A (0:00)

Hello and welcome to Storytime for Grown Ups. I'm Faith Moore and this season we're reading David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. Each episode I'll read a few chapters from the book, pausing from time to time to give brief explanations so it's easier to follow along. It's like an audiobook with built in notes. So brew a pot of tea, find a cozy chair and settle in. It's story time. Hi everyone. Welcome back. Thanks for coming back and for joining me on Storytime for Grown Ups. Don't you just wish every moment of every day could be sitting around reading great books and talking about great books? I don't know, maybe that's just me. I do, but that's why I'm always so happy to be here with you, because that's what we get to do. So thanks for being here and welcome. Welcome back. I got some great questions and comments after the first chapter, so I'm excited to share those with you. And then of course, I'm also excited to share this next chapter of David Copperfield. We're really in it, you guys. We've started, we're on this journey together and I am so happy and thrilled to be here. Just a couple of quick reminders. The first is I promise to tell you when our next chapter tea time is going to be and I have now scheduled that. So that is going to be on Tuesday, January 27th at 8pm Eastern. Tea times, for those of you who don't know are our monthly voice chats over in our online community which is called the Drawing Room because it's where we withdraw after the show to keep talking and keep hanging out together because this is just so much fun. So if you are already a member then great. Please join us on the 27th. If you're not, there's a link in the show notes in the description of this episode to click on it and find out more about the drawing room and then you can decide if you want to sign up. And if you do sign up, then you can join us on the 27th. If you are a member of the Landed Gentry, there's a couple of different membership tiers. So the Landed Gentry is the one that gives you access to the voice chats. If you are currently a house guest but you'd like to try out teatime, you can also shift your membership by going to that same link and it will take you through that process. So you can switch to Landed Gentry if you'd like to join us. So I hope that you will Again, that's Tuesday, January 27th at 8:00pm Eastern over in the drawing room. And it's really fun. We talk for about an hour. I'm there, you're there. We chat together. You can talk to me, I can talk to you. You can also just listen. If you prefer not to talk, that's okay, too. And we talk about. We'll be talking about this book. So we talk about books, we'll talk about other things and you can ask me anything. So. So I answer questions during that time as well. So it's usually a really fun time. I always love getting to chat with you guys. So I hope that you'll join us there and I'll remind you again as we get closer. Otherwise, all the usual things are still in effect. Please make sure you're subscribed. Please tap the five stars. If you're enjoying the show, please leave a review if you're enjoying the show. If you're not enjoying it, stop listening and don't leave a review. And if you could just tell a friend, tell everyone you know about this show because the more the merrier. The more people reading great books and talking about great books, the better the world will be. I really believe that we can change the world, I think, if we read these books together and talk about them together. So let's get more people doing that with us. So tell everyone. All right, let's get into this episode. So first let us go back and remember what we read last time. Last time we read chapter one. Today we're going to be reading chapter two. As I said before, I've decided I'm just going to do one chapter per episode this season. I tried to kind of squish some chapters to together with other chapters, but it just didn't work. So some of the chapters are going to be really long. Some of them are going to be a lot shorter. But that's just the way that Dickens chose to write the book. And so we're going to stick with that. So every episode, unless I change my mind halfway through. But for now, what I'm thinking is every episode is just going to be one chapter. So today we are reading chapter two. But first, let's remind ourselves of what happened in chapter one. And then I have some great questions that we'll discuss for a little while and then we'll read. So here, here is the recap. All right, so where we left off. Our narrator explains that he is going to tell us the story of his life. And he begins with his birth. So his father had died six months before. And his mother was a sort of childlike person who was very scared about the birth and very unsure how to carry on without her husband and all of this. But on the day of the birth, the father's aunt, Betsy Trotwood, who hadn't spoken to him in years, suddenly shows up at the house. She. She's this kind of ridiculous old woman who just barges in and takes over. She is a single woman. She had an abusive husband and she separated from him. And then eventually he died. So she says that she is convinced that the baby will be a girl and that she herself will be its godmother. She says the baby should be named after her and grow up to live a much better life than she did. She commands the servant Peggy to bring in some tea and some candles. And when the mother goes into labor, she sits in the downstairs room waiting sort of agitatedly for the news of the bir. The doctor is this mild mannered, sort of effeminate person who is scared of Ms. Betsy. But eventually he reveals to her that the labor is done and the mother has given birth to a son. At the news that it's a boy and not a girl, Miss Betsy storms out of the house, never to return. All right, so I am going to read four questions or comments today. The first one comes from Michelle Watson. She writes, I guess I shouldn't be surprised by how funny this first chapter is. David Copperfield, the narrator, is not trying to be funny. In fact, his tone feels somewhat formal and factual, which sets off the humor so successfully. The fate of David's amniotic sack. Oh, my goodness. Aunt Betsy stuffing cotton in her ear so she won't hear her niece's labor pains. It was all so funny. This next one comes from Paula Fernandez. Paula says, I laughed at the end of the chapter when Miss Betsy hits the doctor with her bonnet upon the news of the baby's gender. I can't wait to meet some of Dickens other unique characters. The next one comes from Megan Pack. Megan says, really appreciate the tips for reading Dickens that one of your readers posted. It was helpful to remember to focus on the characters and their interactions. Ms. Betsy is strong and overbearing. The doctor is slow and meek. And when you put those characters together, you have quite an amusing interaction. Your voices were fantastic and really brought out the humor of the situation. Dickens, to me, feels like a scientist. It's like he's thinking, like, let's see what kind of reactions we get when we start mixing together all of these different people. And the last one Comes from Anna. Anna says, why does Miss Betsy want David's mother to have a girl? I thought people in those times usually preferred males, not females. Okay, so right up front, we are seeing what we talked about in the intro episode, right? Dickens characters and the way that they interact together are really funny. And part of what makes them funny is that they're often just a little bit larger than life. But we also can recognize them as real people, right? Like the slow, meek doctor, Mr. Chillip. He's so slow and meek that it's probably unlikely that you would encounter someone quite like that in the world. But it's also a kind of person that you can totally picture, I think, right? Someone who is sort of calm and placid and doesn't seem to have much urgency about anything. And strike. Totally mystified and horrified by people who take a more sort of anxious or active view of life. And Miss Betsy, who I'm going to talk more about in a minute. But Miss Betsy is so abrupt and so definitive as to be sort of unrealistic. Except, again, we can think of people like this that we know or have encountered, at least I can. People who are so completely in their own experience that they can't understand anyone else's situation. They're so definitive and clear on what they want and what should happen according to them that they kind of, like, steamroll over everybody else, even people that they might actually be trying to help. So right up front, we're seeing something which we will see throughout this book, which is that these characters are really lively, really funny, really engaging. And while they're not exactly realistic, they are also very, very real. And like Megan says in her letter, a lot of the drama of the first chapter, and I think a lot of the drama of the book as a whole as. But a lot of the drama of this first chapter was in mixing these various characters up and having them interact with each other and watching what happens when they do. In this first chapter, we have Miss Betsy interacting with David's mother, which works dramatically because Miss Betsy is so firm and clear in her opinions, and the mother is sort of childlike and at sea all the time. So watching them interact is really interesting. Right. We also have Mr. Chillip, the doctor and Miss Betsy, which I was just saying it was funny because of their different styles also. And like Michelle points out, we have David himself, our narrator. He doesn't tell us he's David, but he is. He's David, our narrator. And his voice is this kind of straightforward, open, totally unassuming. Voice, which creates even more humor, because he's telling us these things, like what happened with his call and what happened between the various other characters he's telling us without any sort of commentary, which makes it even more funny, I think. Like, I actually think it would ruin it if he said, like, oh, my gosh, it was hilarious when this happened. And can you believe. Believe that? Or whatever. It's the fact that he's just telling it like it is. And the thing that it is, is hilarious that makes it all work. And I think it bears repeating something that I have said before on other books. I think we talked about this a lot, mostly in Pride and Prejudice, if I'm remembering correctly. But this is essentially that it is. Okay, encouraged even to laugh during this book. Okay, this book is definitely funny, so I give you permission to think so. It's other things, too, along the way. But humor is a major feature of this book and of Dickens writing in general. And I think sometimes we get sort of bogged down by the ideas of, like, the classics being these weighty tomes that belong in college classrooms and must be taken very seriously and analyzed and discussed and all of this. But really, first and foremost, these books are stories. They're great stories. And this great story just happens to be very funny. So please laugh when it is funny. You are supposed to. Okay, so I think it makes sense now to talk just for a moment about the three sort of main people of this first chapter that we encounter. Namely, David, our narrator, Ms. Betsy, his great aunt, and the mother, whose name we don't yet know, except that we know it's the same name as the servant who they now call Peggy, because her name is the same as the mom's name, but we don't yet know what that name is. But I think it makes sense to take a look at these three people for a moment, because as Michelle, Paula and Megan all point out in their letters, this first chapter really is a kind of study in how these various people are interacting with each other or interacting with the events in David's case and what happens when they do. And in doing that, I will also get to Anna's question about Ms. Betsy wanting the baby to be a girl. So let's start with David, because he's our narrator and is obviously going to be the main character of the story, since it's a story of his life narrated in the first person by him. And of course, in chapter one, we don't actually meet David in the sense that he's just a baby. Being born and we don't even see him. And the story actually begins before he's even born. But we do meet him in the sense that it's his voice telling us the story. And I think, like I was saying a minute ago, we get a sense of him as a kind of open, sort of guileless, almost innocent sort of person. And I think this is really wonderful writing on Dickens's part because obviously wherever David is now, when he's writing this story, we can assume that he is an adult and that a great deal of his life has already happened since he has put 800 pages of it down on paper. So the David who is writing this book, okay, obviously Dickens is writing the book, but the conceit of the story is that David is writing this autobiography, right? So the David who is writing this book is a grown up. He's probably an older man or maybe a middle aged man at this point. But the voice of this first chapter captures a kind of childlike openness and innocence. That's really lovely, I think. It's not a child's voice, right? Dickens isn't writing in the voice of a child, but his narrator's voice is somehow embodying a childlike sense of the world, which I think is really masterful. I mean, right up front we get this sense of a kind of wide eyed openness and modesty, which to me at least is really appealing. Okay, here's a quote. It's right from the beginning. It says whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life or whether that station will be held by anybody else. These pages much. So to begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born, as I have been informed and believe, on a Friday at 12 o' clock at night. Okay, so he's not as a narrator of an autobiography, might be. He is not like, I'm so awesome and I'm gonna tell you this awesome story of my awesome life or whatever. He's just like, I'm gonna write down the things that happened in my life and you can decide what you think about them. And I really hope you like it. So here it is. It's sort of sweet, it's innocent, it's childlike, but it's clearly the voice of someone who has already experienced all of this. So it's not a child, but it captures the essence of a child kind of mentality. And as we also learn from David in this first chapter, we learn that family and the people who are part of his family are really important to him. Right. That he cares deeply about people and that it matters to him who is in his family and who he belongs to. Okay, here's another quote. He's talking about the fact that his father died before he was born. And he says, there is something strange to me even now in the reflection that he never saw me. And something stranger yet in the shadowy remembrance that I have of my first childish associations with his white gravestone in the churchyard. And of the indefinable compassion I used to feel for it, lying out alone there in the dark night when our little parlor was warm and bright with fire and candle and the doors of our house were almost cruelly, it seemed to me, sometimes bolted and locked against it. Okay, so even though he never met his father, and therefore he doesn't really miss him as a person, he still feels sad that he's gone. And he wishes that he could kind of usher his father's ghost or something into the house. That it's not fair that he has to stay locked out in the graveyard outside while he's inside, warm and cozy and snug with his family, the people who love him. Okay, so we've got David, our narrator, who I don't know about you, but I like him already. He's open, he's innocent, he's loving, and he's going to tell us a delightful story, which is already pretty funny and entertaining. So hopefully we can feel like we are in good hands for this long journey that we have just undertaken. And from the simplicity and openness of David, we also get a sense of the simplicity and sort of childishness of David's mother and even perhaps of his father when his father was still alive. Right. The mother really doesn't seem actually very ready to be a mother. And in fact, it seems like she's very, very young. And she doesn't really know much about keeping house or care of a baby or anything like that. Okay, here's what we're told. It says she hung her head as if it were her fault, poor thing, and said, sobbing, that indeed, she was afraid she was but a childish widow and would be but a childish mother if she lived. Okay, so the mother is less a mother at this point, and more of a child. She's in mourning for her husband, who she seems to have really loved, and she's terrified that she's going to die in labor. And she doesn't seem to have really thought much beyond that. Like, she doesn't really seem to be imagining her life as a mother. Or what her child will be like or how care for him. And all of this she's just sort of like devolving into fear and sadness and it seems like she's totally out of her element. And from what David tells us, she kind of is. Right. We're told that she was a nursery governess, meaning she was a more lower class person than she is now. And she cared for and taught the very small children in some more upper class family. And we're told that David's father, who presumably was a more middle class, or maybe upper middle class person, he fell in love with her and he married her. And so he was teaching her how to be middle class, but she still doesn't really know how. Okay, here's what she says. And I am sure we never had a word of difference respecting it, except when Mr. Copperfield objected to my threes and fives being too much like each other or to my putting curly tails to my sevens and nines. Okay, so he was showing her how to be a good middle class housewife. But it sounds like it was a lot like a father teaching a daughter rather than a husband and a wife kind of working together to start a household. So now that he's gone, she really seems to kind of need someone to take her in hand. And actually, for all her eccentricities and weirdnesses and everything, it sort of seems like Miss Betsy might have been able to do that if she hadn't sort of stormed off in a huff. I mean, Miss Betsy is really weird. Okay, let's not put too fine a point on it. She's weird, there's no doubt about that. And she's abrupt and kind of rude and all of this. But also she's kind of the only person in the house, as far as we can tell, who is doing anything right. She comes in out of nowhere, she takes control of the situation, which honestly is kind of what needed to happen, it seems like. Okay, here is a quote. It says, having issued this mandate with as much potentiality as if she had been a recognized authority in the house ever since it had been a house, and having looked out to confront the amazed Peggy coming along the passage with a candle. At the sound of a strange voice, Miss Betsy shut the door again and sat down as before with her feet on the fender, the skirt of her dress tucked up and her hands folded on one knee. Okay, so this mother, who can't really seem to even see past the birth, actually really needs someone to come in and take care of her and Miss Betsy for All of her snapping at people and things is actually kind of doing that. You know, I got some letters saying, oh, you know, Miss Betsy seems like a horrible person. And there is a way in which she does seem like a horrible person. But I also kind of want to point out that she's sort of the only other authority figure in this whole situation. It's like she's the only grown up in the room or something. But she's also a total loon. I mean, this thing about assuming that the baby is going to be a girl is totally unhinged, right? There was no way of knowing whether a baby would be a boy or a girl back then until the baby was actually born. But Ms. Betsy says, Here's a quote, I have no doubt it will be a girl. I have a presentiment that it must be a girl. And then later she says, I tell you, I have a presentiment that it must be a girl. Don't contradict. Okay, so that's sort of weird. And then her behavior during the labor is super strange, right? She shoves a bunch of cotton in her ears, okay? So imagine she's got like cotton balls like shoved down into her ear canals and she keeps yelling at the doctor to tell her what's going on and marching around and grabbing the nephew of the servant to get him to tell her what's going on. And then of course, the weirdest thing of all is that when she finds out that the baby is actually a boy and not a girl, she storms out of the house, never to return. Which, as Anna points out in her letter, is also weird since usually in stories from this time period, everyone was hoping for a boy, right? A son and heir to inherit everything or whatever it was. And a girl would usually be fine, right? But you wouldn't behave like Miss Betsy did over learning that the baby was a boy. But for Miss Betsy, for whatever reason, this baby was going to be a sort of mini her, a version of Miss Betsy who didn't make the same mistakes that Betsy did. Because remember, we're told that Miss Betsy married a man who was horribly abusive to her. I mean, it sort of slipped in there, but it's actually really awful. This guy beat her up and he tried to throw her out a two story window, okay? So he tried to kill her essentially, and then he went off to India and he died. And she stayed single ever since. So she was obviously sort of traumatized by this experience, which I know is a very modern way of putting it, but I think there's A basis for it. Basically, she was very affected, let's say clearly, by her experience with this husband. And what she wants is to help, help raise a girl who she can raise lovingly and help not to have to deal with the same things. She won't ever have her own daughter because she's never remarried. So this is her only chance to have a blood relation, to carry out this plan. And when it's a boy, that totally messes up this plan that she had. And off she goes. So, on first reading, Miss Betsy seemed pretty harsh, pretty rude, very weird, and she actually kind of is all of those things. But there's also these glimpses with her where we can feel, I think, some sympathy for what she's gone through. And also she wanted to help raise this girl and help her to find her way in the world and all this, which is actually kind of nice, right? I mean, she didn't want to raise her up so she could have like a servant or a slave or something. She wanted to help her to have a good life. So Ms. Betsy is actually kind of complicated and also, of course, hilarious. But none of that matters, apparently, because she's now left the house, never to return, and David is a baby and the mother, who, like I was just saying, does not actually seem very equipped to be a mother, is now all on her own because Betsy has left. So what is going to happen next? What's the deal here? Let's find out. Right? Let's keep reading and find out. But of course, don't forget to write to me. I want to hear from you after chapter two as well. So it's. It's faithkmoore.com and then you click on Contact or you just scroll into the show notes of this episode and you click the link that's there and that'll come right to me. So I really hope you will get in touch with all your questions and comments and thoughts, and I can't wait to hear from you. All right, let's get started with chapter two of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. It's story time. Chapter 2. I observe the first objects that assume a distinct presence before me as I look far back into the blank of my infancy are my mother, with her pretty hair and youthful shape, and Peggotty, with no shape at all and eyes so dark that they seemed to darken their whole neighborhood. In her face and cheeks and arms so hard and red that I wondered the birds didn't peck her in preference to apples. I believe I can remember these two at a little distance apart, dwarfed to my sight by stooping down or kneeling on the floor, and I going unsteadily from the one to the other. I have an impression on my mind which I cannot distinguish from actual remembrance of the touch of Peggotty's forefinger as she used to hold it out to me, and of its being roughened by needlework like a pocket nutmeg grater. This may be fancy meaning he might have made this up, though I think the memory of most of us can go farther back into such times than many of us suppose. Just as I believe the power of observation in numbers of very young children to be quite wonderful for its closeness and accuracy. Indeed, I think that most grown men who are remarkable in this respect may with greater propriety be said not to have lost the faculty than to have acquired it. The rather, as I generally observe such men, to retain a certain freshness and gentleness and capacity of being pleased, which are also an inheritance they have preserved from their childhood. Okay, so he's saying that he thinks children are better observers of the world than we give them credit for and that people who grow up to be good observers of the world have probably just held on to this capacity from childhood, just like people who are fresh and gentle and cheerful have held on to those traits since childhood. I might have a misgiving that I am meandering in stopping to say this, but that it brings me to remark that I build these conclusions in part upon my own experience of myself and if it should appear from anything, I may set down in this narrative that I was a child of close observation, or that as a man I have a strong memory of my childhood. I undoubtedly lay claim to both of these characteristics. Looking back, as I was saying, into the blank of my infancy, the first object I can remember as standing out by themselves from a confusion of things are my mother and Peggy. What else do I remember? Let me see. There comes out of the cloud our house. Not new to me, but quite familiar in its earliest remembrance. On the ground floor is Peggy's kitchen, opening into a backyard with a pigeon house on a pole in the centre without any pigeons in it, a great dog kennel in a corner without any dog, and a quantity of fowls that look terribly tall to me, walking about in a menacing and ferocious manner. There is one cock who gets upon a post to crow and seems to take particular notice of me as I look at him through the kitchen window, who makes me shiver, he is so fierce of the geese outside the side gate who come waddling after me with their long necks stretched out. When I go that way, I dream at night as a man environed by wild beasts might dream of lions. Okay, so these geese and chickens and things in the yard were terrifying to him when he was young. Here is a long passage. What an enormous perspective I make of it, leading from Peggy's kitchen to the front door. A dark storeroom opens out of it and that is a place to be run past at night, for I don't know what may be among those tubs and jars and old tea chests when there is nobody in there, with a dimly burning light letting a mouldy air come out of the door in which there is the smell of soap, pickles, pepper, candles and coffee all at one whiff. Then there are the two parlours, the parlour in which we sit of an evening, my mother and I and Peggotty, for Peggotty is quite our companion when her work is done and we are alone, and the best parlour where we sit on a Sunday grandly but not so comfortably. There is something of a doleful air about that room to me, for Peggotty has told me I don't know when, but apparently ages agoabout my father's funeral and the company having their black cloaks put on one Sunday night my mother reads to Peggotty and me in there how Lazarus was raised up from the dead, and I am so frightened that they are afterwards obliged to take me out of bed and show me that the quiet churchyard out of the bedroom window with all the dead lying in their graves at rest below the solemn moon. There is nothing half so green that I know anywhere as the grass of that churchyard, nothing half so shady as its trees, nothing half so quiet as its tombstones. The sheep are feeding there. When I kneel up early in the morning in my little bed in a closet within my mother's room to look out at it and I see the red light shining on the sundial and think within myself is the sundial glad, I wonder that it can tell the time again. Here is our pew in the church, what a high backed pew with a window near it out of which our house can be seen and is seen many times during the morning service by Peggy, who likes to make herself as sure as she can that it's not being robbed or is not in flames. But though Peggotty's eye wanders, she is much offended if mine does, and frowns to me as I stand upon the seat that I am to look at the clergyman But I can't always look at him. I know him without the white thing on, and I am afraid of his wondering why I stare so, and perhaps stopping the service to inquire, and what am I to do? It's a dreadful thing to gape, but I must do something. I look at my mother, but she pretends not to see me. I look at a boy in the aisle and he makes faces at me. I look at the sunlight coming in at the open door through the porch, and there I see a stray sheep. I don't mean a sinner, but mutton. Okay, so he's making a joke, since the churchgoers could be called sheep of the flock. But he wants us to know that what he's looking at now is an actual sheep, an animal half making up his mind to come into the church. I feel that if I looked at him any longer I might be tempted to say something out loud and what would become of me then I look up at the monumental tablets on the wall and try to think of Mr. Bodgers, late of this parish, and what the feelings of Mrs. Bodgers must have been when afflictions soar. Long time Mr. Bodgers bore and physicians were in vain. He's looking at monuments of dead people and what's inscribed on them, and wondering about the people who are dead and their families. Families I wonder whether they called in Mr. Chillip and he was in vain, and if so, how he likes to be reminded of it once a week. So he's wondering if the physician he knows is the one who couldn't save the guy from the memorial tablet, and how that physician, Mr. Chillip, feels that his failure was memorialized in this way. I look from Mr. Chillip in his Sunday neckcloth to the pulpit and think what a good place it would be to play in, and what a castle it would make with another boy coming up the stairs to attack it and having the velvet cushion with the tassels thrown down on his head. In time my eyes gradually shut up, and from seeming to hear the clergyman singing a drowsy song in the heat I hear nothing until I fall off the seat with a crash and am taken out more dead than alive by Peggotty. And now I see the outside of our house with the latticed bedroom windows standing open to let in the sweet smelling air and the ragged old rook's nest still dangling in the elm trees at the bottom of the front garden. Now I am in the garden at the back, beyond the yard where the empty pigeon house and dog kennel are a very preserve of butterflies as I remember it, with a high fence and a gate and padlock where the fruit clusters on the trees riper and richer than fruit has ever been since in any other garden and where my mother gathers some in a basket while I stand by bolting furtive gooseberries and trying to look unmoved, meaning he's sneaking some gooseberries to eat and trying to look innocent. A great wind rises and the summer is gone in a moment. We are playing in the winter twilight, dancing about the parlor when my mother is out of breath and rests herself in an elbow chair. I watch her winding her bright curls round her fingers and straightening her waist, and nobody knows better than I do that she likes to look so well and is proud of being so pretty. That is among my very earliest impressions. That, and a sense that we were both a little afraid of Peggotty and submitted ourselves in most things to her direction were among the first opinions, if they may be so called, that I ever derived from what I saw. Peggotty and I were sitting one night by the parlor fire alone. I had been reading to Peggy about crocodiles. I must have read very perspiciously, meaning clearly and precisely, or the poor soul must have been deeply interested, for I remember she had a cloudy impression after I had done that they were a sort of vegetable. I was tired of reading and dead sleepy but having leave as a high treat to sit up until my mother came home from spending the evening at a neighbor's. I would rather have died upon my post, of course, than have gone to bed. I had reached that stage of sleepiness when Peggy seemed to swell and grow immensely large. I propped my eyelids open with my two forefingers and looked perseveringly at her as she sat at her work at the little bit of wax candle she kept for her thread. How old it looked, being so wrinkled in all directions. At the little house with the thatched roof where the yard measure lived, at her workbox with a sliding lid with A view of St. Paul's Cathedral with a pink dome painted on the top at the brass thimble on her finger at herself whom I thought lovely, I felt so sleepy that I knew if I lost sight of anything for a moment I was done. Peggotty says I suddenly, were you ever married? Lord Master Davy, replied Peggotty. What's put marriage in your head? She answered with such a start that it quite awoke me. And then she stopped in her work and looked at me with her needle drawn out to its thread's. Length. But were you ever married, Peggotty? Says I. You are a very handsome woman, ain't you? I thought her in a different style from my mother, certainly, but of another school of beauty. I considered her a perfect example. There was a red velvet footstool in the best parlor on which my mother had painted a nosegay, meaning a little bouquet of flowers. The groundwork of that stool and Peggy's complexion appeared to me to be one and the same thing. The stool was smooth and Peggy was rough, but that made no difference. Me handsome Davy, said Peggy, look. 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? You may, says Peggotty, if you choose, my dear. That's a matter of opinion. But what is your opinion, Peggotty? Said I. I asked her and looked curiously at her because she looked so curiously at me. My opinion is, said Peggotty, taking her eyes from me after a little indecision and going on with her work, that I never was married myself, Master Davie, and that I don't expect to be. That's all I know about the subject. You ain't cross, I suppose, Peggotty, are you? Said I, after sitting quiet for a minute. I really thought she was. She had been so short with me. But I was quite mistaken, for she laid aside her work, which was a stocking of her own, and opened her arms wide, took my curly head within them, and gave it a good squeeze. I know it was a good squeeze because, being very plump, whenever she made any little exertion after she was dressed, some of the buttons on the back of her gown flew off, and I recollect two bursting to the opposite side of the parlor while she was hugging me. Now let me hear some more about the Croakendills, said Peggy, who was not quite right in the name yet, for I haven't heard half enough. I couldn't quite understand why Peggy looked so queer, or why she was so ready to go back to the crocodiles. However, we returned to those monsters with fresh wakefulness on my part, and we left their eggs in the sand for the sun to hatch, and we ran away from them and baffled them by constantly turning, which they were unable to do quickly on account of their unwieldy make and we went into the water after them as natives and put sharp pieces of timber down their throats and in short, we ran the whole crocodile gauntlet. I did at least, but I had my doubts of Peggotty, who was thoughtfully sticking her needle into various parts of her face and arms all the time. We had exhausted the crocodiles and begun with the alligators when the garden bell rang, we went out to the door and there was my mother. Her looking unusually pretty, I thought, and with her a gentleman with beautiful black hair and whiskers who had walked home with us from church last Sunday. As my mother stooped down on the threshold to take me in her arms and kiss me, the gentleman said I was a more highly privileged little fellow than a monarch, or something like that. For my later understanding comes I am sensible to my aid here. What does that mean? I asked him over her shoulder. He patted me on the head, but somehow I didn't like him or his deep voice and I was jealous that his hand should touch my mother's in touching me, which it did, I put it away as well as I could. Oh, Davy. Remonstrated my mother. Dear boy, said the gentleman. I cannot wonder at his devotion. I never saw such a beautiful color on my mother's face before. She gently chid me for being rude, meaning she scolded him and keeping me close to her shawl, turned to thank the gentleman for taking so much trouble as to bring her home. She put out her hand to him as she spoke and as he met it with his own, she glanced, I thought, at me. Let us say good night, my fine boy, said the gentleman. When he had bent his head, I saw him over my mother's little glove. Good night, said I. Come, let us be the best friends in the world, said the gentleman, laughing. Shake hands. My right hand was in my mother's left, so I gave him the other. Why, that's the wrong hand, Davy, laughed the gentleman. My mother drew my right hand forward but I was resolved for my former reason not to give it him and I did not. I gave him the other, and he shook it heartily and said I was a brave fellow and went away. At this minute I see him turn round in the garden and give us a last look with his ill omened black eyes before the door was shut. Peggotty, who had not said a word or moved a finger, secured the fastenings instantly and we all went into the parlour. My mother, contrary to her usual habit, instead of coming to the elbow chair by the fire, remained at the other end of the room and sat singing to herself. Hope you had a pleasant evening, ma', am, said Peggotty, standing as stiff as a barrel in the centre of the room with a candlestick in her hand. Much obliged to you, Peggotty, returned my mother in a cheerful voice. I have had a very pleasant evening. A stranger or so makes an agreeable change, suggested Peggotty. A very agreeable change indeed, returned my mother, Peggotty continuing to stand motionless in the middle of the room, and my mother resuming her singing. I fell asleep, though I was not so sound asleep, but that I could hear voices without hearing what they said. 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, she's saying she's not really a girl, she's a woman and she can make her own decisions. God knows you have, ma', am, returned Peggotty. Then how can you dare? Said my mother. You know I don't mean how can you dare, Paggotty. But how can you have the heart to make me so uncomfortable and say such better things to me when you are well aware that I haven't out of this place a single friend to turn to? The more's the reason, returned Peggotty, for saying that it won't do no, that it won't do, no. No price could make it do, no. I thought Peggotty would have thrown the candlestick away, she was so emphatic with it. How can you be so aggravating? Said my mother, shedding more tears than before, as to talk in such an unjust manner. How can you go on as if it was all settled and arranged? Peggotty, when I tell you over and over again, you cruel thing, that beyond the commonest civilities nothing is past you talk of admiration. What am I to do if people are so silly as to indulge the sentiment? Is it my fault? What am I to do? I ask you, would you wish me to shave my head and black my face or disfigure myself with a burn or a scald or something of that sort? I dare say you would, Baggarty. I dare say you'd quite enjoy it so Peggy is saying she doesn't want the mother to marry this gentleman who walked her home and the mother is saying she can't help it if he admires her. She hasn't agreed to anything. Peggotty seemed to take this aspersion very much to heart, I thought. And my dear boy. Cried my mother, coming to the elbow chair in which I was and caressing me my own little Davie. Is it to be hinted to me that I am wanting an affection for my precious treasure, that dearest little fellow that ever was. Nobody never went and hinted no such a thing, said Peggotty. You did, Peggotty, returned my mother. You know you did. What else was it possible to infer from what you said, you unkind creature? When you know as well as I do that on his account only last quarter I wouldn't buy myself a new parasol though that old green one is frayed the whole way up and the fringe is perfectly mangy. You know it is, Peggotty, you can't deny it. Then, turning affectionately to me with her cheek against mine. Am I a naughty mama to you, Davie? 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 heartbroken 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 for a little volley of those explosives went off. When, after having made it up with my mother, she kneeled down by the elbow chair and made it up with me. We went to bed greatly dejected. My sobs kept waking me for a long time and when one very strong sob quite hoisted me up in bed, I found my mother sitting on the coverlet and leaning over me. I fell asleep in her arms after that and slept soundly. Whether it was the following Sunday when I saw the gentleman again or whether there was any greater lapse of time before he reappeared, I cannot recall. I don't profess to be clear about dates, but there he was in church and he walked home with us. Afterwards he came in too to look at a famous geranium we had in the parlor window. It did not appear to me that he took much notice of it. But before we went, he asked my mother to give him a bit of the blossom. She begged him to choose it for himself but he refused to do that. I could not understand why. So she plucked it for him and gave it into his hand. He said he would never, never part with it any more and I thought he must be quite a fool not to know that it would fall to pieces in a day or two. Peggotty began to be less with us of an evening than she had always been. My mother deferred to her very much more than usual, it occurred to me, and we were all three excellent friends. Still, we were different from what we used to be and were not so comfortable among ourselves. Sometimes I fancied that Peggotty perhaps objected to my mother's wearing all the pretty dresses she had in her drawer doors or to her going so often to visit that neighbor's. But I couldn't to my satisfaction make out how it was. Gradually I became used to seeing the gentleman with the black whiskers. I liked him no better than at first and had the same uneasy jealousy of him. But if I had any reason for it beyond a child's instinctive dislike and a general idea that Peggotty and I could make much of my mother without any help, it certainly was not. Not the reason that I might have found if I had been older no such thing came into my mind or near it I could observe in little pieces, as it were. But as to making a net of a number of these pieces and catching anybody in it, that was as yet beyond me. Meaning he didn't know why he didn't like this man. He just didn't like him. He sees that had he been older he would have disliked him because he is obviously courting the mother. But that didn't occur to him. Then one autumn morning I was with my mother in the front garden when Mr. Murdstone, I knew him by that name now came by on horseback. He reined up his horse to salute my mother and said he was going to Lowestoft to see some friends who were there with a yacht and merrily proposed to take me on the saddle before him if I would like the ride. The air was so clear and pleasant and the horse seemed to like the idea of the ride so much himself as he spoke, stood snorting and pawing at the garden gate that I had a great desire to go. So I was sent upstairs to Peggotty to be made spruce. And in the meantime Mr. Murdstone dismounted and with his horse's bridle drawn over his arm, walked slowly up and down on the outer side of the sweet briar fence while my mother walked slowly up and down on the inner to keep him company. I recollect Peggotty and I peeping out at them from my little window. I recollect how closely they seemed to be examining the sweetbriar between them them as they strolled along, and how, from being in a perfectly angelic temper, Peggotty turned cross in a moment and brushed my hair the wrong way, excessively hard. Mr. Murdstone and I were soon off and trotting along on the green turf by the side of the road. He held me quite easily with one arm, and I don't think I was restless usually, but I could not make up my mind to sit in front of him without turning my head sometimes and looking up in his face. He had that kind of shallow black eye. I want a better word to express an eye that has no depth in it to be looked into, which, when it is abstracted, seems from some peculiarity of light to be disfigured for a moment at a time by a cast. Several times when I glanced at him I observed that appearance with a sort of awe and wondered what he was thinking about so closely. His hair and whiskers were blacker and thicker looked at so near than even I had given them credit for being. A squareness about the lower part of his face and the dotted indication of the strong black beard he shaved close every day reminded me of the waxwork that had travelled into our neighbourhood some half a year before this. His regular eyebrows and the rich white and black and brown of his complexion confound his complexion, and his memory made me think him, in spite of my misgivings, a very handsome man. I have no doubt that my poor dear mother thought him so too. We went to an hotel by the sea where two gentlemen were smoking cigars in a room by themselves. Each of them was lying on at least four chairs and had a large rough jacket on. In a corner was a heap of coats and boat cloaks and a flag all bundled up together. They both rolled onto their feet in an untidy sort of manner when we came in and said, hulloa Murdstone, we thought you were dead. Not yet, said Mr. Murdstone. Then who's this? Shaver? Said one of the gentlemen, taking hold of me. That's Davy, returned Mr. Murdstone. Davy who? Said the gentleman. Jones Copperfield, said Mr. Murdstone. What bewitching Mrs. Copperfield's encumbrance, said the gentleman, the pretty little widow. Meaning is he trying to get in good with the kid to get to the mom? Quinion, said Mr. Murdstone. Take care, if you please. Somebody's sharp. Meaning Davy might pick up on what they're saying. Who is? Asked the gentleman, laughing. I looked up quickly, being curious to know. Only Brooks of Sheffield, said Mr. Murdstone. I was quite relieved to find that it was only Brooks of Sheffield, for at first I really thought it was I, so it was him. But now he thinks it's not, because Mr. Murdstone joked that it was Brooks of Sheffield who's just like a random person. There seemed to be something very comical in the reputation of Mr. Brooks of Sheffield, for both the gentlemen laughed heartily when he was mentioned and Mr. Murdstone was a good deal amused also. After some laughing, the gentleman, whom he had called Quinion, said, and what was the opinion of Brooks of Sheffield in reference to the projected business? Meaning what does Davy Think of Mr. Murdstone marrying the mother? Why, I don't know that Brooks understands much about it at present, replied Mr. Murdstone, but he is not generally favourable, I believe. There was more laughter at this, and Mr. Quinion said he would ring the bell for some sherry in which to drink to Brooks. This he did, and when the wine came he made me have a little with a biscuit and before I drank it, stand up and say confusion to Brooks of Sheffield. The toast was received with great applause and such hearty laughter that it made me laugh too, at which they laughed the more. In short, we quite enjoyed ourselves. We walked about on the cliff after that and sat on the grass and looked at things through a telescope. I could make out nothing myself when it was put to my eye, but I pretended I could. And then we came back to the hotel to an early dinner. All the time we were out the two gentlemen smoked incessantly, which I thought, if I might judge from the smell of their rough coats, they must have been doing ever since the coats had first come home from the tailors. I must not forget that we went on board the yacht where they all three descended into the cabin and were busy with some papers. I saw them quite hard at work when I looked down through the open skylight. They left me during this time with a very nice man with a very large head of red hair and a very small shiny hat upon it, who had got a cross barred shirt or waistcoat on with skylark in capital letters across the chest. I thought it was his name. And that as he lived on board ship. And hadn't a street door to put his name on. He put it there instead. But when I called him Mr. Skylark, he said it meant the vessel. I observed all day that Mr. Murdstone was graver and steadier than the two gentlemen. They were very gay and careless. They joked freely with one another, but seldom with him. It appeared to me that he was more clever and cold than they were. And that they regarded him with something of my own feeling. I remarked that once or twice when Mr. Quinion was talking. He looked at Mr. Murdstone sideways. As if to make sure of his not being displeased. And that once, when Mr. Passenage was in high spirits. He trod upon his foot. And gave him a secret caution with his eyes. To observe Mr. Murdstone. Who was sitting stern and silent. Nor do I recollect that Mr. Murdstone laughed at all that day. Except at the Sheffield joke. And that, by the by, was his own. We went home early in the evening. It was a very fine evening. And my mother and he had another stroll by the Sweetbriar. While I was sent in to get my tea. When he was gone, my mother asked me all about the day I had had had. And what they had said and done. I mentioned what they had said about her, and she laughed and told me they were impudent fellows who talked nonsense. But I knew it pleased her. I knew it quite as well as I know it now. I took the opportunity of asking if she was at all acquainted with Mr. Brooks of Sheffield. But she answered no. Only she supposed he must be a manufacturer in the knife and fork way. Can I say of her face altered, as I have reason to remember, it perished, as I know it is, that it is gone. When here it comes before me at this instant. As distinct as any face that I may choose to look on in a crowded street. Can I say of her innocent and girlish beauty. That it faded and was no more. When its breath falls on my cheek now as it fell that night. Can I say she ever changed. When my remembrance brings her back to life thus only and truer to its loving youth than I have been or man ever is, still holds fast what it cherished. Then I write of her just as she was. When I had gone to bed after this talk. And she came to bid me good night. She kneeled down playfully by the side of the bed. And laying her chin upon her hands and laughing, said, what was it they said? Davie, tell me again. I can't believe it. Bewitching, I began. My mother put her hands upon my lips to stop me. It never was bewitching, she said, laughing. It never could have been bewitching, Davie. Now I know it wasn't. Yes, it was bewitching, Mrs. Copperfield, I repeated stoutly. And pretty. No, no, it was never pretty. Not pretty, interposed my mother, laying her fingers on my lips again. Yes, it was pretty. Little widow. What foolish, impudent creatures. Cried my mother, laughing and covering her face. What ridiculous men, ain't they, Davy? Davie dear. Well, Ma, don't tell Paggetty. She might be angry with them. I am dreadfully angry with them myself, but I would rather Paggetty didn't know I promised, of course, and we kissed one another over and over again, and I soon fell fast asleep. Sleep. It seems to me at this distance of time as if it were the next day when Peggotty broached the striking and adventurous proposition I am about to mention. But it was probably about two months afterwards. We were sitting as before one evening when my mother was out as before, in company with the stocking and the yard measure and the bit of wax and the box with St. Paul's on the lid and the crocodile book, when Peggotty, after looking at me several times and opening her mouth as if she were going to speak without doing it, which I thought was merely gaping, or I should have been rather alarmed, said coaxingly, master Davie, how should you like to go along with me and spend a fortnight at my brother's at Yarmouth? Wouldn't that be a treat? Is your brother an agreeable man, Peggotty? I inquired provisionally. Oh, what an agreeable man he is. Cried Peggotty, holding up her hands. Then there's the sea and the boats and ships and the fishermen and the beach and am to play with. Peggotty meant her nephew Ham, mentioned in my first chapter, but she spoke of him as a morsel of English grammar, meaning when Peggotty says ham, it comes out am. I was flushed by her summary of delights and replied that it would indeed be a treat. But what would my mother say? Well, then, all is good as Bagginy, said Peggotty, intent upon my face, that she'll let us go. I'll ask her, if you like, as soon as ever she comes home. There now. But what's she to do while we're away? Said I, putting my small elbows on the table to argue the point she can't live by herself. If Peggotty was 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, meaning she's purposely not meeting his eye. I say, Peggy, she can't live by herself, you know. Oh, bless you, said Peggotty, looking at me again at last. Don't you know she's going to stay for a fortnight with Mrs. Graper? Mrs. Graper's going to have a lot of company. Oh, if that was it, I was quite ready to go. I waited in the utmost impatience until my mother came home from Mrs. Grayburst, for it was that identical neighbor to ascertain if we could get leave to carry out this great idea without being nearly so much surprised. As I had expected, my mother entered into it readily and it was all arranged that night, and my board and lodging during the visit were to be paid for the day soon came for our going. It was such an early day that it came soon even to me, who was in a fever of expectation and half afraid that an earthquake or a fiery mountain or some other great convulsion of nature might interpose to stop the expect expedition. We were to go in a carrier cart which departed in the morning after breakfast. I would have given any money to have been allowed to wrap myself up over night and sleep in my hat and boots. It touches me nearly now, although I tell it lightly to recollect how eager I was to leave my happy home, to think how little I suspected what I did leave forever. I am glad to recollect that when the carrier's cart was at the gate and and my mother stood there kissing me, a grateful fondness for her and for the old place I had never turned my back upon before made me cry. I am glad to know that my mother cried too, and that I felt her heart beat against mine. I am glad to recollect that when the carrier began to move, my mother ran out at the gate and called to him to stop, that she might kiss me once more. I am glad to dwell upon the earnestness and love with which she lifted up her face to mine and did so as we left her standing in the road. Mr. Murdstone came up to where she was and seemed to expostulate with her for being so moved, meaning he seemed to feel like she shouldn't be this upset. I was looking back round the awning of the cart and wondered what business it was of his Peggotty, who was also looking back on the other side, seemed anything but satisfied, as the face she brought back in the cart denoted. I sat looking at Peggotty for some time in a reverie on this supposititious case, whether if she were employed to lose me like the boy in the fairy tale, I should be able to track my way home again by the buttons she would shed. Thank you so much for listening. I'd love to know what you thought of the chapters. Is there anything you'd like me to clarify? Did something particularly interest you? Please go to my website faith kmore.com click on contact and send me your questions and thoughts. Or you can click on the link in the Show Notes to contact me. I'll feature one or two of your entries at the start of the next episode. Speaking of links, don't forget to take a look at the other links in the Show Notes. You can learn more about me, check out our Merch store, or become a member of the Storytime for Grown Ups online community. Before I go, I'd like to ask a quick favor. This is an independent podcast. It's produced, recorded and marketed by me, so I need your help. Spread the word about the show by posting about it on social media or texting a link to your friends. Subscribe, tap those five stars and leave a positive review wherever you're listening. If you are able to support the show financially, there's a link in the Show Notes to make a donation. I would really, really appreciate it. Alright everyone, story time is over. To be continued.