Chapter-1
I was born on Friday, at midnight. The clock began to strike its twelve tones and I gave my first good cry all at the same moment. According to the custom of those superstitious times, the hour and day of my birth were thought to set me up for an unlucky life, and for the doubtful dubious uncertain privilege of seeing ghosts and spirits. I was born at Blunderstone, in the eastern England country of Suffolk. The house where I was born was called ‘The Rookery’ for the crows my father mistakenly believed lived in the surrounding trees. In fact, on the night of my birth, both crows and father were no longer there; the crows gone who-knows-where, and father moved to a graveplot in the neighbouring churchyard.
Some ten hours before my birth, on a bright, windy March afternoon, my mother sat by the fire, feeling sick and sad, mourning the loss of her much-older husband and my impending arrival. Her eye was caught by a strange woman coming through the garden towards the house. Tall and rigid and stern-looking, the woman stepped directly to the parlour window, pressing the end of her nose hard against the glass.
My mother took so much fright at the odd woman’s popping up in the window not three feet away that she fled behind a chair in the far corner.
The stranger looked from one side of the room to the other, examining it fully from her window perch, and motioned to my mother to open the door.
“Mrs David Copperfield, I think,” said the visitor, giving mother a long look.
“Yes,” my mother said faintly.
“I’m Miss Betsey Trotwood, your late husband’s aunt. I trust you’ve heard of me,” was the brisk introduction, and Miss Betsey stepped past my mother into the hallway.
Heard of her indeed! This aunt was well-known in the family, and well thought to be unusual and difficult, and all my mother had ever heard disturbed her so much that she grew faint, breaking down into sobs. This dreadful visitor on top of all the rest that she was going through was too much to take.
“When do you expect? Miss Betsey began when Mother’s crying had stopped.
“I’m so frightened,” said my mother, “I don’t know what’s wrong. I’m sure I’m going to die from all of this.”
“No, no! It’s nothing to worry about. Let’s have some tea, and it will settle you down.” Miss Betsey called for Peggotty, the house-keeper, to bring tea, and seated herself by the fire.
“I have no doubt your child will be a girl, my dear,” she assured my mother, “It must be a girl. And from the moment of this girl’s birth, I intend to be her friend, her godmother, and I want you to call her Betsey Trotwood Copperfield. She must be well brought up—I’ll make that my work.”
The look of my mother when Peggotty delivered the hot tea prompted an immediate call for the doctor, and mother was taken to her room to lie down.
Dr. Chillip arrived and passed the hours until midnight either attending to mother or sitting by the hearth with the strange and sturdy woman whose bonnet was tied neatly over her left arm, and whose ears were stuffed to overflowing with the thick roll of cotton placed against any unpleasant sounds that might slip down the steps.
At half-past midnight, the doctor brought happy news to Miss Betsey that I had arrived, a fine and healthy boy. Without a word, she rose, took her bonnet by the strings, and aimed a blow at Dr. Chillip’s head. She clamped the bonnet, bent and silly-looking, back on her head, walked out the door, and never looked back.
