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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. Hello. Welcome back. I want to say a big thank you to everyone who came to Tea Time on Tuesday. It was another really fun chat. I was saying this to the people that were there, but it was. The time really always just flies right by. You know, sometimes I start and I'm talking to you and I'm thinking, oh, are we gonna have enough to talk about? And then whoosh. It's nine o' clock already and the hour has flown by. So I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who was there and who was chatting with me. And I really appreciate that you're supporting the show in that way. So thank you for coming to Tea Time on Tuesday. It was lovely, as always. If you would like to join for the next tea time and you're not yet a member of the Drawing Room, which is our online community, you can scroll into the show notes and CL the link that's there. You can learn more about the various membership tiers that we have and you can sign up if you would like to. I hope that you will. I'm always so happy to chat with my friends over there and I love to check in on the Drawing room in general and just see what people are talking about. There's always new comments every time I check, so it's very active over there. So if you're looking for some new friends to chat with about David Copperfield or any of the other books that we've read on storytime or books in general or Life. It's the drawing room of our lovely Victorian mansion. The podcast itself is the main room and then we get to withdraw to the withdrawing room like fancy Victorian ladies and gentlemen, and keep on talking about these books if we want to. So I hope that you'll join us over there. It was really, really fun. So thank you for being there for Tea Time. Okay, but now we are back in the main room. It's time to get back to our friend David, David Copperfield, and see what he's been up to. So just all the usual reminders, please make sure that you're subscribed to the show. That way you won't miss any episodes. Please make sure that you have tapped the five stars if you're enjoying the show. If you have a couple of extra seconds and you're enjoying the show, please leave a positive review wherever you're listening inside your podcast player. And most importantly of all, please tell someone else about this show. Tell a friend, a family member, a colleague, somebody on the street, anybody at all. Really, please tell about this show. And let's get more people listening because the more the merrier. The more people talking about classic books with each other and listening to these books and feeling all the feelings that come with these books, the better the world is going to be. So please be a part of that by sharing this show. You're already a part of it by listening. So thank you so much for being here and for supporting the show in all the various ways that you do. I really, really appreciate it. I'm so lucky to get to do this. I absolutely love reading these books with you. I love reading aloud, I love doing the voices, and I absolutely just love getting your emails and your comments and talking to you about this book. So thank you for being a part of that in all the various ways that you are. Okay, so today we're going to be reading chapter 23. Last time we read chapter 22, a lot went on. It was a long chapter and various things happened. So we have to talk about that and then we'll get to the chapter. But first, let's just remind ourselves of what happened in chapter 22. Here is the recap. Okay, so where we left off, David and Steerforth stay for a few weeks in Yarmouth, and David takes the opportunity to visit the places he remembers from his childhood and the grave of his parents and his brother. Steerforth spends his time going out on boats and hanging out with Mr. Peggy and generally sort of amusing himself. Eventually, it's about time for them to leave. The night before they are due to depart, David finds Steerforth alone in the Peggy's house, staring into the fire. He seems upset about something and he says that he wishes he'd had a good father to guide him. But when David tries him to confide in him, Steerforth reverts to his kind of carefree demeanor and says it was nothing. Steerforth says that he's bought a boat that is ostensibly his, but he's going to let Mr. Peggy captain it while he's gone, and he's going to name it the Little Emily. As they're walking back to the inn, they meet Ham and Little Emily, but as they're leaving, David and Steerforth catch sight of a person who seems like a beggar woman following after them. Back at the inn, they find Steerforth's servant, Littimer, who has come from London with a letter from Steerforth's mother. And he tells him that someone named Ms. Moucher is there. Ste. Steerforth says to let her in. Ms. Moucher is a dwarf who is a kind of hairdresser or beautician, and she cuts Steerforth's hair while gossiping about all the clients that she has. David finds her sort of overwhelming and refuses to have his hair cut as well. After she leaves, David goes back to Peggy's house where he finds Ham walking up and down, and Ham tells him that Emily is inside with the woman that they saw on the road, who is a girl named Martha that Emily knew at school. Martha has fallen on hard times and, it's implied, has perhaps resorted to prostitution. Mr. Peggy refuses to see Mar, but Emily insisted on helping her and brought along all the money that she has. Ham and Davey go in and they find Martha sobbing by the table. Ham gives Emily his own money and Emily gives that to Martha, who leaves saying she's gonna go to London. Emily says she wishes she could be more grateful, and she leaves, clinging on to Ham. Okay, I'm gonna read 3 comments today. The first one comes from Jenny Achutan. She says, oh, my. Steerforth is addicted to his own amusement and novelty. What is he trying to hush with all of this obsession, I wonder. The next one comes from the Drawing Room, our online community. And this person goes by the handle arymm. She says it's interesting that in this chapter, both Emily and Steerforth seem moodily reflective about their shortcomings. And the last one comes from John. He says the whole scene with Ms. Moucher felt so jarring. What is she even doing there? I don't mean literally, obviously, she's cutting hair. I mean, why did Dickens put her in the book? Okay, yes, There's a lot going on in chapter 22. And there's a way in which it all seems sort of disjointed. We've got David sort of wandering around his old neighborhood trying to figure out what he wants to be when he grows up. We've got Steerforth apparently kind of partying it up with all the fishermen, but then brooding alone about some unspecified issue later on. We've got this long extended sequence with Ms. Moucher, the hairdresser. And then we've got this thing with Emily and this wayward woman, Martha. And. And it's not that we have to draw a through line here or anything. It can be a chapter full of isolated events if it wants to. But I do think that there are a few things going on here that might be worth noting and worth kind of drawing together out of this seemingly sort of all over the place chapter. So one thing that I think is worth noting is the comparison that we get in this chapter between David and Steerforth. We're told that David, during their stay in Yarmouth, they spend a lot of time apart because David keeps going over to Blunderstone, where he used to live, on a sort of nostalgia tour. You know, he has the impulse, which is very common in creative people, I think, to try to sort of commune with the person that he once was and the places that he once lived and to kind of soak up that beautiful ache of times gone by that can never really be fully recaptured in all of this. And I think this is all part of David's creative dreaminess that we've talked about before. And I love this description of David by his mother's grave. It says, my reflections at these times were always associated with the figure I was to make in life and the distinguished things I was to do. My echoing footsteps went to no other tune, but were as constant to that as if I had come home to build my castles in the air at a living mother's side. I mean, it's so poignant, isn't it? And so lovely, really. And it's lovely that he's essentially coming back to his mother to try to figure out what he wants to be. But he realizes, too, that he's actually doing really well. You know, he misses his mother, but he's found a second mother in his aunt. He still has Peggotty as well. He is well and truly out of the awful Murdstone and Grinby time. And actually, he's sort of made it. He's doing really great, and he knows it. And he's grateful, right? He says, when I went to my neat room at night. So he's talking about his room at Peggotty's house and turning over the leaves of the crocodile book, which was always there upon a little table, remembered with a grateful heart how blessed I was in having such a friend as Steerforth, such a friend as Peggy, and such a substitute for what I had lost as my excellent and generous aunt. And I know that we aren't so sure about his friendship with Steerforth, but the point here is that he has come out the dark times into Good times, and he knows it. He's not taking anything for granted. He's grateful for what he has. And because of this, he wants to do right by the people who have loved and cared for him. He wants to pay Miss Betsy back for everything she's done for him by making something of himself now that he's grown up. So even though he's dreamy and creative, he's also responsible and loyal as well. And with the possible exception of Steerforth, the people he has surrounded himself with in the time since he found his way to Miss Betsy are good, loyal people as well. You know, we learn that Peggy has been keeping David's mother's grave neat and tidy all this time. He says he's talking about the grave, he says the grave which Peggy's own faithful care had ever since kept neat and made a garden of, which is really touching, I think. And Peggy has kept his room for him all of his time and his crocodile book. She's intensely loyal to David and clearly a good and loving person. Mr. Peggotty and Ham are both excellent friends to David. Ham is utterly devoted to little Emily, which speaks well of him. Mr. Peggotty is also utterly devoted to little Emily and Ham as well, which speaks well of him. And you know that Both Ham and Mr. Peggotty would help David out in a moment if he needed them. Miss Betsy is obviously an excellent caregiver and mother figure for David. There's also Agnes, who David has talked about being his angel, and Mr. Wickfield, who took good care of him as he was growing up. So the important people in David's life, again, possibly accepting Steerforth, are good, loyal, responsible people. And David himself is also a good, loyal, responsible person who is earnestly thinking about what his next steps in life are going to be and trying to make sure that he won't let any of these good, loyal people down. So compare all of this to Steerforth. Steerforth is ostensibly studying at Oxford, but he doesn't actually seem to be doing much on that front. He's having to run off with David to Yarmouth. And while David is communing with his past past and earnestly trying to plan out the next phase of his life, Steerforth is off partying essentially with the fishermen. You know, here's what David says. Thus it came about that I heard of his making little treats for the fishermen at Mr. Peggotty's House of call, the Willing Mind, meaning The pub that Mr. Peggotty goes to. So Steerforth is like paying for another round of drinks. For everybody after I was in bed. And of his being afloat, wrapped in fisherman's clothes, whole moonlit nights and coming back when the morning tide was at flood. Now, there's nothing wrong with this. Exactly. And there's a way in which it's all part of Steerforth's charm. He fits in with whoever he's with. He's always up for an adventure. He's the guy you call when you want to have a night out on the town at a moment's notice or whatever. So, again, nothing inherently wrong with that, but when you compare it to David and his soul searching and his gratitude and his desire to be the best that he could be in all of this, and it doesn't really measure up. It feels sort of frivolous. And then there's Ms. Moucher. Now, I kind of agree with John here. I could probably have done without this whole scene with Ms. Moucher. It goes on forever. Nothing really happens in it. It's kind of over the top and sort of unrelated to anything else. But one thing it does do is it gives us a sense of the kind of people that amuse Steerforth or the kind of people he associates with. And again, there's nothing wrong with Ms. Moucher. She's kind of feisty, she's gossipy, she's funny, but she's also a little bit crass. She's over the top. She is kind of performative. You don't get the sense that she actually cares very much about Steerforth or David one way or the other. They're just customers to her, and that's fine. And what Steerforth clearly likes about her is the novelty of her. The way that she's always got something to tell him about the secrets of high society people, the way she teases him and jokes with him, the fact that she's a dwarf and therefore does things like stand on tables and everything. And I mean, compare Ms. Moucher to Peggy or Mr. Peggotty or Ham. When you do that, she begins to seem like a pretty superficial kind of person. And Steerforth's interest in her is clearly superficial as well, as is his interest in the various fishermen that he's hanging out with down at the pub and pretty much everything he's experiencing in Yarmouth. And to Jenny's point, that Steerforth is addicted to novelty, perhaps because there's some deeper, darker thing that he's trying to drown out. I think that's very astute, because he clearly is addicted to novelty. He often actively avoids anything that feels too deep or Too meaningful. And he's always looking for the next thing to do, the next amusement to try. But then we get this scene by the fireplace at Mr. Peggotty's house, in which suddenly it seems like all that artifice is drawn away and we get a glimpse of some real emotion from Steerforth. Here's what he says. Steerforth says, david, I wish to God I had had a judicious father these last 20 years. I wish with all my soul I had been better guided. I wish with all my soul I could guide myself better. Which is really interesting, I think, because clearly he's grappling with something, some decision he needs to make or something like that. And he wishes he had had a father figure to teach him right from wrong or whatever. But simply the fact that he wishes he could guide himself better implies that he actually knows right from wrong already. And he' talking to a person, David, who also didn't have a father figure and who, as we've just been discussing, turned out great and does know right from wrong. So whatever Steerforth is grappling with is clearly something in which his conscience is involved, something where, if he had someone in his life whose opinion he really valued and who he wanted to make proud, he would know what to do. But this way he has of just snatching at each amusement as it comes. It seems to be the prevailing influence in him, even though, as we learn in this chapter, he does seem to know that it's not the best way to live his life. And he's not actually as content with himself as he seems. He says, I told you at the inn in London, I am heavy company for myself sometimes. But then almost immediately, he sort of snaps back into his old carefree attitude, except now we know that it's a front in a way, that there's something deeper and potentially darker under there. And I think just to bring this whole comparison of David and Steerforth home, we get this comment that David makes to Steerforth where he says, I know how ardent you are in any pursuit you follow and how easily you can master it. And that amazes me most in you, Steerforth, that you should be contented with such fitful uses of your powers. And, I mean, this is entirely true. Steerforth has incredible talents. He's smart, he learns things easily, he gets along with everyone. He's a really impressive person. But essentially, he's wasting all of that on these trifles, these little amusing jaunts and adventures. And David, who is trying to set the course of his life and is very much Invested in getting it right. He can't figure out why Steerforth wouldn't just apply himself to some worthy pursuit. But that's the difference between them. Steerforth is chasing novelty and excitement, whereas David is chasing stability and honor and love. But Mary is right in her letter that it's not just Deerforth who is kind of moodily examining his own attitudes. It's little Emily as well. And it's interesting and sort of odd that Dickens seemingly randomly introduces this character of Martha, this wayward woman who may or may not even be a prostitute. And the thing that Martha says to Emily is, emily, Emily, for Christ's sake, have a woman's heart towards me. I was once like you. I. I was once like you. Presumably meaning that she was once an upstanding, innocent girl, but somehow she fell low and became what she is now. And Mr. Peggotty, who is usually kind and generous to people in need, he can't bear to have Martha near Emily. Because here's what Ham says about this. He says he couldn't, kind natured, tender hearted as he is, see them two together side by side for all the treasures that's wrecked in the sea. So there's this weird comparison going on between Emily and Martha. Martha compares herself to Emily, and Mr. Peggotty is comparing Emily to Martha as well, in a way which is strange, I think, since obviously Emily is not at all what Martha is, and she's engaged to a good man and she's got a good job and all of this. But it's in this whole interaction with Martha and Emily's generous impulse to help her and to give her money to run away to London. It's here that Emily begins to talk about how she herself isn't as good a girl as she ought to be. Which again, is weird, since compared to Martha, she clearly is a good girl and she's doing something really generous here and nothing bad has happened. So why is Emily upset? But it seems to be the fact that Ham is being generous to Martha for Emily's sake that is causing Emily to feel this way. It seems to be the fact that Emily doesn't actually feel feel for Ham what Ham feels for Emily. She says, I'm often cross to you and changeable with you, when I ought to be far different. You are never so to me. Why am I ever so to you when I should think of nothing but how to be grateful and to make you happy? And then later she says, oh, my dear, it might have been a better fortune for you if you had been Fond of someone else, of someone steadier and much worthier than me, who was all bound up in you and never vain and changeable like me. But it's all very odd because she's not actually doing anything that would warrant this self recrimination as far as we can tell. But it seems to be about her inner feelings rather than what she's doing on the outside. It seems that she feels bad for not loving Ham as much as she should, which begs the question, why is she marrying him if she doesn't love him? So all of this is kind of a mystery. But what we do know, I think, is that Emily is unhappy with herself in some way, Steerforth is unhappy with himself in some way, and David is sort of innocently assuming that everything is going to be fine. So will it be fine or not? Well, there is only one way to find out and that is to keep reading. So we're going to do that now. But of course, as always, don't forget to write in it's faith k.moore.com and then you click on the link that says contact. Or you can scroll into the show notes and click the link that's there. I always love to hear from you. You're never bothering me. So please do write in with all your questions and comments and thoughts about this chapter. All right, let's get started with chapter 23 of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. It's story time. Chapter 23. I corroborate Mr. Dick and choose a profession. When I awoke in the morning, I thought very much of little Emily and her emotion Last night after Martha had left. I felt as if I had come into the knowledge of those domestic weaknesses and tendernesses in a sacred confidence, and that to disclose them even to Steerforth, would be wrong. I had no gentler feeling towards any one than towards the pretty creature who had been my playmate and whom I have always been persuaded and shall always be persuaded. Persuaded to my dying day. I then devotedly loved the repetition to any ears, even to Steerforths, of what she had been unable to repress when her heart lay open to me by an accident I felt would be a rough deed unworthy of myself, unworthy of the light of our pure childhood which I always saw encircling her head. I made a resolution, therefore, to keep it in my own breast, and there it gave her image a new grace. While we were at breakfast, a letter was delivered to me from my aunt, as it contained matter on which I thought Steerforth could advise me as well as any One, and on which I knew I should be delighted to consult him. I resolved to make it a subject of discussion on our journey home. For the present, we had enough to do in taking leave of all our friends. Mr. Barkis was far from being the last among them in his regret at our departure, and and, I believe, would even have opened the box again and sacrificed another guinea if it would have kept us 8 and 40 hours in Yarmouth. Peggotty and all her family were full of grief at our going. The whole house of Omer and Joram turned out to bid us good bye. And there were so many seafaring volunteers in attendance on Steerforth when our portmanteau went to the coach, that if we had had the baggage of a regiment with us, we should hardly have wanted porters to carry it. In a word, we departed to the regret and admiration of all concerned and left a great many people very sorry behind us. Do you stay long here, Littimer? Said I, as he stood waiting to see the coach start. No, sir, he replied. Probably not very long, sir. He can hardly say just now, observed Steerforth carelessly. He knows what he has to do and he'll do it, that I am sure he will, said I. Littimer touched his hat in acknowledgment of my good opinion, and I felt about eight years old. He touched it once more, wishing us a good journey, and we left him standing on the pavement, as respectable a mystery as any pyramid in Egypt. For some little time we held no conversation, Steerforth being unusually silent and I being sufficiently engaged in wondering within myself when I should see the old places again and what new changes might happen to me or them in the meanwhile. At length, Steerforth, becoming gay and talkative in a moment as he could become anything he liked at any moment, pulled me by the arm. Find a voice, David. What about that letter you were speaking of at breakfast? Oh, said I, taking it out of my pocket, it's from my aunt. And what does she say? Requiring consideration. Why, she reminds me, Steerforth, said I, that I came out on this expedition to look about me and to think a little. Which, of course, you have done. Indeed, I can't say I have particularly. To tell you the truth, I am afraid I have forgotten it. Well, look about you now and make up for your negligence, said Steerforth. Look to the right and you'll see a flat country with a good deal of marsh in it. Look to the left and you'll see the same. Look to the front and you'll find no difference. Look to the rear, and there it is still. I laughed and replied that I saw no suitable profession in the whole prospect, which was perhaps to be attributed to its flatness. What says our aunt on the subject? Inquired Steerforth, glancing at the letter in my hand. Does she suggest anything? Why, yes, said I. She asks me here if I think I should like to be a proctor. A proctor is a kind of lawyer. What do you think of it? Well, I don't know, replied Steerforth coolly. You may as well do that as anything else, I suppose. I could not help laughing again at his balancing all callings and professions so equally, and I told him so. What is a proctor, Steerforth? Said I. Why, he is a sort of monkish attorney, replied Steerforth. He is to some faded courts held in Doctors Commons, a lazy old nook near St. Paul's churchyard, what solicitors are to the courts of law and equity. He is a functionary whose existence in the natural course of things would have terminated about 200 years ago. I can tell you best what he is by telling you what Doctors Commons is. It's a little out of the way place where they administer what is called ecclesiastical law and play all kinds of tricks with obsolete old monsters of acts of Parliament which three fourths of the world know nothing about and the other fourth supposes to have been dug up in a fossil state in the days of the Edwards. It's a place that has an ancient monopoly in suits about people's wills and people's marriages and disputes among ships and boats. Nonsense, Steerforth. I exclaimed. You don't mean to say that there is any affinity between nautical matters and ecclesiastical matters? I don't indeed, my dear boy, he returned. But I mean to say that they are managed and decided by the same set of people down in that same doctor's Commons. You shall go there one day and find them blundering through half the nautical terms in Young's Dictionary, apropos of the Nancy having run down the Sarah Jane, or Mr. Peggotty, and the Yarmouth boatman having put off in a gale of wind with an anchor and cable to the Nelson Indiaman in distress and you shall go there another day and find them deep in the evidence pro and con, respecting a clergyman who has misbehaved himself. And you shall find the judge in the nautical case, the advocate in the clergyman's case, or contrariwise, they are like actors. Now a man's a judge, and now he's not a judge. Now he's one thing, now he's another. Now he's Something else change and change about, but it's always a very pleasant, profitable little affair of private theatricals presented to an uncommonly select audience. But advocates and proctors are not one and the same, said I, a little puzzled. Are they? No, returned Steerforth. The advocates are civilians, men who have taken a doctor's degree at college, which is the first reason of my knowing anything about it. The proctors employ the advocates, both get very comfortable fees, and altogether they make a mighty snug little party on the whole. I would recommend you to take to Doctors Commons kindly, David. They plume themselves on their gentility there, I can tell you if that's any satisfaction. I made allowance for Steerforth's light way of treating the subject and considering it with reference to the staid air of gravity and intimacy. Antiquity, which I associated with that lazy old nook near St. Paul's Churchyard, did not feel indisposed towards my aunt's suggestion, which she left to my free decision, making no scruple of telling me that it had occurred to her on her lately visiting her own proctor in Doctors Commons for the purpose of settling her will in my favour. That's a laudable proceeding on the part of our aunt, at all events, said Steerforth when I mentioned it, and one deserving of all encouragement. Daisy, my advice is that you take kindly to Doctors Commons. I quite made up my mind to do so. I then told Steerforth that my aunt was in town awaiting me as I found from her letter, and that she had taken lodgings for a week at a kind of private hotel at Lincoln's Inn Fields, where there was a stone staircase and a convenient door in the roof, my aunt being firmly persuaded that every house in London was going to be burnt down. Every night we achieved the rest of our journey pleasantly, me sometimes recurring to Doctors Commons and anticipating the distant days when I should be a proctor there, which Steerforth pictured in a variety of humorous and whimsical lights that made us both merry. When we came to our journey's end, he went home engaging to call upon me. Next day but one and I drove to Lincoln's Inn Fields, where I found my aunt up and waiting supper. If I had been round the world since we parted, we could hardly have been better pleased to meet again. My aunt cried outright as she embraced me and said, pretending to laugh, that if my poor mother had been alive, that silly little creature would have shed tears, she had no doubt. So you left Mr. Dick behind, aunt, said I. I am sorry for that. Ah, Janet. How do you do? Remember, Janet is Miss Betsy's maidservant. As Janet curtsied, hoping I was well, I observed my aunt's visage lengthen very much. I am sorry for it too, said my aunt, rubbing her nose. I have had no peace of mind trot since I have been here. Before I could ask why she told me. I am convinced, said my aunt, laying her hand with melancholy firmness on the table, that Dick's character is not a character to keep the donkeys off. I am confident he wants strength of purpose. I ought to have left Janet at home instead, and then my mind might perhaps have been at ease. If ever there was a donkey trespassing on my green, said my aunt, with emphasis, there was one this afternoon at 4 o'. Clock. A cold feeling came over me from head to foot, and I know it was a donkey. I tried to comfort her on this point, but she rejected consolation. It was a donkey, said my aunt, and it was the one with the stumpy tail which that murdering sister of a woman rode when she came to my house. This had been ever since the only name my aunt knew for Miss Murdstone. Okay, so the murdering sister is Miss Murdstone, presumably because her name sounds like murder and we don't like her. If there is any donkey in Dover whose audacity it is harder to me to bear than another's. That, said my aunt, striking the table, is the animal. Janet ventured to suggest that my aunt might be disturbing herself unnecessarily and that she believed the donkey in question was then engaged in the sand and gravel line of business and was not available for purposes of trespass class. But my aunt wouldn't hear of it. Supper was comfortably served and hot, though my aunt's rooms were very high up. Whether that she might have more stone stairs for her money, or might be nearer to the door and the roof, I don't know. And consisted of a roast fowl, a steak, and some vegetables, to all of which I did ample justice, and which were all excellent. But my aunt had her own ideas concerning London provision and ate but little. I suppose this unfortunate fowl was born and brought up in a cellar, said my aunt, and never took the air except on a hackney coach stand, I hope. The steak may be beef, but I don't believe it. Nothing's genuine in the place, in my opinion, but the dirt. Don't you think the fowl may have come out of the country, aunt, I hinted. Certainly not, returned my aunt. It would be no pleasure to a London tradesman to sell anything which was what he pretended it was, I did not venture to controvert this opinion, but I made a good supper, which it greatly satisfied her to see me do. When the table was cleared, Janet assisted her to arrange her hair, to put on her nightcap, which was of a smarter construction than usual in case of fire, my aunt said, and to fold her gown back over her knees, these being her usual preparations for warming herself before going to bed. I then made her, according to certain established regulations, from which no deviation, however slight, could ever be permitted, a glass of hot wine and water and a slice of toast cut into long, thin strips. With these accompaniments we were left alone to finish the evening, my aunt sitting opposite to me, drinking her wine and water, soaking her strips of toast in it one by one before eating them, and looking benignantly on me from among the borders of her nightcap. Well, Trot, she began, what do you think of the Proctor plan? Or have you not begun to think about it yet? I have thought a good deal about it, my dear aunt, and I have talked a good deal about it with Steerforth. I like it very much. Indeed, I like it exceedingly. Come, said my aunt. That's cheering. I have only one difficulty, Aunt. Say what it is, Trot. She returned. Why? I want to ask, Aunt, as this seems, from what I understand to be a limited profession, whether my entrance into it would not be very expensive. It will cost, returned my aunt, to article you, just a thousand pounds. Now, my dear Aunt, said I, drawing my chair nearer, I am uneasy in my mind about that. It's a large sum of money. You have expended a great deal on my education, and have always been so liberal to me in all things as it was possible to be. You have been the soul of generosity. Surely there are some ways in which I might begin life with hardly any outlay, and yet begin with a good hope of getting on by resolution and exertion. Are you sure that it would not be better to try that course? Are you certain that you can afford to part with so much money and that it is right that it should be so expended? I only ask you, my second mother, to consider. Are you certain? My aunt finished eating the piece of toast on which she was then engaged, looking me full in the face all the while, and then setting her glass on the chimney piece and folding her hands upon her folded skirts, replied as trot, my child, if I have any object in life, it is to provide for your being a good, a sensible, and a happy man. I am bent upon it. So is Dick I should like some people that I know to hear Dick's conversation on the subject. Its sagacity is wonderful, but no one knows the resources of that man's intellect except myself. She stopped for a moment to take my hand between hers and went on. It's in vain, Trot, to recall the past unless it work some influence upon the present. Perhaps I might have been better friends with your poor father. Perhaps I might have been better friends with that poor child, your mother, even after your sister, Betsey Trotwood, disappointed me. When you came to me, a little runaway boy, all dusty and wayworn. Perhaps I thought so. From that time until now, Trot, you have ever been a credit to me and a pride and a pleasure. I have no other claim upon my means, at least here. To my surprise, she hesitated and was confused. No, I have no other claim upon my means, and you are my adopted child. Only be a loving child to me in my age and bear with my whims and fancies, and you will do more for an old woman whose prime of life was not so happy or conciliating as it might have been than ever that old woman did for you. It was the first time I had heard my aunt refer to her past history. There was a magnanimity in her quiet way of doing so and of dismissing it, which would have exalted her in my respect and affection if anything could. All is agreed and understood between us now, Trot, said my aunt, and we need talk of this no more. Give me a kiss and we'll go to the Commons. After breakfast to morrow we had a long chat by the fire before we went to bed. I slept in a room on the same floor with my aunts, and was a little disturbed in the course of the night by her knocking at my door. As often as she was agitated by a distant sound of hackney coaches or market carts, and inquiring if I heard the engines, meaning the fire engines. But towards morning she slept better and suffered me to do so too. At about midday we set out for the office of Messrs. Spenlow and Jorkins in Doctors Commons. My aunt, who had this other general opinion in reference to London, that every man she saw was a pickpocket, gave me her purse to carry for her, which had 10 guineas in it and some silver. We made a pause at the toy shop in Fleet street to see the giants of Saint Dunstan strike upon the bells. These are sort of mechanized statues that move to ring a church bell every hour. We had timed our going so as to Catch them at it at 12 o', clock, and then went on towards Ludgate Hill and St. Paul's Churchyard. We were crossing to the former place when I found that my aunt greatly accelerated her speed and looked frightened. I observed at the same time that a lowering ill dressed man, who had stopped and stared at us in passing a little before, was coming so close after us as to brush against her. Trot, my dear, trot. Cried my aunt in a terrified whisper, and pressing my arm, I don't know what I am to do. Don't be alarmed, said I. There's nothing to be afraid of. Step into a shop and I'll soon get rid of this fellow. No, no, child, she returned. Don't speak to him for the world, I entreat. I order you. Good heaven, aunt, said I. He is nothing but a sturdy beggar. You don't know what he is, replied my aunt. You don't know who he is. You don't know what you say. We had stopped in an empty doorway while this was passing, and he had stopped too. Don't look at him, said my aunt as I turned my head indignantly, but get me a coach, my dear, and wait for me in St. Paul's churchyard. Wait for you? I replied. Yes, rejoined my aunt, I must go alone. I must go with him. With him? Aunt, this man. I am in my senses, she replied, and I tell you I must get me a coach. However much astonished I might be, I was sensible that I had no right to refuse compliance with such a peremptory command. I hurried away a few paces and called a hackney chariot, which was passing empty. Almost before I could let down the steps, my aunt sprang in, I don't know how, and the man followed. She waved her hand to me to go away so earnestly that, all confounded as I was, I turned from them at once. In doing so, I heard her say to the coachman, drive anywhere, drive straight on. And presently the chariot passed me, going up the hill. What Mr. Dick had told me, and what I had supposed to be a delusion of his, now came into my mind. I could not doubt that this person was the person of whom he had made such mysterious mention, though what the nature of his hold upon my aunt could possibly be, I was quite unable to imagine. Okay, so remember, Mr. Dick told David quite a while ago that a man kept coming and speaking to Miss Betsy privately. But David thought it was just Mr. Dick making things up. Up. After half an hour's cooling in the churchyard, I saw the chariot coming back. The driver stopped beside me, and my aunt was sitting in it alone. She had not yet sufficiently recovered from her agitation to be quite prepared for the visit we had to make. She desired me to get into the chariot and to tell the coachman to drive slowly up and down a little while. She said, no more except, my dear child, never ask me what it was and don't refer to it, until she had perfectly regained her composure. When she told me she was quite herself now and we might get out on her, giving me her purse to pay the driver, I found that all the guineas were gone and only the loose silver remained. Doctors Commons was approached by a little low archway before we had taken many paces down the street. Beyond it the noise of the city seemed to melt, as if by magic, into a softened distance. A few dull courts and narrow ways brought us to the sky lighted offices of Spenlow and Jorkins, and in the vestibule of which temple accessible to pilgrims without the ceremony of knocking, three or four clerks were at work as copyists. One of these, a little dry man sitting by himself, who wore a stiff brown wig that looked as if it were made of gingerbread, rose to receive my aunt and show us into Mr. Spenlow's room. Mr. Spenlow's in court, ma', am, said the dry man. It's an Arches day, but it's close by and I'll send for him directly. As we were left to look about us while Mr. Spenlow was fetched, I availed myself of the opportunity. The furniture of the room was old fashioned and dusty, and the green baize on the top of the writing table had lost all its colour, and was as withered and pale as an old pauper. There were a great many bundles of papers on it, some endorsed as allegations, and some, to my surprise, as libels, and some as being in the Consistory Court, and some in the Arches Court, and some in the Prerogative Court, and some in the Admiralty Court, and some in the Delegates Court, giving me occasion to wonder much how many courts there might be in the gross, and how long it would take to understand them all. Besides these, there were sundry immense manuscript books of evidence, taken on affidavit, strongly bound and tied together in massive sets, a set to each cause, as if every cause were a history in 10 or 20 volumes. All this looked tolerably expensive, I thought, and gave me an agreeable notion of a proctor's business. I was casting my eyes with increasing complacency over these and many similar objects when hasty footsteps Were heard in the room outside and Mr. Spenlow, in a black gown trimmed with white fur, came hurrying in, taking off his hat as he came. He was a little light haired gentleman with undeniable boots and the stiffest of white cravats and shirt collars. He was buttoned up mighty trim and tight and must have taken a great deal of pains with his whiskers, which were accurately curled. His gold watch chain was so massive that a fancy came across me that he ought to have a sinewy golden arm to draw it out with, like those which are put up over the gold beaters shops. He was got up with such care and was so stiff that he could hardly bend himself, being obliged when he glanced at some papers on his desk after sitting down in his chair to move his whole body from the bottom of his spine, like Punch. Punch is a puppet in a popular puppet show of the time, so the man has to move sort of like a sock puppet, bending at the waist if he wants to look down at anything. I had previously been presented by my aunt and had been courteously received, he now said. And so, Mr. Copperfield, you think of entering into our profession. I casually mentioned to Ms. Trotwood when I had the pleasure of an interview with her the other day with another inclination of his body, punch again, that there was a vacancy here. Ms. Trotwood was good enough to mention that she had a nephew who was her particular care and for whom she was seeking to provide genteelly in life. That nephew, I believe I now have the pleasure of punch again. I bowed my acknowledgments and said my aunt had mentioned to me that there was that opening and that I believed I should like it very much, that I was strongly inclined to like it and had taken immediately to the proposal that I could not absolutely pledge myself to like it until I knew something more about it. That although it was little else than a matter of form, I presumed I should have an opportunity of trying how I liked it before I bound myself to it irrevocably. He's asking if he could be taken on a sort of trial basis so he can decide if this is what he wants to do with his life. Oh, surely, surely, said Mr. Spenlow. We always in this house propose a month, an initiatory month. I should be happy myself to propose two months, three. An indefinite period, in fact. But I have a partner, Mr. Jorkins, and the premium, sir, I returned is a thousand pounds. And the premium stamp included is a thousand pounds, said Mr. Spenlow. As I have mentioned to Ms. Trotwood, I am actuated by no mercenary considerations. Few men are less so, I believe. But Mr. Jorkins has his opinions on these subjects and I am bound to respect. Respect Mr. Jorkins's opinion. Mr. Jorkins thinks a thousand pounds too little. In short, I suppose, sir, said I, still desiring to spare my aunt, that it is not the custom here, if an articled clerk were particularly useful and made himself a perfect master of his profession, I could not help blushing. This looked so like praising myself. I suppose it is not the custom in the later years of his time to allow him any. Mr. Spenlow, by a great effort just lifted his head far enough out of his cravat to shake it and answered, anticipating the word salary. No, I will not say what consideration I might give to that point myself, Mr. Copperfield, if I were unfettered. Mr. Jorkins is immovable. I was quite dismayed by the idea of this terrible Jorkins. But I found out afterwards that he was a mild man of a heavy temperament whose place in the business was to keep himself in the background and be constantly exhibited by name as the most obdurate and ruthless of men. If a clerk wanted his salary raised, Mr. Jorkins wouldn't listen to such a proposition. If a client were slow to settle his bill of costs, Mr. Jorkins was resolved to have it paid. And however painful these things might be and always were to the feelings of Mr. Spenlow, Mr. Jorkins would have his bond. The heart and hand of the good angel Spenlo would have been always open but for the restraining demon Jorkins. As I have grown older, I think I have had experience of some other houses doing business on the principle of Spenlow and Jorkins. So he's saying that Mr. Jorkins is essentially just the bad cop. Mr. Spenlow uses Mr. Jorkins to make people do what he wants. It was settled that I should begin my month's probation as soon as I pleased, and that my aunt need neither remain in town nor return at its expiration, as the articles of agreement of which I was to be the subject could easily be sent to her at home for her signature. When we had got so far, Mr. Spenlow offered to take me into court then and there and show me what sort of place it was. As I was willing enough to know, we went out with this object, leaving my aunt behind. Who would trust herself, she said, in no such place, and who I think regarded all courts of law as a sort of powder mills that might blow up at any time. Mr. Spenlow conducted me through a paved courtyard formed of grave brick houses, which I inferred from the doctors names upon the doors to be the official abiding places of the learned advocates of whom Steerforth had told me, and into a large dull room, not unlike a chapel, to my thinking. On the left hand, the upper part of this room was fenced off from the rest, and there, on the two sides of a raised platform of the horseshoe form, sitting on easy old fashioned dining room chairs, were sundry gentlemen in red gowns and gray wigs whom I found to be the doctor's aforesaid. Blinking over a little desk like a pulpit desk, in the curve of the horseshoe was an old gentleman whom, if I had seen him in an aviary, I should certainly have taken for an owl, but who I learned, was the presiding judge. In the space within the horseshoe, lower than these, that is to say, on about the level of the floor, were sundry other gentlemen of Mr. Spenlow's rank and dressed like him, in black gowns with white fur upon them, sitting at a long green table. Their cravats were in general stiff, I thought, and their looks haughty. But in this last respect I presently conceived I had done them an injustice. For when two or three of them had to rise and answer a question of the presiding dignitary, I never saw anything more sheepish. The public, represented by a boy with a comforter and a shabby genteel man secretly eating crumbs out of his coat pockets, was warming itself at a stove in the center of the court. The languid stillness of the place was only broken by the chirping of this fire and by the voice of one of the doctors who was wandering slowly through a perfect library of evidence and stopping to put up from time to time at little roadside inns of argument. On the journey altogether, I have never on any occasion made one at such a cosy, dozy, old fashioned, time forgotten, sleepy headed little family party in all my life, life. And I felt it would be quite a soothing opiate to belong to it in any character, except perhaps as a suitor, meaning he wouldn't want to be here if you were being sued or suing someone, but otherwise it seems sort of nice. Very well satisfied with the dreamy nature of this retreat, I informed Mr. Spenlow that I had seen enough for that time, and we rejoined my aunt in company, with whom I presently departed from the commons, feeling very young when I went out of Spenlow and Jorkins's on account of the clerks poking one another with their pens to point me out. We arrived at Lincoln's Inn Fields without any new adventures, except encountering an unlucky donkey in a costermonger's cart who suggested painful associations to my aunt. We had another long talk about my plans when we were safely housed, and as I knew she was anxious to get home, and between fire food and pickpockets, could never be considered at her ease for half an hour in London I urged her not to be uncomfortable on my account, but to leave me to take care of myself. I have not been here a week to morrow without considering that too, my dear, she returned. There is a furnished little set of chambers to be let in the Adelphi Trot, which ought to suit you to a marvel. The Adelphi is a neighbourhood in London. With this brief introduction she produced from her pocket an advertisement carefully cut out of a newspaper, setting forth that in Buckingham street in the Adelphi there was to be let, furnished with a view of the river, a singularly desirable and compact set of chambers hours forming a genteel residence for a young gentleman, a member of one of the Inns of Court or otherwise, with immediate possession terms moderate and could be taken for a month only if required. Why, this is the very thing, Aunt said. I flushed with the possible dignity of living in chambers. Then come, replied my aunt, immediately, resuming the bonnet she had a minute before laid aside. We'll go and look at em. Away we went. The advertisement directed us to apply to Mrs. Crupp on the premises, and we rung the area bell, which we supposed to communicate with Mrs. Crupp. It was not until we had rung three or four times that we could prevail on Mrs. Crupp to communicate with us. But at last she appeared, being a stout lady with a flounce of flannel petticoat below a nankeen gown. Let us see these chambers of yours, if you please, ma', am, said my aunt. For this gentleman, said Mrs. Crupp, feeling in her pocket for her keys. Yes, for my nephew, said my aunt. And a swate set they is for sech, said Mrs. Crupp, meaning the rooms would be very nice for him. So we went upstairs. They were on the top of the house, a great point, with my aunt being near the fire escape, and consisted of a little half blind entry where you could see hardly anything, a little stone blind pantry where you could see nothing at All a sitting room and a bedroom. The furniture was rather faded, but quite good enough for me, and sure enough, the river was outside the windows. As I was delighted with the place, My aunt and Mrs. Crupp withdrew into the pantry to discuss the terms, while I remained on the sitting room sofa, hardly daring to think it possible that I could be destined to live in such a noble residence. After a single combat of some duration, they returned, and I saw to my Joy, both in Mrs. Crupp's countenance and in my aunt's, that the deed was done. Is that the last occupant's furniture? Inquired my aunt. Yes, it is, ma', am, said Mrs. Crupp. What's become of him? Asked my aunt. Mrs. Crupp was taken with a troublesome cough, in the midst of which she articulated with much difficulty. He was took ill ere, ma', am, and dear me, and he died. Hey, what did he die of? Asked my aunt. Well, ma', am, he died. O. Drink. Said Mrs. Crupp in confidence. And smoke. Smoke? You don't mean chimneys? Said my aunt. No, ma', am, returned Mrs. Crupp. Cigars and pipes. That's not catching trot. At any rate, remarked my aunt, turning to me. No, indeed, said I. In short, my aunt, seeing how enraptured I was with the premises, took them for a month, with leave to remain for 12 months. When that time was out, Mrs. Crupp was to find linen and to cook. Every other necessary was already provided, and Mrs. Crupp expressly intimated that she should always yearn towards me as a son. I was to take possession the day after tomorrow, and Mrs. Crupp said, thank heaven she had now found someone she could care for. On our way back, my aunt informed me how she confidently trusted that the life I was now to lead would make me firm and self reliant, which was all I wanted. She repeated this several times next day, in the intervals of our arranging for the transmission of my clothes and books. Books from Mr. Wickfield's relative, to which, and to all my late holiday, I wrote a long letter to Agnes, of which my aunt took charge, as she was to leave on the succeeding day. Not to lengthen these particulars, I need only add that she made a handsome provision for all my possible wants during my month of trial, that Steerforth, to my great disappointment and hers too, did not make his appearance before she went away, that I saw her safely seated in the Dover coach, exulting in the coming discomfiture of the vagrant donkey with Janet at her side, and that when the coach was gone, I turned my face to the Adelphi, pondering on the old days when I used to roam about its subterranean arches, and on the happy changes which had brought me to the surface. 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, faithkmoore.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, Storytime is over. To be continued.