David Copperfield: Chapter 9 Summary & Analysis

David skips over most of the next half-year, saying only that he became increasingly infatuated with Steerforth, who was leaving at the end of the term. The most notable event that term, however, occurred on David's birthday, which is why David can still remember all the sights and sounds of that day.

That morning, Mr. Sharp tells David in a "feeling tone" to go to the parlor. David does so unsuspectingly only to find Mr. Creakle and his wife waiting for him. Mrs. Creakle attempts to break the news gently to David, saying first that Clara is "very ill," then that she is "dangerously ill," and finally that she has died. Mrs. Creakle then stays with David while he cries and imagines how difficult it will be to return home for the funeral.

David leaves the following day, and when he arrives in Yarmouth, he is greeted by a "merry-looking, little old man in black." This man takes him to a shop entitled "Omer, Draper, Tailor, Haberdasher, Funeral Furnisher, &c." Inside, three women are stitching black fabric and the man—whom David now realizes must be Mr. Omer—begins to chat and joke with one of the women, who is his daughter Minnie. Mr. Omer then takes David's measurements and talks about how fashions come in and go out "like human beings." Afterwards, Mr. Omer and David sit down to tea, and Mr. Omer remarks that he knew David's father—by which he means that he helped bury David's father—and confirms that David's younger brother has also died.

Upset, David retreats to a corner and begins to cry. As he watches, a young man named Joram comes in and announces that he has finished making something, which David realizes must be his mother's coffin. Minnie says that her father has ordered a chaise, and flirts with Joram as she packs up the fabrics she has been working on into baskets. These baskets, along with David himself, are then put in the chaise. Mr. Omer, Joram, and Minnie come along as well, and David is struck by how strange their cheerfulness is under the circumstances. When they arrive at David's house, he gets out of the chaise quickly and runs to Peggotty.

When David enters the house, Miss Murdstone simply asks whether he has been measured for his mourning clothes. David suspects that she took "a choice pleasure in exhibiting what she called her self-command." Meanwhile, Mr. Murdstone ignores David entirely, instead pacing and trying to read.

David's memories of the days leading up to the funeral are confused, though he remembers being upset when Peggotty took him into the room where his mother's body lay, covered by a sheet. He remembers the funeral perfectly, however, and describes how Miss Murdstone discouraged Mr. Chillip—the doctor who attended his birth—from speaking kindly to David. He then recalls how the funeral procession passed into the cemetery, and how, when the burial was over, Chillip escorted David back to the house, where he waited for Peggotty to come see him.

Peggotty comes to David's room, and explains that Clara had been sick and unhappy for a long time, and only grew weaker after the birth of the baby. Although Clara was always the same "sweet girl" in her interactions with Peggotty herself, Peggotty says that the last time Clara truly seemed like herself was the afternoon David came home for the holidays. When David left, Peggotty explains, Clara had a premonition that she would die soon, and did in fact decline soon afterwards. Peggotty was with her in her final illness and death, and explains that Clara asked that the baby be buried with her if he also passed away as well. She also spoke of how "kind and considerate" her first husband (the late David Copperfield) had been to her, and then died "like a child that had gone to sleep."

David explains that after Clara's death, he forgot what she had looked like most recently and only ever remembered her "as the young mother of [his] earliest impressions." He also imagines himself as the baby buried with Clara, "as I had once been, hushed for ever on her bosom."