Emily helps Martha leave Yarmouth for London

Emily’s help for Martha is a quiet act of material compassion within a community that has cast Martha out. When David Copperfield finds Martha at Mr. Barkis’s house, the scene reveals both the depth of her isolation and the care Emily extends to her: Emily helps her leave Yarmouth, offers money, and gives her a chance to escape the streets where her disgrace is common knowledge.

Background and the encounter

David arrives at Mr. Barkis’s house expecting to find Ham Peggotty with Emily, but discovers Ham pacing outside while Emily is inside speaking to a woman. Ham explains that the visitor is someone Emily once knew and, in his view, ought not to know now. The woman is Martha, whom David had seen earlier that evening. Her exclusion is so complete that Ham compares the way townspeople shrink from her to the way they avoid the dead in a churchyard. Martha’s social disgrace has made her familiar to everyone and welcome almost nowhere.

The history between the women makes the meeting more than a chance act of charity. Ham explains that Martha had worked alongside Emily at Mr. Omer’s, and that Martha has come seeking a woman’s understanding from someone who once shared her daily life. She had crept beneath Emily’s window and asked for compassion by appealing to their common past. Emily recognizes her immediately. The plea is painful partly because Martha’s exclusion has turned a former working companionship into a forbidden connection, even though Martha approaches Emily in need rather than with any intention of harming her.

A discreet arrangement

Emily cannot receive Martha openly while Daniel Peggotty is at home. Ham believes that, tender-hearted as Daniel is, he could not bear to see the two women together, given the distress and shame surrounding Emily’s own situation. Emily therefore devises a way to meet Martha without forcing that painful confrontation. She writes a short message in pencil and passes it out of the window, directing Martha to Clara Peggotty, whom Martha can ask to let her wait by the fire until Daniel has gone out. Emily can then come to her.

Ham becomes the intermediary. He knows that Martha should not have to return to the household under these circumstances, yet he cannot bring himself to refuse Emily when she is in tears. He carries a small purse for her, carefully taking it from his jacket and handling it with solicitude. His hesitation registers the strain of helping someone the community condemns, while his choice to assist shows that loyalty and pity outweigh his concern about the impropriety of the meeting. The arrangement depends on discretion, but it is not merely a secret encounter: it makes possible the practical help Martha has come to seek.

Money and departure

Martha asks Emily to help her get away from Yarmouth. She believes she cannot fare worse elsewhere and may fare better, and she begs to be taken from streets where people have known her since childhood. Emily’s answer is concrete. As Martha reaches toward Ham, he gives her a small canvas bag, which she first mistakes for her purse. He tells her that everything he has is hers; the money is not for his own use but for her sake. The gift underscores Ham’s continuing generosity even when his own means are limited.

Emily also gives Martha money of her own. She turns from Ham to Martha, stoops over her, and slips money into her clothing, quietly asking whether it is enough. Martha says it is more than enough, takes Emily’s hand, and kisses it. The aid is thus shared: Ham carries and offers the money he has been entrusted with, while Emily supplements it directly and arranges the opportunity for Martha to leave. The scene does not describe Martha’s journey or arrival in London; its decisive action is the help that makes departure possible.

Martha gathers her shawl around herself and covers her face. Weeping aloud, she moves slowly toward the door and pauses as though she might speak or turn back, but says nothing. Her departure is neither celebratory nor a clean release from the past. Once she is gone, Emily looks hurriedly at the others, hides her face in her hands, and sobs. Ham tries to comfort her gently. The immediate result of their kindness is therefore mixed: Martha has money and a way out, but the parting also brings Emily’s grief into view.

Stigma, sympathy, and what follows

The scene distinguishes sympathy from mere feeling by showing what it requires in practice: a private meeting, an intermediary, shelter by a fire, money, and help leaving a town that has made Martha’s presence unbearable. It also presents the limits imposed by stigma. Martha’s request must be handled out of Daniel’s sight, not because Emily has ceased to care for her, but because the family’s attachment to Emily makes Martha’s association with her emotionally fraught. The women’s former closeness remains a source of recognition and compassion even as disgrace has separated them.

Later, Martha describes the river as belonging to people like her, carrying her image of a life moving through dismal streets toward troubled waters. She regrets not having had a better heart, remembers that Emily had always treated her kindly, and identifies separation from Emily as one of the worst consequences of losing everything she valued. Martha also fears that people will remember her former companionship with Emily and wrongly say that she corrupted her. These later reflections sharpen the stakes of the earlier encounter: Martha’s departure is an attempt to escape public shame, but it cannot erase her affection for Emily or her fear that her own reputation has stained Emily’s. Emily’s assistance offers relief and a possible new beginning, not a simple undoing of that damage.