Chapter: Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that
station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my
life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have
been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night.
It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry,
simultaneously.

In consideration of the day and hour of my birth, it was declared by
the nurse, and by some sage women in the neighbourhood who had taken a
lively interest in me several months before there was any possibility
of our becoming personally acquainted, first, that I was destined to be
unlucky in life; and secondly, that I was privileged to see ghosts and
spirits; both these gifts inevitably attaching, as they believed, to
all unlucky infants of either gender, born towards the small hours on a
Friday night.

I need say nothing here, on the first head, because nothing can show
better than my history whether that prediction was verified or falsified
by the result. On the second branch of the question, I will only remark,
that unless I ran through that part of my inheritance while I was still
a baby, I have not come into it yet. But I do not at all complain of
having been kept out of this property; and if anybody else should be in
the present enjoyment of it, he is heartily welcome to keep it.

I was born with a caul, which was advertised for sale, in the
newspapers, at the low price of fifteen guineas. Whether sea-going
people were short of money about that time, or were short of faith and
preferred cork jackets, I don't know; all I know is, that there was but
one solitary bidding, and that was from an attorney connected with the
bill-broking business, who offered two pounds in cash, and the balance
in sherry, but declined to be guaranteed from drowning on any higher
bargain. Consequently the advertisement was withdrawn at a dead
loss--for as to sherry, my poor dear mother's own sherry was in the
market then--and ten years afterwards, the caul was put up in a raffle
down in our part of the country, to fifty members at half-a-crown a
head, the winner to spend five shillings. I was present myself, and I
remember to have felt quite uncomfortable and confused, at a part of
myself being disposed of in that way. The caul was won, I recollect, by
an old lady with a hand-basket, who, very reluctantly, produced from it
the stipulated five shillings, all in halfpence, and twopence halfpenny
short--as it took an immense time and a great waste of arithmetic, to
endeavour without any effect to prove to her. It is a fact which will
be long remembered as remarkable down there, that she was never drowned,
but died triumphantly in bed, at ninety-two. I have understood that it
was, to the last, her proudest boast, that she never had been on the
water in her life, except upon a bridge; and that over her tea (to which
she was extremely partial) she, to the last, expressed her indignation
at the impiety of mariners and others, who had the presumption to go
'meandering' about the world. It was in vain to represent to her
that some conveniences, tea perhaps included, resulted from this
objectionable practice. She always returned, with greater emphasis and
with an instinctive knowledge of the strength of her objection, 'Let us
have no meandering.'

Not to meander myself, at present, I will go back to my birth.

I was born at Blunderstone, in Suffolk, or 'there by', as they say in
Scotland. I was a posthumous child. My father's eyes had closed upon
the light of this world six months, when mine opened on it. There is
something strange to me, even now, in the reflection that he never saw
me; and something stranger yet in the shadowy remembrance that I have
of my first childish associations with his white grave-stone in the
churchyard, and of the indefinable compassion I used to feel for it
lying out alone there in the dark night, when our little parlour
was warm and bright with fire and candle, and the doors of our house
were--almost cruelly, it seemed to me sometimes--bolted and locked
against it.

An aunt of my father's, and consequently a great-aunt of mine, of whom
I shall have more to relate by and by, was the principal magnate of our
family. Miss Trotwood, or Miss Betsey, as my poor mother always called
her, when she sufficiently overcame her dread of this formidable
personage to mention her at all (which was seldom), had been married
to a husband younger than herself, who was very handsome, except in the
sense of the homely adage, 'handsome is, that handsome does'--for he
was strongly suspected of having beaten Miss Betsey, and even of having
once, on a disputed question of supplies, made some hasty but determined
arrangements to throw her out of a two pair of stairs' window. These
evidences of an incompatibility of temper induced Miss Betsey to pay him
off, and effect a separation by mutual consent. He went to India with
his capital, and there, according to a wild legend in our family, he was
once seen riding on an elephant, in company with a Baboon; but I think
it must have been a Baboo--or a Begum. Anyhow, from India tidings of his
death reached home, within ten years. How they affected my aunt, nobody
knew; for immediately upon the separation, she took her maiden name
again, bought a cottage in a hamlet on the sea-coast a long way off,
established herself there as a single woman with one servant, and
was understood to live secluded, ever afterwards, in an inflexible
retirement.

My father had once been a favourite of hers, I believe; but she was
mortally affronted by his marriage, on the ground that my mother was 'a
wax doll'. She had never seen my mother, but she knew her to be not
yet twenty. My father and Miss Betsey never met again. He was double
my mother's age when he married, and of but a delicate constitution. He
died a year afterwards, and, as I have said, six months before I came
into the world.

This was the state of matters, on the afternoon of, what I may be
excused for calling, that eventful and important Friday. I can make no
claim therefore to have known, at that time, how matters stood; or to
have any remembrance, founded on the evidence of my own senses, of what
follows.

My mother was sitting by the fire, but poorly in health, and very low in
spirits, looking at it through her tears, and desponding heavily about
herself and the fatherless little stranger, who was already welcomed by
some grosses of prophetic pins, in a drawer upstairs, to a world not at
all excited on the subject of his arrival; my mother, I say, was sitting
by the fire, that bright, windy March afternoon, very timid and sad, and
very doubtful of ever coming alive out of the trial that was before her,
when, lifting her eyes as she dried them, to the window opposite, she
saw a strange lady coming up the garden.

My mother had a sure foreboding at the second glance, that it was
Miss Betsey. The setting sun was glowing on the strange lady, over the
garden-fence, and she came walking up to the door with a fell rigidity
of figure and composure of countenance that could have belonged to
nobody else.

When she reached the house, she gave another proof of her identity.
My father had often hinted that she seldom conducted herself like any
ordinary Christian; and now, instead of ringing the bell, she came and
looked in at that identical window, pressing the end of her nose against
the glass to that extent, that my poor dear mother used to say it became
perfectly flat and white in a moment.

She gave my mother such a turn, that I have always been convinced I am
indebted to Miss Betsey for having been born on a Friday.

My mother had left her chair in her agitation, and gone behind it in
the corner. Miss Betsey, looking round the room, slowly and inquiringly,
began on the other side, and carried her eyes on, like a Saracen's Head
in a Dutch clock, until they reached my mother. Then she made a frown
and a gesture to my mother, like one who was accustomed to be obeyed, to
come and open the door. My mother went.

'Mrs. David Copperfield, I think,' said Miss Betsey; the emphasis
referring, perhaps, to my mother's mourning weeds, and her condition.

'Yes,' said my mother, faintly.

'Miss Trotwood,' said the visitor. 'You have heard of her, I dare say?'

My mother answered she had had that pleasure. And she had a disagreeable
consciousness of not appearing to imply that it had been an overpowering
pleasure.

'Now you see her,' said Miss Betsey. My mother bent her head, and begged
her to walk in.

They went into the parlour my mother had come from, the fire in the best
room on the other side of the passage not being lighted--not having
been lighted, indeed, since my father's funeral; and when they were both
seated, and Miss Betsey said nothing, my mother, after vainly trying to
restrain herself, began to cry. 'Oh tut, tut, tut!' said Miss Betsey, in
a hurry. 'Don't do that! Come, come!'

My mother couldn't help it notwithstanding, so she cried until she had
had her cry out.

'Take off your cap, child,' said Miss Betsey, 'and let me see you.'

My mother was too much afraid of her to refuse compliance with this odd
request, if she had any disposition to do so. Therefore she did as she
was told, and did it with such nervous hands that her hair (which was
luxuriant and beautiful) fell all about her face.

'Why, bless my heart!' exclaimed Miss Betsey. 'You are a very Baby!'

My mother was, no doubt, unusually youthful in appearance even for her
years; she hung her head, as if it were her fault, poor thing, and said,
sobbing, that indeed she was afraid she was but a childish widow, and
would be but a childish mother if she lived. In a short pause which
ensued, she had a fancy that she felt Miss Betsey touch her hair, and
that with no ungentle hand; but, looking at her, in her timid hope, she
found that lady sitting with the skirt of her dress tucked up, her hands
folded on one knee, and her feet upon the fender, frowning at the fire.

'In the name of Heaven,' said Miss Betsey, suddenly, 'why Rookery?'

'Do you mean the house, ma'am?' asked my mother.

'Why Rookery?' said Miss Betsey. 'Cookery would have been more to the
purpose, if you had had any practical ideas of life, either of you.'

'The name was Mr. Copperfield's choice,' returned my mother. 'When he
bought the house, he liked to think that there were rooks about it.'

The evening wind made such a disturbance just now, among some tall old
elm-trees at the bottom of the garden, that neither my mother nor Miss
Betsey could forbear glancing that way. As the elms bent to one another,
like giants who were whispering secrets, and after a few seconds of such
repose, fell into a violent flurry, tossing their wild arms about, as if
their late confidences were really too wicked for their peace of mind,
some weatherbeaten ragged old rooks'-nests, burdening their higher
branches, swung like wrecks upon a stormy sea.

'Where are the birds?' asked Miss Betsey.

'The--?' My mother had been thinking of something else.

'The rooks--what has become of them?' asked Miss Betsey.

'There have not been any since we have lived here,' said my mother. 'We
thought--Mr. Copperfield thought--it was quite a large rookery; but
the nests were very old ones, and the birds have deserted them a long
while.'

'David Copperfield all over!' cried Miss Betsey. 'David Copperfield from
head to foot! Calls a house a rookery when there's not a rook near it,
and takes the birds on trust, because he sees the nests!'

'Mr. Copperfield,' returned my mother, 'is dead, and if you dare to
speak unkindly of him to me--'

My poor dear mother, I suppose, had some momentary intention of
committing an assault and battery upon my aunt, who could easily have
settled her with one hand, even if my mother had been in far better
training for such an encounter than she was that evening. But it passed
with the action of rising from her chair; and she sat down again very
meekly, and fainted.

When she came to herself, or when Miss Betsey had restored her,
whichever it was, she found the latter standing at the window. The
twilight was by this time shading down into darkness; and dimly as they
saw each other, they could not have done that without the aid of the
fire.

'Well?' said Miss Betsey, coming back to her chair, as if she had only
been taking a casual look at the prospect; 'and when do you expect--'

'I am all in a tremble,' faltered my mother. 'I don't know what's the
matter. I shall die, I am sure!'

'No, no, no,' said Miss Betsey. 'Have some tea.'

'Oh dear me, dear me, do you think it will do me any good?' cried my
mother in a helpless manner.

'Of course it will,' said Miss Betsey. 'It's nothing but fancy. What do
you call your girl?'

'I don't know that it will be a girl, yet, ma'am,' said my mother
innocently.

'Bless the Baby!' exclaimed Miss Betsey, unconsciously quoting the
second sentiment of the pincushion in the drawer upstairs, but
applying it to my mother instead of me, 'I don't mean that. I mean your
servant-girl.'

'Peggotty,' said my mother.

'Peggotty!' repeated Miss Betsey, with some indignation. 'Do you mean to
say, child, that any human being has gone into a Christian church,
and got herself named Peggotty?' 'It's her surname,' said my mother,
faintly. 'Mr. Copperfield called her by it, because her Christian name
was the same as mine.'

'Here! Peggotty!' cried Miss Betsey, opening the parlour door. 'Tea.
Your mistress is a little unwell. Don't dawdle.'

Having issued this mandate with as much potentiality as if she had been
a recognized authority in the house ever since it had been a house,
and having looked out to confront the amazed Peggotty coming along the
passage with a candle at the sound of a strange voice, Miss Betsey shut
the door again, and sat down as before: with her feet on the fender, the
skirt of her dress tucked up, and her hands folded on one knee.

'You were speaking about its being a girl,' said Miss Betsey. 'I have no
doubt it will be a girl. I have a presentiment that it must be a girl.
Now child, from the moment of the birth of this girl--'

'Perhaps boy,' my mother took the liberty of putting in.

'I tell you I have a presentiment that it must be a girl,' returned Miss
Betsey. 'Don't contradict. From the moment of this girl's birth, child,
I intend to be her friend. I intend to be her godmother, and I beg
you'll call her Betsey Trotwood Copperfield. There must be no mistakes
in life with THIS Betsey Trotwood. There must be no trifling with HER
affections, poor dear. She must be well brought up, and well guarded
from reposing any foolish confidences where they are not deserved. I
must make that MY care.'

There was a twitch of Miss Betsey's head, after each of these sentences,
as if her own old wrongs were working within her, and she repressed any
plainer reference to them by strong constraint. So my mother suspected,
at least, as she observed her by the low glimmer of the fire: too
much scared by Miss Betsey, too uneasy in herself, and too subdued and
bewildered altogether, to observe anything very clearly, or to know what
to say.

'And was David good to you, child?' asked Miss Betsey, when she had been
silent for a little while, and these motions of her head had gradually
ceased. 'Were you comfortable together?'

'We were very happy,' said my mother. 'Mr. Copperfield was only too good
to me.'

'What, he spoilt you, I suppose?' returned Miss Betsey.

'For being quite alone and dependent on myself in this rough world
again, yes, I fear he did indeed,' sobbed my mother.

'Well! Don't cry!' said Miss Betsey. 'You were not equally matched,
child--if any two people can be equally matched--and so I asked the
question. You were an orphan, weren't you?' 'Yes.'

'And a governess?'

'I was nursery-governess in a family where Mr. Copperfield came to
visit. Mr. Copperfield was very kind to me, and took a great deal of
notice of me, and paid me a good deal of attention, and at last proposed
to me. And I accepted him. And so we were married,' said my mother
simply.

'Ha! Poor Baby!' mused Miss Betsey, with her frown still bent upon the
fire. 'Do you know anything?'

'I beg your pardon, ma'am,' faltered my mother.

'About keeping house, for instance,' said Miss Betsey.

'Not much, I fear,' returned my mother. 'Not so much as I could wish.
But Mr. Copperfield was teaching me--'

('Much he knew about it himself!') said Miss Betsey in a parenthesis.
--'And I hope I should have improved, being very anxious to learn, and
he very patient to teach me, if the great misfortune of his death'--my
mother broke down again here, and could get no farther.

'Well, well!' said Miss Betsey. --'I kept my housekeeping-book
regularly, and balanced it with Mr. Copperfield every night,' cried my
mother in another burst of distress, and breaking down again.

'Well, well!' said Miss Betsey. 'Don't cry any more.' --'And I am
sure we never had a word of difference respecting it, except when Mr.
Copperfield objected to my threes and fives being too much like each
other, or to my putting curly tails to my sevens and nines,' resumed my
mother in another burst, and breaking down again.

'You'll make yourself ill,' said Miss Betsey, 'and you know that will
not be good either for you or for my god-daughter. Come! You mustn't do
it!'

This argument had some share in quieting my mother, though her
increasing indisposition had a larger one. There was an interval of
silence, only broken by Miss Betsey's occasionally ejaculating 'Ha!' as
she sat with her feet upon the fender.

'David had bought an annuity for himself with his money, I know,' said
she, by and by. 'What did he do for you?'

'Mr. Copperfield,' said my mother, answering with some difficulty, 'was
so considerate and good as to secure the reversion of a part of it to
me.'

'How much?' asked Miss Betsey.

'A hundred and five pounds a year,' said my mother.

'He might have done worse,' said my aunt.

The word was appropriate to the moment. My mother was so much worse
that Peggotty, coming in with the teaboard and candles, and seeing at a
glance how ill she was,--as Miss Betsey might have done sooner if there
had been light enough,--conveyed her upstairs to her own room with all
speed; and immediately dispatched Ham Peggotty, her nephew, who had been
for some days past secreted in the house, unknown to my mother, as a
special messenger in case of emergency, to fetch the nurse and doctor.

Those allied powers were considerably astonished, when they arrived
within a few minutes of each other, to find an unknown lady of
portentous appearance, sitting before the fire, with her bonnet tied
over her left arm, stopping her ears with jewellers' cotton. Peggotty
knowing nothing about her, and my mother saying nothing about her,
she was quite a mystery in the parlour; and the fact of her having a
magazine of jewellers' cotton in her pocket, and sticking the article
in her ears in that way, did not detract from the solemnity of her
presence.

The doctor having been upstairs and come down again, and having
satisfied himself, I suppose, that there was a probability of this
unknown lady and himself having to sit there, face to face, for some
hours, laid himself out to be polite and social. He was the meekest of
his sex, the mildest of little men. He sidled in and out of a room, to
take up the less space. He walked as softly as the Ghost in Hamlet,
and more slowly. He carried his head on one side, partly in modest
depreciation of himself, partly in modest propitiation of everybody
else. It is nothing to say that he hadn't a word to throw at a dog. He
couldn't have thrown a word at a mad dog. He might have offered him one
gently, or half a one, or a fragment of one; for he spoke as slowly as
he walked; but he wouldn't have been rude to him, and he couldn't have
been quick with him, for any earthly consideration.

Mr. Chillip, looking mildly at my aunt with his head on one side, and
making her a little bow, said, in allusion to the jewellers' cotton, as
he softly touched his left ear:

'Some local irritation, ma'am?'

'What!' replied my aunt, pulling the cotton out of one ear like a cork.

Mr. Chillip was so alarmed by her abruptness--as he told my mother
afterwards--that it was a mercy he didn't lose his presence of mind. But
he repeated sweetly:

'Some local irritation, ma'am?'

'Nonsense!' replied my aunt, and corked herself again, at one blow.

Mr. Chillip could do nothing after this, but sit and look at her feebly,
as she sat and looked at the fire, until he was called upstairs again.
After some quarter of an hour's absence, he returned.

'Well?' said my aunt, taking the cotton out of the ear nearest to him.

'Well, ma'am,' returned Mr. Chillip, 'we are--we are progressing slowly,
ma'am.'

'Ba--a--ah!' said my aunt, with a perfect shake on the contemptuous
interjection. And corked herself as before.

Really--really--as Mr. Chillip told my mother, he was almost shocked;
speaking in a professional point of view alone, he was almost shocked.
But he sat and looked at her, notwithstanding, for nearly two hours,
as she sat looking at the fire, until he was again called out. After
another absence, he again returned.

'Well?' said my aunt, taking out the cotton on that side again.

'Well, ma'am,' returned Mr. Chillip, 'we are--we are progressing slowly,
ma'am.'

'Ya--a--ah!' said my aunt. With such a snarl at him, that Mr. Chillip
absolutely could not bear it. It was really calculated to break his
spirit, he said afterwards. He preferred to go and sit upon the stairs,
in the dark and a strong draught, until he was again sent for.

Ham Peggotty, who went to the national school, and was a very dragon at
his catechism, and who may therefore be regarded as a credible witness,
reported next day, that happening to peep in at the parlour-door an hour
after this, he was instantly descried by Miss Betsey, then walking to
and fro in a state of agitation, and pounced upon before he could make
his escape. That there were now occasional sounds of feet and voices
overhead which he inferred the cotton did not exclude, from the
circumstance of his evidently being clutched by the lady as a victim on
whom to expend her superabundant agitation when the sounds were loudest.
That, marching him constantly up and down by the collar (as if he had
been taking too much laudanum), she, at those times, shook him, rumpled
his hair, made light of his linen, stopped his ears as if she confounded
them with her own, and otherwise tousled and maltreated him. This was
in part confirmed by his aunt, who saw him at half past twelve o'clock,
soon after his release, and affirmed that he was then as red as I was.

The mild Mr. Chillip could not possibly bear malice at such a time, if
at any time. He sidled into the parlour as soon as he was at liberty,
and said to my aunt in his meekest manner:

'Well, ma'am, I am happy to congratulate you.'

'What upon?' said my aunt, sharply.

Mr. Chillip was fluttered again, by the extreme severity of my aunt's
manner; so he made her a little bow and gave her a little smile, to
mollify her.

'Mercy on the man, what's he doing!' cried my aunt, impatiently. 'Can't
he speak?'

'Be calm, my dear ma'am,' said Mr. Chillip, in his softest accents.

'There is no longer any occasion for uneasiness, ma'am. Be calm.'

It has since been considered almost a miracle that my aunt didn't shake
him, and shake what he had to say, out of him. She only shook her own
head at him, but in a way that made him quail.

'Well, ma'am,' resumed Mr. Chillip, as soon as he had courage, 'I am
happy to congratulate you. All is now over, ma'am, and well over.'

During the five minutes or so that Mr. Chillip devoted to the delivery
of this oration, my aunt eyed him narrowly.

'How is she?' said my aunt, folding her arms with her bonnet still tied
on one of them.

'Well, ma'am, she will soon be quite comfortable, I hope,' returned Mr.
Chillip. 'Quite as comfortable as we can expect a young mother to be,
under these melancholy domestic circumstances. There cannot be any
objection to your seeing her presently, ma'am. It may do her good.'

'And SHE. How is SHE?' said my aunt, sharply.

Mr. Chillip laid his head a little more on one side, and looked at my
aunt like an amiable bird.

'The baby,' said my aunt. 'How is she?'

'Ma'am,' returned Mr. Chillip, 'I apprehended you had known. It's a
boy.'

My aunt said never a word, but took her bonnet by the strings, in the
manner of a sling, aimed a blow at Mr. Chillip's head with it, put it on
bent, walked out, and never came back. She vanished like a discontented
fairy; or like one of those supernatural beings, whom it was popularly
supposed I was entitled to see; and never came back any more.

No. I lay in my basket, and my mother lay in her bed; but Betsey
Trotwood Copperfield was for ever in the land of dreams and shadows, the
tremendous region whence I had so lately travelled; and the light upon
the window of our room shone out upon the earthly bourne of all such
travellers, and the mound above the ashes and the dust that once was he,
without whom I had never been.




The first objects that assume a distinct presence before me, as I look
far back, into the blank of my infancy, are my mother with her pretty
hair and youthful shape, and Peggotty with no shape at all, and eyes so
dark that they seemed to darken their whole neighbourhood in her face,
and cheeks and arms so hard and red that I wondered the birds didn't
peck her in preference to apples.

I believe I can remember these two at a little distance apart, dwarfed
to my sight by stooping down or kneeling on the floor, and I going
unsteadily from the one to the other. I have an impression on my mind
which I cannot distinguish from actual remembrance, of the touch of
Peggotty's forefinger as she used to hold it out to me, and of its being
roughened by needlework, like a pocket nutmeg-grater.

This may be fancy, though I think the memory of most of us can go
farther back into such times than many of us suppose; just as I believe
the power of observation in numbers of very young children to be quite
wonderful for its closeness and accuracy. Indeed, I think that most
grown men who are remarkable in this respect, may with greater propriety
be said not to have lost the faculty, than to have acquired it; the
rather, as I generally observe such men to retain a certain freshness,
and gentleness, and capacity of being pleased, which are also an
inheritance they have preserved from their childhood.

I might have a misgiving that I am 'meandering' in stopping to say this,
but that it brings me to remark that I build these conclusions, in part
upon my own experience of myself; and if it should appear from
anything I may set down in this narrative that I was a child of close
observation, or that as a man I have a strong memory of my childhood, I
undoubtedly lay claim to both of these characteristics.

Looking back, as I was saying, into the blank of my infancy, the first
objects I can remember as standing out by themselves from a confusion of
things, are my mother and Peggotty. What else do I remember? Let me see.


There comes out of the cloud, our house--not new to me, but quite
familiar, in its earliest remembrance. On the ground-floor is Peggotty's
kitchen, opening into a back yard; with a pigeon-house on a pole, in
the centre, without any pigeons in it; a great dog-kennel in a corner,
without any dog; and a quantity of fowls that look terribly tall to me,
walking about, in a menacing and ferocious manner. There is one cock who
gets upon a post to crow, and seems to take particular notice of me as
I look at him through the kitchen window, who makes me shiver, he is so
fierce. Of the geese outside the side-gate who come waddling after
me with their long necks stretched out when I go that way, I dream at
night: as a man environed by wild beasts might dream of lions.

Here is a long passage--what an enormous perspective I make of
it!--leading from Peggotty's kitchen to the front door. A dark
store-room opens out of it, and that is a place to be run past at
night; for I don't know what may be among those tubs and jars and old
tea-chests, when there is nobody in there with a dimly-burning light,
letting a mouldy air come out of the door, in which there is the smell
of soap, pickles, pepper, candles, and coffee, all at one whiff. Then
there are the two parlours: the parlour in which we sit of an evening,
my mother and I and Peggotty--for Peggotty is quite our companion, when
her work is done and we are alone--and the best parlour where we sit
on a Sunday; grandly, but not so comfortably. There is something of a
doleful air about that room to me, for Peggotty has told me--I don't
know when, but apparently ages ago--about my father's funeral, and the
company having their black cloaks put on. One Sunday night my mother
reads to Peggotty and me in there, how Lazarus was raised up from the
dead. And I am so frightened that they are afterwards obliged to take me
out of bed, and show me the quiet churchyard out of the bedroom window,
with the dead all lying in their graves at rest, below the solemn moon.

There is nothing half so green that I know anywhere, as the grass of
that churchyard; nothing half so shady as its trees; nothing half so
quiet as its tombstones. The sheep are feeding there, when I kneel up,
early in the morning, in my little bed in a closet within my mother's
room, to look out at it; and I see the red light shining on the
sun-dial, and think within myself, 'Is the sun-dial glad, I wonder, that
it can tell the time again?'

Here is our pew in the church. What a high-backed pew! With a window
near it, out of which our house can be seen, and IS seen many times
during the morning's service, by Peggotty, who likes to make herself
as sure as she can that it's not being robbed, or is not in flames. But
though Peggotty's eye wanders, she is much offended if mine does,
and frowns to me, as I stand upon the seat, that I am to look at the
clergyman. But I can't always look at him--I know him without that white
thing on, and I am afraid of his wondering why I stare so, and perhaps
stopping the service to inquire--and what am I to do? It's a dreadful
thing to gape, but I must do something. I look at my mother, but she
pretends not to see me. I look at a boy in the aisle, and he makes faces
at me. I look at the sunlight coming in at the open door through
the porch, and there I see a stray sheep--I don't mean a sinner, but
mutton--half making up his mind to come into the church. I feel that
if I looked at him any longer, I might be tempted to say something out
loud; and what would become of me then! I look up at the monumental
tablets on the wall, and try to think of Mr. Bodgers late of this
parish, and what the feelings of Mrs. Bodgers must have been, when
affliction sore, long time Mr. Bodgers bore, and physicians were in
vain. I wonder whether they called in Mr. Chillip, and he was in vain;
and if so, how he likes to be reminded of it once a week. I look from
Mr. Chillip, in his Sunday neckcloth, to the pulpit; and think what a
good place it would be to play in, and what a castle it would make, with
another boy coming up the stairs to attack it, and having the velvet
cushion with the tassels thrown down on his head. In time my eyes
gradually shut up; and, from seeming to hear the clergyman singing a
drowsy song in the heat, I hear nothing, until I fall off the seat with
a crash, and am taken out, more dead than alive, by Peggotty.

And now I see the outside of our house, with the latticed
bedroom-windows standing open to let in the sweet-smelling air, and the
ragged old rooks'-nests still dangling in the elm-trees at the bottom
of the front garden. Now I am in the garden at the back, beyond the
yard where the empty pigeon-house and dog-kennel are--a very preserve
of butterflies, as I remember it, with a high fence, and a gate and
padlock; where the fruit clusters on the trees, riper and richer than
fruit has ever been since, in any other garden, and where my
mother gathers some in a basket, while I stand by, bolting furtive
gooseberries, and trying to look unmoved. A great wind rises, and the
summer is gone in a moment. We are playing in the winter twilight,
dancing about the parlour. When my mother is out of breath and rests
herself in an elbow-chair, I watch her winding her bright curls round
her fingers, and straitening her waist, and nobody knows better than I
do that she likes to look so well, and is proud of being so pretty.

That is among my very earliest impressions. That, and a sense that we
were both a little afraid of Peggotty, and submitted ourselves in most
things to her direction, were among the first opinions--if they may be
so called--that I ever derived from what I saw.

Peggotty and I were sitting one night by the parlour fire, alone. I
had been reading to Peggotty about crocodiles. I must have read very
perspicuously, or the poor soul must have been deeply interested, for I
remember she had a cloudy impression, after I had done, that they were
a sort of vegetable. I was tired of reading, and dead sleepy; but
having leave, as a high treat, to sit up until my mother came home from
spending the evening at a neighbour's, I would rather have died upon
my post (of course) than have gone to bed. I had reached that stage of
sleepiness when Peggotty seemed to swell and grow immensely large.
I propped my eyelids open with my two forefingers, and looked
perseveringly at her as she sat at work; at the little bit of wax-candle
she kept for her thread--how old it looked, being so wrinkled in
all directions!--at the little house with a thatched roof, where the
yard-measure lived; at her work-box with a sliding lid, with a view of
St. Paul's Cathedral (with a pink dome) painted on the top; at the brass
thimble on her finger; at herself, whom I thought lovely. I felt so
sleepy, that I knew if I lost sight of anything for a moment, I was
gone.

'Peggotty,' says I, suddenly, 'were you ever married?'

'Lord, Master Davy,' replied Peggotty. 'What's put marriage in your
head?'

She answered with such a start, that it quite awoke me. And then she
stopped in her work, and looked at me, with her needle drawn out to its
thread's length.

'But WERE you ever married, Peggotty?' says I. 'You are a very handsome
woman, an't you?'

I thought her in a different style from my mother, certainly; but of
another school of beauty, I considered her a perfect example. There
was a red velvet footstool in the best parlour, on which my mother
had painted a nosegay. The ground-work of that stool, and Peggotty's
complexion appeared to me to be one and the same thing. The stool was
smooth, and Peggotty was rough, but that made no difference.

'Me handsome, Davy!' said Peggotty. 'Lawk, no, my dear! But what put
marriage in your head?'

'I don't know!--You mustn't marry more than one person at a time, may
you, Peggotty?'

'Certainly not,' says Peggotty, with the promptest decision.

'But if you marry a person, and the person dies, why then you may marry
another person, mayn't you, Peggotty?'

'YOU MAY,' says Peggotty, 'if you choose, my dear. That's a matter of
opinion.'

'But what is your opinion, Peggotty?' said I.

I asked her, and looked curiously at her, because she looked so
curiously at me.

'My opinion is,' said Peggotty, taking her eyes from me, after a little
indecision and going on with her work, 'that I never was married myself,
Master Davy, and that I don't expect to be. That's all I know about the
subject.'

'You an't cross, I suppose, Peggotty, are you?' said I, after sitting
quiet for a minute.

I really thought she was, she had been so short with me; but I was quite
mistaken: for she laid aside her work (which was a stocking of her own),
and opening her arms wide, took my curly head within them, and gave it
a good squeeze. I know it was a good squeeze, because, being very plump,
whenever she made any little exertion after she was dressed, some of the
buttons on the back of her gown flew off. And I recollect two bursting
to the opposite side of the parlour, while she was hugging me.

'Now let me hear some more about the Crorkindills,' said Peggotty, who
was not quite right in the name yet, 'for I an't heard half enough.'

I couldn't quite understand why Peggotty looked so queer, or why she
was so ready to go back to the crocodiles. However, we returned to those
monsters, with fresh wakefulness on my part, and we left their eggs in
the sand for the sun to hatch; and we ran away from them, and baffled
them by constantly turning, which they were unable to do quickly, on
account of their unwieldy make; and we went into the water after them,
as natives, and put sharp pieces of timber down their throats; and in
short we ran the whole crocodile gauntlet. I did, at least; but I had
my doubts of Peggotty, who was thoughtfully sticking her needle into
various parts of her face and arms, all the time.

We had exhausted the crocodiles, and begun with the alligators, when
the garden-bell rang. We went out to the door; and there was my mother,
looking unusually pretty, I thought, and with her a gentleman with
beautiful black hair and whiskers, who had walked home with us from
church last Sunday.

As my mother stooped down on the threshold to take me in her arms and
kiss me, the gentleman said I was a more highly privileged little fellow
than a monarch--or something like that; for my later understanding
comes, I am sensible, to my aid here.

'What does that mean?' I asked him, over her shoulder.

He patted me on the head; but somehow, I didn't like him or his deep
voice, and I was jealous that his hand should touch my mother's in
touching me--which it did. I put it away, as well as I could.

'Oh, Davy!' remonstrated my mother.

'Dear boy!' said the gentleman. 'I cannot wonder at his devotion!'

I never saw such a beautiful colour on my mother's face before. She
gently chid me for being rude; and, keeping me close to her shawl,
turned to thank the gentleman for taking so much trouble as to bring her
home. She put out her hand to him as she spoke, and, as he met it with
his own, she glanced, I thought, at me.

'Let us say "good night", my fine boy,' said the gentleman, when he had
bent his head--I saw him!--over my mother's little glove.

'Good night!' said I.

'Come! Let us be the best friends in the world!' said the gentleman,
laughing. 'Shake hands!'

My right hand was in my mother's left, so I gave him the other.

'Why, that's the Wrong hand, Davy!' laughed the gentleman.

My mother drew my right hand forward, but I was resolved, for my former
reason, not to give it him, and I did not. I gave him the other, and he
shook it heartily, and said I was a brave fellow, and went away.

At this minute I see him turn round in the garden, and give us a last
look with his ill-omened black eyes, before the door was shut.

Peggotty, who had not said a word or moved a finger, secured the
fastenings instantly, and we all went into the parlour. My mother,
contrary to her usual habit, instead of coming to the elbow-chair by the
fire, remained at the other end of the room, and sat singing to herself.
--'Hope you have had a pleasant evening, ma'am,' said Peggotty, standing
as stiff as a barrel in the centre of the room, with a candlestick in
her hand.

'Much obliged to you, Peggotty,' returned my mother, in a cheerful
voice, 'I have had a VERY pleasant evening.'

'A stranger or so makes an agreeable change,' suggested Peggotty.

'A very agreeable change, indeed,' returned my mother.

Peggotty continuing to stand motionless in the middle of the room, and
my mother resuming her singing, I fell asleep, though I was not so sound
asleep but that I could hear voices, without hearing what they said.
When I half awoke from this uncomfortable doze, I found Peggotty and my
mother both in tears, and both talking.

'Not such a one as this, Mr. Copperfield wouldn't have liked,' said
Peggotty. 'That I say, and that I swear!'

'Good Heavens!' cried my mother, 'you'll drive me mad! Was ever any
poor girl so ill-used by her servants as I am! Why do I do myself
the injustice of calling myself a girl? Have I never been married,
Peggotty?'

'God knows you have, ma'am,' returned Peggotty. 'Then, how can you
dare,' said my mother--'you know I don't mean how can you dare,
Peggotty, but how can you have the heart--to make me so uncomfortable
and say such bitter things to me, when you are well aware that I
haven't, out of this place, a single friend to turn to?'

'The more's the reason,' returned Peggotty, 'for saying that it won't
do. No! That it won't do. No! No price could make it do. No!'--I thought
Peggotty would have thrown the candlestick away, she was so emphatic
with it.

'How can you be so aggravating,' said my mother, shedding more tears
than before, 'as to talk in such an unjust manner! How can you go on as
if it was all settled and arranged, Peggotty, when I tell you over
and over again, you cruel thing, that beyond the commonest civilities
nothing has passed! You talk of admiration. What am I to do? If people
are so silly as to indulge the sentiment, is it my fault? What am I to
do, I ask you? Would you wish me to shave my head and black my face, or
disfigure myself with a burn, or a scald, or something of that sort? I
dare say you would, Peggotty. I dare say you'd quite enjoy it.'

Peggotty seemed to take this aspersion very much to heart, I thought.

'And my dear boy,' cried my mother, coming to the elbow-chair in which
I was, and caressing me, 'my own little Davy! Is it to be hinted to me
that I am wanting in affection for my precious treasure, the dearest
little fellow that ever was!'

'Nobody never went and hinted no such a thing,' said Peggotty.

'You did, Peggotty!' returned my mother. 'You know you did. What else
was it possible to infer from what you said, you unkind creature,
when you know as well as I do, that on his account only last quarter I
wouldn't buy myself a new parasol, though that old green one is frayed
the whole way up, and the fringe is perfectly mangy? You know it is,
Peggotty. You can't deny it.' Then, turning affectionately to me, with
her cheek against mine, 'Am I a naughty mama to you, Davy? Am I a nasty,
cruel, selfish, bad mama? Say I am, my child; say "yes", dear boy, and
Peggotty will love you; and Peggotty's love is a great deal better than
mine, Davy. I don't love you at all, do I?'

At this, we all fell a-crying together. I think I was the loudest of
the party, but I am sure we were all sincere about it. I was quite
heart-broken myself, and am afraid that in the first transports of
wounded tenderness I called Peggotty a 'Beast'. That honest creature was
in deep affliction, I remember, and must have become quite buttonless
on the occasion; for a little volley of those explosives went off,
when, after having made it up with my mother, she kneeled down by the
elbow-chair, and made it up with me.

We went to bed greatly dejected. My sobs kept waking me, for a long
time; and when one very strong sob quite hoisted me up in bed, I found
my mother sitting on the coverlet, and leaning over me. I fell asleep in
her arms, after that, and slept soundly.

Whether it was the following Sunday when I saw the gentleman again,
or whether there was any greater lapse of time before he reappeared,
I cannot recall. I don't profess to be clear about dates. But there he
was, in church, and he walked home with us afterwards. He came in, too,
to look at a famous geranium we had, in the parlour-window. It did not
appear to me that he took much notice of it, but before he went he asked
my mother to give him a bit of the blossom. She begged him to choose it
for himself, but he refused to do that--I could not understand why--so
she plucked it for him, and gave it into his hand. He said he would
never, never part with it any more; and I thought he must be quite a
fool not to know that it would fall to pieces in a day or two.

Peggotty began to be less with us, of an evening, than she had always
been. My mother deferred to her very much--more than usual, it occurred
to me--and we were all three excellent friends; still we were different
from what we used to be, and were not so comfortable among ourselves.
Sometimes I fancied that Peggotty perhaps objected to my mother's
wearing all the pretty dresses she had in her drawers, or to her
going so often to visit at that neighbour's; but I couldn't, to my
satisfaction, make out how it was.

Gradually, I became used to seeing the gentleman with the black
whiskers. I liked him no better than at first, and had the same uneasy
jealousy of him; but if I had any reason for it beyond a child's
instinctive dislike, and a general idea that Peggotty and I could make
much of my mother without any help, it certainly was not THE reason that
I might have found if I had been older. No such thing came into my mind,
or near it. I could observe, in little pieces, as it were; but as to
making a net of a number of these pieces, and catching anybody in it,
that was, as yet, beyond me.

One autumn morning I was with my mother in the front garden, when Mr.
Murdstone--I knew him by that name now--came by, on horseback. He reined
up his horse to salute my mother, and said he was going to Lowestoft to
see some friends who were there with a yacht, and merrily proposed to
take me on the saddle before him if I would like the ride.

The air was so clear and pleasant, and the horse seemed to like the
idea of the ride so much himself, as he stood snorting and pawing at the
garden-gate, that I had a great desire to go. So I was sent upstairs
to Peggotty to be made spruce; and in the meantime Mr. Murdstone
dismounted, and, with his horse's bridle drawn over his arm, walked
slowly up and down on the outer side of the sweetbriar fence, while my
mother walked slowly up and down on the inner to keep him company. I
recollect Peggotty and I peeping out at them from my little window; I
recollect how closely they seemed to be examining the sweetbriar between
them, as they strolled along; and how, from being in a perfectly angelic
temper, Peggotty turned cross in a moment, and brushed my hair the wrong
way, excessively hard.

Mr. Murdstone and I were soon off, and trotting along on the green turf
by the side of the road. He held me quite easily with one arm, and I
don't think I was restless usually; but I could not make up my mind to
sit in front of him without turning my head sometimes, and looking up in
his face. He had that kind of shallow black eye--I want a better word to
express an eye that has no depth in it to be looked into--which, when
it is abstracted, seems from some peculiarity of light to be disfigured,
for a moment at a time, by a cast. Several times when I glanced at him,
I observed that appearance with a sort of awe, and wondered what he
was thinking about so closely. His hair and whiskers were blacker and
thicker, looked at so near, than even I had given them credit for being.
A squareness about the lower part of his face, and the dotted indication
of the strong black beard he shaved close every day, reminded me of
the wax-work that had travelled into our neighbourhood some half-a-year
before. This, his regular eyebrows, and the rich white, and black, and
brown, of his complexion--confound his complexion, and his memory!--made
me think him, in spite of my misgivings, a very handsome man. I have no
doubt that my poor dear mother thought him so too.

We went to an hotel by the sea, where two gentlemen were smoking cigars
in a room by themselves. Each of them was lying on at least four chairs,
and had a large rough jacket on. In a corner was a heap of coats and
boat-cloaks, and a flag, all bundled up together.

They both rolled on to their feet in an untidy sort of manner, when we
came in, and said, 'Halloa, Murdstone! We thought you were dead!'

'Not yet,' said Mr. Murdstone.

'And who's this shaver?' said one of the gentlemen, taking hold of me.

'That's Davy,' returned Mr. Murdstone.

'Davy who?' said the gentleman. 'Jones?'

'Copperfield,' said Mr. Murdstone.

'What! Bewitching Mrs. Copperfield's encumbrance?' cried the gentleman.
'The pretty little widow?'

'Quinion,' said Mr. Murdstone, 'take care, if you please. Somebody's
sharp.'

'Who is?' asked the gentleman, laughing. I looked up, quickly; being
curious to know.

'Only Brooks of Sheffield,' said Mr. Murdstone.

I was quite relieved to find that it was only Brooks of Sheffield; for,
at first, I really thought it was I.

There seemed to be something very comical in the reputation of Mr.
Brooks of Sheffield, for both the gentlemen laughed heartily when he
was mentioned, and Mr. Murdstone was a good deal amused also. After some
laughing, the gentleman whom he had called Quinion, said:

'And what is the opinion of Brooks of Sheffield, in reference to the
projected business?'

'Why, I don't know that Brooks understands much about it at present,'
replied Mr. Murdstone; 'but he is not generally favourable, I believe.'

There was more laughter at this, and Mr. Quinion said he would ring the
bell for some sherry in which to drink to Brooks. This he did; and when
the wine came, he made me have a little, with a biscuit, and, before
I drank it, stand up and say, 'Confusion to Brooks of Sheffield!' The
toast was received with great applause, and such hearty laughter that
it made me laugh too; at which they laughed the more. In short, we quite
enjoyed ourselves.

We walked about on the cliff after that, and sat on the grass, and
looked at things through a telescope--I could make out nothing myself
when it was put to my eye, but I pretended I could--and then we came
back to the hotel to an early dinner. All the time we were out, the two
gentlemen smoked incessantly--which, I thought, if I might judge from
the smell of their rough coats, they must have been doing, ever since
the coats had first come home from the tailor's. I must not forget that
we went on board the yacht, where they all three descended into the
cabin, and were busy with some papers. I saw them quite hard at work,
when I looked down through the open skylight. They left me, during this
time, with a very nice man with a very large head of red hair and a very
small shiny hat upon it, who had got a cross-barred shirt or waistcoat
on, with 'Skylark' in capital letters across the chest. I thought it was
his name; and that as he lived on board ship and hadn't a street door
to put his name on, he put it there instead; but when I called him Mr.
Skylark, he said it meant the vessel.

I observed all day that Mr. Murdstone was graver and steadier than the
two gentlemen. They were very gay and careless. They joked freely with
one another, but seldom with him. It appeared to me that he was
more clever and cold than they were, and that they regarded him with
something of my own feeling. I remarked that, once or twice when Mr.
Quinion was talking, he looked at Mr. Murdstone sideways, as if to make
sure of his not being displeased; and that once when Mr. Passnidge (the
other gentleman) was in high spirits, he trod upon his foot, and gave
him a secret caution with his eyes, to observe Mr. Murdstone, who was
sitting stern and silent. Nor do I recollect that Mr. Murdstone laughed
at all that day, except at the Sheffield joke--and that, by the by, was
his own.

We went home early in the evening. It was a very fine evening, and my
mother and he had another stroll by the sweetbriar, while I was sent in
to get my tea. When he was gone, my mother asked me all about the day I
had had, and what they had said and done. I mentioned what they had said
about her, and she laughed, and told me they were impudent fellows who
talked nonsense--but I knew it pleased her. I knew it quite as well as
I know it now. I took the opportunity of asking if she was at all
acquainted with Mr. Brooks of Sheffield, but she answered No, only she
supposed he must be a manufacturer in the knife and fork way.

Can I say of her face--altered as I have reason to remember it, perished
as I know it is--that it is gone, when here it comes before me at this
instant, as distinct as any face that I may choose to look on in a
crowded street? Can I say of her innocent and girlish beauty, that it
faded, and was no more, when its breath falls on my cheek now, as it
fell that night? Can I say she ever changed, when my remembrance brings
her back to life, thus only; and, truer to its loving youth than I have
been, or man ever is, still holds fast what it cherished then?

I write of her just as she was when I had gone to bed after this talk,
and she came to bid me good night. She kneeled down playfully by the
side of the bed, and laying her chin upon her hands, and laughing, said:

'What was it they said, Davy? Tell me again. I can't believe it.'

'"Bewitching--"' I began.

My mother put her hands upon my lips to stop me.

'It was never bewitching,' she said, laughing. 'It never could have been
bewitching, Davy. Now I know it wasn't!'

'Yes, it was. "Bewitching Mrs. Copperfield",' I repeated stoutly. 'And,
"pretty."'

'No, no, it was never pretty. Not pretty,' interposed my mother, laying
her fingers on my lips again.

'Yes it was. "Pretty little widow."'

'What foolish, impudent creatures!' cried my mother, laughing and
covering her face. 'What ridiculous men! An't they? Davy dear--'

'Well, Ma.'

'Don't tell Peggotty; she might be angry with them. I am dreadfully
angry with them myself; but I would rather Peggotty didn't know.'

I promised, of course; and we kissed one another over and over again,
and I soon fell fast asleep.

It seems to me, at this distance of time, as if it were the next day
when Peggotty broached the striking and adventurous proposition I am
about to mention; but it was probably about two months afterwards.

We were sitting as before, one evening (when my mother was out as
before), in company with the stocking and the yard-measure, and the bit
of wax, and the box with St. Paul's on the lid, and the crocodile book,
when Peggotty, after looking at me several times, and opening her mouth
as if she were going to speak, without doing it--which I thought was
merely gaping, or I should have been rather alarmed--said coaxingly:

'Master Davy, how should you like to go along with me and spend a
fortnight at my brother's at Yarmouth? Wouldn't that be a treat?'

'Is your brother an agreeable man, Peggotty?' I inquired, provisionally.

'Oh, what an agreeable man he is!' cried Peggotty, holding up her hands.
'Then there's the sea; and the boats and ships; and the fishermen; and
the beach; and Am to play with--'

Peggotty meant her nephew Ham, mentioned in my first chapter; but she
spoke of him as a morsel of English Grammar.

I was flushed by her summary of delights, and replied that it would
indeed be a treat, but what would my mother say?

'Why then I'll as good as bet a guinea,' said Peggotty, intent upon my
face, 'that she'll let us go. I'll ask her, if you like, as soon as ever
she comes home. There now!'

'But what's she to do while we're away?' said I, putting my small elbows
on the table to argue the point. 'She can't live by herself.'

If Peggotty were looking for a hole, all of a sudden, in the heel of
that stocking, it must have been a very little one indeed, and not worth
darning.

'I say! Peggotty! She can't live by herself, you know.'

'Oh, bless you!' said Peggotty, looking at me again at last. 'Don't
you know? She's going to stay for a fortnight with Mrs. Grayper. Mrs.
Grayper's going to have a lot of company.'

Oh! If that was it, I was quite ready to go. I waited, in the utmost
impatience, until my mother came home from Mrs. Grayper's (for it was
that identical neighbour), to ascertain if we could get leave to carry
out this great idea. Without being nearly so much surprised as I had
expected, my mother entered into it readily; and it was all arranged
that night, and my board and lodging during the visit were to be paid
for.

The day soon came for our going. It was such an early day that it came
soon, even to me, who was in a fever of expectation, and half afraid
that an earthquake or a fiery mountain, or some other great convulsion
of nature, might interpose to stop the expedition. We were to go in a
carrier's cart, which departed in the morning after breakfast. I would
have given any money to have been allowed to wrap myself up over-night,
and sleep in my hat and boots.

It touches me nearly now, although I tell it lightly, to recollect how
eager I was to leave my happy home; to think how little I suspected what
I did leave for ever.

I am glad to recollect that when the carrier's cart was at the gate, and
my mother stood there kissing me, a grateful fondness for her and for
the old place I had never turned my back upon before, made me cry. I am
glad to know that my mother cried too, and that I felt her heart beat
against mine.

I am glad to recollect that when the carrier began to move, my mother
ran out at the gate, and called to him to stop, that she might kiss me
once more. I am glad to dwell upon the earnestness and love with which
she lifted up her face to mine, and did so.

As we left her standing in the road, Mr. Murdstone came up to where
she was, and seemed to expostulate with her for being so moved. I was
looking back round the awning of the cart, and wondered what business
it was of his. Peggotty, who was also looking back on the other side,
seemed anything but satisfied; as the face she brought back in the cart
denoted.

I sat looking at Peggotty for some time, in a reverie on this
supposititious case: whether, if she were employed to lose me like the
boy in the fairy tale, I should be able to track my way home again by
the buttons she would shed.

 David was born in the "Rookery," in Blunderstone, Suffolk, England, on a Friday just as the clock began to strike midnight. This was thought to be an unlucky omen by some women of the neighborhood and by the nurse who attended his birth. A few hours before David's birth, however, Mrs. Copperfield is unexpectedly visited by Miss Betsey Trotwood, an aunt of David's father whom Mrs. Copperfield has never met. Miss Trotwood, "the principal magnate of our family," is a domineering woman who immediately takes charge of the household and insists that the expected child will be a girl; she declares that the new baby girl will be named Betsey Trotwood Copperfield. "There must be no mistakes in life with this Betsey Trotwood," she says. "I must make that my care." Already agitated by the impending birth of this new baby, and by the death of David's father six months before, Mrs. Copperfield is further troubled by the abrupt appearance and manner of Miss Trotwood. She becomes ill with labor pains, and Ham, the nephew of the servant, Peggotty, is sent to get the doctor, Mr. Chillip. The mild-mannered Chillip is astonished, as is everyone else, by the brusqueness of Miss Trotwood. Later, when he tells her the baby is a boy, she silently but swiftly puts on her bonnet, walks out of the house, and vanishes "like a discontented fairy." In Chapter 2, David recalls his home and its vast and mysterious passageways, the churchyard where his father is buried, Sundays in church, and his early life with his youthful, pretty mother and the kindly, capable Peggotty. One night, after David learned to read, he is reading a story to Peggotty, and he asks, "if you marry a person, and the person dies, why then you may marry another person, mayn t you?" Almost immediately afterward, his mother enters the house with a bearded man whom David resents at once. After the stranger's departure, David hears an argument between his mother and Peggotty about the man. Peggotty insists that the man, Mr. Murdstone, is not an acceptable suitor. About two months later, Peggotty invites David to spend a fortnight with her at her brother's place at Yarmouth. David is eager to go, but he asks what his mother will say. "She can't live by herself, you know," he insists. Young as he is, he does not realize that he is being sent away deliberately. His mother has a tearful farewell with him. As David and Peggotty drive off in a cart, David looks back. He sees Mr. Murdstone come up to his mother and apparently scold her for being so emotional.

