Copperfield Text / Essays & Tools / Dickens Resources / Forum / Creative Writing | Donate
|
|
Copperfield Text / Essays & Tools / Dickens Resources / Forum / Creative Writing | Donate |
The Personal History And Experience Of David Copperfield The Younger
CHAPTER 22 : SOME OLD SCENES, AND SOME NEW PEOPLE
Page 22
The girl - the same I had seen upon the sands - was near the fire. She was sitting on the ground, with her head and one arm lying on a chair. I fancied, from the disposition of her figure, that Em'ly had but newly risen from the chair, and that the forlorn head might perhaps have been lying on her lap. I saw but little of the girl's face, over which her hair fell loose and scattered, as if she had been disordering it with her own hands; but I saw that she was young, and of a fair complexion. Peggotty had been crying. So had little Em'ly. Not a word was spoken when we first went in; and the Dutch clock by the dresser seemed, in the silence, to tick twice as loud as usual. Em'ly spoke first.
'Martha wants,' she said to Ham, 'to go to London.'
'Why to London?' returned Ham.
He stood between them, looking on the prostrate girl with a mixture of compassion for her, and of jealousy of her holding any companionship with her whom he loved so well, which I have always remembered distinctly. They both spoke as if she were ill; in a soft, suppressed tone that was plainly heard, although it hardly rose above a whisper.
'Better there than here,' said a third voice aloud - Martha's, though she did not move. 'No one knows me there. Everybody knows me here.'
'What will she do there?' inquired Ham.
She lifted up her head, and looked darkly round at him for a moment; then laid it down again, and curved her right arm about her neck, as a woman in a fever, or in an agony of pain from a shot, might twist herself.
'She will try to do well,' said little Em'ly. 'You don't know what she has said to us. Does he - do they - aunt?'
Peggotty shook her head compassionately.
