GREAT EXPECTATIONS Charles Dickens

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.
"Oh 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 realize Capital, it was his
intention to marry this young lady. He added as a self-evident
proposition, engendering low spirits, "But you can't marry, you
know, while you're looking about you."
As we contemplated the fire, and as I thought what a difficult
vision to realize 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 playbill 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 31
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
kettledrum." 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 you do it, neither; you're a deal worse than him!"
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 up-hill and down-hill, 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 down-stairs, 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, Oh, 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."
"Oh 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 role (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 32
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 mid-day
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, ESTELLA."
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 your 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 as 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 wrong-doing - 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 frouzy, 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 you 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 postoffice,
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 over-spreading 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 I don't care."
"No, no," said Wemmick, coolly, "you 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-bye; you
were quite a pigeon-fancier." The man looked up at the sky. "I am
told you had a remarkable breed of tumblers. could you commission
any friend of yours to bring me a pair, of 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 waterside 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.
"Oh 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 him, 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 was the nameless shadow which again in that one instant had
passed?
Chapter 33
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. Oh, 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 up-stairs, 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 you; 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 realize
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. Oh, 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 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 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),
saltcellars, a meek little muffin confined with the utmost
precaution under a strong iron cover, Moses in the bullrushes
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 fire-place 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 recognizing 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.
"Oh 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
diamondhilted sword, Here are the shoes with red heels and the blue
solitaire, - sounded gravely in the moonlight, and two
cherrycoloured 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
heartache 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 34
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 head-foremost 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 mid-day; 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 realized
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 generalizing 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 almanack, 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
connexion 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 jewellery," 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 out 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 me 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 stationary, 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 35
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 consolation, and to assure him that
I should 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 recognized 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,
"Here they come!" "Here 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
teatime, 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 WILL 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.
"Oh 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 not come
back, and that Biddy was quite right, all I can say is - they were
quite right too.
Chapter 36
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
tissuepaper 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 you a question, my friend," said Mr. Jaggers.
"Have you anything to ask me?"
"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 me.
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 some money down," I replied, for an uneasy remembrance shot
across me of that symmetrical bundle of papers at home; "with some
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 greatcoat
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 37
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 "JOHN" 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 are 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 haystack 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 for 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 38
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, fete 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 me!" Miss Havisham quite shrieked, as
she stretched out her arms. "Estella, Estella, Estella, to be proud
and hard to me!"
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 court-yard, 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 court-yard. 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
court-yard 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.
"Do you?" said Drummle.
"And so do I," I added, with a scarlet face.
"Do you?" said Drummle. "Oh, 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 they knew where they 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. Brandley 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,
illtempered, 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 39
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
will 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 how 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 mantelshelf. 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 o'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: that's a
gentleman's, I hope! A diamond all set round with rubies; that's 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 wos 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 atelling
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 you'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 40
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 up-stairs.
"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 was 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 the 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 his 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 like a
gentleman. That'll be my pleasure. My 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 recognized 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 years 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 have 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 is 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 jack-knife 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 jack-knife 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
jack-knife 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 jack-knife, 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 41
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
gen-teel 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 jack-knife 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 realization of his fixed idea. In the
moment of realization, 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 recognized 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 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 jack-knife, 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 negrohead,
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 42
"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 got it. That's my 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-kettle. 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
waggoner, 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 keymetal 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 brook - you 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. 'Oh, 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 her 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 misdemeanour, while with Compeyson?"
I answered, No.
"Well!" he said, "I was, 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 I 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 43
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 meantime, 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 fire-place 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 him a little away with my 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?"
"Wai-ter!," 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 tea-pot 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 - led 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
dustcoloured 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 44
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 her 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. I 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 my 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 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, "PLEASE READ THIS, HERE." I opened it, the watchman holding
up his light, and read inside, in Wemmick's writing:
"DON'T GO HOME."
Chapter 45
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 fire-place 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 rush-light 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, DON'T GO HOME.
Whatever night-fancies and night-noises crowded on me, they never
warded off this DON'T GO HOME. 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 for ever, 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. -
Would 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 today. 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 apologized.
" - 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 indoor 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 emphasized
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 was 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. Firstly. It's altogether out of all your beats, and
is well away from the usual heap of streets great and small.
Secondly. Without going near it yourself, you could always hear of
the safety of Tom, Jack, or Richard, through Mr. Herbert. Thirdly.
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 him. 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 46
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 boatbuilders, 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 over-shooting 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 up-stairs. - That's 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 will 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 will 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 to 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
up-stairs 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 recognize 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 down stairs. 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 a 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 47
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
jewellery 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 waterside 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 playbills, as a faithful Black, in connexion
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 table-cloths, 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
firstfloor 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 48
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 not 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 his 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
and 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 you 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 gipsy 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 will 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 49
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 court-yard, 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 or 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 non 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 down stairs 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 court-yard, 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 up-stairs 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 50
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 51
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 her.
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 up-stairs 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 cheque 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 cheque in my pocket, when he had signed it, "that
we do nothing for you."
"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 not 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 she 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 soonest 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.
"You 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 you 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, this was your manner of attack and this the
manner of resistance, you went 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 intellect, 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 himself 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 that 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
shop-lifting. 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 52
From Little Britain, I went, with my cheque 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 these 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 got
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
tomorrow night at Nine, and to come to the little sluice-house by
the limekiln, you had better come. If you want information
regarding your uncle Provis, you had much better come and tell no
one and lose no time. You must come alone. 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, you never tell of it. Long-suffering
and loving Joe, you 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 53
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, "I'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. Oh 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. Oh, 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 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. I 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 ale-houses. 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
over-state 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 have 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!
"You 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
mostlike 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, I 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
tomorrow, 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 day 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 54
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 out 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 waterside
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 realize 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 sympathize 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 John of Sunderland making a speech to the
winds (as is done by many Johns), and the Betsy of Yarmouth with a
firm formality of bosom and her nobby eyes starting two inches out
of her head, in and out, hammers going in shipbuilders'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?"
"I 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."
"I knows what I thinks," observed the Jack.
"You thinks Custum 'Us, Jack?" said the landlord.
"I do," said the Jack.
"Then you're wrong, Jack."
"Am 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 Custum '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 Custum '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 footpints 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
pocketbook 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 55
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
memorialize 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 recognizable 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 recognizable 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 I 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 up-stairs, 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
than, when Wemmick anticipated me.
"I know your engagements," said he, "and I know you are out of
sorts, Mr. Pip. But if you could 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 a gain, 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
and 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 scandalized, and
it happened thus. When he said, "Who giveth this woman to be
married to this man?" the old gentlemen, 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, "WHO 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 he 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. "Now, 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 56
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, 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 57
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, "Is 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 sittingroom, 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
crowbar 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 down-stroke so slowly that it might have been six
feet long, while at every up-stroke 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 shovel-full 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
souptureen 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 did 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 had 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. Therefore, 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-over-doing 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 over-do 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 JO.
"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 58
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. LOT 1 was marked in whitewashed knock-knee letters on
the brew house; LOT 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 will 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 shaycart.
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. He knows it, Joseph, as none can. You 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 it, Joseph, and he
saw it plain. It pinted out this writing, Joseph. Reward of
ingratitoode to his earliest benefactor, and founder of fortun's.
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 country-side
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 you 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 59
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 not 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 gate, and where the casks. I had
done so, and was looking along the desolate gardenwalk, 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.