I stood still, and hung my head.
"Now, David," said Mr. Murdstone, "a sullen obdurate disposition is, of all tempers, the worst."
"And the boy's is, of all such dispositions that ever I have seen," remarked his sister, "the most confirmed and stubborn. I think, my dear Clara, even you must observe it?"
"I beg your pardon, my dear Jane," said my mother, "but are you quite sure--I am certain you'll excuse me, my dear Jane--that you understand Davy?"
"I should be somewhat ashamed of myself, Clara," returned Miss Murdstone, "if I could not understand the boy, or any boy. I don't profess to be profound, but I do lay claim to common sense."
"No doubt, my dear Jane," returned my mother, "your understanding is very vigorous."
"Oh dear, no! Pray don't say that, Clara," interposed Miss Murdstone, angrily.
"But I am sure it is," resumed my mother; "and everybody knows it is. I profit so much by it myself, in many ways--at least I ought to--that no one can be more convinced of it than myself, and therefore I speak with great diffidence, my dear Jane, I assure you."
"We'll say I don't understand the boy, Clara," returned Miss Murdstone, arranging the little fetters on her wrists. "We'll agree, if you please, that I don't understand him at all. He is much too deep for me. But perhaps my brother's penetration may enable him to have some insight into his character. And I believe my brother was speaking on the subject when we--not very decently--interrupted him."
"I think, Clara," said Mr. Murdstone, in a low grave voice, "that there may be better and more dispassionate judges of such a question than you."
"Edward," replied my mother, timidly, "you are a far better judge of all questions than I pretend to be. Both you and Jane are. I only said--"
"You only said something weak and inconsiderate," he replied. "Try not to do it again, my dear Clara, and keep a watch upon yourself."
My mother's lips moved, as if she answered "Yes, my dear Edward," but she said nothing aloud.
"I was sorry, David, I remarked," said Mr. Murdstone, turning his head and his eyes stiffly towards me, "to observe that you are of a sullen disposition. This is not a character that I can suffer to develop itself beneath my eyes without an effort at improvement. You must endeavour, sir, to change it. We must endeavour to change it for you."
"I beg your pardon, sir," I faltered. "I have never meant to be sullen since I came back."
"Don't take refuge in a lie, sir!" he returned so fiercely that I saw my mother involuntarily put out her trembling hand as if to interpose between us. "You have withdrawn yourself in your sullenness to your own room. You have kept your own room when you ought to have been here. You know now, once for all, that I require you to be here, and not there. Further, that I require you to bring obedience here. You know me, David. I will have it done."
Miss Murdstone gave a hoarse chuckle.
"I will have a respectful, prompt, and ready bearing towards myself," he continued, "and towards Jane Murdstone, and towards your mother. I will not have this room shunned as if it were infected, at the pleasure of a child. Sit down."
He ordered me like a dog, and I obeyed like a dog.
"One thing more," he said. "I observe that you have an attachment to low and common company. You are not to associate with servants. The kitchen will not improve you, in the many respects in which you need improvement. Of the woman who abets you, I say nothing, since you, Clara," addressing my mother in a lower voice, "from old associations and long-established fancies, have a weakness respecting her which is not yet overcome."
"A most unaccountable delusion it is!" cried Miss Murdstone.
"I only say," he resumed, addressing me, "that I disapprove of your preferring such company as Mistress Peggotty, and that it is to be abandoned. Now, David, you understand me, and you know what will be the consequence if you fail to obey me to the letter."
I knew well--better perhaps than he thought, as far as my poor mother was concerned--and I obeyed him to the letter. I retreated to my own room no more; I took refuge with Peggotty no more, but sat wearily in the parlour day after day looking forward to night, and bedtime.
What irksome constraint I underwent, sitting in the same attitude hours upon hours, afraid to move an arm or a leg lest Miss Murdstone should complain (as she did on the least pretence) of my restlessness, and afraid to move an eye lest she should light on some look of dislike or scrutiny that would find new cause for complaint in mine! What intolerable dullness to sit listening to the ticking of the clock, and watching Miss Murdstone's little shiny steel beads as she strung them, and wondering whether she would ever be married, and, if so, to what sort of unhappy man, and counting the divisions in the moulding on the chimney-piece, and wandering away, with my eyes, to the ceiling, among the curls and corkscrews in the paper on the wall!
What walks I took alone, down muddy lanes, in the bad winter weather, carrying that parlour, and Mr. and Miss Murdstone in it, everywhere, a monstrous load that I was obliged to bear, a daymare that there was no possibility of breaking in, a weight that brooded on my wits, and blunted them!
What meals I had in silence and embarrassment, always feeling that there were a knife and fork too many, and those mine, an appetite too many, and that mine, a plate and chair too many, and those mine, a somebody too many, and that I!
What evenings, when the candles came, and I was expected to employ myself, but, not daring to read an entertaining book, pored over some hard-headed, harder-hearted treatise on arithmetic, when the tables of weights and measures set themselves to tunes, as Rule Britannia, or Away with Melancholy, when they wouldn't stand still to be learnt, but would go threading my grandmother's needle through my unfortunate head, in at one ear and out at the other!
What yawns and dozes I lapsed into, in spite of all my care, what starts I came out of concealed sleeps with, what answers I never got, to little observations that I rarely made, what a blank space I seemed, which everybody overlooked, and yet was in everybody's way, what a heavy relief it was to hear Miss Murdstone hail the first stroke of nine at night, and order me to bed!
Thus the holidays lagged away, until the morning came when Miss Murdstone said, "Here's the last day off!" and gave me the closing cup of tea of the vacation.
I was not sorry to go. I had lapsed into a stupid state, but I was recovering a little and looking forward to Steerforth, albeit Mr. Creakle loomed behind him. Again Mr. Barkis appeared at the gate, and again Miss Murdstone in her warning voice, said, "Clara!" when my mother bent over me, to bid me farewell.
I kissed her, and my baby brother, and was very sorry then, but not sorry to go away, for the gulf between us was there, and the parting was there, every day. And it is not so much the embrace she gave me that lives in my mind, though it was as fervent as could be, as what followed the embrace.
I was in the carrier's cart when I heard her calling to me. I looked out, and she stood at the garden-gate alone, holding her baby up in her arms for me to see. It was cold still weather, and not a hair of her head, nor a fold of her dress, was stirred, as she looked intently at me, holding up her child.
So I lost her. So I saw her afterwards, in my sleep at school --a silent presence near my bed--looking at me with the same intent face--holding up her baby in her arms.
CHAPTER IX
I Have a Memorable Birthday
I PASS OVER ALL THAT HAPPENED AT SCHOOL, UNTIL THE anniversary of my birthday came round in March. Except that Steerforth was more to be admired than ever, I remember nothing. He was going away at the end of the half-year, if not sooner, and was more spirited and independent than before in my eyes, and therefore more engaging than before, but beyond this I remember nothing. The great remembrance by which that time is marked in my mind, seems to have swallowed up all lesser recollections, and to exist alone.
It is even difficult for me to believe that there was a gap of full two months between my return to Salem House and the arrival of that birthday. I can only understand that
the fact was so, because I know it must have been so; otherwise I should feel convinced that there was no interval, and that the one occasion trod upon the other's heels.
How well I recollect the kind of day it was! I smell the fog that hung about the place; I see the hoar frost, ghostly, through it; I feel my rimy hair fall clammy on my cheek; I look along the dim perspective of the schoolroom, with a sputtered candle here and there to light up the foggy morning, and the breath of the boys wreathing and smoking in the raw cold as they blow upon their fingers, and tap their feet upon the floor.
It was after breakfast, and we had been summoned in from the playground, when Mr. Sharp entered and said:
"David Copperfield is to go into the parlour."
I expected a hamper from Peggotty, and brightened at the order. Some of the boys about me put in their claim not to be forgotten in the distribution of the good things, as I got out of my seat with great alacrity.
"Don't hurry, David," said Mr. Sharp. "There's time enough, my boy, don't hurry."
I might have been surprised by the feeling tone in which he spoke, if I had given it a thought, but I gave it none until afterwards. I hurried away to the parlour, and there I found Mr. Creakle, sitting at his breakfast with the cane and a newspaper before him, and Mrs. Creakle with an opened letter in her hand. But no hamper.
"David Copperfield," said Mrs. Creakle, leading me to a sofa, and sitting down beside me. "I want to speak to you very particularly. I have something to tell you, my child."
Mr. Creakle, at whom of course I looked, shook his head without looking at me, and stopped up a sigh with a very large piece of buttered toast.
"You are too young to know how the world changes every day," said Mrs. Creakle, "and how the people in it pass away. But we all have to learn it, David, some of us when we are young, some of us when we are old, some of us at all times of our lives."
I looked at her earnestly.
"When you came away from home at the end of the vacation," said Mrs. Creakle, after a pause, "were they all well?" After another pause, "Was your mama well?"
I trembled without distinctly knowing why, and still looked at her earnestly, making no attempt to answer.
"Because," said she, "I grieve to tell you that I hear this morning your mama is very ill."
A mist rose between Mrs. Creakle and me, and her figure seemed to move in it for an instant. Then I felt the burning tears run down my face, and it was steady again.
"She is very dangerously ill," she added.
I knew all now.
"She is dead."
There was no need to tell me so. I had already broken out into a desolate cry, and felt an orphan in the wide world.
She was very kind to me. She kept me there all day, and left me alone sometimes, and I cried, and wore myself to sleep, and awoke and cried again. When I could cry no more, I began to think, and then the oppression on my breast was heaviest, and my grief a dull pain that there was no ease for.
And yet my thoughts were idle, not intent on the calamity that weighed upon my heart, but idly loitering near it. I thought of our house shut up and hushed. I thought of the little baby, who, Mrs. Creakle said, had been pining away for some time, and who, they believed, would die too. I thought of my father's grave in the churchyard, by our house, and of my mother lying there beneath the tree I knew so well. I stood upon a chair when I was left alone, and looked into the glass to see how red my eyes were, and how sorrowful my face. I considered, after some hours were gone, if my tears were really hard to flow now, as they seemed to be, what, in connection with my loss, it would affect me most to think of when I drew near home--for I was going home to the funeral. I am sensible of having felt that a dignity attached to me among the rest of the boys, and that I was important in my affliction.
If ever child were stricken with sincere grief, I was. But I remember that this importance was a kind of satisfaction to me, when I walked in the playground that afternoon while the boys were in school. When I saw them glancing at me out of the windows, as they went up to their classes, I felt distinguished, and looked more melancholy, and walked slower. When school was over, and they came out and spoke to me, I felt it rather good in myself not to be proud to any of them, and to take exactly the same notice of them all, as before.
I was to go home next night, not by the mail, but by the heavy night-coach, which was called the Farmer, and was principally used by country-people travelling short intermediate distances upon the road. We had no story-telling that evening, and Traddles insisted on lending me his pillow. I don't know what good he thought it would do me, for I had one of my own, but it was all he had to lend, poor fellow, except a sheet of letter-paper full of skeletons, and that he gave me at parting, as a soother of my sorrows and a contribution to my peace of mind.
I left Salem House upon the morrow afternoon. I little thought then that I left it never to return. We travelled very slowly all night, and did not get into Yarmouth before nine or ten o'clock in the morning. I looked out for Mr. Barkis, but he was not there, and instead of him a fat, short-winded, merry-looking, little old man in black, with rusty little bunches of ribbons at the knees of his breeches, black stockings, and a broad-brimmed hat, came puffing up to the coach-window, and said:
"Master Copperfield?"
"Yes, sir."
"Will you come with me, young sir, if you please," he said, opening the door, "and I shall have the pleasure of taking you home?"
I put my hand in his, wondering who he was, and we walked away to a shop in a narrow street, on which was written OMER, DRAPER, TAILOR, HADERDASHER, FUNERAL FURNISHER, &c. It was a close and stifling little shop, full of all sorts of clothing, made and unmade, including one window full of beaver-hats and bonnets. We went into a little back-parlour behind the shop, where we found three young women at work on a quantity of black materials, which were heaped upon the table, and little bits and cuttings of which were littered all over the floor. There was a good fire in the room, and a breathless smell of warm black crape. I did not know what the smell was then, but I know now.
The three young women, who appeared to be very industrious and comfortable, raised their heads to look at me, and then went on with their work. Stitch, stitch, stitch. At the same time there came from a workshop across a little yard outside the window, a regular sound of hammering that kept a kind of tune; RAT--tat-tat, RAT--tat-tat, RAT--tat-tat, without any variation.
"Well," said my conductor to one of the three young women. "How do you get on, Minnie?"
"We shall be ready by the trying-on time," she replied gaily, without looking up. "Don't you be afraid, Father."
Mr. Omer took off his broad-brimmed hat, and sat down and panted. He was so fat that he was obliged to pant some time before he could say:
"That's right."
"Father!" said Minnie, playfully. "What a porpoise you do grow!"
"Well, I don't know how it is, my dear," he replied, considering about it. "I am rather so."
"You are such a comfortable man, you see," said Minnie. "You take things so easy."
"No use taking 'em otherwise, my dear," said Mr. Omer.
"No, indeed," returned his daughter. "We are all pretty gay here, thank Heaven! Ain't we, Father?"
"I hope so, my dear," said Mr. Omer. "As I have got my breath now, I think I'll measure this young scholar. Would you walk into the shop, Master Copperfield?"
I preceded Mr. Omer, in compliance with his request, and after showing me a roll of cloth which he said was extra super, and too good mourning for anything short of parents, he took my various dimensions, and put them down in a book. While he was recording them he called my attention to his stock in trade, and to certain fashions which he said had "just come up," and to certain other fashions which he said had "just gone out."
"And by that sort of thing we very often lose a little mint of money," said Mr. Omer. "But fashions are like human beings. They come in, nobody knows when, why, or how, and they go out, nobody knows wh
en, why, or how. Everything is like life, in my opinion, if you look at it in that point of view."
I was too sorrowful to discuss the question, which would possibly have been beyond me under any circumstances, and Mr. Omer took me back into the parlour, breathing with some difficulty on the way.
He then called down a little break-neck range of steps behind a door: "Bring up that tea and bread-and-butter!" which, after some time, during which I sat looking about me and thinking, and listening to the stitching in the room and the tune that was being hammered across the yard, appeared on a tray, and turned out to be for me.
"I have been acquainted with you," said Mr. Omer, after watching me for some minutes, during which I had not made much impression on the breakfast, for the black things destroyed my appetite. "I have been acquainted with you a long time, my young friend."
"Have you, sir?"
"All your life," said Mr. Omer. "I may say before it. I knew your father before you. He was five foot nine and a half, and he lays in five and twen-ty foot of ground."
"RAT--tat-tat, RAT--tat-tat,--RAT--tat-tat," across the yard.
"He lays in five and twen-ty foot of ground, if he lays in a fraction," said Mr. Omer, pleasantly. "It was either his request or her direction, I forget which."
"Do you know how my little brother is, sir?" I inquired.
Mr. Omer shook his head.
"RAT--tat-tat, RAT--tat-tat, RAT--tat-tat."
"He is in his mother's arms," said he.
"Oh, poor little fellow! Is he, dead?"
"Don't mind it more than you can help," said Mr. Omer. "Yes. The baby's dead."
My wounds broke out afresh at this intelligence. I left the scarcely tasted breakfast, and went and rested my head on another table in a corner of the little room, which Minnie hastily cleared, lest I should spot the mourning that was lying there with my tears. She was a pretty, good-natured girl, and put my hair away from my eyes with a soft kind touch, but she was very cheerful at having nearly finished her work and being in good time, and was so different from me!
Presently the tune left off, and a good-looking young fellow came across the yard into the room. He had a hammer in his hand, and his mouth was full of little nails, which he was obliged to take out before he could speak.