said Peggotty. “Morning.”
Then Peggotty fitted her mouth close to the keyhole, and delivered these words through it with as much feeling and earnestness as a keyhole has ever been the medium of communicating, I will venture to assert: shooting in each broken little sentence in a convulsive little burst of its own.
“Davy, dear. If I ain’t ben azackly as intimate with you. Lately, as I used to be. It ain’t because I don’t love you. Just as well and more, my pretty poppet. It’s because I thought it better for you. And for some one else besides. Davy, my darling, are you listening? Can you hear?”
“Ye – ye – ye – yes, Peggotty!” I sobbed.
“My own!” said Peggotty, with infinite compassion. “What I want to say, is. That you must never forget me. For I’ll never forget you. And I’ll take as much care of your mama, Davy. As ever I took of you. And I won’t leave her. The day may come when she’ll be glad to lay her poor head. On her stupid, cross old Peggotty’s arm again. And I’ll write to you, my dear. Though I ain’t no scholar. And I’ll – I’ll – ” Peggotty fell to kissing the keyhole, as she couldn’t kiss me.
“Thank you, dear Peggotty!” said I. “Oh, thank you! Thank you! Will you promise me one thing, Peggotty? Will you write and tell Mr. Peggotty and little Em’ly and Mrs. Gummidge and Ham, that I am not so bad as they might suppose, and that I sent ’em all my love – especially to little Em’ly? Will you, if you please, Peggotty?”
The kind soul promised, and we both of us kissed the keyhole with the greatest affection – I patted it with my hand, I recollect, as if it had been her honest face – and parted. From that night there grew up in my breast, a feeling for Peggotty, which I cannot very well define. She did not replace my mother; no one could do that; but she came into a vacancy in my heart, which closed upon her, and I felt towards her something I have never felt for any other human being. It was a sort of comical affection too; and yet if she had died, I cannot think what I should have done, or how I should have acted out the tragedy it would have been to me.
In the morning Miss Murdstone appeared as usual, and told me I was going to school; which was not altogether such news to me as she supposed. She also informed me that when I was dressed, I was to come down-stairs into the parlor, and have my breakfast. There, I found my mother, very pale and with red eyes: into whose arms I ran, and begged her pardon from my suffering soul.
“Oh, Davy!” she said. “That you could hurt any one I love! Try to be better, pray to be better! I forgive you; but I am so grieved, Davy, that you should have such bad passions in your heart.”
They had persuaded her that I was a wicked fellow, and she was more sorry for that, than for my going away. I felt it sorely. I tried to eat my parting breakfast, but my tears dropped upon my bread-and-butter, and trickled into my tea. I saw my mother look at me sometimes, and then glance at the watchful Miss Murdstone, and then look down, or look away.
“Master Copperfield’s box there!” said Miss Murdstone, when wheels were heard at the gate.
I looked for Peggotty, but it was not she; neither she nor Mr. Murdstone appeared. My former acquaintance, the carrier, was at the door; the box was taken out to his cart, and lifted in.
“Clara!” said Miss Murdstone, in her warning note.
“Ready, my dear Jane,” returned my mother. “Good bye, Davy. You are going for your own good. Good bye, my child. You will come home in the holidays, and be a better boy.”
“Clara!” Miss Murdstone repeated.
“Certainly, my dear Jane,” replied my mother, who was holding me. “I forgive you, my dear boy. God bless you!”
“Clara!” Miss Murdstone repeated.
Miss Murdstone was good enough to take me out to the cart, and to say on the way that she hoped I would repent, before I came to a bad end; and then I got into the cart, and the lazy horse walked off with it.
CHAPTER V.
I AM SENT AWAY FROM HOME
We might have gone about half a mile, and my pocket-handkerchief was quite wet through, when the carrier stopped short.
Looking out to ascertain what for, I saw, to my amazement, Peggotty burst from a hedge and climb into the cart. She took me in both her arms, and squeezed me to her stays until the pressure on my nose was extremely painful, though I never thought of that till afterwards when I found it very tender. Not a single word did Peggotty speak. Releasing one of her arms, she put it down in her pocket to the elbow, and brought out some paper bags of cakes which she crammed into my pockets, and a purse which she put into my hand, but not one word did she say. After another and a final squeeze with both arms, she got down from the cart and ran away; and, my belief is, and has always been, without a solitary button on her gown. I picked up one, of several that were rolling about, and treasured it as a keepsake for a long time.
The carrier looked at me, as if to enquire if she were coming back. I shook my head, and said I thought not. “Then come up,” said the carrier to the lazy horse; who came up accordingly.
Having by this time cried as much as I possibly could, I began to think it was of no use crying any more, especially as neither Roderick Random, nor that Captain in the Royal British Navy, had ever cried, that I could remember, in trying situations. The carrier, seeing me in this resolution, proposed that my pocket-handkerchief should be spread upon the horse’s back to dry. I thanked him, and assented; and particularly small it looked, under those circumstances.
I had now leisure to examine the purse. It was a stiff leather purse, with a snap, and had three bright shillings in it, which Peggotty had evidently polished up with whitening, for my greater delight. But its most precious contents were two half-crowns folded together in a bit of paper, on which was written, in my mother’s hand, “For Davy. With my love.” I was so overcome by this, that I asked the carrier to be so good as reach me my pocket-handkerchief again; but he said he thought I had better do without it; and I thought I really had; so I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and stopped myself.
For good, too; though, in consequence of my previous emotions, I was still occasionally seized with a stormy sob. After we had jogged on for some little time, I asked the carrier if he was going all the way.
“All the way where?” enquired the carrier.
“There,” I said.
“Where’s there?” enquired the carrier.
“Near London?” I said.
“Why that horse,” said the carrier, jerking the rein to point him out, “would be deader than pork afore he got over half the ground.”
“Are you only going to Yarmouth then?” I asked.
“That’s about it,” said the carrier. “And there I shall take you to the stage-cutch, and the stage-cutch that’ll take you to – wherever it is.”
As this was a great deal for the carrier (whose name was Mr. Barkis) to say – he being, as I observed in a former chapter, of a phlegmatic temperament, and not at all conversational – I offered him a cake as a mark of attention, which he ate at one gulp, exactly like an elephant, and which made no more impression on his big face than it would have done on an elephant’s.
“Did she make ’em, now?” said Mr. Barkis, always leaning forward, in his
