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The Personal History And Experience Of David Copperfield The Younger

CHAPTER 31 :  A GREATER LOSS

IN PRINT

 

Page 7

I remember a great wail and cry, and the women 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 torn 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 doen'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 ever have deserved, even when my mind was innocent, see this, I shall be far away."'


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


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

the letter bore date on the previous night:


'"- it will be never to come back, unless he brings me back a lady. This will be found at night, many hours after, instead of me. Oh, if you knew 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 as 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 going 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'll pray for all, often, on my knees. If he don't bring me back a lady, and I don't pray for my own self, I'll pray for all. My parting love to uncle. My last tears, and my last thanks, for uncle!"'

That was all.

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