- [1867 Edition]
- by Charles Dickens
- Contents
- Chapter I.
- Chapter II.
- Chapter III.
- Chapter IV.
- Chapter V.
- Chapter VI.
- Chapter VII.
- Chapter VIII.
- Chapter IX.
- Chapter X.
- Chapter XI.
- Chapter XII.
- Chapter XIII.
- Chapter XIV.
- Chapter XV.
- Chapter XVI.
- Chapter XVII.
- Chapter XVIII.
- Chapter XIX.
- Chapter XX.
- Chapter XXI.
- Chapter XXII.
- Chapter XXIII.
- Chapter XXIV.
- Chapter XXV.
- Chapter XXVI.
- Chapter XXVII.
- Chapter XXVIII.
- Chapter XXIX.
- Chapter XXX.
- Chapter XXXI.
- Chapter XXXII.
- Chapter XXXIII.
- Chapter XXXIV.
- Chapter XXXV.
- Chapter XXXVI.
- Chapter XXXVII.
- Chapter XXXVIII.
- Chapter XXXIX.
- Chapter XL.
- Chapter XLI.
- Chapter XLII.
- Chapter XLIII.
- Chapter XLIV.
- Chapter XLV.
- Chapter XLVI.
- Chapter XLVII.
- Chapter XLVIII.
- Chapter XLIX.
- Chapter L.
- Chapter LI.
- Chapter LII.
- Chapter LIII.
- Chapter LIV.
- Chapter LV.
- Chapter LVI.
- Chapter LVII.
- Chapter LVIII.
- Chapter LIX.
www.gutenberg.org
# Great Expectations
[1867 Edition]
by Charles Dickens
Contents
| Chapter I. | | —- | | Chapter II. | | Chapter III. | | Chapter IV. | | Chapter V. | | Chapter VI. | | Chapter VII. | | Chapter VIII. | | Chapter IX. | | Chapter X. | | Chapter XI. | | Chapter XII. | | Chapter XIII. | | Chapter XIV. | | Chapter XV. | | Chapter XVI. | | Chapter XVII. | | Chapter XVIII. | | Chapter XIX. | | Chapter XX. | | Chapter XXI. | | Chapter XXII. | | Chapter XXIII. | | Chapter XXIV. | | Chapter XXV. | | Chapter XXVI. | | Chapter XXVII. | | Chapter XXVIII. | | Chapter XXIX. | | Chapter XXX. | | Chapter XXXI. | | Chapter XXXII. | | Chapter XXXIII. | | Chapter XXXIV. | | Chapter XXXV. | | Chapter XXXVI. | | Chapter XXXVII. | | Chapter XXXVIII. | | Chapter XXXIX. | | Chapter XL. | | Chapter XLI. | | Chapter XLII. | | Chapter XLIII. | | Chapter XLIV. | | Chapter XLV. | | Chapter XLVI. | | Chapter XLVII. | | Chapter XLVIII. | | Chapter XLIX. | | Chapter L. | | Chapter LI. | | Chapter LII. | | Chapter LIII. | | Chapter LIV. | | Chapter LV. | | Chapter LVI. | | Chapter LVII. | | Chapter LVIII. | | Chapter LIX. |
Chapter I.
My
father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my
infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than
Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.
I give Pirrip as my father’s family name, on the authority of his
tombstone and my sister,—Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. As
I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of
them (for their days were long before the days of photographs), my first
fancies regarding what they were like were unreasonably derived from their
tombstones. The shape of the letters on my father’s, gave me an odd idea
that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From the
character and turn of the inscription, “,” I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and
sickly. To five little stone lozenges, each about a foot and a half long, which
were arranged in a neat row beside their grave, and were sacred to the memory
of five little brothers of mine,—who gave up trying to get a living,
exceedingly early in that universal struggle,—I am indebted for a belief
I religiously entertained that they had all been born on their backs with their
hands in their trousers-pockets, and had never taken them out in this state of
existence.
Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river wound,
twenty miles of the sea. My first most vivid and broad impression of the
identity of things seems to me to have been gained on a memorable raw afternoon
towards evening. At such a time I found out for certain that this bleak place
overgrown with nettles was the churchyard; and that Philip Pirrip, late of this
parish, and also Georgiana wife of the above, were dead and buried; and that
Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias, and Roger, infant children of the
aforesaid, were also dead and buried; and that the dark flat wilderness beyond
the churchyard, intersected with dikes and mounds and gates, with scattered
cattle feeding on it, was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond was
the river; and that the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing was
the sea; and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and
beginning to cry, was Pip.
“Hold your noise!” cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from
among the graves at the side of the church porch. “Keep still, you little
devil, or I’ll cut your throat!”
A fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no
hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. A man who
had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by
flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who limped, and shivered, and
glared, and growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by
the chin.
“Oh! Don’t cut my throat, sir,” I pleaded in terror.
“Pray don’t do it, sir.”
“Tell us your name!” said the man. “Quick!”
“Pip, sir.”
“Once more,” said the man, staring at me. “Give it
mouth!”
“Pip. Pip, sir.”
“Show us where you live,” said the man. “Pint out the
place!”
I pointed to where our village lay, on the flat in-shore among the alder-trees
and pollards, a mile or more from the church.
The man, after looking at me for a moment, turned me upside down, and emptied
my pockets. There was nothing in them but a piece of bread. When the church
came to itself,—for he was so sudden and strong that he made it go head
over heels before me, and I saw the steeple under my feet,—when the
church came to itself, I say, I was seated on a high tombstone, trembling while
he ate the bread ravenously.
“You young dog,” said the man, licking his lips, “what fat
cheeks you ha’ got.”
I believe they were fat, though I was at that time undersized for my years, and
not strong.
“Darn me if I couldn’t eat ’em,” said the man, with a
threatening shake of his head, “and if I han’t half a mind
to’t!”
I earnestly expressed my hope that he wouldn’t, and held tighter to the
tombstone on which he had put me; partly, to keep myself upon it; partly, to
keep myself from crying.
“Now lookee here!” said the man. “Where’s your
mother?”
“There, sir!” said I.
He started, made a short run, and stopped and looked over his shoulder.
“There, sir!” I timidly explained. “Also Georgiana.
That’s my mother.”
“Oh!” said he, coming back. “And is that your father alonger
your mother?”
“Yes, sir,” said I; “him too; late of this parish.”
“Ha!” he muttered then, considering. “Who d’ye live
with,—supposin’ you’re kindly let to live, which I
han’t made up my mind about?”
“My sister, sir,—Mrs. Joe Gargery,—wife of Joe Gargery, the
blacksmith, sir.”
“Blacksmith, eh?” said he. And looked down at his leg.
After darkly looking at his leg and me several times, he came closer to my
tombstone, took me by both arms, and tilted me back as far as he could hold me;
so that his eyes looked most powerfully down into mine, and mine looked most
helplessly up into his.
“Now lookee here,” he said, “the question being whether
you’re to be let to live. You know what a file is?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you know what wittles is?”
“Yes, sir.”
After each question he tilted me over a little more, so as to give me a greater
sense of helplessness and danger.
“You get me a file.” He tilted me again. “And you get me
wittles.” He tilted me again. “You bring ’em both to
me.” He tilted me again. “Or I’ll have your heart and liver
out.” He tilted me again.
I was dreadfully frightened, and so giddy that I clung to him with both hands,
and said, “If you would kindly please to let me keep upright, sir,
perhaps I shouldn’t be sick, and perhaps I could attend more.”
He gave me a most tremendous dip and roll, so that the church jumped over its
own weathercock. Then, he held me by the arms, in an upright position on the
top of the stone, and went on in these fearful terms:—
“You bring me, to-morrow morning early, that file and them wittles. You
bring the lot to me, at that old Battery over yonder. You do it, and you never
dare to say a word or dare to make a sign concerning your having seen such a
person as me, or any person sumever, and you shall be let to live. You fail, or
you go from my words in any partickler, no matter how small it is, and your
heart and your liver shall be tore out, roasted, and ate. Now, I ain’t
alone, as you may think I am. There’s a young man hid with me, in
comparison with which young man I am a Angel. That young man hears the words I
speak. That young man has a secret way pecooliar to himself, of getting at a
boy, and at his heart, and at his liver. It is in wain for a boy to attempt to
hide himself from that young man. A boy may lock his door, may be warm in bed,
may tuck himself up, may draw the clothes over his head, may think himself
comfortable and safe, but that young man will softly creep and creep his way to
him and tear him open. I am a keeping that young man from harming of you at the
present moment, with great difficulty. I find it wery hard to hold that young
man off of your inside. Now, what do you say?”
I said that I would get him the file, and I would get him what broken bits of
food I could, and I would come to him at the Battery, early in the morning.
“Say Lord strike you dead if you don’t!” said the man.
I said so, and he took me down.
“Now,” he pursued, “you remember what you’ve undertook,
and you remember that young man, and you get home!”
“Goo-good night, sir,” I faltered.
“Much of that!” said he, glancing about him over the cold wet flat.
“I wish I was a frog. Or a eel!”
At the same time, he hugged his shuddering body in both his
arms,—clasping himself, as if to hold himself together,—and limped
towards the low church wall. As I saw him go, picking his way among the
nettles, and among the brambles that bound the green mounds, he looked in my
young eyes as if he were eluding the hands of the dead people, stretching up
cautiously out of their graves, to get a twist upon his ankle and pull him in.
When he came to the low church wall, he got over it, like a man whose legs were
numbed and stiff, and then turned round to look for me. When I saw him turning,
I set my face towards home, and made the best use of my legs. But presently I
looked over my shoulder, and saw him going on again towards the river, still
hugging himself in both arms, and picking his way with his sore feet among the
great stones dropped into the marshes here and there, for stepping-places when
the rains were heavy or the tide was in.
The marshes were just a long black horizontal line then, as I stopped to look
after him; and the river was just another horizontal line, not nearly so broad
nor yet so black; and the sky was just a row of long angry red lines and dense
black lines intermixed. On the edge of the river I could faintly make out the
only two black things in all the prospect that seemed to be standing upright;
one of these was the beacon by which the sailors steered,—like an
unhooped cask upon a pole,—an ugly thing when you were near it; the
other, a gibbet, with some chains hanging to it which had once held a pirate.
The man was limping on towards this latter, as if he were the pirate come to
life, and come down, and going back to hook himself up again. It gave me a
terrible turn when I thought so; and as I saw the cattle lifting their heads to
gaze after him, I wondered whether they thought so too. I looked all round for
the horrible young man, and could see no signs of him. But now I was frightened
again, and ran home without stopping.
Chapter II.
My
sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than I, and had
established a great reputation with herself and the neighbours because she had
brought me up “by hand.” Having at that time to find out for myself
what the expression meant, and knowing her to have a hard and heavy hand, and
to be much in the habit of laying it upon her husband as well as upon me, I
supposed that Joe Gargery and I were both brought up by hand.
She was not a good-looking woman, my sister; and I had a general impression
that she must have made Joe Gargery marry her by hand. Joe was a fair man, with
curls of flaxen hair on each side of his smooth face, and with eyes of such a
very undecided blue that they seemed to have somehow got mixed with their own
whites. He was a mild, good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going, foolish, dear
fellow,—a sort of Hercules in strength, and also in weakness.
My sister, Mrs. Joe, with black hair and eyes, had such a prevailing redness of
skin that I sometimes used to wonder whether it was possible she washed herself
with a nutmeg-grater instead of soap. She was tall and bony, and almost always
wore a coarse apron, fastened over her figure behind with two loops, and having
a square impregnable bib in front, that was stuck full of pins and needles. She
made it a powerful merit in herself, and a strong reproach against Joe, that
she wore this apron so much. Though I really see no reason why she should have
worn it at all; or why, if she did wear it at all, she should not have taken it
off, every day of her life.
Joe’s forge adjoined our house, which was a wooden house, as many of the
dwellings in our country were,—most of them, at that time. When I ran
home from the churchyard, the forge was shut up, and Joe was sitting alone in
the kitchen. Joe and I being fellow-sufferers, and having confidences as such,
Joe imparted a confidence to me, the moment I raised the latch of the door and
peeped in at him opposite to it, sitting in the chimney corner.
“Mrs. Joe has been out a dozen times, looking for you, Pip. And
she’s out now, making it a baker’s dozen.”
“Is she?”
“Yes, Pip,” said Joe; “and what’s worse, she’s
got Tickler with her.”
At this dismal intelligence, I twisted the only button on my waistcoat round
and round, and looked in great depression at the fire. Tickler was a wax-ended
piece of cane, worn smooth by collision with my tickled frame.
“She sot down,” said Joe, “and she got up, and she made a
grab at Tickler, and she Ram-paged out. That’s what she did,” said
Joe, slowly clearing the fire between the lower bars with the poker, and
looking at it; “she Ram-paged out, Pip.”
“Has she been gone long, Joe?” I always treated him as a larger
species of child, and as no more than my equal.
“Well,” said Joe, glancing up at the Dutch clock,
“she’s been on the Ram-page, this last spell, about five minutes,
Pip. She’s a-coming! Get behind the door, old chap, and have the
jack-towel betwixt you.”
I took the advice. My sister, Mrs. Joe, throwing the door wide open, and
finding an obstruction behind it, immediately divined the cause, and applied
Tickler to its further investigation. She concluded by throwing me—I
often served as a connubial missile—at Joe, who, glad to get hold of me
on any terms, passed me on into the chimney and quietly fenced me up there with
his great leg.
“Where have you been, you young monkey?” said Mrs. Joe, stamping
her foot. “Tell me directly what you’ve been doing to wear me away
with fret and fright and worrit, or I’d have you out of that corner if
you was fifty Pips, and he was five hundred Gargerys.”
“I have only been to the churchyard,” said I, from my stool, crying
and rubbing myself.
“Churchyard!” repeated my sister. “If it warn’t for me
you’d have been to the churchyard long ago, and stayed there. Who brought
you up by hand?”
“You did,” said I.
“And why did I do it, I should like to know?” exclaimed my sister.
I whimpered, “I don’t know.”
“ don’t!” said my sister. “I’d never do
it again! I know that. I may truly say I’ve never had this apron of mine
off since born you were. It’s bad enough to be a blacksmith’s wife
(and him a Gargery) without being your mother.”
My thoughts strayed from that question as I looked disconsolately at the fire.
For the fugitive out on the marshes with the ironed leg, the mysterious young
man, the file, the food, and the dreadful pledge I was under to commit a
larceny on those sheltering premises, rose before me in the avenging coals.
“Hah!” said Mrs. Joe, restoring Tickler to his station.
“Churchyard, indeed! You may well say churchyard, you two.” One of
us, by the by, had not said it at all. “You’ll drive to
the churchyard betwixt you, one of these days, and O, a pr-r-recious pair
you’d be without me!”
As she applied herself to set the tea-things, Joe peeped down at me over his
leg, as if he were mentally casting me and himself up, and calculating what
kind of pair we practically should make, under the grievous circumstances
foreshadowed. After that, he sat feeling his right-side flaxen curls and
whisker, and following Mrs. Joe about with his blue eyes, as his manner always
was at squally times.
My sister had a trenchant way of cutting our bread and butter for us, that
never varied. First, with her left hand she jammed the loaf hard and fast
against her bib,—where it sometimes got a pin into it, and sometimes a
needle, which we afterwards got into our mouths. Then she took some butter (not
too much) on a knife and spread it on the loaf, in an apothecary kind of way,
as if she were making a plaster,—using both sides of the knife with a
slapping dexterity, and trimming and moulding the butter off round the crust.
Then, she gave the knife a final smart wipe on the edge of the plaster, and
then sawed a very thick round off the loaf: which she finally, before
separating from the loaf, hewed into two halves, of which Joe got one, and I
the other.
On the present occasion, though I was hungry, I dared not eat my slice. I felt
that I must have something in reserve for my dreadful acquaintance, and his
ally the still more dreadful young man. I knew Mrs. Joe’s housekeeping to
be of the strictest kind, and that my larcenous researches might find nothing
available in the safe. Therefore I resolved to put my hunk of bread and butter
down the leg of my trousers.
The effort of resolution necessary to the achievement of this purpose I found
to be quite awful. It was as if I had to make up my mind to leap from the top
of a high house, or plunge into a great depth of water. And it was made the
more difficult by the unconscious Joe. In our already-mentioned freemasonry as
fellow-sufferers, and in his good-natured companionship with me, it was our
evening habit to compare the way we bit through our slices, by silently holding
them up to each other’s admiration now and then,—which stimulated
us to new exertions. To-night, Joe several times invited me, by the display of
his fast diminishing slice, to enter upon our usual friendly competition; but
he found me, each time, with my yellow mug of tea on one knee, and my untouched
bread and butter on the other. At last, I desperately considered that the thing
I contemplated must be done, and that it had best be done in the least
improbable manner consistent with the circumstances. I took advantage of a
moment when Joe had just looked at me, and got my bread and butter down my leg.
Joe was evidently made uncomfortable by what he supposed to be my loss of
appetite, and took a thoughtful bite out of his slice, which he didn’t
seem to enjoy. He turned it about in his mouth much longer than usual,
pondering over it a good deal, and after all gulped it down like a pill. He was
about to take another bite, and had just got his head on one side for a good
purchase on it, when his eye fell on me, and he saw that my bread and butter
was gone.
The wonder and consternation with which Joe stopped on the threshold of his
bite and stared at me, were too evident to escape my sister’s
observation.
“What’s the matter ?” said she, smartly, as she put
down her cup.
“I say, you know!” muttered Joe, shaking his head at me in very
serious remonstrance. “Pip, old chap! You’ll do yourself a
mischief. It’ll stick somewhere. You can’t have chawed it,
Pip.”
“What’s the matter now?” repeated my sister, more sharply
than before.
“If you can cough any trifle on it up, Pip, I’d recommend you to do
it,” said Joe, all aghast. “Manners is manners, but still your
elth’s your elth.”
By this time, my sister was quite desperate, so she pounced on Joe, and, taking
him by the two whiskers, knocked his head for a little while against the wall
behind him, while I sat in the corner, looking guiltily on.
“Now, perhaps you’ll mention what’s the matter,” said
my sister, out of breath, “you staring great stuck pig.”
Joe looked at her in a helpless way, then took a helpless bite, and looked at
me again.
“You know, Pip,” said Joe, solemnly, with his last bite in his
cheek, and speaking in a confidential voice, as if we two were quite alone,
“you and me is always friends, and I’d be the last to tell upon
you, any time. But such a—” he moved his chair and looked about the
floor between us, and then again at me—“such a most oncommon Bolt
as that!”
“Been bolting his food, has he?” cried my sister.
“You know, old chap,” said Joe, looking at me, and not at Mrs. Joe,
with his bite still in his cheek, “I Bolted, myself, when I was your
age—frequent—and as a boy I’ve been among a many Bolters; but
I never see your Bolting equal yet, Pip, and it’s a mercy you ain’t
Bolted dead.”
My sister made a dive at me, and fished me up by the hair, saying nothing more
than the awful words, “You come along and be dosed.”
Some medical beast had revived Tar-water in those days as a fine medicine, and
Mrs. Joe always kept a supply of it in the cupboard; having a belief in its
virtues correspondent to its nastiness. At the best of times, so much of this
elixir was administered to me as a choice restorative, that I was conscious of
going about, smelling like a new fence. On this particular evening the urgency
of my case demanded a pint of this mixture, which was poured down my throat,
for my greater comfort, while Mrs. Joe held my head under her arm, as a boot
would be held in a bootjack. Joe got off with half a pint; but was made to
swallow that (much to his disturbance, as he sat slowly munching and meditating
before the fire), “because he had had a turn.” Judging from myself,
I should say he certainly had a turn afterwards, if he had had none before.
Conscience is a dreadful thing when it accuses man or boy; but when, in the
case of a boy, that secret burden co-operates with another secret burden down
the leg of his trousers, it is (as I can testify) a great punishment. The
guilty knowledge that I was going to rob Mrs. Joe—I never thought I was
going to rob Joe, for I never thought of any of the housekeeping property as
his—united to the necessity of always keeping one hand on my bread and
butter as I sat, or when I was ordered about the kitchen on any small errand,
almost drove me out of my mind. Then, as the marsh winds made the fire glow and
flare, I thought I heard the voice outside, of the man with the iron on his leg
who had sworn me to secrecy, declaring that he couldn’t and
wouldn’t starve until to-morrow, but must be fed now. At other times, I
thought, What if the young man who was with so much difficulty restrained from
imbruing his hands in me should yield to a constitutional impatience, or should
mistake the time, and should think himself accredited to my heart and liver
to-night, instead of to-morrow! If ever anybody’s hair stood on end with
terror, mine must have done so then. But, perhaps, nobody’s ever did?
It was Christmas Eve, and I had to stir the pudding for next day, with a
copper-stick, from seven to eight by the Dutch clock. I tried it with the load
upon my leg (and that made me think afresh of the man with the load on
leg), and found the tendency of exercise to bring the bread and
butter out at my ankle, quite unmanageable. Happily I slipped away, and
deposited that part of my conscience in my garret bedroom.
“Hark!” said I, when I had done my stirring, and was taking a final
warm in the chimney corner before being sent up to bed; “was that great
guns, Joe?”
“Ah!” said Joe. “There’s another conwict off.”
“What does that mean, Joe?” said I.
Mrs. Joe, who always took explanations upon herself, said, snappishly,
“Escaped. Escaped.” Administering the definition like Tar-water.
While Mrs. Joe sat with her head bending over her needlework, I put my mouth
into the forms of saying to Joe, “What’s a convict?” Joe put
mouth into the forms of returning such a highly elaborate answer,
that I could make out nothing of it but the single word “Pip.”
“There was a conwict off last night,” said Joe, aloud, “after
sunset-gun. And they fired warning of him. And now it appears they’re
firing warning of another.”
“ firing?” said I.
“Drat that boy,” interposed my sister, frowning at me over her
work, “what a questioner he is. Ask no questions, and you’ll be
told no lies.”
It was not very polite to herself, I thought, to imply that I should be told
lies by her even if I did ask questions. But she never was polite unless there
was company.
At this point Joe greatly augmented my curiosity by taking the utmost pains to
open his mouth very wide, and to put it into the form of a word that looked to
me like “sulks.” Therefore, I naturally pointed to Mrs. Joe, and
put my mouth into the form of saying, “her?” But Joe wouldn’t
hear of that, at all, and again opened his mouth very wide, and shook the form
of a most emphatic word out of it. But I could make nothing of the word.
“Mrs. Joe,” said I, as a last resort, “I should like to
know—if you wouldn’t much mind—where the firing comes
from?”
“Lord bless the boy!” exclaimed my sister, as if she didn’t
quite mean that but rather the contrary. “From the Hulks!”
“Oh-h!” said I, looking at Joe. “Hulks!”
Joe gave a reproachful cough, as much as to say, “Well, I told you
so.”
“And please, what’s Hulks?” said I.
“That’s the way with this boy!” exclaimed my sister, pointing
me out with her needle and thread, and shaking her head at me. “Answer
him one question, and he’ll ask you a dozen directly. Hulks are
prison-ships, right ’cross th’ meshes.” We always used that
name for marshes, in our country.
“I wonder who’s put into prison-ships, and why they’re put
there?” said I, in a general way, and with quiet desperation.
It was too much for Mrs. Joe, who immediately rose. “I tell you what,
young fellow,” said she, “I didn’t bring you up by hand to
badger people’s lives out. It would be blame to me and not praise, if I
had. People are put in the Hulks because they murder, and because they rob, and
forge, and do all sorts of bad; and they always begin by asking questions. Now,
you get along to bed!”
I was never allowed a candle to light me to bed, and, as I went upstairs in the
dark, with my head tingling,—from Mrs. Joe’s thimble having played
the tambourine upon it, to accompany her last words,—I felt fearfully
sensible of the great convenience that the hulks were handy for me. I was
clearly on my way there. I had begun by asking questions, and I was going to
rob Mrs. Joe.
Since that time, which is far enough away now, I have often thought that few
people know what secrecy there is in the young under terror. No matter how
unreasonable the terror, so that it be terror. I was in mortal terror of the
young man who wanted my heart and liver; I was in mortal terror of my
interlocutor with the iron leg; I was in mortal terror of myself, from whom an
awful promise had been extracted; I had no hope of deliverance through my
all-powerful sister, who repulsed me at every turn; I am afraid to think of
what I might have done on requirement, in the secrecy of my terror.
If I slept at all that night, it was only to imagine myself drifting down the
river on a strong spring-tide, to the Hulks; a ghostly pirate calling out to me
through a speaking-trumpet, as I passed the gibbet-station, that I had better
come ashore and be hanged there at once, and not put it off. I was afraid to
sleep, even if I had been inclined, for I knew that at the first faint dawn of
morning I must rob the pantry. There was no doing it in the night, for there
was no getting a light by easy friction then; to have got one I must have
struck it out of flint and steel, and have made a noise like the very pirate
himself rattling his chains.
As soon as the great black velvet pall outside my little window was shot with
grey, I got up and went downstairs; every board upon the way, and every crack
in every board calling after me, “Stop thief!” and “Get up,
Mrs. Joe!” In the pantry, which was far more abundantly supplied than
usual, owing to the season, I was very much alarmed by a hare hanging up by the
heels, whom I rather thought I caught, when my back was half turned, winking. I
had no time for verification, no time for selection, no time for anything, for
I had no time to spare. I stole some bread, some rind of cheese, about half a
jar of mincemeat (which I tied up in my pocket-handkerchief with my last
night’s slice), some brandy from a stone bottle (which I decanted into a
glass bottle I had secretly used for making that intoxicating fluid,
Spanish-liquorice-water, up in my room: diluting the stone bottle from a jug in
the kitchen cupboard), a meat bone with very little on it, and a beautiful
round compact pork pie. I was nearly going away without the pie, but I was
tempted to mount upon a shelf, to look what it was that was put away so
carefully in a covered earthenware dish in a corner, and I found it was the
pie, and I took it in the hope that it was not intended for early use, and
would not be missed for some time.
There was a door in the kitchen, communicating with the forge; I unlocked and
unbolted that door, and got a file from among Joe’s tools. Then I put the
fastenings as I had found them, opened the door at which I had entered when I
ran home last night, shut it, and ran for the misty marshes.
Chapter III.
It was
a rimy morning, and very damp. I had seen the damp lying on the outside of my
little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all night, and using the
window for a pocket-handkerchief. Now, I saw the damp lying on the bare hedges
and spare grass, like a coarser sort of spiders’ webs; hanging itself
from twig to twig and blade to blade. On every rail and gate, wet lay clammy,
and the marsh mist was so thick, that the wooden finger on the post directing
people to our village—a direction which they never accepted, for they
never came there—was invisible to me until I was quite close under it.
Then, as I looked up at it, while it dripped, it seemed to my oppressed
conscience like a phantom devoting me to the Hulks.
The mist was heavier yet when I got out upon the marshes, so that instead of my
running at everything, everything seemed to run at me. This was very
disagreeable to a guilty mind. The gates and dikes and banks came bursting at
me through the mist, as if they cried as plainly as could be, “A boy with
somebody else’s pork pie! Stop him!” The cattle came upon me with
like suddenness, staring out of their eyes, and steaming out of their nostrils,
“Halloa, young thief!” One black ox, with a white cravat
on,—who even had to my awakened conscience something of a clerical
air,—fixed me so obstinately with his eyes, and moved his blunt head
round in such an accusatory manner as I moved round, that I blubbered out to
him, “I couldn’t help it, sir! It wasn’t for myself I took
it!” Upon which he put down his head, blew a cloud of smoke out of his
nose, and vanished with a kick-up of his hind-legs and a flourish of his tail.
All this time, I was getting on towards the river; but however fast I went, I
couldn’t warm my feet, to which the damp cold seemed riveted, as the iron
was riveted to the leg of the man I was running to meet. I knew my way to the
Battery, pretty straight, for I had been down there on a Sunday with Joe, and
Joe, sitting on an old gun, had told me that when I was ’prentice to him,
regularly bound, we would have such Larks there! However, in the confusion of
the mist, I found myself at last too far to the right, and consequently had to
try back along the river-side, on the bank of loose stones above the mud and
the stakes that staked the tide out. Making my way along here with all
despatch, I had just crossed a ditch which I knew to be very near the Battery,
and had just scrambled up the mound beyond the ditch, when I saw the man
sitting before me. His back was towards me, and he had his arms folded, and was
nodding forward, heavy with sleep.
I thought he would be more glad if I came upon him with his breakfast, in that
unexpected manner, so I went forward softly and touched him on the shoulder. He
instantly jumped up, and it was not the same man, but another man!
And yet this man was dressed in coarse grey, too, and had a great iron on his
leg, and was lame, and hoarse, and cold, and was everything that the other man
was; except that he had not the same face, and had a flat broad-brimmed
low-crowned felt hat on. All this I saw in a moment, for I had only a moment to
see it in: he swore an oath at me, made a hit at me,—it was a round weak
blow that missed me and almost knocked himself down, for it made him
stumble,—and then he ran into the mist, stumbling twice as he went, and I
lost him.
“It’s the young man!” I thought, feeling my heart shoot as I
identified him. I dare say I should have felt a pain in my liver, too, if I had
known where it was.
I was soon at the Battery after that, and there was the right
man,—hugging himself and limping to and fro, as if he had never all night
left off hugging and limping,—waiting for me. He was awfully cold, to be
sure. I half expected to see him drop down before my face and die of deadly
cold. His eyes looked so awfully hungry too, that when I handed him the file
and he laid it down on the grass, it occurred to me he would have tried to eat
it, if he had not seen my bundle. He did not turn me upside down this time to
get at what I had, but left me right side upwards while I opened the bundle and
emptied my pockets.
“What’s in the bottle, boy?” said he.
“Brandy,” said I.
He was already handing mincemeat down his throat in the most curious
manner,—more like a man who was putting it away somewhere in a violent
hurry, than a man who was eating it,—but he left off to take some of the
liquor. He shivered all the while so violently, that it was quite as much as he
could do to keep the neck of the bottle between his teeth, without biting it
off.
“I think you have got the ague,” said I.
“I’m much of your opinion, boy,” said he.
“It’s bad about here,” I told him. “You’ve been
lying out on the meshes, and they’re dreadful aguish. Rheumatic
too.”
“I’ll eat my breakfast afore they’re the death of me,”
said he. “I’d do that, if I was going to be strung up to that there
gallows as there is over there, directly afterwards. I’ll beat the
shivers so far, I’ll bet you.”
He was gobbling mincemeat, meatbone, bread, cheese, and pork pie, all at once:
staring distrustfully while he did so at the mist all round us, and often
stopping—even stopping his jaws—to listen. Some real or fancied
sound, some clink upon the river or breathing of beast upon the marsh, now gave
him a start, and he said, suddenly,—
“You’re not a deceiving imp? You brought no one with you?”
“No, sir! No!”
“Nor giv’ no one the office to follow you?”
“No!”
“Well,” said he, “I believe you. You’d be but a fierce
young hound indeed, if at your time of life you could help to hunt a wretched
warmint hunted as near death and dunghill as this poor wretched warmint
is!”
Something clicked in his throat as if he had works in him like a clock, and was
going to strike. And he smeared his ragged rough sleeve over his eyes.
Pitying his desolation, and watching him as he gradually settled down upon the
pie, I made bold to say, “I am glad you enjoy it.”
“Did you speak?”
“I said I was glad you enjoyed it.”
“Thankee, my boy. I do.”
I had often watched a large dog of ours eating his food; and I now noticed a
decided similarity between the dog’s way of eating, and the man’s.
The man took strong sharp sudden bites, just like the dog. He swallowed, or
rather snapped up, every mouthful, too soon and too fast; and he looked
sideways here and there while he ate, as if he thought there was danger in
every direction of somebody’s coming to take the pie away. He was
altogether too unsettled in his mind over it, to appreciate it comfortably I
thought, or to have anybody to dine with him, without making a chop with his
jaws at the visitor. In all of which particulars he was very like the dog.
“I am afraid you won’t leave any of it for him,” said I,
timidly; after a silence during which I had hesitated as to the politeness of
making the remark. “There’s no more to be got where that came
from.” It was the certainty of this fact that impelled me to offer the
hint.
“Leave any for him? Who’s him?” said my friend, stopping in
his crunching of pie-crust.
“The young man. That you spoke of. That was hid with you.”
“Oh ah!” he returned, with something like a gruff laugh.
“Him? Yes, yes! don’t want no wittles.”
“I thought he looked as if he did,” said I.
The man stopped eating, and regarded me with the keenest scrutiny and the
greatest surprise.
“Looked? When?”
“Just now.”
“Where?”
“Yonder,” said I, pointing; “over there, where I found him
nodding asleep, and thought it was you.”
He held me by the collar and stared at me so, that I began to think his first
idea about cutting my throat had revived.
“Dressed like you, you know, only with a hat,” I explained,
trembling; “and—and”—I was very anxious to put this
delicately—“and with—the same reason for wanting to borrow a
file. Didn’t you hear the cannon last night?”
“Then there firing!” he said to himself.
“I wonder you shouldn’t have been sure of that,” I returned,
“for we heard it up at home, and that’s farther away, and we were
shut in besides.”
“Why, see now!” said he. “When a man’s alone on these
flats, with a light head and a light stomach, perishing of cold and want, he
hears nothin’ all night, but guns firing, and voices calling. Hears? He
sees the soldiers, with their red coats lighted up by the torches carried
afore, closing in round him. Hears his number called, hears himself challenged,
hears the rattle of the muskets, hears the orders ‘Make ready! Present!
Cover him steady, men!’ and is laid hands on—and there’s
nothin’! Why, if I see one pursuing party last night—coming up in
order, Damn ’em, with their tramp, tramp—I see a hundred. And as to
firing! Why, I see the mist shake with the cannon, arter it was broad
day,—But this man”; he had said all the rest, as if he had
forgotten my being there; “did you notice anything in him?”
“He had a badly bruised face,” said I, recalling what I hardly knew
I knew.
“Not here?” exclaimed the man, striking his left cheek mercilessly,
with the flat of his hand.
“Yes, there!”
“Where is he?” He crammed what little food was left, into the
breast of his grey jacket. “Show me the way he went. I’ll pull him
down, like a bloodhound. Curse this iron on my sore leg! Give us hold of the
file, boy.”
I indicated in what direction the mist had shrouded the other man, and he
looked up at it for an instant. But he was down on the rank wet grass, filing
at his iron like a madman, and not minding me or minding his own leg, which had
an old chafe upon it and was bloody, but which he handled as roughly as if it
had no more feeling in it than the file. I was very much afraid of him again,
now that he had worked himself into this fierce hurry, and I was likewise very
much afraid of keeping away from home any longer. I told him I must go, but he
took no notice, so I thought the best thing I could do was to slip off. The
last I saw of him, his head was bent over his knee and he was working hard at
his fetter, muttering impatient imprecations at it and at his leg. The last I
heard of him, I stopped in the mist to listen, and the file was still going.
Chapter IV.
I
fully expected to find a Constable in the kitchen, waiting to take me up. But
not only was there no Constable there, but no discovery had yet been made of
the robbery. Mrs. Joe was prodigiously busy in getting the house ready for the
festivities of the day, and Joe had been put upon the kitchen doorstep to keep
him out of the dust-pan,—an article into which his destiny always led
him, sooner or later, when my sister was vigorously reaping the floors of her
establishment.
“And where the deuce ha’ been?” was Mrs.
Joe’s Christmas salutation, when I and my conscience showed ourselves.
I said I had been down to hear the Carols. “Ah! well!” observed
Mrs. Joe. “You might ha’ done worse.” Not a doubt of that I
thought.
“Perhaps if I warn’t a blacksmith’s wife, and (what’s
the same thing) a slave with her apron never off, should have been to
hear the Carols,” said Mrs. Joe. “I’m rather partial to
Carols, myself, and that’s the best of reasons for my never hearing
any.”
Joe, who had ventured into the kitchen after me as the dustpan had retired
before us, drew the back of his hand across his nose with a conciliatory air,
when Mrs. Joe darted a look at him, and, when her eyes were withdrawn, secretly
crossed his two forefingers, and exhibited them to me, as our token that Mrs.
Joe was in a cross temper. This was so much her normal state, that Joe and I
would often, for weeks together, be, as to our fingers, like monumental
Crusaders as to their legs.
We were to have a superb dinner, consisting of a leg of pickled pork and
greens, and a pair of roast stuffed fowls. A handsome mince-pie had been made
yesterday morning (which accounted for the mincemeat not being missed), and the
pudding was already on the boil. These extensive arrangements occasioned us to
be cut off unceremoniously in respect of breakfast; “for I
ain’t,” said Mrs. Joe,—“I ain’t a-going to have
no formal cramming and busting and washing up now, with what I’ve got
before me, I promise you!”
So, we had our slices served out, as if we were two thousand troops on a forced
march instead of a man and boy at home; and we took gulps of milk and water,
with apologetic countenances, from a jug on the dresser. In the meantime, Mrs.
Joe put clean white curtains up, and tacked a new flowered flounce across the
wide chimney to replace the old one, and uncovered the little state parlour
across the passage, which was never uncovered at any other time, but passed the
rest of the year in a cool haze of silver paper, which even extended to the
four little white crockery poodles on the mantel-shelf, each with a black nose
and a basket of flowers in his mouth, and each the counterpart of the other.
Mrs. Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her
cleanliness more uncomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself. Cleanliness
is next to Godliness, and some people do the same by their religion.
My sister, having so much to do, was going to church vicariously, that is to
say, Joe and I were going. In his working-clothes, Joe was a well-knit
characteristic-looking blacksmith; in his holiday clothes, he was more like a
scarecrow in good circumstances, than anything else. Nothing that he wore then
fitted him or seemed to belong to him; and everything that he wore then grazed
him. On the present festive occasion he emerged from his room, when the blithe
bells were going, the picture of misery, in a full suit of Sunday penitentials.
As to me, I think my sister must have had some general idea that I was a young
offender whom an Accoucheur Policeman had taken up (on my birthday) and
delivered over to her, to be dealt with according to the outraged majesty of
the law. I was always treated as if I had insisted on being born in opposition
to the dictates of reason, religion, and morality, and against the dissuading
arguments of my best friends. Even when I was taken to have a new suit of
clothes, the tailor had orders to make them like a kind of Reformatory, and on
no account to let me have the free use of my limbs.
Joe and I going to church, therefore, must have been a moving spectacle for
compassionate minds. Yet, what I suffered outside was nothing to what I
underwent within. The terrors that had assailed me whenever Mrs. Joe had gone
near the pantry, or out of the room, were only to be equalled by the remorse
with which my mind dwelt on what my hands had done. Under the weight of my
wicked secret, I pondered whether the Church would be powerful enough to shield
me from the vengeance of the terrible young man, if I divulged to that
establishment. I conceived the idea that the time when the banns were read and
when the clergyman said, “Ye are now to declare it!” would be the
time for me to rise and propose a private conference in the vestry. I am far
from being sure that I might not have astonished our small congregation by
resorting to this extreme measure, but for its being Christmas Day and no
Sunday.
Mr. Wopsle, the clerk at church, was to dine with us; and Mr. Hubble the
wheelwright and Mrs. Hubble; and Uncle Pumblechook (Joe’s uncle, but Mrs.
Joe appropriated him), who was a well-to-do cornchandler in the nearest town,
and drove his own chaise-cart. The dinner hour was half-past one. When Joe and
I got home, we found the table laid, and Mrs. Joe dressed, and the dinner
dressing, and the front door unlocked (it never was at any other time) for the
company to enter by, and everything most splendid. And still, not a word of the
robbery.
The time came, without bringing with it any relief to my feelings, and the
company came. Mr. Wopsle, united to a Roman nose and a large shining bald
forehead, had a deep voice which he was uncommonly proud of; indeed it was
understood among his acquaintance that if you could only give him his head, he
would read the clergyman into fits; he himself confessed that if the Church was
“thrown open,” meaning to competition, he would not despair of
making his mark in it. The Church not being “thrown open,” he was,
as I have said, our clerk. But he punished the Amens tremendously; and when he
gave out the psalm,—always giving the whole verse,—he looked all
round the congregation first, as much as to say, “You have heard my
friend overhead; oblige me with your opinion of this style!”
I opened the door to the company,—making believe that it was a habit of
ours to open that door,—and I opened it first to Mr. Wopsle, next to Mr.
and Mrs. Hubble, and last of all to Uncle Pumblechook. N.B. was not
allowed to call him uncle, under the severest penalties.
“Mrs. Joe,” said Uncle Pumblechook, a large hard-breathing
middle-aged slow man, with a mouth like a fish, dull staring eyes, and sandy
hair standing upright on his head, so that he looked as if he had just been all
but choked, and had that moment come to, “I have brought you as the
compliments of the season—I have brought you, Mum, a bottle of sherry
wine—and I have brought you, Mum, a bottle of port wine.”
Every Christmas Day he presented himself, as a profound novelty, with exactly
the same words, and carrying the two bottles like dumb-bells. Every Christmas
Day, Mrs. Joe replied, as she now replied, “O, Un—cle
Pum-ble—chook! This kind!” Every Christmas Day, he
retorted, as he now retorted, “It’s no more than your merits. And
now are you all bobbish, and how’s Sixpennorth of halfpence?”
meaning me.
We dined on these occasions in the kitchen, and adjourned, for the nuts and
oranges and apples to the parlour; which was a change very like Joe’s
change from his working-clothes to his Sunday dress. My sister was uncommonly
lively on the present occasion, and indeed was generally more gracious in the
society of Mrs. Hubble than in other company. I remember Mrs. Hubble as a
little curly sharp-edged person in sky-blue, who held a conventionally juvenile
position, because she had married Mr. Hubble,—I don’t know at what
remote period,—when she was much younger than he. I remember Mr Hubble as
a tough, high-shouldered, stooping old man, of a sawdusty fragrance, with his
legs extraordinarily wide apart: so that in my short days I always saw some
miles of open country between them when I met him coming up the lane.
Among this good company I should have felt myself, even if I hadn’t
robbed the pantry, in a false position. Not because I was squeezed in at an
acute angle of the tablecloth, with the table in my chest, and the
Pumblechookian elbow in my eye, nor because I was not allowed to speak (I
didn’t want to speak), nor because I was regaled with the scaly tips of
the drumsticks of the fowls, and with those obscure corners of pork of which
the pig, when living, had had the least reason to be vain. No; I should not
have minded that, if they would only have left me alone. But they
wouldn’t leave me alone. They seemed to think the opportunity lost, if
they failed to point the conversation at me, every now and then, and stick the
point into me. I might have been an unfortunate little bull in a Spanish arena,
I got so smartingly touched up by these moral goads.
It began the moment we sat down to dinner. Mr. Wopsle said grace with
theatrical declamation,—as it now appears to me, something like a
religious cross of the Ghost in Hamlet with Richard the Third,—and ended
with the very proper aspiration that we might be truly grateful. Upon which my
sister fixed me with her eye, and said, in a low reproachful voice, “Do
you hear that? Be grateful.”
“Especially,” said Mr. Pumblechook, “be grateful, boy, to
them which brought you up by hand.”
Mrs. Hubble shook her head, and contemplating me with a mournful presentiment
that I should come to no good, asked, “Why is it that the young are never
grateful?” This moral mystery seemed too much for the company until Mr.
Hubble tersely solved it by saying, “Naterally wicious.” Everybody
then murmured “True!” and looked at me in a particularly unpleasant
and personal manner.
Joe’s station and influence were something feebler (if possible) when
there was company than when there was none. But he always aided and comforted
me when he could, in some way of his own, and he always did so at dinner-time
by giving me gravy, if there were any. There being plenty of gravy to-day, Joe
spooned into my plate, at this point, about half a pint.
A little later on in the dinner, Mr. Wopsle reviewed the sermon with some
severity, and intimated—in the usual hypothetical case of the Church
being “thrown open”—what kind of sermon would have
given them. After favouring them with some heads of that discourse, he remarked
that he considered the subject of the day’s homily, ill chosen; which was
the less excusable, he added, when there were so many subjects “going
about.”
“True again,” said Uncle Pumblechook. “You’ve hit it,
sir! Plenty of subjects going about, for them that know how to put salt upon
their tails. That’s what’s wanted. A man needn’t go far to
find a subject, if he’s ready with his salt-box.” Mr. Pumblechook
added, after a short interval of reflection, “Look at Pork alone.
There’s a subject! If you want a subject, look at Pork!”
“True, sir. Many a moral for the young,” returned Mr.
Wopsle,—and I knew he was going to lug me in, before he said it;
“might be deduced from that text.”
(“You listen to this,” said my sister to me, in a severe
parenthesis.)
Joe gave me some more gravy.
“Swine,” pursued Mr. Wopsle, in his deepest voice, and pointing his
fork at my blushes, as if he were mentioning my Christian
name,—“swine were the companions of the prodigal. The gluttony of
Swine is put before us, as an example to the young.” (I thought this
pretty well in him who had been praising up the pork for being so plump and
juicy.) “What is detestable in a pig is more detestable in a boy.”
“Or girl,” suggested Mr. Hubble.
“Of course, or girl, Mr. Hubble,” assented Mr. Wopsle, rather
irritably, “but there is no girl present.”
“Besides,” said Mr. Pumblechook, turning sharp on me, “think
what you’ve got to be grateful for. If you’d been born a
Squeaker—”
“He , if ever a child was,” said my sister, most
emphatically.
Joe gave me some more gravy.
“Well, but I mean a four-footed Squeaker,” said Mr. Pumblechook.
“If you had been born such, would you have been here now? Not
you—”
“Unless in that form,” said Mr. Wopsle, nodding towards the dish.
“But I don’t mean in that form, sir,” returned Mr.
Pumblechook, who had an objection to being interrupted; “I mean, enjoying
himself with his elders and betters, and improving himself with their
conversation, and rolling in the lap of luxury. Would he have been doing that?
No, he wouldn’t. And what would have been your destination?”
turning on me again. “You would have been disposed of for so many
shillings according to the market price of the article, and Dunstable the
butcher would have come up to you as you lay in your straw, and he would have
whipped you under his left arm, and with his right he would have tucked up his
frock to get a penknife from out of his waistcoat-pocket, and he would have
shed your blood and had your life. No bringing up by hand then. Not a bit of
it!”
Joe offered me more gravy, which I was afraid to take.
“He was a world of trouble to you, ma’am,” said Mrs. Hubble,
commiserating my sister.
“Trouble?” echoed my sister; “trouble?” and then
entered on a fearful catalogue of all the illnesses I had been guilty of, and
all the acts of sleeplessness I had committed, and all the high places I had
tumbled from, and all the low places I had tumbled into, and all the injuries I
had done myself, and all the times she had wished me in my grave, and I had
contumaciously refused to go there.
I think the Romans must have aggravated one another very much, with their
noses. Perhaps, they became the restless people they were, in consequence.
Anyhow, Mr. Wopsle’s Roman nose so aggravated me, during the recital of
my misdemeanours, that I should have liked to pull it until he howled. But, all
I had endured up to this time was nothing in comparison with the awful feelings
that took possession of me when the pause was broken which ensued upon my
sister’s recital, and in which pause everybody had looked at me (as I
felt painfully conscious) with indignation and abhorrence.
“Yet,” said Mr. Pumblechook, leading the company gently back to the
theme from which they had strayed, “Pork—regarded as biled—is
rich, too; ain’t it?”
“Have a little brandy, uncle,” said my sister.
O Heavens, it had come at last! He would find it was weak, he would say it was
weak, and I was lost! I held tight to the leg of the table under the cloth,
with both hands, and awaited my fate.
My sister went for the stone bottle, came back with the stone bottle, and
poured his brandy out: no one else taking any. The wretched man trifled with
his glass,—took it up, looked at it through the light, put it
down,—prolonged my misery. All this time Mrs. Joe and Joe were briskly
clearing the table for the pie and pudding.
I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. Always holding tight by the leg of the
table with my hands and feet, I saw the miserable creature finger his glass
playfully, take it up, smile, throw his head back, and drink the brandy off.
Instantly afterwards, the company were seized with unspeakable consternation,
owing to his springing to his feet, turning round several times in an appalling
spasmodic whooping-cough dance, and rushing out at the door; he then became
visible through the window, violently plunging and expectorating, making the
most hideous faces, and apparently out of his mind.
I held on tight, while Mrs. Joe and Joe ran to him. I didn’t know how I
had done it, but I had no doubt I had murdered him somehow. In my dreadful
situation, it was a relief when he was brought back, and surveying the company
all round as if had disagreed with him, sank down into his chair
with the one significant gasp, “Tar!”
I had filled up the bottle from the tar-water jug. I knew he would be worse by
and by. I moved the table, like a Medium of the present day, by the vigor of my
unseen hold upon it.
“Tar!” cried my sister, in amazement. “Why, how ever could
Tar come there?”
But, Uncle Pumblechook, who was omnipotent in that kitchen, wouldn’t hear
the word, wouldn’t hear of the subject, imperiously waved it all away
with his hand, and asked for hot gin and water. My sister, who had begun to be
alarmingly meditative, had to employ herself actively in getting the gin, the
hot water, the sugar, and the lemon-peel, and mixing them. For the time being
at least, I was saved. I still held on to the leg of the table, but clutched it
now with the fervor of gratitude.
By degrees, I became calm enough to release my grasp and partake of pudding.
Mr. Pumblechook partook of pudding. All partook of pudding. The course
terminated, and Mr. Pumblechook had begun to beam under the genial influence of
gin and water. I began to think I should get over the day, when my sister said
to Joe, “Clean plates,—cold.”
I clutched the leg of the table again immediately, and pressed it to my bosom
as if it had been the companion of my youth and friend of my soul. I foresaw
what was coming, and I felt that this time I really was gone.
“You must taste,” said my sister, addressing the guests with her
best grace—“you must taste, to finish with, such a delightful and
delicious present of Uncle Pumblechook’s!”
Must they! Let them not hope to taste it!
“You must know,” said my sister, rising, “it’s a pie; a
savory pork pie.”
The company murmured their compliments. Uncle Pumblechook, sensible of having
deserved well of his fellow-creatures, said,—quite vivaciously, all
things considered,—“Well, Mrs. Joe, we’ll do our best
endeavours; let us have a cut at this same pie.”
My sister went out to get it. I heard her steps proceed to the pantry. I saw
Mr. Pumblechook balance his knife. I saw reawakening appetite in the Roman
nostrils of Mr. Wopsle. I heard Mr. Hubble remark that “a bit of savory
pork pie would lay atop of anything you could mention, and do no harm,”
and I heard Joe say, “You shall have some, Pip.” I have never been
absolutely certain whether I uttered a shrill yell of terror, merely in spirit,
or in the bodily hearing of the company. I felt that I could bear no more, and
that I must run away. I released the leg of the table, and ran for my life.
But I ran no farther than the house door, for there I ran head-foremost into a
party of soldiers with their muskets, one of whom held out a pair of handcuffs
to me, saying, “Here you are, look sharp, come on!”
Chapter V.
The
apparition of a file of soldiers ringing down the but-ends of their loaded
muskets on our door-step, caused the dinner-party to rise from table in
confusion, and caused Mrs. Joe re-entering the kitchen empty-handed, to stop
short and stare, in her wondering lament of “Gracious goodness gracious
me, what’s gone—with the—pie!”
The sergeant and I were in the kitchen when Mrs. Joe stood staring; at which
crisis I partially recovered the use of my senses. It was the sergeant who had
spoken to me, and he was now looking round at the company, with his handcuffs
invitingly extended towards them in his right hand, and his left on my
shoulder.
“Excuse me, ladies and gentleman,” said the sergeant, “but as
I have mentioned at the door to this smart young shaver,” (which he
hadn’t), “I am on a chase in the name of the king, and I want the
blacksmith.”
“And pray what might you want with ?” retorted my sister,
quick to resent his being wanted at all.
“Missis,” returned the gallant sergeant, “speaking for
myself, I should reply, the honour and pleasure of his fine wife’s
acquaintance; speaking for the king, I answer, a little job done.”
This was received as rather neat in the sergeant; insomuch that Mr. Pumblechook
cried audibly, “Good again!”
“You see, blacksmith,” said the sergeant, who had by this time
picked out Joe with his eye, “we have had an accident with these, and I
find the lock of one of ’em goes wrong, and the coupling don’t act
pretty. As they are wanted for immediate service, will you throw your eye over
them?”
Joe threw his eye over them, and pronounced that the job would necessitate the
lighting of his forge fire, and would take nearer two hours than one.
“Will it? Then will you set about it at once, blacksmith?” said the
off-hand sergeant, “as it’s on his Majesty’s service. And if
my men can bear a hand anywhere, they’ll make themselves useful.”
With that, he called to his men, who came trooping into the kitchen one after
another, and piled their arms in a corner. And then they stood about, as
soldiers do; now, with their hands loosely clasped before them; now, resting a
knee or a shoulder; now, easing a belt or a pouch; now, opening the door to
spit stiffly over their high stocks, out into the yard.
All these things I saw without then knowing that I saw them, for I was in an
agony of apprehension. But beginning to perceive that the handcuffs were not
for me, and that the military had so far got the better of the pie as to put it
in the background, I collected a little more of my scattered wits.
“Would you give me the time?” said the sergeant, addressing himself
to Mr. Pumblechook, as to a man whose appreciative powers justified the
inference that he was equal to the time.
“It’s just gone half past two.”
“That’s not so bad,” said the sergeant, reflecting;
“even if I was forced to halt here nigh two hours, that’ll do. How
far might you call yourselves from the marshes, hereabouts? Not above a mile, I
reckon?”
“Just a mile,” said Mrs. Joe.
“That’ll do. We begin to close in upon ’em about dusk. A
little before dusk, my orders are. That’ll do.”
“Convicts, sergeant?” asked Mr. Wopsle, in a matter-of-course way.
“Ay!” returned the sergeant, “two. They’re pretty well
known to be out on the marshes still, and they won’t try to get clear of
’em before dusk. Anybody here seen anything of any such game?”
Everybody, myself excepted, said no, with confidence. Nobody thought of me.
“Well!” said the sergeant, “they’ll find themselves
trapped in a circle, I expect, sooner than they count on. Now, blacksmith! If
you’re ready, his Majesty the King is.”
Joe had got his coat and waistcoat and cravat off, and his leather apron on,
and passed into the forge. One of the soldiers opened its wooden windows,
another lighted the fire, another turned to at the bellows, the rest stood
round the blaze, which was soon roaring. Then Joe began to hammer and clink,
hammer and clink, and we all looked on.
The interest of the impending pursuit not only absorbed the general attention,
but even made my sister liberal. She drew a pitcher of beer from the cask for
the soldiers, and invited the sergeant to take a glass of brandy. But Mr.
Pumblechook said, sharply, “Give him wine, Mum. I’ll engage
there’s no tar in that:” so, the sergeant thanked him and said that
as he preferred his drink without tar, he would take wine, if it was equally
convenient. When it was given him, he drank his Majesty’s health and
compliments of the season, and took it all at a mouthful and smacked his lips.
“Good stuff, eh, sergeant?” said Mr. Pumblechook.
“I’ll tell you something,” returned the sergeant; “I
suspect that stuff’s of providing.”
Mr. Pumblechook, with a fat sort of laugh, said, “Ay, ay? Why?”
“Because,” returned the sergeant, clapping him on the shoulder,
“you’re a man that knows what’s what.”
“D’ye think so?” said Mr. Pumblechook, with his former laugh.
“Have another glass!”
“With you. Hob and nob,” returned the sergeant. “The top of
mine to the foot of yours,—the foot of yours to the top of
mine,—Ring once, ring twice,—the best tune on the Musical Glasses!
Your health. May you live a thousand years, and never be a worse judge of the
right sort than you are at the present moment of your life!”
The sergeant tossed off his glass again and seemed quite ready for another
glass. I noticed that Mr. Pumblechook in his hospitality appeared to forget
that he had made a present of the wine, but took the bottle from Mrs. Joe and
had all the credit of handing it about in a gush of joviality. Even I got some.
And he was so very free of the wine that he even called for the other bottle,
and handed that about with the same liberality, when the first was gone.
As I watched them while they all stood clustering about the forge, enjoying
themselves so much, I thought what terrible good sauce for a dinner my fugitive
friend on the marshes was. They had not enjoyed themselves a quarter so much,
before the entertainment was brightened with the excitement he furnished. And
now, when they were all in lively anticipation of “the two
villains” being taken, and when the bellows seemed to roar for the
fugitives, the fire to flare for them, the smoke to hurry away in pursuit of
them, Joe to hammer and clink for them, and all the murky shadows on the wall
to shake at them in menace as the blaze rose and sank, and the red-hot sparks
dropped and died, the pale afternoon outside almost seemed in my pitying young
fancy to have turned pale on their account, poor wretches.
At last, Joe’s job was done, and the ringing and roaring stopped. As Joe
got on his coat, he mustered courage to propose that some of us should go down
with the soldiers and see what came of the hunt. Mr. Pumblechook and Mr. Hubble
declined, on the plea of a pipe and ladies’ society; but Mr. Wopsle said
he would go, if Joe would. Joe said he was agreeable, and would take me, if
Mrs. Joe approved. We never should have got leave to go, I am sure, but for
Mrs. Joe’s curiosity to know all about it and how it ended. As it was,
she merely stipulated, “If you bring the boy back with his head blown to
bits by a musket, don’t look to me to put it together again.”
The sergeant took a polite leave of the ladies, and parted from Mr. Pumblechook
as from a comrade; though I doubt if he were quite as fully sensible of that
gentleman’s merits under arid conditions, as when something moist was
going. His men resumed their muskets and fell in. Mr. Wopsle, Joe, and I,
received strict charge to keep in the rear, and to speak no word after we
reached the marshes. When we were all out in the raw air and were steadily
moving towards our business, I treasonably whispered to Joe, “I hope,
Joe, we shan’t find them.” and Joe whispered to me,
“I’d give a shilling if they had cut and run, Pip.”
We were joined by no stragglers from the village, for the weather was cold and
threatening, the way dreary, the footing bad, darkness coming on, and the
people had good fires in-doors and were keeping the day. A few faces hurried to
glowing windows and looked after us, but none came out. We passed the
finger-post, and held straight on to the churchyard. There we were stopped a
few minutes by a signal from the sergeant’s hand, while two or three of
his men dispersed themselves among the graves, and also examined the porch.
They came in again without finding anything, and then we struck out on the open
marshes, through the gate at the side of the churchyard. A bitter sleet came
rattling against us here on the east wind, and Joe took me on his back.
Now that we were out upon the dismal wilderness where they little thought I had
been within eight or nine hours and had seen both men hiding, I considered for
the first time, with great dread, if we should come upon them, would my
particular convict suppose that it was I who had brought the soldiers there? He
had asked me if I was a deceiving imp, and he had said I should be a fierce
young hound if I joined the hunt against him. Would he believe that I was both
imp and hound in treacherous earnest, and had betrayed him?
It was of no use asking myself this question now. There I was, on Joe’s
back, and there was Joe beneath me, charging at the ditches like a hunter, and
stimulating Mr. Wopsle not to tumble on his Roman nose, and to keep up with us.
The soldiers were in front of us, extending into a pretty wide line with an
interval between man and man. We were taking the course I had begun with, and
from which I had diverged in the mist. Either the mist was not out again yet,
or the wind had dispelled it. Under the low red glare of sunset, the beacon,
and the gibbet, and the mound of the Battery, and the opposite shore of the
river, were plain, though all of a watery lead colour.
With my heart thumping like a blacksmith at Joe’s broad shoulder, I
looked all about for any sign of the convicts. I could see none, I could hear
none. Mr. Wopsle had greatly alarmed me more than once, by his blowing and hard
breathing; but I knew the sounds by this time, and could dissociate them from
the object of pursuit. I got a dreadful start, when I thought I heard the file
still going; but it was only a sheep-bell. The sheep stopped in their eating
and looked timidly at us; and the cattle, their heads turned from the wind and
sleet, stared angrily as if they held us responsible for both annoyances; but,
except these things, and the shudder of the dying day in every blade of grass,
there was no break in the bleak stillness of the marshes.
The soldiers were moving on in the direction of the old Battery, and we were
moving on a little way behind them, when, all of a sudden, we all stopped. For
there had reached us on the wings of the wind and rain, a long shout. It was
repeated. It was at a distance towards the east, but it was long and loud. Nay,
there seemed to be two or more shouts raised together,—if one might judge
from a confusion in the sound.
To this effect the sergeant and the nearest men were speaking under their
breath, when Joe and I came up. After another moment’s listening, Joe
(who was a good judge) agreed, and Mr. Wopsle (who was a bad judge) agreed. The
sergeant, a decisive man, ordered that the sound should not be answered, but
that the course should be changed, and that his men should make towards it
“at the double.” So we slanted to the right (where the East was),
and Joe pounded away so wonderfully, that I had to hold on tight to keep my
seat.
It was a run indeed now, and what Joe called, in the only two words he spoke
all the time, “a Winder.” Down banks and up banks, and over gates,
and splashing into dikes, and breaking among coarse rushes: no man cared where
he went. As we came nearer to the shouting, it became more and more apparent
that it was made by more than one voice. Sometimes, it seemed to stop
altogether, and then the soldiers stopped. When it broke out again, the
soldiers made for it at a greater rate than ever, and we after them. After a
while, we had so run it down, that we could hear one voice calling
“Murder!” and another voice, “Convicts! Runaways! Guard! This
way for the runaway convicts!” Then both voices would seem to be stifled
in a struggle, and then would break out again. And when it had come to this,
the soldiers ran like deer, and Joe too.
The sergeant ran in first, when we had run the noise quite down, and two of his
men ran in close upon him. Their pieces were cocked and levelled when we all
ran in.
“Here are both men!” panted the sergeant, struggling at the bottom
of a ditch. “Surrender, you two! and confound you for two wild beasts!
Come asunder!”
Water was splashing, and mud was flying, and oaths were being sworn, and blows
were being struck, when some more men went down into the ditch to help the
sergeant, and dragged out, separately, my convict and the other one. Both were
bleeding and panting and execrating and struggling; but of course I knew them
both directly.
“Mind!” said my convict, wiping blood from his face with his ragged
sleeves, and shaking torn hair from his fingers: “ took him!
give him up to you! Mind that!”
“It’s not much to be particular about,” said the sergeant;
“it’ll do you small good, my man, being in the same plight
yourself. Handcuffs there!”
“I don’t expect it to do me any good. I don’t want it to do
me more good than it does now,” said my convict, with a greedy laugh.
“I took him. He knows it. That’s enough for me.”
The other convict was livid to look at, and, in addition to the old bruised
left side of his face, seemed to be bruised and torn all over. He could not so
much as get his breath to speak, until they were both separately handcuffed,
but leaned upon a soldier to keep himself from falling.
“Take notice, guard,—he tried to murder me,” were his first
words.
“Tried to murder him?” said my convict, disdainfully. “Try,
and not do it? I took him, and giv’ him up; that’s what I done. I
not only prevented him getting off the marshes, but I dragged him
here,—dragged him this far on his way back. He’s a gentleman, if
you please, this villain. Now, the Hulks has got its gentleman again, through
me. Murder him? Worth my while, too, to murder him, when I could do worse and
drag him back!”
The other one still gasped, “He tried—he tried-to—murder me.
Bear—bear witness.”
“Lookee here!” said my convict to the sergeant.
“Single-handed I got clear of the prison-ship; I made a dash and I done
it. I could ha’ got clear of these death-cold flats likewise—look
at my leg: you won’t find much iron on it—if I hadn’t made
the discovery that was here. Let go free? Let
profit by the means as I found out? Let make a tool of me afresh and
again? Once more? No, no, no. If I had died at the bottom there,” and he
made an emphatic swing at the ditch with his manacled hands, “I’d
have held to him with that grip, that you should have been safe to find him in
my hold.”
The other fugitive, who was evidently in extreme horror of his companion,
repeated, “He tried to murder me. I should have been a dead man if you
had not come up.”
“He lies!” said my convict, with fierce energy. “He’s a
liar born, and he’ll die a liar. Look at his face; ain’t it written
there? Let him turn those eyes of his on me. I defy him to do it.”
The other, with an effort at a scornful smile, which could not, however,
collect the nervous working of his mouth into any set expression, looked at the
soldiers, and looked about at the marshes and at the sky, but certainly did not
look at the speaker.
“Do you see him?” pursued my convict. “Do you see what a
villain he is? Do you see those grovelling and wandering eyes? That’s how
he looked when we were tried together. He never looked at me.”
The other, always working and working his dry lips and turning his eyes
restlessly about him far and near, did at last turn them for a moment on the
speaker, with the words, “You are not much to look at,” and with a
half-taunting glance at the bound hands. At that point, my convict became so
frantically exasperated, that he would have rushed upon him but for the
interposition of the soldiers. “Didn’t I tell you,” said the
other convict then, “that he would murder me, if he could?” And any
one could see that he shook with fear, and that there broke out upon his lips
curious white flakes, like thin snow.
“Enough of this parley,” said the sergeant. “Light those
torches.”
As one of the soldiers, who carried a basket in lieu of a gun, went down on his
knee to open it, my convict looked round him for the first time, and saw me. I
had alighted from Joe’s back on the brink of the ditch when we came up,
and had not moved since. I looked at him eagerly when he looked at me, and
slightly moved my hands and shook my head. I had been waiting for him to see me
that I might try to assure him of my innocence. It was not at all expressed to
me that he even comprehended my intention, for he gave me a look that I did not
understand, and it all passed in a moment. But if he had looked at me for an
hour or for a day, I could not have remembered his face ever afterwards, as
having been more attentive.
The soldier with the basket soon got a light, and lighted three or four
torches, and took one himself and distributed the others. It had been almost
dark before, but now it seemed quite dark, and soon afterwards very dark.
Before we departed from that spot, four soldiers standing in a ring, fired
twice into the air. Presently we saw other torches kindled at some distance
behind us, and others on the marshes on the opposite bank of the river.
“All right,” said the sergeant. “March.”
We had not gone far when three cannon were fired ahead of us with a sound that
seemed to burst something inside my ear. “You are expected on
board,” said the sergeant to my convict; “they know you are coming.
Don’t straggle, my man. Close up here.”
The two were kept apart, and each walked surrounded by a separate guard. I had
hold of Joe’s hand now, and Joe carried one of the torches. Mr. Wopsle
had been for going back, but Joe was resolved to see it out, so we went on with
the party. There was a reasonably good path now, mostly on the edge of the
river, with a divergence here and there where a dike came, with a miniature
windmill on it and a muddy sluice-gate. When I looked round, I could see the
other lights coming in after us. The torches we carried dropped great blotches
of fire upon the track, and I could see those, too, lying smoking and flaring.
I could see nothing else but black darkness. Our lights warmed the air about us
with their pitchy blaze, and the two prisoners seemed rather to like that, as
they limped along in the midst of the muskets. We could not go fast, because of
their lameness; and they were so spent, that two or three times we had to halt
while they rested.
After an hour or so of this travelling, we came to a rough wooden hut and a
landing-place. There was a guard in the hut, and they challenged, and the
sergeant answered. Then, we went into the hut, where there was a smell of
tobacco and whitewash, and a bright fire, and a lamp, and a stand of muskets,
and a drum, and a low wooden bedstead, like an overgrown mangle without the
machinery, capable of holding about a dozen soldiers all at once. Three or four
soldiers who lay upon it in their great-coats were not much interested in us,
but just lifted their heads and took a sleepy stare, and then lay down again.
The sergeant made some kind of report, and some entry in a book, and then the
convict whom I call the other convict was drafted off with his guard, to go on
board first.
My convict never looked at me, except that once. While we stood in the hut, he
stood before the fire looking thoughtfully at it, or putting up his feet by
turns upon the hob, and looking thoughtfully at them as if he pitied them for
their recent adventures. Suddenly, he turned to the sergeant, and
remarked,—
“I wish to say something respecting this escape. It may prevent some
persons laying under suspicion alonger me.”
“You can say what you like,” returned the sergeant, standing coolly
looking at him with his arms folded, “but you have no call to say it
here. You’ll have opportunity enough to say about it, and hear about it,
before it’s done with, you know.”
“I know, but this is another pint, a separate matter. A man can’t
starve; at least can’t. I took some wittles, up at the willage
over yonder,—where the church stands a’most out on the
marshes.”
“You mean stole,” said the sergeant.
“And I’ll tell you where from. From the blacksmith’s.”
“Halloa!” said the sergeant, staring at Joe.
“Halloa, Pip!” said Joe, staring at me.
“It was some broken wittles—that’s what it was—and a
dram of liquor, and a pie.”
“Have you happened to miss such an article as a pie, blacksmith?”
asked the sergeant, confidentially.
“My wife did, at the very moment when you came in. Don’t you know,
Pip?”
“So,” said my convict, turning his eyes on Joe in a moody manner,
and without the least glance at me,—“so you’re the
blacksmith, are you? Than I’m sorry to say, I’ve eat your
pie.”
“God knows you’re welcome to it,—so far as it was ever
mine,” returned Joe, with a saving remembrance of Mrs. Joe. “We
don’t know what you have done, but we wouldn’t have you starved to
death for it, poor miserable fellow-creatur.—Would us, Pip?”
The something that I had noticed before, clicked in the man’s throat
again, and he turned his back. The boat had returned, and his guard were ready,
so we followed him to the landing-place made of rough stakes and stones, and
saw him put into the boat, which was rowed by a crew of convicts like himself.
No one seemed surprised to see him, or interested in seeing him, or glad to see
him, or sorry to see him, or spoke a word, except that somebody in the boat
growled as if to dogs, “Give way, you!” which was the signal for
the dip of the oars. By the light of the torches, we saw the black Hulk lying
out a little way from the mud of the shore, like a wicked Noah’s ark.
Cribbed and barred and moored by massive rusty chains, the prison-ship seemed
in my young eyes to be ironed like the prisoners. We saw the boat go alongside,
and we saw him taken up the side and disappear. Then, the ends of the torches
were flung hissing into the water, and went out, as if it were all over with
him.
Chapter VI.
My
state of mind regarding the pilfering from which I had been so unexpectedly
exonerated did not impel me to frank disclosure; but I hope it had some dregs
of good at the bottom of it.
I do not recall that I felt any tenderness of conscience in reference to Mrs.
Joe, when the fear of being found out was lifted off me. But I loved
Joe,—perhaps for no better reason in those early days than because the
dear fellow let me love him,—and, as to him, my inner self was not so
easily composed. It was much upon my mind (particularly when I first saw him
looking about for his file) that I ought to tell Joe the whole truth. Yet I did
not, and for the reason that I mistrusted that if I did, he would think me
worse than I was. The fear of losing Joe’s confidence, and of thenceforth
sitting in the chimney corner at night staring drearily at my forever lost
companion and friend, tied up my tongue. I morbidly represented to myself that
if Joe knew it, I never afterwards could see him at the fireside feeling his
fair whisker, without thinking that he was meditating on it. That, if Joe knew
it, I never afterwards could see him glance, however casually, at
yesterday’s meat or pudding when it came on to-day’s table, without
thinking that he was debating whether I had been in the pantry. That, if Joe
knew it, and at any subsequent period of our joint domestic life remarked that
his beer was flat or thick, the conviction that he suspected tar in it, would
bring a rush of blood to my face. In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I
knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be
wrong. I had had no intercourse with the world at that time, and I imitated
none of its many inhabitants who act in this manner. Quite an untaught genius,
I made the discovery of the line of action for myself.
As I was sleepy before we were far away from the prison-ship, Joe took me on
his back again and carried me home. He must have had a tiresome journey of it,
for Mr. Wopsle, being knocked up, was in such a very bad temper that if the
Church had been thrown open, he would probably have excommunicated the whole
expedition, beginning with Joe and myself. In his lay capacity, he persisted in
sitting down in the damp to such an insane extent, that when his coat was taken
off to be dried at the kitchen fire, the circumstantial evidence on his
trousers would have hanged him, if it had been a capital offence.
By that time, I was staggering on the kitchen floor like a little drunkard,
through having been newly set upon my feet, and through having been fast
asleep, and through waking in the heat and lights and noise of tongues. As I
came to myself (with the aid of a heavy thump between the shoulders, and the
restorative exclamation “Yah! Was there ever such a boy as this!”
from my sister,) I found Joe telling them about the convict’s confession,
and all the visitors suggesting different ways by which he had got into the
pantry. Mr. Pumblechook made out, after carefully surveying the premises, that
he had first got upon the roof of the forge, and had then got upon the roof of
the house, and had then let himself down the kitchen chimney by a rope made of
his bedding cut into strips; and as Mr. Pumblechook was very positive and drove
his own chaise-cart—over everybody—it was agreed that it must be
so. Mr. Wopsle, indeed, wildly cried out, “No!” with the feeble
malice of a tired man; but, as he had no theory, and no coat on, he was
unanimously set at naught,—not to mention his smoking hard behind, as he
stood with his back to the kitchen fire to draw the damp out: which was not
calculated to inspire confidence.
This was all I heard that night before my sister clutched me, as a slumberous
offence to the company’s eyesight, and assisted me up to bed with such a
strong hand that I seemed to have fifty boots on, and to be dangling them all
against the edges of the stairs. My state of mind, as I have described it,
began before I was up in the morning, and lasted long after the subject had
died out, and had ceased to be mentioned saving on exceptional occasions.
Chapter VII.
At the
time when I stood in the churchyard reading the family tombstones, I had just
enough learning to be able to spell them out. My construction even of their
simple meaning was not very correct, for I read “wife of the Above”
as a complimentary reference to my father’s exaltation to a better world;
and if any one of my deceased relations had been referred to as
“Below,” I have no doubt I should have formed the worst opinions of
that member of the family. Neither were my notions of the theological positions
to which my Catechism bound me, at all accurate; for, I have a lively
remembrance that I supposed my declaration that I was to “walk in the
same all the days of my life,” laid me under an obligation always to go
through the village from our house in one particular direction, and never to
vary it by turning down by the wheelwright’s or up by the mill.
When I was old enough, I was to be apprenticed to Joe, and until I could assume
that dignity I was not to be what Mrs. Joe called “Pompeyed,” or
(as I render it) pampered. Therefore, I was not only odd-boy about the forge,
but if any neighbour happened to want an extra boy to frighten birds, or pick
up stones, or do any such job, I was favoured with the employment. In order,
however, that our superior position might not be compromised thereby, a
money-box was kept on the kitchen mantel-shelf, into which it was publicly made
known that all my earnings were dropped. I have an impression that they were to
be contributed eventually towards the liquidation of the National Debt, but I
know I had no hope of any personal participation in the treasure.
Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt kept an evening school in the village; that is to
say, she was a ridiculous old woman of limited means and unlimited infirmity,
who used to go to sleep from six to seven every evening, in the society of
youth who paid two pence per week each, for the improving opportunity of seeing
her do it. She rented a small cottage, and Mr. Wopsle had the room upstairs,
where we students used to overhear him reading aloud in a most dignified and
terrific manner, and occasionally bumping on the ceiling. There was a fiction
that Mr. Wopsle “examined” the scholars once a quarter. What he did
on those occasions was to turn up his cuffs, stick up his hair, and give us
Mark Antony’s oration over the body of Caesar. This was always followed
by Collins’s Ode on the Passions, wherein I particularly venerated Mr.
Wopsle as Revenge throwing his blood-stained sword in thunder down, and taking
the War-denouncing trumpet with a withering look. It was not with me then, as
it was in later life, when I fell into the society of the Passions, and
compared them with Collins and Wopsle, rather to the disadvantage of both
gentlemen.
Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt, besides keeping this Educational Institution,
kept in the same room—a little general shop. She had no idea what stock
she had, or what the price of anything in it was; but there was a little greasy
memorandum-book kept in a drawer, which served as a Catalogue of Prices, and by
this oracle Biddy arranged all the shop transactions. Biddy was Mr.
Wopsle’s great-aunt’s granddaughter; I confess myself quite unequal
to the working out of the problem, what relation she was to Mr. Wopsle. She was
an orphan like myself; like me, too, had been brought up by hand. She was most
noticeable, I thought, in respect of her extremities; for, her hair always
wanted brushing, her hands always wanted washing, and her shoes always wanted
mending and pulling up at heel. This description must be received with a
week-day limitation. On Sundays, she went to church elaborated.
Much of my unassisted self, and more by the help of Biddy than of Mr.
Wopsle’s great-aunt, I struggled through the alphabet as if it had been a
bramble-bush; getting considerably worried and scratched by every letter. After
that I fell among those thieves, the nine figures, who seemed every evening to
do something new to disguise themselves and baffle recognition. But, at last I
began, in a purblind groping way, to read, write, and cipher, on the very
smallest scale.
One night I was sitting in the chimney corner with my slate, expending great
efforts on the production of a letter to Joe. I think it must have been a full
year after our hunt upon the marshes, for it was a long time after, and it was
winter and a hard frost. With an alphabet on the hearth at my feet for
reference, I contrived in an hour or two to print and smear this
epistle:—
“I E JO i
E U WE
E i E i
A
N B
BL 4 2 D U
JO N N E
O
O
ON E i M
ND 2 JO T
X
EE
ME F PP.”
There was no indispensable necessity for my communicating with Joe by letter,
inasmuch as he sat beside me and we were alone. But I delivered this written
communication (slate and all) with my own hand, and Joe received it as a
miracle of erudition.
“I say, Pip, old chap!” cried Joe, opening his blue eyes wide,
“what a scholar you are! An’t you?”
“I should like to be,” said I, glancing at the slate as he held it;
with a misgiving that the writing was rather hilly.
“Why, here’s a J,” said Joe, “and a O equal to
anythink! Here’s a J and a O, Pip, and a J-O, Joe.”
I had never heard Joe read aloud to any greater extent than this monosyllable,
and I had observed at church last Sunday, when I accidentally held our
Prayer-Book upside down, that it seemed to suit his convenience quite as well
as if it had been all right. Wishing to embrace the present occasion of finding
out whether in teaching Joe, I should have to begin quite at the beginning, I
said, “Ah! But read the rest, Jo.”
“The rest, eh, Pip?” said Joe, looking at it with a slow, searching
eye, “One, two, three. Why, here’s three Js, and three Os, and
three J-O, Joes in it, Pip!”
I leaned over Joe, and, with the aid of my forefinger read him the whole
letter.
“Astonishing!” said Joe, when I had finished. “You
a scholar.”
“How do you spell Gargery, Joe?” I asked him, with a modest
patronage.
“I don’t spell it at all,” said Joe.
“But supposing you did?”
“It be supposed,” said Joe. “Tho’
I’m uncommon fond of reading, too.”
“Are you, Joe?”
“On-common. Give me,” said Joe, “a good book, or a good
newspaper, and sit me down afore a good fire, and I ask no better. Lord!”
he continued, after rubbing his knees a little, “when you come
to a J and a O, and says you, ‘Here, at last, is a J-O, Joe,’ how
interesting reading is!”
I derived from this, that Joe’s education, like Steam, was yet in its
infancy. Pursuing the subject, I inquired,—
“Didn’t you ever go to school, Joe, when you were as little as
me?”
“No, Pip.”
“Why didn’t you ever go to school, Joe, when you were as little as
me?”
“Well, Pip,” said Joe, taking up the poker, and settling himself to
his usual occupation when he was thoughtful, of slowly raking the fire between
the lower bars; “I’ll tell you. My father, Pip, he were given to
drink, and when he were overtook with drink, he hammered away at my mother,
most onmerciful. It were a’most the only hammering he did, indeed,
’xcepting at myself. And he hammered at me with a wigor only to be
equalled by the wigor with which he didn’t hammer at his
anwil.—You’re a listening and understanding, Pip?”
“Yes, Joe.”
“Consequence, my mother and me we ran away from my father several times;
and then my mother she’d go out to work, and she’d say,
“Joe,” she’d say, “now, please God, you shall have some
schooling, child,” and she’d put me to school. But my father were
that good in his hart that he couldn’t abear to be without us. So,
he’d come with a most tremenjous crowd and make such a row at the doors
of the houses where we was, that they used to be obligated to have no more to
do with us and to give us up to him. And then he took us home and hammered us.
Which, you see, Pip,” said Joe, pausing in his meditative raking of the
fire, and looking at me, “were a drawback on my learning.”
“Certainly, poor Joe!”
“Though mind you, Pip,” said Joe, with a judicial touch or two of
the poker on the top bar, “rendering unto all their doo, and maintaining
equal justice betwixt man and man, my father were that good in his hart,
don’t you see?”
I didn’t see; but I didn’t say so.
“Well!” Joe pursued, “somebody must keep the pot a-biling,
Pip, or the pot won’t bile, don’t you know?”
I saw that, and said so.
“Consequence, my father didn’t make objections to my going to work;
so I went to work at my present calling, which were his too, if he would have
followed it, and I worked tolerable hard, I assure , Pip. In time I
were able to keep him, and I kep him till he went off in a purple leptic fit.
And it were my intentions to have had put upon his tombstone that,
Whatsume’er the failings on his part, Remember reader he were that good
in his heart.”
Joe recited this couplet with such manifest pride and careful perspicuity, that
I asked him if he had made it himself.
“I made it,” said Joe, “my own self. I made it in a moment.
It was like striking out a horseshoe complete, in a single blow. I never was so
much surprised in all my life,—couldn’t credit my own ed,—to
tell you the truth, hardly believed it my own ed. As I was saying,
Pip, it were my intentions to have had it cut over him; but poetry costs money,
cut it how you will, small or large, and it were not done. Not to mention
bearers, all the money that could be spared were wanted for my mother. She were
in poor elth, and quite broke. She weren’t long of following, poor soul,
and her share of peace come round at last.”
Joe’s blue eyes turned a little watery; he rubbed first one of them, and
then the other, in a most uncongenial and uncomfortable manner, with the round
knob on the top of the poker.
“It were but lonesome then,” said Joe, “living here alone,
and I got acquainted with your sister. Now, Pip,”—Joe looked firmly
at me as if he knew I was not going to agree with him;—“your sister
is a fine figure of a woman.”
I could not help looking at the fire, in an obvious state of doubt.
“Whatever family opinions, or whatever the world’s opinions, on
that subject may be, Pip, your sister is,” Joe tapped the top bar with
the poker after every word following,
“a-fine-figure—of—a—woman!”
I could think of nothing better to say than “I am glad you think so,
Joe.”
“So am I,” returned Joe, catching me up. “ am glad I
think so, Pip. A little redness or a little matter of Bone, here or there, what
does it signify to Me?”
I sagaciously observed, if it didn’t signify to him, to whom did it
signify?
“Certainly!” assented Joe. “That’s it. You’re
right, old chap! When I got acquainted with your sister, it were the talk how
she was bringing you up by hand. Very kind of her too, all the folks said, and
I said, along with all the folks. As to you,” Joe pursued with a
countenance expressive of seeing something very nasty indeed, “if you
could have been aware how small and flabby and mean you was, dear me,
you’d have formed the most contemptible opinion of yourself!”
Not exactly relishing this, I said, “Never mind me, Joe.”
“But I did mind you, Pip,” he returned with tender simplicity.
“When I offered to your sister to keep company, and to be asked in church
at such times as she was willing and ready to come to the forge, I said to her,
‘And bring the poor little child. God bless the poor little child,’
I said to your sister, ‘there’s room for at the
forge!’”
I broke out crying and begging pardon, and hugged Joe round the neck: who
dropped the poker to hug me, and to say, “Ever the best of friends;
an’t us, Pip? Don’t cry, old chap!”
When this little interruption was over, Joe resumed:—
“Well, you see, Pip, and here we are! That’s about where it lights;
here we are! Now, when you take me in hand in my learning, Pip (and I tell you
beforehand I am awful dull, most awful dull), Mrs. Joe mustn’t see too
much of what we’re up to. It must be done, as I may say, on the sly. And
why on the sly? I’ll tell you why, Pip.”
He had taken up the poker again; without which, I doubt if he could have
proceeded in his demonstration.
“Your sister is given to government.”
“Given to government, Joe?” I was startled, for I had some shadowy
idea (and I am afraid I must add, hope) that Joe had divorced her in a favour
of the Lords of the Admiralty, or Treasury.
“Given to government,” said Joe. “Which I meantersay the
government of you and myself.”
“Oh!”
“And she an’t over partial to having scholars on the
premises,” Joe continued, “and in partickler would not be over
partial to my being a scholar, for fear as I might rise. Like a sort of rebel,
don’t you see?”
I was going to retort with an inquiry, and had got as far as
“Why—” when Joe stopped me.
“Stay a bit. I know what you’re a-going to say, Pip; stay a bit! I
don’t deny that your sister comes the Mo-gul over us, now and again. I
don’t deny that she do throw us back-falls, and that she do drop down
upon us heavy. At such times as when your sister is on the Ram-page,
Pip,” Joe sank his voice to a whisper and glanced at the door,
“candour compels fur to admit that she is a Buster.”
Joe pronounced this word, as if it began with at least twelve capital Bs.
“Why don’t I rise? That were your observation when I broke it off,
Pip?”
“Yes, Joe.”
“Well,” said Joe, passing the poker into his left hand, that he
might feel his whisker; and I had no hope of him whenever he took to that
placid occupation; “your sister’s a master-mind. A
master-mind.”
“What’s that?” I asked, in some hope of bringing him to a
stand. But Joe was readier with his definition than I had expected, and
completely stopped me by arguing circularly, and answering with a fixed look,
“Her.”
“And I ain’t a master-mind,” Joe resumed, when he had unfixed
his look, and got back to his whisker. “And last of all, Pip,—and
this I want to say very serious to you, old chap,—I see so much in my
poor mother, of a woman drudging and slaving and breaking her honest hart and
never getting no peace in her mortal days, that I’m dead afeerd of going
wrong in the way of not doing what’s right by a woman, and I’d fur
rather of the two go wrong the t’other way, and be a little
ill-conwenienced myself. I wish it was only me that got put out, Pip; I wish
there warn’t no Tickler for you, old chap; I wish I could take it all on
myself; but this is the up-and-down-and-straight on it, Pip, and I hope
you’ll overlook shortcomings.”
Young as I was, I believe that I dated a new admiration of Joe from that night.
We were equals afterwards, as we had been before; but, afterwards at quiet
times when I sat looking at Joe and thinking about him, I had a new sensation
of feeling conscious that I was looking up to Joe in my heart.
“However,” said Joe, rising to replenish the fire;
“here’s the Dutch-clock a-working himself up to being equal to
strike Eight of ’em, and she’s not come home yet! I hope Uncle
Pumblechook’s mare mayn’t have set a forefoot on a piece o’
ice, and gone down.”
Mrs. Joe made occasional trips with Uncle Pumblechook on market-days, to assist
him in buying such household stuffs and goods as required a woman’s
judgment; Uncle Pumblechook being a bachelor and reposing no confidences in his
domestic servant. This was market-day, and Mrs. Joe was out on one of these
expeditions.
Joe made the fire and swept the hearth, and then we went to the door to listen
for the chaise-cart. It was a dry cold night, and the wind blew keenly, and the
frost was white and hard. A man would die to-night of lying out on the marshes,
I thought. And then I looked at the stars, and considered how awful it would be
for a man to turn his face up to them as he froze to death, and see no help or
pity in all the glittering multitude.
“Here comes the mare,” said Joe, “ringing like a peal of
bells!”
The sound of her iron shoes upon the hard road was quite musical, as she came
along at a much brisker trot than usual. We got a chair out, ready for Mrs.
Joe’s alighting, and stirred up the fire that they might see a bright
window, and took a final survey of the kitchen that nothing might be out of its
place. When we had completed these preparations, they drove up, wrapped to the
eyes. Mrs. Joe was soon landed, and Uncle Pumblechook was soon down too,
covering the mare with a cloth, and we were soon all in the kitchen, carrying
so much cold air in with us that it seemed to drive all the heat out of the
fire.
“Now,” said Mrs. Joe, unwrapping herself with haste and excitement,
and throwing her bonnet back on her shoulders where it hung by the strings,
“if this boy ain’t grateful this night, he never will be!”
I looked as grateful as any boy possibly could, who was wholly uninformed why
he ought to assume that expression.
“It’s only to be hoped,” said my sister, “that he
won’t be Pompeyed. But I have my fears.”
“She ain’t in that line, Mum,” said Mr. Pumblechook.
“She knows better.”
She? I looked at Joe, making the motion with my lips and eyebrows,
“She?” Joe looked at me, making the motion with lips and
eyebrows, “She?” My sister catching him in the act, he drew the
back of his hand across his nose with his usual conciliatory air on such
occasions, and looked at her.
“Well?” said my sister, in her snappish way. “What are you
staring at? Is the house afire?”
“—Which some individual,” Joe politely hinted,
“mentioned—she.”
“And she is a she, I suppose?” said my sister. “Unless you
call Miss Havisham a he. And I doubt if even you’ll go so far as
that.”
“Miss Havisham, up town?” said Joe.
“Is there any Miss Havisham down town?” returned my sister.
“She wants this boy to go and play there. And of course he’s going.
And he had better play there,” said my sister, shaking her head at me as
an encouragement to be extremely light and sportive, “or I’ll work
him.”
I had heard of Miss Havisham up town,—everybody for miles round had heard
of Miss Havisham up town,—as an immensely rich and grim lady who lived in
a large and dismal house barricaded against robbers, and who led a life of
seclusion.
“Well to be sure!” said Joe, astounded. “I wonder how she
come to know Pip!”
“Noodle!” cried my sister. “Who said she knew him?”
“—Which some individual,” Joe again politely hinted,
“mentioned that she wanted him to go and play there.”
“And couldn’t she ask Uncle Pumblechook if he knew of a boy to go
and play there? Isn’t it just barely possible that Uncle Pumblechook may
be a tenant of hers, and that he may sometimes—we won’t say
quarterly or half-yearly, for that would be requiring too much of you—but
sometimes—go there to pay his rent? And couldn’t she then ask Uncle
Pumblechook if he knew of a boy to go and play there? And couldn’t Uncle
Pumblechook, being always considerate and thoughtful for us—though you
may not think it, Joseph,” in a tone of the deepest reproach, as if he
were the most callous of nephews, “then mention this boy, standing
Prancing here”—which I solemnly declare I was not
doing—“that I have for ever been a willing slave to?”
“Good again!” cried Uncle Pumblechook. “Well put! Prettily
pointed! Good indeed! Now Joseph, you know the case.”
“No, Joseph,” said my sister, still in a reproachful manner, while
Joe apologetically drew the back of his hand across and across his nose,
“you do not yet—though you may not think it—know the case.
You may consider that you do, but you do , Joseph. For you do not
know that Uncle Pumblechook, being sensible that for anything we can tell, this
boy’s fortune may be made by his going to Miss Havisham’s, has
offered to take him into town to-night in his own chaise-cart, and to keep him
to-night, and to take him with his own hands to Miss Havisham’s to-morrow
morning. And Lor-a-mussy me!” cried my sister, casting off her bonnet in
sudden desperation, “here I stand talking to mere Mooncalfs, with Uncle
Pumblechook waiting, and the mare catching cold at the door, and the boy grimed
with crock and dirt from the hair of his head to the sole of his foot!”
With that, she pounced upon me, like an eagle on a lamb, and my face was
squeezed into wooden bowls in sinks, and my head was put under taps of
water-butts, and I was soaped, and kneaded, and towelled, and thumped, and
harrowed, and rasped, until I really was quite beside myself. (I may here
remark that I suppose myself to be better acquainted than any living authority,
with the ridgy effect of a wedding-ring, passing unsympathetically over the
human countenance.)
When my ablutions were completed, I was put into clean linen of the stiffest
character, like a young penitent into sackcloth, and was trussed up in my
tightest and fearfullest suit. I was then delivered over to Mr. Pumblechook,
who formally received me as if he were the Sheriff, and who let off upon me the
speech that I knew he had been dying to make all along: “Boy, be forever
grateful to all friends, but especially unto them which brought you up by
hand!”
“Good-bye, Joe!”
“God bless you, Pip, old chap!”
I had never parted from him before, and what with my feelings and what with
soapsuds, I could at first see no stars from the chaise-cart. But they twinkled
out one by one, without throwing any light on the questions why on earth I was
going to play at Miss Havisham’s, and what on earth I was expected to
play at.
Chapter VIII.
Mr.
Pumblechook’s premises in the High Street of the market town, were of a
peppercorny and farinaceous character, as the premises of a cornchandler and
seedsman should be. It appeared to me that he must be a very happy man indeed,
to have so many little drawers in his shop; and I wondered when I peeped into
one or two on the lower tiers, and saw the tied-up brown paper packets inside,
whether the flower-seeds and bulbs ever wanted of a fine day to break out of
those jails, and bloom.
It was in the early morning after my arrival that I entertained this
speculation. On the previous night, I had been sent straight to bed in an attic
with a sloping roof, which was so low in the corner where the bedstead was,
that I calculated the tiles as being within a foot of my eyebrows. In the same
early morning, I discovered a singular affinity between seeds and corduroys.
Mr. Pumblechook wore corduroys, and so did his shopman; and somehow, there was
a general air and flavour about the corduroys, so much in the nature of seeds,
and a general air and flavour about the seeds, so much in the nature of
corduroys, that I hardly knew which was which. The same opportunity served me
for noticing that Mr. Pumblechook appeared to conduct his business by looking
across the street at the saddler, who appeared to transact business
by keeping his eye on the coachmaker, who appeared to get on in life by putting
his hands in his pockets and contemplating the baker, who in his turn folded
his arms and stared at the grocer, who stood at his door and yawned at the
chemist. The watchmaker, always poring over a little desk with a
magnifying-glass at his eye, and always inspected by a group of smock-frocks
poring over him through the glass of his shop-window, seemed to be about the
only person in the High Street whose trade engaged his attention.
Mr. Pumblechook and I breakfasted at eight o’clock in the parlour behind
the shop, while the shopman took his mug of tea and hunch of bread and butter
on a sack of peas in the front premises. I considered Mr. Pumblechook wretched
company. Besides being possessed by my sister’s idea that a mortifying
and penitential character ought to be imparted to my diet,—besides giving
me as much crumb as possible in combination with as little butter, and putting
such a quantity of warm water into my milk that it would have been more candid
to have left the milk out altogether,—his conversation consisted of
nothing but arithmetic. On my politely bidding him Good-morning, he said,
pompously, “Seven times nine, boy?” And how should be able
to answer, dodged in that way, in a strange place, on an empty stomach! I was
hungry, but before I had swallowed a morsel, he began a running sum that lasted
all through the breakfast. “Seven?” “And four?”
“And eight?” “And six?” “And two?”
“And ten?” And so on. And after each figure was disposed of, it was
as much as I could do to get a bite or a sup, before the next came; while he
sat at his ease guessing nothing, and eating bacon and hot roll, in (if I may
be allowed the expression) a gorging and gormandizing manner.
For such reasons, I was very glad when ten o’clock came and we started
for Miss Havisham’s; though I was not at all at my ease regarding the
manner in which I should acquit myself under that lady’s roof. Within a
quarter of an hour we came to Miss Havisham’s house, which was of old
brick, and dismal, and had a great many iron bars to it. Some of the windows
had been walled up; of those that remained, all the lower were rustily barred.
There was a courtyard in front, and that was barred; so we had to wait, after
ringing the bell, until some one should come to open it. While we waited at the
gate, I peeped in (even then Mr. Pumblechook said, “And fourteen?”
but I pretended not to hear him), and saw that at the side of the house there
was a large brewery. No brewing was going on in it, and none seemed to have
gone on for a long long time.
A window was raised, and a clear voice demanded “What name?” To
which my conductor replied, “Pumblechook.” The voice returned,
“Quite right,” and the window was shut again, and a young lady came
across the court-yard, with keys in her hand.
“This,” said Mr. Pumblechook, “is Pip.”
“This is Pip, is it?” returned the young lady, who was very pretty
and seemed very proud; “come in, Pip.”
Mr. Pumblechook was coming in also, when she stopped him with the gate.
“Oh!” she said. “Did you wish to see Miss Havisham?”
“If Miss Havisham wished to see me,” returned Mr. Pumblechook,
discomfited.
“Ah!” said the girl; “but you see she don’t.”
She said it so finally, and in such an undiscussible way, that Mr. Pumblechook,
though in a condition of ruffled dignity, could not protest. But he eyed me
severely,—as if had done anything to him!—and departed
with the words reproachfully delivered: “Boy! Let your behaviour here be
a credit unto them which brought you up by hand!” I was not free from
apprehension that he would come back to propound through the gate, “And
sixteen?” But he didn’t.
My young conductress locked the gate, and we went across the courtyard. It was
paved and clean, but grass was growing in every crevice. The brewery buildings
had a little lane of communication with it, and the wooden gates of that lane
stood open, and all the brewery beyond stood open, away to the high enclosing
wall; and all was empty and disused. The cold wind seemed to blow colder there
than outside the gate; and it made a shrill noise in howling in and out at the
open sides of the brewery, like the noise of wind in the rigging of a ship at
sea.
She saw me looking at it, and she said, “You could drink without hurt all
the strong beer that’s brewed there now, boy.”
“I should think I could, miss,” said I, in a shy way.
“Better not try to brew beer there now, or it would turn out sour, boy;
don’t you think so?”
“It looks like it, miss.”
“Not that anybody means to try,” she added, “for that’s
all done with, and the place will stand as idle as it is till it falls. As to
strong beer, there’s enough of it in the cellars already, to drown the
Manor House.”
“Is that the name of this house, miss?”
“One of its names, boy.”
“It has more than one, then, miss?”
“One more. Its other name was Satis; which is Greek, or Latin, or Hebrew,
or all three—or all one to me—for enough.”
“Enough House,” said I; “that’s a curious name,
miss.”
“Yes,” she replied; “but it meant more than it said. It
meant, when it was given, that whoever had this house could want nothing else.
They must have been easily satisfied in those days, I should think. But
don’t loiter, boy.”
Though she called me “boy” so often, and with a carelessness that
was far from complimentary, she was of about my own age. She seemed much older
than I, of course, being a girl, and beautiful and self-possessed; and she was
as scornful of me as if she had been one-and-twenty, and a queen.
We went into the house by a side door, the great front entrance had two chains
across it outside,—and the first thing I noticed was, that the passages
were all dark, and that she had left a candle burning there. She took it up,
and we went through more passages and up a staircase, and still it was all
dark, and only the candle lighted us.
At last we came to the door of a room, and she said, “Go in.”
I answered, more in shyness than politeness, “After you, miss.”
To this she returned: “Don’t be ridiculous, boy; I am not going
in.” And scornfully walked away, and—what was worse—took the
candle with her.
This was very uncomfortable, and I was half afraid. However, the only thing to
be done being to knock at the door, I knocked, and was told from within to
enter. I entered, therefore, and found myself in a pretty large room, well
lighted with wax candles. No glimpse of daylight was to be seen in it. It was a
dressing-room, as I supposed from the furniture, though much of it was of forms
and uses then quite unknown to me. But prominent in it was a draped table with
a gilded looking-glass, and that I made out at first sight to be a fine
lady’s dressing-table.
Whether I should have made out this object so soon if there had been no fine
lady sitting at it, I cannot say. In an arm-chair, with an elbow resting on the
table and her head leaning on that hand, sat the strangest lady I have ever
seen, or shall ever see.
She was dressed in rich materials,—satins, and lace, and silks,—all
of white. Her shoes were white. And she had a long white veil dependent from
her hair, and she had bridal flowers in her hair, but her hair was white. Some
bright jewels sparkled on her neck and on her hands, and some other jewels lay
sparkling on the table. Dresses, less splendid than the dress she wore, and
half-packed trunks, were scattered about. She had not quite finished dressing,
for she had but one shoe on,—the other was on the table near her
hand,—her veil was but half arranged, her watch and chain were not put
on, and some lace for her bosom lay with those trinkets, and with her
handkerchief, and gloves, and some flowers, and a Prayer-Book all confusedly
heaped about the looking-glass.
It was not in the first few moments that I saw all these things, though I saw
more of them in the first moments than might be supposed. But I saw that
everything within my view which ought to be white, had been white long ago, and
had lost its lustre and was faded and yellow. I saw that the bride within the
bridal dress had withered like the dress, and like the flowers, and had no
brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes. I saw that the dress had
been put upon the rounded figure of a young woman, and that the figure upon
which it now hung loose had shrunk to skin and bone. Once, I had been taken to
see some ghastly waxwork at the Fair, representing I know not what impossible
personage lying in state. Once, I had been taken to one of our old marsh
churches to see a skeleton in the ashes of a rich dress that had been dug out
of a vault under the church pavement. Now, waxwork and skeleton seemed to have
dark eyes that moved and looked at me. I should have cried out, if I could.
“Who is it?” said the lady at the table.
“Pip, ma’am.”
“Pip?”
“Mr. Pumblechook’s boy, ma’am. Come—to play.”
“Come nearer; let me look at you. Come close.”
It was when I stood before her, avoiding her eyes, that I took note of the
surrounding objects in detail, and saw that her watch had stopped at twenty
minutes to nine, and that a clock in the room had stopped at twenty minutes to
nine.
“Look at me,” said Miss Havisham. “You are not afraid of a
woman who has never seen the sun since you were born?”
I regret to state that I was not afraid of telling the enormous lie
comprehended in the answer “No.”
“Do you know what I touch here?” she said, laying her hands, one
upon the other, on her left side.
“Yes, ma’am.” (It made me think of the young man.)
“What do I touch?”
“Your heart.”
“Broken!”
She uttered the word with an eager look, and with strong emphasis, and with a
weird smile that had a kind of boast in it. Afterwards she kept her hands there
for a little while, and slowly took them away as if they were heavy.
“I am tired,” said Miss Havisham. “I want diversion, and I
have done with men and women. Play.”
I think it will be conceded by my most disputatious reader, that she could
hardly have directed an unfortunate boy to do anything in the wide world more
difficult to be done under the circumstances.
“I sometimes have sick fancies,” she went on, “and I have a
sick fancy that I want to see some play. There, there!” with an impatient
movement of the fingers of her right hand; “play, play, play!”
For a moment, with the fear of my sister’s working me before my eyes, I
had a desperate idea of starting round the room in the assumed character of Mr.
Pumblechook’s chaise-cart. But I felt myself so unequal to the
performance that I gave it up, and stood looking at Miss Havisham in what I
suppose she took for a dogged manner, inasmuch as she said, when we had taken a
good look at each other,—
“Are you sullen and obstinate?”
“No, ma’am, I am very sorry for you, and very sorry I can’t
play just now. If you complain of me I shall get into trouble with my sister,
so I would do it if I could; but it’s so new here, and so strange, and so
fine,—and melancholy—.” I stopped, fearing I might say too
much, or had already said it, and we took another look at each other.
Before she spoke again, she turned her eyes from me, and looked at the dress
she wore, and at the dressing-table, and finally at herself in the
looking-glass.
“So new to him,” she muttered, “so old to me; so strange to
him, so familiar to me; so melancholy to both of us! Call Estella.”
As she was still looking at the reflection of herself, I thought she was still
talking to herself, and kept quiet.
“Call Estella,” she repeated, flashing a look at me. “You can
do that. Call Estella. At the door.”
To stand in the dark in a mysterious passage of an unknown house, bawling
Estella to a scornful young lady neither visible nor responsive, and feeling it
a dreadful liberty so to roar out her name, was almost as bad as playing to
order. But she answered at last, and her light came along the dark passage like
a star.
Miss Havisham beckoned her to come close, and took up a jewel from the table,
and tried its effect upon her fair young bosom and against her pretty brown
hair. “Your own, one day, my dear, and you will use it well. Let me see
you play cards with this boy.”
“With this boy? Why, he is a common labouring-boy!”
I thought I overheard Miss Havisham answer,—only it seemed so
unlikely,—“Well? You can break his heart.”
“What do you play, boy?” asked Estella of myself, with the greatest
disdain.
“Nothing but beggar my neighbour, miss.”
“Beggar him,” said Miss Havisham to Estella. So we sat down to
cards.
It was then I began to understand that everything in the room had stopped, like
the watch and the clock, a long time ago. I noticed that Miss Havisham put down
the jewel exactly on the spot from which she had taken it up. As Estella dealt
the cards, I glanced at the dressing-table again, and saw that the shoe upon
it, once white, now yellow, had never been worn. I glanced down at the foot
from which the shoe was absent, and saw that the silk stocking on it, once
white, now yellow, had been trodden ragged. Without this arrest of everything,
this standing still of all the pale decayed objects, not even the withered
bridal dress on the collapsed form could have looked so like grave-clothes, or
the long veil so like a shroud.
So she sat, corpse-like, as we played at cards; the frillings and trimmings on
her bridal dress, looking like earthy paper. I knew nothing then of the
discoveries that are occasionally made of bodies buried in ancient times, which
fall to powder in the moment of being distinctly seen; but, I have often
thought since, that she must have looked as if the admission of the natural
light of day would have struck her to dust.
“He calls the knaves Jacks, this boy!” said Estella with disdain,
before our first game was out. “And what coarse hands he has! And what
thick boots!”
I had never thought of being ashamed of my hands before; but I began to
consider them a very indifferent pair. Her contempt for me was so strong, that
it became infectious, and I caught it.
She won the game, and I dealt. I misdealt, as was only natural, when I knew she
was lying in wait for me to do wrong; and she denounced me for a stupid, clumsy
labouring-boy.
“You say nothing of her,” remarked Miss Havisham to me, as she
looked on. “She says many hard things of you, but you say nothing of her.
What do you think of her?”
“I don’t like to say,” I stammered.
“Tell me in my ear,” said Miss Havisham, bending down.
“I think she is very proud,” I replied, in a whisper.
“Anything else?”
“I think she is very pretty.”
“Anything else?”
“I think she is very insulting.” (She was looking at me then with a
look of supreme aversion.)
“Anything else?”
“I think I should like to go home.”
“And never see her again, though she is so pretty?”
“I am not sure that I shouldn’t like to see her again, but I should
like to go home now.”
“You shall go soon,” said Miss Havisham, aloud. “Play the
game out.”
Saving for the one weird smile at first, I should have felt almost sure that
Miss Havisham’s face could not smile. It had dropped into a watchful and
brooding expression,—most likely when all the things about her had become
transfixed,—and it looked as if nothing could ever lift it up again. Her
chest had dropped, so that she stooped; and her voice had dropped, so that she
spoke low, and with a dead lull upon her; altogether, she had the appearance of
having dropped body and soul, within and without, under the weight of a
crushing blow.
I played the game to an end with Estella, and she beggared me. She threw the
cards down on the table when she had won them all, as if she despised them for
having been won of me.
“When shall I have you here again?” said Miss Havisham. “Let
me think.”
I was beginning to remind her that to-day was Wednesday, when she checked me
with her former impatient movement of the fingers of her right hand.
“There, there! I know nothing of days of the week; I know nothing of
weeks of the year. Come again after six days. You hear?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Estella, take him down. Let him have something to eat, and let him roam
and look about him while he eats. Go, Pip.”
I followed the candle down, as I had followed the candle up, and she stood it
in the place where we had found it. Until she opened the side entrance, I had
fancied, without thinking about it, that it must necessarily be night-time. The
rush of the daylight quite confounded me, and made me feel as if I had been in
the candlelight of the strange room many hours.
“You are to wait here, you boy,” said Estella; and disappeared and
closed the door.
I took the opportunity of being alone in the courtyard to look at my coarse
hands and my common boots. My opinion of those accessories was not favourable.
They had never troubled me before, but they troubled me now, as vulgar
appendages. I determined to ask Joe why he had ever taught me to call those
picture-cards Jacks, which ought to be called knaves. I wished Joe had been
rather more genteelly brought up, and then I should have been so too.
She came back, with some bread and meat and a little mug of beer. She put the
mug down on the stones of the yard, and gave me the bread and meat without
looking at me, as insolently as if I were a dog in disgrace. I was so
humiliated, hurt, spurned, offended, angry, sorry,—I cannot hit upon the
right name for the smart—God knows what its name was,—that tears
started to my eyes. The moment they sprang there, the girl looked at me with a
quick delight in having been the cause of them. This gave me power to keep them
back and to look at her: so, she gave a contemptuous toss—but with a
sense, I thought, of having made too sure that I was so wounded—and left
me.
But when she was gone, I looked about me for a place to hide my face in, and
got behind one of the gates in the brewery-lane, and leaned my sleeve against
the wall there, and leaned my forehead on it and cried. As I cried, I kicked
the wall, and took a hard twist at my hair; so bitter were my feelings, and so
sharp was the smart without a name, that needed counteraction.
My sister’s bringing up had made me sensitive. In the little world in
which children have their existence whosoever brings them up, there is nothing
so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice. It may be only small
injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child is small, and its
world is small, and its rocking-horse stands as many hands high, according to
scale, as a big-boned Irish hunter. Within myself, I had sustained, from my
babyhood, a perpetual conflict with injustice. I had known, from the time when
I could speak, that my sister, in her capricious and violent coercion, was
unjust to me. I had cherished a profound conviction that her bringing me up by
hand gave her no right to bring me up by jerks. Through all my punishments,
disgraces, fasts, and vigils, and other penitential performances, I had nursed
this assurance; and to my communing so much with it, in a solitary and
unprotected way, I in great part refer the fact that I was morally timid and
very sensitive.
I got rid of my injured feelings for the time by kicking them into the brewery
wall, and twisting them out of my hair, and then I smoothed my face with my
sleeve, and came from behind the gate. The bread and meat were acceptable, and
the beer was warming and tingling, and I was soon in spirits to look about me.
To be sure, it was a deserted place, down to the pigeon-house in the
brewery-yard, which had been blown crooked on its pole by some high wind, and
would have made the pigeons think themselves at sea, if there had been any
pigeons there to be rocked by it. But there were no pigeons in the dove-cot, no
horses in the stable, no pigs in the sty, no malt in the storehouse, no smells
of grains and beer in the copper or the vat. All the uses and scents of the
brewery might have evaporated with its last reek of smoke. In a by-yard, there
was a wilderness of empty casks, which had a certain sour remembrance of better
days lingering about them; but it was too sour to be accepted as a sample of
the beer that was gone,—and in this respect I remember those recluses as
being like most others.
Behind the furthest end of the brewery, was a rank garden with an old wall; not
so high but that I could struggle up and hold on long enough to look over it,
and see that the rank garden was the garden of the house, and that it was
overgrown with tangled weeds, but that there was a track upon the green and
yellow paths, as if some one sometimes walked there, and that Estella was
walking away from me even then. But she seemed to be everywhere. For when I
yielded to the temptation presented by the casks, and began to walk on them, I
saw walking on them at the end of the yard of casks. She had her
back towards me, and held her pretty brown hair spread out in her two hands,
and never looked round, and passed out of my view directly. So, in the brewery
itself,—by which I mean the large paved lofty place in which they used to
make the beer, and where the brewing utensils still were. When I first went
into it, and, rather oppressed by its gloom, stood near the door looking about
me, I saw her pass among the extinguished fires, and ascend some light iron
stairs, and go out by a gallery high overhead, as if she were going out into
the sky.
It was in this place, and at this moment, that a strange thing happened to my
fancy. I thought it a strange thing then, and I thought it a stranger thing
long afterwards. I turned my eyes—a little dimmed by looking up at the
frosty light—towards a great wooden beam in a low nook of the building
near me on my right hand, and I saw a figure hanging there by the neck. A
figure all in yellow white, with but one shoe to the feet; and it hung so, that
I could see that the faded trimmings of the dress were like earthy paper, and
that the face was Miss Havisham’s, with a movement going over the whole
countenance as if she were trying to call to me. In the terror of seeing the
figure, and in the terror of being certain that it had not been there a moment
before, I at first ran from it, and then ran towards it. And my terror was
greatest of all when I found no figure there.
Nothing less than the frosty light of the cheerful sky, the sight of people
passing beyond the bars of the court-yard gate, and the reviving influence of
the rest of the bread and meat and beer, would have brought me round. Even with
those aids, I might not have come to myself as soon as I did, but that I saw
Estella approaching with the keys, to let me out. She would have some fair
reason for looking down upon me, I thought, if she saw me frightened; and she
would have no fair reason.
She gave me a triumphant glance in passing me, as if she rejoiced that my hands
were so coarse and my boots were so thick, and she opened the gate, and stood
holding it. I was passing out without looking at her, when she touched me with
a taunting hand.
“Why don’t you cry?”
“Because I don’t want to.”
“You do,” said she. “You have been crying till you are half
blind, and you are near crying again now.”
She laughed contemptuously, pushed me out, and locked the gate upon me. I went
straight to Mr. Pumblechook’s, and was immensely relieved to find him not
at home. So, leaving word with the shopman on what day I was wanted at Miss
Havisham’s again, I set off on the four-mile walk to our forge;
pondering, as I went along, on all I had seen, and deeply revolving that I was
a common labouring-boy; that my hands were coarse; that my boots were thick;
that I had fallen into a despicable habit of calling knaves Jacks; that I was
much more ignorant than I had considered myself last night, and generally that
I was in a low-lived bad way.
Chapter IX.
When I
reached home, my sister was very curious to know all about Miss
Havisham’s, and asked a number of questions. And I soon found myself
getting heavily bumped from behind in the nape of the neck and the small of the
back, and having my face ignominiously shoved against the kitchen wall, because
I did not answer those questions at sufficient length.
If a dread of not being understood be hidden in the breasts of other young
people to anything like the extent to which it used to be hidden in
mine,—which I consider probable, as I have no particular reason to
suspect myself of having been a monstrosity,—it is the key to many
reservations. I felt convinced that if I described Miss Havisham’s as my
eyes had seen it, I should not be understood. Not only that, but I felt
convinced that Miss Havisham too would not be understood; and although she was
perfectly incomprehensible to me, I entertained an impression that there would
be something coarse and treacherous in my dragging her as she really was (to
say nothing of Miss Estella) before the contemplation of Mrs. Joe.
Consequently, I said as little as I could, and had my face shoved against the
kitchen wall.
The worst of it was that that bullying old Pumblechook, preyed upon by a
devouring curiosity to be informed of all I had seen and heard, came gaping
over in his chaise-cart at tea-time, to have the details divulged to him. And
the mere sight of the torment, with his fishy eyes and mouth open, his sandy
hair inquisitively on end, and his waistcoat heaving with windy arithmetic,
made me vicious in my reticence.
“Well, boy,” Uncle Pumblechook began, as soon as he was seated in
the chair of honour by the fire. “How did you get on up town?”
I answered, “Pretty well, sir,” and my sister shook her fist at me.
“Pretty well?” Mr. Pumblechook repeated. “Pretty well is no
answer. Tell us what you mean by pretty well, boy?”
Whitewash on the forehead hardens the brain into a state of obstinacy perhaps.
Anyhow, with whitewash from the wall on my forehead, my obstinacy was
adamantine. I reflected for some time, and then answered as if I had discovered
a new idea, “I mean pretty well.”
My sister with an exclamation of impatience was going to fly at me,—I had
no shadow of defence, for Joe was busy in the forge,—when Mr. Pumblechook
interposed with “No! Don’t lose your temper. Leave this lad to me,
ma’am; leave this lad to me.” Mr. Pumblechook then turned me
towards him, as if he were going to cut my hair, and said,—
“First (to get our thoughts in order): Forty-three pence?”
I calculated the consequences of replying “Four Hundred Pound,” and
finding them against me, went as near the answer as I could—which was
somewhere about eightpence off. Mr. Pumblechook then put me through my
pence-table from “twelve pence make one shilling,” up to
“forty pence make three and fourpence,” and then triumphantly
demanded, as if he had done for me, “ How much is forty-three
pence?” To which I replied, after a long interval of reflection, “I
don’t know.” And I was so aggravated that I almost doubt if I did
know.
Mr. Pumblechook worked his head like a screw to screw it out of me, and said,
“Is forty-three pence seven and sixpence three fardens, for
instance?”
“Yes!” said I. And although my sister instantly boxed my ears, it
was highly gratifying to me to see that the answer spoilt his joke, and brought
him to a dead stop.
“Boy! What like is Miss Havisham?” Mr. Pumblechook began again when
he had recovered; folding his arms tight on his chest and applying the screw.
“Very tall and dark,” I told him.
“Is she, uncle?” asked my sister.
Mr. Pumblechook winked assent; from which I at once inferred that he had never
seen Miss Havisham, for she was nothing of the kind.
“Good!” said Mr. Pumblechook conceitedly. (“This is the way
to have him! We are beginning to hold our own, I think, Mum?”)
“I am sure, uncle,” returned Mrs. Joe, “I wish you had him
always; you know so well how to deal with him.”
“Now, boy! What was she a-doing of, when you went in today?” asked
Mr. Pumblechook.
“She was sitting,” I answered, “in a black velvet
coach.”
Mr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe stared at one another—as they well
might—and both repeated, “In a black velvet coach?”
“Yes,” said I. “And Miss Estella—that’s her
niece, I think—handed her in cake and wine at the coach-window, on a gold
plate. And we all had cake and wine on gold plates. And I got up behind the
coach to eat mine, because she told me to.”
“Was anybody else there?” asked Mr. Pumblechook.
“Four dogs,” said I.
“Large or small?”
“Immense,” said I. “And they fought for veal-cutlets out of a
silver basket.”
Mr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe stared at one another again, in utter amazement. I
was perfectly frantic,—a reckless witness under the torture,—and
would have told them anything.
“Where this coach, in the name of gracious?” asked my
sister.
“In Miss Havisham’s room.” They stared again. “But
there weren’t any horses to it.” I added this saving clause, in the
moment of rejecting four richly caparisoned coursers which I had had wild
thoughts of harnessing.
“Can this be possible, uncle?” asked Mrs. Joe. “What can the
boy mean?”
“I’ll tell you, Mum,” said Mr. Pumblechook. “My opinion
is, it’s a sedan-chair. She’s flighty, you know,—very
flighty,—quite flighty enough to pass her days in a sedan-chair.”
“Did you ever see her in it, uncle?” asked Mrs. Joe.
“How could I,” he returned, forced to the admission, “when I
never see her in my life? Never clapped eyes upon her!”
“Goodness, uncle! And yet you have spoken to her?”
“Why, don’t you know,” said Mr. Pumblechook, testily,
“that when I have been there, I have been took up to the outside of her
door, and the door has stood ajar, and she has spoke to me that way.
Don’t say you don’t know , Mum. Howsever, the boy went
there to play. What did you play at, boy?”
“We played with flags,” I said. (I beg to observe that I think of
myself with amazement, when I recall the lies I told on this occasion.)
“Flags!” echoed my sister.
“Yes,” said I. “Estella waved a blue flag, and I waved a red
one, and Miss Havisham waved one sprinkled all over with little gold stars, out
at the coach-window. And then we all waved our swords and hurrahed.”
“Swords!” repeated my sister. “Where did you get swords
from?”
“Out of a cupboard,” said I. “And I saw pistols in
it,—and jam,—and pills. And there was no daylight in the room, but
it was all lighted up with candles.”
“That’s true, Mum,” said Mr. Pumblechook, with a grave nod.
“That’s the state of the case, for that much I’ve seen
myself.” And then they both stared at me, and I, with an obtrusive show
of artlessness on my countenance, stared at them, and plaited the right leg of
my trousers with my right hand.
If they had asked me any more questions, I should undoubtedly have betrayed
myself, for I was even then on the point of mentioning that there was a balloon
in the yard, and should have hazarded the statement but for my invention being
divided between that phenomenon and a bear in the brewery. They were so much
occupied, however, in discussing the marvels I had already presented for their
consideration, that I escaped. The subject still held them when Joe came in
from his work to have a cup of tea. To whom my sister, more for the relief of
her own mind than for the gratification of his, related my pretended
experiences.
Now, when I saw Joe open his blue eyes and roll them all round the kitchen in
helpless amazement, I was overtaken by penitence; but only as regarded
him,—not in the least as regarded the other two. Towards Joe, and Joe
only, I considered myself a young monster, while they sat debating what results
would come to me from Miss Havisham’s acquaintance and favour. They had
no doubt that Miss Havisham would “do something” for me; their
doubts related to the form that something would take. My sister stood out for
“property.” Mr. Pumblechook was in favour of a handsome premium for
binding me apprentice to some genteel trade,—say, the corn and seed
trade, for instance. Joe fell into the deepest disgrace with both, for offering
the bright suggestion that I might only be presented with one of the dogs who
had fought for the veal-cutlets. “If a fool’s head can’t
express better opinions than that,” said my sister, “and you have
got any work to do, you had better go and do it.” So he went.
After Mr. Pumblechook had driven off, and when my sister was washing up, I
stole into the forge to Joe, and remained by him until he had done for the
night. Then I said, “Before the fire goes out, Joe, I should like to tell
you something.”
“Should you, Pip?” said Joe, drawing his shoeing-stool near the
forge. “Then tell us. What is it, Pip?”
“Joe,” said I, taking hold of his rolled-up shirt sleeve, and
twisting it between my finger and thumb, “you remember all that about
Miss Havisham’s?”
“Remember?” said Joe. “I believe you! Wonderful!”
“It’s a terrible thing, Joe; it ain’t true.”
“What are you telling of, Pip?” cried Joe, falling back in the
greatest amazement. “You don’t mean to say it’s—”
“Yes I do; it’s lies, Joe.”
“But not all of it? Why sure you don’t mean to say, Pip, that there
was no black welwet co—eh?” For, I stood shaking my head.
“But at least there was dogs, Pip? Come, Pip,” said Joe,
persuasively, “if there warn’t no weal-cutlets, at least there was
dogs?”
“No, Joe.”
“A dog?” said Joe. “A puppy? Come?”
“No, Joe, there was nothing at all of the kind.”
As I fixed my eyes hopelessly on Joe, Joe contemplated me in dismay.
“Pip, old chap! This won’t do, old fellow! I say! Where do you
expect to go to?”
“It’s terrible, Joe; ain’t it?”
“Terrible?” cried Joe. “Awful! What possessed you?”
“I don’t know what possessed me, Joe,” I replied, letting his
shirt sleeve go, and sitting down in the ashes at his feet, hanging my head;
“but I wish you hadn’t taught me to call Knaves at cards Jacks; and
I wish my boots weren’t so thick nor my hands so coarse.”
And then I told Joe that I felt very miserable, and that I hadn’t been
able to explain myself to Mrs. Joe and Pumblechook, who were so rude to me, and
that there had been a beautiful young lady at Miss Havisham’s who was
dreadfully proud, and that she had said I was common, and that I knew I was
common, and that I wished I was not common, and that the lies had come of it
somehow, though I didn’t know how.
This was a case of metaphysics, at least as difficult for Joe to deal with as
for me. But Joe took the case altogether out of the region of metaphysics, and
by that means vanquished it.
“There’s one thing you may be sure of, Pip,” said Joe, after
some rumination, “namely, that lies is lies. Howsever they come, they
didn’t ought to come, and they come from the father of lies, and work
round to the same. Don’t you tell no more of ’em, Pip.
ain’t the way to get out of being common, old chap. And as to being
common, I don’t make it out at all clear. You are oncommon in some
things. You’re oncommon small. Likewise you’re a oncommon
scholar.”
“No, I am ignorant and backward, Joe.”
“Why, see what a letter you wrote last night! Wrote in print even!
I’ve seen letters—Ah! and from gentlefolks!—that I’ll
swear weren’t wrote in print,” said Joe.
“I have learnt next to nothing, Joe. You think much of me. It’s
only that.”
“Well, Pip,” said Joe, “be it so or be it son’t, you
must be a common scholar afore you can be a oncommon one, I should hope! The
king upon his throne, with his crown upon his ed, can’t sit and write his
acts of Parliament in print, without having begun, when he were a unpromoted
Prince, with the alphabet.—Ah!” added Joe, with a shake of the head
that was full of meaning, “and begun at A too, and worked his way to Z.
And know what that is to do, though I can’t say I’ve
exactly done it.”
There was some hope in this piece of wisdom, and it rather encouraged me.
“Whether common ones as to callings and earnings,” pursued Joe,
reflectively, “mightn’t be the better of continuing for to keep
company with common ones, instead of going out to play with oncommon
ones,—which reminds me to hope that there were a flag, perhaps?”
“No, Joe.”
“(I’m sorry there weren’t a flag, Pip). Whether that might be
or mightn’t be, is a thing as can’t be looked into now, without
putting your sister on the Rampage; and that’s a thing not to be thought
of as being done intentional. Lookee here, Pip, at what is said to you by a
true friend. Which this to you the true friend say. If you can’t get to
be oncommon through going straight, you’ll never get to do it through
going crooked. So don’t tell no more on ’em, Pip, and live well and
die happy.”
“You are not angry with me, Joe?”
“No, old chap. But bearing in mind that them were which I meantersay of a
stunning and outdacious sort,—alluding to them which bordered on
weal-cutlets and dog-fighting,—a sincere well-wisher would adwise, Pip,
their being dropped into your meditations, when you go upstairs to bed.
That’s all, old chap, and don’t never do it no more.”
When I got up to my little room and said my prayers, I did not forget
Joe’s recommendation, and yet my young mind was in that disturbed and
unthankful state, that I thought long after I laid me down, how common Estella
would consider Joe, a mere blacksmith; how thick his boots, and how coarse his
hands. I thought how Joe and my sister were then sitting in the kitchen, and
how I had come up to bed from the kitchen, and how Miss Havisham and Estella
never sat in a kitchen, but were far above the level of such common doings. I
fell asleep recalling what I “used to do” when I was at Miss
Havisham’s; as though I had been there weeks or months, instead of hours;
and as though it were quite an old subject of remembrance, instead of one that
had arisen only that day.
That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it is the
same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how
different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a
moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would
never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable
day.
Chapter X.
The
felicitous idea occurred to me a morning or two later when I woke, that the
best step I could take towards making myself uncommon was to get out of Biddy
everything she knew. In pursuance of this luminous conception I mentioned to
Biddy when I went to Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt’s at night, that I had
a particular reason for wishing to get on in life, and that I should feel very
much obliged to her if she would impart all her learning to me. Biddy, who was
the most obliging of girls, immediately said she would, and indeed began to
carry out her promise within five minutes.
The Educational scheme or Course established by Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt
may be resolved into the following synopsis. The pupils ate apples and put
straws down one another’s backs, until Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt
collected her energies, and made an indiscriminate totter at them with a
birch-rod. After receiving the charge with every mark of derision, the pupils
formed in line and buzzingly passed a ragged book from hand to hand. The book
had an alphabet in it, some figures and tables, and a little
spelling,—that is to say, it had had once. As soon as this volume began
to circulate, Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt fell into a state of coma, arising
either from sleep or a rheumatic paroxysm. The pupils then entered among
themselves upon a competitive examination on the subject of Boots, with the
view of ascertaining who could tread the hardest upon whose toes. This mental
exercise lasted until Biddy made a rush at them and distributed three defaced
Bibles (shaped as if they had been unskilfully cut off the chump end of
something), more illegibly printed at the best than any curiosities of
literature I have since met with, speckled all over with ironmould, and having
various specimens of the insect world smashed between their leaves. This part
of the Course was usually lightened by several single combats between Biddy and
refractory students. When the fights were over, Biddy gave out the number of a
page, and then we all read aloud what we could,—or what we
couldn’t—in a frightful chorus; Biddy leading with a high, shrill,
monotonous voice, and none of us having the least notion of, or reverence for,
what we were reading about. When this horrible din had lasted a certain time,
it mechanically awoke Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt, who staggered at a boy
fortuitously, and pulled his ears. This was understood to terminate the Course
for the evening, and we emerged into the air with shrieks of intellectual
victory. It is fair to remark that there was no prohibition against any
pupil’s entertaining himself with a slate or even with the ink (when
there was any), but that it was not easy to pursue that branch of study in the
winter season, on account of the little general shop in which the classes were
holden—and which was also Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt’s
sitting-room and bedchamber—being but faintly illuminated through the
agency of one low-spirited dip-candle and no snuffers.
It appeared to me that it would take time to become uncommon, under these
circumstances: nevertheless, I resolved to try it, and that very evening Biddy
entered on our special agreement, by imparting some information from her little
catalogue of Prices, under the head of moist sugar, and lending me, to copy at
home, a large old English D which she had imitated from the heading of some
newspaper, and which I supposed, until she told me what it was, to be a design
for a buckle.
Of course there was a public-house in the village, and of course Joe liked
sometimes to smoke his pipe there. I had received strict orders from my sister
to call for him at the Three Jolly Bargemen, that evening, on my way from
school, and bring him home at my peril. To the Three Jolly Bargemen, therefore,
I directed my steps.
There was a bar at the Jolly Bargemen, with some alarmingly long chalk scores
in it on the wall at the side of the door, which seemed to me to be never paid
off. They had been there ever since I could remember, and had grown more than I
had. But there was a quantity of chalk about our country, and perhaps the
people neglected no opportunity of turning it to account.
It being Saturday night, I found the landlord looking rather grimly at these
records; but as my business was with Joe and not with him, I merely wished him
good evening, and passed into the common room at the end of the passage, where
there was a bright large kitchen fire, and where Joe was smoking his pipe in
company with Mr. Wopsle and a stranger. Joe greeted me as usual with
“Halloa, Pip, old chap!” and the moment he said that, the stranger
turned his head and looked at me.
He was a secret-looking man whom I had never seen before. His head was all on
one side, and one of his eyes was half shut up, as if he were taking aim at
something with an invisible gun. He had a pipe in his mouth, and he took it
out, and, after slowly blowing all his smoke away and looking hard at me all
the time, nodded. So, I nodded, and then he nodded again, and made room on the
settle beside him that I might sit down there.
But as I was used to sit beside Joe whenever I entered that place of resort, I
said “No, thank you, sir,” and fell into the space Joe made for me
on the opposite settle. The strange man, after glancing at Joe, and seeing that
his attention was otherwise engaged, nodded to me again when I had taken my
seat, and then rubbed his leg—in a very odd way, as it struck me.
“You was saying,” said the strange man, turning to Joe, “that
you was a blacksmith.”
“Yes. I said it, you know,” said Joe.
“What’ll you drink, Mr.—? You didn’t mention your name,
by the bye.”
Joe mentioned it now, and the strange man called him by it.
“What’ll you drink, Mr. Gargery? At my expense? To top up
with?”
“Well,” said Joe, “to tell you the truth, I ain’t much
in the habit of drinking at anybody’s expense but my own.”
“Habit? No,” returned the stranger, “but once and away, and
on a Saturday night too. Come! Put a name to it, Mr. Gargery.”
“I wouldn’t wish to be stiff company,” said Joe.
“Rum.”
“Rum,” repeated the stranger. “And will the other gentleman
originate a sentiment.”
“Rum,” said Mr. Wopsle.
“Three Rums!” cried the stranger, calling to the landlord.
“Glasses round!”
“This other gentleman,” observed Joe, by way of introducing Mr.
Wopsle, “is a gentleman that you would like to hear give it out. Our
clerk at church.”
“Aha!” said the stranger, quickly, and cocking his eye at me.
“The lonely church, right out on the marshes, with graves round
it!”
“That’s it,” said Joe.
The stranger, with a comfortable kind of grunt over his pipe, put his legs up
on the settle that he had to himself. He wore a flapping broad-brimmed
traveller’s hat, and under it a handkerchief tied over his head in the
manner of a cap: so that he showed no hair. As he looked at the fire, I thought
I saw a cunning expression, followed by a half-laugh, come into his face.
“I am not acquainted with this country, gentlemen, but it seems a
solitary country towards the river.”
“Most marshes is solitary,” said Joe.
“No doubt, no doubt. Do you find any gypsies, now, or tramps, or vagrants
of any sort, out there?”
“No,” said Joe; “none but a runaway convict now and then. And
we don’t find , easy. Eh, Mr. Wopsle?”
Mr. Wopsle, with a majestic remembrance of old discomfiture, assented; but not
warmly.
“Seems you have been out after such?” asked the stranger.
“Once,” returned Joe. “Not that we wanted to take them, you
understand; we went out as lookers on; me, and Mr. Wopsle, and Pip.
Didn’t us, Pip?”
“Yes, Joe.”
The stranger looked at me again,—still cocking his eye, as if he were
expressly taking aim at me with his invisible gun,—and said,
“He’s a likely young parcel of bones that. What is it you call
him?”
“Pip,” said Joe.
“Christened Pip?”
“No, not christened Pip.”
“Surname Pip?”
“No,” said Joe, “it’s a kind of family name what he
gave himself when a infant, and is called by.”
“Son of yours?”
“Well,” said Joe, meditatively, not, of course, that it could be in
anywise necessary to consider about it, but because it was the way at the Jolly
Bargemen to seem to consider deeply about everything that was discussed over
pipes,—“well—no. No, he ain’t.”
“Nevvy?” said the strange man.
“Well,” said Joe, with the same appearance of profound cogitation,
“he is not—no, not to deceive you, he is —my
nevvy.”
“What the Blue Blazes is he?” asked the stranger. Which appeared to
me to be an inquiry of unnecessary strength.
Mr. Wopsle struck in upon that; as one who knew all about relationships, having
professional occasion to bear in mind what female relations a man might not
marry; and expounded the ties between me and Joe. Having his hand in, Mr.
Wopsle finished off with a most terrifically snarling passage from Richard the
Third, and seemed to think he had done quite enough to account for it when he
added, “—as the poet says.”
And here I may remark that when Mr. Wopsle referred to me, he considered it a
necessary part of such reference to rumple my hair and poke it into my eyes. I
cannot conceive why everybody of his standing who visited at our house should
always have put me through the same inflammatory process under similar
circumstances. Yet I do not call to mind that I was ever in my earlier youth
the subject of remark in our social family circle, but some large-handed person
took some such ophthalmic steps to patronise me.
All this while, the strange man looked at nobody but me, and looked at me as if
he were determined to have a shot at me at last, and bring me down. But he said
nothing after offering his Blue Blazes observation, until the glasses of rum
and water were brought; and then he made his shot, and a most extraordinary
shot it was.
It was not a verbal remark, but a proceeding in dumb-show, and was pointedly
addressed to me. He stirred his rum and water pointedly at me, and he tasted
his rum and water pointedly at me. And he stirred it and he tasted it; not with
a spoon that was brought to him, but .
He did this so that nobody but I saw the file; and when he had done it he wiped
the file and put it in a breast-pocket. I knew it to be Joe’s file, and I
knew that he knew my convict, the moment I saw the instrument. I sat gazing at
him, spell-bound. But he now reclined on his settle, taking very little notice
of me, and talking principally about turnips.
There was a delicious sense of cleaning-up and making a quiet pause before
going on in life afresh, in our village on Saturday nights, which stimulated
Joe to dare to stay out half an hour longer on Saturdays than at other times.
The half-hour and the rum and water running out together, Joe got up to go, and
took me by the hand.
“Stop half a moment, Mr. Gargery,” said the strange man. “I
think I’ve got a bright new shilling somewhere in my pocket, and if I
have, the boy shall have it.”
He looked it out from a handful of small change, folded it in some crumpled
paper, and gave it to me. “Yours!” said he. “Mind! Your
own.”
I thanked him, staring at him far beyond the bounds of good manners, and
holding tight to Joe. He gave Joe good-night, and he gave Mr. Wopsle good-night
(who went out with us), and he gave me only a look with his aiming
eye,—no, not a look, for he shut it up, but wonders may be done with an
eye by hiding it.
On the way home, if I had been in a humour for talking, the talk must have been
all on my side, for Mr. Wopsle parted from us at the door of the Jolly
Bargemen, and Joe went all the way home with his mouth wide open, to rinse the
rum out with as much air as possible. But I was in a manner stupefied by this
turning up of my old misdeed and old acquaintance, and could think of nothing
else.
My sister was not in a very bad temper when we presented ourselves in the
kitchen, and Joe was encouraged by that unusual circumstance to tell her about
the bright shilling. “A bad un, I’ll be bound,” said Mrs. Joe
triumphantly, “or he wouldn’t have given it to the boy! Let’s
look at it.”
I took it out of the paper, and it proved to be a good one. “But
what’s this?” said Mrs. Joe, throwing down the shilling and
catching up the paper. “Two One-Pound notes?”
Nothing less than two fat sweltering one-pound notes that seemed to have been
on terms of the warmest intimacy with all the cattle-markets in the county. Joe
caught up his hat again, and ran with them to the Jolly Bargemen to restore
them to their owner. While he was gone, I sat down on my usual stool and looked
vacantly at my sister, feeling pretty sure that the man would not be there.
Presently, Joe came back, saying that the man was gone, but that he, Joe, had
left word at the Three Jolly Bargemen concerning the notes. Then my sister
sealed them up in a piece of paper, and put them under some dried rose-leaves
in an ornamental teapot on the top of a press in the state parlour. There they
remained, a nightmare to me, many and many a night and day.
I had sadly broken sleep when I got to bed, through thinking of the strange man
taking aim at me with his invisible gun, and of the guiltily coarse and common
thing it was, to be on secret terms of conspiracy with convicts,—a
feature in my low career that I had previously forgotten. I was haunted by the
file too. A dread possessed me that when I least expected it, the file would
reappear. I coaxed myself to sleep by thinking of Miss Havisham’s, next
Wednesday; and in my sleep I saw the file coming at me out of a door, without
seeing who held it, and I screamed myself awake.
Chapter XI.
At the
appointed time I returned to Miss Havisham’s, and my hesitating ring at
the gate brought out Estella. She locked it after admitting me, as she had done
before, and again preceded me into the dark passage where her candle stood. She
took no notice of me until she had the candle in her hand, when she looked over
her shoulder, superciliously saying, “You are to come this way
to-day,” and took me to quite another part of the house.
The passage was a long one, and seemed to pervade the whole square basement of
the Manor House. We traversed but one side of the square, however, and at the
end of it she stopped, and put her candle down and opened a door. Here, the
daylight reappeared, and I found myself in a small paved courtyard, the
opposite side of which was formed by a detached dwelling-house, that looked as
if it had once belonged to the manager or head clerk of the extinct brewery.
There was a clock in the outer wall of this house. Like the clock in Miss
Havisham’s room, and like Miss Havisham’s watch, it had stopped at
twenty minutes to nine.
We went in at the door, which stood open, and into a gloomy room with a low
ceiling, on the ground-floor at the back. There was some company in the room,
and Estella said to me as she joined it, “You are to go and stand there
boy, till you are wanted.” “There”, being the window, I
crossed to it, and stood “there,” in a very uncomfortable state of
mind, looking out.
It opened to the ground, and looked into a most miserable corner of the
neglected garden, upon a rank ruin of cabbage-stalks, and one box-tree that had
been clipped round long ago, like a pudding, and had a new growth at the top of
it, out of shape and of a different colour, as if that part of the pudding had
stuck to the saucepan and got burnt. This was my homely thought, as I
contemplated the box-tree. There had been some light snow, overnight, and it
lay nowhere else to my knowledge; but, it had not quite melted from the cold
shadow of this bit of garden, and the wind caught it up in little eddies and
threw it at the window, as if it pelted me for coming there.
I divined that my coming had stopped conversation in the room, and that its
other occupants were looking at me. I could see nothing of the room except the
shining of the fire in the window-glass, but I stiffened in all my joints with
the consciousness that I was under close inspection.
There were three ladies in the room and one gentleman. Before I had been
standing at the window five minutes, they somehow conveyed to me that they were
all toadies and humbugs, but that each of them pretended not to know that the
others were toadies and humbugs: because the admission that he or she did know
it, would have made him or her out to be a toady and humbug.
They all had a listless and dreary air of waiting somebody’s pleasure,
and the most talkative of the ladies had to speak quite rigidly to repress a
yawn. This lady, whose name was Camilla, very much reminded me of my sister,
with the difference that she was older, and (as I found when I caught sight of
her) of a blunter cast of features. Indeed, when I knew her better I began to
think it was a Mercy she had any features at all, so very blank and high was
the dead wall of her face.
“Poor dear soul!” said this lady, with an abruptness of manner
quite my sister’s. “Nobody’s enemy but his own!”
“It would be much more commendable to be somebody else’s
enemy,” said the gentleman; “far more natural.”
“Cousin Raymond,” observed another lady, “we are to love our
neighbour.”
“Sarah Pocket,” returned Cousin Raymond, “if a man is not his
own neighbour, who is?”
Miss Pocket laughed, and Camilla laughed and said (checking a yawn), “The
idea!” But I thought they seemed to think it rather a good idea too. The
other lady, who had not spoken yet, said gravely and emphatically,
“ true!”
“Poor soul!” Camilla presently went on (I knew they had all been
looking at me in the mean time), “he is so very strange! Would anyone
believe that when Tom’s wife died, he actually could not be induced to
see the importance of the children’s having the deepest of trimmings to
their mourning? ‘Good Lord!’ says he, ‘Camilla, what can it
signify so long as the poor bereaved little things are in black?’ So like
Matthew! The idea!”
“Good points in him, good points in him,” said Cousin Raymond;
“Heaven forbid I should deny good points in him; but he never had, and he
never will have, any sense of the proprieties.”
“You know I was obliged,” said Camilla,—“I was obliged
to be firm. I said, ‘It , for the credit of the
family.’ I told him that, without deep trimmings, the family was
disgraced. I cried about it from breakfast till dinner. I injured my digestion.
And at last he flung out in his violent way, and said, with a D, ‘Then do
as you like.’ Thank Goodness it will always be a consolation to me to
know that I instantly went out in a pouring rain and bought the things.”
“ paid for them, did he not?” asked Estella.
“It’s not the question, my dear child, who paid for them,”
returned Camilla. “ bought them. And I shall often think of that
with peace, when I wake up in the night.”
The ringing of a distant bell, combined with the echoing of some cry or call
along the passage by which I had come, interrupted the conversation and caused
Estella to say to me, “Now, boy!” On my turning round, they all
looked at me with the utmost contempt, and, as I went out, I heard Sarah Pocket
say, “Well I am sure! What next!” and Camilla add, with
indignation, “Was there ever such a fancy! The i-d-a!”
As we were going with our candle along the dark passage, Estella stopped all of
a sudden, and, facing round, said in her taunting manner, with her face quite
close to mine,—
“Well?”
“Well, miss?” I answered, almost falling over her and checking
myself.
She stood looking at me, and, of course, I stood looking at her.
“Am I pretty?”
“Yes; I think you are very pretty.”
“Am I insulting?”
“Not so much so as you were last time,” said I.
“Not so much so?”
“No.”
She fired when she asked the last question, and she slapped my face with such
force as she had, when I answered it.
“Now?” said she. “You little coarse monster, what do you
think of me now?”
“I shall not tell you.”
“Because you are going to tell upstairs. Is that it?”
“No,” said I, “that’s not it.”
“Why don’t you cry again, you little wretch?”
“Because I’ll never cry for you again,” said I. Which was, I
suppose, as false a declaration as ever was made; for I was inwardly crying for
her then, and I know what I know of the pain she cost me afterwards.
We went on our way upstairs after this episode; and, as we were going up, we
met a gentleman groping his way down.
“Whom have we here?” asked the gentleman, stopping and looking at
me.
“A boy,” said Estella.
He was a burly man of an exceedingly dark complexion, with an exceedingly large
head, and a corresponding large hand. He took my chin in his large hand and
turned up my face to have a look at me by the light of the candle. He was
prematurely bald on the top of his head, and had bushy black eyebrows that
wouldn’t lie down but stood up bristling. His eyes were set very deep in
his head, and were disagreeably sharp and suspicious. He had a large
watch-chain, and strong black dots where his beard and whiskers would have been
if he had let them. He was nothing to me, and I could have had no foresight
then, that he ever would be anything to me, but it happened that I had this
opportunity of observing him well.
“Boy of the neighbourhood? Hey?” said he.
“Yes, sir,” said I.
“How do come here?”
“Miss Havisham sent for me, sir,” I explained.
“Well! Behave yourself. I have a pretty large experience of boys, and
you’re a bad set of fellows. Now mind!” said he, biting the side of
his great forefinger as he frowned at me, “you behave yourself!”
With those words, he released me—which I was glad of, for his hand smelt
of scented soap—and went his way downstairs. I wondered whether he could
be a doctor; but no, I thought; he couldn’t be a doctor, or he would have
a quieter and more persuasive manner. There was not much time to consider the
subject, for we were soon in Miss Havisham’s room, where she and
everything else were just as I had left them. Estella left me standing near the
door, and I stood there until Miss Havisham cast her eyes upon me from the
dressing-table.
“So!” she said, without being startled or surprised: “the
days have worn away, have they?”
“Yes, ma’am. To-day is—”
“There, there, there!” with the impatient movement of her fingers.
“I don’t want to know. Are you ready to play?”
I was obliged to answer in some confusion, “I don’t think I am,
ma’am.”
“Not at cards again?” she demanded, with a searching look.
“Yes, ma’am; I could do that, if I was wanted.”
“Since this house strikes you old and grave, boy,” said Miss
Havisham, impatiently, “and you are unwilling to play, are you willing to
work?”
I could answer this inquiry with a better heart than I had been able to find
for the other question, and I said I was quite willing.
“Then go into that opposite room,” said she, pointing at the door
behind me with her withered hand, “and wait there till I come.”
I crossed the staircase landing, and entered the room she indicated. From that
room, too, the daylight was completely excluded, and it had an airless smell
that was oppressive. A fire had been lately kindled in the damp old-fashioned
grate, and it was more disposed to go out than to burn up, and the reluctant
smoke which hung in the room seemed colder than the clearer air,—like our
own marsh mist. Certain wintry branches of candles on the high chimney-piece
faintly lighted the chamber; or it would be more expressive to say, faintly
troubled its darkness. It was spacious, and I dare say had once been handsome,
but every discernible thing in it was covered with dust and mould, and dropping
to pieces. The most prominent object was a long table with a tablecloth spread
on it, as if a feast had been in preparation when the house and the clocks all
stopped together. An epergne or centre-piece of some kind was in the middle of
this cloth; it was so heavily overhung with cobwebs that its form was quite
undistinguishable; and, as I looked along the yellow expanse out of which I
remember its seeming to grow, like a black fungus, I saw speckle-legged spiders
with blotchy bodies running home to it, and running out from it, as if some
circumstances of the greatest public importance had just transpired in the
spider community.
I heard the mice too, rattling behind the panels, as if the same occurrence
were important to their interests. But the black beetles took no notice of the
agitation, and groped about the hearth in a ponderous elderly way, as if they
were short-sighted and hard of hearing, and not on terms with one another.
These crawling things had fascinated my attention, and I was watching them from
a distance, when Miss Havisham laid a hand upon my shoulder. In her other hand
she had a crutch-headed stick on which she leaned, and she looked like the
Witch of the place.
“This,” said she, pointing to the long table with her stick,
“is where I will be laid when I am dead. They shall come and look at me
here.”
With some vague misgiving that she might get upon the table then and there and
die at once, the complete realisation of the ghastly waxwork at the Fair, I
shrank under her touch.
“What do you think that is?” she asked me, again pointing with her
stick; “that, where those cobwebs are?”
“I can’t guess what it is, ma’am.”
“It’s a great cake. A bride-cake. Mine!”
She looked all round the room in a glaring manner, and then said, leaning on me
while her hand twitched my shoulder, “Come, come, come! Walk me, walk
me!”
I made out from this, that the work I had to do, was to walk Miss Havisham
round and round the room. Accordingly, I started at once, and she leaned upon
my shoulder, and we went away at a pace that might have been an imitation
(founded on my first impulse under that roof) of Mr. Pumblechook’s
chaise-cart.
She was not physically strong, and after a little time said,
“Slower!” Still, we went at an impatient fitful speed, and as we
went, she twitched the hand upon my shoulder, and worked her mouth, and led me
to believe that we were going fast because her thoughts went fast. After a
while she said, “Call Estella!” so I went out on the landing and
roared that name as I had done on the previous occasion. When her light
appeared, I returned to Miss Havisham, and we started away again round and
round the room.
If only Estella had come to be a spectator of our proceedings, I should have
felt sufficiently discontented; but as she brought with her the three ladies
and the gentleman whom I had seen below, I didn’t know what to do. In my
politeness, I would have stopped; but Miss Havisham twitched my shoulder, and
we posted on,—with a shame-faced consciousness on my part that they would
think it was all my doing.
“Dear Miss Havisham,” said Miss Sarah Pocket. “How well you
look!”
“I do not,” returned Miss Havisham. “I am yellow skin and
bone.”
Camilla brightened when Miss Pocket met with this rebuff; and she murmured, as
she plaintively contemplated Miss Havisham, “Poor dear soul! Certainly
not to be expected to look well, poor thing. The idea!”
“And how are ?” said Miss Havisham to Camilla. As we were
close to Camilla then, I would have stopped as a matter of course, only Miss
Havisham wouldn’t stop. We swept on, and I felt that I was highly
obnoxious to Camilla.
“Thank you, Miss Havisham,” she returned, “I am as well as
can be expected.”
“Why, what’s the matter with you?” asked Miss Havisham, with
exceeding sharpness.
“Nothing worth mentioning,” replied Camilla. “I don’t
wish to make a display of my feelings, but I have habitually thought of you
more in the night than I am quite equal to.”
“Then don’t think of me,” retorted Miss Havisham.
“Very easily said!” remarked Camilla, amiably repressing a sob,
while a hitch came into her upper lip, and her tears overflowed. “Raymond
is a witness what ginger and sal volatile I am obliged to take in the night.
Raymond is a witness what nervous jerkings I have in my legs. Chokings and
nervous jerkings, however, are nothing new to me when I think with anxiety of
those I love. If I could be less affectionate and sensitive, I should have a
better digestion and an iron set of nerves. I am sure I wish it could be so.
But as to not thinking of you in the night—The idea!” Here, a burst
of tears.
The Raymond referred to, I understood to be the gentleman present, and him I
understood to be Mr. Camilla. He came to the rescue at this point, and said in
a consolatory and complimentary voice, “Camilla, my dear, it is well
known that your family feelings are gradually undermining you to the extent of
making one of your legs shorter than the other.”
“I am not aware,” observed the grave lady whose voice I had heard
but once, “that to think of any person is to make a great claim upon that
person, my dear.”
Miss Sarah Pocket, whom I now saw to be a little dry, brown, corrugated old
woman, with a small face that might have been made of walnut-shells, and a
large mouth like a cat’s without the whiskers, supported this position by
saying, “No, indeed, my dear. Hem!”
“Thinking is easy enough,” said the grave lady.
“What is easier, you know?” assented Miss Sarah Pocket.
“Oh, yes, yes!” cried Camilla, whose fermenting feelings appeared
to rise from her legs to her bosom. “It’s all very true! It’s
a weakness to be so affectionate, but I can’t help it. No doubt my health
would be much better if it was otherwise, still I wouldn’t change my
disposition if I could. It’s the cause of much suffering, but it’s
a consolation to know I posses it, when I wake up in the night.” Here
another burst of feeling.
Miss Havisham and I had never stopped all this time, but kept going round and
round the room; now brushing against the skirts of the visitors, now giving
them the whole length of the dismal chamber.
“There’s Matthew!” said Camilla. “Never mixing with any
natural ties, never coming here to see how Miss Havisham is! I have taken to
the sofa with my staylace cut, and have lain there hours insensible, with my
head over the side, and my hair all down, and my feet I don’t know
where—”
(“Much higher than your head, my love,” said Mr. Camilla.)
“I have gone off into that state, hours and hours, on account of
Matthew’s strange and inexplicable conduct, and nobody has thanked
me.”
“Really I must say I should think not!” interposed the grave lady.
“You see, my dear,” added Miss Sarah Pocket (a blandly vicious
personage), “the question to put to yourself is, who did you expect to
thank you, my love?”
“Without expecting any thanks, or anything of the sort,” resumed
Camilla, “I have remained in that state, hours and hours, and Raymond is
a witness of the extent to which I have choked, and what the total inefficacy
of ginger has been, and I have been heard at the piano-forte tuner’s
across the street, where the poor mistaken children have even supposed it to be
pigeons cooing at a distance,—and now to be told—” Here
Camilla put her hand to her throat, and began to be quite chemical as to the
formation of new combinations there.
When this same Matthew was mentioned, Miss Havisham stopped me and herself, and
stood looking at the speaker. This change had a great influence in bringing
Camilla’s chemistry to a sudden end.
“Matthew will come and see me at last,” said Miss Havisham,
sternly, “when I am laid on that table. That will be his
place,—there,” striking the table with her stick, “at my
head! And yours will be there! And your husband’s there! And Sarah
Pocket’s there! And Georgiana’s there! Now you all know where to
take your stations when you come to feast upon me. And now go!”
At the mention of each name, she had struck the table with her stick in a new
place. She now said, “Walk me, walk me!” and we went on again.
“I suppose there’s nothing to be done,” exclaimed Camilla,
“but comply and depart. It’s something to have seen the object of
one’s love and duty for even so short a time. I shall think of it with a
melancholy satisfaction when I wake up in the night. I wish Matthew could have
that comfort, but he sets it at defiance. I am determined not to make a display
of my feelings, but it’s very hard to be told one wants to feast on
one’s relations,—as if one was a Giant,—and to be told to go.
The bare idea!”
Mr. Camilla interposing, as Mrs. Camilla laid her hand upon her heaving bosom,
that lady assumed an unnatural fortitude of manner which I supposed to be
expressive of an intention to drop and choke when out of view, and kissing her
hand to Miss Havisham, was escorted forth. Sarah Pocket and Georgiana contended
who should remain last; but Sarah was too knowing to be outdone, and ambled
round Georgiana with that artful slipperiness that the latter was obliged to
take precedence. Sarah Pocket then made her separate effect of departing with,
“Bless you, Miss Havisham dear!” and with a smile of forgiving pity
on her walnut-shell countenance for the weaknesses of the rest.
While Estella was away lighting them down, Miss Havisham still walked with her
hand on my shoulder, but more and more slowly. At last she stopped before the
fire, and said, after muttering and looking at it some seconds,—
“This is my birthday, Pip.”
I was going to wish her many happy returns, when she lifted her stick.
“I don’t suffer it to be spoken of. I don’t suffer those who
were here just now, or any one to speak of it. They come here on the day, but
they dare not refer to it.”
Of course made no further effort to refer to it.
“On this day of the year, long before you were born, this heap of
decay,” stabbing with her crutched stick at the pile of cobwebs on the
table, but not touching it, “was brought here. It and I have worn away
together. The mice have gnawed at it, and sharper teeth than teeth of mice have
gnawed at me.”
She held the head of her stick against her heart as she stood looking at the
table; she in her once white dress, all yellow and withered; the once white
cloth all yellow and withered; everything around in a state to crumble under a
touch.
“When the ruin is complete,” said she, with a ghastly look,
“and when they lay me dead, in my bride’s dress on the
bride’s table,—which shall be done, and which will be the finished
curse upon him,—so much the better if it is done on this day!”
She stood looking at the table as if she stood looking at her own figure lying
there. I remained quiet. Estella returned, and she too remained quiet. It
seemed to me that we continued thus for a long time. In the heavy air of the
room, and the heavy darkness that brooded in its remoter corners, I even had an
alarming fancy that Estella and I might presently begin to decay.
At length, not coming out of her distraught state by degrees, but in an
instant, Miss Havisham said, “Let me see you two play cards; why have you
not begun?” With that, we returned to her room, and sat down as before; I
was beggared, as before; and again, as before, Miss Havisham watched us all the
time, directed my attention to Estella’s beauty, and made me notice it
the more by trying her jewels on Estella’s breast and hair.
Estella, for her part, likewise treated me as before, except that she did not
condescend to speak. When we had played some half-dozen games, a day was
appointed for my return, and I was taken down into the yard to be fed in the
former dog-like manner. There, too, I was again left to wander about as I
liked.
It is not much to the purpose whether a gate in that garden wall which I had
scrambled up to peep over on the last occasion was, on that last occasion, open
or shut. Enough that I saw no gate then, and that I saw one now. As it stood
open, and as I knew that Estella had let the visitors out,—for she had
returned with the keys in her hand,—I strolled into the garden, and
strolled all over it. It was quite a wilderness, and there were old
melon-frames and cucumber-frames in it, which seemed in their decline to have
produced a spontaneous growth of weak attempts at pieces of old hats and boots,
with now and then a weedy offshoot into the likeness of a battered saucepan.
When I had exhausted the garden and a greenhouse with nothing in it but a
fallen-down grape-vine and some bottles, I found myself in the dismal corner
upon which I had looked out of the window. Never questioning for a moment that
the house was now empty, I looked in at another window, and found myself, to my
great surprise, exchanging a broad stare with a pale young gentleman with red
eyelids and light hair.
This pale young gentleman quickly disappeared, and reappeared beside me. He had
been at his books when I had found myself staring at him, and I now saw that he
was inky.
“Halloa!” said he, “young fellow!”
Halloa being a general observation which I had usually observed to be best
answered by itself, said, “Halloa!” politely omitting
young fellow.
“Who let in?” said he.
“Miss Estella.”
“Who gave you leave to prowl about?”
“Miss Estella.”
“Come and fight,” said the pale young gentleman.
What could I do but follow him? I have often asked myself the question since;
but what else could I do? His manner was so final, and I was so astonished,
that I followed where he led, as if I had been under a spell.
“Stop a minute, though,” he said, wheeling round before we had gone
many paces. “I ought to give you a reason for fighting, too. There it
is!” In a most irritating manner he instantly slapped his hands against
one another, daintily flung one of his legs up behind him, pulled my hair,
slapped his hands again, dipped his head, and butted it into my stomach.
The bull-like proceeding last mentioned, besides that it was unquestionably to
be regarded in the light of a liberty, was particularly disagreeable just after
bread and meat. I therefore hit out at him and was going to hit out again, when
he said, “Aha! Would you?” and began dancing backwards and forwards
in a manner quite unparalleled within my limited experience.
“Laws of the game!” said he. Here, he skipped from his left leg on
to his right. “Regular rules!” Here, he skipped from his right leg
on to his left. “Come to the ground, and go through the
preliminaries!” Here, he dodged backwards and forwards, and did all sorts
of things while I looked helplessly at him.
I was secretly afraid of him when I saw him so dexterous; but I felt morally
and physically convinced that his light head of hair could have had no business
in the pit of my stomach, and that I had a right to consider it irrelevant when
so obtruded on my attention. Therefore, I followed him without a word, to a
retired nook of the garden, formed by the junction of two walls and screened by
some rubbish. On his asking me if I was satisfied with the ground, and on my
replying Yes, he begged my leave to absent himself for a moment, and quickly
returned with a bottle of water and a sponge dipped in vinegar.
“Available for both,” he said, placing these against the wall. And
then fell to pulling off, not only his jacket and waistcoat, but his shirt too,
in a manner at once light-hearted, business-like, and bloodthirsty.
Although he did not look very healthy,—having pimples on his face, and a
breaking out at his mouth,—these dreadful preparations quite appalled me.
I judged him to be about my own age, but he was much taller, and he had a way
of spinning himself about that was full of appearance. For the rest, he was a
young gentleman in a grey suit (when not denuded for battle), with his elbows,
knees, wrists, and heels considerably in advance of the rest of him as to
development.
My heart failed me when I saw him squaring at me with every demonstration of
mechanical nicety, and eyeing my anatomy as if he were minutely choosing his
bone. I never have been so surprised in my life, as I was when I let out the
first blow, and saw him lying on his back, looking up at me with a bloody nose
and his face exceedingly fore-shortened.
But, he was on his feet directly, and after sponging himself with a great show
of dexterity began squaring again. The second greatest surprise I have ever had
in my life was seeing him on his back again, looking up at me out of a black
eye.
His spirit inspired me with great respect. He seemed to have no strength, and
he never once hit me hard, and he was always knocked down; but he would be up
again in a moment, sponging himself or drinking out of the water-bottle, with
the greatest satisfaction in seconding himself according to form, and then came
at me with an air and a show that made me believe he really was going to do for
me at last. He got heavily bruised, for I am sorry to record that the more I
hit him, the harder I hit him; but he came up again and again and again, until
at last he got a bad fall with the back of his head against the wall. Even
after that crisis in our affairs, he got up and turned round and round
confusedly a few times, not knowing where I was; but finally went on his knees
to his sponge and threw it up: at the same time panting out, “That means
you have won.”
He seemed so brave and innocent, that although I had not proposed the contest,
I felt but a gloomy satisfaction in my victory. Indeed, I go so far as to hope
that I regarded myself while dressing as a species of savage young wolf or
other wild beast. However, I got dressed, darkly wiping my sanguinary face at
intervals, and I said, “Can I help you?” and he said “No
thankee,” and I said “Good afternoon,” and said
“Same to you.”
When I got into the courtyard, I found Estella waiting with the keys. But she
neither asked me where I had been, nor why I had kept her waiting; and there
was a bright flush upon her face, as though something had happened to delight
her. Instead of going straight to the gate, too, she stepped back into the
passage, and beckoned me.
“Come here! You may kiss me, if you like.”
I kissed her cheek as she turned it to me. I think I would have gone through a
great deal to kiss her cheek. But I felt that the kiss was given to the coarse
common boy as a piece of money might have been, and that it was worth nothing.
What with the birthday visitors, and what with the cards, and what with the
fight, my stay had lasted so long, that when I neared home the light on the
spit of sand off the point on the marshes was gleaming against a black
night-sky, and Joe’s furnace was flinging a path of fire across the road.
Chapter XII.
My
mind grew very uneasy on the subject of the pale young gentleman. The more I
thought of the fight, and recalled the pale young gentleman on his back in
various stages of puffy and incrimsoned countenance, the more certain it
appeared that something would be done to me. I felt that the pale young
gentleman’s blood was on my head, and that the Law would avenge it.
Without having any definite idea of the penalties I had incurred, it was clear
to me that village boys could not go stalking about the country, ravaging the
houses of gentlefolks and pitching into the studious youth of England, without
laying themselves open to severe punishment. For some days, I even kept close
at home, and looked out at the kitchen door with the greatest caution and
trepidation before going on an errand, lest the officers of the County Jail
should pounce upon me. The pale young gentleman’s nose had stained my
trousers, and I tried to wash out that evidence of my guilt in the dead of
night. I had cut my knuckles against the pale young gentleman’s teeth,
and I twisted my imagination into a thousand tangles, as I devised incredible
ways of accounting for that damnatory circumstance when I should be haled
before the Judges.
When the day came round for my return to the scene of the deed of violence, my
terrors reached their height. Whether myrmidons of Justice, especially sent
down from London, would be lying in ambush behind the gate;—whether Miss
Havisham, preferring to take personal vengeance for an outrage done to her
house, might rise in those grave-clothes of hers, draw a pistol, and shoot me
dead:—whether suborned boys—a numerous band of
mercenaries—might be engaged to fall upon me in the brewery, and cuff me
until I was no more;—it was high testimony to my confidence in the spirit
of the pale young gentleman, that I never imagined accessory to
these retaliations; they always came into my mind as the acts of injudicious
relatives of his, goaded on by the state of his visage and an indignant
sympathy with the family features.
However, go to Miss Havisham’s I must, and go I did. And behold! nothing
came of the late struggle. It was not alluded to in any way, and no pale young
gentleman was to be discovered on the premises. I found the same gate open, and
I explored the garden, and even looked in at the windows of the detached house;
but my view was suddenly stopped by the closed shutters within, and all was
lifeless. Only in the corner where the combat had taken place could I detect
any evidence of the young gentleman’s existence. There were traces of his
gore in that spot, and I covered them with garden-mould from the eye of man.
On the broad landing between Miss Havisham’s own room and that other room
in which the long table was laid out, I saw a garden-chair,—a light chair
on wheels, that you pushed from behind. It had been placed there since my last
visit, and I entered, that same day, on a regular occupation of pushing Miss
Havisham in this chair (when she was tired of walking with her hand upon my
shoulder) round her own room, and across the landing, and round the other room.
Over and over and over again, we would make these journeys, and sometimes they
would last as long as three hours at a stretch. I insensibly fall into a
general mention of these journeys as numerous, because it was at once settled
that I should return every alternate day at noon for these purposes, and
because I am now going to sum up a period of at least eight or ten months.
As we began to be more used to one another, Miss Havisham talked more to me,
and asked me such questions as what had I learnt and what was I going to be? I
told her I was going to be apprenticed to Joe, I believed; and I enlarged upon
my knowing nothing and wanting to know everything, in the hope that she might
offer some help towards that desirable end. But she did not; on the contrary,
she seemed to prefer my being ignorant. Neither did she ever give me any
money,—or anything but my daily dinner,—nor ever stipulate that I
should be paid for my services.
Estella was always about, and always let me in and out, but never told me I
might kiss her again. Sometimes, she would coldly tolerate me; sometimes, she
would condescend to me; sometimes, she would be quite familiar with me;
sometimes, she would tell me energetically that she hated me. Miss Havisham
would often ask me in a whisper, or when we were alone, “Does she grow
prettier and prettier, Pip?” And when I said yes (for indeed she did),
would seem to enjoy it greedily. Also, when we played at cards Miss Havisham
would look on, with a miserly relish of Estella’s moods, whatever they
were. And sometimes, when her moods were so many and so contradictory of one
another that I was puzzled what to say or do, Miss Havisham would embrace her
with lavish fondness, murmuring something in her ear that sounded like
“Break their hearts my pride and hope, break their hearts and have no
mercy!”
There was a song Joe used to hum fragments of at the forge, of which the burden
was Old Clem. This was not a very ceremonious way of rendering homage to a
patron saint, but I believe Old Clem stood in that relation towards smiths. It
was a song that imitated the measure of beating upon iron, and was a mere
lyrical excuse for the introduction of Old Clem’s respected name. Thus,
you were to hammer boys round—Old Clem! With a thump and a
sound—Old Clem! Beat it out, beat it out—Old Clem! With a clink for
the stout—Old Clem! Blow the fire, blow the fire—Old Clem! Roaring
dryer, soaring higher—Old Clem! One day soon after the appearance of the
chair, Miss Havisham suddenly saying to me, with the impatient movement of her
fingers, “There, there, there! Sing!” I was surprised into crooning
this ditty as I pushed her over the floor. It happened so to catch her fancy
that she took it up in a low brooding voice as if she were singing in her
sleep. After that, it became customary with us to have it as we moved about,
and Estella would often join in; though the whole strain was so subdued, even
when there were three of us, that it made less noise in the grim old house than
the lightest breath of wind.
What could I become with these surroundings? How could my character fail to be
influenced by them? Is it to be wondered at if my thoughts were dazed, as my
eyes were, when I came out into the natural light from the misty yellow rooms?
Perhaps I might have told Joe about the pale young gentleman, if I had not
previously been betrayed into those enormous inventions to which I had
confessed. Under the circumstances, I felt that Joe could hardly fail to
discern in the pale young gentleman, an appropriate passenger to be put into
the black velvet coach; therefore, I said nothing of him. Besides, that
shrinking from having Miss Havisham and Estella discussed, which had come upon
me in the beginning, grew much more potent as time went on. I reposed complete
confidence in no one but Biddy; but I told poor Biddy everything. Why it came
natural to me to do so, and why Biddy had a deep concern in everything I told
her, I did not know then, though I think I know now.
Meanwhile, councils went on in the kitchen at home, fraught with almost
insupportable aggravation to my exasperated spirit. That ass, Pumblechook, used
often to come over of a night for the purpose of discussing my prospects with
my sister; and I really do believe (to this hour with less penitence than I
ought to feel), that if these hands could have taken a linchpin out of his
chaise-cart, they would have done it. The miserable man was a man of that
confined stolidity of mind, that he could not discuss my prospects without
having me before him,—as it were, to operate upon,—and he would
drag me up from my stool (usually by the collar) where I was quiet in a corner,
and, putting me before the fire as if I were going to be cooked, would begin by
saying, “Now, Mum, here is this boy! Here is this boy which you brought
up by hand. Hold up your head, boy, and be forever grateful unto them which so
did do. Now, Mum, with respections to this boy!” And then he would rumple
my hair the wrong way,—which from my earliest remembrance, as already
hinted, I have in my soul denied the right of any fellow-creature to
do,—and would hold me before him by the sleeve,—a spectacle of
imbecility only to be equalled by himself.
Then, he and my sister would pair off in such nonsensical speculations about
Miss Havisham, and about what she would do with me and for me, that I used to
want—quite painfully—to burst into spiteful tears, fly at
Pumblechook, and pummel him all over. In these dialogues, my sister spoke to me
as if she were morally wrenching one of my teeth out at every reference; while
Pumblechook himself, self-constituted my patron, would sit supervising me with
a depreciatory eye, like the architect of my fortunes who thought himself
engaged on a very unremunerative job.
In these discussions, Joe bore no part. But he was often talked at, while they
were in progress, by reason of Mrs. Joe’s perceiving that he was not
favourable to my being taken from the forge. I was fully old enough now to be
apprenticed to Joe; and when Joe sat with the poker on his knees thoughtfully
raking out the ashes between the lower bars, my sister would so distinctly
construe that innocent action into opposition on his part, that she would dive
at him, take the poker out of his hands, shake him, and put it away. There was
a most irritating end to every one of these debates. All in a moment, with
nothing to lead up to it, my sister would stop herself in a yawn, and catching
sight of me as it were incidentally, would swoop upon me with, “Come!
there’s enough of ! get along to bed;
’ve given trouble enough for one night, I hope!” As if I
had besought them as a favour to bother my life out.
We went on in this way for a long time, and it seemed likely that we should
continue to go on in this way for a long time, when one day Miss Havisham
stopped short as she and I were walking, she leaning on my shoulder; and said
with some displeasure,—
“You are growing tall, Pip!”
I thought it best to hint, through the medium of a meditative look, that this
might be occasioned by circumstances over which I had no control.
She said no more at the time; but she presently stopped and looked at me again;
and presently again; and after that, looked frowning and moody. On the next day
of my attendance, when our usual exercise was over, and I had landed her at her
dressing-table, she stayed me with a movement of her impatient fingers:—
“Tell me the name again of that blacksmith of yours.”
“Joe Gargery, ma’am.”
“Meaning the master you were to be apprenticed to?”
“Yes, Miss Havisham.”
“You had better be apprenticed at once. Would Gargery come here with you,
and bring your indentures, do you think?”
I signified that I had no doubt he would take it as an honour to be asked.
“Then let him come.”
“At any particular time, Miss Havisham?”
“There, there! I know nothing about times. Let him come soon, and come
along with you.”
When I got home at night, and delivered this message for Joe, my sister
“went on the Rampage,” in a more alarming degree than at any
previous period. She asked me and Joe whether we supposed she was door-mats
under our feet, and how we dared to use her so, and what company we graciously
thought she fit for? When she had exhausted a torrent of such
inquiries, she threw a candlestick at Joe, burst into a loud sobbing, got out
the dustpan,—which was always a very bad sign,—put on her coarse
apron, and began cleaning up to a terrible extent. Not satisfied with a dry
cleaning, she took to a pail and scrubbing-brush, and cleaned us out of house
and home, so that we stood shivering in the back-yard. It was ten o’clock
at night before we ventured to creep in again, and then she asked Joe why he
hadn’t married a Negress Slave at once? Joe offered no answer, poor
fellow, but stood feeling his whisker and looking dejectedly at me, as if he
thought it really might have been a better speculation.
Chapter XIII.
It was
a trial to my feelings, on the next day but one, to see Joe arraying himself in
his Sunday clothes to accompany me to Miss Havisham’s. However, as he
thought his court-suit necessary to the occasion, it was not for me to tell him
that he looked far better in his working-dress; the rather, because I knew he
made himself so dreadfully uncomfortable, entirely on my account, and that it
was for me he pulled up his shirt-collar so very high behind, that it made the
hair on the crown of his head stand up like a tuft of feathers.
At breakfast-time my sister declared her intention of going to town with us,
and being left at Uncle Pumblechook’s and called for “when we had
done with our fine ladies”—a way of putting the case, from which
Joe appeared inclined to augur the worst. The forge was shut up for the day,
and Joe inscribed in chalk upon the door (as it was his custom to do on the
very rare occasions when he was not at work) the monosyllable
, accompanied by a sketch of an arrow supposed to be flying
in the direction he had taken.
We walked to town, my sister leading the way in a very large beaver bonnet, and
carrying a basket like the Great Seal of England in plaited Straw, a pair of
pattens, a spare shawl, and an umbrella, though it was a fine bright day. I am
not quite clear whether these articles were carried penitentially or
ostentatiously; but I rather think they were displayed as articles of
property,—much as Cleopatra or any other sovereign lady on the Rampage
might exhibit her wealth in a pageant or procession.
When we came to Pumblechook’s, my sister bounced in and left us. As it
was almost noon, Joe and I held straight on to Miss Havisham’s house.
Estella opened the gate as usual, and, the moment she appeared, Joe took his
hat off and stood weighing it by the brim in both his hands; as if he had some
urgent reason in his mind for being particular to half a quarter of an ounce.
Estella took no notice of either of us, but led us the way that I knew so well.
I followed next to her, and Joe came last. When I looked back at Joe in the
long passage, he was still weighing his hat with the greatest care, and was
coming after us in long strides on the tips of his toes.
Estella told me we were both to go in, so I took Joe by the coat-cuff and
conducted him into Miss Havisham’s presence. She was seated at her
dressing-table, and looked round at us immediately.
“Oh!” said she to Joe. “You are the husband of the sister of
this boy?”
I could hardly have imagined dear old Joe looking so unlike himself or so like
some extraordinary bird; standing as he did speechless, with his tuft of
feathers ruffled, and his mouth open as if he wanted a worm.
“You are the husband,” repeated Miss Havisham, “of the sister
of this boy?”
It was very aggravating; but, throughout the interview, Joe persisted in
addressing Me instead of Miss Havisham.
“Which I meantersay, Pip,” Joe now observed in a manner that was at
once expressive of forcible argumentation, strict confidence, and great
politeness, “as I hup and married your sister, and I were at the time
what you might call (if you was anyways inclined) a single man.”
“Well!” said Miss Havisham. “And you have reared the boy,
with the intention of taking him for your apprentice; is that so, Mr.
Gargery?”
“You know, Pip,” replied Joe, “as you and me were ever
friends, and it were looked for’ard to betwixt us, as being
calc’lated to lead to larks. Not but what, Pip, if you had ever made
objections to the business,—such as its being open to black and sut, or
such-like,—not but what they would have been attended to, don’t you
see?”
“Has the boy,” said Miss Havisham, “ever made any objection?
Does he like the trade?”
“Which it is well beknown to yourself, Pip,” returned Joe,
strengthening his former mixture of argumentation, confidence, and politeness,
“that it were the wish of your own hart.” (I saw the idea suddenly
break upon him that he would adapt his epitaph to the occasion, before he went
on to say) “And there weren’t no objection on your part, and Pip it
were the great wish of your hart!”
It was quite in vain for me to endeavour to make him sensible that he ought to
speak to Miss Havisham. The more I made faces and gestures to him to do it, the
more confidential, argumentative, and polite, he persisted in being to Me.
“Have you brought his indentures with you?” asked Miss Havisham.
“Well, Pip, you know,” replied Joe, as if that were a little
unreasonable, “you yourself see me put ’em in my ’at, and
therefore you know as they are here.” With which he took them out, and
gave them, not to Miss Havisham, but to me. I am afraid I was ashamed of the
dear good fellow,—I I was ashamed of him,—when I saw
that Estella stood at the back of Miss Havisham’s chair, and that her
eyes laughed mischievously. I took the indentures out of his hand and gave them
to Miss Havisham.
“You expected,” said Miss Havisham, as she looked them over,
“no premium with the boy?”
“Joe!” I remonstrated, for he made no reply at all. “Why
don’t you answer—”
“Pip,” returned Joe, cutting me short as if he were hurt,
“which I meantersay that were not a question requiring a answer betwixt
yourself and me, and which you know the answer to be full well No. You know it
to be No, Pip, and wherefore should I say it?”
Miss Havisham glanced at him as if she understood what he really was better
than I had thought possible, seeing what he was there; and took up a little bag
from the table beside her.
“Pip has earned a premium here,” she said, “and here it is.
There are five-and-twenty guineas in this bag. Give it to your master,
Pip.”
As if he were absolutely out of his mind with the wonder awakened in him by her
strange figure and the strange room, Joe, even at this pass, persisted in
addressing me.
“This is wery liberal on your part, Pip,” said Joe, “and it
is as such received and grateful welcome, though never looked for, far nor
near, nor nowheres. And now, old chap,” said Joe, conveying to me a
sensation, first of burning and then of freezing, for I felt as if that
familiar expression were applied to Miss Havisham,—“and now, old
chap, may we do our duty! May you and me do our duty, both on us, by one and
another, and by them which your liberal present—have-conweyed—to
be—for the satisfaction of mind-of—them as never—” here
Joe showed that he felt he had fallen into frightful difficulties, until he
triumphantly rescued himself with the words, “and from myself far be
it!” These words had such a round and convincing sound for him that he
said them twice.
“Good-bye, Pip!” said Miss Havisham. “Let them out,
Estella.”
“Am I to come again, Miss Havisham?” I asked.
“No. Gargery is your master now. Gargery! One word!”
Thus calling him back as I went out of the door, I heard her say to Joe in a
distinct emphatic voice, “The boy has been a good boy here, and that is
his reward. Of course, as an honest man, you will expect no other and no
more.”
How Joe got out of the room, I have never been able to determine; but I know
that when he did get out he was steadily proceeding upstairs instead of coming
down, and was deaf to all remonstrances until I went after him and laid hold of
him. In another minute we were outside the gate, and it was locked, and Estella
was gone. When we stood in the daylight alone again, Joe backed up against a
wall, and said to me, “Astonishing!” And there he remained so long
saying, “Astonishing” at intervals, so often, that I began to think
his senses were never coming back. At length he prolonged his remark into
“Pip, I do assure this is as—ishing!”
and so, by degrees, became conversational and able to walk away.
I have reason to think that Joe’s intellects were brightened by the
encounter they had passed through, and that on our way to Pumblechook’s
he invented a subtle and deep design. My reason is to be found in what took
place in Mr. Pumblechook’s parlour: where, on our presenting ourselves,
my sister sat in conference with that detested seedsman.
“Well?” cried my sister, addressing us both at once. “And
what’s happened to ? I wonder you condescend to come back to
such poor society as this, I am sure I do!”
“Miss Havisham,” said Joe, with a fixed look at me, like an effort
of remembrance, “made it wery partick’ler that we should give
her—were it compliments or respects, Pip?”
“Compliments,” I said.
“Which that were my own belief,” answered Joe; “her
compliments to Mrs. J. Gargery—”
“Much good they’ll do me!” observed my sister; but rather
gratified too.
“And wishing,” pursued Joe, with another fixed look at me, like
another effort of remembrance, “that the state of Miss Havisham’s
elth were sitch as would have—allowed, were it, Pip?”
“Of her having the pleasure,” I added.
“Of ladies’ company,” said Joe. And drew a long breath.
“Well!” cried my sister, with a mollified glance at Mr.
Pumblechook. “She might have had the politeness to send that message at
first, but it’s better late than never. And what did she give young
Rantipole here?”
“She giv’ him,” said Joe, “nothing.”
Mrs. Joe was going to break out, but Joe went on.
“What she giv’,” said Joe, “she giv’ to his
friends. ‘And by his friends,’ were her explanation, ‘I mean
into the hands of his sister Mrs. J. Gargery.’ Them were her words;
‘Mrs. J. Gargery.’ She mayn’t have know’d,” added
Joe, with an appearance of reflection, “whether it were Joe, or
Jorge.”
My sister looked at Pumblechook: who smoothed the elbows of his wooden
arm-chair, and nodded at her and at the fire, as if he had known all about it
beforehand.
“And how much have you got?” asked my sister, laughing. Positively
laughing!
“What would present company say to ten pound?” demanded Joe.
“They’d say,” returned my sister, curtly, “pretty well.
Not too much, but pretty well.”
“It’s more than that, then,” said Joe.
That fearful Impostor, Pumblechook, immediately nodded, and said, as he rubbed
the arms of his chair, “It’s more than that, Mum.”
“Why, you don’t mean to say—” began my sister.
“Yes I do, Mum,” said Pumblechook; “but wait a bit. Go on,
Joseph. Good in you! Go on!”
“What would present company say,” proceeded Joe, “to twenty
pound?”
“Handsome would be the word,” returned my sister.
“Well, then,” said Joe, “It’s more than twenty
pound.”
That abject hypocrite, Pumblechook, nodded again, and said, with a patronizing
laugh, “It’s more than that, Mum. Good again! Follow her up,
Joseph!”
“Then to make an end of it,” said Joe, delightedly handing the bag
to my sister; “it’s five-and-twenty pound.”
“It’s five-and-twenty pound, Mum,” echoed that basest of
swindlers, Pumblechook, rising to shake hands with her; “and it’s
no more than your merits (as I said when my opinion was asked), and I wish you
joy of the money!”
If the villain had stopped here, his case would have been sufficiently awful,
but he blackened his guilt by proceeding to take me into custody, with a right
of patronage that left all his former criminality far behind.
“Now you see, Joseph and wife,” said Pumblechook, as he took me by
the arm above the elbow, “I am one of them that always go right through
with what they’ve begun. This boy must be bound, out of hand.
That’s way. Bound out of hand.”
“Goodness knows, Uncle Pumblechook,” said my sister (grasping the
money), “we’re deeply beholden to you.”
“Never mind me, Mum,” returned that diabolical cornchandler.
“A pleasure’s a pleasure all the world over. But this boy, you
know; we must have him bound. I said I’d see to it—to tell you the
truth.”
The Justices were sitting in the Town Hall near at hand, and we at once went
over to have me bound apprentice to Joe in the Magisterial presence. I say we
went over, but I was pushed over by Pumblechook, exactly as if I had that
moment picked a pocket or fired a rick; indeed, it was the general impression
in Court that I had been taken red-handed; for, as Pumblechook shoved me before
him through the crowd, I heard some people say, “What’s he
done?” and others, “He’s a young ’un, too, but looks
bad, don’t he?” One person of mild and benevolent aspect even gave
me a tract ornamented with a woodcut of a malevolent young man fitted up with a
perfect sausage-shop of fetters, and entitled T
C.
The Hall was a queer place, I thought, with higher pews in it than a
church,—and with people hanging over the pews looking on,—and with
mighty Justices (one with a powdered head) leaning back in chairs, with folded
arms, or taking snuff, or going to sleep, or writing, or reading the
newspapers,—and with some shining black portraits on the walls, which my
unartistic eye regarded as a composition of hardbake and sticking-plaster.
Here, in a corner my indentures were duly signed and attested, and I was
“bound”; Mr. Pumblechook holding me all the while as if we had
looked in on our way to the scaffold, to have those little preliminaries
disposed of.
When we had come out again, and had got rid of the boys who had been put into
great spirits by the expectation of seeing me publicly tortured, and who were
much disappointed to find that my friends were merely rallying round me, we
went back to Pumblechook’s. And there my sister became so excited by the
twenty-five guineas, that nothing would serve her but we must have a dinner out
of that windfall at the Blue Boar, and that Pumblechook must go over in his
chaise-cart, and bring the Hubbles and Mr. Wopsle.
It was agreed to be done; and a most melancholy day I passed. For, it
inscrutably appeared to stand to reason, in the minds of the whole company,
that I was an excrescence on the entertainment. And to make it worse, they all
asked me from time to time,—in short, whenever they had nothing else to
do,—why I didn’t enjoy myself? And what could I possibly do then,
but say I enjoying myself,—when I wasn’t!
However, they were grown up and had their own way, and they made the most of
it. That swindling Pumblechook, exalted into the beneficent contriver of the
whole occasion, actually took the top of the table; and, when he addressed them
on the subject of my being bound, and had fiendishly congratulated them on my
being liable to imprisonment if I played at cards, drank strong liquors, kept
late hours or bad company, or indulged in other vagaries which the form of my
indentures appeared to contemplate as next to inevitable, he placed me standing
on a chair beside him to illustrate his remarks.
My only other remembrances of the great festival are, That they wouldn’t
let me go to sleep, but whenever they saw me dropping off, woke me up and told
me to enjoy myself. That, rather late in the evening Mr. Wopsle gave us
Collins’s ode, and threw his bloodstained sword in thunder down, with
such effect, that a waiter came in and said, “The Commercials underneath
sent up their compliments, and it wasn’t the Tumblers’ Arms.”
That, they were all in excellent spirits on the road home, and sang, O Lady
Fair! Mr. Wopsle taking the bass, and asserting with a tremendously strong
voice (in reply to the inquisitive bore who leads that piece of music in a most
impertinent manner, by wanting to know all about everybody’s private
affairs) that was the man with his white locks flowing, and that he
was upon the whole the weakest pilgrim going.
Finally, I remember that when I got into my little bedroom, I was truly
wretched, and had a strong conviction on me that I should never like
Joe’s trade. I had liked it once, but once was not now.
Chapter XIV.
It is
a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home. There may be black ingratitude
in the thing, and the punishment may be retributive and well deserved; but that
it is a miserable thing, I can testify.
Home had never been a very pleasant place to me, because of my sister’s
temper. But, Joe had sanctified it, and I had believed in it. I had believed in
the best parlour as a most elegant saloon; I had believed in the front door, as
a mysterious portal of the Temple of State whose solemn opening was attended
with a sacrifice of roast fowls; I had believed in the kitchen as a chaste
though not magnificent apartment; I had believed in the forge as the glowing
road to manhood and independence. Within a single year all this was changed.
Now it was all coarse and common, and I would not have had Miss Havisham and
Estella see it on any account.
How much of my ungracious condition of mind may have been my own fault, how
much Miss Havisham’s, how much my sister’s, is now of no moment to
me or to any one. The change was made in me; the thing was done. Well or ill
done, excusably or inexcusably, it was done.
Once, it had seemed to me that when I should at last roll up my shirt-sleeves
and go into the forge, Joe’s ’prentice, I should be distinguished
and happy. Now the reality was in my hold, I only felt that I was dusty with
the dust of small-coal, and that I had a weight upon my daily remembrance to
which the anvil was a feather. There have been occasions in my later life (I
suppose as in most lives) when I have felt for a time as if a thick curtain had
fallen on all its interest and romance, to shut me out from anything save dull
endurance any more. Never has that curtain dropped so heavy and blank, as when
my way in life lay stretched out straight before me through the newly entered
road of apprenticeship to Joe.
I remember that at a later period of my “time,” I used to stand
about the churchyard on Sunday evenings when night was falling, comparing my
own perspective with the windy marsh view, and making out some likeness between
them by thinking how flat and low both were, and how on both there came an
unknown way and a dark mist and then the sea. I was quite as dejected on the
first working-day of my apprenticeship as in that after-time; but I am glad to
know that I never breathed a murmur to Joe while my indentures lasted. It is
about the only thing I glad to know of myself in that connection.
For, though it includes what I proceed to add, all the merit of what I proceed
to add was Joe’s. It was not because I was faithful, but because Joe was
faithful, that I never ran away and went for a soldier or a sailor. It was not
because I had a strong sense of the virtue of industry, but because Joe had a
strong sense of the virtue of industry, that I worked with tolerable zeal
against the grain. It is not possible to know how far the influence of any
amiable honest-hearted duty-doing man flies out into the world; but it is very
possible to know how it has touched one’s self in going by, and I know
right well that any good that intermixed itself with my apprenticeship came of
plain contented Joe, and not of restlessly aspiring discontented me.
What I wanted, who can say? How can say, when I never knew? What I
dreaded was, that in some unlucky hour I, being at my grimiest and commonest,
should lift up my eyes and see Estella looking in at one of the wooden windows
of the forge. I was haunted by the fear that she would, sooner or later, find
me out, with a black face and hands, doing the coarsest part of my work, and
would exult over me and despise me. Often after dark, when I was pulling the
bellows for Joe, and we were singing Old Clem, and when the thought how we used
to sing it at Miss Havisham’s would seem to show me Estella’s face
in the fire, with her pretty hair fluttering in the wind and her eyes scorning
me,—often at such a time I would look towards those panels of black night
in the wall which the wooden windows then were, and would fancy that I saw her
just drawing her face away, and would believe that she had come at last.
After that, when we went in to supper, the place and the meal would have a more
homely look than ever, and I would feel more ashamed of home than ever, in my
own ungracious breast.
Chapter XV.
As I
was getting too big for Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt’s room, my
education under that preposterous female terminated. Not, however, until Biddy
had imparted to me everything she knew, from the little catalogue of prices, to
a comic song she had once bought for a half-penny. Although the only coherent
part of the latter piece of literature were the opening lines,
When I went to Lunnon town sirs,
Too rul loo rul
Too rul loo rul
Wasn’t I done very brown sirs?
Too rul loo rul
Too rul loo rul
—still, in my desire to be wiser, I got this composition by heart with
the utmost gravity; nor do I recollect that I questioned its merit, except that
I thought (as I still do) the amount of Too rul somewhat in excess of the
poetry. In my hunger for information, I made proposals to Mr. Wopsle to bestow
some intellectual crumbs upon me, with which he kindly complied. As it turned
out, however, that he only wanted me for a dramatic lay-figure, to be
contradicted and embraced and wept over and bullied and clutched and stabbed
and knocked about in a variety of ways, I soon declined that course of
instruction; though not until Mr. Wopsle in his poetic fury had severely mauled
me.
Whatever I acquired, I tried to impart to Joe. This statement sounds so well,
that I cannot in my conscience let it pass unexplained. I wanted to make Joe
less ignorant and common, that he might be worthier of my society and less open
to Estella’s reproach.
The old Battery out on the marshes was our place of study, and a broken slate
and a short piece of slate-pencil were our educational implements: to which Joe
always added a pipe of tobacco. I never knew Joe to remember anything from one
Sunday to another, or to acquire, under my tuition, any piece of information
whatever. Yet he would smoke his pipe at the Battery with a far more sagacious
air than anywhere else,—even with a learned air,—as if he
considered himself to be advancing immensely. Dear fellow, I hope he did.
It was pleasant and quiet, out there with the sails on the river passing beyond
the earthwork, and sometimes, when the tide was low, looking as if they
belonged to sunken ships that were still sailing on at the bottom of the water.
Whenever I watched the vessels standing out to sea with their white sails
spread, I somehow thought of Miss Havisham and Estella; and whenever the light
struck aslant, afar off, upon a cloud or sail or green hillside or water-line,
it was just the same.—Miss Havisham and Estella and the strange house and
the strange life appeared to have something to do with everything that was
picturesque.
One Sunday when Joe, greatly enjoying his pipe, had so plumed himself on being
“most awful dull,” that I had given him up for the day, I lay on
the earthwork for some time with my chin on my hand, descrying traces of Miss
Havisham and Estella all over the prospect, in the sky and in the water, until
at last I resolved to mention a thought concerning them that had been much in
my head.
“Joe,” said I; “don’t you think I ought to make Miss
Havisham a visit?”
“Well, Pip,” returned Joe, slowly considering. “What
for?”
“What for, Joe? What is any visit made for?”
“There is some wisits p’r’aps,” said Joe, “as for
ever remains open to the question, Pip. But in regard to wisiting Miss
Havisham. She might think you wanted something,—expected something of
her.”
“Don’t you think I might say that I did not, Joe?”
“You might, old chap,” said Joe. “And she might credit it.
Similarly she mightn’t.”
Joe felt, as I did, that he had made a point there, and he pulled hard at his
pipe to keep himself from weakening it by repetition.
“You see, Pip,” Joe pursued, as soon as he was past that danger,
“Miss Havisham done the handsome thing by you. When Miss Havisham done
the handsome thing by you, she called me back to say to me as that were
all.”
“Yes, Joe. I heard her.”
“A,” Joe repeated, very emphatically.
“Yes, Joe. I tell you, I heard her.”
“Which I meantersay, Pip, it might be that her meaning were,—Make a
end on it!—As you was!—Me to the North, and you to the
South!—Keep in sunders!”
I had thought of that too, and it was very far from comforting to me to find
that he had thought of it; for it seemed to render it more probable.
“But, Joe.”
“Yes, old chap.”
“Here am I, getting on in the first year of my time, and, since the day
of my being bound, I have never thanked Miss Havisham, or asked after her, or
shown that I remember her.”
“That’s true, Pip; and unless you was to turn her out a set of
shoes all four round,—and which I meantersay as even a set of shoes all
four round might not be acceptable as a present, in a total wacancy of
hoofs—”
“I don’t mean that sort of remembrance, Joe; I don’t mean a
present.”
But Joe had got the idea of a present in his head and must harp upon it.
“Or even,” said he, “if you was helped to knocking her up a
new chain for the front door,—or say a gross or two of shark-headed
screws for general use,—or some light fancy article, such as a
toasting-fork when she took her muffins,—or a gridiron when she took a
sprat or such like—”
“I don’t mean any present at all, Joe,” I interposed.
“Well,” said Joe, still harping on it as though I had particularly
pressed it, “if I was yourself, Pip, I wouldn’t. No, I would
. For what’s a door-chain when she’s got one always up?
And shark-headers is open to misrepresentations. And if it was a toasting-fork,
you’d go into brass and do yourself no credit. And the oncommonest
workman can’t show himself oncommon in a gridiron,—for a gridiron
a gridiron,” said Joe, steadfastly impressing it upon
me, as if he were endeavouring to rouse me from a fixed delusion, “and
you may haim at what you like, but a gridiron it will come out, either by your
leave or again your leave, and you can’t help yourself—”
“My dear Joe,” I cried, in desperation, taking hold of his coat,
“don’t go on in that way. I never thought of making Miss Havisham
any present.”
“No, Pip,” Joe assented, as if he had been contending for that, all
along; “and what I say to you is, you are right, Pip.”
“Yes, Joe; but what I wanted to say, was, that as we are rather slack
just now, if you would give me a half-holiday to-morrow, I think I would go
uptown and make a call on Miss Est—Havisham.”
“Which her name,” said Joe, gravely, “ain’t Estavisham,
Pip, unless she have been rechris’ened.”
“I know, Joe, I know. It was a slip of mine. What do you think of it,
Joe?”
In brief, Joe thought that if I thought well of it, he thought well of it. But,
he was particular in stipulating that if I were not received with cordiality,
or if I were not encouraged to repeat my visit as a visit which had no ulterior
object but was simply one of gratitude for a favour received, then this
experimental trip should have no successor. By these conditions I promised to
abide.
Now, Joe kept a journeyman at weekly wages whose name was Orlick. He pretended
that his Christian name was Dolge,—a clear Impossibility,—but he
was a fellow of that obstinate disposition that I believe him to have been the
prey of no delusion in this particular, but wilfully to have imposed that name
upon the village as an affront to its understanding. He was a broadshouldered
loose-limbed swarthy fellow of great strength, never in a hurry, and always
slouching. He never even seemed to come to his work on purpose, but would
slouch in as if by mere accident; and when he went to the Jolly Bargemen to eat
his dinner, or went away at night, he would slouch out, like Cain or the
Wandering Jew, as if he had no idea where he was going and no intention of ever
coming back. He lodged at a sluice-keeper’s out on the marshes, and on
working-days would come slouching from his hermitage, with his hands in his
pockets and his dinner loosely tied in a bundle round his neck and dangling on
his back. On Sundays he mostly lay all day on the sluice-gates, or stood
against ricks and barns. He always slouched, locomotively, with his eyes on the
ground; and, when accosted or otherwise required to raise them, he looked up in
a half-resentful, half-puzzled way, as though the only thought he ever had was,
that it was rather an odd and injurious fact that he should never be thinking.
This morose journeyman had no liking for me. When I was very small and timid,
he gave me to understand that the Devil lived in a black corner of the forge,
and that he knew the fiend very well: also that it was necessary to make up the
fire, once in seven years, with a live boy, and that I might consider myself
fuel. When I became Joe’s ’prentice, Orlick was perhaps confirmed
in some suspicion that I should displace him; howbeit, he liked me still less.
Not that he ever said anything, or did anything, openly importing hostility; I
only noticed that he always beat his sparks in my direction, and that whenever
I sang Old Clem, he came in out of time.
Dolge Orlick was at work and present, next day, when I reminded Joe of my
half-holiday. He said nothing at the moment, for he and Joe had just got a
piece of hot iron between them, and I was at the bellows; but by and by he
said, leaning on his hammer,—
“Now, master! Sure you’re not a-going to favour only one of us. If
Young Pip has a half-holiday, do as much for Old Orlick.” I suppose he
was about five-and-twenty, but he usually spoke of himself as an ancient
person.
“Why, what’ll you do with a half-holiday, if you get it?”
said Joe.
“What’ll do with it! What’ll do with it?
I’ll do as much with it as ,” said Orlick.
“As to Pip, he’s going up town,” said Joe.
“Well then, as to Old Orlick, ’s a-going up town,”
retorted that worthy. “Two can go up town. Tain’t only one wot can
go up town.
“Don’t lose your temper,” said Joe.
“Shall if I like,” growled Orlick. “Some and their uptowning!
Now, master! Come. No favouring in this shop. Be a man!”
The master refusing to entertain the subject until the journeyman was in a
better temper, Orlick plunged at the furnace, drew out a red-hot bar, made at
me with it as if he were going to run it through my body, whisked it round my
head, laid it on the anvil, hammered it out,—as if it were I, I thought,
and the sparks were my spirting blood,—and finally said, when he had
hammered himself hot and the iron cold, and he again leaned on his
hammer,—
“Now, master!”
“Are you all right now?” demanded Joe.
“Ah! I am all right,” said gruff Old Orlick.
“Then, as in general you stick to your work as well as most men,”
said Joe, “let it be a half-holiday for all.”
My sister had been standing silent in the yard, within hearing,—she was a
most unscrupulous spy and listener,—and she instantly looked in at one of
the windows.
“Like you, you fool!” said she to Joe, “giving holidays to
great idle hulkers like that. You are a rich man, upon my life, to waste wages
in that way. I wish was his master!”
“You’d be everybody’s master, if you durst,” retorted
Orlick, with an ill-favoured grin.
(“Let her alone,” said Joe.)
“I’d be a match for all noodles and all rogues,” returned my
sister, beginning to work herself into a mighty rage. “And I
couldn’t be a match for the noodles, without being a match for your
master, who’s the dunder-headed king of the noodles. And I couldn’t
be a match for the rogues, without being a match for you, who are the
blackest-looking and the worst rogue between this and France. Now!”
“You’re a foul shrew, Mother Gargery,” growled the
journeyman. “If that makes a judge of rogues, you ought to be a
good’un.”
(“Let her alone, will you?” said Joe.)
“What did you say?” cried my sister, beginning to scream.
“What did you say? What did that fellow Orlick say to me, Pip? What did
he call me, with my husband standing by? Oh! oh! oh!” Each of these
exclamations was a shriek; and I must remark of my sister, what is equally true
of all the violent women I have ever seen, that passion was no excuse for her,
because it is undeniable that instead of lapsing into passion, she consciously
and deliberately took extraordinary pains to force herself into it, and became
blindly furious by regular stages; “what was the name he gave me before
the base man who swore to defend me? Oh! Hold me! Oh!”
“Ah-h-h!” growled the journeyman, between his teeth,
“I’d hold you, if you was my wife. I’d hold you under the
pump, and choke it out of you.”
(“I tell you, let her alone,” said Joe.)
“Oh! To hear him!” cried my sister, with a clap of her hands and a
scream together,—which was her next stage. “To hear the names
he’s giving me! That Orlick! In my own house! Me, a married woman! With
my husband standing by! Oh! Oh!” Here my sister, after a fit of clappings
and screamings, beat her hands upon her bosom and upon her knees, and threw her
cap off, and pulled her hair down,—which were the last stages on her road
to frenzy. Being by this time a perfect Fury and a complete success, she made a
dash at the door which I had fortunately locked.
What could the wretched Joe do now, after his disregarded parenthetical
interruptions, but stand up to his journeyman, and ask him what he meant by
interfering betwixt himself and Mrs. Joe; and further whether he was man enough
to come on? Old Orlick felt that the situation admitted of nothing less than
coming on, and was on his defence straightway; so, without so much as pulling
off their singed and burnt aprons, they went at one another, like two giants.
But, if any man in that neighbourhood could stand uplong against Joe, I never
saw the man. Orlick, as if he had been of no more account than the pale young
gentleman, was very soon among the coal-dust, and in no hurry to come out of
it. Then Joe unlocked the door and picked up my sister, who had dropped
insensible at the window (but who had seen the fight first, I think), and who
was carried into the house and laid down, and who was recommended to revive,
and would do nothing but struggle and clench her hands in Joe’s hair.
Then came that singular calm and silence which succeed all uproars; and then,
with the vague sensation which I have always connected with such a
lull,—namely, that it was Sunday, and somebody was dead,—I went
upstairs to dress myself.
When I came down again, I found Joe and Orlick sweeping up, without any other
traces of discomposure than a slit in one of Orlick’s nostrils, which was
neither expressive nor ornamental. A pot of beer had appeared from the Jolly
Bargemen, and they were sharing it by turns in a peaceable manner. The lull had
a sedative and philosophical influence on Joe, who followed me out into the
road to say, as a parting observation that might do me good, “On the
Rampage, Pip, and off the Rampage, Pip:—such is Life!”
With what absurd emotions (for we think the feelings that are very serious in a
man quite comical in a boy) I found myself again going to Miss
Havisham’s, matters little here. Nor, how I passed and repassed the gate
many times before I could make up my mind to ring. Nor, how I debated whether I
should go away without ringing; nor, how I should undoubtedly have gone, if my
time had been my own, to come back.
Miss Sarah Pocket came to the gate. No Estella.
“How, then? You here again?” said Miss Pocket. “What do you
want?”
When I said that I only came to see how Miss Havisham was, Sarah evidently
deliberated whether or no she should send me about my business. But unwilling
to hazard the responsibility, she let me in, and presently brought the sharp
message that I was to “come up.”
Everything was unchanged, and Miss Havisham was alone.
“Well?” said she, fixing her eyes upon me. “I hope you want
nothing? You’ll get nothing.”
“No indeed, Miss Havisham. I only wanted you to know that I am doing very
well in my apprenticeship, and am always much obliged to you.”
“There, there!” with the old restless fingers. “Come now and
then; come on your birthday.—Ay!” she cried suddenly, turning
herself and her chair towards me, “You are looking round for Estella?
Hey?”
I had been looking round,—in fact, for Estella,—and I stammered
that I hoped she was well.
“Abroad,” said Miss Havisham; “educating for a lady; far out
of reach; prettier than ever; admired by all who see her. Do you feel that you
have lost her?”
There was such a malignant enjoyment in her utterance of the last words, and
she broke into such a disagreeable laugh, that I was at a loss what to say. She
spared me the trouble of considering, by dismissing me. When the gate was
closed upon me by Sarah of the walnut-shell countenance, I felt more than ever
dissatisfied with my home and with my trade and with everything; and that was
all I took by motion.
As I was loitering along the High Street, looking in disconsolately at the shop
windows, and thinking what I would buy if I were a gentleman, who should come
out of the bookshop but Mr. Wopsle. Mr. Wopsle had in his hand the affecting
tragedy of George Barnwell, in which he had that moment invested sixpence, with
the view of heaping every word of it on the head of Pumblechook, with whom he
was going to drink tea. No sooner did he see me, than he appeared to consider
that a special Providence had put a ’prentice in his way to be read at;
and he laid hold of me, and insisted on my accompanying him to the
Pumblechookian parlour. As I knew it would be miserable at home, and as the
nights were dark and the way was dreary, and almost any companionship on the
road was better than none, I made no great resistance; consequently, we turned
into Pumblechook’s just as the street and the shops were lighting up.
As I never assisted at any other representation of George Barnwell, I
don’t know how long it may usually take; but I know very well that it
took until half-past nine o’ clock that night, and that when Mr. Wopsle
got into Newgate, I thought he never would go to the scaffold, he became so
much slower than at any former period of his disgraceful career. I thought it a
little too much that he should complain of being cut short in his flower after
all, as if he had not been running to seed, leaf after leaf, ever since his
course began. This, however, was a mere question of length and wearisomeness.
What stung me, was the identification of the whole affair with my unoffending
self. When Barnwell began to go wrong, I declare that I felt positively
apologetic, Pumblechook’s indignant stare so taxed me with it. Wopsle,
too, took pains to present me in the worst light. At once ferocious and
maudlin, I was made to murder my uncle with no extenuating circumstances
whatever; Millwood put me down in argument, on every occasion; it became sheer
monomania in my master’s daughter to care a button for me; and all I can
say for my gasping and procrastinating conduct on the fatal morning, is, that
it was worthy of the general feebleness of my character. Even after I was
happily hanged and Wopsle had closed the book, Pumblechook sat staring at me,
and shaking his head, and saying, “Take warning, boy, take
warning!” as if it were a well-known fact that I contemplated murdering a
near relation, provided I could only induce one to have the weakness to become
my benefactor.
It was a very dark night when it was all over, and when I set out with Mr.
Wopsle on the walk home. Beyond town, we found a heavy mist out, and it fell
wet and thick. The turnpike lamp was a blur, quite out of the lamp’s
usual place apparently, and its rays looked solid substance on the fog. We were
noticing this, and saying how that the mist rose with a change of wind from a
certain quarter of our marshes, when we came upon a man, slouching under the
lee of the turnpike house.
“Halloa!” we said, stopping. “Orlick there?”
“Ah!” he answered, slouching out. “I was standing by a
minute, on the chance of company.”
“You are late,” I remarked.
Orlick not unnaturally answered, “Well? And ’re
late.”
“We have been,” said Mr. Wopsle, exalted with his late
performance,—“we have been indulging, Mr. Orlick, in an
intellectual evening.”
Old Orlick growled, as if he had nothing to say about that, and we all went on
together. I asked him presently whether he had been spending his half-holiday
up and down town?
“Yes,” said he, “all of it. I come in behind yourself. I
didn’t see you, but I must have been pretty close behind you. By the by,
the guns is going again.”
“At the Hulks?” said I.
“Ay! There’s some of the birds flown from the cages. The guns have
been going since dark, about. You’ll hear one presently.”
In effect, we had not walked many yards further, when the well-remembered boom
came towards us, deadened by the mist, and heavily rolled away along the low
grounds by the river, as if it were pursuing and threatening the fugitives.
“A good night for cutting off in,” said Orlick. “We’d
be puzzled how to bring down a jail-bird on the wing, to-night.”
The subject was a suggestive one to me, and I thought about it in silence. Mr.
Wopsle, as the ill-requited uncle of the evening’s tragedy, fell to
meditating aloud in his garden at Camberwell. Orlick, with his hands in his
pockets, slouched heavily at my side. It was very dark, very wet, very muddy,
and so we splashed along. Now and then, the sound of the signal cannon broke
upon us again, and again rolled sulkily along the course of the river. I kept
myself to myself and my thoughts. Mr. Wopsle died amiably at Camberwell, and
exceedingly game on Bosworth Field, and in the greatest agonies at Glastonbury.
Orlick sometimes growled, “Beat it out, beat it out,—Old Clem! With
a clink for the stout,—Old Clem!” I thought he had been drinking,
but he was not drunk.
Thus, we came to the village. The way by which we approached it took us past
the Three Jolly Bargemen, which we were surprised to find—it being eleven
o’clock—in a state of commotion, with the door wide open, and
unwonted lights that had been hastily caught up and put down scattered about.
Mr. Wopsle dropped in to ask what was the matter (surmising that a convict had
been taken), but came running out in a great hurry.
“There’s something wrong,” said he, without stopping,
“up at your place, Pip. Run all!”
“What is it?” I asked, keeping up with him. So did Orlick, at my
side.
“I can’t quite understand. The house seems to have been violently
entered when Joe Gargery was out. Supposed by convicts. Somebody has been
attacked and hurt.”
We were running too fast to admit of more being said, and we made no stop until
we got into our kitchen. It was full of people; the whole village was there, or
in the yard; and there was a surgeon, and there was Joe, and there were a group
of women, all on the floor in the midst of the kitchen. The unemployed
bystanders drew back when they saw me, and so I became aware of my
sister,—lying without sense or movement on the bare boards where she had
been knocked down by a tremendous blow on the back of the head, dealt by some
unknown hand when her face was turned towards the fire,—destined never to
be on the Rampage again, while she was the wife of Joe.
Chapter XVI.
With
my head full of George Barnwell, I was at first disposed to believe that
must have had some hand in the attack upon my sister, or at all events
that as her near relation, popularly known to be under obligations to her, I
was a more legitimate object of suspicion than any one else. But when, in the
clearer light of next morning, I began to reconsider the matter and to hear it
discussed around me on all sides, I took another view of the case, which was
more reasonable.
Joe had been at the Three Jolly Bargemen, smoking his pipe, from a quarter
after eight o’clock to a quarter before ten. While he was there, my
sister had been seen standing at the kitchen door, and had exchanged Good Night
with a farm-labourer going home. The man could not be more particular as to the
time at which he saw her (he got into dense confusion when he tried to be),
than that it must have been before nine. When Joe went home at five minutes
before ten, he found her struck down on the floor, and promptly called in
assistance. The fire had not then burnt unusually low, nor was the snuff of the
candle very long; the candle, however, had been blown out.
Nothing had been taken away from any part of the house. Neither, beyond the
blowing out of the candle,—which stood on a table between the door and my
sister, and was behind her when she stood facing the fire and was
struck,—was there any disarrangement of the kitchen, excepting such as
she herself had made, in falling and bleeding. But, there was one remarkable
piece of evidence on the spot. She had been struck with something blunt and
heavy, on the head and spine; after the blows were dealt, something heavy had
been thrown down at her with considerable violence, as she lay on her face. And
on the ground beside her, when Joe picked her up, was a convict’s
leg-iron which had been filed asunder.
Now, Joe, examining this iron with a smith’s eye, declared it to have
been filed asunder some time ago. The hue and cry going off to the Hulks, and
people coming thence to examine the iron, Joe’s opinion was corroborated.
They did not undertake to say when it had left the prison-ships to which it
undoubtedly had once belonged; but they claimed to know for certain that that
particular manacle had not been worn by either of the two convicts who had
escaped last night. Further, one of those two was already retaken, and had not
freed himself of his iron.
Knowing what I knew, I set up an inference of my own here. I believed the iron
to be my convict’s iron,—the iron I had seen and heard him filing
at, on the marshes,—but my mind did not accuse him of having put it to
its latest use. For I believed one of two other persons to have become
possessed of it, and to have turned it to this cruel account. Either Orlick, or
the strange man who had shown me the file.
Now, as to Orlick; he had gone to town exactly as he told us when we picked him
up at the turnpike, he had been seen about town all the evening, he had been in
divers companies in several public-houses, and he had come back with myself and
Mr. Wopsle. There was nothing against him, save the quarrel; and my sister had
quarrelled with him, and with everybody else about her, ten thousand times. As
to the strange man; if he had come back for his two bank-notes there could have
been no dispute about them, because my sister was fully prepared to restore
them. Besides, there had been no altercation; the assailant had come in so
silently and suddenly, that she had been felled before she could look round.
It was horrible to think that I had provided the weapon, however undesignedly,
but I could hardly think otherwise. I suffered unspeakable trouble while I
considered and reconsidered whether I should at last dissolve that spell of my
childhood and tell Joe all the story. For months afterwards, I every day
settled the question finally in the negative, and reopened and reargued it next
morning. The contention came, after all, to this;—the secret was such an
old one now, had so grown into me and become a part of myself, that I could not
tear it away. In addition to the dread that, having led up to so much mischief,
it would be now more likely than ever to alienate Joe from me if he believed
it, I had a further restraining dread that he would not believe it, but would
assort it with the fabulous dogs and veal-cutlets as a monstrous invention.
However, I temporized with myself, of course—for, was I not wavering
between right and wrong, when the thing is always done?—and resolved to
make a full disclosure if I should see any such new occasion as a new chance of
helping in the discovery of the assailant.
The Constables and the Bow Street men from London—for, this happened in
the days of the extinct red-waistcoated police—were about the house for a
week or two, and did pretty much what I have heard and read of like authorities
doing in other such cases. They took up several obviously wrong people, and
they ran their heads very hard against wrong ideas, and persisted in trying to
fit the circumstances to the ideas, instead of trying to extract ideas from the
circumstances. Also, they stood about the door of the Jolly Bargemen, with
knowing and reserved looks that filled the whole neighbourhood with admiration;
and they had a mysterious manner of taking their drink, that was almost as good
as taking the culprit. But not quite, for they never did it.
Long after these constitutional powers had dispersed, my sister lay very ill in
bed. Her sight was disturbed, so that she saw objects multiplied, and grasped
at visionary teacups and wineglasses instead of the realities; her hearing was
greatly impaired; her memory also; and her speech was unintelligible. When, at
last, she came round so far as to be helped downstairs, it was still necessary
to keep my slate always by her, that she might indicate in writing what she
could not indicate in speech. As she was (very bad handwriting apart) a more
than indifferent speller, and as Joe was a more than indifferent reader,
extraordinary complications arose between them which I was always called in to
solve. The administration of mutton instead of medicine, the substitution of
Tea for Joe, and the baker for bacon, were among the mildest of my own
mistakes.
However, her temper was greatly improved, and she was patient. A tremulous
uncertainty of the action of all her limbs soon became a part of her regular
state, and afterwards, at intervals of two or three months, she would often put
her hands to her head, and would then remain for about a week at a time in some
gloomy aberration of mind. We were at a loss to find a suitable attendant for
her, until a circumstance happened conveniently to relieve us. Mr.
Wopsle’s great-aunt conquered a confirmed habit of living into which she
had fallen, and Biddy became a part of our establishment.
It may have been about a month after my sister’s reappearance in the
kitchen, when Biddy came to us with a small speckled box containing the whole
of her worldly effects, and became a blessing to the household. Above all, she
was a blessing to Joe, for the dear old fellow was sadly cut up by the constant
contemplation of the wreck of his wife, and had been accustomed, while
attending on her of an evening, to turn to me every now and then and say, with
his blue eyes moistened, “Such a fine figure of a woman as she once were,
Pip!” Biddy instantly taking the cleverest charge of her as though she
had studied her from infancy; Joe became able in some sort to appreciate the
greater quiet of his life, and to get down to the Jolly Bargemen now and then
for a change that did him good. It was characteristic of the police people that
they had all more or less suspected poor Joe (though he never knew it), and
that they had to a man concurred in regarding him as one of the deepest spirits
they had ever encountered.
Biddy’s first triumph in her new office, was to solve a difficulty that
had completely vanquished me. I had tried hard at it, but had made nothing of
it. Thus it was:—
Again and again and again, my sister had traced upon the slate, a character
that looked like a curious T, and then with the utmost eagerness had called our
attention to it as something she particularly wanted. I had in vain tried
everything producible that began with a T, from tar to toast and tub. At length
it had come into my head that the sign looked like a hammer, and on my lustily
calling that word in my sister’s ear, she had begun to hammer on the
table and had expressed a qualified assent. Thereupon, I had brought in all our
hammers, one after another, but without avail. Then I bethought me of a crutch,
the shape being much the same, and I borrowed one in the village, and displayed
it to my sister with considerable confidence. But she shook her head to that
extent when she was shown it, that we were terrified lest in her weak and
shattered state she should dislocate her neck.
When my sister found that Biddy was very quick to understand her, this
mysterious sign reappeared on the slate. Biddy looked thoughtfully at it, heard
my explanation, looked thoughtfully at my sister, looked thoughtfully at Joe
(who was always represented on the slate by his initial letter), and ran into
the forge, followed by Joe and me.
“Why, of course!” cried Biddy, with an exultant face.
“Don’t you see? It’s !”
Orlick, without a doubt! She had lost his name, and could only signify him by
his hammer. We told him why we wanted him to come into the kitchen, and he
slowly laid down his hammer, wiped his brow with his arm, took another wipe at
it with his apron, and came slouching out, with a curious loose vagabond bend
in the knees that strongly distinguished him.
I confess that I expected to see my sister denounce him, and that I was
disappointed by the different result. She manifested the greatest anxiety to be
on good terms with him, was evidently much pleased by his being at length
produced, and motioned that she would have him given something to drink. She
watched his countenance as if she were particularly wishful to be assured that
he took kindly to his reception, she showed every possible desire to conciliate
him, and there was an air of humble propitiation in all she did, such as I have
seen pervade the bearing of a child towards a hard master. After that day, a
day rarely passed without her drawing the hammer on her slate, and without
Orlick’s slouching in and standing doggedly before her, as if he knew no
more than I did what to make of it.
Chapter XVII.
I now
fell into a regular routine of apprenticeship life, which was varied beyond the
limits of the village and the marshes, by no more remarkable circumstance than
the arrival of my birthday and my paying another visit to Miss Havisham. I
found Miss Sarah Pocket still on duty at the gate; I found Miss Havisham just
as I had left her, and she spoke of Estella in the very same way, if not in the
very same words. The interview lasted but a few minutes, and she gave me a
guinea when I was going, and told me to come again on my next birthday. I may
mention at once that this became an annual custom. I tried to decline taking
the guinea on the first occasion, but with no better effect than causing her to
ask me very angrily, if I expected more? Then, and after that, I took it.
So unchanging was the dull old house, the yellow light in the darkened room,
the faded spectre in the chair by the dressing-table glass, that I felt as if
the stopping of the clocks had stopped Time in that mysterious place, and,
while I and everything else outside it grew older, it stood still. Daylight
never entered the house as to my thoughts and remembrances of it, any more than
as to the actual fact. It bewildered me, and under its influence I continued at
heart to hate my trade and to be ashamed of home.
Imperceptibly I became conscious of a change in Biddy, however. Her shoes came
up at the heel, her hair grew bright and neat, her hands were always clean. She
was not beautiful,—she was common, and could not be like
Estella,—but she was pleasant and wholesome and sweet-tempered. She had
not been with us more than a year (I remember her being newly out of mourning
at the time it struck me), when I observed to myself one evening that she had
curiously thoughtful and attentive eyes; eyes that were very pretty and very
good.
It came of my lifting up my own eyes from a task I was poring at—writing
some passages from a book, to improve myself in two ways at once by a sort of
stratagem—and seeing Biddy observant of what I was about. I laid down my
pen, and Biddy stopped in her needlework without laying it down.
“Biddy,” said I, “how do you manage it? Either I am very
stupid, or you are very clever.”
“What is it that I manage? I don’t know,” returned Biddy,
smiling.
She managed our whole domestic life, and wonderfully too; but I did not mean
that, though that made what I did mean more surprising.
“How do you manage, Biddy,” said I, “to learn everything that
I learn, and always to keep up with me?” I was beginning to be rather
vain of my knowledge, for I spent my birthday guineas on it, and set aside the
greater part of my pocket-money for similar investment; though I have no doubt,
now, that the little I knew was extremely dear at the price.
“I might as well ask you,” said Biddy, “how
manage?”
“No; because when I come in from the forge of a night, any one can see me
turning to at it. But you never turn to at it, Biddy.”
“I suppose I must catch it like a cough,” said Biddy, quietly; and
went on with her sewing.
Pursuing my idea as I leaned back in my wooden chair, and looked at Biddy
sewing away with her head on one side, I began to think her rather an
extraordinary girl. For I called to mind now, that she was equally accomplished
in the terms of our trade, and the names of our different sorts of work, and
our various tools. In short, whatever I knew, Biddy knew. Theoretically, she
was already as good a blacksmith as I, or better.
“You are one of those, Biddy,” said I, “who make the most of
every chance. You never had a chance before you came here, and see how improved
you are!”
Biddy looked at me for an instant, and went on with her sewing. “I was
your first teacher though; wasn’t I?” said she, as she sewed.
“Biddy!” I exclaimed, in amazement. “Why, you are
crying!”
“No I am not,” said Biddy, looking up and laughing. “What put
that in your head?”
What could have put it in my head but the glistening of a tear as it dropped on
her work? I sat silent, recalling what a drudge she had been until Mr.
Wopsle’s great-aunt successfully overcame that bad habit of living, so
highly desirable to be got rid of by some people. I recalled the hopeless
circumstances by which she had been surrounded in the miserable little shop and
the miserable little noisy evening school, with that miserable old bundle of
incompetence always to be dragged and shouldered. I reflected that even in
those untoward times there must have been latent in Biddy what was now
developing, for, in my first uneasiness and discontent I had turned to her for
help, as a matter of course. Biddy sat quietly sewing, shedding no more tears,
and while I looked at her and thought about it all, it occurred to me that
perhaps I had not been sufficiently grateful to Biddy. I might have been too
reserved, and should have patronised her more (though I did not use that
precise word in my meditations) with my confidence.
“Yes, Biddy,” I observed, when I had done turning it over,
“you were my first teacher, and that at a time when we little thought of
ever being together like this, in this kitchen.”
“Ah, poor thing!” replied Biddy. It was like her self-forgetfulness
to transfer the remark to my sister, and to get up and be busy about her,
making her more comfortable; “that’s sadly true!”
“Well!” said I, “we must talk together a little more, as we
used to do. And I must consult you a little more, as I used to do. Let us have
a quiet walk on the marshes next Sunday, Biddy, and a long chat.”
My sister was never left alone now; but Joe more than readily undertook the
care of her on that Sunday afternoon, and Biddy and I went out together. It was
summer-time, and lovely weather. When we had passed the village and the church
and the churchyard, and were out on the marshes and began to see the sails of
the ships as they sailed on, I began to combine Miss Havisham and Estella with
the prospect, in my usual way. When we came to the river-side and sat down on
the bank, with the water rippling at our feet, making it all more quiet than it
would have been without that sound, I resolved that it was a good time and
place for the admission of Biddy into my inner confidence.
“Biddy,” said I, after binding her to secrecy, “I want to be
a gentleman.”
“O, I wouldn’t, if I was you!” she returned. “I
don’t think it would answer.”
“Biddy,” said I, with some severity, “I have particular
reasons for wanting to be a gentleman.”
“You know best, Pip; but don’t you think you are happier as you
are?”
“Biddy,” I exclaimed, impatiently, “I am not at all happy as
I am. I am disgusted with my calling and with my life. I have never taken to
either, since I was bound. Don’t be absurd.”
“Was I absurd?” said Biddy, quietly raising her eyebrows; “I
am sorry for that; I didn’t mean to be. I only want you to do well, and
to be comfortable.”
“Well, then, understand once for all that I never shall or can be
comfortable—or anything but miserable—there, Biddy!—unless I
can lead a very different sort of life from the life I lead now.”
“That’s a pity!” said Biddy, shaking her head with a
sorrowful air.
Now, I too had so often thought it a pity, that, in the singular kind of
quarrel with myself which I was always carrying on, I was half inclined to shed
tears of vexation and distress when Biddy gave utterance to her sentiment and
my own. I told her she was right, and I knew it was much to be regretted, but
still it was not to be helped.
“If I could have settled down,” I said to Biddy, plucking up the
short grass within reach, much as I had once upon a time pulled my feelings out
of my hair and kicked them into the brewery wall,—“if I could have
settled down and been but half as fond of the forge as I was when I was little,
I know it would have been much better for me. You and I and Joe would have
wanted nothing then, and Joe and I would perhaps have gone partners when I was
out of my time, and I might even have grown up to keep company with you, and we
might have sat on this very bank on a fine Sunday, quite different people. I
should have been good enough for ; shouldn’t I, Biddy?”
Biddy sighed as she looked at the ships sailing on, and returned for answer,
“Yes; I am not over-particular.” It scarcely sounded flattering,
but I knew she meant well.
“Instead of that,” said I, plucking up more grass and chewing a
blade or two, “see how I am going on. Dissatisfied, and uncomfortable,
and—what would it signify to me, being coarse and common, if nobody had
told me so!”
Biddy turned her face suddenly towards mine, and looked far more attentively at
me than she had looked at the sailing ships.
“It was neither a very true nor a very polite thing to say,” she
remarked, directing her eyes to the ships again. “Who said it?”
I was disconcerted, for I had broken away without quite seeing where I was
going to. It was not to be shuffled off now, however, and I answered,
“The beautiful young lady at Miss Havisham’s, and she’s more
beautiful than anybody ever was, and I admire her dreadfully, and I want to be
a gentleman on her account.” Having made this lunatic confession, I began
to throw my torn-up grass into the river, as if I had some thoughts of
following it.
“Do you want to be a gentleman, to spite her or to gain her over?”
Biddy quietly asked me, after a pause.
“I don’t know,” I moodily answered.
“Because, if it is to spite her,” Biddy pursued, “I should
think—but you know best—that might be better and more independently
done by caring nothing for her words. And if it is to gain her over, I should
think—but you know best—she was not worth gaining over.”
Exactly what I myself had thought, many times. Exactly what was perfectly
manifest to me at the moment. But how could I, a poor dazed village lad, avoid
that wonderful inconsistency into which the best and wisest of men fall every
day?
“It may be all quite true,” said I to Biddy, “but I admire
her dreadfully.”
In short, I turned over on my face when I came to that, and got a good grasp on
the hair on each side of my head, and wrenched it well. All the while knowing
the madness of my heart to be so very mad and misplaced, that I was quite
conscious it would have served my face right, if I had lifted it up by my hair,
and knocked it against the pebbles as a punishment for belonging to such an
idiot.
Biddy was the wisest of girls, and she tried to reason no more with me. She put
her hand, which was a comfortable hand though roughened by work, upon my hands,
one after another, and gently took them out of my hair. Then she softly patted
my shoulder in a soothing way, while with my face upon my sleeve I cried a
little,—exactly as I had done in the brewery yard,—and felt vaguely
convinced that I was very much ill-used by somebody, or by everybody; I
can’t say which.
“I am glad of one thing,” said Biddy, “and that is, that you
have felt you could give me your confidence, Pip. And I am glad of another
thing, and that is, that of course you know you may depend upon my keeping it
and always so far deserving it. If your first teacher (dear! such a poor one,
and so much in need of being taught herself!) had been your teacher at the
present time, she thinks she knows what lesson she would set. But it would be a
hard one to learn, and you have got beyond her, and it’s of no use
now.” So, with a quiet sigh for me, Biddy rose from the bank, and said,
with a fresh and pleasant change of voice, “Shall we walk a little
farther, or go home?”
“Biddy,” I cried, getting up, putting my arm round her neck, and
giving her a kiss, “I shall always tell you everything.”
“Till you’re a gentleman,” said Biddy.
“You know I never shall be, so that’s always. Not that I have any
occasion to tell you anything, for you know everything I know,—as I told
you at home the other night.”
“Ah!” said Biddy, quite in a whisper, as she looked away at the
ships. And then repeated, with her former pleasant change, “shall we walk
a little farther, or go home?”
I said to Biddy we would walk a little farther, and we did so, and the summer
afternoon toned down into the summer evening, and it was very beautiful. I
began to consider whether I was not more naturally and wholesomely situated,
after all, in these circumstances, than playing beggar my neighbour by
candle-light in the room with the stopped clocks, and being despised by
Estella. I thought it would be very good for me if I could get her out of my
head, with all the rest of those remembrances and fancies, and could go to work
determined to relish what I had to do, and stick to it, and make the best of
it. I asked myself the question whether I did not surely know that if Estella
were beside me at that moment instead of Biddy, she would make me miserable? I
was obliged to admit that I did know it for a certainty, and I said to myself,
“Pip, what a fool you are!”
We talked a good deal as we walked, and all that Biddy said seemed right. Biddy
was never insulting, or capricious, or Biddy to-day and somebody else
to-morrow; she would have derived only pain, and no pleasure, from giving me
pain; she would far rather have wounded her own breast than mine. How could it
be, then, that I did not like her much the better of the two?
“Biddy,” said I, when we were walking homeward, “I wish you
could put me right.”
“I wish I could!” said Biddy.
“If I could only get myself to fall in love with you,—you
don’t mind my speaking so openly to such an old acquaintance?”
“Oh dear, not at all!” said Biddy. “Don’t mind
me.”
“If I could only get myself to do it, would be the thing for
me.”
“But you never will, you see,” said Biddy.
It did not appear quite so unlikely to me that evening, as it would have done
if we had discussed it a few hours before. I therefore observed I was not quite
sure of that. But Biddy said she , and she said it decisively. In my
heart I believed her to be right; and yet I took it rather ill, too, that she
should be so positive on the point.
When we came near the churchyard, we had to cross an embankment, and get over a
stile near a sluice-gate. There started up, from the gate, or from the rushes,
or from the ooze (which was quite in his stagnant way), Old Orlick.
“Halloa!” he growled, “where are you two going?”
“Where should we be going, but home?”
“Well, then,” said he, “I’m jiggered if I don’t
see you home!”
This penalty of being jiggered was a favourite supposititious case of his. He
attached no definite meaning to the word that I am aware of, but used it, like
his own pretended Christian name, to affront mankind, and convey an idea of
something savagely damaging. When I was younger, I had had a general belief
that if he had jiggered me personally, he would have done it with a sharp and
twisted hook.
Biddy was much against his going with us, and said to me in a whisper,
“Don’t let him come; I don’t like him.” As I did not
like him either, I took the liberty of saying that we thanked him, but we
didn’t want seeing home. He received that piece of information with a
yell of laughter, and dropped back, but came slouching after us at a little
distance.
Curious to know whether Biddy suspected him of having had a hand in that
murderous attack of which my sister had never been able to give any account, I
asked her why she did not like him.
“Oh!” she replied, glancing over her shoulder as he slouched after
us, “because I—I am afraid he likes me.”
“Did he ever tell you he liked you?” I asked indignantly.
“No,” said Biddy, glancing over her shoulder again, “he never
told me so; but he dances at me, whenever he can catch my eye.”
However novel and peculiar this testimony of attachment, I did not doubt the
accuracy of the interpretation. I was very hot indeed upon Old Orlick’s
daring to admire her; as hot as if it were an outrage on myself.
“But it makes no difference to you, you know,” said Biddy, calmly.
“No, Biddy, it makes no difference to me; only I don’t like it; I
don’t approve of it.”
“Nor I neither,” said Biddy. “Though makes no
difference to you.”
“Exactly,” said I; “but I must tell you I should have no
opinion of you, Biddy, if he danced at you with your own consent.”
I kept an eye on Orlick after that night, and, whenever circumstances were
favourable to his dancing at Biddy, got before him to obscure that
demonstration. He had struck root in Joe’s establishment, by reason of my
sister’s sudden fancy for him, or I should have tried to get him
dismissed. He quite understood and reciprocated my good intentions, as I had
reason to know thereafter.
And now, because my mind was not confused enough before, I complicated its
confusion fifty thousand-fold, by having states and seasons when I was clear
that Biddy was immeasurably better than Estella, and that the plain honest
working life to which I was born had nothing in it to be ashamed of, but
offered me sufficient means of self-respect and happiness. At those times, I
would decide conclusively that my disaffection to dear old Joe and the forge
was gone, and that I was growing up in a fair way to be partners with Joe and
to keep company with Biddy,—when all in a moment some confounding
remembrance of the Havisham days would fall upon me like a destructive missile,
and scatter my wits again. Scattered wits take a long time picking up; and
often before I had got them well together, they would be dispersed in all
directions by one stray thought, that perhaps after all Miss Havisham was going
to make my fortune when my time was out.
If my time had run out, it would have left me still at the height of my
perplexities, I dare say. It never did run out, however, but was brought to a
premature end, as I proceed to relate.
Chapter XVIII.
It was
in the fourth year of my apprenticeship to Joe, and it was a Saturday night.
There was a group assembled round the fire at the Three Jolly Bargemen,
attentive to Mr. Wopsle as he read the newspaper aloud. Of that group I was
one.
A highly popular murder had been committed, and Mr. Wopsle was imbrued in blood
to the eyebrows. He gloated over every abhorrent adjective in the description,
and identified himself with every witness at the Inquest. He faintly moaned,
“I am done for,” as the victim, and he barbarously bellowed,
“I’ll serve you out,” as the murderer. He gave the medical
testimony, in pointed imitation of our local practitioner; and he piped and
shook, as the aged turnpike-keeper who had heard blows, to an extent so very
paralytic as to suggest a doubt regarding the mental competency of that
witness. The coroner, in Mr. Wopsle’s hands, became Timon of Athens; the
beadle, Coriolanus. He enjoyed himself thoroughly, and we all enjoyed
ourselves, and were delightfully comfortable. In this cosey state of mind we
came to the verdict Wilful Murder.
Then, and not sooner, I became aware of a strange gentleman leaning over the
back of the settle opposite me, looking on. There was an expression of contempt
on his face, and he bit the side of a great forefinger as he watched the group
of faces.
“Well!” said the stranger to Mr. Wopsle, when the reading was done,
“you have settled it all to your own satisfaction, I have no
doubt?”
Everybody started and looked up, as if it were the murderer. He looked at
everybody coldly and sarcastically.
“Guilty, of course?” said he. “Out with it. Come!”
“Sir,” returned Mr. Wopsle, “without having the honour of
your acquaintance, I do say Guilty.” Upon this we all took courage to
unite in a confirmatory murmur.
“I know you do,” said the stranger; “I knew you would. I told
you so. But now I’ll ask you a question. Do you know, or do you not know,
that the law of England supposes every man to be innocent, until he is
proved—proved—to be guilty?”
“Sir,” Mr. Wopsle began to reply, “as an Englishman myself,
I—”
“Come!” said the stranger, biting his forefinger at him.
“Don’t evade the question. Either you know it, or you don’t
know it. Which is it to be?”
He stood with his head on one side and himself on one side, in a bullying,
interrogative manner, and he threw his forefinger at Mr. Wopsle,—as it
were to mark him out—before biting it again.
“Now!” said he. “Do you know it, or don’t you know
it?”
“Certainly I know it,” replied Mr. Wopsle.
“Certainly you know it. Then why didn’t you say so at first? Now,
I’ll ask you another question,”—taking possession of Mr.
Wopsle, as if he had a right to him,—“ you know that none
of these witnesses have yet been cross-examined?”
Mr. Wopsle was beginning, “I can only say—” when the stranger
stopped him.
“What? You won’t answer the question, yes or no? Now, I’ll
try you again.” Throwing his finger at him again. “Attend to me.
Are you aware, or are you not aware, that none of these witnesses have yet been
cross-examined? Come, I only want one word from you. Yes, or no?”
Mr. Wopsle hesitated, and we all began to conceive rather a poor opinion of
him.
“Come!” said the stranger, “I’ll help you. You
don’t deserve help, but I’ll help you. Look at that paper you hold
in your hand. What is it?”
“What is it?” repeated Mr. Wopsle, eyeing it, much at a loss.
“Is it,” pursued the stranger in his most sarcastic and suspicious
manner, “the printed paper you have just been reading from?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Undoubtedly. Now, turn to that paper, and tell me whether it distinctly
states that the prisoner expressly said that his legal advisers instructed him
altogether to reserve his defence?”
“I read that just now,” Mr. Wopsle pleaded.
“Never mind what you read just now, sir; I don’t ask you what you
read just now. You may read the Lord’s Prayer backwards, if you
like,—and, perhaps, have done it before to-day. Turn to the paper. No,
no, no my friend; not to the top of the column; you know better than that; to
the bottom, to the bottom.” (We all began to think Mr. Wopsle full of
subterfuge.) “Well? Have you found it?”
“Here it is,” said Mr. Wopsle.
“Now, follow that passage with your eye, and tell me whether it
distinctly states that the prisoner expressly said that he was instructed by
his legal advisers wholly to reserve his defence? Come! Do you make that of
it?”
Mr. Wopsle answered, “Those are not the exact words.”
“Not the exact words!” repeated the gentleman bitterly. “Is
that the exact substance?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Wopsle.
“Yes,” repeated the stranger, looking round at the rest of the
company with his right hand extended towards the witness, Wopsle. “And
now I ask you what you say to the conscience of that man who, with that passage
before his eyes, can lay his head upon his pillow after having pronounced a
fellow-creature guilty, unheard?”
We all began to suspect that Mr. Wopsle was not the man we had thought him, and
that he was beginning to be found out.
“And that same man, remember,” pursued the gentleman, throwing his
finger at Mr. Wopsle heavily,—“that same man might be summoned as a
juryman upon this very trial, and, having thus deeply committed himself, might
return to the bosom of his family and lay his head upon his pillow, after
deliberately swearing that he would well and truly try the issue joined between
Our Sovereign Lord the King and the prisoner at the bar, and would a true
verdict give according to the evidence, so help him God!”
We were all deeply persuaded that the unfortunate Wopsle had gone too far, and
had better stop in his reckless career while there was yet time.
The strange gentleman, with an air of authority not to be disputed, and with a
manner expressive of knowing something secret about every one of us that would
effectually do for each individual if he chose to disclose it, left the back of
the settle, and came into the space between the two settles, in front of the
fire, where he remained standing, his left hand in his pocket, and he biting
the forefinger of his right.
“From information I have received,” said he, looking round at us as
we all quailed before him, “I have reason to believe there is a
blacksmith among you, by name Joseph—or Joe—Gargery. Which is the
man?”
“Here is the man,” said Joe.
The strange gentleman beckoned him out of his place, and Joe went.
“You have an apprentice,” pursued the stranger, “commonly
known as Pip? Is he here?”
“I am here!” I cried.
The stranger did not recognise me, but I recognised him as the gentleman I had
met on the stairs, on the occasion of my second visit to Miss Havisham. I had
known him the moment I saw him looking over the settle, and now that I stood
confronting him with his hand upon my shoulder, I checked off again in detail
his large head, his dark complexion, his deep-set eyes, his bushy black
eyebrows, his large watch-chain, his strong black dots of beard and whisker,
and even the smell of scented soap on his great hand.
“I wish to have a private conference with you two,” said he, when
he had surveyed me at his leisure. “It will take a little time. Perhaps
we had better go to your place of residence. I prefer not to anticipate my
communication here; you will impart as much or as little of it as you please to
your friends afterwards; I have nothing to do with that.”
Amidst a wondering silence, we three walked out of the Jolly Bargemen, and in a
wondering silence walked home. While going along, the strange gentleman
occasionally looked at me, and occasionally bit the side of his finger. As we
neared home, Joe vaguely acknowledging the occasion as an impressive and
ceremonious one, went on ahead to open the front door. Our conference was held
in the state parlour, which was feebly lighted by one candle.
It began with the strange gentleman’s sitting down at the table, drawing
the candle to him, and looking over some entries in his pocket-book. He then
put up the pocket-book and set the candle a little aside, after peering round
it into the darkness at Joe and me, to ascertain which was which.
“My name,” he said, “is Jaggers, and I am a lawyer in London.
I am pretty well known. I have unusual business to transact with you, and I
commence by explaining that it is not of my originating. If my advice had been
asked, I should not have been here. It was not asked, and you see me here. What
I have to do as the confidential agent of another, I do. No less, no
more.”
Finding that he could not see us very well from where he sat, he got up, and
threw one leg over the back of a chair and leaned upon it; thus having one foot
on the seat of the chair, and one foot on the ground.
“Now, Joseph Gargery, I am the bearer of an offer to relieve you of this
young fellow your apprentice. You would not object to cancel his indentures at
his request and for his good? You would want nothing for so doing?”
“Lord forbid that I should want anything for not standing in Pip’s
way,” said Joe, staring.
“Lord forbidding is pious, but not to the purpose,” returned Mr.
Jaggers. “The question is, Would you want anything? Do you want
anything?”
“The answer is,” returned Joe, sternly, “No.”
I thought Mr. Jaggers glanced at Joe, as if he considered him a fool for his
disinterestedness. But I was too much bewildered between breathless curiosity
and surprise, to be sure of it.
“Very well,” said Mr. Jaggers. “Recollect the admission you
have made, and don’t try to go from it presently.”
“Who’s a-going to try?” retorted Joe.
“I don’t say anybody is. Do you keep a dog?”
“Yes, I do keep a dog.”
“Bear in mind then, that Brag is a good dog, but Holdfast is a better.
Bear that in mind, will you?” repeated Mr. Jaggers, shutting his eyes and
nodding his head at Joe, as if he were forgiving him something. “Now, I
return to this young fellow. And the communication I have got to make is, that
he has great expectations.”
Joe and I gasped, and looked at one another.
“I am instructed to communicate to him,” said Mr. Jaggers, throwing
his finger at me sideways, “that he will come into a handsome property.
Further, that it is the desire of the present possessor of that property, that
he be immediately removed from his present sphere of life and from this place,
and be brought up as a gentleman,—in a word, as a young fellow of great
expectations.”
My dream was out; my wild fancy was surpassed by sober reality; Miss Havisham
was going to make my fortune on a grand scale.
“Now, Mr. Pip,” pursued the lawyer, “I address the rest of
what I have to say, to you. You are to understand, first, that it is the
request of the person from whom I take my instructions that you always bear the
name of Pip. You will have no objection, I dare say, to your great expectations
being encumbered with that easy condition. But if you have any objection, this
is the time to mention it.”
My heart was beating so fast, and there was such a singing in my ears, that I
could scarcely stammer I had no objection.
“I should think not! Now you are to understand, secondly, Mr. Pip, that
the name of the person who is your liberal benefactor remains a profound
secret, until the person chooses to reveal it. I am empowered to mention that
it is the intention of the person to reveal it at first hand by word of mouth
to yourself. When or where that intention may be carried out, I cannot say; no
one can say. It may be years hence. Now, you are distinctly to understand that
you are most positively prohibited from making any inquiry on this head, or any
allusion or reference, however distant, to any individual whomsoever as
individual, in all the communications you may have with me. If you
have a suspicion in your own breast, keep that suspicion in your own breast. It
is not the least to the purpose what the reasons of this prohibition are; they
may be the strongest and gravest reasons, or they may be mere whim. This is not
for you to inquire into. The condition is laid down. Your acceptance of it, and
your observance of it as binding, is the only remaining condition that I am
charged with, by the person from whom I take my instructions, and for whom I am
not otherwise responsible. That person is the person from whom you derive your
expectations, and the secret is solely held by that person and by me. Again,
not a very difficult condition with which to encumber such a rise in fortune;
but if you have any objection to it, this is the time to mention it. Speak
out.”
Once more, I stammered with difficulty that I had no objection.
“I should think not! Now, Mr. Pip, I have done with stipulations.”
Though he called me Mr. Pip, and began rather to make up to me, he still could
not get rid of a certain air of bullying suspicion; and even now he
occasionally shut his eyes and threw his finger at me while he spoke, as much
as to express that he knew all kinds of things to my disparagement, if he only
chose to mention them. “We come next, to mere details of arrangement. You
must know that, although I have used the term ‘expectations’ more
than once, you are not endowed with expectations only. There is already lodged
in my hands a sum of money amply sufficient for your suitable education and
maintenance. You will please consider me your guardian. Oh!” for I was
going to thank him, “I tell you at once, I am paid for my services, or I
shouldn’t render them. It is considered that you must be better educated,
in accordance with your altered position, and that you will be alive to the
importance and necessity of at once entering on that advantage.”
I said I had always longed for it.
“Never mind what you have always longed for, Mr. Pip,” he retorted;
“keep to the record. If you long for it now, that’s enough. Am I
answered that you are ready to be placed at once under some proper tutor? Is
that it?”
I stammered yes, that was it.
“Good. Now, your inclinations are to be consulted. I don’t think
that wise, mind, but it’s my trust. Have you ever heard of any tutor whom
you would prefer to another?”
I had never heard of any tutor but Biddy and Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt; so,
I replied in the negative.
“There is a certain tutor, of whom I have some knowledge, who I think
might suit the purpose,” said Mr. Jaggers. “I don’t recommend
him, observe; because I never recommend anybody. The gentleman I speak of is
one Mr. Matthew Pocket.”
Ah! I caught at the name directly. Miss Havisham’s relation. The Matthew
whom Mr. and Mrs. Camilla had spoken of. The Matthew whose place was to be at
Miss Havisham’s head, when she lay dead, in her bride’s dress on
the bride’s table.
“You know the name?” said Mr. Jaggers, looking shrewdly at me, and
then shutting up his eyes while he waited for my answer.
My answer was, that I had heard of the name.
“Oh!” said he. “You have heard of the name. But the question
is, what do you say of it?”
I said, or tried to say, that I was much obliged to him for his
recommendation—
“No, my young friend!” he interrupted, shaking his great head very
slowly. “Recollect yourself!”
Not recollecting myself, I began again that I was much obliged to him for his
recommendation—
“No, my young friend,” he interrupted, shaking his head and
frowning and smiling both at once,—“no, no, no; it’s very
well done, but it won’t do; you are too young to fix me with it.
Recommendation is not the word, Mr. Pip. Try another.”
Correcting myself, I said that I was much obliged to him for his mention of Mr.
Matthew Pocket—
“’s more like it!” cried Mr. Jaggers.—And (I
added), I would gladly try that gentleman.
“Good. You had better try him in his own house. The way shall be prepared
for you, and you can see his son first, who is in London. When will you come to
London?”
I said (glancing at Joe, who stood looking on, motionless), that I supposed I
could come directly.
“First,” said Mr. Jaggers, “you should have some new clothes
to come in, and they should not be working-clothes. Say this day week.
You’ll want some money. Shall I leave you twenty guineas?”
He produced a long purse, with the greatest coolness, and counted them out on
the table and pushed them over to me. This was the first time he had taken his
leg from the chair. He sat astride of the chair when he had pushed the money
over, and sat swinging his purse and eyeing Joe.
“Well, Joseph Gargery? You look dumbfoundered?”
“I !” said Joe, in a very decided manner.
“It was understood that you wanted nothing for yourself, remember?”
“It were understood,” said Joe. “And it are understood. And
it ever will be similar according.”
“But what,” said Mr. Jaggers, swinging his purse,—“what
if it was in my instructions to make you a present, as compensation?”
“As compensation what for?” Joe demanded.
“For the loss of his services.”
Joe laid his hand upon my shoulder with the touch of a woman. I have often
thought him since, like the steam-hammer that can crush a man or pat an
egg-shell, in his combination of strength with gentleness. “Pip is that
hearty welcome,” said Joe, “to go free with his services, to honour
and fortun’, as no words can tell him. But if you think as Money can make
compensation to me for the loss of the little child—what come to the
forge—and ever the best of friends!—”
O dear good Joe, whom I was so ready to leave and so unthankful to, I see you
again, with your muscular blacksmith’s arm before your eyes, and your
broad chest heaving, and your voice dying away. O dear good faithful tender
Joe, I feel the loving tremble of your hand upon my arm, as solemnly this day
as if it had been the rustle of an angel’s wing!
But I encouraged Joe at the time. I was lost in the mazes of my future
fortunes, and could not retrace the by-paths we had trodden together. I begged
Joe to be comforted, for (as he said) we had ever been the best of friends, and
(as I said) we ever would be so. Joe scooped his eyes with his disengaged
wrist, as if he were bent on gouging himself, but said not another word.
Mr. Jaggers had looked on at this, as one who recognised in Joe the village
idiot, and in me his keeper. When it was over, he said, weighing in his hand
the purse he had ceased to swing:—
“Now, Joseph Gargery, I warn you this is your last chance. No half
measures with me. If you mean to take a present that I have it in charge to
make you, speak out, and you shall have it. If on the contrary you mean to
say—” Here, to his great amazement, he was stopped by Joe’s
suddenly working round him with every demonstration of a fell pugilistic
purpose.
“Which I meantersay,” cried Joe, “that if you come into my
place bull-baiting and badgering me, come out! Which I meantersay as sech if
you’re a man, come on! Which I meantersay that what I say, I meantersay
and stand or fall by!”
I drew Joe away, and he immediately became placable; merely stating to me, in
an obliging manner and as a polite expostulatory notice to any one whom it
might happen to concern, that he were not a-going to be bull-baited and
badgered in his own place. Mr. Jaggers had risen when Joe demonstrated, and had
backed near the door. Without evincing any inclination to come in again, he
there delivered his valedictory remarks. They were these.
“Well, Mr. Pip, I think the sooner you leave here—as you are to be
a gentleman—the better. Let it stand for this day week, and you shall
receive my printed address in the meantime. You can take a hackney-coach at the
stage-coach office in London, and come straight to me. Understand, that I
express no opinion, one way or other, on the trust I undertake. I am paid for
undertaking it, and I do so. Now, understand that, finally. Understand
that!”
He was throwing his finger at both of us, and I think would have gone on, but
for his seeming to think Joe dangerous, and going off.
Something came into my head which induced me to run after him, as he was going
down to the Jolly Bargemen, where he had left a hired carriage.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Jaggers.”
“Halloa!” said he, facing round, “what’s the
matter?”
“I wish to be quite right, Mr. Jaggers, and to keep to your directions;
so I thought I had better ask. Would there be any objection to my taking leave
of any one I know, about here, before I go away?”
“No,” said he, looking as if he hardly understood me.
“I don’t mean in the village only, but up town?”
“No,” said he. “No objection.”
I thanked him and ran home again, and there I found that Joe had already locked
the front door and vacated the state parlour, and was seated by the kitchen
fire with a hand on each knee, gazing intently at the burning coals. I too sat
down before the fire and gazed at the coals, and nothing was said for a long
time.
My sister was in her cushioned chair in her corner, and Biddy sat at her
needle-work before the fire, and Joe sat next Biddy, and I sat next Joe in the
corner opposite my sister. The more I looked into the glowing coals, the more
incapable I became of looking at Joe; the longer the silence lasted, the more
unable I felt to speak.
At length I got out, “Joe, have you told Biddy?”
“No, Pip,” returned Joe, still looking at the fire, and holding his
knees tight, as if he had private information that they intended to make off
somewhere, “which I left it to yourself, Pip.”
“I would rather you told, Joe.”
“Pip’s a gentleman of fortun’ then,” said Joe,
“and God bless him in it!”
Biddy dropped her work, and looked at me. Joe held his knees and looked at me.
I looked at both of them. After a pause, they both heartily congratulated me;
but there was a certain touch of sadness in their congratulations that I rather
resented.
I took it upon myself to impress Biddy (and through Biddy, Joe) with the grave
obligation I considered my friends under, to know nothing and say nothing about
the maker of my fortune. It would all come out in good time, I observed, and in
the meanwhile nothing was to be said, save that I had come into great
expectations from a mysterious patron. Biddy nodded her head thoughtfully at
the fire as she took up her work again, and said she would be very particular;
and Joe, still detaining his knees, said, “Ay, ay, I’ll be
ekervally partickler, Pip;” and then they congratulated me again, and
went on to express so much wonder at the notion of my being a gentleman that I
didn’t half like it.
Infinite pains were then taken by Biddy to convey to my sister some idea of
what had happened. To the best of my belief, those efforts entirely failed. She
laughed and nodded her head a great many times, and even repeated after Biddy,
the words “Pip” and “Property.” But I doubt if they had
more meaning in them than an election cry, and I cannot suggest a darker
picture of her state of mind.
I never could have believed it without experience, but as Joe and Biddy became
more at their cheerful ease again, I became quite gloomy. Dissatisfied with my
fortune, of course I could not be; but it is possible that I may have been,
without quite knowing it, dissatisfied with myself.
Anyhow, I sat with my elbow on my knee and my face upon my hand, looking into
the fire, as those two talked about my going away, and about what they should
do without me, and all that. And whenever I caught one of them looking at me,
though never so pleasantly (and they often looked at me,—particularly
Biddy), I felt offended: as if they were expressing some mistrust of me. Though
Heaven knows they never did by word or sign.
At those times I would get up and look out at the door; for our kitchen door
opened at once upon the night, and stood open on summer evenings to air the
room. The very stars to which I then raised my eyes, I am afraid I took to be
but poor and humble stars for glittering on the rustic objects among which I
had passed my life.
“Saturday night,” said I, when we sat at our supper of bread and
cheese and beer. “Five more days, and then the day before day!
They’ll soon go.”
“Yes, Pip,” observed Joe, whose voice sounded hollow in his
beer-mug. “They’ll soon go.”
“Soon, soon go,” said Biddy.
“I have been thinking, Joe, that when I go down town on Monday, and order
my new clothes, I shall tell the tailor that I’ll come and put them on
there, or that I’ll have them sent to Mr. Pumblechook’s. It would
be very disagreeable to be stared at by all the people here.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Hubble might like to see you in your new gen-teel figure
too, Pip,” said Joe, industriously cutting his bread, with his cheese on
it, in the palm of his left hand, and glancing at my untasted supper as if he
thought of the time when we used to compare slices. “So might Wopsle. And
the Jolly Bargemen might take it as a compliment.”
“That’s just what I don’t want, Joe. They would make such a
business of it,—such a coarse and common business,—that I
couldn’t bear myself.”
“Ah, that indeed, Pip!” said Joe. “If you couldn’t
abear yourself—”
Biddy asked me here, as she sat holding my sister’s plate, “Have
you thought about when you’ll show yourself to Mr. Gargery, and your
sister and me? You will show yourself to us; won’t you?”
“Biddy,” I returned with some resentment, “you are so
exceedingly quick that it’s difficult to keep up with you.”
(“She always were quick,” observed Joe.)
“If you had waited another moment, Biddy, you would have heard me say
that I shall bring my clothes here in a bundle one evening,—most likely
on the evening before I go away.”
Biddy said no more. Handsomely forgiving her, I soon exchanged an affectionate
good night with her and Joe, and went up to bed. When I got into my little
room, I sat down and took a long look at it, as a mean little room that I
should soon be parted from and raised above, for ever. It was furnished with
fresh young remembrances too, and even at the same moment I fell into much the
same confused division of mind between it and the better rooms to which I was
going, as I had been in so often between the forge and Miss Havisham’s,
and Biddy and Estella.
The sun had been shining brightly all day on the roof of my attic, and the room
was warm. As I put the window open and stood looking out, I saw Joe come slowly
forth at the dark door, below, and take a turn or two in the air; and then I
saw Biddy come, and bring him a pipe and light it for him. He never smoked so
late, and it seemed to hint to me that he wanted comforting, for some reason or
other.
He presently stood at the door immediately beneath me, smoking his pipe, and
Biddy stood there too, quietly talking to him, and I knew that they talked of
me, for I heard my name mentioned in an endearing tone by both of them more
than once. I would not have listened for more, if I could have heard more; so I
drew away from the window, and sat down in my one chair by the bedside, feeling
it very sorrowful and strange that this first night of my bright fortunes
should be the loneliest I had ever known.
Looking towards the open window, I saw light wreaths from Joe’s pipe
floating there, and I fancied it was like a blessing from Joe,—not
obtruded on me or paraded before me, but pervading the air we shared together.
I put my light out, and crept into bed; and it was an uneasy bed now, and I
never slept the old sound sleep in it any more.
Chapter XIX.
Morning made a considerable difference in my general prospect of
Life, and brightened it so much that it scarcely seemed the same. What lay
heaviest on my mind was, the consideration that six days intervened between me
and the day of departure; for I could not divest myself of a misgiving that
something might happen to London in the meanwhile, and that, when I got there,
it would be either greatly deteriorated or clean gone.
Joe and Biddy were very sympathetic and pleasant when I spoke of our
approaching separation; but they only referred to it when I did. After
breakfast, Joe brought out my indentures from the press in the best parlour,
and we put them in the fire, and I felt that I was free. With all the novelty
of my emancipation on me, I went to church with Joe, and thought perhaps the
clergyman wouldn’t have read that about the rich man and the kingdom of
Heaven, if he had known all.
After our early dinner, I strolled out alone, purposing to finish off the
marshes at once, and get them done with. As I passed the church, I felt (as I
had felt during service in the morning) a sublime compassion for the poor
creatures who were destined to go there, Sunday after Sunday, all their lives
through, and to lie obscurely at last among the low green mounds. I promised
myself that I would do something for them one of these days, and formed a plan
in outline for bestowing a dinner of roast-beef and plum-pudding, a pint of
ale, and a gallon of condescension, upon everybody in the village.
If I had often thought before, with something allied to shame, of my
companionship with the fugitive whom I had once seen limping among those
graves, what were my thoughts on this Sunday, when the place recalled the
wretch, ragged and shivering, with his felon iron and badge! My comfort was,
that it happened a long time ago, and that he had doubtless been transported a
long way off, and that he was dead to me, and might be veritably dead into the
bargain.
No more low, wet grounds, no more dikes and sluices, no more of these grazing
cattle,—though they seemed, in their dull manner, to wear a more
respectful air now, and to face round, in order that they might stare as long
as possible at the possessor of such great expectations,—farewell,
monotonous acquaintances of my childhood, henceforth I was for London and
greatness; not for smith’s work in general, and for you! I made my
exultant way to the old Battery, and, lying down there to consider the question
whether Miss Havisham intended me for Estella, fell asleep.
When I awoke, I was much surprised to find Joe sitting beside me, smoking his
pipe. He greeted me with a cheerful smile on my opening my eyes, and
said,—
“As being the last time, Pip, I thought I’d foller.”
“And Joe, I am very glad you did so.”
“Thankee, Pip.”
“You may be sure, dear Joe,” I went on, after we had shaken hands,
“that I shall never forget you.”
“No, no, Pip!” said Joe, in a comfortable tone,
“’m sure of that. Ay, ay, old chap! Bless you, it were only
necessary to get it well round in a man’s mind, to be certain on it. But
it took a bit of time to get it well round, the change come so oncommon plump;
didn’t it?”
Somehow, I was not best pleased with Joe’s being so mightily secure of
me. I should have liked him to have betrayed emotion, or to have said,
“It does you credit, Pip,” or something of that sort. Therefore, I
made no remark on Joe’s first head; merely saying as to his second, that
the tidings had indeed come suddenly, but that I had always wanted to be a
gentleman, and had often and often speculated on what I would do, if I were
one.
“Have you though?” said Joe. “Astonishing!”
“It’s a pity now, Joe,” said I, “that you did not get
on a little more, when we had our lessons here; isn’t it?”
“Well, I don’t know,” returned Joe. “I’m so awful
dull. I’m only master of my own trade. It were always a pity as I was so
awful dull; but it’s no more of a pity now, than it was—this day
twelvemonth—don’t you see?”
What I had meant was, that when I came into my property and was able to do
something for Joe, it would have been much more agreeable if he had been better
qualified for a rise in station. He was so perfectly innocent of my meaning,
however, that I thought I would mention it to Biddy in preference.
So, when we had walked home and had had tea, I took Biddy into our little
garden by the side of the lane, and, after throwing out in a general way for
the elevation of her spirits, that I should never forget her, said I had a
favour to ask of her.
“And it is, Biddy,” said I, “that you will not omit any
opportunity of helping Joe on, a little.”
“How helping him on?” asked Biddy, with a steady sort of glance.
“Well! Joe is a dear good fellow,—in fact, I think he is the
dearest fellow that ever lived,—but he is rather backward in some things.
For instance, Biddy, in his learning and his manners.”
Although I was looking at Biddy as I spoke, and although she opened her eyes
very wide when I had spoken, she did not look at me.
“O, his manners! won’t his manners do then?” asked Biddy,
plucking a black-currant leaf.
“My dear Biddy, they do very well here—”
“O! they very well here?” interrupted Biddy, looking
closely at the leaf in her hand.
“Hear me out,—but if I were to remove Joe into a higher sphere, as
I shall hope to remove him when I fully come into my property, they would
hardly do him justice.”
“And don’t you think he knows that?” asked Biddy.
It was such a very provoking question (for it had never in the most distant
manner occurred to me), that I said, snappishly,—
“Biddy, what do you mean?”
Biddy, having rubbed the leaf to pieces between her hands,—and the smell
of a black-currant bush has ever since recalled to me that evening in the
little garden by the side of the lane,—said, “Have you never
considered that he may be proud?”
“Proud?” I repeated, with disdainful emphasis.
“O! there are many kinds of pride,” said Biddy, looking full at me
and shaking her head; “pride is not all of one kind—”
“Well? What are you stopping for?” said I.
“Not all of one kind,” resumed Biddy. “He may be too proud to
let any one take him out of a place that he is competent to fill, and fills
well and with respect. To tell you the truth, I think he is; though it sounds
bold in me to say so, for you must know him far better than I do.”
“Now, Biddy,” said I, “I am very sorry to see this in you. I
did not expect to see this in you. You are envious, Biddy, and grudging. You
are dissatisfied on account of my rise in fortune, and you can’t help
showing it.”
“If you have the heart to think so,” returned Biddy, “say so.
Say so over and over again, if you have the heart to think so.”
“If you have the heart to be so, you mean, Biddy,” said I, in a
virtuous and superior tone; “don’t put it off upon me. I am very
sorry to see it, and it’s a—it’s a bad side of human nature.
I did intend to ask you to use any little opportunities you might have after I
was gone, of improving dear Joe. But after this I ask you nothing. I am
extremely sorry to see this in you, Biddy,” I repeated. “It’s
a—it’s a bad side of human nature.”
“Whether you scold me or approve of me,” returned poor Biddy,
“you may equally depend upon my trying to do all that lies in my power,
here, at all times. And whatever opinion you take away of me, shall make no
difference in my remembrance of you. Yet a gentleman should not be unjust
neither,” said Biddy, turning away her head.
I again warmly repeated that it was a bad side of human nature (in which
sentiment, waiving its application, I have since seen reason to think I was
right), and I walked down the little path away from Biddy, and Biddy went into
the house, and I went out at the garden gate and took a dejected stroll until
supper-time; again feeling it very sorrowful and strange that this, the second
night of my bright fortunes, should be as lonely and unsatisfactory as the
first.
But, morning once more brightened my view, and I extended my clemency to Biddy,
and we dropped the subject. Putting on the best clothes I had, I went into town
as early as I could hope to find the shops open, and presented myself before
Mr. Trabb, the tailor, who was having his breakfast in the parlour behind his
shop, and who did not think it worth his while to come out to me, but called me
in to him.
“Well!” said Mr. Trabb, in a hail-fellow-well-met kind of way.
“How are you, and what can I do for you?”
Mr. Trabb had sliced his hot roll into three feather-beds, and was slipping
butter in between the blankets, and covering it up. He was a prosperous old
bachelor, and his open window looked into a prosperous little garden and
orchard, and there was a prosperous iron safe let into the wall at the side of
his fireplace, and I did not doubt that heaps of his prosperity were put away
in it in bags.
“Mr. Trabb,” said I, “it’s an unpleasant thing to have
to mention, because it looks like boasting; but I have come into a handsome
property.”
A change passed over Mr. Trabb. He forgot the butter in bed, got up from the
bedside, and wiped his fingers on the tablecloth, exclaiming, “Lord bless
my soul!”
“I am going up to my guardian in London,” said I, casually drawing
some guineas out of my pocket and looking at them; “and I want a
fashionable suit of clothes to go in. I wish to pay for them,” I
added—otherwise I thought he might only pretend to make them, “with
ready money.”
“My dear sir,” said Mr. Trabb, as he respectfully bent his body,
opened his arms, and took the liberty of touching me on the outside of each
elbow, “don’t hurt me by mentioning that. May I venture to
congratulate you? Would you do me the favour of stepping into the shop?”
Mr. Trabb’s boy was the most audacious boy in all that country-side. When
I had entered he was sweeping the shop, and he had sweetened his labours by
sweeping over me. He was still sweeping when I came out into the shop with Mr.
Trabb, and he knocked the broom against all possible corners and obstacles, to
express (as I understood it) equality with any blacksmith, alive or dead.
“Hold that noise,” said Mr. Trabb, with the greatest sternness,
“or I’ll knock your head off!—Do me the favour to be seated,
sir. Now, this,” said Mr. Trabb, taking down a roll of cloth, and tiding
it out in a flowing manner over the counter, preparatory to getting his hand
under it to show the gloss, “is a very sweet article. I can recommend it
for your purpose, sir, because it really is extra super. But you shall see some
others. Give me Number Four, you!” (To the boy, and with a dreadfully
severe stare; foreseeing the danger of that miscreant’s brushing me with
it, or making some other sign of familiarity.)
Mr. Trabb never removed his stern eye from the boy until he had deposited
number four on the counter and was at a safe distance again. Then he commanded
him to bring number five, and number eight. “And let me have none of your
tricks here,” said Mr. Trabb, “or you shall repent it, you young
scoundrel, the longest day you have to live.”
Mr. Trabb then bent over number four, and in a sort of deferential confidence
recommended it to me as a light article for summer wear, an article much in
vogue among the nobility and gentry, an article that it would ever be an honour
to him to reflect upon a distinguished fellow-townsman’s (if he might
claim me for a fellow-townsman) having worn. “Are you bringing numbers
five and eight, you vagabond,” said Mr. Trabb to the boy after that,
“or shall I kick you out of the shop and bring them myself?”
I selected the materials for a suit, with the assistance of Mr. Trabb’s
judgment, and re-entered the parlour to be measured. For although Mr. Trabb had
my measure already, and had previously been quite contented with it, he said
apologetically that it “wouldn’t do under existing circumstances,
sir,—wouldn’t do at all.” So, Mr. Trabb measured and
calculated me in the parlour, as if I were an estate and he the finest species
of surveyor, and gave himself such a world of trouble that I felt that no suit
of clothes could possibly remunerate him for his pains. When he had at last
done and had appointed to send the articles to Mr. Pumblechook’s on the
Thursday evening, he said, with his hand upon the parlour lock, “I know,
sir, that London gentlemen cannot be expected to patronise local work, as a
rule; but if you would give me a turn now and then in the quality of a
townsman, I should greatly esteem it. Good-morning, sir, much
obliged.—Door!”
The last word was flung at the boy, who had not the least notion what it meant.
But I saw him collapse as his master rubbed me out with his hands, and my first
decided experience of the stupendous power of money was, that it had morally
laid upon his back Trabb’s boy.
After this memorable event, I went to the hatter’s, and the
bootmaker’s, and the hosier’s, and felt rather like Mother
Hubbard’s dog whose outfit required the services of so many trades. I
also went to the coach-office and took my place for seven o’clock on
Saturday morning. It was not necessary to explain everywhere that I had come
into a handsome property; but whenever I said anything to that effect, it
followed that the officiating tradesman ceased to have his attention diverted
through the window by the High Street, and concentrated his mind upon me. When
I had ordered everything I wanted, I directed my steps towards
Pumblechook’s, and, as I approached that gentleman’s place of
business, I saw him standing at his door.
He was waiting for me with great impatience. He had been out early with the
chaise-cart, and had called at the forge and heard the news. He had prepared a
collation for me in the Barnwell parlour, and he too ordered his shopman to
“come out of the gangway” as my sacred person passed.
“My dear friend,” said Mr. Pumblechook, taking me by both hands,
when he and I and the collation were alone, “I give you joy of your good
fortune. Well deserved, well deserved!”
This was coming to the point, and I thought it a sensible way of expressing
himself.
“To think,” said Mr. Pumblechook, after snorting admiration at me
for some moments, “that I should have been the humble instrument of
leading up to this, is a proud reward.”
I begged Mr. Pumblechook to remember that nothing was to be ever said or
hinted, on that point.
“My dear young friend,” said Mr. Pumblechook; “if you will
allow me to call you so—”
I murmured “Certainly,” and Mr. Pumblechook took me by both hands
again, and communicated a movement to his waistcoat, which had an emotional
appearance, though it was rather low down, “My dear young friend, rely
upon my doing my little all in your absence, by keeping the fact before the
mind of Joseph.—Joseph!” said Mr. Pumblechook, in the way of a
compassionate adjuration. “Joseph!! Joseph!!!” Thereupon he shook
his head and tapped it, expressing his sense of deficiency in Joseph.
“But my dear young friend,” said Mr. Pumblechook, “you must
be hungry, you must be exhausted. Be seated. Here is a chicken had round from
the Boar, here is a tongue had round from the Boar, here’s one or two
little things had round from the Boar, that I hope you may not despise. But do
I,” said Mr. Pumblechook, getting up again the moment after he had sat
down, “see afore me, him as I ever sported with in his times of happy
infancy? And may I— I—?”
This May I, meant might he shake hands? I consented, and he was fervent, and
then sat down again.
“Here is wine,” said Mr. Pumblechook. “Let us drink, Thanks
to Fortune, and may she ever pick out her favourites with equal judgment! And
yet I cannot,” said Mr. Pumblechook, getting up again, “see afore
me One—and likewise drink to One—without again expressing—May
I— I—?”
I said he might, and he shook hands with me again, and emptied his glass and
turned it upside down. I did the same; and if I had turned myself upside down
before drinking, the wine could not have gone more direct to my head.
Mr. Pumblechook helped me to the liver wing, and to the best slice of tongue
(none of those out-of-the-way No Thoroughfares of Pork now), and took,
comparatively speaking, no care of himself at all. “Ah! poultry, poultry!
You little thought,” said Mr. Pumblechook, apostrophising the fowl in the
dish, “when you was a young fledgling, what was in store for you. You
little thought you was to be refreshment beneath this humble roof for one
as—Call it a weakness, if you will,” said Mr. Pumblechook, getting
up again, “but may I? I—?”
It began to be unnecessary to repeat the form of saying he might, so he did it
at once. How he ever did it so often without wounding himself with my knife, I
don’t know.
“And your sister,” he resumed, after a little steady eating,
“which had the honour of bringing you up by hand! It’s a sad
picter, to reflect that she’s no longer equal to fully understanding the
honour. May—”
I saw he was about to come at me again, and I stopped him.
“We’ll drink her health,” said I.
“Ah!” cried Mr. Pumblechook, leaning back in his chair, quite
flaccid with admiration, “that’s the way you know ’em,
sir!” (I don’t know who Sir was, but he certainly was not I, and
there was no third person present); “that’s the way you know the
noble-minded, sir! Ever forgiving and ever affable. It might,” said the
servile Pumblechook, putting down his untasted glass in a hurry and getting up
again, “to a common person, have the appearance of repeating—but
I—?”
When he had done it, he resumed his seat and drank to my sister. “Let us
never be blind,” said Mr. Pumblechook, “to her faults of temper,
but it is to be hoped she meant well.”
At about this time, I began to observe that he was getting flushed in the face;
as to myself, I felt all face, steeped in wine and smarting.
I mentioned to Mr. Pumblechook that I wished to have my new clothes sent to his
house, and he was ecstatic on my so distinguishing him. I mentioned my reason
for desiring to avoid observation in the village, and he lauded it to the
skies. There was nobody but himself, he intimated, worthy of my confidence,
and—in short, might he? Then he asked me tenderly if I remembered our
boyish games at sums, and how we had gone together to have me bound apprentice,
and, in effect, how he had ever been my favourite fancy and my chosen friend?
If I had taken ten times as many glasses of wine as I had, I should have known
that he never had stood in that relation towards me, and should in my heart of
hearts have repudiated the idea. Yet for all that, I remember feeling convinced
that I had been much mistaken in him, and that he was a sensible, practical,
good-hearted prime fellow.
By degrees he fell to reposing such great confidence in me, as to ask my advice
in reference to his own affairs. He mentioned that there was an opportunity for
a great amalgamation and monopoly of the corn and seed trade on those premises,
if enlarged, such as had never occurred before in that or any other
neighbourhood. What alone was wanting to the realisation of a vast fortune, he
considered to be More Capital. Those were the two little words, more capital.
Now it appeared to him (Pumblechook) that if that capital were got into the
business, through a sleeping partner, sir,—which sleeping partner would
have nothing to do but walk in, by self or deputy, whenever he pleased, and
examine the books,—and walk in twice a year and take his profits away in
his pocket, to the tune of fifty per cent,—it appeared to him that that
might be an opening for a young gentleman of spirit combined with property,
which would be worthy of his attention. But what did I think? He had great
confidence in my opinion, and what did I think? I gave it as my opinion.
“Wait a bit!” The united vastness and distinctness of this view so
struck him, that he no longer asked if he might shake hands with me, but said
he really must,—and did.
We drank all the wine, and Mr. Pumblechook pledged himself over and over again
to keep Joseph up to the mark (I don’t know what mark), and to render me
efficient and constant service (I don’t know what service). He also made
known to me for the first time in my life, and certainly after having kept his
secret wonderfully well, that he had always said of me, “That boy is no
common boy, and mark me, his fortun’ will be no common
fortun’.” He said with a tearful smile that it was a singular thing
to think of now, and I said so too. Finally, I went out into the air, with a
dim perception that there was something unwonted in the conduct of the
sunshine, and found that I had slumberously got to the turnpike without having
taken any account of the road.
There, I was roused by Mr. Pumblechook’s hailing me. He was a long way
down the sunny street, and was making expressive gestures for me to stop. I
stopped, and he came up breathless.
“No, my dear friend,” said he, when he had recovered wind for
speech. “Not if I can help it. This occasion shall not entirely pass
without that affability on your part.—May I, as an old friend and
well-wisher? I?”
We shook hands for the hundredth time at least, and he ordered a young carter
out of my way with the greatest indignation. Then, he blessed me and stood
waving his hand to me until I had passed the crook in the road; and then I
turned into a field and had a long nap under a hedge before I pursued my way
home.
I had scant luggage to take with me to London, for little of the little I
possessed was adapted to my new station. But I began packing that same
afternoon, and wildly packed up things that I knew I should want next morning,
in a fiction that there was not a moment to be lost.
So, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, passed; and on Friday morning I went to
Mr. Pumblechook’s, to put on my new clothes and pay my visit to Miss
Havisham. Mr. Pumblechook’s own room was given up to me to dress in, and
was decorated with clean towels expressly for the event. My clothes were rather
a disappointment, of course. Probably every new and eagerly expected garment
ever put on since clothes came in, fell a trifle short of the wearer’s
expectation. But after I had had my new suit on some half an hour, and had gone
through an immensity of posturing with Mr. Pumblechook’s very limited
dressing-glass, in the futile endeavour to see my legs, it seemed to fit me
better. It being market morning at a neighbouring town some ten miles off, Mr.
Pumblechook was not at home. I had not told him exactly when I meant to leave,
and was not likely to shake hands with him again before departing. This was all
as it should be, and I went out in my new array, fearfully ashamed of having to
pass the shopman, and suspicious after all that I was at a personal
disadvantage, something like Joe’s in his Sunday suit.
I went circuitously to Miss Havisham’s by all the back ways, and rang at
the bell constrainedly, on account of the stiff long fingers of my gloves.
Sarah Pocket came to the gate, and positively reeled back when she saw me so
changed; her walnut-shell countenance likewise turned from brown to green and
yellow.
“You?” said she. “You? Good gracious! What do you
want?”
“I am going to London, Miss Pocket,” said I, “and want to say
good-bye to Miss Havisham.”
I was not expected, for she left me locked in the yard, while she went to ask
if I were to be admitted. After a very short delay, she returned and took me
up, staring at me all the way.
Miss Havisham was taking exercise in the room with the long spread table,
leaning on her crutch stick. The room was lighted as of yore, and at the sound
of our entrance, she stopped and turned. She was then just abreast of the
rotted bride-cake.
“Don’t go, Sarah,” she said. “Well, Pip?”
“I start for London, Miss Havisham, to-morrow,” I was exceedingly
careful what I said, “and I thought you would kindly not mind my taking
leave of you.”
“This is a gay figure, Pip,” said she, making her crutch stick play
round me, as if she, the fairy godmother who had changed me, were bestowing the
finishing gift.
“I have come into such good fortune since I saw you last, Miss
Havisham,” I murmured. “And I am so grateful for it, Miss
Havisham!”
“Ay, ay!” said she, looking at the discomfited and envious Sarah,
with delight. “I have seen Mr. Jaggers. have heard about it,
Pip. So you go to-morrow?”
“Yes, Miss Havisham.”
“And you are adopted by a rich person?”
“Yes, Miss Havisham.”
“Not named?”
“No, Miss Havisham.”
“And Mr. Jaggers is made your guardian?”
“Yes, Miss Havisham.”
She quite gloated on these questions and answers, so keen was her enjoyment of
Sarah Pocket’s jealous dismay. “Well!” she went on;
“you have a promising career before you. Be good—deserve
it—and abide by Mr. Jaggers’s instructions.” She looked at
me, and looked at Sarah, and Sarah’s countenance wrung out of her
watchful face a cruel smile. “Good-bye, Pip!—you will always keep
the name of Pip, you know.”
“Yes, Miss Havisham.”
“Good-bye, Pip!”
She stretched out her hand, and I went down on my knee and put it to my lips. I
had not considered how I should take leave of her; it came naturally to me at
the moment to do this. She looked at Sarah Pocket with triumph in her weird
eyes, and so I left my fairy godmother, with both her hands on her crutch
stick, standing in the midst of the dimly lighted room beside the rotten
bride-cake that was hidden in cobwebs.
Sarah Pocket conducted me down, as if I were a ghost who must be seen out. She
could not get over my appearance, and was in the last degree confounded. I said
“Good-bye, Miss Pocket;” but she merely stared, and did not seem
collected enough to know that I had spoken. Clear of the house, I made the best
of my way back to Pumblechook’s, took off my new clothes, made them into
a bundle, and went back home in my older dress, carrying it—to speak the
truth—much more at my ease too, though I had the bundle to carry.
And now, those six days which were to have run out so slowly, had run out fast
and were gone, and to-morrow looked me in the face more steadily than I could
look at it. As the six evenings had dwindled away, to five, to four, to three,
to two, I had become more and more appreciative of the society of Joe and
Biddy. On this last evening, I dressed myself out in my new clothes for their
delight, and sat in my splendour until bedtime. We had a hot supper on the
occasion, graced by the inevitable roast fowl, and we had some flip to finish
with. We were all very low, and none the higher for pretending to be in
spirits.
I was to leave our village at five in the morning, carrying my little
hand-portmanteau, and I had told Joe that I wished to walk away all alone. I am
afraid—sore afraid—that this purpose originated in my sense of the
contrast there would be between me and Joe, if we went to the coach together. I
had pretended with myself that there was nothing of this taint in the
arrangement; but when I went up to my little room on this last night, I felt
compelled to admit that it might be so, and had an impulse upon me to go down
again and entreat Joe to walk with me in the morning. I did not.
All night there were coaches in my broken sleep, going to wrong places instead
of to London, and having in the traces, now dogs, now cats, now pigs, now
men,—never horses. Fantastic failures of journeys occupied me until the
day dawned and the birds were singing. Then, I got up and partly dressed, and
sat at the window to take a last look out, and in taking it fell asleep.
Biddy was astir so early to get my breakfast, that, although I did not sleep at
the window an hour, I smelt the smoke of the kitchen fire when I started up
with a terrible idea that it must be late in the afternoon. But long after
that, and long after I had heard the clinking of the teacups and was quite
ready, I wanted the resolution to go downstairs. After all, I remained up
there, repeatedly unlocking and unstrapping my small portmanteau and locking
and strapping it up again, until Biddy called to me that I was late.
It was a hurried breakfast with no taste in it. I got up from the meal, saying
with a sort of briskness, as if it had only just occurred to me, “Well! I
suppose I must be off!” and then I kissed my sister who was laughing and
nodding and shaking in her usual chair, and kissed Biddy, and threw my arms
around Joe’s neck. Then I took up my little portmanteau and walked out.
The last I saw of them was, when I presently heard a scuffle behind me, and
looking back, saw Joe throwing an old shoe after me and Biddy throwing another
old shoe. I stopped then, to wave my hat, and dear old Joe waved his strong
right arm above his head, crying huskily “Hooroar!” and Biddy put
her apron to her face.
I walked away at a good pace, thinking it was easier to go than I had supposed
it would be, and reflecting that it would never have done to have had an old
shoe thrown after the coach, in sight of all the High Street. I whistled and
made nothing of going. But the village was very peaceful and quiet, and the
light mists were solemnly rising, as if to show me the world, and I had been so
innocent and little there, and all beyond was so unknown and great, that in a
moment with a strong heave and sob I broke into tears. It was by the
finger-post at the end of the village, and I laid my hand upon it, and said,
“Good-bye, O my dear, dear friend!”
Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the
blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had
cried than before,—more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more
gentle. If I had cried before, I should have had Joe with me then.
So subdued I was by those tears, and by their breaking out again in the course
of the quiet walk, that when I was on the coach, and it was clear of the town,
I deliberated with an aching heart whether I would not get down when we changed
horses and walk back, and have another evening at home, and a better parting.
We changed, and I had not made up my mind, and still reflected for my comfort
that it would be quite practicable to get down and walk back, when we changed
again. And while I was occupied with these deliberations, I would fancy an
exact resemblance to Joe in some man coming along the road towards us, and my
heart would beat high.—As if he could possibly be there!
We changed again, and yet again, and it was now too late and too far to go
back, and I went on. And the mists had all solemnly risen now, and the world
lay spread before me.
This is the end of the first stage of Pip’s expectations.
Chapter XX.
The
journey from our town to the metropolis was a journey of about five hours. It
was a little past midday when the four-horse stage-coach by which I was a
passenger, got into the ravel of traffic frayed out about the Cross Keys, Wood
Street, Cheapside, London.
We Britons had at that time particularly settled that it was treasonable to
doubt our having and our being the best of everything: otherwise, while I was
scared by the immensity of London, I think I might have had some faint doubts
whether it was not rather ugly, crooked, narrow, and dirty.
Mr. Jaggers had duly sent me his address; it was, Little Britain, and he had
written after it on his card, “just out of Smithfield, and close by the
coach-office.” Nevertheless, a hackney-coachman, who seemed to have as
many capes to his greasy great-coat as he was years old, packed me up in his
coach and hemmed me in with a folding and jingling barrier of steps, as if he
were going to take me fifty miles. His getting on his box, which I remember to
have been decorated with an old weather-stained pea-green hammercloth
moth-eaten into rags, was quite a work of time. It was a wonderful equipage,
with six great coronets outside, and ragged things behind for I don’t
know how many footmen to hold on by, and a harrow below them, to prevent
amateur footmen from yielding to the temptation.
I had scarcely had time to enjoy the coach and to think how like a straw-yard
it was, and yet how like a rag-shop, and to wonder why the horses’
nose-bags were kept inside, when I observed the coachman beginning to get down,
as if we were going to stop presently. And stop we presently did, in a gloomy
street, at certain offices with an open door, whereon was painted
M. J.
“How much?” I asked the coachman.
The coachman answered, “A shilling—unless you wish to make it
more.”
I naturally said I had no wish to make it more.
“Then it must be a shilling,” observed the coachman. “I
don’t want to get into trouble. know !” He
darkly closed an eye at Mr. Jaggers’s name, and shook his head.
When he had got his shilling, and had in course of time completed the ascent to
his box, and had got away (which appeared to relieve his mind), I went into the
front office with my little portmanteau in my hand and asked, Was Mr. Jaggers
at home?
“He is not,” returned the clerk. “He is in Court at present.
Am I addressing Mr. Pip?”
I signified that he was addressing Mr. Pip.
“Mr. Jaggers left word, would you wait in his room. He couldn’t say
how long he might be, having a case on. But it stands to reason, his time being
valuable, that he won’t be longer than he can help.”
With those words, the clerk opened a door, and ushered me into an inner chamber
at the back. Here, we found a gentleman with one eye, in a velveteen suit and
knee-breeches, who wiped his nose with his sleeve on being interrupted in the
perusal of the newspaper.
“Go and wait outside, Mike,” said the clerk.
I began to say that I hoped I was not interrupting, when the clerk shoved this
gentleman out with as little ceremony as I ever saw used, and tossing his fur
cap out after him, left me alone.
Mr. Jaggers’s room was lighted by a skylight only, and was a most dismal
place; the skylight, eccentrically pitched like a broken head, and the
distorted adjoining houses looking as if they had twisted themselves to peep
down at me through it. There were not so many papers about, as I should have
expected to see; and there were some odd objects about, that I should not have
expected to see,—such as an old rusty pistol, a sword in a scabbard,
several strange-looking boxes and packages, and two dreadful casts on a shelf,
of faces peculiarly swollen, and twitchy about the nose. Mr. Jaggers’s
own high-backed chair was of deadly black horsehair, with rows of brass nails
round it, like a coffin; and I fancied I could see how he leaned back in it,
and bit his forefinger at the clients. The room was but small, and the clients
seemed to have had a habit of backing up against the wall; the wall, especially
opposite to Mr. Jaggers’s chair, being greasy with shoulders. I recalled,
too, that the one-eyed gentleman had shuffled forth against the wall when I was
the innocent cause of his being turned out.
I sat down in the cliental chair placed over against Mr. Jaggers’s chair,
and became fascinated by the dismal atmosphere of the place. I called to mind
that the clerk had the same air of knowing something to everybody else’s
disadvantage, as his master had. I wondered how many other clerks there were
upstairs, and whether they all claimed to have the same detrimental mastery of
their fellow-creatures. I wondered what was the history of all the odd litter
about the room, and how it came there. I wondered whether the two swollen faces
were of Mr. Jaggers’s family, and, if he were so unfortunate as to have
had a pair of such ill-looking relations, why he stuck them on that dusty perch
for the blacks and flies to settle on, instead of giving them a place at home.
Of course I had no experience of a London summer day, and my spirits may have
been oppressed by the hot exhausted air, and by the dust and grit that lay
thick on everything. But I sat wondering and waiting in Mr. Jaggers’s
close room, until I really could not bear the two casts on the shelf above Mr.
Jaggers’s chair, and got up and went out.
When I told the clerk that I would take a turn in the air while I waited, he
advised me to go round the corner and I should come into Smithfield. So I came
into Smithfield; and the shameful place, being all asmear with filth and fat
and blood and foam, seemed to stick to me. So, I rubbed it off with all
possible speed by turning into a street where I saw the great black dome of
Saint Paul’s bulging at me from behind a grim stone building which a
bystander said was Newgate Prison. Following the wall of the jail, I found the
roadway covered with straw to deaden the noise of passing vehicles; and from
this, and from the quantity of people standing about smelling strongly of
spirits and beer, I inferred that the trials were on.
While I looked about me here, an exceedingly dirty and partially drunk minister
of justice asked me if I would like to step in and hear a trial or so:
informing me that he could give me a front place for half a crown, whence I
should command a full view of the Lord Chief Justice in his wig and
robes,—mentioning that awful personage like waxwork, and presently
offering him at the reduced price of eighteen-pence. As I declined the proposal
on the plea of an appointment, he was so good as to take me into a yard and
show me where the gallows was kept, and also where people were publicly
whipped, and then he showed me the Debtors’ Door, out of which culprits
came to be hanged; heightening the interest of that dreadful portal by giving
me to understand that “four on ’em” would come out at that
door the day after to-morrow at eight in the morning, to be killed in a row.
This was horrible, and gave me a sickening idea of London; the more so as the
Lord Chief Justice’s proprietor wore (from his hat down to his boots and
up again to his pocket-handkerchief inclusive) mildewed clothes which had
evidently not belonged to him originally, and which I took it into my head he
had bought cheap of the executioner. Under these circumstances I thought myself
well rid of him for a shilling.
I dropped into the office to ask if Mr. Jaggers had come in yet, and I found he
had not, and I strolled out again. This time, I made the tour of Little
Britain, and turned into Bartholomew Close; and now I became aware that other
people were waiting about for Mr. Jaggers, as well as I. There were two men of
secret appearance lounging in Bartholomew Close, and thoughtfully fitting their
feet into the cracks of the pavement as they talked together, one of whom said
to the other when they first passed me, that “Jaggers would do it if it
was to be done.” There was a knot of three men and two women standing at
a corner, and one of the women was crying on her dirty shawl, and the other
comforted her by saying, as she pulled her own shawl over her shoulders,
“Jaggers is for him, ’Melia, and what more you
have?” There was a red-eyed little Jew who came into the Close while I
was loitering there, in company with a second little Jew whom he sent upon an
errand; and while the messenger was gone, I remarked this Jew, who was of a
highly excitable temperament, performing a jig of anxiety under a lamp-post and
accompanying himself, in a kind of frenzy, with the words, “O Jaggerth,
Jaggerth, Jaggerth! all otherth ith Cag-Maggerth, give me Jaggerth!”
These testimonies to the popularity of my guardian made a deep impression on
me, and I admired and wondered more than ever.
At length, as I was looking out at the iron gate of Bartholomew Close into
Little Britain, I saw Mr. Jaggers coming across the road towards me. All the
others who were waiting saw him at the same time, and there was quite a rush at
him. Mr. Jaggers, putting a hand on my shoulder and walking me on at his side
without saying anything to me, addressed himself to his followers.
First, he took the two secret men.
“Now, I have nothing to say to ,” said Mr. Jaggers,
throwing his finger at them. “I want to know no more than I know. As to
the result, it’s a toss-up. I told you from the first it was a toss-up.
Have you paid Wemmick?”
“We made the money up this morning, sir,” said one of the men,
submissively, while the other perused Mr. Jaggers’s face.
“I don’t ask you when you made it up, or where, or whether you made
it up at all. Has Wemmick got it?”
“Yes, sir,” said both the men together.
“Very well; then you may go. Now, I won’t have it!” said Mr
Jaggers, waving his hand at them to put them behind him. “If you say a
word to me, I’ll throw up the case.”
“We thought, Mr. Jaggers—” one of the men began, pulling off
his hat.
“That’s what I told you not to do,” said Mr. Jaggers.
“ thought! I think for you; that’s enough for you. If I
want you, I know where to find you; I don’t want you to find me. Now I
won’t have it. I won’t hear a word.”
The two men looked at one another as Mr. Jaggers waved them behind again, and
humbly fell back and were heard no more.
“And now !” said Mr. Jaggers, suddenly stopping, and
turning on the two women with the shawls, from whom the three men had meekly
separated,—“Oh! Amelia, is it?”
“Yes, Mr. Jaggers.”
“And do you remember,” retorted Mr. Jaggers, “that but for me
you wouldn’t be here and couldn’t be here?”
“O yes, sir!” exclaimed both women together. “Lord bless you,
sir, well we knows that!”
“Then why,” said Mr. Jaggers, “do you come here?”
“My Bill, sir!” the crying woman pleaded.
“Now, I tell you what!” said Mr. Jaggers. “Once for all. If
you don’t know that your Bill’s in good hands, I know it. And if
you come here bothering about your Bill, I’ll make an example of both
your Bill and you, and let him slip through my fingers. Have you paid
Wemmick?”
“O yes, sir! Every farden.”
“Very well. Then you have done all you have got to do. Say another
word—one single word—and Wemmick shall give you your money
back.”
This terrible threat caused the two women to fall off immediately. No one
remained now but the excitable Jew, who had already raised the skirts of Mr.
Jaggers’s coat to his lips several times.
“I don’t know this man!” said Mr. Jaggers, in the same
devastating strain: “What does this fellow want?”
“Ma thear Mithter Jaggerth. Hown brother to Habraham Latharuth?”
“Who’s he?” said Mr. Jaggers. “Let go of my
coat.”
The suitor, kissing the hem of the garment again before relinquishing it,
replied, “Habraham Latharuth, on thuthpithion of plate.”
“You’re too late,” said Mr. Jaggers. “I am over the
way.”
“Holy father, Mithter Jaggerth!” cried my excitable acquaintance,
turning white, “don’t thay you’re again Habraham
Latharuth!”
“I am,” said Mr. Jaggers, “and there’s an end of it.
Get out of the way.”
“Mithter Jaggerth! Half a moment! My hown cuthen’th gone to Mithter
Wemmick at thith prethent minute, to hoffer him hany termth. Mithter Jaggerth!
Half a quarter of a moment! If you’d have the condethenthun to be bought
off from the t’other thide—at hany thuperior prithe!—money no
object!—Mithter Jaggerth—Mithter—!”
My guardian threw his supplicant off with supreme indifference, and left him
dancing on the pavement as if it were red hot. Without further interruption, we
reached the front office, where we found the clerk and the man in velveteen
with the fur cap.
“Here’s Mike,” said the clerk, getting down from his stool,
and approaching Mr. Jaggers confidentially.
“Oh!” said Mr. Jaggers, turning to the man, who was pulling a lock
of hair in the middle of his forehead, like the Bull in Cock Robin pulling at
the bell-rope; “your man comes on this afternoon. Well?”
“Well, Mas’r Jaggers,” returned Mike, in the voice of a
sufferer from a constitutional cold; “arter a deal o’ trouble,
I’ve found one, sir, as might do.”
“What is he prepared to swear?”
“Well, Mas’r Jaggers,” said Mike, wiping his nose on his fur
cap this time; “in a general way, anythink.”
Mr. Jaggers suddenly became most irate. “Now, I warned you before,”
said he, throwing his forefinger at the terrified client, “that if you
ever presumed to talk in that way here, I’d make an example of you. You
infernal scoundrel, how dare you tell that?”
The client looked scared, but bewildered too, as if he were unconscious what he
had done.
“Spooney!” said the clerk, in a low voice, giving him a stir with
his elbow. “Soft Head! Need you say it face to face?”
“Now, I ask you, you blundering booby,” said my guardian, very
sternly, “once more and for the last time, what the man you have brought
here is prepared to swear?”
Mike looked hard at my guardian, as if he were trying to learn a lesson from
his face, and slowly replied, “Ayther to character, or to having been in
his company and never left him all the night in question.”
“Now, be careful. In what station of life is this man?”
Mike looked at his cap, and looked at the floor, and looked at the ceiling, and
looked at the clerk, and even looked at me, before beginning to reply in a
nervous manner, “We’ve dressed him up like—” when my
guardian blustered out,—
“What? You , will you?”
(“Spooney!” added the clerk again, with another stir.)
After some helpless casting about, Mike brightened and began again:—
“He is dressed like a ’spectable pieman. A sort of a
pastry-cook.”
“Is he here?” asked my guardian.
“I left him,” said Mike, “a setting on some doorsteps round
the corner.”
“Take him past that window, and let me see him.”
The window indicated was the office window. We all three went to it, behind the
wire blind, and presently saw the client go by in an accidental manner, with a
murderous-looking tall individual, in a short suit of white linen and a paper
cap. This guileless confectioner was not by any means sober, and had a black
eye in the green stage of recovery, which was painted over.
“Tell him to take his witness away directly,” said my guardian to
the clerk, in extreme disgust, “and ask him what he means by bringing
such a fellow as that.”
My guardian then took me into his own room, and while he lunched, standing,
from a sandwich-box and a pocket-flask of sherry (he seemed to bully his very
sandwich as he ate it), informed me what arrangements he had made for me. I was
to go to “Barnard’s Inn,” to young Mr. Pocket’s rooms,
where a bed had been sent in for my accommodation; I was to remain with young
Mr. Pocket until Monday; on Monday I was to go with him to his father’s
house on a visit, that I might try how I liked it. Also, I was told what my
allowance was to be,—it was a very liberal one,—and had handed to
me from one of my guardian’s drawers, the cards of certain tradesmen with
whom I was to deal for all kinds of clothes, and such other things as I could
in reason want. “You will find your credit good, Mr. Pip,” said my
guardian, whose flask of sherry smelt like a whole caskful, as he hastily
refreshed himself, “but I shall by this means be able to check your
bills, and to pull you up if I find you outrunning the constable. Of course
you’ll go wrong somehow, but that’s no fault of mine.”
After I had pondered a little over this encouraging sentiment, I asked Mr.
Jaggers if I could send for a coach? He said it was not worth while, I was so
near my destination; Wemmick should walk round with me, if I pleased.
I then found that Wemmick was the clerk in the next room. Another clerk was
rung down from upstairs to take his place while he was out, and I accompanied
him into the street, after shaking hands with my guardian. We found a new set
of people lingering outside, but Wemmick made a way among them by saying coolly
yet decisively, “I tell you it’s no use; he won’t have a word
to say to one of you;” and we soon got clear of them, and went on side by
side.
Chapter XXI.
Casting my eyes on Mr. Wemmick as we went along, to see what he
was like in the light of day, I found him to be a dry man, rather short in
stature, with a square wooden face, whose expression seemed to have been
imperfectly chipped out with a dull-edged chisel. There were some marks in it
that might have been dimples, if the material had been softer and the
instrument finer, but which, as it was, were only dints. The chisel had made
three or four of these attempts at embellishment over his nose, but had given
them up without an effort to smooth them off. I judged him to be a bachelor
from the frayed condition of his linen, and he appeared to have sustained a
good many bereavements; for he wore at least four mourning rings, besides a
brooch representing a lady and a weeping willow at a tomb with an urn on it. I
noticed, too, that several rings and seals hung at his watch-chain, as if he
were quite laden with remembrances of departed friends. He had glittering
eyes,—small, keen, and black,—and thin wide mottled lips. He had
had them, to the best of my belief, from forty to fifty years.
“So you were never in London before?” said Mr. Wemmick to me.
“No,” said I.
“ was new here once,” said Mr. Wemmick. “Rum to think
of now!”
“You are well acquainted with it now?”
“Why, yes,” said Mr. Wemmick. “I know the moves of it.”
“Is it a very wicked place?” I asked, more for the sake of saying
something than for information.
“You may get cheated, robbed, and murdered in London. But there are
plenty of people anywhere, who’ll do that for you.”
“If there is bad blood between you and them,” said I, to soften it
off a little.
“O! I don’t know about bad blood,” returned Mr. Wemmick;
“there’s not much bad blood about. They’ll do it, if
there’s anything to be got by it.”
“That makes it worse.”
“You think so?” returned Mr. Wemmick. “Much about the same, I
should say.”
He wore his hat on the back of his head, and looked straight before him:
walking in a self-contained way as if there were nothing in the streets to
claim his attention. His mouth was such a post-office of a mouth that he had a
mechanical appearance of smiling. We had got to the top of Holborn Hill before
I knew that it was merely a mechanical appearance, and that he was not smiling
at all.
“Do you know where Mr. Matthew Pocket lives?” I asked Mr. Wemmick.
“Yes,” said he, nodding in the direction. “At Hammersmith,
west of London.”
“Is that far?”
“Well! Say five miles.”
“Do you know him?”
“Why, you’re a regular cross-examiner!” said Mr. Wemmick,
looking at me with an approving air. “Yes, I know him. know
him!”
There was an air of toleration or depreciation about his utterance of these
words that rather depressed me; and I was still looking sideways at his block
of a face in search of any encouraging note to the text, when he said here we
were at Barnard’s Inn. My depression was not alleviated by the
announcement, for, I had supposed that establishment to be an hotel kept by Mr.
Barnard, to which the Blue Boar in our town was a mere public-house. Whereas I
now found Barnard to be a disembodied spirit, or a fiction, and his inn the
dingiest collection of shabby buildings ever squeezed together in a rank corner
as a club for Tom-cats.
We entered this haven through a wicket-gate, and were disgorged by an
introductory passage into a melancholy little square that looked to me like a
flat burying-ground. I thought it had the most dismal trees in it, and the most
dismal sparrows, and the most dismal cats, and the most dismal houses (in
number half a dozen or so), that I had ever seen. I thought the windows of the
sets of chambers into which those houses were divided were in every stage of
dilapidated blind and curtain, crippled flower-pot, cracked glass, dusty decay,
and miserable makeshift; while To Let, To Let, To Let, glared at me from empty
rooms, as if no new wretches ever came there, and the vengeance of the soul of
Barnard were being slowly appeased by the gradual suicide of the present
occupants and their unholy interment under the gravel. A frowzy mourning of
soot and smoke attired this forlorn creation of Barnard, and it had strewn
ashes on its head, and was undergoing penance and humiliation as a mere
dust-hole. Thus far my sense of sight; while dry rot and wet rot and all the
silent rots that rot in neglected roof and cellar,—rot of rat and mouse
and bug and coaching-stables near at hand besides—addressed themselves
faintly to my sense of smell, and moaned, “Try Barnard’s
Mixture.”
So imperfect was this realisation of the first of my great expectations, that I
looked in dismay at Mr. Wemmick. “Ah!” said he, mistaking me;
“the retirement reminds you of the country. So it does me.”
He led me into a corner and conducted me up a flight of stairs,—which
appeared to me to be slowly collapsing into sawdust, so that one of those days
the upper lodgers would look out at their doors and find themselves without the
means of coming down,—to a set of chambers on the top floor.
M. P, J., was painted on
the door, and there was a label on the letter-box, “Return
shortly.”
“He hardly thought you’d come so soon,” Mr. Wemmick
explained. “You don’t want me any more?”
“No, thank you,” said I.
“As I keep the cash,” Mr. Wemmick observed, “we shall most
likely meet pretty often. Good day.”
“Good day.”
I put out my hand, and Mr. Wemmick at first looked at it as if he thought I
wanted something. Then he looked at me, and said, correcting himself,—
“To be sure! Yes. You’re in the habit of shaking hands?”
I was rather confused, thinking it must be out of the London fashion, but said
yes.
“I have got so out of it!” said Mr. Wemmick,—“except at
last. Very glad, I’m sure, to make your acquaintance. Good day!”
When we had shaken hands and he was gone, I opened the staircase window and had
nearly beheaded myself, for, the lines had rotted away, and it came down like
the guillotine. Happily it was so quick that I had not put my head out. After
this escape, I was content to take a foggy view of the Inn through the
window’s encrusting dirt, and to stand dolefully looking out, saying to
myself that London was decidedly overrated.
Mr. Pocket, Junior’s, idea of Shortly was not mine, for I had nearly
maddened myself with looking out for half an hour, and had written my name with
my finger several times in the dirt of every pane in the window, before I heard
footsteps on the stairs. Gradually there arose before me the hat, head,
neckcloth, waistcoat, trousers, boots, of a member of society of about my own
standing. He had a paper-bag under each arm and a pottle of strawberries in one
hand, and was out of breath.
“Mr. Pip?” said he.
“Mr. Pocket?” said I.
“Dear me!” he exclaimed. “I am extremely sorry; but I knew
there was a coach from your part of the country at midday, and I thought you
would come by that one. The fact is, I have been out on your account,—not
that that is any excuse,—for I thought, coming from the country, you
might like a little fruit after dinner, and I went to Covent Garden Market to
get it good.”
For a reason that I had, I felt as if my eyes would start out of my head. I
acknowledged his attention incoherently, and began to think this was a dream.
“Dear me!” said Mr. Pocket, Junior. “This door sticks
so!”
As he was fast making jam of his fruit by wrestling with the door while the
paper-bags were under his arms, I begged him to allow me to hold them. He
relinquished them with an agreeable smile, and combated with the door as if it
were a wild beast. It yielded so suddenly at last, that he staggered back upon
me, and I staggered back upon the opposite door, and we both laughed. But still
I felt as if my eyes must start out of my head, and as if this must be a dream.
“Pray come in,” said Mr. Pocket, Junior. “Allow me to lead
the way. I am rather bare here, but I hope you’ll be able to make out
tolerably well till Monday. My father thought you would get on more agreeably
through to-morrow with me than with him, and might like to take a walk about
London. I am sure I shall be very happy to show London to you. As to our table,
you won’t find that bad, I hope, for it will be supplied from our
coffee-house here, and (it is only right I should add) at your expense, such
being Mr. Jaggers’s directions. As to our lodging, it’s not by any
means splendid, because I have my own bread to earn, and my father hasn’t
anything to give me, and I shouldn’t be willing to take it, if he had.
This is our sitting-room,—just such chairs and tables and carpet and so
forth, you see, as they could spare from home. You mustn’t give me credit
for the tablecloth and spoons and castors, because they come for you from the
coffee-house. This is my little bedroom; rather musty, but Barnard’s
musty. This is your bedroom; the furniture’s hired for the
occasion, but I trust it will answer the purpose; if you should want anything,
I’ll go and fetch it. The chambers are retired, and we shall be alone
together, but we shan’t fight, I dare say. But dear me, I beg your
pardon, you’re holding the fruit all this time. Pray let me take these
bags from you. I am quite ashamed.”
As I stood opposite to Mr. Pocket, Junior, delivering him the bags, One, Two, I
saw the starting appearance come into his own eyes that I knew to be in mine,
and he said, falling back,—
“Lord bless me, you’re the prowling boy!”
“And you,” said I, “are the pale young gentleman!”
Chapter XXII.
The
pale young gentleman and I stood contemplating one another in Barnard’s
Inn, until we both burst out laughing. “The idea of its being you!”
said he. “The idea of its being !” said I. And then we
contemplated one another afresh, and laughed again. “Well!” said
the pale young gentleman, reaching out his hand good-humouredly,
“it’s all over now, I hope, and it will be magnanimous in you if
you’ll forgive me for having knocked you about so.”
I derived from this speech that Mr. Herbert Pocket (for Herbert was the pale
young gentleman’s name) still rather confounded his intention with his
execution. But I made a modest reply, and we shook hands warmly.
“You hadn’t come into your good fortune at that time?” said
Herbert Pocket.
“No,” said I.
“No,” he acquiesced: “I heard it had happened very lately.
was rather on the lookout for good fortune then.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes. Miss Havisham had sent for me, to see if she could take a fancy to
me. But she couldn’t,—at all events, she didn’t.”
I thought it polite to remark that I was surprised to hear that.
“Bad taste,” said Herbert, laughing, “but a fact. Yes, she
had sent for me on a trial visit, and if I had come out of it successfully, I
suppose I should have been provided for; perhaps I should have been
what-you-may-called it to Estella.”
“What’s that?” I asked, with sudden gravity.
He was arranging his fruit in plates while we talked, which divided his
attention, and was the cause of his having made this lapse of a word.
“Affianced,” he explained, still busy with the fruit.
“Betrothed. Engaged. What’s-his-named. Any word of that
sort.”
“How did you bear your disappointment?” I asked.
“Pooh!” said he, “I didn’t care much for it.
a Tartar.”
“Miss Havisham?”
“I don’t say no to that, but I meant Estella. That girl’s
hard and haughty and capricious to the last degree, and has been brought up by
Miss Havisham to wreak revenge on all the male sex.”
“What relation is she to Miss Havisham?”
“None,” said he. “Only adopted.”
“Why should she wreak revenge on all the male sex? What revenge?”
“Lord, Mr. Pip!” said he. “Don’t you know?”
“No,” said I.
“Dear me! It’s quite a story, and shall be saved till dinner-time.
And now let me take the liberty of asking you a question. How did you come
there, that day?”
I told him, and he was attentive until I had finished, and then burst out
laughing again, and asked me if I was sore afterwards? I didn’t ask him
if was, for my conviction on that point was perfectly established.
“Mr. Jaggers is your guardian, I understand?” he went on.
“Yes.”
“You know he is Miss Havisham’s man of business and solicitor, and
has her confidence when nobody else has?”
This was bringing me (I felt) towards dangerous ground. I answered with a
constraint I made no attempt to disguise, that I had seen Mr. Jaggers in Miss
Havisham’s house on the very day of our combat, but never at any other
time, and that I believed he had no recollection of having ever seen me there.
“He was so obliging as to suggest my father for your tutor, and he called
on my father to propose it. Of course he knew about my father from his
connection with Miss Havisham. My father is Miss Havisham’s cousin; not
that that implies familiar intercourse between them, for he is a bad courtier
and will not propitiate her.”
Herbert Pocket had a frank and easy way with him that was very taking. I had
never seen any one then, and I have never seen any one since, who more strongly
expressed to me, in every look and tone, a natural incapacity to do anything
secret and mean. There was something wonderfully hopeful about his general air,
and something that at the same time whispered to me he would never be very
successful or rich. I don’t know how this was. I became imbued with the
notion on that first occasion before we sat down to dinner, but I cannot define
by what means.
He was still a pale young gentleman, and had a certain conquered languor about
him in the midst of his spirits and briskness, that did not seem indicative of
natural strength. He had not a handsome face, but it was better than handsome:
being extremely amiable and cheerful. His figure was a little ungainly, as in
the days when my knuckles had taken such liberties with it, but it looked as if
it would always be light and young. Whether Mr. Trabb’s local work would
have sat more gracefully on him than on me, may be a question; but I am
conscious that he carried off his rather old clothes much better than I carried
off my new suit.
As he was so communicative, I felt that reserve on my part would be a bad
return unsuited to our years. I therefore told him my small story, and laid
stress on my being forbidden to inquire who my benefactor was. I further
mentioned that as I had been brought up a blacksmith in a country place, and
knew very little of the ways of politeness, I would take it as a great kindness
in him if he would give me a hint whenever he saw me at a loss or going wrong.
“With pleasure,” said he, “though I venture to prophesy that
you’ll want very few hints. I dare say we shall be often together, and I
should like to banish any needless restraint between us. Will you do me the
favour to begin at once to call me by my Christian name, Herbert?”
I thanked him and said I would. I informed him in exchange that my Christian
name was Philip.
“I don’t take to Philip,” said he, smiling, “for it
sounds like a moral boy out of the spelling-book, who was so lazy that he fell
into a pond, or so fat that he couldn’t see out of his eyes, or so
avaricious that he locked up his cake till the mice ate it, or so determined to
go a bird’s-nesting that he got himself eaten by bears who lived handy in
the neighbourhood. I tell you what I should like. We are so harmonious, and you
have been a blacksmith,—would you mind it?”
“I shouldn’t mind anything that you propose,” I answered,
“but I don’t understand you.”
“Would you mind Handel for a familiar name? There’s a charming
piece of music by Handel, called the Harmonious Blacksmith.”
“I should like it very much.”
“Then, my dear Handel,” said he, turning round as the door opened,
“here is the dinner, and I must beg of you to take the top of the table,
because the dinner is of your providing.”
This I would not hear of, so he took the top, and I faced him. It was a nice
little dinner,—seemed to me then a very Lord Mayor’s
Feast,—and it acquired additional relish from being eaten under those
independent circumstances, with no old people by, and with London all around
us. This again was heightened by a certain gypsy character that set the banquet
off; for while the table was, as Mr. Pumblechook might have said, the lap of
luxury,—being entirely furnished forth from the coffee-house,—the
circumjacent region of sitting-room was of a comparatively pastureless and
shifty character; imposing on the waiter the wandering habits of putting the
covers on the floor (where he fell over them), the melted butter in the
arm-chair, the bread on the bookshelves, the cheese in the coal-scuttle, and
the boiled fowl into my bed in the next room,—where I found much of its
parsley and butter in a state of congelation when I retired for the night. All
this made the feast delightful, and when the waiter was not there to watch me,
my pleasure was without alloy.
We had made some progress in the dinner, when I reminded Herbert of his promise
to tell me about Miss Havisham.
“True,” he replied. “I’ll redeem it at once. Let me
introduce the topic, Handel, by mentioning that in London it is not the custom
to put the knife in the mouth,—for fear of accidents,—and that
while the fork is reserved for that use, it is not put further in than
necessary. It is scarcely worth mentioning, only it’s as well to do as
other people do. Also, the spoon is not generally used over-hand, but under.
This has two advantages. You get at your mouth better (which after all is the
object), and you save a good deal of the attitude of opening oysters, on the
part of the right elbow.”
He offered these friendly suggestions in such a lively way, that we both
laughed and I scarcely blushed.
“Now,” he pursued, “concerning Miss Havisham. Miss Havisham,
you must know, was a spoilt child. Her mother died when she was a baby, and her
father denied her nothing. Her father was a country gentleman down in your part
of the world, and was a brewer. I don’t know why it should be a crack
thing to be a brewer; but it is indisputable that while you cannot possibly be
genteel and bake, you may be as genteel as never was and brew. You see it every
day.”
“Yet a gentleman may not keep a public-house; may he?” said I.
“Not on any account,” returned Herbert; “but a public-house
may keep a gentleman. Well! Mr. Havisham was very rich and very proud. So was
his daughter.”
“Miss Havisham was an only child?” I hazarded.
“Stop a moment, I am coming to that. No, she was not an only child; she
had a half-brother. Her father privately married again—his cook, I rather
think.”
“I thought he was proud,” said I.
“My good Handel, so he was. He married his second wife privately, because
he was proud, and in course of time died. When she was dead, I
apprehend he first told his daughter what he had done, and then the son became
a part of the family, residing in the house you are acquainted with. As the son
grew a young man, he turned out riotous, extravagant,
undutiful,—altogether bad. At last his father disinherited him; but he
softened when he was dying, and left him well off, though not nearly so well
off as Miss Havisham.—Take another glass of wine, and excuse my
mentioning that society as a body does not expect one to be so strictly
conscientious in emptying one’s glass, as to turn it bottom upwards with
the rim on one’s nose.”
I had been doing this, in an excess of attention to his recital. I thanked him,
and apologised. He said, “Not at all,” and resumed.
“Miss Havisham was now an heiress, and you may suppose was looked after
as a great match. Her half-brother had now ample means again, but what with
debts and what with new madness wasted them most fearfully again. There were
stronger differences between him and her than there had been between him and
his father, and it is suspected that he cherished a deep and mortal grudge
against her as having influenced the father’s anger. Now, I come to the
cruel part of the story,—merely breaking off, my dear Handel, to remark
that a dinner-napkin will not go into a tumbler.”
Why I was trying to pack mine into my tumbler, I am wholly unable to say. I
only know that I found myself, with a perseverance worthy of a much better
cause, making the most strenuous exertions to compress it within those limits.
Again I thanked him and apologised, and again he said in the cheerfullest
manner, “Not at all, I am sure!” and resumed.
“There appeared upon the scene—say at the races, or the public
balls, or anywhere else you like—a certain man, who made love to Miss
Havisham. I never saw him (for this happened five-and-twenty years ago, before
you and I were, Handel), but I have heard my father mention that he was a showy
man, and the kind of man for the purpose. But that he was not to be, without
ignorance or prejudice, mistaken for a gentleman, my father most strongly
asseverates; because it is a principle of his that no man who was not a true
gentleman at heart ever was, since the world began, a true gentleman in manner.
He says, no varnish can hide the grain of the wood; and that the more varnish
you put on, the more the grain will express itself. Well! This man pursued Miss
Havisham closely, and professed to be devoted to her. I believe she had not
shown much susceptibility up to that time; but all the susceptibility she
possessed certainly came out then, and she passionately loved him. There is no
doubt that she perfectly idolized him. He practised on her affection in that
systematic way, that he got great sums of money from her, and he induced her to
buy her brother out of a share in the brewery (which had been weakly left him
by his father) at an immense price, on the plea that when he was her husband he
must hold and manage it all. Your guardian was not at that time in Miss
Havisham’s counsels, and she was too haughty and too much in love to be
advised by any one. Her relations were poor and scheming, with the exception of
my father; he was poor enough, but not time-serving or jealous. The only
independent one among them, he warned her that she was doing too much for this
man, and was placing herself too unreservedly in his power. She took the first
opportunity of angrily ordering my father out of the house, in his presence,
and my father has never seen her since.”
I thought of her having said, “Matthew will come and see me at last when
I am laid dead upon that table;” and I asked Herbert whether his father
was so inveterate against her?
“It’s not that,” said he, “but she charged him, in the
presence of her intended husband, with being disappointed in the hope of
fawning upon her for his own advancement, and, if he were to go to her now, it
would look true—even to him—and even to her. To return to the man
and make an end of him. The marriage day was fixed, the wedding dresses were
bought, the wedding tour was planned out, the wedding guests were invited. The
day came, but not the bridegroom. He wrote her a letter—”
“Which she received,” I struck in, “when she was dressing for
her marriage? At twenty minutes to nine?”
“At the hour and minute,” said Herbert, nodding, “at which
she afterwards stopped all the clocks. What was in it, further than that it
most heartlessly broke the marriage off, I can’t tell you, because I
don’t know. When she recovered from a bad illness that she had, she laid
the whole place waste, as you have seen it, and she has never since looked upon
the light of day.”
“Is that all the story?” I asked, after considering it.
“All I know of it; and indeed I only know so much, through piecing it out
for myself; for my father always avoids it, and, even when Miss Havisham
invited me to go there, told me no more of it than it was absolutely requisite
I should understand. But I have forgotten one thing. It has been supposed that
the man to whom she gave her misplaced confidence acted throughout in concert
with her half-brother; that it was a conspiracy between them; and that they
shared the profits.”
“I wonder he didn’t marry her and get all the property,” said
I.
“He may have been married already, and her cruel mortification may have
been a part of her half-brother’s scheme,” said Herbert.
“Mind! I don’t know that.”
“What became of the two men?” I asked, after again considering the
subject.
“They fell into deeper shame and degradation—if there can be
deeper—and ruin.”
“Are they alive now?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said just now that Estella was not related to Miss Havisham, but
adopted. When adopted?”
Herbert shrugged his shoulders. “There has always been an Estella, since
I have heard of a Miss Havisham. I know no more. And now, Handel,” said
he, finally throwing off the story as it were, “there is a perfectly open
understanding between us. All that I know about Miss Havisham, you know.”
“And all that I know,” I retorted, “you know.”
“I fully believe it. So there can be no competition or perplexity between
you and me. And as to the condition on which you hold your advancement in
life,—namely, that you are not to inquire or discuss to whom you owe
it,—you may be very sure that it will never be encroached upon, or even
approached, by me, or by any one belonging to me.”
In truth, he said this with so much delicacy, that I felt the subject done
with, even though I should be under his father’s roof for years and years
to come. Yet he said it with so much meaning, too, that I felt he as perfectly
understood Miss Havisham to be my benefactress, as I understood the fact
myself.
It had not occurred to me before, that he had led up to the theme for the
purpose of clearing it out of our way; but we were so much the lighter and
easier for having broached it, that I now perceived this to be the case. We
were very gay and sociable, and I asked him, in the course of conversation,
what he was? He replied, “A capitalist,—an Insurer of Ships.”
I suppose he saw me glancing about the room in search of some tokens of
Shipping, or capital, for he added, “In the City.”
I had grand ideas of the wealth and importance of Insurers of Ships in the
City, and I began to think with awe of having laid a young Insurer on his back,
blackened his enterprising eye, and cut his responsible head open. But again
there came upon me, for my relief, that odd impression that Herbert Pocket
would never be very successful or rich.
“I shall not rest satisfied with merely employing my capital in insuring
ships. I shall buy up some good Life Assurance shares, and cut into the
Direction. I shall also do a little in the mining way. None of these things
will interfere with my chartering a few thousand tons on my own account. I
think I shall trade,” said he, leaning back in his chair, “to the
East Indies, for silks, shawls, spices, dyes, drugs, and precious woods.
It’s an interesting trade.”
“And the profits are large?” said I.
“Tremendous!” said he.
I wavered again, and began to think here were greater expectations than my own.
“I think I shall trade, also,” said he, putting his thumbs in his
waist-coat pockets, “to the West Indies, for sugar, tobacco, and rum.
Also to Ceylon, especially for elephants’ tusks.”
“You will want a good many ships,” said I.
“A perfect fleet,” said he.
Quite overpowered by the magnificence of these transactions, I asked him where
the ships he insured mostly traded to at present?
“I haven’t begun insuring yet,” he replied. “I am
looking about me.”
Somehow, that pursuit seemed more in keeping with Barnard’s Inn. I said
(in a tone of conviction), “Ah-h!”
“Yes. I am in a counting-house, and looking about me.”
“Is a counting-house profitable?” I asked.
“To—do you mean to the young fellow who’s in it?” he
asked, in reply.
“Yes; to you.”
“Why, n-no; not to me.” He said this with the air of one carefully
reckoning up and striking a balance. “Not directly profitable. That is,
it doesn’t pay me anything, and I have to—keep myself.”
This certainly had not a profitable appearance, and I shook my head as if I
would imply that it would be difficult to lay by much accumulative capital from
such a source of income.
“But the thing is,” said Herbert Pocket, “that you look about
you. the grand thing. You are in a counting-house, you
know, and you look about you.”
It struck me as a singular implication that you couldn’t be out of a
counting-house, you know, and look about you; but I silently deferred to his
experience.
“Then the time comes,” said Herbert, “when you see your
opening. And you go in, and you swoop upon it and you make your capital, and
then there you are! When you have once made your capital, you have nothing to
do but employ it.”
This was very like his way of conducting that encounter in the garden; very
like. His manner of bearing his poverty, too, exactly corresponded to his
manner of bearing that defeat. It seemed to me that he took all blows and
buffets now with just the same air as he had taken mine then. It was evident
that he had nothing around him but the simplest necessaries, for everything
that I remarked upon turned out to have been sent in on my account from the
coffee-house or somewhere else.
Yet, having already made his fortune in his own mind, he was so unassuming with
it that I felt quite grateful to him for not being puffed up. It was a pleasant
addition to his naturally pleasant ways, and we got on famously. In the evening
we went out for a walk in the streets, and went half-price to the Theatre; and
next day we went to church at Westminster Abbey, and in the afternoon we walked
in the Parks; and I wondered who shod all the horses there, and wished Joe did.
On a moderate computation, it was many months, that Sunday, since I had left
Joe and Biddy. The space interposed between myself and them partook of that
expansion, and our marshes were any distance off. That I could have been at our
old church in my old church-going clothes, on the very last Sunday that ever
was, seemed a combination of impossibilities, geographical and social, solar
and lunar. Yet in the London streets so crowded with people and so brilliantly
lighted in the dusk of evening, there were depressing hints of reproaches for
that I had put the poor old kitchen at home so far away; and in the dead of
night, the footsteps of some incapable impostor of a porter mooning about
Barnard’s Inn, under pretence of watching it, fell hollow on my heart.
On the Monday morning at a quarter before nine, Herbert went to the
counting-house to report himself,—to look about him, too, I
suppose,—and I bore him company. He was to come away in an hour or two to
attend me to Hammersmith, and I was to wait about for him. It appeared to me
that the eggs from which young Insurers were hatched were incubated in dust and
heat, like the eggs of ostriches, judging from the places to which those
incipient giants repaired on a Monday morning. Nor did the counting-house where
Herbert assisted, show in my eyes as at all a good Observatory; being a back
second floor up a yard, of a grimy presence in all particulars, and with a look
into another back second floor, rather than a look out.
I waited about until it was noon, and I went upon ’Change, and I saw
fluey men sitting there under the bills about shipping, whom I took to be great
merchants, though I couldn’t understand why they should all be out of
spirits. When Herbert came, we went and had lunch at a celebrated house which I
then quite venerated, but now believe to have been the most abject superstition
in Europe, and where I could not help noticing, even then, that there was much
more gravy on the tablecloths and knives and waiters’ clothes, than in
the steaks. This collation disposed of at a moderate price (considering the
grease, which was not charged for), we went back to Barnard’s Inn and got
my little portmanteau, and then took coach for Hammersmith. We arrived there at
two or three o’clock in the afternoon, and had very little way to walk to
Mr. Pocket’s house. Lifting the latch of a gate, we passed direct into a
little garden overlooking the river, where Mr. Pocket’s children were
playing about. And unless I deceive myself on a point where my interests or
prepossessions are certainly not concerned, I saw that Mr. and Mrs.
Pocket’s children were not growing up or being brought up, but were
tumbling up.
Mrs. Pocket was sitting on a garden chair under a tree, reading, with her legs
upon another garden chair; and Mrs. Pocket’s two nurse-maids were looking
about them while the children played. “Mamma,” said Herbert,
“this is young Mr. Pip.” Upon which Mrs. Pocket received me with an
appearance of amiable dignity.
“Master Alick and Miss Jane,” cried one of the nurses to two of the
children, “if you go a bouncing up against them bushes you’ll fall
over into the river and be drownded, and what’ll your pa say then?”
At the same time this nurse picked up Mrs. Pocket’s handkerchief, and
said, “If that don’t make six times you’ve dropped it,
Mum!” Upon which Mrs. Pocket laughed and said, “Thank you,
Flopson,” and settling herself in one chair only, resumed her book. Her
countenance immediately assumed a knitted and intent expression as if she had
been reading for a week, but before she could have read half a dozen lines, she
fixed her eyes upon me, and said, “I hope your mamma is quite
well?” This unexpected inquiry put me into such a difficulty that I began
saying in the absurdest way that if there had been any such person I had no
doubt she would have been quite well and would have been very much obliged and
would have sent her compliments, when the nurse came to my rescue.
“Well!” she cried, picking up the pocket-handkerchief, “if
that don’t make seven times! What you a-doing of this
afternoon, Mum!” Mrs. Pocket received her property, at first with a look
of unutterable surprise as if she had never seen it before, and then with a
laugh of recognition, and said, “Thank you, Flopson,” and forgot
me, and went on reading.
I found, now I had leisure to count them, that there were no fewer than six
little Pockets present, in various stages of tumbling up. I had scarcely
arrived at the total when a seventh was heard, as in the region of air, wailing
dolefully.
“If there ain’t Baby!” said Flopson, appearing to think it
most surprising. “Make haste up, Millers.”
Millers, who was the other nurse, retired into the house, and by degrees the
child’s wailing was hushed and stopped, as if it were a young
ventriloquist with something in its mouth. Mrs. Pocket read all the time, and I
was curious to know what the book could be.
We were waiting, I supposed, for Mr. Pocket to come out to us; at any rate we
waited there, and so I had an opportunity of observing the remarkable family
phenomenon that whenever any of the children strayed near Mrs. Pocket in their
play, they always tripped themselves up and tumbled over her,—always very
much to her momentary astonishment, and their own more enduring lamentation. I
was at a loss to account for this surprising circumstance, and could not help
giving my mind to speculations about it, until by and by Millers came down with
the baby, which baby was handed to Flopson, which Flopson was handing it to
Mrs. Pocket, when she too went fairly head foremost over Mrs. Pocket, baby and
all, and was caught by Herbert and myself.
“Gracious me, Flopson!” said Mrs. Pocket, looking off her book for
a moment, “everybody’s tumbling!”
“Gracious you, indeed, Mum!” returned Flopson, very red in the
face; “what have you got there?”
“ got here, Flopson?” asked Mrs. Pocket.
“Why, if it ain’t your footstool!” cried Flopson. “And
if you keep it under your skirts like that, who’s to help tumbling? Here!
Take the baby, Mum, and give me your book.”
Mrs. Pocket acted on the advice, and inexpertly danced the infant a little in
her lap, while the other children played about it. This had lasted but a very
short time, when Mrs. Pocket issued summary orders that they were all to be
taken into the house for a nap. Thus I made the second discovery on that first
occasion, that the nurture of the little Pockets consisted of alternately
tumbling up and lying down.
Under these circumstances, when Flopson and Millers had got the children into
the house, like a little flock of sheep, and Mr. Pocket came out of it to make
my acquaintance, I was not much surprised to find that Mr. Pocket was a
gentleman with a rather perplexed expression of face, and with his very grey
hair disordered on his head, as if he didn’t quite see his way to putting
anything straight.
Chapter XXIII.
Mr.
Pocket said he was glad to see me, and he hoped I was not sorry to see him.
“For, I really am not,” he added, with his son’s smile,
“an alarming personage.” He was a young-looking man, in spite of
his perplexities and his very grey hair, and his manner seemed quite natural. I
use the word natural, in the sense of its being unaffected; there was something
comic in his distraught way, as though it would have been downright ludicrous
but for his own perception that it was very near being so. When he had talked
with me a little, he said to Mrs. Pocket, with a rather anxious contraction of
his eyebrows, which were black and handsome, “Belinda, I hope you have
welcomed Mr. Pip?” And she looked up from her book, and said,
“Yes.” She then smiled upon me in an absent state of mind, and
asked me if I liked the taste of orange-flower water? As the question had no
bearing, near or remote, on any foregone or subsequent transaction, I consider
it to have been thrown out, like her previous approaches, in general
conversational condescension.
I found out within a few hours, and may mention at once, that Mrs. Pocket was
the only daughter of a certain quite accidental deceased Knight, who had
invented for himself a conviction that his deceased father would have been made
a Baronet but for somebody’s determined opposition arising out of
entirely personal motives,—I forget whose, if I ever knew,—the
Sovereign’s, the Prime Minister’s, the Lord Chancellor’s, the
Archbishop of Canterbury’s, anybody’s,—and had tacked himself
on to the nobles of the earth in right of this quite supposititious fact. I
believe he had been knighted himself for storming the English grammar at the
point of the pen, in a desperate address engrossed on vellum, on the occasion
of the laying of the first stone of some building or other, and for handing
some Royal Personage either the trowel or the mortar. Be that as it may, he had
directed Mrs. Pocket to be brought up from her cradle as one who in the nature
of things must marry a title, and who was to be guarded from the acquisition of
plebeian domestic knowledge.
So successful a watch and ward had been established over the young lady by this
judicious parent, that she had grown up highly ornamental, but perfectly
helpless and useless. With her character thus happily formed, in the first
bloom of her youth she had encountered Mr. Pocket: who was also in the first
bloom of youth, and not quite decided whether to mount to the Woolsack, or to
roof himself in with a mitre. As his doing the one or the other was a mere
question of time, he and Mrs. Pocket had taken Time by the forelock (when, to
judge from its length, it would seem to have wanted cutting), and had married
without the knowledge of the judicious parent. The judicious parent, having
nothing to bestow or withhold but his blessing, had handsomely settled that
dower upon them after a short struggle, and had informed Mr. Pocket that his
wife was “a treasure for a Prince.” Mr. Pocket had invested the
Prince’s treasure in the ways of the world ever since, and it was
supposed to have brought him in but indifferent interest. Still, Mrs. Pocket
was in general the object of a queer sort of respectful pity, because she had
not married a title; while Mr. Pocket was the object of a queer sort of
forgiving reproach, because he had never got one.
Mr. Pocket took me into the house and showed me my room: which was a pleasant
one, and so furnished as that I could use it with comfort for my own private
sitting-room. He then knocked at the doors of two other similar rooms, and
introduced me to their occupants, by name Drummle and Startop. Drummle, an
old-looking young man of a heavy order of architecture, was whistling. Startop,
younger in years and appearance, was reading and holding his head, as if he
thought himself in danger of exploding it with too strong a charge of
knowledge.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Pocket had such a noticeable air of being in somebody
else’s hands, that I wondered who really was in possession of the house
and let them live there, until I found this unknown power to be the servants.
It was a smooth way of going on, perhaps, in respect of saving trouble; but it
had the appearance of being expensive, for the servants felt it a duty they
owed to themselves to be nice in their eating and drinking, and to keep a deal
of company downstairs. They allowed a very liberal table to Mr. and Mrs.
Pocket, yet it always appeared to me that by far the best part of the house to
have boarded in would have been the kitchen,—always supposing the boarder
capable of self-defence, for, before I had been there a week, a neighbouring
lady with whom the family were personally unacquainted, wrote in to say that
she had seen Millers slapping the baby. This greatly distressed Mrs. Pocket,
who burst into tears on receiving the note, and said that it was an
extraordinary thing that the neighbours couldn’t mind their own business.
By degrees I learnt, and chiefly from Herbert, that Mr. Pocket had been
educated at Harrow and at Cambridge, where he had distinguished himself; but
that when he had had the happiness of marrying Mrs. Pocket very early in life,
he had impaired his prospects and taken up the calling of a Grinder. After
grinding a number of dull blades,—of whom it was remarkable that their
fathers, when influential, were always going to help him to preferment, but
always forgot to do it when the blades had left the Grindstone,—he had
wearied of that poor work and had come to London. Here, after gradually failing
in loftier hopes, he had “read” with divers who had lacked
opportunities or neglected them, and had refurbished divers others for special
occasions, and had turned his acquirements to the account of literary
compilation and correction, and on such means, added to some very moderate
private resources, still maintained the house I saw.
Mr. and Mrs. Pocket had a toady neighbour; a widow lady of that highly
sympathetic nature that she agreed with everybody, blessed everybody, and shed
smiles and tears on everybody, according to circumstances. This lady’s
name was Mrs. Coiler, and I had the honour of taking her down to dinner on the
day of my installation. She gave me to understand on the stairs, that it was a
blow to dear Mrs. Pocket that dear Mr. Pocket should be under the necessity of
receiving gentlemen to read with him. That did not extend to me, she told me in
a gush of love and confidence (at that time, I had known her something less
than five minutes); if they were all like Me, it would be quite another thing.
“But dear Mrs. Pocket,” said Mrs. Coiler, “after her early
disappointment (not that dear Mr. Pocket was to blame in that), requires so
much luxury and elegance—”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, to stop her, for I was afraid she was
going to cry.
“And she is of so aristocratic a disposition—”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said again, with the same object as before.
“—That it hard,” said Mrs. Coiler, “to have
dear Mr. Pocket’s time and attention diverted from dear Mrs.
Pocket.”
I could not help thinking that it might be harder if the butcher’s time
and attention were diverted from dear Mrs. Pocket; but I said nothing, and
indeed had enough to do in keeping a bashful watch upon my company manners.
It came to my knowledge, through what passed between Mrs. Pocket and Drummle
while I was attentive to my knife and fork, spoon, glasses, and other
instruments of self-destruction, that Drummle, whose Christian name was
Bentley, was actually the next heir but one to a baronetcy. It further appeared
that the book I had seen Mrs. Pocket reading in the garden was all about
titles, and that she knew the exact date at which her grandpapa would have come
into the book, if he ever had come at all. Drummle didn’t say much, but
in his limited way (he struck me as a sulky kind of fellow) he spoke as one of
the elect, and recognised Mrs. Pocket as a woman and a sister. No one but
themselves and Mrs. Coiler the toady neighbour showed any interest in this part
of the conversation, and it appeared to me that it was painful to Herbert; but
it promised to last a long time, when the page came in with the announcement of
a domestic affliction. It was, in effect, that the cook had mislaid the beef.
To my unutterable amazement, I now, for the first time, saw Mr. Pocket relieve
his mind by going through a performance that struck me as very extraordinary,
but which made no impression on anybody else, and with which I soon became as
familiar as the rest. He laid down the carving-knife and fork,—being
engaged in carving, at the moment,—put his two hands into his disturbed
hair, and appeared to make an extraordinary effort to lift himself up by it.
When he had done this, and had not lifted himself up at all, he quietly went on
with what he was about.
Mrs. Coiler then changed the subject and began to flatter me. I liked it for a
few moments, but she flattered me so very grossly that the pleasure was soon
over. She had a serpentine way of coming close at me when she pretended to be
vitally interested in the friends and localities I had left, which was
altogether snaky and fork-tongued; and when she made an occasional bounce upon
Startop (who said very little to her), or upon Drummle (who said less), I
rather envied them for being on the opposite side of the table.
After dinner the children were introduced, and Mrs. Coiler made admiring
comments on their eyes, noses, and legs,—a sagacious way of improving
their minds. There were four little girls, and two little boys, besides the
baby who might have been either, and the baby’s next successor who was as
yet neither. They were brought in by Flopson and Millers, much as though those
two non-commissioned officers had been recruiting somewhere for children and
had enlisted these, while Mrs. Pocket looked at the young Nobles that ought to
have been as if she rather thought she had had the pleasure of inspecting them
before, but didn’t quite know what to make of them.
“Here! Give me your fork, Mum, and take the baby,” said Flopson.
“Don’t take it that way, or you’ll get its head under the
table.”
Thus advised, Mrs. Pocket took it the other way, and got its head upon the
table; which was announced to all present by a prodigious concussion.
“Dear, dear! Give it me back, Mum,” said Flopson; “and Miss
Jane, come and dance to baby, do!”
One of the little girls, a mere mite who seemed to have prematurely taken upon
herself some charge of the others, stepped out of her place by me, and danced
to and from the baby until it left off crying, and laughed. Then, all the
children laughed, and Mr. Pocket (who in the meantime had twice endeavoured to
lift himself up by the hair) laughed, and we all laughed and were glad.
Flopson, by dint of doubling the baby at the joints like a Dutch doll, then got
it safely into Mrs. Pocket’s lap, and gave it the nut-crackers to play
with; at the same time recommending Mrs. Pocket to take notice that the handles
of that instrument were not likely to agree with its eyes, and sharply charging
Miss Jane to look after the same. Then, the two nurses left the room, and had a
lively scuffle on the staircase with a dissipated page who had waited at
dinner, and who had clearly lost half his buttons at the gaming-table.
I was made very uneasy in my mind by Mrs. Pocket’s falling into a
discussion with Drummle respecting two baronetcies, while she ate a sliced
orange steeped in sugar and wine, and, forgetting all about the baby on her
lap, who did most appalling things with the nut-crackers. At length little
Jane, perceiving its young brains to be imperilled, softly left her place, and
with many small artifices coaxed the dangerous weapon away. Mrs. Pocket
finishing her orange at about the same time, and not approving of this, said to
Jane,—
“You naughty child, how dare you? Go and sit down this instant!”
“Mamma dear,” lisped the little girl, “baby ood have put hith
eyeth out.”
“How dare you tell me so?” retorted Mrs. Pocket. “Go and sit
down in your chair this moment!”
Mrs. Pocket’s dignity was so crushing, that I felt quite abashed, as if I
myself had done something to rouse it.
“Belinda,” remonstrated Mr. Pocket, from the other end of the
table, “how can you be so unreasonable? Jane only interfered for the
protection of baby.”
“I will not allow anybody to interfere,” said Mrs. Pocket. “I
am surprised, Matthew, that you should expose me to the affront of
interference.”
“Good God!” cried Mr. Pocket, in an outbreak of desolate
desperation. “Are infants to be nut-crackered into their tombs, and is
nobody to save them?”
“I will not be interfered with by Jane,” said Mrs. Pocket, with a
majestic glance at that innocent little offender. “I hope I know my poor
grandpapa’s position. Jane, indeed!”
Mr. Pocket got his hands in his hair again, and this time really did lift
himself some inches out of his chair. “Hear this!” he helplessly
exclaimed to the elements. “Babies are to be nut-crackered dead, for
people’s poor grandpapa’s positions!” Then he let himself
down again, and became silent.
We all looked awkwardly at the tablecloth while this was going on. A pause
succeeded, during which the honest and irrepressible baby made a series of
leaps and crows at little Jane, who appeared to me to be the only member of the
family (irrespective of servants) with whom it had any decided acquaintance.
“Mr. Drummle,” said Mrs. Pocket, “will you ring for Flopson?
Jane, you undutiful little thing, go and lie down. Now, baby darling, come with
ma!”
The baby was the soul of honour, and protested with all its might. It doubled
itself up the wrong way over Mrs. Pocket’s arm, exhibited a pair of
knitted shoes and dimpled ankles to the company in lieu of its soft face, and
was carried out in the highest state of mutiny. And it gained its point after
all, for I saw it through the window within a few minutes, being nursed by
little Jane.
It happened that the other five children were left behind at the dinner-table,
through Flopson’s having some private engagement, and their not being
anybody else’s business. I thus became aware of the mutual relations
between them and Mr. Pocket, which were exemplified in the following manner.
Mr. Pocket, with the normal perplexity of his face heightened and his hair
rumpled, looked at them for some minutes, as if he couldn’t make out how
they came to be boarding and lodging in that establishment, and why they
hadn’t been billeted by Nature on somebody else. Then, in a distant
Missionary way he asked them certain questions,—as why little Joe had
that hole in his frill, who said, Pa, Flopson was going to mend it when she had
time,—and how little Fanny came by that whitlow, who said, Pa, Millers
was going to poultice it when she didn’t forget. Then, he melted into
parental tenderness, and gave them a shilling apiece and told them to go and
play; and then as they went out, with one very strong effort to lift himself up
by the hair he dismissed the hopeless subject.
In the evening there was rowing on the river. As Drummle and Startop had each a
boat, I resolved to set up mine, and to cut them both out. I was pretty good at
most exercises in which country boys are adepts, but as I was conscious of
wanting elegance of style for the Thames,—not to say for other
waters,—I at once engaged to place myself under the tuition of the winner
of a prize-wherry who plied at our stairs, and to whom I was introduced by my
new allies. This practical authority confused me very much by saying I had the
arm of a blacksmith. If he could have known how nearly the compliment lost him
his pupil, I doubt if he would have paid it.
There was a supper-tray after we got home at night, and I think we should all
have enjoyed ourselves, but for a rather disagreeable domestic occurrence. Mr.
Pocket was in good spirits, when a housemaid came in, and said, “If you
please, sir, I should wish to speak to you.”
“Speak to your master?” said Mrs. Pocket, whose dignity was roused
again. “How can you think of such a thing? Go and speak to Flopson. Or
speak to me—at some other time.”
“Begging your pardon, ma’am,” returned the housemaid,
“I should wish to speak at once, and to speak to master.”
Hereupon, Mr. Pocket went out of the room, and we made the best of ourselves
until he came back.
“This is a pretty thing, Belinda!” said Mr. Pocket, returning with
a countenance expressive of grief and despair. “Here’s the cook
lying insensibly drunk on the kitchen floor, with a large bundle of fresh
butter made up in the cupboard ready to sell for grease!”
Mrs. Pocket instantly showed much amiable emotion, and said, “This is
that odious Sophia’s doing!”
“What do you mean, Belinda?” demanded Mr. Pocket.
“Sophia has told you,” said Mrs. Pocket. “Did I not see her
with my own eyes and hear her with my own ears, come into the room just now and
ask to speak to you?”
“But has she not taken me downstairs, Belinda,” returned Mr.
Pocket, “and shown me the woman, and the bundle too?”
“And do you defend her, Matthew,” said Mrs. Pocket, “for
making mischief?”
Mr. Pocket uttered a dismal groan.
“Am I, grandpapa’s granddaughter, to be nothing in the
house?” said Mrs. Pocket. “Besides, the cook has always been a very
nice respectful woman, and said in the most natural manner when she came to
look after the situation, that she felt I was born to be a Duchess.”
There was a sofa where Mr. Pocket stood, and he dropped upon it in the attitude
of the Dying Gladiator. Still in that attitude he said, with a hollow voice,
“Good night, Mr. Pip,” when I deemed it advisable to go to bed and
leave him.
Chapter XXIV.
After
two or three days, when I had established myself in my room and had gone
backwards and forwards to London several times, and had ordered all I wanted of
my tradesmen, Mr. Pocket and I had a long talk together. He knew more of my
intended career than I knew myself, for he referred to his having been told by
Mr. Jaggers that I was not designed for any profession, and that I should be
well enough educated for my destiny if I could “hold my own” with
the average of young men in prosperous circumstances. I acquiesced, of course,
knowing nothing to the contrary.
He advised my attending certain places in London, for the acquisition of such
mere rudiments as I wanted, and my investing him with the functions of
explainer and director of all my studies. He hoped that with intelligent
assistance I should meet with little to discourage me, and should soon be able
to dispense with any aid but his. Through his way of saying this, and much more
to similar purpose, he placed himself on confidential terms with me in an
admirable manner; and I may state at once that he was always so zealous and
honourable in fulfilling his compact with me, that he made me zealous and
honourable in fulfilling mine with him. If he had shown indifference as a
master, I have no doubt I should have returned the compliment as a pupil; he
gave me no such excuse, and each of us did the other justice. Nor did I ever
regard him as having anything ludicrous about him—or anything but what
was serious, honest, and good—in his tutor communication with me.
When these points were settled, and so far carried out as that I had begun to
work in earnest, it occurred to me that if I could retain my bedroom in
Barnard’s Inn, my life would be agreeably varied, while my manners would
be none the worse for Herbert’s society. Mr. Pocket did not object to
this arrangement, but urged that before any step could possibly be taken in it,
it must be submitted to my guardian. I felt that this delicacy arose out of the
consideration that the plan would save Herbert some expense, so I went off to
Little Britain and imparted my wish to Mr. Jaggers.
“If I could buy the furniture now hired for me,” said I, “and
one or two other little things, I should be quite at home there.”
“Go it!” said Mr. Jaggers, with a short laugh. “I told you
you’d get on. Well! How much do you want?”
I said I didn’t know how much.
“Come!” retorted Mr. Jaggers. “How much? Fifty pounds?”
“O, not nearly so much.”
“Five pounds?” said Mr. Jaggers.
This was such a great fall, that I said in discomfiture, “O, more than
that.”
“More than that, eh!” retorted Mr. Jaggers, lying in wait for me,
with his hands in his pockets, his head on one side, and his eyes on the wall
behind me; “how much more?”
“It is so difficult to fix a sum,” said I, hesitating.
“Come!” said Mr. Jaggers. “Let’s get at it. Twice five;
will that do? Three times five; will that do? Four times five; will that
do?”
I said I thought that would do handsomely.
“Four times five will do handsomely, will it?” said Mr. Jaggers,
knitting his brows. “Now, what do you make of four times five?”
“What do I make of it?”
“Ah!” said Mr. Jaggers; “how much?”
“I suppose you make it twenty pounds,” said I, smiling.
“Never mind what make it, my friend,” observed Mr.
Jaggers, with a knowing and contradictory toss of his head. “I want to
know what make it.”
“Twenty pounds, of course.”
“Wemmick!” said Mr. Jaggers, opening his office door. “Take
Mr. Pip’s written order, and pay him twenty pounds.”
This strongly marked way of doing business made a strongly marked impression on
me, and that not of an agreeable kind. Mr. Jaggers never laughed; but he wore
great bright creaking boots, and, in poising himself on these boots, with his
large head bent down and his eyebrows joined together, awaiting an answer, he
sometimes caused the boots to creak, as if laughed in a dry and
suspicious way. As he happened to go out now, and as Wemmick was brisk and
talkative, I said to Wemmick that I hardly knew what to make of Mr.
Jaggers’s manner.
“Tell him that, and he’ll take it as a compliment,” answered
Wemmick; “he don’t mean that you know what to make of
it.—Oh!” for I looked surprised, “it’s not personal;
it’s professional: only professional.”
Wemmick was at his desk, lunching—and crunching—on a dry hard
biscuit; pieces of which he threw from time to time into his slit of a mouth,
as if he were posting them.
“Always seems to me,” said Wemmick, “as if he had set a
man-trap and was watching it. Suddenly—click—you’re
caught!”
Without remarking that man-traps were not among the amenities of life, I said I
supposed he was very skilful?
“Deep,” said Wemmick, “as Australia.” Pointing with his
pen at the office floor, to express that Australia was understood, for the
purposes of the figure, to be symmetrically on the opposite spot of the globe.
“If there was anything deeper,” added Wemmick, bringing his pen to
paper, “he’d be it.”
Then, I said I supposed he had a fine business, and Wemmick said,
“Ca-pi-tal!” Then I asked if there were many clerks? to which he
replied,—
“We don’t run much into clerks, because there’s only one
Jaggers, and people won’t have him at second hand. There are only four of
us. Would you like to see ’em? You are one of us, as I may say.”
I accepted the offer. When Mr. Wemmick had put all the biscuit into the post,
and had paid me my money from a cash-box in a safe, the key of which safe he
kept somewhere down his back and produced from his coat-collar like an
iron-pigtail, we went upstairs. The house was dark and shabby, and the greasy
shoulders that had left their mark in Mr. Jaggers’s room seemed to have
been shuffling up and down the staircase for years. In the front first floor, a
clerk who looked something between a publican and a rat-catcher—a large
pale, puffed, swollen man—was attentively engaged with three or four
people of shabby appearance, whom he treated as unceremoniously as everybody
seemed to be treated who contributed to Mr. Jaggers’s coffers.
“Getting evidence together,” said Mr. Wemmick, as we came out,
“for the Bailey.” In the room over that, a little flabby terrier of
a clerk with dangling hair (his cropping seemed to have been forgotten when he
was a puppy) was similarly engaged with a man with weak eyes, whom Mr. Wemmick
presented to me as a smelter who kept his pot always boiling, and who would
melt me anything I pleased,—and who was in an excessive
white-perspiration, as if he had been trying his art on himself. In a back
room, a high-shouldered man with a face-ache tied up in dirty flannel, who was
dressed in old black clothes that bore the appearance of having been waxed, was
stooping over his work of making fair copies of the notes of the other two
gentlemen, for Mr. Jaggers’s own use.
This was all the establishment. When we went downstairs again, Wemmick led me
into my guardian’s room, and said, “This you’ve seen
already.”
“Pray,” said I, as the two odious casts with the twitchy leer upon
them caught my sight again, “whose likenesses are those?”
“These?” said Wemmick, getting upon a chair, and blowing the dust
off the horrible heads before bringing them down. “These are two
celebrated ones. Famous clients of ours that got us a world of credit. This
chap (why you must have come down in the night and been peeping into the
inkstand, to get this blot upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered his
master, and, considering that he wasn’t brought up to evidence,
didn’t plan it badly.”
“Is it like him?” I asked, recoiling from the brute, as Wemmick
spat upon his eyebrow and gave it a rub with his sleeve.
“Like him? It’s himself, you know. The cast was made in Newgate,
directly after he was taken down. You had a particular fancy for me,
hadn’t you, Old Artful?” said Wemmick. He then explained this
affectionate apostrophe, by touching his brooch representing the lady and the
weeping willow at the tomb with the urn upon it, and saying, “Had it made
for me, express!”
“Is the lady anybody?” said I.
“No,” returned Wemmick. “Only his game. (You liked your bit
of game, didn’t you?) No; deuce a bit of a lady in the case, Mr. Pip,
except one,—and she wasn’t of this slender lady-like sort, and you
wouldn’t have caught looking after this urn, unless there was
something to drink in it.” Wemmick’s attention being thus directed
to his brooch, he put down the cast, and polished the brooch with his
pocket-handkerchief.
“Did that other creature come to the same end?” I asked. “He
has the same look.”
“You’re right,” said Wemmick; “it’s the genuine
look. Much as if one nostril was caught up with a horse-hair and a little
fish-hook. Yes, he came to the same end; quite the natural end here, I assure
you. He forged wills, this blade did, if he didn’t also put the supposed
testators to sleep too. You were a gentlemanly Cove, though” (Mr. Wemmick
was again apostrophising), “and you said you could write Greek. Yah,
Bounceable! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you!” Before
putting his late friend on his shelf again, Wemmick touched the largest of his
mourning rings and said, “Sent out to buy it for me, only the day
before.”
While he was putting up the other cast and coming down from the chair, the
thought crossed my mind that all his personal jewelry was derived from like
sources. As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I ventured on the
liberty of asking him the question, when he stood before me, dusting his hands.
“O yes,” he returned, “these are all gifts of that kind. One
brings another, you see; that’s the way of it. I always take ’em.
They’re curiosities. And they’re property. They may not be worth
much, but, after all, they’re property and portable. It don’t
signify to you with your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star
always is, ‘Get hold of portable property’.”
When I had rendered homage to this light, he went on to say, in a friendly
manner:—
“If at any odd time when you have nothing better to do, you
wouldn’t mind coming over to see me at Walworth, I could offer you a bed,
and I should consider it an honour. I have not much to show you; but such two
or three curiosities as I have got you might like to look over; and I am fond
of a bit of garden and a summer-house.”
I said I should be delighted to accept his hospitality.
“Thankee,” said he; “then we’ll consider that
it’s to come off, when convenient to you. Have you dined with Mr. Jaggers
yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Well,” said Wemmick, “he’ll give you wine, and good
wine. I’ll give you punch, and not bad punch. And now I’ll tell you
something. When you go to dine with Mr. Jaggers, look at his
housekeeper.”
“Shall I see something very uncommon?”
“Well,” said Wemmick, “you’ll see a wild beast tamed.
Not so very uncommon, you’ll tell me. I reply, that depends on the
original wildness of the beast, and the amount of taming. It won’t lower
your opinion of Mr. Jaggers’s powers. Keep your eye on it.”
I told him I would do so, with all the interest and curiosity that his
preparation awakened. As I was taking my departure, he asked me if I would like
to devote five minutes to seeing Mr. Jaggers “at it?”
For several reasons, and not least because I didn’t clearly know what Mr.
Jaggers would be found to be “at,” I replied in the affirmative. We
dived into the City, and came up in a crowded police-court, where a
blood-relation (in the murderous sense) of the deceased, with the fanciful
taste in brooches, was standing at the bar, uncomfortably chewing something;
while my guardian had a woman under examination or cross-examination,—I
don’t know which,—and was striking her, and the bench, and
everybody present, with awe. If anybody, of whatsoever degree, said a word that
he didn’t approve of, he instantly required to have it “taken
down.” If anybody wouldn’t make an admission, he said,
“I’ll have it out of you!” and if anybody made an admission,
he said, “Now I have got you!” The magistrates shivered under a
single bite of his finger. Thieves and thief-takers hung in dread rapture on
his words, and shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction.
Which side he was on I couldn’t make out, for he seemed to me to be
grinding the whole place in a mill; I only know that when I stole out on
tiptoe, he was not on the side of the bench; for, he was making the legs of the
old gentleman who presided, quite convulsive under the table, by his
denunciations of his conduct as the representative of British law and justice
in that chair that day.
Chapter XXV.
Bentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even took up
a book as if its writer had done him an injury, did not take up an acquaintance
in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement, and
comprehension,—in the sluggish complexion of his face, and in the large,
awkward tongue that seemed to loll about in his mouth as he himself lolled
about in a room,—he was idle, proud, niggardly, reserved, and suspicious.
He came of rich people down in Somersetshire, who had nursed this combination
of qualities until they made the discovery that it was just of age and a
blockhead. Thus, Bentley Drummle had come to Mr. Pocket when he was a head
taller than that gentleman, and half a dozen heads thicker than most gentlemen.
Startop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at home when he ought to have
been at school, but he was devotedly attached to her, and admired her beyond
measure. He had a woman’s delicacy of feature, and was—“as
you may see, though you never saw her,” said Herbert to
me—“exactly like his mother.” It was but natural that I
should take to him much more kindly than to Drummle, and that, even in the
earliest evenings of our boating, he and I should pull homeward abreast of one
another, conversing from boat to boat, while Bentley Drummle came up in our
wake alone, under the overhanging banks and among the rushes. He would always
creep in-shore like some uncomfortable amphibious creature, even when the tide
would have sent him fast upon his way; and I always think of him as coming
after us in the dark or by the back-water, when our own two boats were breaking
the sunset or the moonlight in mid-stream.
Herbert was my intimate companion and friend. I presented him with a half-share
in my boat, which was the occasion of his often coming down to Hammersmith; and
my possession of a half-share in his chambers often took me up to London. We
used to walk between the two places at all hours. I have an affection for the
road yet (though it is not so pleasant a road as it was then), formed in the
impressibility of untried youth and hope.
When I had been in Mr. Pocket’s family a month or two, Mr. and Mrs.
Camilla turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocket’s sister. Georgiana, whom I had
seen at Miss Havisham’s on the same occasion, also turned up. She was a
cousin,—an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity religion,
and her liver love. These people hated me with the hatred of cupidity and
disappointment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon me in my prosperity
with the basest meanness. Towards Mr. Pocket, as a grown-up infant with no
notion of his own interests, they showed the complacent forbearance I had heard
them express. Mrs. Pocket they held in contempt; but they allowed the poor soul
to have been heavily disappointed in life, because that shed a feeble reflected
light upon themselves.
These were the surroundings among which I settled down, and applied myself to
my education. I soon contracted expensive habits, and began to spend an amount
of money that within a few short months I should have thought almost fabulous;
but through good and evil I stuck to my books. There was no other merit in
this, than my having sense enough to feel my deficiencies. Between Mr. Pocket
and Herbert I got on fast; and, with one or the other always at my elbow to
give me the start I wanted, and clear obstructions out of my road, I must have
been as great a dolt as Drummle if I had done less.
I had not seen Mr. Wemmick for some weeks, when I thought I would write him a
note and propose to go home with him on a certain evening. He replied that it
would give him much pleasure, and that he would expect me at the office at six
o’clock. Thither I went, and there I found him, putting the key of his
safe down his back as the clock struck.
“Did you think of walking down to Walworth?” said he.
“Certainly,” said I, “if you approve.”
“Very much,” was Wemmick’s reply, “for I have had my
legs under the desk all day, and shall be glad to stretch them. Now, I’ll
tell you what I have got for supper, Mr. Pip. I have got a stewed
steak,—which is of home preparation,—and a cold roast
fowl,—which is from the cook’s-shop. I think it’s tender,
because the master of the shop was a Juryman in some cases of ours the other
day, and we let him down easy. I reminded him of it when I bought the fowl, and
I said, “Pick us out a good one, old Briton, because if we had chosen to
keep you in the box another day or two, we could easily have done it.” He
said to that, “Let me make you a present of the best fowl in the
shop.” I let him, of course. As far as it goes, it’s property and
portable. You don’t object to an aged parent, I hope?”
I really thought he was still speaking of the fowl, until he added,
“Because I have got an aged parent at my place.” I then said what
politeness required.
“So, you haven’t dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?” he pursued, as
we walked along.
“Not yet.”
“He told me so this afternoon when he heard you were coming. I expect
you’ll have an invitation to-morrow. He’s going to ask your pals,
too. Three of ’em; ain’t there?”
Although I was not in the habit of counting Drummle as one of my intimate
associates, I answered, “Yes.”
“Well, he’s going to ask the whole gang,”—I hardly felt
complimented by the word,—“and whatever he gives you, he’ll
give you good. Don’t look forward to variety, but you’ll have
excellence. And there’s another rum thing in his house,” proceeded
Wemmick, after a moment’s pause, as if the remark followed on the
housekeeper understood; “he never lets a door or window be fastened at
night.”
“Is he never robbed?”
“That’s it!” returned Wemmick. “He says, and gives it
out publicly, “I want to see the man who’ll rob .”
Lord bless you, I have heard him, a hundred times, if I have heard him once,
say to regular cracksmen in our front office, “You know where I live;
now, no bolt is ever drawn there; why don’t you do a stroke of business
with me? Come; can’t I tempt you?” Not a man of them, sir, would be
bold enough to try it on, for love or money.”
“They dread him so much?” said I.
“Dread him,” said Wemmick. “I believe you they dread him. Not
but what he’s artful, even in his defiance of them. No silver, sir.
Britannia metal, every spoon.”
“So they wouldn’t have much,” I observed, “even if
they—”
“Ah! But would have much,” said Wemmick, cutting me
short, “and they know it. He’d have their lives, and the lives of
scores of ’em. He’d have all he could get. And it’s
impossible to say what he couldn’t get, if he gave his mind to it.”
I was falling into meditation on my guardian’s greatness, when Wemmick
remarked:—
“As to the absence of plate, that’s only his natural depth, you
know. A river’s its natural depth, and he’s his natural depth. Look
at his watch-chain. That’s real enough.”
“It’s very massive,” said I.
“Massive?” repeated Wemmick. “I think so. And his watch is a
gold repeater, and worth a hundred pound if it’s worth a penny. Mr. Pip,
there are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about that
watch; there’s not a man, a woman, or a child, among them, who
wouldn’t identify the smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it
was red hot, if inveigled into touching it.”
At first with such discourse, and afterwards with conversation of a more
general nature, did Mr. Wemmick and I beguile the time and the road, until he
gave me to understand that we had arrived in the district of Walworth.
It appeared to be a collection of back lanes, ditches, and little gardens, and
to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement. Wemmick’s house was a
little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was
cut out and painted like a battery mounted with guns.
“My own doing,” said Wemmick. “Looks pretty; don’t
it?”
I highly commended it, I think it was the smallest house I ever saw; with the
queerest gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham), and a gothic
door almost too small to get in at.
“That’s a real flagstaff, you see,” said Wemmick, “and
on Sundays I run up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this
bridge, I hoist it up—so—and cut off the communication.”
The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and two
deep. But it was very pleasant to see the pride with which he hoisted it up and
made it fast; smiling as he did so, with a relish and not merely mechanically.
“At nine o’clock every night, Greenwich time,” said Wemmick,
“the gun fires. There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think
you’ll say he’s a Stinger.”
The piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress,
constructed of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by an ingenious
little tarpaulin contrivance in the nature of an umbrella.
“Then, at the back,” said Wemmick, “out of sight, so as not
to impede the idea of fortifications,—for it’s a principle with me,
if you have an idea, carry it out and keep it up,—I don’t know
whether that’s your opinion—”
I said, decidedly.
“—At the back, there’s a pig, and there are fowls and
rabbits; then, I knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow
cucumbers; and you’ll judge at supper what sort of a salad I can raise.
So, sir,” said Wemmick, smiling again, but seriously too, as he shook his
head, “if you can suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a
devil of a time in point of provisions.”
Then, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off, but which was
approached by such ingenious twists of path that it took quite a long time to
get at; and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth. Our punch was
cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower was raised. This piece
of water (with an island in the middle which might have been the salad for
supper) was of a circular form, and he had constructed a fountain in it, which,
when you set a little mill going and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that
powerful extent that it made the back of your hand quite wet.
“I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and my
own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades,” said Wemmick, in
acknowledging my compliments. “Well; it’s a good thing, you know.
It brushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged. You wouldn’t
mind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It wouldn’t put you
out?”
I expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the castle. There we found,
sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat: clean, cheerful,
comfortable, and well cared for, but intensely deaf.
“Well aged parent,” said Wemmick, shaking hands with him in a
cordial and jocose way, “how am you?”
“All right, John; all right!” replied the old man.
“Here’s Mr. Pip, aged parent,” said Wemmick, “and I
wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that’s what he
likes. Nod away at him, if you please, like winking!”
“This is a fine place of my son’s, sir,” cried the old man,
while I nodded as hard as I possibly could. “This is a pretty
pleasure-ground, sir. This spot and these beautiful works upon it ought to be
kept together by the Nation, after my son’s time, for the people’s
enjoyment.”
“You’re as proud of it as Punch; ain’t you, Aged?” said
Wemmick, contemplating the old man, with his hard face really softened;
“ a nod for you;” giving him a tremendous one;
“ another for you;” giving him a still more
tremendous one; “you like that, don’t you? If you’re not
tired, Mr. Pip—though I know it’s tiring to strangers—will
you tip him one more? You can’t think how it pleases him.”
I tipped him several more, and he was in great spirits. We left him bestirring
himself to feed the fowls, and we sat down to our punch in the arbour; where
Wemmick told me, as he smoked a pipe, that it had taken him a good many years
to bring the property up to its present pitch of perfection.
“Is it your own, Mr. Wemmick?”
“O yes,” said Wemmick, “I have got hold of it, a bit at a
time. It’s a freehold, by George!”
“Is it indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it?”
“Never seen it,” said Wemmick. “Never heard of it. Never seen
the Aged. Never heard of him. No; the office is one thing, and private life is
another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I
come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If it’s not in any
way disagreeable to you, you’ll oblige me by doing the same. I
don’t wish it professionally spoken about.”
Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of his request. The
punch being very nice, we sat there drinking it and talking, until it was
almost nine o’clock. “Getting near gun-fire,” said Wemmick
then, as he laid down his pipe; “it’s the Aged’s
treat.”
Proceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged heating the poker, with
expectant eyes, as a preliminary to the performance of this great nightly
ceremony. Wemmick stood with his watch in his hand until the moment was come
for him to take the red-hot poker from the Aged, and repair to the battery. He
took it, and went out, and presently the Stinger went off with a Bang that
shook the crazy little box of a cottage as if it must fall to pieces, and made
every glass and teacup in it ring. Upon this, the Aged—who I believe
would have been blown out of his arm-chair but for holding on by the
elbows—cried out exultingly, “He’s fired! I heerd him!”
and I nodded at the old gentleman until it is no figure of speech to declare
that I absolutely could not see him.
The interval between that time and supper Wemmick devoted to showing me his
collection of curiosities. They were mostly of a felonious character;
comprising the pen with which a celebrated forgery had been committed, a
distinguished razor or two, some locks of hair, and several manuscript
confessions written under condemnation,—upon which Mr. Wemmick set
particular value as being, to use his own words, “every one of ’em
Lies, sir.” These were agreeably dispersed among small specimens of china
and glass, various neat trifles made by the proprietor of the museum, and some
tobacco-stoppers carved by the Aged. They were all displayed in that chamber of
the Castle into which I had been first inducted, and which served, not only as
the general sitting-room but as the kitchen too, if I might judge from a
saucepan on the hob, and a brazen bijou over the fireplace designed for the
suspension of a roasting-jack.
There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after the Aged in the
day. When she had laid the supper-cloth, the bridge was lowered to give her
means of egress, and she withdrew for the night. The supper was excellent; and
though the Castle was rather subject to dry-rot insomuch that it tasted like a
bad nut, and though the pig might have been farther off, I was heartily pleased
with my whole entertainment. Nor was there any drawback on my little turret
bedroom, beyond there being such a very thin ceiling between me and the
flagstaff, that when I lay down on my back in bed, it seemed as if I had to
balance that pole on my forehead all night.
Wemmick was up early in the morning, and I am afraid I heard him cleaning my
boots. After that, he fell to gardening, and I saw him from my gothic window
pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at him in a most devoted manner. Our
breakfast was as good as the supper, and at half-past eight precisely we
started for Little Britain. By degrees, Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went
along, and his mouth tightened into a post-office again. At last, when we got
to his place of business and he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he
looked as unconscious of his Walworth property as if the Castle and the
drawbridge and the arbour and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all
been blown into space together by the last discharge of the Stinger.
Chapter XXVI.
It
fell out as Wemmick had told me it would, that I had an early opportunity of
comparing my guardian’s establishment with that of his cashier and clerk.
My guardian was in his room, washing his hands with his scented soap, when I
went into the office from Walworth; and he called me to him, and gave me the
invitation for myself and friends which Wemmick had prepared me to receive.
“No ceremony,” he stipulated, “and no dinner dress, and say
to-morrow.” I asked him where we should come to (for I had no idea where
he lived), and I believe it was in his general objection to make anything like
an admission, that he replied, “Come here, and I’ll take you home
with me.” I embrace this opportunity of remarking that he washed his
clients off, as if he were a surgeon or a dentist. He had a closet in his room,
fitted up for the purpose, which smelt of the scented soap like a
perfumer’s shop. It had an unusually large jack-towel on a roller inside
the door, and he would wash his hands, and wipe them and dry them all over this
towel, whenever he came in from a police court or dismissed a client from his
room. When I and my friends repaired to him at six o’clock next day, he
seemed to have been engaged on a case of a darker complexion than usual, for we
found him with his head butted into this closet, not only washing his hands,
but laving his face and gargling his throat. And even when he had done all
that, and had gone all round the jack-towel, he took out his penknife and
scraped the case out of his nails before he put his coat on.
There were some people slinking about as usual when we passed out into the
street, who were evidently anxious to speak with him; but there was something
so conclusive in the halo of scented soap which encircled his presence, that
they gave it up for that day. As we walked along westward, he was recognised
ever and again by some face in the crowd of the streets, and whenever that
happened he talked louder to me; but he never otherwise recognised anybody, or
took notice that anybody recognised him.
He conducted us to Gerrard Street, Soho, to a house on the south side of that
street. Rather a stately house of its kind, but dolefully in want of painting,
and with dirty windows. He took out his key and opened the door, and we all
went into a stone hall, bare, gloomy, and little used. So, up a dark brown
staircase into a series of three dark brown rooms on the first floor. There
were carved garlands on the panelled walls, and as he stood among them giving
us welcome, I know what kind of loops I thought they looked like.
Dinner was laid in the best of these rooms; the second was his dressing-room;
the third, his bedroom. He told us that he held the whole house, but rarely
used more of it than we saw. The table was comfortably laid—no silver in
the service, of course—and at the side of his chair was a capacious
dumb-waiter, with a variety of bottles and decanters on it, and four dishes of
fruit for dessert. I noticed throughout, that he kept everything under his own
hand, and distributed everything himself.
There was a bookcase in the room; I saw from the backs of the books, that they
were about evidence, criminal law, criminal biography, trials, acts of
Parliament, and such things. The furniture was all very solid and good, like
his watch-chain. It had an official look, however, and there was nothing merely
ornamental to be seen. In a corner was a little table of papers with a shaded
lamp: so that he seemed to bring the office home with him in that respect too,
and to wheel it out of an evening and fall to work.
As he had scarcely seen my three companions until now,—for he and I had
walked together,—he stood on the hearth-rug, after ringing the bell, and
took a searching look at them. To my surprise, he seemed at once to be
principally if not solely interested in Drummle.
“Pip,” said he, putting his large hand on my shoulder and moving me
to the window, “I don’t know one from the other. Who’s the
Spider?”
“The spider?” said I.
“The blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow.”
“That’s Bentley Drummle,” I replied; “the one with the
delicate face is Startop.”
Not making the least account of “the one with the delicate face,”
he returned, “Bentley Drummle is his name, is it? I like the look of that
fellow.”
He immediately began to talk to Drummle: not at all deterred by his replying in
his heavy reticent way, but apparently led on by it to screw discourse out of
him. I was looking at the two, when there came between me and them the
housekeeper, with the first dish for the table.
She was a woman of about forty, I supposed,—but I may have thought her
younger than she was. Rather tall, of a lithe nimble figure, extremely pale,
with large faded eyes, and a quantity of streaming hair. I cannot say whether
any diseased affection of the heart caused her lips to be parted as if she were
panting, and her face to bear a curious expression of suddenness and flutter;
but I know that I had been to see Macbeth at the theatre, a night or two
before, and that her face looked to me as if it were all disturbed by fiery
air, like the faces I had seen rise out of the Witches’ caldron.
She set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on the arm with a finger to
notify that dinner was ready, and vanished. We took our seats at the round
table, and my guardian kept Drummle on one side of him, while Startop sat on
the other. It was a noble dish of fish that the housekeeper had put on table,
and we had a joint of equally choice mutton afterwards, and then an equally
choice bird. Sauces, wines, all the accessories we wanted, and all of the best,
were given out by our host from his dumb-waiter; and when they had made the
circuit of the table, he always put them back again. Similarly, he dealt us
clean plates and knives and forks, for each course, and dropped those just
disused into two baskets on the ground by his chair. No other attendant than
the housekeeper appeared. She set on every dish; and I always saw in her face,
a face rising out of the caldron. Years afterwards, I made a dreadful likeness
of that woman, by causing a face that had no other natural resemblance to it
than it derived from flowing hair to pass behind a bowl of flaming spirits in a
dark room.
Induced to take particular notice of the housekeeper, both by her own striking
appearance and by Wemmick’s preparation, I observed that whenever she was
in the room she kept her eyes attentively on my guardian, and that she would
remove her hands from any dish she put before him, hesitatingly, as if she
dreaded his calling her back, and wanted him to speak when she was nigh, if he
had anything to say. I fancied that I could detect in his manner a
consciousness of this, and a purpose of always holding her in suspense.
Dinner went off gayly, and although my guardian seemed to follow rather than
originate subjects, I knew that he wrenched the weakest part of our
dispositions out of us. For myself, I found that I was expressing my tendency
to lavish expenditure, and to patronise Herbert, and to boast of my great
prospects, before I quite knew that I had opened my lips. It was so with all of
us, but with no one more than Drummle: the development of whose inclination to
gird in a grudging and suspicious way at the rest, was screwed out of him
before the fish was taken off.
It was not then, but when we had got to the cheese, that our conversation
turned upon our rowing feats, and that Drummle was rallied for coming up behind
of a night in that slow amphibious way of his. Drummle upon this, informed our
host that he much preferred our room to our company, and that as to skill he
was more than our master, and that as to strength he could scatter us like
chaff. By some invisible agency, my guardian wound him up to a pitch little
short of ferocity about this trifle; and he fell to baring and spanning his arm
to show how muscular it was, and we all fell to baring and spanning our arms in
a ridiculous manner.
Now the housekeeper was at that time clearing the table; my guardian, taking no
heed of her, but with the side of his face turned from her, was leaning back in
his chair biting the side of his forefinger and showing an interest in Drummle,
that, to me, was quite inexplicable. Suddenly, he clapped his large hand on the
housekeeper’s, like a trap, as she stretched it across the table. So
suddenly and smartly did he do this, that we all stopped in our foolish
contention.
“If you talk of strength,” said Mr. Jaggers,
“’ll show you a wrist. Molly, let them see your
wrist.”
Her entrapped hand was on the table, but she had already put her other hand
behind her waist. “Master,” she said, in a low voice, with her eyes
attentively and entreatingly fixed upon him. “Don’t.”
“’ll show you a wrist,” repeated Mr. Jaggers, with an
immovable determination to show it. “Molly, let them see your
wrist.”
“Master,” she again murmured. “Please!”
“Molly,” said Mr. Jaggers, not looking at her, but obstinately
looking at the opposite side of the room, “let them see your
wrists. Show them. Come!”
He took his hand from hers, and turned that wrist up on the table. She brought
her other hand from behind her, and held the two out side by side. The last
wrist was much disfigured,—deeply scarred and scarred across and across.
When she held her hands out she took her eyes from Mr. Jaggers, and turned them
watchfully on every one of the rest of us in succession.
“There’s power here,” said Mr. Jaggers, coolly tracing out
the sinews with his forefinger. “Very few men have the power of wrist
that this woman has. It’s remarkable what mere force of grip there is in
these hands. I have had occasion to notice many hands; but I never saw stronger
in that respect, man’s or woman’s, than these.”
While he said these words in a leisurely, critical style, she continued to look
at every one of us in regular succession as we sat. The moment he ceased, she
looked at him again. “That’ll do, Molly,” said Mr. Jaggers,
giving her a slight nod; “you have been admired, and can go.” She
withdrew her hands and went out of the room, and Mr. Jaggers, putting the
decanters on from his dumb-waiter, filled his glass and passed round the wine.
“At half-past nine, gentlemen,” said he, “we must break up.
Pray make the best use of your time. I am glad to see you all. Mr. Drummle, I
drink to you.”
If his object in singling out Drummle were to bring him out still more, it
perfectly succeeded. In a sulky triumph, Drummle showed his morose depreciation
of the rest of us, in a more and more offensive degree, until he became
downright intolerable. Through all his stages, Mr. Jaggers followed him with
the same strange interest. He actually seemed to serve as a zest to Mr.
Jaggers’s wine.
In our boyish want of discretion I dare say we took too much to drink, and I
know we talked too much. We became particularly hot upon some boorish sneer of
Drummle’s, to the effect that we were too free with our money. It led to
my remarking, with more zeal than discretion, that it came with a bad grace
from him, to whom Startop had lent money in my presence but a week or so
before.
“Well,” retorted Drummle; “he’ll be paid.”
“I don’t mean to imply that he won’t,” said I,
“but it might make you hold your tongue about us and our money, I should
think.”
“ should think!” retorted Drummle. “Oh Lord!”
“I dare say,” I went on, meaning to be very severe, “that you
wouldn’t lend money to any of us if we wanted it.”
“You are right,” said Drummle. “I wouldn’t lend one of
you a sixpence. I wouldn’t lend anybody a sixpence.”
“Rather mean to borrow under those circumstances, I should say.”
“ should say,” repeated Drummle. “Oh Lord!”
This was so very aggravating—the more especially as I found myself making
no way against his surly obtuseness—that I said, disregarding
Herbert’s efforts to check me,—
“Come, Mr. Drummle, since we are on the subject, I’ll tell you what
passed between Herbert here and me, when you borrowed that money.”
“ don’t want to know what passed between Herbert there and
you,” growled Drummle. And I think he added in a lower growl, that we
might both go to the devil and shake ourselves.
“I’ll tell you, however,” said I, “whether you want to
know or not. We said that as you put it in your pocket very glad to get it, you
seemed to be immensely amused at his being so weak as to lend it.”
Drummle laughed outright, and sat laughing in our faces, with his hands in his
pockets and his round shoulders raised; plainly signifying that it was quite
true, and that he despised us as asses all.
Hereupon Startop took him in hand, though with a much better grace than I had
shown, and exhorted him to be a little more agreeable. Startop, being a lively,
bright young fellow, and Drummle being the exact opposite, the latter was
always disposed to resent him as a direct personal affront. He now retorted in
a coarse, lumpish way, and Startop tried to turn the discussion aside with some
small pleasantry that made us all laugh. Resenting this little success more
than anything, Drummle, without any threat or warning, pulled his hands out of
his pockets, dropped his round shoulders, swore, took up a large glass, and
would have flung it at his adversary’s head, but for our
entertainer’s dexterously seizing it at the instant when it was raised
for that purpose.
“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Jaggers, deliberately putting down the glass,
and hauling out his gold repeater by its massive chain, “I am exceedingly
sorry to announce that it’s half past nine.”
On this hint we all rose to depart. Before we got to the street door, Startop
was cheerily calling Drummle “old boy,” as if nothing had happened.
But the old boy was so far from responding, that he would not even walk to
Hammersmith on the same side of the way; so Herbert and I, who remained in
town, saw them going down the street on opposite sides; Startop leading, and
Drummle lagging behind in the shadow of the houses, much as he was wont to
follow in his boat.
As the door was not yet shut, I thought I would leave Herbert there for a
moment, and run upstairs again to say a word to my guardian. I found him in his
dressing-room surrounded by his stock of boots, already hard at it, washing his
hands of us.
I told him I had come up again to say how sorry I was that anything
disagreeable should have occurred, and that I hoped he would not blame me much.
“Pooh!” said he, sluicing his face, and speaking through the
water-drops; “it’s nothing, Pip. I like that Spider though.”
He had turned towards me now, and was shaking his head, and blowing, and
towelling himself.
“I am glad you like him, sir,” said I—“but I
don’t.”
“No, no,” my guardian assented; “don’t have too much to
do with him. Keep as clear of him as you can. But I like the fellow, Pip; he is
one of the true sort. Why, if I was a fortune-teller—”
Looking out of the towel, he caught my eye.
“But I am not a fortune-teller,” he said, letting his head drop
into a festoon of towel, and towelling away at his two ears. “You know
what I am, don’t you? Good night, Pip.”
“Good night, sir.”
In about a month after that, the Spider’s time with Mr. Pocket was up for
good, and, to the great relief of all the house but Mrs. Pocket, he went home
to the family hole.
Chapter XXVII.
“M D M
P:—
“I write this by request of Mr. Gargery, for to let you know that he is
going to London in company with Mr. Wopsle and would be glad if agreeable to be
allowed to see you. He would call at Barnard’s Hotel Tuesday morning at
nine o’clock, when if not agreeable please leave word. Your poor sister
is much the same as when you left. We talk of you in the kitchen every night,
and wonder what you are saying and doing. If now considered in the light of a
liberty, excuse it for the love of poor old days. No more, dear Mr. Pip, from
“Your ever obliged, and affectionate servant,
“B.”
“P.S. He wishes me most particular to write . He says
you will understand. I hope and do not doubt it will be agreeable to see him,
even though a gentleman, for you had ever a good heart, and he is a worthy,
worthy man. I have read him all, excepting only the last little sentence, and
he wishes me most particular to write again .”
I received this letter by the post on Monday morning, and therefore its
appointment was for next day. Let me confess exactly with what feelings I
looked forward to Joe’s coming.
Not with pleasure, though I was bound to him by so many ties; no; with
considerable disturbance, some mortification, and a keen sense of incongruity.
If I could have kept him away by paying money, I certainly would have paid
money. My greatest reassurance was that he was coming to Barnard’s Inn,
not to Hammersmith, and consequently would not fall in Bentley Drummle’s
way. I had little objection to his being seen by Herbert or his father, for
both of whom I had a respect; but I had the sharpest sensitiveness as to his
being seen by Drummle, whom I held in contempt. So, throughout life, our worst
weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom
we most despise.
I had begun to be always decorating the chambers in some quite unnecessary and
inappropriate way or other, and very expensive those wrestles with Barnard
proved to be. By this time, the rooms were vastly different from what I had
found them, and I enjoyed the honour of occupying a few prominent pages in the
books of a neighbouring upholsterer. I had got on so fast of late, that I had
even started a boy in boots,—top boots,—in bondage and slavery to
whom I might have been said to pass my days. For, after I had made the monster
(out of the refuse of my washerwoman’s family), and had clothed him with
a blue coat, canary waistcoat, white cravat, creamy breeches, and the boots
already mentioned, I had to find him a little to do and a great deal to eat;
and with both of those horrible requirements he haunted my existence.
This avenging phantom was ordered to be on duty at eight on Tuesday morning in
the hall, (it was two feet square, as charged for floorcloth,) and Herbert
suggested certain things for breakfast that he thought Joe would like. While I
felt sincerely obliged to him for being so interested and considerate, I had an
odd half-provoked sense of suspicion upon me, that if Joe had been coming to
see , he wouldn’t have been quite so brisk about it.
However, I came into town on the Monday night to be ready for Joe, and I got up
early in the morning, and caused the sitting-room and breakfast-table to assume
their most splendid appearance. Unfortunately the morning was drizzly, and an
angel could not have concealed the fact that Barnard was shedding sooty tears
outside the window, like some weak giant of a Sweep.
As the time approached I should have liked to run away, but the Avenger
pursuant to orders was in the hall, and presently I heard Joe on the staircase.
I knew it was Joe, by his clumsy manner of coming upstairs,—his state
boots being always too big for him,—and by the time it took him to read
the names on the other floors in the course of his ascent. When at last he
stopped outside our door, I could hear his finger tracing over the painted
letters of my name, and I afterwards distinctly heard him breathing in at the
keyhole. Finally he gave a faint single rap, and Pepper—such was the
compromising name of the avenging boy—announced “Mr.
Gargery!” I thought he never would have done wiping his feet, and that I
must have gone out to lift him off the mat, but at last he came in.
“Joe, how are you, Joe?”
“Pip, how you, Pip?”
With his good honest face all glowing and shining, and his hat put down on the
floor between us, he caught both my hands and worked them straight up and down,
as if I had been the last-patented Pump.
“I am glad to see you, Joe. Give me your hat.”
But Joe, taking it up carefully with both hands, like a bird’s-nest with
eggs in it, wouldn’t hear of parting with that piece of property, and
persisted in standing talking over it in a most uncomfortable way.
“Which you have that growed,” said Joe, “and that swelled,
and that gentle-folked;” Joe considered a little before he discovered
this word; “as to be sure you are a honour to your king and
country.”
“And you, Joe, look wonderfully well.”
“Thank God,” said Joe, “I’m ekerval to most. And your
sister, she’s no worse than she were. And Biddy, she’s ever right
and ready. And all friends is no backerder, if not no forarder. ’Ceptin
Wopsle; he’s had a drop.”
All this time (still with both hands taking great care of the
bird’s-nest), Joe was rolling his eyes round and round the room, and
round and round the flowered pattern of my dressing-gown.
“Had a drop, Joe?”
“Why yes,” said Joe, lowering his voice, “he’s left the
Church and went into the playacting. Which the playacting have likeways brought
him to London along with me. And his wish were,” said Joe, getting the
bird’s-nest under his left arm for the moment, and groping in it for an
egg with his right; “if no offence, as I would ’and you
that.”
I took what Joe gave me, and found it to be the crumpled play-bill of a small
metropolitan theatre, announcing the first appearance, in that very week, of
“the celebrated Provincial Amateur of Roscian renown, whose unique
performance in the highest tragic walk of our National Bard has lately
occasioned so great a sensation in local dramatic circles.”
“Were you at his performance, Joe?” I inquired.
“I ,” said Joe, with emphasis and solemnity.
“Was there a great sensation?”
“Why,” said Joe, “yes, there certainly were a peck of
orange-peel. Partickler when he see the ghost. Though I put it to yourself,
sir, whether it were calc’lated to keep a man up to his work with a good
hart, to be continiwally cutting in betwixt him and the Ghost with
“Amen!” A man may have had a misfortun’ and been in the
Church,” said Joe, lowering his voice to an argumentative and feeling
tone, “but that is no reason why you should put him out at such a time.
Which I meantersay, if the ghost of a man’s own father cannot be allowed
to claim his attention, what can, Sir? Still more, when his mourning ’at
is unfortunately made so small as that the weight of the black feathers brings
it off, try to keep it on how you may.”
A ghost-seeing effect in Joe’s own countenance informed me that Herbert
had entered the room. So, I presented Joe to Herbert, who held out his hand;
but Joe backed from it, and held on by the bird’s-nest.
“Your servant, Sir,” said Joe, “which I hope as you and
Pip”—here his eye fell on the Avenger, who was putting some toast
on table, and so plainly denoted an intention to make that young gentleman one
of the family, that I frowned it down and confused him more—“I
meantersay, you two gentlemen,—which I hope as you get your elths in this
close spot? For the present may be a werry good inn, according to London
opinions,” said Joe, confidentially, “and I believe its character
do stand it; but I wouldn’t keep a pig in it myself,—not in the
case that I wished him to fatten wholesome and to eat with a meller flavour on
him.”
Having borne this flattering testimony to the merits of our dwelling-place, and
having incidentally shown this tendency to call me “sir,” Joe,
being invited to sit down to table, looked all round the room for a suitable
spot on which to deposit his hat,—as if it were only on some very few
rare substances in nature that it could find a resting place,—and
ultimately stood it on an extreme corner of the chimney-piece, from which it
ever afterwards fell off at intervals.
“Do you take tea, or coffee, Mr. Gargery?” asked Herbert, who
always presided of a morning.
“Thankee, Sir,” said Joe, stiff from head to foot,
“I’ll take whichever is most agreeable to yourself.”
“What do you say to coffee?”
“Thankee, Sir,” returned Joe, evidently dispirited by the proposal,
“since you so kind as make chice of coffee, I will not run
contrairy to your own opinions. But don’t you never find it a little
’eating?”
“Say tea then,” said Herbert, pouring it out.
Here Joe’s hat tumbled off the mantel-piece, and he started out of his
chair and picked it up, and fitted it to the same exact spot. As if it were an
absolute point of good breeding that it should tumble off again soon.
“When did you come to town, Mr. Gargery?”
“Were it yesterday afternoon?” said Joe, after coughing behind his
hand, as if he had had time to catch the whooping-cough since he came.
“No it were not. Yes it were. Yes. It were yesterday afternoon”
(with an appearance of mingled wisdom, relief, and strict impartiality).
“Have you seen anything of London yet?”
“Why, yes, Sir,” said Joe, “me and Wopsle went off straight
to look at the Blacking Ware’us. But we didn’t find that it come up
to its likeness in the red bills at the shop doors; which I meantersay,”
added Joe, in an explanatory manner, “as it is there drawd too
architectooralooral.”
I really believe Joe would have prolonged this word (mightily expressive to my
mind of some architecture that I know) into a perfect Chorus, but for his
attention being providentially attracted by his hat, which was toppling.
Indeed, it demanded from him a constant attention, and a quickness of eye and
hand, very like that exacted by wicket-keeping. He made extraordinary play with
it, and showed the greatest skill; now, rushing at it and catching it neatly as
it dropped; now, merely stopping it midway, beating it up, and humouring it in
various parts of the room and against a good deal of the pattern of the paper
on the wall, before he felt it safe to close with it; finally splashing it into
the slop-basin, where I took the liberty of laying hands upon it.
As to his shirt-collar, and his coat-collar, they were perplexing to reflect
upon,—insoluble mysteries both. Why should a man scrape himself to that
extent, before he could consider himself full dressed? Why should he suppose it
necessary to be purified by suffering for his holiday clothes? Then he fell
into such unaccountable fits of meditation, with his fork midway between his
plate and his mouth; had his eyes attracted in such strange directions; was
afflicted with such remarkable coughs; sat so far from the table, and dropped
so much more than he ate, and pretended that he hadn’t dropped it; that I
was heartily glad when Herbert left us for the City.
I had neither the good sense nor the good feeling to know that this was all my
fault, and that if I had been easier with Joe, Joe would have been easier with
me. I felt impatient of him and out of temper with him; in which condition he
heaped coals of fire on my head.
“Us two being now alone, sir,”—began Joe.
“Joe,” I interrupted, pettishly, “how can you call me,
sir?”
Joe looked at me for a single instant with something faintly like reproach.
Utterly preposterous as his cravat was, and as his collars were, I was
conscious of a sort of dignity in the look.
“Us two being now alone,” resumed Joe, “and me having the
intentions and abilities to stay not many minutes more, I will now
conclude—leastways begin—to mention what have led to my having had
the present honour. For was it not,” said Joe, with his old air of lucid
exposition, “that my only wish were to be useful to you, I should not
have had the honour of breaking wittles in the company and abode of
gentlemen.”
I was so unwilling to see the look again, that I made no remonstrance against
this tone.
“Well, sir,” pursued Joe, “this is how it were. I were at the
Bargemen t’other night, Pip;”—whenever he subsided into
affection, he called me Pip, and whenever he relapsed into politeness he called
me sir; “when there come up in his shay-cart, Pumblechook. Which that
same identical,” said Joe, going down a new track, “do comb my
’air the wrong way sometimes, awful, by giving out up and down town as it
were him which ever had your infant companionation and were looked upon as a
playfellow by yourself.”
“Nonsense. It was you, Joe.”
“Which I fully believed it were, Pip,” said Joe, slightly tossing
his head, “though it signify little now, sir. Well, Pip; this same
identical, which his manners is given to blusterous, come to me at the Bargemen
(wot a pipe and a pint of beer do give refreshment to the workingman, sir, and
do not over stimilate), and his word were, ‘Joseph, Miss Havisham she
wish to speak to you.’”
“Miss Havisham, Joe?”
“‘She wish,’ were Pumblechook’s word, ‘to speak
to you.’” Joe sat and rolled his eyes at the ceiling.
“Yes, Joe? Go on, please.”
“Next day, sir,” said Joe, looking at me as if I were a long way
off, “having cleaned myself, I go and I see Miss A.”
“Miss A., Joe? Miss Havisham?”
“Which I say, sir,” replied Joe, with an air of legal formality, as
if he were making his will, “Miss A., or otherways Havisham. Her
expression air then as follering: ‘Mr. Gargery. You air in correspondence
with Mr. Pip?’ Having had a letter from you, I were able to say ‘I
am.’ (When I married your sister, sir, I said ‘I will;’ and
when I answered your friend, Pip, I said ‘I am.’) ‘Would you
tell him, then,’ said she, ‘that which Estella has come home and
would be glad to see him.’”
I felt my face fire up as I looked at Joe. I hope one remote cause of its
firing may have been my consciousness that if I had known his errand, I should
have given him more encouragement.
“Biddy,” pursued Joe, “when I got home and asked her fur to
write the message to you, a little hung back. Biddy says, ‘I know he will
be very glad to have it by word of mouth, it is holiday time, you want to see
him, go!’ I have now concluded, sir,” said Joe, rising from his
chair, “and, Pip, I wish you ever well and ever prospering to a greater
and a greater height.”
“But you are not going now, Joe?”
“Yes I am,” said Joe.
“But you are coming back to dinner, Joe?”
“No I am not,” said Joe.
Our eyes met, and all the “Sir” melted out of that manly heart as
he gave me his hand.
“Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded
together, as I may say, and one man’s a blacksmith, and one’s a
whitesmith, and one’s a goldsmith, and one’s a coppersmith.
Diwisions among such must come, and must be met as they come. If there’s
been any fault at all to-day, it’s mine. You and me is not two figures to
be together in London; nor yet anywheres else but what is private, and beknown,
and understood among friends. It ain’t that I am proud, but that I want
to be right, as you shall never see me no more in these clothes. I’m
wrong in these clothes. I’m wrong out of the forge, the kitchen, or off
th’ meshes. You won’t find half so much fault in me if you think of
me in my forge dress, with my hammer in my hand, or even my pipe. You
won’t find half so much fault in me if, supposing as you should ever wish
to see me, you come and put your head in at the forge window and see Joe the
blacksmith, there, at the old anvil, in the old burnt apron, sticking to the
old work. I’m awful dull, but I hope I’ve beat out something nigh
the rights of this at last. And so G bless you, dear old Pip,
old chap, G bless you!”
I had not been mistaken in my fancy that there was a simple dignity in him. The
fashion of his dress could no more come in its way when he spoke these words
than it could come in its way in Heaven. He touched me gently on the forehead,
and went out. As soon as I could recover myself sufficiently, I hurried out
after him and looked for him in the neighbouring streets; but he was gone.
Chapter XXVIII.
It was
clear that I must repair to our town next day, and in the first flow of my
repentance, it was equally clear that I must stay at Joe’s. But, when I
had secured my box-place by to-morrow’s coach, and had been down to Mr.
Pocket’s and back, I was not by any means convinced on the last point,
and began to invent reasons and make excuses for putting up at the Blue Boar. I
should be an inconvenience at Joe’s; I was not expected, and my bed would
not be ready; I should be too far from Miss Havisham’s, and she was
exacting and mightn’t like it. All other swindlers upon earth are nothing
to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself. Surely a
curious thing. That I should innocently take a bad half-crown of somebody
else’s manufacture is reasonable enough; but that I should knowingly
reckon the spurious coin of my own make as good money! An obliging stranger,
under pretence of compactly folding up my bank-notes for security’s sake,
abstracts the notes and gives me nutshells; but what is his sleight of hand to
mine, when I fold up my own nutshells and pass them on myself as notes!
Having settled that I must go to the Blue Boar, my mind was much disturbed by
indecision whether or not to take the Avenger. It was tempting to think of that
expensive Mercenary publicly airing his boots in the archway of the Blue
Boar’s posting-yard; it was almost solemn to imagine him casually
produced in the tailor’s shop, and confounding the disrespectful senses
of Trabb’s boy. On the other hand, Trabb’s boy might worm himself
into his intimacy and tell him things; or, reckless and desperate wretch as I
knew he could be, might hoot him in the High Street. My patroness, too, might
hear of him, and not approve. On the whole, I resolved to leave the Avenger
behind.
It was the afternoon coach by which I had taken my place, and, as winter had
now come round, I should not arrive at my destination until two or three hours
after dark. Our time of starting from the Cross Keys was two o’clock. I
arrived on the ground with a quarter of an hour to spare, attended by the
Avenger,—if I may connect that expression with one who never attended on
me if he could possibly help it.
At that time it was customary to carry Convicts down to the dock-yards by
stage-coach. As I had often heard of them in the capacity of outside
passengers, and had more than once seen them on the high road dangling their
ironed legs over the coach roof, I had no cause to be surprised when Herbert,
meeting me in the yard, came up and told me there were two convicts going down
with me. But I had a reason that was an old reason now for constitutionally
faltering whenever I heard the word “convict.”
“You don’t mind them, Handel?” said Herbert.
“O no!”
“I thought you seemed as if you didn’t like them?”
“I can’t pretend that I do like them, and I suppose you don’t
particularly. But I don’t mind them.”
“See! There they are,” said Herbert, “coming out of the Tap.
What a degraded and vile sight it is!”
They had been treating their guard, I suppose, for they had a gaoler with them,
and all three came out wiping their mouths on their hands. The two convicts
were handcuffed together, and had irons on their legs,—irons of a pattern
that I knew well. They wore the dress that I likewise knew well. Their keeper
had a brace of pistols, and carried a thick-knobbed bludgeon under his arm; but
he was on terms of good understanding with them, and stood with them beside
him, looking on at the putting-to of the horses, rather with an air as if the
convicts were an interesting Exhibition not formally open at the moment, and he
the Curator. One was a taller and stouter man than the other, and appeared as a
matter of course, according to the mysterious ways of the world, both convict
and free, to have had allotted to him the smaller suit of clothes. His arms and
legs were like great pincushions of those shapes, and his attire disguised him
absurdly; but I knew his half-closed eye at one glance. There stood the man
whom I had seen on the settle at the Three Jolly Bargemen on a Saturday night,
and who had brought me down with his invisible gun!
It was easy to make sure that as yet he knew me no more than if he had never
seen me in his life. He looked across at me, and his eye appraised my
watch-chain, and then he incidentally spat and said something to the other
convict, and they laughed and slued themselves round with a clink of their
coupling manacle, and looked at something else. The great numbers on their
backs, as if they were street doors; their coarse mangy ungainly outer surface,
as if they were lower animals; their ironed legs, apologetically garlanded with
pocket-handkerchiefs; and the way in which all present looked at them and kept
from them; made them (as Herbert had said) a most disagreeable and degraded
spectacle.
But this was not the worst of it. It came out that the whole of the back of the
coach had been taken by a family removing from London, and that there were no
places for the two prisoners but on the seat in front behind the coachman.
Hereupon, a choleric gentleman, who had taken the fourth place on that seat,
flew into a most violent passion, and said that it was a breach of contract to
mix him up with such villainous company, and that it was poisonous, and
pernicious, and infamous, and shameful, and I don’t know what else. At
this time the coach was ready and the coachman impatient, and we were all
preparing to get up, and the prisoners had come over with their
keeper,—bringing with them that curious flavour of bread-poultice, baize,
rope-yarn, and hearthstone, which attends the convict presence.
“Don’t take it so much amiss, sir,” pleaded the keeper to the
angry passenger; “I’ll sit next you myself. I’ll put
’em on the outside of the row. They won’t interfere with you, sir.
You needn’t know they’re there.”
“And don’t blame ,” growled the convict I had
recognised. “ don’t want to go. am quite ready to
stay behind. As fur as I am concerned any one’s welcome to
place.”
“Or mine,” said the other, gruffly. “ wouldn’t
have incommoded none of you, if I’d had way.” Then they
both laughed, and began cracking nuts, and spitting the shells about.—As
I really think I should have liked to do myself, if I had been in their place
and so despised.
At length, it was voted that there was no help for the angry gentleman, and
that he must either go in his chance company or remain behind. So he got into
his place, still making complaints, and the keeper got into the place next him,
and the convicts hauled themselves up as well as they could, and the convict I
had recognised sat behind me with his breath on the hair of my head.
“Good-bye, Handel!” Herbert called out as we started. I thought
what a blessed fortune it was, that he had found another name for me than Pip.
It is impossible to express with what acuteness I felt the convict’s
breathing, not only on the back of my head, but all along my spine. The
sensation was like being touched in the marrow with some pungent and searching
acid, it set my very teeth on edge. He seemed to have more breathing business
to do than another man, and to make more noise in doing it; and I was conscious
of growing high-shouldered on one side, in my shrinking endeavours to fend him
off.
The weather was miserably raw, and the two cursed the cold. It made us all
lethargic before we had gone far, and when we had left the Half-way House
behind, we habitually dozed and shivered and were silent. I dozed off, myself,
in considering the question whether I ought to restore a couple of pounds
sterling to this creature before losing sight of him, and how it could best be
done. In the act of dipping forward as if I were going to bathe among the
horses, I woke in a fright and took the question up again.
But I must have lost it longer than I had thought, since, although I could
recognise nothing in the darkness and the fitful lights and shadows of our
lamps, I traced marsh country in the cold damp wind that blew at us. Cowering
forward for warmth and to make me a screen against the wind, the convicts were
closer to me than before. The very first words I heard them interchange as I
became conscious, were the words of my own thought, “Two One Pound
notes.”
“How did he get ’em?” said the convict I had never seen.
“How should I know?” returned the other. “He had ’em
stowed away somehows. Giv him by friends, I expect.”
“I wish,” said the other, with a bitter curse upon the cold,
“that I had ’em here.”
“Two one pound notes, or friends?”
“Two one pound notes. I’d sell all the friends I ever had for one,
and think it a blessed good bargain. Well? So he says—?”
“So he says,” resumed the convict I had recognised,—“it
was all said and done in half a minute, behind a pile of timber in the
Dock-yard,—‘You’re a-going to be discharged?’ Yes, I
was. Would I find out that boy that had fed him and kep his secret, and give
him them two one pound notes? Yes, I would. And I did.”
“More fool you,” growled the other. “I’d have spent
’em on a Man, in wittles and drink. He must have been a green one. Mean
to say he knowed nothing of you?”
“Not a ha’porth. Different gangs and different ships. He was tried
again for prison breaking, and got made a Lifer.”
“And was that—Honour!—the only time you worked out, in this
part of the country?”
“The only time.”
“What might have been your opinion of the place?”
“A most beastly place. Mudbank, mist, swamp, and work; work, swamp, mist,
and mudbank.”
They both execrated the place in very strong language, and gradually growled
themselves out, and had nothing left to say.
After overhearing this dialogue, I should assuredly have got down and been left
in the solitude and darkness of the highway, but for feeling certain that the
man had no suspicion of my identity. Indeed, I was not only so changed in the
course of nature, but so differently dressed and so differently circumstanced,
that it was not at all likely he could have known me without accidental help.
Still, the coincidence of our being together on the coach, was sufficiently
strange to fill me with a dread that some other coincidence might at any moment
connect me, in his hearing, with my name. For this reason, I resolved to alight
as soon as we touched the town, and put myself out of his hearing. This device
I executed successfully. My little portmanteau was in the boot under my feet; I
had but to turn a hinge to get it out; I threw it down before me, got down
after it, and was left at the first lamp on the first stones of the town
pavement. As to the convicts, they went their way with the coach, and I knew at
what point they would be spirited off to the river. In my fancy, I saw the boat
with its convict crew waiting for them at the slime-washed stairs,—again
heard the gruff “Give way, you!” like and order to
dogs,—again saw the wicked Noah’s Ark lying out on the black water.
I could not have said what I was afraid of, for my fear was altogether
undefined and vague, but there was great fear upon me. As I walked on to the
hotel, I felt that a dread, much exceeding the mere apprehension of a painful
or disagreeable recognition, made me tremble. I am confident that it took no
distinctness of shape, and that it was the revival for a few minutes of the
terror of childhood.
The coffee-room at the Blue Boar was empty, and I had not only ordered my
dinner there, but had sat down to it, before the waiter knew me. As soon as he
had apologised for the remissness of his memory, he asked me if he should send
Boots for Mr. Pumblechook?
“No,” said I, “certainly not.”
The waiter (it was he who had brought up the Great Remonstrance from the
Commercials, on the day when I was bound) appeared surprised, and took the
earliest opportunity of putting a dirty old copy of a local newspaper so
directly in my way, that I took it up and read this paragraph:—
Our readers will learn, not altogether without interest, in reference to the
recent romantic rise in fortune of a young artificer in iron of this
neighbourhood (what a theme, by the way, for the magic pen of our as yet not
universally acknowledged townsman T, the poet of our
columns!) that the youth’s earliest patron, companion, and friend, was a
highly respected individual not entirely unconnected with the corn and seed
trade, and whose eminently convenient and commodious business premises are
situate within a hundred miles of the High Street. It is not wholly
irrespective of our personal feelings that we record H as the
Mentor of our young Telemachus, for it is good to know that our town produced
the founder of the latter’s fortunes. Does the thought-contracted brow of
the local Sage or the lustrous eye of local Beauty inquire whose fortunes? We
believe that Quintin Matsys was the B of Antwerp.
V. S.
I entertain a conviction, based upon large experience, that if in the days of
my prosperity I had gone to the North Pole, I should have met somebody there,
wandering Esquimaux or civilized man, who would have told me that Pumblechook
was my earliest patron and the founder of my fortunes.
Chapter XXIX.
Betimes in the morning I was up and out. It was too early yet to
go to Miss Havisham’s, so I loitered into the country on Miss
Havisham’s side of town,—which was not Joe’s side; I could go
there to-morrow,—thinking about my patroness, and painting brilliant
pictures of her plans for me.
She had adopted Estella, she had as good as adopted me, and it could not fail
to be her intention to bring us together. She reserved it for me to restore the
desolate house, admit the sunshine into the dark rooms, set the clocks a-going
and the cold hearths a-blazing, tear down the cobwebs, destroy the
vermin,—in short, do all the shining deeds of the young Knight of
romance, and marry the Princess. I had stopped to look at the house as I
passed; and its seared red brick walls, blocked windows, and strong green ivy
clasping even the stacks of chimneys with its twigs and tendons, as if with
sinewy old arms, had made up a rich attractive mystery, of which I was the
hero. Estella was the inspiration of it, and the heart of it, of course. But,
though she had taken such strong possession of me, though my fancy and my hope
were so set upon her, though her influence on my boyish life and character had
been all-powerful, I did not, even that romantic morning, invest her with any
attributes save those she possessed. I mention this in this place, of a fixed
purpose, because it is the clue by which I am to be followed into my poor
labyrinth. According to my experience, the conventional notion of a lover
cannot be always true. The unqualified truth is, that when I loved Estella with
the love of a man, I loved her simply because I found her irresistible. Once
for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her
against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against
happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I loved her
none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me
than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection.
I so shaped out my walk as to arrive at the gate at my old time. When I had
rung at the bell with an unsteady hand, I turned my back upon the gate, while I
tried to get my breath and keep the beating of my heart moderately quiet. I
heard the side-door open, and steps come across the courtyard; but I pretended
not to hear, even when the gate swung on its rusty hinges.
Being at last touched on the shoulder, I started and turned. I started much
more naturally then, to find myself confronted by a man in a sober grey dress.
The last man I should have expected to see in that place of porter at Miss
Havisham’s door.
“Orlick!”
“Ah, young master, there’s more changes than yours. But come in,
come in. It’s opposed to my orders to hold the gate open.”
I entered and he swung it, and locked it, and took the key out.
“Yes!” said he, facing round, after doggedly preceding me a few
steps towards the house. “Here I am!”
“How did you come here?”
“I come here,” he retorted, “on my legs. I had my box brought
alongside me in a barrow.”
“Are you here for good?”
“I ain’t here for harm, young master, I suppose?”
I was not so sure of that. I had leisure to entertain the retort in my mind,
while he slowly lifted his heavy glance from the pavement, up my legs and arms,
to my face.
“Then you have left the forge?” I said.
“Do this look like a forge?” replied Orlick, sending his glance all
round him with an air of injury. “Now, do it look like it?”
I asked him how long he had left Gargery’s forge?
“One day is so like another here,” he replied, “that I
don’t know without casting it up. However, I come here some time since
you left.”
“I could have told you that, Orlick.”
“Ah!” said he, dryly. “But then you’ve got to be a
scholar.”
By this time we had come to the house, where I found his room to be one just
within the side-door, with a little window in it looking on the courtyard. In
its small proportions, it was not unlike the kind of place usually assigned to
a gate-porter in Paris. Certain keys were hanging on the wall, to which he now
added the gate key; and his patchwork-covered bed was in a little inner
division or recess. The whole had a slovenly, confined, and sleepy look, like a
cage for a human dormouse; while he, looming dark and heavy in the shadow of a
corner by the window, looked like the human dormouse for whom it was fitted
up,—as indeed he was.
“I never saw this room before,” I remarked; “but there used
to be no Porter here.”
“No,” said he; “not till it got about that there was no
protection on the premises, and it come to be considered dangerous, with
convicts and Tag and Rag and Bobtail going up and down. And then I was
recommended to the place as a man who could give another man as good as he
brought, and I took it. It’s easier than bellowsing and
hammering.—That’s loaded, that is.”
My eye had been caught by a gun with a brass-bound stock over the
chimney-piece, and his eye had followed mine.
“Well,” said I, not desirous of more conversation, “shall I
go up to Miss Havisham?”
“Burn me, if I know!” he retorted, first stretching himself and
then shaking himself; “my orders ends here, young master. I give this
here bell a rap with this here hammer, and you go on along the passage till you
meet somebody.”
“I am expected, I believe?”
“Burn me twice over, if I can say!” said he.
Upon that, I turned down the long passage which I had first trodden in my thick
boots, and he made his bell sound. At the end of the passage, while the bell
was still reverberating, I found Sarah Pocket, who appeared to have now become
constitutionally green and yellow by reason of me.
“Oh!” said she. “You, is it, Mr. Pip?”
“It is, Miss Pocket. I am glad to tell you that Mr. Pocket and family are
all well.”
“Are they any wiser?” said Sarah, with a dismal shake of the head;
“they had better be wiser, than well. Ah, Matthew, Matthew! You know your
way, sir?”
Tolerably, for I had gone up the staircase in the dark, many a time. I ascended
it now, in lighter boots than of yore, and tapped in my old way at the door of
Miss Havisham’s room. “Pip’s rap,” I heard her say,
immediately; “come in, Pip.”
She was in her chair near the old table, in the old dress, with her two hands
crossed on her stick, her chin resting on them, and her eyes on the fire.
Sitting near her, with the white shoe, that had never been worn, in her hand,
and her head bent as she looked at it, was an elegant lady whom I had never
seen.
“Come in, Pip,” Miss Havisham continued to mutter, without looking
round or up; “come in, Pip, how do you do, Pip? so you kiss my hand as if
I were a queen, eh?—Well?”
She looked up at me suddenly, only moving her eyes, and repeated in a grimly
playful manner,—
“Well?”
“I heard, Miss Havisham,” said I, rather at a loss, “that you
were so kind as to wish me to come and see you, and I came directly.”
“Well?”
The lady whom I had never seen before, lifted up her eyes and looked archly at
me, and then I saw that the eyes were Estella’s eyes. But she was so much
changed, was so much more beautiful, so much more womanly, in all things
winning admiration, had made such wonderful advance, that I seemed to have made
none. I fancied, as I looked at her, that I slipped hopelessly back into the
coarse and common boy again. O the sense of distance and disparity that came
upon me, and the inaccessibility that came about her!
She gave me her hand. I stammered something about the pleasure I felt in seeing
her again, and about my having looked forward to it, for a long, long time.
“Do you find her much changed, Pip?” asked Miss Havisham, with her
greedy look, and striking her stick upon a chair that stood between them, as a
sign to me to sit down there.
“When I came in, Miss Havisham, I thought there was nothing of Estella in
the face or figure; but now it all settles down so curiously into the
old—”
“What? You are not going to say into the old Estella?” Miss
Havisham interrupted. “She was proud and insulting, and you wanted to go
away from her. Don’t you remember?”
I said confusedly that that was long ago, and that I knew no better then, and
the like. Estella smiled with perfect composure, and said she had no doubt of
my having been quite right, and of her having been very disagreeable.
“Is changed?” Miss Havisham asked her.
“Very much,” said Estella, looking at me.
“Less coarse and common?” said Miss Havisham, playing with
Estella’s hair.
Estella laughed, and looked at the shoe in her hand, and laughed again, and
looked at me, and put the shoe down. She treated me as a boy still, but she
lured me on.
We sat in the dreamy room among the old strange influences which had so wrought
upon me, and I learnt that she had but just come home from France, and that she
was going to London. Proud and wilful as of old, she had brought those
qualities into such subjection to her beauty that it was impossible and out of
nature—or I thought so—to separate them from her beauty. Truly it
was impossible to dissociate her presence from all those wretched hankerings
after money and gentility that had disturbed my boyhood,—from all those
ill-regulated aspirations that had first made me ashamed of home and
Joe,—from all those visions that had raised her face in the glowing fire,
struck it out of the iron on the anvil, extracted it from the darkness of night
to look in at the wooden window of the forge, and flit away. In a word, it was
impossible for me to separate her, in the past or in the present, from the
innermost life of my life.
It was settled that I should stay there all the rest of the day, and return to
the hotel at night, and to London to-morrow. When we had conversed for a while,
Miss Havisham sent us two out to walk in the neglected garden: on our coming in
by and by, she said, I should wheel her about a little, as in times of yore.
So, Estella and I went out into the garden by the gate through which I had
strayed to my encounter with the pale young gentleman, now Herbert; I,
trembling in spirit and worshipping the very hem of her dress; she, quite
composed and most decidedly not worshipping the hem of mine. As we drew near to
the place of encounter, she stopped and said,—
“I must have been a singular little creature to hide and see that fight
that day; but I did, and I enjoyed it very much.”
“You rewarded me very much.”
“Did I?” she replied, in an incidental and forgetful way. “I
remember I entertained a great objection to your adversary, because I took it
ill that he should be brought here to pester me with his company.”
“He and I are great friends now.”
“Are you? I think I recollect though, that you read with his
father?”
“Yes.”
I made the admission with reluctance, for it seemed to have a boyish look, and
she already treated me more than enough like a boy.
“Since your change of fortune and prospects, you have changed your
companions,” said Estella.
“Naturally,” said I.
“And necessarily,” she added, in a haughty tone; “what was
fit company for you once, would be quite unfit company for you now.”
In my conscience, I doubt very much whether I had any lingering intention left
of going to see Joe; but if I had, this observation put it to flight.
“You had no idea of your impending good fortune, in those times?”
said Estella, with a slight wave of her hand, signifying in the fighting times.
“Not the least.”
The air of completeness and superiority with which she walked at my side, and
the air of youthfulness and submission with which I walked at hers, made a
contrast that I strongly felt. It would have rankled in me more than it did, if
I had not regarded myself as eliciting it by being so set apart for her and
assigned to her.
The garden was too overgrown and rank for walking in with ease, and after we
had made the round of it twice or thrice, we came out again into the brewery
yard. I showed her to a nicety where I had seen her walking on the casks, that
first old day, and she said, with a cold and careless look in that direction,
“Did I?” I reminded her where she had come out of the house and
given me my meat and drink, and she said, “I don’t remember.”
“Not remember that you made me cry?” said I. “No,” said
she, and shook her head and looked about her. I verily believe that her not
remembering and not minding in the least, made me cry again,
inwardly,—and that is the sharpest crying of all.
“You must know,” said Estella, condescending to me as a brilliant
and beautiful woman might, “that I have no heart,—if that has
anything to do with my memory.”
I got through some jargon to the effect that I took the liberty of doubting
that. That I knew better. That there could be no such beauty without it.
“Oh! I have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in, I have no doubt,”
said Estella, “and of course if it ceased to beat I should cease to be.
But you know what I mean. I have no softness there,
no—sympathy—sentiment—nonsense.”
What it that was borne in upon my mind when she stood still and
looked attentively at me? Anything that I had seen in Miss Havisham? No. In
some of her looks and gestures there was that tinge of resemblance to Miss
Havisham which may often be noticed to have been acquired by children, from
grown person with whom they have been much associated and secluded, and which,
when childhood is passed, will produce a remarkable occasional likeness of
expression between faces that are otherwise quite different. And yet I could
not trace this to Miss Havisham. I looked again, and though she was still
looking at me, the suggestion was gone.
What it?
“I am serious,” said Estella, not so much with a frown (for her
brow was smooth) as with a darkening of her face; “if we are to be thrown
much together, you had better believe it at once. No!” imperiously
stopping me as I opened my lips. “I have not bestowed my tenderness
anywhere. I have never had any such thing.”
In another moment we were in the brewery, so long disused, and she pointed to
the high gallery where I had seen her going out on that same first day, and
told me she remembered to have been up there, and to have seen me standing
scared below. As my eyes followed her white hand, again the same dim suggestion
that I could not possibly grasp crossed me. My involuntary start occasioned her
to lay her hand upon my arm. Instantly the ghost passed once more and was gone.
What it?
“What is the matter?” asked Estella. “Are you scared
again?”
“I should be, if I believed what you said just now,” I replied, to
turn it off.
“Then you don’t? Very well. It is said, at any rate. Miss Havisham
will soon be expecting you at your old post, though I think that might be laid
aside now, with other old belongings. Let us make one more round of the garden,
and then go in. Come! You shall not shed tears for my cruelty to-day; you shall
be my Page, and give me your shoulder.”
Her handsome dress had trailed upon the ground. She held it in one hand now,
and with the other lightly touched my shoulder as we walked. We walked round
the ruined garden twice or thrice more, and it was all in bloom for me. If the
green and yellow growth of weed in the chinks of the old wall had been the most
precious flowers that ever blew, it could not have been more cherished in my
remembrance.
There was no discrepancy of years between us to remove her far from me; we were
of nearly the same age, though of course the age told for more in her case than
in mine; but the air of inaccessibility which her beauty and her manner gave
her, tormented me in the midst of my delight, and at the height of the
assurance I felt that our patroness had chosen us for one another. Wretched
boy!
At last we went back into the house, and there I heard, with surprise, that my
guardian had come down to see Miss Havisham on business, and would come back to
dinner. The old wintry branches of chandeliers in the room where the mouldering
table was spread had been lighted while we were out, and Miss Havisham was in
her chair and waiting for me.
It was like pushing the chair itself back into the past, when we began the old
slow circuit round about the ashes of the bridal feast. But, in the funereal
room, with that figure of the grave fallen back in the chair fixing its eyes
upon her, Estella looked more bright and beautiful than before, and I was under
stronger enchantment.
The time so melted away, that our early dinner-hour drew close at hand, and
Estella left us to prepare herself. We had stopped near the centre of the long
table, and Miss Havisham, with one of her withered arms stretched out of the
chair, rested that clenched hand upon the yellow cloth. As Estella looked back
over her shoulder before going out at the door, Miss Havisham kissed that hand
to her, with a ravenous intensity that was of its kind quite dreadful.
Then, Estella being gone and we two left alone, she turned to me, and said in a
whisper,—
“Is she beautiful, graceful, well-grown? Do you admire her?”
“Everybody must who sees her, Miss Havisham.”
She drew an arm round my neck, and drew my head close down to hers as she sat
in the chair. “Love her, love her, love her! How does she use you?”
Before I could answer (if I could have answered so difficult a question at all)
she repeated, “Love her, love her, love her! If she favours you, love her.
If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces,—and as it
gets older and stronger it will tear deeper,—love her, love her, love
her!”
Never had I seen such passionate eagerness as was joined to her utterance of
these words. I could feel the muscles of the thin arm round my neck swell with
the vehemence that possessed her.
“Hear me, Pip! I adopted her, to be loved. I bred her and educated her,
to be loved. I developed her into what she is, that she might be loved. Love
her!”
She said the word often enough, and there could be no doubt that she meant to
say it; but if the often repeated word had been hate instead of
love—despair—revenge—dire death—it could not have
sounded from her lips more like a curse.
“I’ll tell you,” said she, in the same hurried passionate
whisper, “what real love is. It is blind devotion, unquestioning
self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and
against the whole world, giving up your whole heart and soul to the
smiter—as I did!”
When she came to that, and to a wild cry that followed that, I caught her round
the waist. For she rose up in the chair, in her shroud of a dress, and struck
at the air as if she would as soon have struck herself against the wall and
fallen dead.
All this passed in a few seconds. As I drew her down into her chair, I was
conscious of a scent that I knew, and turning, saw my guardian in the room.
He always carried (I have not yet mentioned it, I think) a pocket-handkerchief
of rich silk and of imposing proportions, which was of great value to him in
his profession. I have seen him so terrify a client or a witness by
ceremoniously unfolding this pocket-handkerchief as if he were immediately
going to blow his nose, and then pausing, as if he knew he should not have time
to do it before such client or witness committed himself, that the
self-committal has followed directly, quite as a matter of course. When I saw
him in the room he had this expressive pocket-handkerchief in both hands, and
was looking at us. On meeting my eye, he said plainly, by a momentary and
silent pause in that attitude, “Indeed? Singular!” and then put the
handkerchief to its right use with wonderful effect.
Miss Havisham had seen him as soon as I, and was (like everybody else) afraid
of him. She made a strong attempt to compose herself, and stammered that he was
as punctual as ever.
“As punctual as ever,” he repeated, coming up to us. “(How do
you do, Pip? Shall I give you a ride, Miss Havisham? Once round?) And so you
are here, Pip?”
I told him when I had arrived, and how Miss Havisham had wished me to come and
see Estella. To which he replied, “Ah! Very fine young lady!” Then
he pushed Miss Havisham in her chair before him, with one of his large hands,
and put the other in his trousers-pocket as if the pocket were full of secrets.
“Well, Pip! How often have you seen Miss Estella before?” said he,
when he came to a stop.
“How often?”
“Ah! How many times? Ten thousand times?”
“Oh! Certainly not so many.”
“Twice?”
“Jaggers,” interposed Miss Havisham, much to my relief,
“leave my Pip alone, and go with him to your dinner.”
He complied, and we groped our way down the dark stairs together. While we were
still on our way to those detached apartments across the paved yard at the
back, he asked me how often I had seen Miss Havisham eat and drink; offering me
a breadth of choice, as usual, between a hundred times and once.
I considered, and said, “Never.”
“And never will, Pip,” he retorted, with a frowning smile.
“She has never allowed herself to be seen doing either, since she lived
this present life of hers. She wanders about in the night, and then lays hands
on such food as she takes.”
“Pray, sir,” said I, “may I ask you a question?”
“You may,” said he, “and I may decline to answer it. Put your
question.”
“Estella’s name. Is it Havisham or—?” I had nothing to
add.
“Or what?” said he.
“Is it Havisham?”
“It is Havisham.”
This brought us to the dinner-table, where she and Sarah Pocket awaited us. Mr.
Jaggers presided, Estella sat opposite to him, I faced my green and yellow
friend. We dined very well, and were waited on by a maid-servant whom I had
never seen in all my comings and goings, but who, for anything I know, had been
in that mysterious house the whole time. After dinner a bottle of choice old
port was placed before my guardian (he was evidently well acquainted with the
vintage), and the two ladies left us.
Anything to equal the determined reticence of Mr. Jaggers under that roof I
never saw elsewhere, even in him. He kept his very looks to himself, and
scarcely directed his eyes to Estella’s face once during dinner. When she
spoke to him, he listened, and in due course answered, but never looked at her,
that I could see. On the other hand, she often looked at him, with interest and
curiosity, if not distrust, but his face never showed the least consciousness.
Throughout dinner he took a dry delight in making Sarah Pocket greener and
yellower, by often referring in conversation with me to my expectations; but
here, again, he showed no consciousness, and even made it appear that he
extorted—and even did extort, though I don’t know how—those
references out of my innocent self.
And when he and I were left alone together, he sat with an air upon him of
general lying by in consequence of information he possessed, that really was
too much for me. He cross-examined his very wine when he had nothing else in
hand. He held it between himself and the candle, tasted the port, rolled it in
his mouth, swallowed it, looked at his glass again, smelt the port, tried it,
drank it, filled again, and cross-examined the glass again, until I was as
nervous as if I had known the wine to be telling him something to my
disadvantage. Three or four times I feebly thought I would start conversation;
but whenever he saw me going to ask him anything, he looked at me with his
glass in his hand, and rolling his wine about in his mouth, as if requesting me
to take notice that it was of no use, for he couldn’t answer.
I think Miss Pocket was conscious that the sight of me involved her in the
danger of being goaded to madness, and perhaps tearing off her cap,—which
was a very hideous one, in the nature of a muslin mop,—and strewing the
ground with her hair,—which assuredly had never grown on head.
She did not appear when we afterwards went up to Miss Havisham’s room,
and we four played at whist. In the interval, Miss Havisham, in a fantastic
way, had put some of the most beautiful jewels from her dressing-table into
Estella’s hair, and about her bosom and arms; and I saw even my guardian
look at her from under his thick eyebrows, and raise them a little, when her
loveliness was before him, with those rich flushes of glitter and colour in it.
Of the manner and extent to which he took our trumps into custody, and came out
with mean little cards at the ends of hands, before which the glory of our
Kings and Queens was utterly abased, I say nothing; nor, of the feeling that I
had, respecting his looking upon us personally in the light of three very
obvious and poor riddles that he had found out long ago. What I suffered from,
was the incompatibility between his cold presence and my feelings towards
Estella. It was not that I knew I could never bear to speak to him about her,
that I knew I could never bear to hear him creak his boots at her, that I knew
I could never bear to see him wash his hands of her; it was, that my admiration
should be within a foot or two of him,—it was, that my feelings should be
in the same place with him,—, was the agonizing circumstance.
We played until nine o’clock, and then it was arranged that when Estella
came to London I should be forewarned of her coming and should meet her at the
coach; and then I took leave of her, and touched her and left her.
My guardian lay at the Boar in the next room to mine. Far into the night, Miss
Havisham’s words, “Love her, love her, love her!” sounded in
my ears. I adapted them for my own repetition, and said to my pillow, “I
love her, I love her, I love her!” hundreds of times. Then, a burst of
gratitude came upon me, that she should be destined for me, once the
blacksmith’s boy. Then I thought if she were, as I feared, by no means
rapturously grateful for that destiny yet, when would she begin to be
interested in me? When should I awaken the heart within her that was mute and
sleeping now?
Ah me! I thought those were high and great emotions. But I never thought there
was anything low and small in my keeping away from Joe, because I knew she
would be contemptuous of him. It was but a day gone, and Joe had brought the
tears into my eyes; they had soon dried, God forgive me! soon dried.
Chapter XXX.
After
well considering the matter while I was dressing at the Blue Boar in the
morning, I resolved to tell my guardian that I doubted Orlick’s being the
right sort of man to fill a post of trust at Miss Havisham’s. “Why
of course he is not the right sort of man, Pip,” said my guardian,
comfortably satisfied beforehand on the general head, “because the man
who fills the post of trust never is the right sort of man.” It seemed
quite to put him into spirits to find that this particular post was not
exceptionally held by the right sort of man, and he listened in a satisfied
manner while I told him what knowledge I had of Orlick. “Very good,
Pip,” he observed, when I had concluded, “I’ll go round
presently, and pay our friend off.” Rather alarmed by this summary
action, I was for a little delay, and even hinted that our friend himself might
be difficult to deal with. “Oh no he won’t,” said my
guardian, making his pocket-handkerchief-point, with perfect confidence;
“I should like to see him argue the question with .”
As we were going back together to London by the midday coach, and as I
breakfasted under such terrors of Pumblechook that I could scarcely hold my
cup, this gave me an opportunity of saying that I wanted a walk, and that I
would go on along the London road while Mr. Jaggers was occupied, if he would
let the coachman know that I would get into my place when overtaken. I was thus
enabled to fly from the Blue Boar immediately after breakfast. By then making a
loop of about a couple of miles into the open country at the back of
Pumblechook’s premises, I got round into the High Street again, a little
beyond that pitfall, and felt myself in comparative security.
It was interesting to be in the quiet old town once more, and it was not
disagreeable to be here and there suddenly recognised and stared after. One or
two of the tradespeople even darted out of their shops and went a little way
down the street before me, that they might turn, as if they had forgotten
something, and pass me face to face,—on which occasions I don’t
know whether they or I made the worse pretence; they of not doing it, or I of
not seeing it. Still my position was a distinguished one, and I was not at all
dissatisfied with it, until Fate threw me in the way of that unlimited
miscreant, Trabb’s boy.
Casting my eyes along the street at a certain point of my progress, I beheld
Trabb’s boy approaching, lashing himself with an empty blue bag. Deeming
that a serene and unconscious contemplation of him would best beseem me, and
would be most likely to quell his evil mind, I advanced with that expression of
countenance, and was rather congratulating myself on my success, when suddenly
the knees of Trabb’s boy smote together, his hair uprose, his cap fell
off, he trembled violently in every limb, staggered out into the road, and
crying to the populace, “Hold me! I’m so frightened!” feigned
to be in a paroxysm of terror and contrition, occasioned by the dignity of my
appearance. As I passed him, his teeth loudly chattered in his head, and with
every mark of extreme humiliation, he prostrated himself in the dust.
This was a hard thing to bear, but this was nothing. I had not advanced another
two hundred yards when, to my inexpressible terror, amazement, and indignation,
I again beheld Trabb’s boy approaching. He was coming round a narrow
corner. His blue bag was slung over his shoulder, honest industry beamed in his
eyes, a determination to proceed to Trabb’s with cheerful briskness was
indicated in his gait. With a shock he became aware of me, and was severely
visited as before; but this time his motion was rotatory, and he staggered
round and round me with knees more afflicted, and with uplifted hands as if
beseeching for mercy. His sufferings were hailed with the greatest joy by a
knot of spectators, and I felt utterly confounded.
I had not got as much further down the street as the post-office, when I again
beheld Trabb’s boy shooting round by a back way. This time, he was
entirely changed. He wore the blue bag in the manner of my great-coat, and was
strutting along the pavement towards me on the opposite side of the street,
attended by a company of delighted young friends to whom he from time to time
exclaimed, with a wave of his hand, “Don’t know yah!” Words
cannot state the amount of aggravation and injury wreaked upon me by
Trabb’s boy, when passing abreast of me, he pulled up his shirt-collar,
twined his side-hair, stuck an arm akimbo, and smirked extravagantly by,
wriggling his elbows and body, and drawling to his attendants,
“Don’t know yah, don’t know yah, ’pon my soul
don’t know yah!” The disgrace attendant on his immediately
afterwards taking to crowing and pursuing me across the bridge with crows, as
from an exceedingly dejected fowl who had known me when I was a blacksmith,
culminated the disgrace with which I left the town, and was, so to speak,
ejected by it into the open country.
But unless I had taken the life of Trabb’s boy on that occasion, I really
do not even now see what I could have done save endure. To have struggled with
him in the street, or to have exacted any lower recompense from him than his
heart’s best blood, would have been futile and degrading. Moreover, he
was a boy whom no man could hurt; an invulnerable and dodging serpent who, when
chased into a corner, flew out again between his captor’s legs,
scornfully yelping. I wrote, however, to Mr. Trabb by next day’s post, to
say that Mr. Pip must decline to deal further with one who could so far forget
what he owed to the best interests of society, as to employ a boy who excited
Loathing in every respectable mind.
The coach, with Mr. Jaggers inside, came up in due time, and I took my box-seat
again, and arrived in London safe,—but not sound, for my heart was gone.
As soon as I arrived, I sent a penitential codfish and barrel of oysters to Joe
(as reparation for not having gone myself), and then went on to Barnard’s
Inn.
I found Herbert dining on cold meat, and delighted to welcome me back. Having
despatched The Avenger to the coffee-house for an addition to the dinner, I
felt that I must open my breast that very evening to my friend and chum. As
confidence was out of the question with The Avenger in the hall, which could
merely be regarded in the light of an antechamber to the keyhole, I sent him to
the Play. A better proof of the severity of my bondage to that taskmaster could
scarcely be afforded, than the degrading shifts to which I was constantly
driven to find him employment. So mean is extremity, that I sometimes sent him
to Hyde Park corner to see what o’clock it was.
Dinner done and we sitting with our feet upon the fender, I said to Herbert,
“My dear Herbert, I have something very particular to tell you.”
“My dear Handel,” he returned, “I shall esteem and respect
your confidence.”
“It concerns myself, Herbert,” said I, “and one other
person.”
Herbert crossed his feet, looked at the fire with his head on one side, and
having looked at it in vain for some time, looked at me because I didn’t
go on.
“Herbert,” said I, laying my hand upon his knee, “I
love—I adore—Estella.”
Instead of being transfixed, Herbert replied in an easy matter-of-course way,
“Exactly. Well?”
“Well, Herbert? Is that all you say? Well?”
“What next, I mean?” said Herbert. “Of course I know
.”
“How do you know it?” said I.
“How do I know it, Handel? Why, from you.”
“I never told you.”
“Told me! You have never told me when you have got your hair cut, but I
have had senses to perceive it. You have always adored her, ever since I have
known you. You brought your adoration and your portmanteau here together. Told
me! Why, you have always told me all day long. When you told me your own story,
you told me plainly that you began adoring her the first time you saw her, when
you were very young indeed.”
“Very well, then,” said I, to whom this was a new and not unwelcome
light, “I have never left off adoring her. And she has come back, a most
beautiful and most elegant creature. And I saw her yesterday. And if I adored
her before, I now doubly adore her.”
“Lucky for you then, Handel,” said Herbert, “that you are
picked out for her and allotted to her. Without encroaching on forbidden
ground, we may venture to say that there can be no doubt between ourselves of
that fact. Have you any idea yet, of Estella’s views on the adoration
question?”
I shook my head gloomily. “Oh! She is thousands of miles away, from
me,” said I.
“Patience, my dear Handel: time enough, time enough. But you have
something more to say?”
“I am ashamed to say it,” I returned, “and yet it’s no
worse to say it than to think it. You call me a lucky fellow. Of course, I am.
I was a blacksmith’s boy but yesterday; I am—what shall I say I
am—to-day?”
“Say a good fellow, if you want a phrase,” returned Herbert,
smiling, and clapping his hand on the back of mine—“a good fellow,
with impetuosity and hesitation, boldness and diffidence, action and dreaming,
curiously mixed in him.”
I stopped for a moment to consider whether there really was this mixture in my
character. On the whole, I by no means recognised the analysis, but thought it
not worth disputing.
“When I ask what I am to call myself to-day, Herbert,” I went on,
“I suggest what I have in my thoughts. You say I am lucky. I know I have
done nothing to raise myself in life, and that Fortune alone has raised me;
that is being very lucky. And yet, when I think of Estella—”
(“And when don’t you, you know?” Herbert threw in, with his
eyes on the fire; which I thought kind and sympathetic of him.)
“—Then, my dear Herbert, I cannot tell you how dependent and
uncertain I feel, and how exposed to hundreds of chances. Avoiding forbidden
ground, as you did just now, I may still say that on the constancy of one
person (naming no person) all my expectations depend. And at the best, how
indefinite and unsatisfactory, only to know so vaguely what they are!” In
saying this, I relieved my mind of what had always been there, more or less,
though no doubt most since yesterday.
“Now, Handel,” Herbert replied, in his gay, hopeful way, “it
seems to me that in the despondency of the tender passion, we are looking into
our gift-horse’s mouth with a magnifying-glass. Likewise, it seems to me
that, concentrating our attention on the examination, we altogether overlook
one of the best points of the animal. Didn’t you tell me that your
guardian, Mr. Jaggers, told you in the beginning, that you were not endowed
with expectations only? And even if he had not told you so,—though that
is a very large If, I grant,—could you believe that of all men in London,
Mr. Jaggers is the man to hold his present relations towards you unless he were
sure of his ground?”
I said I could not deny that this was a strong point. I said it (people often
do so, in such cases) like a rather reluctant concession to truth and
justice;—as if I wanted to deny it!
“I should think it a strong point,” said Herbert,
“and I should think you would be puzzled to imagine a stronger; as to the
rest, you must bide your guardian’s time, and he must bide his
client’s time. You’ll be one-and-twenty before you know where you
are, and then perhaps you’ll get some further enlightenment. At all
events, you’ll be nearer getting it, for it must come at last.”
“What a hopeful disposition you have!” said I, gratefully admiring
his cheery ways.
“I ought to have,” said Herbert, “for I have not much else. I
must acknowledge, by the by, that the good sense of what I have just said is
not my own, but my father’s. The only remark I ever heard him make on
your story, was the final one, “The thing is settled and done, or Mr.
Jaggers would not be in it.” And now before I say anything more about my
father, or my father’s son, and repay confidence with confidence, I want
to make myself seriously disagreeable to you for a moment,—positively
repulsive.”
“You won’t succeed,” said I.
“O yes I shall!” said he. “One, two, three, and now I am in
for it. Handel, my good fellow;”—though he spoke in this light
tone, he was very much in earnest,—“I have been thinking since we
have been talking with our feet on this fender, that Estella surely cannot be a
condition of your inheritance, if she was never referred to by your guardian.
Am I right in so understanding what you have told me, as that he never referred
to her, directly or indirectly, in any way? Never even hinted, for instance,
that your patron might have views as to your marriage ultimately?”
“Never.”
“Now, Handel, I am quite free from the flavour of sour grapes, upon my
soul and honour! Not being bound to her, can you not detach yourself from
her?—I told you I should be disagreeable.”
I turned my head aside, for, with a rush and a sweep, like the old marsh winds
coming up from the sea, a feeling like that which had subdued me on the morning
when I left the forge, when the mists were solemnly rising, and when I laid my
hand upon the village finger-post, smote upon my heart again. There was silence
between us for a little while.
“Yes; but my dear Handel,” Herbert went on, as if we had been
talking, instead of silent, “its having been so strongly rooted in the
breast of a boy whom nature and circumstances made so romantic, renders it very
serious. Think of her bringing-up, and think of Miss Havisham. Think of what
she is herself (now I am repulsive and you abominate me). This may lead to
miserable things.”
“I know it, Herbert,” said I, with my head still turned away,
“but I can’t help it.”
“You can’t detach yourself?”
“No. Impossible!”
“You can’t try, Handel?”
“No. Impossible!”
“Well!” said Herbert, getting up with a lively shake as if he had
been asleep, and stirring the fire, “now I’ll endeavour to make
myself agreeable again!”
So he went round the room and shook the curtains out, put the chairs in their
places, tidied the books and so forth that were lying about, looked into the
hall, peeped into the letter-box, shut the door, and came back to his chair by
the fire: where he sat down, nursing his left leg in both arms.
“I was going to say a word or two, Handel, concerning my father and my
father’s son. I am afraid it is scarcely necessary for my father’s
son to remark that my father’s establishment is not particularly
brilliant in its housekeeping.”
“There is always plenty, Herbert,” said I, to say something
encouraging.
“O yes! and so the dustman says, I believe, with the strongest approval,
and so does the marine-store shop in the back street. Gravely, Handel, for the
subject is grave enough, you know how it is as well as I do. I suppose there
was a time once when my father had not given matters up; but if ever there was,
the time is gone. May I ask you if you have ever had an opportunity of
remarking, down in your part of the country, that the children of not exactly
suitable marriages are always most particularly anxious to be married?”
This was such a singular question, that I asked him in return, “Is it
so?”
“I don’t know,” said Herbert, “that’s what I want
to know. Because it is decidedly the case with us. My poor sister Charlotte,
who was next me and died before she was fourteen, was a striking example.
Little Jane is the same. In her desire to be matrimonially established, you
might suppose her to have passed her short existence in the perpetual
contemplation of domestic bliss. Little Alick in a frock has already made
arrangements for his union with a suitable young person at Kew. And indeed, I
think we are all engaged, except the baby.”
“Then you are?” said I.
“I am,” said Herbert; “but it’s a secret.”
I assured him of my keeping the secret, and begged to be favoured with further
particulars. He had spoken so sensibly and feelingly of my weakness that I
wanted to know something about his strength.
“May I ask the name?” I said.
“Name of Clara,” said Herbert.
“Live in London?”
“Yes, perhaps I ought to mention,” said Herbert, who had become
curiously crestfallen and meek, since we entered on the interesting theme,
“that she is rather below my mother’s nonsensical family notions.
Her father had to do with the victualling of passenger-ships. I think he was a
species of purser.”
“What is he now?” said I.
“He’s an invalid now,” replied Herbert.
“Living on—?”
“On the first floor,” said Herbert. Which was not at all what I
meant, for I had intended my question to apply to his means. “I have
never seen him, for he has always kept his room overhead, since I have known
Clara. But I have heard him constantly. He makes tremendous rows,—roars,
and pegs at the floor with some frightful instrument.” In looking at me
and then laughing heartily, Herbert for the time recovered his usual lively
manner.
“Don’t you expect to see him?” said I.
“O yes, I constantly expect to see him,” returned Herbert,
“because I never hear him, without expecting him to come tumbling through
the ceiling. But I don’t know how long the rafters may hold.”
When he had once more laughed heartily, he became meek again, and told me that
the moment he began to realise Capital, it was his intention to marry this
young lady. He added as a self-evident proposition, engendering low spirits,
“But you marry, you know, while you’re looking
about you.”
As we contemplated the fire, and as I thought what a difficult vision to
realise this same Capital sometimes was, I put my hands in my pockets. A folded
piece of paper in one of them attracting my attention, I opened it and found it
to be the play-bill I had received from Joe, relative to the celebrated
provincial amateur of Roscian renown. “And bless my heart,” I
involuntarily added aloud, “it’s to-night!”
This changed the subject in an instant, and made us hurriedly resolve to go to
the play. So, when I had pledged myself to comfort and abet Herbert in the
affair of his heart by all practicable and impracticable means, and when
Herbert had told me that his affianced already knew me by reputation and that I
should be presented to her, and when we had warmly shaken hands upon our mutual
confidence, we blew out our candles, made up our fire, locked our door, and
issued forth in quest of Mr. Wopsle and Denmark.
Chapter XXXI.
On our
arrival in Denmark, we found the king and queen of that country elevated in two
arm-chairs on a kitchen-table, holding a Court. The whole of the Danish
nobility were in attendance; consisting of a noble boy in the wash-leather
boots of a gigantic ancestor, a venerable Peer with a dirty face who seemed to
have risen from the people late in life, and the Danish chivalry with a comb in
its hair and a pair of white silk legs, and presenting on the whole a feminine
appearance. My gifted townsman stood gloomily apart, with folded arms, and I
could have wished that his curls and forehead had been more probable.
Several curious little circumstances transpired as the action proceeded. The
late king of the country not only appeared to have been troubled with a cough
at the time of his decease, but to have taken it with him to the tomb, and to
have brought it back. The royal phantom also carried a ghostly manuscript round
its truncheon, to which it had the appearance of occasionally referring, and
that too, with an air of anxiety and a tendency to lose the place of reference
which were suggestive of a state of mortality. It was this, I conceive, which
led to the Shade’s being advised by the gallery to “turn
over!”—a recommendation which it took extremely ill. It was
likewise to be noted of this majestic spirit, that whereas it always appeared
with an air of having been out a long time and walked an immense distance, it
perceptibly came from a closely contiguous wall. This occasioned its terrors to
be received derisively. The Queen of Denmark, a very buxom lady, though no
doubt historically brazen, was considered by the public to have too much brass
about her; her chin being attached to her diadem by a broad band of that metal
(as if she had a gorgeous toothache), her waist being encircled by another, and
each of her arms by another, so that she was openly mentioned as “the
kettle-drum.” The noble boy in the ancestral boots was inconsistent,
representing himself, as it were in one breath, as an able seaman, a strolling
actor, a grave-digger, a clergyman, and a person of the utmost importance at a
Court fencing-match, on the authority of whose practised eye and nice
discrimination the finest strokes were judged. This gradually led to a want of
toleration for him, and even—on his being detected in holy orders, and
declining to perform the funeral service—to the general indignation
taking the form of nuts. Lastly, Ophelia was a prey to such slow musical
madness, that when, in course of time, she had taken off her white muslin
scarf, folded it up, and buried it, a sulky man who had been long cooling his
impatient nose against an iron bar in the front row of the gallery, growled,
“Now the baby’s put to bed let’s have supper!” Which,
to say the least of it, was out of keeping.
Upon my unfortunate townsman all these incidents accumulated with playful
effect. Whenever that undecided Prince had to ask a question or state a doubt,
the public helped him out with it. As for example; on the question whether
’twas nobler in the mind to suffer, some roared yes, and some no, and
some inclining to both opinions said “Toss up for it;” and quite a
Debating Society arose. When he asked what should such fellows as he do
crawling between earth and heaven, he was encouraged with loud cries of
“Hear, hear!” When he appeared with his stocking disordered (its
disorder expressed, according to usage, by one very neat fold in the top, which
I suppose to be always got up with a flat iron), a conversation took place in
the gallery respecting the paleness of his leg, and whether it was occasioned
by the turn the ghost had given him. On his taking the recorders,—very
like a little black flute that had just been played in the orchestra and handed
out at the door,—he was called upon unanimously for Rule Britannia. When
he recommended the player not to saw the air thus, the sulky man said,
“And don’t do it, neither; you’re a deal worse
than !” And I grieve to add that peals of laughter greeted Mr.
Wopsle on every one of these occasions.
But his greatest trials were in the churchyard, which had the appearance of a
primeval forest, with a kind of small ecclesiastical wash-house on one side,
and a turnpike gate on the other. Mr. Wopsle in a comprehensive black cloak,
being descried entering at the turnpike, the gravedigger was admonished in a
friendly way, “Look out! Here’s the undertaker a coming, to see how
you’re a getting on with your work!” I believe it is well known in
a constitutional country that Mr. Wopsle could not possibly have returned the
skull, after moralizing over it, without dusting his fingers on a white napkin
taken from his breast; but even that innocent and indispensable action did not
pass without the comment, “Wai-ter!” The arrival of the body for
interment (in an empty black box with the lid tumbling open), was the signal
for a general joy, which was much enhanced by the discovery, among the bearers,
of an individual obnoxious to identification. The joy attended Mr. Wopsle
through his struggle with Laertes on the brink of the orchestra and the grave,
and slackened no more until he had tumbled the king off the kitchen-table, and
had died by inches from the ankles upward.
We had made some pale efforts in the beginning to applaud Mr. Wopsle; but they
were too hopeless to be persisted in. Therefore we had sat, feeling keenly for
him, but laughing, nevertheless, from ear to ear. I laughed in spite of myself
all the time, the whole thing was so droll; and yet I had a latent impression
that there was something decidedly fine in Mr. Wopsle’s
elocution,—not for old associations’ sake, I am afraid, but because
it was very slow, very dreary, very uphill and downhill, and very unlike any
way in which any man in any natural circumstances of life or death ever
expressed himself about anything. When the tragedy was over, and he had been
called for and hooted, I said to Herbert, “Let us go at once, or perhaps
we shall meet him.”
We made all the haste we could downstairs, but we were not quick enough either.
Standing at the door was a Jewish man with an unnatural heavy smear of eyebrow,
who caught my eyes as we advanced, and said, when we came up with him,—
“Mr. Pip and friend?”
Identity of Mr. Pip and friend confessed.
“Mr. Waldengarver,” said the man, “would be glad to have the
honour.”
“Waldengarver?” I repeated—when Herbert murmured in my ear,
“Probably Wopsle.”
“Oh!” said I. “Yes. Shall we follow you?”
“A few steps, please.” When we were in a side alley, he turned and
asked, “How did you think he looked?—I dressed him.”
I don’t know what he had looked like, except a funeral; with the addition
of a large Danish sun or star hanging round his neck by a blue ribbon, that had
given him the appearance of being insured in some extraordinary Fire Office.
But I said he had looked very nice.
“When he come to the grave,” said our conductor, “he showed
his cloak beautiful. But, judging from the wing, it looked to me that when he
see the ghost in the queen’s apartment, he might have made more of his
stockings.”
I modestly assented, and we all fell through a little dirty swing door, into a
sort of hot packing-case immediately behind it. Here Mr. Wopsle was divesting
himself of his Danish garments, and here there was just room for us to look at
him over one another’s shoulders, by keeping the packing-case door, or
lid, wide open.
“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Wopsle, “I am proud to see you. I hope,
Mr. Pip, you will excuse my sending round. I had the happiness to know you in
former times, and the Drama has ever had a claim which has ever been
acknowledged, on the noble and the affluent.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Waldengarver, in a frightful perspiration, was trying to get
himself out of his princely sables.
“Skin the stockings off Mr. Waldengarver,” said the owner of that
property, “or you’ll bust ’em. Bust ’em, and
you’ll bust five-and-thirty shillings. Shakspeare never was complimented
with a finer pair. Keep quiet in your chair now, and leave ’em to
me.”
With that, he went upon his knees, and began to flay his victim; who, on the
first stocking coming off, would certainly have fallen over backward with his
chair, but for there being no room to fall anyhow.
I had been afraid until then to say a word about the play. But then, Mr.
Waldengarver looked up at us complacently, and said,—
“Gentlemen, how did it seem to you, to go, in front?”
Herbert said from behind (at the same time poking me), “Capitally.”
So I said “Capitally.”
“How did you like my reading of the character, gentlemen?” said Mr.
Waldengarver, almost, if not quite, with patronage.
Herbert said from behind (again poking me), “Massive and concrete.”
So I said boldly, as if I had originated it, and must beg to insist upon it,
“Massive and concrete.”
“I am glad to have your approbation, gentlemen,” said Mr.
Waldengarver, with an air of dignity, in spite of his being ground against the
wall at the time, and holding on by the seat of the chair.
“But I’ll tell you one thing, Mr. Waldengarver,” said the man
who was on his knees, “in which you’re out in your reading. Now
mind! I don’t care who says contrairy; I tell you so. You’re out in
your reading of Hamlet when you get your legs in profile. The last Hamlet as I
dressed, made the same mistakes in his reading at rehearsal, till I got him to
put a large red wafer on each of his shins, and then at that rehearsal (which
was the last) I went in front, sir, to the back of the pit, and whenever his
reading brought him into profile, I called out “I don’t see no
wafers!” And at night his reading was lovely.”
Mr. Waldengarver smiled at me, as much as to say “a faithful
Dependent—I overlook his folly;” and then said aloud, “My
view is a little classic and thoughtful for them here; but they will improve,
they will improve.”
Herbert and I said together, O, no doubt they would improve.
“Did you observe, gentlemen,” said Mr. Waldengarver, “that
there was a man in the gallery who endeavoured to cast derision on the
service,—I mean, the representation?”
We basely replied that we rather thought we had noticed such a man. I added,
“He was drunk, no doubt.”
“O dear no, sir,” said Mr. Wopsle, “not drunk. His employer
would see to that, sir. His employer would not allow him to be drunk.”
“You know his employer?” said I.
Mr. Wopsle shut his eyes, and opened them again; performing both ceremonies
very slowly. “You must have observed, gentlemen,” said he,
“an ignorant and a blatant ass, with a rasping throat and a countenance
expressive of low malignity, who went through—I will not say
sustained—the rôle (if I may use a French expression) of Claudius, King
of Denmark. That is his employer, gentlemen. Such is the profession!”
Without distinctly knowing whether I should have been more sorry for Mr. Wopsle
if he had been in despair, I was so sorry for him as it was, that I took the
opportunity of his turning round to have his braces put on,—which jostled
us out at the doorway,—to ask Herbert what he thought of having him home
to supper? Herbert said he thought it would be kind to do so; therefore I
invited him, and he went to Barnard’s with us, wrapped up to the eyes,
and we did our best for him, and he sat until two o’clock in the morning,
reviewing his success and developing his plans. I forget in detail what they
were, but I have a general recollection that he was to begin with reviving the
Drama, and to end with crushing it; inasmuch as his decease would leave it
utterly bereft and without a chance or hope.
Miserably I went to bed after all, and miserably thought of Estella, and
miserably dreamed that my expectations were all cancelled, and that I had to
give my hand in marriage to Herbert’s Clara, or play Hamlet to Miss
Havisham’s Ghost, before twenty thousand people, without knowing twenty
words of it.
Chapter XXXII.
One
day when I was busy with my books and Mr. Pocket, I received a note by the
post, the mere outside of which threw me into a great flutter; for, though I
had never seen the handwriting in which it was addressed, I divined whose hand
it was. It had no set beginning, as Dear Mr. Pip, or Dear Pip, or Dear Sir, or
Dear Anything, but ran thus:—
“I am to come to London the day after to-morrow by the midday coach. I
believe it was settled you should meet me? At all events Miss Havisham has that
impression, and I write in obedience to it. She sends you her regard.
“Yours, E.”
If there had been time, I should probably have ordered several suits of clothes
for this occasion; but as there was not, I was fain to be content with those I
had. My appetite vanished instantly, and I knew no peace or rest until the day
arrived. Not that its arrival brought me either; for, then I was worse than
ever, and began haunting the coach-office in Wood Street, Cheapside, before the
coach had left the Blue Boar in our town. For all that I knew this perfectly
well, I still felt as if it were not safe to let the coach-office be out of my
sight longer than five minutes at a time; and in this condition of unreason I
had performed the first half-hour of a watch of four or five hours, when
Wemmick ran against me.
“Halloa, Mr. Pip,” said he; “how do you do? I should hardly
have thought this was beat.”
I explained that I was waiting to meet somebody who was coming up by coach, and
I inquired after the Castle and the Aged.
“Both flourishing thankye,” said Wemmick, “and particularly
the Aged. He’s in wonderful feather. He’ll be eighty-two next
birthday. I have a notion of firing eighty-two times, if the neighbourhood
shouldn’t complain, and that cannon of mine should prove equal to the
pressure. However, this is not London talk. Where do you think I am going
to?”
“To the office?” said I, for he was tending in that direction.
“Next thing to it,” returned Wemmick, “I am going to Newgate.
We are in a banker’s-parcel case just at present, and I have been down
the road taking a squint at the scene of action, and thereupon must have a word
or two with our client.”
“Did your client commit the robbery?” I asked.
“Bless your soul and body, no,” answered Wemmick, very drily.
“But he is accused of it. So might you or I be. Either of us might be
accused of it, you know.”
“Only neither of us is,” I remarked.
“Yah!” said Wemmick, touching me on the breast with his forefinger;
“you’re a deep one, Mr. Pip! Would you like to have a look at
Newgate? Have you time to spare?”
I had so much time to spare, that the proposal came as a relief,
notwithstanding its irreconcilability with my latent desire to keep my eye on
the coach-office. Muttering that I would make the inquiry whether I had time to
walk with him, I went into the office, and ascertained from the clerk with the
nicest precision and much to the trying of his temper, the earliest moment at
which the coach could be expected,—which I knew beforehand, quite as well
as he. I then rejoined Mr. Wemmick, and affecting to consult my watch, and to
be surprised by the information I had received, accepted his offer.
We were at Newgate in a few minutes, and we passed through the lodge where some
fetters were hanging up on the bare walls among the prison rules, into the
interior of the jail. At that time jails were much neglected, and the period of
exaggerated reaction consequent on all public wrongdoing—and which is
always its heaviest and longest punishment—was still far off. So, felons
were not lodged and fed better than soldiers (to say nothing of paupers), and
seldom set fire to their prisons with the excusable object of improving the
flavour of their soup. It was visiting time when Wemmick took me in, and a
potman was going his rounds with beer; and the prisoners, behind bars in yards,
were buying beer, and talking to friends; and a frowzy, ugly, disorderly,
depressing scene it was.
It struck me that Wemmick walked among the prisoners much as a gardener might
walk among his plants. This was first put into my head by his seeing a shoot
that had come up in the night, and saying, “What, Captain Tom? Are
there? Ah, indeed!” and also, “Is that Black Bill behind
the cistern? Why I didn’t look for you these two months; how do you find
yourself?” Equally in his stopping at the bars and attending to anxious
whisperers,—always singly,—Wemmick with his post-office in an
immovable state, looked at them while in conference, as if he were taking
particular notice of the advance they had made, since last observed, towards
coming out in full blow at their trial.
He was highly popular, and I found that he took the familiar department of Mr.
Jaggers’s business; though something of the state of Mr. Jaggers hung
about him too, forbidding approach beyond certain limits. His personal
recognition of each successive client was comprised in a nod, and in his
settling his hat a little easier on his head with both hands, and then
tightening the post-office, and putting his hands in his pockets. In one or two
instances there was a difficulty respecting the raising of fees, and then Mr.
Wemmick, backing as far as possible from the insufficient money produced, said,
“it’s no use, my boy. I’m only a subordinate. I can’t
take it. Don’t go on in that way with a subordinate. If you are unable to
make up your quantum, my boy, you had better address yourself to a principal;
there are plenty of principals in the profession, you know, and what is not
worth the while of one, may be worth the while of another; that’s my
recommendation to you, speaking as a subordinate. Don’t try on useless
measures. Why should you? Now, who’s next?”
Thus, we walked through Wemmick’s greenhouse, until he turned to me and
said, “Notice the man I shall shake hands with.” I should have done
so, without the preparation, as he had shaken hands with no one yet.
Almost as soon as he had spoken, a portly upright man (whom I can see now, as I
write) in a well-worn olive-coloured frock-coat, with a peculiar pallor
overspreading the red in his complexion, and eyes that went wandering about
when he tried to fix them, came up to a corner of the bars, and put his hand to
his hat—which had a greasy and fatty surface like cold broth—with a
half-serious and half-jocose military salute.
“Colonel, to you!” said Wemmick; “how are you,
Colonel?”
“All right, Mr. Wemmick.”
“Everything was done that could be done, but the evidence was too strong
for us, Colonel.”
“Yes, it was too strong, sir,—but don’t care.”
“No, no,” said Wemmick, coolly, “ don’t
care.” Then, turning to me, “Served His Majesty this man. Was a
soldier in the line and bought his discharge.”
I said, “Indeed?” and the man’s eyes looked at me, and then
looked over my head, and then looked all round me, and then he drew his hand
across his lips and laughed.
“I think I shall be out of this on Monday, sir,” he said to
Wemmick.
“Perhaps,” returned my friend, “but there’s no
knowing.”
“I am glad to have the chance of bidding you good-bye, Mr.
Wemmick,” said the man, stretching out his hand between two bars.
“Thankye,” said Wemmick, shaking hands with him. “Same to
you, Colonel.”
“If what I had upon me when taken had been real, Mr. Wemmick,” said
the man, unwilling to let his hand go, “I should have asked the favour of
your wearing another ring—in acknowledgment of your attentions.”
“I’ll accept the will for the deed,” said Wemmick. “By
the by; you were quite a pigeon-fancier.” The man looked up at the sky.
“I am told you had a remarkable breed of tumblers. you
commission any friend of yours to bring me a pair, if you’ve no further
use for ’em?”
“It shall be done, sir.”
“All right,” said Wemmick, “they shall be taken care of.
Good-afternoon, Colonel. Good-bye!” They shook hands again, and as we
walked away Wemmick said to me, “A Coiner, a very good workman. The
Recorder’s report is made to-day, and he is sure to be executed on
Monday. Still you see, as far as it goes, a pair of pigeons are portable
property all the same.” With that, he looked back, and nodded at this
dead plant, and then cast his eyes about him in walking out of the yard, as if
he were considering what other pot would go best in its place.
As we came out of the prison through the lodge, I found that the great
importance of my guardian was appreciated by the turnkeys, no less than by
those whom they held in charge. “Well, Mr. Wemmick,” said the
turnkey, who kept us between the two studded and spiked lodge gates, and who
carefully locked one before he unlocked the other, “what’s Mr.
Jaggers going to do with that water-side murder? Is he going to make it
manslaughter, or what’s he going to make of it?”
“Why don’t you ask him?” returned Wemmick.
“O yes, I dare say!” said the turnkey.
“Now, that’s the way with them here, Mr. Pip,” remarked
Wemmick, turning to me with his post-office elongated. “They don’t
mind what they ask of me, the subordinate; but you’ll never catch
’em asking any questions of my principal.”
“Is this young gentleman one of the ’prentices or articled ones of
your office?” asked the turnkey, with a grin at Mr. Wemmick’s
humour.
“There he goes again, you see!” cried Wemmick, “I told you
so! Asks another question of the subordinate before his first is dry! Well,
supposing Mr. Pip is one of them?”
“Why then,” said the turnkey, grinning again, “he knows what
Mr. Jaggers is.”
“Yah!” cried Wemmick, suddenly hitting out at the turnkey in a
facetious way, “you’re dumb as one of your own keys when you have
to do with my principal, you know you are. Let us out, you old fox, or
I’ll get him to bring an action against you for false
imprisonment.”
The turnkey laughed, and gave us good day, and stood laughing at us over the
spikes of the wicket when we descended the steps into the street.
“Mind you, Mr. Pip,” said Wemmick, gravely in my ear, as he took my
arm to be more confidential; “I don’t know that Mr. Jaggers does a
better thing than the way in which he keeps himself so high. He’s always
so high. His constant height is of a piece with his immense abilities. That
Colonel durst no more take leave of , than that turnkey durst ask him
his intentions respecting a case. Then, between his height and them, he slips
in his subordinate,—don’t you see?—and so he has ’em,
soul and body.”
I was very much impressed, and not for the first time, by my guardian’s
subtlety. To confess the truth, I very heartily wished, and not for the first
time, that I had had some other guardian of minor abilities.
Mr. Wemmick and I parted at the office in Little Britain, where suppliants for
Mr. Jaggers’s notice were lingering about as usual, and I returned to my
watch in the street of the coach-office, with some three hours on hand. I
consumed the whole time in thinking how strange it was that I should be
encompassed by all this taint of prison and crime; that, in my childhood out on
our lonely marshes on a winter evening, I should have first encountered it;
that, it should have reappeared on two occasions, starting out like a stain
that was faded but not gone; that, it should in this new way pervade my fortune
and advancement. While my mind was thus engaged, I thought of the beautiful
young Estella, proud and refined, coming towards me, and I thought with
absolute abhorrence of the contrast between the jail and her. I wished that
Wemmick had not met me, or that I had not yielded to him and gone with him, so
that, of all days in the year on this day, I might not have had Newgate in my
breath and on my clothes. I beat the prison dust off my feet as I sauntered to
and fro, and I shook it out of my dress, and I exhaled its air from my lungs.
So contaminated did I feel, remembering who was coming, that the coach came
quickly after all, and I was not yet free from the soiling consciousness of Mr.
Wemmick’s conservatory, when I saw her face at the coach window and her
hand waving to me.
What the nameless shadow which again in that one instant had passed?
Chapter XXXIII.
In her
furred travelling-dress, Estella seemed more delicately beautiful than she had
ever seemed yet, even in my eyes. Her manner was more winning than she had
cared to let it be to me before, and I thought I saw Miss Havisham’s
influence in the change.
We stood in the Inn Yard while she pointed out her luggage to me, and when it
was all collected I remembered—having forgotten everything but herself in
the meanwhile—that I knew nothing of her destination.
“I am going to Richmond,” she told me. “Our lesson is, that
there are two Richmonds, one in Surrey and one in Yorkshire, and that mine is
the Surrey Richmond. The distance is ten miles. I am to have a carriage, and
you are to take me. This is my purse, and you are to pay my charges out of it.
O, you must take the purse! We have no choice, you and I, but to obey our
instructions. We are not free to follow our own devices, you and I.”
As she looked at me in giving me the purse, I hoped there was an inner meaning
in her words. She said them slightingly, but not with displeasure.
“A carriage will have to be sent for, Estella. Will you rest here a
little?”
“Yes, I am to rest here a little, and I am to drink some tea, and you are
to take care of me the while.”
She drew her arm through mine, as if it must be done, and I requested a waiter
who had been staring at the coach like a man who had never seen such a thing in
his life, to show us a private sitting-room. Upon that, he pulled out a napkin,
as if it were a magic clue without which he couldn’t find the way
upstairs, and led us to the black hole of the establishment, fitted up with a
diminishing mirror (quite a superfluous article, considering the hole’s
proportions), an anchovy sauce-cruet, and somebody’s pattens. On my
objecting to this retreat, he took us into another room with a dinner-table for
thirty, and in the grate a scorched leaf of a copy-book under a bushel of
coal-dust. Having looked at this extinct conflagration and shaken his head, he
took my order; which, proving to be merely, “Some tea for the
lady,” sent him out of the room in a very low state of mind.
I was, and I am, sensible that the air of this chamber, in its strong
combination of stable with soup-stock, might have led one to infer that the
coaching department was not doing well, and that the enterprising proprietor
was boiling down the horses for the refreshment department. Yet the room was
all in all to me, Estella being in it. I thought that with her I could have
been happy there for life. (I was not at all happy there at the time, observe,
and I knew it well.)
“Where are you going to, at Richmond?” I asked Estella.
“I am going to live,” said she, “at a great expense, with a
lady there, who has the power—or says she has—of taking me about,
and introducing me, and showing people to me and showing me to people.”
“I suppose you will be glad of variety and admiration?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
She answered so carelessly, that I said, “You speak of yourself as if you
were some one else.”
“Where did you learn how I speak of others? Come, come,” said
Estella, smiling delightfully, “you must not expect me to go to school to
; I must talk in my own way. How do you thrive with Mr.
Pocket?”
“I live quite pleasantly there; at least—” It appeared to me
that I was losing a chance.
“At least?” repeated Estella.
“As pleasantly as I could anywhere, away from you.”
“You silly boy,” said Estella, quite composedly, “how can you
talk such nonsense? Your friend Mr. Matthew, I believe, is superior to the rest
of his family?”
“Very superior indeed. He is nobody’s enemy—”
“Don’t add but his own,” interposed Estella, “for I
hate that class of man. But he really is disinterested, and above small
jealousy and spite, I have heard?”
“I am sure I have every reason to say so.”
“You have not every reason to say so of the rest of his people,”
said Estella, nodding at me with an expression of face that was at once grave
and rallying, “for they beset Miss Havisham with reports and insinuations
to your disadvantage. They watch you, misrepresent you, write letters about you
(anonymous sometimes), and you are the torment and the occupation of their
lives. You can scarcely realise to yourself the hatred those people feel for
you.”
“They do me no harm, I hope?”
Instead of answering, Estella burst out laughing. This was very singular to me,
and I looked at her in considerable perplexity. When she left off—and she
had not laughed languidly, but with real enjoyment—I said, in my
diffident way with her,—
“I hope I may suppose that you would not be amused if they did me any
harm.”
“No, no you may be sure of that,” said Estella. “You may be
certain that I laugh because they fail. O, those people with Miss Havisham, and
the tortures they undergo!” She laughed again, and even now when she had
told me why, her laughter was very singular to me, for I could not doubt its
being genuine, and yet it seemed too much for the occasion. I thought there
must really be something more here than I knew; she saw the thought in my mind,
and answered it.
“It is not easy for even you.” said Estella, “to know what
satisfaction it gives me to see those people thwarted, or what an enjoyable
sense of the ridiculous I have when they are made ridiculous. For you were not
brought up in that strange house from a mere baby. I was. You had not your
little wits sharpened by their intriguing against you, suppressed and
defenceless, under the mask of sympathy and pity and what not that is soft and
soothing. I had. You did not gradually open your round childish eyes wider and
wider to the discovery of that impostor of a woman who calculates her stores of
peace of mind for when she wakes up in the night. I did.”
It was no laughing matter with Estella now, nor was she summoning these
remembrances from any shallow place. I would not have been the cause of that
look of hers for all my expectations in a heap.
“Two things I can tell you,” said Estella. “First,
notwithstanding the proverb that constant dropping will wear away a stone, you
may set your mind at rest that these people never will—never would in a
hundred years—impair your ground with Miss Havisham, in any particular,
great or small. Second, I am beholden to you as the cause of their being so
busy and so mean in vain, and there is my hand upon it.”
As she gave it to me playfully,—for her darker mood had been but
momentary—I held it and put it to my lips. “You ridiculous
boy,” said Estella, “will you never take warning? Or do you kiss my
hand in the same spirit in which I once let you kiss my cheek?”
“What spirit was that?” said I.
“I must think a moment. A spirit of contempt for the fawners and
plotters.”
“If I say yes, may I kiss the cheek again?”
“You should have asked before you touched the hand. But, yes, if you
like.”
I leaned down, and her calm face was like a statue’s. “Now,”
said Estella, gliding away the instant I touched her cheek, “you are to
take care that I have some tea, and you are to take me to Richmond.”
Her reverting to this tone as if our association were forced upon us, and we
were mere puppets, gave me pain; but everything in our intercourse did give me
pain. Whatever her tone with me happened to be, I could put no trust in it, and
build no hope on it; and yet I went on against trust and against hope. Why
repeat it a thousand times? So it always was.
I rang for the tea, and the waiter, reappearing with his magic clue, brought in
by degrees some fifty adjuncts to that refreshment, but of tea not a glimpse. A
teaboard, cups and saucers, plates, knives and forks (including carvers),
spoons (various), salt-cellars, a meek little muffin confined with the utmost
precaution under a strong iron cover, Moses in the bulrushes typified by a soft
bit of butter in a quantity of parsley, a pale loaf with a powdered head, two
proof impressions of the bars of the kitchen fireplace on triangular bits of
bread, and ultimately a fat family urn; which the waiter staggered in with,
expressing in his countenance burden and suffering. After a prolonged absence
at this stage of the entertainment, he at length came back with a casket of
precious appearance containing twigs. These I steeped in hot water, and so from
the whole of these appliances extracted one cup of I don’t know what for
Estella.
The bill paid, and the waiter remembered, and the ostler not forgotten, and the
chambermaid taken into consideration,—in a word, the whole house bribed
into a state of contempt and animosity, and Estella’s purse much
lightened,—we got into our post-coach and drove away. Turning into
Cheapside and rattling up Newgate Street, we were soon under the walls of which
I was so ashamed.
“What place is that?” Estella asked me.
I made a foolish pretence of not at first recognising it, and then told her. As
she looked at it, and drew in her head again, murmuring,
“Wretches!” I would not have confessed to my visit for any
consideration.
“Mr. Jaggers,” said I, by way of putting it neatly on somebody
else, “has the reputation of being more in the secrets of that dismal
place than any man in London.”
“He is more in the secrets of every place, I think,” said Estella,
in a low voice.
“You have been accustomed to see him often, I suppose?”
“I have been accustomed to see him at uncertain intervals, ever since I
can remember. But I know him no better now, than I did before I could speak
plainly. What is your own experience of him? Do you advance with him?”
“Once habituated to his distrustful manner,” said I, “I have
done very well.”
“Are you intimate?”
“I have dined with him at his private house.”
“I fancy,” said Estella, shrinking “that must be a curious
place.”
“It is a curious place.”
I should have been chary of discussing my guardian too freely even with her;
but I should have gone on with the subject so far as to describe the dinner in
Gerrard Street, if we had not then come into a sudden glare of gas. It seemed,
while it lasted, to be all alight and alive with that inexplicable feeling I
had had before; and when we were out of it, I was as much dazed for a few
moments as if I had been in lightning.
So we fell into other talk, and it was principally about the way by which we
were travelling, and about what parts of London lay on this side of it, and
what on that. The great city was almost new to her, she told me, for she had
never left Miss Havisham’s neighbourhood until she had gone to France,
and she had merely passed through London then in going and returning. I asked
her if my guardian had any charge of her while she remained here? To that she
emphatically said “God forbid!” and no more.
It was impossible for me to avoid seeing that she cared to attract me; that she
made herself winning, and would have won me even if the task had needed pains.
Yet this made me none the happier, for even if she had not taken that tone of
our being disposed of by others, I should have felt that she held my heart in
her hand because she wilfully chose to do it, and not because it would have
wrung any tenderness in her to crush it and throw it away.
When we passed through Hammersmith, I showed her where Mr. Matthew Pocket
lived, and said it was no great way from Richmond, and that I hoped I should
see her sometimes.
“O yes, you are to see me; you are to come when you think proper; you are
to be mentioned to the family; indeed you are already mentioned.”
I inquired was it a large household she was going to be a member of?
“No; there are only two; mother and daughter. The mother is a lady of
some station, though not averse to increasing her income.”
“I wonder Miss Havisham could part with you again so soon.”
“It is a part of Miss Havisham’s plans for me, Pip,” said
Estella, with a sigh, as if she were tired; “I am to write to her
constantly and see her regularly and report how I go on,—I and the
jewels,—for they are nearly all mine now.”
It was the first time she had ever called me by my name. Of course she did so
purposely, and knew that I should treasure it up.
We came to Richmond all too soon, and our destination there was a house by the
green,—a staid old house, where hoops and powder and patches, embroidered
coats, rolled stockings, ruffles and swords, had had their court days many a
time. Some ancient trees before the house were still cut into fashions as
formal and unnatural as the hoops and wigs and stiff skirts; but their own
allotted places in the great procession of the dead were not far off, and they
would soon drop into them and go the silent way of the rest.
A bell with an old voice—which I dare say in its time had often said to
the house, Here is the green farthingale, Here is the diamond-hilted sword,
Here are the shoes with red heels and the blue solitaire—sounded gravely
in the moonlight, and two cherry-coloured maids came fluttering out to receive
Estella. The doorway soon absorbed her boxes, and she gave me her hand and a
smile, and said good-night, and was absorbed likewise. And still I stood
looking at the house, thinking how happy I should be if I lived there with her,
and knowing that I never was happy with her, but always miserable.
I got into the carriage to be taken back to Hammersmith, and I got in with a
bad heart-ache, and I got out with a worse heart-ache. At our own door, I found
little Jane Pocket coming home from a little party escorted by her little
lover; and I envied her little lover, in spite of his being subject to Flopson.
Mr. Pocket was out lecturing; for, he was a most delightful lecturer on
domestic economy, and his treatises on the management of children and servants
were considered the very best text-books on those themes. But Mrs. Pocket was
at home, and was in a little difficulty, on account of the baby’s having
been accommodated with a needle-case to keep him quiet during the unaccountable
absence (with a relative in the Foot Guards) of Millers. And more needles were
missing than it could be regarded as quite wholesome for a patient of such
tender years either to apply externally or to take as a tonic.
Mr. Pocket being justly celebrated for giving most excellent practical advice,
and for having a clear and sound perception of things and a highly judicious
mind, I had some notion in my heart-ache of begging him to accept my
confidence. But happening to look up at Mrs. Pocket as she sat reading her book
of dignities after prescribing Bed as a sovereign remedy for baby, I
thought—Well—No, I wouldn’t.
Chapter XXXIV.
As I
had grown accustomed to my expectations, I had insensibly begun to notice their
effect upon myself and those around me. Their influence on my own character I
disguised from my recognition as much as possible, but I knew very well that it
was not all good. I lived in a state of chronic uneasiness respecting my
behaviour to Joe. My conscience was not by any means comfortable about Biddy.
When I woke up in the night,—like Camilla,—I used to think, with a
weariness on my spirits, that I should have been happier and better if I had
never seen Miss Havisham’s face, and had risen to manhood content to be
partners with Joe in the honest old forge. Many a time of an evening, when I
sat alone looking at the fire, I thought, after all there was no fire like the
forge fire and the kitchen fire at home.
Yet Estella was so inseparable from all my restlessness and disquiet of mind,
that I really fell into confusion as to the limits of my own part in its
production. That is to say, supposing I had had no expectations, and yet had
had Estella to think of, I could not make out to my satisfaction that I should
have done much better. Now, concerning the influence of my position on others,
I was in no such difficulty, and so I perceived—though dimly enough
perhaps—that it was not beneficial to anybody, and, above all, that it
was not beneficial to Herbert. My lavish habits led his easy nature into
expenses that he could not afford, corrupted the simplicity of his life, and
disturbed his peace with anxieties and regrets. I was not at all remorseful for
having unwittingly set those other branches of the Pocket family to the poor
arts they practised; because such littlenesses were their natural bent, and
would have been evoked by anybody else, if I had left them slumbering. But
Herbert’s was a very different case, and it often caused me a twinge to
think that I had done him evil service in crowding his sparely furnished
chambers with incongruous upholstery work, and placing the Canary-breasted
Avenger at his disposal.
So now, as an infallible way of making little ease great ease, I began to
contract a quantity of debt. I could hardly begin but Herbert must begin too,
so he soon followed. At Startop’s suggestion, we put ourselves down for
election into a club called The Finches of the Grove: the object of which
institution I have never divined, if it were not that the members should dine
expensively once a fortnight, to quarrel among themselves as much as possible
after dinner, and to cause six waiters to get drunk on the stairs. I know that
these gratifying social ends were so invariably accomplished, that Herbert and
I understood nothing else to be referred to in the first standing toast of the
society: which ran “Gentlemen, may the present promotion of good feeling
ever reign predominant among the Finches of the Grove.”
The Finches spent their money foolishly (the Hotel we dined at was in Covent
Garden), and the first Finch I saw when I had the honour of joining the Grove
was Bentley Drummle, at that time floundering about town in a cab of his own,
and doing a great deal of damage to the posts at the street corners.
Occasionally, he shot himself out of his equipage headforemost over the apron;
and I saw him on one occasion deliver himself at the door of the Grove in this
unintentional way—like coals. But here I anticipate a little, for I was
not a Finch, and could not be, according to the sacred laws of the society,
until I came of age.
In my confidence in my own resources, I would willingly have taken
Herbert’s expenses on myself; but Herbert was proud, and I could make no
such proposal to him. So he got into difficulties in every direction, and
continued to look about him. When we gradually fell into keeping late hours and
late company, I noticed that he looked about him with a desponding eye at
breakfast-time; that he began to look about him more hopefully about midday;
that he drooped when he came into dinner; that he seemed to descry Capital in
the distance, rather clearly, after dinner; that he all but realised Capital
towards midnight; and that at about two o’clock in the morning, he became
so deeply despondent again as to talk of buying a rifle and going to America,
with a general purpose of compelling buffaloes to make his fortune.
I was usually at Hammersmith about half the week, and when I was at Hammersmith
I haunted Richmond, whereof separately by and by. Herbert would often come to
Hammersmith when I was there, and I think at those seasons his father would
occasionally have some passing perception that the opening he was looking for,
had not appeared yet. But in the general tumbling up of the family, his
tumbling out in life somewhere, was a thing to transact itself somehow. In the
meantime Mr. Pocket grew greyer, and tried oftener to lift himself out of his
perplexities by the hair. While Mrs. Pocket tripped up the family with her
footstool, read her book of dignities, lost her pocket-handkerchief, told us
about her grandpapa, and taught the young idea how to shoot, by shooting it
into bed whenever it attracted her notice.
As I am now generalising a period of my life with the object of clearing my way
before me, I can scarcely do so better than by at once completing the
description of our usual manners and customs at Barnard’s Inn.
We spent as much money as we could, and got as little for it as people could
make up their minds to give us. We were always more or less miserable, and most
of our acquaintance were in the same condition. There was a gay fiction among
us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we
never did. To the best of my belief, our case was in the last aspect a rather
common one.
Every morning, with an air ever new, Herbert went into the City to look about
him. I often paid him a visit in the dark back-room in which he consorted with
an ink-jar, a hat-peg, a coal-box, a string-box, an almanac, a desk and stool,
and a ruler; and I do not remember that I ever saw him do anything else but
look about him. If we all did what we undertake to do, as faithfully as Herbert
did, we might live in a Republic of the Virtues. He had nothing else to do,
poor fellow, except at a certain hour of every afternoon to “go to
Lloyd’s”—in observance of a ceremony of seeing his principal,
I think. He never did anything else in connection with Lloyd’s that I
could find out, except come back again. When he felt his case unusually
serious, and that he positively must find an opening, he would go on
’Change at a busy time, and walk in and out, in a kind of gloomy country
dance figure, among the assembled magnates. “For,” says Herbert to
me, coming home to dinner on one of those special occasions, “I find the
truth to be, Handel, that an opening won’t come to one, but one must go
to it,—so I have been.”
If we had been less attached to one another, I think we must have hated one
another regularly every morning. I detested the chambers beyond expression at
that period of repentance, and could not endure the sight of the
Avenger’s livery; which had a more expensive and a less remunerative
appearance then than at any other time in the four-and-twenty hours. As we got
more and more into debt, breakfast became a hollower and hollower form, and,
being on one occasion at breakfast-time threatened (by letter) with legal
proceedings, “not unwholly unconnected,” as my local paper might
put it, “with jewelery,” I went so far as to seize the Avenger by
his blue collar and shake him off his feet,—so that he was actually in
the air, like a booted Cupid,—for presuming to suppose that we wanted a
roll.
At certain times—meaning at uncertain times, for they depended on our
humour—I would say to Herbert, as if it were a remarkable
discovery,—
“My dear Herbert, we are getting on badly.”
“My dear Handel,” Herbert would say to me, in all sincerity,
“if you will believe me, those very words were on my lips, by a strange
coincidence.”
“Then, Herbert,” I would respond, “let us look into our
affairs.”
We always derived profound satisfaction from making an appointment for this
purpose. I always thought this was business, this was the way to confront the
thing, this was the way to take the foe by the throat. And I know Herbert
thought so too.
We ordered something rather special for dinner, with a bottle of something
similarly out of the common way, in order that our minds might be fortified for
the occasion, and we might come well up to the mark. Dinner over, we produced a
bundle of pens, a copious supply of ink, and a goodly show of writing and
blotting paper. For there was something very comfortable in having plenty of
stationery.
I would then take a sheet of paper, and write across the top of it, in a neat
hand, the heading, “Memorandum of Pip’s debts”; with
Barnard’s Inn and the date very carefully added. Herbert would also take
a sheet of paper, and write across it with similar formalities,
“Memorandum of Herbert’s debts.”
Each of us would then refer to a confused heap of papers at his side, which had
been thrown into drawers, worn into holes in pockets, half burnt in lighting
candles, stuck for weeks into the looking-glass, and otherwise damaged. The
sound of our pens going refreshed us exceedingly, insomuch that I sometimes
found it difficult to distinguish between this edifying business proceeding and
actually paying the money. In point of meritorious character, the two things
seemed about equal.
When we had written a little while, I would ask Herbert how he got on? Herbert
probably would have been scratching his head in a most rueful manner at the
sight of his accumulating figures.
“They are mounting up, Handel,” Herbert would say; “upon my
life, they are mounting up.”
“Be firm, Herbert,” I would retort, plying my own pen with great
assiduity. “Look the thing in the face. Look into your affairs. Stare
them out of countenance.”
“So I would, Handel, only they are staring out of
countenance.”
However, my determined manner would have its effect, and Herbert would fall to
work again. After a time he would give up once more, on the plea that he had
not got Cobbs’s bill, or Lobbs’s, or Nobbs’s, as the case
might be.
“Then, Herbert, estimate; estimate it in round numbers, and put it
down.”
“What a fellow of resource you are!” my friend would reply, with
admiration. “Really your business powers are very remarkable.”
I thought so too. I established with myself, on these occasions, the reputation
of a first-rate man of business,—prompt, decisive, energetic, clear,
cool-headed. When I had got all my responsibilities down upon my list, I
compared each with the bill, and ticked it off. My self-approval when I ticked
an entry was quite a luxurious sensation. When I had no more ticks to make, I
folded all my bills up uniformly, docketed each on the back, and tied the whole
into a symmetrical bundle. Then I did the same for Herbert (who modestly said
he had not my administrative genius), and felt that I had brought his affairs
into a focus for him.
My business habits had one other bright feature, which I called “leaving
a Margin.” For example; supposing Herbert’s debts to be one hundred
and sixty-four pounds four-and-twopence, I would say, “Leave a margin,
and put them down at two hundred.” Or, supposing my own to be four times
as much, I would leave a margin, and put them down at seven hundred. I had the
highest opinion of the wisdom of this same Margin, but I am bound to
acknowledge that on looking back, I deem it to have been an expensive device.
For, we always ran into new debt immediately, to the full extent of the margin,
and sometimes, in the sense of freedom and solvency it imparted, got pretty far
on into another margin.
But there was a calm, a rest, a virtuous hush, consequent on these examinations
of our affairs that gave me, for the time, an admirable opinion of myself.
Soothed by my exertions, my method, and Herbert’s compliments, I would
sit with his symmetrical bundle and my own on the table before me among the
stationery, and feel like a Bank of some sort, rather than a private
individual.
We shut our outer door on these solemn occasions, in order that we might not be
interrupted. I had fallen into my serene state one evening, when we heard a
letter dropped through the slit in the said door, and fall on the ground.
“It’s for you, Handel,” said Herbert, going out and coming
back with it, “and I hope there is nothing the matter.” This was in
allusion to its heavy black seal and border.
The letter was signed Trabb & Co., and its contents were simply, that I was
an honoured sir, and that they begged to inform me that Mrs. J. Gargery had
departed this life on Monday last at twenty minutes past six in the evening,
and that my attendance was requested at the interment on Monday next at three
o’clock in the afternoon.
Chapter XXXV.
It was
the first time that a grave had opened in my road of life, and the gap it made
in the smooth ground was wonderful. The figure of my sister in her chair by the
kitchen fire, haunted me night and day. That the place could possibly be,
without her, was something my mind seemed unable to compass; and whereas she
had seldom or never been in my thoughts of late, I had now the strangest ideas
that she was coming towards me in the street, or that she would presently knock
at the door. In my rooms too, with which she had never been at all associated,
there was at once the blankness of death and a perpetual suggestion of the
sound of her voice or the turn of her face or figure, as if she were still
alive and had been often there.
Whatever my fortunes might have been, I could scarcely have recalled my sister
with much tenderness. But I suppose there is a shock of regret which may exist
without much tenderness. Under its influence (and perhaps to make up for the
want of the softer feeling) I was seized with a violent indignation against the
assailant from whom she had suffered so much; and I felt that on sufficient
proof I could have revengefully pursued Orlick, or any one else, to the last
extremity.
Having written to Joe, to offer him consolation, and to assure him that I would
come to the funeral, I passed the intermediate days in the curious state of
mind I have glanced at. I went down early in the morning, and alighted at the
Blue Boar in good time to walk over to the forge.
It was fine summer weather again, and, as I walked along, the times when I was
a little helpless creature, and my sister did not spare me, vividly returned.
But they returned with a gentle tone upon them that softened even the edge of
Tickler. For now, the very breath of the beans and clover whispered to my heart
that the day must come when it would be well for my memory that others walking
in the sunshine should be softened as they thought of me.
At last I came within sight of the house, and saw that Trabb and Co. had put in
a funereal execution and taken possession. Two dismally absurd persons, each
ostentatiously exhibiting a crutch done up in a black bandage,—as if that
instrument could possibly communicate any comfort to anybody,—were posted
at the front door; and in one of them I recognised a postboy discharged from
the Boar for turning a young couple into a sawpit on their bridal morning, in
consequence of intoxication rendering it necessary for him to ride his horse
clasped round the neck with both arms. All the children of the village, and
most of the women, were admiring these sable warders and the closed windows of
the house and forge; and as I came up, one of the two warders (the postboy)
knocked at the door,—implying that I was far too much exhausted by grief
to have strength remaining to knock for myself.
Another sable warder (a carpenter, who had once eaten two geese for a wager)
opened the door, and showed me into the best parlour. Here, Mr. Trabb had taken
unto himself the best table, and had got all the leaves up, and was holding a
kind of black Bazaar, with the aid of a quantity of black pins. At the moment
of my arrival, he had just finished putting somebody’s hat into black
long-clothes, like an African baby; so he held out his hand for mine. But I,
misled by the action, and confused by the occasion, shook hands with him with
every testimony of warm affection.
Poor dear Joe, entangled in a little black cloak tied in a large bow under his
chin, was seated apart at the upper end of the room; where, as chief mourner,
he had evidently been stationed by Trabb. When I bent down and said to him,
“Dear Joe, how are you?” he said, “Pip, old chap, you knowed
her when she were a fine figure of a—” and clasped my hand and said
no more.
Biddy, looking very neat and modest in her black dress, went quietly here and
there, and was very helpful. When I had spoken to Biddy, as I thought it not a
time for talking I went and sat down near Joe, and there began to wonder in
what part of the house it—she—my sister—was. The air of the
parlour being faint with the smell of sweet-cake, I looked about for the table
of refreshments; it was scarcely visible until one had got accustomed to the
gloom, but there was a cut-up plum cake upon it, and there were cut-up oranges,
and sandwiches, and biscuits, and two decanters that I knew very well as
ornaments, but had never seen used in all my life; one full of port, and one of
sherry. Standing at this table, I became conscious of the servile Pumblechook
in a black cloak and several yards of hatband, who was alternately stuffing
himself, and making obsequious movements to catch my attention. The moment he
succeeded, he came over to me (breathing sherry and crumbs), and said in a
subdued voice, “May I, dear sir?” and did. I then descried Mr. and
Mrs. Hubble; the last-named in a decent speechless paroxysm in a corner. We
were all going to “follow,” and were all in course of being tied up
separately (by Trabb) into ridiculous bundles.
“Which I meantersay, Pip,” Joe whispered me, as we were being what
Mr. Trabb called “formed” in the parlour, two and two,—and it
was dreadfully like a preparation for some grim kind of dance; “which I
meantersay, sir, as I would in preference have carried her to the church
myself, along with three or four friendly ones wot come to it with willing
harts and arms, but it were considered wot the neighbours would look down on
such and would be of opinions as it were wanting in respect.”
“Pocket-handkerchiefs out, all!” cried Mr. Trabb at this point, in
a depressed business-like voice. “Pocket-handkerchiefs out! We are
ready!”
So we all put our pocket-handkerchiefs to our faces, as if our noses were
bleeding, and filed out two and two; Joe and I; Biddy and Pumblechook; Mr. and
Mrs. Hubble. The remains of my poor sister had been brought round by the
kitchen door, and, it being a point of Undertaking ceremony that the six
bearers must be stifled and blinded under a horrible black velvet housing with
a white border, the whole looked like a blind monster with twelve human legs,
shuffling and blundering along, under the guidance of two keepers,—the
postboy and his comrade.
The neighbourhood, however, highly approved of these arrangements, and we were
much admired as we went through the village; the more youthful and vigorous
part of the community making dashes now and then to cut us off, and lying in
wait to intercept us at points of vantage. At such times the more exuberant
among them called out in an excited manner on our emergence round some corner
of expectancy, “ they come!” “ they
are!” and we were all but cheered. In this progress I was much annoyed by
the abject Pumblechook, who, being behind me, persisted all the way as a
delicate attention in arranging my streaming hatband, and smoothing my cloak.
My thoughts were further distracted by the excessive pride of Mr. and Mrs.
Hubble, who were surpassingly conceited and vainglorious in being members of so
distinguished a procession.
And now the range of marshes lay clear before us, with the sails of the ships
on the river growing out of it; and we went into the churchyard, close to the
graves of my unknown parents, Philip Pirrip, late of this parish, and Also
Georgiana, Wife of the Above. And there, my sister was laid quietly in the
earth, while the larks sang high above it, and the light wind strewed it with
beautiful shadows of clouds and trees.
Of the conduct of the worldly minded Pumblechook while this was doing, I desire
to say no more than it was all addressed to me; and that even when those noble
passages were read which remind humanity how it brought nothing into the world
and can take nothing out, and how it fleeth like a shadow and never continueth
long in one stay, I heard him cough a reservation of the case of a young
gentleman who came unexpectedly into large property. When we got back, he had
the hardihood to tell me that he wished my sister could have known I had done
her so much honour, and to hint that she would have considered it reasonably
purchased at the price of her death. After that, he drank all the rest of the
sherry, and Mr. Hubble drank the port, and the two talked (which I have since
observed to be customary in such cases) as if they were of quite another race
from the deceased, and were notoriously immortal. Finally, he went away with
Mr. and Mrs. Hubble,—to make an evening of it, I felt sure, and to tell
the Jolly Bargemen that he was the founder of my fortunes and my earliest
benefactor.
When they were all gone, and when Trabb and his men—but not his Boy; I
looked for him—had crammed their mummery into bags, and were gone too,
the house felt wholesomer. Soon afterwards, Biddy, Joe, and I, had a cold
dinner together; but we dined in the best parlour, not in the old kitchen, and
Joe was so exceedingly particular what he did with his knife and fork and the
saltcellar and what not, that there was great restraint upon us. But after
dinner, when I made him take his pipe, and when I had loitered with him about
the forge, and when we sat down together on the great block of stone outside
it, we got on better. I noticed that after the funeral Joe changed his clothes
so far, as to make a compromise between his Sunday dress and working dress; in
which the dear fellow looked natural, and like the Man he was.
He was very much pleased by my asking if I might sleep in my own little room,
and I was pleased too; for I felt that I had done rather a great thing in
making the request. When the shadows of evening were closing in, I took an
opportunity of getting into the garden with Biddy for a little talk.
“Biddy,” said I, “I think you might have written to me about
these sad matters.”
“Do you, Mr. Pip?” said Biddy. “I should have written if I
had thought that.”
“Don’t suppose that I mean to be unkind, Biddy, when I say I
consider that you ought to have thought that.”
“Do you, Mr. Pip?”
She was so quiet, and had such an orderly, good, and pretty way with her, that
I did not like the thought of making her cry again. After looking a little at
her downcast eyes as she walked beside me, I gave up that point.
“I suppose it will be difficult for you to remain here now, Biddy
dear?”
“Oh! I can’t do so, Mr. Pip,” said Biddy, in a tone of regret
but still of quiet conviction. “I have been speaking to Mrs. Hubble, and
I am going to her to-morrow. I hope we shall be able to take some care of Mr.
Gargery, together, until he settles down.”
“How are you going to live, Biddy? If you want any mo—”
“How am I going to live?” repeated Biddy, striking in, with a
momentary flush upon her face. “I’ll tell you, Mr. Pip. I am going
to try to get the place of mistress in the new school nearly finished here. I
can be well recommended by all the neighbours, and I hope I can be industrious
and patient, and teach myself while I teach others. You know, Mr. Pip,”
pursued Biddy, with a smile, as she raised her eyes to my face, “the new
schools are not like the old, but I learnt a good deal from you after that
time, and have had time since then to improve.”
“I think you would always improve, Biddy, under any circumstances.”
“Ah! Except in my bad side of human nature,” murmured Biddy.
It was not so much a reproach as an irresistible thinking aloud. Well! I
thought I would give up that point too. So, I walked a little further with
Biddy, looking silently at her downcast eyes.
“I have not heard the particulars of my sister’s death,
Biddy.”
“They are very slight, poor thing. She had been in one of her bad
states—though they had got better of late, rather than worse—for
four days, when she came out of it in the evening, just at tea-time, and said
quite plainly, ‘Joe.’ As she had never said any word for a long
while, I ran and fetched in Mr. Gargery from the forge. She made signs to me
that she wanted him to sit down close to her, and wanted me to put her arms
round his neck. So I put them round his neck, and she laid her head down on his
shoulder quite content and satisfied. And so she presently said
‘Joe’ again, and once ‘Pardon,’ and once
‘Pip.’ And so she never lifted her head up any more, and it was
just an hour later when we laid it down on her own bed, because we found she
was gone.”
Biddy cried; the darkening garden, and the lane, and the stars that were coming
out, were blurred in my own sight.
“Nothing was ever discovered, Biddy?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you know what is become of Orlick?”
“I should think from the colour of his clothes that he is working in the
quarries.”
“Of course you have seen him then?—Why are you looking at that dark
tree in the lane?”
“I saw him there, on the night she died.”
“That was not the last time either, Biddy?”
“No; I have seen him there, since we have been walking here.—It is
of no use,” said Biddy, laying her hand upon my arm, as I was for running
out, “you know I would not deceive you; he was not there a minute, and he
is gone.”
It revived my utmost indignation to find that she was still pursued by this
fellow, and I felt inveterate against him. I told her so, and told her that I
would spend any money or take any pains to drive him out of that country. By
degrees she led me into more temperate talk, and she told me how Joe loved me,
and how Joe never complained of anything,—she didn’t say, of me;
she had no need; I knew what she meant,—but ever did his duty in his way
of life, with a strong hand, a quiet tongue, and a gentle heart.
“Indeed, it would be hard to say too much for him,” said I;
“and Biddy, we must often speak of these things, for of course I shall be
often down here now. I am not going to leave poor Joe alone.”
Biddy said never a single word.
“Biddy, don’t you hear me?”
“Yes, Mr. Pip.”
“Not to mention your calling me Mr. Pip,—which appears to me to be
in bad taste, Biddy,—what do you mean?”
“What do I mean?” asked Biddy, timidly.
“Biddy,” said I, in a virtuously self-asserting manner, “I
must request to know what you mean by this?”
“By this?” said Biddy.
“Now, don’t echo,” I retorted. “You used not to echo,
Biddy.”
“Used not!” said Biddy. “O Mr. Pip! Used!”
Well! I rather thought I would give up that point too. After another silent
turn in the garden, I fell back on the main position.
“Biddy,” said I, “I made a remark respecting my coming down
here often, to see Joe, which you received with a marked silence. Have the
goodness, Biddy, to tell me why.”
“Are you quite sure, then, that you come to see him
often?” asked Biddy, stopping in the narrow garden walk, and looking at
me under the stars with a clear and honest eye.
“O dear me!” said I, as if I found myself compelled to give up
Biddy in despair. “This really is a very bad side of human nature!
Don’t say any more, if you please, Biddy. This shocks me very
much.”
For which cogent reason I kept Biddy at a distance during supper, and when I
went up to my own old little room, took as stately a leave of her as I could,
in my murmuring soul, deem reconcilable with the churchyard and the event of
the day. As often as I was restless in the night, and that was every quarter of
an hour, I reflected what an unkindness, what an injury, what an injustice,
Biddy had done me.
Early in the morning I was to go. Early in the morning I was out, and looking
in, unseen, at one of the wooden windows of the forge. There I stood, for
minutes, looking at Joe, already at work with a glow of health and strength
upon his face that made it show as if the bright sun of the life in store for
him were shining on it.
“Good-bye, dear Joe!—No, don’t wipe it off—for
God’s sake, give me your blackened hand!—I shall be down soon and
often.”
“Never too soon, sir,” said Joe, “and never too often,
Pip!”
Biddy was waiting for me at the kitchen door, with a mug of new milk and a
crust of bread. “Biddy,” said I, when I gave her my hand at
parting, “I am not angry, but I am hurt.”
“No, don’t be hurt,” she pleaded quite pathetically;
“let only me be hurt, if I have been ungenerous.”
Once more, the mists were rising as I walked away. If they disclosed to me, as
I suspect they did, that I should come back, and that Biddy was
quite right, all I can say is,—they were quite right too.
Chapter XXXVI.
Herbert and I went on from bad to worse, in the way of
increasing our debts, looking into our affairs, leaving Margins, and the like
exemplary transactions; and Time went on, whether or no, as he has a way of
doing; and I came of age,—in fulfilment of Herbert’s prediction,
that I should do so before I knew where I was.
Herbert himself had come of age eight months before me. As he had nothing else
than his majority to come into, the event did not make a profound sensation in
Barnard’s Inn. But we had looked forward to my one-and-twentieth
birthday, with a crowd of speculations and anticipations, for we had both
considered that my guardian could hardly help saying something definite on that
occasion.
I had taken care to have it well understood in Little Britain when my birthday
was. On the day before it, I received an official note from Wemmick, informing
me that Mr. Jaggers would be glad if I would call upon him at five in the
afternoon of the auspicious day. This convinced us that something great was to
happen, and threw me into an unusual flutter when I repaired to my
guardian’s office, a model of punctuality.
In the outer office Wemmick offered me his congratulations, and incidentally
rubbed the side of his nose with a folded piece of tissue-paper that I liked
the look of. But he said nothing respecting it, and motioned me with a nod into
my guardian’s room. It was November, and my guardian was standing before
his fire leaning his back against the chimney-piece, with his hands under his
coattails.
“Well, Pip,” said he, “I must call you Mr. Pip to-day.
Congratulations, Mr. Pip.”
We shook hands,—he was always a remarkably short shaker,—and I
thanked him.
“Take a chair, Mr. Pip,” said my guardian.
As I sat down, and he preserved his attitude and bent his brows at his boots, I
felt at a disadvantage, which reminded me of that old time when I had been put
upon a tombstone. The two ghastly casts on the shelf were not far from him, and
their expression was as if they were making a stupid apoplectic attempt to
attend to the conversation.
“Now my young friend,” my guardian began, as if I were a witness in
the box, “I am going to have a word or two with you.”
“If you please, sir.”
“What do you suppose,” said Mr. Jaggers, bending forward to look at
the ground, and then throwing his head back to look at the
ceiling,—“what do you suppose you are living at the rate of?”
“At the rate of, sir?”
“At,” repeated Mr. Jaggers, still looking at the ceiling,
“the—rate—of?” And then looked all round the room, and
paused with his pocket-handkerchief in his hand, half-way to his nose.
I had looked into my affairs so often, that I had thoroughly destroyed any
slight notion I might ever have had of their bearings. Reluctantly, I confessed
myself quite unable to answer the question. This reply seemed agreeable to Mr.
Jaggers, who said, “I thought so!” and blew his nose with an air of
satisfaction.
“Now, I have asked a question, my friend,” said Mr.
Jaggers. “Have you anything to ask ?”
“Of course it would be a great relief to me to ask you several questions,
sir; but I remember your prohibition.”
“Ask one,” said Mr. Jaggers.
“Is my benefactor to be made known to me to-day?”
“No. Ask another.”
“Is that confidence to be imparted to me soon?”
“Waive that, a moment,” said Mr. Jaggers, “and ask
another.”
I looked about me, but there appeared to be now no possible escape from the
inquiry, “Have-I—anything to receive, sir?” On that, Mr.
Jaggers said, triumphantly, “I thought we should come to it!” and
called to Wemmick to give him that piece of paper. Wemmick appeared, handed it
in, and disappeared.
“Now, Mr. Pip,” said Mr. Jaggers, “attend, if you please. You
have been drawing pretty freely here; your name occurs pretty often in
Wemmick’s cash-book; but you are in debt, of course?”
“I am afraid I must say yes, sir.”
“You know you must say yes; don’t you?” said Mr. Jaggers.
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t ask you what you owe, because you don’t know; and if
you did know, you wouldn’t tell me; you would say less. Yes, yes, my
friend,” cried Mr. Jaggers, waving his forefinger to stop me as I made a
show of protesting: “it’s likely enough that you think you
wouldn’t, but you would. You’ll excuse me, but I know better than
you. Now, take this piece of paper in your hand. You have got it? Very good.
Now, unfold it and tell me what it is.”
“This is a bank-note,” said I, “for five hundred
pounds.”
“That is a bank-note,” repeated Mr. Jaggers, “for five
hundred pounds. And a very handsome sum of money too, I think. You consider it
so?”
“How could I do otherwise!”
“Ah! But answer the question,” said Mr. Jaggers.
“Undoubtedly.”
“You consider it, undoubtedly, a handsome sum of money. Now, that
handsome sum of money, Pip, is your own. It is a present to you on this day, in
earnest of your expectations. And at the rate of that handsome sum of money per
annum, and at no higher rate, you are to live until the donor of the whole
appears. That is to say, you will now take your money affairs entirely into
your own hands, and you will draw from Wemmick one hundred and twenty-five
pounds per quarter, until you are in communication with the fountain-head, and
no longer with the mere agent. As I have told you before, I am the mere agent.
I execute my instructions, and I am paid for doing so. I think them
injudicious, but I am not paid for giving any opinion on their merits.”
I was beginning to express my gratitude to my benefactor for the great
liberality with which I was treated, when Mr. Jaggers stopped me. “I am
not paid, Pip,” said he, coolly, “to carry your words to any
one;” and then gathered up his coat-tails, as he had gathered up the
subject, and stood frowning at his boots as if he suspected them of designs
against him.
After a pause, I hinted,—
“There was a question just now, Mr. Jaggers, which you desired me to
waive for a moment. I hope I am doing nothing wrong in asking it again?”
“What is it?” said he.
I might have known that he would never help me out; but it took me aback to
have to shape the question afresh, as if it were quite new. “Is it
likely,” I said, after hesitating, “that my patron, the
fountain-head you have spoken of, Mr. Jaggers, will soon—” there I
delicately stopped.
“Will soon what?” asked Mr. Jaggers. “That’s no
question as it stands, you know.”
“Will soon come to London,” said I, after casting about for a
precise form of words, “or summon me anywhere else?”
“Now, here,” replied Mr. Jaggers, fixing me for the first time with
his dark deep-set eyes, “we must revert to the evening when we first
encountered one another in your village. What did I tell you then, Pip?”
“You told me, Mr. Jaggers, that it might be years hence when that person
appeared.”
“Just so,” said Mr. Jaggers, “that’s my answer.”
As we looked full at one another, I felt my breath come quicker in my strong
desire to get something out of him. And as I felt that it came quicker, and as
I felt that he saw that it came quicker, I felt that I had less chance than
ever of getting anything out of him.
“Do you suppose it will still be years hence, Mr. Jaggers?”
Mr. Jaggers shook his head,—not in negativing the question, but in
altogether negativing the notion that he could anyhow be got to answer
it,—and the two horrible casts of the twitched faces looked, when my eyes
strayed up to them, as if they had come to a crisis in their suspended
attention, and were going to sneeze.
“Come!” said Mr. Jaggers, warming the backs of his legs with the
backs of his warmed hands, “I’ll be plain with you, my friend Pip.
That’s a question I must not be asked. You’ll understand that
better, when I tell you it’s a question that might compromise .
Come! I’ll go a little further with you; I’ll say something
more.”
He bent down so low to frown at his boots, that he was able to rub the calves
of his legs in the pause he made.
“When that person discloses,” said Mr. Jaggers, straightening
himself, “you and that person will settle your own affairs. When that
person discloses, my part in this business will cease and determine. When that
person discloses, it will not be necessary for me to know anything about it.
And that’s all I have got to say.”
We looked at one another until I withdrew my eyes, and looked thoughtfully at
the floor. From this last speech I derived the notion that Miss Havisham, for
some reason or no reason, had not taken him into her confidence as to her
designing me for Estella; that he resented this, and felt a jealousy about it;
or that he really did object to that scheme, and would have nothing to do with
it. When I raised my eyes again, I found that he had been shrewdly looking at
me all the time, and was doing so still.
“If that is all you have to say, sir,” I remarked, “there can
be nothing left for me to say.”
He nodded assent, and pulled out his thief-dreaded watch, and asked me where I
was going to dine? I replied at my own chambers, with Herbert. As a necessary
sequence, I asked him if he would favour us with his company, and he promptly
accepted the invitation. But he insisted on walking home with me, in order that
I might make no extra preparation for him, and first he had a letter or two to
write, and (of course) had his hands to wash. So I said I would go into the
outer office and talk to Wemmick.
The fact was, that when the five hundred pounds had come into my pocket, a
thought had come into my head which had been often there before; and it
appeared to me that Wemmick was a good person to advise with concerning such
thought.
He had already locked up his safe, and made preparations for going home. He had
left his desk, brought out his two greasy office candlesticks and stood them in
line with the snuffers on a slab near the door, ready to be extinguished; he
had raked his fire low, put his hat and great-coat ready, and was beating
himself all over the chest with his safe-key, as an athletic exercise after
business.
“Mr. Wemmick,” said I, “I want to ask your opinion. I am very
desirous to serve a friend.”
Wemmick tightened his post-office and shook his head, as if his opinion were
dead against any fatal weakness of that sort.
“This friend,” I pursued, “is trying to get on in commercial
life, but has no money, and finds it difficult and disheartening to make a
beginning. Now I want somehow to help him to a beginning.”
“With money down?” said Wemmick, in a tone drier than any sawdust.
“With money down,” I replied, for an uneasy remembrance
shot across me of that symmetrical bundle of papers at home—“with
money down, and perhaps some anticipation of my
expectations.”
“Mr. Pip,” said Wemmick, “I should like just to run over with
you on my fingers, if you please, the names of the various bridges up as high
as Chelsea Reach. Let’s see; there’s London, one; Southwark, two;
Blackfriars, three; Waterloo, four; Westminster, five; Vauxhall, six.” He
had checked off each bridge in its turn, with the handle of his safe-key on the
palm of his hand. “There’s as many as six, you see, to choose
from.”
“I don’t understand you,” said I.
“Choose your bridge, Mr. Pip,” returned Wemmick, “and take a
walk upon your bridge, and pitch your money into the Thames over the centre
arch of your bridge, and you know the end of it. Serve a friend with it, and
you may know the end of it too,—but it’s a less pleasant and
profitable end.”
I could have posted a newspaper in his mouth, he made it so wide after saying
this.
“This is very discouraging,” said I.
“Meant to be so,” said Wemmick.
“Then is it your opinion,” I inquired, with some little
indignation, “that a man should never—”
“—Invest portable property in a friend?” said Wemmick.
“Certainly he should not. Unless he wants to get rid of the
friend,—and then it becomes a question how much portable property it may
be worth to get rid of him.”
“And that,” said I, “is your deliberate opinion, Mr.
Wemmick?”
“That,” he returned, “is my deliberate opinion in this
office.”
“Ah!” said I, pressing him, for I thought I saw him near a loophole
here; “but would that be your opinion at Walworth?”
“Mr. Pip,” he replied, with gravity, “Walworth is one place,
and this office is another. Much as the Aged is one person, and Mr. Jaggers is
another. They must not be confounded together. My Walworth sentiments must be
taken at Walworth; none but my official sentiments can be taken in this
office.”
“Very well,” said I, much relieved, “then I shall look you up
at Walworth, you may depend upon it.”
“Mr. Pip,” he returned, “you will be welcome there, in a
private and personal capacity.”
We had held this conversation in a low voice, well knowing my guardian’s
ears to be the sharpest of the sharp. As he now appeared in his doorway,
towelling his hands, Wemmick got on his great-coat and stood by to snuff out
the candles. We all three went into the street together, and from the door-step
Wemmick turned his way, and Mr. Jaggers and I turned ours.
I could not help wishing more than once that evening, that Mr. Jaggers had had
an Aged in Gerrard Street, or a Stinger, or a Something, or a Somebody, to
unbend his brows a little. It was an uncomfortable consideration on a
twenty-first birthday, that coming of age at all seemed hardly worth while in
such a guarded and suspicious world as he made of it. He was a thousand times
better informed and cleverer than Wemmick, and yet I would a thousand times
rather have had Wemmick to dinner. And Mr. Jaggers made not me alone intensely
melancholy, because, after he was gone, Herbert said of himself, with his eyes
fixed on the fire, that he thought he must have committed a felony and
forgotten the details of it, he felt so dejected and guilty.
Chapter XXXVII.
Deeming Sunday the best day for taking Mr. Wemmick’s
Walworth sentiments, I devoted the next ensuing Sunday afternoon to a
pilgrimage to the Castle. On arriving before the battlements, I found the Union
Jack flying and the drawbridge up; but undeterred by this show of defiance and
resistance, I rang at the gate, and was admitted in a most pacific manner by
the Aged.
“My son, sir,” said the old man, after securing the drawbridge,
“rather had it in his mind that you might happen to drop in, and he left
word that he would soon be home from his afternoon’s walk. He is very
regular in his walks, is my son. Very regular in everything, is my son.”
I nodded at the old gentleman as Wemmick himself might have nodded, and we went
in and sat down by the fireside.
“You made acquaintance with my son, sir,” said the old man, in his
chirping way, while he warmed his hands at the blaze, “at his office, I
expect?” I nodded. “Hah! I have heerd that my son is a wonderful
hand at his business, sir?” I nodded hard. “Yes; so they tell me.
His business is the Law?” I nodded harder. “Which makes it more
surprising in my son,” said the old man, “for he was not brought up
to the Law, but to the Wine-Coopering.”
Curious to know how the old gentleman stood informed concerning the reputation
of Mr. Jaggers, I roared that name at him. He threw me into the greatest
confusion by laughing heartily and replying in a very sprightly manner,
“No, to be sure; you’re right.” And to this hour I have not
the faintest notion what he meant, or what joke he thought I had made.
As I could not sit there nodding at him perpetually, without making some other
attempt to interest him, I shouted at inquiry whether his own calling in life
had been “the Wine-Coopering.” By dint of straining that term out
of myself several times and tapping the old gentleman on the chest to associate
it with him, I at last succeeded in making my meaning understood.
“No,” said the old gentleman; “the warehousing, the
warehousing. First, over yonder;” he appeared to mean up the chimney, but
I believe he intended to refer me to Liverpool; “and then in the City of
London here. However, having an infirmity—for I am hard of hearing,
sir—”
I expressed in pantomime the greatest astonishment.
“—Yes, hard of hearing; having that infirmity coming upon me, my
son he went into the Law, and he took charge of me, and he by little and little
made out this elegant and beautiful property. But returning to what you said,
you know,” pursued the old man, again laughing heartily, “what I
say is, No to be sure; you’re right.”
I was modestly wondering whether my utmost ingenuity would have enabled me to
say anything that would have amused him half as much as this imaginary
pleasantry, when I was startled by a sudden click in the wall on one side of
the chimney, and the ghostly tumbling open of a little wooden flap with
“J” upon it. The old man, following my eyes,
cried with great triumph, “My son’s come home!” and we both
went out to the drawbridge.
It was worth any money to see Wemmick waving a salute to me from the other side
of the moat, when we might have shaken hands across it with the greatest ease.
The Aged was so delighted to work the drawbridge, that I made no offer to
assist him, but stood quiet until Wemmick had come across, and had presented me
to Miss Skiffins; a lady by whom he was accompanied.
Miss Skiffins was of a wooden appearance, and was, like her escort, in the
post-office branch of the service. She might have been some two or three years
younger than Wemmick, and I judged her to stand possessed of portable property.
The cut of her dress from the waist upward, both before and behind, made her
figure very like a boy’s kite; and I might have pronounced her gown a
little too decidedly orange, and her gloves a little too intensely green. But
she seemed to be a good sort of fellow, and showed a high regard for the Aged.
I was not long in discovering that she was a frequent visitor at the Castle;
for, on our going in, and my complimenting Wemmick on his ingenious contrivance
for announcing himself to the Aged, he begged me to give my attention for a
moment to the other side of the chimney, and disappeared. Presently another
click came, and another little door tumbled open with “Miss
Skiffins” on it; then Miss Skiffins shut up and John tumbled open; then
Miss Skiffins and John both tumbled open together, and finally shut up
together. On Wemmick’s return from working these mechanical appliances, I
expressed the great admiration with which I regarded them, and he said,
“Well, you know, they’re both pleasant and useful to the Aged. And
by George, sir, it’s a thing worth mentioning, that of all the people who
come to this gate, the secret of those pulls is only known to the Aged, Miss
Skiffins, and me!”
“And Mr. Wemmick made them,” added Miss Skiffins, “with his
own hands out of his own head.”
While Miss Skiffins was taking off her bonnet (she retained her green gloves
during the evening as an outward and visible sign that there was company),
Wemmick invited me to take a walk with him round the property, and see how the
island looked in wintertime. Thinking that he did this to give me an
opportunity of taking his Walworth sentiments, I seized the opportunity as soon
as we were out of the Castle.
Having thought of the matter with care, I approached my subject as if I had
never hinted at it before. I informed Wemmick that I was anxious in behalf of
Herbert Pocket, and I told him how we had first met, and how we had fought. I
glanced at Herbert’s home, and at his character, and at his having no
means but such as he was dependent on his father for; those, uncertain and
unpunctual. I alluded to the advantages I had derived in my first rawness and
ignorance from his society, and I confessed that I feared I had but ill repaid
them, and that he might have done better without me and my expectations.
Keeping Miss Havisham in the background at a great distance, I still hinted at
the possibility of my having competed with him in his prospects, and at the
certainty of his possessing a generous soul, and being far above any mean
distrusts, retaliations, or designs. For all these reasons (I told Wemmick),
and because he was my young companion and friend, and I had a great affection
for him, I wished my own good fortune to reflect some rays upon him, and
therefore I sought advice from Wemmick’s experience and knowledge of men
and affairs, how I could best try with my resources to help Herbert to some
present income,—say of a hundred a year, to keep him in good hope and
heart,—and gradually to buy him on to some small partnership. I begged
Wemmick, in conclusion, to understand that my help must always be rendered
without Herbert’s knowledge or suspicion, and that there was no one else
in the world with whom I could advise. I wound up by laying my hand upon his
shoulder, and saying, “I can’t help confiding in you, though I know
it must be troublesome to you; but that is your fault, in having ever brought
me here.”
Wemmick was silent for a little while, and then said with a kind of start,
“Well you know, Mr. Pip, I must tell you one thing. This is devilish good
of you.”
“Say you’ll help me to be good then,” said I.
“Ecod,” replied Wemmick, shaking his head, “that’s not
my trade.”
“Nor is this your trading-place,” said I.
“You are right,” he returned. “You hit the nail on the head.
Mr. Pip, I’ll put on my considering-cap, and I think all you want to do
may be done by degrees. Skiffins (that’s her brother) is an accountant
and agent. I’ll look him up and go to work for you.”
“I thank you ten thousand times.”
“On the contrary,” said he, “I thank you, for though we are
strictly in our private and personal capacity, still it may be mentioned that
there Newgate cobwebs about, and it brushes them away.”
After a little further conversation to the same effect, we returned into the
Castle where we found Miss Skiffins preparing tea. The responsible duty of
making the toast was delegated to the Aged, and that excellent old gentleman
was so intent upon it that he seemed to me in some danger of melting his eyes.
It was no nominal meal that we were going to make, but a vigorous reality. The
Aged prepared such a hay-stack of buttered toast, that I could scarcely see him
over it as it simmered on an iron stand hooked on to the top-bar; while Miss
Skiffins brewed such a jorum of tea, that the pig in the back premises became
strongly excited, and repeatedly expressed his desire to participate in the
entertainment.
The flag had been struck, and the gun had been fired, at the right moment of
time, and I felt as snugly cut off from the rest of Walworth as if the moat
were thirty feet wide by as many deep. Nothing disturbed the tranquillity of
the Castle, but the occasional tumbling open of John and Miss Skiffins: which
little doors were a prey to some spasmodic infirmity that made me
sympathetically uncomfortable until I got used to it. I inferred from the
methodical nature of Miss Skiffins’s arrangements that she made tea there
every Sunday night; and I rather suspected that a classic brooch she wore,
representing the profile of an undesirable female with a very straight nose and
a very new moon, was a piece of portable property that had been given her by
Wemmick.
We ate the whole of the toast, and drank tea in proportion, and it was
delightful to see how warm and greasy we all got after it. The Aged especially,
might have passed for some clean old chief of a savage tribe, just oiled. After
a short pause of repose, Miss Skiffins—in the absence of the little
servant who, it seemed, retired to the bosom of her family on Sunday
afternoons—washed up the tea-things, in a trifling lady-like amateur
manner that compromised none of us. Then, she put on her gloves again, and we
drew round the fire, and Wemmick said, “Now, Aged Parent, tip us the
paper.”
Wemmick explained to me while the Aged got his spectacles out, that this was
according to custom, and that it gave the old gentleman infinite satisfaction
to read the news aloud. “I won’t offer an apology,” said
Wemmick, “for he isn’t capable of many pleasures—are you,
Aged P.?”
“All right, John, all right,” returned the old man, seeing himself
spoken to.
“Only tip him a nod every now and then when he looks off his
paper,” said Wemmick, “and he’ll be as happy as a king. We
are all attention, Aged One.”
“All right, John, all right!” returned the cheerful old man, so
busy and so pleased, that it really was quite charming.
The Aged’s reading reminded me of the classes at Mr. Wopsle’s
great-aunt’s, with the pleasanter peculiarity that it seemed to come
through a keyhole. As he wanted the candles close to him, and as he was always
on the verge of putting either his head or the newspaper into them, he required
as much watching as a powder-mill. But Wemmick was equally untiring and gentle
in his vigilance, and the Aged read on, quite unconscious of his many rescues.
Whenever he looked at us, we all expressed the greatest interest and amazement,
and nodded until he resumed again.
As Wemmick and Miss Skiffins sat side by side, and as I sat in a shadowy
corner, I observed a slow and gradual elongation of Mr. Wemmick’s mouth,
powerfully suggestive of his slowly and gradually stealing his arm round Miss
Skiffins’s waist. In course of time I saw his hand appear on the other
side of Miss Skiffins; but at that moment Miss Skiffins neatly stopped him with
the green glove, unwound his arm again as if it were an article of dress, and
with the greatest deliberation laid it on the table before her. Miss
Skiffins’s composure while she did this was one of the most remarkable
sights I have ever seen, and if I could have thought the act consistent with
abstraction of mind, I should have deemed that Miss Skiffins performed it
mechanically.
By and by, I noticed Wemmick’s arm beginning to disappear again, and
gradually fading out of view. Shortly afterwards, his mouth began to widen
again. After an interval of suspense on my part that was quite enthralling and
almost painful, I saw his hand appear on the other side of Miss Skiffins.
Instantly, Miss Skiffins stopped it with the neatness of a placid boxer, took
off that girdle or cestus as before, and laid it on the table. Taking the table
to represent the path of virtue, I am justified in stating that during the
whole time of the Aged’s reading, Wemmick’s arm was straying from
the path of virtue and being recalled to it by Miss Skiffins.
At last, the Aged read himself into a light slumber. This was the time for
Wemmick to produce a little kettle, a tray of glasses, and a black bottle with
a porcelain-topped cork, representing some clerical dignitary of a rubicund and
social aspect. With the aid of these appliances we all had something warm to
drink, including the Aged, who was soon awake again. Miss Skiffins mixed, and I
observed that she and Wemmick drank out of one glass. Of course I knew better
than to offer to see Miss Skiffins home, and under the circumstances I thought
I had best go first; which I did, taking a cordial leave of the Aged, and
having passed a pleasant evening.
Before a week was out, I received a note from Wemmick, dated Walworth, stating
that he hoped he had made some advance in that matter appertaining to our
private and personal capacities, and that he would be glad if I could come and
see him again upon it. So, I went out to Walworth again, and yet again, and yet
again, and I saw him by appointment in the City several times, but never held
any communication with him on the subject in or near Little Britain. The upshot
was, that we found a worthy young merchant or shipping-broker, not long
established in business, who wanted intelligent help, and who wanted capital,
and who in due course of time and receipt would want a partner. Between him and
me, secret articles were signed of which Herbert was the subject, and I paid
him half of my five hundred pounds down, and engaged for sundry other payments:
some, to fall due at certain dates out of my income: some, contingent on my
coming into my property. Miss Skiffins’s brother conducted the
negotiation. Wemmick pervaded it throughout, but never appeared in it.
The whole business was so cleverly managed, that Herbert had not the least
suspicion of my hand being in it. I never shall forget the radiant face with
which he came home one afternoon, and told me, as a mighty piece of news, of
his having fallen in with one Clarriker (the young merchant’s name), and
of Clarriker’s having shown an extraordinary inclination towards him, and
of his belief that the opening had come at last. Day by day as his hopes grew
stronger and his face brighter, he must have thought me a more and more
affectionate friend, for I had the greatest difficulty in restraining my tears
of triumph when I saw him so happy. At length, the thing being done, and he
having that day entered Clarriker’s House, and he having talked to me for
a whole evening in a flush of pleasure and success, I did really cry in good
earnest when I went to bed, to think that my expectations had done some good to
somebody.
A great event in my life, the turning point of my life, now opens on my view.
But, before I proceed to narrate it, and before I pass on to all the changes it
involved, I must give one chapter to Estella. It is not much to give to the
theme that so long filled my heart.
Chapter XXXVIII.
If
that staid old house near the Green at Richmond should ever come to be haunted
when I am dead, it will be haunted, surely, by my ghost. O the many, many
nights and days through which the unquiet spirit within me haunted that house
when Estella lived there! Let my body be where it would, my spirit was always
wandering, wandering, wandering, about that house.
The lady with whom Estella was placed, Mrs. Brandley by name, was a widow, with
one daughter several years older than Estella. The mother looked young, and the
daughter looked old; the mother’s complexion was pink, and the
daughter’s was yellow; the mother set up for frivolity, and the daughter
for theology. They were in what is called a good position, and visited, and
were visited by, numbers of people. Little, if any, community of feeling
subsisted between them and Estella, but the understanding was established that
they were necessary to her, and that she was necessary to them. Mrs. Brandley
had been a friend of Miss Havisham’s before the time of her seclusion.
In Mrs. Brandley’s house and out of Mrs. Brandley’s house, I
suffered every kind and degree of torture that Estella could cause me. The
nature of my relations with her, which placed me on terms of familiarity
without placing me on terms of favour, conduced to my distraction. She made use
of me to tease other admirers, and she turned the very familiarity between
herself and me to the account of putting a constant slight on my devotion to
her. If I had been her secretary, steward, half-brother, poor
relation,—if I had been a younger brother of her appointed
husband,—I could not have seemed to myself further from my hopes when I
was nearest to her. The privilege of calling her by her name and hearing her
call me by mine became, under the circumstances an aggravation of my trials;
and while I think it likely that it almost maddened her other lovers, I know
too certainly that it almost maddened me.
She had admirers without end. No doubt my jealousy made an admirer of every one
who went near her; but there were more than enough of them without that.
I saw her often at Richmond, I heard of her often in town, and I used often to
take her and the Brandleys on the water; there were picnics, fête days, plays,
operas, concerts, parties, all sorts of pleasures, through which I pursued
her,—and they were all miseries to me. I never had one hour’s
happiness in her society, and yet my mind all round the four-and-twenty hours
was harping on the happiness of having her with me unto death.
Throughout this part of our intercourse,—and it lasted, as will presently
be seen, for what I then thought a long time,—she habitually reverted to
that tone which expressed that our association was forced upon us. There were
other times when she would come to a sudden check in this tone and in all her
many tones, and would seem to pity me.
“Pip, Pip,” she said one evening, coming to such a check, when we
sat apart at a darkening window of the house in Richmond; “will you never
take warning?”
“Of what?”
“Of me.”
“Warning not to be attracted by you, do you mean, Estella?”
“Do I mean! If you don’t know what I mean, you are blind.”
I should have replied that Love was commonly reputed blind, but for the reason
that I always was restrained—and this was not the least of my
miseries—by a feeling that it was ungenerous to press myself upon her,
when she knew that she could not choose but obey Miss Havisham. My dread always
was, that this knowledge on her part laid me under a heavy disadvantage with
her pride, and made me the subject of a rebellious struggle in her bosom.
“At any rate,” said I, “I have no warning given me just now,
for you wrote to me to come to you, this time.”
“That’s true,” said Estella, with a cold careless smile that
always chilled me.
After looking at the twilight without, for a little while, she went on to
say:—
“The time has come round when Miss Havisham wishes to have me for a day
at Satis. You are to take me there, and bring me back, if you will. She would
rather I did not travel alone, and objects to receiving my maid, for she has a
sensitive horror of being talked of by such people. Can you take me?”
“Can I take you, Estella!”
“You can then? The day after to-morrow, if you please. You are to pay all
charges out of my purse. You hear the condition of your going?”
“And must obey,” said I.
This was all the preparation I received for that visit, or for others like it;
Miss Havisham never wrote to me, nor had I ever so much as seen her
handwriting. We went down on the next day but one, and we found her in the room
where I had first beheld her, and it is needless to add that there was no
change in Satis House.
She was even more dreadfully fond of Estella than she had been when I last saw
them together; I repeat the word advisedly, for there was something positively
dreadful in the energy of her looks and embraces. She hung upon Estella’s
beauty, hung upon her words, hung upon her gestures, and sat mumbling her own
trembling fingers while she looked at her, as though she were devouring the
beautiful creature she had reared.
From Estella she looked at me, with a searching glance that seemed to pry into
my heart and probe its wounds. “How does she use you, Pip; how does she
use you?” she asked me again, with her witch-like eagerness, even in
Estella’s hearing. But, when we sat by her flickering fire at night, she
was most weird; for then, keeping Estella’s hand drawn through her arm
and clutched in her own hand, she extorted from her, by dint of referring back
to what Estella had told her in her regular letters, the names and conditions
of the men whom she had fascinated; and as Miss Havisham dwelt upon this roll,
with the intensity of a mind mortally hurt and diseased, she sat with her other
hand on her crutch stick, and her chin on that, and her wan bright eyes glaring
at me, a very spectre.
I saw in this, wretched though it made me, and bitter the sense of dependence
and even of degradation that it awakened,—I saw in this that Estella was
set to wreak Miss Havisham’s revenge on men, and that she was not to be
given to me until she had gratified it for a term. I saw in this, a reason for
her being beforehand assigned to me. Sending her out to attract and torment and
do mischief, Miss Havisham sent her with the malicious assurance that she was
beyond the reach of all admirers, and that all who staked upon that cast were
secured to lose. I saw in this that I, too, was tormented by a perversion of
ingenuity, even while the prize was reserved for me. I saw in this the reason
for my being staved off so long and the reason for my late guardian’s
declining to commit himself to the formal knowledge of such a scheme. In a
word, I saw in this Miss Havisham as I had her then and there before my eyes,
and always had had her before my eyes; and I saw in this, the distinct shadow
of the darkened and unhealthy house in which her life was hidden from the sun.
The candles that lighted that room of hers were placed in sconces on the wall.
They were high from the ground, and they burnt with the steady dulness of
artificial light in air that is seldom renewed. As I looked round at them, and
at the pale gloom they made, and at the stopped clock, and at the withered
articles of bridal dress upon the table and the ground, and at her own awful
figure with its ghostly reflection thrown large by the fire upon the ceiling
and the wall, I saw in everything the construction that my mind had come to,
repeated and thrown back to me. My thoughts passed into the great room across
the landing where the table was spread, and I saw it written, as it were, in
the falls of the cobwebs from the centre-piece, in the crawlings of the spiders
on the cloth, in the tracks of the mice as they betook their little quickened
hearts behind the panels, and in the gropings and pausings of the beetles on
the floor.
It happened on the occasion of this visit that some sharp words arose between
Estella and Miss Havisham. It was the first time I had ever seen them opposed.
We were seated by the fire, as just now described, and Miss Havisham still had
Estella’s arm drawn through her own, and still clutched Estella’s
hand in hers, when Estella gradually began to detach herself. She had shown a
proud impatience more than once before, and had rather endured that fierce
affection than accepted or returned it.
“What!” said Miss Havisham, flashing her eyes upon her, “are
you tired of me?”
“Only a little tired of myself,” replied Estella, disengaging her
arm, and moving to the great chimney-piece, where she stood looking down at the
fire.
“Speak the truth, you ingrate!” cried Miss Havisham, passionately
striking her stick upon the floor; “you are tired of me.”
Estella looked at her with perfect composure, and again looked down at the
fire. Her graceful figure and her beautiful face expressed a self-possessed
indifference to the wild heat of the other, that was almost cruel.
“You stock and stone!” exclaimed Miss Havisham. “You cold,
cold heart!”
“What?” said Estella, preserving her attitude of indifference as
she leaned against the great chimney-piece and only moving her eyes; “do
you reproach me for being cold? You?”
“Are you not?” was the fierce retort.
“You should know,” said Estella. “I am what you have made me.
Take all the praise, take all the blame; take all the success, take all the
failure; in short, take me.”
“O, look at her, look at her!” cried Miss Havisham, bitterly;
“Look at her so hard and thankless, on the hearth where she was reared!
Where I took her into this wretched breast when it was first bleeding from its
stabs, and where I have lavished years of tenderness upon her!”
“At least I was no party to the compact,” said Estella, “for
if I could walk and speak, when it was made, it was as much as I could do. But
what would you have? You have been very good to me, and I owe everything to
you. What would you have?”
“Love,” replied the other.
“You have it.”
“I have not,” said Miss Havisham.
“Mother by adoption,” retorted Estella, never departing from the
easy grace of her attitude, never raising her voice as the other did, never
yielding either to anger or tenderness,—“mother by adoption, I have
said that I owe everything to you. All I possess is freely yours. All that you
have given me, is at your command to have again. Beyond that, I have nothing.
And if you ask me to give you, what you never gave me, my gratitude and duty
cannot do impossibilities.”
“Did I never give her love!” cried Miss Havisham, turning wildly to
me. “Did I never give her a burning love, inseparable from jealousy at
all times, and from sharp pain, while she speaks thus to me! Let her call me
mad, let her call me mad!”
“Why should I call you mad,” returned Estella, “I, of all
people? Does any one live, who knows what set purposes you have, half as well
as I do? Does any one live, who knows what a steady memory you have, half as
well as I do? I who have sat on this same hearth on the little stool that is
even now beside you there, learning your lessons and looking up into your face,
when your face was strange and frightened me!”
“Soon forgotten!” moaned Miss Havisham. “Times soon
forgotten!”
“No, not forgotten,” retorted Estella,—“not forgotten,
but treasured up in my memory. When have you found me false to your teaching?
When have you found me unmindful of your lessons? When have you found me giving
admission here,” she touched her bosom with her hand, “to anything
that you excluded? Be just to me.”
“So proud, so proud!” moaned Miss Havisham, pushing away her grey
hair with both her hands.
“Who taught me to be proud?” returned Estella. “Who praised
me when I learnt my lesson?”
“So hard, so hard!” moaned Miss Havisham, with her former action.
“Who taught me to be hard?” returned Estella. “Who praised me
when I learnt my lesson?”
“But to be proud and hard to !” Miss Havisham quite
shrieked, as she stretched out her arms. “Estella, Estella, Estella, to
be proud and hard to !”
Estella looked at her for a moment with a kind of calm wonder, but was not
otherwise disturbed; when the moment was past, she looked down at the fire
again.
“I cannot think,” said Estella, raising her eyes after a silence
“why you should be so unreasonable when I come to see you after a
separation. I have never forgotten your wrongs and their causes. I have never
been unfaithful to you or your schooling. I have never shown any weakness that
I can charge myself with.”
“Would it be weakness to return my love?” exclaimed Miss Havisham.
“But yes, yes, she would call it so!”
“I begin to think,” said Estella, in a musing way, after another
moment of calm wonder, “that I almost understand how this comes about. If
you had brought up your adopted daughter wholly in the dark confinement of
these rooms, and had never let her know that there was such a thing as the
daylight by which she had never once seen your face,—if you had done
that, and then, for a purpose had wanted her to understand the daylight and
know all about it, you would have been disappointed and angry?”
Miss Havisham, with her head in her hands, sat making a low moaning, and
swaying herself on her chair, but gave no answer.
“Or,” said Estella,—“which is a nearer case,—if
you had taught her, from the dawn of her intelligence, with your utmost energy
and might, that there was such a thing as daylight, but that it was made to be
her enemy and destroyer, and she must always turn against it, for it had
blighted you and would else blight her;—if you had done this, and then,
for a purpose, had wanted her to take naturally to the daylight and she could
not do it, you would have been disappointed and angry?”
Miss Havisham sat listening (or it seemed so, for I could not see her face),
but still made no answer.
“So,” said Estella, “I must be taken as I have been made. The
success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make
me.”
Miss Havisham had settled down, I hardly knew how, upon the floor, among the
faded bridal relics with which it was strewn. I took advantage of the
moment—I had sought one from the first—to leave the room, after
beseeching Estella’s attention to her, with a movement of my hand. When I
left, Estella was yet standing by the great chimney-piece, just as she had
stood throughout. Miss Havisham’s grey hair was all adrift upon the
ground, among the other bridal wrecks, and was a miserable sight to see.
It was with a depressed heart that I walked in the starlight for an hour and
more, about the courtyard, and about the brewery, and about the ruined garden.
When I at last took courage to return to the room, I found Estella sitting at
Miss Havisham’s knee, taking up some stitches in one of those old
articles of dress that were dropping to pieces, and of which I have often been
reminded since by the faded tatters of old banners that I have seen hanging up
in cathedrals. Afterwards, Estella and I played at cards, as of
yore,—only we were skilful now, and played French games,—and so the
evening wore away, and I went to bed.
I lay in that separate building across the courtyard. It was the first time I
had ever lain down to rest in Satis House, and sleep refused to come near me. A
thousand Miss Havishams haunted me. She was on this side of my pillow, on that,
at the head of the bed, at the foot, behind the half-opened door of the
dressing-room, in the dressing-room, in the room overhead, in the room
beneath,—everywhere. At last, when the night was slow to creep on towards
two o’clock, I felt that I absolutely could no longer bear the place as a
place to lie down in, and that I must get up. I therefore got up and put on my
clothes, and went out across the yard into the long stone passage, designing to
gain the outer courtyard and walk there for the relief of my mind. But I was no
sooner in the passage than I extinguished my candle; for I saw Miss Havisham
going along it in a ghostly manner, making a low cry. I followed her at a
distance, and saw her go up the staircase. She carried a bare candle in her
hand, which she had probably taken from one of the sconces in her own room, and
was a most unearthly object by its light. Standing at the bottom of the
staircase, I felt the mildewed air of the feast-chamber, without seeing her
open the door, and I heard her walking there, and so across into her own room,
and so across again into that, never ceasing the low cry. After a time, I tried
in the dark both to get out, and to go back, but I could do neither until some
streaks of day strayed in and showed me where to lay my hands. During the whole
interval, whenever I went to the bottom of the staircase, I heard her footstep,
saw her light pass above, and heard her ceaseless low cry.
Before we left next day, there was no revival of the difference between her and
Estella, nor was it ever revived on any similar occasion; and there were four
similar occasions, to the best of my remembrance. Nor, did Miss
Havisham’s manner towards Estella in anywise change, except that I
believed it to have something like fear infused among its former
characteristics.
It is impossible to turn this leaf of my life, without putting Bentley
Drummle’s name upon it; or I would, very gladly.
On a certain occasion when the Finches were assembled in force, and when good
feeling was being promoted in the usual manner by nobody’s agreeing with
anybody else, the presiding Finch called the Grove to order, forasmuch as Mr.
Drummle had not yet toasted a lady; which, according to the solemn constitution
of the society, it was the brute’s turn to do that day. I thought I saw
him leer in an ugly way at me while the decanters were going round, but as
there was no love lost between us, that might easily be. What was my indignant
surprise when he called upon the company to pledge him to
“Estella!”
“Estella who?” said I.
“Never you mind,” retorted Drummle.
“Estella of where?” said I. “You are bound to say of
where.” Which he was, as a Finch.
“Of Richmond, gentlemen,” said Drummle, putting me out of the
question, “and a peerless beauty.”
Much he knew about peerless beauties, a mean, miserable idiot! I whispered
Herbert.
“I know that lady,” said Herbert, across the table, when the toast
had been honoured.
“ you?” said Drummle.
“And so do I,” I added, with a scarlet face.
“ you?” said Drummle. “, Lord!”
This was the only retort—except glass or crockery—that the heavy
creature was capable of making; but, I became as highly incensed by it as if it
had been barbed with wit, and I immediately rose in my place and said that I
could not but regard it as being like the honourable Finch’s impudence to
come down to that Grove,—we always talked about coming down to that
Grove, as a neat Parliamentary turn of expression,—down to that Grove,
proposing a lady of whom he knew nothing. Mr. Drummle, upon this, starting up,
demanded what I meant by that? Whereupon I made him the extreme reply that I
believed he knew where I was to be found.
Whether it was possible in a Christian country to get on without blood, after
this, was a question on which the Finches were divided. The debate upon it grew
so lively, indeed, that at least six more honourable members told six more,
during the discussion, that they believed knew where
were to be found. However, it was decided at last (the Grove being a Court of
Honour) that if Mr. Drummle would bring never so slight a certificate from the
lady, importing that he had the honour of her acquaintance, Mr. Pip must
express his regret, as a gentleman and a Finch, for “having been betrayed
into a warmth which.” Next day was appointed for the production (lest our
honour should take cold from delay), and next day Drummle appeared with a
polite little avowal in Estella’s hand, that she had had the honour of
dancing with him several times. This left me no course but to regret that I had
been “betrayed into a warmth which,” and on the whole to repudiate,
as untenable, the idea that I was to be found anywhere. Drummle and I then sat
snorting at one another for an hour, while the Grove engaged in indiscriminate
contradiction, and finally the promotion of good feeling was declared to have
gone ahead at an amazing rate.
I tell this lightly, but it was no light thing to me. For, I cannot adequately
express what pain it gave me to think that Estella should show any favour to a
contemptible, clumsy, sulky booby, so very far below the average. To the
present moment, I believe it to have been referable to some pure fire of
generosity and disinterestedness in my love for her, that I could not endure
the thought of her stooping to that hound. No doubt I should have been
miserable whomsoever she had favoured; but a worthier object would have caused
me a different kind and degree of distress.
It was easy for me to find out, and I did soon find out, that Drummle had begun
to follow her closely, and that she allowed him to do it. A little while, and
he was always in pursuit of her, and he and I crossed one another every day. He
held on, in a dull persistent way, and Estella held him on; now with
encouragement, now with discouragement, now almost flattering him, now openly
despising him, now knowing him very well, now scarcely remembering who he was.
The Spider, as Mr. Jaggers had called him, was used to lying in wait, however,
and had the patience of his tribe. Added to that, he had a blockhead confidence
in his money and in his family greatness, which sometimes did him good
service,—almost taking the place of concentration and determined purpose.
So, the Spider, doggedly watching Estella, outwatched many brighter insects,
and would often uncoil himself and drop at the right nick of time.
At a certain Assembly Ball at Richmond (there used to be Assembly Balls at most
places then), where Estella had outshone all other beauties, this blundering
Drummle so hung about her, and with so much toleration on her part, that I
resolved to speak to her concerning him. I took the next opportunity; which was
when she was waiting for Mrs. Blandley to take her home, and was sitting apart
among some flowers, ready to go. I was with her, for I almost always
accompanied them to and from such places.
“Are you tired, Estella?”
“Rather, Pip.”
“You should be.”
“Say rather, I should not be; for I have my letter to Satis House to
write, before I go to sleep.”
“Recounting to-night’s triumph?” said I. “Surely a very
poor one, Estella.”
“What do you mean? I didn’t know there had been any.”
“Estella,” said I, “do look at that fellow in the corner
yonder, who is looking over here at us.”
“Why should I look at him?” returned Estella, with her eyes on me
instead. “What is there in that fellow in the corner yonder,—to use
your words,—that I need look at?”
“Indeed, that is the very question I want to ask you,” said I.
“For he has been hovering about you all night.”
“Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures,” replied Estella, with a
glance towards him, “hover about a lighted candle. Can the candle help
it?”
“No,” I returned; “but cannot the Estella help it?”
“Well!” said she, laughing, after a moment, “perhaps. Yes.
Anything you like.”
“But, Estella, do hear me speak. It makes me wretched that you should
encourage a man so generally despised as Drummle. You know he is
despised.”
“Well?” said she.
“You know he is as ungainly within as without. A deficient, ill-tempered,
lowering, stupid fellow.”
“Well?” said she.
“You know he has nothing to recommend him but money and a ridiculous roll
of addle-headed predecessors; now, don’t you?”
“Well?” said she again; and each time she said it, she opened her
lovely eyes the wider.
To overcome the difficulty of getting past that monosyllable, I took it from
her, and said, repeating it with emphasis, “Well! Then, that is why it
makes me wretched.”
Now, if I could have believed that she favoured Drummle with any idea of making
me—me—wretched, I should have been in better heart about it; but in
that habitual way of hers, she put me so entirely out of the question, that I
could believe nothing of the kind.
“Pip,” said Estella, casting her glance over the room,
“don’t be foolish about its effect on you. It may have its effect
on others, and may be meant to have. It’s not worth discussing.”
“Yes it is,” said I, “because I cannot bear that people
should say, ‘she throws away her graces and attractions on a mere boor,
the lowest in the crowd.’”
“I can bear it,” said Estella.
“Oh! don’t be so proud, Estella, and so inflexible.”
“Calls me proud and inflexible in this breath!” said Estella,
opening her hands. “And in his last breath reproached me for stooping to
a boor!”
“There is no doubt you do,” said I, something hurriedly, “for
I have seen you give him looks and smiles this very night, such as you never
give to—me.”
“Do you want me then,” said Estella, turning suddenly with a fixed
and serious, if not angry, look, “to deceive and entrap you?”
“Do you deceive and entrap him, Estella?”
“Yes, and many others,—all of them but you. Here is Mrs. Brandley.
I’ll say no more.”
And now that I have given the one chapter to the theme that so filled my heart,
and so often made it ache and ache again, I pass on unhindered, to the event
that had impended over me longer yet; the event that had begun to be prepared
for, before I knew that the world held Estella, and in the days when her baby
intelligence was receiving its first distortions from Miss Havisham’s
wasting hands.
In the Eastern story, the heavy slab that was to fall on the bed of state in
the flush of conquest was slowly wrought out of the quarry, the tunnel for the
rope to hold it in its place was slowly carried through the leagues of rock,
the slab was slowly raised and fitted in the roof, the rope was rove to it and
slowly taken through the miles of hollow to the great iron ring. All being made
ready with much labour, and the hour come, the sultan was aroused in the dead
of the night, and the sharpened axe that was to sever the rope from the great
iron ring was put into his hand, and he struck with it, and the rope parted and
rushed away, and the ceiling fell. So, in my case; all the work, near and afar,
that tended to the end, had been accomplished; and in an instant the blow was
struck, and the roof of my stronghold dropped upon me.
Chapter XXXIX.
I was
three-and-twenty years of age. Not another word had I heard to enlighten me on
the subject of my expectations, and my twenty-third birthday was a week gone.
We had left Barnard’s Inn more than a year, and lived in the Temple. Our
chambers were in Garden-court, down by the river.
Mr. Pocket and I had for some time parted company as to our original relations,
though we continued on the best terms. Notwithstanding my inability to settle
to anything,—which I hope arose out of the restless and incomplete tenure
on which I held my means,—I had a taste for reading, and read regularly
so many hours a day. That matter of Herbert’s was still progressing, and
everything with me was as I have brought it down to the close of the last
preceding chapter.
Business had taken Herbert on a journey to Marseilles. I was alone, and had a
dull sense of being alone. Dispirited and anxious, long hoping that to-morrow
or next week would clear my way, and long disappointed, I sadly missed the
cheerful face and ready response of my friend.
It was wretched weather; stormy and wet, stormy and wet; and mud, mud, mud,
deep in all the streets. Day after day, a vast heavy veil had been driving over
London from the East, and it drove still, as if in the East there were an
eternity of cloud and wind. So furious had been the gusts, that high buildings
in town had had the lead stripped off their roofs; and in the country, trees
had been torn up, and sails of windmills carried away; and gloomy accounts had
come in from the coast, of shipwreck and death. Violent blasts of rain had
accompanied these rages of wind, and the day just closed as I sat down to read
had been the worst of all.
Alterations have been made in that part of the Temple since that time, and it
has not now so lonely a character as it had then, nor is it so exposed to the
river. We lived at the top of the last house, and the wind rushing up the river
shook the house that night, like discharges of cannon, or breakings of a sea.
When the rain came with it and dashed against the windows, I thought, raising
my eyes to them as they rocked, that I might have fancied myself in a
storm-beaten lighthouse. Occasionally, the smoke came rolling down the chimney
as though it could not bear to go out into such a night; and when I set the
doors open and looked down the staircase, the staircase lamps were blown out;
and when I shaded my face with my hands and looked through the black windows
(opening them ever so little was out of the question in the teeth of such wind
and rain), I saw that the lamps in the court were blown out, and that the lamps
on the bridges and the shore were shuddering, and that the coal-fires in barges
on the river were being carried away before the wind like red-hot splashes in
the rain.
I read with my watch upon the table, purposing to close my book at eleven
o’clock. As I shut it, Saint Paul’s, and all the many church-clocks
in the City—some leading, some accompanying, some following—struck
that hour. The sound was curiously flawed by the wind; and I was listening, and
thinking how the wind assailed and tore it, when I heard a footstep on the
stair.
What nervous folly made me start, and awfully connect it with the footstep of
my dead sister, matters not. It was past in a moment, and I listened again, and
heard the footstep stumble in coming on. Remembering then, that the
staircase-lights were blown out, I took up my reading-lamp and went out to the
stair-head. Whoever was below had stopped on seeing my lamp, for all was quiet.
“There is some one down there, is there not?” I called out, looking
down.
“Yes,” said a voice from the darkness beneath.
“What floor do you want?”
“The top. Mr. Pip.”
“That is my name.—There is nothing the matter?”
“Nothing the matter,” returned the voice. And the man came on.
I stood with my lamp held out over the stair-rail, and he came slowly within
its light. It was a shaded lamp, to shine upon a book, and its circle of light
was very contracted; so that he was in it for a mere instant, and then out of
it. In the instant, I had seen a face that was strange to me, looking up with
an incomprehensible air of being touched and pleased by the sight of me.
Moving the lamp as the man moved, I made out that he was substantially dressed,
but roughly, like a voyager by sea. That he had long iron-grey hair. That his
age was about sixty. That he was a muscular man, strong on his legs, and that
he was browned and hardened by exposure to weather. As he ascended the last
stair or two, and the light of my lamp included us both, I saw, with a stupid
kind of amazement, that he was holding out both his hands to me.
“Pray what is your business?” I asked him.
“My business?” he repeated, pausing. “Ah! Yes. I will explain
my business, by your leave.”
“Do you wish to come in?”
“Yes,” he replied; “I wish to come in, master.”
I had asked him the question inhospitably enough, for I resented the sort of
bright and gratified recognition that still shone in his face. I resented it,
because it seemed to imply that he expected me to respond to it. But I took him
into the room I had just left, and, having set the lamp on the table, asked him
as civilly as I could to explain himself.
He looked about him with the strangest air,—an air of wondering pleasure,
as if he had some part in the things he admired,—and he pulled off a
rough outer coat, and his hat. Then, I saw that his head was furrowed and bald,
and that the long iron-grey hair grew only on its sides. But, I saw nothing
that in the least explained him. On the contrary, I saw him next moment, once
more holding out both his hands to me.
“What do you mean?” said I, half suspecting him to be mad.
He stopped in his looking at me, and slowly rubbed his right hand over his
head. “It’s disapinting to a man,” he said, in a coarse
broken voice, “arter having looked for’ard so distant, and come so
fur; but you’re not to blame for that,—neither on us is to blame
for that. I’ll speak in half a minute. Give me half a minute,
please.”
He sat down on a chair that stood before the fire, and covered his forehead
with his large brown veinous hands. I looked at him attentively then, and
recoiled a little from him; but I did not know him.
“There’s no one nigh,” said he, looking over his shoulder;
“is there?”
“Why do you, a stranger coming into my rooms at this time of the night,
ask that question?” said I.
“You’re a game one,” he returned, shaking his head at me with
a deliberate affection, at once most unintelligible and most exasperating;
“I’m glad you’ve grow’d up, a game one! But don’t
catch hold of me. You’d be sorry arterwards to have done it.”
I relinquished the intention he had detected, for I knew him! Even yet I could
not recall a single feature, but I knew him! If the wind and the rain had
driven away the intervening years, had scattered all the intervening objects,
had swept us to the churchyard where we first stood face to face on such
different levels, I could not have known my convict more distinctly than I knew
him now as he sat in the chair before the fire. No need to take a file from his
pocket and show it to me; no need to take the handkerchief from his neck and
twist it round his head; no need to hug himself with both his arms, and take a
shivering turn across the room, looking back at me for recognition. I knew him
before he gave me one of those aids, though, a moment before, I had not been
conscious of remotely suspecting his identity.
He came back to where I stood, and again held out both his hands. Not knowing
what to do,—for, in my astonishment I had lost my
self-possession,—I reluctantly gave him my hands. He grasped them
heartily, raised them to his lips, kissed them, and still held them.
“You acted noble, my boy,” said he. “Noble, Pip! And I have
never forgot it!”
At a change in his manner as if he were even going to embrace me, I laid a hand
upon his breast and put him away.
“Stay!” said I. “Keep off! If you are grateful to me for what
I did when I was a little child, I hope you have shown your gratitude by
mending your way of life. If you have come here to thank me, it was not
necessary. Still, however you have found me out, there must be something good
in the feeling that has brought you here, and I will not repulse you; but
surely you must understand that—I—”
My attention was so attracted by the singularity of his fixed look at me, that
the words died away on my tongue.
“You was a-saying,” he observed, when we had confronted one another
in silence, “that surely I must understand. What, surely must I
understand?”
“That I cannot wish to renew that chance intercourse with you of long
ago, under these different circumstances. I am glad to believe you have
repented and recovered yourself. I am glad to tell you so. I am glad that,
thinking I deserve to be thanked, you have come to thank me. But our ways are
different ways, none the less. You are wet, and you look weary. Will you drink
something before you go?”
He had replaced his neckerchief loosely, and had stood, keenly observant of me,
biting a long end of it. “I think,” he answered, still with the end
at his mouth and still observant of me, “that I drink (I
thank you) afore I go.”
There was a tray ready on a side-table. I brought it to the table near the
fire, and asked him what he would have? He touched one of the bottles without
looking at it or speaking, and I made him some hot rum and water. I tried to
keep my hand steady while I did so, but his look at me as he leaned back in his
chair with the long draggled end of his neckerchief between his
teeth—evidently forgotten—made my hand very difficult to master.
When at last I put the glass to him, I saw with amazement that his eyes were
full of tears.
Up to this time I had remained standing, not to disguise that I wished him
gone. But I was softened by the softened aspect of the man, and felt a touch of
reproach. “I hope,” said I, hurriedly putting something into a
glass for myself, and drawing a chair to the table, “that you will not
think I spoke harshly to you just now. I had no intention of doing it, and I am
sorry for it if I did. I wish you well and happy!”
As I put my glass to my lips, he glanced with surprise at the end of his
neckerchief, dropping from his mouth when he opened it, and stretched out his
hand. I gave him mine, and then he drank, and drew his sleeve across his eyes
and forehead.
“How are you living?” I asked him.
“I’ve been a sheep-farmer, stock-breeder, other trades besides,
away in the new world,” said he; “many a thousand mile of stormy
water off from this.”
“I hope you have done well?”
“I’ve done wonderfully well. There’s others went out alonger
me as has done well too, but no man has done nigh as well as me. I’m
famous for it.”
“I am glad to hear it.”
“I hope to hear you say so, my dear boy.”
Without stopping to try to understand those words or the tone in which they
were spoken, I turned off to a point that had just come into my mind.
“Have you ever seen a messenger you once sent to me,” I inquired,
“since he undertook that trust?”
“Never set eyes upon him. I warn’t likely to it.”
“He came faithfully, and he brought me the two one-pound notes. I was a
poor boy then, as you know, and to a poor boy they were a little fortune. But,
like you, I have done well since, and you must let me pay them back. You can
put them to some other poor boy’s use.” I took out my purse.
He watched me as I laid my purse upon the table and opened it, and he watched
me as I separated two one-pound notes from its contents. They were clean and
new, and I spread them out and handed them over to him. Still watching me, he
laid them one upon the other, folded them long-wise, gave them a twist, set
fire to them at the lamp, and dropped the ashes into the tray.
“May I make so bold,” he said then, with a smile that was like a
frown, and with a frown that was like a smile, “as ask you you
have done well, since you and me was out on them lone shivering marshes?”
“How?”
“Ah!”
He emptied his glass, got up, and stood at the side of the fire, with his heavy
brown hand on the mantel-shelf. He put a foot up to the bars, to dry and warm
it, and the wet boot began to steam; but, he neither looked at it, nor at the
fire, but steadily looked at me. It was only now that I began to tremble.
When my lips had parted, and had shaped some words that were without sound, I
forced myself to tell him (though I could not do it distinctly), that I had
been chosen to succeed to some property.
“Might a mere warmint ask what property?” said he.
I faltered, “I don’t know.”
“Might a mere warmint ask whose property?” said he.
I faltered again, “I don’t know.”
“Could I make a guess, I wonder,” said the Convict, “at your
income since you come of age! As to the first figure now. Five?”
With my heart beating like a heavy hammer of disordered action, I rose out of
my chair, and stood with my hand upon the back of it, looking wildly at him.
“Concerning a guardian,” he went on. “There ought to have
been some guardian, or such-like, whiles you was a minor. Some lawyer, maybe.
As to the first letter of that lawyer’s name now. Would it be J?”
All the truth of my position came flashing on me; and its disappointments,
dangers, disgraces, consequences of all kinds, rushed in in such a multitude
that I was borne down by them and had to struggle for every breath I drew.
“Put it,” he resumed, “as the employer of that lawyer whose
name begun with a J, and might be Jaggers,—put it as he had come over sea
to Portsmouth, and had landed there, and had wanted to come on to you.
‘However, you have found me out,’ you says just now. Well! However,
did I find you out? Why, I wrote from Portsmouth to a person in London, for
particulars of your address. That person’s name? Why, Wemmick.”
I could not have spoken one word, though it had been to save my life. I stood,
with a hand on the chair-back and a hand on my breast, where I seemed to be
suffocating,—I stood so, looking wildly at him, until I grasped at the
chair, when the room began to surge and turn. He caught me, drew me to the
sofa, put me up against the cushions, and bent on one knee before me, bringing
the face that I now well remembered, and that I shuddered at, very near to
mine.
“Yes, Pip, dear boy, I’ve made a gentleman on you! It’s me
wot has done it! I swore that time, sure as ever I earned a guinea, that guinea
should go to you. I swore arterwards, sure as ever I spec’lated and got
rich, you should get rich. I lived rough, that you should live smooth; I worked
hard, that you should be above work. What odds, dear boy? Do I tell it, fur you
to feel a obligation? Not a bit. I tell it, fur you to know as that there
hunted dunghill dog wot you kep life in, got his head so high that he could
make a gentleman,—and, Pip, you’re him!”
The abhorrence in which I held the man, the dread I had of him, the repugnance
with which I shrank from him, could not have been exceeded if he had been some
terrible beast.
“Look’ee here, Pip. I’m your second father. You’re my
son,—more to me nor any son. I’ve put away money, only for you to
spend. When I was a hired-out shepherd in a solitary hut, not seeing no faces
but faces of sheep till I half forgot wot men’s and women’s faces
wos like, I see yourn. I drops my knife many a time in that hut when I was
a-eating my dinner or my supper, and I says, ‘Here’s the boy again,
a looking at me whiles I eats and drinks!’ I see you there a many times,
as plain as ever I see you on them misty marshes. ‘Lord strike me
dead!’ I says each time,—and I goes out in the air to say it under
the open heavens,—‘but wot, if I gets liberty and money, I’ll
make that boy a gentleman!’ And I done it. Why, look at you, dear boy!
Look at these here lodgings of yourn, fit for a lord! A lord? Ah! You shall
show money with lords for wagers, and beat ’em!”
In his heat and triumph, and in his knowledge that I had been nearly fainting,
he did not remark on my reception of all this. It was the one grain of relief I
had.
“Look’ee here!” he went on, taking my watch out of my pocket,
and turning towards him a ring on my finger, while I recoiled from his touch as
if he had been a snake, “a gold ’un and a beauty:
a gentleman’s, I hope! A diamond all set round with
rubies; a gentleman’s, I hope! Look at your linen;
fine and beautiful! Look at your clothes; better ain’t to be got! And
your books too,” turning his eyes round the room, “mounting up, on
their shelves, by hundreds! And you read ’em; don’t you? I see
you’d been a reading of ’em when I come in. Ha, ha, ha! You shall
read ’em to me, dear boy! And if they’re in foreign languages wot I
don’t understand, I shall be just as proud as if I did.”
Again he took both my hands and put them to his lips, while my blood ran cold
within me.
“Don’t you mind talking, Pip,” said he, after again drawing
his sleeve over his eyes and forehead, as the click came in his throat which I
well remembered,—and he was all the more horrible to me that he was so
much in earnest; “you can’t do better nor keep quiet, dear boy. You
ain’t looked slowly forward to this as I have; you wosn’t prepared
for this as I wos. But didn’t you never think it might be me?”
“O no, no, no,” I returned, “Never, never!”
“Well, you see it me, and single-handed. Never a soul in it
but my own self and Mr. Jaggers.”
“Was there no one else?” I asked.
“No,” said he, with a glance of surprise: “who else should
there be? And, dear boy, how good looking you have growed! There’s bright
eyes somewheres—eh? Isn’t there bright eyes somewheres, wot you
love the thoughts on?”
O Estella, Estella!
“They shall be yourn, dear boy, if money can buy ’em. Not that a
gentleman like you, so well set up as you, can’t win ’em off of his
own game; but money shall back you! Let me finish wot I was a telling you, dear
boy. From that there hut and that there hiring-out, I got money left me by my
master (which died, and had been the same as me), and got my liberty and went
for myself. In every single thing I went for, I went for you. ‘Lord
strike a blight upon it,’ I says, wotever it was I went for, ‘if it
ain’t for him!’ It all prospered wonderful. As I giv’ you to
understand just now, I’m famous for it. It was the money left me, and the
gains of the first few year wot I sent home to Mr. Jaggers—all for
you—when he first come arter you, agreeable to my letter.”
O that he had never come! That he had left me at the forge,—far from
contented, yet, by comparison happy!
“And then, dear boy, it was a recompense to me, look’ee here, to
know in secret that I was making a gentleman. The blood horses of them
colonists might fling up the dust over me as I was walking; what do I say? I
says to myself, ‘I’m making a better gentleman nor ever
’ll be!’ When one of ’em says to another, ‘He
was a convict, a few year ago, and is a ignorant common fellow now, for all
he’s lucky,’ what do I say? I says to myself, ‘If I
ain’t a gentleman, nor yet ain’t got no learning, I’m the
owner of such. All on you owns stock and land; which on you owns a brought-up
London gentleman?’ This way I kep myself a-going. And this way I held
steady afore my mind that I would for certain come one day and see my boy, and
make myself known to him, on his own ground.”
He laid his hand on my shoulder. I shuddered at the thought that for anything I
knew, his hand might be stained with blood.
“It warn’t easy, Pip, for me to leave them parts, nor yet it
warn’t safe. But I held to it, and the harder it was, the stronger I
held, for I was determined, and my mind firm made up. At last I done it. Dear
boy, I done it!”
I tried to collect my thoughts, but I was stunned. Throughout, I had seemed to
myself to attend more to the wind and the rain than to him; even now, I could
not separate his voice from those voices, though those were loud and his was
silent.
“Where will you put me?” he asked, presently. “I must be put
somewheres, dear boy.”
“To sleep?” said I.
“Yes. And to sleep long and sound,” he answered; “for
I’ve been sea-tossed and sea-washed, months and months.”
“My friend and companion,” said I, rising from the sofa, “is
absent; you must have his room.”
“He won’t come back to-morrow; will he?”
“No,” said I, answering almost mechanically, in spite of my utmost
efforts; “not to-morrow.”
“Because, look’ee here, dear boy,” he said, dropping his
voice, and laying a long finger on my breast in an impressive manner,
“caution is necessary.”
“How do you mean? Caution?”
“By G——, it’s Death!”
“What’s death?”
“I was sent for life. It’s death to come back. There’s been
overmuch coming back of late years, and I should of a certainty be hanged if
took.”
Nothing was needed but this; the wretched man, after loading wretched me with
his gold and silver chains for years, had risked his life to come to me, and I
held it there in my keeping! If I had loved him instead of abhorring him; if I
had been attracted to him by the strongest admiration and affection, instead of
shrinking from him with the strongest repugnance; it could have been no worse.
On the contrary, it would have been better, for his preservation would then
have naturally and tenderly addressed my heart.
My first care was to close the shutters, so that no light might be seen from
without, and then to close and make fast the doors. While I did so, he stood at
the table drinking rum and eating biscuit; and when I saw him thus engaged, I
saw my convict on the marshes at his meal again. It almost seemed to me as if
he must stoop down presently, to file at his leg.
When I had gone into Herbert’s room, and had shut off any other
communication between it and the staircase than through the room in which our
conversation had been held, I asked him if he would go to bed? He said yes, but
asked me for some of my “gentleman’s linen” to put on in the
morning. I brought it out, and laid it ready for him, and my blood again ran
cold when he again took me by both hands to give me good-night.
I got away from him, without knowing how I did it, and mended the fire in the
room where we had been together, and sat down by it, afraid to go to bed. For
an hour or more, I remained too stunned to think; and it was not until I began
to think, that I began fully to know how wrecked I was, and how the ship in
which I had sailed was gone to pieces.
Miss Havisham’s intentions towards me, all a mere dream; Estella not
designed for me; I only suffered in Satis House as a convenience, a sting for
the greedy relations, a model with a mechanical heart to practise on when no
other practice was at hand; those were the first smarts I had. But, sharpest
and deepest pain of all,—it was for the convict, guilty of I knew not
what crimes, and liable to be taken out of those rooms where I sat thinking,
and hanged at the Old Bailey door, that I had deserted Joe.
I would not have gone back to Joe now, I would not have gone back to Biddy now,
for any consideration; simply, I suppose, because my sense of my own worthless
conduct to them was greater than every consideration. No wisdom on earth could
have given me the comfort that I should have derived from their simplicity and
fidelity; but I could never, never, undo what I had done.
In every rage of wind and rush of rain, I heard pursuers. Twice, I could have
sworn there was a knocking and whispering at the outer door. With these fears
upon me, I began either to imagine or recall that I had had mysterious warnings
of this man’s approach. That, for weeks gone by, I had passed faces in
the streets which I had thought like his. That these likenesses had grown more
numerous, as he, coming over the sea, had drawn nearer. That his wicked spirit
had somehow sent these messengers to mine, and that now on this stormy night he
was as good as his word, and with me.
Crowding up with these reflections came the reflection that I had seen him with
my childish eyes to be a desperately violent man; that I had heard that other
convict reiterate that he had tried to murder him; that I had seen him down in
the ditch tearing and fighting like a wild beast. Out of such remembrances I
brought into the light of the fire a half-formed terror that it might not be
safe to be shut up there with him in the dead of the wild solitary night. This
dilated until it filled the room, and impelled me to take a candle and go in
and look at my dreadful burden.
He had rolled a handkerchief round his head, and his face was set and lowering
in his sleep. But he was asleep, and quietly too, though he had a pistol lying
on the pillow. Assured of this, I softly removed the key to the outside of his
door, and turned it on him before I again sat down by the fire. Gradually I
slipped from the chair and lay on the floor. When I awoke without having parted
in my sleep with the perception of my wretchedness, the clocks of the Eastward
churches were striking five, the candles were wasted out, the fire was dead,
and the wind and rain intensified the thick black darkness.
THIS IS THE END OF THE SECOND STAGE OF PIP’S EXPECTATIONS.
Chapter XL.
It was
fortunate for me that I had to take precautions to ensure (so far as I could)
the safety of my dreaded visitor; for, this thought pressing on me when I
awoke, held other thoughts in a confused concourse at a distance.
The impossibility of keeping him concealed in the chambers was self-evident. It
could not be done, and the attempt to do it would inevitably engender
suspicion. True, I had no Avenger in my service now, but I was looked after by
an inflammatory old female, assisted by an animated rag-bag whom she called her
niece, and to keep a room secret from them would be to invite curiosity and
exaggeration. They both had weak eyes, which I had long attributed to their
chronically looking in at keyholes, and they were always at hand when not
wanted; indeed that was their only reliable quality besides larceny. Not to get
up a mystery with these people, I resolved to announce in the morning that my
uncle had unexpectedly come from the country.
This course I decided on while I was yet groping about in the darkness for the
means of getting a light. Not stumbling on the means after all, I was fain to
go out to the adjacent Lodge and get the watchman there to come with his
lantern. Now, in groping my way down the black staircase I fell over something,
and that something was a man crouching in a corner.
As the man made no answer when I asked him what he did there, but eluded my
touch in silence, I ran to the Lodge and urged the watchman to come quickly;
telling him of the incident on the way back. The wind being as fierce as ever,
we did not care to endanger the light in the lantern by rekindling the
extinguished lamps on the staircase, but we examined the staircase from the
bottom to the top and found no one there. It then occurred to me as possible
that the man might have slipped into my rooms; so, lighting my candle at the
watchman’s, and leaving him standing at the door, I examined them
carefully, including the room in which my dreaded guest lay asleep. All was
quiet, and assuredly no other man was in those chambers.
It troubled me that there should have been a lurker on the stairs, on that
night of all nights in the year, and I asked the watchman, on the chance of
eliciting some hopeful explanation as I handed him a dram at the door, whether
he had admitted at his gate any gentleman who had perceptibly been dining out?
Yes, he said; at different times of the night, three. One lived in Fountain
Court, and the other two lived in the Lane, and he had seen them all go home.
Again, the only other man who dwelt in the house of which my chambers formed a
part had been in the country for some weeks, and he certainly had not returned
in the night, because we had seen his door with his seal on it as we came
upstairs.
“The night being so bad, sir,” said the watchman, as he gave me
back my glass, “uncommon few have come in at my gate. Besides them three
gentlemen that I have named, I don’t call to mind another since about
eleven o’clock, when a stranger asked for you.”
“My uncle,” I muttered. “Yes.”
“You saw him, sir?”
“Yes. Oh yes.”
“Likewise the person with him?”
“Person with him!” I repeated.
“I judged the person to be with him,” returned the watchman.
“The person stopped, when he stopped to make inquiry of me, and the
person took this way when he took this way.”
“What sort of person?”
The watchman had not particularly noticed; he should say a working person; to
the best of his belief, he had a dust-coloured kind of clothes on, under a dark
coat. The watchman made more light of the matter than I did, and naturally; not
having my reason for attaching weight to it.
When I had got rid of him, which I thought it well to do without prolonging
explanations, my mind was much troubled by these two circumstances taken
together. Whereas they were easy of innocent solution apart,—as, for
instance, some diner out or diner at home, who had not gone near this
watchman’s gate, might have strayed to my staircase and dropped asleep
there,—and my nameless visitor might have brought some one with him to
show him the way,—still, joined, they had an ugly look to one as prone to
distrust and fear as the changes of a few hours had made me.
I lighted my fire, which burnt with a raw pale flare at that time of the
morning, and fell into a doze before it. I seemed to have been dozing a whole
night when the clocks struck six. As there was full an hour and a half between
me and daylight, I dozed again; now, waking up uneasily, with prolix
conversations about nothing, in my ears; now, making thunder of the wind in the
chimney; at length, falling off into a profound sleep from which the daylight
woke me with a start.
All this time I had never been able to consider my own situation, nor could I
do so yet. I had not the power to attend to it. I was greatly dejected and
distressed, but in an incoherent wholesale sort of way. As to forming any plan
for the future, I could as soon have formed an elephant. When I opened the
shutters and looked out at the wet wild morning, all of a leaden hue; when I
walked from room to room; when I sat down again shivering, before the fire,
waiting for my laundress to appear; I thought how miserable I was, but hardly
knew why, or how long I had been so, or on what day of the week I made the
reflection, or even who I was that made it.
At last, the old woman and the niece came in,—the latter with a head not
easily distinguishable from her dusty broom,—and testified surprise at
sight of me and the fire. To whom I imparted how my uncle had come in the night
and was then asleep, and how the breakfast preparations were to be modified
accordingly. Then I washed and dressed while they knocked the furniture about
and made a dust; and so, in a sort of dream or sleep-waking, I found myself
sitting by the fire again, waiting for—Him—to come to breakfast.
By and by, his door opened and he came out. I could not bring myself to bear
the sight of him, and I thought he had a worse look by daylight.
“I do not even know,” said I, speaking low as he took his seat at
the table, “by what name to call you. I have given out that you are my
uncle.”
“That’s it, dear boy! Call me uncle.”
“You assumed some name, I suppose, on board ship?”
“Yes, dear boy. I took the name of Provis.”
“Do you mean to keep that name?”
“Why, yes, dear boy, it’s as good as another,—unless
you’d like another.”
“What is your real name?” I asked him in a whisper.
“Magwitch,” he answered, in the same tone; “chrisen’d
Abel.”
“What were you brought up to be?”
“A warmint, dear boy.”
He answered quite seriously, and used the word as if it denoted some
profession.
“When you came into the Temple last night—” said I, pausing
to wonder whether that could really have been last night, which seemed so long
ago.
“Yes, dear boy?”
“When you came in at the gate and asked the watchman the way here, had
you any one with you?”
“With me? No, dear boy.”
“But there was some one there?”
“I didn’t take particular notice,” he said, dubiously,
“not knowing the ways of the place. But I think there a
person, too, come in alonger me.”
“Are you known in London?”
“I hope not!” said he, giving his neck a jerk with his forefinger
that made me turn hot and sick.
“Were you known in London, once?”
“Not over and above, dear boy. I was in the provinces mostly.”
“Were you—tried—in London?”
“Which time?” said he, with a sharp look.
“The last time.”
He nodded. “First knowed Mr. Jaggers that way. Jaggers was for me.”
It was on my lips to ask him what he was tried for, but he took up a knife,
gave it a flourish, and with the words, “And what I done is worked out
and paid for!” fell to at his breakfast.
He ate in a ravenous way that was very disagreeable, and all his actions were
uncouth, noisy, and greedy. Some of his teeth had failed him since I saw him
eat on the marshes, and as he turned his food in his mouth, and turned his head
sideways to bring his strongest fangs to bear upon it, he looked terribly like
a hungry old dog. If I had begun with any appetite, he would have taken it
away, and I should have sat much as I did,—repelled from him by an
insurmountable aversion, and gloomily looking at the cloth.
“I’m a heavy grubber, dear boy,” he said, as a polite kind of
apology when he made an end of his meal, “but I always was. If it had
been in my constitution to be a lighter grubber, I might ha’ got into
lighter trouble. Similarly, I must have my smoke. When I was first hired out as
shepherd t’other side the world, it’s my belief I should ha’
turned into a molloncolly-mad sheep myself, if I hadn’t a had my
smoke.”
As he said so, he got up from table, and putting his hand into the breast of
the pea-coat he wore, brought out a short black pipe, and a handful of loose
tobacco of the kind that is called Negro-head. Having filled his pipe, he put
the surplus tobacco back again, as if his pocket were a drawer. Then, he took a
live coal from the fire with the tongs, and lighted his pipe at it, and then
turned round on the hearth-rug with his back to the fire, and went through his
favourite action of holding out both his hands for mine.
“And this,” said he, dandling my hands up and down in his, as he
puffed at his pipe,—“and this is the gentleman what I made! The
real genuine One! It does me good fur to look at you, Pip. All I
stip’late, is, to stand by and look at you, dear boy!”
I released my hands as soon as I could, and found that I was beginning slowly
to settle down to the contemplation of my condition. What I was chained to, and
how heavily, became intelligible to me, as I heard his hoarse voice, and sat
looking up at his furrowed bald head with its iron grey hair at the sides.
“I mustn’t see my gentleman a footing it in the mire of the
streets; there mustn’t be no mud on boots. My gentleman must
have horses, Pip! Horses to ride, and horses to drive, and horses for his
servant to ride and drive as well. Shall colonists have their horses (and blood
’uns, if you please, good Lord!) and not my London gentleman? No, no.
We’ll show ’em another pair of shoes than that, Pip; won’t
us?”
He took out of his pocket a great thick pocket-book, bursting with papers, and
tossed it on the table.
“There’s something worth spending in that there book, dear boy.
It’s yourn. All I’ve got ain’t mine; it’s yourn.
Don’t you be afeerd on it. There’s more where that come from.
I’ve come to the old country fur to see my gentleman spend his money
a gentleman. That’ll be pleasure.
pleasure ’ull be fur to see him do it. And blast you all!” he wound
up, looking round the room and snapping his fingers once with a loud snap,
“blast you every one, from the judge in his wig, to the colonist a
stirring up the dust, I’ll show a better gentleman than the whole kit on
you put together!”
“Stop!” said I, almost in a frenzy of fear and dislike, “I
want to speak to you. I want to know what is to be done. I want to know how you
are to be kept out of danger, how long you are going to stay, what projects you
have.”
“Look’ee here, Pip,” said he, laying his hand on my arm in a
suddenly altered and subdued manner; “first of all, look’ee here. I
forgot myself half a minute ago. What I said was low; that’s what it was;
low. Look’ee here, Pip. Look over it. I ain’t a-going to be
low.”
“First,” I resumed, half groaning, “what precautions can be
taken against your being recognised and seized?”
“No, dear boy,” he said, in the same tone as before, “that
don’t go first. Lowness goes first. I ain’t took so many year to
make a gentleman, not without knowing what’s due to him. Look’ee
here, Pip. I was low; that’s what I was; low. Look over it, dear
boy.”
Some sense of the grimly-ludicrous moved me to a fretful laugh, as I replied,
“I looked over it. In Heaven’s name, don’t harp
upon it!”
“Yes, but look’ee here,” he persisted. “Dear boy, I
ain’t come so fur, not fur to be low. Now, go on, dear boy. You was a
saying—”
“How are you to be guarded from the danger you have incurred?”
“Well, dear boy, the danger ain’t so great. Without I was informed
agen, the danger ain’t so much to signify. There’s Jaggers, and
there’s Wemmick, and there’s you. Who else is there to
inform?”
“Is there no chance person who might identify you in the street?”
said I.
“Well,” he returned, “there ain’t many. Nor yet I
don’t intend to advertise myself in the newspapers by the name of A.M.
come back from Botany Bay; and years have rolled away, and who’s to gain
by it? Still, look’ee here, Pip. If the danger had been fifty times as
great, I should ha’ come to see you, mind you, just the same.”
“And how long do you remain?”
“How long?” said he, taking his black pipe from his mouth, and
dropping his jaw as he stared at me. “I’m not a-going back.
I’ve come for good.”
“Where are you to live?” said I. “What is to be done with
you? Where will you be safe?”
“Dear boy,” he returned, “there’s disguising wigs can
be bought for money, and there’s hair powder, and spectacles, and black
clothes,—shorts and what not. Others has done it safe afore, and what
others has done afore, others can do agen. As to the where and how of living,
dear boy, give me your own opinions on it.”
“You take it smoothly now,” said I, “but you were very
serious last night, when you swore it was Death.”
“And so I swear it is Death,” said he, putting his pipe back in his
mouth, “and Death by the rope, in the open street not fur from this, and
it’s serious that you should fully understand it to be so. What then,
when that’s once done? Here I am. To go back now ’ud be as bad as
to stand ground—worse. Besides, Pip, I’m here, because I’ve
meant it by you, years and years. As to what I dare, I’m a old bird now,
as has dared all manner of traps since first he was fledged, and I’m not
afeerd to perch upon a scarecrow. If there’s Death hid inside of it,
there is, and let him come out, and I’ll face him, and then I’ll
believe in him and not afore. And now let me have a look at my gentleman
agen.”
Once more, he took me by both hands and surveyed me with an air of admiring
proprietorship: smoking with great complacency all the while.
It appeared to me that I could do no better than secure him some quiet lodging
hard by, of which he might take possession when Herbert returned: whom I
expected in two or three days. That the secret must be confided to Herbert as a
matter of unavoidable necessity, even if I could have put the immense relief I
should derive from sharing it with him out of the question, was plain to me.
But it was by no means so plain to Mr. Provis (I resolved to call him by that
name), who reserved his consent to Herbert’s participation until he
should have seen him and formed a favourable judgment of his physiognomy.
“And even then, dear boy,” said he, pulling a greasy little clasped
black Testament out of his pocket, “we’ll have him on his
oath.”
To state that my terrible patron carried this little black book about the world
solely to swear people on in cases of emergency, would be to state what I never
quite established; but this I can say, that I never knew him put it to any
other use. The book itself had the appearance of having been stolen from some
court of justice, and perhaps his knowledge of its antecedents, combined with
his own experience in that wise, gave him a reliance on its powers as a sort of
legal spell or charm. On this first occasion of his producing it, I recalled
how he had made me swear fidelity in the churchyard long ago, and how he had
described himself last night as always swearing to his resolutions in his
solitude.
As he was at present dressed in a seafaring slop suit, in which he looked as if
he had some parrots and cigars to dispose of, I next discussed with him what
dress he should wear. He cherished an extraordinary belief in the virtues of
“shorts” as a disguise, and had in his own mind sketched a dress
for himself that would have made him something between a dean and a dentist. It
was with considerable difficulty that I won him over to the assumption of a
dress more like a prosperous farmer’s; and we arranged that he should cut
his hair close, and wear a little powder. Lastly, as he had not yet been seen
by the laundress or her niece, he was to keep himself out of their view until
his change of dress was made.
It would seem a simple matter to decide on these precautions; but in my dazed,
not to say distracted, state, it took so long, that I did not get out to
further them until two or three in the afternoon. He was to remain shut up in
the chambers while I was gone, and was on no account to open the door.
There being to my knowledge a respectable lodging-house in Essex Street, the
back of which looked into the Temple, and was almost within hail of my windows,
I first of all repaired to that house, and was so fortunate as to secure the
second floor for my uncle, Mr. Provis. I then went from shop to shop, making
such purchases as were necessary to the change in his appearance. This business
transacted, I turned my face, on my own account, to Little Britain. Mr. Jaggers
was at his desk, but, seeing me enter, got up immediately and stood before his
fire.
“Now, Pip,” said he, “be careful.”
“I will, sir,” I returned. For, coming along I had thought well of
what I was going to say.
“Don’t commit yourself,” said Mr. Jaggers, “and
don’t commit any one. You understand—any one. Don’t tell me
anything: I don’t want to know anything; I am not curious.”
Of course I saw that he knew the man was come.
“I merely want, Mr. Jaggers,” said I, “to assure myself that
what I have been told is true. I have no hope of its being untrue, but at least
I may verify it.”
Mr. Jaggers nodded. “But did you say ‘told’ or
‘informed’?” he asked me, with his head on one side, and not
looking at me, but looking in a listening way at the floor. “Told would
seem to imply verbal communication. You can’t have verbal communication
with a man in New South Wales, you know.”
“I will say, informed, Mr. Jaggers.”
“Good.”
“I have been informed by a person named Abel Magwitch, that he is the
benefactor so long unknown to me.”
“That is the man,” said Mr. Jaggers, “in New South
Wales.”
“And only he?” said I.
“And only he,” said Mr. Jaggers.
“I am not so unreasonable, sir, as to think you at all responsible for my
mistakes and wrong conclusions; but I always supposed it was Miss
Havisham.”
“As you say, Pip,” returned Mr. Jaggers, turning his eyes upon me
coolly, and taking a bite at his forefinger, “I am not at all responsible
for that.”
“And yet it looked so like it, sir,” I pleaded with a downcast
heart.
“Not a particle of evidence, Pip,” said Mr. Jaggers, shaking his
head and gathering up his skirts. “Take nothing on its looks; take
everything on evidence. There’s no better rule.”
“I have no more to say,” said I, with a sigh, after standing silent
for a little while. “I have verified my information, and there’s an
end.”
“And Magwitch—in New South Wales—having at last disclosed
himself,” said Mr. Jaggers, “you will comprehend, Pip, how rigidly
throughout my communication with you, I have always adhered to the strict line
of fact. There has never been the least departure from the strict line of fact.
You are quite aware of that?”
“Quite, sir.”
“I communicated to Magwitch—in New South Wales—when he first
wrote to me—from New South Wales—the caution that he must not
expect me ever to deviate from the strict line of fact. I also communicated to
him another caution. He appeared to me to have obscurely hinted in his letter
at some distant idea he had of seeing you in England here. I cautioned him that
I must hear no more of that; that he was not at all likely to obtain a pardon;
that he was expatriated for the term of his natural life; and that his
presenting himself in this country would be an act of felony, rendering him
liable to the extreme penalty of the law. I gave Magwitch that caution,”
said Mr. Jaggers, looking hard at me; “I wrote it to New South Wales. He
guided himself by it, no doubt.”
“No doubt,” said I.
“I have been informed by Wemmick,” pursued Mr. Jaggers, still
looking hard at me, “that he has received a letter, under date
Portsmouth, from a colonist of the name of Purvis, or—”
“Or Provis,” I suggested.
“Or Provis—thank you, Pip. Perhaps it Provis? Perhaps you
know it’s Provis?”
“Yes,” said I.
“You know it’s Provis. A letter, under date Portsmouth, from a
colonist of the name of Provis, asking for the particulars of your address, on
behalf of Magwitch. Wemmick sent him the particulars, I understand, by return
of post. Probably it is through Provis that you have received the explanation
of Magwitch—in New South Wales?”
“It came through Provis,” I replied.
“Good day, Pip,” said Mr. Jaggers, offering his hand; “glad
to have seen you. In writing by post to Magwitch—in New South
Wales—or in communicating with him through Provis, have the goodness to
mention that the particulars and vouchers of our long account shall be sent to
you, together with the balance; for there is still a balance remaining.
Good-day, Pip!”
We shook hands, and he looked hard at me as long as he could see me. I turned
at the door, and he was still looking hard at me, while the two vile casts on
the shelf seemed to be trying to get their eyelids open, and to force out of
their swollen throats, “O, what a man he is!”
Wemmick was out, and though he had been at his desk he could have done nothing
for me. I went straight back to the Temple, where I found the terrible Provis
drinking rum and water and smoking negro-head, in safety.
Next day the clothes I had ordered all came home, and he put them on. Whatever
he put on, became him less (it dismally seemed to me) than what he had worn
before. To my thinking, there was something in him that made it hopeless to
attempt to disguise him. The more I dressed him and the better I dressed him,
the more he looked like the slouching fugitive on the marshes. This effect on
my anxious fancy was partly referable, no doubt, to his old face and manner
growing more familiar to me; but I believe too that he dragged one of his legs
as if there were still a weight of iron on it, and that from head to foot there
was Convict in the very grain of the man.
The influences of his solitary hut-life were upon him besides, and gave him a
savage air that no dress could tame; added to these were the influences of his
subsequent branded life among men, and, crowning all, his consciousness that he
was dodging and hiding now. In all his ways of sitting and standing, and eating
and drinking,—of brooding about in a high-shouldered reluctant
style,—of taking out his great horn-handled jackknife and wiping it on
his legs and cutting his food,—of lifting light glasses and cups to his
lips, as if they were clumsy pannikins,—of chopping a wedge off his
bread, and soaking up with it the last fragments of gravy round and round his
plate, as if to make the most of an allowance, and then drying his finger-ends
on it, and then swallowing it,—in these ways and a thousand other small
nameless instances arising every minute in the day, there was Prisoner, Felon,
Bondsman, plain as plain could be.
It had been his own idea to wear that touch of powder, and I had conceded the
powder after overcoming the shorts. But I can compare the effect of it, when
on, to nothing but the probable effect of rouge upon the dead; so awful was the
manner in which everything in him that it was most desirable to repress,
started through that thin layer of pretence, and seemed to come blazing out at
the crown of his head. It was abandoned as soon as tried, and he wore his
grizzled hair cut short.
Words cannot tell what a sense I had, at the same time, of the dreadful mystery
that he was to me. When he fell asleep of an evening, with his knotted hands
clenching the sides of the easy-chair, and his bald head tattooed with deep
wrinkles falling forward on his breast, I would sit and look at him, wondering
what he had done, and loading him with all the crimes in the Calendar, until
the impulse was powerful on me to start up and fly from him. Every hour so
increased my abhorrence of him, that I even think I might have yielded to this
impulse in the first agonies of being so haunted, notwithstanding all he had
done for me and the risk he ran, but for the knowledge that Herbert must soon
come back. Once, I actually did start out of bed in the night, and begin to
dress myself in my worst clothes, hurriedly intending to leave him there with
everything else I possessed, and enlist for India as a private soldier.
I doubt if a ghost could have been more terrible to me, up in those lonely
rooms in the long evenings and long nights, with the wind and the rain always
rushing by. A ghost could not have been taken and hanged on my account, and the
consideration that he could be, and the dread that he would be, were no small
addition to my horrors. When he was not asleep, or playing a complicated kind
of Patience with a ragged pack of cards of his own,—a game that I never
saw before or since, and in which he recorded his winnings by sticking his
jackknife into the table,—when he was not engaged in either of these
pursuits, he would ask me to read to him,—“Foreign language, dear
boy!” While I complied, he, not comprehending a single word, would stand
before the fire surveying me with the air of an Exhibitor, and I would see him,
between the fingers of the hand with which I shaded my face, appealing in dumb
show to the furniture to take notice of my proficiency. The imaginary student
pursued by the misshapen creature he had impiously made, was not more wretched
than I, pursued by the creature who had made me, and recoiling from him with a
stronger repulsion, the more he admired me and the fonder he was of me.
This is written of, I am sensible, as if it had lasted a year. It lasted about
five days. Expecting Herbert all the time, I dared not go out, except when I
took Provis for an airing after dark. At length, one evening when dinner was
over and I had dropped into a slumber quite worn out,—for my nights had
been agitated and my rest broken by fearful dreams,—I was roused by the
welcome footstep on the staircase. Provis, who had been asleep too, staggered
up at the noise I made, and in an instant I saw his jackknife shining in his
hand.
“Quiet! It’s Herbert!” I said; and Herbert came bursting in,
with the airy freshness of six hundred miles of France upon him.
“Handel, my dear fellow, how are you, and again how are you, and again
how are you? I seem to have been gone a twelvemonth! Why, so I must have been,
for you have grown quite thin and pale! Handel, my—Halloa! I beg your
pardon.”
He was stopped in his running on and in his shaking hands with me, by seeing
Provis. Provis, regarding him with a fixed attention, was slowly putting up his
jackknife, and groping in another pocket for something else.
“Herbert, my dear friend,” said I, shutting the double doors, while
Herbert stood staring and wondering, “something very strange has
happened. This is—a visitor of mine.”
“It’s all right, dear boy!” said Provis coming forward, with
his little clasped black book, and then addressing himself to Herbert.
“Take it in your right hand. Lord strike you dead on the spot, if ever
you split in any way sumever! Kiss it!”
“Do so, as he wishes it,” I said to Herbert. So, Herbert, looking
at me with a friendly uneasiness and amazement, complied, and Provis
immediately shaking hands with him, said, “Now you’re on your oath,
you know. And never believe me on mine, if Pip shan’t make a gentleman on
you!”
Chapter XLI.
In
vain should I attempt to describe the astonishment and disquiet of Herbert,
when he and I and Provis sat down before the fire, and I recounted the whole of
the secret. Enough, that I saw my own feelings reflected in Herbert’s
face, and not least among them, my repugnance towards the man who had done so
much for me.
What would alone have set a division between that man and us, if there had been
no other dividing circumstance, was his triumph in my story. Saving his
troublesome sense of having been “low” on one occasion since his
return,—on which point he began to hold forth to Herbert, the moment my
revelation was finished,—he had no perception of the possibility of my
finding any fault with my good fortune. His boast that he had made me a
gentleman, and that he had come to see me support the character on his ample
resources, was made for me quite as much as for himself. And that it was a
highly agreeable boast to both of us, and that we must both be very proud of
it, was a conclusion quite established in his own mind.
“Though, look’ee here, Pip’s comrade,” he said to
Herbert, after having discoursed for some time, “I know very well that
once since I come back—for half a minute—I’ve been low. I
said to Pip, I knowed as I had been low. But don’t you fret yourself on
that score. I ain’t made Pip a gentleman, and Pip ain’t a-going to
make you a gentleman, not fur me not to know what’s due to ye both. Dear
boy, and Pip’s comrade, you two may count upon me always having a
genteel muzzle on. Muzzled I have been since that half a minute when I was
betrayed into lowness, muzzled I am at the present time, muzzled I ever will
be.”
Herbert said, “Certainly,” but looked as if there were no specific
consolation in this, and remained perplexed and dismayed. We were anxious for
the time when he would go to his lodging and leave us together, but he was
evidently jealous of leaving us together, and sat late. It was midnight before
I took him round to Essex Street, and saw him safely in at his own dark door.
When it closed upon him, I experienced the first moment of relief I had known
since the night of his arrival.
Never quite free from an uneasy remembrance of the man on the stairs, I had
always looked about me in taking my guest out after dark, and in bringing him
back; and I looked about me now. Difficult as it is in a large city to avoid
the suspicion of being watched, when the mind is conscious of danger in that
regard, I could not persuade myself that any of the people within sight cared
about my movements. The few who were passing passed on their several ways, and
the street was empty when I turned back into the Temple. Nobody had come out at
the gate with us, nobody went in at the gate with me. As I crossed by the
fountain, I saw his lighted back windows looking bright and quiet, and, when I
stood for a few moments in the doorway of the building where I lived, before
going up the stairs, Garden Court was as still and lifeless as the staircase
was when I ascended it.
Herbert received me with open arms, and I had never felt before so blessedly
what it is to have a friend. When he had spoken some sound words of sympathy
and encouragement, we sat down to consider the question, What was to be done?
The chair that Provis had occupied still remaining where it had
stood,—for he had a barrack way with him of hanging about one spot, in
one unsettled manner, and going through one round of observances with his pipe
and his negro-head and his jackknife and his pack of cards, and what not, as if
it were all put down for him on a slate,—I say his chair remaining where
it had stood, Herbert unconsciously took it, but next moment started out of it,
pushed it away, and took another. He had no occasion to say after that that he
had conceived an aversion for my patron, neither had I occasion to confess my
own. We interchanged that confidence without shaping a syllable.
“What,” said I to Herbert, when he was safe in another
chair,—“what is to be done?”
“My poor dear Handel,” he replied, holding his head, “I am
too stunned to think.”
“So was I, Herbert, when the blow first fell. Still, something must be
done. He is intent upon various new expenses,—horses, and carriages, and
lavish appearances of all kinds. He must be stopped somehow.”
“You mean that you can’t accept—”
“How can I?” I interposed, as Herbert paused. “Think of him!
Look at him!”
An involuntary shudder passed over both of us.
“Yet I am afraid the dreadful truth is, Herbert, that he is attached to
me, strongly attached to me. Was there ever such a fate!”
“My poor dear Handel,” Herbert repeated.
“Then,” said I, “after all, stopping short here, never taking
another penny from him, think what I owe him already! Then again: I am heavily
in debt,—very heavily for me, who have now no expectations,—and I
have been bred to no calling, and I am fit for nothing.”
“Well, well, well!” Herbert remonstrated. “Don’t say
fit for nothing.”
“What am I fit for? I know only one thing that I am fit for, and that is,
to go for a soldier. And I might have gone, my dear Herbert, but for the
prospect of taking counsel with your friendship and affection.”
Of course I broke down there: and of course Herbert, beyond seizing a warm grip
of my hand, pretended not to know it.
“Anyhow, my dear Handel,” said he presently, “soldiering
won’t do. If you were to renounce this patronage and these favours, I
suppose you would do so with some faint hope of one day repaying what you have
already had. Not very strong, that hope, if you went soldiering! Besides,
it’s absurd. You would be infinitely better in Clarriker’s house,
small as it is. I am working up towards a partnership, you know.”
Poor fellow! He little suspected with whose money.
“But there is another question,” said Herbert. “This is an
ignorant, determined man, who has long had one fixed idea. More than that, he
seems to me (I may misjudge him) to be a man of a desperate and fierce
character.”
“I know he is,” I returned. “Let me tell you what evidence I
have seen of it.” And I told him what I had not mentioned in my
narrative, of that encounter with the other convict.
“See, then,” said Herbert; “think of this! He comes here at
the peril of his life, for the realisation of his fixed idea. In the moment of
realisation, after all his toil and waiting, you cut the ground from under his
feet, destroy his idea, and make his gains worthless to him. Do you see nothing
that he might do, under the disappointment?”
“I have seen it, Herbert, and dreamed of it, ever since the fatal night
of his arrival. Nothing has been in my thoughts so distinctly as his putting
himself in the way of being taken.”
“Then you may rely upon it,” said Herbert, “that there would
be great danger of his doing it. That is his power over you as long as he
remains in England, and that would be his reckless course if you forsook
him.”
I was so struck by the horror of this idea, which had weighed upon me from the
first, and the working out of which would make me regard myself, in some sort,
as his murderer, that I could not rest in my chair, but began pacing to and
fro. I said to Herbert, meanwhile, that even if Provis were recognised and
taken, in spite of himself, I should be wretched as the cause, however
innocently. Yes; even though I was so wretched in having him at large and near
me, and even though I would far rather have worked at the forge all the days of
my life than I would ever have come to this!
But there was no staving off the question, What was to be done?
“The first and the main thing to be done,” said Herbert, “is
to get him out of England. You will have to go with him, and then he may be
induced to go.”
“But get him where I will, could I prevent his coming back?”
“My good Handel, is it not obvious that with Newgate in the next street,
there must be far greater hazard in your breaking your mind to him and making
him reckless, here, than elsewhere? If a pretext to get him away could be made
out of that other convict, or out of anything else in his life, now.”
“There, again!” said I, stopping before Herbert, with my open hands
held out, as if they contained the desperation of the case. “I know
nothing of his life. It has almost made me mad to sit here of a night and see
him before me, so bound up with my fortunes and misfortunes, and yet so unknown
to me, except as the miserable wretch who terrified me two days in my
childhood!”
Herbert got up, and linked his arm in mine, and we slowly walked to and fro
together, studying the carpet.
“Handel,” said Herbert, stopping, “you feel convinced that
you can take no further benefits from him; do you?”
“Fully. Surely you would, too, if you were in my place?”
“And you feel convinced that you must break with him?”
“Herbert, can you ask me?”
“And you have, and are bound to have, that tenderness for the life he has
risked on your account, that you must save him, if possible, from throwing it
away. Then you must get him out of England before you stir a finger to
extricate yourself. That done, extricate yourself, in Heaven’s name, and
we’ll see it out together, dear old boy.”
It was a comfort to shake hands upon it, and walk up and down again, with only
that done.
“Now, Herbert,” said I, “with reference to gaining some
knowledge of his history. There is but one way that I know of. I must ask him
point blank.”
“Yes. Ask him,” said Herbert, “when we sit at breakfast in
the morning.” For he had said, on taking leave of Herbert, that he would
come to breakfast with us.
With this project formed, we went to bed. I had the wildest dreams concerning
him, and woke unrefreshed; I woke, too, to recover the fear which I had lost in
the night, of his being found out as a returned transport. Waking, I never lost
that fear.
He came round at the appointed time, took out his jackknife, and sat down to
his meal. He was full of plans “for his gentleman’s coming out
strong, and like a gentleman,” and urged me to begin speedily upon the
pocket-book which he had left in my possession. He considered the chambers and
his own lodging as temporary residences, and advised me to look out at once for
a “fashionable crib” near Hyde Park, in which he could have
“a shake-down.” When he had made an end of his breakfast, and was
wiping his knife on his leg, I said to him, without a word of preface,—
“After you were gone last night, I told my friend of the struggle that
the soldiers found you engaged in on the marshes, when we came up. You
remember?”
“Remember!” said he. “I think so!”
“We want to know something about that man—and about you. It is
strange to know no more about either, and particularly you, than I was able to
tell last night. Is not this as good a time as another for our knowing
more?”
“Well!” he said, after consideration. “You’re on your
oath, you know, Pip’s comrade?”
“Assuredly,” replied Herbert.
“As to anything I say, you know,” he insisted. “The oath
applies to all.”
“I understand it to do so.”
“And look’ee here! Wotever I done is worked out and paid
for,” he insisted again.
“So be it.”
He took out his black pipe and was going to fill it with negro-head, when,
looking at the tangle of tobacco in his hand, he seemed to think it might
perplex the thread of his narrative. He put it back again, stuck his pipe in a
button-hole of his coat, spread a hand on each knee, and after turning an angry
eye on the fire for a few silent moments, looked round at us and said what
follows.
Chapter XLII.
“Dear boy and Pip’s comrade. I am not a-going fur to tell you my
life like a song, or a story-book. But to give it you short and handy,
I’ll put it at once into a mouthful of English. In jail and out of jail,
in jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail. There, you’ve got it.
That’s life pretty much, down to such times as I got shipped
off, arter Pip stood my friend.
“I’ve been done everything to, pretty well—except hanged.
I’ve been locked up as much as a silver tea-kittle. I’ve been
carted here and carted there, and put out of this town, and put out of that
town, and stuck in the stocks, and whipped and worried and drove. I’ve no
more notion where I was born than you have—if so much. I first become
aware of myself down in Essex, a thieving turnips for my living. Summun had run
away from me—a man—a tinker—and he’d took the fire with
him, and left me wery cold.
“I know’d my name to be Magwitch, chrisen’d Abel. How did I
know it? Much as I know’d the birds’ names in the hedges to be
chaffinch, sparrer, thrush. I might have thought it was all lies together, only
as the birds’ names come out true, I supposed mine did.
“So fur as I could find, there warn’t a soul that see young Abel
Magwitch, with us little on him as in him, but wot caught fright at him, and
either drove him off, or took him up. I was took up, took up, took up, to that
extent that I reg’larly grow’d up took up.
“This is the way it was, that when I was a ragged little creetur as much
to be pitied as ever I see (not that I looked in the glass, for there
warn’t many insides of furnished houses known to me), I got the name of
being hardened. ‘This is a terrible hardened one,’ they says to
prison wisitors, picking out me. ‘May be said to live in jails, this
boy.’ Then they looked at me, and I looked at them, and they measured my
head, some on ’em,—they had better a measured my stomach,—and
others on ’em giv me tracts what I couldn’t read, and made me
speeches what I couldn’t understand. They always went on agen me about
the Devil. But what the Devil was I to do? I must put something into my
stomach, mustn’t I?—Howsomever, I’m a getting low, and I know
what’s due. Dear boy and Pip’s comrade, don’t you be afeerd
of me being low.
“Tramping, begging, thieving, working sometimes when I
could,—though that warn’t as often as you may think, till you put
the question whether you would ha’ been over-ready to give me work
yourselves,—a bit of a poacher, a bit of a labourer, a bit of a wagoner,
a bit of a haymaker, a bit of a hawker, a bit of most things that don’t
pay and lead to trouble, I got to be a man. A deserting soldier in a
Traveller’s Rest, what lay hid up to the chin under a lot of taturs,
learnt me to read; and a travelling Giant what signed his name at a penny a
time learnt me to write. I warn’t locked up as often now as formerly, but
I wore out my good share of key-metal still.
“At Epsom races, a matter of over twenty years ago, I got acquainted
wi’ a man whose skull I’d crack wi’ this poker, like the claw
of a lobster, if I’d got it on this hob. His right name was Compeyson;
and that’s the man, dear boy, what you see me a pounding in the ditch,
according to what you truly told your comrade arter I was gone last night.
“He set up fur a gentleman, this Compeyson, and he’d been to a
public boarding-school and had learning. He was a smooth one to talk, and was a
dab at the ways of gentlefolks. He was good-looking too. It was the night afore
the great race, when I found him on the heath, in a booth that I know’d
on. Him and some more was a sitting among the tables when I went in, and the
landlord (which had a knowledge of me, and was a sporting one) called him out,
and said, ‘I think this is a man that might suit
you,’—meaning I was.
“Compeyson, he looks at me very noticing, and I look at him. He has a
watch and a chain and a ring and a breast-pin and a handsome suit of clothes.
“‘To judge from appearances, you’re out of luck,’ says
Compeyson to me.
“‘Yes, master, and I’ve never been in it much.’ (I had
come out of Kingston Jail last on a vagrancy committal. Not but what it might
have been for something else; but it warn’t.)
“‘Luck changes,’ says Compeyson; ‘perhaps yours is
going to change.’
“I says, ‘I hope it may be so. There’s room.’
“‘What can you do?’ says Compeyson.
“‘Eat and drink,’ I says; ‘if you’ll find the
materials.’
“Compeyson laughed, looked at me again very noticing, giv me five
shillings, and appointed me for next night. Same place.
“I went to Compeyson next night, same place, and Compeyson took me on to
be his man and pardner. And what was Compeyson’s business in which we was
to go pardners? Compeyson’s business was the swindling, handwriting
forging, stolen bank-note passing, and such-like. All sorts of traps as
Compeyson could set with his head, and keep his own legs out of and get the
profits from and let another man in for, was Compeyson’s business.
He’d no more heart than a iron file, he was as cold as death, and he had
the head of the Devil afore mentioned.
“There was another in with Compeyson, as was called Arthur,—not as
being so chrisen’d, but as a surname. He was in a Decline, and was a
shadow to look at. Him and Compeyson had been in a bad thing with a rich lady
some years afore, and they’d made a pot of money by it; but Compeyson
betted and gamed, and he’d have run through the king’s taxes. So,
Arthur was a dying, and a dying poor and with the horrors on him, and
Compeyson’s wife (which Compeyson kicked mostly) was a having pity on him
when she could, and Compeyson was a having pity on nothing and nobody.
“I might a took warning by Arthur, but I didn’t; and I won’t
pretend I was partick’ler—for where ’ud be the good on it,
dear boy and comrade? So I begun wi’ Compeyson, and a poor tool I was in
his hands. Arthur lived at the top of Compeyson’s house (over nigh
Brentford it was), and Compeyson kept a careful account agen him for board and
lodging, in case he should ever get better to work it out. But Arthur soon
settled the account. The second or third time as ever I see him, he come a
tearing down into Compeyson’s parlour late at night, in only a flannel
gown, with his hair all in a sweat, and he says to Compeyson’s wife,
‘Sally, she really is upstairs alonger me, now, and I can’t get rid
of her. She’s all in white,’ he says, ‘wi’ white
flowers in her hair, and she’s awful mad, and she’s got a shroud
hanging over her arm, and she says she’ll put it on me at five in the
morning.’
“Says Compeyson: ‘Why, you fool, don’t you know she’s
got a living body? And how should she be up there, without coming through the
door, or in at the window, and up the stairs?’
“‘I don’t know how she’s there,’ says Arthur,
shivering dreadful with the horrors, ‘but she’s standing in the
corner at the foot of the bed, awful mad. And over where her heart’s
broke— broke it!—there’s drops of blood.’
“Compeyson spoke hardy, but he was always a coward. ‘Go up alonger
this drivelling sick man,’ he says to his wife, ‘and Magwitch, lend
her a hand, will you?’ But he never come nigh himself.
“Compeyson’s wife and me took him up to bed agen, and he raved most
dreadful. ‘Why look at her!’ he cries out. ‘She’s a
shaking the shroud at me! Don’t you see her? Look at her eyes!
Ain’t it awful to see her so mad?’ Next he cries,
‘She’ll put it on me, and then I’m done for! Take it away
from her, take it away!’ And then he catched hold of us, and kep on a
talking to her, and answering of her, till I half believed I see her myself.
“Compeyson’s wife, being used to him, giv him some liquor to get
the horrors off, and by and by he quieted. ‘O, she’s gone! Has her
keeper been for her?’ he says. ‘Yes,’ says Compeyson’s
wife. ‘Did you tell him to lock her and bar her in?’
‘Yes.’ ‘And to take that ugly thing away from her?’
‘Yes, yes, all right.’ ‘You’re a good creetur,’
he says, ‘don’t leave me, whatever you do, and thank you!’
“He rested pretty quiet till it might want a few minutes of five, and
then he starts up with a scream, and screams out, ‘Here she is!
She’s got the shroud again. She’s unfolding it. She’s coming
out of the corner. She’s coming to the bed. Hold me, both on
you—one of each side—don’t let her touch me with it. Hah! she
missed me that time. Don’t let her throw it over my shoulders.
Don’t let her lift me up to get it round me. She’s lifting me up.
Keep me down!’ Then he lifted himself up hard, and was dead.
“Compeyson took it easy as a good riddance for both sides. Him and me was
soon busy, and first he swore me (being ever artful) on my own book,—this
here little black book, dear boy, what I swore your comrade on.
“Not to go into the things that Compeyson planned, and I done—which
’ud take a week—I’ll simply say to you, dear boy, and
Pip’s comrade, that that man got me into such nets as made me his black
slave. I was always in debt to him, always under his thumb, always a working,
always a getting into danger. He was younger than me, but he’d got craft,
and he’d got learning, and he overmatched me five hundred times told and
no mercy. My Missis as I had the hard time wi’—Stop though! I
ain’t brought in—”
He looked about him in a confused way, as if he had lost his place in the book
of his remembrance; and he turned his face to the fire, and spread his hands
broader on his knees, and lifted them off and put them on again.
“There ain’t no need to go into it,” he said, looking round
once more. “The time wi’ Compeyson was a’most as hard a time
as ever I had; that said, all’s said. Did I tell you as I was tried,
alone, for misdemeanor, while with Compeyson?”
I answered, No.
“Well!” he said, “I , and got convicted. As to took
up on suspicion, that was twice or three times in the four or five year that it
lasted; but evidence was wanting. At last, me and Compeyson was both committed
for felony,—on a charge of putting stolen notes in circulation,—and
there was other charges behind. Compeyson says to me, ‘Separate defences,
no communication,’ and that was all. And I was so miserable poor, that I
sold all the clothes I had, except what hung on my back, afore I could get
Jaggers.
“When we was put in the dock, I noticed first of all what a gentleman
Compeyson looked, wi’ his curly hair and his black clothes and his white
pocket-handkercher, and what a common sort of a wretch I looked. When the
prosecution opened and the evidence was put short, aforehand, I noticed how
heavy it all bore on me, and how light on him. When the evidence was giv in the
box, I noticed how it was always me that had come for’ard, and could be
swore to, how it was always me that the money had been paid to, how it was
always me that had seemed to work the thing and get the profit. But when the
defence come on, then I see the plan plainer; for, says the counsellor for
Compeyson, ‘My lord and gentlemen, here you has afore you, side by side,
two persons as your eyes can separate wide; one, the younger, well brought up,
who will be spoke to as such; one, the elder, ill brought up, who will be spoke
to as such; one, the younger, seldom if ever seen in these here transactions,
and only suspected; t’other, the elder, always seen in ’em and
always wi’ his guilt brought home. Can you doubt, if there is but one in
it, which is the one, and, if there is two in it, which is much the worst
one?’ And such-like. And when it come to character, warn’t it
Compeyson as had been to the school, and warn’t it his schoolfellows as
was in this position and in that, and warn’t it him as had been
know’d by witnesses in such clubs and societies, and nowt to his
disadvantage? And warn’t it me as had been tried afore, and as had been
know’d up hill and down dale in Bridewells and Lock-Ups! And when it come
to speech-making, warn’t it Compeyson as could speak to ’em
wi’ his face dropping every now and then into his white
pocket-handkercher,—ah! and wi’ verses in his speech,
too,—and warn’t it me as could only say, ‘Gentlemen, this man
at my side is a most precious rascal’? And when the verdict come,
warn’t it Compeyson as was recommended to mercy on account of good
character and bad company, and giving up all the information he could agen me,
and warn’t it me as got never a word but Guilty? And when I says to
Compeyson, ‘Once out of this court, I’ll smash that face of
yourn!’ ain’t it Compeyson as prays the Judge to be protected, and
gets two turnkeys stood betwixt us? And when we’re sentenced, ain’t
it him as gets seven year, and me fourteen, and ain’t it him as the Judge
is sorry for, because he might a done so well, and ain’t it me as the
Judge perceives to be a old offender of wiolent passion, likely to come to
worse?”
He had worked himself into a state of great excitement, but he checked it, took
two or three short breaths, swallowed as often, and stretching out his hand
towards me said, in a reassuring manner, “I ain’t a-going to be
low, dear boy!”
He had so heated himself that he took out his handkerchief and wiped his face
and head and neck and hands, before he could go on.
“I had said to Compeyson that I’d smash that face of his, and I
swore Lord smash mine! to do it. We was in the same prison-ship, but I
couldn’t get at him for long, though I tried. At last I come behind him
and hit him on the cheek to turn him round and get a smashing one at him, when
I was seen and seized. The black-hole of that ship warn’t a strong one,
to a judge of black-holes that could swim and dive. I escaped to the shore, and
I was a hiding among the graves there, envying them as was in ’em and all
over, when I first see my boy!”
He regarded me with a look of affection that made him almost abhorrent to me
again, though I had felt great pity for him.
“By my boy, I was giv to understand as Compeyson was out on them marshes
too. Upon my soul, I half believe he escaped in his terror, to get quit of me,
not knowing it was me as had got ashore. I hunted him down. I smashed his face.
‘And now,’ says I ‘as the worst thing I can do, caring
nothing for myself, I’ll drag you back.’ And I’d have swum
off, towing him by the hair, if it had come to that, and I’d a got him
aboard without the soldiers.
“Of course he’d much the best of it to the last,—his
character was so good. He had escaped when he was made half wild by me and my
murderous intentions; and his punishment was light. I was put in irons, brought
to trial again, and sent for life. I didn’t stop for life, dear boy and
Pip’s comrade, being here.”
He wiped himself again, as he had done before, and then slowly took his tangle
of tobacco from his pocket, and plucked his pipe from his button-hole, and
slowly filled it, and began to smoke.
“Is he dead?” I asked, after a silence.
“Is who dead, dear boy?”
“Compeyson.”
“He hopes am, if he’s alive, you may be sure,” with
a fierce look. “I never heerd no more of him.”
Herbert had been writing with his pencil in the cover of a book. He softly
pushed the book over to me, as Provis stood smoking with his eyes on the fire,
and I read in it:—
“Young Havisham’s name was Arthur. Compeyson is the man who
professed to be Miss Havisham’s lover.”
I shut the book and nodded slightly to Herbert, and put the book by; but we
neither of us said anything, and both looked at Provis as he stood smoking by
the fire.
Chapter XLIII.
Why
should I pause to ask how much of my shrinking from Provis might be traced to
Estella? Why should I loiter on my road, to compare the state of mind in which
I had tried to rid myself of the stain of the prison before meeting her at the
coach-office, with the state of mind in which I now reflected on the abyss
between Estella in her pride and beauty, and the returned transport whom I
harboured? The road would be none the smoother for it, the end would be none the
better for it, he would not be helped, nor I extenuated.
A new fear had been engendered in my mind by his narrative; or rather, his
narrative had given form and purpose to the fear that was already there. If
Compeyson were alive and should discover his return, I could hardly doubt the
consequence. That Compeyson stood in mortal fear of him, neither of the two
could know much better than I; and that any such man as that man had been
described to be would hesitate to release himself for good from a dreaded enemy
by the safe means of becoming an informer was scarcely to be imagined.
Never had I breathed, and never would I breathe—or so I resolved—a
word of Estella to Provis. But, I said to Herbert that, before I could go
abroad, I must see both Estella and Miss Havisham. This was when we were left
alone on the night of the day when Provis told us his story. I resolved to go
out to Richmond next day, and I went.
On my presenting myself at Mrs. Brandley’s, Estella’s maid was
called to tell that Estella had gone into the country. Where? To Satis House,
as usual. Not as usual, I said, for she had never yet gone there without me;
when was she coming back? There was an air of reservation in the answer which
increased my perplexity, and the answer was, that her maid believed she was
only coming back at all for a little while. I could make nothing of this,
except that it was meant that I should make nothing of it, and I went home
again in complete discomfiture.
Another night consultation with Herbert after Provis was gone home (I always
took him home, and always looked well about me), led us to the conclusion that
nothing should be said about going abroad until I came back from Miss
Havisham’s. In the mean time, Herbert and I were to consider separately
what it would be best to say; whether we should devise any pretence of being
afraid that he was under suspicious observation; or whether I, who had never
yet been abroad, should propose an expedition. We both knew that I had but to
propose anything, and he would consent. We agreed that his remaining many days
in his present hazard was not to be thought of.
Next day I had the meanness to feign that I was under a binding promise to go
down to Joe; but I was capable of almost any meanness towards Joe or his name.
Provis was to be strictly careful while I was gone, and Herbert was to take the
charge of him that I had taken. I was to be absent only one night, and, on my
return, the gratification of his impatience for my starting as a gentleman on a
greater scale was to be begun. It occurred to me then, and as I afterwards
found to Herbert also, that he might be best got away across the water, on that
pretence,—as, to make purchases, or the like.
Having thus cleared the way for my expedition to Miss Havisham’s, I set
off by the early morning coach before it was yet light, and was out on the open
country road when the day came creeping on, halting and whimpering and
shivering, and wrapped in patches of cloud and rags of mist, like a beggar.
When we drove up to the Blue Boar after a drizzly ride, whom should I see come
out under the gateway, toothpick in hand, to look at the coach, but Bentley
Drummle!
As he pretended not to see me, I pretended not to see him. It was a very lame
pretence on both sides; the lamer, because we both went into the coffee-room,
where he had just finished his breakfast, and where I ordered mine. It was
poisonous to me to see him in the town, for I very well knew why he had come
there.
Pretending to read a smeary newspaper long out of date, which had nothing half
so legible in its local news, as the foreign matter of coffee, pickles, fish
sauces, gravy, melted butter, and wine with which it was sprinkled all over, as
if it had taken the measles in a highly irregular form, I sat at my table while
he stood before the fire. By degrees it became an enormous injury to me that he
stood before the fire. And I got up, determined to have my share of it. I had
to put my hand behind his legs for the poker when I went up to the fireplace to
stir the fire, but still pretended not to know him.
“Is this a cut?” said Mr. Drummle.
“Oh!” said I, poker in hand; “it’s you, is it? How do
you do? I was wondering who it was, who kept the fire off.”
With that, I poked tremendously, and having done so, planted myself side by
side with Mr. Drummle, my shoulders squared and my back to the fire.
“You have just come down?” said Mr. Drummle, edging me a little
away with his shoulder.
“Yes,” said I, edging a little away with
shoulder.
“Beastly place,” said Drummle. “Your part of the country, I
think?”
“Yes,” I assented. “I am told it’s very like your
Shropshire.”
“Not in the least like it,” said Drummle.
Here Mr. Drummle looked at his boots and I looked at mine, and then Mr. Drummle
looked at my boots, and I looked at his.
“Have you been here long?” I asked, determined not to yield an inch
of the fire.
“Long enough to be tired of it,” returned Drummle, pretending to
yawn, but equally determined.
“Do you stay here long?”
“Can’t say,” answered Mr. Drummle. “Do you?”
“Can’t say,” said I.
I felt here, through a tingling in my blood, that if Mr. Drummle’s
shoulder had claimed another hair’s breadth of room, I should have jerked
him into the window; equally, that if my own shoulder had urged a similar
claim, Mr. Drummle would have jerked me into the nearest box. He whistled a
little. So did I.
“Large tract of marshes about here, I believe?” said Drummle.
“Yes. What of that?” said I.
Mr. Drummle looked at me, and then at my boots, and then said,
“Oh!” and laughed.
“Are you amused, Mr. Drummle?”
“No,” said he, “not particularly. I am going out for a ride
in the saddle. I mean to explore those marshes for amusement. Out-of-the-way
villages there, they tell me. Curious little public-houses—and
smithies—and that. Waiter!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is that horse of mine ready?”
“Brought round to the door, sir.”
“I say. Look here, you sir. The lady won’t ride to-day; the weather
won’t do.”
“Very good, sir.”
“And I don’t dine, because I’m going to dine at the
lady’s.”
“Very good, sir.”
Then, Drummle glanced at me, with an insolent triumph on his great-jowled face
that cut me to the heart, dull as he was, and so exasperated me, that I felt
inclined to take him in my arms (as the robber in the story-book is said to
have taken the old lady) and seat him on the fire.
One thing was manifest to both of us, and that was, that until relief came,
neither of us could relinquish the fire. There we stood, well squared up before
it, shoulder to shoulder and foot to foot, with our hands behind us, not
budging an inch. The horse was visible outside in the drizzle at the door, my
breakfast was put on the table, Drummle’s was cleared away, the waiter
invited me to begin, I nodded, we both stood our ground.
“Have you been to the Grove since?” said Drummle.
“No,” said I, “I had quite enough of the Finches the last
time I was there.”
“Was that when we had a difference of opinion?”
“Yes,” I replied, very shortly.
“Come, come! They let you off easily enough,” sneered Drummle.
“You shouldn’t have lost your temper.”
“Mr. Drummle,” said I, “you are not competent to give advice
on that subject. When I lose my temper (not that I admit having done so on that
occasion), I don’t throw glasses.”
“I do,” said Drummle.
After glancing at him once or twice, in an increased state of smouldering
ferocity, I said,—
“Mr. Drummle, I did not seek this conversation, and I don’t think
it an agreeable one.”
“I am sure it’s not,” said he, superciliously over his
shoulder; “I don’t think anything about it.”
“And therefore,” I went on, “with your leave, I will suggest
that we hold no kind of communication in future.”
“Quite my opinion,” said Drummle, “and what I should have
suggested myself, or done—more likely—without suggesting. But
don’t lose your temper. Haven’t you lost enough without
that?”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“Waiter!” said Drummle, by way of answering me.
The waiter reappeared.
“Look here, you sir. You quite understand that the young lady don’t
ride to-day, and that I dine at the young lady’s?”
“Quite so, sir!”
When the waiter had felt my fast-cooling teapot with the palm of his hand, and
had looked imploringly at me, and had gone out, Drummle, careful not to move
the shoulder next me, took a cigar from his pocket and bit the end off, but
showed no sign of stirring. Choking and boiling as I was, I felt that we could
not go a word further, without introducing Estella’s name, which I could
not endure to hear him utter; and therefore I looked stonily at the opposite
wall, as if there were no one present, and forced myself to silence. How long
we might have remained in this ridiculous position it is impossible to say, but
for the incursion of three thriving farmers—laid on by the waiter, I
think—who came into the coffee-room unbuttoning their great-coats and
rubbing their hands, and before whom, as they charged at the fire, we were
obliged to give way.
I saw him through the window, seizing his horse’s mane, and mounting in
his blundering brutal manner, and sidling and backing away. I thought he was
gone, when he came back, calling for a light for the cigar in his mouth, which
he had forgotten. A man in a dust-coloured dress appeared with what was
wanted,—I could not have said from where: whether from the inn yard, or
the street, or where not,—and as Drummle leaned down from the saddle and
lighted his cigar and laughed, with a jerk of his head towards the coffee-room
windows, the slouching shoulders and ragged hair of this man whose back was
towards me reminded me of Orlick.
Too heavily out of sorts to care much at the time whether it were he or no, or
after all to touch the breakfast, I washed the weather and the journey from my
face and hands, and went out to the memorable old house that it would have been
so much the better for me never to have entered, never to have seen.
Chapter XLIV.
In the
room where the dressing-table stood, and where the wax-candles burnt on the
wall, I found Miss Havisham and Estella; Miss Havisham seated on a settee near
the fire, and Estella on a cushion at her feet. Estella was knitting, and Miss
Havisham was looking on. They both raised their eyes as I went in, and both saw
an alteration in me. I derived that, from the look they interchanged.
“And what wind,” said Miss Havisham, “blows you here,
Pip?”
Though she looked steadily at me, I saw that she was rather confused. Estella,
pausing a moment in her knitting with her eyes upon me, and then going on, I
fancied that I read in the action of her fingers, as plainly as if she had told
me in the dumb alphabet, that she perceived I had discovered my real
benefactor.
“Miss Havisham,” said I, “I went to Richmond yesterday, to
speak to Estella; and finding that some wind had blown here, I
followed.”
Miss Havisham motioning to me for the third or fourth time to sit down, I took
the chair by the dressing-table, which I had often seen her occupy. With all
that ruin at my feet and about me, it seemed a natural place for me, that day.
“What I had to say to Estella, Miss Havisham, I will say before you,
presently—in a few moments. It will not surprise you, it will not
displease you. I am as unhappy as you can ever have meant me to be.”
Miss Havisham continued to look steadily at me. I could see in the action of
Estella’s fingers as they worked that she attended to what I said; but
she did not look up.
“I have found out who my patron is. It is not a fortunate discovery, and
is not likely ever to enrich me in reputation, station, fortune, anything.
There are reasons why I must say no more of that. It is not my secret, but
another’s.”
As I was silent for a while, looking at Estella and considering how to go on,
Miss Havisham repeated, “It is not your secret, but another’s.
Well?”
“When you first caused me to be brought here, Miss Havisham, when I
belonged to the village over yonder, that I wish I had never left, I suppose I
did really come here, as any other chance boy might have come,—as a kind
of servant, to gratify a want or a whim, and to be paid for it?”
“Ay, Pip,” replied Miss Havisham, steadily nodding her head;
“you did.”
“And that Mr. Jaggers—”
“Mr. Jaggers,” said Miss Havisham, taking me up in a firm tone,
“had nothing to do with it, and knew nothing of it. His being my lawyer,
and his being the lawyer of your patron is a coincidence. He holds the same
relation towards numbers of people, and it might easily arise. Be that as it
may, it did arise, and was not brought about by any one.”
Any one might have seen in her haggard face that there was no suppression or
evasion so far.
“But when I fell into the mistake I have so long remained in, at least
you led me on?” said I.
“Yes,” she returned, again nodding steadily, “I let you go
on.”
“Was that kind?”
“Who am I,” cried Miss Havisham, striking her stick upon the floor
and flashing into wrath so suddenly that Estella glanced up at her in
surprise,—“who am I, for God’s sake, that I should be
kind?”
It was a weak complaint to have made, and I had not meant to make it. I told
her so, as she sat brooding after this outburst.
“Well, well, well!” she said. “What else?”
“I was liberally paid for my old attendance here,” I said, to
soothe her, “in being apprenticed, and I have asked these questions only
for my own information. What follows has another (and I hope more
disinterested) purpose. In humouring my mistake, Miss Havisham, you
punished—practised on—perhaps you will supply whatever term
expresses your intention, without offence—your self-seeking
relations?”
“I did. Why, they would have it so! So would you. What has been my
history, that I should be at the pains of entreating either them or you not to
have it so! You made your own snares. never made them.”
Waiting until she was quiet again,—for this, too, flashed out of her in a
wild and sudden way,—I went on.
“I have been thrown among one family of your relations, Miss Havisham,
and have been constantly among them since I went to London. I know them to have
been as honestly under my delusion as I myself. And I should be false and base
if I did not tell you, whether it is acceptable to you or no, and whether you
are inclined to give credence to it or no, that you deeply wrong both Mr.
Matthew Pocket and his son Herbert, if you suppose them to be otherwise than
generous, upright, open, and incapable of anything designing or mean.”
“They are your friends,” said Miss Havisham.
“They made themselves my friends,” said I, “when they
supposed me to have superseded them; and when Sarah Pocket, Miss Georgiana, and
Mistress Camilla were not my friends, I think.”
This contrasting of them with the rest seemed, I was glad to see, to do them
good with her. She looked at me keenly for a little while, and then said
quietly,—
“What do you want for them?”
“Only,” said I, “that you would not confound them with the
others. They may be of the same blood, but, believe me, they are not of the
same nature.”
Still looking at me keenly, Miss Havisham repeated,—
“What do you want for them?”
“I am not so cunning, you see,” I said, in answer, conscious that I
reddened a little, “as that I could hide from you, even if I desired,
that I do want something. Miss Havisham, if you would spare the money to do my
friend Herbert a lasting service in life, but which from the nature of the case
must be done without his knowledge, I could show you how.”
“Why must it be done without his knowledge?” she asked, settling
her hands upon her stick, that she might regard me the more attentively.
“Because,” said I, “I began the service myself, more than two
years ago, without his knowledge, and I don’t want to be betrayed. Why I
fail in my ability to finish it, I cannot explain. It is a part of the secret
which is another person’s and not mine.”
She gradually withdrew her eyes from me, and turned them on the fire. After
watching it for what appeared in the silence and by the light of the slowly
wasting candles to be a long time, she was roused by the collapse of some of
the red coals, and looked towards me again—at first, vacantly—then,
with a gradually concentrating attention. All this time Estella knitted on.
When Miss Havisham had fixed her attention on me, she said, speaking as if
there had been no lapse in our dialogue,—
“What else?”
“Estella,” said I, turning to her now, and trying to command my
trembling voice, “you know I love you. You know that I have loved you
long and dearly.”
She raised her eyes to my face, on being thus addressed, and her fingers plied
their work, and she looked at me with an unmoved countenance. I saw that Miss
Havisham glanced from me to her, and from her to me.
“I should have said this sooner, but for my long mistake. It induced me
to hope that Miss Havisham meant us for one another. While I thought you could
not help yourself, as it were, I refrained from saying it. But I must say it
now.”
Preserving her unmoved countenance, and with her fingers still going, Estella
shook her head.
“I know,” said I, in answer to that action,—“I know. I
have no hope that I shall ever call you mine, Estella. I am ignorant what may
become of me very soon, how poor I may be, or where I may go. Still, I love
you. I have loved you ever since I first saw you in this house.”
Looking at me perfectly unmoved and with her fingers busy, she shook her head
again.
“It would have been cruel in Miss Havisham, horribly cruel, to practise
on the susceptibility of a poor boy, and to torture me through all these years
with a vain hope and an idle pursuit, if she had reflected on the gravity of
what she did. But I think she did not. I think that, in the endurance of her
own trial, she forgot mine, Estella.”
I saw Miss Havisham put her hand to her heart and hold it there, as she sat
looking by turns at Estella and at me.
“It seems,” said Estella, very calmly, “that there are
sentiments, fancies,—I don’t know how to call them,—which I
am not able to comprehend. When you say you love me, I know what you mean, as a
form of words; but nothing more. You address nothing in my breast, you touch
nothing there. I don’t care for what you say at all. I have tried to warn
you of this; now, have I not?”
I said in a miserable manner, “Yes.”
“Yes. But you would not be warned, for you thought I did not mean it.
Now, did you not think so?”
“I thought and hoped you could not mean it. You, so young, untried, and
beautiful, Estella! Surely it is not in Nature.”
“It is in nature,” she returned. And then she added, with
a stress upon the words, “It is in the nature formed within me. I make a
great difference between you and all other people when I say so much. I can do
no more.”
“Is it not true,” said I, “that Bentley Drummle is in town
here, and pursuing you?”
“It is quite true,” she replied, referring to him with the
indifference of utter contempt.
“That you encourage him, and ride out with him, and that he dines with
you this very day?”
She seemed a little surprised that I should know it, but again replied,
“Quite true.”
“You cannot love him, Estella!”
Her fingers stopped for the first time, as she retorted rather angrily,
“What have I told you? Do you still think, in spite of it, that I do not
mean what I say?”
“You would never marry him, Estella?”
She looked towards Miss Havisham, and considered for a moment with her work in
her hands. Then she said, “Why not tell you the truth? I am going to be
married to him.”
I dropped my face into my hands, but was able to control myself better than I
could have expected, considering what agony it gave me to hear her say those
words. When I raised my face again, there was such a ghastly look upon Miss
Havisham’s, that it impressed me, even in my passionate hurry and grief.
“Estella, dearest Estella, do not let Miss Havisham lead you into this
fatal step. Put me aside for ever,—you have done so, I well
know,—but bestow yourself on some worthier person than Drummle. Miss
Havisham gives you to him, as the greatest slight and injury that could be done
to the many far better men who admire you, and to the few who truly love you.
Among those few there may be one who loves you even as dearly, though he has
not loved you as long, as I. Take him, and I can bear it better, for your
sake!”
My earnestness awoke a wonder in her that seemed as if it would have been
touched with compassion, if she could have rendered me at all intelligible to
her own mind.
“I am going,” she said again, in a gentler voice, “to be
married to him. The preparations for my marriage are making, and I shall be
married soon. Why do you injuriously introduce the name of my mother by
adoption? It is my own act.”
“Your own act, Estella, to fling yourself away upon a brute?”
“On whom should I fling myself away?” she retorted, with a smile.
“Should I fling myself away upon the man who would the soonest feel (if
people do feel such things) that I took nothing to him? There! It is done. I
shall do well enough, and so will my husband. As to leading me into what you
call this fatal step, Miss Havisham would have had me wait, and not marry yet;
but I am tired of the life I have led, which has very few charms for me, and I
am willing enough to change it. Say no more. We shall never understand each
other.”
“Such a mean brute, such a stupid brute!” I urged, in despair.
“Don’t be afraid of my being a blessing to him,” said
Estella; “I shall not be that. Come! Here is my hand. Do we part on this,
you visionary boy—or man?”
“O Estella!” I answered, as my bitter tears fell fast on her hand,
do what I would to restrain them; “even if I remained in England and
could hold my head up with the rest, how could I see you Drummle’s
wife?”
“Nonsense,” she returned,—“nonsense. This will pass in
no time.”
“Never, Estella!”
“You will get me out of your thoughts in a week.”
“Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You
have been in every line I have ever read since I first came here, the rough
common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every
prospect I have ever seen since,—on the river, on the sails of the ships,
on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in
the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every
graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of
which the strongest London buildings are made are not more real, or more
impossible to be displaced by your hands, than your presence and influence have
been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my
life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little
good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation, I associate you only
with the good; and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have
done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. O
God bless you, God forgive you!”
In what ecstasy of unhappiness I got these broken words out of myself, I
don’t know. The rhapsody welled up within me, like blood from an inward
wound, and gushed out. I held her hand to my lips some lingering moments, and
so I left her. But ever afterwards, I remembered,—and soon afterwards
with stronger reason,—that while Estella looked at me merely with
incredulous wonder, the spectral figure of Miss Havisham, her hand still
covering her heart, seemed all resolved into a ghastly stare of pity and
remorse.
All done, all gone! So much was done and gone, that when I went out at the
gate, the light of the day seemed of a darker colour than when I went in. For a
while, I hid myself among some lanes and by-paths, and then struck off to walk
all the way to London. For, I had by that time come to myself so far as to
consider that I could not go back to the inn and see Drummle there; that I
could not bear to sit upon the coach and be spoken to; that I could do nothing
half so good for myself as tire myself out.
It was past midnight when I crossed London Bridge. Pursuing the narrow
intricacies of the streets which at that time tended westward near the
Middlesex shore of the river, my readiest access to the Temple was close by the
river-side, through Whitefriars. I was not expected till to-morrow; but I had
my keys, and, if Herbert were gone to bed, could get to bed myself without
disturbing him.
As it seldom happened that I came in at that Whitefriars gate after the Temple
was closed, and as I was very muddy and weary, I did not take it ill that the
night-porter examined me with much attention as he held the gate a little way
open for me to pass in. To help his memory I mentioned my name.
“I was not quite sure, sir, but I thought so. Here’s a note, sir.
The messenger that brought it, said would you be so good as read it by my
lantern?”
Much surprised by the request, I took the note. It was directed to Philip Pip,
Esquire, and on the top of the superscription were the words,
“P.” I opened it, the watchman
holding up his light, and read inside, in Wemmick’s writing,—
“D H.”
Chapter XLV.
Turning from the Temple gate as soon as I had read the warning,
I made the best of my way to Fleet Street, and there got a late hackney chariot
and drove to the Hummums in Covent Garden. In those times a bed was always to
be got there at any hour of the night, and the chamberlain, letting me in at
his ready wicket, lighted the candle next in order on his shelf, and showed me
straight into the bedroom next in order on his list. It was a sort of vault on
the ground floor at the back, with a despotic monster of a four-post bedstead
in it, straddling over the whole place, putting one of his arbitrary legs into
the fireplace and another into the doorway, and squeezing the wretched little
washing-stand in quite a Divinely Righteous manner.
As I had asked for a night-light, the chamberlain had brought me in, before he
left me, the good old constitutional rushlight of those virtuous days—an
object like the ghost of a walking-cane, which instantly broke its back if it
were touched, which nothing could ever be lighted at, and which was placed in
solitary confinement at the bottom of a high tin tower, perforated with round
holes that made a staringly wide-awake pattern on the walls. When I had got
into bed, and lay there footsore, weary, and wretched, I found that I could no
more close my own eyes than I could close the eyes of this foolish Argus. And
thus, in the gloom and death of the night, we stared at one another.
What a doleful night! How anxious, how dismal, how long! There was an
inhospitable smell in the room, of cold soot and hot dust; and, as I looked up
into the corners of the tester over my head, I thought what a number of
blue-bottle flies from the butchers’, and earwigs from the market, and
grubs from the country, must be holding on up there, lying by for next summer.
This led me to speculate whether any of them ever tumbled down, and then I
fancied that I felt light falls on my face,—a disagreeable turn of
thought, suggesting other and more objectionable approaches up my back. When I
had lain awake a little while, those extraordinary voices with which silence
teems began to make themselves audible. The closet whispered, the fireplace
sighed, the little washing-stand ticked, and one guitar-string played
occasionally in the chest of drawers. At about the same time, the eyes on the
wall acquired a new expression, and in every one of those staring rounds I saw
written, D H.
Whatever night-fancies and night-noises crowded on me, they never warded off
this D H. It plaited itself into
whatever I thought of, as a bodily pain would have done. Not long before, I had
read in the newspapers, how a gentleman unknown had come to the Hummums in the
night, and had gone to bed, and had destroyed himself, and had been found in
the morning weltering in blood. It came into my head that he must have occupied
this very vault of mine, and I got out of bed to assure myself that there were
no red marks about; then opened the door to look out into the passages, and
cheer myself with the companionship of a distant light, near which I knew the
chamberlain to be dozing. But all this time, why I was not to go home, and what
had happened at home, and when I should go home, and whether Provis was safe at
home, were questions occupying my mind so busily, that one might have supposed
there could be no more room in it for any other theme. Even when I thought of
Estella, and how we had parted that day forever, and when I recalled all the
circumstances of our parting, and all her looks and tones, and the action of
her fingers while she knitted,—even then I was pursuing, here and there
and everywhere, the caution, Don’t go home. When at last I dozed, in
sheer exhaustion of mind and body, it became a vast shadowy verb which I had to
conjugate. Imperative mood, present tense: Do not thou go home, let him not go
home, let us not go home, do not ye or you go home, let not them go home. Then
potentially: I may not and I cannot go home; and I might not, could not, would
not, and should not go home; until I felt that I was going distracted, and
rolled over on the pillow, and looked at the staring rounds upon the wall
again.
I had left directions that I was to be called at seven; for it was plain that I
must see Wemmick before seeing any one else, and equally plain that this was a
case in which his Walworth sentiments only could be taken. It was a relief to
get out of the room where the night had been so miserable, and I needed no
second knocking at the door to startle me from my uneasy bed.
The Castle battlements arose upon my view at eight o’clock. The little
servant happening to be entering the fortress with two hot rolls, I passed
through the postern and crossed the drawbridge in her company, and so came
without announcement into the presence of Wemmick as he was making tea for
himself and the Aged. An open door afforded a perspective view of the Aged in
bed.
“Halloa, Mr. Pip!” said Wemmick. “You did come home,
then?”
“Yes,” I returned; “but I didn’t go home.”
“That’s all right,” said he, rubbing his hands. “I left
a note for you at each of the Temple gates, on the chance. Which gate did you
come to?”
I told him.
“I’ll go round to the others in the course of the day and destroy
the notes,” said Wemmick; “it’s a good rule never to leave
documentary evidence if you can help it, because you don’t know when it
may be put in. I’m going to take a liberty with you. you
mind toasting this sausage for the Aged P.?”
I said I should be delighted to do it.
“Then you can go about your work, Mary Anne,” said Wemmick to the
little servant; “which leaves us to ourselves, don’t you see, Mr.
Pip?” he added, winking, as she disappeared.
I thanked him for his friendship and caution, and our discourse proceeded in a
low tone, while I toasted the Aged’s sausage and he buttered the crumb of
the Aged’s roll.
“Now, Mr. Pip, you know,” said Wemmick, “you and I understand
one another. We are in our private and personal capacities, and we have been
engaged in a confidential transaction before to-day. Official sentiments are
one thing. We are extra official.”
I cordially assented. I was so very nervous, that I had already lighted the
Aged’s sausage like a torch, and been obliged to blow it out.
“I accidentally heard, yesterday morning,” said Wemmick,
“being in a certain place where I once took you,—even between you
and me, it’s as well not to mention names when avoidable—”
“Much better not,” said I. “I understand you.”
“I heard there by chance, yesterday morning,” said Wemmick,
“that a certain person not altogether of uncolonial pursuits, and not
unpossessed of portable property,—I don’t know who it may really
be,—we won’t name this person—”
“Not necessary,” said I.
“—Had made some little stir in a certain part of the world where a
good many people go, not always in gratification of their own inclinations, and
not quite irrespective of the government expense—”
In watching his face, I made quite a firework of the Aged’s sausage, and
greatly discomposed both my own attention and Wemmick’s; for which I
apologised.
“—By disappearing from such place, and being no more heard of
thereabouts. From which,” said Wemmick, “conjectures had been
raised and theories formed. I also heard that you at your chambers in Garden
Court, Temple, had been watched, and might be watched again.”
“By whom?” said I.
“I wouldn’t go into that,” said Wemmick, evasively, “it
might clash with official responsibilities. I heard it, as I have in my time
heard other curious things in the same place. I don’t tell it you on
information received. I heard it.”
He took the toasting-fork and sausage from me as he spoke, and set forth the
Aged’s breakfast neatly on a little tray. Previous to placing it before
him, he went into the Aged’s room with a clean white cloth, and tied the
same under the old gentleman’s chin, and propped him up, and put his
nightcap on one side, and gave him quite a rakish air. Then he placed his
breakfast before him with great care, and said, “All right, ain’t
you, Aged P.?” To which the cheerful Aged replied, “All right,
John, my boy, all right!” As there seemed to be a tacit understanding
that the Aged was not in a presentable state, and was therefore to be
considered invisible, I made a pretence of being in complete ignorance of these
proceedings.
“This watching of me at my chambers (which I have once had reason to
suspect),” I said to Wemmick when he came back, “is inseparable
from the person to whom you have adverted; is it?”
Wemmick looked very serious. “I couldn’t undertake to say that, of
my own knowledge. I mean, I couldn’t undertake to say it was at first.
But it either is, or it will be, or it’s in great danger of being.”
As I saw that he was restrained by fealty to Little Britain from saying as much
as he could, and as I knew with thankfulness to him how far out of his way he
went to say what he did, I could not press him. But I told him, after a little
meditation over the fire, that I would like to ask him a question, subject to
his answering or not answering, as he deemed right, and sure that his course
would be right. He paused in his breakfast, and crossing his arms, and pinching
his shirt-sleeves (his notion of in-door comfort was to sit without any coat),
he nodded to me once, to put my question.
“You have heard of a man of bad character, whose true name is
Compeyson?”
He answered with one other nod.
“Is he living?”
One other nod.
“Is he in London?”
He gave me one other nod, compressed the post-office exceedingly, gave me one
last nod, and went on with his breakfast.
“Now,” said Wemmick, “questioning being over,” which he
emphasised and repeated for my guidance, “I come to what I did, after
hearing what I heard. I went to Garden Court to find you; not finding you, I
went to Clarriker’s to find Mr. Herbert.”
“And him you found?” said I, with great anxiety.
“And him I found. Without mentioning any names or going into any details,
I gave him to understand that if he was aware of anybody—Tom, Jack, or
Richard—being about the chambers, or about the immediate neighbourhood,
he had better get Tom, Jack, or Richard out of the way while you were out of
the way.”
“He would be greatly puzzled what to do?”
“He puzzled what to do; not the less, because I gave him my
opinion that it was not safe to try to get Tom, Jack, or Richard too far out of
the way at present. Mr. Pip, I’ll tell you something. Under existing
circumstances, there is no place like a great city when you are once in it.
Don’t break cover too soon. Lie close. Wait till things slacken, before
you try the open, even for foreign air.”
I thanked him for his valuable advice, and asked him what Herbert had done?
“Mr. Herbert,” said Wemmick, “after being all of a heap for
half an hour, struck out a plan. He mentioned to me as a secret, that he is
courting a young lady who has, as no doubt you are aware, a bedridden Pa. Which
Pa, having been in the Purser line of life, lies a-bed in a bow-window where he
can see the ships sail up and down the river. You are acquainted with the young
lady, most probably?”
“Not personally,” said I.
The truth was, that she had objected to me as an expensive companion who did
Herbert no good, and that, when Herbert had first proposed to present me to
her, she had received the proposal with such very moderate warmth, that Herbert
had felt himself obliged to confide the state of the case to me, with a view to
the lapse of a little time before I made her acquaintance. When I had begun to
advance Herbert’s prospects by stealth, I had been able to bear this with
cheerful philosophy: he and his affianced, for their part, had naturally not
been very anxious to introduce a third person into their interviews; and thus,
although I was assured that I had risen in Clara’s esteem, and although
the young lady and I had long regularly interchanged messages and remembrances
by Herbert, I had never seen her. However, I did not trouble Wemmick with these
particulars.
“The house with the bow-window,” said Wemmick, “being by the
river-side, down the Pool there between Limehouse and Greenwich, and being
kept, it seems, by a very respectable widow who has a furnished upper floor to
let, Mr. Herbert put it to me, what did I think of that as a temporary tenement
for Tom, Jack, or Richard? Now, I thought very well of it, for three reasons
I’ll give you. That is to say: . It’s altogether out
of all your beats, and is well away from the usual heap of streets great and
small. . Without going near it yourself, you could always hear
of the safety of Tom, Jack, or Richard, through Mr. Herbert. .
After a while and when it might be prudent, if you should want to slip Tom,
Jack, or Richard on board a foreign packet-boat, there he
is—ready.”
Much comforted by these considerations, I thanked Wemmick again and again, and
begged him to proceed.
“Well, sir! Mr. Herbert threw himself into the business with a will, and
by nine o’clock last night he housed Tom, Jack, or
Richard,—whichever it may be,—you and I don’t want to
know,—quite successfully. At the old lodgings it was understood that he
was summoned to Dover, and, in fact, he was taken down the Dover road and
cornered out of it. Now, another great advantage of all this is, that it was
done without you, and when, if any one was concerning himself about your
movements, you must be known to be ever so many miles off and quite otherwise
engaged. This diverts suspicion and confuses it; and for the same reason I
recommended that, even if you came back last night, you should not go home. It
brings in more confusion, and you want confusion.”
Wemmick, having finished his breakfast, here looked at his watch, and began to
get his coat on.
“And now, Mr. Pip,” said he, with his hands still in the sleeves,
“I have probably done the most I can do; but if I can ever do
more,—from a Walworth point of view, and in a strictly private and
personal capacity,—I shall be glad to do it. Here’s the address.
There can be no harm in your going here to-night, and seeing for yourself that
all is well with Tom, Jack, or Richard, before you go home,—which is
another reason for your not going home last night. But, after you have gone
home, don’t go back here. You are very welcome, I am sure, Mr.
Pip”; his hands were now out of his sleeves, and I was shaking them;
“and let me finally impress one important point upon you.” He laid
his hands upon my shoulders, and added in a solemn whisper: “Avail
yourself of this evening to lay hold of his portable property. You don’t
know what may happen to him. Don’t let anything happen to the portable
property.”
Quite despairing of making my mind clear to Wemmick on this point, I forbore to
try.
“Time’s up,” said Wemmick, “and I must be off. If you
had nothing more pressing to do than to keep here till dark, that’s what
I should advise. You look very much worried, and it would do you good to have a
perfectly quiet day with the Aged,—he’ll be up presently,—and
a little bit of—you remember the pig?”
“Of course,” said I.
“Well; and a little bit of . That sausage you toasted was his,
and he was in all respects a first-rater. Do try him, if it is only for old
acquaintance sake. Good-bye, Aged Parent!” in a cheery shout.
“All right, John; all right, my boy!” piped the old man from
within.
I soon fell asleep before Wemmick’s fire, and the Aged and I enjoyed one
another’s society by falling asleep before it more or less all day. We
had loin of pork for dinner, and greens grown on the estate; and I nodded at
the Aged with a good intention whenever I failed to do it drowsily. When it was
quite dark, I left the Aged preparing the fire for toast; and I inferred from
the number of teacups, as well as from his glances at the two little doors in
the wall, that Miss Skiffins was expected.
Chapter XLVI.
Eight
o’clock had struck before I got into the air, that was scented, not
disagreeably, by the chips and shavings of the long-shore boat-builders, and
mast, oar, and block makers. All that water-side region of the upper and lower
Pool below Bridge was unknown ground to me; and when I struck down by the
river, I found that the spot I wanted was not where I had supposed it to be,
and was anything but easy to find. It was called Mill Pond Bank, Chinks’s
Basin; and I had no other guide to Chinks’s Basin than the Old Green
Copper Rope-walk.
It matters not what stranded ships repairing in dry docks I lost myself among,
what old hulls of ships in course of being knocked to pieces, what ooze and
slime and other dregs of tide, what yards of ship-builders and ship-breakers,
what rusty anchors blindly biting into the ground, though for years off duty,
what mountainous country of accumulated casks and timber, how many rope-walks
that were not the Old Green Copper. After several times falling short of my
destination and as often overshooting it, I came unexpectedly round a corner,
upon Mill Pond Bank. It was a fresh kind of place, all circumstances
considered, where the wind from the river had room to turn itself round; and
there were two or three trees in it, and there was the stump of a ruined
windmill, and there was the Old Green Copper Rope-walk,—whose long and
narrow vista I could trace in the moonlight, along a series of wooden frames
set in the ground, that looked like superannuated haymaking-rakes which had
grown old and lost most of their teeth.
Selecting from the few queer houses upon Mill Pond Bank a house with a wooden
front and three stories of bow-window (not bay-window, which is another thing),
I looked at the plate upon the door, and read there, Mrs. Whimple. That being
the name I wanted, I knocked, and an elderly woman of a pleasant and thriving
appearance responded. She was immediately deposed, however, by Herbert, who
silently led me into the parlour and shut the door. It was an odd sensation to
see his very familiar face established quite at home in that very unfamiliar
room and region; and I found myself looking at him, much as I looked at the
corner-cupboard with the glass and china, the shells upon the chimney-piece,
and the coloured engravings on the wall, representing the death of Captain
Cook, a ship-launch, and his Majesty King George the Third in a state
coachman’s wig, leather-breeches, and top-boots, on the terrace at
Windsor.
“All is well, Handel,” said Herbert, “and he is quite
satisfied, though eager to see you. My dear girl is with her father; and if
you’ll wait till she comes down, I’ll make you known to her, and
then we’ll go upstairs. her father.”
I had become aware of an alarming growling overhead, and had probably expressed
the fact in my countenance.
“I am afraid he is a sad old rascal,” said Herbert, smiling,
“but I have never seen him. Don’t you smell rum? He is always at
it.”
“At rum?” said I.
“Yes,” returned Herbert, “and you may suppose how mild it
makes his gout. He persists, too, in keeping all the provisions upstairs in his
room, and serving them out. He keeps them on shelves over his head, and
weigh them all. His room must be like a chandler’s
shop.”
While he thus spoke, the growling noise became a prolonged roar, and then died
away.
“What else can be the consequence,” said Herbert, in explanation,
“if he cut the cheese? A man with the gout in his right
hand—and everywhere else—can’t expect to get through a Double
Gloucester without hurting himself.”
He seemed to have hurt himself very much, for he gave another furious roar.
“To have Provis for an upper lodger is quite a godsend to Mrs.
Whimple,” said Herbert, “for of course people in general
won’t stand that noise. A curious place, Handel; isn’t it?”
It was a curious place, indeed; but remarkably well kept and clean.
“Mrs. Whimple,” said Herbert, when I told him so, “is the
best of housewives, and I really do not know what my Clara would do without her
motherly help. For, Clara has no mother of her own, Handel, and no relation in
the world but old Gruffandgrim.”
“Surely that’s not his name, Herbert?”
“No, no,” said Herbert, “that’s my name for him. His
name is Mr. Barley. But what a blessing it is for the son of my father and
mother to love a girl who has no relations, and who can never bother herself or
anybody else about her family!”
Herbert had told me on former occasions, and now reminded me, that he first
knew Miss Clara Barley when she was completing her education at an
establishment at Hammersmith, and that on her being recalled home to nurse her
father, he and she had confided their affection to the motherly Mrs. Whimple,
by whom it had been fostered and regulated with equal kindness and discretion,
ever since. It was understood that nothing of a tender nature could possibly be
confided to old Barley, by reason of his being totally unequal to the
consideration of any subject more psychological than Gout, Rum, and
Purser’s stores.
As we were thus conversing in a low tone while Old Barley’s sustained
growl vibrated in the beam that crossed the ceiling, the room door opened, and
a very pretty, slight, dark-eyed girl of twenty or so came in with a basket in
her hand: whom Herbert tenderly relieved of the basket, and presented,
blushing, as “Clara.” She really was a most charming girl, and
might have passed for a captive fairy, whom that truculent Ogre, Old Barley,
had pressed into his service.
“Look here,” said Herbert, showing me the basket, with a
compassionate and tender smile, after we had talked a little;
“here’s poor Clara’s supper, served out every night.
Here’s her allowance of bread, and here’s her slice of cheese, and
here’s her rum,—which I drink. This is Mr. Barley’s breakfast
for to-morrow, served out to be cooked. Two mutton-chops, three potatoes, some
split peas, a little flour, two ounces of butter, a pinch of salt, and all this
black pepper. It’s stewed up together, and taken hot, and it’s a
nice thing for the gout, I should think!”
There was something so natural and winning in Clara’s resigned way of
looking at these stores in detail, as Herbert pointed them out; and something
so confiding, loving, and innocent in her modest manner of yielding herself to
Herbert’s embracing arm; and something so gentle in her, so much needing
protection on Mill Pond Bank, by Chinks’s Basin, and the Old Green Copper
Rope-walk, with Old Barley growling in the beam,—that I would not have
undone the engagement between her and Herbert for all the money in the
pocket-book I had never opened.
I was looking at her with pleasure and admiration, when suddenly the growl
swelled into a roar again, and a frightful bumping noise was heard above, as if
a giant with a wooden leg were trying to bore it through the ceiling to come at
us. Upon this Clara said to Herbert, “Papa wants me, darling!” and
ran away.
“There is an unconscionable old shark for you!” said Herbert.
“What do you suppose he wants now, Handel?”
“I don’t know,” said I. “Something to drink?”
“That’s it!” cried Herbert, as if I had made a guess of
extraordinary merit. “He keeps his grog ready mixed in a little tub on
the table. Wait a moment, and you’ll hear Clara lift him up to take some.
There he goes!” Another roar, with a prolonged shake at the end.
“Now,” said Herbert, as it was succeeded by silence,
“he’s drinking. Now,” said Herbert, as the growl resounded in
the beam once more, “he’s down again on his back!”
Clara returned soon afterwards, and Herbert accompanied me upstairs to see our
charge. As we passed Mr. Barley’s door, he was heard hoarsely muttering
within, in a strain that rose and fell like wind, the following Refrain, in
which I substitute good wishes for something quite the reverse:—
“Ahoy! Bless your eyes, here’s old Bill Barley. Here’s old
Bill Barley, bless your eyes. Here’s old Bill Barley on the flat of his
back, by the Lord. Lying on the flat of his back like a drifting old dead
flounder, here’s your old Bill Barley, bless your eyes. Ahoy! Bless
you.”
In this strain of consolation, Herbert informed me the invisible Barley would
commune with himself by the day and night together; Often, while it was light,
having, at the same time, one eye at a telescope which was fitted on his bed
for the convenience of sweeping the river.
In his two cabin rooms at the top of the house, which were fresh and airy, and
in which Mr. Barley was less audible than below, I found Provis comfortably
settled. He expressed no alarm, and seemed to feel none that was worth
mentioning; but it struck me that he was softened,—indefinably, for I
could not have said how, and could never afterwards recall how when I tried,
but certainly.
The opportunity that the day’s rest had given me for reflection had
resulted in my fully determining to say nothing to him respecting Compeyson.
For anything I knew, his animosity towards the man might otherwise lead to his
seeking him out and rushing on his own destruction. Therefore, when Herbert and
I sat down with him by his fire, I asked him first of all whether he relied on
Wemmick’s judgment and sources of information?
“Ay, ay, dear boy!” he answered, with a grave nod, “Jaggers
knows.”
“Then, I have talked with Wemmick,” said I, “and have come to
tell you what caution he gave me and what advice.”
This I did accurately, with the reservation just mentioned; and I told him how
Wemmick had heard, in Newgate prison (whether from officers or prisoners I
could not say), that he was under some suspicion, and that my chambers had been
watched; how Wemmick had recommended his keeping close for a time, and my
keeping away from him; and what Wemmick had said about getting him abroad. I
added, that of course, when the time came, I should go with him, or should
follow close upon him, as might be safest in Wemmick’s judgment. What was
to follow that I did not touch upon; neither, indeed, was I at all clear or
comfortable about it in my own mind, now that I saw him in that softer
condition, and in declared peril for my sake. As to altering my way of living
by enlarging my expenses, I put it to him whether in our present unsettled and
difficult circumstances, it would not be simply ridiculous, if it were no
worse?
He could not deny this, and indeed was very reasonable throughout. His coming
back was a venture, he said, and he had always known it to be a venture. He
would do nothing to make it a desperate venture, and he had very little fear of
his safety with such good help.
Herbert, who had been looking at the fire and pondering, here said that
something had come into his thoughts arising out of Wemmick’s suggestion,
which it might be worth while to pursue. “We are both good watermen,
Handel, and could take him down the river ourselves when the right time comes.
No boat would then be hired for the purpose, and no boatmen; that would save at
least a chance of suspicion, and any chance is worth saving. Never mind the
season; don’t you think it might be a good thing if you began at once to
keep a boat at the Temple stairs, and were in the habit of rowing up and down
the river? You fall into that habit, and then who notices or minds? Do it
twenty or fifty times, and there is nothing special in your doing it the
twenty-first or fifty-first.”
I liked this scheme, and Provis was quite elated by it. We agreed that it
should be carried into execution, and that Provis should never recognise us if
we came below Bridge, and rowed past Mill Pond Bank. But we further agreed that
he should pull down the blind in that part of his window which gave upon the
east, whenever he saw us and all was right.
Our conference being now ended, and everything arranged, I rose to go;
remarking to Herbert that he and I had better not go home together, and that I
would take half an hour’s start of him. “I don’t like to
leave you here,” I said to Provis, “though I cannot doubt your
being safer here than near me. Good-bye!”
“Dear boy,” he answered, clasping my hands, “I don’t
know when we may meet again, and I don’t like good-bye. Say
good-night!”
“Good-night! Herbert will go regularly between us, and when the time
comes you may be certain I shall be ready. Good-night, good-night!”
We thought it best that he should stay in his own rooms; and we left him on the
landing outside his door, holding a light over the stair-rail to light us
downstairs. Looking back at him, I thought of the first night of his return,
when our positions were reversed, and when I little supposed my heart could
ever be as heavy and anxious at parting from him as it was now.
Old Barley was growling and swearing when we repassed his door, with no
appearance of having ceased or of meaning to cease. When we got to the foot of
the stairs, I asked Herbert whether he had preserved the name of Provis. He
replied, certainly not, and that the lodger was Mr. Campbell. He also explained
that the utmost known of Mr. Campbell there was, that he (Herbert) had Mr.
Campbell consigned to him, and felt a strong personal interest in his being
well cared for, and living a secluded life. So, when we went into the parlour
where Mrs. Whimple and Clara were seated at work, I said nothing of my own
interest in Mr. Campbell, but kept it to myself.
When I had taken leave of the pretty, gentle, dark-eyed girl, and of the
motherly woman who had not outlived her honest sympathy with a little affair of
true love, I felt as if the Old Green Copper Rope-walk had grown quite a
different place. Old Barley might be as old as the hills, and might swear like
a whole field of troopers, but there were redeeming youth and trust and hope
enough in Chinks’s Basin to fill it to overflowing. And then I thought of
Estella, and of our parting, and went home very sadly.
All things were as quiet in the Temple as ever I had seen them. The windows of
the rooms on that side, lately occupied by Provis, were dark and still, and
there was no lounger in Garden Court. I walked past the fountain twice or
thrice before I descended the steps that were between me and my rooms, but I
was quite alone. Herbert, coming to my bedside when he came in,—for I
went straight to bed, dispirited and fatigued,—made the same report.
Opening one of the windows after that, he looked out into the moonlight, and
told me that the pavement was as solemnly empty as the pavement of any
cathedral at that same hour.
Next day I set myself to get the boat. It was soon done, and the boat was
brought round to the Temple stairs, and lay where I could reach her within a
minute or two. Then, I began to go out as for training and practice: sometimes
alone, sometimes with Herbert. I was often out in cold, rain, and sleet, but
nobody took much note of me after I had been out a few times. At first, I kept
above Blackfriars Bridge; but as the hours of the tide changed, I took towards
London Bridge. It was Old London Bridge in those days, and at certain states of
the tide there was a race and fall of water there which gave it a bad
reputation. But I knew well enough how to ‘shoot’ the bridge after
seeing it done, and so began to row about among the shipping in the Pool, and
down to Erith. The first time I passed Mill Pond Bank, Herbert and I were
pulling a pair of oars; and, both in going and returning, we saw the blind
towards the east come down. Herbert was rarely there less frequently than three
times in a week, and he never brought me a single word of intelligence that was
at all alarming. Still, I knew that there was cause for alarm, and I could not
get rid of the notion of being watched. Once received, it is a haunting idea;
how many undesigning persons I suspected of watching me, it would be hard to
calculate.
In short, I was always full of fears for the rash man who was in hiding.
Herbert had sometimes said to me that he found it pleasant to stand at one of
our windows after dark, when the tide was running down, and to think that it
was flowing, with everything it bore, towards Clara. But I thought with dread
that it was flowing towards Magwitch, and that any black mark on its surface
might be his pursuers, going swiftly, silently, and surely, to take him.
Chapter XLVII.
Some
weeks passed without bringing any change. We waited for Wemmick, and he made no
sign. If I had never known him out of Little Britain, and had never enjoyed the
privilege of being on a familiar footing at the Castle, I might have doubted
him; not so for a moment, knowing him as I did.
My worldly affairs began to wear a gloomy appearance, and I was pressed for
money by more than one creditor. Even I myself began to know the want of money
(I mean of ready money in my own pocket), and to relieve it by converting some
easily spared articles of jewelery into cash. But I had quite determined that
it would be a heartless fraud to take more money from my patron in the existing
state of my uncertain thoughts and plans. Therefore, I had sent him the
unopened pocket-book by Herbert, to hold in his own keeping, and I felt a kind
of satisfaction—whether it was a false kind or a true, I hardly
know—in not having profited by his generosity since his revelation of
himself.
As the time wore on, an impression settled heavily upon me that Estella was
married. Fearful of having it confirmed, though it was all but a conviction, I
avoided the newspapers, and begged Herbert (to whom I had confided the
circumstances of our last interview) never to speak of her to me. Why I hoarded
up this last wretched little rag of the robe of hope that was rent and given to
the winds, how do I know? Why did you who read this, commit that not dissimilar
inconsistency of your own last year, last month, last week?
It was an unhappy life that I lived; and its one dominant anxiety, towering
over all its other anxieties, like a high mountain above a range of mountains,
never disappeared from my view. Still, no new cause for fear arose. Let me
start from my bed as I would, with the terror fresh upon me that he was
discovered; let me sit listening, as I would with dread, for Herbert’s
returning step at night, lest it should be fleeter than ordinary, and winged
with evil news,—for all that, and much more to like purpose, the round of
things went on. Condemned to inaction and a state of constant restlessness and
suspense, I rowed about in my boat, and waited, waited, waited, as I best
could.
There were states of the tide when, having been down the river, I could not get
back through the eddy-chafed arches and starlings of old London Bridge; then, I
left my boat at a wharf near the Custom House, to be brought up afterwards to
the Temple stairs. I was not averse to doing this, as it served to make me and
my boat a commoner incident among the water-side people there. From this slight
occasion sprang two meetings that I have now to tell of.
One afternoon, late in the month of February, I came ashore at the wharf at
dusk. I had pulled down as far as Greenwich with the ebb tide, and had turned
with the tide. It had been a fine bright day, but had become foggy as the sun
dropped, and I had had to feel my way back among the shipping, pretty
carefully. Both in going and returning, I had seen the signal in his window,
All well.
As it was a raw evening, and I was cold, I thought I would comfort myself with
dinner at once; and as I had hours of dejection and solitude before me if I
went home to the Temple, I thought I would afterwards go to the play. The
theatre where Mr. Wopsle had achieved his questionable triumph was in that
water-side neighbourhood (it is nowhere now), and to that theatre I resolved to
go. I was aware that Mr. Wopsle had not succeeded in reviving the Drama, but,
on the contrary, had rather partaken of its decline. He had been ominously
heard of, through the play-bills, as a faithful Black, in connection with a
little girl of noble birth, and a monkey. And Herbert had seen him as a
predatory Tartar of comic propensities, with a face like a red brick, and an
outrageous hat all over bells.
I dined at what Herbert and I used to call a geographical chop-house, where
there were maps of the world in porter-pot rims on every half-yard of the
tablecloths, and charts of gravy on every one of the knives,—to this day
there is scarcely a single chop-house within the Lord Mayor’s dominions
which is not geographical,—and wore out the time in dozing over crumbs,
staring at gas, and baking in a hot blast of dinners. By and by, I roused
myself, and went to the play.
There, I found a virtuous boatswain in His Majesty’s service,—a
most excellent man, though I could have wished his trousers not quite so tight
in some places, and not quite so loose in others,—who knocked all the
little men’s hats over their eyes, though he was very generous and brave,
and who wouldn’t hear of anybody’s paying taxes, though he was very
patriotic. He had a bag of money in his pocket, like a pudding in the cloth,
and on that property married a young person in bed-furniture, with great
rejoicings; the whole population of Portsmouth (nine in number at the last
census) turning out on the beach to rub their own hands and shake everybody
else’s, and sing “Fill, fill!” A certain dark-complexioned
Swab, however, who wouldn’t fill, or do anything else that was proposed
to him, and whose heart was openly stated (by the boatswain) to be as black as
his figure-head, proposed to two other Swabs to get all mankind into
difficulties; which was so effectually done (the Swab family having
considerable political influence) that it took half the evening to set things
right, and then it was only brought about through an honest little grocer with
a white hat, black gaiters, and red nose, getting into a clock, with a
gridiron, and listening, and coming out, and knocking everybody down from
behind with the gridiron whom he couldn’t confute with what he had
overheard. This led to Mr. Wopsle’s (who had never been heard of before)
coming in with a star and garter on, as a plenipotentiary of great power direct
from the Admiralty, to say that the Swabs were all to go to prison on the spot,
and that he had brought the boatswain down the Union Jack, as a slight
acknowledgment of his public services. The boatswain, unmanned for the first
time, respectfully dried his eyes on the Jack, and then cheering up, and
addressing Mr. Wopsle as Your Honour, solicited permission to take him by the
fin. Mr. Wopsle, conceding his fin with a gracious dignity, was immediately
shoved into a dusty corner, while everybody danced a hornpipe; and from that
corner, surveying the public with a discontented eye, became aware of me.
The second piece was the last new grand comic Christmas pantomime, in the first
scene of which, it pained me to suspect that I detected Mr. Wopsle with red
worsted legs under a highly magnified phosphoric countenance and a shock of red
curtain-fringe for his hair, engaged in the manufacture of thunderbolts in a
mine, and displaying great cowardice when his gigantic master came home (very
hoarse) to dinner. But he presently presented himself under worthier
circumstances; for, the Genius of Youthful Love being in want of
assistance,—on account of the parental brutality of an ignorant farmer
who opposed the choice of his daughter’s heart, by purposely falling upon
the object, in a flour-sack, out of the first-floor window,—summoned a
sententious Enchanter; and he, coming up from the antipodes rather unsteadily,
after an apparently violent journey, proved to be Mr. Wopsle in a high-crowned
hat, with a necromantic work in one volume under his arm. The business of this
enchanter on earth being principally to be talked at, sung at, butted at,
danced at, and flashed at with fires of various colours, he had a good deal of
time on his hands. And I observed, with great surprise, that he devoted it to
staring in my direction as if he were lost in amazement.
There was something so remarkable in the increasing glare of Mr. Wopsle’s
eye, and he seemed to be turning so many things over in his mind and to grow so
confused, that I could not make it out. I sat thinking of it long after he had
ascended to the clouds in a large watch-case, and still I could not make it
out. I was still thinking of it when I came out of the theatre an hour
afterwards, and found him waiting for me near the door.
“How do you do?” said I, shaking hands with him as we turned down
the street together. “I saw that you saw me.”
“Saw you, Mr. Pip!” he returned. “Yes, of course I saw you.
But who else was there?”
“Who else?”
“It is the strangest thing,” said Mr. Wopsle, drifting into his
lost look again; “and yet I could swear to him.”
Becoming alarmed, I entreated Mr. Wopsle to explain his meaning.
“Whether I should have noticed him at first but for your being
there,” said Mr. Wopsle, going on in the same lost way, “I
can’t be positive; yet I think I should.”
Involuntarily I looked round me, as I was accustomed to look round me when I
went home; for these mysterious words gave me a chill.
“Oh! He can’t be in sight,” said Mr. Wopsle. “He went
out before I went off. I saw him go.”
Having the reason that I had for being suspicious, I even suspected this poor
actor. I mistrusted a design to entrap me into some admission. Therefore I
glanced at him as we walked on together, but said nothing.
“I had a ridiculous fancy that he must be with you, Mr. Pip, till I saw
that you were quite unconscious of him, sitting behind you there like a
ghost.”
My former chill crept over me again, but I was resolved not to speak yet, for
it was quite consistent with his words that he might be set on to induce me to
connect these references with Provis. Of course, I was perfectly sure and safe
that Provis had not been there.
“I dare say you wonder at me, Mr. Pip; indeed, I see you do. But it is so
very strange! You’ll hardly believe what I am going to tell you. I could
hardly believe it myself, if you told me.”
“Indeed?” said I.
“No, indeed. Mr. Pip, you remember in old times a certain Christmas Day,
when you were quite a child, and I dined at Gargery’s, and some soldiers
came to the door to get a pair of handcuffs mended?”
“I remember it very well.”
“And you remember that there was a chase after two convicts, and that we
joined in it, and that Gargery took you on his back, and that I took the lead,
and you kept up with me as well as you could?”
“I remember it all very well.” Better than he thought,—except
the last clause.
“And you remember that we came up with the two in a ditch, and that there
was a scuffle between them, and that one of them had been severely handled and
much mauled about the face by the other?”
“I see it all before me.”
“And that the soldiers lighted torches, and put the two in the centre,
and that we went on to see the last of them, over the black marshes, with the
torchlight shining on their faces,—I am particular about that,—with
the torchlight shining on their faces, when there was an outer ring of dark
night all about us?”
“Yes,” said I. “I remember all that.”
“Then, Mr. Pip, one of those two prisoners sat behind you tonight. I saw
him over your shoulder.”
“Steady!” I thought. I asked him then, “Which of the two do
you suppose you saw?”
“The one who had been mauled,” he answered readily, “and
I’ll swear I saw him! The more I think of him, the more certain I am of
him.”
“This is very curious!” said I, with the best assumption I could
put on of its being nothing more to me. “Very curious indeed!”
I cannot exaggerate the enhanced disquiet into which this conversation threw
me, or the special and peculiar terror I felt at Compeyson’s having been
behind me “like a ghost.” For if he had ever been out of my
thoughts for a few moments together since the hiding had begun, it was in those
very moments when he was closest to me; and to think that I should be so
unconscious and off my guard after all my care was as if I had shut an avenue
of a hundred doors to keep him out, and then had found him at my elbow. I could
not doubt, either, that he was there, because I was there, and that, however
slight an appearance of danger there might be about us, danger was always near
and active.
I put such questions to Mr. Wopsle as, When did the man come in? He could not
tell me that; he saw me, and over my shoulder he saw the man. It was not until
he had seen him for some time that he began to identify him; but he had from
the first vaguely associated him with me, and known him as somehow belonging to
me in the old village time. How was he dressed? Prosperously, but not
noticeably otherwise; he thought, in black. Was his face at all disfigured? No,
he believed not. I believed not too, for, although in my brooding state I had
taken no especial notice of the people behind me, I thought it likely that a
face at all disfigured would have attracted my attention.
When Mr. Wopsle had imparted to me all that he could recall or I extract, and
when I had treated him to a little appropriate refreshment, after the fatigues
of the evening, we parted. It was between twelve and one o’clock when I
reached the Temple, and the gates were shut. No one was near me when I went in
and went home.
Herbert had come in, and we held a very serious council by the fire. But there
was nothing to be done, saving to communicate to Wemmick what I had that night
found out, and to remind him that we waited for his hint. As I thought that I
might compromise him if I went too often to the Castle, I made this
communication by letter. I wrote it before I went to bed, and went out and
posted it; and again no one was near me. Herbert and I agreed that we could do
nothing else but be very cautious. And we were very cautious indeed,—more
cautious than before, if that were possible,—and I for my part never went
near Chinks’s Basin, except when I rowed by, and then I only looked at
Mill Pond Bank as I looked at anything else.
Chapter XLVIII.
The
second of the two meetings referred to in the last chapter occurred about a
week after the first. I had again left my boat at the wharf below Bridge; the
time was an hour earlier in the afternoon; and, undecided where to dine, I had
strolled up into Cheapside, and was strolling along it, surely the most
unsettled person in all the busy concourse, when a large hand was laid upon my
shoulder by some one overtaking me. It was Mr. Jaggers’s hand, and he
passed it through my arm.
“As we are going in the same direction, Pip, we may walk together. Where
are you bound for?”
“For the Temple, I think,” said I.
“Don’t you know?” said Mr. Jaggers.
“Well,” I returned, glad for once to get the better of him in
cross-examination, “I do know, for I have not made up my
mind.”
“You are going to dine?” said Mr. Jaggers. “You don’t
mind admitting that, I suppose?”
“No,” I returned, “I don’t mind admitting that.”
“And are not engaged?”
“I don’t mind admitting also that I am not engaged.”
“Then,” said Mr. Jaggers, “come and dine with me.”
I was going to excuse myself, when he added, “Wemmick’s
coming.” So I changed my excuse into an acceptance,—the few words I
had uttered, serving for the beginning of either,—and we went along
Cheapside and slanted off to Little Britain, while the lights were springing up
brilliantly in the shop windows, and the street lamp-lighters, scarcely finding
ground enough to plant their ladders on in the midst of the afternoon’s
bustle, were skipping up and down and running in and out, opening more red eyes
in the gathering fog than my rushlight tower at the Hummums had opened white
eyes in the ghostly wall.
At the office in Little Britain there was the usual letter-writing,
hand-washing, candle-snuffing, and safe-locking, that closed the business of
the day. As I stood idle by Mr. Jaggers’s fire, its rising and falling
flame made the two casts on the shelf look as if they were playing a diabolical
game at bo-peep with me; while the pair of coarse, fat office candles that
dimly lighted Mr. Jaggers as he wrote in a corner were decorated with dirty
winding-sheets, as if in remembrance of a host of hanged clients.
We went to Gerrard Street, all three together, in a hackney-coach: And, as soon
as we got there, dinner was served. Although I should not have thought of
making, in that place, the most distant reference by so much as a look to
Wemmick’s Walworth sentiments, yet I should have had no objection to
catching his eye now and then in a friendly way. But it was not to be done. He
turned his eyes on Mr. Jaggers whenever he raised them from the table, and was
as dry and distant to me as if there were twin Wemmicks, and this was the wrong
one.
“Did you send that note of Miss Havisham’s to Mr. Pip,
Wemmick?” Mr. Jaggers asked, soon after we began dinner.
“No, sir,” returned Wemmick; “it was going by post, when you
brought Mr. Pip into the office. Here it is.” He handed it to his
principal instead of to me.
“It’s a note of two lines, Pip,” said Mr. Jaggers, handing it
on, “sent up to me by Miss Havisham on account of her not being sure of
your address. She tells me that she wants to see you on a little matter of
business you mentioned to her. You’ll go down?”
“Yes,” said I, casting my eyes over the note, which was exactly in
those terms.
“When do you think of going down?”
“I have an impending engagement,” said I, glancing at Wemmick, who
was putting fish into the post-office, “that renders me rather uncertain
of my time. At once, I think.”
“If Mr. Pip has the intention of going at once,” said Wemmick to
Mr. Jaggers, “he needn’t write an answer, you know.”
Receiving this as an intimation that it was best not to delay, I settled that I
would go to-morrow, and said so. Wemmick drank a glass of wine, and looked with
a grimly satisfied air at Mr. Jaggers, but not at me.
“So, Pip! Our friend the Spider,” said Mr. Jaggers, “has
played his cards. He has won the pool.”
It was as much as I could do to assent.
“Hah! He is a promising fellow—in his way—but he may not have
it all his own way. The stronger will win in the end, but the stronger has to
be found out first. If he should turn to, and beat her—”
“Surely,” I interrupted, with a burning face and heart, “you
do not seriously think that he is scoundrel enough for that, Mr.
Jaggers?”
“I didn’t say so, Pip. I am putting a case. If he should turn to
and beat her, he may possibly get the strength on his side; if it should be a
question of intellect, he certainly will not. It would be chance work to give
an opinion how a fellow of that sort will turn out in such circumstances,
because it’s a toss-up between two results.”
“May I ask what they are?”
“A fellow like our friend the Spider,” answered Mr. Jaggers,
“either beats or cringes. He may cringe and growl, or cringe and not
growl; but he either beats or cringes. Ask Wemmick opinion.”
“Either beats or cringes,” said Wemmick, not at all addressing
himself to me.
“So here’s to Mrs. Bentley Drummle,” said Mr. Jaggers, taking
a decanter of choicer wine from his dumb-waiter, and filling for each of us and
for himself, “and may the question of supremacy be settled to the
lady’s satisfaction! To the satisfaction of the lady the
gentleman, it never will be. Now, Molly, Molly, Molly, Molly, how slow you are
to-day!”
She was at his elbow when he addressed her, putting a dish upon the table. As
she withdrew her hands from it, she fell back a step or two, nervously
muttering some excuse. And a certain action of her fingers, as she spoke,
arrested my attention.
“What’s the matter?” said Mr. Jaggers.
“Nothing. Only the subject we were speaking of,” said I, “was
rather painful to me.”
The action of her fingers was like the action of knitting. She stood looking at
her master, not understanding whether she was free to go, or whether he had
more to say to her and would call her back if she did go. Her look was very
intent. Surely, I had seen exactly such eyes and such hands on a memorable
occasion very lately!
He dismissed her, and she glided out of the room. But she remained before me as
plainly as if she were still there. I looked at those hands, I looked at those
eyes, I looked at that flowing hair; and I compared them with other hands,
other eyes, other hair, that I knew of, and with what those might be after
twenty years of a brutal husband and a stormy life. I looked again at those
hands and eyes of the housekeeper, and thought of the inexplicable feeling that
had come over me when I last walked—not alone—in the ruined garden,
and through the deserted brewery. I thought how the same feeling had come back
when I saw a face looking at me, and a hand waving to me from a stage-coach
window; and how it had come back again and had flashed about me like lightning,
when I had passed in a carriage—not alone—through a sudden glare of
light in a dark street. I thought how one link of association had helped that
identification in the theatre, and how such a link, wanting before, had been
riveted for me now, when I had passed by a chance swift from Estella’s
name to the fingers with their knitting action, and the attentive eyes. And I
felt absolutely certain that this woman was Estella’s mother.
Mr. Jaggers had seen me with Estella, and was not likely to have missed the
sentiments I had been at no pains to conceal. He nodded when I said the subject
was painful to me, clapped me on the back, put round the wine again, and went
on with his dinner.
Only twice more did the housekeeper reappear, and then her stay in the room was
very short, and Mr. Jaggers was sharp with her. But her hands were
Estella’s hands, and her eyes were Estella’s eyes, and if she had
reappeared a hundred times I could have been neither more sure nor less sure
that my conviction was the truth.
It was a dull evening, for Wemmick drew his wine, when it came round, quite as
a matter of business,—just as he might have drawn his salary when that
came round,—and with his eyes on his chief, sat in a state of perpetual
readiness for cross-examination. As to the quantity of wine, his post-office
was as indifferent and ready as any other post-office for its quantity of
letters. From my point of view, he was the wrong twin all the time, and only
externally like the Wemmick of Walworth.
We took our leave early, and left together. Even when we were groping among Mr.
Jaggers’s stock of boots for our hats, I felt that the right twin was on
his way back; and we had not gone half a dozen yards down Gerrard Street in the
Walworth direction, before I found that I was walking arm in arm with the right
twin, and that the wrong twin had evaporated into the evening air.
“Well!” said Wemmick, “that’s over! He’s a
wonderful man, without his living likeness; but I feel that I have to screw
myself up when I dine with him,—and I dine more comfortably
unscrewed.”
I felt that this was a good statement of the case, and told him so.
“Wouldn’t say it to anybody but yourself,” he answered.
“I know that what is said between you and me goes no further.”
I asked him if he had ever seen Miss Havisham’s adopted daughter, Mrs.
Bentley Drummle. He said no. To avoid being too abrupt, I then spoke of the
Aged and of Miss Skiffins. He looked rather sly when I mentioned Miss Skiffins,
and stopped in the street to blow his nose, with a roll of the head, and a
flourish not quite free from latent boastfulness.
“Wemmick,” said I, “do you remember telling me, before I
first went to Mr. Jaggers’s private house, to notice that
housekeeper?”
“Did I?” he replied. “Ah, I dare say I did. Deuce take
me,” he added, suddenly, “I know I did. I find I am not quite
unscrewed yet.”
“A wild beast tamed, you called her.”
“And what do call her?”
“The same. How did Mr. Jaggers tame her, Wemmick?”
“That’s his secret. She has been with him many a long year.”
“I wish you would tell me her story. I feel a particular interest in
being acquainted with it. You know that what is said between you and me goes no
further.”
“Well!” Wemmick replied, “I don’t know her
story,—that is, I don’t know all of it. But what I do know
I’ll tell you. We are in our private and personal capacities, of
course.”
“Of course.”
“A score or so of years ago, that woman was tried at the Old Bailey for
murder, and was acquitted. She was a very handsome young woman, and I believe
had some gypsy blood in her. Anyhow, it was hot enough when it was up, as you
may suppose.”
“But she was acquitted.”
“Mr. Jaggers was for her,” pursued Wemmick, with a look full of
meaning, “and worked the case in a way quite astonishing. It was a
desperate case, and it was comparatively early days with him then, and he
worked it to general admiration; in fact, it may almost be said to have made
him. He worked it himself at the police-office, day after day for many days,
contending against even a committal; and at the trial where he couldn’t
work it himself, sat under counsel, and—every one knew—put in all
the salt and pepper. The murdered person was a woman,—a woman a good ten
years older, very much larger, and very much stronger. It was a case of
jealousy. They both led tramping lives, and this woman in Gerrard Street here
had been married very young, over the broomstick (as we say), to a tramping
man, and was a perfect fury in point of jealousy. The murdered
woman,—more a match for the man, certainly, in point of years—was
found dead in a barn near Hounslow Heath. There had been a violent struggle,
perhaps a fight. She was bruised and scratched and torn, and had been held by
the throat, at last, and choked. Now, there was no reasonable evidence to
implicate any person but this woman, and on the improbabilities of her having
been able to do it Mr. Jaggers principally rested his case. You may be
sure,” said Wemmick, touching me on the sleeve, “that he never
dwelt upon the strength of her hands then, though he sometimes does now.”
I had told Wemmick of his showing us her wrists, that day of the dinner party.
“Well, sir!” Wemmick went on; “it happened—happened,
don’t you see?—that this woman was so very artfully dressed from
the time of her apprehension, that she looked much slighter than she really
was; in particular, her sleeves are always remembered to have been so skilfully
contrived that her arms had quite a delicate look. She had only a bruise or two
about her,—nothing for a tramp,—but the backs of her hands were
lacerated, and the question was, Was it with finger-nails? Now, Mr. Jaggers
showed that she had struggled through a great lot of brambles which were not as
high as her face; but which she could not have got through and kept her hands
out of; and bits of those brambles were actually found in her skin and put in
evidence, as well as the fact that the brambles in question were found on
examination to have been broken through, and to have little shreds of her dress
and little spots of blood upon them here and there. But the boldest point he
made was this: it was attempted to be set up, in proof of her jealousy, that
she was under strong suspicion of having, at about the time of the murder,
frantically destroyed her child by this man—some three years old—to
revenge herself upon him. Mr. Jaggers worked that in this way: “We say
these are not marks of finger-nails, but marks of brambles, and we show you the
brambles. You say they are marks of finger-nails, and you set up the hypothesis
that she destroyed her child. You must accept all consequences of that
hypothesis. For anything we know, she may have destroyed her child, and the
child in clinging to her may have scratched her hands. What then? You are not
trying her for the murder of her child; why don’t you? As to this case,
if you have scratches, we say that, for anything we know, you may
have accounted for them, assuming for the sake of argument that you have not
invented them?” “To sum up, sir,” said Wemmick, “Mr.
Jaggers was altogether too many for the jury, and they gave in.”
“Has she been in his service ever since?”
“Yes; but not only that,” said Wemmick, “she went into his
service immediately after her acquittal, tamed as she is now. She has since
been taught one thing and another in the way of her duties, but she was tamed
from the beginning.”
“Do you remember the sex of the child?”
“Said to have been a girl.”
“You have nothing more to say to me to-night?”
“Nothing. I got your letter and destroyed it. Nothing.”
We exchanged a cordial good-night, and I went home, with new matter for my
thoughts, though with no relief from the old.
Chapter XLIX.
Putting Miss Havisham’s note in my pocket, that it might
serve as my credentials for so soon reappearing at Satis House, in case her
waywardness should lead her to express any surprise at seeing me, I went down
again by the coach next day. But I alighted at the Halfway House, and
breakfasted there, and walked the rest of the distance; for I sought to get
into the town quietly by the unfrequented ways, and to leave it in the same
manner.
The best light of the day was gone when I passed along the quiet echoing courts
behind the High Street. The nooks of ruin where the old monks had once had
their refectories and gardens, and where the strong walls were now pressed into
the service of humble sheds and stables, were almost as silent as the old monks
in their graves. The cathedral chimes had at once a sadder and a more remote
sound to me, as I hurried on avoiding observation, than they had ever had
before; so, the swell of the old organ was borne to my ears like funeral music;
and the rooks, as they hovered about the grey tower and swung in the bare high
trees of the priory garden, seemed to call to me that the place was changed,
and that Estella was gone out of it for ever.
An elderly woman, whom I had seen before as one of the servants who lived in
the supplementary house across the back courtyard, opened the gate. The lighted
candle stood in the dark passage within, as of old, and I took it up and
ascended the staircase alone. Miss Havisham was not in her own room, but was in
the larger room across the landing. Looking in at the door, after knocking in
vain, I saw her sitting on the hearth in a ragged chair, close before, and lost
in the contemplation of, the ashy fire.
Doing as I had often done, I went in, and stood touching the old chimney-piece,
where she could see me when she raised her eyes. There was an air of utter
loneliness upon her, that would have moved me to pity though she had wilfully
done me a deeper injury than I could charge her with. As I stood
compassionating her, and thinking how, in the progress of time, I too had come
to be a part of the wrecked fortunes of that house, her eyes rested on me. She
stared, and said in a low voice, “Is it real?”
“It is I, Pip. Mr. Jaggers gave me your note yesterday, and I have lost
no time.”
“Thank you. Thank you.”
As I brought another of the ragged chairs to the hearth and sat down, I
remarked a new expression on her face, as if she were afraid of me.
“I want,” she said, “to pursue that subject you mentioned to
me when you were last here, and to show you that I am not all stone. But
perhaps you can never believe, now, that there is anything human in my
heart?”
When I said some reassuring words, she stretched out her tremulous right hand,
as though she was going to touch me; but she recalled it again before I
understood the action, or knew how to receive it.
“You said, speaking for your friend, that you could tell me how to do
something useful and good. Something that you would like done, is it
not?”
“Something that I would like done very much.”
“What is it?”
I began explaining to her that secret history of the partnership. I had not got
far into it, when I judged from her looks that she was thinking in a discursive
way of me, rather than of what I said. It seemed to be so; for, when I stopped
speaking, many moments passed before she showed that she was conscious of the
fact.
“Do you break off,” she asked then, with her former air of being
afraid of me, “because you hate me too much to bear to speak to
me?”
“No, no,” I answered, “how can you think so, Miss Havisham! I
stopped because I thought you were not following what I said.”
“Perhaps I was not,” she answered, putting a hand to her head.
“Begin again, and let me look at something else. Stay! Now tell
me.”
She set her hand upon her stick in the resolute way that sometimes was habitual
to her, and looked at the fire with a strong expression of forcing herself to
attend. I went on with my explanation, and told her how I had hoped to complete
the transaction out of my means, but how in this I was disappointed. That part
of the subject (I reminded her) involved matters which could form no part of my
explanation, for they were the weighty secrets of another.
“So!” said she, assenting with her head, but not looking at me.
“And how much money is wanting to complete the purchase?”
I was rather afraid of stating it, for it sounded a large sum. “Nine
hundred pounds.”
“If I give you the money for this purpose, will you keep my secret as you
have kept your own?”
“Quite as faithfully.”
“And your mind will be more at rest?”
“Much more at rest.”
“Are you very unhappy now?”
She asked this question, still without looking at me, but in an unwonted tone
of sympathy. I could not reply at the moment, for my voice failed me. She put
her left arm across the head of her stick, and softly laid her forehead on it.
“I am far from happy, Miss Havisham; but I have other causes of disquiet
than any you know of. They are the secrets I have mentioned.”
After a little while, she raised her head, and looked at the fire again.
“It is noble in you to tell me that you have other causes of unhappiness.
Is it true?”
“Too true.”
“Can I only serve you, Pip, by serving your friend? Regarding that as
done, is there nothing I can do for you yourself?”
“Nothing. I thank you for the question. I thank you even more for the
tone of the question. But there is nothing.”
She presently rose from her seat, and looked about the blighted room for the
means of writing. There were none there, and she took from her pocket a yellow
set of ivory tablets, mounted in tarnished gold, and wrote upon them with a
pencil in a case of tarnished gold that hung from her neck.
“You are still on friendly terms with Mr. Jaggers?”
“Quite. I dined with him yesterday.”
“This is an authority to him to pay you that money, to lay out at your
irresponsible discretion for your friend. I keep no money here; but if you
would rather Mr. Jaggers knew nothing of the matter, I will send it to
you.”
“Thank you, Miss Havisham; I have not the least objection to receiving it
from him.”
She read me what she had written; and it was direct and clear, and evidently
intended to absolve me from any suspicion of profiting by the receipt of the
money. I took the tablets from her hand, and it trembled again, and it trembled
more as she took off the chain to which the pencil was attached, and put it in
mine. All this she did without looking at me.
“My name is on the first leaf. If you can ever write under my name,
“I forgive her,” though ever so long after my broken heart is dust
pray do it!”
“O Miss Havisham,” said I, “I can do it now. There have been
sore mistakes; and my life has been a blind and thankless one; and I want
forgiveness and direction far too much, to be bitter with you.”
She turned her face to me for the first time since she had averted it, and, to
my amazement, I may even add to my terror, dropped on her knees at my feet;
with her folded hands raised to me in the manner in which, when her poor heart
was young and fresh and whole, they must often have been raised to heaven from
her mother’s side.
To see her with her white hair and her worn face kneeling at my feet gave me a
shock through all my frame. I entreated her to rise, and got my arms about her
to help her up; but she only pressed that hand of mine which was nearest to her
grasp, and hung her head over it and wept. I had never seen her shed a tear
before, and, in the hope that the relief might do her good, I bent over her
without speaking. She was not kneeling now, but was down upon the ground.
“O!” she cried, despairingly. “What have I done! What have I
done!”
“If you mean, Miss Havisham, what have you done to injure me, let me
answer. Very little. I should have loved her under any circumstances. Is she
married?”
“Yes.”
It was a needless question, for a new desolation in the desolate house had told
me so.
“What have I done! What have I done!” She wrung her hands, and
crushed her white hair, and returned to this cry over and over again.
“What have I done!”
I knew not how to answer, or how to comfort her. That she had done a grievous
thing in taking an impressionable child to mould into the form that her wild
resentment, spurned affection, and wounded pride found vengeance in, I knew
full well. But that, in shutting out the light of day, she had shut out
infinitely more; that, in seclusion, she had secluded herself from a thousand
natural and healing influences; that, her mind, brooding solitary, had grown
diseased, as all minds do and must and will that reverse the appointed order of
their Maker, I knew equally well. And could I look upon her without compassion,
seeing her punishment in the ruin she was, in her profound unfitness for this
earth on which she was placed, in the vanity of sorrow which had become a
master mania, like the vanity of penitence, the vanity of remorse, the vanity
of unworthiness, and other monstrous vanities that have been curses in this
world?
“Until you spoke to her the other day, and until I saw in you a
looking-glass that showed me what I once felt myself, I did not know what I had
done. What have I done! What have I done!” And so again, twenty, fifty
times over, What had she done!
“Miss Havisham,” I said, when her cry had died away, “you may
dismiss me from your mind and conscience. But Estella is a different case, and
if you can ever undo any scrap of what you have done amiss in keeping a part of
her right nature away from her, it will be better to do that than to bemoan the
past through a hundred years.”
“Yes, yes, I know it. But, Pip—my dear!” There was an earnest
womanly compassion for me in her new affection. “My dear! Believe this:
when she first came to me, I meant to save her from misery like my own. At
first, I meant no more.”
“Well, well!” said I. “I hope so.”
“But as she grew, and promised to be very beautiful, I gradually did
worse, and with my praises, and with my jewels, and with my teachings, and with
this figure of myself always before her, a warning to back and point my
lessons, I stole her heart away, and put ice in its place.”
“Better,” I could not help saying, “to have left her a
natural heart, even to be bruised or broken.”
With that, Miss Havisham looked distractedly at me for a while, and then burst
out again, What had she done!
“If you knew all my story,” she pleaded, “you would have some
compassion for me and a better understanding of me.”
“Miss Havisham,” I answered, as delicately as I could, “I
believe I may say that I do know your story, and have known it ever since I
first left this neighbourhood. It has inspired me with great commiseration, and
I hope I understand it and its influences. Does what has passed between us give
me any excuse for asking you a question relative to Estella? Not as she is, but
as she was when she first came here?”
She was seated on the ground, with her arms on the ragged chair, and her head
leaning on them. She looked full at me when I said this, and replied, “Go
on.”
“Whose child was Estella?”
She shook her head.
“You don’t know?”
She shook her head again.
“But Mr. Jaggers brought her here, or sent her here?”
“Brought her here.”
“Will you tell me how that came about?”
She answered in a low whisper and with caution: “I had been shut up in
these rooms a long time (I don’t know how long; you know what time the
clocks keep here), when I told him that I wanted a little girl to rear and
love, and save from my fate. I had first seen him when I sent for him to lay
this place waste for me; having read of him in the newspapers, before I and the
world parted. He told me that he would look about him for such an orphan child.
One night he brought her here asleep, and I called her Estella.”
“Might I ask her age then?”
“Two or three. She herself knows nothing, but that she was left an orphan
and I adopted her.”
So convinced I was of that woman’s being her mother, that I wanted no
evidence to establish the fact in my own mind. But, to any mind, I thought, the
connection here was clear and straight.
What more could I hope to do by prolonging the interview? I had succeeded on
behalf of Herbert, Miss Havisham had told me all she knew of Estella, I had
said and done what I could to ease her mind. No matter with what other words we
parted; we parted.
Twilight was closing in when I went downstairs into the natural air. I called
to the woman who had opened the gate when I entered, that I would not trouble
her just yet, but would walk round the place before leaving. For I had a
presentiment that I should never be there again, and I felt that the dying
light was suited to my last view of it.
By the wilderness of casks that I had walked on long ago, and on which the rain
of years had fallen since, rotting them in many places, and leaving miniature
swamps and pools of water upon those that stood on end, I made my way to the
ruined garden. I went all round it; round by the corner where Herbert and I had
fought our battle; round by the paths where Estella and I had walked. So cold,
so lonely, so dreary all!
Taking the brewery on my way back, I raised the rusty latch of a little door at
the garden end of it, and walked through. I was going out at the opposite
door,—not easy to open now, for the damp wood had started and swelled,
and the hinges were yielding, and the threshold was encumbered with a growth of
fungus,—when I turned my head to look back. A childish association
revived with wonderful force in the moment of the slight action, and I fancied
that I saw Miss Havisham hanging to the beam. So strong was the impression,
that I stood under the beam shuddering from head to foot before I knew it was a
fancy,—though to be sure I was there in an instant.
The mournfulness of the place and time, and the great terror of this illusion,
though it was but momentary, caused me to feel an indescribable awe as I came
out between the open wooden gates where I had once wrung my hair after Estella
had wrung my heart. Passing on into the front courtyard, I hesitated whether to
call the woman to let me out at the locked gate of which she had the key, or
first to go upstairs and assure myself that Miss Havisham was as safe and well
as I had left her. I took the latter course and went up.
I looked into the room where I had left her, and I saw her seated in the ragged
chair upon the hearth close to the fire, with her back towards me. In the
moment when I was withdrawing my head to go quietly away, I saw a great flaming
light spring up. In the same moment I saw her running at me, shrieking, with a
whirl of fire blazing all about her, and soaring at least as many feet above
her head as she was high.
I had a double-caped great-coat on, and over my arm another thick coat. That I
got them off, closed with her, threw her down, and got them over her; that I
dragged the great cloth from the table for the same purpose, and with it
dragged down the heap of rottenness in the midst, and all the ugly things that
sheltered there; that we were on the ground struggling like desperate enemies,
and that the closer I covered her, the more wildly she shrieked and tried to
free herself,—that this occurred I knew through the result, but not
through anything I felt, or thought, or knew I did. I knew nothing until I knew
that we were on the floor by the great table, and that patches of tinder yet
alight were floating in the smoky air, which, a moment ago, had been her faded
bridal dress.
Then, I looked round and saw the disturbed beetles and spiders running away
over the floor, and the servants coming in with breathless cries at the door. I
still held her forcibly down with all my strength, like a prisoner who might
escape; and I doubt if I even knew who she was, or why we had struggled, or
that she had been in flames, or that the flames were out, until I saw the
patches of tinder that had been her garments no longer alight but falling in a
black shower around us.
She was insensible, and I was afraid to have her moved, or even touched.
Assistance was sent for, and I held her until it came, as if I unreasonably
fancied (I think I did) that, if I let her go, the fire would break out again
and consume her. When I got up, on the surgeon’s coming to her with other
aid, I was astonished to see that both my hands were burnt; for, I had no
knowledge of it through the sense of feeling.
On examination it was pronounced that she had received serious hurts, but that
they of themselves were far from hopeless; the danger lay mainly in the nervous
shock. By the surgeon’s directions, her bed was carried into that room
and laid upon the great table, which happened to be well suited to the dressing
of her injuries. When I saw her again, an hour afterwards, she lay, indeed,
where I had seen her strike her stick, and had heard her say that she would lie
one day.
Though every vestige of her dress was burnt, as they told me, she still had
something of her old ghastly bridal appearance; for, they had covered her to
the throat with white cotton-wool, and as she lay with a white sheet loosely
overlying that, the phantom air of something that had been and was changed was
still upon her.
I found, on questioning the servants, that Estella was in Paris, and I got a
promise from the surgeon that he would write to her by the next post. Miss
Havisham’s family I took upon myself; intending to communicate with Mr.
Matthew Pocket only, and leave him to do as he liked about informing the rest.
This I did next day, through Herbert, as soon as I returned to town.
There was a stage, that evening, when she spoke collectedly of what had
happened, though with a certain terrible vivacity. Towards midnight she began
to wander in her speech; and after that it gradually set in that she said
innumerable times in a low solemn voice, “What have I done!” And
then, “When she first came, I meant to save her from misery like
mine.” And then, “Take the pencil and write under my name, ‘I
forgive her!’” She never changed the order of these three
sentences, but she sometimes left out a word in one or other of them; never
putting in another word, but always leaving a blank and going on to the next
word.
As I could do no service there, and as I had, nearer home, that pressing reason
for anxiety and fear which even her wanderings could not drive out of my mind,
I decided, in the course of the night that I would return by the early morning
coach, walking on a mile or so, and being taken up clear of the town. At about
six o’clock of the morning, therefore, I leaned over her and touched her
lips with mine, just as they said, not stopping for being touched, “Take
the pencil and write under my name, ‘I forgive her.’”
Chapter L.
My
hands had been dressed twice or thrice in the night, and again in the morning.
My left arm was a good deal burned to the elbow, and, less severely, as high as
the shoulder; it was very painful, but the flames had set in that direction,
and I felt thankful it was no worse. My right hand was not so badly burnt but
that I could move the fingers. It was bandaged, of course, but much less
inconveniently than my left hand and arm; those I carried in a sling; and I
could only wear my coat like a cloak, loose over my shoulders and fastened at
the neck. My hair had been caught by the fire, but not my head or face.
When Herbert had been down to Hammersmith and seen his father, he came back to
me at our chambers, and devoted the day to attending on me. He was the kindest
of nurses, and at stated times took off the bandages, and steeped them in the
cooling liquid that was kept ready, and put them on again, with a patient
tenderness that I was deeply grateful for.
At first, as I lay quiet on the sofa, I found it painfully difficult, I might
say impossible, to get rid of the impression of the glare of the flames, their
hurry and noise, and the fierce burning smell. If I dozed for a minute, I was
awakened by Miss Havisham’s cries, and by her running at me with all that
height of fire above her head. This pain of the mind was much harder to strive
against than any bodily pain I suffered; and Herbert, seeing that, did his
utmost to hold my attention engaged.
Neither of us spoke of the boat, but we both thought of it. That was made
apparent by our avoidance of the subject, and by our agreeing—without
agreement—to make my recovery of the use of my hands a question of so
many hours, not of so many weeks.
My first question when I saw Herbert had been of course, whether all was well
down the river? As he replied in the affirmative, with perfect confidence and
cheerfulness, we did not resume the subject until the day was wearing away. But
then, as Herbert changed the bandages, more by the light of the fire than by
the outer light, he went back to it spontaneously.
“I sat with Provis last night, Handel, two good hours.”
“Where was Clara?”
“Dear little thing!” said Herbert. “She was up and down with
Gruffandgrim all the evening. He was perpetually pegging at the floor the
moment she left his sight. I doubt if he can hold out long, though. What with
rum and pepper,—and pepper and rum,—I should think his pegging must
be nearly over.”
“And then you will be married, Herbert?”
“How can I take care of the dear child otherwise?—Lay your arm out
upon the back of the sofa, my dear boy, and I’ll sit down here, and get
the bandage off so gradually that you shall not know when it comes. I was
speaking of Provis. Do you know, Handel, he improves?”
“I said to you I thought he was softened when I last saw him.”
“So you did. And so he is. He was very communicative last night, and told
me more of his life. You remember his breaking off here about some woman that
he had had great trouble with.—Did I hurt you?”
I had started, but not under his touch. His words had given me a start.
“I had forgotten that, Herbert, but I remember it now you speak of
it.”
“Well! He went into that part of his life, and a dark wild part it is.
Shall I tell you? Or would it worry you just now?”
“Tell me by all means. Every word.”
Herbert bent forward to look at me more nearly, as if my reply had been rather
more hurried or more eager than he could quite account for. “Your head is
cool?” he said, touching it.
“Quite,” said I. “Tell me what Provis said, my dear
Herbert.”
“It seems,” said Herbert, “—there’s a bandage off
most charmingly, and now comes the cool one,—makes you shrink at first,
my poor dear fellow, don’t it? but it will be comfortable
presently,—it seems that the woman was a young woman, and a jealous
woman, and a revengeful woman; revengeful, Handel, to the last degree.”
“To what last degree?”
“Murder.—Does it strike too cold on that sensitive place?”
“I don’t feel it. How did she murder? Whom did she murder?”
“Why, the deed may not have merited quite so terrible a name,” said
Herbert, “but, she was tried for it, and Mr. Jaggers defended her, and
the reputation of that defence first made his name known to Provis. It was
another and a stronger woman who was the victim, and there had been a
struggle—in a barn. Who began it, or how fair it was, or how unfair, may
be doubtful; but how it ended is certainly not doubtful, for the victim was
found throttled.”
“Was the woman brought in guilty?”
“No; she was acquitted.—My poor Handel, I hurt you!”
“It is impossible to be gentler, Herbert. Yes? What else?”
“This acquitted young woman and Provis had a little child; a little child
of whom Provis was exceedingly fond. On the evening of the very night when the
object of her jealousy was strangled as I tell you, the young woman presented
herself before Provis for one moment, and swore that she would destroy the
child (which was in her possession), and he should never see it again; then she
vanished.—There’s the worst arm comfortably in the sling once more,
and now there remains but the right hand, which is a far easier job. I can do
it better by this light than by a stronger, for my hand is steadiest when I
don’t see the poor blistered patches too distinctly.—You
don’t think your breathing is affected, my dear boy? You seem to breathe
quickly.”
“Perhaps I do, Herbert. Did the woman keep her oath?”
“There comes the darkest part of Provis’s life. She did.”
“That is, he says she did.”
“Why, of course, my dear boy,” returned Herbert, in a tone of
surprise, and again bending forward to get a nearer look at me. “He says
it all. I have no other information.”
“No, to be sure.”
“Now, whether,” pursued Herbert, “he had used the
child’s mother ill, or whether he had used the child’s mother well,
Provis doesn’t say; but she had shared some four or five years of the
wretched life he described to us at this fireside, and he seems to have felt
pity for her, and forbearance towards her. Therefore, fearing he should be
called upon to depose about this destroyed child, and so be the cause of her
death, he hid himself (much as he grieved for the child), kept himself dark, as
he says, out of the way and out of the trial, and was only vaguely talked of as
a certain man called Abel, out of whom the jealousy arose. After the acquittal
she disappeared, and thus he lost the child and the child’s
mother.”
“I want to ask—”
“A moment, my dear boy, and I have done. That evil genius, Compeyson, the
worst of scoundrels among many scoundrels, knowing of his keeping out of the
way at that time and of his reasons for doing so, of course afterwards held the
knowledge over his head as a means of keeping him poorer and working him
harder. It was clear last night that this barbed the point of Provis’s
animosity.”
“I want to know,” said I, “and particularly, Herbert, whether
he told you when this happened?”
“Particularly? Let me remember, then, what he said as to that. His
expression was, ‘a round score o’ year ago, and a’most
directly after I took up wi’ Compeyson.’ How old were you when you
came upon him in the little churchyard?”
“I think in my seventh year.”
“Ay. It had happened some three or four years then, he said, and you
brought into his mind the little girl so tragically lost, who would have been
about your age.”
“Herbert,” said I, after a short silence, in a hurried way,
“can you see me best by the light of the window, or the light of the
fire?”
“By the firelight,” answered Herbert, coming close again.
“Look at me.”
“I do look at you, my dear boy.”
“Touch me.”
“I do touch you, my dear boy.”
“You are not afraid that I am in any fever, or that my head is much
disordered by the accident of last night?”
“N-no, my dear boy,” said Herbert, after taking time to examine me.
“You are rather excited, but you are quite yourself.”
“I know I am quite myself. And the man we have in hiding down the river,
is Estella’s Father.”
Chapter LI.
What
purpose I had in view when I was hot on tracing out and proving Estella’s
parentage, I cannot say. It will presently be seen that the question was not
before me in a distinct shape until it was put before me by a wiser head than
my own.
But when Herbert and I had held our momentous conversation, I was seized with a
feverish conviction that I ought to hunt the matter down,—that I ought
not to let it rest, but that I ought to see Mr. Jaggers, and come at the bare
truth. I really do not know whether I felt that I did this for Estella’s
sake, or whether I was glad to transfer to the man in whose preservation I was
so much concerned some rays of the romantic interest that had so long
surrounded me. Perhaps the latter possibility may be the nearer to the truth.
Any way, I could scarcely be withheld from going out to Gerrard Street that
night. Herbert’s representations that, if I did, I should probably be
laid up and stricken useless, when our fugitive’s safety would depend
upon me, alone restrained my impatience. On the understanding, again and again
reiterated, that, come what would, I was to go to Mr. Jaggers to-morrow, I at
length submitted to keep quiet, and to have my hurts looked after, and to stay
at home. Early next morning we went out together, and at the corner of Giltspur
Street by Smithfield, I left Herbert to go his way into the City, and took my
way to Little Britain.
There were periodical occasions when Mr. Jaggers and Wemmick went over the
office accounts, and checked off the vouchers, and put all things straight. On
these occasions, Wemmick took his books and papers into Mr. Jaggers’s
room, and one of the upstairs clerks came down into the outer office. Finding
such clerk on Wemmick’s post that morning, I knew what was going on; but
I was not sorry to have Mr. Jaggers and Wemmick together, as Wemmick would then
hear for himself that I said nothing to compromise him.
My appearance, with my arm bandaged and my coat loose over my shoulders,
favoured my object. Although I had sent Mr. Jaggers a brief account of the
accident as soon as I had arrived in town, yet I had to give him all the
details now; and the speciality of the occasion caused our talk to be less dry
and hard, and less strictly regulated by the rules of evidence, than it had
been before. While I described the disaster, Mr. Jaggers stood, according to
his wont, before the fire. Wemmick leaned back in his chair, staring at me,
with his hands in the pockets of his trousers, and his pen put horizontally
into the post. The two brutal casts, always inseparable in my mind from the
official proceedings, seemed to be congestively considering whether they
didn’t smell fire at the present moment.
My narrative finished, and their questions exhausted, I then produced Miss
Havisham’s authority to receive the nine hundred pounds for Herbert. Mr.
Jaggers’s eyes retired a little deeper into his head when I handed him
the tablets, but he presently handed them over to Wemmick, with instructions to
draw the check for his signature. While that was in course of being done, I
looked on at Wemmick as he wrote, and Mr. Jaggers, poising and swaying himself
on his well-polished boots, looked on at me. “I am sorry, Pip,”
said he, as I put the check in my pocket, when he had signed it, “that we
do nothing for .”
“Miss Havisham was good enough to ask me,” I returned,
“whether she could do nothing for me, and I told her No.”
“Everybody should know his own business,” said Mr. Jaggers. And I
saw Wemmick’s lips form the words “portable property.”
“I should have told her No, if I had been you,” said Mr
Jaggers; “but every man ought to know his own business best.”
“Every man’s business,” said Wemmick, rather reproachfully
towards me, “is portable property.”
As I thought the time was now come for pursuing the theme I had at heart, I
said, turning on Mr. Jaggers:—
“I did ask something of Miss Havisham, however, sir. I asked her to give
me some information relative to her adopted daughter, and she gave me all she
possessed.”
“Did she?” said Mr. Jaggers, bending forward to look at his boots
and then straightening himself. “Hah! I don’t think I should have
done so, if I had been Miss Havisham. But ought to know her own
business best.”
“I know more of the history of Miss Havisham’s adopted child than
Miss Havisham herself does, sir. I know her mother.”
Mr. Jaggers looked at me inquiringly, and repeated “Mother?”
“I have seen her mother within these three days.”
“Yes?” said Mr. Jaggers.
“And so have you, sir. And you have seen her still more recently.”
“Yes?” said Mr. Jaggers.
“Perhaps I know more of Estella’s history than even you do,”
said I. “I know her father too.”
A certain stop that Mr. Jaggers came to in his manner—he was too
self-possessed to change his manner, but he could not help its being brought to
an indefinably attentive stop—assured me that he did not know who her
father was. This I had strongly suspected from Provis’s account (as
Herbert had repeated it) of his having kept himself dark; which I pieced on to
the fact that he himself was not Mr. Jaggers’s client until some four
years later, and when he could have no reason for claiming his identity. But, I
could not be sure of this unconsciousness on Mr. Jaggers’s part before,
though I was quite sure of it now.
“So! You know the young lady’s father, Pip?” said Mr.
Jaggers.
“Yes,” I replied, “and his name is Provis—from New
South Wales.”
Even Mr. Jaggers started when I said those words. It was the slightest start
that could escape a man, the most carefully repressed and the sooner checked,
but he did start, though he made it a part of the action of taking out his
pocket-handkerchief. How Wemmick received the announcement I am unable to say;
for I was afraid to look at him just then, lest Mr. Jaggers’s sharpness
should detect that there had been some communication unknown to him between us.
“And on what evidence, Pip,” asked Mr. Jaggers, very coolly, as he
paused with his handkerchief half way to his nose, “does Provis make this
claim?”
“He does not make it,” said I, “and has never made it, and
has no knowledge or belief that his daughter is in existence.”
For once, the powerful pocket-handkerchief failed. My reply was so unexpected,
that Mr. Jaggers put the handkerchief back into his pocket without completing
the usual performance, folded his arms, and looked with stern attention at me,
though with an immovable face.
Then I told him all I knew, and how I knew it; with the one reservation that I
left him to infer that I knew from Miss Havisham what I in fact knew from
Wemmick. I was very careful indeed as to that. Nor did I look towards Wemmick
until I had finished all I had to tell, and had been for some time silently
meeting Mr. Jaggers’s look. When I did at last turn my eyes in
Wemmick’s direction, I found that he had unposted his pen, and was intent
upon the table before him.
“Hah!” said Mr. Jaggers at last, as he moved towards the papers on
the table. “What item was it you were at, Wemmick, when Mr. Pip came
in?”
But I could not submit to be thrown off in that way, and I made a passionate,
almost an indignant appeal, to him to be more frank and manly with me. I
reminded him of the false hopes into which I had lapsed, the length of time
they had lasted, and the discovery I had made: and I hinted at the danger that
weighed upon my spirits. I represented myself as being surely worthy of some
little confidence from him, in return for the confidence I had just now
imparted. I said that I did not blame him, or suspect him, or mistrust him, but
I wanted assurance of the truth from him. And if he asked me why I wanted it,
and why I thought I had any right to it, I would tell him, little as he cared
for such poor dreams, that I had loved Estella dearly and long, and that
although I had lost her, and must live a bereaved life, whatever concerned her
was still nearer and dearer to me than anything else in the world. And seeing
that Mr. Jaggers stood quite still and silent, and apparently quite obdurate,
under this appeal, I turned to Wemmick, and said, “Wemmick, I know you to
be a man with a gentle heart. I have seen your pleasant home, and your old
father, and all the innocent, cheerful playful ways with which you refresh your
business life. And I entreat you to say a word for me to Mr. Jaggers, and to
represent to him that, all circumstances considered, he ought to be more open
with me!”
I have never seen two men look more oddly at one another than Mr. Jaggers and
Wemmick did after this apostrophe. At first, a misgiving crossed me that
Wemmick would be instantly dismissed from his employment; but it melted as I
saw Mr. Jaggers relax into something like a smile, and Wemmick become bolder.
“What’s all this?” said Mr. Jaggers. “You with an old
father, and you with pleasant and playful ways?”
“Well!” returned Wemmick. “If I don’t bring ’em
here, what does it matter?”
“Pip,” said Mr. Jaggers, laying his hand upon my arm, and smiling
openly, “this man must be the most cunning impostor in all London.”
“Not a bit of it,” returned Wemmick, growing bolder and bolder.
“I think you’re another.”
Again they exchanged their former odd looks, each apparently still distrustful
that the other was taking him in.
“ with a pleasant home?” said Mr. Jaggers.
“Since it don’t interfere with business,” returned Wemmick,
“let it be so. Now, I look at you, sir, I shouldn’t wonder if
might be planning and contriving to have a pleasant home of your own
one of these days, when you’re tired of all this work.”
Mr. Jaggers nodded his head retrospectively two or three times, and actually
drew a sigh. “Pip,” said he, “we won’t talk about
‘poor dreams;’ you know more about such things than I, having much
fresher experience of that kind. But now about this other matter. I’ll
put a case to you. Mind! I admit nothing.”
He waited for me to declare that I quite understood that he expressly said that
he admitted nothing.
“Now, Pip,” said Mr. Jaggers, “put this case. Put the case
that a woman, under such circumstances as you have mentioned, held her child
concealed, and was obliged to communicate the fact to her legal adviser, on his
representing to her that he must know, with an eye to the latitude of his
defence, how the fact stood about that child. Put the case that, at the same
time he held a trust to find a child for an eccentric rich lady to adopt and
bring up.”
“I follow you, sir.”
“Put the case that he lived in an atmosphere of evil, and that all he saw
of children was their being generated in great numbers for certain destruction.
Put the case that he often saw children solemnly tried at a criminal bar, where
they were held up to be seen; put the case that he habitually knew of their
being imprisoned, whipped, transported, neglected, cast out, qualified in all
ways for the hangman, and growing up to be hanged. Put the case that pretty
nigh all the children he saw in his daily business life he had reason to look
upon as so much spawn, to develop into the fish that were to come to his
net,—to be prosecuted, defended, forsworn, made orphans, bedevilled
somehow.”
“I follow you, sir.”
“Put the case, Pip, that here was one pretty little child out of the heap
who could be saved; whom the father believed dead, and dared make no stir
about; as to whom, over the mother, the legal adviser had this power: “I
know what you did, and how you did it. You came so and so, you did such and
such things to divert suspicion. I have tracked you through it all, and I tell
it you all. Part with the child, unless it should be necessary to produce it to
clear you, and then it shall be produced. Give the child into my hands, and I
will do my best to bring you off. If you are saved, your child is saved too; if
you are lost, your child is still saved.” Put the case that this was
done, and that the woman was cleared.”
“I understand you perfectly.”
“But that I make no admissions?”
“That you make no admissions.” And Wemmick repeated, “No
admissions.”
“Put the case, Pip, that passion and the terror of death had a little
shaken the woman’s intellects, and that when she was set at liberty, she
was scared out of the ways of the world, and went to him to be sheltered. Put
the case that he took her in, and that he kept down the old, wild, violent
nature whenever he saw an inkling of its breaking out, by asserting his power
over her in the old way. Do you comprehend the imaginary case?”
“Quite.”
“Put the case that the child grew up, and was married for money. That the
mother was still living. That the father was still living. That the mother and
father, unknown to one another, were dwelling within so many miles, furlongs,
yards if you like, of one another. That the secret was still a secret, except
that you had got wind of it. Put that last case to yourself very
carefully.”
“I do.”
“I ask Wemmick to put it to self very carefully.”
And Wemmick said, “I do.”
“For whose sake would you reveal the secret? For the father’s? I
think he would not be much the better for the mother. For the mother’s? I
think if she had done such a deed she would be safer where she was. For the
daughter’s? I think it would hardly serve her to establish her parentage
for the information of her husband, and to drag her back to disgrace, after an
escape of twenty years, pretty secure to last for life. But add the case that
you had loved her, Pip, and had made her the subject of those ‘poor
dreams’ which have, at one time or another, been in the heads of more men
than you think likely, then I tell you that you had better—and would much
sooner when you had thought well of it—chop off that bandaged left hand
of yours with your bandaged right hand, and then pass the chopper on to Wemmick
there, to cut off too.”
I looked at Wemmick, whose face was very grave. He gravely touched his lips
with his forefinger. I did the same. Mr. Jaggers did the same. “Now,
Wemmick,” said the latter then, resuming his usual manner, “what
item was it you were at when Mr. Pip came in?”
Standing by for a little, while they were at work, I observed that the odd
looks they had cast at one another were repeated several times: with this
difference now, that each of them seemed suspicious, not to say conscious, of
having shown himself in a weak and unprofessional light to the other. For this
reason, I suppose, they were now inflexible with one another; Mr. Jaggers being
highly dictatorial, and Wemmick obstinately justifying himself whenever there
was the smallest point in abeyance for a moment. I had never seen them on such
ill terms; for generally they got on very well indeed together.
But they were both happily relieved by the opportune appearance of Mike, the
client with the fur cap and the habit of wiping his nose on his sleeve, whom I
had seen on the very first day of my appearance within those walls. This
individual, who, either in his own person or in that of some member of his
family, seemed to be always in trouble (which in that place meant Newgate),
called to announce that his eldest daughter was taken up on suspicion of
shoplifting. As he imparted this melancholy circumstance to Wemmick, Mr.
Jaggers standing magisterially before the fire and taking no share in the
proceedings, Mike’s eye happened to twinkle with a tear.
“What are you about?” demanded Wemmick, with the utmost
indignation. “What do you come snivelling here for?”
“I didn’t go to do it, Mr. Wemmick.”
“You did,” said Wemmick. “How dare you? You’re not in a
fit state to come here, if you can’t come here without spluttering like a
bad pen. What do you mean by it?”
“A man can’t help his feelings, Mr. Wemmick,” pleaded Mike.
“His what?” demanded Wemmick, quite savagely. “Say that
again!”
“Now look here my man,” said Mr. Jaggers, advancing a step, and
pointing to the door. “Get out of this office. I’ll have no
feelings here. Get out.”
“It serves you right,” said Wemmick, “Get out.”
So, the unfortunate Mike very humbly withdrew, and Mr. Jaggers and Wemmick
appeared to have re-established their good understanding, and went to work
again with an air of refreshment upon them as if they had just had lunch.
Chapter LII.
From
Little Britain I went, with my check in my pocket, to Miss Skiffins’s
brother, the accountant; and Miss Skiffins’s brother, the accountant,
going straight to Clarriker’s and bringing Clarriker to me, I had the
great satisfaction of concluding that arrangement. It was the only good thing I
had done, and the only completed thing I had done, since I was first apprised
of my great expectations.
Clarriker informing me on that occasion that the affairs of the House were
steadily progressing, that he would now be able to establish a small
branch-house in the East which was much wanted for the extension of the
business, and that Herbert in his new partnership capacity would go out and
take charge of it, I found that I must have prepared for a separation from my
friend, even though my own affairs had been more settled. And now, indeed, I
felt as if my last anchor were loosening its hold, and I should soon be driving
with the winds and waves.
But there was recompense in the joy with which Herbert would come home of a
night and tell me of these changes, little imagining that he told me no news,
and would sketch airy pictures of himself conducting Clara Barley to the land
of the Arabian Nights, and of me going out to join them (with a caravan of
camels, I believe), and of our all going up the Nile and seeing wonders.
Without being sanguine as to my own part in those bright plans, I felt that
Herbert’s way was clearing fast, and that old Bill Barley had but to
stick to his pepper and rum, and his daughter would soon be happily provided
for.
We had now got into the month of March. My left arm, though it presented no bad
symptoms, took, in the natural course, so long to heal that I was still unable
to get a coat on. My right arm was tolerably restored; disfigured, but fairly
serviceable.
On a Monday morning, when Herbert and I were at breakfast, I received the
following letter from Wemmick by the post.
“Walworth. Burn this as soon as read. Early in the week, or say
Wednesday, you might do what you know of, if you felt disposed to try it. Now
burn.”
When I had shown this to Herbert and had put it in the fire—but not
before we had both got it by heart—we considered what to do. For, of
course my being disabled could now be no longer kept out of view.
“I have thought it over again and again,” said Herbert, “and
I think I know a better course than taking a Thames waterman. Take Startop. A
good fellow, a skilled hand, fond of us, and enthusiastic and
honourable.”
I had thought of him more than once.
“But how much would you tell him, Herbert?”
“It is necessary to tell him very little. Let him suppose it a mere
freak, but a secret one, until the morning comes: then let him know that there
is urgent reason for your getting Provis aboard and away. You go with
him?”
“No doubt.”
“Where?”
It had seemed to me, in the many anxious considerations I had given the point,
almost indifferent what port we made for,—Hamburg, Rotterdam,
Antwerp,—the place signified little, so that he was out of England. Any
foreign steamer that fell in our way and would take us up would do. I had
always proposed to myself to get him well down the river in the boat; certainly
well beyond Gravesend, which was a critical place for search or inquiry if
suspicion were afoot. As foreign steamers would leave London at about the time
of high-water, our plan would be to get down the river by a previous ebb-tide,
and lie by in some quiet spot until we could pull off to one. The time when one
would be due where we lay, wherever that might be, could be calculated pretty
nearly, if we made inquiries beforehand.
Herbert assented to all this, and we went out immediately after breakfast to
pursue our investigations. We found that a steamer for Hamburg was likely to
suit our purpose best, and we directed our thoughts chiefly to that vessel. But
we noted down what other foreign steamers would leave London with the same
tide, and we satisfied ourselves that we knew the build and colour of each. We
then separated for a few hours: I, to get at once such passports as were
necessary; Herbert, to see Startop at his lodgings. We both did what we had to
do without any hindrance, and when we met again at one o’clock reported
it done. I, for my part, was prepared with passports; Herbert had seen Startop,
and he was more than ready to join.
Those two should pull a pair of oars, we settled, and I would steer; our charge
would be sitter, and keep quiet; as speed was not our object, we should make
way enough. We arranged that Herbert should not come home to dinner before
going to Mill Pond Bank that evening; that he should not go there at all
to-morrow evening, Tuesday; that he should prepare Provis to come down to some
stairs hard by the house, on Wednesday, when he saw us approach, and not
sooner; that all the arrangements with him should be concluded that Monday
night; and that he should be communicated with no more in any way, until we
took him on board.
These precautions well understood by both of us, I went home.
On opening the outer door of our chambers with my key, I found a letter in the
box, directed to me; a very dirty letter, though not ill-written. It had been
delivered by hand (of course, since I left home), and its contents were
these:—
“If you are not afraid to come to the old marshes to-night or to-morrow
night at nine, and to come to the little sluice-house by the limekiln, you had
better come. If you want information regarding , you
had much better come and tell no one, and lose no time. . Bring this with you.”
I had had load enough upon my mind before the receipt of this strange letter.
What to do now, I could not tell. And the worst was, that I must decide
quickly, or I should miss the afternoon coach, which would take me down in time
for to-night. To-morrow night I could not think of going, for it would be too
close upon the time of the flight. And again, for anything I knew, the
proffered information might have some important bearing on the flight itself.
If I had had ample time for consideration, I believe I should still have gone.
Having hardly any time for consideration,—my watch showing me that the
coach started within half an hour,—I resolved to go. I should certainly
not have gone, but for the reference to my Uncle Provis. That, coming on
Wemmick’s letter and the morning’s busy preparation, turned the
scale.
It is so difficult to become clearly possessed of the contents of almost any
letter, in a violent hurry, that I had to read this mysterious epistle again
twice, before its injunction to me to be secret got mechanically into my mind.
Yielding to it in the same mechanical kind of way, I left a note in pencil for
Herbert, telling him that as I should be so soon going away, I knew not for how
long, I had decided to hurry down and back, to ascertain for myself how Miss
Havisham was faring. I had then barely time to get my great-coat, lock up the
chambers, and make for the coach-office by the short by-ways. If I had taken a
hackney-chariot and gone by the streets, I should have missed my aim; going as
I did, I caught the coach just as it came out of the yard. I was the only
inside passenger, jolting away knee-deep in straw, when I came to myself.
For I really had not been myself since the receipt of the letter; it had so
bewildered me, ensuing on the hurry of the morning. The morning hurry and
flutter had been great; for, long and anxiously as I had waited for Wemmick,
his hint had come like a surprise at last. And now I began to wonder at myself
for being in the coach, and to doubt whether I had sufficient reason for being
there, and to consider whether I should get out presently and go back, and to
argue against ever heeding an anonymous communication, and, in short, to pass
through all those phases of contradiction and indecision to which I suppose
very few hurried people are strangers. Still, the reference to Provis by name
mastered everything. I reasoned as I had reasoned already without knowing
it,—if that be reasoning,—in case any harm should befall him
through my not going, how could I ever forgive myself!
It was dark before we got down, and the journey seemed long and dreary to me,
who could see little of it inside, and who could not go outside in my disabled
state. Avoiding the Blue Boar, I put up at an inn of minor reputation down the
town, and ordered some dinner. While it was preparing, I went to Satis House
and inquired for Miss Havisham; she was still very ill, though considered
something better.
My inn had once been a part of an ancient ecclesiastical house, and I dined in
a little octagonal common-room, like a font. As I was not able to cut my
dinner, the old landlord with a shining bald head did it for me. This bringing
us into conversation, he was so good as to entertain me with my own
story,—of course with the popular feature that Pumblechook was my
earliest benefactor and the founder of my fortunes.
“Do you know the young man?” said I.
“Know him!” repeated the landlord. “Ever since he
was—no height at all.”
“Does he ever come back to this neighbourhood?”
“Ay, he comes back,” said the landlord, “to his great
friends, now and again, and gives the cold shoulder to the man that made
him.”
“What man is that?”
“Him that I speak of,” said the landlord. “Mr.
Pumblechook.”
“Is he ungrateful to no one else?”
“No doubt he would be, if he could,” returned the landlord,
“but he can’t. And why? Because Pumblechook done everything for
him.”
“Does Pumblechook say so?”
“Say so!” replied the landlord. “He han’t no call to
say so.”
“But does he say so?”
“It would turn a man’s blood to white wine winegar to hear him tell
of it, sir,” said the landlord.
I thought, “Yet Joe, dear Joe, never tell of it.
Long-suffering and loving Joe, never complain. Nor you,
sweet-tempered Biddy!”
“Your appetite’s been touched like by your accident,” said
the landlord, glancing at the bandaged arm under my coat. “Try a tenderer
bit.”
“No, thank you,” I replied, turning from the table to brood over
the fire. “I can eat no more. Please take it away.”
I had never been struck at so keenly, for my thanklessness to Joe, as through
the brazen impostor Pumblechook. The falser he, the truer Joe; the meaner he,
the nobler Joe.
My heart was deeply and most deservedly humbled as I mused over the fire for an
hour or more. The striking of the clock aroused me, but not from my dejection
or remorse, and I got up and had my coat fastened round my neck, and went out.
I had previously sought in my pockets for the letter, that I might refer to it
again; but I could not find it, and was uneasy to think that it must have been
dropped in the straw of the coach. I knew very well, however, that the
appointed place was the little sluice-house by the limekiln on the marshes, and
the hour nine. Towards the marshes I now went straight, having no time to
spare.
Chapter LIII.
It was
a dark night, though the full moon rose as I left the enclosed lands, and
passed out upon the marshes. Beyond their dark line there was a ribbon of clear
sky, hardly broad enough to hold the red large moon. In a few minutes she had
ascended out of that clear field, in among the piled mountains of cloud.
There was a melancholy wind, and the marshes were very dismal. A stranger would
have found them insupportable, and even to me they were so oppressive that I
hesitated, half inclined to go back. But I knew them well, and could have found
my way on a far darker night, and had no excuse for returning, being there. So,
having come there against my inclination, I went on against it.
The direction that I took was not that in which my old home lay, nor that in
which we had pursued the convicts. My back was turned towards the distant Hulks
as I walked on, and, though I could see the old lights away on the spits of
sand, I saw them over my shoulder. I knew the limekiln as well as I knew the
old Battery, but they were miles apart; so that, if a light had been burning at
each point that night, there would have been a long strip of the blank horizon
between the two bright specks.
At first, I had to shut some gates after me, and now and then to stand still
while the cattle that were lying in the banked-up pathway arose and blundered
down among the grass and reeds. But after a little while I seemed to have the
whole flats to myself.
It was another half-hour before I drew near to the kiln. The lime was burning
with a sluggish stifling smell, but the fires were made up and left, and no
workmen were visible. Hard by was a small stone-quarry. It lay directly in my
way, and had been worked that day, as I saw by the tools and barrows that were
lying about.
Coming up again to the marsh level out of this excavation,—for the rude
path lay through it,—I saw a light in the old sluice-house. I quickened
my pace, and knocked at the door with my hand. Waiting for some reply, I looked
about me, noticing how the sluice was abandoned and broken, and how the
house—of wood with a tiled roof—would not be proof against the
weather much longer, if it were so even now, and how the mud and ooze were
coated with lime, and how the choking vapour of the kiln crept in a ghostly way
towards me. Still there was no answer, and I knocked again. No answer still,
and I tried the latch.
It rose under my hand, and the door yielded. Looking in, I saw a lighted candle
on a table, a bench, and a mattress on a truckle bedstead. As there was a loft
above, I called, “Is there any one here?” but no voice answered.
Then I looked at my watch, and, finding that it was past nine, called again,
“Is there any one here?” There being still no answer, I went out at
the door, irresolute what to do.
It was beginning to rain fast. Seeing nothing save what I had seen already, I
turned back into the house, and stood just within the shelter of the doorway,
looking out into the night. While I was considering that some one must have
been there lately and must soon be coming back, or the candle would not be
burning, it came into my head to look if the wick were long. I turned round to
do so, and had taken up the candle in my hand, when it was extinguished by some
violent shock; and the next thing I comprehended was, that I had been caught in
a strong running noose, thrown over my head from behind.
“Now,” said a suppressed voice with an oath, “I’ve got
you!”
“What is this?” I cried, struggling. “Who is it? Help, help,
help!”
Not only were my arms pulled close to my sides, but the pressure on my bad arm
caused me exquisite pain. Sometimes, a strong man’s hand, sometimes a
strong man’s breast, was set against my mouth to deaden my cries, and
with a hot breath always close to me, I struggled ineffectually in the dark,
while I was fastened tight to the wall. “And now,” said the
suppressed voice with another oath, “call out again, and I’ll make
short work of you!”
Faint and sick with the pain of my injured arm, bewildered by the surprise, and
yet conscious how easily this threat could be put in execution, I desisted, and
tried to ease my arm were it ever so little. But, it was bound too tight for
that. I felt as if, having been burnt before, it were now being boiled.
The sudden exclusion of the night, and the substitution of black darkness in
its place, warned me that the man had closed a shutter. After groping about for
a little, he found the flint and steel he wanted, and began to strike a light.
I strained my sight upon the sparks that fell among the tinder, and upon which
he breathed and breathed, match in hand, but I could only see his lips, and the
blue point of the match; even those but fitfully. The tinder was damp,—no
wonder there,—and one after another the sparks died out.
The man was in no hurry, and struck again with the flint and steel. As the
sparks fell thick and bright about him, I could see his hands, and touches of
his face, and could make out that he was seated and bending over the table; but
nothing more. Presently I saw his blue lips again, breathing on the tinder, and
then a flare of light flashed up, and showed me Orlick.
Whom I had looked for, I don’t know. I had not looked for him. Seeing
him, I felt that I was in a dangerous strait indeed, and I kept my eyes upon
him.
He lighted the candle from the flaring match with great deliberation, and
dropped the match, and trod it out. Then he put the candle away from him on the
table, so that he could see me, and sat with his arms folded on the table and
looked at me. I made out that I was fastened to a stout perpendicular ladder a
few inches from the wall,—a fixture there,—the means of ascent to
the loft above.
“Now,” said he, when we had surveyed one another for some time,
“I’ve got you.”
“Unbind me. Let me go!”
“Ah!” he returned, “’ll let you go. I’ll
let you go to the moon, I’ll let you go to the stars. All in good
time.”
“Why have you lured me here?”
“Don’t you know?” said he, with a deadly look.
“Why have you set upon me in the dark?”
“Because I mean to do it all myself. One keeps a secret better than two.
O you enemy, you enemy!”
His enjoyment of the spectacle I furnished, as he sat with his arms folded on
the table, shaking his head at me and hugging himself, had a malignity in it
that made me tremble. As I watched him in silence, he put his hand into the
corner at his side, and took up a gun with a brass-bound stock.
“Do you know this?” said he, making as if he would take aim at me.
“Do you know where you saw it afore? Speak, wolf!”
“Yes,” I answered.
“You cost me that place. You did. Speak!”
“What else could I do?”
“You did that, and that would be enough, without more. How dared you to
come betwixt me and a young woman I liked?”
“When did I?”
“When didn’t you? It was you as always give Old Orlick a bad name
to her.”
“You gave it to yourself; you gained it for yourself. I could have done
you no harm, if you had done yourself none.”
“You’re a liar. And you’ll take any pains, and spend any
money, to drive me out of this country, will you?” said he, repeating my
words to Biddy in the last interview I had with her. “Now, I’ll
tell you a piece of information. It was never so well worth your while to get
me out of this country as it is to-night. Ah! If it was all your money twenty
times told, to the last brass farden!” As he shook his heavy hand at me,
with his mouth snarling like a tiger’s, I felt that it was true.
“What are you going to do to me?”
“I’m a-going,” said he, bringing his fist down upon the table
with a heavy blow, and rising as the blow fell to give it greater
force,—“I’m a-going to have your life!”
He leaned forward staring at me, slowly unclenched his hand and drew it across
his mouth as if his mouth watered for me, and sat down again.
“You was always in Old Orlick’s way since ever you was a child. You
goes out of his way this present night. He’ll have no more on you.
You’re dead.”
I felt that I had come to the brink of my grave. For a moment I looked wildly
round my trap for any chance of escape; but there was none.
“More than that,” said he, folding his arms on the table again,
“I won’t have a rag of you, I won’t have a bone of you, left
on earth. I’ll put your body in the kiln,—I’d carry two such
to it, on my shoulders—and, let people suppose what they may of you,
they shall never know nothing.”
My mind, with inconceivable rapidity followed out all the consequences of such
a death. Estella’s father would believe I had deserted him, would be
taken, would die accusing me; even Herbert would doubt me, when he compared the
letter I had left for him with the fact that I had called at Miss
Havisham’s gate for only a moment; Joe and Biddy would never know how
sorry I had been that night, none would ever know what I had suffered, how true
I had meant to be, what an agony I had passed through. The death close before
me was terrible, but far more terrible than death was the dread of being
misremembered after death. And so quick were my thoughts, that I saw myself
despised by unborn generations,—Estella’s children, and their
children,—while the wretch’s words were yet on his lips.
“Now, wolf,” said he, “afore I kill you like any other
beast,—which is wot I mean to do and wot I have tied you up
for,—I’ll have a good look at you and a good goad at you. O you
enemy!”
It had passed through my thoughts to cry out for help again; though few could
know better than I, the solitary nature of the spot, and the hopelessness of
aid. But as he sat gloating over me, I was supported by a scornful detestation
of him that sealed my lips. Above all things, I resolved that I would not
entreat him, and that I would die making some last poor resistance to him.
Softened as my thoughts of all the rest of men were in that dire extremity;
humbly beseeching pardon, as I did, of Heaven; melted at heart, as I was, by
the thought that I had taken no farewell, and never now could take farewell of
those who were dear to me, or could explain myself to them, or ask for their
compassion on my miserable errors,—still, if I could have killed him,
even in dying, I would have done it.
He had been drinking, and his eyes were red and bloodshot. Around his neck was
slung a tin bottle, as I had often seen his meat and drink slung about him in
other days. He brought the bottle to his lips, and took a fiery drink from it;
and I smelt the strong spirits that I saw flash into his face.
“Wolf!” said he, folding his arms again, “Old Orlick’s
a-going to tell you somethink. It was you as did for your shrew sister.”
Again my mind, with its former inconceivable rapidity, had exhausted the whole
subject of the attack upon my sister, her illness, and her death, before his
slow and hesitating speech had formed these words.
“It was you, villain,” said I.
“I tell you it was your doing,—I tell you it was done through
you,” he retorted, catching up the gun, and making a blow with the stock
at the vacant air between us. “I come upon her from behind, as I come
upon you to-night. giv’ it her! I left her for dead, and if
there had been a limekiln as nigh her as there is now nigh you, she
shouldn’t have come to life again. But it warn’t Old Orlick as did
it; it was you. You was favoured, and he was bullied and beat. Old Orlick
bullied and beat, eh? Now you pays for it. You done it; now you pays for
it.”
He drank again, and became more ferocious. I saw by his tilting of the bottle
that there was no great quantity left in it. I distinctly understood that he
was working himself up with its contents to make an end of me. I knew that
every drop it held was a drop of my life. I knew that when I was changed into a
part of the vapour that had crept towards me but a little while before, like my
own warning ghost, he would do as he had done in my sister’s
case,—make all haste to the town, and be seen slouching about there
drinking at the alehouses. My rapid mind pursued him to the town, made a
picture of the street with him in it, and contrasted its lights and life with
the lonely marsh and the white vapour creeping over it, into which I should
have dissolved.
It was not only that I could have summed up years and years and years while he
said a dozen words, but that what he did say presented pictures to me, and not
mere words. In the excited and exalted state of my brain, I could not think of
a place without seeing it, or of persons without seeing them. It is impossible
to overstate the vividness of these images, and yet I was so intent, all the
time, upon him himself,—who would not be intent on the tiger crouching to
spring!—that I knew of the slightest action of his fingers.
When he had drunk this second time, he rose from the bench on which he sat, and
pushed the table aside. Then, he took up the candle, and, shading it with his
murderous hand so as to throw its light on me, stood before me, looking at me
and enjoying the sight.
“Wolf, I’ll tell you something more. It was Old Orlick as you
tumbled over on your stairs that night.”
I saw the staircase with its extinguished lamps. I saw the shadows of the heavy
stair-rails, thrown by the watchman’s lantern on the wall. I saw the
rooms that I was never to see again; here, a door half open; there, a door
closed; all the articles of furniture around.
“And why was Old Orlick there? I’ll tell you something more, wolf.
You and her pretty well hunted me out of this country, so far as
getting a easy living in it goes, and I’ve took up with new companions,
and new masters. Some of ’em writes my letters when I wants ’em
wrote,—do you mind?—writes my letters, wolf! They writes fifty
hands; they’re not like sneaking you, as writes but one. I’ve had a
firm mind and a firm will to have your life, since you was down here at your
sister’s burying. I han’t seen a way to get you safe, and
I’ve looked arter you to know your ins and outs. For, says Old Orlick to
himself, ‘Somehow or another I’ll have him!’ What! When I
looks for you, I finds your uncle Provis, eh?”
Mill Pond Bank, and Chinks’s Basin, and the Old Green Copper Rope-walk,
all so clear and plain! Provis in his rooms, the signal whose use was over,
pretty Clara, the good motherly woman, old Bill Barley on his back, all
drifting by, as on the swift stream of my life fast running out to sea!
“ with a uncle too! Why, I know’d you at Gargery’s
when you was so small a wolf that I could have took your weazen betwixt this
finger and thumb and chucked you away dead (as I’d thoughts o’
doing, odd times, when I see you loitering amongst the pollards on a Sunday),
and you hadn’t found no uncles then. No, not you! But when Old Orlick
come for to hear that your uncle Provis had most like wore the leg-iron wot Old
Orlick had picked up, filed asunder, on these meshes ever so many year ago, and
wot he kep by him till he dropped your sister with it, like a bullock, as he
means to drop you—hey?—when he come for to hear
that—hey?”
In his savage taunting, he flared the candle so close at me that I turned my
face aside to save it from the flame.
“Ah!” he cried, laughing, after doing it again, “the burnt
child dreads the fire! Old Orlick knowed you was burnt, Old Orlick knowed you
was smuggling your uncle Provis away, Old Orlick’s a match for you and
know’d you’d come to-night! Now I’ll tell you something more,
wolf, and this ends it. There’s them that’s as good a match for
your uncle Provis as Old Orlick has been for you. Let him ’ware them,
when he’s lost his nevvy! Let him ’ware them, when no man
can’t find a rag of his dear relation’s clothes, nor yet a bone of
his body. There’s them that can’t and that won’t have
Magwitch,—yes, know the name!—alive in the same land with
them, and that’s had such sure information of him when he was alive in
another land, as that he couldn’t and shouldn’t leave it unbeknown
and put them in danger. P’raps it’s them that writes fifty hands,
and that’s not like sneaking you as writes but one. ’Ware
Compeyson, Magwitch, and the gallows!”
He flared the candle at me again, smoking my face and hair, and for an instant
blinding me, and turned his powerful back as he replaced the light on the
table. I had thought a prayer, and had been with Joe and Biddy and Herbert,
before he turned towards me again.
There was a clear space of a few feet between the table and the opposite wall.
Within this space, he now slouched backwards and forwards. His great strength
seemed to sit stronger upon him than ever before, as he did this with his hands
hanging loose and heavy at his sides, and with his eyes scowling at me. I had
no grain of hope left. Wild as my inward hurry was, and wonderful the force of
the pictures that rushed by me instead of thoughts, I could yet clearly
understand that, unless he had resolved that I was within a few moments of
surely perishing out of all human knowledge, he would never have told me what
he had told.
Of a sudden, he stopped, took the cork out of his bottle, and tossed it away.
Light as it was, I heard it fall like a plummet. He swallowed slowly, tilting
up the bottle by little and little, and now he looked at me no more. The last
few drops of liquor he poured into the palm of his hand, and licked up. Then,
with a sudden hurry of violence and swearing horribly, he threw the bottle from
him, and stooped; and I saw in his hand a stone-hammer with a long heavy
handle.
The resolution I had made did not desert me, for, without uttering one vain
word of appeal to him, I shouted out with all my might, and struggled with all
my might. It was only my head and my legs that I could move, but to that extent
I struggled with all the force, until then unknown, that was within me. In the
same instant I heard responsive shouts, saw figures and a gleam of light dash
in at the door, heard voices and tumult, and saw Orlick emerge from a struggle
of men, as if it were tumbling water, clear the table at a leap, and fly out
into the night.
After a blank, I found that I was lying unbound, on the floor, in the same
place, with my head on some one’s knee. My eyes were fixed on the ladder
against the wall, when I came to myself,—had opened on it before my mind
saw it,—and thus as I recovered consciousness, I knew that I was in the
place where I had lost it.
Too indifferent at first, even to look round and ascertain who supported me, I
was lying looking at the ladder, when there came between me and it a face. The
face of Trabb’s boy!
“I think he’s all right!” said Trabb’s boy, in a sober
voice; “but ain’t he just pale though!”
At these words, the face of him who supported me looked over into mine, and I
saw my supporter to be—
“Herbert! Great Heaven!”
“Softly,” said Herbert. “Gently, Handel. Don’t be too
eager.”
“And our old comrade, Startop!” I cried, as he too bent over me.
“Remember what he is going to assist us in,” said Herbert,
“and be calm.”
The allusion made me spring up; though I dropped again from the pain in my arm.
“The time has not gone by, Herbert, has it? What night is to-night? How
long have I been here?” For, I had a strange and strong misgiving that I
had been lying there a long time—a day and a night,—two days and
nights,—more.
“The time has not gone by. It is still Monday night.”
“Thank God!”
“And you have all to-morrow, Tuesday, to rest in,” said Herbert.
“But you can’t help groaning, my dear Handel. What hurt have you
got? Can you stand?”
“Yes, yes,” said I, “I can walk. I have no hurt but in this
throbbing arm.”
They laid it bare, and did what they could. It was violently swollen and
inflamed, and I could scarcely endure to have it touched. But, they tore up
their handkerchiefs to make fresh bandages, and carefully replaced it in the
sling, until we could get to the town and obtain some cooling lotion to put
upon it. In a little while we had shut the door of the dark and empty
sluice-house, and were passing through the quarry on our way back.
Trabb’s boy—Trabb’s overgrown young man now—went before
us with a lantern, which was the light I had seen come in at the door. But, the
moon was a good two hours higher than when I had last seen the sky, and the
night, though rainy, was much lighter. The white vapour of the kiln was passing
from us as we went by, and as I had thought a prayer before, I thought a
thanksgiving now.
Entreating Herbert to tell me how he had come to my rescue,—which at
first he had flatly refused to do, but had insisted on my remaining
quiet,—I learnt that I had in my hurry dropped the letter, open, in our
chambers, where he, coming home to bring with him Startop whom he had met in
the street on his way to me, found it, very soon after I was gone. Its tone
made him uneasy, and the more so because of the inconsistency between it and
the hasty letter I had left for him. His uneasiness increasing instead of
subsiding, after a quarter of an hour’s consideration, he set off for the
coach-office with Startop, who volunteered his company, to make inquiry when
the next coach went down. Finding that the afternoon coach was gone, and
finding that his uneasiness grew into positive alarm, as obstacles came in his
way, he resolved to follow in a post-chaise. So he and Startop arrived at the
Blue Boar, fully expecting there to find me, or tidings of me; but, finding
neither, went on to Miss Havisham’s, where they lost me. Hereupon they
went back to the hotel (doubtless at about the time when I was hearing the
popular local version of my own story) to refresh themselves and to get some
one to guide them out upon the marshes. Among the loungers under the
Boar’s archway happened to be Trabb’s Boy,—true to his
ancient habit of happening to be everywhere where he had no business,—and
Trabb’s boy had seen me passing from Miss Havisham’s in the
direction of my dining-place. Thus Trabb’s boy became their guide, and
with him they went out to the sluice-house, though by the town way to the
marshes, which I had avoided. Now, as they went along, Herbert reflected, that
I might, after all, have been brought there on some genuine and serviceable
errand tending to Provis’s safety, and, bethinking himself that in that
case interruption must be mischievous, left his guide and Startop on the edge
of the quarry, and went on by himself, and stole round the house two or three
times, endeavouring to ascertain whether all was right within. As he could hear
nothing but indistinct sounds of one deep rough voice (this was while my mind
was so busy), he even at last began to doubt whether I was there, when suddenly
I cried out loudly, and he answered the cries, and rushed in, closely followed
by the other two.
When I told Herbert what had passed within the house, he was for our
immediately going before a magistrate in the town, late at night as it was, and
getting out a warrant. But, I had already considered that such a course, by
detaining us there, or binding us to come back, might be fatal to Provis. There
was no gainsaying this difficulty, and we relinquished all thoughts of pursuing
Orlick at that time. For the present, under the circumstances, we deemed it
prudent to make rather light of the matter to Trabb’s boy; who, I am
convinced, would have been much affected by disappointment, if he had known
that his intervention saved me from the limekiln. Not that Trabb’s boy
was of a malignant nature, but that he had too much spare vivacity, and that it
was in his constitution to want variety and excitement at anybody’s
expense. When we parted, I presented him with two guineas (which seemed to meet
his views), and told him that I was sorry ever to have had an ill opinion of
him (which made no impression on him at all).
Wednesday being so close upon us, we determined to go back to London that
night, three in the post-chaise; the rather, as we should then be clear away
before the night’s adventure began to be talked of. Herbert got a large
bottle of stuff for my arm; and by dint of having this stuff dropped over it
all the night through, I was just able to bear its pain on the journey. It was
daylight when we reached the Temple, and I went at once to bed, and lay in bed
all day.
My terror, as I lay there, of falling ill, and being unfitted for to-morrow,
was so besetting, that I wonder it did not disable me of itself. It would have
done so, pretty surely, in conjunction with the mental wear and tear I had
suffered, but for the unnatural strain upon me that to-morrow was. So anxiously
looked forward to, charged with such consequences, its results so impenetrably
hidden, though so near.
No precaution could have been more obvious than our refraining from
communication with him that day; yet this again increased my restlessness. I
started at every footstep and every sound, believing that he was discovered and
taken, and this was the messenger to tell me so. I persuaded myself that I knew
he was taken; that there was something more upon my mind than a fear or a
presentiment; that the fact had occurred, and I had a mysterious knowledge of
it. As the days wore on, and no ill news came, as the day closed in and
darkness fell, my overshadowing dread of being disabled by illness before
to-morrow morning altogether mastered me. My burning arm throbbed, and my
burning head throbbed, and I fancied I was beginning to wander. I counted up to
high numbers, to make sure of myself, and repeated passages that I knew in
prose and verse. It happened sometimes that in the mere escape of a fatigued
mind, I dozed for some moments or forgot; then I would say to myself with a
start, “Now it has come, and I am turning delirious!”
They kept me very quiet all day, and kept my arm constantly dressed, and gave
me cooling drinks. Whenever I fell asleep, I awoke with the notion I had had in
the sluice-house, that a long time had elapsed and the opportunity to save him
was gone. About midnight I got out of bed and went to Herbert, with the
conviction that I had been asleep for four-and-twenty hours, and that Wednesday
was past. It was the last self-exhausting effort of my fretfulness, for after
that I slept soundly.
Wednesday morning was dawning when I looked out of window. The winking lights
upon the bridges were already pale, the coming sun was like a marsh of fire on
the horizon. The river, still dark and mysterious, was spanned by bridges that
were turning coldly grey, with here and there at top a warm touch from the
burning in the sky. As I looked along the clustered roofs, with church-towers
and spires shooting into the unusually clear air, the sun rose up, and a veil
seemed to be drawn from the river, and millions of sparkles burst out upon its
waters. From me too, a veil seemed to be drawn, and I felt strong and well.
Herbert lay asleep in his bed, and our old fellow-student lay asleep on the
sofa. I could not dress myself without help; but I made up the fire, which was
still burning, and got some coffee ready for them. In good time they too
started up strong and well, and we admitted the sharp morning air at the
windows, and looked at the tide that was still flowing towards us.
“When it turns at nine o’clock,” said Herbert, cheerfully,
“look out for us, and stand ready, you over there at Mill Pond
Bank!”
Chapter LIV.
It was
one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when
it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade. We had our pea-coats with
us, and I took a bag. Of all my worldly possessions I took no more than the few
necessaries that filled the bag. Where I might go, what I might do, or when I
might return, were questions utterly unknown to me; nor did I vex my mind with
them, for it was wholly set on Provis’s safety. I only wondered for the
passing moment, as I stopped at the door and looked back, under what altered
circumstances I should next see those rooms, if ever.
We loitered down to the Temple stairs, and stood loitering there, as if we were
not quite decided to go upon the water at all. Of course, I had taken care that
the boat should be ready and everything in order. After a little show of
indecision, which there were none to see but the two or three amphibious
creatures belonging to our Temple stairs, we went on board and cast off;
Herbert in the bow, I steering. It was then about high-water,—half-past
eight.
Our plan was this. The tide, beginning to run down at nine, and being with us
until three, we intended still to creep on after it had turned, and row against
it until dark. We should then be well in those long reaches below Gravesend,
between Kent and Essex, where the river is broad and solitary, where the
water-side inhabitants are very few, and where lone public-houses are scattered
here and there, of which we could choose one for a resting-place. There, we
meant to lie by all night. The steamer for Hamburg and the steamer for
Rotterdam would start from London at about nine on Thursday morning. We should
know at what time to expect them, according to where we were, and would hail
the first; so that, if by any accident we were not taken abroad, we should have
another chance. We knew the distinguishing marks of each vessel.
The relief of being at last engaged in the execution of the purpose was so
great to me that I felt it difficult to realise the condition in which I had
been a few hours before. The crisp air, the sunlight, the movement on the
river, and the moving river itself,—the road that ran with us, seeming to
sympathise with us, animate us, and encourage us on,—freshened me with
new hope. I felt mortified to be of so little use in the boat; but, there were
few better oarsmen than my two friends, and they rowed with a steady stroke
that was to last all day.
At that time, the steam-traffic on the Thames was far below its present extent,
and watermen’s boats were far more numerous. Of barges, sailing colliers,
and coasting-traders, there were perhaps, as many as now; but of steam-ships,
great and small, not a tithe or a twentieth part so many. Early as it was,
there were plenty of scullers going here and there that morning, and plenty of
barges dropping down with the tide; the navigation of the river between
bridges, in an open boat, was a much easier and commoner matter in those days
than it is in these; and we went ahead among many skiffs and wherries briskly.
Old London Bridge was soon passed, and old Billingsgate Market with its
oyster-boats and Dutchmen, and the White Tower and Traitor’s Gate, and we
were in among the tiers of shipping. Here were the Leith, Aberdeen, and Glasgow
steamers, loading and unloading goods, and looking immensely high out of the
water as we passed alongside; here, were colliers by the score and score, with
the coal-whippers plunging off stages on deck, as counterweights to measures of
coal swinging up, which were then rattled over the side into barges; here, at
her moorings was to-morrow’s steamer for Rotterdam, of which we took good
notice; and here to-morrow’s for Hamburg, under whose bowsprit we
crossed. And now I, sitting in the stern, could see, with a faster beating
heart, Mill Pond Bank and Mill Pond stairs.
“Is he there?” said Herbert.
“Not yet.”
“Right! He was not to come down till he saw us. Can you see his
signal?”
“Not well from here; but I think I see it.—Now I see him! Pull
both. Easy, Herbert. Oars!”
We touched the stairs lightly for a single moment, and he was on board, and we
were off again. He had a boat-cloak with him, and a black canvas bag; and he
looked as like a river-pilot as my heart could have wished.
“Dear boy!” he said, putting his arm on my shoulder, as he took his
seat. “Faithful dear boy, well done. Thankye, thankye!”
Again among the tiers of shipping, in and out, avoiding rusty chain-cables
frayed hempen hawsers and bobbing buoys, sinking for the moment floating broken
baskets, scattering floating chips of wood and shaving, cleaving floating scum
of coal, in and out, under the figure-head of the
making a speech to the winds (as is done by many Johns), and the with a firm formality of bosom and her knobby eyes starting two
inches out of her head; in and out, hammers going in ship-builders’
yards, saws going at timber, clashing engines going at things unknown, pumps
going in leaky ships, capstans going, ships going out to sea, and
unintelligible sea-creatures roaring curses over the bulwarks at respondent
lightermen, in and out,—out at last upon the clearer river, where the
ships’ boys might take their fenders in, no longer fishing in troubled
waters with them over the side, and where the festooned sails might fly out to
the wind.
At the stairs where we had taken him abroad, and ever since, I had looked
warily for any token of our being suspected. I had seen none. We certainly had
not been, and at that time as certainly we were not either attended or followed
by any boat. If we had been waited on by any boat, I should have run in to
shore, and have obliged her to go on, or to make her purpose evident. But we
held our own without any appearance of molestation.
He had his boat-cloak on him, and looked, as I have said, a natural part of the
scene. It was remarkable (but perhaps the wretched life he had led accounted
for it) that he was the least anxious of any of us. He was not indifferent, for
he told me that he hoped to live to see his gentleman one of the best of
gentlemen in a foreign country; he was not disposed to be passive or resigned,
as I understood it; but he had no notion of meeting danger half way. When it
came upon him, he confronted it, but it must come before he troubled himself.
“If you knowed, dear boy,” he said to me, “what it is to sit
here alonger my dear boy and have my smoke, arter having been day by day
betwixt four walls, you’d envy me. But you don’t know what it
is.”
“I think I know the delights of freedom,” I answered.
“Ah,” said he, shaking his head gravely. “But you don’t
know it equal to me. You must have been under lock and key, dear boy, to know
it equal to me,—but I ain’t a-going to be low.”
It occurred to me as inconsistent, that, for any mastering idea, he should have
endangered his freedom, and even his life. But I reflected that perhaps freedom
without danger was too much apart from all the habit of his existence to be to
him what it would be to another man. I was not far out, since he said, after
smoking a little:—
“You see, dear boy, when I was over yonder, t’other side the world,
I was always a looking to this side; and it come flat to be there, for all I
was a growing rich. Everybody knowed Magwitch, and Magwitch could come, and
Magwitch could go, and nobody’s head would be troubled about him. They
ain’t so easy concerning me here, dear boy,—wouldn’t be,
leastwise, if they knowed where I was.”
“If all goes well,” said I, “you will be perfectly free and
safe again within a few hours.”
“Well,” he returned, drawing a long breath, “I hope
so.”
“And think so?”
He dipped his hand in the water over the boat’s gunwale, and said,
smiling with that softened air upon him which was not new to me:—
“Ay, I s’pose I think so, dear boy. We’d be puzzled to be
more quiet and easy-going than we are at present. But—it’s a
flowing so soft and pleasant through the water, p’raps, as makes me think
it—I was a thinking through my smoke just then, that we can no more see
to the bottom of the next few hours than we can see to the bottom of this river
what I catches hold of. Nor yet we can’t no more hold their tide than I
can hold this. And it’s run through my fingers and gone, you see!”
holding up his dripping hand.
“But for your face I should think you were a little despondent,”
said I.
“Not a bit on it, dear boy! It comes of flowing on so quiet, and of that
there rippling at the boat’s head making a sort of a Sunday tune. Maybe
I’m a growing a trifle old besides.”
He put his pipe back in his mouth with an undisturbed expression of face, and
sat as composed and contented as if we were already out of England. Yet he was
as submissive to a word of advice as if he had been in constant terror; for,
when we ran ashore to get some bottles of beer into the boat, and he was
stepping out, I hinted that I thought he would be safest where he was, and he
said. “Do you, dear boy?” and quietly sat down again.
The air felt cold upon the river, but it was a bright day, and the sunshine was
very cheering. The tide ran strong, I took care to lose none of it, and our
steady stroke carried us on thoroughly well. By imperceptible degrees, as the
tide ran out, we lost more and more of the nearer woods and hills, and dropped
lower and lower between the muddy banks, but the tide was yet with us when we
were off Gravesend. As our charge was wrapped in his cloak, I purposely passed
within a boat or two’s length of the floating Custom House, and so out to
catch the stream, alongside of two emigrant ships, and under the bows of a
large transport with troops on the forecastle looking down at us. And soon the
tide began to slacken, and the craft lying at anchor to swing, and presently
they had all swung round, and the ships that were taking advantage of the new
tide to get up to the Pool began to crowd upon us in a fleet, and we kept under
the shore, as much out of the strength of the tide now as we could, standing
carefully off from low shallows and mudbanks.
Our oarsmen were so fresh, by dint of having occasionally let her drive with
the tide for a minute or two, that a quarter of an hour’s rest proved
full as much as they wanted. We got ashore among some slippery stones while we
ate and drank what we had with us, and looked about. It was like my own marsh
country, flat and monotonous, and with a dim horizon; while the winding river
turned and turned, and the great floating buoys upon it turned and turned, and
everything else seemed stranded and still. For now the last of the fleet of
ships was round the last low point we had headed; and the last green barge,
straw-laden, with a brown sail, had followed; and some ballast-lighters, shaped
like a child’s first rude imitation of a boat, lay low in the mud; and a
little squat shoal-lighthouse on open piles stood crippled in the mud on stilts
and crutches; and slimy stakes stuck out of the mud, and slimy stones stuck out
of the mud, and red landmarks and tidemarks stuck out of the mud, and an old
landing-stage and an old roofless building slipped into the mud, and all about
us was stagnation and mud.
We pushed off again, and made what way we could. It was much harder work now,
but Herbert and Startop persevered, and rowed and rowed and rowed until the sun
went down. By that time the river had lifted us a little, so that we could see
above the bank. There was the red sun, on the low level of the shore, in a
purple haze, fast deepening into black; and there was the solitary flat marsh;
and far away there were the rising grounds, between which and us there seemed
to be no life, save here and there in the foreground a melancholy gull.
As the night was fast falling, and as the moon, being past the full, would not
rise early, we held a little council; a short one, for clearly our course was
to lie by at the first lonely tavern we could find. So, they plied their oars
once more, and I looked out for anything like a house. Thus we held on,
speaking little, for four or five dull miles. It was very cold, and, a collier
coming by us, with her galley-fire smoking and flaring, looked like a
comfortable home. The night was as dark by this time as it would be until
morning; and what light we had, seemed to come more from the river than the
sky, as the oars in their dipping struck at a few reflected stars.
At this dismal time we were evidently all possessed by the idea that we were
followed. As the tide made, it flapped heavily at irregular intervals against
the shore; and whenever such a sound came, one or other of us was sure to
start, and look in that direction. Here and there, the set of the current had
worn down the bank into a little creek, and we were all suspicious of such
places, and eyed them nervously. Sometimes, “What was that ripple?”
one of us would say in a low voice. Or another, “Is that a boat
yonder?” And afterwards we would fall into a dead silence, and I would
sit impatiently thinking with what an unusual amount of noise the oars worked
in the thowels.
At length we descried a light and a roof, and presently afterwards ran
alongside a little causeway made of stones that had been picked up hard by.
Leaving the rest in the boat, I stepped ashore, and found the light to be in a
window of a public-house. It was a dirty place enough, and I dare say not
unknown to smuggling adventurers; but there was a good fire in the kitchen, and
there were eggs and bacon to eat, and various liquors to drink. Also, there
were two double-bedded rooms,—“such as they were,” the
landlord said. No other company was in the house than the landlord, his wife,
and a grizzled male creature, the “Jack” of the little causeway,
who was as slimy and smeary as if he had been low-water mark too.
With this assistant, I went down to the boat again, and we all came ashore, and
brought out the oars, and rudder and boat-hook, and all else, and hauled her up
for the night. We made a very good meal by the kitchen fire, and then
apportioned the bedrooms: Herbert and Startop were to occupy one; I and our
charge the other. We found the air as carefully excluded from both, as if air
were fatal to life; and there were more dirty clothes and bandboxes under the
beds than I should have thought the family possessed. But we considered
ourselves well off, notwithstanding, for a more solitary place we could not
have found.
While we were comforting ourselves by the fire after our meal, the
Jack—who was sitting in a corner, and who had a bloated pair of shoes on,
which he had exhibited while we were eating our eggs and bacon, as interesting
relics that he had taken a few days ago from the feet of a drowned seaman
washed ashore—asked me if we had seen a four-oared galley going up with
the tide? When I told him No, he said she must have gone down then, and yet she
“took up too,” when she left there.
“They must ha’ thought better on’t for some reason or
another,” said the Jack, “and gone down.”
“A four-oared galley, did you say?” said I.
“A four,” said the Jack, “and two sitters.”
“Did they come ashore here?”
“They put in with a stone two-gallon jar for some beer. I’d
ha’ been glad to pison the beer myself,” said the Jack, “or
put some rattling physic in it.”
“Why?”
“ know why,” said the Jack. He spoke in a slushy voice, as
if much mud had washed into his throat.
“He thinks,” said the landlord, a weakly meditative man with a pale
eye, who seemed to rely greatly on his Jack,—“he thinks they was,
what they wasn’t.”
“ knows what I thinks,” observed the Jack.
“ thinks Custom ’Us, Jack?” said the landlord.
“I do,” said the Jack.
“Then you’re wrong, Jack.”
“A I!”
In the infinite meaning of his reply and his boundless confidence in his views,
the Jack took one of his bloated shoes off, looked into it, knocked a few
stones out of it on the kitchen floor, and put it on again. He did this with
the air of a Jack who was so right that he could afford to do anything.
“Why, what do you make out that they done with their buttons then,
Jack?” asked the landlord, vacillating weakly.
“Done with their buttons?” returned the Jack. “Chucked
’em overboard. Swallered ’em. Sowed ’em, to come up small
salad. Done with their buttons!”
“Don’t be cheeky, Jack,” remonstrated the landlord, in a
melancholy and pathetic way.
“A Custom ’Us officer knows what to do with his Buttons,”
said the Jack, repeating the obnoxious word with the greatest contempt,
“when they comes betwixt him and his own light. A four and two sitters
don’t go hanging and hovering, up with one tide and down with another,
and both with and against another, without there being Custom ’Us at the
bottom of it.” Saying which he went out in disdain; and the landlord,
having no one to reply upon, found it impracticable to pursue the subject.
This dialogue made us all uneasy, and me very uneasy. The dismal wind was
muttering round the house, the tide was flapping at the shore, and I had a
feeling that we were caged and threatened. A four-oared galley hovering about
in so unusual a way as to attract this notice was an ugly circumstance that I
could not get rid of. When I had induced Provis to go up to bed, I went outside
with my two companions (Startop by this time knew the state of the case), and
held another council. Whether we should remain at the house until near the
steamer’s time, which would be about one in the afternoon, or whether we
should put off early in the morning, was the question we discussed. On the
whole we deemed it the better course to lie where we were, until within an hour
or so of the steamer’s time, and then to get out in her track, and drift
easily with the tide. Having settled to do this, we returned into the house and
went to bed.
I lay down with the greater part of my clothes on, and slept well for a few
hours. When I awoke, the wind had risen, and the sign of the house (the Ship)
was creaking and banging about, with noises that startled me. Rising softly,
for my charge lay fast asleep, I looked out of the window. It commanded the
causeway where we had hauled up our boat, and, as my eyes adapted themselves to
the light of the clouded moon, I saw two men looking into her. They passed by
under the window, looking at nothing else, and they did not go down to the
landing-place which I could discern to be empty, but struck across the marsh in
the direction of the Nore.
My first impulse was to call up Herbert, and show him the two men going away.
But reflecting, before I got into his room, which was at the back of the house
and adjoined mine, that he and Startop had had a harder day than I, and were
fatigued, I forbore. Going back to my window, I could see the two men moving
over the marsh. In that light, however, I soon lost them, and, feeling very
cold, lay down to think of the matter, and fell asleep again.
We were up early. As we walked to and fro, all four together, before breakfast,
I deemed it right to recount what I had seen. Again our charge was the least
anxious of the party. It was very likely that the men belonged to the Custom
House, he said quietly, and that they had no thought of us. I tried to persuade
myself that it was so,—as, indeed, it might easily be. However, I
proposed that he and I should walk away together to a distant point we could
see, and that the boat should take us aboard there, or as near there as might
prove feasible, at about noon. This being considered a good precaution, soon
after breakfast he and I set forth, without saying anything at the tavern.
He smoked his pipe as we went along, and sometimes stopped to clap me on the
shoulder. One would have supposed that it was I who was in danger, not he, and
that he was reassuring me. We spoke very little. As we approached the point, I
begged him to remain in a sheltered place, while I went on to reconnoitre; for
it was towards it that the men had passed in the night. He complied, and I went
on alone. There was no boat off the point, nor any boat drawn up anywhere near
it, nor were there any signs of the men having embarked there. But, to be sure,
the tide was high, and there might have been some footprints under water.
When he looked out from his shelter in the distance, and saw that I waved my
hat to him to come up, he rejoined me, and there we waited; sometimes lying on
the bank, wrapped in our coats, and sometimes moving about to warm ourselves,
until we saw our boat coming round. We got aboard easily, and rowed out into
the track of the steamer. By that time it wanted but ten minutes of one
o’clock, and we began to look out for her smoke.
But, it was half-past one before we saw her smoke, and soon afterwards we saw
behind it the smoke of another steamer. As they were coming on at full speed,
we got the two bags ready, and took that opportunity of saying good-bye to
Herbert and Startop. We had all shaken hands cordially, and neither
Herbert’s eyes nor mine were quite dry, when I saw a four-oared galley
shoot out from under the bank but a little way ahead of us, and row out into
the same track.
A stretch of shore had been as yet between us and the steamer’s smoke, by
reason of the bend and wind of the river; but now she was visible, coming head
on. I called to Herbert and Startop to keep before the tide, that she might see
us lying by for her, and I adjured Provis to sit quite still, wrapped in his
cloak. He answered cheerily, “Trust to me, dear boy,” and sat like
a statue. Meantime the galley, which was very skilfully handled, had crossed
us, let us come up with her, and fallen alongside. Leaving just room enough for
the play of the oars, she kept alongside, drifting when we drifted, and pulling
a stroke or two when we pulled. Of the two sitters one held the rudder-lines,
and looked at us attentively,—as did all the rowers; the other sitter was
wrapped up, much as Provis was, and seemed to shrink, and whisper some
instruction to the steerer as he looked at us. Not a word was spoken in either
boat.
Startop could make out, after a few minutes, which steamer was first, and gave
me the word “Hamburg,” in a low voice, as we sat face to face. She
was nearing us very fast, and the beating of her peddles grew louder and
louder. I felt as if her shadow were absolutely upon us, when the galley hailed
us. I answered.
“You have a returned Transport there,” said the man who held the
lines. “That’s the man, wrapped in the cloak. His name is Abel
Magwitch, otherwise Provis. I apprehend that man, and call upon him to
surrender, and you to assist.”
At the same moment, without giving any audible direction to his crew, he ran
the galley abroad of us. They had pulled one sudden stroke ahead, had got their
oars in, had run athwart us, and were holding on to our gunwale, before we knew
what they were doing. This caused great confusion on board the steamer, and I
heard them calling to us, and heard the order given to stop the paddles, and
heard them stop, but felt her driving down upon us irresistibly. In the same
moment, I saw the steersman of the galley lay his hand on his prisoner’s
shoulder, and saw that both boats were swinging round with the force of the
tide, and saw that all hands on board the steamer were running forward quite
frantically. Still, in the same moment, I saw the prisoner start up, lean
across his captor, and pull the cloak from the neck of the shrinking sitter in
the galley. Still in the same moment, I saw that the face disclosed, was the
face of the other convict of long ago. Still, in the same moment, I saw the
face tilt backward with a white terror on it that I shall never forget, and
heard a great cry on board the steamer, and a loud splash in the water, and
felt the boat sink from under me.
It was but for an instant that I seemed to struggle with a thousand mill-weirs
and a thousand flashes of light; that instant past, I was taken on board the
galley. Herbert was there, and Startop was there; but our boat was gone, and
the two convicts were gone.
What with the cries aboard the steamer, and the furious blowing off of her
steam, and her driving on, and our driving on, I could not at first distinguish
sky from water or shore from shore; but the crew of the galley righted her with
great speed, and, pulling certain swift strong strokes ahead, lay upon their
oars, every man looking silently and eagerly at the water astern. Presently a
dark object was seen in it, bearing towards us on the tide. No man spoke, but
the steersman held up his hand, and all softly backed water, and kept the boat
straight and true before it. As it came nearer, I saw it to be Magwitch,
swimming, but not swimming freely. He was taken on board, and instantly
manacled at the wrists and ankles.
The galley was kept steady, and the silent, eager look-out at the water was
resumed. But, the Rotterdam steamer now came up, and apparently not
understanding what had happened, came on at speed. By the time she had been
hailed and stopped, both steamers were drifting away from us, and we were
rising and falling in a troubled wake of water. The look-out was kept, long
after all was still again and the two steamers were gone; but everybody knew
that it was hopeless now.
At length we gave it up, and pulled under the shore towards the tavern we had
lately left, where we were received with no little surprise. Here I was able to
get some comforts for Magwitch,—Provis no longer,—who had received
some very severe injury in the chest, and a deep cut in the head.
He told me that he believed himself to have gone under the keel of the steamer,
and to have been struck on the head in rising. The injury to his chest (which
rendered his breathing extremely painful) he thought he had received against
the side of the galley. He added that he did not pretend to say what he might
or might not have done to Compeyson, but that, in the moment of his laying his
hand on his cloak to identify him, that villain had staggered up and staggered
back, and they had both gone overboard together, when the sudden wrenching of
him (Magwitch) out of our boat, and the endeavour of his captor to keep him in
it, had capsized us. He told me in a whisper that they had gone down fiercely
locked in each other’s arms, and that there had been a struggle under
water, and that he had disengaged himself, struck out, and swum away.
I never had any reason to doubt the exact truth of what he thus told me. The
officer who steered the galley gave the same account of their going overboard.
When I asked this officer’s permission to change the prisoner’s wet
clothes by purchasing any spare garments I could get at the public-house, he
gave it readily: merely observing that he must take charge of everything his
prisoner had about him. So the pocket-book which had once been in my hands
passed into the officer’s. He further gave me leave to accompany the
prisoner to London; but declined to accord that grace to my two friends.
The Jack at the Ship was instructed where the drowned man had gone down, and
undertook to search for the body in the places where it was likeliest to come
ashore. His interest in its recovery seemed to me to be much heightened when he
heard that it had stockings on. Probably, it took about a dozen drowned men to
fit him out completely; and that may have been the reason why the different
articles of his dress were in various stages of decay.
We remained at the public-house until the tide turned, and then Magwitch was
carried down to the galley and put on board. Herbert and Startop were to get to
London by land, as soon as they could. We had a doleful parting, and when I
took my place by Magwitch’s side, I felt that that was my place
henceforth while he lived.
For now, my repugnance to him had all melted away; and in the hunted, wounded,
shackled creature who held my hand in his, I only saw a man who had meant to be
my benefactor, and who had felt affectionately, gratefully, and generously,
towards me with great constancy through a series of years. I only saw in him a
much better man than I had been to Joe.
His breathing became more difficult and painful as the night drew on, and often
he could not repress a groan. I tried to rest him on the arm I could use, in
any easy position; but it was dreadful to think that I could not be sorry at
heart for his being badly hurt, since it was unquestionably best that he should
die. That there were, still living, people enough who were able and willing to
identify him, I could not doubt. That he would be leniently treated, I could
not hope. He who had been presented in the worst light at his trial, who had
since broken prison and had been tried again, who had returned from
transportation under a life sentence, and who had occasioned the death of the
man who was the cause of his arrest.
As we returned towards the setting sun we had yesterday left behind us, and as
the stream of our hopes seemed all running back, I told him how grieved I was
to think that he had come home for my sake.
“Dear boy,” he answered, “I’m quite content to take my
chance. I’ve seen my boy, and he can be a gentleman without me.”
No. I had thought about that, while we had been there side by side. No. Apart
from any inclinations of my own, I understood Wemmick’s hint now. I
foresaw that, being convicted, his possessions would be forfeited to the Crown.
“Lookee here, dear boy,” said he “It’s best as a
gentleman should not be knowed to belong to me now. Only come to see me as if
you come by chance alonger Wemmick. Sit where I can see you when I am swore to,
for the last o’ many times, and I don’t ask no more.”
“I will never stir from your side,” said I, “when I am
suffered to be near you. Please God, I will be as true to you as you have been
to me!”
I felt his hand tremble as it held mine, and he turned his face away as he lay
in the bottom of the boat, and I heard that old sound in his
throat,—softened now, like all the rest of him. It was a good thing that
he had touched this point, for it put into my mind what I might not otherwise
have thought of until too late,—that he need never know how his hopes of
enriching me had perished.
Chapter LV.
He was
taken to the Police Court next day, and would have been immediately committed
for trial, but that it was necessary to send down for an old officer of the
prison-ship from which he had once escaped, to speak to his identity. Nobody
doubted it; but Compeyson, who had meant to depose to it, was tumbling on the
tides, dead, and it happened that there was not at that time any prison officer
in London who could give the required evidence. I had gone direct to Mr.
Jaggers at his private house, on my arrival over night, to retain his
assistance, and Mr. Jaggers on the prisoner’s behalf would admit nothing.
It was the sole resource; for he told me that the case must be over in five
minutes when the witness was there, and that no power on earth could prevent
its going against us.
I imparted to Mr. Jaggers my design of keeping him in ignorance of the fate of
his wealth. Mr. Jaggers was querulous and angry with me for having “let
it slip through my fingers,” and said we must memorialise by and by, and
try at all events for some of it. But he did not conceal from me that, although
there might be many cases in which the forfeiture would not be exacted, there
were no circumstances in this case to make it one of them. I understood that
very well. I was not related to the outlaw, or connected with him by any
recognisable tie; he had put his hand to no writing or settlement in my favour
before his apprehension, and to do so now would be idle. I had no claim, and I
finally resolved, and ever afterwards abided by the resolution, that my heart
should never be sickened with the hopeless task of attempting to establish one.
There appeared to be reason for supposing that the drowned informer had hoped
for a reward out of this forfeiture, and had obtained some accurate knowledge
of Magwitch’s affairs. When his body was found, many miles from the scene
of his death, and so horribly disfigured that he was only recognisable by the
contents of his pockets, notes were still legible, folded in a case he carried.
Among these were the name of a banking-house in New South Wales, where a sum of
money was, and the designation of certain lands of considerable value. Both
these heads of information were in a list that Magwitch, while in prison, gave
to Mr. Jaggers, of the possessions he supposed I should inherit. His ignorance,
poor fellow, at last served him; he never mistrusted but that my inheritance
was quite safe, with Mr. Jaggers’s aid.
After three days’ delay, during which the crown prosecution stood over
for the production of the witness from the prison-ship, the witness came, and
completed the easy case. He was committed to take his trial at the next
Sessions, which would come on in a month.
It was at this dark time of my life that Herbert returned home one evening, a
good deal cast down, and said,—
“My dear Handel, I fear I shall soon have to leave you.”
His partner having prepared me for that, I was less surprised than he thought.
“We shall lose a fine opportunity if I put off going to Cairo, and I am
very much afraid I must go, Handel, when you most need me.”
“Herbert, I shall always need you, because I shall always love you; but
my need is no greater now than at another time.”
“You will be so lonely.”
“I have not leisure to think of that,” said I. “You know that
I am always with him to the full extent of the time allowed, and that I should
be with him all day long, if I could. And when I come away from him, you know
that my thoughts are with him.”
The dreadful condition to which he was brought, was so appalling to both of us,
that we could not refer to it in plainer words.
“My dear fellow,” said Herbert, “let the near prospect of our
separation—for, it is very near—be my justification for troubling
you about yourself. Have you thought of your future?”
“No, for I have been afraid to think of any future.”
“But yours cannot be dismissed; indeed, my dear dear Handel, it must not
be dismissed. I wish you would enter on it now, as far as a few friendly words
go, with me.”
“I will,” said I.
“In this branch house of ours, Handel, we must have a—”
I saw that his delicacy was avoiding the right word, so I said, “A
clerk.”
“A clerk. And I hope it is not at all unlikely that he may expand (as a
clerk of your acquaintance has expanded) into a partner. Now, Handel,—in
short, my dear boy, will you come to me?”
There was something charmingly cordial and engaging in the manner in which
after saying “Now, Handel,” as if it were the grave beginning of a
portentous business exordium, he had suddenly given up that tone, stretched out
his honest hand, and spoken like a schoolboy.
“Clara and I have talked about it again and again,” Herbert
pursued, “and the dear little thing begged me only this evening, with
tears in her eyes, to say to you that, if you will live with us when we come
together, she will do her best to make you happy, and to convince her
husband’s friend that he is her friend too. We should get on so well,
Handel!”
I thanked her heartily, and I thanked him heartily, but said I could not yet
make sure of joining him as he so kindly offered. Firstly, my mind was too
preoccupied to be able to take in the subject clearly. Secondly,—Yes!
Secondly, there was a vague something lingering in my thoughts that will come
out very near the end of this slight narrative.
“But if you thought, Herbert, that you could, without doing any injury to
your business, leave the question open for a little while—”
“For any while,” cried Herbert. “Six months, a year!”
“Not so long as that,” said I. “Two or three months at
most.”
Herbert was highly delighted when we shook hands on this arrangement, and said
he could now take courage to tell me that he believed he must go away at the
end of the week.
“And Clara?” said I.
“The dear little thing,” returned Herbert, “holds dutifully
to her father as long as he lasts; but he won’t last long. Mrs. Whimple
confides to me that he is certainly going.”
“Not to say an unfeeling thing,” said I, “he cannot do better
than go.”
“I am afraid that must be admitted,” said Herbert; “and then
I shall come back for the dear little thing, and the dear little thing and I
will walk quietly into the nearest church. Remember! The blessed darling comes
of no family, my dear Handel, and never looked into the red book, and
hasn’t a notion about her grandpapa. What a fortune for the son of my
mother!”
On the Saturday in that same week, I took my leave of Herbert,—full of
bright hope, but sad and sorry to leave me,—as he sat on one of the
seaport mail coaches. I went into a coffee-house to write a little note to
Clara, telling her he had gone off, sending his love to her over and over
again, and then went to my lonely home,—if it deserved the name; for it
was now no home to me, and I had no home anywhere.
On the stairs I encountered Wemmick, who was coming down, after an unsuccessful
application of his knuckles to my door. I had not seen him alone since the
disastrous issue of the attempted flight; and he had come, in his private and
personal capacity, to say a few words of explanation in reference to that
failure.
“The late Compeyson,” said Wemmick, “had by little and little
got at the bottom of half of the regular business now transacted; and it was
from the talk of some of his people in trouble (some of his people being always
in trouble) that I heard what I did. I kept my ears open, seeming to have them
shut, until I heard that he was absent, and I thought that would be the best
time for making the attempt. I can only suppose now, that it was a part of his
policy, as a very clever man, habitually to deceive his own instruments. You
don’t blame me, I hope, Mr. Pip? I am sure I tried to serve you, with all
my heart.”
“I am as sure of that, Wemmick, as you can be, and I thank you most
earnestly for all your interest and friendship.”
“Thank you, thank you very much. It’s a bad job,” said
Wemmick, scratching his head, “and I assure you I haven’t been so
cut up for a long time. What I look at is the sacrifice of so much portable
property. Dear me!”
“What think of, Wemmick, is the poor owner of the
property.”
“Yes, to be sure,” said Wemmick. “Of course, there can be no
objection to your being sorry for him, and I’d put down a five-pound note
myself to get him out of it. But what I look at is this. The late Compeyson
having been beforehand with him in intelligence of his return, and being so
determined to bring him to book, I do not think he could have been saved.
Whereas, the portable property certainly could have been saved. That’s
the difference between the property and the owner, don’t you see?”
I invited Wemmick to come upstairs, and refresh himself with a glass of grog
before walking to Walworth. He accepted the invitation. While he was drinking
his moderate allowance, he said, with nothing to lead up to it, and after
having appeared rather fidgety,—
“What do you think of my meaning to take a holiday on Monday, Mr.
Pip?”
“Why, I suppose you have not done such a thing these twelve
months.”
“These twelve years, more likely,” said Wemmick. “Yes.
I’m going to take a holiday. More than that; I’m going to take a
walk. More than that; I’m going to ask you to take a walk with me.”
I was about to excuse myself, as being but a bad companion just then, when
Wemmick anticipated me.
“I know your engagements,” said he, “and I know you are out
of sorts, Mr. Pip. But if you oblige me, I should take it as a
kindness. It ain’t a long walk, and it’s an early one. Say it might
occupy you (including breakfast on the walk) from eight to twelve.
Couldn’t you stretch a point and manage it?”
He had done so much for me at various times, that this was very little to do
for him. I said I could manage it,—would manage it,—and he was so
very much pleased by my acquiescence, that I was pleased too. At his particular
request, I appointed to call for him at the Castle at half past eight on Monday
morning, and so we parted for the time.
Punctual to my appointment, I rang at the Castle gate on the Monday morning,
and was received by Wemmick himself, who struck me as looking tighter than
usual, and having a sleeker hat on. Within, there were two glasses of rum and
milk prepared, and two biscuits. The Aged must have been stirring with the
lark, for, glancing into the perspective of his bedroom, I observed that his
bed was empty.
When we had fortified ourselves with the rum and milk and biscuits, and were
going out for the walk with that training preparation on us, I was considerably
surprised to see Wemmick take up a fishing-rod, and put it over his shoulder.
“Why, we are not going fishing!” said I. “No,” returned
Wemmick, “but I like to walk with one.”
I thought this odd; however, I said nothing, and we set off. We went towards
Camberwell Green, and when we were thereabouts, Wemmick said suddenly,—
“Halloa! Here’s a church!”
There was nothing very surprising in that; but again, I was rather surprised,
when he said, as if he were animated by a brilliant idea,—
“Let’s go in!”
We went in, Wemmick leaving his fishing-rod in the porch, and looked all round.
In the mean time, Wemmick was diving into his coat-pockets, and getting
something out of paper there.
“Halloa!” said he. “Here’s a couple of pair of gloves!
Let’s put ’em on!”
As the gloves were white kid gloves, and as the post-office was widened to its
utmost extent, I now began to have my strong suspicions. They were strengthened
into certainty when I beheld the Aged enter at a side door, escorting a lady.
“Halloa!” said Wemmick. “Here’s Miss Skiffins!
Let’s have a wedding.”
That discreet damsel was attired as usual, except that she was now engaged in
substituting for her green kid gloves a pair of white. The Aged was likewise
occupied in preparing a similar sacrifice for the altar of Hymen. The old
gentleman, however, experienced so much difficulty in getting his gloves on,
that Wemmick found it necessary to put him with his back against a pillar, and
then to get behind the pillar himself and pull away at them, while I for my
part held the old gentleman round the waist, that he might present an equal and
safe resistance. By dint of this ingenious scheme, his gloves were got on to
perfection.
The clerk and clergyman then appearing, we were ranged in order at those fatal
rails. True to his notion of seeming to do it all without preparation, I heard
Wemmick say to himself, as he took something out of his waistcoat-pocket before
the service began, “Halloa! Here’s a ring!”
I acted in the capacity of backer, or best-man, to the bridegroom; while a
little limp pew-opener in a soft bonnet like a baby’s, made a feint of
being the bosom friend of Miss Skiffins. The responsibility of giving the lady
away devolved upon the Aged, which led to the clergyman’s being
unintentionally scandalised, and it happened thus. When he said, “Who
giveth this woman to be married to this man?” the old gentleman, not in
the least knowing what point of the ceremony we had arrived at, stood most
amiably beaming at the ten commandments. Upon which, the clergyman said again,
“W giveth this woman to be married to this man?”
The old gentleman being still in a state of most estimable unconsciousness, the
bridegroom cried out in his accustomed voice, “Now Aged P. you know; who
giveth?” To which the Aged replied with great briskness, before saying
that gave, “All right, John, all right, my boy!” And the
clergyman came to so gloomy a pause upon it, that I had doubts for the moment
whether we should get completely married that day.
It was completely done, however, and when we were going out of church Wemmick
took the cover off the font, and put his white gloves in it, and put the cover
on again. Mrs. Wemmick, more heedful of the future, put her white gloves in her
pocket and assumed her green. “, Mr. Pip,” said Wemmick,
triumphantly shouldering the fishing-rod as we came out, “let me ask you
whether anybody would suppose this to be a wedding-party!”
Breakfast had been ordered at a pleasant little tavern, a mile or so away upon
the rising ground beyond the green; and there was a bagatelle board in the
room, in case we should desire to unbend our minds after the solemnity. It was
pleasant to observe that Mrs. Wemmick no longer unwound Wemmick’s arm
when it adapted itself to her figure, but sat in a high-backed chair against
the wall, like a violoncello in its case, and submitted to be embraced as that
melodious instrument might have done.
We had an excellent breakfast, and when any one declined anything on table,
Wemmick said, “Provided by contract, you know; don’t be afraid of
it!” I drank to the new couple, drank to the Aged, drank to the Castle,
saluted the bride at parting, and made myself as agreeable as I could.
Wemmick came down to the door with me, and I again shook hands with him, and
wished him joy.
“Thankee!” said Wemmick, rubbing his hands. “She’s such
a manager of fowls, you have no idea. You shall have some eggs, and judge for
yourself. I say, Mr. Pip!” calling me back, and speaking low. “This
is altogether a Walworth sentiment, please.”
“I understand. Not to be mentioned in Little Britain,” said I.
Wemmick nodded. “After what you let out the other day, Mr. Jaggers may as
well not know of it. He might think my brain was softening, or something of the
kind.”
Chapter LVI.
He lay
in prison very ill, during the whole interval between his committal for trial
and the coming round of the Sessions. He had broken two ribs, they had wounded
one of his lungs, and he breathed with great pain and difficulty, which
increased daily. It was a consequence of his hurt that he spoke so low as to be
scarcely audible; therefore he spoke very little. But he was ever ready to
listen to me; and it became the first duty of my life to say to him, and read
to him, what I knew he ought to hear.
Being far too ill to remain in the common prison, he was removed, after the
first day or so, into the infirmary. This gave me opportunities of being with
him that I could not otherwise have had. And but for his illness he would have
been put in irons, for he was regarded as a determined prison-breaker, and I
know not what else.
Although I saw him every day, it was for only a short time; hence, the
regularly recurring spaces of our separation were long enough to record on his
face any slight changes that occurred in his physical state. I do not recollect
that I once saw any change in it for the better; he wasted, and became slowly
weaker and worse, day by day, from the day when the prison door closed upon
him.
The kind of submission or resignation that he showed was that of a man who was
tired out. I sometimes derived an impression, from his manner or from a
whispered word or two which escaped him, that he pondered over the question
whether he might have been a better man under better circumstances. But he
never justified himself by a hint tending that way, or tried to bend the past
out of its eternal shape.
It happened on two or three occasions in my presence, that his desperate
reputation was alluded to by one or other of the people in attendance on him. A
smile crossed his face then, and he turned his eyes on me with a trustful look,
as if he were confident that I had seen some small redeeming touch in him, even
so long ago as when I was a little child. As to all the rest, he was humble and
contrite, and I never knew him complain.
When the Sessions came round, Mr. Jaggers caused an application to be made for
the postponement of his trial until the following Sessions. It was obviously
made with the assurance that he could not live so long, and was refused. The
trial came on at once, and, when he was put to the bar, he was seated in a
chair. No objection was made to my getting close to the dock, on the outside of
it, and holding the hand that he stretched forth to me.
The trial was very short and very clear. Such things as could be said for him
were said,—how he had taken to industrious habits, and had thriven
lawfully and reputably. But nothing could unsay the fact that he had returned,
and was there in presence of the Judge and Jury. It was impossible to try him
for that, and do otherwise than find him guilty.
At that time, it was the custom (as I learnt from my terrible experience of
that Sessions) to devote a concluding day to the passing of Sentences, and to
make a finishing effect with the Sentence of Death. But for the indelible
picture that my remembrance now holds before me, I could scarcely believe, even
as I write these words, that I saw two-and-thirty men and women put before the
Judge to receive that sentence together. Foremost among the two-and-thirty was
he; seated, that he might get breath enough to keep life in him.
The whole scene starts out again in the vivid colours of the moment, down to
the drops of April rain on the windows of the court, glittering in the rays of
April sun. Penned in the dock, as I again stood outside it at the corner with
his hand in mine, were the two-and-thirty men and women; some defiant, some
stricken with terror, some sobbing and weeping, some covering their faces, some
staring gloomily about. There had been shrieks from among the women convicts;
but they had been stilled, and a hush had succeeded. The sheriffs with their
great chains and nosegays, other civic gewgaws and monsters, criers, ushers, a
great gallery full of people,—a large theatrical audience,—looked
on, as the two-and-thirty and the Judge were solemnly confronted. Then the
Judge addressed them. Among the wretched creatures before him whom he must
single out for special address was one who almost from his infancy had been an
offender against the laws; who, after repeated imprisonments and punishments,
had been at length sentenced to exile for a term of years; and who, under
circumstances of great violence and daring, had made his escape and been
re-sentenced to exile for life. That miserable man would seem for a time to
have become convinced of his errors, when far removed from the scenes of his
old offences, and to have lived a peaceable and honest life. But in a fatal
moment, yielding to those propensities and passions, the indulgence of which
had so long rendered him a scourge to society, he had quitted his haven of rest
and repentance, and had come back to the country where he was proscribed. Being
here presently denounced, he had for a time succeeded in evading the officers
of Justice, but being at length seized while in the act of flight, he had
resisted them, and had—he best knew whether by express design, or in the
blindness of his hardihood—caused the death of his denouncer, to whom his
whole career was known. The appointed punishment for his return to the land
that had cast him out, being Death, and his case being this aggravated case, he
must prepare himself to Die.
The sun was striking in at the great windows of the court, through the
glittering drops of rain upon the glass, and it made a broad shaft of light
between the two-and-thirty and the Judge, linking both together, and perhaps
reminding some among the audience how both were passing on, with absolute
equality, to the greater Judgment that knoweth all things, and cannot err.
Rising for a moment, a distinct speck of face in this way of light, the
prisoner said, “My Lord, I have received my sentence of Death from the
Almighty, but I bow to yours,” and sat down again. There was some
hushing, and the Judge went on with what he had to say to the rest. Then they
were all formally doomed, and some of them were supported out, and some of them
sauntered out with a haggard look of bravery, and a few nodded to the gallery,
and two or three shook hands, and others went out chewing the fragments of herb
they had taken from the sweet herbs lying about. He went last of all, because
of having to be helped from his chair, and to go very slowly; and he held my
hand while all the others were removed, and while the audience got up (putting
their dresses right, as they might at church or elsewhere), and pointed down at
this criminal or at that, and most of all at him and me.
I earnestly hoped and prayed that he might die before the Recorder’s
Report was made; but, in the dread of his lingering on, I began that night to
write out a petition to the Home Secretary of State, setting forth my knowledge
of him, and how it was that he had come back for my sake. I wrote it as
fervently and pathetically as I could; and when I had finished it and sent it
in, I wrote out other petitions to such men in authority as I hoped were the
most merciful, and drew up one to the Crown itself. For several days and nights
after he was sentenced I took no rest except when I fell asleep in my chair,
but was wholly absorbed in these appeals. And after I had sent them in, I could
not keep away from the places where they were, but felt as if they were more
hopeful and less desperate when I was near them. In this unreasonable
restlessness and pain of mind I would roam the streets of an evening, wandering
by those offices and houses where I had left the petitions. To the present
hour, the weary western streets of London on a cold, dusty spring night, with
their ranges of stern, shut-up mansions, and their long rows of lamps, are
melancholy to me from this association.
The daily visits I could make him were shortened now, and he was more strictly
kept. Seeing, or fancying, that I was suspected of an intention of carrying
poison to him, I asked to be searched before I sat down at his bedside, and
told the officer who was always there, that I was willing to do anything that
would assure him of the singleness of my designs. Nobody was hard with him or
with me. There was duty to be done, and it was done, but not harshly. The
officer always gave me the assurance that he was worse, and some other sick
prisoners in the room, and some other prisoners who attended on them as sick
nurses, (malefactors, but not incapable of kindness, God be thanked!) always
joined in the same report.
As the days went on, I noticed more and more that he would lie placidly looking
at the white ceiling, with an absence of light in his face until some word of
mine brightened it for an instant, and then it would subside again. Sometimes
he was almost or quite unable to speak, then he would answer me with slight
pressures on my hand, and I grew to understand his meaning very well.
The number of the days had risen to ten, when I saw a greater change in him
than I had seen yet. His eyes were turned towards the door, and lighted up as I
entered.
“Dear boy,” he said, as I sat down by his bed: “I thought you
was late. But I knowed you couldn’t be that.”
“It is just the time,” said I. “I waited for it at the
gate.”
“You always waits at the gate; don’t you, dear boy?”
“Yes. Not to lose a moment of the time.”
“Thank’ee dear boy, thank’ee. God bless you! You’ve
never deserted me, dear boy.”
I pressed his hand in silence, for I could not forget that I had once meant to
desert him.
“And what’s the best of all,” he said, “you’ve
been more comfortable alonger me, since I was under a dark cloud, than when the
sun shone. That’s best of all.”
He lay on his back, breathing with great difficulty. Do what he would, and love
me though he did, the light left his face ever and again, and a film came over
the placid look at the white ceiling.
“Are you in much pain to-day?”
“I don’t complain of none, dear boy.”
“You never do complain.”
He had spoken his last words. He smiled, and I understood his touch to mean
that he wished to lift my hand, and lay it on his breast. I laid it there, and
he smiled again, and put both his hands upon it.
The allotted time ran out, while we were thus; but, looking round, I found the
governor of the prison standing near me, and he whispered, “You
needn’t go yet.” I thanked him gratefully, and asked, “Might
I speak to him, if he can hear me?”
The governor stepped aside, and beckoned the officer away. The change, though
it was made without noise, drew back the film from the placid look at the white
ceiling, and he looked most affectionately at me.
“Dear Magwitch, I must tell you now, at last. You understand what I
say?”
A gentle pressure on my hand.
“You had a child once, whom you loved and lost.”
A stronger pressure on my hand.
“She lived, and found powerful friends. She is living now. She is a lady
and very beautiful. And I love her!”
With a last faint effort, which would have been powerless but for my yielding
to it and assisting it, he raised my hand to his lips. Then, he gently let it
sink upon his breast again, with his own hands lying on it. The placid look at
the white ceiling came back, and passed away, and his head dropped quietly on
his breast.
Mindful, then, of what we had read together, I thought of the two men who went
up into the Temple to pray, and I knew there were no better words that I could
say beside his bed, than “O Lord, be merciful to him a sinner!”
Chapter LVII.
Now
that I was left wholly to myself, I gave notice of my intention to quit the
chambers in the Temple as soon as my tenancy could legally determine, and in
the meanwhile to underlet them. At once I put bills up in the windows; for, I
was in debt, and had scarcely any money, and began to be seriously alarmed by
the state of my affairs. I ought rather to write that I should have been
alarmed if I had had energy and concentration enough to help me to the clear
perception of any truth beyond the fact that I was falling very ill. The late
stress upon me had enabled me to put off illness, but not to put it away; I
knew that it was coming on me now, and I knew very little else, and was even
careless as to that.
For a day or two, I lay on the sofa, or on the floor,—anywhere, according
as I happened to sink down,—with a heavy head and aching limbs, and no
purpose, and no power. Then there came, one night which appeared of great
duration, and which teemed with anxiety and horror; and when in the morning I
tried to sit up in my bed and think of it, I found I could not do so.
Whether I really had been down in Garden Court in the dead of the night,
groping about for the boat that I supposed to be there; whether I had two or
three times come to myself on the staircase with great terror, not knowing how
I had got out of bed; whether I had found myself lighting the lamp, possessed
by the idea that he was coming up the stairs, and that the lights were blown
out; whether I had been inexpressibly harassed by the distracted talking,
laughing, and groaning of some one, and had half suspected those sounds to be
of my own making; whether there had been a closed iron furnace in a dark corner
of the room, and a voice had called out, over and over again, that Miss
Havisham was consuming within it,—these were things that I tried to
settle with myself and get into some order, as I lay that morning on my bed.
But the vapour of a limekiln would come between me and them, disordering them
all, and it was through the vapour at last that I saw two men looking at me.
“What do you want?” I asked, starting; “I don’t know
you.”
“Well, sir,” returned one of them, bending down and touching me on
the shoulder, “this is a matter that you’ll soon arrange, I dare
say, but you’re arrested.”
“What is the debt?”
“Hundred and twenty-three pound, fifteen, six. Jeweller’s account,
I think.”
“What is to be done?”
“You had better come to my house,” said the man. “I keep a
very nice house.”
I made some attempt to get up and dress myself. When I next attended to them,
they were standing a little off from the bed, looking at me. I still lay there.
“You see my state,” said I. “I would come with you if I
could; but indeed I am quite unable. If you take me from here, I think I shall
die by the way.”
Perhaps they replied, or argued the point, or tried to encourage me to believe
that I was better than I thought. Forasmuch as they hang in my memory by only
this one slender thread, I don’t know what they did, except that they
forbore to remove me.
That I had a fever and was avoided, that I suffered greatly, that I often lost
my reason, that the time seemed interminable, that I confounded impossible
existences with my own identity; that I was a brick in the house-wall, and yet
entreating to be released from the giddy place where the builders had set me;
that I was a steel beam of a vast engine, clashing and whirling over a gulf,
and yet that I implored in my own person to have the engine stopped, and my
part in it hammered off; that I passed through these phases of disease, I know
of my own remembrance, and did in some sort know at the time. That I sometimes
struggled with real people, in the belief that they were murderers, and that I
would all at once comprehend that they meant to do me good, and would then sink
exhausted in their arms, and suffer them to lay me down, I also knew at the
time. But, above all, I knew that there was a constant tendency in all these
people,—who, when I was very ill, would present all kinds of
extraordinary transformations of the human face, and would be much dilated in
size,—above all, I say, I knew that there was an extraordinary tendency
in all these people, sooner or later, to settle down into the likeness of Joe.
After I had turned the worst point of my illness, I began to notice that while
all its other features changed, this one consistent feature did not change.
Whoever came about me, still settled down into Joe. I opened my eyes in the
night, and I saw, in the great chair at the bedside, Joe. I opened my eyes in
the day, and, sitting on the window-seat, smoking his pipe in the shaded open
window, still I saw Joe. I asked for cooling drink, and the dear hand that gave
it me was Joe’s. I sank back on my pillow after drinking, and the face
that looked so hopefully and tenderly upon me was the face of Joe.
At last, one day, I took courage, and said, “ it Joe?”
And the dear old home-voice answered, “Which it air, old chap.”
“O Joe, you break my heart! Look angry at me, Joe. Strike me, Joe. Tell
me of my ingratitude. Don’t be so good to me!”
For Joe had actually laid his head down on the pillow at my side, and put his
arm round my neck, in his joy that I knew him.
“Which dear old Pip, old chap,” said Joe, “you and me was
ever friends. And when you’re well enough to go out for a ride—what
larks!”
After which, Joe withdrew to the window, and stood with his back towards me,
wiping his eyes. And as my extreme weakness prevented me from getting up and
going to him, I lay there, penitently whispering, “O God bless him! O God
bless this gentle Christian man!”
Joe’s eyes were red when I next found him beside me; but I was holding
his hand, and we both felt happy.
“How long, dear Joe?”
“Which you meantersay, Pip, how long have your illness lasted, dear old
chap?”
“Yes, Joe.”
“It’s the end of May, Pip. To-morrow is the first of June.”
“And have you been here all that time, dear Joe?”
“Pretty nigh, old chap. For, as I says to Biddy when the news of your
being ill were brought by letter, which it were brought by the post, and being
formerly single he is now married though underpaid for a deal of walking and
shoe-leather, but wealth were not a object on his part, and marriage were the
great wish of his hart—”
“It is so delightful to hear you, Joe! But I interrupt you in what you
said to Biddy.”
“Which it were,” said Joe, “that how you might be amongst
strangers, and that how you and me having been ever friends, a wisit at such a
moment might not prove unacceptabobble. And Biddy, her word were, ‘Go to
him, without loss of time.’ That,” said Joe, summing up with his
judicial air, “were the word of Biddy. ‘Go to him,’ Biddy
say, ‘without loss of time.’ In short, I shouldn’t greatly
deceive you,” Joe added, after a little grave reflection, “if I
represented to you that the word of that young woman were, ‘without a
minute’s loss of time.’”
There Joe cut himself short, and informed me that I was to be talked to in
great moderation, and that I was to take a little nourishment at stated
frequent times, whether I felt inclined for it or not, and that I was to submit
myself to all his orders. So I kissed his hand, and lay quiet, while he
proceeded to indite a note to Biddy, with my love in it.
Evidently Biddy had taught Joe to write. As I lay in bed looking at him, it
made me, in my weak state, cry again with pleasure to see the pride with which
he set about his letter. My bedstead, divested of its curtains, had been
removed, with me upon it, into the sitting-room, as the airiest and largest,
and the carpet had been taken away, and the room kept always fresh and
wholesome night and day. At my own writing-table, pushed into a corner and
cumbered with little bottles, Joe now sat down to his great work, first
choosing a pen from the pen-tray as if it were a chest of large tools, and
tucking up his sleeves as if he were going to wield a crow-bar or sledgehammer.
It was necessary for Joe to hold on heavily to the table with his left elbow,
and to get his right leg well out behind him, before he could begin; and when
he did begin he made every downstroke so slowly that it might have been six
feet long, while at every upstroke I could hear his pen spluttering
extensively. He had a curious idea that the inkstand was on the side of him
where it was not, and constantly dipped his pen into space, and seemed quite
satisfied with the result. Occasionally, he was tripped up by some
orthographical stumbling-block; but on the whole he got on very well indeed;
and when he had signed his name, and had removed a finishing blot from the
paper to the crown of his head with his two forefingers, he got up and hovered
about the table, trying the effect of his performance from various points of
view, as it lay there, with unbounded satisfaction.
Not to make Joe uneasy by talking too much, even if I had been able to talk
much, I deferred asking him about Miss Havisham until next day. He shook his
head when I then asked him if she had recovered.
“Is she dead, Joe?”
“Why you see, old chap,” said Joe, in a tone of remonstrance, and
by way of getting at it by degrees, “I wouldn’t go so far as to say
that, for that’s a deal to say; but she ain’t—”
“Living, Joe?”
“That’s nigher where it is,” said Joe; “she ain’t
living.”
“Did she linger long, Joe?”
“Arter you was took ill, pretty much about what you might call (if you
was put to it) a week,” said Joe; still determined, on my account, to
come at everything by degrees.
“Dear Joe, have you heard what becomes of her property?”
“Well, old chap,” said Joe, “it do appear that she had
settled the most of it, which I meantersay tied it up, on Miss Estella. But she
had wrote out a little coddleshell in her own hand a day or two afore the
accident, leaving a cool four thousand to Mr. Matthew Pocket. And why, do you
suppose, above all things, Pip, she left that cool four thousand unto him?
‘Because of Pip’s account of him, the said Matthew.’ I am
told by Biddy, that air the writing,” said Joe, repeating the legal turn
as if it did him infinite good, “‘account of him the said
Matthew.’ And a cool four thousand, Pip!”
I never discovered from whom Joe derived the conventional temperature of the
four thousand pounds; but it appeared to make the sum of money more to him, and
he had a manifest relish in insisting on its being cool.
This account gave me great joy, as it perfected the only good thing I had done.
I asked Joe whether he had heard if any of the other relations had any
legacies?
“Miss Sarah,” said Joe, “she have twenty-five pound perannium
fur to buy pills, on account of being bilious. Miss Georgiana, she have twenty
pound down. Mrs.—what’s the name of them wild beasts with humps,
old chap?”
“Camels?” said I, wondering why he could possibly want to know.
Joe nodded. “Mrs. Camels,” by which I presently understood he meant
Camilla, “she have five pound fur to buy rushlights to put her in spirits
when she wake up in the night.”
The accuracy of these recitals was sufficiently obvious to me, to give me great
confidence in Joe’s information. “And now,” said Joe,
“you ain’t that strong yet, old chap, that you can take in more nor
one additional shovelful to-day. Old Orlick he’s been a bustin’
open a dwelling-ouse.”
“Whose?” said I.
“Not, I grant you, but what his manners is given to blusterous,”
said Joe, apologetically; “still, a Englishman’s ouse is his
Castle, and castles must not be busted ’cept when done in war time. And
wotsume’er the failings on his part, he were a corn and seedsman in his
hart.”
“Is it Pumblechook’s house that has been broken into, then?”
“That’s it, Pip,” said Joe; “and they took his till,
and they took his cash-box, and they drinked his wine, and they partook of his
wittles, and they slapped his face, and they pulled his nose, and they tied him
up to his bedpust, and they giv’ him a dozen, and they stuffed his mouth
full of flowering annuals to prewent his crying out. But he knowed Orlick, and
Orlick’s in the county jail.”
By these approaches we arrived at unrestricted conversation. I was slow to gain
strength, but I did slowly and surely become less weak, and Joe stayed with me,
and I fancied I was little Pip again.
For the tenderness of Joe was so beautifully proportioned to my need, that I
was like a child in his hands. He would sit and talk to me in the old
confidence, and with the old simplicity, and in the old unassertive protecting
way, so that I would half believe that all my life since the days of the old
kitchen was one of the mental troubles of the fever that was gone. He did
everything for me except the household work, for which he had engaged a very
decent woman, after paying off the laundress on his first arrival. “Which
I do assure you, Pip,” he would often say, in explanation of that
liberty; “I found her a tapping the spare bed, like a cask of beer, and
drawing off the feathers in a bucket, for sale. Which she would have tapped
yourn next, and draw’d it off with you a laying on it, and was then a
carrying away the coals gradiwally in the soup-tureen and wegetable-dishes, and
the wine and spirits in your Wellington boots.”
We looked forward to the day when I should go out for a ride, as we had once
looked forward to the day of my apprenticeship. And when the day came, and an
open carriage was got into the Lane, Joe wrapped me up, took me in his arms,
carried me down to it, and put me in, as if I were still the small helpless
creature to whom he had so abundantly given of the wealth of his great nature.
And Joe got in beside me, and we drove away together into the country, where
the rich summer growth was already on the trees and on the grass, and sweet
summer scents filled all the air. The day happened to be Sunday, and when I
looked on the loveliness around me, and thought how it had grown and changed,
and how the little wild-flowers had been forming, and the voices of the birds
had been strengthening, by day and by night, under the sun and under the stars,
while poor I lay burning and tossing on my bed, the mere remembrance of having
burned and tossed there came like a check upon my peace. But when I heard the
Sunday bells, and looked around a little more upon the outspread beauty, I felt
that I was not nearly thankful enough,—that I was too weak yet to be even
that,—and I laid my head on Joe’s shoulder, as I had laid it long
ago when he had taken me to the Fair or where not, and it was too much for my
young senses.
More composure came to me after a while, and we talked as we used to talk,
lying on the grass at the old Battery. There was no change whatever in Joe.
Exactly what he had been in my eyes then, he was in my eyes still; just as
simply faithful, and as simply right.
When we got back again, and he lifted me out, and carried me—so
easily!—across the court and up the stairs, I thought of that eventful
Christmas Day when he had carried me over the marshes. We had not yet made any
allusion to my change of fortune, nor did I know how much of my late history he
was acquainted with. I was so doubtful of myself now, and put so much trust in
him, that I could not satisfy myself whether I ought to refer to it when he did
not.
“Have you heard, Joe,” I asked him that evening, upon further
consideration, as he smoked his pipe at the window, “who my patron
was?”
“I heerd,” returned Joe, “as it were not Miss Havisham, old
chap.”
“Did you hear who it was, Joe?”
“Well! I heerd as it were a person what sent the person what giv’
you the bank-notes at the Jolly Bargemen, Pip.”
“So it was.”
“Astonishing!” said Joe, in the placidest way.
“Did you hear that he was dead, Joe?” I presently asked, with
increasing diffidence.
“Which? Him as sent the bank-notes, Pip?”
“Yes.”
“I think,” said Joe, after meditating a long time, and looking
rather evasively at the window-seat, “as I hear tell that how
he were something or another in a general way in that direction.”
“Did you hear anything of his circumstances, Joe?”
“Not partickler, Pip.”
“If you would like to hear, Joe—” I was beginning, when Joe
got up and came to my sofa.
“Lookee here, old chap,” said Joe, bending over me. “Ever the
best of friends; ain’t us, Pip?”
I was ashamed to answer him.
“Wery good, then,” said Joe, as if I answered;
“that’s all right; that’s agreed upon. Then why go into
subjects, old chap, which as betwixt two sech must be for ever onnecessary?
There’s subjects enough as betwixt two sech, without onnecessary ones.
Lord! To think of your poor sister and her Rampages! And don’t you
remember Tickler?”
“I do indeed, Joe.”
“Lookee here, old chap,” said Joe. “I done what I could to
keep you and Tickler in sunders, but my power were not always fully equal to my
inclinations. For when your poor sister had a mind to drop into you, it were
not so much,” said Joe, in his favourite argumentative way, “that
she dropped into me too, if I put myself in opposition to her, but that she
dropped into you always heavier for it. I noticed that. It ain’t a grab
at a man’s whisker, not yet a shake or two of a man (to which your sister
was quite welcome), that ’ud put a man off from getting a little child
out of punishment. But when that little child is dropped into heavier for that
grab of whisker or shaking, then that man naterally up and says to himself,
‘Where is the good as you are a-doing? I grant you I see the
’arm,’ says the man, ‘but I don’t see the good. I call
upon you, sir, therefore, to pint out the good.’”
“The man says?” I observed, as Joe waited for me to speak.
“The man says,” Joe assented. “Is he right, that man?”
“Dear Joe, he is always right.”
“Well, old chap,” said Joe, “then abide by your words. If
he’s always right (which in general he’s more likely wrong),
he’s right when he says this: Supposing ever you kep any little matter to
yourself, when you was a little child, you kep it mostly because you
know’d as J. Gargery’s power to part you and Tickler in sunders
were not fully equal to his inclinations. Theerfore, think no more of it as
betwixt two sech, and do not let us pass remarks upon onnecessary subjects.
Biddy giv’ herself a deal o’ trouble with me afore I left (for I am
almost awful dull), as I should view it in this light, and, viewing it in this
light, as I should so put it. Both of which,” said Joe, quite charmed
with his logical arrangement, “being done, now this to you a true friend,
say. Namely. You mustn’t go a overdoing on it, but you must have your
supper and your wine and water, and you must be put betwixt the sheets.”
The delicacy with which Joe dismissed this theme, and the sweet tact and
kindness with which Biddy—who with her woman’s wit had found me out
so soon—had prepared him for it, made a deep impression on my mind. But
whether Joe knew how poor I was, and how my great expectations had all
dissolved, like our own marsh mists before the sun, I could not understand.
Another thing in Joe that I could not understand when it first began to develop
itself, but which I soon arrived at a sorrowful comprehension of, was this: As
I became stronger and better, Joe became a little less easy with me. In my
weakness and entire dependence on him, the dear fellow had fallen into the old
tone, and called me by the old names, the dear “old Pip, old chap,”
that now were music in my ears. I too had fallen into the old ways, only happy
and thankful that he let me. But, imperceptibly, though I held by them fast,
Joe’s hold upon them began to slacken; and whereas I wondered at this, at
first, I soon began to understand that the cause of it was in me, and that the
fault of it was all mine.
Ah! Had I given Joe no reason to doubt my constancy, and to think that in
prosperity I should grow cold to him and cast him off? Had I given Joe’s
innocent heart no cause to feel instinctively that as I got stronger, his hold
upon me would be weaker, and that he had better loosen it in time and let me
go, before I plucked myself away?
It was on the third or fourth occasion of my going out walking in the Temple
Gardens leaning on Joe’s arm, that I saw this change in him very plainly.
We had been sitting in the bright warm sunlight, looking at the river, and I
chanced to say as we got up,—
“See, Joe! I can walk quite strongly. Now, you shall see me walk back by
myself.”
“Which do not overdo it, Pip,” said Joe; “but I shall be
happy fur to see you able, sir.”
The last word grated on me; but how could I remonstrate! I walked no further
than the gate of the gardens, and then pretended to be weaker than I was, and
asked Joe for his arm. Joe gave it me, but was thoughtful.
I, for my part, was thoughtful too; for, how best to check this growing change
in Joe was a great perplexity to my remorseful thoughts. That I was ashamed to
tell him exactly how I was placed, and what I had come down to, I do not seek
to conceal; but I hope my reluctance was not quite an unworthy one. He would
want to help me out of his little savings, I knew, and I knew that he ought not
to help me, and that I must not suffer him to do it.
It was a thoughtful evening with both of us. But, before we went to bed, I had
resolved that I would wait over to-morrow,—to-morrow being
Sunday,—and would begin my new course with the new week. On Monday
morning I would speak to Joe about this change, I would lay aside this last
vestige of reserve, I would tell him what I had in my thoughts (that Secondly,
not yet arrived at), and why I had not decided to go out to Herbert, and then
the change would be conquered for ever. As I cleared, Joe cleared, and it
seemed as though he had sympathetically arrived at a resolution too.
We had a quiet day on the Sunday, and we rode out into the country, and then
walked in the fields.
“I feel thankful that I have been ill, Joe,” I said.
“Dear old Pip, old chap, you’re a’most come round,
sir.”
“It has been a memorable time for me, Joe.”
“Likeways for myself, sir,” Joe returned.
“We have had a time together, Joe, that I can never forget. There were
days once, I know, that I did for a while forget; but I never shall forget
these.”
“Pip,” said Joe, appearing a little hurried and troubled,
“there has been larks. And, dear sir, what have been betwixt
us—have been.”
At night, when I had gone to bed, Joe came into my room, as he had done all
through my recovery. He asked me if I felt sure that I was as well as in the
morning?
“Yes, dear Joe, quite.”
“And are always a getting stronger, old chap?”
“Yes, dear Joe, steadily.”
Joe patted the coverlet on my shoulder with his great good hand, and said, in
what I thought a husky voice, “Good night!”
When I got up in the morning, refreshed and stronger yet, I was full of my
resolution to tell Joe all, without delay. I would tell him before breakfast. I
would dress at once and go to his room and surprise him; for, it was the first
day I had been up early. I went to his room, and he was not there. Not only was
he not there, but his box was gone.
I hurried then to the breakfast-table, and on it found a letter. These were its
brief contents:—
“Not wishful to intrude I have departured fur you are well again dear Pip
and will do better without
J.
“P.S. Ever the best of friends.”
Enclosed in the letter was a receipt for the debt and costs on which I had been
arrested. Down to that moment, I had vainly supposed that my creditor had
withdrawn, or suspended proceedings until I should be quite recovered. I had
never dreamed of Joe’s having paid the money; but Joe had paid it, and
the receipt was in his name.
What remained for me now, but to follow him to the dear old forge, and there to
have out my disclosure to him, and my penitent remonstrance with him, and there
to relieve my mind and heart of that reserved Secondly, which had begun as a
vague something lingering in my thoughts, and had formed into a settled
purpose?
The purpose was, that I would go to Biddy, that I would show her how humbled
and repentant I came back, that I would tell her how I had lost all I once
hoped for, that I would remind her of our old confidences in my first unhappy
time. Then I would say to her, “Biddy, I think you once liked me very
well, when my errant heart, even while it strayed away from you, was quieter
and better with you than it ever has been since. If you can like me only half
as well once more, if you can take me with all my faults and disappointments on
my head, if you can receive me like a forgiven child (and indeed I am as sorry,
Biddy, and have as much need of a hushing voice and a soothing hand), I hope I
am a little worthier of you that I was,—not much, but a little. And,
Biddy, it shall rest with you to say whether I shall work at the forge with
Joe, or whether I shall try for any different occupation down in this country,
or whether we shall go away to a distant place where an opportunity awaits me
which I set aside, when it was offered, until I knew your answer. And now, dear
Biddy, if you can tell me that you will go through the world with me, you will
surely make it a better world for me, and me a better man for it, and I will
try hard to make it a better world for you.”
Such was my purpose. After three days more of recovery, I went down to the old
place to put it in execution. And how I sped in it is all I have left to tell.
Chapter LVIII.
The
tidings of my high fortunes having had a heavy fall had got down to my native
place and its neighbourhood before I got there. I found the Blue Boar in
possession of the intelligence, and I found that it made a great change in the
Boar’s demeanour. Whereas the Boar had cultivated my good opinion with
warm assiduity when I was coming into property, the Boar was exceedingly cool
on the subject now that I was going out of property.
It was evening when I arrived, much fatigued by the journey I had so often made
so easily. The Boar could not put me into my usual bedroom, which was engaged
(probably by some one who had expectations), and could only assign me a very
indifferent chamber among the pigeons and post-chaises up the yard. But I had
as sound a sleep in that lodging as in the most superior accommodation the Boar
could have given me, and the quality of my dreams was about the same as in the
best bedroom.
Early in the morning, while my breakfast was getting ready, I strolled round by
Satis House. There were printed bills on the gate and on bits of carpet hanging
out of the windows, announcing a sale by auction of the Household Furniture and
Effects, next week. The House itself was to be sold as old building materials,
and pulled down. L 1 was marked in whitewashed knock-knee
letters on the brew house; L 2 on that part of the main
building which had been so long shut up. Other lots were marked off on other
parts of the structure, and the ivy had been torn down to make room for the
inscriptions, and much of it trailed low in the dust and was withered already.
Stepping in for a moment at the open gate, and looking around me with the
uncomfortable air of a stranger who had no business there, I saw the
auctioneer’s clerk walking on the casks and telling them off for the
information of a catalogue-compiler, pen in hand, who made a temporary desk of
the wheeled chair I had so often pushed along to the tune of Old Clem.
When I got back to my breakfast in the Boar’s coffee-room, I found Mr.
Pumblechook conversing with the landlord. Mr. Pumblechook (not improved in
appearance by his late nocturnal adventure) was waiting for me, and addressed
me in the following terms:—
“Young man, I am sorry to see you brought low. But what else could be
expected! what else could be expected!”
As he extended his hand with a magnificently forgiving air, and as I was broken
by illness and unfit to quarrel, I took it.
“William,” said Mr. Pumblechook to the waiter, “put a muffin
on table. And has it come to this! Has it come to this!”
I frowningly sat down to my breakfast. Mr. Pumblechook stood over me and poured
out my tea—before I could touch the teapot—with the air of a
benefactor who was resolved to be true to the last.
“William,” said Mr. Pumblechook, mournfully, “put the salt
on. In happier times,” addressing me, “I think you took sugar? And
did you take milk? You did. Sugar and milk. William, bring a watercress.”
“Thank you,” said I, shortly, “but I don’t eat
watercresses.”
“You don’t eat ’em,” returned Mr. Pumblechook, sighing
and nodding his head several times, as if he might have expected that, and as
if abstinence from watercresses were consistent with my downfall. “True.
The simple fruits of the earth. No. You needn’t bring any,
William.”
I went on with my breakfast, and Mr. Pumblechook continued to stand over me,
staring fishily and breathing noisily, as he always did.
“Little more than skin and bone!” mused Mr. Pumblechook, aloud.
“And yet when he went from here (I may say with my blessing), and I
spread afore him my humble store, like the Bee, he was as plump as a
Peach!”
This reminded me of the wonderful difference between the servile manner in
which he had offered his hand in my new prosperity, saying, “May
I?” and the ostentatious clemency with which he had just now exhibited
the same fat five fingers.
“Hah!” he went on, handing me the bread and butter. “And air
you a-going to Joseph?”
“In heaven’s name,” said I, firing in spite of myself,
“what does it matter to you where I am going? Leave that teapot
alone.”
It was the worst course I could have taken, because it gave Pumblechook the
opportunity he wanted.
“Yes, young man,” said he, releasing the handle of the article in
question, retiring a step or two from my table, and speaking for the behoof of
the landlord and waiter at the door, “I leave that teapot
alone. You are right, young man. For once you are right. I forgit myself when I
take such an interest in your breakfast, as to wish your frame, exhausted by
the debilitating effects of prodigygality, to be stimilated by the
’olesome nourishment of your forefathers. And yet,” said
Pumblechook, turning to the landlord and waiter, and pointing me out at
arm’s length, “this is him as I ever sported with in his days of
happy infancy! Tell me not it cannot be; I tell you this is him!”
A low murmur from the two replied. The waiter appeared to be particularly
affected.
“This is him,” said Pumblechook, “as I have rode in my
shay-cart. This is him as I have seen brought up by hand. This is him untoe the
sister of which I was uncle by marriage, as her name was Georgiana M’ria
from her own mother, let him deny it if he can!”
The waiter seemed convinced that I could not deny it, and that it gave the case
a black look.
“Young man,” said Pumblechook, screwing his head at me in the old
fashion, “you air a-going to Joseph. What does it matter to me, you ask
me, where you air a-going? I say to you, Sir, you air a-going to Joseph.”
The waiter coughed, as if he modestly invited me to get over that.
“Now,” said Pumblechook, and all this with a most exasperating air
of saying in the cause of virtue what was perfectly convincing and conclusive,
“I will tell you what to say to Joseph. Here is Squires of the Boar
present, known and respected in this town, and here is William, which his
father’s name was Potkins if I do not deceive myself.”
“You do not, sir,” said William.
“In their presence,” pursued Pumblechook, “I will tell you,
young man, what to say to Joseph. Says you, “Joseph, I have this day seen
my earliest benefactor and the founder of my fortun’s. I will name no
names, Joseph, but so they are pleased to call him up town, and I have seen
that man.”
“I swear I don’t see him here,” said I.
“Say that likewise,” retorted Pumblechook. “Say you said
that, and even Joseph will probably betray surprise.”
“There you quite mistake him,” said I. “I know better.”
“Says you,” Pumblechook went on, “‘Joseph, I have seen
that man, and that man bears you no malice and bears me no malice. He knows
your character, Joseph, and is well acquainted with your pig-headedness and
ignorance; and he knows my character, Joseph, and he knows my want of
gratitoode. Yes, Joseph,’ says you,” here Pumblechook shook his
head and hand at me, “‘he knows my total deficiency of common human
gratitoode. knows it, Joseph, as none can. do not know it,
Joseph, having no call to know it, but that man do.’”
Windy donkey as he was, it really amazed me that he could have the face to talk
thus to mine.
“Says you, ‘Joseph, he gave me a little message, which I will now
repeat. It was that, in my being brought low, he saw the finger of Providence.
He knowed that finger when he saw Joseph, and he saw it plain. It pinted out
this writing, Joseph. . But that man said he did not repent of what he
had done, Joseph. Not at all. It was right to do it, it was kind to do it, it
was benevolent to do it, and he would do it again.’”
“It’s pity,” said I, scornfully, as I finished my interrupted
breakfast, “that the man did not say what he had done and would do
again.”
“Squires of the Boar!” Pumblechook was now addressing the landlord,
“and William! I have no objections to your mentioning, either up town or
down town, if such should be your wishes, that it was right to do it, kind to
do it, benevolent to do it, and that I would do it again.”
With those words the Impostor shook them both by the hand, with an air, and
left the house; leaving me much more astonished than delighted by the virtues
of that same indefinite “it.” I was not long after him in leaving
the house too, and when I went down the High Street I saw him holding forth (no
doubt to the same effect) at his shop door to a select group, who honoured me
with very unfavourable glances as I passed on the opposite side of the way.
But, it was only the pleasanter to turn to Biddy and to Joe, whose great
forbearance shone more brightly than before, if that could be, contrasted with
this brazen pretender. I went towards them slowly, for my limbs were weak, but
with a sense of increasing relief as I drew nearer to them, and a sense of
leaving arrogance and untruthfulness further and further behind.
The June weather was delicious. The sky was blue, the larks were soaring high
over the green corn, I thought all that countryside more beautiful and peaceful
by far than I had ever known it to be yet. Many pleasant pictures of the life
that I would lead there, and of the change for the better that would come over
my character when I had a guiding spirit at my side whose simple faith and
clear home wisdom I had proved, beguiled my way. They awakened a tender emotion
in me; for my heart was softened by my return, and such a change had come to
pass, that I felt like one who was toiling home barefoot from distant travel,
and whose wanderings had lasted many years.
The schoolhouse where Biddy was mistress I had never seen; but, the little
roundabout lane by which I entered the village, for quietness’ sake, took
me past it. I was disappointed to find that the day was a holiday; no children
were there, and Biddy’s house was closed. Some hopeful notion of seeing
her, busily engaged in her daily duties, before she saw me, had been in my mind
and was defeated.
But the forge was a very short distance off, and I went towards it under the
sweet green limes, listening for the clink of Joe’s hammer. Long after I
ought to have heard it, and long after I had fancied I heard it and found it
but a fancy, all was still. The limes were there, and the white thorns were
there, and the chestnut-trees were there, and their leaves rustled harmoniously
when I stopped to listen; but, the clink of Joe’s hammer was not in the
midsummer wind.
Almost fearing, without knowing why, to come in view of the forge, I saw it at
last, and saw that it was closed. No gleam of fire, no glittering shower of
sparks, no roar of bellows; all shut up, and still.
But the house was not deserted, and the best parlour seemed to be in use, for
there were white curtains fluttering in its window, and the window was open and
gay with flowers. I went softly towards it, meaning to peep over the flowers,
when Joe and Biddy stood before me, arm in arm.
At first Biddy gave a cry, as if she thought it was my apparition, but in
another moment she was in my embrace. I wept to see her, and she wept to see
me; I, because she looked so fresh and pleasant; she, because I looked so worn
and white.
“But dear Biddy, how smart you are!”
“Yes, dear Pip.”
“And Joe, how smart are!”
“Yes, dear old Pip, old chap.”
I looked at both of them, from one to the other, and then—
“It’s my wedding-day!” cried Biddy, in a burst of happiness,
“and I am married to Joe!”
They had taken me into the kitchen, and I had laid my head down on the old deal
table. Biddy held one of my hands to her lips, and Joe’s restoring touch
was on my shoulder. “Which he warn’t strong enough, my dear, fur to
be surprised,” said Joe. And Biddy said, “I ought to have thought
of it, dear Joe, but I was too happy.” They were both so overjoyed to see
me, so proud to see me, so touched by my coming to them, so delighted that I
should have come by accident to make their day complete!
My first thought was one of great thankfulness that I had never breathed this
last baffled hope to Joe. How often, while he was with me in my illness, had it
risen to my lips! How irrevocable would have been his knowledge of it, if he
had remained with me but another hour!
“Dear Biddy,” said I, “you have the best husband in the whole
world, and if you could have seen him by my bed you would have—But no,
you couldn’t love him better than you do.”
“No, I couldn’t indeed,” said Biddy.
“And, dear Joe, you have the best wife in the whole world, and she will
make you as happy as even you deserve to be, you dear, good, noble Joe!”
Joe looked at me with a quivering lip, and fairly put his sleeve before his
eyes.
“And Joe and Biddy both, as you have been to church to-day, and are in
charity and love with all mankind, receive my humble thanks for all you have
done for me, and all I have so ill repaid! And when I say that I am going away
within the hour, for I am soon going abroad, and that I shall never rest until
I have worked for the money with which you have kept me out of prison, and have
sent it to you, don’t think, dear Joe and Biddy, that if I could repay it
a thousand times over, I suppose I could cancel a farthing of the debt I owe
you, or that I would do so if I could!”
They were both melted by these words, and both entreated me to say no more.
“But I must say more. Dear Joe, I hope you will have children to love,
and that some little fellow will sit in this chimney-corner of a winter night,
who may remind you of another little fellow gone out of it for ever.
Don’t tell him, Joe, that I was thankless; don’t tell him, Biddy,
that I was ungenerous and unjust; only tell him that I honoured you both,
because you were both so good and true, and that, as your child, I said it
would be natural to him to grow up a much better man than I did.”
“I ain’t a-going,” said Joe, from behind his sleeve,
“to tell him nothink o’ that natur, Pip. Nor Biddy ain’t. Nor
yet no one ain’t.”
“And now, though I know you have already done it in your own kind hearts,
pray tell me, both, that you forgive me! Pray let me hear you say the words,
that I may carry the sound of them away with me, and then I shall be able to
believe that you can trust me, and think better of me, in the time to
come!”
“O dear old Pip, old chap,” said Joe. “God knows as I forgive
you, if I have anythink to forgive!”
“Amen! And God knows I do!” echoed Biddy.
“Now let me go up and look at my old little room, and rest there a few
minutes by myself. And then, when I have eaten and drunk with you, go with me
as far as the finger-post, dear Joe and Biddy, before we say good-bye!”
I sold all I had, and put aside as much as I could, for a composition with my
creditors,—who gave me ample time to pay them in full,—and I went
out and joined Herbert. Within a month, I had quitted England, and within two
months I was clerk to Clarriker and Co., and within four months I assumed my
first undivided responsibility. For the beam across the parlour ceiling at Mill
Pond Bank had then ceased to tremble under old Bill Barley’s growls and
was at peace, and Herbert had gone away to marry Clara, and I was left in sole
charge of the Eastern Branch until he brought her back.
Many a year went round before I was a partner in the House; but I lived happily
with Herbert and his wife, and lived frugally, and paid my debts, and
maintained a constant correspondence with Biddy and Joe. It was not until I
became third in the Firm, that Clarriker betrayed me to Herbert; but he then
declared that the secret of Herbert’s partnership had been long enough
upon his conscience, and he must tell it. So he told it, and Herbert was as
much moved as amazed, and the dear fellow and I were not the worse friends for
the long concealment. I must not leave it to be supposed that we were ever a
great House, or that we made mints of money. We were not in a grand way of
business, but we had a good name, and worked for our profits, and did very
well. We owed so much to Herbert’s ever cheerful industry and readiness,
that I often wondered how I had conceived that old idea of his inaptitude,
until I was one day enlightened by the reflection, that perhaps the inaptitude
had never been in him at all, but had been in me.
Chapter LIX.
For
eleven years, I had not seen Joe nor Biddy with my bodily eyes,—though
they had both been often before my fancy in the East,—when, upon an
evening in December, an hour or two after dark, I laid my hand softly on the
latch of the old kitchen door. I touched it so softly that I was not heard, and
looked in unseen. There, smoking his pipe in the old place by the kitchen
firelight, as hale and as strong as ever, though a little grey, sat Joe; and
there, fenced into the corner with Joe’s leg, and sitting on my own
little stool looking at the fire, was—I again!
“We giv’ him the name of Pip for your sake, dear old chap,”
said Joe, delighted, when I took another stool by the child’s side (but I
did rumple his hair), “and we hoped he might grow a little bit
like you, and we think he do.”
I thought so too, and I took him out for a walk next morning, and we talked
immensely, understanding one another to perfection. And I took him down to the
churchyard, and set him on a certain tombstone there, and he showed me from
that elevation which stone was sacred to the memory of Philip Pirrip, late of
this Parish, and Also Georgiana, Wife of the Above.
“Biddy,” said I, when I talked with her after dinner, as her little
girl lay sleeping in her lap, “you must give Pip to me one of these days;
or lend him, at all events.”
“No, no,” said Biddy, gently. “You must marry.”
“So Herbert and Clara say, but I don’t think I shall, Biddy. I have
so settled down in their home, that it’s not at all likely. I am already
quite an old bachelor.”
Biddy looked down at her child, and put its little hand to her lips, and then
put the good matronly hand with which she had touched it into mine. There was
something in the action, and in the light pressure of Biddy’s
wedding-ring, that had a very pretty eloquence in it.
“Dear Pip,” said Biddy, “you are sure you don’t fret
for her?”
“O no,—I think not, Biddy.”
“Tell me as an old, old friend. Have you quite forgotten her?
“My dear Biddy, I have forgotten nothing in my life that ever had a
foremost place there, and little that ever had any place there. But that poor
dream, as I once used to call it, has all gone by, Biddy,—all gone
by!”
Nevertheless, I knew, while I said those words, that I secretly intended to
revisit the site of the old house that evening, alone, for her sake. Yes, even
so. For Estella’s sake.
I had heard of her as leading a most unhappy life, and as being separated from
her husband, who had used her with great cruelty, and who had become quite
renowned as a compound of pride, avarice, brutality, and meanness. And I had
heard of the death of her husband, from an accident consequent on his
ill-treatment of a horse. This release had befallen her some two years before;
for anything I knew, she was married again.
The early dinner hour at Joe’s, left me abundance of time, without
hurrying my talk with Biddy, to walk over to the old spot before dark. But,
what with loitering on the way to look at old objects and to think of old
times, the day had quite declined when I came to the place.
There was no house now, no brewery, no building whatever left, but the wall of
the old garden. The cleared space had been enclosed with a rough fence, and
looking over it, I saw that some of the old ivy had struck root anew, and was
growing green on low quiet mounds of ruin. A gate in the fence standing ajar, I
pushed it open, and went in.
A cold silvery mist had veiled the afternoon, and the moon was not yet up to
scatter it. But, the stars were shining beyond the mist, and the moon was
coming, and the evening was not dark. I could trace out where every part of the
old house had been, and where the brewery had been, and where the gates, and
where the casks. I had done so, and was looking along the desolate garden walk,
when I beheld a solitary figure in it.
The figure showed itself aware of me, as I advanced. It had been moving towards
me, but it stood still. As I drew nearer, I saw it to be the figure of a woman.
As I drew nearer yet, it was about to turn away, when it stopped, and let me
come up with it. Then, it faltered, as if much surprised, and uttered my name,
and I cried out,—
“Estella!”
“I am greatly changed. I wonder you know me.”
The freshness of her beauty was indeed gone, but its indescribable majesty and
its indescribable charm remained. Those attractions in it, I had seen before;
what I had never seen before, was the saddened, softened light of the once
proud eyes; what I had never felt before was the friendly touch of the once
insensible hand.
We sat down on a bench that was near, and I said, “After so many years,
it is strange that we should thus meet again, Estella, here where our first
meeting was! Do you often come back?”
“I have never been here since.”
“Nor I.”
The moon began to rise, and I thought of the placid look at the white ceiling,
which had passed away. The moon began to rise, and I thought of the pressure on
my hand when I had spoken the last words he had heard on earth.
Estella was the next to break the silence that ensued between us.
“I have very often hoped and intended to come back, but have been
prevented by many circumstances. Poor, poor old place!”
The silvery mist was touched with the first rays of the moonlight, and the same
rays touched the tears that dropped from her eyes. Not knowing that I saw them,
and setting herself to get the better of them, she said quietly,—
“Were you wondering, as you walked along, how it came to be left in this
condition?”
“Yes, Estella.”
“The ground belongs to me. It is the only possession I have not
relinquished. Everything else has gone from me, little by little, but I have
kept this. It was the subject of the only determined resistance I made in all
the wretched years.”
“Is it to be built on?”
“At last, it is. I came here to take leave of it before its change. And
you,” she said, in a voice of touching interest to a
wanderer,—“you live abroad still?”
“Still.”
“And do well, I am sure?”
“I work pretty hard for a sufficient living, and therefore—yes, I
do well.”
“I have often thought of you,” said Estella.
“Have you?”
“Of late, very often. There was a long hard time when I kept far from me
the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its
worth. But since my duty has not been incompatible with the admission of that
remembrance, I have given it a place in my heart.”
“You have always held your place in my heart,” I answered.
And we were silent again until she spoke.
“I little thought,” said Estella, “that I should take leave
of you in taking leave of this spot. I am very glad to do so.”
“Glad to part again, Estella? To me, parting is a painful thing. To me,
the remembrance of our last parting has been ever mournful and painful.”
“But you said to me,” returned Estella, very earnestly,
“‘God bless you, God forgive you!’ And if you could say that
to me then, you will not hesitate to say that to me now,—now, when
suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to
understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but—I
hope—into a better shape. Be as considerate and good to me as you were,
and tell me we are friends.”
“We are friends,” said I, rising and bending over her, as she rose
from the bench.
“And will continue friends apart,” said Estella.
I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the
morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the evening
mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they
showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK