第 31 页

the Kentish soil on which I had slept--and torn besides--might have

frightened the birds from my aunt’s garden, as I stood at the gate. My

hair had known no comb or brush since I left London. My face, neck, and

hands, from unaccustomed exposure to the air and sun, were burnt to a

berry-brown. From head to foot I was powdered almost as white with chalk

and dust, as if I had come out of a lime-kiln. In this plight, and with

a strong consciousness of it, I waited to introduce myself to, and make

my first impression on, my formidable aunt.

The unbroken stillness of the parlour window leading me to infer, after

a while, that she was not there, I lifted up my eyes to the window above

it, where I saw a florid, pleasant-looking gentleman, with a grey head,

who shut up one eye in a grotesque manner, nodded his head at me several

times, shook it at me as often, laughed, and went away.

I had been discomposed enough before; but I was so much the more

discomposed by this unexpected behaviour, that I was on the point of

slinking off, to think how I had best proceed, when there came out of

the house a lady with her handkerchief tied over her cap, and a pair

of gardening gloves on her hands, wearing a gardening pocket like a

toll-man’s apron, and carrying a great knife. I knew her immediately

to be Miss Betsey, for she came stalking out of the house exactly as

my poor mother had so often described her stalking up our garden at

Blunderstone Rookery.

‘Go away!’ said Miss Betsey, shaking her head, and making a distant chop

in the air with her knife. ‘Go along! No boys here!’

I watched her, with my heart at my lips, as she marched to a corner of

her garden, and stooped to dig up some little root there. Then, without

a scrap of courage, but with a great deal of desperation, I went softly

in and stood beside her, touching her with my finger.

‘If you please, ma’am,’ I began.

She started and looked up.

‘If you please, aunt.’

‘EH?’ exclaimed Miss Betsey, in a tone of amazement I have never heard

approached.

‘If you please, aunt, I am your nephew.’

‘Oh, Lord!’ said my aunt. And sat flat down in the garden-path.

‘I am David Copperfield, of Blunderstone, in Suffolk--where you came,

on the night when I was born, and saw my dear mama. I have been very

unhappy since she died. I have been slighted, and taught nothing, and

thrown upon myself, and put to work not fit for me. It made me run away

to you. I was robbed at first setting out, and have walked all the

way, and have never slept in a bed since I began the journey.’ Here

my self-support gave way all at once; and with a movement of my hands,

intended to show her my ragged state, and call it to witness that I had

suffered something, I broke into a passion of crying, which I suppose

had been pent up within me all the week.

My aunt, with every sort of expression but wonder discharged from her

countenance, sat on the gravel, staring at me, until I began to cry;

when she got up in a great hurry, collared me, and took me into the

parlour. Her first proceeding there was to unlock a tall press, bring

out several bottles, and pour some of the contents of each into my

mouth. I think they must have been taken out at random, for I am sure

I tasted aniseed water, anchovy sauce, and salad dressing. When she had

administered these restoratives, as I was still quite hysterical, and

unable to control my sobs, she put me on the sofa, with a shawl under

my head, and the handkerchief from her own head under my feet, lest I

should sully the cover; and then, sitting herself down behind the green

fan or screen I have already mentioned, so that I could not see her

face, ejaculated at intervals, ‘Mercy on us!’ letting those exclamations

off like minute guns.

After a time she rang the bell. ‘Janet,’ said my aunt, when her servant

came in. ‘Go upstairs, give my compliments to Mr. Dick, and say I wish

to speak to him.’

Janet looked a little surprised to see me lying stiffly on the sofa (I

was afraid to move lest it should be displeasing to my aunt), but went

on her errand. My aunt, with her hands behind her, walked up and down

the room, until the gentleman who had squinted at me from the upper

window came in laughing.

‘Mr. Dick,’ said my aunt, ‘don’t be a fool, because nobody can be more

discreet than you can, when you choose. We all know that. So don’t be a

fool, whatever you are.’

The gentleman was serious immediately, and looked at me, I thought, as

if he would entreat me to say nothing about the window.

‘Mr. Dick,’ said my aunt, ‘you have heard me mention David Copperfield?

Now don’t pretend not to have a memory, because you and I know better.’

‘David Copperfield?’ said Mr. Dick, who did not appear to me to

remember much about it. ‘David Copperfield? Oh yes, to be sure. David,

certainly.’

‘Well,’ said my aunt, ‘this is his boy--his son. He would be as like his

father as it’s possible to be, if he was not so like his mother, too.’

‘His son?’ said Mr. Dick. ‘David’s son? Indeed!’

‘Yes,’ pursued my aunt, ‘and he has done a pretty piece of business.

He has run away. Ah! His sister, Betsey Trotwood, never would have run

away.’ My aunt shook her head firmly, confident in the character and

behaviour of the girl who never was born.

‘Oh! you think she wouldn’t have run away?’ said Mr. Dick.

‘Bless and save the man,’ exclaimed my aunt, sharply, ‘how he talks!

Don’t I know she wouldn’t? She would have lived with her god-mother,

and we should have been devoted to one another. Where, in the name of

wonder, should his sister, Betsey Trotwood, have run from, or to?’

‘Nowhere,’ said Mr. Dick.

‘Well then,’ returned my aunt, softened by the reply, ‘how can you

pretend to be wool-gathering, Dick, when you are as sharp as a surgeon’s

lancet? Now, here you see young David Copperfield, and the question I

put to you is, what shall I do with him?’

‘What shall you do with him?’ said Mr. Dick, feebly, scratching his

head. ‘Oh! do with him?’

‘Yes,’ said my aunt, with a grave look, and her forefinger held up.

‘Come! I want some very sound advice.’

‘Why, if I was you,’ said Mr. Dick, considering, and looking vacantly

at me, ‘I should--’ The contemplation of me seemed to inspire him with a

sudden idea, and he added, briskly, ‘I should wash him!’

‘Janet,’ said my aunt, turning round with a quiet triumph, which I did

not then understand, ‘Mr. Dick sets us all right. Heat the bath!’

Although I was deeply interested in this dialogue, I could not help

observing my aunt, Mr. Dick, and Janet, while it was in progress, and

completing a survey I had already been engaged in making of the room.

My aunt was a tall, hard-featured lady, but by no means ill-looking.

There was an inflexibility in her face, in her voice, in her gait and

carriage, amply sufficient to account for the effect she had made upon

a gentle creature like my mother; but her features were rather handsome

than otherwise, though unbending and austere. I particularly noticed

that she had a very quick, bright eye. Her hair, which was grey, was

arranged in two plain divisions, under what I believe would be called a

mob-cap; I mean a cap, much more common then than now, with side-pieces

fastening under the chin. Her dress was of a lavender colour, and

perfectly neat; but scantily made, as if she desired to be as little

encumbered as possible. I remember that I thought it, in form, more like

a riding-habit with the superfluous skirt cut off, than anything else.

She wore at her side a gentleman’s gold watch, if I might judge from its

size and make, with an appropriate chain and seals; she had some linen

at her throat not unlike a shirt-collar, and things at her wrists like

little shirt-wristbands.

Mr. Dick, as I have already said, was grey-headed, and florid: I should

have said all about him, in saying so, had not his head been curiously

bowed--not by age; it reminded me of one of Mr. Creakle’s boys’ heads

after a beating--and his grey eyes prominent and large, with a strange

kind of watery brightness in them that made me, in combination with his

vacant manner, his submission to my aunt, and his childish delight when

she praised him, suspect him of being a little mad; though, if he were

mad, how he came to be there puzzled me extremely. He was dressed

like any other ordinary gentleman, in a loose grey morning coat and

waistcoat, and white trousers; and had his watch in his fob, and his

money in his pockets: which he rattled as if he were very proud of it.

Janet was a pretty blooming girl, of about nineteen or twenty, and a

perfect picture of neatness. Though I made no further observation of

her at the moment, I may mention here what I did not discover until

afterwards, namely, that she was one of a series of protegees whom my

aunt had taken into her service expressly to educate in a renouncement

of mankind, and who had generally completed their abjuration by marrying

the baker.

The room was as neat as Janet or my aunt. As I laid down my pen, a

moment since, to think of it, the air from the sea came blowing

in again, mixed with the perfume of the flowers; and I saw the

old-fashioned furniture brightly rubbed and polished, my aunt’s

inviolable chair and table by the round green fan in the bow-window, the

drugget-covered carpet, the cat, the kettle-holder, the two canaries,

the old china, the punchbowl full of dried rose-leaves, the tall press

guarding all sorts of bottles and pots, and, wonderfully out of keeping

with the rest, my dusty self upon the sofa, taking note of everything.

Janet had gone away to get the bath ready, when my aunt, to my great

alarm, became in one moment rigid with indignation, and had hardly voice

to cry out, ‘Janet! Donkeys!’

Upon which, Janet came running up the stairs as if the house were in

flames, darted out on a little piece of green in front, and warned off

two saddle-donkeys, lady-ridden, that had presumed to set hoof upon it;

while my aunt, rushing out of the house, seized the bridle of a third

animal laden with a bestriding child, turned him, led him forth from

those sacred precincts, and boxed the ears of the unlucky urchin in

attendance who had dared to profane that hallowed ground.

To this hour I don’t know whether my aunt had any lawful right of way

over that patch of green; but she had settled it in her own mind that

she had, and it was all the same to her. The one great outrage of her

life, demanding to be constantly avenged, was the passage of a donkey

over that immaculate spot. In whatever occupation she was engaged,

however interesting to her the conversation in which she was taking

part, a donkey turned the current of her ideas in a moment, and she was

upon him straight. Jugs of water, and watering-pots, were kept in secret

places ready to be discharged on the offending boys; sticks were laid

in ambush behind the door; sallies were made at all hours; and

incessant war prevailed. Perhaps this was an agreeable excitement to the

donkey-boys; or perhaps the more sagacious of the donkeys, understanding

how the case stood, delighted with constitutional obstinacy in coming

that way. I only know that there were three alarms before the bath was

ready; and that on the occasion of the last and most desperate of all,

I saw my aunt engage, single-handed, with a sandy-headed lad of fifteen,

and bump his sandy head against her own gate, before he seemed to

comprehend what was the matter. These interruptions were of the more

ridiculous to me, because she was giving me broth out of a table-spoon

at the time (having firmly persuaded herself that I was actually

starving, and must receive nourishment at first in very small

quantities), and, while my mouth was yet open to receive the spoon, she

would put it back into the basin, cry ‘Janet! Donkeys!’ and go out to

the assault.

The bath was a great comfort. For I began to be sensible of acute pains

in my limbs from lying out in the fields, and was now so tired and low

that I could hardly keep myself awake for five minutes together. When I

had bathed, they (I mean my aunt and Janet) enrobed me in a shirt and a

pair of trousers belonging to Mr. Dick, and tied me up in two or three

great shawls. What sort of bundle I looked like, I don’t know, but I

felt a very hot one. Feeling also very faint and drowsy, I soon lay down

on the sofa again and fell asleep.

It might have been a dream, originating in the fancy which had occupied

my mind so long, but I awoke with the impression that my aunt had come

and bent over me, and had put my hair away from my face, and laid my

head more comfortably, and had then stood looking at me. The words,

‘Pretty fellow,’ or ‘Poor fellow,’ seemed to be in my ears, too; but

certainly there was nothing else, when I awoke, to lead me to believe

that they had been uttered by my aunt, who sat in the bow-window gazing

at the sea from behind the green fan, which was mounted on a kind of

swivel, and turned any way.

We dined soon after I awoke, off a roast fowl and a pudding; I sitting

at table, not unlike a trussed bird myself, and moving my arms with

considerable difficulty. But as my aunt had swathed me up, I made no

complaint of being inconvenienced. All this time I was deeply anxious

to know what she was going to do with me; but she took her dinner in

profound silence, except when she occasionally fixed her eyes on me

sitting opposite, and said, ‘Mercy upon us!’ which did not by any means

relieve my anxiety.

The cloth being drawn, and some sherry put upon the table (of which I

had a glass), my aunt sent up for Mr. Dick again, who joined us, and

looked as wise as he could when she requested him to attend to my story,

which she elicited from me, gradually, by a course of questions. During

my recital, she kept her eyes on Mr. Dick, who I thought would have gone

to sleep but for that, and who, whensoever he lapsed into a smile, was

checked by a frown from my aunt.

‘Whatever possessed that poor unfortunate Baby, that she must go and be

married again,’ said my aunt, when I had finished, ‘I can’t conceive.’

‘Perhaps she fell in love with her second husband,’ Mr. Dick suggested.

‘Fell in love!’ repeated my aunt. ‘What do you mean? What business had