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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 everyone. So as I mentioned last time, this is a pre recorded episode. I'm away this week, so this episode and Thursday's episode are recorded in advance which which means I wasn't able to collect your questions because I had already recorded these episodes when the previous chapters aired. So I am going to still do all the parts of the show. We'll have the recap. We will talk a little bit about chapter 25 which is the last chapter we had. I just won't use your questions so I will just share my thoughts about the chapter and then we'll go into chapter 26. We'll do the same thing on Thursday, but then the following Monday I will be back. But please do keep your questions and comments coming. Please do keep emailing me about these chapters. I would still love to know what is coming up for you and I will reply to you directly and also I will try to bring up your comments or thoughts when I come back if it seemed like there was a consensus on anything or if I didn't cover something that seemed like many of you were interested in discussing. So please do keep those questions and comments coming. Faith K. Moore.com Click on Contact or scroll into the show notes and find the link that's there. While you're there, please check out the other links this there's the merch store, there's our online community, the drawing room. There is a tip jar if you'd like to leave a financial donation and a few other things. So I hope you'll check out the links that are there. And of course please subscribe if you haven't already. Tap the five stars if you're enjoying the show. Leave a positive review if you're enjoying this show. And please tell a friend and spread the word. And wouldn't it be amazing if when I came back there were even more of us to listen to David Copperfield? So please do all those things and thank you for all the ways that you support the show, including by listening to it. So last time we read chapter 25. Today we're going to be reading chapter 26 so we'll talk about what happened last time. I'll talk a little somehow on my own, without you. It's not going to be nearly as good because I love responding to your questions. It's so much better when I do it that way. But I am away and I didn't. I don't have a microphone. I don't have a way to record. So this is the next best thing. So we'll do that and then we'll get to the chapter. So here is the recap. All right, so where we left off. A couple of days after the dinner party, David gets a letter from Agnes, which isn't, as he first worries, a letter scolding him, but it's just an invitation to come and see her where she's staying in London. David agrees, but is very nervous to see her because of how badly he behaved when he ran into her at the theater. But he shows up at the house and when he sees Agnes, he bursts into tears because he's so upset that she, of all people, should see him when he was drunk and acting ridiculous. Agnes is kind to him and David calls her his good angel, which prompts Agnes to warn him about his bad angel, who she believes is Steerforth. David disagrees and feels that Agnes is being unfair to Steerforth, but Agnes just tells David to be careful around him because she think he's a bad influence. Agnes reminds David that he promised to tell her whenever he was in love and asks who he's in love with at the moment, and he says that there's no one really, but that he's taken a bit of a liking to Ms. Dardle. Then Agnes tells him that Uriah Heep is likely going to become a law partner with her father, Mr. Wickfield. David thinks this is awful and is further upset by the fact that Agnes feels that Uriah is taking advantage of Mr. Wickfield and somehow using his alcoholism to wheedle his way into his confidence, such that Mr. Wickfield has to allow him to join the firm. Agnes asks David to be kind to Uriah for Mr. Wakefield's sake. So David leaves, but he is invited to come back for dinner the next day, which he does. He finds a whole dinner party there, including Uriah, who won't leave David alone and sort of fawns all over him. And also surprisingly, Tommy Traddles is there from David's school days. At the end of the evening, David invites Uriah home for coffee as a favor to Agnes. Uriah comes and is as awful as ever, pretending to be humble but Also gloating over his promotion. While he's there, Uriah confesses that he is in love with Agnes and hopes one day to marry her. This enrages David, but he only asks if Uriah has told Agnes yet. And Uriah says no, that he's hoping to win her hand through making himself useful to Mr. Wickfield. Finally, it's so late that Uriah can't go home and ends up sleeping on David's floor. In the morning he leaves and David feels like he needs to air out the room to get rid of the stink of him. Alright, so I'm not going to read any questions. I will just riff for a couple of minutes here about what I notice in this chapter and then we'll move on. So for me, the theme of chapter 26 is Agnes, right? It begins with David's kind of reckoning with himself over his debauchery of the night before, which all centers around Agnes's opinion of him. She is his good angel, she's his conscience essentially. And the minute he realizes that she has been a witness to his drunken behavior, that's the minute where he sees himself clearly. That's the moment he realizes that he's not this wonderful dashing man about town. He is in fact making a fool of himself. And it was seeing himself through Agnes's eyes that caused him to get that, to understand that. So that's kind of the first part of the chapter. And the second part of the chapter is this awful revelation that Uriah Heep has designs on Agnes. He hopes one day to marry her. So it's this brilliant sort of one, two punch that Dickens gives us because we get this long kind of encomium, this extended sequence sequence praising Agnes's virtues. And so she's really being held up as the epitome of womanhood and grace and goodness. And I don't know about you, but I really like Agnes. I know that to modern sensibilities this kind of angel in the house idea seems kind of outdated. But really Agnes is a good, kind, intelligent, clear eyed sort of person and I for one really like her. So we go from this extended sequence praising her and holding her up as a queen among women or whatever, which is then followed by this revelation that the slimiest, creepiest, weirdest character in the book wants to marry her. I mean, bleh, we can't let that happen, right? So let's take a look for a moment at what is going on here. So first of all, I think it speaks really well of David that he Knows he messed up. He understands that the drunk fool that he was the night before is not the person that he wants to be. I said this before, but, you know, for all of his admiration of Steerforth, he actually doesn't want to be Steerforth. Not that Steerforth is a drunk fool, but he is this man about town. He stays up all night drinking, he's smoking. He goes to the theater all the time. He doesn't have a job to go to, so he doesn't have to, like, go to bed early or wake up early. He's just following his own amusement. But David isn't like that, and he doesn't actually want to be like that. He wants to be diligent and work hard and do his aunt proud. And that speaks really well of him, I think. And one of the true gifts of his life is that in running away to Miss Betsy, he has found these two women, Ms. Betsy and Agnes, who have become his. His load stars. Right? The people whose good opinion he can orient himself toward and who are both, in their own ways, incredibly good guides for him. And so the minute he sees Agnes, he's filled with so much remorse for his night out on the town that he actually bursts into tears. He. He says she looked so quiet and good and reminded me so strongly of my airy, fresh school days at Canterbury and the sodden, smoky, stupid wretch I had been the other night that nobody being by I yielded to my self reproach and shame and in short, made a fool of myself. And he tells her again, you are my good angel. And I, for one, agree, if it means that thinking of her and her good opinion of him will set him back on the straight and narrow. I mean, as we talked about last time, it's not that David's night out is the secret heinous crime or anything. Most people let themselves go a little when they find themselves out on their own for the first time. He didn't actually harm anyone or cause any irreversible damage or anything like that, but we don't want him to make a habit of this. I don't think. We do want him to get back on track and not spend all his nights in debauchery or whatever. So it's a good thing that he sees Agnes this way. And it's interesting, too, I think that Agnes is the only. Only person in the whole book so far who has any kind of reservations about Steerforth. Everyone else who's met him has loved him, but Agnes calls Steerforth David's bad angel. And she says he's a dangerous friend. And I think most of us have been feeling this way too. And we've been worried about David's total infatuation with Steerforth, and also with the fact that he seems to be able to win everyone over, which speaks to a potential for manipulation of those people if he chose. But Agnes really is the good angel here. She sees through Steerforth, it seems, and what she sees at his core is something dangerous. And because Agnes is David's good angel, her opinion of Steerforth actually affects him. He tries to stand up for Steerforth to Agnes, but he also says. Here's a quote. There was always something in her modest voice that seemed to touch a chord within me, answering to that sound alone. It was always earnest. But when it was very earnest, as it was now, there was a thrill in it that quite subdued me. I sat looking at her as she cast her eyes down on her work. I sat, seeming still to listen to her. And Steerforth, in spite of all my attachment to him, darkened in that tone. Okay, so he's affected by what Agnes says about Steerforth in a way that he wouldn't be if anyone else was to speak ill of him. So very much in the way of the good angel on your shoulder. You know, like that cartoon trope where an angel pops up on one of your shoulders and a devil pops up at the other and they argue about how you should act? Well, it's really like that. Agnes is David's angel on his shoulder, guiding him correctly. I mean, I don't know about you, but I think she's right. He shouldn't be getting drunk and acting like an idiot. And he should at least be wary of Steerforth, because as we've been feeling all along, there is potentially something dangerous or manipulative in him. And it's certainly not a good idea to idolize someone as much as David idolizes Steerforth. So I'm on board with Agnes being the angel. And according to Agnes, Steerforth is the devil on David's shoulder. And in a way, he is. I mean, remember, Steerforth is much wealthier and more upper class than David is, so he doesn't actually have to work, and he can spend his nights carousing if he wants to. So David can't follow in Steerforth's footsteps and live the middle class gentleman's life that he has so wanted and that is now his for the taking. So he absolutely cannot act like Steerforth. So, just in that sense, anyway, so Steerforth kind of is the devil on his other shoulder. So hooray for Agnes, right? But. And Dickens is so clever to set up all the wonderfulness of Agnes right before this little plot twist because it makes us even more upset about it than we might have been before. But something is going on with Uriah Heap that is really very concerning. First of all, both David and Agnes are concerned about uriah's relationship with Mr. Wickfield. It seems like Mr. Wakefield is contemplating making Uriah a partner in the law firm, which would give him much more power and much more power over Mr. Wakefield, which is exactly what Agnes and David are worried about. Agnes tells David, here's a quote. He is subtle and watchful. He has mastered Papa's weaknesses, fostered them, and taken advantage of them until. To say all that. I mean, in a word, Trotwood, until Papa is afraid of him. Okay, so remember we learned several chapters ago that Mr. Wakefield's drinking has gotten pretty out of control and that Uriah has taken advantage of this to kind of take over the business and also to potentially manipulate Mr. Wakefield in some way. And Agnes is wrapped up in all of this too, because all she wants is to make her father happy. And she sees that Uriah has the ability to make Mr. Wakefield very unhappy for some reason. We're really not sure what uriah has on Mr. Wickfield at this point or exactly what he's doing, but it seems like he has power over him somehow, and that is not good. So Agnes sees this, and therefore she too is, in a sense, being manipulated by Uriah. She tells David, let me earnestly entreat you, Trotwood, to be friendly to Uriah. Don't repel him, don't resent, as I think you have a general disposition to do what may be uncongenial to you in him. He may not deserve it, for we know no certain ill of him. In any case, think first of Papa and me. Okay? So Agnes is also trapped and has to allow Uriah to live in the house and work with her father and do whatever he's doing, because if she doesn't, he might somehow harm Mr. Wickfield. So that's bad. But what is worse, I think, is what it turns out Uriah's next move seems to be, which is to try to marry Agnes. I mean, he is a social climber essentially, right? He's always going on and on about how humble he is, but in reality, he is ruthlessly ambitious. And I think in this chapter we finally see, see all of that laid bare. He's actually trying to Claw himself as far up the social ladder as he possibly can. And he's doing that by somehow manipulating Mr. Wickfield via his drinking problem into making him a partner. But he's also trying to marry Agnes because if he did that, he would actually enter the middle class and any children that they had together would absolutely be middle class. So his cards are kind of on the table now. He is still pretending to be humble and all of this, but he. But he's had enough success that he feels he can show his cards a bit more. And what that reveals is that he's headed all the way to the top if he can. And it's awful, right? I mean, before we weren't sure if Uraya was just weird and we should have some sympathy for him or if he was actually a bad guy. But I think now we know he is a bad guy. And he's a formidable opponent, I think too, because he's so insidious and he pretends he's not doing anything and he has plausible deniability in all of this, but he's actually kind of lording it over David here. He says, this is a quote. To see you waiting upon me is what I never could have expected. But one way and another, so many things happened to me which I never could have expected. I am sure in my humble station that it seems to rain blessings on my head. You have heard something, I dare say, of a change in my expectations. Master Copperfield, I should say. Mr. Copperfield, he's calling him master is his way of sort of infantilizing him while acting like he doesn't mean to and going on and on about how David is waiting on him. He's rubbing in David's face essentially how much he has risen in the world. And he's threatening him too. He says, if anyone else had been in my place during the last few years, by this time he would have had Mr. Wickfield. Oh, what a worthy man he is. Master Copperfield too, under his thumb, under his thumb. And then it says, said Uriah, very slowly as he stretched out his cruel looking hand above my table and pressed his own thumb upon it until it shook and shook the room. Meaning if anyone crosses him or tries to stop him, he will take it out on Mr. Wickfield, which he knows is something that David would do anything to avoid, as would Agnes. Because, and this is the whole point of this scene with Uriah at David's apartment after the dinner party and everything, I think, because what is actually going on here, I think is that Uriah is trying to tell David, back off, Agnes is mine. Now, obviously we know that David isn't pursuing Agnes romantically. He's told us that several times. But you can see how Uriah might view him as a threat, right? He grew up with Agnes. They're best friends, they're very close, they could be romantically interested in each other. And Uriah wants to send the message that if David goes for Agnes, uriah will make Mr. Wickfield pay for it. So Uriah reveals to David that he wants to marry Agnes. He says, oh, Master Copperfield, with what a pure affection do I love the ground my Agnes walks on? Which is so icky coming from him, right? And I mean, who knows? Maybe he really is in love with Agnes or maybe he's just convinced himself that he is, or maybe he's not at all. But the point is that he wants to marry her because it'll elevate him even further in the social hierarchy. And that, as he's now revealed in, is his one and only goal in life. And David figures out what's going on. He says, I fathom the depth of the rascal's whole scheme and understood why he laid it bare. Meaning he knows why Uriah is telling him his plans about Agnes is to warn him off and to threaten to harm the people he loves if he tries to get in his way. And really, it's all very sinister. You can kind of picture him rubbing his hands together and laughing evilly or whatever. He's a real villain, as it turns out. Or at least he has the potential to be one, which is great. I love a good villain. And, and David. And I think also we is very worried here because if Mr. Wakefield is somehow enthralled to Uriah, then it's possible that Uriah will be able to manipulate Mr. Wickfield in agreeing to allow him to marry Agnes. And if Agnes wants her father to be happy more than anything else in the world, she might agree to the marriage if Mr. Wakefield asks her to. I mean, David says, dear Agnes, so much too loving and too good for anyone that I could think of. Was it possible that she was reserved to be the wife of such a wretch as this? And I mean, that would be awful, right? So watch out. Essentially, there's a new villain on the scene and his name is Uriah Heep. So will he go forward with his sinister plan or will something happen to stop him? We don't know. There's only one way to find out, which of course is to keep reading. So we're going to do that now. And even though I'm away, please do keep writing faith kore.com and click on contact. Send me all your questions and thoughts. I will still get them. I will reply. And if anything comes up that we need to talk about when I'm back, I will make sure to do that. So please do get in touch. All right, let's get started with chapter 26 of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. It's story time. Chapter 26 I fall into Captivity I saw no more of Uriah Heep until the day when Agnes left town. I was at the coach office to take leave of her and see her go. And there he was, returning to Canterbury by the same conveyance. It was some small satisfaction to me to observe his spare short waisted, high shouldered mulberry coloured greatcoat perched up in company with an umbrella like a small tent on the edge of the back seat on the roof, and while Agnes was of course inside. But what I underwent in my efforts to be friendly with him while Agnes looked on, perhaps deserved that little recompense. Meaning he should get that satisfaction of seeing that Agnes and Uriah weren't sitting together in the coach as a reward for his efforts to be nice to Uriah, when in fact he hates him. At the coach window, as at the dinner party, he hovered about us without a moment's intermission like a great vulture, gorging himself on every syllable that I said to Agnes or Agnes said to me in the state of trouble into which his disclosure by my fire had thrown me, I had thought very much of the words Agnes had used in reference to the partnership. I did what I hope was right. Feeling sure that it was necessary for Papa's peace that the sacrifice should be made, I entreated him to make it a miserable foreboding that she would yield to and sustain herself by the same feeling in referen to any sacrifice for his sake had oppressed me ever since I knew how she loved him, meaning how Agnes loved her father. I knew what the devotion of her nature was. I knew from her own lips that she regarded herself as the innocent cause of his errors and as owing him a great debt she ardently desired to pay. I had no consolation in seeing how different she was from this detestable Rufus with the mulberry coloured greatcoat, for I felt that in the very difference between them, in the self denial of her pure soul and the sordid baseness of his, the greatest danger lay all this. Doubtless he knew thoroughly and had in his cunning considered well meaning. Davy is afraid that Agnes will marry Uriah for her father's sake and he feels that Uriah knows this about her and he's going to use it. Yet I was so certain that the prospect of such a sacrifice afar off must destroy the happiness of Agnes. And I was so sure from her manner of its being unseen by her then, and having cast no shadow on her yet that I could as soon have injured her as given her any warning of what impended meaning. Agnes doesn't know yet what Uriah is planning, so David won't tell her because he doesn't want to upset her. Thus it was that we parted without explanation, she waving her hand and smiling farewell from the coach window, her evil genius writhing on the roof as if he had her in his clutches and triumphed. I could not get over this farewell glimpse of them for a long time. When Agnes wrote to tell me of her safe arrival, I was as miserable as when I saw her going away. Whenever I fell into a thoughtful state, this subject was sure to present itself and all my uneasiness was sure to be redoubled. Hardly a night passed without my dreaming of it. It became a part of my life, and is inseparable from my life as my own head. I had ample leisure to refine upon my uneasiness, for Steerforth was at Oxford, as he wrote to me, and when I was not at the Commons, I was very much alone. I believe I had at this time some lurking distrust of Steerforth. I wrote to him most affectionately in reply to his but I think I was glad upon the whole that he could not come to London just then. I suspect the truth to be that the influence of Agnes was upon me undisturbed by the sight of him, and that it was the more powerful with me because she had so large a share in my thoughts and interest. In the meantime, days and weeks slipped by. I was articled to Spenlow and Jorkins, meaning his job there is now official. I had 90 pounds a year, exclusive of my house rent and sundry collateral matters from my aunt. My rooms were engaged for 12 months, certain, and though I still found them dreary of an evening, and the evenings long, I could settle down into a state of equable low spirits and resign myself to coffee, which I seem, on looking back, to have taken by the gallon. At about this period of my existence, at about this time too, I made three discoveries. First, that Mrs. Crupp was a martyr to a curious disorder called the spasms, which was generally accompanied with inflammation of the nose and required to be constantly treated with peppermint. Secondly, that something peculiar in the temperature of my pantry made the brandy bottles burst. Thirdly, that I was alone in the world, and much given to record that circumstance in fragments of English versification. On the day when I was articled, no festivity took place beyond my having sandwiches and sherry into the office for the clerks and going alone to the theater at night. I went to see the Stranger as a doctor's common sort of play, and was so dreadfully cut up that I hardly knew myself in my own glass when I got home. So the Stranger is a European play about a man whose wife runs off with someone else and then comes back to him, and David is saying that he was very emotionally affected by it. Mr. Spenlow remarked on this occasion when we concluded our business, that he should have been happy to have seen me at his house at Norwood, celebrate our becoming connected, but for his domestic arrangements being in some disorder on account of the expected return of his daughter from finishing her education at Paris. But he intimated that when she came home, he should hope to have the pleasure of entertaining me. I knew that he was a widower with one daughter, and expressed my acknowledgments. Mr. Spenlow was as good as his word in a week or two. He referred to this engagement and said that if I would do him the favor to come down next Saturday and stay till Monday, he would be extremely happy. Of course I said I would do him the favour, and he was to drive me down in his phaeton and to bring me back when the day arrived. My very carpet bag was an object of veneration to the stipendiary clerks to whom the house at Norwood was a sacred mystery. One of them informed me that he had heard that Mr. Spenlow ate entirely off plate and china, and another hinted at champagne being constantly on draught after the usual custom of table beer. The old clerk with the wig, whose name was Mr. Tiffey, had been down on business several times in the course of his career and had on each occasion penetrated to the breakfast parlour. He described it as an apartment of the most sumptuous nature, and said that he had drunk brown East India sherry there of a quality so precious as to make a man wink. We had an adjourned case in the consistory that day about excommunicating a baker who had been objecting in a vestry to a paving rate, and as the evidence was just twice the length of Robinson Crusoe according to a calculation I made, it was rather late in the day. Before we finished, however, we got him excommunicated for six weeks and sentenced in no end of costs. And then the baker's proctor and the judge and the advocates on both sides, who were all nearly related, went out of town together, and Mr. Spenlow and I drove away in the phaeton. The phaeton was a very handsome affair. The horses arched their necks and lifted up their legs as if they knew they belonged to Doctors Commons. There was a good deal of competition in the Commons on all points of display, and it turned out some very choice equipages then, though I always have considered and always shall consider that in my time the great article of competition there was starch, which I think was worn among the proctors to as great an extent as it is in the nature of man to bear. Okay, so he's saying that everyone at Doctors Commons competed with each other to be more grand. So there was a lot of very fancy carriages and horses. But he thinks the thing that was used the most was the starch that made their clothing stiff, which signaled their status. We were very pleasant going down, and Mr. Spenlow gave me some hints in reference to my profession. He said it was the genteelest profession in the world and must on no account be confounded with the profession of a solicitor, being quite another sort of thing, infinitely more exclusive, less mechanical and more profitable. We took things much more easily in the Commons than they could be taken anywhere else, he observed, and that set us, as a privileged class apart. He said it was impossible to conceal the disagreeable fact that we were chiefly employed by solicitors. But he gave me to understand that they were an inferior race of men universally looked down upon by all proctors of any pretension agents. I asked Mr. Spenlow what he considered the best sort of professional business. He replied that a good case of a disputed will where there was a neat little estate of 30 or 40,000 pounds was perhaps the best of all in such a case. He said not only were there very pretty pickings in the way of arguments at every stage of the proceedings and mountains upon mountains of evidence on interrogatory and counter interrogatory, to say nothing of an appeal lying first to the delegates and then to the Lords, but the costs being pretty sure to come out of the estate at last. Both sides went at it in a lively and spirited manner, and expense was no consideration. Then he launched into a general eulogism on the Commons, meaning he Started talking about how wonderful the Commons are. What was to be particularly admired, he said, in the Commons, was its compactness. It was the most conveniently organized place in the world. It was the complete idea of Snugness. It lay in a nutshell. For example, you brought a divorce case or a restitution case into the consistory. Very good. You tried it in the consistory. You made a quiet little round game of it among a family group and you played it out at leisure. Suppose you were not satisfied with the consistory. What did you do then? Why, you went into the Arches. What was the Arches? The same court in the same room with the same bar and the same practitioners, but another judge, for there the consistory judge could plead any court day as an advocate. Well, you played your round game out again. Still you were not satisfied. Very good. What did you do then? Why, you went to the delegates. Who were the delegates? Why, the ecclesiastical delegates were the advocates without any business, who had looked on at the round game when it was playing in both courts. Courts and had seen the cards shuffled and cut and played and had talked to all the players about it and now came fresh as judges to settle the matter to the satisfaction of everybody. Discontented people might talk of corruption in the Commons, closeness in the Commons and the necessity of reforming the Commons, said Mr. Spenlow solemnly in conclusion. But when the price of wheat per bushel had been highest, the Commons had been busiest, and a man might lay his hand upon his heart and say this to the whole, whole world, touch the Commons and down comes the country. I listened to all this with attention, and though I must say I had my doubts whether the country was quite as much obliged to the Commons as Mr. Spenlow made out, I respectfully deferred to his opinion that about the price of wheat per bushel I modestly felt was too much for my strength and quite settled the question. I have never to this hour got the better of that bushel of wheat. It has reappeared to annihilate me all through my life in connection with all kinds of subjects. I don't know now exactly what it has to do with me, or what right it has to crush me on an infinite variety of occasions. But whenever I see my old friend the bushel brought in by the head and shoulders as he always is, I observe I give up a subject for lost. So he's saying essentially that all this stuff about the Commons is sort of neither here nor there to him, and it all seems sort of complicated and esoteric. This is a digression I was not the man to touch the Commons and bring down the country. I submissively expressed by my silence my acquiescence in all I had heard from my superior in years and knowledge. And we talked about the stranger and the drama and the pairs of horses until we came to Mr. Spenlow's gate. There was a lovely garden to Mr. Spenlow's house, and though that was not the best time of the year for seeing a garden, it was so beautifully kept that I was quite enchanted. There was a charming lawn, there were clusters of trees, and there were prospective walks that I could just distinguish in the dark, arched over with trellis work on which shrubs and flowers grew in the growing season. Here Ms. Spenlow walks by herself, I thought. Dear me. We went into the house, which was cheerfully lighted up, and into a hall where there were all sorts of hats, caps, great coats, plaids, gloves, whips and walking sticks. Where is miss Dora? Said Mr. Spenlow to the servant. Dora, I thought, what a beautiful name. We turned into a room near at hand, I think it was the identical breakfast room made memorable by the brown East Indian sherry. And I heard a voice say, Mr. Copperfield, my daughter Dora and my daughter Dora's confidential friend. It was no doubt Mr. Spenlow's voice, but I didn't know it and I didn't care whose it was. All was over in a moment. I had fulfilled my destiny. I was a captive and a slave. I loved Dora Spenlow to distraction. She was more than human to me. She was a fairy, a sylph. I don't know what she was, anything that no one ever saw and everything that everybody ever wanted. I was swallowed up in an abyss of love in an instant. There was no pausing on the brink, no looking down or looking back. I was gone headlong before I had sense to say a word to her. I observed a well remembered voice when I had bowed and murmured something. Have seen Mr. Copperfield before. The speaker was not Dora, no, the confidential friend, Ms. Murdstone. I don't think I was much astonished. To the best of my judgment, no capacity of astonishment was left in me. There was nothing worth mentioning in the material world but Dora Spenlow to be astonished about. I said, how do you do, Ms. Murdstone? I hope you are well. She answered, very well. I said. How is Mr. Murdstone? She replied, my brother is robust. I am obliged to you, Mr. Spenlow, who I suppose had been surprised to see us recognize each other, then put in his word. I Am glad to find, he said Copperfield, that you and Ms. Murdstone are already acquainted. Mr. Copperfield and myself, said Ms. Murdstone with severe composure, are connections. We were once slightly acquainted. It was in his childish days. Circumstances have separated us since. I should not have known him. I replied, that I should have known her anywhere, which was true enough. Ms. Murdstone has had the goodness, said Mr. Spenlow to me, to accept the office, if I may so describe it, of my daughter Dora's confidential friend. My daughter Dora, having unhappily no mother, Ms. Murdstone is obliging enough to become her companion and protect the. Okay, so Ms. Murdstone is like a paid companion for Dora. A passing thought occurred to me that Miss Murdstone, like the pocket instrument called a life preserver, was not so much designed for purposes of protection as of assault, but as I had none but passing thoughts for any subject save Dora, I glanced at her directly afterwards and was thinking that I saw in her prettily pettish manner that she was not very much inclined to be particularly confidential to her companion and protector when a bell rang, which Mr. Spenlow said was the first dinner bell, and so carried me off to dress. The idea of dressing oneself or doing anything in the way of action in that state of love was a little too ridiculous. I could only sit down before my fire, biting the key of my carpet bag, and think of the captivating, girlish, bright eyed, lovely Dora. What a form she had, what a face she had. What a graceful, variable, enchanting manner. The bell rang again so soon that I made a mere scramble of my dressing instead of the careful operation I could have wished under the circumstances, and went downstairs. There was some companymeaning. David isn't the only guest Dora was talking to. An old gentleman with a gray head, grey as he was, and a great grandfather into the bargain, for he said so. I was madly jealous of him. What a state of mind I was in. I was jealous of everybody. I couldn't bear the idea of anybody knowing Mr. Spenlow better than I did. It was torturing to me to hear them talk of occurrences in which I had had no share. When a most amiable person with a highly polished bald head asked me across the dinner table if that were the first occasion of my seeing the grounds, I could have done anything to him that was savage and revengeful. I don't remember who was there except Dora. I have not the least idea what we had for dinner besides Dora. My impression is that I dined off Dora entirely, and sent away half a dozen plates untouched. I sat next to her. I talked to her. She had the most delightful little voice, the gayest little laugh, the pleasantest and most fascinating little ways that ever led a lost youth into hopeless slavery. She was rather diminutive altogether so much the more precious, I thought, when she went out of the room with Miss Murdstone, no other ladies were of the party. I fell into a reverie, only disturbed by the cruel apprehension that Miss Murdstone would disparage me to her. The amiable creature with the polished head told me a long story, which I think was about gardening. I think I heard him say, my gardener, several times. I seemed to pay the deepest attention to him, but I was wandering in a Garden of Eden all the while with Dora. My apprehensions of being disparaged to the object of my engrossing affection were revived when we went into the drawing room by the grim and distant aspect of Miss Murdstone. But I was relieved of them in an unexpected manner. David Copperfield, said Miss Murdstone, beckoning me aside into a window. A word. I confronted Miss Murdstone alone. David Copperfield, said Miss Murdstone, I need not enlarge upon family circumstances. They are not a tempting subject. Far from it, ma', am, I returned. Far from it, assented Miss Murdstone. I do not wish to revive the memory of past differences or of past outrages. I have received outrages from a person, a female, I am sorry to say, for the credit of my sex, who is not to be mentioned, without scorn and disgust, and therefore I would rather not mention her. So she's talking about Miss Betsy here. I felt very fiery on my aunt's account, but I said it would certainly be better if Miss Murdstone pleased not to mention her. I could not hear her disrespectfully mentioned, I added, without expressing my opinion, in a decided tone. Miss Murdstone shut her eyes and disdainfully inclined her head, then slowly opening her eyes, resumed, David Copperfield, I shall not attempt to disguise the fact that I formed an unfavorable opinion of you in your childhood. It may have been a mistaken one, or you may have ceased to justify it. That is not in question between us now. I belong to a family remarkable, I believe, for some firmness, and I am not the creature of circumstance or change. I may have my opinion of you, you may have your opinion of me. I inclined my head in my turn. But it is not necessary, said Miss Murdstone, that these opinions should come into collision Here under existing circumstances. It is as well on all accounts that they should not, as the chances of life have brought us together again, and may bring us together on other occasions, I would say let us meet here as distant acquaintances. Family circumstances are a sufficient reason for our only meeting on that footing, and it is quite unnecessary that either of us should make the other the subject of remark. Do you approve of this, Ms. Murdstone? I returned. I think you and Mr. Murdstone used me very cruelly and treated my mother with great unkindness. I shall always think so as long as I live. But I quite agree in what you propose. Ms. Murdstone shut her eyes again and bent her head. Then, just touching the back of my hand with the tips of her cold, stiff fingers, she walked away, arranging the little fetters on her wrists and round her neck, which seemed to be the same set in exactly the same state as when I had seen her last. These reminded me, in reference to Ms. Murdstone's nature, of the fetters over a jail door, suggesting on the outside to all beholders what was to be expected within. All I know of the rest of the evening is that I heard the empress of my heart sing enchanted ballads in the French language, generally to the effect that whatever was the matter, we ought always to dance. Tara la tara la, accompanying herself on a glorified instrument resembling a guitar. That I was lost in blissful delirium, that I refused refreshment, that my soul recoiled from punch, particularly that when Ms. Murdstone took her into custody and led her away, she smiled and gave me her delicious hand. That I caught a view of myself in a mirror, looking perfectly imbecile and idiotic. That I retired to bed in a most maudlin state of mind and got up in a crisis of feeble infatuation. It was a fine morning and early, and I thought I would go and take a stroll down one of those wire arched walks and indulge my passion by dwelling on her image. On my way through the hall I encountered her little dog, who was called Gyp, short for Gypsy. I approached him tenderly, for I loved even him. But he showed his whole set of teeth, got under a chair expressly to snarl, and wouldn't hear of the least familiarity. The garden was cool and solitary. I walked about wondering what my feelings of happiness would be if I could ever become engaged to this dear wonderful. As to marriage and fortune and all that, I believe I was almost as innocently undesigning then as when I loved little Em' ly To be allowed to call her Dora, to write to her, to dote upon and worship her, to have reason to think that when she was with other people she was yet mindful of me, seemed to me the summit of human ambition. I am sure it was the summit of mine. There is no doubt whatever that I was a lackadaisical young Spooney. But there was a purity of heart in all this that prevents my having quite a contemptuous recollection of it. Let me laugh as I may. I had not been walking long. When I turned a corner and met her, a tingle again from head to foot as my recollection turns that corner and my pen shakes in my hand. You are out early, Ms. Spenlow, said I. It's so stupid at home, she replied, and Miss Murdstone is so absurd. She talks such nonsense about it being necessary for the day to be aired before I come out. Aired? She laughed here in the most melodious manner. On a Sunday morning when I don't practise, I must do something. So I told Papa last night, I must come out. Besides, it's the brightest time of the whole day, don't you think so? I hazarded a bold flight and said, not without stammering, that it was very bright to me then, though it had been very dark to me a minute before. Do you mean a compliment? Said Dora. Or that the weather has really changed? I stammered worse than before, in replying that I meant no compliment. But the plain truth, though I was not aware of any change having taken place in the weather, it was in the state of my own feelings. I added bashfully, to clench the explanation. I never saw such curls. How could I? For there never were such curls as those she shook out to hide her blushes. As to the straw hat and blue ribbons which was on the top of the curls, if I could only have hung it up in my room in Buckingham street, what a priceless possession it would have been. You have just come home from Paris, said I. Yes, said she. Have you ever been there? No. Oh, I hope you'll go soon. You would like it very much. Traces of deep seated anguish appeared in my countenance. That she should hope I would go, that she should think it possible I could go, was insupportable. I depreciated Paris. I depreciated France. I said I wouldn't leave England. Under existing circumstances, for any earthly consideration, nothing should induce me. In short, she was shaking the curls again when the little dog came running along the walk. To our relief, he was mortally jealous. Of me and persisted in barking at me. She took him up in her arms, oh my goodness. And caressed him, but he persisted upon barking. Still he wouldn't let me touch him when I tried. And then she beat him. It increased my sufferings greatly to see the pat she gave him for punishment on the bridge of his blunt nose, while he winked his eyes and licked her hand and still growled within himself like a little double bass. At length he was quiet. Well, he might be, with her dimpled chin upon his head. And we walked away to look at a greenhouse. You are not very intimate with Ms. Murdstone, are you? Said Dora, my pet. The two last words were to the dog. Oh, if they had only been to me. No, I replied, not at all so. She is a tiresome creature, said Dora, pouting. I can't think what Papa can have been about when he chose such a vexatious thing to be my companion. Who wants a protector, I am sure I don't want to protect her. Jip can protect me a great deal better than Ms. Murdstone, can't you, Chip, dear? He only winked lazily when she kissed his ball of a head. Papa calls her my confidential friend, but I am sure she is no such thing. Is she, Jip? We are not going to confide in any such cross people, Jip and I. We need to bestow our confidence where we like and to find out our own friends instead of having them found out from for us. Don't we, Jip? Jip made a comfortable noise in answer, a little like a tea kettle when it sings. As for me, every word was a new heap of fetters riveted above the last meaning. He's falling for her more and more. It is very hard because we have not a kind mama that we are to have instead a sulky, gloomy old thing like Ms. Murdstone always following us about. Isn't it, Gypsy? Never mind, Jip. We won't be confidential, and we'll make ourselves as happy as we can in spite of her. And we'll tease her and not please her, won't we, Jip? If it had lasted any longer, I think I must have gone down on my knees on the gravel, with the probability before me of grazing them and of being presently ejected from the premises besides. But by my good fortune, the greenhouse was not far off, and these words brought us to contained quite a show of beautiful geraniums. We loitered along in front of them, and Dora often stopped to admire this one or that one, and I stopped to admire the Same one. And Dora, laughing, held the dog up childishly to smell the flowers. And if we were not all three in fairyland, certainly I was. The scent of a geranium leaf at this day strikes me with a half comical, half serious wonder as to what change has come over me in a moment. And then I see a straw hat and blue ribbons and a quantity of curls and a little black dog being held up in two slender arms against a bank of blossoms and bright leaves. Miss Murdstone had been looking for us. She found us here and presented her uncongenial cheek, the little wrinkles in it filled with hair powder, to Dora to be kissed. Then she took Dora's arm in hers and marched us in to breakfast as if it were a soldier's funeral. How many cups of tea I drank because Dora made it, I don't know, but I perfectly remember that I was swilling tea until my whole nervous system, if I had had any in those days, must have gone by the board by and by. We went to church. Ms. Murdstone was between Dora and me in the pew, but I heard her sing and the congregation vanished. A sermon was delivered about Dora, of course, and I am afraid that is all I know of the servant. We had a quiet day. No company, a walk, a family dinner of four and an evening of looking over books and pictures. Miss Murdstone with a homily before her and her eye upon us, keeping guard vigilantly. Ah. Little did Mr. Spenlow imagine, when he sat opposite to me after dinner that day with his pocket handkerchief over his head, how fervently I was embracing him in my fancy as his son in law. Little did he think, when I took leave of him at night, that he had just given his full consent to my being engaged to Dora and that I was invoking blessings on his head. So obviously he hasn't done that, but David is fantasizing that he will. We departed early in the morning for we had a salvage case coming on in the Admiralty Court requiring a rather accurate knowledge of the whole science of navigation, in which, as we couldn't be expected to know much about those matters in the Commons, the judge had entreated two Old Trinity masters for charity's sake to come and help him out. Dora was at the breakfast table to make the tea again, however, and I had the melancholy pleasure of taking off my hat to her in the phaeton as she stood on the doorstep with Gyp in her arms. What the Admiralty was to me that day, what nonsense I made of Our case. In my mind as I listened to it, how I saw Dora engraved upon the blade of the silver ore which they lay upon the table as the emblem of that high jurisdiction. And how I felt when Mr. Spenlow went home without me. I had had an insane hope that he might take me back again, as if I were a mariner myself and the ship to which I belonged had sailed away and left me on a desert island. I shall make no fruitless effort to describe. If that sleepy old court could rouse itself and present in any visible form the daydreams I have had in it about Dora, it would reveal my truth. I don't mean the dreams that I dreamed on that day alone, but day after day, from week to week and term to term. I went there not to attend to what was going on, but to think about Dora. If ever I bestowed a thought upon the cases as they dragged their slow length before me, it was only to wonder, in the matrimonial cases, remembering Dora, how it was that married people could ever be otherwise than happy. And in the prerogative cases to consider, if the money in question had been left to me, what were the foremost steps I should immediately have taken in regard to Dora. Within the first week of my passion, I bought four sumptuous waistcoats. Not for myself, I had no pride in them, but for Dora. And took to wearing straw colored kid gloves in the streets and laid the foundations of all the corns I have ever had. If the boots I wore at that period could only be produced and compared with the natural size of my feet, they would show what the state of my heart was in a most affecting manner. Basically saying, he's trying to dress up for Dora's sake, but he's becoming very uncomfortable and yet wretched cripple. As I made myself by this act of homage to Dora, I walked miles upon miles daily in the hope of seeing her. Not only was I soon as well known on the Norwood Road as the postman on that beat, but I pervaded London likewise. I walked about the streets where the best shops for ladies were. I haunted the bazaar like an unquiet spirit. I fagged through the park again and again, long after I was quite knocked up. Meaning he trudged to the park long after he was tired, sometimes at long intervals. And on rare occasions I saw her. Perhaps I saw her glove waved in a carriage window. Perhaps I met her, walked with her and Ms. Murdstone a little way and spoke to her. In the latter case, I was always very miserable afterwards to think that I had said nothing to the purpose office, or that she had no idea of the extent of my devotion, or that she cared nothing about me. I was always looking out, as may be supposed, for another invitation to Mr. Spenlow's house. I was always being disappointed, for I got none. Mrs. Crupp must have been a woman of penetration, for when this attachment was but a few weeks old, and I had not had the courage to write more explicitly, even to Agnes, than that I had been to Mr. Spenlow's house. House, whose family, I added, consists of one daughter. I say Mrs. Cropp must have been a woman of penetration, for even in that early stage she found it out. She came up to me one evening when I was very low, to ask, she being then afflicted with the disorder, I have mentioned, if I could oblige her with a little tincture of cardamoms mixed with rhubarb and flavoured with seven drops of the essence of cloves, which was the best remedy for her complaint, or if I had not such a thing, by me, with a little brandy, which was the next best. It was not, she remarked, so palatable to her, but it was the next best. As I had never even heard of the first remedy and always had the second in the closet, I gave Mrs. Crupp a glass of the second, which that I might have no suspicion of its being devoted to any improper use, she began to take in my presence. Cheer up, sir, said Mrs. Crupp. I can't abear to see you so, sir. I'm a mother myself. I did not quite perceive the application of this fact to myself, but I smiled on Mrs. Crupp as benignly as was in my power. Come, sir, said Mrs. Crupp. Excuse me. I know what it is, sir. There's a lady in the case. Mrs. Crupp. I returned reddening. Oh, bless you. Keep a good heart, sir, said Mrs. Crupp, nodding encouragement. Never say die, sir. If she don't smile upon you, there's a many as will. You are a young gentleman to be smiled on, Mr. Copperfull, and you must learn your wal you, sir. Mrs. Crupp always called me Mr. Copperful. Firstly, no doubt because it was not my name, and secondly, I am inclined to think in some indistinct association with a washing day. On the day when the clothes get washed, they get put in a large copper vat to be cleaned. What makes you suppose there is any young lady in the case, Mrs. Crupp? Said I. Mr. Cupperful? Said Mrs. Crupp, with a great deal of feeling. I'm a mother myself. For some time Mrs. Crupp could only lay her hand upon her nankeen bosom and fortify herself against returning pain with sips of her medicine. At length she spoke again. When the presents that were took for you by your dear aunt, Mr. Copperfull, said Mrs. Crupp, my remark were I had now found some one I could care for, thank heaven, were the expression, I have now found some one I can care for. You don't eat enough, sir, nor yet drink. Is that what you found your supposition on, Mrs. Crupp? Said I, sir, said Mrs. Crupp, in a tone approaching to severity, I've launderest other young gentlemen besides yourself. A young gentleman may be over careful of himself, or he may be under careful of himself. He may brush his hair too regular or too unregular. He may wear his boots much too large for him, or much too small that is according as the young gentleman has his original character formed. But let him go to which extreme he may. Sir, there's a young lady in both of em. Meaning when a man starts changing the way he dresses, it's because of a woman. Mrs. Crupp shook her head in such a determined manner that I had not an inch of vantage ground left. It was but the gentleman which died here before yourself, said Mrs. Crupp, that fell in love with a barmaid and had his waistcoats took in directly, though much swelled by drinking. Mrs. Crupp, said I, I must beg you not to connect the young lady in my case with a barmaid or anything of that sort. If you please, Mr. Copperfull, returned Mrs. Crupp, I'm a mother myself, and not likely. I ask your pardon, sir, if I intrude. I should never wish to intrude where I was not welcome. But you are a young gentleman, Mr. Copperfull, and my advice to you is to cheer up, sir, to keep a good heart, and to know your own value. If you was to take to something, sir, said Mrs. Crupp, if you was to take to skittles now, which is ealthy, you might find it divert your mind and do you good with these words. Mrs. Crupp, affecting to be very careful of the brandy which was all gone, thanked me with a majestic curtsey and retired as her figure disappeared into the gloom of the entry. This counsel certainly presented itself to my mind in the light of a slight Liberty on Mrs. Crupp's part. But at the same time, I was content to receive it in another point of view as a word to the wise and a warning in future to keep my secret better. Thank you so much for listening. 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