When the honeymoon ends and David finds himself at home with Dora, David finds it strange that he no longer has to scheme and contrive to be with Dora. Indeed, David finds it very pleasant to be greeted by Dora after a day of work and ecstatic to be in her company while at home.
Alas, David and Dora are both such neophytes about housekeeping that it becomes the source of their first fight. It occurs on an early evening when David hadn’t yet had his dinner which was scheduled to be served an hour ago. As David is due to attend a Parliamentary debate, he had counted on the dinner to fortify him for his evening of work. Consequently, David urges Dora to put her foot down and berate their incompetent housemaid Mary Anne when necessary only to be berated in turn by Dora: Weeping, she accuses David of taking her—Dora—to task for the poor housekeeping.
In a state of remorse, David spends an unhappy evening at work. When he returns home, David finds his aunt at his house. She explains that her visit is due to Dora being in low spirits. A silence ensues after which David explains the cause of Dora’s low spirits. David explains of how he only meant to improve the woeful housekeeping situation. Subsequently, David’s aunt advises David that’s it no good trying to change people and that it’s best to accept them for what they are; that David had chosen to marry Dora, and therefore that David should learn how to live with the consequences of his choice. While Betsey Trotwood says all this, a cloud passes over her face as if she were sorry that her nephew had chosen to marry Dora instead of Agnes. There’s also remorse for how she had treated David’s mother who was Dora’s precursor of sorts.
After seeing his aunt to her house, which is an adjacent cottage that his aunt had bought with the proceeds of her sale of her house in Dover, David returns home to patch things up with Dora.
A period of time follows during which the Copperfields hire and fire a long line of incompetent servants. Indeed, their housekeeping situation is bad to the extent that the Copperfield name is synonymous to easy money: Anyone can cheat the Copperfields and get away with it. The butcher invariably gives the Copperfields the worst cut of meat and the fishmonger likewise regards seafood. One of the hired help steals the Copperfields’ teaspoons, while another runs up a tab at various bars in Dora’s name.
Then the day arrives when Traddles pays a visit. The house is in a state of disarray; Dora allows Jip to have the run of the house; the mutton is practically inedible. David ought to be angry, but he restrains himself with the result Dora dotes on David. The evening passes pleasantly.
When Traddles’ visit ends, Dora tells David that when angry he ought to remind himself that Dora is a “child-wife,” making her a breed apart from other wives. David gets a firsthand look of what it means by a “child-wife,” as Dora makes an attempt to keep accounts, only to let Jip make a mess of the account book and confessing to David that the math involved is beyond her comprehension. Despite himself, David finds his wife’s helpless state, fetching. And she is no more fetching than when David allows her to be his personal secretary with regards the distribution of his pens when he writes.