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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. Hi everyone. Welcome back. I'm not sure if you can tell, but my voice is just a little bit scratchy today, so I'm sorry, I apologize for that. A sore throat has been making its way through my family and I'm the next victim. But luckily the chapter was recorded in advance, so you won't have to listen to my scratchy voice during the actual reading of the chapter. But you do have to put up with it, unfortunately for this intro and I hope it doesn't give out on me, but hopefully you understand it's that season. Anyway, welcome. I'm so glad you're here. Thank you for joining me again on Storytime for Grown Ups. 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Okay, this is a kind of long chapter and we have a lot to talk about before we get into it, so let's do that. Last time we read chapter three. Today we're going to be reading chapter four of David Copperfield. So let's begin by just reminding ourselves of what we read last time. Here is the recap. All right, so where we left off, Davey goes with Peggy to visit her brother. The brother lives in an old boat that's been pulled up on land and turned into a house. He lives with his orphaned nephew Ham and his orphaned niece Emily, and a widow named Mrs. Gummidge, who was married to the brother's friend. Mr. Peggotty is a good and kind man who has taken in all these needy people, but he never wants to be praised for it. Davy immediately loves it there and immediately falls in love with Emily and they spend the whole visit together collecting shells and kissing each other and swearing their undying love and things. But David tells us that something bad happened to Emily later and that tinges the whole experience with sadness for him. Mrs. Gummage is always sort of sorry for herself and complaining and saying that everything is worse for her than it is for everyone else and everyone sort of just tolerates her. Davey has a wonderful time, but eventually it's time to go home. He's devastated to leave Emily and he promises to write to her from home when he gets home. Peggety finally tells him that his mother has remarried and Davey goes into the house to find Mr. Murdstone there and his mother who seems very subdued and doesn't greet him with as much enthusiasm as usual. Davey's old room is being used for something else and he has to sleep in a different room further away. And there's a new dog in the yard who lunges at him. So it's not a very happy homecoming. All right, I am going to read 3 comments today. The first one comes from Corinthia. She says, I couldn't help but smile when Davey set out to uncover the truth about Uncle Dan's situation. Uncle Dan being Mr. Peggotty, right? As a mother of three, I know firsthand how children will keep asking questions until their completely satisfied with the answers. Charles Dickens captures these real life moments so beautifully, blending everyday experience with his signature touch of imagination. This second one is from Donald Sutherland. He writes, when I start a new book, I never know when I'll really start to connect little Emily's wish gifts for her Uncle Dan. The sincere sentiment of a child towards her provider and hero. That's the dream of every simple man. Charles Dickens just went ahead and grabbed my focus with those words. And the last one comes from Peter Graziano. He says, I just listened to chapter three of David Copperfield and I'm loving it. It's really cool how Dickens set up the contrast between Mr. Peggotty, who is so charitable towards orphans that they are like his real children and so kind towards highly emotional women, and Mr. Murdstone who rebukes highly emotional women and we all know is going to be nasty to orphaned Davey in some manner. Okay, so yes, even though chapter three was mostly about Davy's trip to Peggy's family at Yarmouth, I think the most dramatic thing that happens in the chapter is what happens when Davey gets home and realizes that his mother has married Mr. Murdstone and that for reasons he doesn't really understand yet, everything is going to be different now. Right? His mother is different, he has to sleep in a different room, there's a weird scary dog in the yard. This is not the home he left, essentially, which was foreshadowed to us in chapter two. Right. He said that he was leaving his happy home forever. And we didn't know at that point if that meant he'd never come back or if it meant that when he did come back, it wouldn't be happy anymore for some reason. And by the looks of things now, it seems like it was that second option that he's back, but it's no longer his happy, idyllic home where he lived with the two loving women, his mother and Peggy. So the foreshadowing that we got in chapter two seems to be playing out at the end of chapter three. And we'll talk more about that as we go along. But I want to start by talking about this family that Davey has come to stay with, the Pegadies, and what all these new characters and their various interactions might mean for Davey and for our story that we're reading. First of all, I totally agree with Corinthia. That Davies desire to kind of sort out all the familial connections between these people is very realist. Right. Kids will do this. They don't care about what's proper, what the etiquette is. A lot of the time they just want to have their questions answered. And I, for one, am glad that Devi asked because it was really confusing. So I think it bears just spelling out a little bit here who all these people are. Okay, so we've got Peggy. Peggy is Devi's servant and kind of second mother figure. She's really called Clara Peggy, but since Davy's mother is also called Clara, they call Clara Peggotty just Peggety. So we've got her. We've got peggety. Then there's Mr. Peggety, whose full name is Daniel Peggety. He is Clara Peggety's brother. He's a grown man. He's a fisherman. He catches lobsters and crabs and shellfish and things, and he sells them. That's his job. Then we've got Ham Peggy, who we met in the very first chapter. Remember? He was the nephew of Peggy, who ran to get the doctor and who Miss Betsy grabbed and tried to get information out of. But now he's a teenager and he lives in The Boathouse with Mr. Daniel Peggotty. Mr. Daniel Peggotty is his uncle. So Clara Peggotty is his aunt. Mr. Peggotty is his uncle. And his father was the brother of both Clara Peggotty and Daniel Peggotty. But he's now dead. Okay, little Emily. Which, by the way, for those of you who aren't reading along, in a copy of the book, it's spelled E M, apostrophe L Y. So it's not Emily, it's Emily. Okay, so little Emily is the niece of Daniel Peggotty and therefore also of Clara Peggotty, and she's the cousin of Ham Peggotty, because her mother was the sister of Daniel Peggotty and Clara Peggotty, and presumably also of Ham's father. And both her parents died as well. So she and Ham are orphans who have been taken in by Mr. Peggety. And then finally, there's Mrs. Gummage, who is the widow of a friend. Friend of Mr. Peggotty. And Mr. Peggotty has taken her in as well, because if a widow had no other male relatives to care for her, then she could end up destitute and in real trouble. So Mr. Peggety has taken in his friend's widow as well. So that's the Mr. Peggotty, the man of the house, his nephew Ham, his niece Emily, who are cousins to each other, and Mrs. Gummage, the widow of a friend. Okay, so essentially, Mr. Peggotty is an incredibly kind and generous person because he doesn't really have very much money. He's a poor fisherman, but he's taken in all of these people, all of these mouths to feed, essentially. And the only thing that ever upsets him about it is if someone tries to talk about how generous he is. Right, so he's totally selfless, essentially, and he doesn't want to take any credit for doing what he's doing, even though what he's doing really is an amazing thing. Here is what we're told. It says he was but a poor man himself, said Peggotty, but as good as gold and as true as stealthhose 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 with a heavy blow with his right hand and 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. Okay, so I think Peter's point about the difference between Mr. Peggotty and Mr. Murdstone is a really fantastic point. We get in this chapter these two father figures who are both responsible for people who are not their biological children, and they couldn't be more different. Right. Mr. Peggotty takes in anyone and everyone and loves them unconditionally and with joy. Mr. Murdstone, as far as we can tell so far, seems to want Davey kind of as far away from him and from the mother as he can while still living in the same house. And of course, in giving us these two father figures to compare with each other, Dickens is showing us whose side we're meant to be on, which is of course, the side of charity and love and openness as personified by Mr. Peggy. But I think there is also a class piece going on here as well, and I think that's worth pointing out. And it relates to Donald's point as well about Emily's wishes for Mr. Peggy. So we've talked a lot about the class system during the various books that we've read on Storytime. We talked about it a ton in Pride and Prejudice because it was a huge part of the plot of that book. But it's come up in pretty much every book we've read so far. And in most of these books we were dealing in some way with the upper classes or the upper middle classes, people who don't really need to work for a living and they live in large houses and they fill their days with house parties and balls and walks in the shrubbery and things like that. In Jane Eyre, we had Jane, who was a governess, so a more lower class person, but she was still inhabiting the world of the landed gentry for most of the book. But in a Dickens novel, you often find yourself in the world of the working classes, the working poor, and the realm of the true middle class, not the upper middle class people who are kind of genteel and respectable but have to work for a living and therefore would be looked down on by the aristocracy. And that is not a realm that we have explored very much so far on this show. I don't think I need to do like a sort of long explanation of the class system at this point, but I do think it makes sense to mention that the Peggotty are a different social class than David and his mother. David and his mother are middle class. Middle class men would have had jobs, but not the sort of menial jobs that lower class people had. They might have been lawyers or doctors or accountants or like factory overseers or something like this. Jobs where they didn't get their hands dirty basically, but where they really were working for a salary which they would have needed to survive. We don't know what job David's father had, but we Understand that he was higher class than the mother was when she was a governess. And we assume. Assume that he was comfortably middle class, which elevated the mother to middle class when they got married. Mr. Murdstone also appears to be middle class. We don't know what job he has either, at least not yet. But based on the way that he dresses and talks and presents himself and all of this, I think it's fair to say that he is middle class too. So he and Davey's mother are essentially of the same class. And that makes Davey middle class as well. But the Peggotty's are working class. They do have to get their hands dirty. And in their case, they work as fishermen. Peggotty, meaning Clara Peggety, she's a servant, right? Which is another working class job. And when Emily and Ham are older, they will have to take jobs as well. And the jobs that they take will be menial tasks as well. Emily could work in a shop or be a servant or take in sewing or something like that. And Ham could be a fisherman as well, or a boat builder or a laborer of some kind. So David is set apart from the Pegadies because of the difference in their social classes. And you'll notice that the Pegadies call David sir and they give him his own bedroom and things like this. So there's a real class divide here. I mean, little Emily kind of spells it out. She says, here's a quote. 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. Okay? But of course, as Donald's point out in his letter, Emily wishes she could be a lady and have nice things and give back to her uncle who's been so kind to her. And what's interesting is that even though Emily, who's been poor all her life, even though she completely gets that there's this divide between her and Davey, Davey doesn't really get it. He doesn't see why Emily couldn't grow up to be a lady if she wanted to. Right. Here's what he says. 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. Okay, so Davy has a very innocent, very sweet kind of obliviousness about the fact that he is a higher social class than the Peganies. And he views them as his equals and his friends. And I think we, the reader, are meant to approve of this because I think, like Peter was pointing out in his letter, I think Dickens is trying to set up for us that it's not class, it's not social standing that makes a person a good person or that makes a man a good man. It's the things that they do and the way that they act in the world. And even more specifically, it's the way they treat their fellow beings that really, truly matters most. So even though Mr. Murdstone is higher up on the social ladder than Mr. Peggotty, Mr. Peggotty is by far the better man. And Daviesince he's an innocent child, Davey instinctively understands this, and I think Dickens wants us to see it too. And I think it's all sort of hit home for us by what a wonderful time Davey has with the Peggotty family. It's sort of this idyllic experience for him. And part of what's so wonderful about it is that it's a big, cozy family which Devi has never really had. And of course, he falls immediately in love with little Emily and he feels right at home in this snug little living room. And again, I think we're meant to feel that this love and this connection is far more valuable than any kind of social status you might have, or any kind of pretty house and clothes or trinkets or anything like that. But of course, the reality is that Davie could never, like, marry someone like little Emily. Social class was real back then, and someone like Davy very likely wouldn't have married someone like Emily without a huge scandal. So there's the kind of idyllic, like, utopian world of people just being who they are and existing on the merits of their character. But there's also the cold, hard reality of class and hardship and etiquette and all of this. And I think readers of the time, people reading this book as it came out, as Dickens was writing it, they would have been aware of those things in these scenes with the Peggotty. I do want to point out this very kind of ominous passage about Emily before we move on from this, because it's such an odd sentiment. It seems to come out of nowhere, but it does sort of alert us to what I was just saying that this kind of idyllic vacation, where all the class divides have been broken down and Davy gets to. To be part of this wonderful family, this idyllic vacation is not reality. Reality is colder and harder, even though we don't really know exactly why or how yet. And Davy certainly doesn't know that at this point. But Here is this quote. It says, 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 depicted 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 over her head that morning in my sight? And when I have answered yes, it would have been so. I mean, that is really bad, right? He's saying that something is going to happen to Emily that is essentially what worse than death. And that if she had died in that moment as an innocent child, it might actually have been better for her. Or at least there was a time in David's life when he thought that it might have been better. It's like Dickens is suddenly kind of throwing a bucket of ice water into our faces, right? Like he's saying, yeah, this is great and all, but this isn't reality. Reality is cold and hard and there's no escaping it. And I think we see that to be true at the end of this chapter, right? We don't know why David is saying that about Emily, but we do see that this vacation was not reality and that David' reality is much colder and harder than he ever could have imagined. Because now Davey finally learns that his mother has married Mr. Murdstone. And the reality of that is that his mother is now under the control of someone else. She's not free the way she was before to be to him whatever she wanted to be. And she's got a husband now, and the husband's authority is above her own. And it seems like Mr. Murdstone feels that the mother has been like too loving, too demonstrative, too open with Davey. And he wants her to reign that all in here is what he says. He says, now, Clara, dear, recollect, control yourself. Always control yourself. Which is really stark, especially in comparison to the loving and joyful home of the Peggy's, which Davey has just come from, right? To go from that cozy little boat to this austere house where his mother isn't even allowed to run out to greet him at the door. And his room has been moved far away from the main area of the house. And there's no this dog in the yard where Davey wants to play. It's really awful and particularly awful in comparison to where he's just been. And so now Davey has to somehow integrate himself into this new life where his mother is there, but she's not really the mother he remembers, and this totally new person is in charge of everything and has made everything different and worse. Right? Here's what we're told, he says. 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. Okay, so things are looking pretty bleak for David, but we don't really know yet exactly what it all means. How exactly will his life be different now? And how is he he going to bear it? We don't know that yet, but we can find out. So let's do that right? Let's keep reading and see what this all means for David. And of course, don't forget to write to me. It's faithkmoore.com and then you click on Contact or you just scroll into the show notes and click that same link that's there. I would love to hear your questions, your thoughts, things that come up for you, the feelings you feel as you listen. I would love to know all of your reactions. So please do get in touch. All right, let's get started with chapter four of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. It's story time. Chapter four. I fall into disgrace. If the room to which my bed was removed were a sentient thing that could give evidence, I might appeal to it at this day. Who sleeps there now, I wonder, to bear witness for me, what a heavy heart I carried to it. I went up there, hearing the dog in the yard bark after me all the way, while I climbed the stairs and looking as blank and strange upon the room as the room looked upon me, sat down with my small hands crossed and thought. I thought of the oddest things, of the shape of the room, of the cracks in the ceiling, of the paper on the walls, of the flaws in the window glass making ripples and dimples on the prospect of the washing stand being rickety on its three legs and having a discontented something about it which reminded me of Mrs. Gummidge under the influence of the old one. I was crying all the time, but except that I was conscious of being cold and dejected, I am sure I never thought why I cried. At last, in my desolation I began to Consider that I was dreadfully in love with little Emily and had been torn away from her to come here where no one seemed to want me or to care about me half as much as she did. This made such a very miserable piece of business of it that I rolled myself up in a corner of the counterpane the counterpane is the bedspread and cried myself to sleep. I was awoke by somebody saying, here he is. And uncovering my hot head. My mother and Peggotty had come to look for me and it was one of them who had done it. Davy, said my mother, what's the matter? I thought it was very strange that she should ask me and answered nothing. I turned over on my face, I recollect to hide my trembling lip which answered her with greater truth. Davy, said my mother. Davie, my child, I dare say no word she could have uttered would have affected me so much then as her calling me her child. I hid my tears in the bed clothes and pressed her from me with my hand when she would have raised me up. This is your doing, Peggotty, you cruel thing, said my mother. I have no doubt at all about it. How can you reconcile it to your conscience, I wonder, to prejudice my own boy against my me or against anybody who is dear to me? What do you mean by it, Peggotty? Poor Peggotty lifted up her hands and eyes and only answered in a sort of paraphrase of the grace I usually repeated after dinner. Lord forgive you, Mrs. Copperfield, and for what you have said this minute may you never be truly sorry. It's enough to distract me, Cried my mother. It's my honeymoon too. When my most inveterate enemy might relent, one would think, and not envy me a little peace of mind and happiness. Davy, you naughty boy. Peggotty, you savage creature. Oh, dear me. Cried my mother, turning from one of us to the other in her pettish, willful manner. What a troublesome world this is when one has the most right to expect it to be as agreeable as possible. I felt the touch of a hand that I knew was neither hers nor Peggotty's and slipped to my feet at the bedside. It was Mr. Murdstone's hand and he kept it on my arm as he said, what's this, Clara, my love? Have you forgotten firmness, my dear? I am very sorry, Edward, said my mother. I meant to be very good, but I am so uncomfortable. Indeed, he answered. That's a bad hearing so soon, Clara. I say it's very hard. I should be Made so now returned my mother, pouting, and it is very hard, isn't it? He drew her to him, whispered in her ear, and kissed her. I knew as well when I saw my mother's head lean down upon his shoulder and her arm touch his neck, I knew as well that he could mould her pliant nature into any form he chose, as I know now that he did it. Go below, my love, said Mr. Murdstone. David and I will come down together, my friend, turning a darkening face on Peggy when he had watched my mother out and dismissed her with a nod and a smile. Do you know your mistress's name? She has been my mistress a long time, sir, answered Peggy. I ought to know it. That's true, he answered, but I thought I heard you as I came upstairs address her by a name that is not hers. She has taken mine, you know. Will you remember that? Peggotty, with some uneasy glances at me, curtsied herself out of the room without replying, seeing, I suppose, that she was expected to go and had no excuse for remaining. When we two were left alone, he shut the door and, sitting on a chair and holding me standing before him, looked steadily into my eyes. I felt my own attracted no less steadily to his, as I recall our being opposed. Thus, face to face, I seem again to hear my heart beat fast and high. David, he said, making his lips thin by pressing them together, if I have an obstinate horse or dog to deal with, what do you think I do? I don't know. I beat him, I had answered in a kind of breathless whisper, but I felt in my silence that my breath was shorter. Now I make him wince and smart, I say to myself, conquer that fellow, and if it were to cost him all the blood he had, I should do it. What is that upon your face? Dirt, I said. He knew it was the mark of tears as well as I, but if he had asked the question 20 times, each time with 20 blows, I believe my baby heart would have burst before I would have told him so. You have a good deal of intelligence for a little fellow, he said with a grave smile that belonged to him. And you understood me very well, I see. Wash that face, sir, and come down with me. He pointed to the washing stand which I had made out to be like Mrs. Gummidge, and motioned me with his head to obey him directly. I had little doubt then, and I have less doubt now, that he would have knocked me down without the least compunction if I had hesitated. Clara, my dear, he said, when I had done his bidding, and he walked me into the parlour with his hand still on my arm. You will not be made uncomfortable any more. I hope we shall soon improve our youthful humours. God help me, I might have been improved for my whole life. I might have been made another creature perhaps, for life, by a kind word at that season. A word of encouragement and explanation, of pity for my childish ignorance, of welcome home, of reassurance to me that it was home, might have made me dutiful to him in my heart henceforth instead of in my hypocritical outside, and might have made me respect instead of hate him. I thought my mother was sorry to see me standing in the room so scared and strange, and that presently, when I stole to a chair, she followed me with her eyes more sorrowfully still, missing perhaps some freedom in my childish tread. But the word was not spoken, and the time for it was gone. We dined alone, we three together. He seemed to be very fond of my mother. I am afraid I liked him none the better for that. And she was very fond of him. I gathered from what they said that an elder sister of his was coming to stay with them, and that she was expected that evening. I am not certain whether I found out then or afterwards that without being actively concerned in any business, he had some share in, or some annual charge upon the profits of a wine merchant's house in London with which his family had been connected from his great grandfather's time, and in which his sister had a similar interest. But I may mention it in this place, whether or no, after dinner, when we were sitting by the fire and I was meditating an escape to Peggy without having the hardihood to slip away, lest it should offend the master of the house, a coach drove up to the garden gate and he went out to receive the visitor. My mother followed him. I was timidly following her when she turned round at the parlor door in the dusk, and taking me in her embrace, as she had been used to do, whispered me to love my new father and be obedient to him. She did this hurriedly and secretly, as if it were wrong, but tenderly, and putting out her hand behind her, held mine in it until we came near to where he was standing in the garden, where she let mine go and drew hers through his arm. It was Miss Murdstone who had arrived, and a gloomy looking lady. She was, dark like her brother, whom she greatly resembled in face and voice, and with very heavy eyebrows nearly meeting over her large nose, as if being disabled by the Wrongs of her sex. From wearing whiskers she had carried them. To that account she brought with her two uncompromising hard black boxes, with her initials on the lids in hard brass nails. When she paid the coachman, she took her money out of a hard steel purse. Purse. And she kept the purse in a very jail of a bag, which hung upon her arm by a heavy chain and shut up like a bite. I had never at that time seen such a metallic lady altogether as Miss Murdstone was. She was brought into the parlour with many tokens of welcome, and there formally recognized my mother as a new and dear relation. Then she looked at me and said, is that your boy, sister in law? My mother acknowledged me. Generally speaking, said Miss Murdstone, I don't like voice. How d' ye do, boy? Under these encouraging circumstances, I replied that I was very well, and that I hoped she was the same. With such an indifferent glance that Miss Murdstone disposed of me in two words, once manner having uttered which with great distinctness she begged the favour of being shewn to her room, which became to me from that time forth a place of awe and dread, wherein the two black boxes were never seen open or known to be left unlocked, and where, for I peeped in once or twice when she was out, numerous little steel fetters and rivets, with which Miss Murdstone embellished herself, when she was dressed, generally hung upon the looking glass in formidable array. As well as I could make out, she had come for good, and had no intention of ever going again. She began to help my mother next morning, and was in and out of the store closet all day, putting things to rights and making havoc in the old arrangements. Almost the first remarkable thing I observed in Miss Murdstone was her being constantly haunted by a suspicion that the servants had a man secreted somewhere on the premises. Under the influence of this delusion, she dived into the coal cellar at the most untimely hours, and scarcely ever opened the door a dark cupboard, without clapping it to again in the belief that she had got him. Though there was nothing very airy about Miss Murdstone, she was a perfect lark. In point of getting up, she was up, and, as I believe, to this hour, looking for that man before anybody in the house was stirring. Peggotty gave it as her opinion that she even slept with one eye open. But I could not concur in this idea, for I tried it myself, after hearing the suggestion thrown out, and found it couldn't be done on the very first Morning after her arrival, she was up and ringing her bell at cock crow. When my mother came down to breakfast and was going to make the tea, Miss Murdstone gave her a kind of peck on the cheek, which was her nearest approach to a kiss, and said, now, Clara, my dear, I am come here, you know, to relieve you of all the trouble I can. You're much too pretty and thoughtless. My mother blushed, but laughed, and seemed not to dislike this character to have any duties imposed upon you that can be undertaken by me. If you'll be so good as to give me your keys, my dear, I'll attend to all this sort of thing in future. From that time, Miss Murdstone kept the keys in her own little jail all day and under her pillow at night, and my mother had no more to do with them than I had. My mother did not suffer her authority to pass from her without a shadow of protest. One night, when Miss Murdstone had been developing certain household plans to her brother, of which he signified his approbation, meaning he approves of them, my mother suddenly began to cry and said she thought she might have been consulted. Clara, said Mr. Birdstone sternly. Clara, I wonder at you. Oh, it's very well to say you wonder, Edward, cried my mother, and it's very well for you to talk about firmness, but you wouldn't like it yourself. Firmness, I may observe, was the grand quality on which both Mr. And Ms. Murdstone took their stand. However, I might have expressed my comprehension of it at that time if I had been called upon. I nevertheless did clearly comprehend in my own way that it was another name for tyranny, and for a certain gloomy, arrogant devil's humour that was in them both. The creed, as I should state it now, was this. Mr. Murdstone was firm. Nobody in his world was to be so firm as Mr. Murdstone. Nobody else in his world was to be firm at all, for everybody was to be bent to his firmness. Miss Murdstone was an exception. She might be firm, but only by relationship, and in an inferior and tributary degree. My mother was another exception. She might be firm, and must be, but only in bearing their firmness and firmly believing there was no other firmness upon earth. It's very hard, said my mother, that in my own house. My own House, repeated Mr. Murdstone. Clara. Our own house, I mean. Faltered my mother, evidently frightened. I hope you must know what I mean, Edward. It's very hard that in your own house I may not have a word to Say about domestic matters, I am sure I managed very well before we were married. There's evidence, said my mother, sobbing. Ask Peggotty if I didn't do very well when I wasn't interfered with. Edward, said Miss Murdstone, let there be an end of this. I go to morrow. Jane Murdstone, said her brother, be silent. How dare you to insinuate that you know my character better than your words imply? I am sure my poor mother went on at a grievous disadvantage and with many tears. I don't want anybody to go. I should be very miserable and unhappy if anybody was to go. I don't ask much. I am not unreasonable. I only want to be consulted sometimes. I am very much obliged to any body who assists me, and I only want to be consulted as a mere form sometimes. I thought you were pleased once with my being a little experienced and girlish, Edward. I am sure you said so, but you seem to hate me for it now. You are so severe, Edward, said Miss Murdstone again. Let there be an end of this. I go to morrow. Jane Murdstone thundered Mr. Murdstone, will you be silent? How dare you. Miss Murdstone made a jail delivery of her pocket handkerchief and held it before her eyes. Clara, he continued, looking at my mother, you surprise me. You astound me. Yes, I had a satisfaction in the thought of marrying an inexperienced and artless person and forming her character and infusing into it some amount of that firmness and decision of which it stood in need. But when Jane Murdstone is kind enough to come to my assistance in this endeavour and to assume for my sake a condition something like a housekeeper's, and when she meets with a base return. Oh, pray, pray, Edward, cried my mother, don't accuse me of being ungrateful. I am sure I am not ungrateful. No one ever said I was before. I have many faults, but not that. Oh, don't, my dear. When Jane Murdstone meets, I say, he went on after waiting until my mother was silent, with a base return. That feeling of mine is chilled and altered. Don't, my love say that, implored my mother very piteously. Oh, don't, Edward. I can't bear to hear it. Whatever I am, I am affectionate. I know I am affectionate. I wouldn't say it if I wasn't sure that I am. Ask Peggotty. I'm sure she'll tell you that I'm affectionate. There is no extent of mere weakness. Clara, said Mr. Murdstone, in reply, that can have the least weight with me. You lose breath. Pray let us be friends, said my mother. I couldn't live under coldness or unkindness. I am so sorry. I have a great many defects, I know, and it's very good of you, Edward, with your strength of mind to endeavor to correct them for me. Jane, I don't object to anything. I should be quite broken hearted if you thought of leaving. My mother was too much overcome to go on. Jane. Murdstone, said Mr. Murdstone to his sister. Any harsh words between us are, I hope, uncommon. It is not my fault that so unusual an occurrence has taken place to night. I was betrayed into it by another. Nor is it your fault you were betrayed into it by another. Let us both try to forget it. And as this, he added after these magnanimous words, is not a fit scene for the boy. David, go to bed. I could hardly find the door through the tears that stood in my eyes. I was so sorry for my mother's distress. But I groped my way out and groped my way up to my room in the dark without even having the heart to say good night to Peggotty, or to get a candle from her. When her coming up to look for me an hour or so afterwards awoke me, she said that my mother had gone to bed poorly, and that Mr. And Ms. Murdstone were sitting alone going down. Next morning, rather earlier than usual, I paused outside the parlour door on hearing my mother's voice. She was very earnestly and humbly entreating Miss Murdstone's pardon, which that lady granted, and a perfect reconciliation took place. I never knew my mother afterwards to give an opinion on any matter without first appealing to Miss Murdstone Murdstone, or without having first ascertained by some sure means what Miss Murdstone's opinion was. And I never saw Miss Murdstone when out of temper she was infirm, that waymove her hand towards her bag, as if she were going to take out the keys and offer to resign them to my mother, without seeing that my mother was in a terrible fright. The gloomy taint that was in the Murdstone blood darkened the Murdstone religion, which was austere and wrathful. I have thought since that its assuming that character was a necessary consequence of Mr. Murdstone's firmness, which wouldn't allow him to let anybody off from the utmost weight of the severest penalties he could find any excuse for. Be this as it may, I well remember the Tremendous visages with which we used to go to church and the changed air of the place. Again the dreaded Sunday comes round and I file into the old pew first like a guarded captive brought to a condemned service. Again Miss Murdstone, in a black velvet gown that looks as if it had been made out of a pall, follows close upon me. Then my mother, then her husband. There is no Peggotty now as in the old time. Again I listen to Miss Murdstone mumbling the responses and emphasizing all the dread words with a cruel relish. Again I see her dark eyes roll around the church when she says miserable sinners, as if she were calling all the congregation names. Again I catch rare glimpses of my mother moving her lips timidly between the two, with one of them muttering at each ear like low thunder. Again I wonder with a sudden fear whether it is likely that our good old clergyman can be wrong and Mr. And Ms. Murdstone right, and that all the angels in heaven can be destroying angels. Again, if I move a finger or relax a muscle of my face, Ms. Murdstone pokes me with her prayer book and makes my side ache. Yes. And again, as we walk home, I note some neighbors looking at my mother and at me and whispering again as the three go arm in arm and I linger behind alone. I follow some of those looks and wonder if my mother's step be really not so light as I have seen it, and if the gayety of her beauty be really almost worried away. Again I wonder whether any of the neighbours call to mind, as I do, how we used to walk home together, she and I, and I wonder stupidly about that all the dreary, dismal day. There had been some talk on occasions of my going to boarding School. School. Mr. And Ms. Murdstone had originated it, and my mother had, of course, agreed with them. Nothing, however, was concluded on the subject. Yet in the meantime I learnt lessons at home. Shall I ever forget those lessons? They were presided over nominally by my mother, but really by Mr. Murdstone and his sister, who were always present and found them a favorable occasion for giving my mother lessons in that miscalled firmness which was the bane of both our lives. I believe I was kept at home for that purpose. I had been apt enough to learn and willing enough, when my mother and I had lived alone together. I can faintly remember learning the Alphabet at her knee. To this day, when I look upon the fat black letters in the primer, the puzzling novelty of their shapes, and the easy good nature of O and Q and S seem to present themselves again before me as they used to do, but they recall no feeling of disgust or reluctance. On the contrary, I seem to have walked along a path of flowers as far as the crocodile book and have been cheered by the gentleness of my mother's voice and manner all the way. But these solemn lessons which succeeded those I remember as the death blow of my peace and a grievous daily drudgery and misery. They were very long, very numerous, very hard, perfectly unintelligible some of them to me, and I was generally as much bewildered by them as I believe my poor mother was herself. Let me remember how it used to be and bring one morning back again. I come into the second best parlour after breakfast with my books and an exercise book and a slate. My mother is ready for me at her writing desk, but not half so ready as Mr. Murdstone in his easy chair by the window, though he pretends to be reading a book or Miss Murdstone sitting near my mother stringing steel beads. The very sight of these two has such an influence over me that I begin to feel the words I have been at infinite pains to get into my head, all sliding away and going I don't know where. I wonder where they do go. By the by, I hand the first book to my mother. Perhaps it is a grammar, perhaps a history or geography. I take a last drowning look at the page as I give it into her hand and start off aloud at a racing pace while I have got it fresh. So he's supposed to be reciting what he's learned to his mother, and he's saying it as fast as he can before he forgets it. I trip over a word, Mr. Murdstone looks up, I trip over another word, Ms. Murdstone looks up, I read in, tumble over a dozen words and stop. I think my mother would show me the book if she dared, but she does not dare, and she says softly, oh, Davy, Davy. Now, Clara, says Mr. Murdstone, be firm with the boy. Don't say oh, Davy, Davy. That's childish. He knows his lesson or he does not know it. He does not know it. Miss Murdstone interposes awfully. I am really afraid he does not, says my mother. Then you see, Clara returns Miss Murdstone, you should just give him the book back and make him know it. Yes, certainly, says my mother. That is what I intended to do. My dear Jane. Now, Davie, try once more and don't be stupid. I obey the first clause of the injunction by trying once more, but am not so successful with the second, for I am very stupid. I tumble down before I get to the old place at a point where I was all right before, and stop to think. But I can't think about the lesson. I think of the number of yards of net in Miss Murdstone's cap, or of the price of Mr. Murdstone's dressing gown, or any such ridiculous problem that I have no business with and don't want to have anything at all to do with. Mr. Murdstone makes a movement of impatience, which I have been expecting for a long time. Miss Murdstone does the same. My mother glances submissively at them, shuts the book, and lays it by as an arrear to be worked out when my other tasks are done, meaning he'll have to do that work again, in addition to whatever new work he gets for today. There is a pile of these arrears very soon, and it swells like a rolling snowball. The bigger it gets, the more stupid I get. The case is so hopeless, and I feel that I am wallowing in such a bog of nonsense that I give up all idea of getting out and abandon myself to my fate. The despairing way in which my mother and I look at each other as I blunder on is truly melancholy. But the greatest effect in these miserable lessons is when my mother, thinking nobody is observing her, tries to give me the cue by the motion of her lips. At that instant, Ms. Murdstone, who has been lying in wait for nothing else all along, says in a deep warning voice, clara. My mother starts, colors, and smiles faintly. Mr. Murdstone comes out of his chair, takes the book, throws it at me, or boxes my ears with it, and turns me out of the room by the shoulders. Even when the lessons are done, the worst is yet to happen in the shape of an appalling sum, meaning a very hard math problem. This is invented for me and delivered to me orally by Mr. Murdstone. And it if I go into a cheesemonger's shop and buy 5,000 double Gloucester cheeses at fourpence halfpenny each present payment at which I see Miss Murdstone secretly overjoyed, I pore over these cheeses without any result or enlightenment until dinner time, when, having made a mulatto of myself by getting the dirt of the slate into the pores of my skin, I have a slice of bread to help me out with the cheeses and am considered in disgrace for the rest of the evening. It seems to me at this distance of time, as if my unfortunate studies generally took this course. I could have done very well if I had been without the Murdstone. But the influence of the murdstones upon me was like the fascination of two snakes on a wretched young bird. Even when I did get through the morning with tolerable credit, there was not much gained but dinner, For Miss Murdstone never could endure to see me untasked. And if I rashly made any show of being unemployed, called her brother's attention to me by saying, clara, my dear, there's nothing like work. Give your boy an exercise. Which caused me to be clapped down to some new labor there and then. As to any recreation with other children of my age, I had very little of that, for the gloomy theology of the murdstones made all children out to be a swarm of little vipers. Though there was a child once set in the midst of the disciples and held that they contaminated one another. The natural result of this treatment continued, I suppose, for some six months or more, Was to make me sullen, dull, and dogged. I was not made the less so by my sense of being daily more and more shut out and alienated from my mother. I believe I should have been almost stupefied but for one circumstance. My father had left a small collection of books in a little room upstairs to which I had access, for it adjoined my own, and which nobody else in our house ever troubled. From that blessed little room, Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, Humphrey Clinker, Tom Jones, the vicar of Wakefield, Don Quixote, Gil Blas, and Robinson Crusoe came out a glorious host to keep me company. They kept alive my fancy and my hope of something beyond that place and time. They and the Arabian Nights and the tales of the Genii. And did me no harm, for whatever harm was in some of them was not there for me. I knew nothing of. Is astonishing to me now how I found time, in the midst of my porings and blunderings over heavier themes, to read those books as I did. It is curious to me how I could ever have consoled myself under my small troubles, which were great troubles to me, by impersonating my favorite characters in them as I did, and by putting Mr. And Ms. Murdstone into all the bad ones, which I did too. I have been Tom Jones, a child's Tom Jones, a harmless creature. For a week together I have sustained my own idea of Roderick Random for a month at a stretch. I verily believe I had a greedy relish for a few volumes of Voyages and Travels. I forget what now that were on those shelves, and for days and days I can remember to have gone about my region of our house, armed with the centerpiece out of an old set of boot trees, the perfect realization of Captain Somebody of the Royal British Navy, in danger of being beset by savages and resolved to sell his life at a great price. The captain never lost dignity from having his ears boxed with the Latin grammar I did. But the Captain was a captain and a hero in despite of all the grammars, of all the languages in the world, dead or alive, this was my only and my constant comfort. When I think of it, the picture always rises in my mind of a summer evening, the boys at play in the churchyard, and I sitting on my bed reading as if for life. Every barn in the neighbourhood, every stone in the church, and every foot of the churchyard had some association of its own in my mind, connected with these books, and stood for some locality made famous in them. I have seen Tom Pipes go climbing up the church steeple. I have watched Strap with the knapsack on his back, stopping to rest himself upon the wicket gate. And I know that Commodore Trunnion held that club with Mr. Pickle in the parlour of our little village alehouse. Okay, so he's seeing the scenes from all these books play out in the various places he can see from his window. The reader now understands as well as I do what I was when I came to that point of my youthful history to which I am now coming again. One morning when I went into the parlor with my books, I found my mother looking anxious, Ms. Murdstone looking firm, and Mr. Murdstone binding something round the bottom of a cane, a lithe and limber keen, which he left off binding when I came in and poised and switched in the air. I tell you, Clara, said Mr. Murdstone, I have been often flogged myself, to be sure. Of course, said Ms. Murdstone. Certainly, my dear Jane, faltered my mother meekly. But. But do you think it did Edward good? Do you think it did Edward harm, Clara? Answered Mr. Murdstone gravely. That's the point, said his sister. To this my mother returned, certainly, my dear Jane, and said no more. I felt apprehensive that I was personally interested in this Dialogue, and sought Mr. Murdstone's eye as it lighted on mine. Now, David, he said, and I saw that cast again as he said it. You must be far more careful to day than usual. He gave the cane another poise and another switch, and having finished his preparation of it, laid it down beside him with an impressive look, and took up his book. This was a good freshener to my presence of mind as a beginning. I felt the words of my lessons slipping off, not one by one or line by line, but by the entire page. I tried to lay hold of them, but they seemed, if I may so express it, to have put skates on and to skim away from me with a smoothness there was no checking. We began badly and went on worse. I had come in with an idea of distinguishing myself, rather conceiving that I was very well prepared, but it turned out to be quite a mistake. Book after book was added to the heap of failures, Ms. Murdstone being firmly watchful of us all the time, and when we came at last to the 5,000 cheeses canes, he made it that day, I remember my mother burst out crying. Clara, said Miss Murdstone in her warning voice. I am not quite well, my dear Jane, I think, said my mother. I saw him wink solemnly at his sister as he rose and said, taking up the cane, why, Jane, we can hardly expect Clara to bear with perfect firmness the worry and torment that David has occasioned her today. That would be stoical. Clara is greatly strengthened and improved, but we can hardly expect so much from her. David, you and I will go upstairs, boy. As he took me out at the door, my mother ran towards us. Miss Murdstone said, clara, are you a perfect fool? And interfered. I saw my mother stop her ears then, and I heard her crying. He walked me up to my room slowly and gravely. I am certain he had a delight in that formal parade of executing justice, and when we got there, suddenly twisted my head under his arm. Mr. Murdstone, sir, I cried to him, don't, pray, don't beat me. I have tried to learn, sir, but I can't learn while you and Miss Murdstone are by. I can't indeed. Can't you indeed, David? He said, we'll try that. He had my head in a vise, but I twined round him somehow and stopped him for a moment, entreating him not to beat me. It was only a moment that I stopped him, for he cut me heavily an instant afterwards, and in the same instant I caught the hand with which he held me in my mouth between my teeth and bit it through. It sets my teeth on edge to think of it. He beat me then, as if he would have beaten me to death above all the noise we made. I heard them running up the stairs and crying out. I heard my mother crying out, and Peggotty. Then he was gone, and the door was locked outside. And I was lying fevered and hot and torn and sore and raging in my puny way upon the floor. How well I recollect when I became quiet. What an unnatural stillness seemed to reign through the whole house. How well I remember when my smart and passion began to cool. How wicked I began to feel. I sat listening for a long while, but there was not a sound. I crawled up from the floor and saw my face in the glass so swollen, red and ugly that it almost frightened me. My stripes were sore and stiff and made me cry afresh when I moved so. His stripes are the places where he was hit with the cane. But they were nothing to the guilt I felt. It lay heavier on my breast than if I had been a most atrocious criminal, I dare say. It had begun to grow dark and I had shut the window. I had been lying for the most part with my head upon the sill by turns crying, dozing and looking listlessly out when the key was turned and Ms. Murdstone came in with some bread and meat and milk. These she put down upon the table without a word, glaring at me the while with exemplary firmness, and then retired, locking the door after her. Long after it was dark. I sat there wondering whether anybody else would come when this appeared improbable. For that night I undressed and went to bed. And there I began to wonder fearfully what would be done to me, whether it was a criminal act that I had committed, whether I should be taken into custody and sent to prison, whether I was at all in danger of being hanged. I never shall forget the waking next morning, the being cheerful and fresh for the first moment, and then the being weighed down by the stale and dismal oppression of remembrance. Ms. Murdstone reappeared before I was out of bed. Told me in so many words that I was free to walk in the garden for half an hour and no longer and retired, leaving the door open, that I might avail myself of that permission. I did so, and did so every morning of my imprisonment, which lasted five days. If I could have seen my mother alone, I should have gone down on my knees to her and besought her forgiveness. But I saw no one, Ms. Murdstone excepted during the whole time, except at evening prayers in the parlor, to which I was escorted by Ms. Murdstone after everybody else was placed where I was stationed. A young outlaw all alone by myself near the door. And whence I was solemnly conducted by my jailer before any one arose from the devotional posture, I only observed that my mother was as far off from me as she could be and kept her face another way so that I never saw it, and that Mr. Murdstone's hand was bound up in a large linen wrapper. The length of those five days I can convey no idea of to anyone. They occupy the place of years in my remembrance. The way in which I listened to all the incidents of the house that made themselves audible to me. The ringing of bells, the opening and shutting of doors, the murmuring of voices, the footsteps on the stairs to any laughing, whistling or singing outside which seemed more dismal than anything else to me in my solitude and disgrace. The uncertain pace of the hours, especially at night, when I would wake thinking it was morning and find that the family were not yet gone to bed and that all the length of night had yet to come. The depressed dreams and nightmares I had. The return of day, noon, afternoon, evening, when the boys played in the churchyard and I watched them from a distance within the room, being ashamed to show myself at the window lest they should know I was a prisoner. The strange sensation of never hearing myself speak. The fleeting intervals of something like cheerfulness which came with eating and drinking and went away with it. The setting in of rain one evening with a fresh smell and its coming down faster and faster between me and the church until it and gathering night seemed to quench me in gloom and fear and remorse. All this appears to have gone round and round for years instead of days. It is so vividly and strongly stamped on my remembrance. On the last night of my restraint I was awakened by hearing my own name spoken in a whisper. I started up in bed and putting out my arms in the dark, said, is that you, Peggotty? There was no immediate answer, but presently I heard my name again in a tone so very mysterious and awful that I think I should have gone into a fit if it had not occurred to me that it must have come through the keyhole. I groped my way to the door and putting my own lips to the keyhole, whispered, is that you, Peggotty, dear? Yes, my own precious Davy, she replied. Be as soft as a mouse or the cat'll hear us. I understood this to mean Miss Murdstone and was sensible of the urgency of the case, her room being close by. How's Mama, dear Peggy? Is she very angry with me? I could hear Peggy crying softly on her side of the keyhole, as I was doing on Mine before she answered no, not very. What is going to be done with me? Peggotty dear, do you know? School near London? Was Peggy's answer. I was obliged to get her to repeat it for she spoke it the first time quite down my throat in consequence of my having forgotten to take my mouth away from the keyhole and put my ear there. And though her words tickled me a good deal I didn't hear them when peggotty to morrow. Is that the reason why Ms. Murdstone took the clothes out of my drawers which she had done, though I have forgotten to mention it? Yes, said Peggy Box. Shan't I see Mama? Yes, said Peggy. Morning then. Peggy fitted her mouth close to the keyhole and delivered these words through it with as much feeling and earnestness as a keyhole has ever been. The medium of communicating I will venture to assert, shooting in each broken little sentence in a convulsive little burst of its own. Davey dear, if I haven't been exactly as intimate with you lately as I used to be it ain't because I don't love you just as well and more my pretty puppet. It's because I thought it better for you and for someone else besides. Davy, my darling, are you listening? Can you hear? Yes, Peggy. I sobbed my own, said Peggotty with infinite compassion. What I want to say is that you must never forget me for I'll never forget you. And I'll take as much care of your mama, Davy as ever I took of you. And I won't leave her. The day may come when she'll be glad to lay her poor head on her stoop and cross old Peggotty's arm again. And I'll write to you, my dear, though I ain't no scholar and. And I'll. I'll. Peggety fell to kissing the keyhole as she couldn't kiss me. Thank you, dear Peggotty, said I. Oh, thank you, thank you. Will you promise me one thing, Peggy? Will you Write and tell Mr. Peggotty and little Emily and Mrs. Gummitch and Ham that I am not so bad as they might suppose and that I sent em all my love especially to little Emily? Will you? If you please, Peggotty, the kind soul promised. And we both of us kissed the keyhole with the greatest affection. I patted it with my hand. I recollect as if it had been her honest face. And parted from that night there grew up in my breast a feeling for Peggotty which I cannot very well define. She did not replace my mother no one could do that. But she came into a vacancy in my heart which closed upon her. And I felt towards her something I have never felt for any other human being. It was a sort of comical affection, too. And yet, if she had died, I cannot think what I should have done or how I should have acted out the tragedy it would have been to me. In the morning Miss Murdstone appeared as usual and told me I was going to school, which was not altogether such news to me as she supposed. She also informed me that when I was dressed I was to come downstairs into the parlour and have my breakfast. There I found my mother very pale and with red eyes, into whose arms I ran and begged her pardon from my suffering soul. Oh, Davy, she said that you could hurt anyone I love. Try to be better, pray to be better. I forgive you. But I am so grieved, Davy, that you should have such bad passions in your heart. They had persuaded her that I was a wicked fellow and she was more sorry for that than for my going away. I felt it. Sorely. I tried to eat my parting breakfast, but my tears dropped upon my bread and butter and trickled into my tea. I saw my mother look at me sometimes and then glance at the watchful Miss Murdstone and then look down or look away. Master Copperfield's box there, said Miss Murdstone. When wheels were heard at the gate, I looked for Peggotty, but it was not she. Neither she nor Mr. Murdstone appeared. My former acquaintance, the carrier, was at the door. So the same driver that took Davy And Peggotty to Mr. Peggotty's house is here to take him to school. The box was taken out to his cart and lifted in. Clara, said Miss Murdstone in her warning note. Ready, my dear Jane, returned my mother. Good bye, Davy. You are going for your own good. Good bye, my child. You will come home in the holidays and be a better boy. Clara, Miss Murdstone repeated. Certainly, my dear Jane, replied my mother, who was holding me. I forgive you, my dear boy. God bless you, Clara, Miss Murdstone repeated. Miss Murdstone was good enough to take me out to the cart and to say on the way that she hoped I would repent before I came to a bad end. And then I got into the cart and the lazy horse walked off with it. 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.