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. ”

“ If Peggotty were looking for a hole, all of a sudden, in the heel of that stocking, it must have been a very little one indeed, and not worth darning.
"I say! Peggotty! She can't live by herself, you know." ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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 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. ”

“ 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.”
“And I do suppose, now,” said Mr. 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.” ”

“ 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." ”

“ Mr. Peggotty touched me, and whispered with much awe and reverence. ‘They are both a-going out fast.’
‘Barkis, my dear!’ said Peggotty.
‘C. P. Barkis,’ he cried faintly. ‘No better woman anywhere!’
‘Look! Here’s Master Davy!’ said Peggotty. For he now opened his eyes. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.) ”

“ 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? ”

“ Doen’t I want you more now, than ever I did?’
‘I know’d I was never wanted before!’ cried Mrs. Gummidge, with a pitiable whimper, ‘and now I’m told so! How could I expect to be wanted, being so lone and lorn, and so contrary!’
Mr. Peggotty seemed very much shocked at himself for having made a speech capable of this unfeeling construction, but was prevented from replying, by Peggotty’s pulling his sleeve, and shaking her head. After looking at Mrs. Gummidge for some moments, in sore distress of mind, he glanced at the Dutch clock, rose, snuffed the candle, and put it in the window. ”

“ 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, in simple earnestness, waved his right arm, as if he were waving it at the town-lights for the last time, and then, exchanging a nod with Ham, whose eye he caught, proceeded as before.
"Well! I counsels him to speak to Em'ly. He's big enough, but he's bashfuller than a little un, and he don't like. So I speak. 'What! Him!' says Em'ly. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Peggotty, "God forbid as I should judge you. Forbid as I, of all men, should do that, my girl! You doen't know half the change that's come, in course of time, upon me, when you think it likely. Well!" ”

“ Peggotty at the little look-out window, violently, and to the
stranger, mysteriously, beckoning him away to the northward,
apparently in the direction of the lighthouse.
This means, however, only that he is to go round by the back, and
the détour is not to be regretted, as it leads by Peggotty's garden,
which in its way is a marvel, a monument of indomitable struggle
with adverse circumstances. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Peggotty, ‘as to the future, good friend? I need scarcely ask you.’
‘Quite, Mas’r Davy,’ he returned; ‘and told Em’ly. Theer’s mighty countries, fur from heer. Our future life lays over the sea.’
‘They will emigrate together, aunt,’ said I.
‘Yes!’ said Mr. Peggotty, with a hopeful smile. ‘No one can’t reproach my darling in Australia. We will begin a new life over theer!’
I asked him if he yet proposed to himself any time for going away.
‘I was down at the Docks early this morning, sir,’ he returned, ‘to get information concerning of them ships. ”

“ Murdstone’s good intentions, and pretend to slight them (for I don’t believe you really do, in your heart, Peggotty) , you must be as well convinced as I am how good they are, and how they actuate him in everything. If he seems to have been at all stern with a certain person, Peggotty—you understand, and so I am sure does Davy, that I am not alluding to anybody present—it is solely because he is satisfied that it is for a certain person’s benefit. He naturally loves a certain person, on my account; and acts solely for a certain person’s good. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”