CHAPTER 4 - I FALL INTO DISGRACE

If the room to which my bed was removed were a sentient thing that

could give evidence, I might appeal to it at this day - who sleeps

there now, I wonder! - to bear witness for me what a heavy heart I

carried to it. I went up there, hearing the dog in the yard bark

after me all the way while I climbed the stairs; and, looking as

blank and strange upon the room as the room looked upon me, sat

down with my small hands crossed, and thought.

I thought of the oddest things. Of the shape of the room, of the

cracks in the ceiling, of the paper on the walls, of the flaws in

the window-glass making ripples and dimples on the prospect, of the

washing-stand being rickety on its three legs, and having a

discontented something about it, which reminded me of Mrs. Gummidge

under the influence of the old one. I was crying all the time,

but, except that I was conscious of being cold and dejected, I am

sure I never thought why I cried. At last in my desolation I began

to consider that I was dreadfully in love with little Em'ly, and

had been torn away from her to come here where no one seemed to

want me, or to care about me, half as much as she did. This made

such a very miserable piece of business of it, that I rolled myself

up in a corner of the counterpane, and cried myself to sleep.

I was awoke by somebody saying 'Here he is!' and uncovering my hot

head. My mother and Peggotty had come to look for me, and it was

one of them who had done it.

'Davy,' said my mother. 'What's the matter?'

I thought it was very strange that she should ask me, and answered,

'Nothing.' I turned over on my face, I recollect, to hide my

trembling lip, which answered her with greater truth.

'Davy,' said my mother. 'Davy, my child!'

I dare say no words she could have uttered would have affected me

so much, then, as her calling me her child. I hid my tears in the

bedclothes, and pressed her from me with my hand, when she would

have raised me up.

'This is your doing, Peggotty, you cruel thing!' said my mother.

'I have no doubt at all about it. How can you reconcile it to your

conscience, I wonder, to prejudice my own boy against me, or

against anybody who is dear to me? What do you mean by it,

Peggotty?'

Poor Peggotty lifted up her hands and eyes, and only answered, in

a sort of paraphrase of the grace I usually repeated after dinner,

'Lord forgive you, Mrs. Copperfield, and for what you have said

this minute, may you never be truly sorry!'

'It's enough to distract me,' cried my mother. 'In my honeymoon,

too, when my most inveterate enemy might relent, one would think,

and not envy me a little peace of mind and happiness. Davy, you

naughty boy! Peggotty, you savage creature! Oh, dear me!' cried

my mother, turning from one of us to the other, in her pettish

wilful manner, 'what a troublesome world this is, when one has the

most right to expect it to be as agreeable as possible!'

I felt the touch of a hand that I knew was neither hers nor

Peggotty's, and slipped to my feet at the bed-side. It was Mr.

Murdstone's hand, and he kept it on my arm as he said:

'What's this? Clara, my love, have you forgotten? - Firmness, my

dear!'

'I am very sorry, Edward,' said my mother. 'I meant to be very

good, but I am so uncomfortable.'

'Indeed!' he answered. 'That's a bad hearing, so soon, Clara.'

'I say it's very hard I should be made so now,' returned my mother,

pouting; 'and it is - very hard - isn't it?'

He drew her to him, whispered in her ear, and kissed her. I knew

as well, when I saw my mother's head lean down upon his shoulder,

and her arm touch his neck - I knew as well that he could mould her

pliant nature into any form he chose, as I know, now, that he did

it.

'Go you below, my love,' said Mr. Murdstone. 'David and I will

come down, together. My friend,' turning a darkening face on

Peggotty, when he had watched my mother out, and dismissed her with

a nod and a smile; 'do you know your mistress's name?'

'She has been my mistress a long time, sir,' answered Peggotty, 'I

ought to know it.'

'That's true,' he answered. 'But I thought I heard you, as I came

upstairs, address her by a name that is not hers. She has taken

mine, you know. Will you remember that?'

Peggotty, with some uneasy glances at me, curtseyed herself out of

the room without replying; seeing, I suppose, that she was expected

to go, and had no excuse for remaining. When we two were left

alone, he shut the door, and sitting on a chair, and holding me

standing before him, looked steadily into my eyes. I felt my own

attracted, no less steadily, to his. As I recall our being opposed

thus, face to face, I seem again to hear my heart beat fast and

high.

'David,' he said, making his lips thin, by pressing them together,

'if I have an obstinate horse or dog to deal with, what do you

think I do?'

'I don't know.'

'I beat him.'

I had answered in a kind of breathless whisper, but I felt, in my

silence, that my breath was shorter now.

'I make him wince, and smart. I say to myself, "I'll conquer that

fellow"; and if it were to cost him all the blood he had, I should

do it. What is that upon your face?'

'Dirt,' I said.

He knew it was the mark of tears as well as I. But if he had asked

the question twenty times, each time with twenty blows, I believe

my baby heart would have burst before I would have told him so.

'You have a good deal of intelligence for a little fellow,' he

said, with a grave smile that belonged to him, 'and you understood

me very well, I see. Wash that face, sir, and come down with me.'

He pointed to the washing-stand, which I had made out to be like

Mrs. Gummidge, and motioned me with his head to obey him directly.

I had little doubt then, and I have less doubt now, that he would

have knocked me down without the least compunction, if I had

hesitated.

'Clara, my dear,' he said, when I had done his bidding, and he

walked me into the parlour, with his hand still on my arm; 'you

will not be made uncomfortable any more, I hope. We shall soon

improve our youthful humours.'

God help me, I might have been improved for my whole life, I might

have been made another creature perhaps, for life, by a kind word

at that season. A word of encouragement and explanation, of pity

for my childish ignorance, of welcome home, of reassurance to me

that it was home, might have made me dutiful to him in my heart

henceforth, instead of in my hypocritical outside, and might have

made me respect instead of hate him. I thought my mother was sorry

to see me standing in the room so scared and strange, and that,

presently, when I stole to a chair, she followed me with her eyes

more sorrowfully still - missing, perhaps, some freedom in my

childish tread - but the word was not spoken, and the time for it

was gone.

We dined alone, we three together. He seemed to be very fond of my

mother - I am afraid I liked him none the better for that - and she

was very fond of him. I gathered from what they said, that an

elder sister of his was coming to stay with them, and that she was

expected that evening. I am not certain whether I found out then,

or afterwards, that, without being actively concerned in any

business, he had some share in, or some annual charge upon the

profits of, a wine-merchant's house in London, with which his

family had been connected from his great-grandfather's time, and in

which his sister had a similar interest; but I may mention it in

this place, whether or no.

After dinner, when we were sitting by the fire, and I was

meditating an escape to Peggotty without having the hardihood to

slip away, lest it should offend the master of the house, a coach

drove up to the garden-gate and he went out to receive the visitor.

My mother followed him. I was timidly following her, when she

turned round at the parlour door, in the dusk, and taking me in her

embrace as she had been used to do, whispered me to love my new

father and be obedient to him. She did this hurriedly and

secretly, as if it were wrong, but tenderly; and, putting out her

hand behind her, held mine in it, until we came near to where he

was standing in the garden, where she let mine go, and drew hers

through his arm.

It was Miss Murdstone who was arrived, and a gloomy-looking lady

she was; dark, like her brother, whom she greatly resembled in face

and voice; and with very heavy eyebrows, nearly meeting over her

large nose, as if, being disabled by the wrongs of her sex from

wearing whiskers, she had carried them to that account. She

brought with her two uncompromising hard black boxes, with her

initials on the lids in hard brass nails. When she paid the

coachman she took her money out of a hard steel purse, and she kept

the purse in a very jail of a bag which hung upon her arm by a

heavy chain, and shut up like a bite. I had never, at that time,

seen such a metallic lady altogether as Miss Murdstone was.

She was brought into the parlour with many tokens of welcome, and

there formally recognized my mother as a new and near relation.

Then she looked at me, and said:

'Is that your boy, sister-in-law?'

My mother acknowledged me.

'Generally speaking,' said Miss Murdstone, 'I don't like boys. How

d'ye do, boy?'

Under these encouraging circumstances, I replied that I was very

well, and that I hoped she was the same; with such an indifferent

grace, that Miss Murdstone disposed of me in two words:

'Wants manner!'

Having uttered which, with great distinctness, she begged the

favour of being shown to her room, which became to me from that

time forth a place of awe and dread, wherein the two black boxes

were never seen open or known to be left unlocked, and where (for

I peeped in once or twice when she was out) numerous little steel

fetters and rivets, with which Miss Murdstone embellished herself

when she was dressed, generally hung upon the looking-glass in

formidable array.

As well as I could make out, she had come for good, and had no

intention of ever going again. She began to 'help' my mother next

morning, and was in and out of the store-closet all day, putting

things to rights, and making havoc in the old arrangements. Almost

the first remarkable thing I observed in Miss Murdstone was, her

being constantly haunted by a suspicion that the servants had a man

secreted somewhere on the premises. Under the influence of this

delusion, she dived into the coal-cellar at the most untimely

hours, and scarcely ever opened the door of a dark cupboard without

clapping it to again, in the belief that she had got him.

Though there was nothing very airy about Miss Murdstone, she was a

perfect Lark in point of getting up. She was up (and, as I believe

to this hour, looking for that man) before anybody in the house was

stirring. Peggotty gave it as her opinion that she even slept with

one eye open; but I could not concur in this idea; for I tried it

myself after hearing the suggestion thrown out, and found it

couldn't be done.

On the very first morning after her arrival she was up and ringing

her bell at cock-crow. When my mother came down to breakfast and

was going to make the tea, Miss Murdstone gave her a kind of peck

on the cheek, which was her nearest approach to a kiss, and said:

'Now, Clara, my dear, I am come here, you know, to relieve you of

all the trouble I can. You're much too pretty and thoughtless' -

my mother blushed but laughed, and seemed not to dislike this

character - 'to have any duties imposed upon you that can be

undertaken by me. If you'll be so good as give me your keys, my

dear, I'll attend to all this sort of thing in future.'

From that time, Miss Murdstone kept the keys in her own little jail

all day, and under her pillow all night, and my mother had no more

to do with them than I had.

My mother did not suffer her authority to pass from her without a

shadow of protest. One night when Miss Murdstone had been

developing certain household plans to her brother, of which he

signified his approbation, my mother suddenly began to cry, and

said she thought she might have been consulted.

'Clara!' said Mr. Murdstone sternly. 'Clara! I wonder at you.'

'Oh, it's very well to say you wonder, Edward!' cried my mother,

'and it's very well for you to talk about firmness, but you

wouldn't like it yourself.'

Firmness, I may observe, was the grand quality on which both Mr.

and Miss Murdstone took their stand. However I might have

expressed my comprehension of it at that time, if I had been called

upon, I nevertheless did clearly comprehend in my own way, that it

was another name for tyranny; and for a certain gloomy, arrogant,

devil's humour, that was in them both. The creed, as I should

state it now, was this. Mr. Murdstone was firm; nobody in his

world was to be so firm as Mr. Murdstone; nobody else in his world

was to be firm at all, for everybody was to be bent to his

firmness. Miss Murdstone was an exception. She might be firm, but

only by relationship, and in an inferior and tributary degree. My

mother was another exception. She might be firm, and must be; but

only in bearing their firmness, and firmly believing there was no

other firmness upon earth.

'It's very hard,' said my mother, 'that in my own house -'

'My own house?' repeated Mr. Murdstone. 'Clara!'

'OUR own house, I mean,' faltered my mother, evidently frightened

- 'I hope you must know what I mean, Edward - it's very hard that

in YOUR own house I may not have a word to say about domestic

matters. I am sure I managed very well before we were married.

There's evidence,' said my mother, sobbing; 'ask Peggotty if I

didn't do very well when I wasn't interfered with!'

'Edward,' said Miss Murdstone, 'let there be an end of this. I go

tomorrow.'

'Jane Murdstone,' said her brother, 'be silent! How dare you to

insinuate that you don't know my character better than your words

imply?'

'I am sure,' my poor mother went on, at a grievous disadvantage,

and with many tears, 'I don't want anybody to go. I should be very

miserable and unhappy if anybody was to go. I don't ask much. I

am not unreasonable. I only want to be consulted sometimes. I am

very much obliged to anybody who assists me, and I only want to be

consulted as a mere form, sometimes. I thought you were pleased,

once, with my being a little inexperienced and girlish, Edward - I

am sure you said so - but you seem to hate me for it now, you are

so severe.'

'Edward,' said Miss Murdstone, again, 'let there be an end of this.

I go tomorrow.'

'Jane Murdstone,' thundered Mr. Murdstone. 'Will you be silent?

How dare you?'

Miss Murdstone made a jail-delivery of her pocket-handkerchief, and

held it before her eyes.

'Clara,' he continued, looking at my mother, 'you surprise me! You

astound me! Yes, I had a satisfaction in the thought of marrying

an inexperienced and artless person, and forming her character, and

infusing into it some amount of that firmness and decision of which

it stood in need. But when Jane Murdstone is kind enough to come

to my assistance in this endeavour, and to assume, for my sake, a

condition something like a housekeeper's, and when she meets with

a base return -'

'Oh, pray, pray, Edward,' cried my mother, 'don't accuse me of

being ungrateful. I am sure I am not ungrateful. No one ever said

I was before. I have many faults, but not that. Oh, don't, my

dear!'

'When Jane Murdstone meets, I say,' he went on, after waiting until

my mother was silent, 'with a base return, that feeling of mine is

chilled and altered.'

'Don't, my love, say that!' implored my mother very piteously.

'Oh, don't, Edward! I can't bear to hear it. Whatever I am, I am

affectionate. I know I am affectionate. I wouldn't say it, if I

wasn't sure that I am. Ask Peggotty. I am sure she'll tell you

I'm affectionate.'

'There is no extent of mere weakness, Clara,' said Mr. Murdstone in

reply, 'that can have the least weight with me. You lose breath.'

'Pray let us be friends,' said my mother, 'I couldn't live under

coldness or unkindness. I am so sorry. I have a great many

defects, I know, and it's very good of you, Edward, with your

strength of mind, to endeavour to correct them for me. Jane, I

don't object to anything. I should be quite broken-hearted if you

thought of leaving -' My mother was too much overcome to go on.

'Jane Murdstone,' said Mr. Murdstone to his sister, 'any harsh

words between us are, I hope, uncommon. It is not my fault that so

unusual an occurrence has taken place tonight. I was betrayed into

it by another. Nor is it your fault. You were betrayed into it by

another. Let us both try to forget it. And as this,' he added,

after these magnanimous words, 'is not a fit scene for the boy -

David, go to bed!'

I could hardly find the door, through the tears that stood in my

eyes. I was so sorry for my mother's distress; but I groped my way

out, and groped my way up to my room in the dark, without even

having the heart to say good night to Peggotty, or to get a candle

from her. When her coming up to look for me, an hour or so

afterwards, awoke me, she said that my mother had gone to bed

poorly, and that Mr. and Miss Murdstone were sitting alone.

Going down next morning rather earlier than usual, I paused outside

the parlour door, on hearing my mother's voice. She was very

earnestly and humbly entreating Miss Murdstone's pardon, which that

lady granted, and a perfect reconciliation took place. I never

knew my mother afterwards to give an opinion on any matter, without

first appealing to Miss Murdstone, or without having first

ascertained by some sure means, what Miss Murdstone's opinion was;

and I never saw Miss Murdstone, when out of temper (she was infirm

that way), move her hand towards her bag as if she were going to

take out the keys and offer to resign them to my mother, without

seeing that my mother was in a terrible fright.

The gloomy taint that was in the Murdstone blood, darkened the

Murdstone religion, which was austere and wrathful. I have

thought, since, that its assuming that character was a necessary

consequence of Mr. Murdstone's firmness, which wouldn't allow him

to let anybody off from the utmost weight of the severest penalties

he could find any excuse for. Be this as it may, I well remember

the tremendous visages with which we used to go to church, and the

changed air of the place. Again, the dreaded Sunday comes round,

and I file into the old pew first, like a guarded captive brought

to a condemned service. Again, Miss Murdstone, in a black velvet

gown, that looks as if it had been made out of a pall, follows

close upon me; then my mother; then her husband. There is no

Peggotty now, as in the old time. Again, I listen to Miss

Murdstone mumbling the responses, and emphasizing all the dread

words with a cruel relish. Again, I see her dark eyes roll round

the church when she says 'miserable sinners', as if she were

calling all the congregation names. Again, I catch rare glimpses

of my mother, moving her lips timidly between the two, with one of

them muttering at each ear like low thunder. Again, I wonder with

a sudden fear whether it is likely that our good old clergyman can

be wrong, and Mr. and Miss Murdstone right, and that all the angels

in Heaven can be destroying angels. Again, if I move a finger or

relax a muscle of my face, Miss Murdstone pokes me with her

prayer-book, and makes my side ache.

Yes, and again, as we walk home, I note some neighbours looking at

my mother and at me, and whispering. Again, as the three go on

arm-in-arm, and I linger behind alone, I follow some of those

looks, and wonder if my mother's step be really not so light as I

have seen it, and if the gaiety of her beauty be really almost

worried away. Again, I wonder whether any of the neighbours call

to mind, as I do, how we used to walk home together, she and I; and

I wonder stupidly about that, all the dreary dismal day.

There had been some talk on occasions of my going to boarding-

school. Mr. and Miss Murdstone had originated it, and my mother

had of course agreed with them. Nothing, however, was concluded on

the subject yet. In the meantime, I learnt lessons at home.

Shall I ever forget those lessons! They were presided over

nominally by my mother, but really by Mr. Murdstone and his sister,

who were always present, and found them a favourable occasion for

giving my mother lessons in that miscalled firmness, which was the

bane of both our lives. I believe I was kept at home for that

purpose. I had been apt enough to learn, and willing enough, when

my mother and I had lived alone together. I can faintly remember

learning the alphabet at her knee. To this day, when I look upon

the fat black letters in the primer, the puzzling novelty of their

shapes, and the easy good-nature of O and Q and S, seem to present

themselves again before me as they used to do. But they recall no

feeling of disgust or reluctance. On the contrary, I seem to have

walked along a path of flowers as far as the crocodile-book, and to

have been cheered by the gentleness of my mother's voice and manner

all the way. But these solemn lessons which succeeded those, I

remember as the death-blow of my peace, and a grievous daily

drudgery and misery. They were very long, very numerous, very hard

- perfectly unintelligible, some of them, to me - and I was

generally as much bewildered by them as I believe my poor mother

was herself.

Let me remember how it used to be, and bring one morning back

again.

I come into the second-best parlour after breakfast, with my books,

and an exercise-book, and a slate. My mother is ready for me at

her writing-desk, but not half so ready as Mr. Murdstone in his

easy-chair by the window (though he pretends to be reading a book),

or as Miss Murdstone, sitting near my mother stringing steel beads.

The very sight of these two has such an influence over me, that I

begin to feel the words I have been at infinite pains to get into

my head, all sliding away, and going I don't know where. I wonder

where they do go, by the by?

I hand the first book to my mother. Perhaps it is a grammar,

perhaps a history, or geography. I take a last drowning look at

the page as I give it into her hand, and start off aloud at a

racing pace while I have got it fresh. I trip over a word. Mr.

Murdstone looks up. I trip over another word. Miss Murdstone

looks up. I redden, tumble over half-a-dozen words, and stop. I

think my mother would show me the book if she dared, but she does

not dare, and she says softly:

'Oh, Davy, Davy!'

'Now, Clara,' says Mr. Murdstone, 'be firm with the boy. Don't

say, "Oh, Davy, Davy!" That's childish. He knows his lesson, or

he does not know it.'

'He does NOT know it,' Miss Murdstone interposes awfully.

'I am really afraid he does not,' says my mother.

'Then, you see, Clara,' returns Miss Murdstone, 'you should just

give him the book back, and make him know it.'

'Yes, certainly,' says my mother; 'that is what I intend to do, my

dear Jane. Now, Davy, try once more, and don't be stupid.'

I obey the first clause of the injunction by trying once more, but

am not so successful with the second, for I am very stupid. I

tumble down before I get to the old place, at a point where I was

all right before, and stop to think. But I can't think about the

lesson. I think of the number of yards of net in Miss Murdstone's

cap, or of the price of Mr. Murdstone's dressing-gown, or any such

ridiculous problem that I have no business with, and don't want to

have anything at all to do with. Mr. Murdstone makes a movement of

impatience which I have been expecting for a long time. Miss

Murdstone does the same. My mother glances submissively at them,

shuts the book, and lays it by as an arrear to be worked out when

my other tasks are done.

There is a pile of these arrears very soon, and it swells like a

rolling snowball. The bigger it gets, the more stupid I get. The

case is so hopeless, and I feel that I am wallowing in such a bog

of nonsense, that I give up all idea of getting out, and abandon

myself to my fate. The despairing way in which my mother and I

look at each other, as I blunder on, is truly melancholy. But the

greatest effect in these miserable lessons is when my mother

(thinking nobody is observing her) tries to give me the cue by the

motion of her lips. At that instant, Miss Murdstone, who has been

lying in wait for nothing else all along, says in a deep warning

voice:

'Clara!'

My mother starts, colours, and smiles faintly. Mr. Murdstone comes

out of his chair, takes the book, throws it at me or boxes my ears

with it, and turns me out of the room by the shoulders.

Even when the lessons are done, the worst is yet to happen, in the

shape of an appalling sum. This is invented for me, and delivered

to me orally by Mr. Murdstone, and begins, 'If I go into a

cheesemonger's shop, and buy five thousand double-Gloucester

cheeses at fourpence-halfpenny each, present payment' - at which I

see Miss Murdstone secretly overjoyed. I pore over these cheeses

without any result or enlightenment until dinner-time, when, having

made a Mulatto of myself by getting the dirt of the slate into the

pores of my skin, I have a slice of bread to help me out with the

cheeses, and am considered in disgrace for the rest of the evening.

It seems to me, at this distance of time, as if my unfortunate

studies generally took this course. I could have done very well if

I had been without the Murdstones; but the influence of the

Murdstones upon me was like the fascination of two snakes on a

wretched young bird. Even when I did get through the morning with

tolerable credit, there was not much gained but dinner; for Miss

Murdstone never could endure to see me untasked, and if I rashly

made any show of being unemployed, called her brother's attention

to me by saying, 'Clara, my dear, there's nothing like work - give

your boy an exercise'; which caused me to be clapped down to some

new labour, there and then. As to any recreation with other

children of my age, I had very little of that; for the gloomy

theology of the Murdstones made all children out to be a swarm of

little vipers (though there WAS a child once set in the midst of

the Disciples), and held that they contaminated one another.

The natural result of this treatment, continued, I suppose, for

some six months or more, was to make me sullen, dull, and dogged.

I was not made the less so by my sense of being daily more and more

shut out and alienated from my mother. I believe I should have

been almost stupefied but for one circumstance.

It was this. My father had left a small collection of books in a

little room upstairs, to which I had access (for it adjoined my

own) and which nobody else in our house ever troubled. From that

blessed little room, Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, Humphrey

Clinker, Tom Jones, the Vicar of Wakefield, Don Quixote, Gil Blas,

and Robinson Crusoe, came out, a glorious host, to keep me company.

They kept alive my fancy, and my hope of something beyond that

place and time, - they, and the Arabian Nights, and the Tales of

the Genii, - and did me no harm; for whatever harm was in some of

them was not there for me; I knew nothing of it. It is astonishing

to me now, how I found time, in the midst of my porings and

blunderings over heavier themes, to read those books as I did. It

is curious to me how I could ever have consoled myself under my

small troubles (which were great troubles to me), by impersonating

my favourite characters in them - as I did - and by putting Mr. and

Miss Murdstone into all the bad ones - which I did too. I have

been Tom Jones (a child's Tom Jones, a harmless creature) for a

week together. I have sustained my own idea of Roderick Random for

a month at a stretch, I verily believe. I had a greedy relish for

a few volumes of Voyages and Travels - I forget what, now - that

were on those shelves; and for days and days I can remember to have

gone about my region of our house, armed with the centre-piece out

of an old set of boot-trees - the perfect realization of Captain

Somebody, of the Royal British Navy, in danger of being beset by

savages, and resolved to sell his life at a great price. The

Captain never lost dignity, from having his ears boxed with the

Latin Grammar. I did; but the Captain was a Captain and a hero, in

despite of all the grammars of all the languages in the world, dead

or alive.

This was my only and my constant comfort. When I think of it, the

picture always rises in my mind, of a summer evening, the boys at

play in the churchyard, and I sitting on my bed, reading as if for

life. Every barn in the neighbourhood, every stone in the church,

and every foot of the churchyard, had some association of its own,

in my mind, connected with these books, and stood for some locality

made famous in them. I have seen Tom Pipes go climbing up the

church-steeple; I have watched Strap, with the knapsack on his

back, stopping to rest himself upon the wicket-gate; and I know

that Commodore Trunnion held that club with Mr. Pickle, in the

parlour of our little village alehouse.

The reader now understands, as well as I do, what I was when I came

to that point of my youthful history to which I am now coming

again.

One morning when I went into the parlour with my books, I found my

mother looking anxious, Miss Murdstone looking firm, and Mr.

Murdstone binding something round the bottom of a cane - a lithe

and limber cane, which he left off binding when I came in, and

poised and switched in the air.

'I tell you, Clara,' said Mr. Murdstone, 'I have been often flogged

myself.'

'To be sure; of course,' said Miss Murdstone.

'Certainly, my dear Jane,' faltered my mother, meekly. 'But - but

do you think it did Edward good?'

'Do you think it did Edward harm, Clara?' asked Mr. Murdstone,

gravely.

'That's the point,' said his sister.

To this my mother returned, 'Certainly, my dear Jane,' and said no

more.

I felt apprehensive that I was personally interested in this

dialogue, and sought Mr. Murdstone's eye as it lighted on mine.

'Now, David,' he said - and I saw that cast again as he said it -

'you must be far more careful today than usual.' He gave the cane

another poise, and another switch; and having finished his

preparation of it, laid it down beside him, with an impressive

look, and took up his book.

This was a good freshener to my presence of mind, as a beginning.

I felt the words of my lessons slipping off, not one by one, or

line by line, but by the entire page; I tried to lay hold of them;

but they seemed, if I may so express it, to have put skates on, and

to skim away from me with a smoothness there was no checking.

We began badly, and went on worse. I had come in with an idea of

distinguishing myself rather, conceiving that I was very well

prepared; but it turned out to be quite a mistake. Book after book

was added to the heap of failures, Miss Murdstone being firmly

watchful of us all the time. And when we came at last to the five

thousand cheeses (canes he made it that day, I remember), my mother

burst out crying.

'Clara!' said Miss Murdstone, in her warning voice.

'I am not quite well, my dear Jane, I think,' said my mother.

I saw him wink, solemnly, at his sister, as he rose and said,

taking up the cane:

'Why, Jane, we can hardly expect Clara to bear, with perfect

firmness, the worry and torment that David has occasioned her

today. That would be stoical. Clara is greatly strengthened and

improved, but we can hardly expect so much from her. David, you

and I will go upstairs, boy.'

As he took me out at the door, my mother ran towards us. Miss

Murdstone said, 'Clara! are you a perfect fool?' and interfered.

I saw my mother stop her ears then, and I heard her crying.

He walked me up to my room slowly and gravely - I am certain he had

a delight in that formal parade of executing justice - and when we

got there, suddenly twisted my head under his arm.

'Mr. Murdstone! Sir!' I cried to him. 'Don't! Pray don't beat

me! I have tried to learn, sir, but I can't learn while you and

Miss Murdstone are by. I can't indeed!'

'Can't you, indeed, David?' he said. 'We'll try that.'

He had my head as in a vice, but I twined round him somehow, and

stopped him for a moment, entreating him not to beat me. It was

only a moment that I stopped him, for he cut me heavily an instant

afterwards, and in the same instant I caught the hand with which he

held me in my mouth, between my teeth, and bit it through. It sets

my teeth on edge to think of it.

He beat me then, as if he would have beaten me to death. Above all

the noise we made, I heard them running up the stairs, and crying

out - I heard my mother crying out - and Peggotty. Then he was

gone; and the door was locked outside; and I was lying, fevered and

hot, and torn, and sore, and raging in my puny way, upon the floor.

How well I recollect, when I became quiet, what an unnatural

stillness seemed to reign through the whole house! How well I

remember, when my smart and passion began to cool, how wicked I

began to feel!

I sat listening for a long while, but there was not a sound. I

crawled up from the floor, and saw my face in the glass, so

swollen, red, and ugly that it almost frightened me. My stripes

were sore and stiff, and made me cry afresh, when I moved; but they

were nothing to the guilt I felt. It lay heavier on my breast than

if I had been a most atrocious criminal, I dare say.

It had begun to grow dark, and I had shut the window (I had been

lying, for the most part, with my head upon the sill, by turns

crying, dozing, and looking listlessly out), when the key was

turned, and Miss Murdstone came in with some bread and meat, and

milk. These she put down upon the table without a word, glaring at

me the while with exemplary firmness, and then retired, locking the

door after her.

Long after it was dark I sat there, wondering whether anybody else

would come. When this appeared improbable for that night, I

undressed, and went to bed; and, there, I began to wonder fearfully

what would be done to me. Whether it was a criminal act that I had

committed? Whether I should be taken into custody, and sent to

prison? Whether I was at all in danger of being hanged?

I never shall forget the waking, next morning; the being cheerful

and fresh for the first moment, and then the being weighed down by

the stale and dismal oppression of remembrance. Miss Murdstone

reappeared before I was out of bed; told me, in so many words, that

I was free to walk in the garden for half an hour and no longer;

and retired, leaving the door open, that I might avail myself of

that permission.

I did so, and did so every morning of my imprisonment, which lasted

five days. If I could have seen my mother alone, I should have

gone down on my knees to her and besought her forgiveness; but I

saw no one, Miss Murdstone excepted, during the whole time - except

at evening prayers in the parlour; to which I was escorted by Miss

Murdstone after everybody else was placed; where I was stationed,

a young outlaw, all alone by myself near the door; and whence I was

solemnly conducted by my jailer, before any one arose from the

devotional posture. I only observed that my mother was as far off

from me as she could be, and kept her face another way so that I

never saw it; and that Mr. Murdstone's hand was bound up in a large

linen wrapper.

The length of those five days I can convey no idea of to any one.

They occupy the place of years in my remembrance. The way in which

I listened to all the incidents of the house that made themselves

audible to me; the ringing of bells, the opening and shutting of

doors, the murmuring of voices, the footsteps on the stairs; to any

laughing, whistling, or singing, outside, which seemed more dismal

than anything else to me in my solitude and disgrace - the

uncertain pace of the hours, especially at night, when I would wake

thinking it was morning, and find that the family were not yet gone

to bed, and that all the length of night had yet to come - the

depressed dreams and nightmares I had - the return of day, noon,

afternoon, evening, when the boys played in the churchyard, and I

watched them from a distance within the room, being ashamed to show

myself at the window lest they should know I was a prisoner - the

strange sensation of never hearing myself speak - the fleeting

intervals of something like cheerfulness, which came with eating

and drinking, and went away with it - the setting in of rain one

evening, with a fresh smell, and its coming down faster and faster

between me and the church, until it and gathering night seemed to

quench me in gloom, and fear, and remorse - all this appears to

have gone round and round for years instead of days, it is so

vividly and strongly stamped on my remembrance.

On the last night of my restraint, I was awakened by hearing my own

name spoken in a whisper. I started up in bed, and putting out my

arms in the dark, said:

'Is that you, Peggotty?'

There was no immediate answer, but presently I heard my name again,

in a tone so very mysterious and awful, that I think I should have

gone into a fit, if it had not occurred to me that it must have

come through the keyhole.

I groped my way to the door, and putting my own lips to the

keyhole, whispered: 'Is that you, Peggotty dear?'

'Yes, my own precious Davy,' she replied. 'Be as soft as a mouse,

or the Cat'll hear us.'

I understood this to mean Miss Murdstone, and was sensible of the

urgency of the case; her room being close by.

'How's mama, dear Peggotty? Is she very angry with me?'

I could hear Peggotty crying softly on her side of the keyhole, as

I was doing on mine, before she answered. 'No. Not very.'

'What is going to be done with me, Peggotty dear? Do you know?'

'School. Near London,' was Peggotty's answer. I was obliged to

get her to repeat it, for she spoke it the first time quite down my

throat, in consequence of my having forgotten to take my mouth away

from the keyhole and put my ear there; and though her words tickled

me a good deal, I didn't hear them.

'When, Peggotty?'

'Tomorrow.'

'Is that the reason why Miss Murdstone took the clothes out of my

drawers?' which she had done, though I have forgotten to mention

it.

'Yes,' said Peggotty. 'Box.'

'Shan't I see mama?'

'Yes,' said Peggotty. 'Morning.'

Then Peggotty fitted her mouth close to the keyhole, and delivered

these words through it with as much feeling and earnestness as a

keyhole has ever been the medium of communicating, I will venture

to assert: shooting in each broken little sentence in a convulsive

little burst of its own.

'Davy, dear. If I ain't been azackly as intimate with you.

Lately, as I used to be. It ain't because I don't love you. just

as well and more, my pretty poppet. It's because I thought it

better for you. And for someone else besides. Davy, my darling,

are you listening? Can you hear?'

'Ye-ye-ye-yes, Peggotty!' I sobbed.

'My own!' said Peggotty, with infinite compassion. 'What I want to

say, is. That you must never forget me. For I'll never forget

you. And I'll take as much care of your mama, Davy. As ever I

took of you. And I won't leave her. The day may come when she'll

be glad to lay her poor head. On her stupid, cross old Peggotty's

arm again. And I'll write to you, my dear. Though I ain't no

scholar. And I'll - I'll -' Peggotty fell to kissing the keyhole,

as she couldn't kiss me.

'Thank you, dear Peggotty!' said I. 'Oh, thank you! Thank you!

Will you promise me one thing, Peggotty? Will you write and tell

Mr. Peggotty and little Em'ly, and Mrs. Gummidge and Ham, that I am

not so bad as they might suppose, and that I sent 'em all my love

- especially to little Em'ly? Will you, if you please, Peggotty?'

The kind soul promised, and we both of us kissed the keyhole with

the greatest affection - I patted it with my hand, I recollect, as

if it had been her honest face - and parted. From that night there

grew up in my breast a feeling for Peggotty which I cannot very

well define. She did not replace my mother; no one could do that;

but she came into a vacancy in my heart, which closed upon her, and

I felt towards her something I have never felt for any other human

being. It was a sort of comical affection, too; and yet if she had

died, I cannot think what I should have done, or how I should have

acted out the tragedy it would have been to me.

In the morning Miss Murdstone appeared as usual, and told me I was

going to school; which was not altogether such news to me as she

supposed. She also informed me that when I was dressed, I was to

come downstairs into the parlour, and have my breakfast. There, I

found my mother, very pale and with red eyes: into whose arms I

ran, and begged her pardon from my suffering soul.

'Oh, Davy!' she said. 'That you could hurt anyone I love! Try to

be better, pray to be better! I forgive you; but I am so grieved,

Davy, that you should have such bad passions in your heart.'

They had persuaded her that I was a wicked fellow, and she was more

sorry for that than for my going away. I felt it sorely. I tried

to eat my parting breakfast, but my tears dropped upon my bread-

and-butter, and trickled into my tea. I saw my mother look at me

sometimes, and then glance at the watchful Miss Murdstone, and than

look down, or look away.

'Master Copperfield's box there!' said Miss Murdstone, when wheels

were heard at the gate.

I looked for Peggotty, but it was not she; neither she nor Mr.

Murdstone appeared. My former acquaintance, the carrier, was at

the door. the box was taken out to his cart, and lifted in.

'Clara!' said Miss Murdstone, in her warning note.

'Ready, my dear Jane,' returned my mother. 'Good-bye, Davy. You

are going for your own good. Good-bye, my child. You will come

home in the holidays, and be a better boy.'

'Clara!' Miss Murdstone repeated.

'Certainly, my dear Jane,' replied my mother, who was holding me.

'I forgive you, my dear boy. God bless you!'

'Clara!' Miss Murdstone repeated.

Miss Murdstone was good enough to take me out to the cart, and to

say on the way that she hoped I would repent, before I came to a

bad end; and then I got into the cart, and the lazy horse walked

off with it.

Read next: CHAPTER 5 - I AM SENT AWAY FROM HOME

Read previous: CHAPTER 3 - I HAVE A CHANGE

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