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boys in the world, I believe this is the worst boy.’

‘Strong!’ said my aunt, shortly.

‘But not at all too strong for the facts,’ returned Miss Murdstone.

‘Ha!’ said my aunt. ‘Well, sir?’

‘I have my own opinions,’ resumed Mr. Murdstone, whose face darkened

more and more, the more he and my aunt observed each other, which they

did very narrowly, ‘as to the best mode of bringing him up; they are

founded, in part, on my knowledge of him, and in part on my knowledge of

my own means and resources. I am responsible for them to myself, I act

upon them, and I say no more about them. It is enough that I place this

boy under the eye of a friend of my own, in a respectable business;

that it does not please him; that he runs away from it; makes himself a

common vagabond about the country; and comes here, in rags, to appeal

to you, Miss Trotwood. I wish to set before you, honourably, the exact

consequences--so far as they are within my knowledge--of your abetting

him in this appeal.’

‘But about the respectable business first,’ said my aunt. ‘If he had

been your own boy, you would have put him to it, just the same, I

suppose?’

‘If he had been my brother’s own boy,’ returned Miss Murdstone, striking

in, ‘his character, I trust, would have been altogether different.’

‘Or if the poor child, his mother, had been alive, he would still have

gone into the respectable business, would he?’ said my aunt.

‘I believe,’ said Mr. Murdstone, with an inclination of his head,

‘that Clara would have disputed nothing which myself and my sister Jane

Murdstone were agreed was for the best.’

Miss Murdstone confirmed this with an audible murmur.

‘Humph!’ said my aunt. ‘Unfortunate baby!’

Mr. Dick, who had been rattling his money all this time, was rattling it

so loudly now, that my aunt felt it necessary to check him with a look,

before saying:

‘The poor child’s annuity died with her?’

‘Died with her,’ replied Mr. Murdstone.

‘And there was no settlement of the little property--the house and

garden--the what’s-its-name Rookery without any rooks in it--upon her

boy?’

‘It had been left to her, unconditionally, by her first husband,’

Mr. Murdstone began, when my aunt caught him up with the greatest

irascibility and impatience.

‘Good Lord, man, there’s no occasion to say that. Left to her

unconditionally! I think I see David Copperfield looking forward to any

condition of any sort or kind, though it stared him point-blank in the

face! Of course it was left to her unconditionally. But when she married

again--when she took that most disastrous step of marrying you, in

short,’ said my aunt, ‘to be plain--did no one put in a word for the boy

at that time?’

‘My late wife loved her second husband, ma’am,’ said Mr. Murdstone, ‘and

trusted implicitly in him.’

‘Your late wife, sir, was a most unworldly, most unhappy, most

unfortunate baby,’ returned my aunt, shaking her head at him. ‘That’s

what she was. And now, what have you got to say next?’

‘Merely this, Miss Trotwood,’ he returned. ‘I am here to take David

back--to take him back unconditionally, to dispose of him as I think

proper, and to deal with him as I think right. I am not here to make any

promise, or give any pledge to anybody. You may possibly have some

idea, Miss Trotwood, of abetting him in his running away, and in his

complaints to you. Your manner, which I must say does not seem intended

to propitiate, induces me to think it possible. Now I must caution you

that if you abet him once, you abet him for good and all; if you step

in between him and me, now, you must step in, Miss Trotwood, for ever.

I cannot trifle, or be trifled with. I am here, for the first and last

time, to take him away. Is he ready to go? If he is not--and you tell me

he is not; on any pretence; it is indifferent to me what--my doors are

shut against him henceforth, and yours, I take it for granted, are open

to him.’

To this address, my aunt had listened with the closest attention,

sitting perfectly upright, with her hands folded on one knee, and

looking grimly on the speaker. When he had finished, she turned her

eyes so as to command Miss Murdstone, without otherwise disturbing her

attitude, and said:

‘Well, ma’am, have YOU got anything to remark?’

‘Indeed, Miss Trotwood,’ said Miss Murdstone, ‘all that I could say has

been so well said by my brother, and all that I know to be the fact

has been so plainly stated by him, that I have nothing to add except my

thanks for your politeness. For your very great politeness, I am sure,’

said Miss Murdstone; with an irony which no more affected my aunt, than

it discomposed the cannon I had slept by at Chatham.

‘And what does the boy say?’ said my aunt. ‘Are you ready to go, David?’

I answered no, and entreated her not to let me go. I said that neither

Mr. nor Miss Murdstone had ever liked me, or had ever been kind to me.

That they had made my mama, who always loved me dearly, unhappy about

me, and that I knew it well, and that Peggotty knew it. I said that I

had been more miserable than I thought anybody could believe, who only

knew how young I was. And I begged and prayed my aunt--I forget in

what terms now, but I remember that they affected me very much then--to

befriend and protect me, for my father’s sake.

‘Mr. Dick,’ said my aunt, ‘what shall I do with this child?’

Mr. Dick considered, hesitated, brightened, and rejoined, ‘Have him

measured for a suit of clothes directly.’

‘Mr. Dick,’ said my aunt triumphantly, ‘give me your hand, for your

common sense is invaluable.’ Having shaken it with great cordiality, she

pulled me towards her and said to Mr. Murdstone:

‘You can go when you like; I’ll take my chance with the boy. If he’s all

you say he is, at least I can do as much for him then, as you have done.

But I don’t believe a word of it.’

‘Miss Trotwood,’ rejoined Mr. Murdstone, shrugging his shoulders, as he

rose, ‘if you were a gentleman--’

‘Bah! Stuff and nonsense!’ said my aunt. ‘Don’t talk to me!’

‘How exquisitely polite!’ exclaimed Miss Murdstone, rising.

‘Overpowering, really!’

‘Do you think I don’t know,’ said my aunt, turning a deaf ear to the

sister, and continuing to address the brother, and to shake her head at

him with infinite expression, ‘what kind of life you must have led that

poor, unhappy, misdirected baby? Do you think I don’t know what a woeful

day it was for the soft little creature when you first came in her

way--smirking and making great eyes at her, I’ll be bound, as if you

couldn’t say boh! to a goose!’

‘I never heard anything so elegant!’ said Miss Murdstone.

‘Do you think I can’t understand you as well as if I had seen you,’

pursued my aunt, ‘now that I DO see and hear you--which, I tell you

candidly, is anything but a pleasure to me? Oh yes, bless us! who so

smooth and silky as Mr. Murdstone at first! The poor, benighted innocent

had never seen such a man. He was made of sweetness. He worshipped her.

He doted on her boy--tenderly doted on him! He was to be another father

to him, and they were all to live together in a garden of roses, weren’t

they? Ugh! Get along with you, do!’ said my aunt.

‘I never heard anything like this person in my life!’ exclaimed Miss

Murdstone.

‘And when you had made sure of the poor little fool,’ said my aunt--‘God

forgive me that I should call her so, and she gone where YOU won’t go in

a hurry--because you had not done wrong enough to her and hers, you

must begin to train her, must you? begin to break her, like a poor

caged bird, and wear her deluded life away, in teaching her to sing YOUR

notes?’

‘This is either insanity or intoxication,’ said Miss Murdstone, in a

perfect agony at not being able to turn the current of my aunt’s address

towards herself; ‘and my suspicion is that it’s intoxication.’

Miss Betsey, without taking the least notice of the interruption,

continued to address herself to Mr. Murdstone as if there had been no

such thing.

‘Mr. Murdstone,’ she said, shaking her finger at him, ‘you were a tyrant

to the simple baby, and you broke her heart. She was a loving baby--I

know that; I knew it, years before you ever saw her--and through the

best part of her weakness you gave her the wounds she died of. There

is the truth for your comfort, however you like it. And you and your

instruments may make the most of it.’

‘Allow me to inquire, Miss Trotwood,’ interposed Miss Murdstone,

‘whom you are pleased to call, in a choice of words in which I am not

experienced, my brother’s instruments?’

‘It was clear enough, as I have told you, years before YOU ever saw

her--and why, in the mysterious dispensations of Providence, you ever

did see her, is more than humanity can comprehend--it was clear enough

that the poor soft little thing would marry somebody, at some time or

other; but I did hope it wouldn’t have been as bad as it has turned out.

That was the time, Mr. Murdstone, when she gave birth to her boy here,’

said my aunt; ‘to the poor child you sometimes tormented her through

afterwards, which is a disagreeable remembrance and makes the sight of

him odious now. Aye, aye! you needn’t wince!’ said my aunt. ‘I know it’s

true without that.’

He had stood by the door, all this while, observant of her with a smile

upon his face, though his black eyebrows were heavily contracted. I

remarked now, that, though the smile was on his face still, his colour

had gone in a moment, and he seemed to breathe as if he had been

running.

‘Good day, sir,’ said my aunt, ‘and good-bye! Good day to you, too,

ma’am,’ said my aunt, turning suddenly upon his sister. ‘Let me see you

ride a donkey over my green again, and as sure as you have a head upon

your shoulders, I’ll knock your bonnet off, and tread upon it!’

It would require a painter, and no common painter too, to depict my

aunt’s face as she delivered herself of this very unexpected sentiment,

and Miss Murdstone’s face as she heard it. But the manner of the speech,

no less than the matter, was so fiery, that Miss Murdstone, without a

word in answer, discreetly put her arm through her brother’s, and walked

haughtily out of the cottage; my aunt remaining in the window looking

after them; prepared, I have no doubt, in case of the donkey’s

reappearance, to carry her threat into instant execution.

No attempt at defiance being made, however, her face gradually relaxed,

and became so pleasant, that I was emboldened to kiss and thank her;

which I did with great heartiness, and with both my arms clasped round

her neck. I then shook hands with Mr. Dick, who shook hands with me a

great many times, and hailed this happy close of the proceedings with

repeated bursts of laughter.

‘You’ll consider yourself guardian, jointly with me, of this child, Mr.

Dick,’ said my aunt.

‘I shall be delighted,’ said Mr. Dick, ‘to be the guardian of David’s

son.’

‘Very good,’ returned my aunt, ‘that’s settled. I have been thinking, do

you know, Mr. Dick, that I might call him Trotwood?’

‘Certainly, certainly. Call him Trotwood, certainly,’ said Mr. Dick.

‘David’s son’s Trotwood.’

‘Trotwood Copperfield, you mean,’ returned my aunt.

‘Yes, to be sure. Yes. Trotwood Copperfield,’ said Mr. Dick, a little

abashed.

My aunt took so kindly to the notion, that some ready-made clothes,

which were purchased for me that afternoon, were marked ‘Trotwood

Copperfield’, in her own handwriting, and in indelible marking-ink,

before I put them on; and it was settled that all the other clothes

which were ordered to be made for me (a complete outfit was bespoke that

afternoon) should be marked in the same way.

Thus I began my new life, in a new name, and with everything new about

me. Now that the state of doubt was over, I felt, for many days,

like one in a dream. I never thought that I had a curious couple of

guardians, in my aunt and Mr. Dick. I never thought of anything about

myself, distinctly. The two things clearest in my mind were, that a

remoteness had come upon the old Blunderstone life--which seemed to lie

in the haze of an immeasurable distance; and that a curtain had for ever

fallen on my life at Murdstone and Grinby’s. No one has ever raised that

curtain since. I have lifted it for a moment, even in this narrative,

with a reluctant hand, and dropped it gladly. The remembrance of that

life is fraught with so much pain to me, with so much mental suffering

and want of hope, that I have never had the courage even to examine how

long I was doomed to lead it. Whether it lasted for a year, or more, or

less, I do not know. I only know that it was, and ceased to be; and that

I have written, and there I leave it.

CHAPTER 15. I MAKE ANOTHER BEGINNING

Mr. Dick and I soon became the best of friends, and very often, when his

day’s work was done, went out together to fly the great kite. Every day

of his life he had a long sitting at the Memorial, which never made the

least progress, however hard he laboured, for King Charles the First

always strayed into it, sooner or later, and then it was thrown aside,

and another one begun. The patience and hope with which he bore these

perpetual disappointments, the mild perception he had that there was

something wrong about King Charles the First, the feeble efforts he made

to keep him out, and the certainty with which he came in, and tumbled

the Memorial out of all shape, made a deep impression on me. What Mr.

Dick supposed would come of the Memorial, if it were completed; where he

thought it was to go, or what he thought it was to do; he knew no more

than anybody else, I believe. Nor was it at all necessary that he should

trouble himself with such questions, for if anything were certain under

the sun, it was certain that the Memorial never would be finished. It

was quite an affecting sight, I used to think, to see him with the kite

when it was up a great height in the air. What he had told me, in his

room, about his belief in its disseminating the statements pasted on it,

which were nothing but old leaves of abortive Memorials, might have been

a fancy with him sometimes; but not when he was out, looking up at

the kite in the sky, and feeling it pull and tug at his hand. He never