Peggotty sat with her chin on the foot of the stocking, looking silently at the fire.

“There, Peggotty,” said my mother, changing her tone, “don’t let us fall out with one another, for I couldn’t bear it. You are my true friend, I know, if I have any in the world. When I call you a ridiculous creature, or a vexatious thing, or anything of that sort, Peggotty, I only mean that you are my true friend, and always have been, ever since the night when Mr. Copperfield first brought me home here, and you came out to the gate to meet me.”

Peggotty was not slow to respond, and ratified the treaty of friendship by giving me one of her best hugs. I think I had some glimpses of the real character of this conversation at the time; but I am sure, now, that the good creature originated it, and took her part in it, merely that my mother might comfort herself with the little contradictory summary in which she had indulged. The design was efficacious; for I remember that my mother seemed more at ease during the rest of the evening, and that Peggotty observed her less.

When we had had our tea, and the ashes were thrown up, and the candles snuffed, I read Peggotty a chapter out of the Crocodile Book, in remembrance of old times – she took it out of her pocket: I don’t know whether she had kept it there ever since – and then we talked about Salem House, which brought me round again to Steerforth, who was my great subject. We were very happy; and that evening, as the last of its race, and destined evermore to close that volume of my life, will never pass out of my memory.

It was almost ten o’clock before we heard the sound of wheels. We all got up then; and my mother said hurriedly that, as it was so late, and Mr. and Miss Murdstone approved of early hours for young people, perhaps I had better go to bed. I kissed her, and went up-stairs with my candle directly, before they came in. It appeared to my childish fancy, as I ascended to the bedroom where I had been imprisoned, that they brought a cold blast of air into the house which blew away the old familiar feeling like a feather.

I felt uncomfortable about going down to breakfast in the morning, as I had never set eyes on Mr. Murdstone since the day when I committed my memorable offence. However, as it must be done, I went down, after two or three false starts half-way, and as many runs back on tiptoe to my own room, and presented myself in the parlor.

He was standing before the fire with his back to it, while Miss Murdstone made the tea. He looked at me steadily as I entered, but made no sign of recognition whatever.

I went up to him, after a moment of confusion, and said: “I beg your pardon, sir. I am very sorry for what I did, and I hope you will forgive me.”

“I am glad to hear you are sorry, David,” he replied.

The hand he gave me was the hand I had bitten. I could not restrain my eye from resting for an instant on a red spot upon it; but it was not so red as I turned, when I met that sinister expression in his face.

“How do you do, ma’am,” I said to Miss Murdstone.

“Ah, dear me!” sighed Miss Murdstone, giving me the tea-caddy scoop instead of her fingers. “How long are the holidays?”

“A month, ma’am.”

“Counting from when?”

“From to-day, ma’am.”

“Oh!” said Miss Murdstone. “Then here’s one day off.”

She kept a calendar of the holidays in this way, and every morning checked a day off in exactly the same manner. She did it gloomily until she came to ten, but when she got into two figures she became more hopeful, and, as the time advanced, even jocular.

It was on this very first day that I had the misfortune to throw her, though she was not subject to such weaknesses in general, into a state of violent consternation. I came into the room where she and my mother were sitting; and the baby (who was only a few weeks old) being on my mother’s lap, I took it very carefully in my arms. Suddenly Miss Murdstone gave such a scream that I all but dropped it.

“My dear Jane!” cried my mother.

“Good heavens, Clara, do you see?” exclaimed Miss Murdstone.

“See what, my dear Jane?” said my mother; “where?”

“He’s got it!” cried Miss Murdstone. “The boy has got the baby!”

She was limp with horror; but stiffened herself to make a dart at me, and take it out of my arms. Then, she turned faint; and was so very ill, that they were obliged to give her cherry-brandy. I was solemnly interdicted by her, on her recovery, from touching my brother any more on any pretence whatever; and my poor mother, who, I could see, wished otherwise, meekly confirmed the interdict, by saying: “No doubt you are right, my dear Jane.”

On another occasion, when we three were together, this same dear baby – it was truly dear to me, for our mother’s sake – was the innocent occasion of Miss Murdstone’s going into a passion. My mother, who had been looking at its eyes as it lay upon her lap, said:

“Davy! come here!” and looked at mine.

I saw Miss Murdstone lay her beads down.

“I declare,” said my mother, gently, “they are exactly alike. I suppose they are mine. I think they are the color of mine. But they are wonderfully alike.”

“What are you talking about, Clara?” said Miss Murdstone.

“My dear Jane,” faltered my mother, a little abashed by the harsh tone of this inquiry, “I find that the baby’s eyes and Davy’s are exactly alike.”

“Clara!” said Miss Murdstone, rising angrily, “you are a positive fool sometimes.”

“My dear Jane,” remonstrated my mother.

“A positive fool,” said Miss Murdstone. “Who else could compare my brother’s baby with your boy? They are not at all alike. They are exactly unlike. They are utterly dissimilar in all respects. I hope they will ever remain so. I will not sit here, and hear such comparisons made.” With that she stalked out, and made the door bang after her.

In short, I was not a favorite with Miss Murdstone. In short, I was not a favorite there with anybody, not even with myself; for those who did like me could not show it, and those who did not, showed it so plainly that I had a sensitive consciousness of always appearing constrained, boorish, and dull.

I felt that I made them as uncomfortable as they made me. If I came into the room where they were, and they were talking together and my mother seemed cheerful, an anxious cloud would steal over her face from the moment of my entrance. If Mr. Murdstone were in his best humor, I checked him. If Miss Murdstone were in her worst, I intensified it. I had perception enough to know that my mother was the victim always; that she was afraid to speak to me or be kind to me, lest she should give them some offence by her manner of doing so, and receive a lecture afterwards; that she was not only ceaselessly afraid of her own offending, but of my offending, and uneasily watched their looks if I only moved. Therefore I resolved to keep myself as much out of their way as I could; and many a wintry hour did I hear the church-clock strike, when I was sitting in my cheerless bedroom, wrapped in my little great-coat, poring over a book.

In the evening, sometimes, I went and sat with Peggotty in the kitchen. There I was comfortable, and not afraid of being myself. But neither of these resources was approved of in the parlor. The tormenting humor which was dominant there stopped them both. I was still held to be necessary to my poor mother’s training, and, as one of her trials, could not be suffered to absent myself.

“David,” said Mr. Murdstone, one day after dinner when I was going to leave the room as usual; “I am sorry to observe that you are of a sullen disposition.”

“As sulky as a bear!” said Miss Murdstone.

I stood still, and hung my head.

“Now, David,” said Mr. Murdstone, “a sullen obdurate disposition is, of all tempers, the worst.”

“And the boy’s is, of all such dispositions that ever I have seen,” remarked his sister, “the most confirmed and stubborn. I think, my dear Clara, even you must observe it?”

“I beg your pardon, my dear Jane,” said my mother, “but are you quite sure – I am certain you’ll excuse me, my dear Jane – that you understand Davy?”

“I should be somewhat ashamed of myself, Clara,” returned Miss Murdstone, “if I could not understand the boy, or any boy. I don’t profess to be profound; but I do lay claim to common sense.”

“No doubt, my dear Jane,” returned my mother, “your understanding is very vigorous – ”

“Oh dear, no! Pray don’t say that, Clara,” interposed Miss Murdstone, angrily.

“But I am sure it is,” resumed my mother; “and everybody knows it is. I profit so much by it myself, in many ways – at least I ought to – that no one can be more convinced of it than myself; and therefore I speak with great diffidence, my dear Jane, I assure you.”

“We’ll say I don’t understand the boy, Clara,” returned Miss Murdstone, arranging the little fetters on her wrists. “We’ll agree, if you please, that I don’t understand him at all. He is much too deep for me. But perhaps my brother’s penetration may enable him to have some insight into his character. And I believe my brother was speaking on the subject when we – not very decently – interrupted him.”

“I think, Clara,” said Mr. Murdstone, in a low, grave voice, “that there may be better and more dispassionate judges of such a question than you.”

“Edward,” replied my mother, timidly, “you are a far better judge of all questions than I pretend to be. Both you and Jane are. I only said – ”

“You only said something weak and inconsiderate,” he replied. “Try not to do it again, my dear Clara, and keep a watch upon yourself.”

My mother’s lips moved, as if she answered “Yes, my dear Edward,” but she said nothing aloud.

“I was sorry, David, I remarked,” said Mr. Murdstone, turning his head and his eyes stiffly towards me, “to observe that you are of a sullen disposition. This is not a character that I can suffer to develop itself beneath my eyes without an effort at improvement. You must endeavour, sir, to change it. We must endeavour to change it for you.”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” I faltered. “I have never meant to be sullen since I came back.”

“Don’t take refuge in a lie, sir!” he returned so fiercely, that I saw my mother involuntarily put out her trembling hand as if to interpose between us. “You have withdrawn yourself in your sullenness to your own room. You have kept your own room when you ought to have been here. You know now, once for all, that I require you to be here, and not there. Further, that I require you to bring obedience here. You know me, David. I will have it done.”

Miss Murdstone gave a hoarse chuckle.

“I will have a respectful, prompt, and ready bearing towards myself,” he continued, “and towards Jane Murdstone, and towards your mother. I will not have this room shunned as if it were infected, at the pleasure of a child. Sit down.”

He ordered me like a dog, and I obeyed like a dog.

“One thing more,” he said. “I observe that you have an attachment to low and common company. You are not to associate with servants. The kitchen will not improve you, in the many respects in which you need improvement. Of the woman who abets you, I say nothing – since you, Clara,” addressing my mother in a lower voice, “from old associations and long-established fancies, have a weakness respecting her which is not yet overcome.”

“A most unaccountable delusion it is!” cried Miss Murdstone.

“I only say,” he resumed, addressing me, “that I disapprove of your preferring such company as Mistress Peggotty, and that it is to be abandoned. Now, David, you understand me, and you know what will be the consequence if you fail to obey me to the letter.”

I knew well – better perhaps than he thought, as far as my poor mother was concerned – and I obeyed him to the letter. I retreated to my own room no more; I took refuge with Peggotty no more; but sat wearily in the parlor day after day, looking forward to night, and bedtime.

What irksome constraint I underwent, sitting in the same attitude hours upon hours, afraid to move an arm or a leg lest Miss Murdstone should complain (as she did on the least pretence) of my restlessness, and afraid to move an eye lest it should light on some look of dislike or scrutiny that would find new cause for complaint in mine! What intolerable dulness to sit listening to the ticking of the clock; and watching Miss Murdstone’s little shiny steel beads as she strung them; and wondering whether she would ever be married, and if so, to what sort of unhappy man; and counting the divisions in the moulding on the chimney-piece; and wandering away, with my eyes, to the ceiling, among the curls and corkscrews in the paper on the wall!

What walks I took alone, down muddy lanes, in the bad winter weather, carrying that parlor, and Mr. and Miss Murdstone in it, everywhere: a monstrous load that I was obliged to bear, a daymare that there was no possibility of breaking in, a weight that brooded on my wits, and blunted them!

What meals I had in silence and embarrassment, always feeling that there were a knife and fork too many, and that mine; an appetite too many, and that mine; a plate and chair too many, and those mine; a somebody too many, and that I!

What evenings, when the candles came, and I was expected to employ myself, but, not daring to read an entertaining book, pored over some hard-headed, harder-hearted treatise on arithmetic; when the tables of weights and measures set themselves to tunes, as Rule Britannia, or Away with Melancholy; and wouldn’t stand still to be learnt, but would go threading my grandmother’s needle through my unfortunate head, in at one ear and out at the other!

What yawns and dozes I lapsed into, in spite of all my care; what starts I came out of concealed sleeps with; what answers I never got, to little observations that I rarely made; what a blank space I seemed, which everybody overlooked, and yet was in everybody’s way; what a heavy relief it was to hear Miss Murdstone hail the first stroke of nine at night, and order me to bed!

Thus the holidays lagged away, until the morning came when Miss Murdstone said: “Here’s the last day off!” and gave me the closing cup of tea of the vacation.

I was not sorry to go. I had lapsed into a stupid state; but I was recovering a little and looking forward to Steerforth, albeit Mr. Creakle loomed behind him. Again Mr. Barkis appeared at the gate, and again Miss Murdstone in her warning voice said: “Clara!” when my mother bent over me, to bid me farewell.

I kissed her, and my baby brother, and was very sorry then; but not sorry to go away, for the gulf between us was there, and the parting was there, every day. And it is not so much the embrace she gave me, that lives in my mind, though it was as fervent as could be, as what followed the embrace.

I was in the carrier’s cart when I heard her calling to me. I looked out, and she stood at the garden-gate alone, holding her baby up in her arms for me to see. It was cold still weather; and not a hair of her head, or a fold of her dress, was stirred, as she looked intently at me, holding up her child.

So I lost her. So I saw her afterwards, in my sleep at school – a silent presence near my bed – looking at me with the same intent face – holding up her baby in her arms.