child,' said my aunt, when I went downstairs. 'And what of
Mr. Dick, this morning?'

I informed her that he sent his compliments, and was getting on
very well indeed.

'What do you think of him?' said my aunt.

I had some shadowy idea of endeavouring to evade the question, by
replying that I thought him a very nice gentleman; but my aunt was
not to be so put off, for she laid her work down in her lap, and
said, folding her hands upon it:

'Come! Your sister Betsey Trotwood would have told me what she
thought of anyone, directly. Be as like your sister as you can,
and speak out!'

'Is he - is Mr. Dick - I ask because I don't know, aunt - is he at
all out of his mind, then?' I stammered; for I felt I was on
dangerous ground.

'Not a morsel,' said my aunt.

'Oh, indeed!' I observed faintly.

'If there is anything in the world,' said my aunt, with great
decision and force of manner, 'that Mr. Dick is not, it's that.'

I had nothing better to offer, than another timid, 'Oh, indeed!'

'He has been CALLED mad,' said my aunt. 'I have a selfish pleasure
in saying he has been called mad, or I should not have had the
benefit of his society and advice for these last ten years and
upwards - in fact, ever since your sister, Betsey Trotwood,
disappointed me.'

'So long as that?' I said.

'And nice people they were, who had the audacity to call him mad,'
pursued my aunt. 'Mr. Dick is a sort of distant connexion of mine
- it doesn't matter how; I needn't enter into that. If it hadn't
been for me, his own brother would have shut him up for life.
That's all.'

I am afraid it was hypocritical in me, but seeing that my aunt felt
strongly on the subject, I tried to look as if I felt strongly too.

'A proud fool!' said my aunt. 'Because his brother was a little
eccentric - though he is not half so eccentric as a good many
people - he didn't like to have him visible about his house, and
sent him away to some private asylum-place: though he had been left
to his particular care by their deceased father, who thought him
almost a natural. And a wise man he must have been to think so!
Mad himself, no doubt.'

Again, as my aunt looked quite convinced, I endeavoured to look
quite convinced also.

'So I stepped in,' said my aunt, 'and made him an offer. I said,
"Your brother's sane - a great deal more sane than you are, or ever
will be, it is to be hoped. Let him have his little income, and
come and live with me. I am not afraid of him, I am not proud, I
am ready to take care of him, and shall not ill-treat him as some
people (besides the asylum-folks) have done." After a good deal of
squabbling,' said my aunt, 'I got him; and he has been here ever
since. He is the most friendly and amenable creature in existence;
and as for advice! - But nobody knows what that man's mind is,
except myself.'

My aunt smoothed her dress and shook her head, as if she smoothed
defiance of the whole world out of the one, and shook it out of the
other.

'He had a favourite sister,' said my aunt, 'a good creature, and
very kind to him. But she did what they all do - took a husband.
And HE did what they all do - made her wretched. It had such an
effect upon the mind of Mr. Dick (that's not madness, I hope!)
that, combined with his fear of his brother, and his sense of his
unkindness, it threw him into a fever. That was before he came to
me, but the recollection of it is oppressive to him even now. Did
he say anything to you about King Charles the First, child?'