David Copperfield, Charles Dickens [best historical fiction books of all time TXT] 📗

“Ha! Poor Baby!” mused Miss Betsey, with her frown still bent upon the fire. “Do you know anything?”

“I beg your pardon, ma’am,” faltered my mother.

“About keeping house, for instance,” said Miss Betsey.

“Not much, I fear,” returned my mother. “Not so much as I could wish. But Mr. Copperfield was teaching me⁠—”

(“Much he knew about it himself!”) said Miss Betsey in a parenthesis.

—“And I hope I should have improved, being very anxious to learn, and he very patient to teach me, if the great misfortune of his death”⁠—my mother broke down again here, and could get no farther.

“Well, well!” said Miss Betsey.

—“I kept my housekeeping-book regularly, and balanced it with Mr. Copperfield every night,” cried my mother in another burst of distress, and breaking down again.

“Well, well!” said Miss Betsey. “Don’t cry any more.”

—“And I am sure we never had a word of difference respecting it, except when Mr. Copperfield objected to my threes and fives being too much like each other, or to my putting curly tails to my sevens and nines,” resumed my mother in another burst, and breaking down again.

“You’ll make yourself ill,” said Miss Betsey, “and you know that will not be good either for you or for my goddaughter. Come! You mustn’t do it!”

This argument had some share in quieting my mother, though her increasing indisposition had a larger one. There was an interval of silence, only broken by Miss Betsey’s occasionally ejaculating “Ha!” as she sat with her feet upon the fender.

“David had bought an annuity for himself with his money, I know,” said she, by and by. “What did he do for you?”

“Mr. Copperfield,” said my mother, answering with some difficulty, “was so considerate and good as to secure the reversion of a part of it to me.”

“How much?” asked Miss Betsey.

“A hundred and five pounds a year,” said my mother.

“He might have done worse,” said my aunt.

The word was appropriate to the moment. My mother was so much worse that Peggotty, coming in with the teaboard and candles, and seeing at a glance how ill she was⁠—as Miss Betsey might have done sooner if there had been light enough⁠—conveyed her upstairs to her own room with all speed; and immediately dispatched Ham Peggotty, her nephew, who had been for some days past secreted in the house, unknown to my mother, as a special messenger in case of emergency, to fetch the nurse and doctor.

Those allied powers were considerably astonished, when they arrived within a few minutes of each other, to find an unknown lady of portentous appearance, sitting before the fire, with her bonnet tied over her left arm, stopping her ears with jewellers’ cotton. Peggotty knowing nothing about her, and my mother saying nothing about her, she was quite a mystery in the parlour; and the fact of her having a magazine of jewellers’ cotton in her pocket, and sticking the article in her ears in that way, did not detract from the solemnity of her presence.

The doctor having been upstairs and come down again, and having satisfied himself, I suppose, that there was a probability of this unknown lady and himself having to sit there, face to face, for some hours, laid himself out to be polite and social. He was the meekest of his sex, the mildest of little men. He sidled in and out of a room, to take up the less space. He walked as softly as the Ghost in Hamlet, and more slowly. He carried his head on one side, partly in modest depreciation of himself, partly in modest propitiation of everybody else. It is nothing to say that he hadn’t a word to throw at a dog. He couldn’t have thrown a word at a mad dog. He might have offered him one gently, or half a one, or a fragment of one; for he spoke as slowly as he walked; but he wouldn’t have been rude to him, and he couldn’t have been quick with him, for any earthly consideration.

Mr. Chillip, looking mildly at my aunt with his head on one side, and making her a little bow, said, in allusion to the jewellers’ cotton, as he softly touched his left ear:

“Some local irritation, ma’am?”

“What!” replied my aunt, pulling the cotton out of one ear like a cork.

Mr. Chillip was so alarmed by her abruptness⁠—as he told my mother afterwards⁠—that it was a mercy he didn’t lose his presence of mind. But he repeated sweetly:

“Some local irritation, ma’am?”

“Nonsense!” replied my aunt, and corked herself again, at one blow.

Mr. Chillip could do nothing after this, but sit and look at her feebly, as she sat and looked at the fire, until he was called upstairs again. After some quarter of an hour’s absence, he returned.

“Well?” said my aunt, taking the cotton out of the ear nearest to him.

“Well, ma’am,” returned Mr. Chillip, “we are⁠—we are progressing slowly, ma’am.”

“Ba⁠—a⁠—ah!” said my aunt, with a perfect shake on the contemptuous interjection. And corked herself as before.

Really⁠—really⁠—as Mr. Chillip told my mother, he was almost shocked; speaking in a professional point of view alone, he was almost shocked. But he sat and looked at her, notwithstanding, for nearly two hours, as she sat looking at the fire, until he was again called out. After another absence, he again returned.

“Well?” said my aunt, taking out the cotton on that side again.

“Well, ma’am,” returned Mr. Chillip, “we are⁠—we are progressing slowly, ma’am.”

“Ya⁠—a⁠—ah!” said my aunt. With such a snarl at him, that Mr. Chillip absolutely could not bear it. It was really calculated to break his spirit, he said afterwards. He preferred to go and sit upon the stairs, in the dark and a strong draught, until he was again sent for.

Ham Peggotty, who went to the national school, and was a very dragon at his catechism, and who may therefore be regarded as a credible witness, reported next day, that happening to peep in at the parlour-door an hour after this, he was instantly descried by Miss Betsey, then walking to and fro in a state of agitation, and