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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. Oh my gosh. They actually did it. David and Dora got married. I have been waiting and waiting for this chapter because I really want to talk about it with you. I got so many letters. I love it. I love it when this happens. So I'm so happy to be here. I hope that you're happy to be here too. Welcome back. We are here to discuss chapter 43, the wedding scene. So we're going to get into that in just a moment. I don't have any new reminders or announcements today, but I do want to just remind you, as I always do, to please subscribe to the show. If you haven't done that already, please tap the five stars in your podcast player. If you haven't done that, please leave a positive review in your podcast player if you haven't done that. And please, please, please tell a friend, tell a colleague, tell a family member about this show. Send them a link to the show you know, right? In your podcast player. You can copy a link either to a specific episode or to the whole show. And then you can just text that or email it or send it via carrier pigeon or whatever to someone that you know that you think might like the show. Because the more people that we get listening to the show, first of all, the better the world will be. Because the more people talking about classic books and experiencing these books and living in these worlds and getting to know these characters, the better the world is going to be. So that's the first thing. But also just in terms of this show, this show can keep going for many, many books to come if it keeps growing. So I would love to welcome your friends, your family, your colleagues, your strangers that you met on the street that just became your friends because they listened to this show as well. I would love to welcome them all into this community that we have and have them become a part of Storytime for Grown Ups. And I want to thank you for being a part of Storytime for Grown Ups. I could not do this show without you. It's nothing without you. It's nothing without your reactions, without your letters, without your discussions over in the drawing Room, which is our online community. It's nothing. It's nothing without that. It's just me reading into the Void. So thank you so much for being here and for supporting this show and all the ways that you do. Even if it's just listening, there's no just about it. Listening to this show supports the show and I'm so, so grateful to you and it's such a joy and I love knowing you're out there. I love getting your letters and I'm just so happy to be here with. So thank you for that. Thank you for supporting the show in all the wonderful ways that you do. If you're looking for more ways to support the show, by the way, there's all kinds of links in the show notes and maybe you'll find something there that interests you. But I'm done talking about that. I want to talk about David Copperfield and Dora and what's going on here. And then I want to read chapter 44 because I want to know what's happening next. So that's what we're going to do today. We're reading chapter 44. Last time we read chapter 43. We're going to talk about that and then we're going to keep going and see what happens next. But first, let's just remind ourselves about Chapter 43, if we need a reminder. So here is the recap. Okay, so where we left off. David gives us another retrospective, this time encompassing the time leading up to his marriage to Dora. He tells us that he finally mastered shorthand and got a job transcribing the parliamentary arguments for a newspaper. He also says that he began writing fiction and started having his stories published in magazines. He has turned 21 and is still friends with Traddles. He has bought a little cottage to live in with Dora after their wedding. And Miss Betsy has an even smaller cottage nearby. There, hustle and bustle leading up to the wedding with buying furniture and making clothes for Dora and getting the marriage license. Traddles fiance Sophie comes to town for the wedding and David meets her for the first time and thinks she's very nice and just right for Traddles. Peggy comes, as does Agnes. The night before, Dora comes to show David her wedding dress and he feels as if he's in a dream and that this thing he's wanted for so long couldn't possibly be happening. But it does happen and everyone is there to support him. And they have a breakfast afterwards to celebrate. And then finally, David takes Dora home and they are married. Alright, I'm gonna read 5 comments today. The first one comes from Amanda Barzicki. She says, I so thought we would eventually get to something happening and Agnes would be the bride. We still have a lot of book to go. Also, how well did Dickens sum up A wedding Day? Seriously, all the emotions and fun oddities that happen. Even though I want David to be with Agnes, I did enjoy this sweet chapter. The next one comes from Marco Santos. He says, it feels like so long ago that David was the child that during those harsh beginning chapters, when we finally see him now getting happily married. And as someone that enjoys Dora's character and the lightheartedness she brings to the story, I can only be happy that David is happy regardless of if Agnes would have made a better match. But knowing Agnes and Uriah still have a part to play in the story only makes me look forward to more. The next one comes from Cassie. She says, what I love about this chapter is how much it sounds like the chapter where David got drunk. It's just a jumble of perceptions and feelings leading up to and on his wedding day. Like he's drunk on love, which I guess he is. It's beautifully done. This next one comes from Gary Aylward. He says, I was so disappointed to hear that David married Dora. I kept secretly wanting something or someone to stop the ceremony. And the last one comes from Gayla Crisp. She says, this was my favorite chapter and I listened to it twice. It was such a sweet scene and I am so happy for David. I really didn't want him to marry Dora, but it was such a happy wedding day and he has so many wonderful people that love him. Okay, so yes, they're married. Surprise. You know, in all the books that we've read so far, there are these chapters that I'm like eagerly waiting for because I'm just so excited to hear your reactions. And this is one of them. Like Amanda said, I think a lot of us were feeling fairly confident that something was gonna happen to save stop David and Dora from getting married. There was a general consensus out there, at least based on your letters. There was a general consensus that it was only a matter of time before David figured out that he was in love with Agnes and ditched Dora, proposed to Agnes, and that the two of them lived happily ever after or whatever. And I've been just sort of sitting here like nodding non committally because I never do spoilers. And I love watching you guys experience the story without any kind of input from me on what might be about to happen next. It's one of the joys of doing this, experiencing these books through your eyes. You know, I've read these books before. I know how they end. I know what's going to happen next. But reading them along with you and not giving that stuff away and having to talk to you about them as if, I don't know, it's like I get to read them again for the first time and it's brilliant and it's blissful and joyful. So again, thank you for that. You really are giving me such a gift. And so I couldn't wait to get your emails about this chapter because contrary to popular prediction, they actually went and did it. David is officially off the market. And even though Dora perhaps wasn't our choice for David, I agree with Cassie and Gala that it's a really lovely, really sweet scene. And Dickens does such a great job of evoking what a wedding day is like. So I'm gonna get to all of that in a minute. But I want to take a moment to, to just touch on what Marco said in his letter, because this chapter was called Another Retrospect, which essentially means another kind of movie montage where time sort of speeds up and we skip ahead, right? Last time we moved from David's childhood years into his teenage years. I think we went from him being like 10 or so to being 17. And this time we went from his teenage years to his young adult years. He's 21 now, so basically four years or so pass in this chapter. And I do think that even though the chapter is about the wedding day, I think it's worth just kind of taking stock of who David is at this point in the story. Because as Marco says, David has come a long way from the little boy being abused by the Murdstones and wandering homeless in the streets of Canterbury, hoping that his kind of scary aunt might take him in. And actually, even though we've been really kind of frustrated with him for a while now because of the way that he's been kind of mooning over Dora and not seeing that she may not be the right partner for him. Even with all of that, David is actually turning into quite an accomplished young man. Ever since Miss Betsy lost all her money, David has been buckling down and working hard and he's starting to have something to show for it. He's actually become good enough at shorthand, which is really, really hard to learn. So he's good enough that he's able to get a second paying job. Here's what he says. I have tamed that savage stenographic mystery. I make a respectable income by it. I am in high repute for my accomplishment in all pertaining to the art and AM joined with 11 others in reporting the debates in Parliament for a morning newspaper. Okay? And even though we love Traddles and we think in a lot of ways that he is more sensible and more steadfast than David is, David tells us that Traddles tried to learn shorthand and get a job like this, but he couldn't do it. Here's what he My dear old Traddles has tried his hand at the same pursuit, but it is not in Traddles way. He is perfectly good humored, respecting his failure and reminds me that he always did consider himself slow. Okay, so David has done something that's actually really impressive and he did it through hard work and perseverance. And the other thing that David is becoming successful at is writing. Okay, so remember a lot of this book is autobiographical and Charles Dickens did actually study the law for a bit. He did learn shorthand and become a parliamentary reporter just like David. And of course he became a writer. And so now he's got David tending in that way too. He says, I have come out in another way. I have taken with fear and trembling to authorship. I wrote a little something in secret and sent it to a magazine and it was published in the magazine. Since then I have taken heart to write a good many trifling pieces. Now I am regularly paid for them. Okay, so from being a poor homeless little boy to having his aunt's money taken away, he's actually handled himself remarkably well. And he's embarking on his married life with a lot going for him. And he's added considerably to the 70 pounds a year that he gets from Dr. Strong. And now he's pretty well off and he's got a cottage to live in with Dora and another cottage nearby for Aunt Betsy. And I mean, we can make fun of him and get annoyed with him all we want over his impulsiveness in love. And I fully approve of feeling that way toward him about that. But we can't overlook the fact that he's really making something of himself, which I at least feel very happy and proud of him about. And as Gala says in her letter, it's really so touching to see how many people David now has around him who love him. I mean, good, kind, loyal people like Peggy and Miss Betsy and Traddles and Agnes. I mean, when you think back on that friendless boy, it's really moving to see him now. Here's what he says. He says, I have never seen my aunt in such state. She is dressed in lavender colored silk and has a white bonnet on and is amazing. Peggotty is ready to go to church intending to behold the ceremony from the gallery. Mr. Dick, who is to give my darling to me at the altar, has had his hair curled. Traddles, whom I have taken up by appointment at the turnpike, presents a dazzling combination of cream colour and light blue. And Both he and Mr. Dick have a general effect about them of being all gloves. I mean, for David to get to have this lovely, dreamy, bustling wedding day surrounded by these people who love him and would do anything for him, it's really very moving, I think. I mean, here is Peggy, who has loved him since birth and who has been through everything like a second mother to him. And she's showing her love in the way that she always has shown her love by cleaning everything. Right. David says Peggy comes up to make herself useful and falls to work immediately. Her department appears to be to clean everything over and over again. She rubs everything that can be rubbed until it shines like her own honest forehead with perpetual friction. Okay, and here's Ms. Betsy, who has also been like a second mother. I mean, she's really raised him and pulled him up out of poverty and made him into that he is. And she's really playing the mother here. Here's what she says. God bless you. Trot. My own boy never could be dearer. I think of poor, dear baby this morning, right? The baby, meaning David's own mother. So even though Clara is gone, Miss Betsy has really taken her place and she's filling that place here at the wedding, which is really lovely, I think. So there's a way in which this retrospect chapter is a kind of taking stock where we get to pause in our frustration at David for being so young and silly and in love and take a step back and actually see that he's doing pretty well for himself. You know that child we were so worried about? Remember when so many of you were sending me letters saying you weren't sure you wanted to read this book because it was so sad and what was happening to this little boy was so awful. So we can step back and see that that little boy is all grown up and he's doing pretty remarkably well under the circumstances. But of course, the other thing that this chapter is is a really masterful and beautiful description of. Of a joyous wedding day. And I'm getting the sense from the letters that I'M getting from you. That even though most of you still feel like Dora wouldn't have been your choice, and even though most of you still wanted David to marry Agnes, that there's a bit more sympathy building now for Dora. That this element that we talked about last time of her actually being very aware of her shortcomings and very worried that David, who she does seem to love, worried that he would suddenly wake up and realize that she not good enough for him, her awareness of that is making us feel a bit more sympathetic to her. And so, again, even though this isn't exactly the wedding we were hoping for, because it's the wrong bride, perhaps, I think we can get kind of swept up in the joyousness of it all because Dickens writes it so well. I mean, I don't know about you, but I can relate to a lot of this. I mean, the feeling that nothing seems real until the very last moment. I definitely felt that way on my wedding day. I remember saying to everyone, you know, this doesn't feel real. Why am I not feeling anything? It was very concerning, you know, all day long, long. And then suddenly, right before I was supposed to walk down the aisle, I was standing there with my father and the music started playing, and I just burst into tears because all of the emotion hit me all at once. And also that sense of just kind of things just sort of happening and not really knowing how you got there or how they happened. I have a very distinct memory of turning around during the ceremony to hand my bouquet to the maid of honor so that my husband and I could exchange the rings and seeing the maid of honor there behind me with the other bridesmaids and thinking, like, oh, how wonderful, you're here too. You know, like, I've been so focused on my husband and in a sort of dream world, and then suddenly I was like, oh, wait, there's other people here, you know. So this wedding scene, it feels very real and very relatable to me, but also it's very beautiful and very sweet. And he captures the bustling, kind of happy, loving quality of the day so well. Here's what he says. Nevertheless, I am in a dream. A flustered, happy, hurried dream. I can't believe that it is going to be. And yet I can't believe but that everyone I pass in the street must have some kind of perception that I am to be married the day after tomorrow. Okay? And then later he says, still, I don't believe it. We have a delightful evening and are supremely happy. But I don't Believe it. Yet I can't collect myself. I can't check off my happiness as it takes place. I feel in a misty and unsettled kind of state, as if I had got up very early in the morning a week or two ago and had never been to bed since. I can't make out when yesterday was. I seem to have been carrying the license about in my pocket many months. Okay. And even the wedding itself is a kind of dream. And Dickens does such a great job of capturing that sense of everything just sort of happening, but also the gravity of the moment. You know, he ties it back to David's childhood and all the things that have come before. Here's what he says of my walking so proudly and lovingly down the aisle with my sweet wife upon my arm, through a mist of half seen people, pulpits, monuments, pews, fonts, organs and church windows in which there flutter faint airs of association with my childish church at home so long ago. Okay, so it's a really lovely chapter, really lovely scene. It's wonderful to get to step back and take stock of how far David has come. It's wonderful to see all the people who love him gathered around. But of course, the big question underneath all of this for us, although not at all for 241 year old David, but the big question for us is, is this gonna be a successful marriage? Are David and Dora going to make this work or are all the worries that we've had about this relationship from the start gonna make this a very unhappy situation for both of them? So, I mean, in the plus column, right, in the potential happiness column, I think the fact that Dora seems to understand her deficiencies, to really love David and to want to be with him, to worry that she won't be able to measure up to what he wants, I think all of that could potentially be a good thing because it means that she could potentially learn over time how to be a good housewife. It means that she might be very grateful to David for marrying her. Perhaps if she can't learn to be a good housewife, she might try to be helpful in other ways. She'll probably be very loving. She's not just a spoiled brat. I think we're learning. And that bodes well. On the other hand, so in the unhappiness column, we have the fact that she's still very childish, very silly, very impractical. I mean, this thing where she's supposed to be furnishing their new cott but just ends up buying a doghouse for gyp. That's Way too big. Like a good housewife. Right? An angel in the house. She would never do something like that. She would know exactly what was needed and she'd find it all in elegant patterns at excellent prices. But Dora doesn't do that at all. Here's what David, Ms. Clarissa and my aunt roam all over London to find out. Articles of furniture for Dora and me to look at. It would be better for them to buy the goods at once without this ceremony of inspection. For when we go to see a kitchen fender and meat screen, Dora sees a Chinese house for Gyp with little bells on the top and prefers that. Okay. And I think Dickens introduces us to Sophie. So Traddles fiance. I think we're introduced to her in this chapter partly as a comparison to Dora because Sophie turns out to be just as wonderful as Traddles has always said, and very much seems like the sort of kind of matronly housewifely person that Dickens feels makes a good wife. Here is how she's described. David says she has the most agreeable of faces, not absolutely beautiful, but extraordinarily pleasant, and is one of the most genial, unaffected, frank, engaging creatures I have ever seen. Okay. And then, of course, Agnes is there, too. And interestingly, Dora seems to have kind of adopted Agnes as a sort of mother figure, which is slightly odd since they are probably pretty close in age. But it also makes sense because Agnes is so much older, kind of emotionally than Dora. And Dora, we now understand, wants desperately to be a more agonist type of. Of person, but just can't figure out how. So she's kind of latched on to Agnes. Here's what David says of Agnes laughing gaily and of Dora being so fond of Agnes that she will not be separated from her, but still keeps her hand. Which, just as a kind of side note, you know, we've talked a lot about how David should marry Agnes and how David seems to potentially already be in love with Agnes without knowing it. But we haven't talked very much, if at all about whether Agnes loves David, you know, whether she would even say yes if he suddenly asked her to marry him. And so I think it's interesting that to see her here laughing gaily or whatever, and being cheerful and sort of motherly toward the person that David is marrying. Because if we do think that Agnes and David should get married, then it seems like one of the key components of that going well would be the notion that Agnes is in love with David. But here she is all cheerful and motherly at the wedding. So either she is in love with him, but she's hiding it like super duper well, or she's not in love with him at all, which would be another kind of wrinkle to this whole thing. If we think that David is actually in love with Agnes. Agnes, but doesn't know it, then the fact that Agnes wasn't necessarily in love with him would be a new wrinkle. Right? But regardless of all of that, it is done. They are married. It really happened. And I think in the same way that we're coming to understand that Dora is more self aware and more to be pitied than we might have originally thought, I think we may also be coming to understand that David actually does love Dora. You know, he may not love her in the way that we want him to, like the love that he has for her. It might not be this sort of deep adult love that we would want for him, but at this point, he has been in love with her and engaged to her for like five years now or something, and he's still absolutely over the moon to be marrying her. Right? He says we drive away together and I awake from the dream. I believe it at last. It is my dear, dear little wife beside me whom I love so well, which I at least find very sweet, you know, so there's a way in which we might be disappointed that he didn't marry Agnes and worried about how this marriage is going to go and also worried about what would happen if David ever did suddenly realize that he is in love with Ag. So we can have all of those worries and feelings, but also we can feel sort of happy for David and Dora and we can wish them well and hope that this works out. We can be afraid that it won't, but we can also hope that it will because there is love there between the two of them and this is what they both want. So maybe it's for the best, you know, we're gonna have to see. And of course there is only one way to do that, which is to keep reading. So we're gonna do that. We're gonna read chapter 44 now. But of course, course. Please get in touch with me. It's faith k.moore.com. then you click on Contact, you fill out that form with all your questions and thoughts and it goes right to me. Or you can scroll into the show notes, check out all the links that are there, but also find that same contact link and please do get in touch. I would love, love, love to hear your reactions to this next chapter and all the chapters all right, let's get started with chapter 44 of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. Friends, it's story time. Chapter 44. Our housekeeping. It was a strange condition of things. The honeymoon being over and the bridesmaids gone home. When I found myself sitting down in my own small house with Dora quite thrown out of employment, as I may say, in respect of the delicious old occupation of making love. Making love here means like courting or wooing. So he's saying that now that he's actually married to Dora, the period of courting her is over. So he doesn't have to to do as much. It seemed such an extraordinary thing to have Dora always there. It was so unaccountable not to be obliged to go out to see her, not to have any occasion to be tormenting myself about her, not to have to write to her, not to be scheming and devising opportunities of being alone with her. Sometimes of an evening, when I looked up from my writing and saw her seated opposite, I would lean back in my chair and think how. How queer it was that there we were alone together as a matter of course. Nobody's business any more. All the romance of our engagement put away upon a shelf to rust. No one to please but one another, one another to please for life. When there was a debate and I was kept out very late. It seemed so strange to me as I was walking home to think that Dora was at home. It was such a wonderful thing at first to have her coming softly down to talk to me as I ate my supper. Supper. It was such a stupendous thing to know for certain that she put her hair in papers, meaning she uses curling papers to curl her hair. It was altogether such an astonishing event to see her do it. I doubt whether two young birds could have known less about keeping house than I and my pretty Dora did. We had a servant, of course. She kept house for us. I have still a latent belief that she must have been Mrs. Crupp's daughter in disguise. We had such an awful time of it with Mary Ann. Her name was Paragon, meaning her last name. Her nature was represented to us when we engaged her as being feebly expressed in her name. She had a written character as large as a proclamation. And according to this document could do everything of a domestic nature that ever I heard of. And a great many things that I never did hear of. She was a woman in the prime of life, of a severe countenance and subject, particularly in the arms to a sort of perpetual measles or fiery rash. She had a cousin in the Life Guards with such long legs that he looked like the afternoon shadow of somebody else. His shell jacket was as much too little for him as he was too big for the premises. He made the cottage smaller than it need have been by being so very much out of proportion to it. Besides which, the walls were not thick, and whenever he passed the evening at our house, we always knew of it by hearing one continual growl in the kitchen. Kitchen. Our treasure was warranted, sober and honest. I am therefore willing to believe that she was in a fit when we found her under the boiler, and that the deficient teaspoons were attributable to the dustman, meaning the servant there hired is incredibly bad at her job, and potentially even stealing from them. But she preyed upon our minds dreadfully. We felt our inexperience and were unable to help ourselves. We should have been at her mercy if she had had any, but she was a remorseless woman and hadn't. My dearest life, I said one day to Dora, do you think Marianne has any idea of time? Why, Dody? Inquired Dora, looking up innocently from her drawing. My love, because it's five, and we were to have dined at four. Dora glanced wistfully at the clock and hinted that she thought it was too fast. On the contrary, my love, said I, referring to my watch, it's a few minutes too slow. My little wife came and sat upon my knee to coax me to be quiet, and drew a line with her pencil down the middle of my nose. But I couldn't dine off that, though it was very agreeable. Don't you think, my dear? Said I, it would be better for you to remonstrate with Marianne. Oh, no, please. I couldn't, Dody, said Dora. Why not, my love? I gently asked. Oh, because I am such a little goose, said Dora, and she knows I am. I thought this sentiment so incompatible with the establishment of any system of check on Marianne that I frowned a little. Oh, what ugly wrinkles in my bad boy's forehead, said Dora, and still being on my knee, she traced them with her pencil, putting it to her rosy lips to make it mark blacker, and working at my forehead with a quaint little mockery of being industrious that quite delighted me in spite of myself. There's a good child, said Dora. It makes its face so much prettier to laugh. But, my love, said I. No, no, please. Cried Dora with a kiss, don't be a naughty bluebeard. Don't Be serious, my precious wife, said I. We must be serious sometimes. Come sit down on this chair close beside me. Me? Give me the pencil. There. Now let us talk sensibly. You know, dear, what a little hand it was to hold and what a tiny wedding ring it was to see. You know, my love, it is not exactly comfortable to have to go out without one's dinner, now, is it? No, replied Dora faintly. My love, how you tremble. Because I know you are going to scold me. Exclaimed Dora in a piteous voice. My sweet, I am only going to reason. Oh, but reasoning is worse than scolding. Exclaimed Dora in despair. I didn't marry to be reasoned with. If you meant to reason with such a poor little thing as I am, you ought to have told me so, you cruel boy. I tried to pacify Dora, but she turned away her face and shook her curls from side to side and said, you cruel, cruel boy, so many times that I really did not exactly know what to do. So I took a few turns up and down the room in my uncertainty and came back again. Dora, my darling. No, I am not your darling, because you must be sorry that you married me or else you wouldn't reason with me, returned Dora. I felt so injured by the inconsequential nature of this change that it gave me courage to be grave. Now, my own Dora, said I, you are very childish and are talking nonsense. You must remember, I am sure, that I was obliged to go out yesterday when dinner was half over, and that the day before I was made quite unwell by being obliged to eat underdone veal in a hurry. To day I don't dine at all. And I am afraid to say how long we waited for breakfast and then the water didn't boil. I don't mean to reproach you, my dear, but this is not comfortable. Oh, you cruel, cruel boy, to say I am a disagreeable wife. Cried Dora. Now, my dear Dora, you must know that I never said that. You said I wasn't comfortable. Cried Dora. I said the housekeeping was not comfortable. It's exactly the same thing. Cried Dora. And she evidently thought so, for she wept most grievously. I took another turn across the room, full of love for my pretty wife and distracted by self accusatory inclinations to knock my head against the door. I sat down again and said, I am not blaming you, Dora. We have both a great deal to learn. I am only trying to show you, my dear, that you must, you really must. I was resolved not to give this up accustom yourself to look after Marianne. Likewise to act a little for yourself and me. I wonder I do at your making such ungrateful speeches, sobbed Dora, when you know that the other day when you said you would like a little bit of fish, I went out myself, miles and miles, and ordered it to surprise you. And it was very kind of you, my own darling, said I, I felt it so much that I wouldn't on any account have even mentioned that you bought a salmon which was too much for two, or that it cost £1 6, which was more than we can afford. You enjoyed it very much, sobbed Dora. And you said I was a mouse. And I'll say so again, my love. I returned a thousand times, but I had wounded Dora's soft little heart and she was not to be comforted. She was so pathetic in her sobbing and bewailing that I felt as if I had said, I don't know what to hurt her. I was obliged to hurry away. I was kept out late, and I felt all night such pangs of remorse as made me miserable. I had the conscience of an assassin and was haunted by a vague sense of enormous wickedness. It was two or three hours past midnight when I got home. I found my aunt in our house sitting up for me. Is anything the matter, Aunt? Said I, alarmed. Nothing, Trot, she replied. Sit down, sit down. Little Blossom has been rather out of spirits, and I have been keeping her company, that's all. I leaned my head upon my hand and felt more sorry and downcast as I sat looking at the fire than I could have supposed possible so soon after the fulfilment of my brightest hopes. As I sat thinking, I happened to meet my aunt's eyes, which were resting on my face. There was an anxious expression in them, but it cleared directly. I assure you, aunt, said I, I have been quite unhappy myself all night to think of Dora's being so so. But I had no other intention than to speak to her tenderly and lovingly about our home affairs. My aunt nodded encouragement. You must have patience, Trot, said she. Of course. Heaven knows I don't mean to be unreasonable, aunt. No, no, said my aunt. But Little Blossom is a very tender little blossom, and the wind must be gentle with her. I thanked my good aunt in my heart for her tenderness towards my wife life, and I was sure that she knew I did. Don't you think, aunt, said I after some further contemplation of the fire, that you could advise and counsel Dora a little for our mutual advantage now and then Trot returned my Aunt with some emotion. No, don't ask me such a thing. Her tone was so very earnest that I raised my eyes in surprise. I look back on my life, child, said my aunt, and I think of some who are in their graves with whom I might have been on kinder terms. If I judged harshly of other people's mistakes in marriage, it may have been because I had bitter reason to judge harshly of my own. Let that pass. I have been a grumpy, frumpy, wayward sort of a woman. A good many years I am still, and I always shall be. But you and I have done one another some good trouble. At all events, you have done me good, my dear. And division must not come between us at this time of day. Division between us? Cried I. Child, child, said my aunt, smoothing her dress. How soon it might come between us. Or how unhappy I might make our little blossom if I meddled in anything a prophet couldn't say. I want our pet to like me and be as gay as a butterfly. Remember your own home in that second marriage and never do both me and her. The injury you have hinted at. Okay, so she's saying, be careful of treating Dora the way that Mr. Murdstone treated Clara. I comprehended at once that my aunt was right, and I comprehended the full extent of her generous feeling towards my dear wife. These are early days, Trot, she pursued, and Rome was not built in a day nor in a year. Here you have chosen freely for yourself. A cloud passed over her face. For a moment I thought, and you have chosen a very pretty and very affectionate creature. It will be your duty, and it will be your pleasure, too. Of course, I know that I am not delivering a lecture to estimate her as you chose her, by the qualities she has and not by the qualities she may not have. The latter you must develop in her, if you can, can. And if you cannot, child, here. My aunt rubbed her nose. You must just accustom yourself to do without it. But remember, my dear, your future is between you two. No one can assist you. You are to work it out for yourselves. This is marriage, Trot, and heaven bless you both in it for a pair of babes in the wood, as you are. My aunt said this in a sprightly way and gave me a kiss to ratify the blessed. Now, said she, light my little lantern and see me into my bandbox by the garden path, for there was a communication between our cottages in that direction. Give Betsy Trotwood's love to blossom when you come back. And whatever you do, trot never dream of setting Betsy up as a scarecrow, for if I ever saw her in the glass, she's quite grim enough and gaunt enough in her private capacity. Meaning don't make her be the bad guy in the relationship and try to get Dora to do what David wants her to do with this. My aunt tied her head up in a handkerchief with which she was accustomed to make a bundle of it on such occasions, and I escorted her home. As she stood in her garden, holding up her little lantern to light me back, I thought her observation of me had an anxious air again. But I was too much occupied in pondering on what she had said, and too much impressed for the first time in reality by the conviction that Dora and I had indeed to work out our future for ourselves, and that no one could assist us us to take much notice of it. Dora came stealing down in her little slippers to meet me now that I was alone, and cried upon my shoulder and said I had been hard hearted and she had been naughty and I said much the same thing in effect, I believe. And we made it up and agreed that our first little difference was to be our last, and that we were never to have another if we lived a hundred years. The next domestic trial we went through was the ordeal of servants. Marianne's cousin deserted into our coal hole and was brought out, to our great amazement, by a picket of his companions in arms. A picket is a group of soldiers who took him away handcuffed in a procession that covered our front garden with ignominy. So the cousin of their servant Mary Ann tried to desert his regiment by hiding in their coal hole and was found and arrested. This nerved me to get rid of Mary Ann, who went so mildly on receipt of wages that I was surprised until I found out about the teaspoons and also about the little sums she had borrowed in my name of the tradespeople without authority. After an interval of Mrs. Kidgerbury, the oldest inhabitant of Kentish Town, I believe, who went out charring but was too feeble to execute her conceptions of that art, we found another treasure who was one of the most amiable of women, but who generally made a point of falling either up or down the kitchen stairs with the tray and almost plunged into the parlour as into a bath with the tea things, the ravages committed by this unfortunate rendering her dismissal necessary. She was succeeded with interv of Mrs. Kidgerberry by a long line of incapables, terminating in a young person of genteel appearance who went to Greenwich Fair in Dora's bonnet, after whom I remember nothing but an average equality of failure. Everybody we had anything to do with seemed to cheat us. Our appearance in a shop was a signal for the damaged goods to be brought out immediately. If we bought a lobster, it was full of water. All our meat turned out to be tough, and there was hardly any crust to our loaves. In search of the principle on which joints ought to be roasted, to be roasted enough and not too much, I myself referred to the cookery book and found it there established as the allowance of a quarter of an hour to every pound and, say, a quarter over. But the principle always failed us by some curious fatality. And we never could hit any medium between redness and cinders. I had reason to believe that in accomplishing these failures we incurred a far greater expense than if we had achieved a series of trials, triumphs. It appeared to me, on looking over the tradesmen's books, as if we might have kept the basement story paved with butter. Such was the extensive scale of our consumption of that article. I don't know whether the excise returns of the period may have exhibited any increase in the demand for pepper, but if our performances did not affect the market, I should say several families must have left off using it. And the most wonderful fact of all was that we never had anything in the house. House as to the washerwoman pawning the clothes and coming in a state of penitent intoxication to apologize. I suppose that might have happened several times to anybody. Also the chimney on fire, the parish engine, and perjury on the part of the beadle. But I apprehend that we were personally fortunate in engaging a servant with a taste for cordials who swelled our running account for porter at the public house by such inexplicable items as quartern, rum, shrubs, Mrs. C. Half quartern gin and cloves, Mrs. C. Glass, rum and peppermint, Mrs. C. The parentheses always referring to Dora, who was supposed, it appeared on explanation to have imbibed the whole of these refreshments, meaning one of their servants has taken out a tab in Dora's name and is drinking all kinds of alcohol at her expense. One of our first feats in the housekeeping way was a little dinner to Traddles. I met him in town and asked him to walk out with me that afternoon. He readily consenting, I wrote to Dora saying I would bring him home. It was pleasant weather, and on the road we made my domestic happiness the theme of our conversation. Traddles was very full of it, and said that picturing himself with such a home and Sophie waiting and preparing for him, he could think of nothing wanting to complete his bliss. I could not have wished for a prettier little wife at the opposite end of the table. But I certainly could have wished, when we sat down, for a little more room. I don't know how it was, but though there were only two of us, we were at once always cramped for room and yet had always room enough to lose everything in. I suspect it may have been because nothing had a place of its own except Gyp's pagoda, which invariably blocked up the main thoroughfare. On the present occasion, Traddles was so hemmed in by the pagoda and the guitar case and Dora's flower painting and my writing table, that I had serious doubts of the possibility of his using his knife and for fork. But he protested with his own good humour. Oceans of room, Copperfield, I assure you. Oceans. There was another thing I could have wished, namely, that Gyp had never been encouraged to walk about the tablecloth during dinner. I began to think there was something disorderly in his being there at all, even if he had not been in the habit of putting his foot in the salt or the melted butter. On this occasion he seemed to think he was introduced expressly to keep Traddles at bay, and he barked at my old friend and made short runs at his plate with such undaunted pertinacity that he may be said to have engrossed the conversation. However, as I knew how tender hearted my dear Dora was and how sensitive she would be to any slight upon her favourite, I hinted no objection. For similar reasons I made no allusion to the skirmishing plates upon the floor, or to the disreputable appearance of the castors, which were all at sixes and sevens and looked drunk, or to the further blockade of Traddles by wandering vegetable dishes and jugs. I could not help wondering in my own mind, as I contemplated the boiled leg of mutton before me, me previous to carving it, how it came to pass that our joints of meat were of such extraordinary shapes, and whether our butcher contracted for all the deformed sheep that came into the world. But I kept my reflections to myself. My love, said I to Dora, what have you got in that dish? I could not imagine why Dora had been making tempting little faces at me as if she wanted to kiss me. Oysters, dear, said Dora timidly. Was that your thought? Said I, delighted. Yes, Dody, said Dora. There never was a happier one. I exclaimed, laying down the carving knife and fork. There is nothing Traddles like so much. Yes, Dodie, said Dora, and so I bought a beautiful little barrel of them, and the man said they were very good, but I. I am afraid there's something the matter with that them. They don't seem right here. Dora shook her head and diamonds twinkled in her eyes, meaning she's starting to cry. They are only opened in both shells, said I. Take the top one off, my love. But it won't come off, said Dora, trying very hard and looking very much distressed. Do you know, Copperfield? Said Traddles cheerfully, examining the dish, I think it is in consequence they are capital oysters, but I think it is in consequence of their never having been opened. They never had been opened, and we had no oyster knives and couldn't have used them if we had. So we looked at the oysters and ate the mutton. At least we ate so much of it as was done, and made up with the capers. If I had permitted him, I am satisfied that Traddles would have made a perfect savage of himself and eaten a plateful of raw meat to express enjoyment of the republican past. But I would hear of no such immolation on the altar of friendship, and we had a course of bacon insteadthere happening by good fortune to be cold bacon in the larder. My poor little wife was in such affliction when she thought I should be annoyed, and in such a state of joy when she found I was not, that the discomfiture I had subdued very much vanished, and we passed a happy evening, Dora sitting with her arm on my chair while Traddles and I discussed a glass of wine, and taking every opportunity of whispering in my ear that it was so good of me not to be be a cruel cross old boy. By and by she made tea for us, which was so pretty to see her do, as if she was busying herself with a set of Doll's Tea things that I was not particular about. The quality of the beverage then Traddles and I played a game or two at cribbage, and Dora singing to the guitar the while it seemed to me as if our courtship and marriage were a tender dream of mine, and the night when I first listened to her voice were not yet over. When Traddles went away and I came back into the parlour from seeing him out, my wife planted her chair close to mine and sat down by my side. I am very sorry, she said. Will you try to teach me, Dody? I must teach myself first, Dora said I. I am as bad as you love. Ah, but you can learn, she returned. And you are a clever, clever man. Nonsense, mouse, said I. I wish, resumed my wife after a long silence. Silence. That I could have gone down into the country for a whole year and lived with Agnes. Her hands were clasped upon my shoulder and her chin rested on them, and her blue eyes looked quietly into mine. Why so? I asked. I think she might have improved me, and I think I might have learned from her, said Dora. All in good time, my love. Agnes has had her father to take care of for these many years. You should remember. Remember even when she was quite a child. She was the Agnes whom we know, said I. Will you call me a name? I want you to call me, inquired Dora without moving. What is it? I asked with a smile. It's a stupid name, she said, shaking her curls for a moment. Child wife. I laughingly asked my child wife what her fancy was in desiring to be so called. Called, she answered without moving otherwise than as the arm I twined about her may have brought her blue eyes nearer to me. I don't mean, you silly fellow, that you should use the name instead of Dora. I only mean that you should think of me that way when you are going to be angry with me, say to yourself, it's only my child wife when I am very disappointing. Say I knew a long time ago that she would make but a child wife. When you miss what I should like to be and I think can never be, say still my foolish child wife loves me, for indeed I do. I had not been serious with her, having no idea until now that she was serious herself, but her affectionate nature was so happy in what I now said to her with my whole heart that her face became a laughing one before her glittering eyes were dry. She was soon my child wife indeed, sitting down on the floor outside the Chinese house, ringing all the little bells after another to punish Jip for his recent bad behavior, while Gyp lay blinking in the doorway with his head out, even too lazy to be teased. This appeal of Dora's made a strong impression on me. I look back on the time I write of. I invoke the innocent figure that I dearly loved to come out from the mists and shadows of the past and turn its gentle head towards me once again, and I can still declare that this one little speech was constantly in my memory. Memory. I may not have used it to the best account. I was young and inexperienced, but I never turned a deaf ear to its artless pleading. Dora told Me shortly afterwards that she was going to be a wonderful housekeeper. Accordingly, she polished the tables, pointed the pencil. Brought an immense account book, carefully stitched up with a needle and thread. All the leaves of the cookery book which Gyp had torn. And made quite a desperate little attempt. Attempt to be good, as she called it. But the figures had the old obstinate propensity. They would not add up. When she had entered two or three laborious items in the account book. Gyp would walk over the page wagging his tail and smear them all out. Her own little right hand, middle finger got steeped to the very bone in ink. And I think that was the only decided result obtained. Sometimes of an evening when I was at home and at work. Workfor. I wrote a good deal now and was beginning in a small way to be known as a writer. I would lay down my pen and watch my child wife trying to be good. First of all, she would bring out the immense account book. And lay it down upon the table with a deep sigh. Then she would open it at the place where Jip had made it illegible last night. And call Gyp up to look at his misdeeds. This would occasion a diversion in Gyp's favor. And some inking of his nose, perhaps, as a penalty. Penalty. Then she would tell Gyp to lie down on the table instantly like a lion. Which was one of his tricks, though I cannot say the likeness was striking. And if he were in an obedient humor, he would obey. Then she would take up a pen and begin to write and find a hair in it. Then she would take up another pen and begin to write and find that it spluttered. Then she would take up another pen and begin to write. And say in a low voice, oh, it's a talking pen and will disturb do beauty. And then she would give it up as a bad job. And put the account book away. After pretending to crush the lion with it. Or if she were in a very sedate and serious state of mind. She would sit down with the tablets and a little basket of bills and other documents. Which looked more like curl papers than anything else. And endeavor to get some result out of them. After severely comparing one with another. And making entries on the tablets and blotting them out. And counting all the fingers of her left hand over and over again, backwards and forwards. She would be so vexed and discouraged and would look so unhappy. That it gave me pain to see her bright face clouded and for me. And I would go softly to her and say what's the matter, Dora? Dora would look up hopelessly and reply, they won't come right. They make my head ache so, and they won't do anything I want. Then I would say, now, let us try together. Let me show you, Dora. Then I would commence a practical demonstration to which Dora would pay profound attention. Attention perhaps for five minutes, when she would begin to be dreadfully tired and would lighten the subject by curling my hair or trying the effect of my face with my shirt collar turned down. If I tacitly checked this playfulness and persisted, she would look so scared and disconsolate as she became more and more bewildered that the remembrance of her natural gaiety when I first strayed into her path and of her being my child wife would come reproachfully upon me. And I would lay the pencil down and call for the guitar. Guitar. I had a great deal of work to do and had many anxieties, but the same considerations made me keep them to myself. I am far from sure now that it was right to do this, but I did it for my child wife's sake. I search my breast and I commit its secrets, if I know them, without any reservation to this paper. The old unhappy loss or want of something had, I am conscious, some place in my heart. Heart, but not to the embitterment of my life. When I walked alone in the fine weather and thought of the summer days when all the air had been filled with my boyish enchantment. I did miss something of the realization of my dreams. But I thought it was a softened glory of the past which nothing could have thrown upon the present time. I did feel sometimes for a little while that I could have wished my wife had been my counsellor, had had more character and purpose to sustain me and improve me. By. By had been endowed with power to fill up the void which somewhere seemed to be about me. But I felt as if this were an unearthly consummation of my happiness that never had been meant to be and never could have been. I was a boyish husband. As to years I had known the softening influence of no other sorrows or experiences than those recorded in these leaves. If I did any wrong, as I may have done much, I did it in mistaken love and in my want of wisdom. Wisdom. I write the exact truth. It would avail me nothing to extenuate it now. Thus it was that I took upon myself the toils and cares of our life and had no partner in them. We lived much as before in reference to our scrambling household arrangements. But I had got used to those, and Dora, I was pleased to see, was seldom vexed. Now she was bright and cheerful in the old childish way way, loved me dearly, and was happy with her old trifles. When the debates were heavy, I mean as to length, not quality, for in the last respect they were not often otherwise. And I went home late. Dora would never rest when she heard my footsteps, but would always come downstairs to meet me when my evenings were unoccupied by the pursuit for which I had qualified myself with so much pains, and I was engaged in writing at home she would sit quietly near me, however late the hour, and be so mute. Mute that I would often think she had dropped asleep. But generally when I raised my head, I saw her blue eyes looking at me with the quiet attention of which I have already spoken. Oh, what a weary boy, said Dora one night when I met her eyes as I was shutting up my desk. What a weary girl, said I. That's more to the purpose. You must go to bed. Another time, my love. It's far too late for you. No, don't send me to bed, pleaded Dora, coming to my side. Pray don't do that, Dora. To my amazement, she was sobbing on my neck. Not well, my dear. Not happy? Yes, quite well and very happy, said Dora. But say you'll let me stop and see you right. Why, what a sight for such bright eyes at midnight, I replied. Are they bright? Then returned Dora, laughing. I'm so glad they're bright. Little vanity, said I. But it was not vanity. It was only harmless delight in my admiration. I knew that very well before she told me so. If you think them pretty, say, I may always stop and see you write, said Dora. Do you think them pretty? Very pretty. Then let me always stop and see you write. I am afraid that won't improve their brightness, Dora. Yes, it will. Because, you clever boy, you'll not forget me then, while you are full of silent fancies, will you mind it if I say something very, very silly? More than usual? Inquired Dora, peeping over my shoulder into my face. What wonderful thing is that? Said I. Please let me hold the pens, said Dora. I want to have something to do with all those many hours when you are so industrious. May I hold the pens? The remembrance of her pretty joy when I said yes brings tears into my eyes. The next time I sat down to write, and regularly afterwards, she sat in her old place with a spare bundle of pens at her side. Her triumph in this connection with my work and her delight when I wanted a New pen which I very often feigned to do. Do suggested to me a new way of pleasing my child wife. I occasionally made a pretense of wanting a page or two of manuscript copied. Then Dora was in her glory. The preparations she made for this great work, the aprons she put on, the bibs she borrowed from the kitchen to keep off the ink, the time she took, the innumerable stoppages she made to have a laugh with Gyp, as if he understood it all. Her conviction that her work was was incomplete unless she signed her name at the end and the way in which she would bring it to me like a school copy. And then when I praised it, clasp me around the neck. Are touching recollections to me, simple as they might appear to other men. She took possession of the keys soon after this and went jingling about the house with the whole bunch in a little basket tied to her slender waist. So the housekeeper or the housewife is in charge of the key. So she's trying to take charge of the house. House. I seldom found that the places to which they belonged were locked or that they were of any use except as a plaything for Gyp. But Dora was pleased and that pleased me. She was quite satisfied that a good deal was affected by this make belief of housekeeping and was as merry as if we had been keeping a baby house for a joke. So we went on. Dora was hardly less affectionate to my aunt than to me, and often told her of the time when she was afraid she was a cross old thing. Thing. I never saw my aunt unbend more systematically to any one she courted. Gyp. Though Gyp never responded. Listened day after day to the guitar Though I'm afraid she had no taste for music. Never attacked the Incapables though the temptation must have been severe. Went wonderful distances on foot to purchase as surprises any trifles that she found out Dora wanted and never came in by the garden and missed her from the room. Room. But she would call out at the foot of the stairs in a voice that sounded cheerfully all over the house. Where's little Blossom? 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 faithkmore.com click on contact and send me your questions and thoughts. Or you can click on the link in the show Notes to contact me. I'll feature one or two of your entries at the start of the next episode. Speaking of links, don't forget to take a look at the other links in the show notes. You can learn more about me, check out our merch store, or become a member of the Storytime for Grown Ups online community. Before I go, I'd like to ask a quick favor. This is an independent podcast. It's produced, recorded and marketed by me, so I need your help. Spread the word about the show by posting about it on social media or texting a link to your friends. Subscribe, tap those five stars and leave a positive review wherever you're listening. If you are able to support the show financially, there's a link in the show notes to make a donation. I would really, really appreciate it. Alright everyone, Storytime is over. Over. To be continued.