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 hoar frost, ghostly, through it; I feel my rimy 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 parlour.”

I expected a hamper from Peggotty, 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 mama 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 mama 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 face. I considered, after some hours were gone, if my tears were really hard to flow now, as they seemed to be, what, in connexion 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.

“I think, Clara,” said Mr. Murdstone, in a low grave voice, “that there may be better and more dispassionate judges of such a question than you.”

“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.”

My mother’s lips moved, as if she answered “Yes, my dear Edward,” but she said nothing aloud.

“I was sorry, David, I remarked,” said Mr. Murdstone, turning his head and his eyes stiffly towards me, “to observe that you are of a sullen disposition. This is not a character that I can suffer to develop itself beneath my eyes without an effort at improvement. You must endeavour, sir, to change it. We must endeavour to change it for you.”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” I faltered. “I have never meant to be sullen since I came back.”

“Don’t take refuge in a lie, sir!” he returned so fiercely, that I saw my mother involuntarily put out her trembling hand as if to interpose between us. “You have withdrawn yourself in your sullenness to your own room. You have kept your own room when you ought to have been here. You know now, once for all, that I require you to be here, and not there. Further, that I require you to bring obedience here. You know me, David. I will have it done.”

Miss Murdstone gave a hoarse chuckle.

“I will have a respectful, prompt, and ready bearing towards myself,” he continued, “and towards Jane Murdstone, and towards your mother. I will not have this room shunned as if it were infected, at the pleasure of a child. Sit down.”

He ordered me like a dog, and I obeyed like a dog.

“One thing more,” he said. “I observe that you have an attachment to low and common company. You are not to associate with servants. The kitchen will not improve you, in the many respects in which you need improvement. Of the woman who abets you, I say nothing — since you, Clara,” addressing my mother in a lower voice, “from old associations and long-established fancies, have a weakness respecting her which is not yet overcome.”

“A most unaccountable delusion it is!” cried Miss Murdstone.

“I only say,” he resumed, addressing me, “that I disapprove of your preferring such company as Mistress Peggotty, and that it is to be abandoned. Now, David, you understand me, and you know what will be the consequence if you fail to obey me to the letter.”

I knew well—better perhaps than he thought, as far as my poor mother was concerned—and I obeyed him to the letter. I retreated to my own room no more; I took refuge with Peggotty no more; but sat wearily in the parlour day after day, looking forward to night, and bedtime.

What irksome constraint I underwent, sitting in the same attitude hours upon hours, afraid to move an arm or a leg lest Miss Murdstone should complain (as she did on the least pretence) of my restlessness, and afraid to move an eye lest she should light on some look of dislike or scrutiny that would find new cause for complaint in mine! What intolerable dulness to sit listening to the ticking of the clock; and watching Miss Murdstone’s little shiny steel beads as she strung them; and wondering whether she would ever be married, and if so, to what sort of unhappy man; and counting the divisions in the moulding of the chimney-piece; and wandering away, with my eyes, to the ceiling, among the curls and corkscrews in the paper on the wall!

What walks I took alone, down muddy lanes, in the bad winter weather, carrying that parlour, and Mr. and Miss Murdstone in it, everywhere: a monstrous load that I was obliged to bear, a daymare that there was no possibility of breaking in, a weight that brooded on my wits, and blunted them!

What meals I had in silence and embarrassment, always feeling that there were a knife and fork too many, and that mine; an appetite too many, and that mine; a plate and chair too many, and those mine; a somebody too many, and that I!

What evenings, when the candles came, and I was expected to employ myself, but, not daring to read an entertaining book, pored over some hard-headed, harder-hearted treatise on arithmetic; when the tables of weights and measures set themselves to tunes, as “Rule Britannia”, or “Away with Melancholy”; when they wouldn’t stand still to be learnt, but would go threading my grandmother’s needle through my unfortunate head, in at one ear and out at the other! What yawns and dozes I lapsed into, in spite of all my care; what starts I came out of concealed sleeps with; what answers I never got, to little observations that I rarely made; what a blank space I seemed, which everybody overlooked, and yet was in everybody’s way; what a heavy relief it was to hear Miss Murdstone hail the first stroke of nine at night, and order me to bed!

Thus the holidays lagged away, until the morning came when Miss Murdstone said: “Here’s the last day off!” and gave me the closing cup of tea of the vacation.

I was not sorry to go. I had lapsed into a stupid state; but I was recovering a little and looking forward to Steerforth, albeit Mr. Creakle loomed behind him. Again Mr. Barkis appeared at the gate, and again Miss Murdstone in her warning voice, said: “Clara!” when my mother bent over me, to bid me farewell.

I kissed her, and my baby brother, and was very sorry then; but not sorry to go away, for the gulf between us was there, and the parting was there, every day. And it is not so much the embrace she gave me, that lives in my mind, though it was as fervent as could be, as what followed the embrace.

I was in the carrier’s cart when I heard her calling to me. I looked out, and she stood at the garden-gate alone, holding her baby up in her arms for me to see. It was cold still weather; and not a hair of her head, nor a fold of her dress, was stirred, as she looked intently at me, holding up her child.

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.

It was on this very first day that I had the misfortune to throw her, though she was not subject to such weakness in general, into a state of violent consternation. I came into the room where she and my mother were sitting; and the baby (who was only a few weeks old) being on my mother’s lap, I took it very carefully in my arms. Suddenly Miss Murdstone gave such a scream that I all but dropped it.

“My dear Jane!” cried my mother.

“Good heavens, Clara, do you see?” exclaimed Miss Murdstone.

“See what, my dear Jane?” said my mother; “where?”

“He’s got it!” cried Miss Murdstone. “The boy has got the baby!”

She was limp with horror; but stiffened herself to make a dart at me, and take it out of my arms. Then, she turned faint; and was so very ill that they were obliged to give her cherry brandy. I was solemnly interdicted by her, on her recovery, from touching my brother any more on any pretence whatever; and my poor mother, who, I could see, wished otherwise, meekly confirmed the interdict, by saying: “No doubt you are right, my dear Jane.”

On another occasion, when we three were together, this same dear baby—it was truly dear to me, for our mother’s sake—was the innocent occasion of Miss Murdstone’s going into a passion. My mother, who had been looking at its eyes as it lay upon her lap, said:

“Davy! come here!” and looked at mine.

I saw Miss Murdstone lay her beads down.

“I declare,” said my mother, gently, “they are exactly alike. I suppose they are mine. I think they are the colour of mine. But they are wonderfully alike.”

“What are you talking about, Clara?” said Miss Murdstone.

“My dear Jane,” faltered my mother, a little abashed by the harsh tone of this inquiry, “I find that the baby’s eyes and Davy’s are exactly alike.”

“Clara!” said Miss Murdstone, rising angrily, “you are a positive fool sometimes.”

“My dear Jane,” remonstrated my mother.

“A positive fool,” said Miss Murdstone. “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.” With that she stalked out, and made the door bang after her.

In short, I was not a favourite with Miss Murdstone. In short, I was not a favourite there with anybody, not even with myself; for those who did like me could not show it, and those who did not, showed it so plainly that I had a sensitive consciousness of always appearing constrained, boorish, and dull.

I felt that I made them as uncomfortable as they made me. If I came into the room where they were, and they were talking together and my mother seemed cheerful, an anxious cloud would steal over her face from the moment of my entrance. If Mr. Murdstone were in his best humour, I checked him. If Miss Murdstone were in her worst, I intensified it. I had perception enough to know that my mother was the victim always; that she was afraid to speak to me or to be kind to me, lest she should give them some offence by her manner of doing so, and receive a lecture afterwards; that she was not only ceaselessly afraid of her own offending, but of my offending, and uneasily watched their looks if I only moved. Therefore I resolved to keep myself as much out of their way as I could; and many a wintry hour did I hear the church clock strike, when I was sitting in my cheerless bedroom, wrapped in my little great-coat, poring over a book.

In the evening, sometimes, I went and sat with Peggotty in the kitchen. There I was comfortable, and not afraid of being myself. But neither of these resources was approved of in the parlour. The tormenting humour which was dominant there stopped them both. I was still held to be necessary to my poor mother’s training, and, as one of her trials, could not be suffered to absent myself.

“David,” said Mr. Murdstone, one day after dinner when I was going to leave the room as usual; “I am sorry to observe that you are of a sullen disposition.”

“As sulky as a bear!” said Miss Murdstone.

I stood still, and hung my head.

“Now, David,” said Mr. Murdstone, “a sullen obdurate disposition is, of all tempers, the worst.”

“And the boy’s is, of all such dispositions that ever I have seen,” remarked his sister, “the most confirmed and stubborn. I think, my dear Clara, even you must observe it?”

“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 Davy?”

“I should be somewhat ashamed of myself, Clara,” returned Miss Murdstone, “if I could not understand the boy, or any boy. I don’t profess to be profound; but I do lay claim to common sense.”

“No doubt, my dear Jane,” returned my mother, “your understanding is very vigorous—”

“Oh dear, no! Pray don’t say that, Clara,” interposed Miss Murdstone, angrily.

“But I am sure it is,” resumed my mother; “and everybody knows it is. I profit so much by it myself, in many ways—at least I ought to—that no one can be more convinced of it than myself; and therefore I speak with great diffidence, my dear Jane, I assure you.”

“We’ll say I don’t understand the boy, Clara,” returned Miss Murdstone, arranging the little fetters on her wrists. “We’ll agree, if you please, that I don’t understand him at all. He is much too deep for me. But perhaps my brother’s penetration may enable him to have some insight into his character. And I believe my brother was speaking on the subject when we—not very decently — interrupted him.”

“I think, Clara,” said Mr. Murdstone, in a low grave voice, “that there may be better and more dispassionate judges of such a question than you.”

“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—”

Peggotty muttered something to the effect of “Bother the best intentions!” and something else to the effect that there was a little too much of the best intentions going on.

“I know what you mean, you cross thing,” said my mother. “I understand you, Peggotty, perfectly. You know I do, and I wonder you don’t colour up like fire. But one point at a time. Miss Murdstone is the point now, Peggotty, and you sha’n't escape from it. Haven’t you heard her say, over and over again, that she thinks I am too thoughtless and too—a—a—”

“Pretty,” suggested Peggotty.

“Well,” returned my mother, half laughing, “and if she is so silly as to say so, can I be blamed for it?”

“No one says you can,” said Peggotty.

“No, I should hope not, indeed!” returned my mother. “Haven’t you heard her say, over and over again, that on this account she wished to spare me a great deal of trouble, which she thinks I am not suited for, and which I really don’t know myself that I am suited for; and isn’t she up early and late, and going to and fro continually—and doesn’t she do all sorts of things, and grope into all sorts of places, coal-holes and pantries and I don’t know where, that can’t be very agreeable—and do you mean to insinuate that there is not a sort of devotion in that?”

“I don’t insinuate at all,” said Peggotty.

“You do, Peggotty,” returned my mother. “You never do anything else, except your work. You are always insinuating. You revel in it. And when you talk of Mr. Murdstone’s good intentions—”

“I never talked of ’em,” said Peggotty.

“No, Peggotty,” returned my mother, “but you insinuated. That’s what I told you just now. That’s the worst of you. You will insinuate. I said, at the moment, that I understood you, and you see I did. When you talk of Mr. Murdstone’s good intentions, and pretend to slight them (for I don’t believe you really do, in your heart, Peggotty), you must be as well convinced as I am how good they are, and how they actuate him in everything. If he seems to have been at all stern with a certain person, Peggotty—you understand, and so I am sure does Davy, that I am not alluding to anybody present—it is solely because he is satisfied that it is for a certain person’s benefit. He naturally loves a certain person, on my account; and acts solely for a certain person’s good. He is better able to judge of it than I am; for I very well know that I am a weak, light, girlish creature, and that he is a firm, grave, serious man. And he takes,” said my mother, with the tears which were engendered in her affectionate nature, stealing down her face, “he takes great pains with me; and I ought to be very thankful to him, and very submissive to him even in my thoughts; and when I am not, Peggotty, I worry and condemn myself, and feel doubtful of my own heart, and don’t know what to do.”

Peggotty sat with her chin on the foot of the stocking, looking silently at the fire.

“There, Peggotty,” said my mother, changing her tone, “don’t let us fall out with one another, for I couldn’t bear it. You are my true friend, I know, if I have any in the world. When I call you a ridiculous creature, or a vexatious thing, or anything of that sort, Peggotty, I only mean that you are my true friend, and always have been, ever since the night when Mr. Copperfield first brought me home here, and you came out to the gate to meet me.”

Peggotty was not slow to respond, and ratify the treaty of friendship by giving me one of her best hugs. I think I had some glimpses of the real character of this conversation at the time; but I am sure, now, that the good creature originated it, and took her part in it, merely that my mother might comfort herself with the little contradictory summary in which she had indulged. The design was efficacious; for I remember that my mother seemed more at ease during the rest of the evening, and that Peggotty observed her less.

When we had had our tea, and the ashes were thrown up, and the candles snuffed, I read Peggotty a chapter out of the Crocodile Book, in remembrance of old times—she took it out of her pocket: I don’t know whether she had kept it there ever since—and then we talked about Salem House, which brought me round again to Steerforth, who was my great subject. 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.

It was almost ten o’clock before we heard the sound of wheels. We all got up then; and my mother said hurriedly that, as it was so late, and Mr. and Miss Murdstone approved of early hours for young people, perhaps I had better go to bed. I kissed her, and went upstairs with my candle directly, before they came in. It appeared to my childish fancy, as I ascended to the bedroom where I had been imprisoned, that they brought a cold blast of air into the house which blew away the old familiar feeling like a feather.

I felt uncomfortable about going down to breakfast in the morning, as I had never set eyes on Mr. Murdstone since the day when I committed my memorable offence. However, as it must be done, I went down, after two or three false starts half-way, and as many runs back on tiptoe to my own room, and presented myself in the parlour.

He was standing before the fire with his back to it, while Miss Murdstone made the tea. He looked at me steadily as I entered, but made no sign of recognition whatever. I went up to him, after a moment of confusion, and said: “I beg your pardon, sir. I am very sorry for what I did, and I hope you will forgive me.”

“I am glad to hear you are sorry, David,” he replied.

The hand he gave me was the hand I had bitten. I could not restrain my eye from resting for an instant on a red spot upon it; but it was not so red as I turned, when I met that sinister expression in his face.

“How do you do, ma’am?” I said to Miss Murdstone.

“Ah, dear me!” sighed Miss Murdstone, giving me the tea-caddy scoop instead of her fingers. “How long are the holidays?”

“A month, ma’am.”

“Counting from when?”

“From today, ma’am.”

“Oh!” said Miss Murdstone. “Then here’s one day off.”

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 ten, but when she got into two figures she became more hopeful, and, as the time advanced, even jocular.

It was on this very first day that I had the misfortune to throw her, though she was not subject to such weakness in general, into a state of violent consternation. I came into the room where she and my mother were sitting; and the baby (who was only a few weeks old) being on my mother’s lap, I took it very carefully in my arms. Suddenly Miss Murdstone gave such a scream that I all but dropped it.

But my mother made no answer, except to thank her, and Peggotty went running on in her own fashion.

“Me leave you? I think I see myself. Peggotty go away from you? I should like to catch her at it! No, no, no,” said Peggotty, shaking her head, and folding her arms; “not she, my dear. It isn’t that there ain’t some Cats that would be well enough pleased if she did, but they sha’n't be pleased. They shall be aggravated. I’ll stay with you till I am a cross cranky old woman. And when I’m too deaf, and too lame, and too blind, and too mumbly for want of teeth, to be of any use at all, even to be found fault with, than I shall go to my Davy, and ask him to take me in.”

“And, Peggotty,” says I, “I shall be glad to see you, and I’ll make you as welcome as a queen.”

“Bless your dear heart!” cried Peggotty. “I know you will!” And she kissed me beforehand, in grateful acknowledgement of my hospitality. After that, she covered her head up with her apron again and had another laugh about Mr. Barkis. After that, she took the baby out of its little cradle, and nursed it. After that, she cleared the dinner table; after that, came in with another cap on, and her work-box, and the yard-measure, and the bit of wax-candle, all just the same as ever.

We sat round the fire, and talked delightfully. I told them what a hard master Mr. Creakle was, and they pitied me very much. I told them what a fine fellow Steerforth was, and what a patron of mine, and Peggotty said she would walk a score of miles to see him. I took the little baby in my arms when it was awake, and nursed it lovingly. When it was asleep again, 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.

While I sat thus, looking at the fire, and seeing pictures in the red-hot coals, I almost believed that I had never been away; that Mr. and Miss Murdstone were such pictures, and would vanish when the fire got low; and that there was nothing real in all that I remembered, save my mother, Peggotty, and I.

Peggotty darned away at a stocking as long as she could see, and then sat with it drawn on her left hand like a glove, and her needle in her right, ready to take another stitch whenever there was a blaze. I cannot conceive whose stockings they can have been that Peggotty was always darning, or where such an unfailing supply of stockings in want of darning can have come from. From my earliest infancy she seems to have been always employed in that class of needlework, and never by any chance in any other.

“I wonder,” said Peggotty, who was sometimes seized with a fit of wondering on some most unexpected topic, “what’s become of Davy’s great-aunt?”

“Lor, Peggotty!” observed my mother, rousing herself from a reverie, “what nonsense you talk!”

“Well, but I really do wonder, ma’am,” said Peggotty.

“What can have put such a person in your head?” inquired my mother. “Is there nobody else in the world to come there?”

“I don’t know how it is,” said Peggotty, “unless it’s on account of being stupid, but my head never can pick and choose its people. They come and they go, and they don’t come and they don’t go, just as they like. I wonder what’s become of her?”

“How absurd you are, Peggotty!” returned my mother. “One would suppose you wanted a second visit from her.”

“Lord forbid!” cried Peggotty.

“Well then, don’t talk about such uncomfortable things, there’s a good soul,” said my mother. “Miss Betsey is shut up in her cottage by the sea, no doubt, and will remain there. At all events, she is not likely ever to trouble us again.”

“No!” mused Peggotty. “No, that ain’t likely at all. —I wonder, if she was to die, whether she’d leave Davy anything?”

“Good gracious me, Peggotty,” returned my mother, “what a nonsensical woman you are! when you know that she took offence at the poor dear boy’s ever being born at all.”

“I suppose she wouldn’t be inclined to forgive him now,” hinted Peggotty.

“Why should she be inclined to forgive him now?” said my mother, rather sharply.

“Now that he’s got a brother, I mean,” said Peggotty.

My mother immediately began to cry, and wondered how Peggotty dared to say such a thing.

“As if this poor little innocent in its cradle had ever done any harm to you or anybody else, you jealous thing!” said she. “You had much better go and marry Mr. Barkis, the carrier. Why don’t you?”

“I should make Miss Murdstone happy, if I was to,” said Peggotty.

“What a bad disposition you have, Peggotty!” returned my mother. “You are as jealous of Miss Murdstone as it is possible for a ridiculous creature to be. You want to keep the keys yourself, and give out all the things, I suppose? I shouldn’t be surprised if you did. When you know that she only does it out of kindness and the best intentions! You know she does, Peggotty—you know it well.”

Peggotty muttered something to the effect of “Bother the best intentions!” and something else to the effect that there was a little too much of the best intentions going on.

“I know what you mean, you cross thing,” said my mother. “I understand you, Peggotty, perfectly. You know I do, and I wonder you don’t colour up like fire. But one point at a time. Miss Murdstone is the point now, Peggotty, and you sha’n't escape from it. Haven’t you heard her say, over and over again, that she thinks I am too thoughtless and too—a—a—”