Jack Maldon departs for India after a birthday gathering at Doctor Strong’s home that turns a public farewell into a scene of private unease. David Copperfield’s recollection follows the evening from its cheerful formalities to the unanswered questions left by Annie Strong’s collapse and a missing cherry-coloured ribbon. The Doctor understands the swoon as grief for a departing cousin and childhood friend; David sees details that resist such a simple explanation, though he does not claim to know precisely what Annie’s expression means.

The occasion and its expectations

The gathering coincides with Doctor Strong’s birthday. After a holiday, the boys have presented gifts, delivered a speech through the head-boy, and cheered the Doctor until he wept. That evening, David, Agnes Wickfield, and Mr. Wickfield join him for tea in his private capacity. The celebration therefore gives Maldon’s departure a double frame: it is both a family occasion and a leave-taking staged before the Doctor’s household and school community.

Maldon is leaving as a cadet, or in some similar capacity, after Mr. Wickfield has arranged the business. His ship lies at Gravesend, and he is due to travel there by post-chaise after supper. The anticipated absence may last years, excepting a possible return on leave or for his health. The guests treat India as a distant but manageable destination, imagining little beyond tigers and heat; David, by contrast, pictures Maldon as a modern Sindbad among eastern rulers. These light imaginings soften the distance of the journey, while the actual departure approaches with increasing awkwardness.

Mrs. Markleham, Annie’s mother, helps direct the social scene. The boys call her the Old Soldier for her skill in marshalling relatives against the Doctor, and at the gathering she repeatedly champions Maldon’s need for support and patronage. Her tact is forceful but comic: David remembers her distinctive cap, carried in a basket to social visits, and its constantly trembling artificial butterflies. The playful portrait sits beside a more consequential intervention. Mrs. Markleham presents the young man’s departure as a sacrifice deserving the Doctor’s continued assistance, and her performance makes the family’s emotional and practical interests part of the evening’s business.

A farewell that grows strained

Before supper, Annie Strong plays the piano while Maldon leans over her to turn the pages. David thinks her complexion less blooming than usual, though she still appears very pretty. Later, when she attempts a duet with her cousin, she cannot begin; her solo starts sweetly but her voice suddenly dies away, leaving her distressed and bent over the keys. Doctor Strong calls her nervous and proposes cards to ease the moment. Annie declines, as does Maldon, who says he has packing to do. He returns afterward, however, and sits talking with her on a sofa. She comes to look over the Doctor’s cards and advise him, pale and, to David’s eye, possibly trembling. The Doctor is pleased by her attention and notices no trouble.

The supper is less merry. Maldon tries to talk but seems ill at ease, while Mrs. Markleham repeatedly recalls episodes from his youth. Doctor Strong alone appears satisfied that the company is enjoying itself. As the hour of departure arrives, he fills his glass and offers Maldon a conventional blessing: a prosperous voyage, a thriving career abroad, and a happy return. The guests drink the toast and shake Maldon’s hand. He hurries from the room, and the boys gathered on the lawn greet his post-chaise with loud cheers. In the noise and dust, David catches sight of Maldon’s agitated face and something cherry-coloured in his hand.

Annie’s collapse and the missing ribbon

After the boys disperse, the company discusses how Maldon left and how he seemed to bear the parting. Mrs. Markleham then asks where Annie is. Annie is missing from the room; when the guests find her, she is lying on the hall floor in a swoon. Doctor Strong lifts her head onto his knee and explains her collapse as the result of her tender feelings for her old playfellow and favourite cousin. When she recovers, Annie turns her head toward his shoulder, or perhaps hides it there; David explicitly cannot tell which. She says she would rather return among the company than remain apart, though she still looks weak and pale.

Mrs. Markleham notices that a bow is missing from Annie’s dress and asks the company to find its cherry-coloured ribbon. Annie had worn it at her bosom. The search yields nothing. Asked when she last had it, she says she thinks it was safe a little while earlier, then urges the others not to keep searching. They look again without success, and the ribbon remains missing when the guests leave. The object links the evening’s visible details without proving what happened: Maldon was seen departing with something cherry-coloured, and Annie’s bow is later found absent, but David does not state that the two observations establish how the ribbon disappeared.

The scene’s unresolved meaning

On the walk home, David, Agnes, and Mr. Wickfield move slowly beneath the moonlight. Agnes has left her reticule behind, so David returns to the Doctor’s house. In the study, he finds Doctor Strong reading aloud from a manuscript explanation of a theory in his dictionary, while Annie sits at his feet. Her face strikes David as beautiful, ashen, fixed, and filled with a horror he cannot name. He sees several possible feelings in it—penitence, humiliation, shame, pride, love, and trustfulness—but cannot reduce the expression to any one of them. The narrative makes uncertainty part of the evidence: David preserves the image while admitting that neither his younger nor his older judgment can settle its meaning.

Annie asks urgently to remain with the Doctor, wanting to feel assured that she is in his confidence that night. She crosses her hands on his knee and looks up at him; her expression has quieted by the time he resumes reading. The Doctor treats her tenderly and understands the evening through the innocent account of a cousin’s departure. David’s remembered details—the failed singing, the pallor and possible trembling, the swoon, the absent ribbon, and the agitated figure in the chaise—leave a more troubling possibility open without confirming it. Maldon’s departure is therefore not simply a journey to India: it becomes an early episode in the narrative’s accumulating suspicion about Annie and her cousin, a suspicion whose significance David says will become clear only later.