Barkis's box

Barkis's box is the center of Mr. Barkis’s secretive economy: a possession he carried on his journeys for years, guarded with anxious care, and held close in his final illness. Its discovery after his death reveals not only a substantial hoard but the provision he made for the people connected to him, transforming a private object of attachment into an instrument of inheritance.

A guarded possession

For years, Mr. Barkis carried the box on all his journeys. To keep it from attracting notice, he invented the story that it belonged to Mr. Blackboy and was merely being kept by Barkis until its owner called for it; he even wrote this explanation on the lid, where the characters had grown scarcely legible. The elaborate fiction made the box appear incidental while concealing how much importance he attached to it.

The habit persisted as Mr. Barkis’s condition worsened. When he could no longer creep out of bed to open the box or use his divining rod to assure himself it was safe, he had it placed on a chair beside the bed. He embraced it day and night, his arm resting on it as he lay half out of bed in an uncomfortable posture. His last words, spoken as an explanation, were "Old clothes!" At the bedside, the box was no longer just a concealed possession: it was the object to which he remained physically attached as the world slipped away.

Discovery and contents

After Mr. Barkis died, David Copperfield proposed searching the box for the will. It was found at the bottom of a horse’s nose-bag inside it. The search also disclosed the peculiar variety of Mr. Barkis’s accumulated possessions: the gold watch, chain, and seals he had worn on his wedding day; a silver tobacco-stopper shaped like a leg; an imitation lemon containing tiny cups and saucers; an old horseshoe, a bad shilling, a piece of camphor, and an oyster-shell. Alongside these keepsakes were eighty-seven and a half guineas, two hundred and ten pounds in clean Bank of England notes, and receipts for stock.

The assortment combines valuable money and securities with objects whose worth is personal, uncertain, or merely curious. The imitation lemon, which David suspects Mr. Barkis may once have meant to give him, suggests that the hoard held traces of intentions that never became gifts. The oyster-shell, polished until its inner surface showed prismatic colours, similarly hints at an interest in pearls that never came to anything definite. Such objects do not explain Mr. Barkis’s character so much as make its habits visible: he saved, concealed, and kept things close.

The will and its beneficiaries

The property in money amounted to nearly three thousand pounds. Mr. Barkis left the interest on one thousand pounds to Daniel Peggotty for his lifetime; after Daniel’s death, the principal was to be divided equally among Clara Peggotty, Emily Peggotty, and David, or whichever of them survived. The remainder of the estate went to Clara Peggotty, whom he named residuary legatee and sole executrix.

David took charge of the will and explained its provisions to those concerned. He read it aloud with ceremony, examined its form, and helped Clara Peggotty account for the property and arrange her affairs. The box’s contents thus passed from private concealment into an orderly settlement that gave practical effect to Mr. Barkis’s obligations and attachments.

Secrecy, attachment, and provision

The box links Mr. Barkis’s lifelong vigilance over his money to a final act of provision for others. Its false label, repeated journeys, hidden will, and bedside presence all belong to one pattern of keeping: keeping wealth safe, keeping the box near, and ultimately directing his estate toward people within his household and family circle. After death, what he guarded so privately becomes legible through the will and usable by its beneficiaries.

The object also changes meaning across the episode. During Mr. Barkis’s life, its contents are inaccessible and its ostensible ownership a fiction; in his last hours, it becomes his physical comfort and the focus of his final words; after his death, it yields the document and wealth that allow David to act as Clara Peggotty’s adviser. The box’s importance therefore lies not only in the fortune it contains, but in how its concealed contents connect private habit to public inheritance and practical care.