The Personal History of David Copperfield

Poor Traddles, who had passed the stage of lying with his head upon the desk, and was relieving himself as usual with a burst of skeletons, said he didn’t care. Mr. Mell was ill-used.

“Who has ill-used him, you girl?” said Steerforth.

“Why, you have,” returned Traddles.

“What have I done?” said Steerforth.

“What have you done?” retorted Traddles. “Hurt his feelings, and lost him his situation.”

“His feelings!” repeated Steerforth disdainfully. “His feelings will soon get the better of it, I’ll be bound. His feelings are not like yours, Miss Traddles. As to his situation – which was a precious one, wasn’t it? – do you suppose I am not going to write home, and take care that he gets some money? Polly?”

We thought this intention very noble in Steerforth, whose mother was a widow, and rich, and would do almost anything, it was said, that he asked her. We were all extremely glad to see Traddles so put down, and exalted Steerforth to the skies: especially when he told us, as he condescended to do, that what he had done had been done expressly for us, and for our cause; and that he had conferred a great boon upon us by unselfishly doing it.

But I must say that when I was going on with a story in the dark that night, Mr. Mell’s old flute seemed more than once to sound mournfully in my ears; and that when at last Steerforth was tired, and I lay down in my bed, I fancied it playing so sorrowfully somewhere, that I was quite wretched.

I soon forgot him in the contemplation of Steerforth, who, in an easy amateur way, and without any book (he seemed to me to know everything by heart), took some of his classes until a new master was found. The new master came from a grammar-school; and before he entered on his duties, dined in the parlor one day to be introduced to Steerforth. Steerforth approved of him highly, and told us he was a Brick. Without exactly understanding what learned distinction was meant by this, I respected him greatly for it, and had no doubt whatever of his superior knowledge: though he never took the pains with me – not that I was anybody – that Mr. Mell had taken.

There was only one other event in this half-year, out of the daily school-life, that made an impression on me which still survives. It survives for many reasons.

One afternoon, when we were all harassed into a state of dire confusion, and Mr. Creakle was laying about him dreadfully, Tungay came in, and called out in his usual strong way: “Visitors for Copperfield!”

A few words were interchanged between him and Mr. Creakle, as, who the visitors were, and what room they were to be shown into; and then I, who had, according to custom, stood up on the announcement being made, and felt quite faint with astonishment, was told to go by the back stairs and get a clean frill on, before I repaired to the dining-room. These orders I obeyed, in such a flutter and hurry of my young spirits as I had never known before; and when I got to the parlor-door, and the thought came into my head that it might be my mother – I had only thought of Mr. or Miss Murdstone until then – I drew back my hand from the lock, and stopped to have a sob before I went in.

At first I saw nobody; but feeling a pressure against the door, I looked round it, and there, to my amazement, were Mr. Peggotty and Ham, ducking at me with their hats, and squeezing one another against the wall. I could not help laughing; but it was much more in the pleasure of seeing them, than at the appearance they made. We shook hands in a very cordial way; and I laughed and laughed, until I pulled out my pocket-handkerchief and wiped my eyes.

Mr. Peggotty (who never shut his mouth once, I remember, during the visit) showed great concern when he saw me do this, and nudged Ham to say something.

“Cheer up, Mas’r Davy bor’!” said Ham, in his simpering way. “Why, how you have growed!”

“Am I grown?” I said, drying my eyes. I was not crying at anything particular that I know of; but somehow it made me cry to see old friends.

“Growed, Mas’r Davy bor’? Ain’t he growed!” said Ham.

“Ain’t he growed!” said Mr. Peggotty.

They made me laugh again by laughing at each other, and then we all three laughed until I was in danger of crying again.

“Do you know how mama is, Mr. Peggotty?” I said. “And how my dear, dear, old Peggotty is?”

“Oncommon,” said Mr. Peggotty.

“And little Em’ly, and Mrs. Gummidge?”

“On – common,” said Mr. Peggotty.

There was a silence. Mr. Peggotty, to relieve it, took two prodigious lobsters, and an enormous crab, and a large canvas bag of shrimps, out of his pockets, and piled them up in Ham’s arms.

“You see,” said Mr. Peggotty, “knowing as you was partial to a little relish with your wittles when you was along with us, we took the liberty. The old Mawther biled ’em, she did. Mrs. Gummidge biled ’em. Yes,” said Mr. Peggotty slowly, who I thought appeared to stick to the subject on account of having no other subject ready, “Mrs. Gummidge, I do assure you, she biled ’em.”

I expressed my thanks; and Mr. Peggotty, after looking at Ham, who stood smiling sheepishly over the shell-fish, without making any attempt to help him, said:

“We come, you see, the wind and tide making in our favor, in one of our Yarmouth lugs to Gravesen’. My sister she wrote to me the name of this here place, and wrote to me as if ever I chanced to come to Gravesen’, I was to come over and enquire for Mas’r Davy and give her dooty, humbly wishing him well and reporting of the fam’ly as they was oncommon toe-be-sure. Little Em’ly, you see, she’ll write to my sister when I go back, as I see you and as you was similarly oncommon, and so we make it quite a merry-go-rounder.”

I was obliged to consider a little before I understood what Mr. Peggotty meant by this figure, expressive of a complete circle of intelligence. I then thanked him heartily; and said, with a consciousness of reddening, that I supposed Little Em’ly was altered too, since we used to pick up shells and pebbles on the beach?

“She’s getting to be a woman, that’s wot she’s getting to be,” said Mr. Peggotty. “Ask him.”

He meant Ham, who beamed with delight and assent over the bag of shrimps.

“Her pretty face!” said Mr. Peggotty, with his own shining like a light.

“Her learning!” said Ham.

“Her writing!” said Mr. Peggotty. “Why, it’s as black as jet! And so large it is, you might see it anywheres.”

It was perfectly delightful to behold with what enthusiasm Mr. Peggotty became inspired when he thought of his little favorite. He stands before me again, his bluff hairy face irradiating with a joyful love and pride, for which I can find no description. His honest eyes fire up, and sparkle, as if their depths were stirred by something bright. His broad chest heaves with pleasure. His strong loose hands clench themselves, in his earnestness; and he emphasises what he says with a right arm that shows, in my pigmy view, like a sledge hammer.

Ham was quite as earnest as he. I dare say they would have said much more about her, if they had not been abashed by the unexpected coming in of Steerforth, who, seeing me in a corner speaking with two strangers, stopped in a song he was singing, and said: “I didn’t know you were here, young Copperfield!” (for it was not the usual visiting room), and crossed by us on his way out.

I am not sure whether it was in the pride of having such a friend as Steerforth, or in the desire to explain to him how I came to have such a friend as Mr. Peggotty, that I called to him as he was going away. But I said, modestly – Good Heaven, how it all comes back to me this long time afterwards! —

“Don’t go, Steerforth, if you please. These are two Yarmouth boatmen – very kind, good people – who are relations of my nurse, and have come from Gravesend to see me.”

“Aye, aye?” said Steerforth, returning. “I am glad to see them. How are you both?”

There was an ease in his manner – a gay and light manner it was, but not swaggering – which I still believe to have borne a kind of enchantment with it. I still believe him, in virtue of this carriage, his animal spirits, his delightful voice, his handsome face and figure, and, for aught I know, of some inborn power of attraction besides (which I think a few people possess), to have carried a spell with him to which it was a natural weakness to yield, and which not many persons could withstand. I could not but see how pleased they were with him, and how they seemed to open their hearts to him in a moment.

“You must let them know at home, if you please, Mr. Peggotty,” I said, “when that letter is sent, that Mr. Steerforth is very kind to me, and that I don’t know what I should ever do here without him.”

“Nonsense!” said Steerforth, laughing. “You mustn’t tell them anything of the sort.”

“And if Mr. Steerforth ever comes into Norfolk or Suffolk, Mr. Peggotty,” I said, “while I am there, you may depend upon it I shall bring him to Yarmouth, if he will let me, to see your house. You never saw such a good house, Steerforth. It’s made out of a boat!”

“Made out of a boat, is it?” said Steerforth. “It’s the right sort of house for such a thorough-built boatman.”

“So ’tis, sir, so ’tis, sir,” said Ham, grinning. “You’re right, young gen’lm’n. Mas’r Davy bor’, gen’lm’n ’s right. A thorough-built boatman! Hor, hor! That’s what he is, too!”

Mr. Peggotty was no less pleased than his nephew, though his modesty forbade him to claim a personal compliment so vociferously.

“Well, sir,” he said, bowing and chuckling, and tucking in the ends of his neckerchief at his breast, “I thankee, sir, I thankee! I do my endeavours in my line of life, sir.”

“The best of men can do no more, Mr. Peggotty,” said Steerforth. He had got his name already.

“I’ll pound it, it’s wot you do yourself, sir,” said Mr. Peggotty, shaking his head, “and wot you do well – right well! I thankee, sir. I’m obleeged to you, sir, for your welcoming manner of me. I’m rough, sir, but I’m ready – least ways, I hope I’m ready, you understand. My house ain’t much for to see, sir, but it’s hearty at your service if ever you should come along with Mas’r Davy to see it. I’m a reg’lar Dodman, I am,” said Mr. Peggotty; by which he meant snail, and this was in allusion to his being slow to go, for he had attempted to go after every sentence, and had somehow or other come back again; “but I wish you both well, and I wish you happy!”

Ham echoed this sentiment, and we parted with them in the heartiest manner. I was almost tempted that evening to tell Steerforth about pretty little Em’ly, but I was too timid of mentioning her name, and too much afraid of his laughing at me. I remember that I thought a good deal, and in an uneasy sort of way, about Mr. Peggotty having said that she was getting on to be a woman; but I decided that was nonsense.

We transported the shell-fish, or the “relish” as Mr. Peggotty had modestly called it, up into our room unobserved, and made a great supper that evening. But Traddles couldn’t get happily out of it. He was too unfortunate even to come through a supper like anybody else. He was taken ill in the night – quite prostrate he was – in consequence of Crab; and after being drugged with black draughts and blue pills, to an extent which Demple (whose father was a doctor) said was enough to undermine a horse’s constitution, received a caning and six chapters of Greek Testament for refusing to confess.