DAVID COPPERFIELD
Chapter 8
MY HOLIDAYS
ESPECIALLY ONE HAPPY AFTERNOON
When we arrived before day at the inn where the mail stopped, which
was not the inn where my friend the waiter lived, I was shown up to
a nice little bedroom, with DOLPHIN painted on the door. Very cold
I was, I know, notwithstanding the hot tea they had given me before
a large fire downstairs; and very glad I was to turn into the
Dolphin's bed, pull the Dolphin's blankets round my head, and go to
sleep.
Mr. Barkis the carrier was to call for me in the morning at nine
o'clock. I got up at eight, a little giddy from the shortness of
my night's rest, and was ready for him before the appointed time.
He received me exactly as if not five minutes had elapsed since we
were last together, and I had only been into the hotel to get
change for sixpence, or something of that sort.
As soon as I and my box were in the cart, and the carrier seated,
the lazy horse walked away with us all at his accustomed pace.
'You look very well, Mr. Barkis,' I said, thinking he would like to
know it.
Mr. Barkis rubbed his cheek with his cuff, and then looked at his
cuff as if he expected to find some of the bloom upon it; but made
no other acknowledgement of the compliment.
'I gave your message, Mr. Barkis,' I said: 'I wrote to Peggotty.'
'Ah!' said Mr. Barkis.
Mr. Barkis seemed gruff, and answered drily.
'Wasn't it right, Mr. Barkis?' I asked, after a little hesitation.
'Why, no,' said Mr. Barkis.
'Not the message?'
'The message was right enough, perhaps,' said Mr. Barkis; 'but it
come to an end there.'
Not understanding what he meant, I repeated inquisitively: 'Came to
an end, Mr. Barkis?'
'Nothing come of it,' he explained, looking at me sideways. 'No
answer.'
'There was an answer expected, was there, Mr. Barkis?' said I,
opening my eyes. For this was a new light to me.
'When a man says he's willin',' said Mr. Barkis, turning his glance
slowly on me again, 'it's as much as to say, that man's a-waitin'
for a answer.'
'Well, Mr. Barkis?'
'Well,' said Mr. Barkis, carrying his eyes back to his horse's
ears; 'that man's been a-waitin' for a answer ever since.'
'Have you told her so, Mr. Barkis?'
'No - no,' growled Mr. Barkis, reflecting about it. 'I ain't got
no call to go and tell her so. I never said six words to her
myself, I ain't a-goin' to tell her so.'
'Would you like me to do it, Mr. Barkis?' said I, doubtfully.
'You might tell her, if you would,' said Mr. Barkis, with another
slow look at me, 'that Barkis was a-waitin' for a answer. Says you
- what name is it?'
'Her name?'
'Ah!' said Mr. Barkis, with a nod of his head.
'Peggotty.'
'Chrisen name? Or nat'ral name?' said Mr. Barkis.
'Oh, it's not her Christian name. Her Christian name is Clara.'
'Is it though?' said Mr. Barkis.
He seemed to find an immense fund of reflection in this
circumstance, and sat pondering and inwardly whistling for some
time.
'Well!' he resumed at length. 'Says you, "Peggotty! Barkis is
waitin' for a answer." Says she, perhaps, "Answer to what?" Says
you, "To what I told you." "What is that?" says she. "Barkis is
willin'," says you.'
This extremely artful suggestion Mr. Barkis accompanied with a
nudge of his elbow that gave me quite a stitch in my side. After
that, he slouched over his horse in his usual manner; and made no
other reference to the subject except, half an hour afterwards,
taking a piece of chalk from his pocket, and writing up, inside the
tilt of the cart, 'Clara Peggotty' - apparently as a private
memorandum.
Ah, what a strange feeling it was to be going home when it was not
home, and to find that every object I looked at, reminded me of the
happy old home, which was like a dream I could never dream again!
The days when my mother and I and Peggotty were all in all to one
another, and there was no one to come between us, rose up before me
so sorrowfully on the road, that I am not sure I was glad to be
there - not sure but that I would rather have remained away, and
forgotten it in Steerforth's company. But there I was; and soon I
was at our house, where the bare old elm-trees wrung their many
hands in the bleak wintry air, and shreds of the old rooks'-nests
drifted away upon the wind.
The carrier put my box down at the garden-gate, and left me. I
walked along the path towards the house, glancing at the windows,
and fearing at every step to see Mr. Murdstone or Miss Murdstone
lowering out of one of them. No face appeared, however; and being
come to the house, and knowing how to open the door, before dark,
without knocking, I went in with a quiet, timid step.
God knows how infantine the memory may have been, that was awakened
within me by the sound of my mother's voice in the old parlour,
when I set foot in the hall. She was singing in a low tone. I
think I must have lain in her arms, and heard her singing so to me
when I was but a baby. The strain was new to me, and yet it was so
old that it filled my heart brim-full; like a friend come back from
a long absence.
I believed, from the solitary and thoughtful way in which my mother
murmured her song, that she was alone. And I went softly into the
room. She was sitting by the fire, suckling an infant, whose tiny
hand she held against her neck. Her eyes were looking down upon
its face, and she sat singing to it. I was so far right, that she
had no other companion.
I spoke to her, and she started, and cried out. But seeing me, she
called me her dear Davy, her own boy! and coming half across the
room to meet me, kneeled down upon the ground and kissed me, and
laid my head down on her bosom near the little creature that was
nestling there, and put its hand to my lips.
I wish I had died. I wish I had died then, with that feeling in my
heart! I should have been more fit for Heaven than I ever have
been since.
'He is your brother,' said my mother, fondling me. 'Davy, my
pretty boy! My poor child!' Then she kissed me more and more, and
clasped me round the neck. This she was doing when Peggotty came
running in, and bounced down on the ground beside us, and went mad
about us both for a quarter of an hour.
It seemed that I had not been expected so soon, the carrier being
much before his usual time. It seemed, too, that Mr. and Miss
Murdstone had gone out upon a visit in the neighbourhood, and would
not return before night. I had never hoped for this. I had never
thought it possible that we three could be together undisturbed,
once more; and I felt, for the time, as if the old days were come
back.
We dined together by the fireside. Peggotty was in attendance to
wait upon us, but my mother wouldn't let her do it, and made her
dine with us. I had my own old plate, with a brown view of a
man-of-war in full sail upon it, which Peggotty had hoarded
somewhere all the time I had been away, and would not have had
broken, she said, for a hundred pounds. I had my own old mug with
David on it, and my own old little knife and fork that wouldn't
cut.
While we were at table, I thought it a favourable occasion to tell
Peggotty about Mr. Barkis, who, before I had finishe J ;V^q>q^3Rm` <