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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 hope that you're in your cozy chair with your cup of tea and your little lovely teapot and your little tea sandwiches and scones. And even if you're not doing anything even remotely like that, I hope, as always, that this podcast feels like that to you. I know that we're not all sitting in our cozy chairs with our cups of tea, but wouldn't it be nice if we were? And wouldn't it be nice if we were all together? But I just. I just hope that this podcast can be like a sort of virtual cozy chair and that you can feel like you're sitting there with your tea steaming beside you, having as we read this book together and talk together, because we're all out there in our various places doing whatever we're doing, but in our minds, we're in our cozy chairs with our cups of tea. It's funny, over in the drawing room, which is our online community, we've been chatting a little bit about tea and people have been confessing that they don't actually like tea or they don't drink much tea or they're coffee drinkers or whatever it is, and that's completely fine. But for me, tea is like, it's not just a drink, it's like a way of life. It's comfort. You know, if I drink a cup of tea, I just immediately feel better. And I hope that there's something like that for you. Maybe this podcast can be like that for you. It certainly feels like that for me as well. So I'm glad you're here, whatever you're doing and wherever you are, I'm so glad you're here. Thank you for joining us again on Storytime for Grown Ups and checking back in with David and what he's doing. And I think we have a lot of worries about David at the moment and we're going to talk about them. But isn't it amazing that only two chapters in we actually care about this person, David Copperfield, who before this we didn't know at all, and we've only just started to know. Isn't it amazing and that's what great books do. We are making new friends here, you guys. We are friends with each other, we're friends with these characters. It's really amazing and fun. So we do. We want to know what is going to happen here and we're going to talk a lot about that before we get into today's chapter. But before we do that, just a couple of quick reminders. The first is just to remind you, speaking of the Drawing room, that Tea Time is coming up on Tuesday, January 27th at 8pm Eastern. Tea time is our monthly voice chat that we have over in our online community. If you'd like to be a part of that, if you'd like to join us, I would love to have you. And if you're not yet a member of the Drawing Room, it's very easy to become one. And if you just scroll into the description of this episode, you'll find link that will take you to a page that will give you more information. It's not going to immediately sign you up or take your money or anything like that. It'll just give you more information about how to do that. If you want to join the Tea Times, you have to join the Landed Gentry membership tier because house guests can come to the Drawing room and we love to see them there, but they are not entitled to join us for tea time. So if you'd like to join us for Tea time, you need to be Landed Gentry. So I hope that you will sign up and if you're already signed up, I hope that you'll join us again. It's Tuesday, January 27th at 8pm Eastern. I hope to see you there. I always love chatting with you guys and hearing from my old friends and meeting some new ones and I think it's going to be a really fun time. Other than that, all the usual things. Please make sure that you subscribe. Please tap the five stars. If you're enjoying the show, please write a little positive review. If you're enjoying the show and you have a couple of extra seconds, tell a friend, text a link to the show to people that you know that you think might like it and scroll into the show notes and take a look at the other links that are there. You can find our Merch store Buy some Storytime for Grown Ups Merch and that's another way to spread the word about the show. If anybody sees sees you wearing a Storytime shirt and says, hey, what's Storytime for Grown Ups? That's a great segue into helping them to find this show and you can also find a link to our donation page if you'd like to help support the show financially support the work that I do. There's a page there where you can make a donation and there's a few other things in the show notes that might be of interest. So I hope you'll scroll down into there and see what grabs your fancy. So that's it, I think. Let's get into the episode. Enough of that. So last time we read chapter two. Today we're going to be reading chapter three of David Copperfield. I have some questions. We have some things to talk about, I think, before we get into chapter three. But first let's remind ourselves what we read last time. Here is the recap. All right, so where we left off, David or Davie is painting a picture for us of his childhood with his mother. She was a sort of childlike woman and they had the servant Peggy, who loved them both and took good care of them. We learn that Peggy is less like a servant and more like a member of the family and that David view her sort of as a second mother. So one day David's mother comes home with a handsome man named Mr. Murdstone, and it becomes clear to Peggety and to us, but not to Davy, that Mr. Murdstone wants to marry David's mother. Peggy is against this and there's tension in the house because of that. David instinctively doesn't like that Mr. Murdstone is spending so much time with his mother, but he doesn't know what it means. So one day Mr. Murdstone comes and takes David out with him on his horse and they go to visit some of his friends who speak, seem sort of disreputable, and they spend the day on this yacht. When they get home, David's mother asks about his day and seems happy that the men seem to talk about her as pretty and bewitching. A few months later, Peggy asks David whether he'd like to come and spend a few weeks with her at her brother's house because the mother is going to be with some friends. David agrees to go, not understanding that the mother is probably going to get married to Mr. Murdstone during the time that he's away. So David says a very tearful goodbye to his mother and heads off with Peggy for this vacation. Okay, so I'm going to read two comments today. The first one comes from Jalyn. I hope I'm saying that name right, but J, I don't like this one bit. I already like little Davey So much. And I can just tell something is about to happen that won't be good. My guess is his mother is going to be married to this guy and ends up in either A, a miserable marriage or B, six feet under for what little prospects she possessed. Excited for the next chapter? Thank you. And this next one comes from our online community, the Drawing Room. And this person goes by the handle Ustellen, I guess. And she says, I Love Peggy. And Mr. Murdstone may have my vote for most perfect Dickensian name of all. Okay, so exactly. Yes, the last chapter was absolutely riddled with foreshadowing that something bad is going to happen, right? Particularly to the mother. Normally I don't read out people's guesses for what's going to happen next because I don't want to put ideas into people's heads that might accidentally spoil things or might have you thinking along lines that you weren't sort of organically thinking along. But I think Jallen's comment isn't really a spoiler at all because I think we are supposed to be thinking exactly what J is thinking, which is basically, oh, something bad is about to happen to either Davey or his mom or both. And we're meant to associate this bad feeling that we're getting with this man who has shown up in their lives who turns out to be called Mr. Murdstone. Now, Ellen is absolutely right. This is a fantastic name. And I think this is as good a place as any to mention that the names that Dickens gives his characters in this book, but in all of his books, they are absolutely legendary. He does the best names and what's fantastic about them is that each other, even though they don't actually mean anything. Like he didn't name this guy Mr. Badman or something like that. Right? The names don't mean anything usually, but somehow, through some sort of magical process that can't really be put into words, somehow the names of his characters all sound exactly like the character. I mean, no one named Murdstone is going to be a good guy, right? I mean, there's something off about a guy named Murdstone. There just is. And we could talk about what exactly it is about this name that makes us think that we could try to analyze it. We could be like, stones are hard and murdered. Sort of sounds like murder, a murderer, whatever. But it's not actually that. It's just some wonderful alchemy that Dickens does that allows the names of his characters to be somehow exactly like them without actually meaning anything at all. And that's very true here with Mr. Murdstone. He's just not a good guy. That's not a spoiler. It's evident from the sound of his name and also from some of the things that Davy tells us in the story, which I will get to in a moment. So just like last time, we are getting the description of what's going on from the perspective of child David, even though it's really adult David who's writing all this down. And child David doesn't understand a lot of things that adult David and also adult us does understand. So we're being told what's happening in the wonderful, childlike, straightforward voice of David. And that kind of heightens the dread that Jallen is talking about and that I think a lot of us experienced as we read this chapter. It heightens that dread because we're not being told what's going on, but we are picking up on it anyway because clearly what's going on is that this man, Mr. Murdstone, is courting Davey's mother. He wants to marry her. And regardless of whether he's a good guy or a bad guy, your widowed mother getting married is going to be a life changing event. So a big change is coming for Davey, regardless of whether or not it will be a good one. And actually, even if Mr. Murdstone turns out to be like the nicest guy imaginable, which doesn't seem likely at this point, but it could happen. So let's just say even if it does, it seems like Davey's life up until this point has actually been kind of idyllic for a little boy. Right. He doesn't have a father, so that's not good. But he does have sort of two parents, essentially two people who love him and are actively raising him. And those two people are his mother and Peggy, this servant who lives with them. And from these two women he's gotten all the love and attention that a boy could want, really. Right. His mother, like we talked about last time, she's kind of like a child. She's not really the authority figure that you might expect from a Victorian mother. She's much more like an older sister or something like that, much more that than a mot. She's playful and kind of vain and very loving, but not really a disciplinarian or anything like that. Here's what we're told. This is a quote. When my mother is out of breath and rests herself in an elbow chair, I watch her winding her bright curls around her fingers and straightening her waist. And nobody knows better than I do that she likes to look so well and is proud of being so pretty. Okay, so I don't know about you, but to me that sounds much more like a kind of flirty teenager or something. And here's another quote. This is the mother talking to Peggy and she's trying to say that she is responsible, but she's actually coming across as totally childish. She says when you know as well as I do that on his account only last quarter. I wouldn't buy myself a new parasol though. That old green one is frayed the whole way up and the fringe is perfectly mangy. Okay, so Devi has this sort of wonderful, beautiful, fun, playful older sister type person for a mother. And then in Peggy, both of them, right, Davey and the mother have a sort of mother figure. Peggy is loving and kind and totally loyal. But she's also much firmer and more competent and capable than the mother seems to be. And she's the one who seems to actually be responsible for caring for Davy on like a day to day basis. So David's life is good, right? He's happy. He's got these two women caring for him who love him and play with him and ease his fears and comfort him when he's sad and all of this. And he's living a really very innocent and kind of sheltered life, which is so lovely because from what we can tell of him so far, he's a kind of a sort of dreamy, creative, trusting, loving little boy. And I'm with Jal and I really like him and I feel very protective of him because there's something very innocent about him and I don't want anything to shatter that too soon. I mean, he's got all of these fears, right, about the dead coming back to life and the birds in the yard and the storeroom down the hall. And all of this feels very realistic in the sense that little kids tend to have these sort of random fears. But he seems to have a particularly active imagination and that often leads to a lot of fears, even in real life with children. But it also leads to really lovely moments too. I mean, I love this little detail about the sundial. Remember he says this is a quote, is the sundial glad? I wonder that it can tell the tide Again, he's saying that when it's dark, the sundial won't work. So he wonders if it's happy when the sun rises. That's such a sweet and funny thing to think. And the image we get is that he's sort of wandering dreamily through his life, thinking about things and wondering about things and eating berries and trying to act like he's not doing that, and all of this. And we want to protect him. We love him. We want him to be okay. And so, of course, Dickens introduces something or someone that makes us worry that this lovely, idyllic childhood will be somehow disrupted. And this thing that comes onto the scene is, of course, Mr. Murdstone. And again, it's wonderful writing the way that Dickens alerts us to Mr. Murdstone's intentions without having the character, David, actually know them. Okay, here's a good example. This is a quote. It says, before he went, he asked my mother to give him a bit of the blossom. She begged him to choose it for himself, but he refused to do that. I could not understand why. So she plucked it for him and gave it into his hand. He said he would never, never part with it anymore. And I thought he must be quite a fool not to know that it would fall to pieces in a day or two. So, I mean, obviously, Mr. Murdstone is flirting with the mother and being sort of gallant and asking for this blossom that she picked herself and saying he'll never part with it. And all of this. It would actually be kind of romantic, I think, if we weren't also getting all of this foreshadowing that this guy is bad news. I mean, one of the ways that we know that this guy is bad news is that Peggety doesn't like him. And we know we like Peggy. Right? So this is what David says. He says, sometimes I fancied that Peggy perhaps objected to my mother's wearing all the pretty dresses she had in her drawers or to her going so often to visit at that neighbor's. But I couldn't, to my satisfaction, make out how it was. Okay, so David doesn't understand that the mother keeps going out with Mr. Murdstone. But clearly Peggety knows it, and Peggety disapproves. So if Peggy disapproves, then we disapprove as well, because we trust Peggety much more than Mr. Murdstone. Right? And also, we get this foreshadowing from David. It says this. His regular eyebrows and the rich white and black and brown of his complexion confound his complexion. And his memory made me think him, in spite of my misgivings, a very handsome man. I have no doubt that my poor dear Mot thought him so, too. Okay, so if adult David confounds this guy's memory, that means that something is going to happen with this guy that's bad. So he's telling us this right up front, so it's not a spoiler, right? He's telling us this guy is bad news in some way. And of course, we get this scene with the two friends of Mr. Murdstone, who seem like sort of rough type people, and they're kind of joking around about Davey's mother and all of this. So Mr. Murdstone is acting very gallant and he's courting the mom and he's taking Davey for a ride. But his friend. Friends are sort of questionable, and that doesn't speak well of him either. But I think probably the worst of the foreshadowing that we get in this chapter, the things that seem most devastating are the things that David tells us about his mother. Because, of course, even though she is this very childlike person, even though Peggy seems more like a mother in a lot of ways than the mother, even though all of that is true, Davey's mother is his mother. And he loves her with a little loyalty and a passion that is essentially the strongest tie he's got to any person in his life, which makes a lot of sense. And we get at the end of chapter two, we get these very ominous allusions to the fact that something is about to change about the mother. Here's the first one. It says, can I say, of her face, altered as I have reason to remember it, perished as I know it is that it is gone when here it comes before me at this instant as descendants, distinct as any face that I may choose to look on in a crowded street. I mean, that's beautiful writing, right? But he's telling us that his mother is dead. But of course, that's not that odd since he's writing this many, many years later. So he could be saying that she died of old age way after all of this. So that's not definitive. But this line about alters, as I have reason to remember it, that should give us pause, because what would alter the mother's beautiful face? I mean, age might, so that would be fine, right? But also hardship could. Or illness. And we're getting the sense here that something is going to happen in the narrative that he's telling us that will alter the mother. So that's bad. And then, of course, at the very end, Peggy and Davy leave to visit Peggy's family because. And we can infer this, although Davy doesn't know it yet, we can infer that they are leaving because the mother is gonna marry Mr. Murdstone. Right. And they don't want Davy around for their honeymoon or whatever. So he's being taken away for a little vacation. And Peggy is coming, clearly very upset about this. She doesn't want the mother to marry Mr. Murdstone. But Davy just thinks that he's going on a fun holiday. So he says. Here's a quote. It touches me nearly now, although I tell it lightly, to recollect how eager I was to leave my happy home. To think how little I suspected what I did leave forever. Okay, so that's really bad, right? He's leaving his happy home forever. That's not good. I mean, we don't really know what it means, but it's bad. It could mean that he's actually never coming back to his home ever again. That would be terrible. But it could also mean that when he comes back, it won't be a happy home anymore for some reason, that his happy home will turn into an unhappy one somehow. And either way, it's not looking good. So we need to find out what's going to happen, right? Exactly. What is it going to be that we are hearing about? What is this foreshadowing all leading to? So we need to find that out and we need to go with Davey and Peggotty now to Peggy's family and see what that's going be like and what that will tell us about Davey and his life and his childhood. So let's do that. Let's get back to the chapters. But of course, don't forget to write to me. It's Faith K. Moore.com and you click on Contact. Or you can just scroll into the show notes and click the link that's there. It's the same link. It takes you to the same page. Fill out the contact form and tell me all your thoughts. Ask questions if things are a little confusing or if you're wondering stuff or just tell me what this stuff brings up for you. What does the chapter say to you and what are you thinking about as you're listening? I would love to hear from you, so please do get in touch. All right, let's get started with chapter three of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. It's story time. Chapter three. I have a change. The carrier's horse was the laziest horse in the world, I should hope. And shuffled along with his head down as if he liked to keep people waiting to whom the packages were directed. Okay, so they're traveling in a carriage that also brings people their mail. I fancied indeed that he sometimes chuckled audibly over this reflection, but the carrier said he was only troubled with a cough. The carrier had a way of keeping his head down, like his horse, and of drooping sleepily forward as he drove with one of his arms on each of his knees. I say drove, but it struck me that the cart would have gone to Yarmouth quite as well without him, for the horse did all that, and as to conversation, he had no idea of it but whistling. Peggy had a basket of refreshments on her knee, which would have lasted us out handsomely if we had been going to London by the same conveyance. Meaning she's bought way too much food, way more food than they need. We ate a good deal and slept a good deal. Peggy always went to sleep with her chin upon the handle of the basket, her hold of which never relaxed, and I could not have believed, unless I had heard her do it, that one defenceless woman could have snored so much. We made so many deviations up and down lanes and were such a long time delivering a bedstead in a public house and calling at other places, that I was quite tired and very glad when we saw Yarmouth. It looked rather spongy and soppy, I thought, as I carried my eye over the great dull waste that lay across the river. And I could not help wondering if the world were really as round as my geography book said, how any part of it came to be so flat. But I reflected that Yarmouth might be situated at one of the poles which would account for it. As we drew a little nearer and saw the whole adjacent prospect lying a straight, low line under the sky, I hinted to Peggotty that a mound or so might have improved it, and also that if the land had been a little more separated from the sea and. And the town and the tide had not been quite so much mixed up like toast and water, it would have been nicer. But Peggy said, with greater emphasis than usual that we must take things as we found them, and that, for her part, she was proud to call herself a Yarmouth bloater. So this is Peggy's hometown. So even though Davey feels like it looks kind of dismal, Peggy likes it because it's home. When we got into the street, which was strange enough to me, and smelt the fish and pitch and oakum and tar, and saw the sailors walking about and the carts jingling up and down over the stones, I felt that I had done so busy a place an injustice and said as much to Peggotty, who heard my expressions of delight with great complacency. And told me it was well known, I suppose, to those who had the good fortune to be born bloaters that Yarmouth was upon the whole the finest place in the universe. Here's my am. Screamed Peggotty, growed out of knowledge, meaning all grown up. He was waiting for us in fact at the public house and asked me how I found myself like an old acquaintance. I did not feel at first that I knew him as well as he knew me because he had never come to our house since the night I was born and naturally he had the advantage of me meaning Davy doesn't remember Ham, even though Ham saw Davey when Davey was a baby and therefore remembers him from then. But our intimacy was much advanced by his taking me on his back to carry me home. He was now a huge strong fellow of six feet high, broad in proportion and round shouldered, but with a simpering boy's face and curly light hair that gave him quite a sheepish look. He was dressed in a canvas jacket and a pair of such very stiff trousers that they would have stood quite as well alone without any legs in them. And you couldn't so properly have said he wore a hat as that he was covered in a top like an old building with something pitchy. Ham carrying me on his back and a small box of ours under his arm and Peggotty carrying another small box of ours. We turned down lanes bestrewn with bits of chips and little hillocks of sand and went past gas works, rope walks, boat builders, yards, shipwrights, yards, shipbreakers, yards, cockers, yards, riggers, lofts, smith's forges and a great litter of such places until we came out upon the dull waste I had already seen at a distance when Ham said, yon's our house, Master Davie, meaning there's our house, Master Davie. I looked in all directions as far as I could stare over the wilderness and away at the sea and away at the river, but no house could I make out. There was a black barge or some other kind of superannuated boat. Superannuated means old or outdated. Not far off high and dry on the ground with an iron funnel sticking out of it for a chimney and smoking very cosily, but nothing else in the way of a habitation that was visible to me. That's not it, said I. That ship looking thing. That's it, Master Davy returned Ham. If it had been Aladdin's palace, rocks egg and all, I suppose I could not have been more charmed with the romantic idea of living in it. So a rock egg Is an egg from a mythological giant bird. Which appears in a variety of places. Including the Thousand and One Nights. Where the story of Aladdin is told. So the Peggotty family living in a boat on land. Makes Davy think of fairy tales. And he loves it. There was a delightful door cut in the side. And it was roofed in. And there were little windows in it. But the wonderful charm of it was that it was a real boat. Which had no doubt been upon the water hundreds of times. And which had never been intended to be lived in on dry land. That was the captivation of it to me. If it had ever been meant to be lived in. I might have thought it small or inconvenient or lonely. But never having been designed for any such use. It became a perfect abode. It was beautifully clean inside and as tidy as possible. There was a table and a Dutch clock. And a chest of drawers. And on the chest of drawers there was a tea tray. With a painting on it. Of a lady with a parasol. Taking a walk. With a military looking child who was trundling a hoop. The tray was kept from tumbling down by a Bible. And the tray, if it had tumbled down. Would have smashed A quantity of cups and saucers and a teapot. That were grouped around the book. On the walls there were some common colored pictures. Framed and glazed. Of scripture subjects. Such as I have never seen in the hands of peddlers. Without seeing the whole interior of Pegady's brother's house again at one view. Meaning sometimes he sees these same kind of biblical pictures. Being sold by peddlers. And when he does, he always thinks of Peggy's brother's house. Abraham in red going to sacrifice. Isaac in blue. And Daniel in yellow cast into a den of green. Lions were the most prominent of these. Over the little mantel shelf Was a picture of the Sarah Jane lugger. A lugger is a kind of sailboat built at Sunderland. With a real little wooden stern stuck onto it. A work of art combining composition with carpentry. Which I considered to be one of the most enviable possessions that the world could afford. There were some hooks in the beams of the ceiling. The use of which I did not divine then. And some lockers and boxes and conveniences of that sort. Which served for seats and eked out the chairs. All this I saw in the first glance after I crossed the threshold. Childlike, according to my theory. Remember, he has a theory that children notice more than grown ups do. So he was able to see everything he just described at a first glance. Because he was a child. And then Peggy opened a little door and showed me my bedroom. It was the completest and most desirable bedroom ever seen in the stern of the vessel, with a little window where the rudder used to go through a little looking glass just the right height for me, nailed against the wall and framed with oyster shells, a little bed which there was just room enough to get into, and a nosegay of seaweed in a blue mug on the table. The walls were whitewashed as white as milk and the patchwork counterpane made my eyes quite ache with its brightness. One thing I particularly noticed in this delightful house was the smell of fish, which was so searching that when I took out my pocket handkerchief to wipe my nose I found it smelt exactly as if it had wrapped up a lobster. On my Imparting this discovery in confidence to Peggotty, she informed me that her brother dealt in lobsters, crabs and crawfish and I afterwards found that a heap of these creatures in a state of wonderful conglomeration with one another and never leaving off pinching whatever they laid hold of were usually to be found in a little wooden outhouse where the pots and kettles were kept. We were welcomed by a very civil woman in a white apron whom I had seen curtseying at the door when I was on Ham's back about a quarter of a mile off, off likewise by a most beautiful little girl, or I thought her so, with a necklace of blue beads on, who wouldn't let me kiss her when I offered to, but ran away and hid herself by and by, when we had dined in a sumptuous manner off boiled dabs, that's a kind of fish. Melted butter and potatoes with a chop for me. A hairy man with a very good natured face came home, as he called Peggy lass, and gave her a hearty smack on the cheek. I had no doubt from the general propriety of her conduct that he was her brother. And so he turned out, being presently introduced to me as Mr. Peggotty, the master of the house. Glad to see you, sir, said Mr. Peggotty. You'll find us rough, sir, but you'll find us ready. I thanked him and replied that I was sure I should be happy in such a delightful place. How's your ma, sir? Said Mr. Peggotty. Did you leave her pretty jolly? I gave Mr. Peggotty to understand that she was as jolly as I could wish and that she desired her compliments, which was a polite fiction on my part. I'm much obleeged to her I'm sure, said Mr. Peggotty. Well, sir, if you can make out here for a fortnightlong wid her, nodding at his sister and am and little Em', ly, we shall be proud of your company, meaning if you can be happy here for a fortnight so two weeks along with with Peggy, the little girl who's named Emily, and Ham, then they'll be happy to have him. Having done the honors of his house in this hospitable manner, Mr. Peggotty went out to wash himself in a kettleful of hot water, remarking that cold would never get his muck off. He soon returned, greatly improved in appearance, but so rubicund, meaning all red, that I couldn't help thinking his face had this in common with the lobsters, crabs, and crawfish fish, that it went into the hot water very black and came out very red after tea when the door was shut and all was made snug, the nights being cold and misty now it seemed to me the most delicious retreat that the imagination of man could conceive. To hear the wind getting up out at sea, to know that the fog was creeping over the desolate flat outside, and to look at the fire and think that there was no house near but this one and this one. A boat was like enchantment. Little Emily had overcome her shyness and was sitting by my side upon the lowest and least of the lockers, which was just large enough for us two and just fitted into the chimney corner. Mrs. Peggotty, with the white apron, was knitting on the opposite side of the fire. Peggotty, at her needlework, was as much at home with St Paul's and the bit of wax candle as if they had never known any other roof. Ham, who had been giving me my first lesson in all fours. All fours is a card game, was trying to recollect a scheme of telling fortunes with the dirty cards, and was printing off fishy impressions of his thumb on all the cards he turned. Mr. Peggotty was smoking his pipe. I felt it was a time for conversation and confidence. Mr. Peggotty says I, sir, says he. Did you give your son the name of Ham because you lived in a sort of ark? Mr. Peggotty seemed to think it a deep idea, but answered, no, sir, I never give him no name. Who gave him that name then? Said I, putting question number two of the catechism to Mr. Peggotty. Why, sir, his father give it him, said Mr. Peggotty. I thought you were his father. My brother Joe was his father, said Peggotty. Dead, Mr. Peggotty, I hinted after a respectful pause. Drowned dead, said Mr. Peggotty. I was very much surprised that Mr. Peggotty was not Ham's father and began to wonder whether I was mistaken about his relationship to anybody else there. I was so curious to know that I made up my mind to have it out with Mr. Peggotty. Little Em', Ly, I said, glancing at her. She is your daughter, isn't she, Mr. Peggotty? No, sir. My brother in law, Tom, was her father. I couldn't help it. Dead, Mr. Peggotty, I hinted after another respectful silence. Drown dead, said Mr. Peggotty. I felt the difficulty of resuming the subject, but had not got to the bottom of it yet and must get to the bottom somehow. So I said, haven't you any children, Mr. Peggotty? No, master, he answered with a short laugh. I'm a bachelor. A bachelor? I said, astonished. Why, who's that, Mr. Peggotty, pointing to the person in the apron who was knitting. That's Mrs. Gummidge, said Mr. Peggotty. Gummidge, Mr. Peggotty. But at this point Peggotty I mean my own peculiar Peggotty made such impressive motions to me not to ask any more questions that I could only sit and look at all the silent company until it was time to go to bed. Then, in the privacy of my own little cabin, she informed me that Ham and Emily were an orphan nephew and niece whom my host had at different times adopted in their childhood when they were left destitute, and that Mrs. Gummidge was the widow of his partner in a boat who had died very poor. He was but a poor man himself, said Peggotty, but as good as gold and as true as steel. Those were her similes. The only subject, she informed me, on which he ever showed a violent temper or swore an oath was this generosity of his and if it were ever referred to by any one of them, he struck the table a heavy blow with his right hand, had split it on one such occasion, and swore a dreadful oath that he would be gormed if he didn't cut and run for good if it was ever mentioned again. It appeared in answer to my inquiries that nobody had the least idea of the etymology of this terrible verb, passive, to be gormed, but that they all regarded it as constituting a most solemn imprecation. I was very sensible of my entertainer's goodness and listened to the women's going to bed in another little crib like mine at the opposite end of the boat, and to him and Ham, hanging up two hammocks for themselves on the hooks I had noticed in the roof. In a very luxurious state of mind, enhanced by my being sleepy, a slumber gradually stole upon me. I heard the wind howling out at sea and coming on across the flat so fiercely that I had a lazy appreciation of the great deep rising in the night. But I bethought myself that I was in a boat after all, and that a man like Mr. Peggotty was not a bad person to have on board if anything did happen. Nothing happened, however, worse than morning. Almost as soon as it shone upon the oyster shell frame of my mirror, I was out of bed and out with little Emily, picking up stones upon the beach. You're quite a sailor, I suppose, I said to Emily. I don't know that I supposed anything of the kind, but I felt it an act of gallantry to say something. And a shining sail close to us made such a pretty little image of itself at the moment in her bright eye, that it came into my head to say this. No, replied Emily, shaking her head. I'm afraid of the sea. Afraid? I said with a becoming air of boldness and looking very big at the mighty ocean. I ain't. Ah, but it's cruel, said Emily. I have seen it very cruel to some of our men. I have seen it tear a boat as big as our house all to pieces. I hope it wasn't the boat that that father was drownded in, said Emily. No, not that one. I never seen that boat. Nor him? I asked her. Little Emily shook her head not to remember. Here was a coincidence. I immediately went into an explanation. How I had never seen my own father and how my mother and I had always lived by ourselves in the happiest state imaginable and lived so then, and always meant to live so. And how my father's grave was in the churchyard near our house and shaded by a tree beneath the boughs of which I had walked and heard the birds and sing many a pleasant morning. But there were some differences between Emily's orphanhood and mine. It appeared she had lost her mother before her father. And where her father's grave was no one knew, except that it was somewhere in the depths of the sea. Besides, said Emily, as she looked about for shells and pebbles, your father was a gentleman and your mother is a lady. And my father was a fisherman, and my mother was a fisherman's daughter. And my uncle Dan is a fisherman, And Dan is Mr. Peggotty, is he? Said I. Uncle Dan yonder, Answered Emily, nodding At the boat house? Yes, I mean him. He must be very good, I should think. Good, said Emily. If I was ever to be a lady, I'd give him a sky blue coat with diamond buttons, Nankeen trousers, a red velvet waistcoat, a cocked hat, a large gold watch, a silver pipe and a box of money. I said I had no doubt that Mr. Peggotty well deserved these treasures. I must acknowledge that I felt it difficult to picture him quite at his ease in the raiment proposed for him by his grateful little niece, and that I was particularly doubtful of the policy of the cocked hat. But I kept these sentiments to myself. Little Em' ly had stopped and looked up at the sky in her enumeration of these articles as if they were a glorious vision. We went on again picking up shells and pebbles. You would like to be a lady? I said. Emily looked at me and laughed and nodded. Yes, I should like it very much. We would all be gentlefolk together, thenme and uncle and Ham and Mrs. Gummidge. We wouldn't mind then when there comes stormy weather. Not for our own sakes, I mean. We would for the poor fisherman's, to be sure. And we'd help em with money when they come to any hurt. This seemed to me to be a very satisfactory and therefore not at all improbable picture. I expressed my pleasure in the contemplation of it, and little Emily was emboldened to say shyly, don't you think you are afraid of the sea? Now it was quiet enough to reassure me, but I have no doubt if I had seen a moderately large wave come tumbling in, I should have taken to my heels with an awful recollection of her drowned relationship. However, I said no, and I added, you don't seem to be either, though you say you are. For she was walking much too near the brink of a sort of old jetty or wooden causeway we had strolled upon, and I was afraid of her falling over. I'm not afraid in this way, said Emily, but I wake when it blows and tremble to think of Uncle Dan and Ham, and believe I hear em crying out for help. That's why I should like so much to be a lady. But I'm not afraid in this way, not a bit. Look here. She started from my side and ran along a jagged timber which protruded from the place we stood upon and overhung the deep water at some height without the least defence. The incident is so impressed on my remembrance that if I were a draughtsman I could draw its form here. I dare say, accurately as it was that day, and little Em' ly springing forward to her destruction as it appeared to me with a look that I have never forgotten directed far out to sea, the light, bold, fluttering little figure turned and came back safe to me, and I soon laughed at my fears and at the cry I had uttered fruitlessly in any case, for there was no one near. But there have been times since, in my manhoodmany times there have been when I have thought, is it possible among the possibilities of hidden things, that in the sudden rashness of the child and her wild look so far off, there was any merciful attraction of her into danger, any tempting her towards him permitted on the part of her dead father, that her life might have a chance of ending that day? There has been a time since when I have wondered whether if the life before her could have been revealed to me at a glance, and so revealed as that a child could fully comprehend it, and if her preservation could have depended on a motion of my hand, I ought to have held it up to save her. There has been a time since. I do not say it lasted long, but it has been when I have asked myself the question, would it have been better for little Emily to have had the waters close above her head that morning in my sight? And when I have answered, yes, yes, it would have been meaning there was a time when he would have thought it better for Emily to have drowned that day than to have whatever happens to her later happen this may be premature, I have set it down too soon, perhaps, but let it stand. We strolled a long way and loaded ourselves with things that we thought curious and put some stranded starfish carefully back into the water. I hardly know enough of the race at this moment to be quite certain whether they had reason to feel obliged to us for doing so or the reverse, and then made our way home to Mr. Peggotty's dwelling. We stopped under the lee of the lobster outhouse to exchange an innocent kiss and went in to breakfast glowing with health and pleasure. Like two young mavishes, Mr. Peggotty said, I knew this meant in our local dialect, like two young thrushes, and received it as a compliment. Of course I was in love with little Emily. I am sure I loved that baby quite as truly, quite as tenderly, with greater purity and more disinterestedness than can enter into the best love of a later time of life, high and ennobling as it is, I am sure my fancy raised up something round that blue eyed mite of a child. Which etherealized and made a very angel of her. If any sunny forenoon she had spread a little pair of wings and flown away before my eyes. I don't think I should have regarded it as much more than I had had reason to expect. We used to walk about that dim old flat at Yarmouth in a loving manner. Hours and hours the days sported by us as if Time had not grown up himself yet, but were a child too, and always at play. I told Emily I adored her and that unless she confessed she adored me, I should be reduced to the necessity of killing myself with a sword. She said she did, and I have no doubt she did. As to any sense of inequality or youthfulness or other difficulty in our way, little Emily and I had no such trouble. Because we had no future, we made no more provision for growing older than we did for growing younger. We were the admiration of Mrs. Gummidge and Peggotty Peggotty, who used to whisper of an evening when we sat lovingly on our little locker, side by side. Lor, Wasn't it beautiful? Mr. Peggotty smiled at us from behind his pipe and ham, grinned all the evening and did nothing else. They had something of the sort of pleasure in us, I suppose, that they might have had in a pretty toy or a pocket model of the Coliseum. I soon found out that Mrs. Gummidge did not always make herself so agreeable as she might have been expected to do under the circumstances of her residence with Mr. Peggotty. Mrs. Gummage's was rather a fretful disposition, and she whimpered more sometimes than was comfortable for other parties in so small an establishment. I was very sorry for her. But there were moments when it would have been more agreeable, I thought, if Mrs. Gummage had had a convenient apartment of her own to retire to, and had stopped there until her spirits revived. Mr. Peggotty went occasionally to a public house called the Willing Mind. Mind. I discovered this by his being out on the second or third evening of our visit and by Mrs. Gummidge's looking up at the Dutch clock between eight and nine and saying he was there, and that what was more, she had known in the morning he would go there. Mrs. Gummidge had been in a low state all day and had burst into tears in the forenoon when the fire smoked. I am a lone lorn creeter, were Mrs. Gummidge's words when that unpleasant occurrence took place. And everything goes contrary with me, it'll soon leave off, said Peggotty. I again mean our Peggotty and besides, you know it's not more disagreeable to you than to us. I feel it more, said Mrs. Gummidge. It was a very cold day, with cutting blasts of wind. Mrs. Gummidge's peculiar corner of the fireside seemed to me to be the warmest and snuggest in the place, as her chair was certainly the easiest. But it didn't suit her that day at all. She was constantly complaining of the cold and of its occasioning a visitation in her back, which she called the creeps. At last she shed tears on that subject, and said again that she was a lone lorn cretur, and everythink went contrary with her. It is certainly very cold, said Peggotty. Everybody must feel it so. I feel it more than other people, said Mrs. Gummidge. So at dinner, when Mrs. Gummidge was always helped immediately after me, to whom the preference was given as a visitor of distinction, the fish were small and bony, and the potatoes were a little burnt. We all acknowledged that we felt this something of a disappointment, but Mrs. Gummidge said she felt it more than we did, and shed tears again, and made that former declaration with great bitterness. Accordingly, when Mr. Peggotty came home about 9 o', clock, this unfortunate Mrs. Gummidge was knitting in her corner in a very wretched and miserable condition. Peggotty had been working cheerfully, Ham had been patching up a great pair of water boots, and I, with little Emily by my side, had been reading to them. Them. Mrs. Gummidge had never made any other remark than a forlorn sigh, and had never raised her eyes since tea. Well, mates, said Mr. Peggotty, taking his seat. And how are you? We all said something or looked something to welcome him, except Mrs. Gummidge, who only shook her head over her knitting. What's amiss? Said Mr. Peggotty with a clap of his hands. Cheer up, old Mawther, Mr. Peggotty meant old girl. Mrs. Gummidge did not appear to be able to cheer up. She took out an old black silk handkerchief and wiped her eyes, but instead of putting it in her pocket kept it out and wiped them again, and still kept it out, ready for use. What's amiss, Dame? Said Mr. Peggotty. Nothing returned Mrs. Gummidge. You've come from the Willing Mind, Dan'? L? Why yes, I've took a short spell at the Willin mind to night, said Mr. Peggotty. I'm sorry I should drive you there, said Mrs. Gummidge. Drive. I don't want no drivin' returned Mr. Peggotty with an honest laugh. I only go to a ready, very ready, said Mrs. Gummidge, shaking her head and wiping her eyes. Yes, yes, very ready. I am sorry it should be along o me that yours so ready long o you. It ain't along you, said Mr. Peggotty. Don't you believe a bit on it? Yes, yes, it is. Cried Mrs. Gummidge. I know what I am. I know that I'm a lone lorn Creeter, and not only that everything goes contrary with me, but that I go contrary with everybody. Yes, yes, I feel more than other people. People do, and I show it more. It's my misfortune. I really couldn't help thinking, as I sat taking in all this, that the misfortune extended to some other members of that family besides Mrs. Gummidge. But Mr. Peggotty made no such retort, only answering with another entreaty to Mrs. Gummidge to cheer up. I a' n't what I could wish myself to be, said Mrs. Gummidge. I am far from it. I know what I am. My troubles has made me contrary. I feel my troubles and they make me contrary. I wish I didn't feel em, but I do. I wish I could be hardened to em, but I an't I make the house uncomfortable. I don't wonder at it. I've made your sister so all day, and Master Davie here I was suddenly melted and roared out. No, you haven't, Mrs. Gummidge, in great mental distress. It's far from right that I should do it, said Mrs. Gummidge. It and a fit return. I had better go into the house and die. I am a lone lorn Creetur and had much better not make myself contrary here. If things must go contrary with me, and I must go contrary myself, let me go contrary in my own parish, Dan'. L. I better go into the house and die and be a riddance. Mrs. Gummidge retired with these words and betook herself to bed. When she was gone, Mr. Peggotty, who had not exhibited a trace of any feeling but the profoundest sympathy, looked round upon us, and, nodding his head with a lively expression of that sentiment still animating his face, said in a whisper, she's been thinking of the old un. I did not quite understand what old one Mrs. Gummidge, was supposed to have fixed her mind upon, until Peggotty, on seeing me to bed, explained that it was the late Mr. Gummidge, and that her brother always took that for a received truth. On such occasions, and that it always had a moving effect upon him, meaning Mr. Peggotty allows Mrs. Gummidge to act like this because he feels she's grieving for her dead husband. Some time after he was in his hammock that night, I heard him myself repeat to Ham, poor thing, she's been thinking of the old uncle. And whenever Mrs. Gummidge was overcome in a similar manner during the remainder of our stay, which happened some few times, he always said the same thing in extenuation of the circumstance, and always with the tenderest commiseration. So the fortnight slipped away varied by nothing but the variation of the tide, which altered Mr. Peggotty's times of going out and coming in, and altered Ham's engagements also, when the latter was unemployed, he sometimes walked with us to show us the boats and ships, and once or twice he took us for a row. I don't know why one slight set of impressions should be more particularly associated with a place than another, though I believe this obtains with most people in reference especially to the associations of their childhood. I never hear the name or read the name of Yarmouth, but I am reminded of a certain Sunday morning on the beach, the bells ringing for church, little Emily leaning on my shoulder, Ham lazily dropping stones into the water, and the sun away at sea, just breaking through the heavy mist and showing us the ships like their own shadows. At last the day came for going home. I bore up against the separation from Mr. Peggotty and Mrs. Gummidge, but my agony of mind at leaving little Emily was piercing. We went arm in arm to the public house where the carrier put up, and I promised on the road to write to her. I redeemed that promise afterwards in characters larger than those in which apartments are usually announced in manuscript as being to let. We were greatly overcome at parting, and if ever in my life I have had a void made in my heart, I had one made that day. Now, all the time I had been on my visit, I had been ungrateful to my home again and had thought little or nothing about it. But I was no sooner turned towards it than my reproachful young conscience seemed to point that way with a ready finger, and I felt all the more for the sinking of my spirits that it was my nest and that my mother was my comforter and friend. This gained upon me as we went along, so that the nearer we drew, the more familiar the objects became that we passed, the more excited I was to get there and to run into her arms. But Peggy instead of sharing in those transports, tried to check them, though very kindly, and looked confused and out of sorts. Blunderstone rookery would come, however, in spite of her, when the carrier's horse pleased and did. How well I recollect it on a cold grey afternoon with a dull sky threatening rain. The door opened and I looked half laughing and half crying in my pleasant agitation for my mother. It was not she, but a strange servant. Why, Peggotty, I said ruefully, isn't she come home? Yes, Master Davy, said Peggotty, she's come home. Wait a bit, Master Davy, and I'll. I'll tell you something. Between her agitation and her natural awkwardness in getting out of the cart, Peggotty was making a most extraordinary festoon of herself, but I felt too blank and strange to tell her so. When she had got down, she took me by the hand, led me wandering into the kitchen, and shut the door. Peggotty, said I, quite frightened. What's the matter? Nothin's the matter. Bless yer, Master Davy dear, she answered, assuming an air of sprightliness. Something's the matter, I'm sure. Where's mamma? Where's mamma? Master Davy? Repeated Peggy. Yes, why hasn't she come out to the gate? And what have we come in here for? Oh, Peggy. My eyes were full and I felt as if I were going to tumble down. Bless the precious boy. Cried Paggetty, taking hold of me. What is it? Speak, my pet. Not dead too. Oh, she's not dead, Peggotty. Peggotty cried out, no. With an astonishing volume of voice, and then sat down and began to pant and said I had given her a turn. I gave her a hug to take away the turn or to give her another turn in the right direction, and then stood before her, looking at her in anxious inquiry. You see, dear, I shouldn't told you this before now, said Peggotty, but I hadn't an opportunity. I ought to have made it p', raps, but I couldn't azactly that was always the substitute for exactly in Peggotty's militia of words. Bring my mind to it. Go on, Peggotty, said I, more frightened than before. Master Davy, said Peggotty, untying her bonnet with a shaking hand and speaking in a breathless sort of way, what d' ye think you've got a pa. I trembled and turned white. Something, I don't know what or how, connected with the grave in the churchyard and the raising of the dead seemed to strike me like an unwholesome wind. A new one, said Peggy. A new one, I repeated. Peggy gave a gasp, as if she were swallowing something that was very hard and putting out her hand, said, come and see him. I don't want to see him. And Yumama, said Peggy. I ceased to draw back and we went straight to the best parlor, where she left me. On one side of the fire sat my mother. On the other, Mr. Murdstone. My mother dropped her work and arose hurriedly but timidly, I thought. Now, Clara, my dear, said Mr. Murdstone. Recollect. Control yourself. Always control yourself. Davey boy, how do you do? I gave him my hand. After a moment of suspense, I went and kissed my mother. She kissed me, patted me gently on the shoulder, and sat down again to her work. I could not look at her. I could not look at him. I knew quite well that he was looking at us both, and I turned to the window and looked out there at some shrubs that were drooping their heads in the cold. As soon as I could creep away, I crept upstairs. My old dear bedroom was changed and I was to lie a long way off. I rambled downstairs to find anything that was like itself, so altered it all seemed, and roamed into the yard. I very soon started back from there, for the empty dog kennel was filled up with a great dog, deep mouthed and black haired like him. Him meaning Mr. Murdstone, and he was very angry at the sight of me and sprang out to get at me. 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, story time is over. To be continued. Sam.