Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether thatstation will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin mylife with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I havebeen 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 bythe nurse, and by some sage women in the neighbourhood who had taken alively interest in me several months before there was any possibilityof our becoming personally acquainted, first, that I was destined to beunlucky in life; and secondly, that I was privileged to see ghosts andspirits; both these gifts inevitably attaching, as they believed, toall unlucky infants of either gender, born towards the small hours on aFriday night.

I need say nothing here, on the first head, because nothing can showbetter than my history whether that prediction was verified or falsifiedby 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 stilla baby, I have not come into it yet. But I do not at all complain ofhaving been kept out of this property; and if anybody else should be inthe present enjoyment of it, he is heartily welcome to keep it.

I was born with a caul, which was advertised for sale, in thenewspapers, at the low price of fifteen guineas. Whether sea-goingpeople were short of money about that time, or were short of faith andpreferred cork jackets, I don't know; all I know is, that there was butone solitary bidding, and that was from an attorney connected with thebill-broking business, who offered two pounds in cash, and the balancein sherry, but declined to be guaranteed from drowning on any higherbargain. Consequently the advertisement was withdrawn at a deadloss--for as to sherry, my poor dear mother's own sherry was in themarket then--and ten years afterwards, the caul was put up in a raffledown in our part of the country, to fifty members at half-a-crown ahead, the winner to spend five shillings. I was present myself, and Iremember to have felt quite uncomfortable and confused, at a part ofmyself being disposed of in that way. The caul was won, I recollect, byan old lady with a hand-basket, who, very reluctantly, produced from itthe stipulated five shillings, all in halfpence, and twopence halfpennyshort--as it took an immense time and a great waste of arithmetic, toendeavour without any effect to prove to her. It is a fact which willbe long remembered as remarkable down there, that she was never drowned,but died triumphantly in bed, at ninety-two. I have understood that itwas, to the last, her proudest boast, that she never had been on thewater in her life, except upon a bridge; and that over her tea (to whichshe was extremely partial) she, to the last, expressed her indignationat the impiety of mariners and others, who had the presumption to go'meandering' about the world. It was in vain to represent to herthat some conveniences, tea perhaps included, resulted from thisobjectionable practice. She always returned, with greater emphasis andwith an instinctive knowledge of the strength of her objection, 'Let ushave 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 inScotland. I was a posthumous child. My father's eyes had closed uponthe light of this world six months, when mine opened on it. There issomething strange to me, even now, in the reflection that he never sawme; and something stranger yet in the shadowy remembrance that I haveof my first childish associations with his white grave-stone in thechurchyard, and of the indefinable compassion I used to feel for itlying out alone there in the dark night, when our little parlourwas warm and bright with fire and candle, and the doors of our housewere--almost cruelly, it seemed to me sometimes--bolted and lockedagainst it.

An aunt of my father's, and consequently a great-aunt of mine, of whomI shall have more to relate by and by, was the principal magnate of ourfamily. Miss Trotwood, or Miss Betsey, as my poor mother always calledher, when she sufficiently overcame her dread of this formidablepersonage to mention her at all (which was seldom), had been marriedto a husband younger than herself, who was very handsome, except in thesense of the homely adage, 'handsome is, that handsome does'--for hewas strongly suspected of having beaten Miss Betsey, and even of havingonce, on a disputed question of supplies, made some hasty but determinedarrangements to throw her out of a two pair of stairs' window. Theseevidences of an incompatibility of temper induced Miss Betsey to pay himoff, and effect a separation by mutual consent. He went to India withhis capital, and there, according to a wild legend in our family, he wasonce seen riding on an elephant, in company with a Baboon; but I thinkit must have been a Baboo--or a Begum. Anyhow, from India tidings of hisdeath reached home, within ten years. How they affected my aunt, nobodyknew; for immediately upon the separation, she took her maiden nameagain, bought a cottage in a hamlet on the sea-coast a long way off,established herself there as a single woman with one servant, andwas understood to live secluded, ever afterwards, in an inflexibleretirement.

My father had once been a favourite of hers, I believe; but she wasmortally affronted by his marriage, on the ground that my mother was 'awax doll'. She had never seen my mother, but she knew her to be notyet twenty. My father and Miss Betsey never met again. He was doublemy mother's age when he married, and of but a delicate constitution. Hedied a year afterwards, and, as I have said, six months before I cameinto the world.

This was the state of matters, on the afternoon of, what I may beexcused for calling, that eventful and important Friday. I can make noclaim therefore to have known, at that time, how matters stood; or tohave any remembrance, founded on the evidence of my own senses, of whatfollows.

My mother was sitting by the fire, but poorly in health, and very low inspirits, looking at it through her tears, and desponding heavily aboutherself and the fatherless little stranger, who was already welcomed bysome grosses of prophetic pins, in a drawer upstairs, to a world not atall excited on the subject of his arrival; my mother, I say, was sittingby the fire, that bright, windy March afternoon, very timid and sad, andvery 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, shesaw a strange lady coming up the garden.

MY mother had a sure foreboding at the second glance, that it wasMiss Betsey. The setting sun was glowing on the strange lady, over thegarden-fence, and she came walking up to the door with a fell rigidityof figure and composure of countenance that could have belonged tonobody else.

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

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

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

'Mrs. David Copperfield, I think,' said Miss Betsey; the emphasisreferring, 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 disagreeableconsciousness of not appearing to imply that it had been an overpoweringpleasure.

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

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

My mother couldn't help it notwithstanding, so she cried until she hadhad 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 oddrequest, if she had any disposition to do so. Therefore she did as shewas told, and did it with such nervous hands that her hair (which wasluxuriant 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 heryears; 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, andwould be but a childish mother if she lived. In a short pause whichensued, she had a fancy that she felt Miss Betsey touch her hair, andthat with no ungentle hand; but, looking at her, in her timid hope, shefound that lady sitting with the skirt of her dress tucked up, her handsfolded 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 thepurpose, if you had had any practical ideas of life, either of you.'

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

The evening wind made such a disturbance just now, among some tall oldelm-trees at the bottom of the garden, that neither my mother nor MissBetsey could forbear glancing that way. As the elms bent to one another,like giants who were whispering secrets, and after a few seconds of suchrepose, fell into a violent flurry, tossing their wild arms about, as iftheir late confidences were really too wicked for their peace of mind,some weatherbeaten ragged old rooks'-nests, burdening their higherbranches, 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. 'Wethought--Mr. Copperfield thought--it was quite a large rookery; butthe nests were very old ones, and the birds have deserted them a longwhile.'

'David Copperfield all over!' cried Miss Betsey. 'David Copperfield fromhead 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 tospeak unkindly of him to me--'

My poor dear mother, I suppose, had some momentary intention ofcommitting an assault and battery upon my aunt, who could easily havesettled her with one hand, even if my mother had been in far bettertraining for such an encounter than she was that evening. But it passedwith the action of rising from her chair; and she sat down again verymeekly, 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. Thetwilight was by this time shading down into darkness; and dimly as theysaw each other, they could not have done that without the aid of thefire.

'Well?' said Miss Betsey, coming back to her chair, as if she had onlybeen 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 thematter. 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 mymother in a helpless manner.

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

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

'Bless the Baby!' exclaimed Miss Betsey, unconsciously quoting thesecond sentiment of the pincushion in the drawer upstairs, butapplying it to my mother instead of me, 'I don't mean that. I mean yourservant-girl.'

'Peggotty,' said my mother.

'Peggotty!' repeated Miss Betsey, with some indignation. 'Do you mean tosay, 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 namewas 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 beena recognized authority in the house ever since it had been a house,and having looked out to confront the amazed Peggotty coming along thepassage with a candle at the sound of a strange voice, Miss Betsey shutthe door again, and sat down as before: with her feet on the fender, theskirt 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 nodoubt 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 MissBetsey. '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 begyou'll call her Betsey Trotwood Copperfield. There must be no mistakesin life with THIS Betsey Trotwood. There must be no trifling with HERaffections, poor dear. She must be well brought up, and well guardedfrom reposing any foolish confidences where they are not deserved. Imust 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 anyplainer reference to them by strong constraint. So my mother suspected,at least, as she observed her by the low glimmer of the fire: toomuch scared by Miss Betsey, too uneasy in herself, and too subdued andbewildered altogether, to observe anything very clearly, or to know whatto say.

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

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

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

'For being quite alone and dependent on myself in this rough worldagain, 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 thequestion. You were an orphan, weren't you?' 'Yes.'

'And a governess?'

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

'Ha! Poor Baby!' mused Miss Betsey, with her frown still bent upon thefire. '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, andhe very patient to teach me, if the great misfortune of his death'--mymother broke down again here, and could get no farther.

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

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

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

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

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

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

'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 worsethat Peggotty, coming in with the teaboard and candles, and seeing at aglance how ill she was,--as Miss Betsey might have done sooner if therehad been light enough,--conveyed her upstairs to her own room with allspeed; and immediately dispatched Ham Peggotty, her nephew, who had beenfor some days past secreted in the house, unknown to my mother, as aspecial messenger in case of emergency, to fetch the nurse and doctor.

Those allied powers were considerably astonished, when they arrivedwithin a few minutes of each other, to find an unknown lady ofportentous appearance, sitting before the fire, with her bonnet tiedover her left arm, stopping her ears with jewellers' cotton. Peggottyknowing nothing about her, and my mother saying nothing about her,she was quite a mystery in the parlour; and the fact of her having amagazine of jewellers' cotton in her pocket, and sticking the articlein her ears in that way, did not detract from the solemnity of herpresence.

The doctor having been upstairs and come down again, and havingsatisfied himself, I suppose, that there was a probability of thisunknown lady and himself having to sit there, face to face, for somehours, laid himself out to be polite and social. He was the meekest ofhis sex, the mildest of little men. He sidled in and out of a room, totake 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 modestdepreciation of himself, partly in modest propitiation of everybodyelse. It is nothing to say that he hadn't a word to throw at a dog. Hecouldn't have thrown a word at a mad dog. He might have offered him onegently, or half a one, or a fragment of one; for he spoke as slowly ashe walked; but he wouldn't have been rude to him, and he couldn't havebeen quick with him, for any earthly consideration.

Mr. Chillip, looking mildly at my aunt with his head on one side, andmaking her a little bow, said, in allusion to the jewellers' cotton, ashe 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 motherafterwards--that it was a mercy he didn't lose his presence of mind. Buthe 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 contemptuousinterjection. 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. Afteranother 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. Chillipabsolutely could not bear it. It was really calculated to break hisspirit, 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 athis catechism, and who may therefore be regarded as a credible witness,reported next day, that happening to peep in at the parlour-door an hourafter this, he was instantly descried by Miss Betsey, then walking toand fro in a state of agitation, and pounced upon before he could makehis escape. That there were now occasional sounds of feet and voicesoverhead which he inferred the cotton did not exclude, from thecircumstance of his evidently being clutched by the lady as a victim onwhom to expend her superabundant agitation when the sounds were loudest.That, marching him constantly up and down by the collar (as if he hadbeen taking too much laudanum), she, at those times, shook him, rumpledhis hair, made light of his linen, stopped his ears as if she confoundedthem with her own, and otherwise tousled and maltreated him. This wasin 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, ifat 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'smanner; so he made her a little bow and gave her a little smile, tomollify her.

'Mercy on the man, what's he doing!' cried my aunt, impatiently. 'Can'the 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 shakehim, and shake what he had to say, out of him. She only shook her ownhead at him, but in a way that made him quail.

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

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

'How is she?' said my aunt, folding her arms with her bonnet still tiedon 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 anyobjection 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 myaunt like an amiable bird.

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

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

My aunt said never a word, but took her bonnet by the strings, in themanner of a sling, aimed a blow at Mr. Chillip's head with it, put it onbent, walked out, and never came back. She vanished like a discontentedfairy; or like one of those supernatural beings, whom it was popularlysupposed 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 BetseyTrotwood Copperfield was for ever in the land of dreams and shadows, thetremendous region whence I had so lately travelled; and the light uponthe window of our room shone out upon the earthly bourne of all suchtravellers, and the mound above the ashes and the dust that once was he,without whom I had never been.