31. CHARLES DICKENS: DAVID COPPERFIELD: CHAPTER 31: GREATER LOSS

It was not difficult for me, on Peggotty's solicitation, to resolve to stay where I was, until after the remains of the poor carrier should have made their last journey to Blunderstone.  She had long ago bought, out of her own savings, a little piece of ground in our old churchyard near the grave of 'her sweet girl' as she always called my mother; and there they were to rest.

In keeping Peggotty company, and doing all I could do for her (little enough at the utmost), I was grateful, I rejoice to think, as even now I could wish  myself to have been.  But I am afraid I had a supreme satisfaction, of a personal and professional nature in taking charge of Barkis's will, and expounding its contents.

I may claim the merit of having originated the suggestion that the will should be looked for in the box.  After some search, it was found in the box, at the bottom of horse's nose-bag; wherein besides hay, there was discovered an old gold watch, with a chain and seals, which Mr Barkis had worn on his wedding day, and which had never been seen before or since, a silver tobacco stopper, in the form of a leg, an imitation lemon, full of minute cups and saucers, which I have some idea Mr Barkis must have purchased to present to me, when I was a child, and afterwards found himself unable to part with; eighty seven guineas and a half, in guineas and half-guineas, two hundred and ten pounds, in perfectly clean bank-notes, certain receipts for Bank of England stock; and an old horse shoe, a bad shilling, a piece of camphor, and an oyster-shell.  From the circumstance of the latter article having been much polished, and displaying prismatic colours on the inside, I concluded that Mr Barkis had some general ideas about pearls, which never resolved themselves into anything definite. 

For years  and years, Mr Barkis had carried this box, on all his journeys, every day.  That it might the better escape notice, he had invented a fiction that it belonged to 'Black Boy', and was 'to be left with Barkis till called for', a fable he elaborately written on the lid, in characters now scarcely legible.

He had hoarded, all these years, I found, to good purpose.  His property in money amounted to nearly three thousand pounds.  Of these he bequeathed the interest of one thousand to Mr Peggotty for his life; on his decease, the principal to be divided among Peggotty, little Emily and me or the survivor or survivors of us, share and share alike.  All the rest he died possessed of, he bequeathed to Peggotty whom he left residuary legatee and sole executive of his last will and testament. 

I felt myself quite a proctor when I read this document aloud with all possible ceremony, and set forth its provisions, any number of times, to those whom they concerned.  I began to think there was more in the Commons than I had supposed.  I examined the will with deepest attention, pronounced it perfectly formal in all respects, made a pencil mark or so in the margin, and thought it rather extraordinary that I knew so much. 

In this abstruse pursuit; in making an account for Peggotty, of all the property into which she had come, in arranging all the affairs in an orderly manner; and in being her referee and adviser on every point, to our joint delight; I passed the week before the funeral. I did not see little Emily in the interval, but they told me she was to be quickly married in a fortnight.

I did not attend the funeral in character, if I may venture to say so.  I mean I was not dressed up in black coat and a streamer, to frighten the birds; but I walked over to Blunderstone early in the morning, and was in the churchyard when it came, attended only by Peggotty and her brother.  The mad gentleman looked on, out of my little window, Mr Chillip's baby wagged its heavy head, and rolled its goggle eyes, at the clergyman, over its nurse's shoulder; Mr Omer breathed short in the background; no one else was  there and it was very quiet.  We walked about the churchyard for an hour, after all was over, and pulled some young leaves from the tree above my mother's grave.

A dread falls on me here.  A cloud is lowering on the distant town, towards which I retraced my solitary steps.  I fear to approach it.  I cannot bear to think of what did come, upon that memorable night; of what must come again, if I go on.

It is no worse, because I write of it.  It would be no better, if I stopped my most unwilling hand.  It is done. Nothing could undo it, nothing can make it otherwise than it was.  My old nurse was to go to London with me, on the business of the will.  Little Emily was passing on that day at Omer's.  We were all to meet in the old boathouse that night.  Ham would bring Emily at the usual hour.  I would walk back at my leisure.  The brother and sister would return as they had come, and be expecting us, when the day closed in, at the fireside.

I parted from them at the wicket-gate, where the visionary Strap had rested with Roderick Random's knapsack in the days of yore; and instead of going straight back, walked a little distance in the road to Lowestoft.  Then I turned and walked back towards Yarmouth.  I stayed at a decent ale house, some mile or two from the Ferry I have mentioned before, and thus the day wore away, and it was evening when I reached it.  Rain was falling heavily by that time, and it was a wild night; but there was a moon behind the clouds, and it was not dark.  I was soon within the sight of Mr Peggotty's house, and the light within it shining through the window.  A little flounder across the sand, which was heavy brought me to the door, and I went in.

It looked very comfortable indeed.  Mr Peggotty had smoked his evening pipe and there were preparations for some supper by and by.  The fire was bright, the ashes were thrown up, the locker was ready for little Emily in her old place.  In her own old place sat Peggotty, once more, looking (but for the dress) as if she had never left it.  She had fallen back, already, on the society of work - box with St Paul's, upon the lid, the yard measure in the cottage, and the bit of wax candle; and there they all were, just as if they never had been disturbed.  Mrs Gummidge appeared to be fretting a little in her old corner; and consequently looked quite natural too. 'You're the first of the lot Master Davy!' said Mr Peggotty with a happy face.  'Don't keep in that coat if you are wet.'

'Thank you, Mr Peggotty,' said I, giving him my outer coat to hang up.  'It is quite dry.'

'So it is!' said Mr Peggotty, feeling my shoulders.  'As a chip! Sit ye down, sir.  It ain't o no use saying welcome to you, but you are welcome, kind and hearty.' 

'Thank you Mr Peggotty, I am sure of that.  Well, Peggotty!' said I giving her a kiss.  'And how are you, old woman?'

'Ha, ha!' laughed Mr Peggotty, sitting down beside us, and and rubbing his hands in the sense of relief from recent trouble, and in the genuine heartiness of his nature, 'there is not a woman in the world, sir- as I tell her- that need to feel more easy in her mind than her!  She done her duty by the departed and the departed knew it, and the departed done what was right by her, as she done what was right by the departed;- and -and it is alright.'

Mrs Gummidge groaned.

'Cheer up my pretty mother,' said Mr Peggotty.  (But he shook his head aside at us, evidently sensible of the tendancy of the late occurrences to recall the memory of the old one) 'Dont be down, cheer up, for your own self, only a little bit, and see if a good deal more don't come natural.'

'Not to me,' returned Mrs Gummidge.  'Nothing natural to me but lone and torm.'

'No, no,' said Peggotty, soothing her sorrows.

'Yes, yes, Dan'l! said Mrs Gummidge, I ain't a person to live with them as has had money left.  Things go too contrary with me.  I had better be a riddence.' 

'Why, how should I ever spend it without you?' said Mr Peggotty, with an air of serious remonstrance.  'What are you talking on? Don't I want you more now, than ever I did?'

'I knew I was never wanted before!' cried Mrs Gummidge, with a pitiable whimper, 'and now I am told so!  How could I expect to be wanted, being so lone and torn, and so contrary!' 

Mr Peggotty seemed very much shocked at himself, for having made a speech capable of his unfeeling construction, but was prevented from replying, by Peggotty's pulling his sleeves and shaking her head.  After looking at Mrs Gummidge for some moments in sore distress of mind, he glanced at the Dutch clock, rose, snuffed the candle, and put it in the window.

'There!' said Mr Peggotty, cheerfully.  'There we are Missis Gummidge!'  Mrs Gummidge slightly groaned.  'Lighted up according to custom!  You are a wondering what that's for, sir!  Well it's for our little Emily.  You see, the path isn't over-lit  or cheerful after dark, and when I am here at the hour as she is coming home, I put the light in the window.  That you see,' said Mr Peggotty, bending over me with great glee, 'meets two objects.  She says, says Emily, "There is home."  She says.  And likewise, says Emily, "My uncle's there!"  For if I ain't there, I never have no light showed.'

'You are a baby!' said Peggotty, very fond of him for it if she thought so.

'Well,' returned Mr Peggotty, standing with his legs pretty wide apart, and rubbing his hands up and down with them in his comfortable satisfaction, as he looked alternatively at us and at the fire.  'I don't know but I am.  Not, you see, to look at.'

'Not exactly,' observed Peggotty.

'No,' laughed Mr Peggotty, 'not to look at but to- to consider on you know. I don't care, bless you! Now I tell you.  Where I go looking and looking about that pretty house of Emily I am Gormed,' said Mr Peggotty.  'I can't say more- if I don't feel as if the littlest things was her a'most.  I take them up and put them down and touches them as delicate as if they was our Emily.  So it's with her little bonnets and that.  I couldn't see one of them rough used a purpose- not for the whole world.  There's a baby for you in the form of great sea-porcupine!' said Mr Peggotty relieving his earnestness with a roar of laughter.

Peggotty and I both laughed, but not so loud.

'It's my opinion, you see,' said Mr Peggotty with a delighted face, after some further rubbing of his legs, 'as this is along of my having played with her so much, and made believe as we was Turks, and French, and sharks, and every variety of foreigners- bless you, yes; the lions and whales, and I don't know what all! - when she wasn't no higher than my knee.  I have got into the way on it, you know.  Why, this here candle, now!' said Mr Peggotty, gleefully holding out his hand towards it.  I know very well that, after she is married and gone, I shall put this candle there, just the same as now.  I know very well that when I am here on nights (and where else should I live, bless your hearts whatever fortune I come into!)and she ain't here or she ain't there I shall put the candle in the window, and sit before the fire, pretending I am expecting her, like I am doing now.  There's a baby for you,' said Mr Peggotty, with another roar, in the form of a sea porcupine!  'Why, at the present minute, when I see the candle sparkle up, I say to myself, "She is looking at it!  Emily is coming!"  There is a baby for you in the form of sea porcupine!  Right for all that,' said Mr Peggotty, stopping in his roar, and smiting his hands together 'for here she is!'

It was only Ham.  The night should have turned more wet since I came in, for he had a large Sou'wester hat on, slouched over his face. 

'Where is Emily?' said Mr Peggotty.

Ham made a motion with his head, as if she were outside.  Mr Peggotty took the light from the window, trimmed it, put it on the table, and was busily stirring the fire, when Ham, who had not moved said:

'Master Davy, will you come out a minute, and see what Emily and me has got to show you ?'

We went out.  As I passed him at the door, I saw to my astonishment and fright, that he was deadly pale.  He pushed me hastily into the open air, and closed the door upon us.  Only upon us two. 

'Ham!  What's the matter?

'Master Davy!-'  Oh, for his broken heart, how dreadfully he wept!

I was paralysed by the sight of such a grief.  I don't know what I thought, or what I dreaded.  I could only look at him. 

'Ham! Poor good fellow!  For heaven's sake, tell me what is the matter!'

'My love, Master Davy - the pride and hope of my art - her that I'd have died for, and would die for now- she's gone!'

'Gone!'

'Emily's run away! Oh, Master Davy, think how she's run away, when I pray my good and gracious God to kill her (her that is so dear above all things) sooner than let her come to ruin and disgrace!'

The face he turned up to the troubled sky, the quivering of his clasped hands, the agony of his figure, remain associated with the lonely waste, in my remembrance, to this hour.  It is always night there, and he is the only object in the scene.

'You are a scholar,' he said, hurriedly, and know what is right and best.  What am I to say, indoors?  How am I ever to break it to him, Master Davy?

I saw the door move, and instinctively tried to hold the latch on the outside, to gain a moment's time.  It was too late.  Mr Peggotty thrust forth his face; and never could I forget the change that came upon it when he saw us, if I were to live five hundred years.

I remember a great wail and cry, and the the woman hanging about him, and we all standing in the room; I with a paper in my hand, which Ham had given me, Mr Peggotty, with his vest tore open, his hair wild, his face and lips quite white, and blood trickling down his bosom( it had sprung from his mouth, I think), looking fixedly at me.

'Read it, sir,' he said, in a low shivering voice.  'Slow, please.  I don't know as I can understand.'

In the midst of the silence of death, I read thus from a blotted letter:

"When you, who love me so much better than I have ever deserved, even when my mind was innocent, see this, I shall be far away."

'I shall be far away,' he repeated slowly.  'Stop! Em'ly far away.  Well!'

"When I leave my dear home- my dear home- oh, my dear home! - in the morning,"

the letter bore date of previous night:

"- it will be never to come back, unless he brings me back lady.  This will be found at night many hours after, instead of me.  Oh, if you know how my heart is torn.  If even you, that I have wronged so much, that never can forgive me, could only know what I suffer!  I am too wicked to write about myself!  Oh, take comfort in thinking that I am so bad.  Oh, for mercy's sake, tell uncle that I never loved him half so dear now.  Oh, don't remember how affectionate and kind you have all been to me.  Don't remember we were ever to be married - but try to think as if I died when I was little, and was buried somewhere.  Pray Heaven that I am away from, have compassion on my uncle!  Tell him that I never loved him half so dear.  Be his comfort.  Love some good girl that will be what I was once to uncle, and be true to you, and worthy of you, and know no shame but me.  God bless all!  I will pray for all, often, on my knees.  If he doesn't bring me back a lady, and doesn't pray for my own self, I will pray for all.  My parting love to uncle.  My last tears, and my last thanks, for uncle!'

That was all.

He stood, long after I had ceased to read, still looking at me.  At length I ventured to take his hand, and entreat him, as well as I could, to endeavour to get some command of himself.  He replied, 'thank you, sir, I thank you,' without moving 

Ham spoke to him.  Peggotty was so far sensible of his affliction, that he wrung his hand, but, otherwise, he remained in the same state, and no one dared to disturb him.

Slowly, at last, he moved his eyes from my face, as if he were asking from a vision, and cast them round the room.  Then he said, in a low voice 

'Who is the man?  I want to know his name.' 

Ham glanced at me, and I suddenly felt a shock that struck me back.

'There's a man suspected,' said Mr Peggotty.  Who is it?'

'Master Davy!' implored Ham.  'Go out a bit, and let me tell him what I must.  You Oughtn't hear it sir.' 

I felt the shock again.  I sank down in a chair, and tried to utter some reply, but my toung was fettered, and my sight was weak.

'I want to know his name!' I heard said once more.

'For some time past,' Ham faltered, there's been a servant about here, at odd times.  There's been a gentleman too.  Both of them belonged one another.' 

Mr Peggotty stood fixed as before, but now looking at him. 

'The servant,' pursued Ham, was seen along with - our poor girl -last night.  He's been in hiding about here, this week or over.  He was thought to have gone, but he was hiding.  Doesn't stay, Master Davy, doesn't!' 

I felt Peggotty's arm round my neck, but I could not have moved if the house had been about to fall upon me.

'A strange chaise and horses was outside the town, this morning, on the Norwich road, almost before the day broke,' Ham went on, 'a servant went to it, and come from it, and went to it again.  When he went to it again, Em'ly was nigh him.  The other was inside.  He's the man.'

'For the Lord's love,' said Mr Peggotty, falling back and putting out his hand, as if to keep off what he dreaded.  'Don't tell me his name is Steerforth!'

'Master Davy,' exclaimed Ham, in a broken voice 'It ain't no fault of yours- and I am far from laying it of to you- but his name is Steerforth, and he is a damned villian!'

Mr Peggotty uttered no cry and shed no tear, and moved no more, until he seemed to wake again, all at once, and pulled down his rough coat from its peg in the corner.

'Bear a hand with this!  I am struck of a heap, and can't do it,' he said impatiently.  'Bear a hand and help me.  Well!' when somebody had done so.  'Now give me that theer hat!'

Ham asked him where he was going.

'I am going to seek my niece.  I am going to seek my Em'ly.  I am going first, to stave in that theer boat, and sink it where I would have drowned him, as I am a living soul, if I had had one thought of what was in him!  As he sat afore me, face to face, strike me down, but I would have drowned him and thought it right! - I am going to seek my niece.' 

'Where?' said Ham interposing himself before the door.

'Anywhere!  I am going to seek my niece throughout the world.  I am going to find my poor niece in her shame, and bring her back.  No one stop me!  I tell you I am going to seek my niece!' 

'No, no!' cried Mrs Gummidge, coming between them, in a fit of crying.  'No, no Dan'l, not as you are now.  Seek her in a little while, my lone lorn Dan'l, and that'll be but right!  But not as you are now.  Sit ye down, and give me your forgiveness for having ever been a worrit to you, Dan'l - what have my contraries ever been to this!- and let us speak a word about them times when she was first an orphan, and when Ham was too, and when I was a poor widder woman, and you took me in.  It'll soften your poor heart, Dan'l,' laying her head upon his shoulder, 'and you'll bear your sorrow better; for you know the promise Dan'l, "As you have done it unto one of the least of these, you have done it unto me", - and that can never fail under this roof, that's been our shelter for so many, many year!'

He was quite passive now; and when I heard him crying, the impulse that had been upon me to down upon my knees, and ask their pardon for the desolation I had caused, and curse Steerforth, yielded to a better feeling.  My overcharged heart found the same relief, and I cried too.

THE END OF CHAPTER 31