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Hello and welcome to Storytime for Grown Ups. I'm Faith Moore and this season we're reading David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. Each episode I'll read a few chapters from the book, pausing from time to time to give brief explanations so it's easier to follow along. It's like an audiobook with built in notes. So brew a pot of tea, find a cozy chair and settle in. It's story time. Hello. Welcome back. Okay, this is the third of three pre recorded episodes, which means that next time I will be back with you. And I am so, so excited. I cannot wait. It is much, much better to do this when I've got your questions and we're doing this together in real time. So I cannot wait to be back with you. And we are so close to the end. I can't believe how close we are. I think there are like eight chapters left, maybe including this one. So we are really getting there. So I am really looking forward to being back and coming into the home stretch with this book with you guys because it's been such an amazing, such a wonderful journey. I'm so glad we decided to read this book and I can't wait to finish it with you. And like I say, a trailer for our next book, which will begin in September, will come out very soon. It will come out at the beginning of August. I will let you know the exact date very soon, but it's coming up so keep an eye out on your podcast player for that and then you will know what we're reading so you won't be maybe as sad as you would be when this book ends because we'll have something else to look forward to. And I actually am really, really excited about our September book. I'm sad that this book is ending. Really, really sad. But I'm also super excited about our next book, so hopefully you will be too once you hear the trailer. The only other reminder or announcement that I have is just to let you know again that Tea Time is coming up. It will be Wednesday, July 29th at 8pm Eastern in our online community, which is called the Draft Drawing Room. And if you don't know what that is or you're not a member and you'd like to know more, just scroll into the show notes and click the link. And you just have to be landed gentry to be a part of Tea Time. Tea Time is our monthly voice chat, like a group phone call where we get to talk to each other in real time. So it's really fun. So I hope that if you are thinking of it. If you've been sort of wondering if you should join, I hope you take this as your sign to do it this time. So I hope that you'll be there on July 29th at 8pm Eastern. Eastern. Okay, so I think we should just get into this episode. Please subscribe. Please tap the five stars. Please leave a positive review. Please tell every single person in the whole world that you know or some of them about this show. Spread the word, wear your merch, do all this stuff, and let's get into this. Okay, last time we read chapter 56. Today is going to be chapter 57. So let's remind ourselves of what we read last time. I will talk to you a little bit as best I can without your questions, and then we will get into the chapter. So here is the recap. All right, so where we left off, the fishermen help David to carry Steerforth's body off the beach, but they all decide that he shouldn't be laid in the same house as Ham's body, so they take him to an inn. David feels that it should be him that goes and breaks the news to Mrs. Steerforth and Ms. Dardle. So he hires a carriage to carry the body back to London, and He goes to Mrs. Steerforth's house. He finds her there, unable to come downstairs, but sitting in Steerforth's old room, clearly deeply missing him, but unable to allow him back into her life because she promised to disown him unless he gave up Emily. Ms. Dardle is there too, and understands why David has come before David says it. She becomes enraged and blames Mrs. Steerforth for turning Steerforth into what he was. She says that she loved Steerforth and thinks that Steerforth would have married her if he hadn't been corrupted by Mrs. Steerforth, spoiling him and not raising him with a clear moral core. David tries to get her to have some compassion for Mrs. Steerforth, who can only sit there moaning when she understands what's happened. And finally, Ms. Dartle does attend to her. David comes back and lays the body out in a room in the house and hears that Mrs. Steerforth has not recovered her senses and just sits there moaning. David goes through the house, darkening the windows to prepare the place for the period of mourning which will follow. Okay, so again, I am so sad not to be here for this chapter as well, because there is so much going on here and I know that you guys are going to have thoughts about it. So I will share some of those when I am back, which, as I say, will be Monday. This is the last pre recorded episode, so I. Yay. But let's dig in as best we can to what happened in chapter 56, because it was another really emotional chapter. I think last time we were talking about the way in which Dickens kind of turned back time, in a sense, and reminded us of the Steerforth that David first met at school. The way in which, in death, Steerforth seemed to kind of go backward in time, so that he was not the Steerforth who ran off with Emily, but the younger Steerforth who might still have made better choices, maybe. And I think this chapter, chapter 56, it takes up the same theme and more broadly, I think, as we approach the end of the book, this idea of time sort of accordioning in on itself and the past coming back again, but not really being accessible. I think this is a big theme that Dickens is playing with as we kind of reflect back on all of the stages of David's life as we head into these final chapters and bring David up to meet the David that's been writing this book, the David that we have been calling adult David. And I think this idea of the Steerforth that Steerforth could have been or might have been if all sorts of things had been different. I think this idea runs right through the length of this chapter. And I think it also sort of reminds us of all the things that might have been different in David's life and in the lives of the people that he loves and has loved. I think there's a kind of melancholy nostalgia that's begun to run through these kind of penultimate chapters, which I find kind of achingly lovely. Although I must say I am a total sucker for nostalgia in any form. So it might just be me, but that's how I'm feeling about it. Now. I want to begin by saying that I know that to us, Steerforth has become like one of the main villains of this book, and also that Rosa Dardle has, on more than one occasion, by more than one of you, been called evil. So this is why I really wish I had your letters to respond to right now, because the thing. Things I'm about to say might be somewhat controversial, but bear with me because I really do think this is what's going on here, because I think this is a chapter all about what might have been. And I think that the idea of what might have been, it's a very romantic, very writerly idea. Writers love nostalgia. So I think that's what Dickens is going for here. I think the idea of this chapter is what might steerforth have been, had he been raised differently, had he had better role models, had he had more of a moral, moral core and less of a heightened sense of himself. And in turn, had Steerforth been the best version of himself instead of the worst version, what might Ms. Dardle have been as well? So that's the case I'm going to try to make right now. Not that Steerforth was actually a great guy and that Ms. Dardle is actually a great gal or whatever. Not that at all. They are both awful in their own ways, but simply that there is something very poignant and sort of achingly nostalgic and thinking about what they could have been had things been different. Because we all have a version of ourselves. We know that we are supposed to be, don't we? I mean, there are moments in our lives when we can choose to turn toward that person or away from that person. And turning toward that person makes us better people, more truly ourselves. And turning away from that person makes us worse people, less truly ourselves, less what we were meant to be. And. And so for all of us, I think there is this version of ourselves that hopefully we are always striving for. But for most of us, I think there are moments when we go astray. And for some of us, we go astray more than we go right. And that's tragedy. That's what's going on in this chapter. Tragedy. This chapter is pure tragedy. And this. This idea of not being who you were meant to be, of going wrong when you could have gone right, this is what makes it a tragedy. So the chapter begins with David remembering what Steerforth said to him on what turned out to be the last time that they ever saw each other. David says, no need o Steerforth to have said when we last spoke together in that hour which I so little deemed to be our parting hour, no need to have said, think of me at my best. I had done that ever. And could I change now, looking on this site? Could I now? This might be sort of hard for us to hear. David has always thought of Steerforth at his best. I mean, even after he ran off with Emily, even after he ruined Emily and destroyed Ham's life and uprooted Mr. Peggotty. David thinks of Steerforth at his best, but I don't think he means that. He still thinks Steerforth is a great guy. We know he doesn't think that. David has sided very clearly with Mr. Peggy in all of this. And he's given up all hope of ever being friends with Steerforth again. He renounced Steerforth right at the beginning of this whole situation. So he's not saying that, but he is saying that whatever was in Steerforth that was good, and there was good in him. His charm, his easy way of connecting with people, his good humor, his interest in everything and everyone around him. So whatever there was in Steerforth that was good, that is what David thinks of when he thinks of Steerforth. And it's in honor of that, in honor of what Steerforth was, might have been, and in honor of the people who loved him most and kept believing in his goodness. It's in honor of those things that David undertakes to be the one to bring Steerforth's body home to his mother and to Ms. Dardle and to break the news to him. And there's this really beautiful description here, just a few lines. As David is arriving at Mrs. Steerforth's house to break the news. It says, upon a mellow autumn day about noon, when the ground was perfumed by fallen leaves, and many more in beautiful tints of yellow, red and brown, yet hung upon the trees through which the sun was shining, I arrived at Highgate. And this is poignant, I think, for two reasons. One is this idea of autumn leaves, which are both beautiful but also dying, right? They flame out in all of these beautiful colors for a moment, but they're already on their way to becoming the old, brown and brittle, dead leaves that they will be on the ground. So it's kind of a mirror of Steerforth, this big, vibrant personality that shone out for a moment, but then went horribly wrong and ended up dead. But the other thing is that it harkens back to a metaphor that David had used before, of the autumn leaves representing the life that he could have lived if he hadn't given in to the impulse of his undisputed disciplined heart and married Dora so impetuously. Every time he thought about what was missing in his marriage and the idea of a true partner, he compared it to the wind blowing away the autumn leaves. So again, it's about what might have been, the things that could have been but weren't, the paths we could have taken but didn't. And when David gets to Mrs. Steerforth's house, the place is essentially like a shrine to the man that Steerforth to might have been, but isn't. And these two women inside the house, Mrs. Steerforth and Ms. Dardle, they represent sort of different facets of this idea. On the one hand, we have Mrs. Steerforth, who has kind of immovably committed herself to the idea of her son as she originally imagined him when he was growing up. This boy who can do no wrong, who ought never to be questioned or reprimanded by his teachers. Remember how she sent him to Salem House because she felt that Mr. Creakle was. Wouldn't ever punish him or set him right if he went wrong? Steerforth was her golden child, and she imagined that his life would be like all roses and success and that he would be a giant among men or something. And she has cut off all contact with the man that he's actually become because she can't bear to recognize that he isn't who she thought he was going to be. And David finds her having taken up residence in Steerforth's old room. So again, she's surrounding herself with the paraphernalia of Steerforth's life before he ran off with Emma, before he proved himself to be something other than the boy that she thought he was. David says she was in his room, not in her own. I felt, of course, that she had taken to occupy it in remembrance of him, and that the many tokens of his old sports and accomplishments by which she was surrounded remained there just as he had left them for the same reason. So Mrs. Steerforth is living in a kind of delusional past in which Steerforth hasn't gone wrong, but also isn't really there at all. But on the other hand, or. And on the other hand, we have Rosa Dardle, who understands that Steerforth isn't the man that he ought to have been. She sees very clearly that there was a golden boy under there, a truly impressive, charismatic leader of a man. But because Mrs. Steerforth spoiled him and he had no male role models, both because his father was dead and because Mrs. Steerforth didn't allow him to come into contact with any teachers who might have taught him right from wrong. Because of that, Steerforth veered away from who he ought to have been and became what he did. And Rosa absolutely goes off on Mrs. Steerforth. And on the one hand, it is horrible to witness. Mrs. Steerforth is an old woman. She's just lost her beloved son, so going after her like this is cruel. On the other hand, she's right. I mean, isn't she? She's right. If Mrs. Steerforth hadn't spoiled him, if she'd offered him good role models, he might not have thought that he could do whatever he wanted, take whatever he wanted to, use people however he wanted and then toss them aside. This is what I was saying before about Ms. Dardle. She is cruel. She is hard, but I also get where she's coming from. And in this case, I actually think she's correct. Here's what she says. You, who from his cradle reared him to be what he was and stunted what he should have been, are you rewarded now for your years of trouble? I mean, it's horrible that she's saying this, but it doesn't make it wrong. And also, it finally comes out here that, as we've suspected all along, Rosa was in love with Steerforth, and that even though it wasn't as drastic as what he did to Emily, Steerforth also led Miss Dardle on and then discarded her, effectively ruining her life. She says, I loved him better than you ever loved him. And then it says, turning on her fiercely, I could have loved him and asked no return. If I had been his wife, I could have been the slave of his caprices for a word of love a year. I should have been, who knows it better than I? You were exacting, proud, punctilious, selfish. My love would have been devoted, would have trod your paltry whimpering underfoot. She's saying that had Steerforth married her, she would have made him a better man, that her love for him was true and pure, and she saw the man that he was meant to be, the good man, the great man, and she would have drawn that out of him and kept him from degrading himself the way that he did. And I'm sorry, but I really, really feel for her in this scene. I feel for Mrs. Steerforth, too, but I actually feel for Miss Dardle more, because she fell in love with a man who could have been great, and he repaid her by maiming her for life, such that she couldn't ever forget that the man she loved could do this to her. Here's what she do you remember when, in his inheritance of your nature and in your pampering of his pride and passion, he did this and disposal disfigured me for life. Look at me. Marked until I die with his high displeasure and moan and groan for what you made him. And she feels that even though Steerforth did this thing to her once, right, maimed her this way, if he hadn't been spoiled by Mrs. Steerforth, if Ms. Dardle could have been his guiding influence instead of Mrs. Steerforth, then maybe he still could have been saved. She says when he grew into the better understanding of what he had done, he saw it and repented of it. I could sing to him and talk to him and show the ardor that I felt in all he did and attain with labor to such knowledge as most interested him. And I attracted him when he was freshest and truest. He loved me. You see, Ms. Dardle feels like Emily. She is ruined. Her face is ruined. No one else will ever want her. And the man that did this cast her aside. Now, obviously, it's not as dramatic as what happened to Emily, but to Ms. Dardle, it. It is the same. And yet she clearly still loves him. Her anger is her way of grieving. And I think it's so heartbreaking that after berating Mrs. Steerforth like this, she ends up kind of hugging her and rocking her and trying to console her. Here's what David says. She had then taken the impassive figure in her arms and still upon her knees, was weeping over it, kissing it, calling to it, rocking it to and fro upon her bosom like a child, and trying every tender means to rouse the dormant senses which. Okay, so both of these women are grieving, grieving for the version of Steerforth that they knew was in there, but now will never be so again. I think this chapter is all about the things that might have been but weren't. And because they weren't, even though they might have been, now they never will. And for David, there are a lot of things like that in his life. And this chapter ends with this. He says, I lifted up the leaden hand and held it to my heart, and all the world seemed death and silence, broken only by his mother's moaning. And this, I think, is more than just this situation for David. David's world is death and silence now, right? The grief that he's been holding off for so long now, I think it's very close at hand. So what is that going to be like? What's going to happen now? There is only one way to find out. So let's do that. Let's keep reading. And I will be back with you again on Monday and for the rest of this book. So please write in. And I can't wait to be back with you. All right, let's get started with chapter 57 of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. It's story time. Chapter 57, the emigrants. One thing more I had to do before yielding myself to the shock of these emotions. It was to conceal what had occurred from those who were going away and to dismiss them on their voyage in happy ignorance. In this, no time was to be lost. He's saying that he doesn't want Mr. Peggotty and Emily to hear about Ham's death before they leave. I took Mr. Micawber aside that same night and confided to him the task of seeing the standing between Mr. Peggotty and intelligence of the late catastrophe. He zealously undertook to do so, and to intercept any newspaper through which it might, without such precautions, reach him. If it penetrates to him, sir, said Mr. Macawer, striking himself on the breast, it shall first pass through this body. Mr. Macawer, I must observe, in his adaptation of himself to a new state of society, had acquired a bold buccaneering air, not absolutely lawless, but defensive and prompt. One might have supposed him a child of the wilderness, long accustomed to live out of the confines of civilization and about to return to his native wilds. He had provided himself, among other things, with a complete suit of oilskin and a straw hat with a very low crown, pitched or caulked on the outside in this rough clothing, with a common mariner's telescope under his arm, and a shrewd trick of casting up his eye at the same sky as looking out for dirty weather. He was far more nautical after his manner than Mr. Peggotty. His whole family, if I may so express it, was cleared for action. I found Mrs. Micawber in the closest and most uncompromising of bonnets made fast under the chin, and in a shawl which tied her up as I had been tied up when my aunt first received me, like a bundle, and was secured behind at the waist in a strong knot. Ms. Micawber, I found, made snug for stormy weather in the same manner, with nothing superfluous about her. Master Micawber was hardly visible in a Guernsey shirt and the shaggiest suit of slops I ever saw. A suit of slops is like a set of ready made clothing, and the children were done up like preserved meats in impervious cases. Both Mr. Micawber and his eldest son wore their sleeves loosely turned back at the wrists, as being ready to lend a hand in any direction and to tumble up or sing out, yeo, heave, yeo. On the shortest notice. Thus Traddles and I found them at nightfall assembled on the wooden steps at that time known as Hungerford Stairs, watching the departure of a boat with some of their property on board. I had told Traddles of the terrible event, and it had greatly shocked him but there could be no doubt of the kindness of keeping it a secret, and he had come to help me in this last service. It was here that I took Mr. Micawber aside and received his Promise. The Micawber family were lodged in a little dirty tumble down public house, which in those days was close to the stairs and whose protruding wooden rooms overhung the river. The family as emigrants, being objects of some interest in and about Hungerford, attracted so many beholders that we were glad to take refuge in their room. It was one of the wooden chambers upstairs with the tide flowing underneath. My aunt and Agnes were there, busily making some little extra comforts in the way of dress for the children. Peggotty was quietly assisting with the old insensible workbox, yard measure and bit of wax candle before her that had now outlived so much. It was not easy to answer her inquiries, still less to whisper. Mr. Peggotty, when Mr. Micawber brought him in, that I had given the letter and all was well. But I did both and made them happy. If I showed any trace of what I felt, my own sorrows were sufficient to account for it. Meaning if he looks sad, everyone will just assume it's because he's mourning for Dora. And when does the ship sail, Mr. Micawber? Asked my aunt. Mr. Micawber considered it necessary to prepare either my aunt or his wife by degrees, and said sooner than he had expected. Yesterday the boat brought you word, I suppose? Said my aunt. It did, ma'. Am, he returned. Well, said my aunt. And she sails. Madam, he replied. I am informed that we must positively be on board before 7 tomorrow morning. Heyday, said my aunt. That's soon. Is it a sea going fact, Mr. Peggotty? Tis so, ma'. Am. She'll drop down the river with that there tide. If Master Davy and my sister comes aboard at Gravesend afternoon. O next day they'll see the last on us. And that we shall do, said I. Be sure until then. And until we are at sea, observed Mr. Micawber with a glance of intelligence at me, Mr. Peggotty and myself will constantly keep a double look out together on our goods and chattels. Emma, my love, said Mr. Micawber, clearing his throat in his magnificent way, my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles is so obliging as to solicit in my ear that he should have the privilege of ordering the ingredients necessary to the composition of a moderate portion of that beverage which is peculiarly associated in our minds with the roast beef of old England. I allude to, in short, punch. Under ordinary circumstances I should scruple to entreat the indulgence of Miss Trotwood and Miss Wickfield, but I can only say for myself, said my aunt, that I will drink all happiness and success to you, Mr. Micawber, with the utmost pleasure. And I too, said Agnes with a smile. Mr. Micawber immediately descended to the bar, where he appeared to be quite at home, and in due time returned with a steaming jug. I could not but observe that he had been peeling the lemons with his own clasp knife, which, as became the knife of a practical settler, was about a foot long, and which he wiped, not wholly without ostentation, on the sleeve of his coat. Mrs. Micawber and the two elder members of the family I now found to be provided with similar formidable instruments, while every child had its own wooden spoon attached to its body by a strong line in a similar anticipation of life afloat and in the bush. Mr. Micawber, instead of helping Mrs. Micawber and his eldest son and daughter to punch in wine glasses, which he might easily have done, for there was a shelf full in the room, served it out to them in a series of villainous little tin pots, and I never saw him enjoy anything so much as drinking out of his own particular pint pot and putting it in his pocket at the close of the evening. The luxuries of the old country, said Mr. Micawber, with an intense satisfaction in their renouncement. We abandon the denizens of the forest, cannot, of course, expect to participate in the refinements of the land of the free. Here a boy came in to say that Mr. Micawber was wanted downstairs. I have a presentiment, said Mrs. Micawber, setting down her tin pot, that it is a member of my family. If so, my dear, observed Mr. Micawber with his usual suddenness of warmth on that subject, and as the member of your family, whoever he, she or it may be, has kept us waiting for a considerable period, perhaps the member may now wait my convenience. Micawber, said his wife in a low tone. At such a time as this it is not meet, said Mr. Micawber, rising, that every nice offence should bear its comment. Emma, I stand reproved the loss. Micawber observed his wife, has been my family's, not yours. If my family are at length sensible of the deprivation to which their own conduct has in the past exposed them, and now desire to extend the hand of fellowship, let it not be repulsed, my dear, he returned. So be it, if not for their sakes. For mine, Micawber, said his wife. Emma, he returned, that view of the question is at such a moment irresistible. I cannot even now distinctly pledge myself to fall upon your family's neck but the member of your family who is now in attendance shall have no genial warmth. Frozen by me. Mr. Micawber withdrew and was absent some little time, in the course of which Mrs. Micawber was not wholly free from an apprehension that words might have arisen between him and the member. At length the same boy reappeared and presented me with a note, written in pencil and headed in a legal manner, heap v Micawber. From this document I learned that Mr. Micawber, being again arrested, was in a final paroxysm of despair and that he begged me to send him his knife and pint pot by bearer as they might prove serviceable during the brief remainder of his existence in jail. He also requested, as a last act of friendship that I would see his family to the parish workhouse and forget that such a being ever lived. Of course, I answered this note by going down with the boy to pay the money, where I found Mr. Micawber sitting in a corner, looking darkly at the sheriff's officer who had effected the capture. On his release, he embraced me with the utmost fervor and made an entry of the transaction in his pocket book. Book being very particular, I recollect about a half penny I inadvertently omitted from my statement of the total. This momentous pocket book was a timely reminder to him of another transaction. On our return to the room upstairs where he accounted for his absence by saying that it had been occasioned by circumstances over which he had no control, he took out of it a large sheet of paper, folded small and quite covered, with long sums, carefully worked, worked. From the glimpse I had of them, I should say that I never saw such sums out of a school ciphering book. These, it seemed, were calculations of compound interest on what he called the principal amount of 41, 10, 11 and a half for various periods. After a careful consideration of these and an elaborate estimate of his resources, he had come to the conclusion to select that sum which represented the amount with compound interest to two years, 15 calendar months and 14 days from that date. For this he had drawn a note of hand with great neatness, which he handed over to Traddles on the spot, a discharge of his debt in full, as between man and man, with many acknowledgments. I still have a presentiment, said Mrs. Micawber pensively, shaking her head, that my family will appear on board before we finally depart. Mr. Micawber evidently had his presentiment on the subject too, but he put it in his tin pot and swallowed it. If you have any opportunity of sending Letters home On your passage, Mrs. Micawber, said my aunt, you must let us hear from you. You know, my dear Ms. Trotwood, she replied, I shall only be too happy to think that anyone expects to hear from us. I shall not fail to correspond. Want Mr. Copperfield, I trust, as an old and familiar friend, will not object to receive occasional intelligence himself from one who knew him when the twins were yet unconscious. I said that I should hope to hear whenever she had an opportunity of writing. Please heaven, there will be many such opportunities, said Mr. Micawber. The ocean in these times is a perfect fleet of ships, and we can hardly fail to encounter many in running over. Meaning they can send letters while they're traveling by giving them to other ships that are headed back toward England. It is merely Crossing, said Mr. Micawber, trifling with his eyeglass, merely crossing. The distance is quite imaginary. I think now how odd it was, but how wonderfully like Mr. Micawber that when he went from London to Canterbury he should have talked as if he were going to the farthest limits of the earth and when he went from England to Australia as if he were going for a little trip across the Channel. On the voyage I shall endeavour, said Mr. Micawber occasionally, to spin them a yarn. And the melody of my son Wilkins will, I trust, be acceptable at the galley fire when Mrs. Micawber has her sea legs on, an expression in which I hope there is no conventional impropriety she will give them, I dare say little tafflin, porpoises and dolphins, I believe, will be frequently observed athwart our bows and either on the starboard or the larboard quarter, objects of interest will be continually decried. In short, said Mr. Micawber, with the old genteel air, the probability is all will be found so exciting alow and aloft, that when the lookout stationed in the main top cries land. O, we shall be very considerably astonished. With that he flourished off the contents of his little tin pot as if he had made the voyage and had passed a first class examination before the highest naval authorities. What I chiefly Hope, my dear Mr. Copperfield, said Mrs. Micawber, is that in some branches of our family we may live again in the old country. Do not frown, Micawber. I do not now refer to my own family, but to our children's children. However vigorous the sapling, said Mrs. Micawber, shaking her head, I cannot forget the parent tree. And when our race attains to eminence and fortune, I own I should wish that fortune to flow into the coffers of Britannia. My dear, said Mr. Micawber, Britannia must take her chance. I am bound to say that she has never done much for me and that I have no particular wish upon the subject. Micawber, returned Mrs. Micawber, there you are wrong. You are going out, Micawber, to this distant climb to strengthen, not to weaken, the connection between yourself and Albion. Albion is like a fancy name for England. The connection in question, my love, rejoined Mr. Micawber, has not laid me, I repeat, under that load of personal obligation that I am at all sensitive as to the formation of another connection. Micawber, returned Mrs. Micawber. There again I say you are wrong. You do not know your power, Micawber. It is that which will strengthen even in this step you are about to take the connection between yourself and Albion. Mr. Micawber sat in his elbow chair with his eyebrows raised, half receiving and half repudiating Mrs. Micawber's views as they were stated, but very sensible of their foresight. My dear Mr. Copperfield, said Mrs. Micawber, I wish Mr. Micawber to feel his position. It appears to me highly important that Mr. Micawber should, from the hour of his embarkation, feel his position. Your old knowledge of me, my dear Mr. Copperfield, will have told you that I have not the sanguine disposition of Mr. Micawber. My disposition is, if I may say so, eminently practical. I know that this is a long voyage. I know that it will involve many privations and inconveniences. I cannot shut my eyes to those facts. But I also know what Mr. Micawber is. I know the latent power of Mr. Micawber, and therefore I consider it vitally important that Mr. Micawber should feel his position. My love, he observed, perhaps you will allow me to remark that it is barely possible that I do feel my position at the present moment. I think not, Micawber, she rejoined, not fully. My dear Mr. Copperfield, Mr. Micawber's is not a common case. Mr. Micawber is going to a distant country expressly in order that he may be fully understood and appreciated for the first time. Time I wish Mr. Micawber to take his stand upon that vessel's prow and firmly say, this country I am come to conquer. Have you honours? Have you riches? Have you posts of profitable pecuniary emolument? Let them be brought forward. They are mine. Mr. Micawber, glancing at us, all, seemed to think there was a good deal in this idea. I wish Mr. Micawber if I make myself understood, said Mrs. Micawber in her argumentative tone, to be the Caesar of his own fortunes, that, my dear Mr. Copperfield, appears to me to be his true position from the first moment of this voyage. I wish Mr. Micawber to stand upon that vessel's prow and say, enough of delay, enough of disappointment, enough of limited means. That was in the old country, this is the new. Produce your reparation. Bring it forward. Mr. Micawber folded his arms in a resolute manner as if he were then stationed on the figurehead. And doing that, said Mrs. Micawber, feeling his position, am I not right in saying that Mr. Micawber will strengthen and not weaken his connection with Britain, an important public character arising in that hemisphere, shall I be told that its influence will not be felt at home? Can I be so weak as to imagine that Mr. Micawber, wielding the rod of talent and of power in Australia, will be nothing in England? I am but a woman, but I should be unworthy of myself and of my papa if I were guilty of such absurd weakness. Mrs. Micawber's conviction that her arguments were unanswerable gave a moral elevation to her tone which I think I had never heard in it before. And therefore it is, said Mrs. Micawber, that I the more wish that at a future period we may live again on the parent soil Mr. Micawber may be. I cannot disguise for myself that the probability is Mr. Micawber will be a page of history and he ought then to be represented in the country which gave him birth and did not give him employment. My love, observed Mr. Micawber, it is impossible for me not to be touched by your affection. I am always willing to defer to your good sense. What will be, will be. Heaven forbid that I should grudge my native country any portion of the wealth that may be accumulated by our descendants. That's well, said my aunt, nodding towards Mr. Peggotty. And I drink my love to you all and every blessing and success attend you. Mr. Peggotty put down the two children he had been nursing, one on each knee, to join Mr. And Mrs. Micawber in drinking to all of us in return. And when he and the Micawbers cordially shook hands as comrades and his brown face brightened with a smile, I felt that he would make his way, establish a good name and be beloved, go where he would. Even the children were instructed each to dip a wooden spoon into Mr. Micawber's pot and pledge us in its contents. When this was Done, my aunt and Agnes rose and parted from the emigrants. It was a sorrowful farewell. They were all crying, the children hung about Agnes to the last and we left poor Mrs. Micawber in a very distressed condition, sobbing and weeping by a dim candle that must have made the room look from the river like a miserable lighthouse. I went down again next morning to see that they were away. They had departed in a boat as early as 5 o'. Clock. It was a wonderful instance to me of the gap such partings make that although my association of them with the tumble down public house and the wooden stairs dated only from last night, both seemed dreary and deserted now that they were gone. In the afternoon of the next day my old nurse and I went down to Gravesend. We found the ship in the river, surrounded by a crowd of boats, a favorable wind blowing the signal for sailing at her masthead. I hired a boat directly and we put off to her and getting through the little vortex of confusion of which she was the centre, went on board. Mr. Peggotty was waiting for us on deck. He told me that Mr. Micawber had just now been arrested again, and for the last time at the suit of Heep, and that in compliance with a request I had made to him, he had paid the money which I repaid him. He then took us down between decks and there any lingering fears I had of his having heard any rumours of what had happened were dispelled by Mr. Micawber's coming out of the gloom, taking his arm with an air of friendship and protection, and telling me that they had scarcely been asunder for a moment since the night before. Before last it was such a strange scene to me, and so confined and dark that at first I could make out hardly anything. But by degrees it cleared, as my eyes became more accustomed to the gloom and I seemed to stand in a picture by Ostade. Ostade was a painter famous for painting rowdy scenes of peasant life. Among the great beams, bulks and ring bolts of the ship and the emigrant berths and chests and bundles and barrels and heaps of miscellaneous baggage, lighted up here and there by dangling lanterns and elsewhere by the yellow daylight, straying down a windsail or a hatchway, were crowded groups of people making new friendships, taking leave of one another, talking, laughing, crying, eating and drinking. Some already settled down into the possession of their few feet of space, with their little households arranged and tiny children established on stools or in dwarf elbow chairs, others despairing of a resting place and wandering disconsolately from babies who had but a week or two of life behind them, to crooked old men and women who seemed to have but a week or two of life before them, and from ploughmen bodily carrying out soil of England on their boots, to smiths taking away samples of its soot and smoke upon their skins, every age and occupation appeared to be crammed into the narrow compass of the Twindex. As my eye glanced round this place, I thought I saw sitting by an open port with one of the Micawber children near her, a figure like Emily's. It first attracted my attention by another figure parting from it with a kiss, and as it glided calmly away through the disorder, reminding me of Agnes. But in the rapid motion and confusion and in the unsettlement of my own thoughts, perhaps I lost it again and only knew that the time was come when all visitors were being warned to leave the ship. That my nurse was crying on a chest beside me and that Mrs. Gummidge, assisted by some younger, stooping woman in black, was busily arranging Mr. Peggotty's goods. Is there any last word, Master Davie? Said he. Is there any one forgotten thing afore we parts? One thing, said I, Martha. He touched the younger woman I have mentioned on the shoulder and Martha stood before me. Heaven bless you, you good man. Cried I. You take her with you. She answered for him with a burst of tears. I could speak no more at that time, but I wrung his hand. And if ever I have loved and honored any man, I loved and honored that man in my soul. The ship was clearing fast of strangers, the greatest trial that I had remained. I told him what the noble spirit that was gone had given me in charge to say at parting, it moved him deeply. But when he charged me in return with many messages of affection and regret for those deaf ears, he moved me more. The time was come. I embraced him, took my weeping nurse upon my arm, and hurried away on deck. I took leave of poor Mrs. Micawber. She was looking distractedly about for her family even then, and her last words to me were that she never would desert Mr. Micawber. We went over the side into our boat and lay at a little distance to see the ship wafted on her course. It was then, calm, radiant sunset. She lay between us and the red light, and every taper line and spar was visible against the glow. A sight at once so beautiful, so mournful and so hopeful as the glorious ship lying still on the flushed water with all the life on board her crowded at the bulwarks and there clustering for a moment bareheaded and silent I never saw Silent only for a moment. As the sails rose to the wind and the ship began to move, there broke from all the boats three resounding cheers, which those on board took up and echoed back, and which were echoed and re echoed. My heart burst out when I heard the sound, and beheld the waving of the hats and handkerchiefs. And then I saw her. Then I saw her at her uncle's side, and trembling on his shoulder. He pointed to us with an eager hand, and she saw us and waved her last goodbye to me. I, Emily, beautiful and drooping, cling to him with the utmost trust of thy bruised heart, for he has clung to thee with all the might of his great love, Surrounded by the rosy light and standing high upon the deck apart together, she clinging to him, and he holding her, they solemnly passed away the night had fallen on the Kentish hills When we were rowed ashore and fallen darkly upon. 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.