"Well, Mr. Barkis?"
"Well," said Mr. Barkis, carrying his eyes back to his horse"s ears; "that man"s been a-waitin" for a answer ever since."
"Have you told her so, Mr. Barkis?"
"No--no," growled Mr. Barkis, reflecting about it. "I ain"t got no call to go and tell her so. I never said six words to her myself, I ain"t a-goin" to tell her so."
"Would you like me to do it, Mr. Barkis?" said I, doubtfully. "You might tell her, if you would," said Mr. Barkis, with another slow look at me, "that Barkis was a-waitin" for a answer. Says you--what name is it?"
"Her name?"
"Ah!" said Mr. Barkis, with a nod of his head.
"Peggotty."
"Chrisen name? Or nat"ral name?" said Mr. Barkis.
"Oh, it"s not her Christian name. Her Christian name is Clara."
"Is it though?" said Mr. Barkis.
He seemed to find an immense fund of reflection in this circ.u.mstance, and sat pondering and inwardly whistling for some time.
"Well!" he resumed at length. "Says you, "Peggotty! Barkis is waitin"
for a answer." Says she, perhaps, "Answer to what?" Says you, "To what I told you." "What is that?" says she. "Barkis is willin"," says you."
This extremely artful suggestion Mr. Barkis accompanied with a nudge of his elbow that gave me quite a st.i.tch in my side. After that, he slouched over his horse in his usual manner; and made no other reference to the subject except, half an hour afterwards, taking a piece of chalk from his pocket, and writing up, inside the tilt of the cart, "Clara Peggotty"--apparently as a private memorandum.
Ah, what a strange feeling it was to be going home when it was not home, and to find that every object I looked at, reminded me of the happy old home, which was like a dream I could never dream again! The days when my mother and I and Peggotty were all in all to one another, and there was no one to come between us, rose up before me so sorrowfully on the road, that I am not sure I was glad to be there--not sure but that I would rather have remained away, and forgotten it in Steerforth"s company. But there I was; and soon I was at our house, where the bare old elm-trees wrung their many hands in the bleak wintry air, and shreds of the old rooks"-nests drifted away upon the wind.
The carrier put my box down at the garden-gate, and left me. I walked along the path towards the house, glancing at the windows, and fearing at every step to see Mr. Murdstone or Miss Murdstone lowering out of one of them. No face appeared, however; and being come to the house, and knowing how to open the door, before dark, without knocking, I went in with a quiet, timid step.
G.o.d knows how infantine the memory may have been, that was awakened within me by the sound of my mother"s voice in the old parlour, when I set foot in the hall. She was singing in a low tone. I think I must have lain in her arms, and heard her singing so to me when I was but a baby.
The strain was new to me, and yet it was so old that it filled my heart brim-full; like a friend come back from a long absence.
I believed, from the solitary and thoughtful way in which my mother murmured her song, that she was alone. And I went softly into the room.
She was sitting by the fire, suckling an infant, whose tiny hand she held against her neck. Her eyes were looking down upon its face, and she sat singing to it. I was so far right, that she had no other companion.
I spoke to her, and she started, and cried out. But seeing me, she called me her dear Davy, her own boy! and coming half across the room to meet me, kneeled down upon the ground and kissed me, and laid my head down on her bosom near the little creature that was nestling there, and put its hand to my lips.
I wish I had died. I wish I had died then, with that feeling in my heart! I should have been more fit for Heaven than I ever have been since.
"He is your brother," said my mother, fondling me. "Davy, my pretty boy!
My poor child!" Then she kissed me more and more, and clasped me round the neck. This she was doing when Peggotty came running in, and bounced down on the ground beside us, and went mad about us both for a quarter of an hour.
It seemed that I had not been expected so soon, the carrier being much before his usual time. It seemed, too, that Mr. and Miss Murdstone had gone out upon a visit in the neighbourhood, and would not return before night. I had never hoped for this. I had never thought it possible that we three could be together undisturbed, once more; and I felt, for the time, as if the old days were come back.
We dined together by the fireside. Peggotty was in attendance to wait upon us, but my mother wouldn"t let her do it, and made her dine with us. I had my own old plate, with a brown view of a man-of-war in full sail upon it, which Peggotty had h.o.a.rded somewhere all the time I had been away, and would not have had broken, she said, for a hundred pounds. I had my own old mug with David on it, and my own old little knife and fork that wouldn"t cut.
While we were at table, I thought it a favourable occasion to tell Peggotty about Mr. Barkis, who, before I had finished what I had to tell her, began to laugh, and throw her ap.r.o.n over her face.
"Peggotty," said my mother. "What"s the matter?"
Peggotty only laughed the more, and held her ap.r.o.n tight over her face when my mother tried to pull it away, and sat as if her head were in a bag.
"What are you doing, you stupid creature?" said my mother, laughing.
"Oh, drat the man!" cried Peggotty. "He wants to marry me."
"It would be a very good match for you; wouldn"t it?" said my mother.
"Oh! I don"t know," said Peggotty. "Don"t ask me. I wouldn"t have him if he was made of gold. Nor I wouldn"t have anybody."
"Then, why don"t you tell him so, you ridiculous thing?" said my mother.
"Tell him so," retorted Peggotty, looking out of her ap.r.o.n. "He has never said a word to me about it. He knows better. If he was to make so bold as say a word to me, I should slap his face."
Her own was as red as ever I saw it, or any other face, I think; but she only covered it again, for a few moments at a time, when she was taken with a violent fit of laughter; and after two or three of those attacks, went on with her dinner.
I remarked that my mother, though she smiled when Peggotty looked at her, became more serious and thoughtful. I had seen at first that she was changed. Her face was very pretty still, but it looked careworn, and too delicate; and her hand was so thin and white that it seemed to me to be almost transparent. But the change to which I now refer was superadded to this: it was in her manner, which became anxious and fluttered. At last she said, putting out her hand, and laying it affectionately on the hand of her old servant,
"Peggotty, dear, you are not going to be married?"
"Me, ma"am?" returned Peggotty, staring. "Lord bless you, no!"
"Not just yet?" said my mother, tenderly.
"Never!" cried Peggotty.
My mother took her hand, and said:
"Don"t leave me, Peggotty. Stay with me. It will not be for long, perhaps. What should I ever do without you!"
"Me leave you, my precious!" cried Peggotty. "Not for all the world and his wife. Why, what"s put that in your silly little head?"--For Peggotty had been used of old to talk to my mother sometimes like a child.
But my mother made no answer, except to thank her, and Peggotty went running on in her own fashion.
"Me leave you? I think I see myself. Peggotty go away from you? I should like to catch her at it! No, no, no," said Peggotty, shaking her head, and folding her arms; "not she, my dear. It isn"t that there ain"t some Cats that would be well enough pleased if she did, but they sha"n"t be pleased. They shall be aggravated. I"ll stay with you till I am a cross cranky old woman. And when I"m too deaf, and too lame, and too blind, and too mumbly for want of teeth, to be of any use at all, even to be found fault with, than I shall go to my Davy, and ask him to take me in."
"And, Peggotty," says I, "I shall be glad to see you, and I"ll make you as welcome as a queen."
"Bless your dear heart!" cried Peggotty. "I know you will!" And she kissed me beforehand, in grateful acknowledgement of my hospitality.
After that, she covered her head up with her ap.r.o.n again and had another laugh about Mr. Barkis. After that, she took the baby out of its little cradle, and nursed it. After that, she cleared the dinner table; after that, came in with another cap on, and her work-box, and the yard-measure, and the bit of wax-candle, all just the same as ever.
We sat round the fire, and talked delightfully. I told them what a hard master Mr. Creakle was, and they pitied me very much. I told them what a fine fellow Steerforth was, and what a patron of mine, and Peggotty said she would walk a score of miles to see him. I took the little baby in my arms when it was awake, and nursed it lovingly. When it was asleep again, I crept close to my mother"s side according to my old custom, broken now a long time, and sat with my arms embracing her waist, and my little red cheek on her shoulder, and once more felt her beautiful hair drooping over me--like an angel"s wing as I used to think, I recollect--and was very happy indeed.
While I sat thus, looking at the fire, and seeing pictures in the red-hot coals, I almost believed that I had never been away; that Mr.
and Miss Murdstone were such pictures, and would vanish when the fire got low; and that there was nothing real in all that I remembered, save my mother, Peggotty, and I.