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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.
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Welcome back.
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Did you catch the trailer?
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The trailer dropped. Did you catch it? Did you listen to it? If you didn't pause me right now, I will still be here when you come back. Look in your podcast player. It's right before this one. Find the trailer, play it and then come back. Okay? Did you listen? We are reading the Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux. I'm really excited about this, you guys. This is. I love this book. It is so much fun. It's like eating candy. It's that fun. I cannot wait to share it with you. I'm not going to talk too much about it now. I will talk later lots and lots about it in the intro episode which will happen on September 3rd. I will also talk about it a little bit in at tea time, which will happen on August 20th at 8pm Eastern in our online community the Drawing Room. So if you'd like to talk about it with me in real time and a little bit before our intro episode drops and before we actually start this book, then you should join us. I. I really hope you will. You should join us for tea time. August 20th. That's a Thursday. It's the last episode of this season, so that'll be the conclusion episode. So we'll have that on Thursday the 20th. And then in the evening at 8pm Eastern, we will all gather in the drawing room to discuss. We'll talk about the end of David Copperfield and we can talk a bit about the Phantom of the Opera. It's so fun to finally get to say that out loud. I have been saying our next book and knowing it's the Phantom of the Opera for such a long time. I'm so happy that we're all here together now, knowing that that's what we're reading. But anyway, we can talk about and you can ask me any questions. We can talk about whatever you want. So please do join us on August 20th at 8pm Eastern. If you're not a member of the Drawing room, just scroll into the show notes, click the link that's there. It'll tell you how to do that, how to sign up, you have to be landed gentry if you want to join us for tea time. So hopefully you will do that. I would love to get to chat with you. And this is a great one to join if you've never joined. Because we have so much to talk about. I do want to say one quick thing about the Phantom of the Opera before we move on, and that is that this is our first book that we're going to be reading in translation because it was originally written in French. And I know that some of you like to buy a copy and read along. And so I know there's going to be questions about which translation we're reading, because you do want to buy the same translation that we're reading from. If you like to read along, you do not have to read along. You can just listen. But I know some of you like to. So the translation that we are using is the one that is translated by Alexander Teixeira de Matos, and we're using that one because that is the one that's in the public domain, so we are allowed to use it. So a translation is considered a new work and so it can be copyrighted. So if somebody translates the Phantom of the Opera today, we can't read that translation on here because it's not in the public domain. It belongs to that person. So this is the one that was translated so long ago that it is now in the public domain. So that's the one that we're going to be using. So if you want to read along or if you're just interested, that's that.
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And we can talk much more about
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translation and this book and everything to do with the family opera when we start the next season, which will be September 3rd. But for now, let us stay where we are. Let us get back to David Copperfield, because we still have three chapters left, which is not that many, but we still do. We are still in it. We are still here. So let's not get ahead of ourselves and let's get into this episode. So last time we read chapter 61, today we're going to read chapter 62. We'll talk for a bit. I don't have a lot to say about chapter 61, and you'll see why in a minute, but we do have some comments and I will share a little bit and then we'll get back to the chapter. So let's begin by reminding ourselves of what happened in chapter 61. So here is the recap. Okay, so where we left off, David
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now lives with Miss Betsy in Dover,
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and he's working on finishing his next book. He's become so famous that he gets so much fan mail that he can't receive it all.
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So he has Traddles put his name
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on his door and the mail goes there. So sometimes David goes into London and visits with Traddles and then he reads his mail. Traddles and Sophie are doing extremely well and they are very happy together. Sophie is an excellent housewife and she's also practicing her legal handwriting so she can help Traddles when he takes on more work. One of the letters that David gets is from Mr. Creakle, their old schoolmaster, who is now a magistrate in charge of a prison, and he invites them to take a tour. They decide to do it and they meet Mr. Creakle at the prison. Mr. Creakle appears to be the same as ever, just older. But he's very proud of his prisoners and his system of keeping them in solitary confinement. He says that prisoner number 27 is
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the best prisoner that they have and
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that number 28 is a close second. They go to meet 27 and he turns out to be Uriah Heep. He speaks to them and pretends that he's repented and he's so humble, but he's clearly exactly the same as ever. Prisoner 28 turns out to be Littimer, who is playing the same game as
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Uriah and pretending to be reformed.
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David asks a guard what the two men are in for and he tells them that Uriah is in for bank fraud and Littimer is in for stealing from his employer and that it was Ms. Moucher who caught him and turned him in. David and Traddles go home again, feeling pretty unfavorably about the prison system. Okay, I'm going to read four comments today. The first one is another exchange between two people in the drawing room, our online community. These two people go by the handles. Marymm and Ustellen. I guess so. Marymm says Sofie really is the anti Dora.
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She and Traddles have a true partnership
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in every sense of the word. The way she waits on him would be a little annoying if it weren't for the fact that he is so, so extravagantly grateful to her and extols
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her virtues to anyone who will listen.
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I love that they are so content. And then just Ellen, I guess, says her warming his slippers warmed my heart. Okay, the next comment comes from Julianne. She says, I love how Uriah uses his umble spiel to cloak what he really thinks of everybody.
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He's incredibly bitter about being in prison
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and wants to drag everyone else down with him out of spite. But all of his weird admirers just see it as him liking the treatment he gets. The next one comes from Sue.
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She says, I haven't submitted a comment before, but this episode made me laugh out loud.
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I knew she would make a comeback and play a vital role. Ms. Moucher, Dickens's way of describing her physicality and effort to catch the criminal.
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Just picture perfect words. What fun. And the last one comes from Mariam Majid. She says, I have to say, on
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the one hand, I found chapter 61 tedious, because I kind of feel like Dickens is laughing at us at this point.
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Point.
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All I want to know is what's going to happen between David and Agnes. And here he is going on this tangent. But at the same time, I can recognize that this is a really well done chapter and I enjoyed it in many ways. Okay, so I want to start with Mariam's comment, because I really, truly think that Dickens is laughing at us. I mean, not in like a malicious way at all, but in the way of, like, a friend who has just pulled off a really funny joke on us. Because, of course, what we want from chapter 61 is a love scene basically between David and Agnes. Right? We wanted it to be the moment when he finally confesses his love to her. We've been waiting and waiting and waiting for that for several chapters now. And instead, Dickens is like, let's go take a tour of a prison. So it's kind of hilarious. I think he knows exactly what he's doing. I think he knew he had some additional character threads to tie up, like Uriah and litomer and Ms. Mowcher, Mr. Creakle. And he thought, I'm going to wrap them all up in this one zany chapter about a prison. I'm going to throw some social commentary in there about people caring more about running prisons than they do about women and children and poor people.
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And I'm going to do it right here when I know that my readers
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don't want that at all. They want to hear about David and Agnes. It's just another way that he's coiling that spring even tighter. And I, for one, think it's pretty funny. It's kind of like, yeah, okay, Dickens, you got us. And I mean, if he doesn't deliver soon, if he doesn't give us some kind of resolution with David and Agnes, then we can be legitimately mad. But I think for now, we have to kind of smile and roll our eyes and admit that he got us. So since he does give us this weird prison scene right here, let's just take a look at what's going on for a little bit and then we'll get back to the book. Because now the joke is over and we want our David and Agnes scene. So Dickens had better not mess with this anymore. But as Mary and Ellen were talking about in the drawing room, the chapter actually starts with more discussion of Traddles and Sophie, which again, is Dickens kind of priming us to think that we're going to get more David and Agnes here. Because as Mary says, what Traddles and Sophie have is exactly what we wish that David and Agnes could have. So it seems like we're still very much in the domestic realm when this chapter begins. And even before that, we get another one of these kind of full circle moments that we've been having basically ever since David returned from his travels. Because David has decided to live with Miss Betsy and Mr. Dick and Peg and me in the cottage where he lived growing up so that he can finish his book and kind of get back on his feet. Here's what he says. I took up my abode in my
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aunt's house at Dover, and there, sitting
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in the window from which I had looked out at the moon upon the sea, when that roof first gave me shelter, I quietly pursued my task. So again, here he is back in the scenes from his earliest days, from the earliest parts of this book, and he is actively reflecting on that. He's remembering the boy that he was when he arrived at Miss Betsy's door in rags, right? And she locked him in this room and she tried to figure out what to do with him. And it's sort of like time kind of collapsing on itself. He is both that little boy again. He's kind of starting over in a way, and he is the man that he's become who has been shaped by all of the things that happened before that and after that moment. So the chapter begins with this description of his childhood home. And then it moves into this scene of Traddles's home. So we see the happy home of his childhood, and then we see the happy home of a happily married man. And Traddles is waxing absolutely poetic about Sophie, right? He says, bless my soul, when I see her getting up by candlelight on these dark mornings, busying herself in the day's arrangements, going out to market before the clerks come into the inn, caring for no weather, devising the most capital little dinners out of the plainest materials Making puddings and pies Keeping everything in its right place Place always so neat and ornamental herself Sitting up at night with me if it's ever so late Sweet tempered and encouraging always and all for me. I positively sometimes can't believe it. Copperfield. So again, this is Dickens's perfect wife.
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And the fact that she can make
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a home out of these law offices that have no business at all being homey, it just solidifies that for us she is a very Agnes like person. In a lot of ways she's less sophisticated than Agnes, but.
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But she is the Agnes type person
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who belongs with the Traddles type person. So again, we begin with all of this domesticity and we're very much primed to think that we're going to continue on in this domestic sphere, which is what we want at this point. But then suddenly we take this like crazy left turn. And honestly, I really do think that this chapter is sort of concocted to serve a purpose or I guess to serve sort of several purposes.
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It doesn't really fit narratively.
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It's more for information and to keep us waiting on the whole Agnes situation. So I don't know that we need to say too much about it, but essentially here are three baddies gathered together all at once. Mr. Creakle, Mr. Littimer and Uriah Heap. And all three of them are essentially the same as they've ever been. Right? Mr. Creakle is a prison warden, which is essentially what he was the last time we saw him. I mean, he ran Salem House as if it were a prison. And he's totally disingenuous. He takes no responsibility for what he did to the boys at that school. David says he received me like a man who had formed my mind in bygone years and had always loved me tenderly. On my introducing traddles, Mr. Kreakle expressed in like manner, but in an inferior degree that he had always been Traddles guide philosopher and friend. So, I mean, yuck, right? Still a bad guy. And then we have Uriah and Littimer who are both pretending to be reformed, but they are still just as slimy and awful as they have always been.
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And I totally agree with Julianne.
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I think the best bit in the whole chapter is the way that Uriah essentially tells everyone that he hates them and he wishes they were all in jail while making everyone around him think that he's being so nice and so kind and so humble. Here's what he the best wish I could give you Mr. Copperfield and give all of you gentlemen, is that you
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could be took up and brought here.
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When I think of my past follies in my present state, I am sure it would be best for you.
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I pity all who ain't brought here.
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Okay, so it sounds like he's saying he's so sorry, he wishes everyone could see the light like he does. But actually he's saying, I wish you were all in jail instead of me because I hate you. I mean, it's so Uriah. And it's a brilliant goodbye to him, I think, because he's not gonna see the error of his ways. That's just not who he is. And he is being punished. He's in jail. He's scheduled for transportation. So he's got probably hard labor ahead of him somewhere. So he is miserable, essentially, which is
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what we want for him.
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We hate him. So that's that. And as sue says, it is super fun to get this last little look at Ms. Moucher as well. Remember that Ms. Moucher felt terrible for unintentionally helping Steerforth to run off with Emily? Right. She passed letters to Emily from Steerforth because she thought they were from David and that they were harmless. And then she felt bad for not realizing that she was helping Steerforth to ruin a young girl. So she felt really bad, which is why, I think she was so vehement about catching Littimer and bringing him to justice. Here's what the guard at the prison tells David. The little woman, being in Southampton, met him walking along the street, picked him out with her sharp eye in a moment, ran betwixt his legs to upset him and held on to him like grim death. I mean, it's. It's kind of a funny image, this sort of little woman, like, football, tackling this man and then not letting go. But it's also like, yeah, go, Ms. Moucher, you know? So Dickens gave her this heroic moment, which I think is lovely. I can't remember if I mentioned this before, but the story is that Dickens actually based Ms. Moucher on a real person who is named Jane Seymour Hill. She was a dwarf and a hairdresser, just like Ms. Moucher. But when that first scene with Ms. Moucher came out, remember, the book came out serially, so they didn't get the
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whole book all at once.
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So when that first scene came out, where she's gossiping and she's saying, ain't I volatile? And everything, the actual person. So Jane Seymour Hill, she read it, she recognized herself, and she was really upset by Dickens's portrayal of her. And because of that, Dickens gave her those two redemptive moments. The one where she tells David about her role in Steerforth's plot, and then this one where she heroically brings down Littimer. So hopefully she was happy with how her, like, alter ego turned out here. I think it's wonderful that she gets to be a hero in this moment. So, again, I think that's actually really all that's going on here. We've wrapped up several minor characters, one major character, Uriah, and then Dickens basically throws in some social commentary about prisons, because he likes to throw in social commentary from time to time. He's essentially saying that he wishes that the powers that be would spend as much time and energy and money on the weak and the innocent as they do on lavishing comforts on people who've broken the law. But again, all of that is not relevant to the story. So I think we should just get back to the story now. Hopefully Dickens is done toying with us. There's only three chapters left, so he'd better get a move on. So let's keep reading and see what happens. But please do write to me. It's faith k.moore.com click on contact or scroll into the show notes and find the same link. I would love to hear your thoughts and your comments about this chapter and all the chapters as we get to the end of the book. And please do keep writing into me about our selection for September about the Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux. I would love to hear your thoughts about that. Have you read it before? What did you think? Have you heard of it? Have you seen the musical? Whatever? Tell me what you're thinking after hearing that. That's our next selection.
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All right, let's get started with chapter 62 of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. It's story time.
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Chapter 62.
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A light shines on My Way the year came round to Christmas time and I had been at home above two months. I had seen Agnes frequently, however loud the general voice might be in giving me encouragement and however fervent the emotions and endeavours to which it roused me, I heard her lightest word of praise as I heard nothing else. At least once a week and sometimes oftener, I rode over there and passed the evening. I usually rode back at night, for the old unhappy sense was always hovering about me now, most sorrowfully when I left her and I was glad to be up and out, rather than wandering over the past in weary wakefulness or miserable dreams, I wore away the longest Part of many wild, sad nights in those rides, reviving as I went the thoughts that had occupied me in my long absence. Or, if I were to say rather that I listened to the echoes of those thoughts, I should better express the truth. They spoke to me from afar off. I had put them at a distance and accepted my inevitable place. When I read to Agnes what I wrote, when I saw her listening face, moved her to smiles or tears, and heard her cordial voice so earnest on the shadowy events of that imaginative world in which I lived, I thought what a fate mine might have been, but only thought so, as I had thought after I was married to Dora, what I could have wished my wife to be. My duty to Agnes, who loved me with a love which, if I disquieted, I wronged most selfishly and poorly and could never restore. My matured assurance that I, who had worked out my own destiny and won what I had impetuously set my heart on, had no right to murmur and must bear comprised what I felt and what I had learned. But I loved her. And now it even became some consolation to me vaguely to conceive a distant day when I might blamelessly avow it, when all this should be over, when I could say Agnes, so it was when I came home. And now I am old and I never have loved since. She did not once show me any change in herself. What she always had been to me, she still was wholly unaltered between my aunt and me. There had been something in this connection since the night of my return which I cannot call a restraint or an avoidance of the subject so much as an implied understanding. That we thought of it together, but did not shape our thoughts into words. When, according to our old custom, we sat before the fire at night, we often fell into this train as naturally and as consciously to each other as if we had unreservedly said so. But we preserved an unbroken silence. I believed that she had read or partly read my thoughts that night. And that she fully comprehended why I gave mine no more distinct expression. This Christmas time being come, and Agnes, having reposed no new confidence in me, a doubt that had several times arisen in my mind whether she could have that perception of the true state of my breast which restrained her with the apprehension of giving me pain, began to oppress me heavily.
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Meaning he's worried that she doesn't tell
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him about her suitors. And if she has one she likes,
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because she has realized that he loves
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her and doesn't want to upset him by telling him that she Wants to marry somebody else. If that were so, my sacrifice was nothing, my plainest obligation to her unfulfilled, and every poor action I had shrunk from, I was hourly doing. I resolved to set this right beyond all doubt, if such a barrier were between us, to break it down at once with a determined hand it was. What lasting reason have I to remember it? A cold, harsh winter day. There had been snow some hours before, and it lay not deep but hard, frozen on the ground out at sea. Beyond my window the wind blew ruggedly from the north. I had been thinking of it sweeping over those mountain wastes of snow in Switzerland then inaccessible to any human foot, and had been speculating which was the lonelier, those solitary regions or a deserted ocean. Riding today, Trot? Said my aunt, putting her head in at the door. Yes, said I, I am going over to Canterbury. It's a good day for a ride, I hope. Your horse may think so too, said my aunt, but at present he is holding down his head and ears, standing before the door there, as if he thought his stable preferable. My aunt, I may observe, allowed my horse on the forbidden ground, but had not at all relented towards the donkeys. He will be fresh enough presently, said I. The ride will do his master good. At all events, observed my aunt, glancing at the papers on my table. Ah, child, you pass a good many hours here. I never thought when I used to read books, what work it was to write them. It's work enough to read them sometimes, I returned as to the writing. It has its own charms, Aunt. Ah, I see, said my aunt. Ambition, love of approbation, sympathy, and much more, I suppose. Well, go along with you. Do you know anything more? Said I, standing composedly before her. She had patted me on the shoulder and sat down in my chair of
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that attachment of Agnes.
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She looked up in my face a little while before replying. I think I do, Trot. Are you confirmed in your impression? I inquired.
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I think I am, Trot.
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She looked so steadfastly at me, with a kind of doubt or pity or suspense in her affection, that I summoned the stronger determination to show her a perfectly cheerful face. And what is more, Trot, Said my aunt.
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Yes?
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I think Agnes is going to be married. God bless her, said I cheerfully. God bless her, said my aunt, and her husband too. I echoed it, parted from my aunt, and went lightly downstairs, mounted and rode away. There was greater reason than before to do what I had resolved to do. How well I recollect the wintry ride, the frozen particles of Ice brushed from the blades of grass by the wind and borne across my face. The hard clatter of the horses, hoofs beating a tune upon the ground. The stiff tilled soil. The snowdrift lightly eddying in the chalk pit as the breeze ruffled it. The smoking team with the wagon of old hay stopping to breathe on the hilltop and shaking their bells musically. The whitened slopes and sweeps of downland
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lying against the dark sky as if
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they were drawn on a huge slate. I found Agnes alone. The little girls had gone to their own homes now, and she was alone by the fire, reading. She put down her book on seeing me come in, and having welcomed me as usual, took her work basket and sat in one of the old fashioned windows. I sat beside her on the window seat and we talked of what I was doing and when it would be done, and of the progress I had
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made since my last visit.
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Agnes was very cheerful and laughingly predicted that I should soon become too famous to be talked to on such subjects. So I make the most of the present time, you see, said Agnes, and talk to you while I may. As I looked at her beautiful face, observant of her work, she raised her mild, clear eyes and saw that I was looking at her. You are thoughtful today, Trotwood Agnes. Shall I tell you what about? I came to tell you. She put aside her work, as she used to do when we were seriously discussing anything, and gave me her whole attention. My dear Agnes, do you doubt my being true to you? No, she answered with a look of astonishment. Do you doubt my being what I always have been to you? No, she answered, as before. Do you remember that I tried to tell you when I came home what a debt of gratitude I owed you, dearest Agnes, and how fervently I felt towards you? I remember it, she said gently. Very well. You have a secret, said I. Let me share it, Agnes. She cast down her eyes and trembled. I could hardly fail to know, even if I had not heard, but from other lips than yours, Agnes, which seems strange that there is some one upon whom you have bestowed the treasure of your love. Do not shut me out of what concerns your happiness so nearly. If you can trust me as you say you can, and I know you may let me be your friend, your brother in this matter of all others. With an appealing, almost a reproachful glance, she rose from the window and, hurrying across the room, as if without knowing where, put her hands before her face and burst into such tears as smote me to the heart. And yet they Awakened something in me, bringing promise to my heart without my knowing why. These tears allied themselves with the quietly sad smile which was so fixed in my remembrance and shook me more with hope than fear or sorrow. Agnes. Sister dearest, what have I done? Let me go away, Trotwood. I am not well. I am not myself. I will speak to you by and by. Another time I will write to you. Don't speak to me now. Don't. Don't. I sought to recollect what she had said when I had spoken to her on that former night, of her affection needing no return. It seemed a very world that I must search through in a moment. Agnes, I cannot bear to see you
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so and think that I have been the cause.
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My dearest girl, Dearer to me than anything in life. If you are unhappy, let me share your unhappiness. If you are in need of help or counsel, let me try to give it to you. If you have indeed a burden on your heart, let me try to lighten it. For whom do I live now, Agnes, if it is not for you? Oh, spare me. I am not myself. Another time was all I could distinguish. Was it a selfish error that was leading me away, or having once a clue to hope? Was there something opening to me that I had not dared to think of? I must say more. I cannot let you leave me so. For heaven's sake, Agnes, let us not mistake each other. After all these years and all that has come and gone with them, I must speak plainly. If you have any lingering thought that I could envy the happiness you will confer, that I could not resign you to a dearer protector of your own choosing, that I could not, from my removed place, be a contented witness of your joy. Dismiss it, for I don't deserve it. I have not suffered quite in vain. You have not taught me quite in vain. There is no alloy of self in what I feel for you. She was quiet now. In a little time, she turned her pale face towards me and said in a low voice, broken here and there, but very clear. I owe it to your pure friendship for me, Trotwood, which indeed, I do not doubt to tell you you are mistaken. I can do no more. If I have sometimes, in the course of years, wanted help and counsel, they have come to me. If I have sometimes been unhappy, the feeling has passed away. If I have ever had a burden on my heart, it has been lightened for me. If I have any secret, it is no new one, and is not what you suppose. I cannot reveal it, or divide has long Been mine and must remain mine. Agnes, stay a moment. She was going away, but I detained her. I clasped my arm about her waist. In the course of years, it is not a new one. New thoughts and hopes were whirling through my mind. And all the colours of my life were changing. Dearest Agnes, whom I so respect and honour, whom I so devotedly love. When I came here today, I thought that nothing could have wrested this confession from me. I thought I could have kept it in my bosom all our lives till we were old. But, Agnes, if I have indeed any new born hope that I may ever call you something more than sister, widely different from sister. Her tears fell fast, but they were not like those she had lately shed. And I saw my hope brighten in them. Agnes, ever my guide and best support. If you had been more mindful of yourself and less of me when we grew up here together, I think my heedless fancy never would have wandered from you. But you were so much better than I, so necessary to me in every boyish hope and disappointment, that to have you to confide in and rely upon in everything became a second nature, supplanting for the time, the first and greater one of loving you as I do, still weeping, but not sadly, joyfully, and clasped in my arms as she had never been, as I had thought she never was to be. When I loved Dora fondly. Agnes, as you know. Yes, she cried earnestly. I am glad to know it. When I loved her. Even then my love would have been incomplete without your sympathy. I had it, and it was perfected. And when I lost her, Agnes, what should I have been without you still closer in my arms, nearer to my heart, her trembling hand upon my shoulder, her sweet eyes shining through her tears on mine. I went away, dear Agnes, loving you. I stayed away, loving you. I returned home loving you. And now I tried to tell her of the struggle I had had and the conclusion I had come to. I tried to lay my mind before her truly and entirely. I tried to show her how I had hoped I had come into the better knowledge of myself and of her. How I had resigned myself to what that better knowledge brought. And how I had come there even that day, in my fidelity to this. If she did so love me, I said that she could take me for her husband, she could do so on no deserving of mine, except upon the
- [33:24]
B
truth of my love for her and
- [33:27]
A
the trouble in which it had ripened to be what it was, and hence it was that I revealed it. And, oh, Agnes, even out of Thy true eyes. In that same time the spirit of my child wife looked upon me, saying, it was well, and winning me through thee to tenderest recollections of the blossom that had withered in its bloom. I am so blest, Trotwood. My heart is so overcharged. But there is one thing I must say, dearest.
- [34:04]
B
What?
- [34:05]
A
She laid her gentle hands upon my shoulders and looked calmly in my face. Do you know yet what it is? I am afraid to speculate on what it is. Tell me, my dear. I have loved you all my life.
- [34:24]
B
Oh, we were happy.
- [34:25]
A
We were happy. Our tears were not for the trials hers so much the greater, through which we had come to be thus, but for the rapture of being thus, never to be divided more. We walked that winter evening in the fields together, and the blessed calm within us seemed to be partaken by the frosty air. The early stars began to shine while we were still lingering on and looking up to them. We thanked our God for having guided us to this tranquillity. We stood together in the same old fashioned window at night when the moon was shining. Agnes with her quiet eyes raised up to it. I, following her glance, long miles of road that opened out before my mind, and toiling on, I saw a ragged way worn boy, forsaken and neglected, who should come to call even the heart now beating against mine his own. It was nearly dinner time next day when we appeared before my aunt. She was up in my study, Peggotty said, which was her pride to keep in readiness and order for me. We found her in her spectacles, sitting by the fire. Goodness me, said my aunt, peering through the dusk. Who's this you are bringing home? Agnes, said I, as we had arranged to say nothing. At first my aunt was not a little discomfited. She darted a hopeful glance at me when I said Agnes. But seeing that I looked as usual, she took off her spectacles in despair and rubbed her nose with them. She greeted Agnes heartily nevertheless, and we were soon in the lighted parlor downstairs. At dinner my aunt put on her spectacles twice or thrice to take another look at me, but as often took them off again, disappointed, and rubbed her nose with them, much to the discomfiture of Mr. Dick, who knew this to be a bad system. By the by, Aunt, I said after dinner, I have been speaking to Agnes about what you told me. Then trot, said my aunt, turning scarlet. You did wrong and broke your promise. You are not angry, Aunt, I trust? I am sure you won't be when you learn that Agnes is not unhappy in any attachment. Stuff and nonsense, said my aunt. As my aunt appeared to be annoyed, I thought the best way was to cut her annoyance short. I took Agnes in my arm to the back of her chair, and we both leaned over her. My aunt, with one clap of her hands and one look through her spectacles, immediately went into hysterics. For the first and only time in all my knowledge of her, the hysterics called up Peggy. The moment my aunt was restored, she flew at Peggy and, calling her a silly old creature, hugged her with all her might. After that, she hugged Mr. Dick, who was highly honored but a good deal surprised, and after that, told them why. Then we were all happy together. I could not discover whether my aunt, in her last short conversation with me, had fallen on a pious fraud or had really mistaken the state of my mind. It was quite enough. She said that she had told me Agnes was going to be married and that I now knew better than anyone how true it was. We were married within a fortnight. Traddles and Sophie and Dr. And Mrs. Strong were the only guests at our quiet wedding. We left them full of joy and drove away together. Clasped in my embrace, I held the source of every worthy aspiration I had ever had. The center of myself, the circle of my life, my own, my wife, my love, of whom was founded on a rock. Dearest husband, said Agnes, now that I may call you by that name, I have one thing more to tell you. Let me hear it. Love. It grows out of the night. When Dora died, she sent you for me. She did. She told me that she left me something. Can you think what it was? I believed I could. I drew the wife who had so long loved me closer to my side. She told me that she made a last request to me and left me a last charge. And it was that only I would occupy this vacant place. And Agnes laid her head upon my breast and wept. And I wept with her, though we were so happy. 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
- [40:17]
B
show notes to make a donation.
- [40:18]
A
I would really, really appreciate it. Alright everyone, story time is over to be continue.