"I have tried, my dear, all ways I could think of--all the ways there are, and all the ways there ain't, in short--to get a suitable service here, in Blunderstone, but there's no such a thing, my love."
"And what do you mean to do, Peggotty," says I, wistfully. "Do you mean to go and seek your fortune?"
"I expect I shall be forced to go to Yarmouth," replied Peggotty, "and live there."
"You might have gone farther off," I said, brightening a little, "and been as bad as lost. I shall see you sometimes, my dear old Peggotty, there. You won't be quite at the other end of the world, will you?"
"Contrary ways, please God!" cried Peggotty, with great animation. "As long as you are here, my pet, I shall come over every week of my life to see you. One day every week of my life!"
I felt a great weight taken off my mind by this promise, but even this was not all, for Peggotty went on to say:
"I'm a-going, Davy, you see, to my brother's, first, for another fortnight's visit--just till I have had time to look about me, and get to be something like myself again. Now, I have been thinking, that perhaps, as they don't want you here at present, you might be let to go along with me."
If anything, short of being in a different relation to everyone about me, Peggotty excepted, could have given me a sense of pleasure at that time, it would have been this project of all others. The idea of being again surrounded by those honest faces, shining welcome on me, of renewing the peacefulness of the sweet Sunday morning, when the bells were ringing, the stones dropping in the water, and the shadowy ships breaking through the mist, of roaming up and down with little Em'ly, telling her my troubles, and finding charms against them in the shells and pebbles on the beach, made a calm in my heart. It was ruffled next moment, to be sure, by a doubt of Miss Murdstone giving her consent, but even that was set at rest soon, for she came out to take an evening grope in the store-closet while we were yet in conversation, and Peggotty, with a boldness that amazed me, broached the topic on the spot.
"The boy will be idle there," said Miss Murdstone, looking into a pickle-jar, "and idleness is the root of all evil. But, to be sure, he would be idle here--or anywhere, in my opinion."
Peggotty had an angry answer ready, I could see, but she swallowed it for my sake, and remained silent.
"Humph!" said Miss Murdstone, still keeping her eye on the pickles, "it is of more importance than anything else--it is of paramount importance--that my brother should not be disturbed or made uncomfortable. I suppose I had better say yes."
I thanked her, without making any demonstration of joy, lest it should induce her to withdraw her assent. Nor could I help thinking this a prudent course, when she looked at me out of the pickle-jar, with as great an access of sourness as if her black eyes had absorbed its contents. However, the permission was given, and was never retracted, for when the month was out, Peggotty and I were ready to depart.
Mr. Barkis came into the house for Peggotty's boxes. I had never known him to pass the garden-gate before, but on this occasion he came into the house. And he gave me a look as he shouldered the largest box and went out, which I thought had meaning in it, if meaning could ever be said to find its way into Mr. Barkis's visage.
Peggotty was naturally in low spirits at leaving what had been her home so many years, and where the two strong attachments of her life--for my mother and myself--had been formed. She had been walking in the churchyard, too, very early, and she got into the cart, and sat in it with her handkerchief at her eyes.
So long as she remained in this condition, Mr. Barkis gave no sign of life whatever. He sat in his usual place and attitude, like a great stuffed figure. But when she began to look about her, and to speak to me, he nodded his head and grinned several times. I have not the least notion at whom, or what he meant by it.
"It's a beautiful day, Mr. Barkis!" I said, as an act of politeness.
"It ain't bad," said Mr. Barkis, who generally qualified his speech, and rarely committed himself.
"Peggotty is quite comfortable now, Mr. Barkis," I remarked, for his satisfaction.
"Is she, though?" said Mr. Barkis.
After reflecting about it, with a sagacious air, Mr. Barkis eyed her, and said:
"Are you pretty comfortable?"
Peggotty laughed, and answered in the affirmative.
"But really and truly, you know. Are you?" growled Mr. Barkis, sliding nearer to her on the seat, and nudging her with his elbow. "Are you? Really and truly, pretty comfortable? Are you? Eh?" At each of these inquiries Mr. Barkis shuffled nearer to her, and gave her another nudge, so that at last we were all crowded together in the left-hand comer of the cart, and I was so squeezed that I could hardly bear it.
Peggotty calling his attention to my sufferings, Mr. Barkis gave me a little more room at once, and got away by degrees. But I could not help observing that he seemed to think he had hit upon a wonderful expedient for expressing himself in a neat, agreeable, and pointed manner, without the inconvenience of inventing conversation. He manifestly chuckled over it for some time. By-and-by he turned to Peggotty again, and repeating, "Are you pretty comfortable, though?" bore down upon us as before, until the breath was nearly wedged out of my body. By-and-by he made another descent upon us with the same inquiry, and the same result. At length, I got up whenever I saw him coming, and, standing on the footboard, pretended to look at the prospect, after which I did very well.
He was so polite as to stop at a public-house, expressly on our account, and entertain us with broiled mutton and beer. Even when Peggotty was in the act of drinking, he was seized with one of those approaches, and almost choked her. But as we drew nearer to the end of our journey, he had more to do and less time for gallantry, and when we got on Yarmouth pavement, we were all too much shaken and jolted, I apprehend, to have any leisure for anything else.
Mr. Peggotty and Ham waited for us at the old place. They received me and Peggotty in an affectionate manner, and shook hands with Mr. Barkis, who, with his hat on the very back of his head, and a shame-faced leer upon his countenance, and pervading his very legs, presented but a vacant appearance, I thought. They each took one of Peggotty's trunks, and we were going away, when Mr. Barkis solemnly made a sign to me with his forefinger to come under an archway.
"I say," growled Mr. Barkis, "it was all right."
I looked up into his face, and answered, with an attempt to be very profound: "Oh!"
"It didn't come to a end there," said Mr. Barkis, nodding confidentially. "It was all right."
Again I answered, "Oh!"
"You know who was willin'," said my friend. "It was Barkis, and Barkis only."
I nodded assent.
"It's all right," said Mr. Barkis, shaking hands, "I'm a friend of your'n. You made it all right, first. It's all right."
In his attempts to be particularly lucid, Mr. Barkis was so extremely mysterious that I might,have stood looking in his face for an hour, and most assuredly should have got as much information out of it as out of the face of a clock that had stopped, but for Peggotty's calling me away. As we were going along, she asked me what he had said, and I told her he had said it was all right.
"Like his impudence," said Peggotty, "but I don't mind that! Davy dear, what should you think if I was to think of being married?"
"Why--I suppose you would like me as much then, Peggotty, as you do now?" I returned, after a little consideration.
Greatly to the astonishment of the passengers in the street, as well as of her relations going on before, the good soul was obliged to stop and embrace me on the spot, with many protestations of her unalterable love.
"Tell me what should you say, darling?" she asked again, when this was over, and we were walking on.
"If you were thinking of being married--to Mr. Barkis, Peggotty?"
"Yes," said Peggotty.
"I should think it would be a very good thing. For then you know, Peggotty, you would always have the horse and cart to bring you over to see me, and co
uld come for nothing, and be sure of coming."
"The sense of the dear!" cried Peggotty. "What I have been thinking of, this month back! Yes, my precious, and I think I should be more independent altogether, you see, let alone my working with a better heart in my own house, than I could in anybody else's now. I don't know what I might be fit for, now, as a servant to a stranger. And I shall be always near my pretty's resting-place," said Peggotty musing, "and be able to see it when I like, and when I lie down to rest, I may be laid not far off from my darling girl!"
We neither of us said anything for a little while.
"But I wouldn't so much as give it another thought," said Peggotty, cheerily, "if my Davy was anyways against it--not if I had been asked in church thirty times three times over, and was wearing out the ring in my pocket."
"Look at me, Peggotty," I replied, "and see if I am not really glad, and don't truly wish itl" As indeed I did, with all my heart.
"Well, my life," said Peggotty, giving me a squeeze, "I have thought of it night and day, every way I can, and I hope the right way, but I'll think of it again, and speak to my brother about it, and in the meantime we'll keep it to ourselves, Davy, you and me. Barkis is a good plain creatur'," said Peggotty, "and if I tried to do my duty by him, I think it would be my fault if I wasn't--if I wasn't pretty comfortable," said Peggotty, laughing heartily.
This quotation from Mr. Barkis was so appropriate, and tickled us both so much, that we laughed again and again, and were quite in a pleasant humour when we came within view of Mr. Peggotty's cottage.
It looked just the same, except that it may, perhaps, have shrunk a little in my eyes, and Mrs. Gummidge was waiting at the door as if she had stood there ever since. All within was the same, down to the seaweed in the blue mug in my bedroom. I went into the outhouse to look about me, and the very same lobsters, crabs, and crawfish possessed by the same desire to pinch the world in general, appeared to be in the same state of conglomeration in the same old corner.
But there was no little Em'ly to be seen, so I asked Mr. Peggotty where she was.
"She's at school, sir," said Mr. Peggotty, wiping the heat consequent on the porterage of Peggotty's box from his forehead; "she'll be home," looking at the Dutch clock, "in from twenty minutes to half-an-hour's time. We all on us feel the loss of her, bless yel"
Mrs. Gummidge moaned.
"Cheer up, Mawther!" cried Mr. Peggotty.
"I feel it more than anybody else," said Mrs. Gummidge, "I'm a lone lorn creetur', and she used to be a'most the only think that didn't go contrairy with me."
Mrs. Gummidge, whimpering and shaking her head, applied herself to blowing the fire. Mr. Peggotty, looking round upon us while she was so engaged, said in a low voice, which he shaded with his hand: "The old 'un!" From this I rightly conjectured that no improvement had taken place since my last visit in the state of Mrs. Gummidge's spirits.
Now, the whole place was, or it should have been, quite as delightful a place as ever, and yet it did not impress me in the same way. I felt rather disappointed with it. Perhaps it was because little Em'ly was not at home. I knew the way by which she would come, and presently found myself strolling along the path to meet her.
A figure appeared in the distance before long, and I soon knew it to be Em'ly, who was a little creature still in stature, though she was grown. But when she drew nearer, and I saw her blue eyes looking bluer, and her dimpled face looking brighter, and her whole self prettier and gayer, a curious feeling came over me that made me pretend not to know her, and pass by as if I were looking at something a long way off; I have done such a thing since in later life, or I am mistaken.
Little Em'ly didn't care a bit. She saw me well enough, but instead of turning round and calling after me, ran away laughing. This obliged me to run after her, and she ran so fast that we were very near the cottage before I caught her.
"Oh, it's you, is it?" said little Em'ly.
"Why, you knew who it was, Em'ly," said I.
"And didn't you know who it was?" said Em'ly. I was going to kiss her, but she covered her cherry lips with her hands, and said she wasn't a baby now, and ran away, laughing more than ever, into the house.
She seemed to delight in teasing me, which was a change in her I wondered at very much. The tea-table was ready, and our little locker was put out in its old place, but instead of coming to sit by me, she went and bestowed her company upon that grumbling Mrs. Gummidge, and on Mr. Peggotty's inquiring why, rumpled her hair all over her face to hide it, and would do nothing but laugh.
"A little puss it is!" said Mr. Peggotty, patting her with his great hand.
"So sh' is! so sh' is!" cried Ham. "Mas'r Davy bor, so sh' is!" and he sat and chuckled at her for some time, in a state of mingled admiration and delight, that made his face a burning red.
Little Em'ly was spoiled by them all, in fact, and by no one more than Mr. Peggotty himself, whom she could have coaxed into anything by only going and laying her cheek against his rough whisker. That was my opinion, at least, when I saw her do it, and I held Mr. Peggotty to be thoroughly in the right. But she was so affectionate and sweet-natured, and had such a pleasant manner of being both sly and shy at once, that she captivated me more than even.
She was tender-hearted, too, for when, as we sat round the fire after tea, an allusion was made by Mr. Peggotty over his pipe to the loss I had sustained, the tears stood in her eyes, and she looked at me so kindly across the table, that I felt quite thankful to her.
"Ah!" said Mr. Peggotty, taking up her curls, and running them over his hand like water, "here's another orphan, you see, sir. And here," said Mr. Peggotty, giving Ham a back-handed knock in the chest, "is another of'm, though he don't look much like it."
"If I had you for my guardian, Mr. Peggotty," said I, shaking my head, "I don't think I should feel much like it."
"Well said, Mas'r Davy, bor!" cried Ham in an ecstasy. "Hoorah! Well said! Nor more you wouldn't! Hor! Hor!"--Here he returned Mr. Peggotty's back-hander, and little Em'ly got up and kissed Mr. Peggotty.
"And how's your friend, sir?" said Mr. Peggotty to me.
"Steerforth?" said I.
"That's the name!" cried Mr. Peggotty, turning to Ham. "I knowed it was something in our way."
"You said it was Rudderford," observed Ham, laughing.
"Well!" retorted Mr. Peggotty. "And ye steer with a rudder, don't ye? It ain't fur off. How is he, sir?"
"He was very well indeed when I came away, Mr. Peggotty."
"There's a friend!" said Mr.* Peggotty, stretching out his pipe. "There's a friend, if you talk of friends! Why, Lord love my heart alive, if it ain't a treat to look at him!"
"He is very handsome, is he not?" said I, my heart warming with this praise.
"Handsome!" cried Mr. Peggotty. "He stands up to you like--like a--why I don't know what he don't stand up to you like. He's so bold!"
"Yes! That's just his character," said I. "He's as brave as a lion, and you can't think how frank he is, Mr. Peggotty."
"And I do suppose, now," said Mr. Peggotty, looking at me through the smoke of his pipe, "that in the way of book-laming he'd take the wind out of a'most anything."
"Yes," said I, delighted, "he knows everything. He is astonishingly clever."
"There's a friend!" murmured Mr. Peggotty, with a grave toss of his head.
"Nothing seems to cost him any trouble," said I. "He knows a task if he only looks at it. He is the best cricketer you ever saw. He will give you almost as many men as you like at draughts, and beat you easily."
Mr. Peggotty gave his head another toss, as much as to say: "Of course he will."
"He is such a speaker," I pursued, "that he can win anybody over, and I don't know what you'd say if you were to hear him sing, Mr. Peggotty."
Mr. Peggotty gave his head another toss, as much as to say: "I have no doubt of it."
"Then, he's such a generous, fine, noble fellow," said I, quite carried away by my favourite theme, "that it's
hardly possible to give him as much praise as he deserves. I am sure I can never feel thankful enough for the generosity with which he has protected me, so much younger and lower in the school than himself."
I was running on, very fast indeed, when my eyes rested on little Em'ly's face, which was bent forward over the table, listening with the deepest attention, her breath held, her blue eyes sparkling like jewels, and the colour mantling in her cheeks. She looked so extraordinarily earnest and pretty that I stopped in a sort of wonder, and they all observed her at the same time, for, as I stopped, they laughed and looked at her.
"Em'ly is like me," said Peggotty, "and would like to see him."
Em'ly was confused by our all observing her, and hung down her head, and her face was covered with blushes. Glancing up presently through her stray curls, and seeing that we were all looking at her still (I am sure I, for one, could have looked at her for hours), she ran away, and kept away till it was nearly bedtime.
I lay down in the old little bed in the stern of the boat, and the wind came moaning on across the flat as it had done before. But I could not help fancying, now, that it moaned of those who were gone, and instead of thinking that the sea might rise in the night and float the boat away, I thought of the sea that had risen, since I last heard those sounds, and drowned my happy home. I recollect, as the wind and water began to sound fainter in my ears, putting a short clause into my prayers, petitioning that I might grow up to marry little Em'ly, and so dropping lovingly asleep.
The days passed pretty much as they had passed before, except--it was a great exception--that little Em'ly and I seldom wandered on the beach now. She had tasks to learn, and needlework to do, and was absent during a great part of each day. But I felt that we should not have had these old wanderings, even if it had been otherwise. Wild and full of childish whims as Em'ly was, she was more of a little woman than I had supposed. She seemed to have got a great distance away from me, in little more than a year. She liked me, but she laughed at me, and tormented me, and when I went to meet her, stole home another way, and was laughing at the door when I came back, disappointed. The best times were when she sat quietly at work in the doorway, and I sat on the wooden steps at her feet, reading to her. It seems to me at this hour, that I have never seen such sunlight as on those bright April afternoons, that I have never seen such a sunny little figure as I used to see, sitting in the doorway of the old boat, that I have never beheld such sky, such water, such glorified ships sailing away into golden air.