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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. You know, last time I forgot to say happy February. It's February. We made it through a whole month so far of David Copperfield. One down, like seven to go, but we made it through one month, so. So welcome to February. And Monday was also Groundhog Day. And it turns out I think that the groundhog did see its shadow, which means that we're gonna have six more weeks of winter. So I'm not super happy about that. I would like it to be spring. I'm feeling some spring vibes coming on. But that's okay, we can make it through. And hopefully you are cozy and warm wherever you are and enjoying the maybe a cup of tea, or maybe just a sort of imaginary cup of tea in your imaginary chair as you rush about your life, doing all your things. So welcome to your imaginary cozy Victorian parlor where you are sitting under a lovely blanket with your friends, all reading a book together and sometimes looking up and discussing it and then going back to it because it's so exciting and you just can't put it down. At least I hope that's how you're feeling about this book. It's how I feel about it and I can't wait to share share this next chapter with you. So before we get into that, just a couple of quick reminders. Please make sure that you are subscribed to the show. Please tap the five stars if you're enjoying the show. You should find them wherever you're listening in your podcast player. Just tap the fifth star in the line and that will help other people to find the show. 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We got some juicy stuff to talk about because I think there's some disagreements that have been brewing for a while now and they're sort of bubbling to the surface and I love that and so I want to address them. I have my own take that I want to share with you, so I have a lot to say, but first let's just remind our what happened last time. Here is the recap. So where we left off Davey comes home from school for a month long vacation and happens to arrive when the Murdstones are out. So he spends this wonderful afternoon and evening with his mother who has had a new baby and with Peggy and they're all like a little family again. Davey tells Peggy that Mr. Barkis wants to marry her and Peggy thinks this is hilarious and swears that she'll never leave Davey's mother or Davies. So they're all very happy. But when the Murdstones return, everything has changed and they clearly don't want him. And Ms. Murdstone in particular is counting the days until Davey will go back to school and also trying to separate Davey from his new brother and from his mother. So he spends the whole break being forced to sit in the parlor with his mother and the Murdstones studying boring books and by the end of it he's looking forward to going back to school. But as he's leaving, his mother stands at the gate holds holding up the baby for him to see and he gets a sort of bad feeling like maybe this is the last time he's going to ever see her or something. But now he's on his way back to school. All right, I'm going to read 3 comments today. The first one comes from Paula Fernandez. Paula writes the most depressing character is Davey's mother. She is so weak in temperament, unless when she is speaking to Peggy and is a captive of continuous criticism from Jane Murdstone and condescension from her husband when it deals with her relationship with Davy. In addition, she is in a constant state of fear that Davy does not rock the boat and be used as a pawn to stir up more criticism towards her as well as punishment directed at Davy. The line at the end of the chapter involving Davy's realization that he lost his mother is truly devastating for a child to experience. The second one comes from Sarah. Sarah says that last scene with David looking at his mother holding out her baby for him as the carriage took him away was quite heartbreaking. At such a young age, Davey understood he's no longer a priority, that his baby brother is his mother's and Mr. Murdstone's baby. Nothing explains the feeling of a sinking heart like this one. I'm hoping he'll find the love he deserves in the future chapters. The last one comes from Catelyn Lanham. She says, poor Davy. He truly has no place of refuge to be a young child and made to feel like you can do nothing right. I'm not sure that I agree with your assessment that his stepfather is doing what he thinks is right by him. He finds fault with everything. A well meaning but misguided father would at least have some sort of idea of good behavior that he would approve of. With Mr. Murdstone, nothing is right. He wants to find fault. Will he treat his own son the same? I think not. And shame on Davy's mom. Take care of your son. There, I got that off my chest. Please tell me things get better for Davey soon. Okay, so possibly the most controversial thing that I have ever said on Storytime for Grown Ups is, is that Mr. Murdstone actually loves Davey's mother and is doing what he thinks is right, even though we know that it's totally awful and evil. While I was typing up my notes for this episode, I peeked into the drawing room, which is our online community, and there was a healthy debate going on in real time at that very moment about this exact topic. So I know that this is very controversial, but it's also wonderful because we're having like respectful, polite, but impassioned debates about characters in novels. And really, truly, that is the stuff of life. Because what we're really talking about is people and human nature and life. And there's nothing better than that. So keep debating and join the drawing room if you want in on that debate. But I think since we have had another Murdstone scene now, it makes sense to revisit this and to talk a bit about Clara again, Davies mother as well, and also to kind of zoom out slightly and discuss what all of this is doing in the story in the first place. So the first thing I want to do is just clarify that when I say that Mr. Murdstone loves Clara, I don't mean that in the way that we hope that a husband would love his wife. I don't mean that he respects her or cares about her opinions or about her comfort or whatever. I only mean that he chose her to be his wife because he felt that she was the sort of woman that he wanted for a wife. In other words, there was no ulterior motive. He wasn't after her fortune or her social standing or her property or anything like that. He saw in her a pretty malleable, weak woman and that fit the exact specifications of the sort of woman that he wanted to marry. And so, insofar as Mr. Murdstone is capable of falling in love, he fell in love with her. So if you want to quibble about whether that is truly love, then I will concede the point and say, okay, fine, that is not love in the way that anyone would actually want to be loved. But I do stand by my assertion that he's not after anything other than a wife and that he believes that a wife is meant to submit completely to the husband, never disagree, do his will without question, and like bear and raise his children, and that's it. Now, of course we disagree. We don't think that that is what a wife should do. But that's actually not the point here. The point is that if he does believe that that is what a wife should do, and I really think it's there in the text, that that is what he believes, it's if he believes that this is how wives and husbands are meant to be, then his behavior toward Klara is the behavior of a good husband, according to him. Again, you don't have to agree with him. I certainly don't agree with him. But you can't say that he's not acting according to his own principles simply because you don't like his principles. He believes that he is meant to dominate his wife and that his wife is meant to submit. So he's acting in good faith here and we hate him because he's wrong. Now, to Catelyn's point, which many of you agree with, I just happened to choose Catelyn's letter to the point that Mr. Murdstone is not doing what he thinks is right with Davy, that he's actually out to get him. I halfway agree and I halfway disagree. I think that Mr. Murdstone has gotten it into his head that David is a bad seed. He believes that he's willfully ignorant, that he's lazy and won't study, that he's sullen, that he likes to hang out with lower class people. He thinks he is like a badly behaved, badly brought up child. Now we can say that the reason that Davey is all of those things around Mr. Murdstone is because of the way that Mr. Murdstone treats him. And that is totally true. But Mr. Murdstone doesn't know that. He sees Davey like fumbling the lessons that he was supposed to be studying all day and leaving the parlor where he's supposed to be sitting with the family. He's Hanging out with servants, which would have been totally socially unacceptable. I mean, we love Peggy so much, so it's horrible, hard for us to get this. But hanging out with servants would have been like a societal. No, no, you don't do that. So he does that. He sits there without speaking. He's reacting totally understandably to Mr. Murdstone's harsh treatment. But Mr. Murdstone, who already has in his head, for whatever reason, probably the reason is that Davey is not Mr. Murdstone's own child. And he's resentful that this other man was married to Clara, whatever it is, but for whatever reason, it solidifies for Mr. Murdstone all of this behavior that I was just talking about that Davey does. It solidifies this preconceived notion that he has that Davey is a delinquent and needs a sort of treatment that he, Mr. Murdstone, believes a sullen delinquent boy needs. And again, do we agree with that? No. Is it child abuse? Yes. Do we want Mr. Murdstone run out on a rail, never to return ever again? Yes, of course we do. We hate him. But to Catelyn's point about a good stepfather at least having an idea of the sort of behavior that he'd expect, I think he does have an idea of the sort of behavior that he'd expect. And Davy is not producing it. And the way that Mr. Murdstone thinks it can be produced, most likely because it was the way that it was produced in him as a child. Right. Whatever the way is to treat him, the way that he treats him. But I do agree that Mr. Murdstone won't treat his own boy like he treats Davey. But that's because that he's going to believe that his own boy is not a sullen delinquent. His own boy will be brought up from infancy by him in his code of firmness or whatever, and so his boy would never be like Davey. So I think Mr. Merdstone is operating from an incorrect assessment of the situation. He sees Davy's creativity and his childishness and his innocence. He sees all of that as weakness. And that's wrong. But if we assume that he has this assumption and that he truly believes that the sort of punishment and treatment he duels out is the way to get sullen delinquent boys to behave themselves, then he's not torturing Davy because he's a sadist like Mr. Creakle. He's torturing him because he has a truly terrible parenting philosophy. You know, in literature, the best Bad guys, meaning the most interesting, the most evil, the most infuriating. The best bad guys are the ones who think that they're right. I mean, sure, like a mustache twirling villain who says, like, hahaha, I am evil and I will do all the evil things until I've turned the world evil or whatever. That can be amusing. And in certain types of stories, like comic books or pantomimes or something like that, they can be the right sort of bad guy for that plot. But in life, most bad guys think that they're right either because they believe that the rules don't apply to them for some reason and that they can break them, or because their worldview causes them to be harmful to other people, even as they believe that they are doing the right thing. And I think that's the sor villain that Mr. Murdstone is. He is a villain, but he's not a mustache twirling one. He's the kind of villain who believes he's right. And to me, that makes him much more interesting as a character. Because remember, this is a story. These are not real people. You know, some of you have been writing in to say that you don't want to read books about child abuse. Why are we reading this book about child abuse? And my answer to that is this isn't a book about child abuse. And it doesn't provide like graphic depictions of gratuitous violence or something like that. It's the story of a life. It's the story of a boy growing into a man and the things that shaped that life. The plot of this book, and we've talked about this before, but it bears repeating. The plot of this book is not so much a plot, but a character. The plot of this book is David Copperfield. It's the story of how the person David came to be who he is. And who he is is the who's writing this story for us with heart and humor and intelligence and honesty and a deep understanding of people and human nature. That's the person that is coming into being through this story. And the things that are happening to Devi now are the things that shaped that character into the person that he will eventually become. This is a novel. It's a story. Stories have problems and conflicts. Bad things happen to the main characters. Yes, Davey is a child at this point in the story, and it's hard to hear about these things happening to children. I get that. But he won't always be a child. This is the story of his formation. And part of that formation Is that he had this specific childhood. He had a hard and horrible stepfather. He had a loving but weak and childish mother. He had a good and faithful loving servant named Peggy. He went to a school where the headmaster used corporal punishment. But there were other boys that were nice to him and other or teachers that were nice to him, too. All of this and all the things that will come after this, these are the elements that are knitting together to create the man who will one day be our narrator, David Copperfield. In my copy of this book, we are on page 150 of 800. This is the very beginning of the book. I know we've been reading for a month already, but we've got seven months to go. Will things get better for Davy? Yes. But will they also get worse and then better again and then worse and then better? Yes. The fact that you feel for him, the fact that you love him, the fact that you hate Mr. Murdstone and are angry and frustrated with Clara, the fact that you love Peggy and are wary of Steerforth, all these are good and wonderful things. They mean that Dickens is doing the magic that only great writers can do. He's conjuring for you. Not just a story, but people. People that you love, people you care about, people you wish you could rip out of the book and hug. And that is a beautiful, wonderful, magical, life changing thing, because it means that your imagination is alive and well. And we need imagination in this world now more than ever. And yours is a powerful thing. A man who has been dead for like, 150 years just reached through time right into your brain and into your heart, and you were there to hear him. I mean, what an amazing and wonderful thing. So the fact that you feel sad or angry or upset, it's okay. It's okay to feel that way. I know sometimes we just want to run away from those feelings, but it's all right. You're supposed to feel those things because you're feeling for this character and you're watching him grow. So is it bad for Davey that Mr. Murdstone is evil? You bet it is. But it's part of the story. It's not gratuitous. It's the stuff of his life, the things that shaped him. Let's trust Charles Dickens, okay? Let's trust him that he's not just telling us about Mr. Murdstone and Mr. Creakle and everyone, because he likes to tell us awful things that happen to children. Let's trust that he's building a story, that he's creating a life out of thin air. And let's go with him. Okay. Phew. Okay. Thank you for letting me get that off my chest. But, yeah, we're gonna go with him. And where are we going? Well, this brings me to the last thing that I wanted to talk about, which is Clara. Okay, now Paula is right. It's really hard to watch Clara sit there and let Mr. Murdstone treat Davy the way he does. It's hard to understand how a mother could do that. And it's so poignant, I think, to have this little scene at the beginning of the chapter where Davey gets home and the Murdstones are out and it's suddenly the way it used to be. I mean, yes, there's this new baby, and I agree with Sarah that for Mr. Murdstone, at least, the baby is the real child of the family, the good child. But actually, Clara doesn't really seem to feel that way. Clara seems to actually love Davy still, and to be really glad to see him and to feel bad for the treatment that he's received, both from Mr. Murdstone and from Mr. Creakle. Remember, when Davey first comes in and sees the baby, Clara says, here's a quote. Here is your brother Davey. My pretty boy. My poor child. And it says, then she kissed me more and more and clasped me around the neck. So she's including Davey into the family circle. This is his brother. They're related. He's part of the family. It's Ms. Murdstone, later, who separates Davey out again. Right. Davey tells us, I was solemnly interdicted by her, her being Ms. Murdstone, on her recovery from touching my brother anymore, on any pretense, whatever. And then later, when Clara tries again to loop Davy into the circle of the family by comparing the baby's eyes to Davy's eyes, Ms. Murdstone shoots her down. She says, who else could compare my brother's baby with your boy? They are not at all alike. They are exactly unlike. They are utterly dissimilar in all respects. I hope they will ever remain so. I will not sit here and hear such comparisons made. So it's the Murdstones that hold Davey apart from the family, and Ms. Murdstone in particular, who I think is a far more villainous character even than Mr. Murdstone. She just actively hates Davy and she doesn't want him around. I mean, this thing with the calendar she keeps of when he's going back to school. It's sort of funny, actually. Here's what it. She kept a calendar of the holidays in this way. And every morning checked a day off in exactly the same manner. She did it gloomily until she came to 10. But when she got into two figures, she became more hopeful and as the time advanced, even jocular. Okay, so it's actually kind of funny the way that David puts it. And this is what makes Dickens so brilliant. He's so good at mixing humor and emotion. It's awful and it's funny, and you're allowed to think that it's both. You can laugh and be angry. You are a complex person, and Dickens knows that and trusts you on it. So he gives you humor even as he gives you pain. But back to the beginning of the chapter. So Davey gets this little taste of his old life, and more specifically, this little taste of his mother's love. Okay, here is a quote. It says, I crept close to my mother's side according to my old custom, broken now a long time, and sat with my arms embracing her waist and my little red cheek on her shoulder, and once more felt her beautiful hair drooping over me like an angel's wing, as I used to think, I recollect, and was very happy indeed. So she loves him. Clara loves Davey. He's her firstborn, her darling boy. And she even at one point tries to stick up for him to the Murdstones. Right? She's talking to Ms. Murdstone, and she. She says, I beg your pardon, my dear Jane, said my mother, but are you quite sure? I am certain you'll excuse me, my dear Jane, that you understand Davie, but she is completely put down by the Murdstones. Right? Here's that quote. It says, Edward, replied my mother timidly, you are a far better judge of all questions than I pretend to be. Both you and Jane are. I only said. You only said something weak and inconsiderate. He replied. Try not to do it again, my dear Clara, and keep a watch upon yourself. And then it says. My mother's lips moved as if she answered, yes, my dear Edward, but she said nothing aloud. So why? Why, if the mother still loves her son deeply and wants to stand up for him and wants to include him in the family circle, why does she stand by and let Mr. Murdstone abuse him? Why doesn't she grow a backbone, essentially, and stand up for him, like Paula is saying in her letter? It's depressing and it's frustrating. And I know that many of you in your letters have been saying that you can't have sympathy for Clara at all because a mother is supposed to protect her child. So doesn't she? If she loves him so much, why doesn't she? And I think the answer is that Klara mistook an abusive man for a strong one. She is silly and childish and flighty and she needed someone to come in and take charge. She found someone who said he would, and he has convinced her that his way is the right way. And even though she knows in her heart of hearts the way that he's treating Devi is wrong, she's essentially in the same boat as devi. She's under Mr. Murdstone's thrall and she can't get out, and she doesn't really want to get out because she feels that Mr. Murdstone takes care of all the practical things that she is too silly and childish to understand. So she wishes that Davy were better treated, but she also doesn't want to lose Mr. Murdstone. Is she weak? Yes. Is she childish? Very. Does she love Davy? Yes. I think she really does. And so when she is holding up her baby at the end, when Davey is going back to school, and I don't think it's to say to him, look, you've been replaced. I have this new kid now, so I don't need you, I actually think it's the opposite. I think she is trying to remind him that he is her family, that no matter what happens, and even though she wasn't strong enough to save him from the Merdstones, she's still his mother, he's still her boy, the baby is his brother. He is related to both his mother and to this new child. I think that she's acknowledging him as her own and saying that even though she can't protect him, even though she. She's failed him as a mother in that way, she still loves him and she still sees him as part of the family. So then what does this thing about losing her mean if it's not that she's saying that she doesn't need him anymore? What does it mean? So here's that quote. It says, so I lost her. So I saw her afterwards in my sleep at school, a silent presence near my bed, looking at me with the same intent face, holding up her baby in her arms. Okay. And there was another moment of foreshadowing earlier in the chapter. David says, here's that quote, unquote. We were very happy. And that evening, as the last of its race and destined evermore to close, that volume of my life will never pass out of my memory. So. Oh, right. That doesn't sound good. And there's one more piece of foreshadowing that was so quick that we might have missed it. The mother is talking to Peggy and she says, don't leave me, Peggy. Stay with me. It will not be for long. Perhaps. What should I ever do without you? I mean, what will not be for long? She doesn't say, and we don't know. But it's not looking good for Davey in terms of his relationship with his mother. I mean. So I lost her. I mean, just. It's such a beautiful, poignant line, isn't it? It's just such beautiful writing, but we don't know what it means. Before, we were told that he was leaving his happy home for good. And we weren't sure if that meant that he'd never come back or if he would come back and it would be unhappy. And it turned out to be the second one. So it could be something similar here too. Like the next time that he comes home, it could be that his mother doesn't show him any affection at all, or something like that. It could be that, or it could be something else. So we have to keep reading to find out. So let's do that. I've been talking for far too long. Let's read the book. But of course. Don't forget to write to me. Please Write in. It's faithkmore.com, click on Contact or scroll into the show notes and click the link that's there. You're never bothering me. I do want to hear all of your reactions and thoughts, so please do get in touch. Alright, let's get started with chapter nine of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. It's story time. Chapter nine. I have a memorable birthday. I pass over all that happened at school until the anniversary of my birthday came round in March. Except that Steerforth was more to be admired than ever. I remember nothing. He was going away at the end of the half year, if not sooner, and was more spirited and independent than before in my eyes, and therefore more engaging than before. But beyond this, I remember nothing. The great remembrance by which that time is marked in my mind seems to have swallowed up all lesser recollections. And to exist alone. It is even difficult for me to believe that there was a gap of full two months between my return to Salem House and the arrival of that birthday. I can only understand that the fact was so, because I know it must have been so. Otherwise I should feel convinced that there was no interval and that the one occasion trod upon the other's heels. How Well, I recollect the kind of day it was. I smell the fog that hung about the place. I see the hoarfrost ghostly through it. Hoarfrost is like ice crystals that form on things like grass and windowpanes and fences and stuff. I feel my rhymy hair, meaning his icy hair, fall clammy on my cheek. I look along the dim perspective of the schoolroom with a sputtering candle here and there to light up the foggy morning and the breath of the boys wreathing and smoking in the raw cold as they blow upon their fingers and tap their feet upon the floor. It was after breakfast, and we had been summoned in from the playground when Mr. Sharp entered and said, david Copperfield is to go into the parlor. I expected a hamper from Peggotty, meaning he like a gift basket for his birthday, and brightened at the order. Some of the boys about me put in their claim not to be forgotten in the distribution of the good things. As I got out of my seat with great alacrity. Don't hurry, David, said Mr. Sharp. There's time enough, my boy. Don't hurry. I might have been surprised by the feeling tone in which he spoke if I had given it a thought, but I gave it none until afterwards. I hurried away to the parlour, and there I found Mr. Creakle sitting at his breakfast with the cane and a newspaper before him, and Mrs. Creakle with an opened letter in her hand, but no hamper. David Copperfield, said Mrs. Creakle, leading me to a sofa and sitting down beside me. I want to speak to you very particularly. I have something to tell you, my child. Mr. Creakle, at whom of course I looked, shook his head without looking at me, and stopped up a sigh with a very large piece of buttered toast. You are too young to know how the world changes every day, said Mrs. Creakle, and how the people in it pass away. But we all have to learn it, David. Some of us when we are young, some of us when we are old, some of us at all times of our lives. I looked at her earnestly. When you came away from home at the end of the vacation, said Mrs. Creakle, after a pause. Were they all well? After another pause, was your mamma well? I trembled without distinctly knowing why, and still looked at her earnestly, making no attempt to answer. Because, said she, I grieve to tell you that I hear this morning your mamma is very ill. A mist rose between Mrs. Creakle and me, and her figure seemed to Move in it for an instant. Then I felt the burning tears run down my face and it was steady again. She is very dangerously ill, she added. I knew all. Now she is dead. There was no need to tell me so. I had already broken out into a desolate cry and felt an orphan in the wide world. She was very kind to me. She kept me there all day and left me alone sometimes. And I cried and wore myself to sleep and awoke and cried again. When I could cry no more, I began to think. And then the oppression on my breast was heaviest. And my grief a dull pain that there was no ease for. And yet my thoughts were idle, not intent on the calamity that weighed upon my heart, but idly loitering near it. I thought of our house, shut up and hushed. I thought of the little baby who Mrs. Creakle said had been pining away for some time. And who they believed would die too. I thought of my father's grave in the churchyard by our house. And of my mother lying there beneath the tree I knew so well. I stood upon a chair when I was left alone. And looked into the glass to see how red my eyes were and how sorrowful my fate. I considered after some hours were gone, if my tears were really hard to flow now, as they seemed to be, what in connection with my loss it would affect me most to think of when I drew near home, for I was going home to the funeral. I am sensible of having felt that a dignity attached to me among the rest of the boys, and that I was important in my affliction. If ever a child were stricken with sincere grief, I was. But I remember that this importance was a kind of satisfaction to me When I walked in the playground that afternoon while the boys were in school. When I saw them glancing at me out of the windows as they went up to their classes, I felt distinguished and looked more melancholy and walked slower. When school was over and they came out and spoke to me, I felt it rather good in myself not to be proud to any of them and to take exactly the same notice of them all as before. I was to go home next night, not by the mail, but by the heavy night coach which was called the Farmer. And was principally used by country people travelling short, intermediate distances upon the road. We had no story telling that evening, and Traddles insisted on lending me his pillow. I don't know what good he thought it would do me, for I had one of my own. But it was all he had to lend, poor fellow, except a sheet of letter paper full of skeletons and that he gave me at parting as a soother of my sorrows and a contribution to my peace of mind. I left Salem house upon the morrow afternoon. I little thought then that I left it, never to return. We travelled very slowly all night and did not get into Yarmouth before nine or ten o' clock in the morning. I looked out for Mr. Barkis, but he was not there. And instead of him, a fat, short, winded, merry looking little old man in black, with rusty little bunches of ribbons at the knees of his breeches, black stockings and a broad brimmed hat came puffing up to the coach window and said, Mr. Copperfield. Yes, sir? Will you come along with me, young sir? If you please, he said, opening the door, and I shall have the pleasure of taking you home. I put my hand in his, wondering who he was, and we walked away to a shop in a narrow street on which was written omer draper, tailor, haberdasher, funeral furnisher, etc. It was a close and stifling little shop, full of all sorts of clothing made and unmade, including one window full of beaver hats and bonnets. We went into a little back parlour behind the shop where we found three young women at work on a quantity of black materials which were heaped upon the table and little bits and cuttings of which were littered all over the floor. There was a good fire in the room and a breathless smell of warm black crepe. I did not know what the smell was then, but I now know. Black crepe is a material that's usually used for mourning clothes for a funeral. The three young women, who appeared to be very industrious and comfortable, raised their heads to look at me and then went on with their work. Stitch. Stitch, stitch. At the same time there came from a workshop across a little yard. Outside the window a regular sound of hammering that kept a kind of tune. Rat tat tat, rat tat tat, rat tat tat. Without any variation. Well, said my conductor to one of the three young women, how do you get on, Minnie? We shall be ready by the trying on time, she replied gaily, without looking up. Don't you be afraid, Father. Mr. Omer took off his broad brimmed hat and sat down and panted. He was so fat that he was obliged to pant some time before he could say, that's right, father, said Minnie playfully, what a porpoise you do grow. Well, I don't know how it is, my dear, he replied, considering about it. I am rather so, you are such a comfortable man, you see, said Minnie. You take things so easy. No use taking em otherwise, my dear, said Mr. Omer. No indeed, returned his daughter. We are all pretty gay here, thank heaven, ain't we, Father? I hope so, my dear, said Mr. Omer, as I have got my breath now, I think I'll measure this young scholar. Would you walk into the shop, Mr. Copperfield? I preceded Mr. Omer in compliance with his request, and after showing me a roll of cloth which he said was extra super and too good morning for anything short of parents, meaning this is a fancy type of cloth and really should only be made into clothes for mourning someone as important as a parent. He took my various dimensions and put them down in a book. While he was recording them, he called my attention to his stock in trade, and to certain fashions which he said had just come up, and to certain other fashions which he said had just gone out, and by that sort of thing we very often lose a little mint of money, said Mr. Omer. But fashions are like human beings. They come in nobody knows when, why, or how, and they go out nobody knows when, why, or how. Everything is like life in my opinion, if you look at it in that point of view. I was too sorrowful to discuss the question which would possibly have been beyond me under any circumstances, and Mr. Omer took me back into the parlour, breathing with some difficulty on the way. He then called down a little breakneck range of steps behind a door, bring up that tea and bread and butter, which after some time during which I sat looking about me and thinking and listening to the stitching in the room and the tune that was being hammered across the yard appeared on a tray and turned out to be for me. I have been acquainted with you, said Mr. Omer, after watching me for some minutes, during which I had not made much impression on the breakfast, for the black things destroyed my appetite. I have been acquainted with you a long time, my young friend. Have you, sir? All your life? Said Mr. Omer. I may say before it, I knew your father before you. He was 5 foot 9 and a half, and he lays in 5 and 20 foot of ground. Rat tat tat, rat tat, tat, rat tat tat. Across the yard he lays in 5 and 20 foot of ground. If he lays in a fraction, said Mr. Omer pleasantly, it was either his request or her direction, I forget which. Do you know how my little brother is, Sir? I inquired. Mr. Omer shook his head. Rat tat tat, rat tat tat rat tat tat. He is in his mother's arms, said he. Oh, poor little fellow. Is he dead? Don't mind it more than you can help, said Mr. Omer. Yes, that baby's dead. My wounds broke out fresh at this intelligence. I left the scarcely tasted breakfast and went and rested my head on another table in a corner of the little room, which Minnie hastily cleared, lest I should spot the morning that was lying there with my tears. She was a pretty good natured girl and put my hair away from my eyes with a soft kind touch, but she was very cheerful at having nearly finished her work and being in good time, and was so different from me. Presently the tune left off, and a good looking young fellow came across the yard into the room. He had a hammer in his hand and his mouth was full of little nails, which he was obliged to take out before he could speak. Well, Joram, said Mr. Omer, how do you get on? All right, said Joram. Done, sir. Minnie colored a little, and the other two girls smiled at one another. What, were you at it by candlelight last night when I was at the club then, were you? Said Mr. Omer, shutting up one eye. Yes, said Joram, as you said. We could make the little trip of it and go over together if it was done. Minnie and me, you know. Ho. I thought you were going to leave me out altogether, said Mr. Omer, laughing till he coughed. As you was so good as to say that, resumed the young man. Why, I turn to with a will, you see. Will you give me your opinion of it? I will, said Mr. Omer, rising. My dear, said he, stopping and turned to me. Would you like to see your. No, father, Minnie interposed. I thought it might be agreeable, my dear, said Mr. Omer, but perhaps you're right. I can't say how I knew it was my dear, dear mother's coffin that they were to look at. I had never heard one making. I had never seen one that I know of. But it came into my mind what the noise was while it was going on, and when the young man entered, I am sure I knew what he had been doing. The work being now finished, the two girls, whose names I had not heard, brushed the shreds and threads from their dresses and went into the shop to put that to rights and wait for customers. Minnie stayed behind to fold up what they had made and pack it in two baskets. This she did upon her knees, humming a lively little tune. The while Joram, who I had no doubt was her lover, came in and stole a kiss from her while she was busy. He didn't appear to mind me at all and said her father was gone for the chaise and he must make haste and get himself ready. Then he went out again and then she put her thimble and scissors in her pocket and stuck a needle threaded with black thread neatly in the bosom of her gown and put on her outer clothing smartly, partly at a little glass behind the door in which I saw the reflection of her pleased face. All this I observed, sitting at the table in the corner with my head leaning on my hand and my thoughts running on very different things. The chaise soon came round to the front of the shop and the baskets being put in first, I was put in next, and those three followed. I remember it as a kind of half chaise cart, half pianoforte van, painted of a sombre colour and drawn by a black horse with a long tail. There was plenty of room for us all. I do not think I have ever experienced so strange a feeling in my life. I am wiser now, perhaps, as that of being with them, remembering how they had been employed and seeing them enjoy the ride. I was not angry with them. I was more afraid of them, as if I were cast away among creatures with whom I had no community of nature. They were very cheerful. The old man sat in front to drive and the two young people sat behind him and whenever he spoke to them leaned forward, the one on one side of his chubby face and the other on the other, and made a great deal of him. They would have talked to me too, but I held back and moped in my corner, scared by their love making and hilarity, though it was far from boisterous, and almost wondering that no judgment came upon them for their hardness of heart. So when they stopped to bait the horse and ate and drank and enjoyed themselves, I could touch nothing that they touched but kept my fast unbroken. So when we reached home I dropped out of the chaise behind as quickly as possible that I might not be in their company before those solemn windows looking blindly on me like closed eyes, once bright. And oh, how little need I had had to think what would move me to tears when I came back and seeing the window of my mother's room and next to it that which in the better time was mine, I was in Peggotty's arms before I got to the door and she took me into the house. Her grief burst out when she first saw me but she controlled it soon and spoke in whispers and walked softly as if the dead could be disturbed. She had not been in bed, I found, for a long time. She sat up at night still and watched. As long as her poor dear pretty was above the ground, she said she would never desert her. Mr. Murdstone took no heed of me when I went into the parlor, where he was but sat by the fireside, weeping silently and pondering in his elbow chair. Ms. Murdstone, who was busy at her writing desk, which was covered with letters and papers, gave me her cold finger nails and asked me in an iron whisper if I had been measured for my morning. I said yes. And your shirts, said Ms. Murdstone. Have you brought em home? Yes, ma', am, I have brought home all my clothes. This was all the consolation that her firmness administered to me. I do not doubt that she had a choice pleasure in exhibiting what she called her self command and her firmness and her strength of mind and her common sense sense and the whole diabolical catalogue of her unamiable qualities. On such an occasion she was particularly proud of her turn for business, and she showed it now in reducing everything to pen and ink, and being moved by nothing all the rest of that day. And from morning to night afterwards, she sat at that desk, scratching composedly with a hard pen, speaking in the same imperturbable whisper to everybody, me never relaxing a muscle of her face, or softening a tone of her voice, or appearing with an atom of her dress astray. Her brother took a book sometimes, but never read it that I saw. He would open it and look at it as if he were reading, but would remain for a whole hour without turning the leaf, and then put it down and walk to and fro in the room. I used to sit with folded hands watching him and counting his footsteps hour after hour. He very seldom spoke to her and never to me. He seemed to be the only restless thing except the clocks in the whole motionless house. In these days, before the funeral I saw but little of Peggotty, except that in passing up or down stairs I always found her close to the room where my mother and her baby lay. And except that she came to me every night and sat by my bed's head while I went to sleep. A day or two before the burial. I think it was a day or two before, but I am conscious of confusion in my mind about that heavy time, with nothing to mark its progress, she took me into the room. I only recollect that underneath some white covering on the bed, with a beautiful cleanliness and freshness all around it, there seemed to Me to lie embodied the solemn stillness that was in the house, and that when she would have turned the COVID gently back, I cried, oh, no. Oh no. And held her hand. If the funeral had been yesterday, I could not recollect it better. The very air of the best parlour when I went in at the door, the bright condition of the fire, the shining of the wine in the decanters, the patterns of the glasses and plates, the faint sweet smell of cake, the odour of Ms. Murdstone's dress and our black clothes. Mr. Chillip is in the room, remember, Mr. Chillip is the apothecary, the doctor, and comes to speak to me. And how is Master David? He says kindly. I cannot tell him. Very well. I give him my hand, which he holds in his. Dear me, says Mr. Chillip meekly, smiling, with something shining in his eye. Our little friends grow up around us. They grow out of our knowledge, ma'. Am. This to Miss Murdstone, who makes no reply. There is a great improvement here, ma', am, says Mr. Chillip. Ms. Murdstone merely answers with a frown and a formal bend. Mr. Chillip, discomfited, goes into a corner, keeping me with him, and opens his mouth no more. I remark this because I remark everything that happened, not because I care about myself or have done since I came home. And now the bell begins to sound and Mr. Omer and another come to make us ready. As Peggotty was wont to tell me long ago, the followers of my father to the same grave were made ready in the same room. There are Mr. Murdstone, our neighbor, Mr. Graper, Mr. Chillip, and I. When we go out to the door, the bearers and their load are in the garden, and they move before us down the path and past the elms and through the gate and into the churchyard where I have so often heard the birds sing. On a summer morning. We stand around the grave. The day seems different to me from every other day, and the light not of the same colour, of a sadder color. Now there is a solemn hush which we have brought from home with what is resting in the mould. And while we stand bareheaded, I hear the voice of the clergyman, sounding remote in the open air, and yet distinct and plain, saying, I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord. Then I hear sobs. And standing apart among the lookers on I see that good and faithful servant, whom of all the people upon earth, I love the best, and unto whom my childish heart is certain that the Lord will one day say well done. There are many faces that I know among the little crowd. Faces that I knew in church when mine was always wandering there. Faces that first saw my mother when she came to the village in her youthful bloom. I do not mind them. I mind nothing but my grief. And yet I see and know them all. And even in the background far away see Mini looking on and her eye glancing on her sweetheart who is near me. It is over and the earth is filled in and we turn to come away. Before us stands our house, so pretty and unchanged. So linked in my mind with the young idea of what is gone. That all my sorrow has been nothing to the sorrow it calls forth. But they take me on and Mr. Chillip talks to me me. And when we get home, puts some water to my lips and when I ask his leave to go up to my room dismisses me with the gentleness of a woman. All this, I say, is yesterday's event, meaning he remembers it as if it were yesterday. Events of later date have floated from me to the shore where all forgotten things will reappear. But this stands like a high rock in the ocean. I knew that Peggy would come to me in my room. The Sabbath stillness of the time. The day was so like Sunday, I have forgotten. That was suited to us both. She sat down by my side upon my little bed and holding my hand and sometimes putting it to her lips and sometimes smoothing it with hers as she might have comforted my little brother told me in her way all that she had to tell concerning what had happened. She was never well said, Peggotty. For a long time she was uncertain in her mind and not happy when her baby was born. I thought at first she would get better. But she was more delicate and sunk a little every day. She used to like to sit alone before her baby came. And then she cried. But afterwards she used to sing to it so soft that I once thought when I heard her it was like a voice up in the air that was rising away. I think she got to be more timid and more frightened like of late. And that a hard word was like a blow to her. But she was always the same to me. She never changed to her foolish Peggotty didn't. My sweet girl. Here Peggy stopped and softly beat upon my hand a little while. The last time I saw her like her own self was the night when you came home, my dear. That day you went away. She said to me. I shall never see my pretty darling again. Something tells me so. That tells the truth. I know she tried to hold up after that and many a time when they told her she was thoughtless and light hearted, made believe to be so. But it was all a bygone then. She never told her husband what she had told me. She was afraid of saying it to anybody else. Till one night a little more than a week before it happened when she said to him, my dear, I think I'm dying. It's off my mind now Peggotty, she told me when I laid her in bed that night, he will believe it more and more, poor fellow, every day for a few days to come and then it will be past. I am very tired. If this is sleep, sit by me while I sleep. Don't leave me. God bless both my children. God protect and keep my fatherless boy. I have never left her. Afterwards, said Peggotty, she often talked to them two downstairs for she loved em. She couldn't bear not to love anyone who was about her. But when they went away from her bedside she always turned to me as if there was rest where Peggotty was and never fell asleep in any other way. On the last night in the evening she kissed me and said, if my baby should die too, Peggotty, please let them lay him in my arms and bury us together. It was done for the poor lamb lived but a day beyond her. Let my dearest boy go with us to our resting place, she said, and tell him that his mother, when she lay here, blessed him not once but a thousand times. Another silence followed this and another gentle beating on my hand. It was pretty far in the night, said Peggotty, when she asked me for some drink and when she had taken it, gave such a patient smile, the dear so beautiful. Daybreak had come and the sun was rising when she said to me how kind and considerate Mr. Copperfield had always been to her and how he had borne with her and told her when she doubted herself that a loving heart was better and stronger than wisdom and that he was a happy man in hers. Agony, my dear, she said. Then put me nearer to you, for she was very weak. Lay your good arm underneath my neck, she said, and turn me to you, for your face is going far off and I want it to be near. I put as she asked. And oh Davy, the time had come when my first parting words to you were true, when she was glad to lay her poor head on her stupid cross old Peggotty's arm and she died like a child that had gone to sleep. Thus ended Peggotty's narration. From the moment of my knowing of the death of my mother. The idea of her as she had been of late had vanished from me. I remembered her from that instant only as the young mother of my earliest impressions, who had been used to wind her bright curls round and round her finger, and to dance with me at twilight in the parlor. What Peggy had told me now was so far from bringing me back to the later period that it rooted the earlier image in my mind. It may be curious, but it is true. In her death she winged her way back to her calm, untroubled youth and cancelled all the rest. The mother who lay in the grave was the mother of my infancy. The little creature in her arms was myself, as I had once been hushed forever on her bosom. 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? 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. All right, everyone, story time is over. To be continued.