Martha is rescued from the Thames and pledges to find Emily

Martha is rescued from the Thames and pledges to find Emily when David Copperfield and Daniel Peggotty catch up with her at the river’s edge in Millbank. The event turns a desperate encounter into the beginning of a search: Martha, convinced that she belongs with the polluted river and has no hope, is met not with judgment but with Daniel’s trust. She promises to seek Emily and, if she finds her, to help bring her back to Daniel.

Pursuit to the River

David Copperfield and Daniel Peggotty follow Martha through Westminster and along the streets toward Millbank. David initially supposes that she is heading to a house, perhaps one connected with the lost girl, but a glimpse of the river through a gateway changes his expectation. The pursuit continues quietly, with the two men keeping to the opposite side of the road and following close behind her.

The riverbank is a place of abandonment and decay. At the end of the low-lying street stands a dilapidated wooden building, perhaps an obsolete ferry-house; beyond it, the road runs between houses and water. The surrounding landscape includes marshy ground, a sluggish ditch, weeds, unfinished houses left to rot, and heaps of rusted industrial machinery sunk into wet soil. Slimy paths descend between old wooden piles to the ebb-tide, while torn notices offering rewards for drowned men hang above the waterline. A local story places a burial pit from the Great Plague nearby. The setting gives Martha’s approach to the river an ominous material context: this is not a refuge from the city but a polluted, discarded margin of it.

Martha stops when she sees the water and walks slowly along its brink, looking intently at it. She appears isolated within the bleak scene, like part of the refuse the river has cast out. Her shawl has slipped from her shoulders; she clutches it around her hands in a bewildered, almost sleepwalking manner. David fears that she may sink into the water before he can reach her. The danger is conveyed through her actions and the place she has chosen, even before she explains what the river means to her.

The Rescue and the River’s Meaning

David calls Martha by name. She screams and struggles with startling strength, but Daniel’s hand joins David’s, and Martha collapses between them. They carry her away from the water to dry stones. There she cries repeatedly about the river, then sits with her head in her hands. The rescue is physical, but the scene does not end when she is removed from the brink: her terror and grief continue in speech and sobbing.

Martha explains her despair by making the river an image of her own life. She sees it beginning in country places where it was once harmless, then creeping through streets that have become polluted and miserable, before flowing toward a troubled sea. She feels that she must go with it. In her account, the water’s course gives form to a sense of social and personal ruin: it moves from an earlier state of innocence through contamination toward an unsettled end, as she believes her own life has done. She says that she cannot keep away from or forget the river, and that it seems the only company suited to her.

David and Daniel wait through another burst of crying rather than trying to force an immediate conversation. When Martha becomes calmer, David asks whether she can speak about the subject that had interested her on a snowy night. She thanks him for not having driven her away from the door. Still ashamed and despairing, she says she wants nothing for herself and asks David to tell Daniel that she was not the cause of his misfortune. David answers that Daniel has never blamed her for it. Her concern is therefore not only for her own condition: even at the river, she is anxious that Daniel should not mistake her for the source of his suffering.

Daniel’s Refusal to Condemn

Daniel speaks to Martha directly, forbidding himself to judge her and emphasizing that he, of all people, should not do so. He explains that he and David have followed her because they have a purpose before them, and asks her to listen. His response alters the terms of the encounter. Martha has approached the river believing herself lost and beyond help; Daniel instead treats her as someone he can trust with an important task.

He tells her that he has been searching for his niece, Emily, and insists that Emily is dearer to him now than she was before. His words make the search an act of continuing family attachment, not a demand that Emily first prove herself worthy of return. Martha listens quietly. Although her sorrow remains, her attention fixes on Daniel’s purpose, and she asks whether he will trust her to speak to Emily if she finds her, give her shelter if shelter is available, and then come to Martha and bring Daniel to her without Emily’s knowledge. David and Daniel agree.

The Pledge and Its Consequences

Martha solemnly promises to devote herself to finding Emily. She vows not to waver, be diverted, or relinquish the search while hope remains. The pledge is made quietly, to the night sky rather than as a display addressed to the two men. Her language treats the undertaking as the one purpose capable of binding her to something good. The moment does not erase her despair, but it redirects her attention from the river toward a future task.

Afterward, David recounts what he and Daniel know about the search. Martha listens closely, and though her expression changes, she remains fixed on the same purpose. She asks how they can be contacted if an opportunity arises. David writes their two addresses on a leaf torn from his pocket-book, which she puts away against her breast. The small piece of paper gives practical form to the new connection: the pledge can lead to action because Martha now has a way to reach them.

Martha says that she lives nowhere for long and that it is better for the others not to know where she is. Daniel and David offer her money, but she refuses it; they cannot obtain even a promise that she might accept help later. Their appeal that she should not undertake the search without resources does not change her decision. The scene thus establishes both the force and the limits of the new trust: Martha accepts responsibility and contact, but retains control over her whereabouts and refuses financial dependence.

Narrative Significance

The rescue changes the immediate direction of the scene from an apparent movement toward death to a commitment to seek another person. Its reversal depends on recognition and response: David recognizes the danger in Martha’s stillness by the water, while Daniel’s words reveal that he has come not to accuse her but to ask for help. The physical intervention saves her from the brink; the search gives the rescue a continuing purpose.

The river remains a powerful image of despair, but it no longer determines the only possible course of Martha’s life. Her account of water moving through corruption toward a troubled sea expresses how thoroughly she has internalized disgrace and hopelessness. Daniel does not argue with her by denying that suffering; he offers a relationship in which she is trusted to act. By pledging to find Emily, Martha moves from seeing herself as fit only for the river to accepting a demanding role in Daniel’s effort to recover his niece. The event therefore links compassion with practical action: forgiveness makes the search possible, and Martha’s promise carries that possibility forward.