“A very agreeable change indeed,” returned my mother.
Peggotty continuing to stand motionless in the middle of the room, and my mother resuming her singing, I fell asleep, though I was not so sound asleep but that I could hear voices, without hearing what they said. When I half awoke from this uncomfortable doze, I found Peggotty and my mother both in tears, and both talking.
“Not such a one as this, Mr. Copperfield wouldn’t have liked,” said Peggotty. “That I say, and that I swear!”
“Good Heavens!” cried my mother. “You’ll drive me mad! Was ever any poor girl so ill-used by her servants as I am! Why do I do myself the injustice of calling myself a girl? Have I never been married, Peggotty?”
“God knows you have, ma’am,” returned Peggotty.
“Then how can you dare,” said my mother—“you know I don’t mean how can you dare, Peggotty, but how can you have the heart—to make me so uncomfortable and say such bitter things to me, when you are well aware that I haven’t, out of this place, a single friend to turn to!”
“The more’s the reason,” returned Peggotty, “for saying that it won’t do. No! That it won’t do. No! No price could make it do. No!”—I thought Peggotty would have thrown the candlestick away, she was so emphatic with it.
“How can you be so aggravating,” said my mother, shedding more tears than before, “as to talk in such an unjust manner! How can you go on as if it was all settled and arranged, Peggotty, when I tell you over and over again, you cruel thing, that beyond the commonest civilities nothing has passed! You talk of admiration. What am I to do? If people are so silly as to indulge the sentiment, is it my fault? What am I to do, I ask you? Would you wish me to shave my head and black my face, or disfigure myself with a burn, or a scald, or something of that sort? I dare say you would, Peggotty. I dare say you’d quite enjoy it.”
Peggotty seemed to take this aspersion very much to heart, I thought.
“And my dear boy,” cried my mother, coming to the elbow-chair in which I was, and caressing me, “my own little Davy! Is it to be hinted to me that I am wanting in affection for my precious treasure, the dearest little fellow that ever was!”