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

in love!” repeated my aunt. “What do you mean? What business had she to do it?”

“Perhaps,” Mr. Dick simpered, after thinking a little, “she did it for pleasure.”

“Pleasure, indeed!” replied my aunt. “A mighty pleasure for the poor Baby to fix her simple faith upon any dog of a fellow, certain to ill-use her in some way or other. What did she propose to herself, I should like to know! She had had one husband. She had seen David Copperfield out of the world, who was always running after wax dolls from his cradle. She had got a baby⁠—oh, there were a pair of babies when she gave birth to this child sitting here, that Friday night!⁠—and what more did she want?”

Mr. Dick secretly shook his head at me, as if he thought there was no getting over this.

“She couldn’t even have a baby like anybody else,” said my aunt. “Where was this child’s sister, Betsey Trotwood? Not forthcoming. Don’t tell me!”

Mr. Dick seemed quite frightened.

“That little man of a doctor, with his head on one side,” said my aunt, “Jellips, or whatever his name was, what was he about? All he could do, was to say to me, like a robin redbreast⁠—as he is⁠—‘It’s a boy.’ A boy! Yah, the imbecility of the whole set of ’em!”

The heartiness of the ejaculation startled Mr. Dick exceedingly; and me, too, if I am to tell the truth.

“And then, as if this was not enough, and she had not stood sufficiently in the light of this child’s sister, Betsey Trotwood,” said my aunt, “she marries a second time⁠—goes and marries a Murderer⁠—or a man with a name like it⁠—and stands in this child’s light! And the natural consequence is, as anybody but a baby might have foreseen, that he prowls and wanders. He’s as like Cain before he was grown up, as he can be.”

Mr. Dick looked hard at me, as if to identify me in this character.

“And then there’s that woman with the Pagan name,” said my aunt, “that Peggotty, she goes and gets married next. Because she has not seen enough of the evil attending such things, she goes and gets married next, as the child relates. I only hope,” said my aunt, shaking her head, “that her husband is one of those Poker husbands who abound in the newspapers, and will beat her well with one.”

I could not bear to hear my old nurse so decried, and made the subject of such a wish. I told my aunt that indeed she was mistaken. That Peggotty was the best, the truest, the most faithful, most devoted, and most self-denying friend and servant in the world; who had ever loved me dearly, who had ever loved my mother dearly; who had held my mother’s dying head upon her arm, on whose face my mother had imprinted her last grateful kiss. And my remembrance of them both, choking me, I broke down as I was trying to say that her home was my home, and that all she had was mine, and that I would have gone to her for shelter, but for her humble station, which made me fear that I might bring some trouble on her⁠—I broke down, I say, as I was trying to say so, and laid my face in my hands upon the table.

“Well, well!” said my aunt, “the child is right to stand by those who have stood by him⁠—Janet! Donkeys!”

I thoroughly believe that but for those unfortunate donkeys, we should have come to a good understanding; for my aunt had laid her hand on my shoulder, and the impulse was upon me, thus emboldened, to embrace her and beseech her protection. But the interruption, and the disorder she was thrown into by the struggle outside, put an end to all softer ideas for the present, and kept my aunt indignantly declaiming to Mr. Dick about her determination to appeal for redress to the laws of her country, and to bring actions for trespass against the whole donkey proprietorship of Dover, until teatime.

After tea, we sat at the window⁠—on the lookout, as I imagined, from my aunt’s sharp expression of face, for more invaders⁠—until dusk, when Janet set candles, and a backgammon-board, on the table, and pulled down the blinds.

“Now, Mr. Dick,” said my aunt, with her grave look, and her forefinger up as before, “I am going to ask you another question. Look at this child.”

“David’s son?” said Mr. Dick, with an attentive, puzzled face.

“Exactly so,” returned my aunt. “What would you do with him, now?”

“Do with David’s son?” said Mr. Dick.

“Ay,” replied my aunt, “with David’s son.”

“Oh!” said Mr. Dick. “Yes. Do with⁠—I should put him to bed.”

“Janet!” cried my aunt, with the same complacent triumph that I had remarked before. “Mr. Dick sets us all right. If the bed is ready, we’ll take him up to it.”

Janet reporting it to be quite ready, I was taken up to it; kindly, but in some sort like a prisoner; my aunt going in front and Janet bringing up the rear. The only circumstance which gave me any new hope, was my aunt’s stopping on the stairs to inquire about a smell of fire that was prevalent there; and Janet’s replying that she had been making tinder down in the kitchen, of my old shirt. But there were no other clothes in my room than the odd heap of things I wore; and when I was left there, with a little taper which my aunt forewarned me would burn exactly five minutes, I heard them lock my door on the outside. Turning these things over in my mind I deemed it possible that my aunt, who could know nothing of me, might suspect I had a habit of running away, and took precautions, on that account, to have me in safe keeping.

The room was a pleasant one, at the top of the house, overlooking the sea, on which the moon was shining brilliantly. After I had said my prayers, and the candle had burnt out, I remember