David Copperfield | Page 6

hinted that she seldom conducted herself like any
ordinary Christian; and now, instead of ringing the bell, she came and
looked in at that identical window, pressing the end of her nose against
the glass to that extent, that my poor dear mother used to say it became

perfectly flat and white in a moment.
She gave my mother such a turn, that I have always been convinced I
am indebted to Miss Betsey for having been born on a Friday.
My mother had left her chair in her agitation, and gone behind it in the
corner. Miss Betsey, looking round the room, slowly and inquiringly,
began on the other side, and carried her eyes on, like a Saracen's Head
in a Dutch clock, until they reached my mother. Then she made a frown
and a gesture to my mother, like one who was accustomed to be obeyed,
to come and open the door. My mother went.
'Mrs. David Copperfield, I think,' said Miss Betsey; the emphasis
referring, 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
disagreeable consciousness of not appearing to imply that it had been
an overpowering pleasure.
'Now you see her,' said Miss Betsey. My mother bent her head, and
begged her to walk in.
They went into the parlour my mother had come from, the fire in the
best room on the other side of the passage not being lighted - not
having been lighted, indeed, since my father's funeral; and when they
were both seated, and Miss Betsey said nothing, my mother, after
vainly trying to restrain herself, began to cry. 'Oh tut, tut, tut!' said Miss
Betsey, in a hurry. 'Don't do that! Come, come!'
My mother couldn't help it notwithstanding, so she cried until she had
had 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

odd request, if she had any disposition to do so. Therefore she did as
she was told, and did it with such nervous hands that her hair (which
was luxuriant 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
her years; 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, and
would be but a childish mother if she lived. In a short pause which
ensued, she had a fancy that she felt Miss Betsey touch her hair, and
that with no ungentle hand; but, looking at her, in her timid hope, she
found that lady sitting with the skirt of her dress tucked up, her hands
folded 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
the purpose, if you had had any practical ideas of life, either of you.'
'The name was Mr. Copperfield's choice,' returned my mother. 'When
he bought the house, he liked to think that there were rooks about it.'
The evening wind made such a disturbance just now, among some tall
old elm-trees at the bottom of the garden, that neither my mother nor
Miss Betsey could forbear glancing that way. As the elms bent to one
another, like giants who were whispering secrets, and after a few
seconds of such repose, fell into a violent flurry, tossing their wild arms
about, as if their late confidences were really too wicked for their peace
of mind, some weatherbeaten ragged old rooks'-nests, burdening their
higher branches, 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.
'We thought - Mr. Copperfield thought - it was quite a large rookery;
but the nests were very old ones, and the birds have deserted them a
long while.'
'David Copperfield all over!' cried Miss Betsey. 'David Copperfield
from head 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 to
speak unkindly of him to me -'
My poor dear