第 18 页

‘that Barkis was a-waitin’ for a answer. Says you--what name is it?’

‘Her name?’

‘Ah!’ said Mr. Barkis, with a nod of his head.

‘Peggotty.’

‘Chrisen name? Or nat’ral name?’ said Mr. Barkis.

‘Oh, it’s not her Christian name. Her Christian name is Clara.’

‘Is it though?’ said Mr. Barkis.

He seemed to find an immense fund of reflection in this circumstance,

and sat pondering and inwardly whistling for some time.

‘Well!’ he resumed at length. ‘Says you, “Peggotty! Barkis is waitin’

for a answer.” Says she, perhaps, “Answer to what?” Says you, “To what I

told you.” “What is that?” says she. “Barkis is willin’,” says you.’

This extremely artful suggestion Mr. Barkis accompanied with a nudge

of his elbow that gave me quite a stitch in my side. After that, he

slouched over his horse in his usual manner; and made no other reference

to the subject except, half an hour afterwards, taking a piece of chalk

from his pocket, and writing up, inside the tilt of the cart, ‘Clara

Peggotty’--apparently as a private memorandum.

Ah, what a strange feeling it was to be going home when it was not home,

and to find that every object I looked at, reminded me of the happy old

home, which was like a dream I could never dream again! The days when my

mother and I and Peggotty were all in all to one another, and there was

no one to come between us, rose up before me so sorrowfully on the road,

that I am not sure I was glad to be there--not sure but that I would

rather have remained away, and forgotten it in Steerforth’s company. But

there I was; and soon I was at our house, where the bare old elm-trees

wrung their many hands in the bleak wintry air, and shreds of the old

rooks’-nests drifted away upon the wind.

The carrier put my box down at the garden-gate, and left me. I walked

along the path towards the house, glancing at the windows, and fearing

at every step to see Mr. Murdstone or Miss Murdstone lowering out of

one of them. No face appeared, however; and being come to the house, and

knowing how to open the door, before dark, without knocking, I went in

with a quiet, timid step.

God knows how infantine the memory may have been, that was awakened

within me by the sound of my mother’s voice in the old parlour, when I

set foot in the hall. She was singing in a low tone. I think I must have

lain in her arms, and heard her singing so to me when I was but a baby.

The strain was new to me, and yet it was so old that it filled my heart

brim-full; like a friend come back from a long absence.

I believed, from the solitary and thoughtful way in which my mother

murmured her song, that she was alone. And I went softly into the room.

She was sitting by the fire, suckling an infant, whose tiny hand she

held against her neck. Her eyes were looking down upon its face, and she

sat singing to it. I was so far right, that she had no other companion.

I spoke to her, and she started, and cried out. But seeing me, she

called me her dear Davy, her own boy! and coming half across the room

to meet me, kneeled down upon the ground and kissed me, and laid my head

down on her bosom near the little creature that was nestling there, and

put its hand to my lips.

I wish I had died. I wish I had died then, with that feeling in my

heart! I should have been more fit for Heaven than I ever have been

since.

‘He is your brother,’ said my mother, fondling me. ‘Davy, my pretty boy!

My poor child!’ Then she kissed me more and more, and clasped me round

the neck. This she was doing when Peggotty came running in, and bounced

down on the ground beside us, and went mad about us both for a quarter

of an hour.

It seemed that I had not been expected so soon, the carrier being much

before his usual time. It seemed, too, that Mr. and Miss Murdstone had

gone out upon a visit in the neighbourhood, and would not return before

night. I had never hoped for this. I had never thought it possible that

we three could be together undisturbed, once more; and I felt, for the

time, as if the old days were come back.

We dined together by the fireside. Peggotty was in attendance to wait

upon us, but my mother wouldn’t let her do it, and made her dine with

us. I had my own old plate, with a brown view of a man-of-war in full

sail upon it, which Peggotty had hoarded somewhere all the time I

had been away, and would not have had broken, she said, for a hundred

pounds. I had my own old mug with David on it, and my own old little

knife and fork that wouldn’t cut.

While we were at table, I thought it a favourable occasion to tell

Peggotty about Mr. Barkis, who, before I had finished what I had to tell

her, began to laugh, and throw 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.’

‘It would be a very good match for you; wouldn’t it?’ said my mother.

‘Oh! I don’t know,’ said Peggotty. ‘Don’t ask me. I wouldn’t have him if

he was made of gold. Nor I wouldn’t have anybody.’

‘Then, why don’t you tell him so, you ridiculous thing?’ said my mother.

‘Tell him so,’ retorted Peggotty, looking out of her apron. ‘He has

never said a word to me about it. He knows better. If he was to make so

bold as say a word to me, I should slap his face.’

Her own was as red as ever I saw it, or any other face, I think; but she

only covered it again, for a few moments at a time, when she was taken

with a violent fit of laughter; and after two or three of those attacks,

went on with her dinner.

I remarked that my mother, though she smiled when Peggotty looked at

her, became more serious and thoughtful. I had seen at first that she

was changed. Her face was very pretty still, but it looked careworn, and

too delicate; and her hand was so thin and white that it seemed to me

to be almost transparent. But the change to which I now refer was

superadded to this: it was in her manner, which became anxious and

fluttered. At last she said, putting out her hand, and laying it

affectionately on the hand of her old servant,

‘Peggotty, dear, you are not going to be married?’

‘Me, ma’am?’ returned Peggotty, staring. ‘Lord bless you, no!’

‘Not just yet?’ said my mother, tenderly.

‘Never!’ cried Peggotty.

My mother took her hand, and said:

‘Don’t leave me, Peggotty. Stay with me. It will not be for long,

perhaps. What should I ever do without you!’

‘Me leave you, my precious!’ cried Peggotty. ‘Not for all the world and

his wife. Why, what’s put that in your silly little head?’--For Peggotty

had been used of old to talk to my mother sometimes like a child.

But my mother made no answer, except to thank her, and Peggotty went

running on in her own fashion.

‘Me leave you? I think I see myself. Peggotty go away from you? I should

like to catch her at it! No, no, no,’ said Peggotty, shaking her head,

and folding her arms; ‘not she, my dear. It isn’t that there ain’t some

Cats that would be well enough pleased if she did, but they sha’n’t be

pleased. They shall be aggravated. I’ll stay with you till I am a cross

cranky old woman. And when I’m too deaf, and too lame, and too blind,

and too mumbly for want of teeth, to be of any use at all, even to be

found fault with, than I shall go to my Davy, and ask him to take me

in.’

‘And, Peggotty,’ says I, ‘I shall be glad to see you, and I’ll make you

as welcome as a queen.’

‘Bless your dear heart!’ cried Peggotty. ‘I know you will!’ And she

kissed me beforehand, in grateful acknowledgement of my hospitality.

After that, she covered her head up with her apron again and had another

laugh about Mr. Barkis. After that, she took the baby out of its little

cradle, and nursed it. After that, she cleared the dinner table;

after that, came in with another cap on, and her work-box, and the

yard-measure, and the bit of wax-candle, all just the same as ever.

We sat round the fire, and talked delightfully. I told them what a hard

master Mr. Creakle was, and they pitied me very much. I told them what a

fine fellow Steerforth was, and what a patron of mine, and Peggotty said

she would walk a score of miles to see him. I took the little baby in

my arms when it was awake, and nursed it lovingly. When it was asleep

again, I crept close to my mother’s side according to my old custom,

broken now a long time, and sat with my arms embracing her waist, and my

little red cheek on her shoulder, and once more felt her beautiful

hair drooping over me--like an angel’s wing as I used to think, I

recollect--and was very happy indeed.

While I sat thus, looking at the fire, and seeing pictures in the

red-hot coals, I almost believed that I had never been away; that Mr.

and Miss Murdstone were such pictures, and would vanish when the fire

got low; and that there was nothing real in all that I remembered, save

my mother, Peggotty, and I.

Peggotty darned away at a stocking as long as she could see, and then

sat with it drawn on her left hand like a glove, and her needle in her

right, ready to take another stitch whenever there was a blaze. I cannot

conceive whose stockings they can have been that Peggotty was always

darning, or where such an unfailing supply of stockings in want of

darning can have come from. From my earliest infancy she seems to have

been always employed in that class of needlework, and never by any

chance in any other.

‘I wonder,’ said Peggotty, who was sometimes seized with a fit of

wondering on some most unexpected topic, ‘what’s become of Davy’s

great-aunt?’ ‘Lor, Peggotty!’ observed my mother, rousing herself from a

reverie, ‘what nonsense you talk!’

‘Well, but I really do wonder, ma’am,’ said Peggotty.

‘What can have put such a person in your head?’ inquired my mother. ‘Is

there nobody else in the world to come there?’

‘I don’t know how it is,’ said Peggotty, ‘unless it’s on account of

being stupid, but my head never can pick and choose its people. They

come and they go, and they don’t come and they don’t go, just as they

like. I wonder what’s become of her?’

‘How absurd you are, Peggotty!’ returned my mother. ‘One would suppose

you wanted a second visit from her.’

‘Lord forbid!’ cried Peggotty.

‘Well then, don’t talk about such uncomfortable things, there’s a good

soul,’ said my mother. ‘Miss Betsey is shut up in her cottage by the

sea, no doubt, and will remain there. At all events, she is not likely

ever to trouble us again.’

‘No!’ mused Peggotty. ‘No, that ain’t likely at all.---I wonder, if she

was to die, whether she’d leave Davy anything?’

‘Good gracious me, Peggotty,’ returned my mother, ‘what a nonsensical

woman you are! when you know that she took offence at the poor dear

boy’s ever being born at all.’

‘I suppose she wouldn’t be inclined to forgive him now,’ hinted

Peggotty.

‘Why should she be inclined to forgive him now?’ said my mother, rather

sharply.

‘Now that he’s got a brother, I mean,’ said Peggotty.

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? I shouldn’t be surprised if you did. When you know

that she only does it out of kindness and the best intentions! You know

she does, Peggotty--you know it well.’

Peggotty muttered something to the effect of ‘Bother the best

intentions!’ and something else to the effect that there was a little

too much of the best intentions going on.

‘I know what you mean, you cross thing,’ said my mother. ‘I understand

you, Peggotty, perfectly. You know I do, and I wonder you don’t colour

up like fire. But one point at a time. Miss Murdstone is the point now,

Peggotty, and you sha’n’t escape from it. Haven’t you heard her

say, over and over again, that she thinks I am too thoughtless and

too--a--a--’

‘Pretty,’ suggested Peggotty.

‘Well,’ returned my mother, half laughing, ‘and if she is so silly as to

say so, can I be blamed for it?’

‘No one says you can,’ said Peggotty.

‘No, I should hope not, indeed!’ returned my mother. ‘Haven’t you heard

her say, over and over again, that on this account she wished to spare

me a great deal of trouble, which she thinks I am not suited for, and

which I really don’t know myself that I AM suited for; and isn’t she up

early and late, and going to and fro continually--and doesn’t she do

all sorts of things, and grope into all sorts of places, coal-holes and

pantries and I don’t know where, that can’t be very agreeable--and do

you mean to insinuate that there is not a sort of devotion in that?’

‘I don’t insinuate at all,’ said Peggotty.

‘You do, Peggotty,’ returned my mother. ‘You never do anything else,

except your work. You are always insinuating. You revel in it. And when

you talk of Mr. Murdstone’s good intentions--’

‘I never talked of ‘em,’ said Peggotty.

‘No, Peggotty,’ returned my mother, ‘but you insinuated. That’s what I

told you just now. That’s the worst of you. You WILL insinuate. I said,

at the moment, that I understood you, and you see I did. When you talk

of Mr. 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