Mrs. Peggotty

“ When I half awoke from this uncomfortable doze, I found Peggotty and my mother both in tears, and both talking.
‘Not such a one as this, Mr. Copperfield wouldn’t have liked,’ said Peggotty. ‘That I say, and that I swear!’
‘Good Heavens!’ cried my mother, ‘you’ll drive me mad! Was ever any poor girl so ill-used by her servants as I am! Why do I do myself the injustice of calling myself a girl? Have I never been married, Peggotty?’
‘God knows you have, ma’am,’ returned Peggotty. ”

“ Mrs. Peggotty with the white apron, was knitting on the opposite side of the fire. Peggotty at her needle-work was as much at home with Saint Paul’s and the bit of wax-candle, as if they had never known any other roof. Ham, who had been giving me my first lesson in all-fours, was trying to recollect a scheme of telling fortunes with the dirty cards, and was printing off fishy impressions of his thumb on all the cards he turned. Mr. Peggotty was smoking his pipe. ”

“ Am I a nasty, cruel, selfish, bad mama? Say I am, my child; say “yes”, dear boy, and Peggotty will love you; and Peggotty’s love is a great deal better than mine, Davy. I don’t love you at all, do I?’
At this, we all fell a-crying together. I think I was the loudest of the party, but I am sure we were all sincere about it. I was quite heart-broken myself, and am afraid that in the first transports of wounded tenderness I called Peggotty a ‘Beast’. That honest creature was in deep affliction, I remember, and must have become quite buttonless on the occasion ”

“ Peggotty gave a gasp, as if she were swallowing something that was very hard, and, putting out her hand, said:
‘Come and see him.’
‘I don’t want to see him.’ —‘And your mama,’ said Peggotty.
I ceased to draw back, and we went straight to the best parlour, where she left me. On one side of the fire, sat my mother; on the other, Mr. Murdstone. My mother dropped her work, and arose hurriedly, but timidly I thought.
‘Now, Clara my dear,’ said Mr. Murdstone. ‘Recollect! control yourself, always control yourself! ”

“ Ham is married, and is, in some
incomprehensible manner, understood to reside both at Lydd with
Mrs. Ham and at the cabin with his mother. As for Mrs. Peggotty,
she is as lively and as "managing" as ever--perhaps a trifle smaller
in appearance, and with her smooth clean face more than ever
suggestive of the idea of a pebble smoothed and shaped by the action
of the tide.
I find on chatting with Peggotty that the old gentleman's mind is in
somewhat of a chaotic state with respect to the wrecks that abound
in the bay. ”

“ My mother immediately began to cry, and wondered how Peggotty dared to say such a thing.
“As if this poor little innocent in its cradle had ever done any harm to you or anybody else, you jealous thing!” said she. “You had much better go and marry Mr. Barkis, the carrier. Why don’t you?”
“I should make Miss Murdstone happy, if I was to,” said Peggotty.
“What a bad disposition you have, Peggotty!” returned my mother. “You are as jealous of Miss Murdstone as it is possible for a ridiculous creature to be. You want to keep the keys yourself, and give out all the things, I suppose? ”

“ Peggotty's dwelling. We stopped under the lee of the lobster-outhouse to exchange an innocent kiss, and went in to breakfast glowing with health and pleasure.
"Like two young mavishes," Mr. Peggotty said. I knew this meant, in our local dialect, like two young thrushes, and received it as a compliment.
Of course I was in love with little Em'ly. I am sure I loved that baby quite as truly, quite as tenderly, with greater purity, and more disinterestedness, than can enter into the best love of a later time of life, high and ennobling as it is. ”

“ 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 [143] 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?" ”

“ 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 could 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. ”

“ Little Agnes, attracted by his looks, had run to bring him in, and I had not yet clearly seen his face, when my wife, starting up, cried out to me, in a pleased and agitated voice, that it was Mr. Peggotty!
It WAS Mr. Peggotty. An old man now, but in a ruddy, hearty, strong old age. When our first emotion was over, and he sat before the fire with the children on his knees, and the blaze shining on his face, he looked, to me, as vigorous and robust, withal as handsome, an old man, as ever I had seen.
‘Mas’r Davy,’ said he. ”

“ While we were at table, I thought it a favorable occasion to tell Peggotty about Mr. Barkis, who, before I had finished what I had to tell her, began to laugh, and threw her apron over her face.
"Peggotty!" said my mother. "What's the matter?"
Peggotty only laughed the more, and held her apron tight over her face when my mother tried to pull it away, and sat as if her head were in a bag.
"What are you doing, you stupid creature?" said my mother, laughing.
"Oh, drat the man!" cried Peggotty. "He wants to marry me." ”

“ God protect and keep my fatherless boy!'
"I never left her afterwards," said Peggotty. "She often talked to them two down stairs—for she loved them; she couldn't bear not to love any one who was about her—but when they went away from her bedside, she always turned to me, as if there was rest where Peggotty was, and never fell asleep in any other way.
"On the last night, in the evening, she kissed me, and said: 'If my baby should die too, Peggotty, please let them lay him in my arms, and bury us together.' (It was done; for the poor lamb lived but a day beyond her.) ”

“ 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!” ”

“ Peggotty meant by this figure, expressive of a complete circle of intelligence. I then thanked him heartily; and said, with a consciousness of reddening, that I supposed little Em’ly was altered too, since we used to pick up shells and pebbles on the beach?
‘She’s getting to be a woman, that’s wot she’s getting to be,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘Ask HIM.’ He meant Ham, who beamed with delight and assent over the bag of shrimps. ”

“ I took Peggotty to the coach-office, and saw her off. She cried at parting, and confided her brother to my friendship as Ham had done. We had heard nothing of him since he went away, that sunny afternoon.
“And now, my own dear Davy,” said Peggotty, “if, while you’re a prentice, you should want any money to spend; or if, when you’re out of your time, my dear, you should want any to set you up (and you must do one or other, or both, my darling) ; who has such a good right to ask leave to lend it you, as my sweet girl’s own old stupid me!” ”

“ Peggotty.
“She is uneducated and ignorant.”
“Maybe she’s not; maybe she is,” said Mr. Peggotty. “I think not, ma’am; but I’m no judge of them things. Teach her better!”
“Since you oblige me to speak more plainly, which I am very unwilling to do, her humble connexions would render such a thing impossible, if nothing else did.”
“Hark to this, ma’am,” he returned, slowly and quietly. “You know what it is to love your child. So do I. If she was a hundred times my child, I couldn’t love her more. You doen’t know what it is to lose your child. I do. ”

“ Peggotty had a basket of refreshments on her knee, which would have lasted us out handsomely, if we had been going to London by the same conveyance. We ate a good deal, and slept a good deal. Peggotty always went to sleep with her chin upon the handle of the basket, her hold of which never relaxed; and I could not have believed unless I had heard her do it, that one defenceless woman could have snored so much.
We made so many deviations up and down lanes, and were such a long time delivering a bedstead at a public-house, and calling at other places, that I was quite tired, and very glad, when we saw Yarmouth. ”

“ If Peggotty had been married every day for the last ten years, she could hardly have been more at her ease about it; it made no sort of difference in her: she was just the same as ever, and went out for a stroll with little Em'ly and me before tea, while Mr. Barkis philosophically smoked his pipe, and enjoyed himself, I suppose, with the contemplation of his happiness. ”

“ He seemed to enjoy himself very much, and not to feel at all called upon to talk. Even when he took Peggotty out for a walk on the flats, he had no uneasiness on that head, I believe; contenting himself with now and then asking her if she was pretty comfortable; and I remember that sometimes, after he was gone, Peggotty would throw her apron over her face, and laugh for half-an-hour. ”

“ Peggotty, looking at me through the smoke of his pipe, "that in the way of book-learning 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." ”

“ Peggotty, looking round at both of us, with infinite pride; ‘but the sea ain’t more salt in it than she has fondness in her for her uncle—a foolish little Em’ly!’
‘Em’ly’s in the right in that, Mas’r Davy!’ said Ham. ‘Lookee here! As Em’ly wishes of it, and as she’s hurried and frightened, like, besides, I’ll leave her till morning. Let me stay too!’
‘No, no,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘You doen’t ought—a married man like you—or what’s as good—to take and hull away a day’s work. And you doen’t ought to watch and work both. That won’t do. You go home and turn in. ”

“ She never spoke a word to me but what was pleasant and right. Is it likely I would try to make her what I am myself, knowing what I am myself, so well! When I lost everything that makes life dear, the worst of all my thoughts was that I was parted for ever from her!"
Mr. Peggotty, standing with one hand on the gunwale of the boat, and his eyes cast down, put his disengaged hand before his face. ”

“ The ground-work of that stool, and Peggotty's complexion, appeared to me to be one and the same thing. The stool was smooth, and Peggotty was rough, but that made no difference.
"Me handsome, Davy!" said Peggotty. "Lawk, no, my dear! But what put marriage in your head?"
"I don't know!—You mustn't marry more than one person at a time, may you, Peggotty?"
"Certainly not," says Peggotty, with the promptest decision.
"But if you marry a person, and the person dies, why then you may marry another person, mayn't you, Peggotty?" ”

“ Then followed some assurances of affection, which Peggotty sobbed through the keyhole, and from that night I had an affection for her greater than for any one, except my mother.
In the morning Miss Murdstone appeared and told me what I already knew, and said that I was to come down into the parlour, and have my breakfast. My mother was there, 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 any one I love! Try to be better, pray to be better! ”

“ Doen’t stay, Mas’r Davy, doen’t!’
I felt Peggotty’s arm round my neck, but I could not have moved if the house had been about to fall upon me.
‘A strange chay and hosses was outside town, this morning, on the Norwich road, a’most afore the day broke,’ Ham went on. ‘The servant went to it, and come from it, and went to it again. When he went to it again, Em’ly was nigh him. The t’other was inside. He’s the man.’
‘For the Lord’s love,’ said Mr. Peggotty, falling back, and putting out his hand, as if to keep off what he dreaded. ”

“ Peggotty, sitting down among us by the fire, “the brightest night o’ my life, I’m a shellfish—biled too—and more I can’t say. This here little Em’ly, sir,” in a low voice to Steerforth, “—her as you see a blushing here just now—”
Steerforth only nodded; but with such a pleased expression of interest, and of participation in Mr. Peggotty’s feelings, that the latter answered him as if he had spoken.
“To be sure,” said Mr. Peggotty. “That’s her, and so she is. ”

“ 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 ye!”
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.” ”