large red wafer on each of his shins, and then at that rehearsal (which
was the last) I went in front, sir, to the back of the pit, and whenever
his reading brought him into profile, I called out "I don't see no
wafers!" And at night his reading was lovely."
Mr. Waldengarver smiled at me, as much as to say "a faithful
Dependent--I overlook his folly;" and then said aloud, "My view is a
little classic and thoughtful for them here; but they will improve, they
will improve."
Herbert and I said together, O, no doubt they would improve.
"Did you observe, gentlemen," said Mr. Waldengarver, "that there was a
man in the gallery who endeavored to cast derision on the service,--I
mean, the representation?"
We basely replied that we rather thought we had noticed such a man. I
added, "He was drunk, no doubt."
"O dear no, sir," said Mr. Wopsle, "not drunk. His employer would see to
that, sir. His employer would not allow him to be drunk."
"You know his employer?" said I.
Mr. Wopsle shut his eyes, and opened them again; performing both
ceremonies very slowly. "You must have observed, gentlemen," said he,
"an ignorant and a blatant ass, with a rasping throat and a countenance
expressive of low malignity, who went through--I will not say
sustained--the 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 XXXII
One day when I was busy with my books and Mr. Pocket, I received a note
by the post, the mere outside of which threw me into a great flutter;
for, though I had never seen the handwriting in which it was addressed,
I divined whose hand it was. It had no set beginning, as Dear Mr. Pip,
or Dear Pip, or Dear Sir, or Dear Anything, but ran thus:--
"I am to come to London the day after to-morrow by the midday coach. I
believe it was settled you should meet me? At all events Miss Havisham
has that impression, and I write in obedience to it. She sends you her
regard.
"Yours, 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 neighborhood shouldn't
complain, and that cannon of mine should prove equal to the pressure.
However, this is not London talk. Where do you think I am going to?"
"To the office?" said I, for he was tending in that direction.
"Next thing to it," returned Wemmick, "I am going to Newgate. We are in
a banker's-parcel case just at present, and I have been down the road
taking a squint at the scene of action, and thereupon must have a word
or two with our client."
"Did your client commit the robbery?" I asked.
"Bless your soul and body, no," answered Wemmick, very drily. "But he
is accused of it. So might you or I be. Either of us might be accused of
it, you know."
"Only neither of us is," I remarked.
"Yah!" said Wemmick, touching me on the breast with his forefinger;
"you're a deep one, Mr. Pip! Would you like to have a look at Newgate?
Have you time to spare?"
I had so much time to spare, that the proposal came as a relief,
notwithstanding its irreconcilability with my latent desire to keep my
eye on the coach-office. Muttering that I would make the inquiry whether
I had time to walk with him, I went into the office, and ascertained
from the clerk with the nicest precision and much to the trying of his
temper, the earliest moment at which the coach could be expected,--which
I knew beforehand, quite as well as he. I then rejoined Mr. Wemmick, and
affecting to consult my watch, and to be surprised by the information I
had received, accepted his offer.
We were at Newgate in a few minutes, and we passed through the lodge
where some fetters were hanging up on the bare walls among the prison
rules, into the interior of the jail. At that time jails were much
neglected, and the period of exaggerated reaction consequent on
all public wrongdoing--and which is always its heaviest and longest
punishment--was still far off. So, felons were not lodged and fed better
than soldiers (to say nothing of paupers), and seldom set fire to their
prisons with the excusable object of improving the flavor of their soup.
It was visiting time when Wemmick took me in, and a potman was going his
rounds with beer; and the prisoners, behind bars in yards, were buying
beer, and talking to friends; and a frowzy, ugly, disorderly, depressing
scene it was.
It struck me that Wemmick walked among the prisoners much as a gardener
might walk among his plants. This was first put into my head by his
seeing a shoot that had come up in the night, and saying, "What, Captain
Tom? Are 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 post-office, and putting his hands in his
pockets. In one or two instances there was a difficulty respecting the
raising of fees, and then Mr. Wemmick, backing as far as possible from
the insufficient money produced, said, "it's no use, my boy. I'm only
a subordinate. I can't take it. Don't go on in that way with a
subordinate. If you are unable to make up your quantum, my boy, you had
better address yourself to a principal; there are plenty of principals
in the profession, you know, and what is not worth the while of one, may
be worth the while of another; that's my recommendation to you, speaking
as a subordinate. Don't try on useless measures. Why should you? Now,
who's next?"
Thus, we walked through Wemmick's greenhouse, until he turned to me and
said, "Notice the man I shall shake hands with." I should have done so,
without the preparation, as he had shaken hands with no one yet.
Almost as soon as he had spoken, a portly upright man (whom I can
see now, as I write) in a well-worn olive-colored frock-coat, with a
peculiar pallor overspreading the red in his complexion, and eyes that
went wandering about when he tried to fix them, came up to a corner
of the bars, and put his hand to his hat--which had a greasy and fatty
surface like cold broth--with a half-serious and half-jocose military
salute.
"Colonel, to you!" said Wemmick; "how are you, Colonel?"
"All right, Mr. Wemmick."
"Everything was done that could be done, but the evidence was too strong
for us, Colonel."
"Yes, it was too strong, sir,--but 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 favor of
your wearing another ring--in acknowledgment of your attentions."
"I'll accept the will for the deed," said Wemmick. "By the by; you were
quite a pigeon-fancier." The man looked up at the sky. "I am told you
had a remarkable breed of tumblers. Could you commission any friend of
yours to bring me a pair, if you've no further use for 'em?"
"It shall be done, sir."
"All right," said Wemmick, "they shall be taken care of. Good afternoon,
Colonel. Good-bye!" They shook hands again, and as we walked away Wemmick
said to me, "A Coiner, a very good workman. The Recorder's report is
made to-day, and he is sure to be executed on Monday. Still you see, as
far as it goes, a pair of pigeons are portable property all the same."
With that, he looked back, and nodded at this dead plant, and then cast
his eyes about him in walking out of the yard, as if he were considering
what other pot would go best in its place.
As we came out of the prison through the lodge, I found that the great
importance of my guardian was appreciated by the turnkeys, no less
than by those whom they held in charge. "Well, Mr. Wemmick," said the
turnkey, who kept us between the two studded and spiked lodge gates,
and who carefully locked one before he unlocked the other, "what's Mr.
Jaggers going to do with that water-side murder? Is he going to make it
manslaughter, or what's he going to make of it?"
"Why don't you ask him?" returned Wemmick.
"O yes, I dare say!" said the turnkey.
"Now, that's the way with them here, Mr. Pip," remarked Wemmick, turning
to me with his post-office elongated. "They don't mind what they ask of
me, the subordinate; but you'll never catch 'em asking any questions of
my principal."
"Is this young gentleman one of the 'prentices or articled ones of your
office?" asked the turnkey, with a grin at Mr. Wemmick's humor.
"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 XXXIII
In her furred travelling-dress, Estella seemed more delicately beautiful
than she had ever seemed yet, even in my eyes. Her manner was more
winning than she had cared to let it be to me before, and I thought I
saw Miss Havisham's influence in the change.
We stood in the Inn Yard while she pointed out her luggage to me, and
when it was all collected I remembered--having forgotten everything but
herself in the meanwhile--that I knew nothing of her destination.
"I am going to Richmond," she told me. "Our lesson is, that there are
two Richmonds, one in Surrey and one in Yorkshire, and that mine is the
Surrey Richmond. The distance is ten miles. I am to have a carriage, and
you are to take me. This is my purse, and you are to pay my charges out
of it. O, you must take the purse! We have no choice, you and I, but to
obey our instructions. We are not free to follow our own devices, you
and I."
As she looked at me in giving me the purse, I hoped there was an
inner meaning in her words. She said them slightingly, but not with
displeasure.
"A carriage will have to be sent for, Estella. Will you rest here a
little?"
"Yes, I am to rest here a little, and I am to drink some tea, and you
are to take care of me the while."
She drew her arm through mine, as if it must be done, and I requested a
waiter who had been staring at the coach like a man who had never seen
such a thing in his life, to show us a private sitting-room. Upon that,
he pulled out a napkin, as if it were a magic clew without which he
couldn't find the way upstairs, and led us to the black hole of the
establishment, fitted up with a diminishing mirror (quite a superfluous
article, considering the hole's proportions), an anchovy sauce-cruet,
and somebody's pattens. On my objecting to this retreat, he took us into
another room with a dinner-table for thirty, and in the grate a scorched
leaf of a copy-book under a bushel of coal-dust. Having looked at this
extinct conflagration and shaken his head, he took my order; which,
proving to be merely, "Some tea for the lady," sent him out of the room
in a very low state of mind.
I was, and I am, sensible that the air of this chamber, in its strong
combination of stable with soup-stock, might have led one to infer that
the coaching department was not doing well, and that the enterprising
proprietor was boiling down the horses for the refreshment department.
Yet the room was all in all to me, Estella being in it. I thought that
with her I could have been happy there for life. (I was not at all happy
there at the time, observe, and I knew it well.)
"Where are you going to, at Richmond?" I asked Estella.
"I am going to live," said she, "at a great expense, with a lady there,
who has the power--or says she has--of taking me about, and introducing
me, and showing people to me and showing me to people."
"I suppose you will be glad of variety and admiration?"
"Yes, I suppose so."
She answered so carelessly, that I said, "You speak of yourself as if
you were some one else."
"Where did you learn how I speak of others? Come, come," said Estella,
smiling delightfully, "you must not expect me to go to school to 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. O, those people with Miss Havisham, and the
tortures they undergo!" She laughed again, and even now when she had
told me why, her laughter was very singular to me, for I could not
doubt its being genuine, and yet it seemed too much for the occasion.
I thought there must really be something more here than I knew; she saw
the thought in my mind, and answered it.
"It is not easy for even you." said Estella, "to know what satisfaction
it gives me to see those people thwarted, or what an enjoyable sense of
the ridiculous I have when they are made ridiculous. For you were not
brought up in that strange house from a mere baby. I was. You had not
your little wits sharpened by their intriguing against you, suppressed
and defenceless, under the mask of sympathy and pity and what not that
is soft and soothing. I had. You did not gradually open your round
childish eyes wider and wider to the discovery of that impostor of a
woman who calculates her stores of peace of mind for when she wakes up
in the night. I did."
It was no laughing matter with Estella now, nor was she summoning these
remembrances from any shallow place. I would not have been the cause of
that look of hers for all my expectations in a heap.
"Two things I can tell you," said Estella. "First, notwithstanding the
proverb that constant dropping will wear away a stone, you may set
your mind at rest that these people never will--never would, in hundred
years--impair your ground with Miss Havisham, in any particular, great
or small. Second, I am beholden to you as the cause of their being so
busy and so mean in vain, and there is my hand upon it."
As she gave it to me playfully,--for her darker mood had been but
Momentary,--I held it and put it to my lips. "You ridiculous boy," said
Estella, "will you never take warning? Or do you kiss my hand in the
same spirit in which I once let you kiss my cheek?"
"What spirit was that?" said I.
"I must think a moment. A spirit of contempt for the fawners and
plotters."
"If I say yes, may I kiss the cheek again?"
"You should have asked before you touched the hand. But, yes, if you
like."
I leaned down, and her calm face was like a statue's. "Now," said
Estella, gliding away the instant I touched her cheek, "you are to take
care that I have some tea, and you are to take me to Richmond."
Her reverting to this tone as if our association were forced upon
us, and we were mere puppets, gave me pain; but everything in our
intercourse did give me pain. Whatever her tone with me happened to be,
I could put no trust in it, and build no hope on it; and yet I went on
against trust and against hope. Why repeat it a thousand times? So it
always was.
I rang for the tea, and the waiter, reappearing with his magic clew,
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 bulrushes typified by a soft bit of butter in a quantity of
parsley, a pale loaf with a powdered head, two proof impressions of
the bars of the kitchen fireplace on triangular bits of bread, and
ultimately a fat family urn; which the waiter staggered in with,
expressing in his countenance burden and suffering. After a prolonged
absence at this stage of the entertainment, he at length came back with
a casket of precious appearance containing twigs. These I steeped in hot
water, and so from the whole of these appliances extracted one cup of I
don't know what for Estella.
The bill paid, and the waiter remembered, and the ostler not forgotten,
and the chambermaid taken into consideration,--in a word, the whole
house bribed into a state of contempt and animosity, and Estella's purse
much lightened,--we got into our post-coach and drove away. Turning into
Cheapside and rattling up Newgate Street, we were soon under the walls
of which I was so ashamed.
"What place is that?" Estella asked me.
I made a foolish pretence of not at first 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 neighborhood until she
had gone to France, and she had merely passed through London then in
going and returning. I asked her if my guardian had any charge of her
while she remained here? To that she emphatically said "God forbid!" and
no more.
It was impossible for me to avoid seeing that she cared to attract me;
that she made herself winning, and would have won me even if the task
had needed pains. Yet this made me none the happier, for even if she had
not taken that tone of our being disposed of by others, I should have
felt that she held my heart in her hand because she wilfully chose to do
it, and not because it would have wrung any tenderness in her to crush
it and throw it away.
When we passed through Hammersmith, I showed her where Mr. Matthew
Pocket lived, and said it was no great way from Richmond, and that I
hoped I should see her sometimes.
"O yes, you are to see me; you are to come when you think proper; you
are to be mentioned to the family; indeed you are already mentioned."
I inquired was it a large household she was going to be a member of?
"No; there are only two; mother and daughter. The mother is a lady of
some station, though not averse to increasing her income."
"I wonder Miss Havisham could part with you again so soon."
"It is a part of Miss Havisham's plans for me, Pip," said Estella, with
a sigh, as if she were tired; "I am to write to her constantly and see
her regularly and report how I go on,--I and the jewels,--for they are
nearly all mine now."
It was the first time she had ever called me by my name. Of course she
did so purposely, and knew that I should treasure it up.
We came to Richmond all too soon, and our destination there was a house
by the green,--a staid old house, where hoops and powder and patches,
embroidered coats, rolled stockings, ruffles and swords, had had their
court days many a time. Some ancient trees before the house were still
cut into fashions as formal and unnatural as the hoops and wigs and
stiff skirts; but their own allotted places in the great procession of
the dead were not far off, and they would soon drop into them and go the
silent way of the rest.
A bell with an old voice--which I dare say in its time had often said
to the house, Here is the green farthingale, Here is the diamond-hilted
sword, Here are the shoes with red heels and the blue solitaire--sounded
gravely in the moonlight, and two cherry-colored maids came fluttering
out to receive Estella. The doorway soon absorbed her boxes, and she
gave me her hand and a smile, and said good night, and was absorbed
likewise. And still I stood looking at the house, thinking how happy I
should be if I lived there with her, and knowing that I never was happy
with her, but always miserable.
I got into the carriage to be taken back to Hammersmith, and I got in
with a bad heart-ache, and I got out with a worse heart-ache. At our
own door, I found little Jane Pocket coming home from a little party
escorted by her little lover; and I envied her little lover, in spite of
his being subject to Flopson.
Mr. Pocket was out lecturing; for, he was a most delightful lecturer on
domestic economy, and his treatises on the management of children and
servants were considered the very best text-books on those themes. But
Mrs. Pocket was at home, and was in a little difficulty, on account of
the baby's having been accommodated with a needle-case to keep him quiet
during the unaccountable absence (with a relative in the Foot Guards)
of Millers. And more needles were missing than it could be regarded
as quite wholesome for a patient of such tender years either to apply
externally or to take as a tonic.
Mr. Pocket being justly celebrated for giving most excellent practical
advice, and for having a clear and sound perception of things and a
highly judicious mind, I had some notion in my heart-ache of begging him
to accept my confidence. But happening to look up at Mrs. Pocket as she
sat reading her book of dignities after prescribing Bed as a sovereign
remedy for baby, I thought--Well--No, I wouldn't.
Chapter XXXIV
As I had grown accustomed to my expectations, I had insensibly begun to
notice their effect upon myself and those around me. Their influence on
my own character I disguised from my recognition as much as possible,
but I knew very well that it was not all good. I lived in a state of
chronic uneasiness respecting my behavior 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 honor of
joining the Grove was Bentley Drummle, at that time floundering about
town in a cab of his own, and doing a great deal of damage to the posts
at the street corners. Occasionally, he shot himself out of his equipage
headforemost over the apron; and I saw him on one occasion deliver
himself at the door of the Grove in this unintentional way--like coals.
But here I anticipate a little, for I was not a Finch, and could not be,
according to the sacred laws of the society, until I came of age.
In my confidence in my own resources, I would willingly have taken
Herbert's expenses on myself; but Herbert was proud, and I could make
no such proposal to him. So he got into difficulties in every direction,
and continued to look about him. When we gradually fell into keeping
late hours and late company, I noticed that he looked about him with a
desponding eye at breakfast-time; that he began to look about him more
hopefully about 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
grayer, 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
almanac, a desk and stool, and a ruler; and I do not remember that I
ever saw him do anything else but look about him. If we all did what
we undertake to do, as faithfully as Herbert did, we might live in a
Republic of the Virtues. He had nothing else to do, poor fellow, except
at a certain hour of every afternoon to "go to Lloyd's"--in observance
of a ceremony of seeing his principal, I think. He never did anything
else in connection with Lloyd's that I could find out, except come back
again. When he felt his case unusually serious, and that he positively
must find an opening, he would go on 'Change at a busy time, and walk in
and out, in a kind of gloomy country dance figure, among the assembled
magnates. "For," says Herbert to me, coming home to dinner on one
of those special occasions, "I find the truth to be, Handel, that an
opening won't come to one, but one must go to it,--so I have been."
If we had been less attached to one another, I think we must have hated
one another regularly every morning. I detested the chambers beyond
expression at that period of repentance, and could not endure the
sight of the Avenger's livery; which had a more expensive and a
less remunerative appearance then than at any other time in the
four-and-twenty hours. As we got more and more into debt, breakfast
became a hollower and hollower form, and, being on one occasion at
breakfast-time threatened (by letter) with legal proceedings, "not
unwholly unconnected," as my local paper might put it, "with jewelery,"
I went so far as to seize the Avenger by his blue collar and shake
him off his feet,--so that he was actually in the air, like a booted
Cupid,--for presuming to suppose that we wanted a roll.
At certain times--meaning at uncertain times, for they depended on our
humor--I would say to Herbert, as if it were a remarkable discovery,--
"My dear Herbert, we are getting on badly."
"My dear Handel," Herbert would say to me, in all sincerity, "if you will
believe me, those very words were on my lips, by a strange coincidence."
"Then, Herbert," I would respond, "let us look into our affairs."
We always derived profound satisfaction from making an appointment for
this purpose. I always thought this was business, this was the way to
confront the thing, this was the way to take the foe by the throat. And
I know Herbert thought so too.
We ordered something rather special for dinner, with a bottle of
something similarly out of the common way, in order that our minds might
be fortified for the occasion, and we might come well up to the mark.
Dinner over, we produced a bundle of pens, a copious supply of ink, and
a goodly show of writing and blotting paper. For there was something
very comfortable in having plenty of stationery.
I would then take a sheet of paper, and write across the top of it, in a
neat hand, the heading, "Memorandum of Pip's debts"; with Barnard's Inn
and the date very carefully added. Herbert would also take a sheet of
paper, and write across it with similar formalities, "Memorandum of
Herbert's debts."
Each of us would then refer to a confused heap of papers at his side,
which had been thrown into drawers, worn into holes in pockets, half
burnt in lighting candles, stuck for weeks into the looking-glass, and
otherwise damaged. The sound of our pens going refreshed us exceedingly,
insomuch that I sometimes found it difficult to distinguish between this
edifying business proceeding and actually paying the money. In point of
meritorious character, the two things seemed about equal.
When we had written a little while, I would ask Herbert how he got on?
Herbert probably would have been scratching his head in a most rueful
manner at the sight of his accumulating figures.
"They are mounting up, Handel," Herbert would say; "upon my life, they
are mounting up."
"Be firm, Herbert," I would retort, plying my own pen with great
assiduity. "Look the thing in the face. Look into your affairs. Stare
them out of countenance."
"So I would, Handel, only they are staring 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 honored sir, and that they begged to inform me that Mrs. J.
Gargery had departed this life on Monday last at twenty minutes past six
in the evening, and that my attendance was requested at the interment on
Monday next at three o'clock in the afternoon.
Chapter XXXV
It was the first time that a grave had opened in my road of life, and
the gap it made in the smooth ground was wonderful. The figure of my
sister in her chair by the kitchen fire, haunted me night and day. That
the place could possibly be, without her, was something my mind seemed
unable to compass; and whereas she had seldom or never been in my
thoughts of late, I had now the strangest ideas that she was coming
towards me in the street, or that she would presently knock at the door.
In my rooms too, with which she had never been at all associated, there
was at once the blankness of death and a perpetual suggestion of the
sound of her voice or the turn of her face or figure, as if she were
still alive and had been often there.
Whatever my fortunes might have been, I could scarcely have recalled my
sister with much tenderness. But I suppose there is a shock of regret
which may exist without much tenderness. Under its influence (and
perhaps to make up for the want of the softer feeling) I was seized with
a violent indignation against the assailant from whom she had suffered
so much; and I felt that on sufficient proof I could have revengefully
pursued Orlick, or any one else, to the last extremity.
Having written to Joe, to offer him consolation, and to assure him
that I would come to the funeral, I passed the intermediate days in
the curious state of mind I have glanced at. I went down early in the
morning, and alighted at the Blue Boar in good time to walk over to the
forge.
It was fine summer weather again, and, as I walked along, the times
when I was a little helpless creature, and my sister did not spare me,
vividly returned. But they returned with a gentle tone upon them that
softened even the edge of Tickler. For now, the very breath of the beans
and clover whispered to my heart that the day must come when it would
be well for my memory that others walking in the sunshine should be
softened as they thought of me.
At last I came within sight of the house, and saw that Trabb and Co. had
put in a funereal execution and taken possession. Two dismally absurd
persons, each ostentatiously exhibiting a crutch done up in a black
bandage,--as if that instrument could possibly communicate any comfort
to anybody,--were posted at the front door; and in one of them I
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 parlor. 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 parlor 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 parlor, 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 neighbors 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 neighborhood, 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 honor, 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 parlor, 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 neighbors, and I hope I can be industrious
and patient, and teach myself while I teach others. You know, Mr. Pip,"
pursued Biddy, with a smile, as she raised her eyes to my face, "the new
schools are not like the old, but I learnt a good deal from you after
that time, and have had time since then to improve."
"I think you would always improve, Biddy, under any circumstances."
"Ah! Except in my bad side of human nature," murmured Biddy.
It was not so much a reproach as an irresistible thinking aloud. Well!
I thought I would give up that point too. So, I walked a little further
with Biddy, looking silently at her downcast eyes.
"I have not heard the particulars of my sister's death, Biddy."
"They are very slight, poor thing. She had been in one of her bad
states--though they had got better of late, rather than worse--for four
days, when she came out of it in the evening, just at tea-time, and said
quite plainly, 'Joe.' As she had never said any word for a long while, I
ran and fetched in Mr. Gargery from the forge. She made signs to me that
she wanted him to sit down close to her, and wanted me to put her arms
round his neck. So I put them round his neck, and she laid her head down
on his shoulder quite content and satisfied. And so she presently said
'Joe' again, and once 'Pardon,' and once 'Pip.' And so she never lifted
her head up any more, and it was just an hour later when we laid it down
on her own bed, because we found she was gone."
Biddy cried; the darkening garden, and the lane, and the stars that were
coming out, were blurred in my own sight.
"Nothing was ever discovered, Biddy?"
"Nothing."
"Do you know what is become of Orlick?"
"I should think from the color 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.
"O dear me!" said I, as if I found myself compelled to give up Biddy in
despair. "This really is a very bad side of human nature! Don't say any
more, if you please, Biddy. This shocks me very much."
For which cogent reason I kept Biddy at a distance during supper, and
when I went up to my own old little room, took as stately a leave of her
as I could, in my murmuring soul, deem reconcilable with the churchyard
and the event of the day. As often as I was restless in the night, and
that was every quarter of an hour, I reflected what an unkindness, what
an injury, what an injustice, Biddy had done me.
Early in the morning I was to go. Early in the morning I was out, and
looking in, unseen, at one of the wooden windows of the forge. There
I stood, for minutes, looking at Joe, already at work with a glow of
health and strength upon his face that made it show as if the bright sun
of the life in store for him were shining on it.
"Good-bye, dear Joe!--No, don't wipe it off--for God's sake, give me your
blackened hand!--I shall be down soon and often."
"Never too soon, sir," said Joe, "and never too often, Pip!"
Biddy was waiting for me at the kitchen door, with a mug of new milk and
a crust of bread. "Biddy," said I, when I gave her my hand at parting,
"I am not angry, but I am hurt."
"No, don't be hurt," she pleaded quite pathetically; "let only me be
hurt, if I have been ungenerous."
Once more, the mists were rising as I walked away. If they disclosed to
me, as I suspect they did, that I should not come back, and that Biddy
was quite right, all I can say is,--they were quite right too.
Chapter XXXVI
Herbert and I went on from bad to worse, in the way of increasing our
debts, looking into our affairs, leaving Margins, and the like exemplary
transactions; and Time went on, whether or no, as he has a way of doing;
and I came of age,--in fulfilment of Herbert's prediction, that I should
do so before I knew where I was.
Herbert himself had come of age eight months before me. As he had
nothing else than his majority to come into, the event did not make a
profound sensation in Barnard's Inn. But we had looked forward to
my one-and-twentieth birthday, with a crowd of speculations and
anticipations, for we had both considered that my guardian could hardly
help saying something definite on that occasion.
I had taken care to have it well understood in Little Britain when my
birthday was. On the day before it, I received an official note from
Wemmick, informing me that Mr. Jaggers would be glad if I would call
upon him at five in the afternoon of the auspicious day. This convinced
us that something great was to happen, and threw me into an unusual
flutter when I repaired to my guardian's office, a model of punctuality.
In the outer office Wemmick offered me his congratulations, and
incidentally rubbed the side of his nose with a folded piece of
tissue-paper that I liked the look of. But he said nothing respecting
it, and motioned me with a nod into my guardian's room. It was November,
and my guardian was standing before his fire leaning his back against
the chimney-piece, with his hands under his coattails.
"Well, Pip," said he, "I must call you Mr. Pip to-day. Congratulations,
Mr. Pip."
We shook hands,--he was always a remarkably short shaker,--and I thanked
him.
"Take a chair, Mr. Pip," said my guardian.
As I sat down, and he preserved his attitude and bent his brows at his
boots, I felt at a disadvantage, which reminded me of that old time when
I had been put upon a tombstone. The two ghastly casts on the shelf
were not far from him, and their expression was as if they were making a
stupid apoplectic attempt to attend to the conversation.
"Now my young friend," my guardian began, as if I were a witness in the
box, "I am going to have a word or two with you."
"If you please, sir."
"What do you suppose," said Mr. Jaggers, bending forward to look at the
ground, and then throwing his head back to look at the ceiling,--"what
do you suppose you are living at the rate of?"
"At the rate of, sir?"
"At," repeated Mr. Jaggers, still looking at the ceiling,
"the--rate--of?" And then looked all round the room, and paused with his
pocket-handkerchief in his hand, half-way to his nose.
I had looked into my affairs so often, that I had thoroughly destroyed
any slight notion I might ever have had of their bearings. Reluctantly,
I confessed myself quite unable to answer the question. This reply
seemed agreeable to Mr. Jaggers, who said, "I thought so!" and blew his
nose with an air of satisfaction.
"Now, I have asked 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 favor 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 great-coat and stood by to snuff
out the candles. We all three went into the street together, and from
the door-step Wemmick turned his way, and Mr. Jaggers and I turned ours.
I could not help wishing more than once that evening, that Mr. Jaggers
had had an Aged in Gerrard Street, or a Stinger, or a Something, or
a Somebody, to unbend his brows a little. It was an uncomfortable
consideration on a twenty-first birthday, that coming of age at all
seemed hardly worth while in such a guarded and suspicious world as he
made of it. He was a thousand times better informed and cleverer than
Wemmick, and yet I would a thousand times rather have had Wemmick to
dinner. And Mr. Jaggers made not me alone intensely melancholy, because,
after he was gone, Herbert said of himself, with his eyes fixed on the
fire, that he thought he must have committed a felony and forgotten the
details of it, he felt so dejected and guilty.
Chapter XXXVII
Deeming Sunday the best day for taking Mr. Wemmick's Walworth
sentiments, I devoted the next ensuing Sunday afternoon to a pilgrimage
to the Castle. On arriving before the battlements, I found the Union
Jack flying and the drawbridge up; but undeterred by this show of
defiance and resistance, I rang at the gate, and was admitted in a most
pacific manner by the Aged.
"My son, sir," said the old man, after securing the drawbridge, "rather
had it in his mind that you might happen to drop in, and he left word
that he would soon be home from his afternoon's walk. He is very regular
in his walks, is my son. Very regular in everything, is my son."
I nodded at the old gentleman as Wemmick himself might have nodded, and
we went in and sat down by the fireside.
"You made acquaintance with my son, sir," said the old man, in his
chirping way, while he warmed his hands at the blaze, "at his office, I
expect?" I nodded. "Hah! I have heerd that my son is a wonderful hand at
his business, sir?" I nodded hard. "Yes; so they tell me. His business
is the Law?" I nodded harder. "Which makes it more surprising in my
son," said the old man, "for he was not brought up to the Law, but to
the Wine-Coopering."
Curious to know how the old gentleman stood informed concerning the
reputation of Mr. Jaggers, I roared that name at him. He threw me into
the greatest confusion by laughing heartily and replying in a very
sprightly manner, "No, to be sure; you're right." And to this hour I
have not the faintest notion what he meant, or what joke he thought I
had made.
As I could not sit there nodding at him perpetually, without making
some other attempt to interest him, I shouted at inquiry whether his own
calling in life had been "the Wine-Coopering." By dint of straining that
term out of myself several times and tapping the old gentleman on the
chest to associate it with him, I at last succeeded in making my meaning
understood.
"No," said the old gentleman; "the warehousing, the warehousing. First,
over yonder;" he appeared to mean up the chimney, but I believe he
intended to refer me to Liverpool; "and then in the City of London here.
However, having an infirmity--for I am hard of hearing, sir--"
I expressed in pantomime the greatest astonishment.
"--Yes, hard of hearing; having that infirmity coming upon me, my son he
went into the Law, and he took charge of me, and he by little and little
made out this elegant and beautiful property. But returning to what you
said, you know," pursued the old man, again laughing heartily, "what I
say is, No to be sure; you're right."
I was modestly wondering whether my utmost ingenuity would have enabled
me to say anything that would have amused him half as much as this
imaginary pleasantry, when I was startled by a sudden click in the wall
on one side of the chimney, and the ghostly tumbling open of a little
wooden flap with "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 hay-stack of buttered
toast, that I could scarcely see him over it as it simmered on an iron
stand hooked on to the top-bar; while Miss Skiffins brewed such a jorum
of tea, that the pig in the back premises became strongly excited, and
repeatedly expressed his desire to participate in the entertainment.
The flag had been struck, and the gun had been fired, at the right
moment of time, and I felt as snugly cut off from the rest of Walworth
as if the moat were thirty feet wide by as many deep. Nothing disturbed
the tranquillity of the Castle, but the occasional tumbling open of
John and Miss Skiffins: which little doors were a prey to some spasmodic
infirmity that made me sympathetically uncomfortable until I got used
to it. I inferred from the methodical nature of Miss Skiffins's
arrangements that she made tea there every Sunday night; and I rather
suspected that a classic brooch she wore, representing the profile of an
undesirable female with a very straight nose and a very new moon, was a
piece of portable property that had been given her by Wemmick.
We ate the whole of the toast, and drank tea in proportion, and it was
delightful to see how warm and greasy we all got after it. The Aged
especially, might have passed for some clean old chief of a savage
tribe, just oiled. After a short pause of repose, Miss Skiffins--in the
absence of the little servant who, it seemed, retired to the bosom of
her family on Sunday afternoons--washed up the tea-things, in a trifling
lady-like amateur manner that compromised none of us. Then, she put on
her gloves again, and we drew round the fire, and Wemmick said, "Now,
Aged Parent, tip us the paper."
Wemmick explained to me while the Aged got his spectacles out, that this
was according to custom, and that it gave the old gentleman infinite
satisfaction to read the news aloud. "I won't offer an apology," said
Wemmick, "for he isn't capable of many pleasures--are you, Aged P.?"
"All right, John, all right," returned the old man, seeing himself
spoken to.
"Only tip him a nod every now and then when he looks off his paper,"
said Wemmick, "and he'll be as happy as a king. We are all attention,
Aged One."
"All right, John, all right!" returned the cheerful old man, so busy and
so pleased, that it really was quite charming.
The Aged's reading reminded me of the classes at Mr. Wopsle's
great-aunt's, with the pleasanter peculiarity that it seemed to come
through a keyhole. As he wanted the candles close to him, and as he was
always on the verge of putting either his head or the newspaper into
them, he required as much watching as a powder-mill. But Wemmick was
equally untiring and gentle in his vigilance, and the Aged read on,
quite unconscious of his many rescues. Whenever he looked at us, we
all expressed the greatest interest and amazement, and nodded until he
resumed again.
As Wemmick and Miss Skiffins sat side by side, and as I sat in a shadowy
corner, I observed a slow and gradual elongation of Mr. Wemmick's mouth,
powerfully suggestive of his slowly and gradually stealing his arm round
Miss Skiffins's waist. In course of time I saw his hand appear on the
other side of Miss Skiffins; but at that moment Miss Skiffins neatly
stopped him with the green glove, unwound his arm again as if it were
an article of dress, and with the greatest deliberation laid it on the
table before her. Miss Skiffins's composure while she did this was one
of the most remarkable sights I have ever seen, and if I could have
thought the act consistent with abstraction of mind, I should have
deemed that Miss Skiffins performed it mechanically.
By and by, I noticed Wemmick's arm beginning to disappear again, and
gradually fading out of view. Shortly afterwards, his mouth began to
widen again. After an interval of suspense on my part that was quite
enthralling and almost painful, I saw his hand appear on the other side
of Miss Skiffins. Instantly, Miss Skiffins stopped it with the neatness
of a placid boxer, took off that girdle or cestus as before, and laid
it on the table. Taking the table to represent the path of virtue, I am
justified in stating that during the whole time of the Aged's reading,
Wemmick's arm was straying from the path of virtue and being recalled to
it by Miss Skiffins.
At last, the Aged read himself into a light slumber. This was the time
for Wemmick to produce a little kettle, a tray of glasses, and a
black bottle with a porcelain-topped cork, representing some clerical
dignitary of a rubicund and social aspect. With the aid of these
appliances we all had something warm to drink, including the Aged, who
was soon awake again. Miss Skiffins mixed, and I observed that she and
Wemmick drank out of one glass. Of course I knew better than to offer to
see Miss Skiffins home, and under the circumstances I thought I had best
go first; which I did, taking a cordial leave of the Aged, and having
passed a pleasant evening.
Before a week was out, I received a note from Wemmick, dated Walworth,
stating that he hoped he had made some advance in that matter
appertaining to our private and personal capacities, and that he would
be glad if I could come and see him again upon it. So, I went out
to Walworth again, and yet again, and yet again, and I saw him by
appointment in the City several times, but never held any communication
with him on the subject in or near Little Britain. The upshot was,
that we found a worthy young merchant or shipping-broker, not long
established in business, who wanted intelligent help, and who wanted
capital, and who in due course of time and receipt would want a partner.
Between him and me, secret articles were signed of which Herbert was the
subject, and I paid him half of my five hundred pounds down, and engaged
for sundry other payments: some, to fall due at certain dates out of my
income: some, contingent on my coming into my property. Miss Skiffins's
brother conducted the negotiation. Wemmick pervaded it throughout, but
never appeared in it.
The whole business was so cleverly managed, that Herbert had not the
least suspicion of my hand being in it. I never shall forget the radiant
face with which he came home one afternoon, and told me, as a mighty
piece of news, of his having fallen in with one Clarriker (the young
merchant's name), and of Clarriker's having shown an extraordinary
inclination towards him, and of his belief that the opening had come at
last. Day by day as his hopes grew stronger and his face brighter, he
must have thought me a more and more affectionate friend, for I had the
greatest difficulty in restraining my tears of triumph when I saw him so
happy. At length, the thing being done, and he having that day entered
Clarriker's House, and he having talked to me for a whole evening in a
flush of pleasure and success, I did really cry in good earnest when
I went to bed, to think that my expectations had done some good to
somebody.
A great event in my life, the turning point of my life, now opens on my
view. But, before I proceed to narrate it, and before I pass on to all
the changes it involved, I must give one chapter to Estella. It is not
much to give to the theme that so long filled my heart.
Chapter XXXVIII
If that staid old house near the Green at Richmond should ever come to
be haunted when I am dead, it will be haunted, surely, by my ghost. O
the many, many nights and days through which the unquiet spirit within
me haunted that house when Estella lived there! Let my body be where it
would, my spirit was always wandering, wandering, wandering, about that
house.
The lady with whom Estella was placed, Mrs. Brandley by name, was a
widow, with one daughter several years older than Estella. The mother
looked young, and the daughter looked old; the mother's complexion was
pink, and the daughter's was yellow; the mother set up for frivolity,
and the daughter for theology. They were in what is called a good
position, and visited, and were visited by, numbers of people. Little,
if any, community of feeling subsisted between them and Estella, but the
understanding was established that they were necessary to her, and
that she was necessary to them. Mrs. Brandley had been a friend of Miss
Havisham's before the time of her seclusion.
In Mrs. Brandley's house and out of Mrs. Brandley's house, I suffered
every kind and degree of torture that Estella could cause me. The
nature of my relations with her, which placed me on terms of familiarity
without placing me on terms of favor, 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 gray 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 gray hair was all adrift upon the
ground, among the other bridal wrecks, and was a miserable sight to see.
It was with a depressed heart that I walked in the starlight for an
hour and more, about the courtyard, and about the brewery, and about
the ruined garden. When I at last took courage to return to the room, I
found Estella sitting at Miss Havisham's knee, taking up some stitches
in one of those old articles of dress that were dropping to pieces, and
of which I have often been reminded since by the faded tatters of old
banners that I have seen hanging up in cathedrals. Afterwards, Estella
and I played at cards, as of yore,--only we were skilful now, and played
French games,--and so the evening wore away, and I went to bed.
I lay in that separate building across the courtyard. It was the first
time I had ever lain down to rest in Satis House, and sleep refused to
come near me. A thousand Miss Havishams haunted me. She was on this side
of my pillow, on that, at the head of the bed, at the foot, behind the
half-opened door of the dressing-room, in the dressing-room, in the room
overhead, in the room beneath,--everywhere. At last, when the night was
slow to creep on towards two o'clock, I felt that I absolutely could no
longer bear the place as a place to lie down in, and that I must get up.
I therefore got up and put on my clothes, and went out across the yard
into the long stone passage, designing to gain the outer courtyard and
walk there for the relief of my mind. But I was no sooner in the passage
than I extinguished my candle; for I saw Miss Havisham going along it
in a ghostly manner, making a low cry. I followed her at a distance,
and saw her go up the staircase. She carried a bare candle in her hand,
which she had probably taken from one of the sconces in her own room,
and was a most unearthly object by its light. Standing at the bottom
of the staircase, I felt the mildewed air of the feast-chamber, without
seeing her open the door, and I heard her walking there, and so across
into her own room, and so across again into that, never ceasing the low
cry. After a time, I tried in the dark both to get out, and to go back,
but I could do neither until some streaks of day strayed in and showed
me where to lay my hands. During the whole interval, whenever I went to
the bottom of the staircase, I heard her footstep, saw her light pass
above, and heard her ceaseless low cry.
Before we left next day, there was no revival of the difference between
her and Estella, nor was it ever revived on any similar occasion; and
there were four similar occasions, to the best of my remembrance. Nor,
did Miss Havisham's manner towards Estella in anywise change, except
that I believed it to have something like fear infused among its former
characteristics.
It is impossible to turn this leaf of my life, without putting Bentley
Drummle's name upon it; or I would, very gladly.
On a certain occasion when the Finches were assembled in force, and when
good feeling was being promoted in the usual manner by nobody's agreeing
with anybody else, the presiding Finch called the Grove to order,
forasmuch as Mr. Drummle had not yet toasted a lady; which, according
to the solemn constitution of the society, it was the brute's turn to
do that day. I thought I saw him leer in an ugly way at me while the
decanters were going round, but as there was no love lost between us,
that might easily be. What was my indignant surprise when he called upon
the company to pledge him to "Estella!"
"Estella who?" said I.
"Never you mind," retorted Drummle.
"Estella of where?" said I. "You are bound to say of where." Which he
was, as a Finch.
"Of Richmond, gentlemen," said Drummle, putting me out of the question,
"and a peerless beauty."
Much he knew about peerless beauties, a mean, miserable idiot! I
whispered Herbert.
"I know that lady," said Herbert, across the table, when the toast had
been honored.
"Do you?" said Drummle.
"And so do I," I added, with a scarlet face.
"Do you?" said Drummle. "O, 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 honorable
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 honorable 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 Honor) that if Mr. Drummle would bring never so slight
a certificate from the lady, importing that he had the honor 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 honor should take cold from
delay), and next day Drummle appeared with a polite little avowal in
Estella's hand, that she had had the honor 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 favor 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 favored; but
a worthier object would have caused me a different kind and degree of
distress.
It was easy for me to find out, and I did soon find out, that Drummle
had begun to follow her closely, and that she allowed him to do it. A
little while, and he was always in pursuit of her, and he and I crossed
one another every day. He held on, in a dull persistent way, and Estella
held him on; now with encouragement, now with discouragement, now almost
flattering him, now openly despising him, now knowing him very well, now
scarcely remembering who he was.
The Spider, as Mr. Jaggers had called him, was used to lying in wait,
however, and had the patience of his tribe. Added to that, he had a
blockhead confidence in his money and in his family greatness,
which sometimes did him good service,--almost taking the place of
concentration and determined purpose. So, the Spider, doggedly watching
Estella, outwatched many brighter insects, and would often uncoil
himself and drop at the right nick of time.
At a certain Assembly Ball at Richmond (there used to be Assembly Balls
at most places then), where Estella had outshone all other beauties,
this blundering Drummle so hung about her, and with so much toleration
on her part, that I resolved to speak to her concerning him. I took the
next opportunity; which was when she was waiting for Mrs. Blandley to
take her home, and was sitting apart among some flowers, ready to go.
I was with her, for I almost always accompanied them to and from such
places.
"Are you tired, Estella?"
"Rather, Pip."
"You should be."
"Say rather, I should not be; for I have my letter to Satis House to
write, before I go to sleep."
"Recounting to-night's triumph?" said I. "Surely a very poor one,
Estella."
"What do you mean? I didn't know there had been any."
"Estella," said I, "do look at that fellow in the corner yonder, who is
looking over here at us."
"Why should I look at him?" returned Estella, with her eyes on me
instead. "What is there in that fellow in the corner yonder,--to use
your words,--that I need look at?"
"Indeed, that is the very question I want to ask you," said I. "For he
has been hovering about you all night."
"Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures," replied Estella, with a glance
towards him, "hover about a lighted candle. Can the candle help it?"
"No," I returned; "but cannot the Estella help it?"
"Well!" said she, laughing, after a moment, "perhaps. Yes. Anything you
like."
"But, Estella, do hear me speak. It makes me wretched that you should
encourage a man so generally despised as Drummle. You know he is
despised."
"Well?" said she.
"You know he is as ungainly within as without. A deficient,
ill-tempered, lowering, stupid fellow."
"Well?" said she.
"You know he has nothing to recommend him but money and a ridiculous
roll of addle-headed predecessors; now, don't you?"
"Well?" said she again; and each time she said it, she opened her lovely
eyes the wider.
To overcome the difficulty of getting past that monosyllable, I took it
from her, and said, repeating it with emphasis, "Well! Then, that is why
it makes me wretched."
Now, if I could have believed that she favored 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 labor, and the hour
come, the sultan was aroused in the dead of the night, and the sharpened
axe that was to sever the rope from the great iron ring was put into his
hand, and he struck with it, and the rope parted and rushed away, and
the ceiling fell. So, in my case; all the work, near and afar, that
tended to the end, had been accomplished; and in an instant the blow was
struck, and the roof of my stronghold dropped upon me.
Chapter XXXIX
I was three-and-twenty years of age. Not another word had I heard to
enlighten me on the subject of my expectations, and my twenty-third
birthday was a week gone. We had left Barnard's Inn more than a year,
and lived in the Temple. Our chambers were in Garden-court, down by the
river.
Mr. Pocket and I had for some time parted company as to our original
relations, though we continued on the best terms. Notwithstanding my
inability to settle to anything,--which I hope arose out of the restless
and incomplete tenure on which I held my means,--I had a taste for
reading, and read regularly so many hours a day. That matter of
Herbert's was still progressing, and everything with me was as I have
brought it down to the close of the last preceding chapter.
Business had taken Herbert on a journey to Marseilles. I was alone, and
had a dull sense of being alone. Dispirited and anxious, long hoping
that to-morrow or next week would clear my way, and long disappointed, I
sadly missed the cheerful face and ready response of my friend.
It was wretched weather; stormy and wet, stormy and wet; and mud, mud,
mud, deep in all the streets. Day after day, a vast heavy veil had been
driving over London from the East, and it drove still, as if in the East
there were an Eternity of cloud and wind. So furious had been the gusts,
that high buildings in town had had the lead stripped off their roofs;
and in the country, trees had been torn up, and sails of windmills
carried away; and gloomy accounts had come in from the coast, of
shipwreck and death. Violent blasts of rain had accompanied these rages
of wind, and the day just closed as I sat down to read had been the
worst of all.
Alterations have been made in that part of the Temple since that time,
and it has not now so lonely a character as it had then, nor is it so
exposed to the river. We lived at the top of the last house, and the
wind rushing up the river shook the house that night, like discharges
of cannon, or breakings of a sea. When the rain came with it and dashed
against the windows, I thought, raising my eyes to them as they
rocked, that I might have fancied myself in a storm-beaten lighthouse.
Occasionally, the smoke came rolling down the chimney as though it could
not bear to go out into such a night; and when I set the doors open and
looked down the staircase, the staircase lamps were blown out; and when
I shaded my face with my hands and looked through the black windows
(opening them ever so little was out of the question in the teeth of
such wind and rain), I saw that the lamps in the court were blown out,
and that the lamps on the bridges and the shore were shuddering, and
that the coal-fires in barges on the river were being carried away
before the wind like red-hot splashes in the rain.
I read with my watch upon the table, purposing to close my book
at eleven o'clock. As I shut it, Saint Paul's, and all the many
church-clocks in the City--some leading, some accompanying, some
following--struck that hour. The sound was curiously flawed by the wind;
and I was listening, and thinking how the wind assailed and tore it,
when I heard a footstep on the stair.
What nervous folly made me start, and awfully connect it with the
footstep of my dead sister, matters not. It was past in a moment, and I
listened again, and heard the footstep stumble in coming on.
Remembering then, that the staircase-lights were blown out, I took up
my reading-lamp and went out to the stair-head. Whoever was below had
stopped on seeing my lamp, for all was quiet.
"There is some one down there, is there not?" I called out, looking
down.
"Yes," said a voice from the darkness beneath.
"What floor do you want?"
"The top. Mr. Pip."
"That is my name.--There is nothing the matter?"
"Nothing the matter," returned the voice. And the man came on.
I stood with my lamp held out over the stair-rail, and he came slowly
within its light. It was a shaded lamp, to shine upon a book, and its
circle of light was very contracted; so that he was in it for a mere
instant, and then out of it. In the instant, I had seen a face that was
strange to me, looking up with an incomprehensible air of being touched
and pleased by the sight of me.
Moving the lamp as the man moved, I made out that he was substantially
dressed, but roughly, like a voyager by sea. That he had long iron-gray
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-gray 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 mantel-shelf. He put a foot up to the bars,
to dry and warm it, and the wet boot began to steam; but, he neither
looked at it, nor at the fire, but steadily looked at me. It was only
now that I began to tremble.
When my lips had parted, and had shaped some words that were
without sound, I forced myself to tell him (though I could not do it
distinctly), that I had been chosen to succeed to some property.
"Might a mere warmint ask what property?" said he.
I faltered, "I don't know."
"Might a mere warmint ask whose property?" said he.
I faltered again, "I don't know."
"Could I make a guess, I wonder," said the Convict, "at your income
since you come of age! As to the first figure now. Five?"
With my heart beating like a heavy hammer of disordered action, I rose
out of my chair, and stood with my hand upon the back of it, looking
wildly at him.
"Concerning a guardian," he went on. "There ought to have been some
guardian, or such-like, whiles you was a minor. Some lawyer, maybe. As
to the first letter of that lawyer's name now. Would it be J?"
All the truth of my position came flashing on me; and its
disappointments, dangers, disgraces, consequences of all kinds, rushed
in in such a multitude that I was borne down by them and had to struggle
for every breath I drew.
"Put it," he resumed, "as the employer of that lawyer whose name begun
with a J, and might be Jaggers,--put it as he had come over sea to
Portsmouth, and had landed there, and had wanted to come on to you.
'However, you have found me out,' you says just now. Well! However, did
I find you out? Why, I wrote from Portsmouth to a person in London, for
particulars of your address. That person's name? Why, Wemmick."
I could not have spoken one word, though it had been to save my life.
I stood, with a hand on the chair-back and a hand on my breast, where
I seemed to be suffocating,--I stood so, looking wildly at him, until I
grasped at the chair, when the room began to surge and turn. He caught
me, drew me to the sofa, put me up against the cushions, and bent on one
knee before me, bringing the face that I now well remembered, and that I
shuddered at, very near to mine.
"Yes, Pip, dear boy, I've made a gentleman on you! It's me wot has
done it! I swore that time, sure as ever I earned a guinea, that guinea
should go to you. I swore arterwards, sure as ever I spec'lated and got
rich, you should get rich. I lived rough, that you should live smooth;
I worked hard, that you should be above work. What odds, dear boy? Do I
tell it, fur you to feel a obligation? Not a bit. I tell it, fur you to
know as that there hunted dunghill dog wot you kep life in, got his head
so high that he could make a gentleman,--and, Pip, you're him!"
The abhorrence in which I held the man, the dread I had of him, the
repugnance with which I shrank from him, could not have been exceeded if
he had been some terrible beast.
"Look'ee here, Pip. I'm your second father. You're my son,--more to me
nor any son. I've put away money, only for you to spend. When I was a
hired-out shepherd in a solitary hut, not seeing no faces but faces of
sheep till I half forgot wot men's and women's faces wos like, I see
yourn. I drops my knife many a time in that hut when I was a-eating my
dinner or my supper, and I says, 'Here's the boy again, a looking at
me whiles I eats and drinks!' I see you there a many times, as plain as
ever I see you on them misty marshes. 'Lord strike me dead!' I says each
time,--and I goes out in the air to say it under the open heavens,--'but
wot, if I gets liberty and money, I'll make that boy a gentleman!' And
I done it. Why, look at you, dear boy! Look at these here lodgings
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 a telling you,
dear boy. From that there hut and that there hiring-out, I got money
left me by my master (which died, and had been the same as me), and got
my liberty and went for myself. In every single thing I went for, I went
for you. 'Lord strike a blight upon it,' I says, wotever it was I went
for, 'if it ain't for him!' It all prospered wonderful. As I giv' you
to understand just now, I'm famous for it. It was the money left me, and
the gains of the first few year wot I sent home to Mr. Jaggers--all for
you--when he first come arter you, agreeable to my letter."
O that he had never come! That he had left me at the forge,--far from
contented, yet, by comparison happy!
"And then, dear boy, it was a recompense to me, look'ee here, to know in
secret that I was making a gentleman. The blood horses of them colonists
might fling up the dust over me as I was walking; what do I say? I says
to myself, 'I'm making a better gentleman nor ever 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 XL
It was fortunate for me that I had to take precautions to ensure (so far
as I could) the safety of my dreaded visitor; for, this thought pressing
on me when I awoke, held other thoughts in a confused concourse at a
distance.
The impossibility of keeping him concealed in the chambers was
self-evident. It could not be done, and the attempt to do it would
inevitably engender suspicion. True, I had no Avenger in my service now,
but I was looked after by an inflammatory old female, assisted by an
animated rag-bag whom she called her niece, and to keep a room secret
from them would be to invite curiosity and exaggeration. They both had
weak eyes, which I had long attributed to their chronically looking in
at keyholes, and they were always at hand when not wanted; indeed that
was their only reliable quality besides larceny. Not to get up a mystery
with these people, I resolved to announce in the morning that my uncle
had unexpectedly come from the country.
This course I decided on while I was yet groping about in the darkness
for the means of getting a light. Not stumbling on the means after all,
I was fain to go out to the adjacent Lodge and get the watchman there to
come with his lantern. Now, in groping my way down the black staircase I
fell over something, and that something was a man crouching in a corner.
As the man made no answer when I asked him what he did there, but eluded
my touch in silence, I ran to the Lodge and urged the watchman to come
quickly; telling him of the incident on the way back. The wind being as
fierce as ever, we did not care to endanger the light in the lantern by
rekindling the extinguished lamps on the staircase, but we examined the
staircase from the bottom to the top and found no one there. It then
occurred to me as possible that the man might have slipped into my
rooms; so, lighting my candle at the watchman's, and leaving him
standing at the door, I examined them carefully, including the room in
which my dreaded guest lay asleep. All was quiet, and assuredly no other
man was in those chambers.
It troubled me that there should have been a lurker on the stairs, on
that night of all nights in the year, and I asked the watchman, on the
chance of eliciting some hopeful explanation as I handed him a dram
at the door, whether he had admitted at his gate any gentleman who had
perceptibly been dining out? Yes, he said; at different times of the
night, three. One lived in Fountain Court, and the other two lived in
the Lane, and he had seen them all go home. Again, the only other man
who dwelt in the house of which my chambers formed a part had been in
the country for some weeks, and he certainly had not returned in the
night, because we had seen his door with his seal on it as we came
upstairs.
"The night being so bad, sir," said the watchman, as he gave me back
my glass, "uncommon few have come in at my gate. Besides them three
gentlemen that I have named, I don't call to mind another since about
eleven o'clock, when a stranger asked for you."
"My uncle," I muttered. "Yes."
"You saw him, sir?"
"Yes. Oh yes."
"Likewise the person with him?"
"Person with him!" I repeated.
"I judged the person to be with him," returned the watchman. "The person
stopped, when he stopped to make inquiry of me, and the person took this
way when he took this way."
"What sort of person?"
The watchman had not particularly noticed; he should say a working
person; to the best of his belief, he had a dust-colored 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 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 favorite 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
gray 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 year to make a
gentleman, not without knowing what's due to him. Look'ee here, Pip. I
was low; that's what I was; low. Look over it, dear boy."
Some sense of the grimly-ludicrous moved me to a fretful laugh, as I
replied, "I 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 favorable 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
jackknife and wiping it on his legs and cutting his food,--of
lifting light glasses and cups to his lips, as if they were clumsy
pannikins,--of chopping a wedge off his bread, and soaking up with it
the last fragments of gravy round and round his plate, as if to make the
most of an allowance, and then drying his finger-ends on it, and then
swallowing it,--in these ways and a thousand other small nameless
instances arising every minute in the day, there was Prisoner, Felon,
Bondsman, plain as plain could be.
It had been his own idea to wear that touch of powder, and I had
conceded the powder after overcoming the shorts. But I can compare the
effect of it, when on, to nothing but the probable effect of rouge upon
the dead; so awful was the manner in which everything in him that it was
most desirable to repress, started through that thin layer of pretence,
and seemed to come blazing out at the crown of his head. It was
abandoned as soon as tried, and he wore his grizzled hair cut short.
Words cannot tell what a sense I had, at the same time, of the dreadful
mystery that he was to me. When he fell asleep of an evening, with his
knotted hands clenching the sides of the easy-chair, and his bald head
tattooed with deep wrinkles falling forward on his breast, I would sit
and look at him, wondering what he had done, and loading him with all
the crimes in the Calendar, until the impulse was powerful on me to
start up and fly from him. Every hour so increased my abhorrence of
him, that I even think I might have yielded to this impulse in the first
agonies of being so haunted, notwithstanding all he had done for me and
the risk he ran, but for the knowledge that Herbert must soon come back.
Once, I actually did start out of bed in the night, and begin to dress
myself in my worst clothes, hurriedly intending to leave him there with
everything else I possessed, and enlist for India as a private soldier.
I doubt if a ghost could have been more terrible to me, up in those
lonely rooms in the long evenings and long nights, with the wind and the
rain always rushing by. A ghost could not have been taken and hanged on
my account, and the consideration that he could be, and the dread that
he would be, were no small addition to my horrors. When he was not
asleep, or playing a complicated kind of Patience with a ragged pack of
cards of his own,--a game that I never saw before or since, and in which
he recorded his winnings by sticking his jackknife into the table,--when
he was not engaged in either of these pursuits, he would ask me to
read to him,--"Foreign language, dear boy!" While I complied, he, not
comprehending a single word, would stand before the fire surveying me
with the air of an Exhibitor, and I would see him, between the fingers
of the hand with which I shaded my face, appealing in dumb show to
the furniture to take notice of my proficiency. The imaginary student
pursued by the misshapen creature he had impiously made, was not more
wretched than I, pursued by the creature who had made me, and recoiling
from him with a stronger repulsion, the more he admired me and the
fonder he was of me.
This is written of, I am sensible, as if it had lasted a year. It lasted
about five days. Expecting Herbert all the time, I dared not go out,
except when I took Provis for an airing after dark. At length, one
evening when dinner was over and I had dropped into a slumber quite
worn out,--for my nights had been agitated and my rest broken by fearful
dreams,--I was roused by the welcome footstep on the staircase. Provis,
who had been asleep too, staggered up at the noise I made, and in an
instant I saw his jackknife shining in his hand.
"Quiet! It's Herbert!" I said; and Herbert came bursting in, with the
airy freshness of six hundred miles of France upon him.
"Handel, my dear fellow, how are you, and again how are you, and again
how are you? I seem to have been gone a twelvemonth! Why, so I must have
been, for you have grown quite thin and pale! Handel, my--Halloa! I beg
your pardon."
He was stopped in his running on and in his shaking hands with me, by
seeing Provis. Provis, regarding him with a fixed attention, was slowly
putting up his jackknife, and groping in another pocket for something
else.
"Herbert, my dear friend," said I, shutting the double doors, while
Herbert stood staring and wondering, "something very strange has
happened. This is--a visitor of mine."
"It's all right, dear boy!" said Provis coming forward, with his little
clasped black book, and then addressing himself to Herbert. "Take it in
your right hand. Lord strike you dead on the spot, if ever you split in
any way sumever! Kiss it!"
"Do so, as he wishes it," I said to Herbert. So, Herbert, looking at
me with a friendly uneasiness and amazement, complied, and Provis
immediately shaking hands with him, said, "Now you're on your oath, you
know. And never believe me on mine, if Pip shan't make a gentleman on
you!"
Chapter XLI
In vain should I attempt to describe the astonishment and disquiet
of Herbert, when he and I and Provis sat down before the fire, and I
recounted the whole of the secret. Enough, that I saw my own feelings
reflected in Herbert's face, and not least among them, my repugnance
towards the man who had done so much for me.
What would alone have set a division between that man and us, if there
had been no other dividing circumstance, was his triumph in my story.
Saving his troublesome sense of having been "low" on one occasion since
his return,--on which point he began to hold forth to Herbert, the
moment my revelation was finished,--he had no perception of the
possibility of my finding any fault with my good fortune. His boast that
he had made me a gentleman, and that he had come to see me support the
character on his ample resources, was made for me quite as much as for
himself. And that it was a highly agreeable boast to both of us,
and that we must both be very proud of it, was a conclusion quite
established in his own mind.
"Though, look'ee here, Pip's comrade," he said to Herbert, after having
discoursed for some time, "I know very well that once since I come
back--for half a minute--I've been low. I said to Pip, I knowed as I had
been low. But don't you fret yourself on that score. I ain't made Pip a
gentleman, and Pip ain't a going to make you a gentleman, not fur me not
to know what's due to ye both. Dear boy, and Pip's comrade, you two may
count upon me always having a 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 jackknife and his pack of cards,
and what not, as if it were all put down for him on a slate,--I say his
chair remaining where it had stood, Herbert unconsciously took it, but
next moment started out of it, pushed it away, and took another. He had
no occasion to say after that that he had conceived an aversion for my
patron, neither had I occasion to confess my own. We interchanged that
confidence without shaping a syllable.
"What," said I to Herbert, when he was safe in another chair,--"what is
to be done?"
"My poor dear Handel," he replied, holding his head, "I am too stunned
to think."
"So was I, Herbert, when the blow first fell. Still, something must be
done. He is intent upon various new expenses,--horses, and carriages,
and lavish appearances of all kinds. He must be stopped somehow."
"You mean that you can't accept--"
"How can I?" I interposed, as Herbert paused. "Think of him! Look at
him!"
An involuntary shudder passed over both of us.
"Yet I am afraid the dreadful truth is, Herbert, that he is attached to
me, strongly attached to me. Was there ever such a fate!"
"My poor dear Handel," Herbert repeated.
"Then," said I, "after all, stopping short here, never taking another
penny from him, think what I owe him already! Then again: I am heavily
in debt,--very heavily for me, who have now no expectations,--and I have
been bred to no calling, and I am fit for nothing."
"Well, well, well!" Herbert remonstrated. "Don't say fit for nothing."
"What am I fit for? I know only one thing that I am fit for, and that
is, to go for a soldier. And I might have gone, my dear Herbert, but for
the prospect of taking counsel with your friendship and affection."
Of course I broke down there: and of course Herbert, beyond seizing a
warm grip of my hand, pretended not to know it.
"Anyhow, my dear Handel," said he presently, "soldiering won't do. If
you were to renounce this patronage and these favors, 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 rather have worked at the forge all the days of my life than I would
ever have come to this!
But there was no staving off the question, What was to be done?
"The first and the main thing to be done," said Herbert, "is to get him
out of England. You will have to go with him, and then he may be induced
to go."
"But get him where I will, could I prevent his coming back?"
"My good Handel, is it not obvious that with Newgate in the next street,
there must be far greater hazard in your breaking your mind to him and
making him reckless, here, than elsewhere? If a pretext to get him away
could be made out of that other convict, or out of anything else in his
life, now."
"There, again!" said I, stopping before Herbert, with my open hands held
out, as if they contained the desperation of the case. "I know nothing
of his life. It has almost made me mad to sit here of a night and see
him before me, so bound up with my fortunes and misfortunes, and yet so
unknown to me, except as the miserable wretch who terrified me two days
in my childhood!"
Herbert got up, and linked his arm in mine, and we slowly walked to and
fro together, studying the carpet.
"Handel," said Herbert, stopping, "you feel convinced that you can take
no further benefits from him; do you?"
"Fully. Surely you would, too, if you were in my place?"
"And you feel convinced that you must break with him?"
"Herbert, can you ask me?"
"And you have, and are bound to have, that tenderness for the life he
has risked on your account, that you must save him, if possible, from
throwing it away. Then you must get him out of England before you stir a
finger to extricate yourself. That done, extricate yourself, in Heaven's
name, and we'll see it out together, dear old boy."
It was a comfort to shake hands upon it, and walk up and down again,
with only that done.
"Now, Herbert," said I, "with reference to gaining some knowledge of
his history. There is but one way that I know of. I must ask him point
blank."
"Yes. Ask him," said Herbert, "when we sit at breakfast in the morning."
For he had said, on taking leave of Herbert, that he would come to
breakfast with us.
With this project formed, we went to bed. I had the wildest dreams
concerning him, and woke unrefreshed; I woke, too, to recover the fear
which I had lost in the night, of his being found out as a returned
transport. Waking, I never lost that fear.
He came round at the appointed time, took out his jackknife, and sat
down to his meal. He was full of plans "for his gentleman's coming out
strong, and like a gentleman," and urged me to begin speedily upon
the pocket-book which he had left in my possession. He considered the
chambers and his own lodging as temporary residences, and advised me to
look out at once for a "fashionable crib" near Hyde Park, in which he
could have "a shake-down." When he had made an end of his breakfast,
and was wiping his knife on his leg, I said to him, without a word of
preface,--
"After you were gone last night, I told my friend of the struggle that
the soldiers found you engaged in on the marshes, when we came up. You
remember?"
"Remember!" said he. "I think so!"
"We want to know something about that man--and about you. It is strange
to know no more about either, and particularly you, than I was able to
tell last night. Is not this as good a time as another for our knowing
more?"
"Well!" he said, after consideration. "You're on your oath, you know,
Pip's comrade?"
"Assuredly," replied Herbert.
"As to anything I say, you know," he insisted. "The oath applies to
all."
"I understand it to do so."
"And look'ee here! Wotever I done is worked out and paid for," he
insisted again.
"So be it."
He took out his black pipe and was going to fill it with negro-head,
when, looking at the tangle of tobacco in his hand, he seemed to think
it might perplex the thread of his narrative. He put it back again,
stuck his pipe in a button-hole of his coat, spread a hand on each knee,
and after turning an angry eye on the fire for a few silent moments,
looked round at us and said what follows.
Chapter XLII
"Dear boy and Pip's comrade. I am not a going fur to tell you my life
like a song, or a story-book. But to give it you short and handy, I'll
put it at once into a mouthful of English. In jail and out of jail, in
jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail. There, you've got it.
That's 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-kittle. I've been carted here and
carted there, and put out of this town, and put out of that town, and
stuck in the stocks, and whipped and worried and drove. I've no more
notion where I was born than you have--if so much. I first become aware
of myself down in Essex, a thieving turnips for my living. Summun had
run away from me--a man--a tinker--and he'd took the fire with him, and
left me wery cold.
"I know'd my name to be Magwitch, chrisen'd Abel. How did I know
it? Much as I know'd the birds' names in the hedges to be chaffinch,
sparrer, thrush. I might have thought it was all lies together, only as
the birds' names come out true, I supposed mine did.
"So fur as I could find, there warn't a soul that see young Abel
Magwitch, with us little on him as in him, but wot caught fright at him,
and either drove him off, or took him up. I was took up, took up, took
up, to that extent that I reg'larly grow'd up took up.
"This is the way it was, that when I was a ragged little creetur as much
to be pitied as ever I see (not that I looked in the glass, for there
warn't many insides of furnished houses known to me), I got the name of
being hardened. 'This is a terrible hardened one,' they says to prison
wisitors, picking out me. 'May be said to live in jails, this boy.' Then
they looked at me, and I looked at them, and they measured my head, some
on 'em,--they had better a measured my stomach,--and others on 'em giv
me tracts what I couldn't read, and made me speeches what I couldn't
understand. They always went on agen me about the Devil. But what
the Devil was I to do? I must put something into my stomach, mustn't
I?--Howsomever, I'm a getting low, and I know what's due. Dear boy and
Pip's comrade, don't you be afeerd of me being low.
"Tramping, begging, thieving, working sometimes when I could,--though
that warn't as often as you may think, till you put the question whether
you would ha' been over-ready to give me work yourselves,--a bit of a
poacher, a bit of a laborer, a bit of a wagoner, a bit of a haymaker,
a bit of a hawker, a bit of most things that don't pay and lead to
trouble, I got to be a man. A deserting soldier in a Traveller's Rest,
what lay hid up to the chin under a lot of taturs, learnt me to read;
and a travelling Giant what signed his name at a penny a time learnt me
to write. I warn't locked up as often now as formerly, but I wore out my
good share of key-metal still.
"At Epsom races, a matter of over twenty years ago, I got acquainted wi'
a man whose skull I'd crack wi' this poker, like the claw of a lobster,
if I'd got it on this hob. His right name was Compeyson; and that's the
man, dear boy, what you see me a pounding in the ditch, according to
what you truly told your comrade arter I was gone last night.
"He set up fur a gentleman, this Compeyson, and he'd been to a public
boarding-school and had learning. He was a smooth one to talk, and was
a dab at the ways of gentlefolks. He was good-looking too. It was the
night afore the great race, when I found him on the heath, in a booth
that I know'd on. Him and some more was a sitting among the tables when
I went in, and the landlord (which had a knowledge of me, and was a
sporting one) called him out, and said, 'I think this is a man that
might suit you,'--meaning I was.
"Compeyson, he looks at me very noticing, and I look at him. He has a
watch and a chain and a ring and a breast-pin and a handsome suit of
clothes.
"'To judge from appearances, you're out of luck,' says Compeyson to me.
"'Yes, master, and I've never been in it much.' (I had come out of
Kingston Jail last on a vagrancy committal. Not but what it might have
been for something else; but it warn't.)
"'Luck changes,' says Compeyson; 'perhaps yours is going to change.'
"I says, 'I hope it may be so. There's room.'
"'What can you do?' says Compeyson.
"'Eat and drink,' I says; 'if you'll find the materials.'
"Compeyson laughed, looked at me again very noticing, giv me five
shillings, and appointed me for next night. Same place.
"I went to Compeyson next night, same place, and Compeyson took me on
to be his man and pardner. And what was Compeyson's business in which we
was to go pardners? Compeyson's business was the swindling, handwriting
forging, stolen bank-note passing, and such-like. All sorts of traps as
Compeyson could set with his head, and keep his own legs out of and get
the profits from and let another man in for, was Compeyson's business.
He'd no more heart than a iron file, he was as cold as death, and he had
the head of the Devil afore mentioned.
"There was another in with Compeyson, as was called Arthur,--not as
being so chrisen'd, but as a surname. He was in a Decline, and was a
shadow to look at. Him and Compeyson had been in a bad thing with a
rich lady some years afore, and they'd made a pot of money by it; but
Compeyson betted and gamed, and he'd have run through the king's taxes.
So, Arthur was a dying, and a dying poor and with the horrors on him,
and Compeyson's wife (which Compeyson kicked mostly) was a having pity
on him when she could, and Compeyson was a having pity on nothing and
nobody.
"I might a took warning by Arthur, but I didn't; and I won't pretend I
was partick'ler--for where 'ud be the good on it, dear boy and comrade?
So I begun wi' Compeyson, and a poor tool I was in his hands. Arthur
lived at the top of Compeyson's house (over nigh Brentford it was), and
Compeyson kept a careful account agen him for board and lodging, in case
he should ever get better to work it out. But Arthur soon settled the
account. The second or third time as ever I see him, he come a tearing
down into Compeyson's parlor late at night, in only a flannel gown, with
his hair all in a sweat, and he says to Compeyson's wife, 'Sally, she
really is upstairs alonger me, now, and I can't get rid of her. She's
all in white,' he says, 'wi' white flowers in her hair, and she's awful
mad, and she's got a shroud hanging over her arm, and she says she'll
put it on me at five in the morning.'
"Says Compeyson: 'Why, you fool, don't you know she's got a living body?
And how should she be up there, without coming through the door, or in
at the window, and up the stairs?'
"'I don't know how she's there,' says Arthur, shivering dreadful with
the horrors, 'but she's standing in the corner at the foot of the bed,
awful mad. And over where her heart's broke--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. 'O, she's gone! Has her keeper
been for her?' he says. 'Yes,' says Compeyson's wife. 'Did you tell him
to lock her and bar her in?' 'Yes.' 'And to take that ugly thing away
from her?' 'Yes, yes, all right.' 'You're a good creetur,' he says,
'don't leave me, whatever you do, and thank you!'
"He rested pretty quiet till it might want a few minutes of five, and
then he starts up with a scream, and screams out, 'Here she is! She's
got the shroud again. She's unfolding it. She's coming out of the
corner. She's coming to the bed. Hold me, both on you--one of each
side--don't let her touch me with it. Hah! she missed me that time.
Don't let her throw it over my shoulders. Don't let her lift me up to
get it round me. She's lifting me up. Keep me down!' Then he lifted
himself up hard, and was dead.
"Compeyson took it easy as a good riddance for both sides. Him and
me was soon busy, and first he swore me (being ever artful) on my own
book,--this here little black book, dear boy, what I swore your comrade
on.
"Not to go into the things that Compeyson planned, and I done--which 'ud
take a week--I'll simply say to you, dear boy, and Pip's comrade, that
that man got me into such nets as made me his black slave. I was always
in debt to him, always under his thumb, always a working, always a
getting into danger. He was younger than me, but he'd got craft, and
he'd got learning, and he overmatched me five hundred times told and
no mercy. My Missis as I had the hard time wi'--Stop though! I ain't
brought 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 misdemeanor,
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 XLIII
Why should I pause to ask how much of my shrinking from Provis might be
traced to Estella? Why should I loiter on my road, to compare the state
of mind in which I had tried to rid myself of the stain of the prison
before meeting her at the coach-office, with the state of mind in which
I now reflected on the abyss between Estella in her pride and beauty,
and the returned transport whom I harbored? The road would be none the
smoother for it, the end would be none the better for it, he would not
be helped, nor I extenuated.
A new fear had been engendered in my mind by his narrative; or rather,
his narrative had given form and purpose to the fear that was already
there. If Compeyson were alive and should discover his return, I could
hardly doubt the consequence. That Compeyson stood in mortal fear of
him, neither of the two could know much better than I; and that any
such man as that man had been described to be would hesitate to release
himself for good from a dreaded enemy by the safe means of becoming an
informer was scarcely to be imagined.
Never had I breathed, and never would I breathe--or so I resolved--a
word of Estella to Provis. But, I said to Herbert that, before I could
go abroad, I must see both Estella and Miss Havisham. This was when we
were left alone on the night of the day when Provis told us his story. I
resolved to go out to Richmond next day, and I went.
On my presenting myself at Mrs. Brandley's, Estella's maid was called to
tell that Estella had gone into the country. Where? To Satis House, as
usual. Not as usual, I said, for she had never yet gone there without
me; when was she coming back? There was an air of reservation in the
answer which increased my perplexity, and the answer was, that her maid
believed she was only coming back at all for a little while. I could
make nothing of this, except that it was meant that I should make
nothing of it, and I went home again in complete discomfiture.
Another night consultation with Herbert after Provis was gone home (I
always took him home, and always looked well about me), led us to the
conclusion that nothing should be said about going abroad until I came
back from Miss Havisham's. In the mean time, Herbert and I were to
consider separately what it would be best to say; whether we should
devise any pretence of being afraid that he was under suspicious
observation; or whether I, who had never yet been abroad, should propose
an expedition. We both knew that I had but to propose anything, and he
would consent. We agreed that his remaining many days in his present
hazard was not to be thought of.
Next day I had the meanness to feign that I was under a binding promise
to go down to Joe; but I was capable of almost any meanness towards Joe
or his name. Provis was to be strictly careful while I was gone, and
Herbert was to take the charge of him that I had taken. I was to be
absent only one night, and, on my return, the gratification of his
impatience for my starting as a gentleman on a greater scale was to
be begun. It occurred to me then, and as I afterwards found to
Herbert also, that he might be best got away across the water, on that
pretence,--as, to make purchases, or the like.
Having thus cleared the way for my expedition to Miss Havisham's, I set
off by the early morning coach before it was yet light, and was out
on the open country road when the day came creeping on, halting and
whimpering and shivering, and wrapped in patches of cloud and rags of
mist, like a beggar. When we drove up to the Blue Boar after a drizzly
ride, whom should I see come out under the gateway, toothpick in hand,
to look at the coach, but Bentley Drummle!
As he pretended not to see me, I pretended not to see him. It was a very
lame pretence on both sides; the lamer, because we both went into the
coffee-room, where he had just finished his breakfast, and where I
ordered mine. It was poisonous to me to see him in the town, for I very
well knew why he had come there.
Pretending to read a smeary newspaper long out of date, which had
nothing half so legible in its local news, as the foreign matter of
coffee, pickles, fish sauces, gravy, melted butter, and wine with which
it was sprinkled all over, as if it had taken the measles in a highly
irregular form, I sat at my table while he stood before the fire. By
degrees it became an enormous injury to me that he stood before the
fire. And I got up, determined to have my share of it. I had to put my
hand behind his legs for the poker when I went up to the fireplace to
stir the fire, but still pretended not to know him.
"Is this a cut?" said Mr. Drummle.
"Oh!" said I, poker in hand; "it's you, is it? How do you do? I was
wondering who it was, who kept the fire off."
With that, I poked tremendously, and having done so, planted myself side
by side with Mr. Drummle, my shoulders squared and my back to the fire.
"You have just come down?" said Mr. Drummle, edging me a little away
with his shoulder.
"Yes," said I, edging 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?"
"Waiter!" said Drummle, by way of answering me.
The waiter reappeared.
"Look here, you sir. You quite understand that the young lady don't ride
to-day, and that I dine at the young lady's?"
"Quite so, sir!"
When the waiter had felt my fast-cooling teapot with the palm of his
hand, and had looked imploringly at me, and had gone out, Drummle,
careful not to move the shoulder next me, took a cigar from his pocket
and bit the end off, but showed no sign of stirring. Choking and
boiling as I was, I felt that we could not go a word further, without
introducing Estella's name, which I could not endure to hear him utter;
and therefore I looked stonily at the opposite wall, as if there were
no one present, and forced myself to silence. How long we might have
remained in this ridiculous position it is impossible to say, but
for the incursion of three thriving farmers--laid on by the waiter, I
think--who came into the coffee-room unbuttoning their great-coats and
rubbing their hands, and before whom, as they charged at the fire, we
were obliged to give way.
I saw him through the window, seizing his horse's mane, and mounting in
his blundering brutal manner, and sidling and backing away. I thought
he was gone, when he came back, calling for a light for the cigar in his
mouth, which he had forgotten. A man in a dust-colored dress appeared
with what was wanted,--I could not have said from where: whether from
the inn yard, or the street, or where not,--and as Drummle leaned down
from the saddle and lighted his cigar and laughed, with a jerk of his
head towards the coffee-room windows, the slouching shoulders and ragged
hair of this man whose back was towards me reminded me of Orlick.
Too heavily out of sorts to care much at the time whether it were he or
no, or after all to touch the breakfast, I washed the weather and the
journey from my face and hands, and went out to the memorable old house
that it would have been so much the better for me never to have entered,
never to have seen.
Chapter XLIV
In the room where the dressing-table stood, and where the wax-candles
burnt on the wall, I found Miss Havisham and Estella; Miss Havisham
seated on a settee near the fire, and Estella on a cushion at her feet.
Estella was knitting, and Miss Havisham was looking on. They both raised
their eyes as I went in, and both saw an alteration in me. I derived
that, from the look they interchanged.
"And what wind," said Miss Havisham, "blows you here, Pip?"
Though she looked steadily at me, I saw that she was rather confused.
Estella, pausing a moment in her knitting with her eyes upon me, and
then going on, I fancied that I read in the action of her fingers, as
plainly as if she had told me in the dumb alphabet, that she perceived I
had discovered my real benefactor.
"Miss Havisham," said I, "I went to Richmond yesterday, to speak to
Estella; and finding that some wind had blown 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 humoring 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 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 color 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 XLV
Turning from the Temple gate as soon as I had read the warning, I made
the best of my way to Fleet Street, and there got a late hackney chariot
and drove to the Hummums in Covent Garden. In those times a bed was
always to be got there at any hour of the night, and the chamberlain,
letting me in at his ready wicket, lighted the candle next in order on
his shelf, and showed me straight into the bedroom next in order on his
list. It was a sort of vault on the ground floor at the back, with a
despotic monster of a four-post bedstead in it, straddling over the
whole place, putting one of his arbitrary legs into the fireplace
and another into the doorway, and squeezing the wretched little
washing-stand in quite a Divinely Righteous manner.
As I had asked for a night-light, the chamberlain had brought me in,
before he left me, the good old constitutional rushlight of those
virtuous days--an object like the ghost of a walking-cane, which
instantly broke its back if it were touched, which nothing could ever be
lighted at, and which was placed in solitary confinement at the bottom
of a high tin tower, perforated with round holes that made a staringly
wide-awake pattern on the walls. When I had got into bed, and lay there
footsore, weary, and wretched, I found that I could no more close my own
eyes than I could close the eyes of this foolish Argus. And thus, in the
gloom and death of the night, we stared at one another.
What a doleful night! How anxious, how dismal, how long! There was an
inhospitable smell in the room, of cold soot and hot dust; and, as I
looked up into the corners of the tester over my head, I thought what
a number of blue-bottle flies from the butchers', and earwigs from the
market, and grubs from the country, must be holding on up there, lying
by for next summer. This led me to speculate whether any of them ever
tumbled down, and then I fancied that I felt light falls on my face,--a
disagreeable turn of thought, suggesting other and more objectionable
approaches up my back. When I had lain awake a little while, those
extraordinary voices with which silence teems began to make themselves
audible. The closet whispered, the fireplace sighed, the little
washing-stand ticked, and one guitar-string played occasionally in the
chest of drawers. At about the same time, the eyes on the wall acquired
a new expression, and in every one of those staring rounds I saw
written, 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 forever, and when
I recalled all the circumstances of our parting, and all her looks and
tones, and the action of her fingers while she knitted,--even then I
was pursuing, here and there and everywhere, the caution, Don't go home.
When at last I dozed, in sheer exhaustion of mind and body, it became
a vast shadowy verb which I had to conjugate. Imperative mood, present
tense: Do not thou go home, let him not go home, let us not go home, do
not ye or you go home, let not them go home. Then potentially: I may not
and I cannot go home; and I might not, could not, would not, and should
not go home; until I felt that I was going distracted, and rolled over
on the pillow, and looked at the staring rounds upon the wall again.
I had left directions that I was to be called at seven; for it was plain
that I must see Wemmick before seeing any one else, and equally plain
that this was a case in which his Walworth sentiments only could be
taken. It was a relief to get out of the room where the night had been
so miserable, and I needed no second knocking at the door to startle me
from my uneasy bed.
The Castle battlements arose upon my view at eight o'clock. The little
servant happening to be entering the fortress with two hot rolls, I
passed through the postern and crossed the drawbridge in her company,
and so came without announcement into the presence of Wemmick as he was
making tea for himself and the Aged. An open door afforded a perspective
view of the Aged in bed.
"Halloa, Mr. Pip!" said Wemmick. "You did come home, then?"
"Yes," I returned; "but I didn't go home."
"That's all right," said he, rubbing his hands. "I left a note for you
at each of the Temple gates, on the chance. Which gate did you come to?"
I told him.
"I'll go round to the others in the course of the day and destroy the
notes," said Wemmick; "it's a good rule never to leave documentary
evidence if you can help it, because you don't know when it may be put
in. I'm going to take a liberty with you. 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 to-day. Official sentiments
are one thing. We are extra official."
I cordially assented. I was so very nervous, that I had already lighted
the Aged's sausage like a torch, and been obliged to blow it out.
"I accidentally heard, yesterday morning," said Wemmick, "being in a
certain place where I once took you,--even between you and me, it's as
well not to mention names when avoidable--"
"Much better not," said I. "I understand you."
"I heard there by chance, yesterday morning," said Wemmick, "that
a certain person not altogether of uncolonial pursuits, and not
unpossessed of portable property,--I don't know who it may really
be,--we won't name this person--"
"Not necessary," said I.
"--Had made some little stir in a certain part of the world where a good
many people go, not always in gratification of their own inclinations,
and not quite irrespective of the government expense--"
In watching his face, I made quite a firework of the Aged's sausage,
and greatly discomposed both my own attention and Wemmick's; for which I
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 in-door comfort was to sit without any coat), he nodded to me
once, to put my question.
"You have heard of a man of bad character, whose true name is
Compeyson?"
He answered with one other nod.
"Is he living?"
One other nod.
"Is he in London?"
He gave me one other nod, compressed the post-office exceedingly, gave
me one last nod, and went on with his breakfast.
"Now," said Wemmick, "questioning being over," which he 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
neighborhood, 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 XLVI
Eight o'clock had struck before I got into the air, that was scented,
not disagreeably, by the chips and shavings of the long-shore
boat-builders, and mast, oar, and block makers. All that water-side
region of the upper and lower Pool below Bridge was unknown ground to
me; and when I struck down by the river, I found that the spot I wanted
was not where I had supposed it to be, and was anything but easy to
find. It was called Mill Pond Bank, Chinks's Basin; and I had no other
guide to Chinks's Basin than the Old Green Copper Rope-walk.
It matters not what stranded ships repairing in dry docks I lost myself
among, what old hulls of ships in course of being knocked to pieces,
what ooze and slime and other dregs of tide, what yards of ship-builders
and ship-breakers, what rusty anchors blindly biting into the ground,
though for years off duty, what mountainous country of accumulated casks
and timber, how many rope-walks that were not the Old Green Copper. After
several times falling short of my destination and as often overshooting
it, I came unexpectedly round a corner, upon Mill Pond Bank. It was a
fresh kind of place, all circumstances considered, where the wind from
the river had room to turn itself round; and there were two or three
trees in it, and there was the stump of a ruined windmill, and there
was the Old Green Copper Rope-walk,--whose long and narrow vista I could
trace in the moonlight, along a series of wooden frames set in the
ground, that looked like superannuated haymaking-rakes which had grown
old and lost most of their teeth.
Selecting from the few queer houses upon Mill Pond Bank a house with a
wooden front and three stories of bow-window (not bay-window, which is
another thing), I looked at the plate upon the door, and read there,
Mrs. Whimple. That being the name I wanted, I knocked, and an elderly
woman of a pleasant and thriving appearance responded. She was
immediately deposed, however, by Herbert, who silently led me into
the parlor 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 colored engravings on the wall, representing the
death of Captain Cook, a ship-launch, and his Majesty King George the
Third in a state coachman's wig, leather-breeches, and top-boots, on the
terrace at Windsor.
"All is well, Handel," said Herbert, "and he is quite satisfied, though
eager to see you. My dear girl is with her father; and if you'll wait
till she comes down, I'll make you known to her, and then we'll go upstairs. 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 at us. Upon this Clara said to Herbert, "Papa wants
me, darling!" and ran away.
"There is an unconscionable old shark for you!" said Herbert. "What do
you suppose he wants now, Handel?"
"I don't know," said I. "Something to drink?"
"That's it!" cried Herbert, as if I had made a guess of extraordinary
merit. "He keeps his grog ready mixed in a little tub on the table.
Wait a moment, and you'll hear Clara lift him up to take some. There
he goes!" Another roar, with a prolonged shake at the end. "Now," said
Herbert, as it was succeeded by silence, "he's drinking. Now," said
Herbert, as the growl resounded in the beam once more, "he's down again
on his back!"
Clara returned soon afterwards, and Herbert accompanied me upstairs to
see our charge. As we passed Mr. Barley's door, he was heard hoarsely
muttering within, in a strain that rose and fell like wind, the
following Refrain, in which I substitute good wishes for something quite
the reverse:--
"Ahoy! Bless your eyes, here's old Bill Barley. Here's old Bill Barley,
bless your eyes. Here's old Bill Barley on the flat of his back, by the
Lord. Lying on the flat of his back like a drifting old dead flounder,
here's your old Bill Barley, bless your eyes. Ahoy! Bless you."
In this strain of consolation, Herbert informed me the invisible Barley
would commune with himself by the day and night together; Often, while
it was light, having, at the same time, one eye at a telescope which was
fitted on his bed for the convenience of sweeping the river.
In his two cabin rooms at the top of the house, which were fresh and
airy, and in which Mr. Barley was less audible than below, I found
Provis comfortably settled. He expressed no alarm, and seemed to
feel none that was worth mentioning; but it struck me that he was
softened,--indefinably, for I could not have said how, and could never
afterwards recall how when I tried, but certainly.
The opportunity that the day's rest had given me for reflection had
resulted in my fully determining to say nothing to him respecting
Compeyson. For anything I knew, his animosity towards the man
might otherwise lead to his seeking him out and rushing on his own
destruction. Therefore, when Herbert and I sat down with him by his
fire, I asked him first of all whether he relied on Wemmick's judgment
and sources of information?
"Ay, ay, dear boy!" he answered, with a grave nod, "Jaggers knows."
"Then, I have talked with Wemmick," said I, "and have come to tell you
what caution he gave me and what advice."
This I did accurately, with the reservation just mentioned; and I told
him how Wemmick had heard, in Newgate prison (whether from officers or
prisoners I could not say), that he was under some suspicion, and that
my chambers had been watched; how Wemmick had recommended his keeping
close for a time, and my keeping away from him; and what Wemmick had
said about getting him abroad. I added, that of course, when the time
came, I should go with him, or should follow close upon him, as might
be safest in Wemmick's judgment. What was to follow that I did not touch
upon; neither, indeed, was I at all clear or comfortable about it in my
own mind, now that I saw him in that softer condition, and in declared
peril for my sake. As to altering my way of living by enlarging my
expenses, I put it to him whether in our present unsettled and difficult
circumstances, it would not be simply ridiculous, if it were no worse?
He could not deny this, and indeed was very reasonable throughout. His
coming back was a venture, he said, and he had always known it to be a
venture. He would do nothing to make it a desperate venture, and he had
very little fear of his safety with such good help.
Herbert, who had been looking at the fire and pondering, here said
that something had come into his thoughts arising out of Wemmick's
suggestion, which it might be worth while to pursue. "We are both good
watermen, Handel, and could take him down the river ourselves when the
right time comes. No boat would then be hired for the purpose, and no
boatmen; that would save at least a chance of suspicion, and any chance
is worth saving. Never mind the season; don't you think it might be a
good thing if you began at once to keep a boat at the Temple stairs, and
were in the habit of rowing up and down the river? You fall into that
habit, and then who notices or minds? Do it twenty or fifty times,
and there is nothing special in your doing it the twenty-first or
fifty-first."
I liked this scheme, and Provis was quite elated by it. We agreed
that it should be carried into execution, and that Provis should never
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 downstairs. Looking back at him, I thought of the first night
of his return, when our positions were reversed, and when I little
supposed my heart could ever be as heavy and anxious at parting from him
as it was now.
Old Barley was growling and swearing when we repassed his door, with no
appearance of having ceased or of meaning to cease. When we got to the
foot of the stairs, I asked Herbert whether he had preserved the name of
Provis. He replied, certainly not, and that the lodger was Mr. Campbell.
He also explained that the utmost known of Mr. Campbell there was,
that he (Herbert) had Mr. Campbell consigned to him, and felt a strong
personal interest in his being well cared for, and living a secluded
life. So, when we went into the parlor where Mrs. Whimple and Clara were
seated at work, I said nothing of my own interest in Mr. Campbell, but
kept it to myself.
When I had taken leave of the pretty, gentle, dark-eyed girl, and of the
motherly woman who had not outlived her honest sympathy with a little
affair of true love, I felt as if the Old Green Copper Rope-walk had
grown quite a different place. Old Barley might be as old as the hills,
and might swear like a whole field of troopers, but there were redeeming
youth and trust and hope enough in Chinks's Basin to fill it to
overflowing. And then I thought of Estella, and of our parting, and went
home very sadly.
All things were as quiet in the Temple as ever I had seen them. The
windows of the rooms on that side, lately occupied by Provis, were dark
and still, and there was no lounger in Garden Court. I walked past the
fountain twice or thrice before I descended the steps that were between
me and my rooms, but I was quite alone. Herbert, coming to my
bedside when he came in,--for I went straight to bed, dispirited and
fatigued,--made the same report. Opening one of the windows after that,
he looked out into the moonlight, and told me that the pavement was as
solemnly empty as the pavement of any cathedral at that same hour.
Next day I set myself to get the boat. It was soon done, and the boat
was brought round to the Temple stairs, and lay where I could reach
her within a minute or two. Then, I began to go out as for training and
practice: sometimes alone, sometimes with Herbert. I was often out in
cold, rain, and sleet, but nobody took much note of me after I had been
out a few times. At first, I kept above Blackfriars Bridge; but as the
hours of the tide changed, I took towards London Bridge. It was Old
London Bridge in those days, and at certain states of the tide there
was a race and fall of water there which gave it a bad reputation. But I
knew well enough how to 'shoot' the bridge after seeing it done, and so
began to row about among the shipping in the Pool, and down to Erith.
The first time I passed Mill Pond Bank, Herbert and I were pulling a
pair of oars; and, both in going and returning, we saw the blind towards
the east come down. Herbert was rarely there less frequently than three
times in a week, and he never brought me a single word of intelligence
that was at all alarming. Still, I knew that there was cause for alarm,
and I could not get rid of the notion of being watched. Once received,
it is a haunting idea; how many undesigning persons I suspected of
watching me, it would be hard to calculate.
In short, I was always full of fears for the rash man who was in hiding.
Herbert had sometimes said to me that he found it pleasant to stand at
one of our windows after dark, when the tide was running down, and to
think that it was flowing, with everything it bore, towards Clara. But
I thought with dread that it was flowing towards Magwitch, and that
any black mark on its surface might be his pursuers, going swiftly,
silently, and surely, to take him.
Chapter XLVII
Some weeks passed without bringing any change. We waited for Wemmick,
and he made no sign. If I had never known him out of Little Britain, and
had never enjoyed the privilege of being on a familiar footing at the
Castle, I might have doubted him; not so for a moment, knowing him as I
did.
My worldly affairs began to wear a gloomy appearance, and I was pressed
for money by more than one creditor. Even I myself began to know the
want of money (I mean of ready money in my own pocket), and to relieve
it by converting some easily spared articles of jewelery into cash. But
I had quite determined that it would be a heartless fraud to take more
money from my patron in the existing state of my uncertain thoughts and
plans. Therefore, I had sent him the unopened pocket-book by Herbert, to
hold in his own keeping, and I felt a kind of satisfaction--whether it
was a false kind or a true, I hardly know--in not having profited by his
generosity since his revelation of himself.
As the time wore on, an impression settled heavily upon me that Estella
was married. Fearful of having it confirmed, though it was all but a
conviction, I avoided the newspapers, and begged Herbert (to whom I had
confided the circumstances of our last interview) never to speak of her
to me. Why I hoarded up this last wretched little rag of the robe of
hope that was rent and given to the winds, how do I know? Why did you
who read this, commit that not dissimilar inconsistency of your own last
year, last month, last week?
It was an unhappy life that I lived; and its one dominant anxiety,
towering over all its other anxieties, like a high mountain above a
range of mountains, never disappeared from my view. Still, no new cause
for fear arose. Let me start from my bed as I would, with the terror
fresh upon me that he was discovered; let me sit listening, as I would
with dread, for Herbert's returning step at night, lest it should be
fleeter than ordinary, and winged with evil news,--for all that, and
much more to like purpose, the round of things went on. Condemned to
inaction and a state of constant restlessness and suspense, I rowed
about in my boat, and waited, waited, waited, as I best could.
There were states of the tide when, having been down the river, I could
not get back through the eddy-chafed arches and starlings of old London
Bridge; then, I left my boat at a wharf near the Custom House, to be
brought up afterwards to the Temple stairs. I was not averse to doing
this, as it served to make me and my boat a commoner incident among the
water-side people there. From this slight occasion sprang two meetings
that I have now to tell of.
One afternoon, late in the month of February, I came ashore at the wharf
at dusk. I had pulled down as far as Greenwich with the ebb tide, and
had turned with the tide. It had been a fine bright day, but had become
foggy as the sun dropped, and I had had to feel my way back among the
shipping, pretty carefully. Both in going and returning, I had seen the
signal in his window, All well.
As it was a raw evening, and I was cold, I thought I would comfort
myself with dinner at once; and as I had hours of dejection and solitude
before me if I went home to the Temple, I thought I would afterwards go
to the play. The theatre where Mr. Wopsle had achieved his questionable
triumph was in that water-side neighborhood (it is nowhere now), and
to that theatre I resolved to go. I was aware that Mr. Wopsle had
not succeeded in reviving the Drama, but, on the contrary, had rather
partaken of its decline. He had been ominously heard of, through the
play-bills, as a faithful Black, in connection with a little girl of
noble birth, and a monkey. And Herbert had seen him as a predatory
Tartar of comic propensities, with a face like a red brick, and an
outrageous hat all over bells.
I dined at what Herbert and I used to call a geographical chop-house,
where there were maps of the world in porter-pot rims on every half-yard
of the tablecloths, and charts of gravy on every one of the knives,--to
this day there is scarcely a single chop-house within the Lord Mayor's
dominions which is not geographical,--and wore out the time in dozing
over crumbs, staring at gas, and baking in a hot blast of dinners. By
and by, I roused myself, and went to the play.
There, I found a virtuous boatswain in His Majesty's service,--a most
excellent man, though I could have wished his trousers not quite so
tight in some places, and not quite so loose in others,--who knocked all
the little men's hats over their eyes, though he was very generous and
brave, and who wouldn't hear of anybody's paying taxes, though he was
very patriotic. He had a bag of money in his pocket, like a pudding in
the cloth, and on that property married a young person in bed-furniture,
with great rejoicings; the whole population of Portsmouth (nine in
number at the last census) turning out on the beach to rub their own
hands and shake everybody else's, and sing "Fill, fill!" A certain
dark-complexioned Swab, however, who wouldn't fill, or do anything else
that was proposed to him, and whose heart was openly stated (by the
boatswain) to be as black as his figure-head, proposed to two other
Swabs to get all mankind into difficulties; which was so effectually
done (the Swab family having considerable political influence) that it
took half the evening to set things right, and then it was only brought
about through an honest little grocer with a white hat, black gaiters,
and red nose, getting into a clock, with a gridiron, and listening, and
coming out, and knocking everybody down from behind with the gridiron
whom he couldn't confute with what he had overheard. This led to Mr.
Wopsle's (who had never been heard of before) coming in with a star
and garter on, as a plenipotentiary of great power direct from the
Admiralty, to say that the Swabs were all to go to prison on the spot,
and that he had brought the boatswain down the Union Jack, as a slight
acknowledgment of his public services. The boatswain, unmanned for the
first time, respectfully dried his eyes on the Jack, and then cheering
up, and addressing Mr. Wopsle as Your Honor, solicited permission to
take him by the fin. Mr. Wopsle, conceding his fin with a gracious
dignity, was immediately shoved into a dusty corner, while everybody
danced a hornpipe; and from that corner, surveying the public with a
discontented eye, became aware of me.
The second piece was the last new grand comic Christmas pantomime, in
the first scene of which, it pained me to suspect that I detected
Mr. Wopsle with red worsted legs under a highly magnified phosphoric
countenance and a shock of red curtain-fringe for his hair, engaged
in the manufacture of thunderbolts in a mine, and displaying great
cowardice when his gigantic master came home (very hoarse) to dinner.
But he presently presented himself under worthier circumstances; for,
the Genius of Youthful Love being in want of assistance,--on account of
the parental brutality of an ignorant farmer who opposed the choice
of his daughter's heart, by purposely falling upon the object, in a
flour-sack, out of the first-floor window,--summoned a sententious
Enchanter; and he, coming up from the antipodes rather unsteadily, after
an apparently violent journey, proved to be Mr. Wopsle in a high-crowned
hat, with a necromantic work in one volume under his arm. The business
of this enchanter on earth being principally to be talked at, sung at,
butted at, danced at, and flashed at with fires of various colors,
he had a good deal of time on his hands. And I observed, with great
surprise, that he devoted it to staring in my direction as if he were
lost in amazement.
There was something so remarkable in the increasing glare of Mr.
Wopsle's eye, and he seemed to be turning so many things over in his
mind and to grow so confused, that I could not make it out. I sat
thinking of it long after he had ascended to the clouds in a large
watch-case, and still I could not make it out. I was still thinking
of it when I came out of the theatre an hour afterwards, and found him
waiting for me near the door.
"How do you do?" said I, shaking hands with him as we turned down the
street together. "I saw that you saw me."
"Saw you, Mr. Pip!" he returned. "Yes, of course I saw you. But who else
was there?"
"Who else?"
"It is the strangest thing," said Mr. Wopsle, drifting into his lost
look again; "and yet I could swear to him."
Becoming alarmed, I entreated Mr. Wopsle to explain his meaning.
"Whether I should have noticed him at first but for your being there,"
said Mr. Wopsle, going on in the same lost way, "I can't be positive;
yet I think I should."
Involuntarily I looked round me, as I was accustomed to look round me
when I went home; for these mysterious words gave me a chill.
"Oh! He can't be in sight," said Mr. Wopsle. "He went out before I went
off. I saw him go."
Having the reason that I had for being suspicious, I even suspected
this poor actor. I mistrusted a design to entrap me into some admission.
Therefore I glanced at him as we walked on together, but said nothing.
"I had a ridiculous fancy that he must be with you, Mr. Pip, till I saw
that you were quite unconscious of him, sitting behind you there like a
ghost."
My former chill crept over me again, but I was resolved not to speak
yet, for it was quite consistent with his words that he might be set on
to induce me to connect these references with Provis. Of course, I was
perfectly sure and safe that Provis had not been there.
"I dare say you wonder at me, Mr. Pip; indeed, I see you do. But it is
so very strange! You'll hardly believe what I am going to tell you. I
could hardly believe it myself, if you told me."
"Indeed?" said I.
"No, indeed. Mr. Pip, you remember in old times a certain Christmas Day,
when you were quite a child, and I dined at Gargery's, and some soldiers
came to the door to get a pair of handcuffs mended?"
"I remember it very well."
"And you remember that there was a chase after two convicts, and that we
joined in it, and that Gargery took you on his back, and that I took the
lead, and you kept up with me as well as you could?"
"I remember it all very well." Better than he thought,--except the last
clause.
"And you remember that we came up with the two in a ditch, and that
there was a scuffle between them, and that one of them had been severely
handled and much mauled about the face by the other?"
"I see it all before me."
"And that the soldiers lighted torches, and put the two in the centre,
and that we went on to see the last of them, over the black marshes,
with the torchlight shining on their faces,--I am particular about
that,--with the torchlight shining on their faces, when there was an
outer ring of dark night all about us?"
"Yes," said I. "I remember all that."
"Then, Mr. Pip, one of those two prisoners sat behind you tonight. I saw
him over your shoulder."
"Steady!" I thought. I asked him then, "Which of the two do you suppose
you saw?"
"The one who had been mauled," he answered readily, "and I'll swear I
saw him! The more I think of him, the more certain I am of him."
"This is very curious!" said I, with the best assumption I could put on
of its being nothing more to me. "Very curious indeed!"
I cannot exaggerate the enhanced disquiet into which this conversation
threw me, or the special and peculiar terror I felt at Compeyson's
having been behind me "like a ghost." For if he had ever been out of my
thoughts for a few moments together since the hiding had begun, it was
in those very moments when he was closest to me; and to think that I
should be so unconscious and off my guard after all my care was as if
I had shut an avenue of a hundred doors to keep him out, and then had
found him at my elbow. I could not doubt, either, that he was there,
because I was there, and that, however slight an appearance of danger
there might be about us, danger was always near and active.
I put such questions to Mr. Wopsle as, When did the man come in? He
could not tell me that; he saw me, and over my shoulder he saw the man.
It was not until he had seen him for some time that he began to identify
him; but he had from the first vaguely associated him with me, and
known him as somehow belonging to me in the old village time. How was
he dressed? Prosperously, but not noticeably otherwise; he thought, in
black. Was his face at all disfigured? No, he believed not. I believed
not too, for, although in my brooding state I had taken no especial
notice of the people behind me, I thought it likely that a face at all
disfigured would have attracted my attention.
When Mr. Wopsle had imparted to me all that he could recall or I
extract, and when I had treated him to a little appropriate refreshment,
after the fatigues of the evening, we parted. It was between twelve and
one o'clock when I reached the Temple, and the gates were shut. No one
was near me when I went in and went home.
Herbert had come in, and we held a very serious council by the fire. But
there was nothing to be done, saving to communicate to Wemmick what I
had that night found out, and to remind him that we waited for his hint.
As I thought that I might compromise him if I went too often to the
Castle, I made this communication by letter. I wrote it before I went to
bed, and went out and posted it; and again no one was near me. Herbert
and I agreed that we could do nothing else but be very cautious. And
we were very cautious indeed,--more cautious than before, if that were
possible,--and I for my part never went near Chinks's Basin, except
when I rowed by, and then I only looked at Mill Pond Bank as I looked at
anything else.
Chapter XLVIII
The second of the two meetings referred to in the last chapter occurred
about a week after the first. I had again left my boat at the wharf
below Bridge; the time was an hour earlier in the afternoon; and,
undecided where to dine, I had strolled up into Cheapside, and was
strolling along it, surely the most unsettled person in all the busy
concourse, when a large hand was laid upon my shoulder by some one
overtaking me. It was Mr. Jaggers's hand, and he passed it through my
arm.
"As we are going in the same direction, Pip, we may walk together. Where
are you bound for?"
"For the Temple, I think," said I.
"Don't you know?" said Mr. Jaggers.
"Well," I returned, glad for once to get the better of him in
cross-examination, "I do 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 gypsy blood in her. Anyhow, it was hot enough when it
was up, as you may suppose."
"But she was acquitted."
"Mr. Jaggers was for her," pursued Wemmick, with a look full of meaning,
"and worked the case in a way quite astonishing. It was a desperate
case, and it was comparatively early days with him then, and he worked
it to general admiration; in fact, it may almost be said to have made
him. He worked it himself at the police-office, day after day for many
days, contending against even a committal; and at the trial where he
couldn't work it himself, sat under counsel, and--every one knew--put
in all the salt and pepper. The murdered person was a woman,--a woman a
good ten years older, very much larger, and very much stronger. It was
a case of jealousy. They both led tramping lives, and this woman in
Gerrard Street here had been married very young, over the broomstick (as
we say), to a tramping man, and was a perfect fury in point of jealousy.
The murdered woman,--more a match for the man, certainly, in point of
years--was found dead in a barn near Hounslow Heath. There had been a
violent struggle, perhaps a fight. She was bruised and scratched and
torn, and had been held by the throat, at last, and choked. Now, there
was no reasonable evidence to implicate any person but this woman, and
on the improbabilities of her having been able to do it Mr. Jaggers
principally rested his case. You may be sure," said Wemmick, touching me
on the sleeve, "that he never dwelt upon the strength of her hands then,
though he sometimes does now."
I had told Wemmick of his showing us her wrists, that day of the dinner
party.
"Well, sir!" Wemmick went on; "it happened--happened, don't you
see?--that this woman was so very artfully dressed from the time of
her apprehension, that she looked much slighter than she really was; in
particular, her sleeves are always remembered to have been so skilfully
contrived that her arms had quite a delicate look. She had only a bruise
or two about her,--nothing for a tramp,--but the backs of her hands
were lacerated, and the question was, Was it with finger-nails? Now, Mr.
Jaggers showed that she had struggled through a great lot of brambles
which were not as high as her face; but which she could not have got
through and kept her hands out of; and bits of those brambles were
actually found in her skin and put in evidence, as well as the fact that
the brambles in question were found on examination to have been broken
through, and to have little shreds of her dress and little spots of
blood upon them here and there. But the boldest point he made was this:
it was attempted to be set up, in proof of her jealousy, that she was
under strong suspicion of having, at about the time of the murder,
frantically destroyed her child by this man--some three years old--to
revenge herself upon him. Mr. Jaggers worked that in this way: "We say
these are not marks of finger-nails, but marks of brambles, and we show
you the brambles. You say they are marks of finger-nails, and you set
up the hypothesis that she destroyed her child. You must accept all
consequences of that hypothesis. For anything we know, she may have
destroyed her child, and the child in clinging to her may have scratched
her hands. What then? You are not trying her for the murder of her
child; why don't you? As to this case, if you 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 XLIX
Putting Miss Havisham's note in my pocket, that it might serve as
my credentials for so soon reappearing at Satis House, in case her
waywardness should lead her to express any surprise at seeing me, I went
down again by the coach next day. But I alighted at the Halfway House,
and breakfasted there, and walked the rest of the distance; for I sought
to get into the town quietly by the unfrequented ways, and to leave it
in the same manner.
The best light of the day was gone when I passed along the quiet echoing
courts behind the High Street. The nooks of ruin where the old monks had
once had their refectories and gardens, and where the strong walls were
now pressed into the service of humble sheds and stables, were almost
as silent as the old monks in their graves. The cathedral chimes had at
once a sadder and a more remote sound to me, as I hurried on avoiding
observation, than they had ever had before; so, the swell of the old
organ was borne to my ears like funeral music; and the rooks, as they
hovered about the gray tower and swung in the bare high trees of the
priory garden, seemed to call to me that the place was changed, and that
Estella was gone out of it for ever.
An elderly woman, whom I had seen before as one of the servants who
lived in the supplementary house across the back courtyard, opened the
gate. The lighted candle stood in the dark passage within, as of old,
and I took it up and ascended the staircase alone. Miss Havisham was not
in her own room, but was in the larger room across the landing. Looking
in at the door, after knocking in vain, I saw her sitting on the hearth
in a ragged chair, close before, and lost in the contemplation of, the
ashy fire.
Doing as I had often done, I went in, and stood touching the old
chimney-piece, where she could see me when she raised her eyes. There
was an air of utter loneliness upon her, that would have moved me to
pity though she had wilfully done me a deeper injury than I could charge
her with. As I stood compassionating her, and thinking how, in the
progress of time, I too had come to be a part of the wrecked fortunes of
that house, her eyes rested on me. She stared, and said in a low voice,
"Is it real?"
"It is I, Pip. Mr. Jaggers gave me your note yesterday, and I have lost
no time."
"Thank you. Thank you."
As I brought another of the ragged chairs to the hearth and sat down, I
remarked a new expression on her face, as if she were afraid of me.
"I want," she said, "to pursue that subject you mentioned to me when you
were last here, and to show you that I am not all stone. But perhaps you
can never believe, now, that there is anything human in my heart?"
When I said some reassuring words, she stretched out her tremulous right
hand, as though she was going to touch me; but she recalled it again
before I understood the action, or knew how to receive it.
"You said, speaking for your friend, that you could tell me how to do
something useful and good. Something that you would like done, is it
not?"
"Something that I would like done very much."
"What is it?"
I began explaining to her that secret history of the partnership. I had
not got far into it, when I judged from her looks that she was thinking
in a discursive way of me, rather than of what I said. It seemed to be
so; for, when I stopped speaking, many moments passed before she showed
that she was conscious of the fact.
"Do you break off," she asked then, with her former air of being afraid
of me, "because you hate me too much to bear to speak to me?"
"No, no," I answered, "how can you think so, Miss Havisham! I stopped
because I thought you were not following what I said."
"Perhaps I was not," she answered, putting a hand to her head. "Begin
again, and let me look at something else. Stay! Now tell me."
She set her hand upon her stick in the resolute way that sometimes was
habitual to her, and looked at the fire with a strong expression of
forcing herself to attend. I went on with my explanation, and told her
how I had hoped to complete the transaction out of my means, but how
in this I was disappointed. That part of the subject (I reminded her)
involved matters which could form no part of my explanation, for they
were the weighty secrets of another.
"So!" said she, assenting with her head, but not looking at me. "And how
much money is wanting to complete the purchase?"
I was rather afraid of stating it, for it sounded a large sum. "Nine
hundred pounds."
"If I give you the money for this purpose, will you keep my secret as
you have kept your own?"
"Quite as faithfully."
"And your mind will be more at rest?"
"Much more at rest."
"Are you very unhappy now?"
She asked this question, still without looking at me, but in an unwonted
tone of sympathy. I could not reply at the moment, for my voice failed
me. She put her left arm across the head of her stick, and softly laid
her forehead on it.
"I am far from happy, Miss Havisham; but I have other causes of disquiet
than any you know of. They are the secrets I have mentioned."
After a little while, she raised her head, and looked at the fire again.
"It is noble in you to tell me that you have other causes of
unhappiness. Is it true?"
"Too true."
"Can I only serve you, Pip, by serving your friend? Regarding that as
done, is there nothing I can do for you yourself?"
"Nothing. I thank you for the question. I thank you even more for the
tone of the question. But there is nothing."
She presently rose from her seat, and looked about the blighted room
for the means of writing. There were none there, and she took from her
pocket a yellow set of ivory tablets, mounted in tarnished gold, and
wrote upon them with a pencil in a case of tarnished gold that hung from
her neck.
"You are still on friendly terms with Mr. Jaggers?"
"Quite. I dined with him yesterday."
"This is an authority to him to pay you that money, to lay out at your
irresponsible discretion for your friend. I keep no money here; but if
you would rather Mr. Jaggers knew nothing of the matter, I will send it
to you."
"Thank you, Miss Havisham; I have not the least objection to receiving
it from him."
She read me what she had written; and it was direct and clear, and
evidently intended to absolve me from any suspicion of profiting by the
receipt of the money. I took the tablets from her hand, and it trembled
again, and it trembled more as she took off the chain to which the
pencil was attached, and put it in mine. All this she did without
looking at me.
"My name is on the first leaf. If you can ever write under my name, "I
forgive her," though ever so long after my broken heart is dust pray do
it!"
"O Miss Havisham," said I, "I can do it now. There have been sore
mistakes; and my life has been a blind and thankless one; and I want
forgiveness and direction far too much, to be bitter with you."
She turned her face to me for the first time since she had averted it,
and, to my amazement, I may even add to my terror, dropped on her knees
at my feet; with her folded hands raised to me in the manner in which,
when her poor heart was young and fresh and whole, they must often have
been raised to heaven from her mother's side.
To see her with her white hair and her worn face kneeling at my feet
gave me a shock through all my frame. I entreated her to rise, and got
my arms about her to help her up; but she only pressed that hand of mine
which was nearest to her grasp, and hung her head over it and wept. I
had never seen her shed a tear before, and, in the hope that the
relief might do her good, I bent over her without speaking. She was not
kneeling now, but was down upon the ground.
"O!" she cried, despairingly. "What have I done! What have I done!"
"If you mean, Miss Havisham, what have you done to injure me, let me
answer. Very little. I should have loved her under any circumstances. Is
she married?"
"Yes."
It was a needless question, for a new desolation in the desolate house
had told me so.
"What have I done! What have I done!" She wrung her hands, and crushed
her white hair, and returned to this cry over and over again. "What have
I done!"
I knew not how to answer, or how to comfort her. That she had done a
grievous thing in taking an impressionable child to mould into the form
that her wild resentment, spurned affection, and wounded pride found
vengeance in, I knew full well. But that, in shutting out the light
of day, she had shut out infinitely more; that, in seclusion, she had
secluded herself from a thousand natural and healing influences; that,
her mind, brooding solitary, had grown diseased, as all minds do and
must and will that reverse the appointed order of their Maker, I knew
equally well. And could I look upon her without compassion, seeing her
punishment in the ruin she was, in her profound unfitness for this earth
on which she was placed, in the vanity of sorrow which had become a
master mania, like the vanity of penitence, the vanity of remorse, the
vanity of unworthiness, and other monstrous vanities that have been
curses in this world?
"Until you spoke to her the other day, and until I saw in you a
looking-glass that showed me what I once felt myself, I did not know
what I had done. What have I done! What have I done!" And so again,
twenty, fifty times over, What had she done!
"Miss Havisham," I said, when her cry had died away, "you may dismiss me
from your mind and conscience. But Estella is a different case, and if
you can ever undo any scrap of what you have done amiss in keeping a
part of her right nature away from her, it will be better to do that
than to bemoan the past through a hundred years."
"Yes, yes, I know it. But, Pip--my dear!" There was an earnest womanly
compassion for me in her new affection. "My dear! Believe this: when she
first came to me, I meant to save her from misery like my own. At first,
I meant no more."
"Well, well!" said I. "I hope so."
"But as she grew, and promised to be very beautiful, I gradually did
worse, and with my praises, and with my jewels, and with my teachings,
and with this figure of myself always before her, a warning to back and
point my lessons, I stole her heart away, and put ice in its place."
"Better," I could not help saying, "to have left her a natural heart,
even to be bruised or broken."
With that, Miss Havisham looked distractedly at me for a while, and then
burst out again, What had she done!
"If you knew all my story," she pleaded, "you would have some compassion
for me and a better understanding of me."
"Miss Havisham," I answered, as delicately as I could, "I believe I may
say that I do know your story, and have known it ever since I first left
this neighborhood. It has inspired me with great commiseration, and I
hope I understand it and its influences. Does what has passed between us
give me any excuse for asking you a question relative to Estella? Not as
she is, but as she was when she first came here?"
She was seated on the ground, with her arms on the ragged chair, and
her head leaning on them. She looked full at me when I said this, and
replied, "Go on."
"Whose child was Estella?"
She shook her head.
"You don't know?"
She shook her head again.
"But Mr. Jaggers brought her here, or sent her here?"
"Brought her here."
"Will you tell me how that came about?"
She answered in a low whisper and with caution: "I had been shut up in
these rooms a long time (I don't know how long; you know what time the
clocks keep here), when I told him that I wanted a little girl to rear
and love, and save from my fate. I had first seen him when I sent
for him to lay this place waste for me; having read of him in the
newspapers, before I and the world parted. He told me that he would
look about him for such an orphan child. One night he brought her here
asleep, and I called her Estella."
"Might I ask her age then?"
"Two or three. She herself knows nothing, but that she was left an
orphan and I adopted her."
So convinced I was of that woman's being her mother, that I wanted
no evidence to establish the fact in my own mind. But, to any mind, I
thought, the connection here was clear and straight.
What more could I hope to do by prolonging the interview? I had
succeeded on behalf of Herbert, Miss Havisham had told me all she knew
of Estella, I had said and done what I could to ease her mind. No matter
with what other words we parted; we parted.
Twilight was closing in when I went downstairs into the natural air. I
called to the woman who had opened the gate when I entered, that I would
not trouble her just yet, but would walk round the place before leaving.
For I had a presentiment that I should never be there again, and I felt
that the dying light was suited to my last view of it.
By the wilderness of casks that I had walked on long ago, and on which
the rain of years had fallen since, rotting them in many places, and
leaving miniature swamps and pools of water upon those that stood on
end, I made my way to the ruined garden. I went all round it; round by
the corner where Herbert and I had fought our battle; round by the paths
where Estella and I had walked. So cold, so lonely, so dreary all!
Taking the brewery on my way back, I raised the rusty latch of a little
door at the garden end of it, and walked through. I was going out at the
opposite door,--not easy to open now, for the damp wood had started and
swelled, and the hinges were yielding, and the threshold was encumbered
with a growth of fungus,--when I turned my head to look back. A childish
association revived with wonderful force in the moment of the slight
action, and I fancied that I saw Miss Havisham hanging to the beam. So
strong was the impression, that I stood under the beam shuddering from
head to foot before I knew it was a fancy,--though to be sure I was
there in an instant.
The mournfulness of the place and time, and the great terror of
this illusion, though it was but momentary, caused me to feel an
indescribable awe as I came out between the open wooden gates where I
had once wrung my hair after Estella had wrung my heart. Passing on into
the front courtyard, I hesitated whether to call the woman to let me out
at the locked gate of which she had the key, or first to go upstairs
and assure myself that Miss Havisham was as safe and well as I had left
her. I took the latter course and went up.
I looked into the room where I had left her, and I saw her seated in the
ragged chair upon the hearth close to the fire, with her back towards
me. In the moment when I was withdrawing my head to go quietly away,
I saw a great flaming light spring up. In the same moment I saw her
running at me, shrieking, with a whirl of fire blazing all about her,
and soaring at least as many feet above her head as she was high.
I had a double-caped great-coat on, and over my arm another thick coat.
That I got them off, closed with her, threw her down, and got them over
her; that I dragged the great cloth from the table for the same purpose,
and with it dragged down the heap of rottenness in the midst, and
all the ugly things that sheltered there; that we were on the ground
struggling like desperate enemies, and that the closer I covered her,
the more wildly she shrieked and tried to free herself,--that this
occurred I knew through the result, but not through anything I felt, or
thought, or knew I did. I knew nothing until I knew that we were on the
floor by the great table, and that patches of tinder yet alight were
floating in the smoky air, which, a moment ago, had been her faded
bridal dress.
Then, I looked round and saw the disturbed beetles and spiders running
away over the floor, and the servants coming in with breathless cries
at the door. I still held her forcibly down with all my strength, like
a prisoner who might escape; and I doubt if I even knew who she was, or
why we had struggled, or that she had been in flames, or that the flames
were out, until I saw the patches of tinder that had been her garments
no longer alight but falling in a black shower around us.
She was insensible, and I was afraid to have her moved, or even
touched. Assistance was sent for, and I held her until it came, as if
I unreasonably fancied (I think I did) that, if I let her go, the fire
would break out again and consume her. When I got up, on the surgeon's
coming to her with other aid, I was astonished to see that both my hands
were burnt; for, I had no knowledge of it through the sense of feeling.
On examination it was pronounced that she had received serious hurts,
but that they of themselves were far from hopeless; the danger lay
mainly in the nervous shock. By the surgeon's directions, her bed was
carried into that room and laid upon the great table, which happened to
be well suited to the dressing of her injuries. When I saw her again, an
hour afterwards, she lay, indeed, where I had seen her strike her stick,
and had heard her say that she would lie one day.
Though every vestige of her dress was burnt, as they told me, she
still had something of her old ghastly bridal appearance; for, they had
covered her to the throat with white cotton-wool, and as she lay with
a white sheet loosely overlying that, the phantom air of something that
had been and was changed was still upon her.
I found, on questioning the servants, that Estella was in Paris, and I
got a promise from the surgeon that he would write to her by the
next post. Miss Havisham's family I took upon myself; intending to
communicate with Mr. Matthew Pocket only, and leave him to do as he
liked about informing the rest. This I did next day, through Herbert, as
soon as I returned to town.
There was a stage, that evening, when she spoke collectedly of what had
happened, though with a certain terrible vivacity. Towards midnight she
began to wander in her speech; and after that it gradually set in that
she said innumerable times in a low solemn voice, "What have I done!"
And then, "When she first came, I meant to save her from misery like
mine." And then, "Take the pencil and write under my name, 'I forgive
her!'" She never changed the order of these three sentences, but she
sometimes left out a word in one or other of them; never putting in
another word, but always leaving a blank and going on to the next word.
As I could do no service there, and as I had, nearer home, that pressing
reason for anxiety and fear which even her wanderings could not drive
out of my mind, I decided, in the course of the night that I would
return by the early morning coach, walking on a mile or so, and being
taken up clear of the town. At about six o'clock of the morning,
therefore, I leaned over her and touched her lips with mine, just as
they said, not stopping for being touched, "Take the pencil and write
under my name, 'I forgive her.'"
Chapter L
My hands had been dressed twice or thrice in the night, and again in
the morning. My left arm was a good deal burned to the elbow, and, less
severely, as high as the shoulder; it was very painful, but the flames
had set in that direction, and I felt thankful it was no worse. My right
hand was not so badly burnt but that I could move the fingers. It was
bandaged, of course, but much less inconveniently than my left hand and
arm; those I carried in a sling; and I could only wear my coat like a
cloak, loose over my shoulders and fastened at the neck. My hair had
been caught by the fire, but not my head or face.
When Herbert had been down to Hammersmith and seen his father, he came
back to me at our chambers, and devoted the day to attending on me. He
was the kindest of nurses, and at stated times took off the bandages,
and steeped them in the cooling liquid that was kept ready, and put them
on again, with a patient tenderness that I was deeply grateful for.
At first, as I lay quiet on the sofa, I found it painfully difficult, I
might say impossible, to get rid of the impression of the glare of the
flames, their hurry and noise, and the fierce burning smell. If I
dozed for a minute, I was awakened by Miss Havisham's cries, and by her
running at me with all that height of fire above her head. This pain
of the mind was much harder to strive against than any bodily pain I
suffered; and Herbert, seeing that, did his utmost to hold my attention
engaged.
Neither of us spoke of the boat, but we both thought of it. That
was made apparent by our avoidance of the subject, and by our
agreeing--without agreement--to make my recovery of the use of my hands
a question of so many hours, not of so many weeks.
My first question when I saw Herbert had been of course, whether all
was well down the river? As he replied in the affirmative, with perfect
confidence and cheerfulness, we did not resume the subject until the day
was wearing away. But then, as Herbert changed the bandages, more by
the light of the fire than by the outer light, he went back to it
spontaneously.
"I sat with Provis last night, Handel, two good hours."
"Where was Clara?"
"Dear little thing!" said Herbert. "She was up and down with
Gruffandgrim all the evening. He was perpetually pegging at the floor
the moment she left his sight. I doubt if he can hold out long, though.
What with rum and pepper,--and pepper and rum,--I should think his
pegging must be nearly over."
"And then you will be married, Herbert?"
"How can I take care of the dear child otherwise?--Lay your arm out upon
the back of the sofa, my dear boy, and I'll sit down here, and get the
bandage off so gradually that you shall not know when it comes. I was
speaking of Provis. Do you know, Handel, he improves?"
"I said to you I thought he was softened when I last saw him."
"So you did. And so he is. He was very communicative last night, and
told me more of his life. You remember his breaking off here about some
woman that he had had great trouble with.--Did I hurt you?"
I had started, but not under his touch. His words had given me a start.
"I had forgotten that, Herbert, but I remember it now you speak of it."
"Well! He went into that part of his life, and a dark wild part it is.
Shall I tell you? Or would it worry you just now?"
"Tell me by all means. Every word."
Herbert bent forward to look at me more nearly, as if my reply had been
rather more hurried or more eager than he could quite account for. "Your
head is cool?" he said, touching it.
"Quite," said I. "Tell me what Provis said, my dear Herbert."
"It seems," said Herbert, "--there's a bandage off most charmingly, and
now comes the cool one,--makes you shrink at first, my poor dear fellow,
don't it? but it will be comfortable presently,--it seems that the
woman was a young woman, and a jealous woman, and a revengeful woman;
revengeful, Handel, to the last degree."
"To what last degree?"
"Murder.--Does it strike too cold on that sensitive place?"
"I don't feel it. How did she murder? Whom did she murder?"
"Why, the deed may not have merited quite so terrible a name,"
said Herbert, "but, she was tried for it, and Mr. Jaggers defended
her, and the reputation of that defence first made his name known
to Provis. It was another and a stronger woman who was the victim,
and there had been a struggle--in a barn. Who began it, or how fair
it was, or how unfair, may be doubtful; but how it ended is
certainly not doubtful, for the victim was found throttled."
"Was the woman brought in guilty?"
"No; she was acquitted.--My poor Handel, I hurt you!"
"It is impossible to be gentler, Herbert. Yes? What else?"
"This acquitted young woman and Provis had a little child; a little
child of whom Provis was exceedingly fond. On the evening of the very
night when the object of her jealousy was strangled as I tell you, the
young woman presented herself before Provis for one moment, and swore
that she would destroy the child (which was in her possession), and he
should never see it again; then she vanished.--There's the worst arm
comfortably in the sling once more, and now there remains but the right
hand, which is a far easier job. I can do it better by this light
than by a stronger, for my hand is steadiest when I don't see the poor
blistered patches too distinctly.--You don't think your breathing is
affected, my dear boy? You seem to breathe quickly."
"Perhaps I do, Herbert. Did the woman keep her oath?"
"There comes the darkest part of Provis's life. She did."
"That is, he says she did."
"Why, of course, my dear boy," returned Herbert, in a tone of surprise,
and again bending forward to get a nearer look at me. "He says it all. I
have no other information."
"No, to be sure."
"Now, whether," pursued Herbert, "he had used the child's mother ill, or
whether he had used the child's mother well, Provis doesn't say; but she
had shared some four or five years of the wretched life he described
to us at this fireside, and he seems to have felt pity for her, and
forbearance towards her. Therefore, fearing he should be called upon to
depose about this destroyed child, and so be the cause of her death, he
hid himself (much as he grieved for the child), kept himself dark, as he
says, out of the way and out of the trial, and was only vaguely talked
of as a certain man called Abel, out of whom the jealousy arose. After
the acquittal she disappeared, and thus he lost the child and the
child's mother."
"I want to ask--"
"A moment, my dear boy, and I have done. That evil genius, Compeyson,
the worst of scoundrels among many scoundrels, knowing of his keeping
out of the way at that time and of his reasons for doing so, of course
afterwards held the knowledge over his head as a means of keeping him
poorer and working him harder. It was clear last night that this barbed
the point of Provis's animosity."
"I want to know," said I, "and particularly, Herbert, whether he told
you when this happened?"
"Particularly? Let me remember, then, what he said as to that. His
expression was, 'a round score o' year ago, and a'most directly after I
took up wi' Compeyson.' How old were you when you came upon him in the
little churchyard?"
"I think in my seventh year."
"Ay. It had happened some three or four years then, he said, and you
brought into his mind the little girl so tragically lost, who would have
been about your age."
"Herbert," said I, after a short silence, in a hurried way, "can you see
me best by the light of the window, or the light of the fire?"
"By the firelight," answered Herbert, coming close again.
"Look at me."
"I do look at you, my dear boy."
"Touch me."
"I do touch you, my dear boy."
"You are not afraid that I am in any fever, or that my head is much
disordered by the accident of last night?"
"N-no, my dear boy," said Herbert, after taking time to examine me. "You
are rather excited, but you are quite yourself."
"I know I am quite myself. And the man we have in hiding down the river,
is Estella's Father."
Chapter LI
What purpose I had in view when I was hot on tracing out and proving
Estella's parentage, I cannot say. It will presently be seen that the
question was not before me in a distinct shape until it was put before
me by a wiser head than my own.
But when Herbert and I had held our momentous conversation, I was seized
with a feverish conviction that I ought to hunt the matter down,--that I
ought not to let it rest, but that I ought to see Mr. Jaggers, and come
at the bare truth. I really do not know whether I felt that I did this
for Estella's sake, or whether I was glad to transfer to the man in
whose preservation I was so much concerned some rays of the romantic
interest that had so long surrounded me. Perhaps the latter possibility
may be the nearer to the truth.
Any way, I could scarcely be withheld from going out to Gerrard Street
that night. Herbert's representations that, if I did, I should probably
be laid up and stricken useless, when our fugitive's safety would depend
upon me, alone restrained my impatience. On the understanding, again
and again reiterated, that, come what would, I was to go to Mr. Jaggers
to-morrow, I at length submitted to keep quiet, and to have my hurts
looked after, and to stay at home. Early next morning we went out
together, and at the corner of Giltspur Street by Smithfield, I left
Herbert to go his way into the City, and took my way to Little Britain.
There were periodical occasions when Mr. Jaggers and Wemmick went over
the office accounts, and checked off the vouchers, and put all things
straight. On these occasions, Wemmick took his books and papers into Mr.
Jaggers's room, and one of the upstairs clerks came down into the outer
office. Finding such clerk on Wemmick's post that morning, I knew
what was going on; but I was not sorry to have Mr. Jaggers and Wemmick
together, as Wemmick would then hear for himself that I said nothing to
compromise him.
My appearance, with my arm bandaged and my coat loose over my shoulders,
favored my object. Although I had sent Mr. Jaggers a brief account of
the accident as soon as I had arrived in town, yet I had to give him all
the details now; and the speciality of the occasion caused our talk
to be less dry and hard, and less strictly regulated by the rules of
evidence, than it had been before. While I described the disaster, Mr.
Jaggers stood, according to his wont, before the fire. Wemmick leaned
back in his chair, staring at me, with his hands in the pockets of his
trousers, and his pen put horizontally into the post. The two brutal
casts, always inseparable in my mind from the official proceedings,
seemed to be congestively considering whether they didn't smell fire at
the present moment.
My narrative finished, and their questions exhausted, I then produced
Miss Havisham's authority to receive the nine hundred pounds for
Herbert. Mr. Jaggers's eyes retired a little deeper into his head when
I handed him the tablets, but he presently handed them over to Wemmick,
with instructions to draw the check for his signature. While that was
in course of being done, I looked on at Wemmick as he wrote, and Mr.
Jaggers, poising and swaying himself on his well-polished boots, looked
on at me. "I am sorry, Pip," said he, as I put the check in my pocket,
when he had signed it, "that we do nothing for 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
sooner checked, but he did start, though he made it a part of the
action of taking out his pocket-handkerchief. How Wemmick received the
announcement I am unable to say; for I was afraid to look at him just
then, lest Mr. Jaggers's sharpness should detect that there had been
some communication unknown to him between us.
"And on what evidence, Pip," asked Mr. Jaggers, very coolly, as he
paused with his handkerchief half way to his nose, "does Provis make
this claim?"
"He does not make it," said I, "and has never made it, and has no
knowledge or belief that his daughter is in existence."
For once, the powerful pocket-handkerchief failed. My reply was so
unexpected, that Mr. Jaggers put the handkerchief back into his pocket
without completing the usual performance, folded his arms, and looked
with stern attention at me, though with an immovable face.
Then I told him all I knew, and how I knew it; with the one reservation
that I left him to infer that I knew from Miss Havisham what I in fact
knew from Wemmick. I was very careful indeed as to that. Nor did I look
towards Wemmick until I had finished all I had to tell, and had been for
some time silently meeting Mr. Jaggers's look. When I did at last turn
my eyes in Wemmick's direction, I found that he had unposted his pen,
and was intent upon the table before him.
"Hah!" said Mr. Jaggers at last, as he moved towards the papers on the
table. "What item was it you were at, Wemmick, when Mr. Pip came in?"
But I could not submit to be thrown off in that way, and I made a
passionate, almost an indignant appeal, to him to be more frank and
manly with me. I reminded him of the false hopes into which I had
lapsed, the length of time they had lasted, and the discovery I had
made: and I hinted at the danger that weighed upon my spirits. I
represented myself as being surely worthy of some little confidence from
him, in return for the confidence I had just now imparted. I said that
I did not blame him, or suspect him, or mistrust him, but I wanted
assurance of the truth from him. And if he asked me why I wanted it,
and why I thought I had any right to it, I would tell him, little as he
cared for such poor dreams, that I had loved Estella dearly and long,
and that although I had lost her, and must live a bereaved life,
whatever concerned her was still nearer and dearer to me than anything
else in the world. And seeing that Mr. Jaggers stood quite still and
silent, and apparently quite obdurate, under this appeal, I turned to
Wemmick, and said, "Wemmick, I know you to be a man with a gentle
heart. I have seen your pleasant home, and your old father, and all the
innocent, cheerful playful ways with which you refresh your business
life. And I entreat you to say a word for me to Mr. Jaggers, and to
represent to him that, all circumstances considered, he ought to be more
open with me!"
I have never seen two men look more oddly at one another than Mr.
Jaggers and Wemmick did after this apostrophe. At first, a misgiving
crossed me that Wemmick would be instantly dismissed from his
employment; but it melted as I saw Mr. Jaggers relax into something like
a smile, and Wemmick become bolder.
"What's all this?" said Mr. Jaggers. "You with an old father, and you
with pleasant and playful ways?"
"Well!" returned Wemmick. "If I don't bring 'em here, what does it
matter?"
"Pip," said Mr. Jaggers, laying his hand upon my arm, and smiling
openly, "this man must be the most cunning impostor in all London."
"Not a bit of it," returned Wemmick, growing bolder and bolder. "I think
you're another."
Again they exchanged their former odd looks, each apparently still
distrustful that the other was taking him in.
"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, you
did such and such things to divert suspicion. I have tracked you through
it all, and I tell it you all. Part with the child, unless it should
be necessary to produce it to clear you, and then it shall be produced.
Give the child into my hands, and I will do my best to bring you off. If
you are saved, your child is saved too; if you are lost, your child is
still saved." Put the case that this was done, and that the woman was
cleared."
"I understand you perfectly."
"But that I make no admissions?"
"That you make no admissions." And Wemmick repeated, "No admissions."
"Put the case, Pip, that passion and the terror of death had a little
shaken the woman's intellects, and that when she was set at liberty,
she was scared out of the ways of the world, and went to him to be
sheltered. Put the case that he took her in, and that he kept down the
old, wild, violent nature whenever he saw an inkling of its breaking
out, by asserting his power over her in the old way. Do you comprehend
the imaginary case?"
"Quite."
"Put the case that the child grew up, and was married for money. That
the mother was still living. That the father was still living. That the
mother and father, unknown to one another, were dwelling within so many
miles, furlongs, yards if you like, of one another. That the secret was
still a secret, except that you had got wind of it. Put that last case
to yourself very carefully."
"I do."
"I ask Wemmick to put it to 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 shoplifting. As he imparted this melancholy
circumstance to Wemmick, Mr. Jaggers standing magisterially before the
fire and taking no share in the proceedings, Mike's eye happened to
twinkle with a tear.
"What are you about?" demanded Wemmick, with the utmost indignation.
"What do you come snivelling here for?"
"I didn't go to do it, Mr. Wemmick."
"You did," said Wemmick. "How dare you? You're not in a fit state to
come here, if you can't come here without spluttering like a bad pen.
What do you mean by it?"
"A man can't help his feelings, Mr. Wemmick," pleaded Mike.
"His what?" demanded Wemmick, quite savagely. "Say that again!"
"Now look here my man," said Mr. Jaggers, advancing a step, and pointing
to the door. "Get out of this office. I'll have no feelings here. Get
out."
"It serves you right," said Wemmick, "Get out."
So, the unfortunate Mike very humbly withdrew, and Mr. Jaggers and
Wemmick appeared to have re-established their good understanding, and
went to work again with an air of refreshment upon them as if they had
just had lunch.
Chapter LII
From Little Britain I went, with my check in my pocket, to Miss
Skiffins's brother, the accountant; and Miss Skiffins's brother, the
accountant, going straight to Clarriker's and bringing Clarriker to me,
I had the great satisfaction of concluding that arrangement. It was the
only good thing I had done, and the only completed thing I had done,
since I was first apprised of my great expectations.
Clarriker informing me on that occasion that the affairs of the House
were steadily progressing, that he would now be able to establish a
small branch-house in the East which was much wanted for the extension
of the business, and that Herbert in his new partnership capacity would
go out and take charge of it, I found that I must have prepared for
a separation from my friend, even though my own affairs had been more
settled. And now, indeed, I felt as if my last anchor were loosening its
hold, and I should soon be driving with the winds and waves.
But there was recompense in the joy with which Herbert would come home
of a night and tell me of these changes, little imagining that he told
me no news, and would sketch airy pictures of himself conducting Clara
Barley to the land of the Arabian Nights, and of me going out to join
them (with a caravan of camels, I believe), and of our all going up the
Nile and seeing wonders. Without being sanguine as to my own part in
those bright plans, I felt that Herbert's way was clearing fast, and
that old Bill Barley had but to stick to his pepper and rum, and his
daughter would soon be happily provided for.
We had now got into the month of March. My left arm, though it presented
no bad symptoms, took, in the natural course, so long to heal that I
was still unable to get a coat on. My right arm was tolerably restored;
disfigured, but fairly serviceable.
On a Monday morning, when Herbert and I were at breakfast, I received
the following letter from Wemmick by the post.
"Walworth. Burn this as soon as read. Early in the week, or say
Wednesday, you might do what you know of, if you felt disposed to try
it. Now burn."
When I had shown this to Herbert and had put it in the fire--but not
before we had both got it by heart--we considered what to do. For, of
course my being disabled could now be no longer kept out of view.
"I have thought it over again and again," said Herbert, "and I think I
know a better course than taking a Thames waterman. Take Startop. A good
fellow, a skilled hand, fond of us, and enthusiastic and honorable."
I had thought of him more than once.
"But how much would you tell him, Herbert?"
"It is necessary to tell him very little. Let him suppose it a mere
freak, but a secret one, until the morning comes: then let him know that
there is urgent reason for your getting Provis aboard and away. You go
with him?"
"No doubt."
"Where?"
It had seemed to me, in the many anxious considerations I had given the
point, almost indifferent what port we made for,--Hamburg, Rotterdam,
Antwerp,--the place signified little, so that he was out of England. Any
foreign steamer that fell in our way and would take us up would do.
I had always proposed to myself to get him well down the river in the
boat; certainly well beyond Gravesend, which was a critical place for
search or inquiry if suspicion were afoot. As foreign steamers would
leave London at about the time of high-water, our plan would be to get
down the river by a previous ebb-tide, and lie by in some quiet spot
until we could pull off to one. The time when one would be due where we
lay, wherever that might be, could be calculated pretty nearly, if we
made inquiries beforehand.
Herbert assented to all this, and we went out immediately after
breakfast to pursue our investigations. We found that a steamer for
Hamburg was likely to suit our purpose best, and we directed our
thoughts chiefly to that vessel. But we noted down what other foreign
steamers would leave London with the same tide, and we satisfied
ourselves that we knew the build and color of each. We then separated
for a few hours: I, to get at once such passports as were necessary;
Herbert, to see Startop at his lodgings. We both did what we had to do
without any hindrance, and when we met again at one o'clock reported
it done. I, for my part, was prepared with passports; Herbert had seen
Startop, and he was more than ready to join.
Those two should pull a pair of oars, we settled, and I would steer; our
charge would be sitter, and keep quiet; as speed was not our object, we
should make way enough. We arranged that Herbert should not come home to
dinner before going to Mill Pond Bank that evening; that he should
not go there at all to-morrow evening, Tuesday; that he should prepare
Provis to come down to some stairs hard by the house, on Wednesday, when
he saw us approach, and not sooner; that all the arrangements with
him should be concluded that Monday night; and that he should be
communicated with no more in any way, until we took him on board.
These precautions well understood by both of us, I went home.
On opening the outer door of our chambers with my key, I found a letter
in the box, directed to me; a very dirty letter, though not ill-written.
It had been delivered by hand (of course, since I left home), and its
contents were these:--
"If you are not afraid to come to the old marshes to-night or to-morrow
night at nine, and to come to the little sluice-house by the limekiln,
you had better come. If you want information regarding 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 neighborhood?"
"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 LIII
It was a dark night, though the full moon rose as I left the enclosed
lands, and passed out upon the marshes. Beyond their dark line there was
a ribbon of clear sky, hardly broad enough to hold the red large moon.
In a few minutes she had ascended out of that clear field, in among the
piled mountains of cloud.
There was a melancholy wind, and the marshes were very dismal. A
stranger would have found them insupportable, and even to me they were
so oppressive that I hesitated, half inclined to go back. But I knew
them well, and could have found my way on a far darker night, and had
no excuse for returning, being there. So, having come there against my
inclination, I went on against it.
The direction that I took was not that in which my old home lay, nor
that in which we had pursued the convicts. My back was turned towards
the distant Hulks as I walked on, and, though I could see the old lights
away on the spits of sand, I saw them over my shoulder. I knew the
limekiln as well as I knew the old Battery, but they were miles apart;
so that, if a light had been burning at each point that night, there
would have been a long strip of the blank horizon between the two bright
specks.
At first, I had to shut some gates after me, and now and then to stand
still while the cattle that were lying in the banked-up pathway arose
and blundered down among the grass and reeds. But after a little while I
seemed to have the whole flats to myself.
It was another half-hour before I drew near to the kiln. The lime was
burning with a sluggish stifling smell, but the fires were made up and
left, and no workmen were visible. Hard by was a small stone-quarry. It
lay directly in my way, and had been worked that day, as I saw by the
tools and barrows that were lying about.
Coming up again to the marsh level out of this excavation,--for the rude
path lay through it,--I saw a light in the old sluice-house. I quickened
my pace, and knocked at the door with my hand. Waiting for some reply,
I looked about me, noticing how the sluice was abandoned and broken, and
how the house--of wood with a tiled roof--would not be proof against the
weather much longer, if it were so even now, and how the mud and ooze
were coated with lime, and how the choking vapor 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.
O you enemy, you enemy!"
His enjoyment of the spectacle I furnished, as he sat with his arms
folded on the table, shaking his head at me and hugging himself, had a
malignity in it that made me tremble. As I watched him in silence,
he put his hand into the corner at his side, and took up a gun with a
brass-bound stock.
"Do you know this?" said he, making as if he would take aim at me. "Do
you know where you saw it afore? Speak, wolf!"
"Yes," I answered.
"You cost me that place. You did. Speak!"
"What else could I do?"
"You did that, and that would be enough, without more. How dared you to
come betwixt me and a young woman I liked?"
"When did I?"
"When didn't you? It was you as always give Old Orlick a bad name to
her."
"You gave it to yourself; you gained it for yourself. I could have done
you no harm, if you had done yourself none."
"You're a liar. And you'll take any pains, and spend any money, to drive
me out of this country, will you?" said he, repeating my words to Biddy
in the last interview I had with her. "Now, I'll tell you a piece of
information. It was never so well worth your while to get me out of this
country as it is to-night. Ah! If it was all your money twenty times
told, to the last brass farden!" As he shook his heavy hand at me, with
his mouth snarling like a tiger's, I felt that it was true.
"What are you going to do to me?"
"I'm a going," said he, bringing his fist down upon the table with a
heavy blow, and rising as the blow fell to give it greater force,--"I'm
a going to have your life!"
He leaned forward staring at me, slowly unclenched his hand and drew it
across his mouth as if his mouth watered for me, and sat down again.
"You was always in Old Orlick's way since ever you was a child. You goes
out of his way this present night. He'll have no more on you. You're
dead."
I felt that I had come to the brink of my grave. For a moment I looked
wildly round my trap for any chance of escape; but there was none.
"More than that," said he, folding his arms on the table again, "I won't
have a rag of you, I won't have a bone of you, left on earth. I'll put
your body in the kiln,--I'd carry two such to it, on my Shoulders,--and,
let people suppose what they may of you, they shall never know nothing."
My mind, with inconceivable rapidity followed out all the consequences
of such a death. Estella's father would believe I had deserted him,
would be taken, would die accusing me; even Herbert would doubt me,
when he compared the letter I had left for him with the fact that I had
called at Miss Havisham's gate for only a moment; Joe and Biddy would
never know how sorry I had been that night, none would ever know what
I had suffered, how true I had meant to be, what an agony I had passed
through. The death close before me was terrible, but far more terrible
than death was the dread of being misremembered after death. And
so quick were my thoughts, that I saw myself despised by unborn
generations,--Estella's children, and their children,--while the
wretch's words were yet on his lips.
"Now, wolf," said he, "afore I kill you like any other beast,--which is
wot I mean to do and wot I have tied you up for,--I'll have a good look
at you and a good goad at you. O you enemy!"
It had passed through my thoughts to cry out for help again; though
few could know better than I, the solitary nature of the spot, and the
hopelessness of aid. But as he sat gloating over me, I was supported by
a scornful detestation of him that sealed my lips. Above all things, I
resolved that I would not entreat him, and that I would die making some
last poor resistance to him. Softened as my thoughts of all the rest of
men were in that dire extremity; humbly beseeching pardon, as I did, of
Heaven; melted at heart, as I was, by the thought that I had taken no
farewell, and never now could take farewell of those who were dear to
me, or could explain myself to them, or ask for their compassion on my
miserable errors,--still, if I could have killed him, even in dying, I
would have done it.
He had been drinking, and his eyes were red and bloodshot. Around his
neck was slung a tin bottle, as I had often seen his meat and drink
slung about him in other days. He brought the bottle to his lips, and
took a fiery drink from it; and I smelt the strong spirits that I saw
flash into his face.
"Wolf!" said he, folding his arms again, "Old Orlick's a going to tell
you somethink. It was you as did for your shrew sister."
Again my mind, with its former inconceivable rapidity, had exhausted the
whole subject of the attack upon my sister, her illness, and her death,
before his slow and hesitating speech had formed these words.
"It was you, villain," said I.
"I tell you it was your doing,--I tell you it was done through you," he
retorted, catching up the gun, and making a blow with the stock at the
vacant air between us. "I come upon her from behind, as I come upon you
to-night. 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
favored, 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 vapor that had crept towards
me but a little while before, like my own warning ghost, he would do
as he had done in my sister's case,--make all haste to the town, and
be seen slouching about there drinking at the alehouses. My rapid mind
pursued him to the town, made a picture of the street with him in it,
and contrasted its lights and life with the lonely marsh and the white
vapor creeping over it, into which I should have dissolved.
It was not only that I could have summed up years and years and years
while he said a dozen words, but that what he did say presented pictures
to me, and not mere words. In the excited and exalted state of my brain,
I could not think of a place without seeing it, or of persons without
seeing them. It is impossible to overstate the vividness of these
images, and yet I was so intent, all the time, upon him himself,--who
would not be intent on the tiger crouching to spring!--that I knew of
the slightest action of his fingers.
When he had drunk this second time, he rose from the bench on which
he sat, and pushed the table aside. Then, he took up the candle, and,
shading it with his murderous hand so as to throw its light on me, stood
before me, looking at me and enjoying the sight.
"Wolf, I'll tell you something more. It was Old Orlick as you tumbled
over on your stairs that night."
I saw the staircase with its extinguished lamps. I saw the shadows of
the heavy stair-rails, thrown by the watchman's lantern on the wall.
I saw the rooms that I was never to see again; here, a door half open;
there, a door closed; all the articles of furniture around.
"And why was Old Orlick there? I'll tell you something more, wolf.
You and her 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 most like wore the leg-iron wot Old
Orlick had picked up, filed asunder, on these meshes ever so many year
ago, and wot he kep by him till he dropped your sister with it, like
a bullock, as he means to drop you--hey?--when he come for to hear
that--hey?"
In his savage taunting, he flared the candle so close at me that I
turned my face aside to save it from the flame.
"Ah!" he cried, laughing, after doing it again, "the burnt child dreads
the fire! Old Orlick knowed you was burnt, Old Orlick knowed you was
smuggling your uncle Provis away, Old Orlick's a match for you and
know'd you'd come to-night! Now I'll tell you something more, wolf, and
this ends it. There's them that's as good a match for your uncle Provis
as Old Orlick has been for you. Let him 'ware them, when he's lost his
nevvy! Let him 'ware them, when no man can't find a rag of his dear
relation's clothes, nor yet a bone of his body. There's them that can't
and that won't have Magwitch,--yes, 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 vapor of the
kiln was passing from us as we went by, and as I had thought a prayer
before, I thought a thanksgiving now.
Entreating Herbert to tell me how he had come to my rescue,--which at
first he had flatly refused to do, but had insisted on my remaining
quiet,--I learnt that I had in my hurry dropped the letter, open, in our
chambers, where he, coming home to bring with him Startop whom he had
met in the street on his way to me, found it, very soon after I
was gone. Its tone made him uneasy, and the more so because of the
inconsistency between it and the hasty letter I had left for him. His
uneasiness increasing instead of subsiding, after a quarter of an
hour's consideration, he set off for the coach-office with Startop, who
volunteered his company, to make inquiry when the next coach went
down. Finding that the afternoon coach was gone, and finding that his
uneasiness grew into positive alarm, as obstacles came in his way, he
resolved to follow in a post-chaise. So he and Startop arrived at the
Blue Boar, fully expecting there to find me, or tidings of me; but,
finding neither, went on to Miss Havisham's, where they lost me.
Hereupon they went back to the hotel (doubtless at about the time when
I was hearing the popular local version of my own story) to refresh
themselves and to get some one to guide them out upon the marshes. Among
the loungers under the Boar's archway happened to be Trabb's Boy,--true
to his ancient habit of happening to be everywhere where he had no
business,--and Trabb's boy had seen me passing from Miss Havisham's in
the direction of my dining-place. Thus Trabb's boy became their guide,
and with him they went out to the sluice-house, though by the town way
to the marshes, which I had avoided. Now, as they went along, Herbert
reflected, that I might, after all, have been brought there on some
genuine and serviceable errand tending to Provis's safety, and,
bethinking himself that in that case interruption must be mischievous,
left his guide and Startop on the edge of the quarry, and went on by
himself, and stole round the house two or three times, endeavouring to
ascertain whether all was right within. As he could hear nothing but
indistinct sounds of one deep rough voice (this was while my mind was so
busy), he even at last began to doubt whether I was there, when suddenly
I cried out loudly, and he answered the cries, and rushed in, closely
followed by the other two.
When I told Herbert what had passed within the house, he was for our
immediately going before a magistrate in the town, late at night as it
was, and getting out a warrant. But, I had already considered that such
a course, by detaining us there, or binding us to come back, might
be fatal to Provis. There was no gainsaying this difficulty, and we
relinquished all thoughts of pursuing Orlick at that time. For the
present, under the circumstances, we deemed it prudent to make rather
light of the matter to Trabb's boy; who, I am convinced, would have been
much affected by disappointment, if he had known that his intervention
saved me from the limekiln. Not that Trabb's boy was of a malignant
nature, but that he had too much spare vivacity, and that it was in his
constitution to want variety and excitement at anybody's expense. When
we parted, I presented him with two guineas (which seemed to meet his
views), and told him that I was sorry ever to have had an ill opinion of
him (which made no impression on him at all).
Wednesday being so close upon us, we determined to go back to London
that night, three in the post-chaise; the rather, as we should then be
clear away before the night's adventure began to be talked of. Herbert
got a large bottle of stuff for my arm; and by dint of having this stuff
dropped over it all the night through, I was just able to bear its pain
on the journey. It was daylight when we reached the Temple, and I went
at once to bed, and lay in bed all day.
My terror, as I lay there, of falling ill, and being unfitted for
to-morrow, was so besetting, that I wonder it did not disable me of
itself. It would have done so, pretty surely, in conjunction with the
mental wear and tear I had suffered, but for the unnatural strain upon
me that to-morrow was. So anxiously looked forward to, charged with such
consequences, its results so impenetrably hidden, though so near.
No precaution could have been more obvious than our refraining
from communication with him that day; yet this again increased my
restlessness. I started at every footstep and every sound, believing
that he was discovered and taken, and this was the messenger to tell
me so. I persuaded myself that I knew he was taken; that there was
something more upon my mind than a fear or a presentiment; that the fact
had occurred, and I had a mysterious knowledge of it. As the days wore
on, and no ill news came, as the day closed in and darkness fell,
my overshadowing dread of being disabled by illness before to-morrow
morning altogether mastered me. My burning arm throbbed, and my burning
head throbbed, and I fancied I was beginning to wander. I counted up to
high numbers, to make sure of myself, and repeated passages that I knew
in prose and verse. It happened sometimes that in the mere escape of a
fatigued mind, I dozed for some moments or forgot; then I would say to
myself with a start, "Now it has come, and I am turning delirious!"
They kept me very quiet all day, and kept my arm constantly dressed, and
gave me cooling drinks. Whenever I fell asleep, I awoke with the notion
I had had in the sluice-house, that a long time had elapsed and the
opportunity to save him was gone. About midnight I got out of bed
and went to Herbert, with the conviction that I had been asleep for
four-and-twenty hours, and that Wednesday was past. It was the last
self-exhausting effort of my fretfulness, for after that I slept
soundly.
Wednesday morning was dawning when I looked out of window. The winking
lights upon the bridges were already pale, the coming sun was like a
marsh of fire on the horizon. The river, still dark and mysterious, was
spanned by bridges that were turning coldly gray, with here and there
at top a warm touch from the burning in the sky. As I looked along
the clustered roofs, with church-towers and spires shooting into the
unusually clear air, the sun rose up, and a veil seemed to be drawn from
the river, and millions of sparkles burst out upon its waters. From me
too, a veil seemed to be drawn, and I felt strong and well.
Herbert lay asleep in his bed, and our old fellow-student lay asleep on
the sofa. I could not dress myself without help; but I made up the fire,
which was still burning, and got some coffee ready for them. In good
time they too started up strong and well, and we admitted the sharp
morning air at the windows, and looked at the tide that was still
flowing towards us.
"When it turns at nine o'clock," said Herbert, cheerfully, "look out for
us, and stand ready, you over there at Mill Pond Bank!"
Chapter LIV
It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind
blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.
We had our pea-coats with us, and I took a bag. Of all my worldly
possessions I took no more than the few necessaries that filled the
bag. Where I might go, what I might do, or when I might return, were
questions utterly unknown to me; nor did I vex my mind with them, for
it was wholly set on Provis's safety. I only wondered for the passing
moment, as I stopped at the door and looked back, under what altered
circumstances I should next see those rooms, if ever.
We loitered down to the Temple stairs, and stood loitering there, as if
we were not quite decided to go upon the water at all. Of course, I had
taken care that the boat should be ready and everything in order. After
a little show of indecision, which there were none to see but the two
or three amphibious creatures belonging to our Temple stairs, we went
on board and cast off; Herbert in the bow, I steering. It was then about
high-water,--half-past eight.
Our plan was this. The tide, beginning to run down at nine, and being
with us until three, we intended still to creep on after it had turned,
and row against it until dark. We should then be well in those long
reaches below Gravesend, between Kent and Essex, where the river is
broad and solitary, where the water-side inhabitants are very few, and
where lone public-houses are scattered here and there, of which we could
choose one for a resting-place. There, we meant to lie by all night.
The steamer for Hamburg and the steamer for Rotterdam would start from
London at about nine on Thursday morning. We should know at what time
to expect them, according to where we were, and would hail the first;
so that, if by any accident we were not taken abroad, we should have
another chance. We knew the distinguishing marks of each vessel.
The relief of being at last engaged in the execution of the purpose
was so great to me that I felt it difficult to 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 knobby eyes starting two inches out of her head; in
and out, hammers going in ship-builders' yards, saws going at timber,
clashing engines going at things unknown, pumps going in leaky ships,
capstans going, ships going out to sea, and unintelligible sea-creatures
roaring curses over the bulwarks at respondent lightermen, in and
out,--out at last upon the clearer river, where the ships' boys might
take their fenders in, no longer fishing in troubled waters with them
over the side, and where the festooned sails might fly out to the wind.
At the stairs where we had taken him abroad, and ever since, I had
looked warily for any token of our being suspected. I had seen none. We
certainly had not been, and at that time as certainly we were not either
attended or followed by any boat. If we had been waited on by any boat,
I should have run in to shore, and have obliged her to go on, or to
make her purpose evident. But we held our own without any appearance of
molestation.
He had his boat-cloak on him, and looked, as I have said, a natural part
of the scene. It was remarkable (but perhaps the wretched life he had
led accounted for it) that he was the least anxious of any of us. He
was not indifferent, for he told me that he hoped to live to see his
gentleman one of the best of gentlemen in a foreign country; he was not
disposed to be passive or resigned, as I understood it; but he had no
notion of meeting danger half way. When it came upon him, he confronted
it, but it must come before he troubled himself.
"If you knowed, dear boy," he said to me, "what it is to sit here
alonger my dear boy and have my smoke, arter having been day by day
betwixt four walls, you'd envy me. But you don't know what it is."
"I think I know the delights of freedom," I answered.
"Ah," said he, shaking his head gravely. "But you don't know it equal to
me. You must have been under lock and key, dear boy, to know it equal to
me,--but I ain't a going to be low."
It occurred to me as inconsistent, that, for any mastering idea, he
should have endangered his freedom, and even his life. But I reflected
that perhaps freedom without danger was too much apart from all the
habit of his existence to be to him what it would be to another man. I
was not far out, since he said, after smoking a little:--
"You see, dear boy, when I was over yonder, t'other side the world, I
was always a looking to this side; and it come flat to be there, for
all I was a growing rich. Everybody knowed Magwitch, and Magwitch could
come, and Magwitch could go, and nobody's head would be troubled about
him. They ain't so easy concerning me here, dear boy,--wouldn't be,
leastwise, if they knowed where I was."
"If all goes well," said I, "you will be perfectly free and safe again
within a few hours."
"Well," he returned, drawing a long breath, "I hope so."
"And think so?"
He dipped his hand in the water over the boat's gunwale, and said,
smiling with that softened air upon him which was not new to me:--
"Ay, I s'pose I think so, dear boy. We'd be puzzled to be more quiet
and easy-going than we are at present. But--it's a flowing so soft
and pleasant through the water, p'raps, as makes me think it--I was
a thinking through my smoke just then, that we can no more see to the
bottom of the next few hours than we can see to the bottom of this river
what I catches hold of. Nor yet we can't no more hold their tide than
I can hold this. And it's run through my fingers and gone, you see!"
holding up his dripping hand.
"But for your face I should think you were a little despondent," said I.
"Not a bit on it, dear boy! It comes of flowing on so quiet, and of that
there rippling at the boat's head making a sort of a Sunday tune. Maybe
I'm a growing a trifle old besides."
He put his pipe back in his mouth with an undisturbed expression of
face, and sat as composed and contented as if we were already out of
England. Yet he was as submissive to a word of advice as if he had been
in constant terror; for, when we ran ashore to get some bottles of beer
into the boat, and he was stepping out, I hinted that I thought he would
be safest where he was, and he said. "Do you, dear boy?" and quietly sat
down again.
The air felt cold upon the river, but it was a bright day, and the
sunshine was very cheering. The tide ran strong, I took care to lose
none of it, and our steady stroke carried us on thoroughly well. By
imperceptible degrees, as the tide ran out, we lost more and more of the
nearer woods and hills, and dropped lower and lower between the muddy
banks, but the tide was yet with us when we were off Gravesend. As our
charge was wrapped in his cloak, I purposely passed within a boat or
two's length of the floating Custom House, and so out to catch the
stream, alongside of two emigrant ships, and under the bows of a large
transport with troops on the forecastle looking down at us. And soon
the tide began to slacken, and the craft lying at anchor to swing,
and presently they had all swung round, and the ships that were taking
advantage of the new tide to get up to the Pool began to crowd upon us
in a fleet, and we kept under the shore, as much out of the strength of
the tide now as we could, standing carefully off from low shallows and
mudbanks.
Our oarsmen were so fresh, by dint of having occasionally let her drive
with the tide for a minute or two, that a quarter of an hour's rest
proved full as much as they wanted. We got ashore among some slippery
stones while we ate and drank what we had with us, and looked about.
It was like my own marsh country, flat and monotonous, and with a
dim horizon; while the winding river turned and turned, and the great
floating buoys upon it turned and turned, and everything else seemed
stranded and still. For now the last of the fleet of ships was round
the last low point we had headed; and the last green barge, straw-laden,
with a brown sail, had followed; and some ballast-lighters, shaped like
a child's first rude imitation of a boat, lay low in the mud; and a
little squat shoal-lighthouse on open piles stood crippled in the mud
on stilts and crutches; and slimy stakes stuck out of the mud, and slimy
stones stuck out of the mud, and red landmarks and tidemarks stuck
out of the mud, and an old landing-stage and an old roofless building
slipped into the mud, and all about us was stagnation and mud.
We pushed off again, and made what way we could. It was much harder work
now, but Herbert and Startop persevered, and rowed and rowed and rowed
until the sun went down. By that time the river had lifted us a little,
so that we could see above the bank. There was the red sun, on the low
level of the shore, in a purple haze, fast deepening into black; and
there was the solitary flat marsh; and far away there were the rising
grounds, between which and us there seemed to be no life, save here and
there in the foreground a melancholy gull.
As the night was fast falling, and as the moon, being past the full,
would not rise early, we held a little council; a short one, for clearly
our course was to lie by at the first lonely tavern we could find. So,
they plied their oars once more, and I looked out for anything like a
house. Thus we held on, speaking little, for four or five dull miles. It
was very cold, and, a collier coming by us, with her galley-fire smoking
and flaring, looked like a comfortable home. The night was as dark by
this time as it would be until morning; and what light we had, seemed
to come more from the river than the sky, as the oars in their dipping
struck at a few reflected stars.
At this dismal time we were evidently all possessed by the idea that
we were followed. As the tide made, it flapped heavily at irregular
intervals against the shore; and whenever such a sound came, one or
other of us was sure to start, and look in that direction. Here and
there, the set of the current had worn down the bank into a little
creek, and we were all suspicious of such places, and eyed them
nervously. Sometimes, "What was that ripple?" one of us would say in a
low voice. Or another, "Is that a boat yonder?" And afterwards we would
fall into a dead silence, and I would sit impatiently thinking with what
an unusual amount of noise the oars worked in the thowels.
At length we descried a light and a roof, and presently afterwards ran
alongside a little causeway made of stones that had been picked up hard
by. Leaving the rest in the boat, I stepped ashore, and found the light
to be in a window of a public-house. It was a dirty place enough, and I
dare say not unknown to smuggling adventurers; but there was a good
fire in the kitchen, and there were eggs and bacon to eat, and various
liquors to drink. Also, there were two double-bedded rooms,--"such as
they were," the landlord said. No other company was in the house than
the landlord, his wife, and a grizzled male creature, the "Jack" of the
little causeway, who was as slimy and smeary as if he had been low-water
mark too.
With this assistant, I went down to the boat again, and we all came
ashore, and brought out the oars, and rudder and boat-hook, and all
else, and hauled her up for the night. We made a very good meal by the
kitchen fire, and then apportioned the bedrooms: Herbert and Startop
were to occupy one; I and our charge the other. We found the air as
carefully excluded from both, as if air were fatal to life; and there
were more dirty clothes and bandboxes under the beds than I should have
thought the family possessed. But we considered ourselves well off,
notwithstanding, for a more solitary place we could not have found.
While we were comforting ourselves by the fire after our meal, the
Jack--who was sitting in a corner, and who had a bloated pair of shoes
on, which he had exhibited while we were eating our eggs and bacon, as
interesting relics that he had taken a few days ago from the feet of
a drowned seaman washed ashore--asked me if we had seen a four-oared
galley going up with the tide? When I told him No, he said she must have
gone down then, and yet she "took up too," when she left there.
"They must ha' thought better on't for some reason or another," said the
Jack, "and gone down."
"A four-oared galley, did you say?" said I.
"A four," said the Jack, "and two sitters."
"Did they come ashore here?"
"They put in with a stone two-gallon jar for some beer. I'd ha' been
glad to pison the beer myself," said the Jack, "or put some rattling
physic in it."
"Why?"
"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 endeavor of his captor to keep him in it, had capsized
us. He told me in a whisper that they had gone down fiercely locked in
each other's arms, and that there had been a struggle under water, and
that he had disengaged himself, struck out, and swum away.
I never had any reason to doubt the exact truth of what he thus told me.
The officer who steered the galley gave the same account of their going
overboard.
When I asked this officer's permission to change the prisoner's
wet clothes by purchasing any spare garments I could get at the
public-house, he gave it readily: merely observing that he must take
charge of everything his prisoner had about him. So the pocket-book
which had once been in my hands passed into the officer's. He further
gave me leave to accompany the prisoner to London; but declined to
accord that grace to my two friends.
The Jack at the Ship was instructed where the drowned man had gone
down, and undertook to search for the body in the places where it was
likeliest to come ashore. His interest in its recovery seemed to me to
be much heightened when he heard that it had stockings on. Probably, it
took about a dozen drowned men to fit him out completely; and that may
have been the reason why the different articles of his dress were in
various stages of decay.
We remained at the public-house until the tide turned, and then Magwitch
was carried down to the galley and put on board. Herbert and Startop
were to get to London by land, as soon as they could. We had a doleful
parting, and when I took my place by Magwitch's side, I felt that that
was my place henceforth while he lived.
For now, my repugnance to him had all melted away; and in the hunted,
wounded, shackled creature who held my hand in his, I only saw a man
who had meant to be my benefactor, and who had felt affectionately,
gratefully, and generously, towards me with great constancy through a
series of years. I only saw in him a much better man than I had been to
Joe.
His breathing became more difficult and painful as the night drew on,
and often he could not repress a groan. I tried to rest him on the arm
I could use, in any easy position; but it was dreadful to think that
I could not be sorry at heart for his being badly hurt, since it was
unquestionably best that he should die. That there were, still living,
people enough who were able and willing to identify him, I could not
doubt. That he would be leniently treated, I could not hope. He who had
been presented in the worst light at his trial, who had since broken
prison and had been tried again, who had returned from transportation
under a life sentence, and who had occasioned the death of the man who
was the cause of his arrest.
As we returned towards the setting sun we had yesterday left behind us,
and as the stream of our hopes seemed all running back, I told him how
grieved I was to think that he had come home for my sake.
"Dear boy," he answered, "I'm quite content to take my chance. I've seen
my boy, and he can be a gentleman without me."
No. I had thought about that, while we had been there side by side. No.
Apart from any inclinations of my own, I understood Wemmick's hint now.
I foresaw that, being convicted, his possessions would be forfeited to
the Crown.
"Lookee here, dear boy," said he "It's best as a gentleman should not be
knowed to belong to me now. Only come to see me as if you come by chance
alonger Wemmick. Sit where I can see you when I am swore to, for the
last o' many times, and I don't ask no more."
"I will never stir from your side," said I, "when I am suffered to be
near you. Please God, I will be as true to you as you have been to me!"
I felt his hand tremble as it held mine, and he turned his face away
as he lay in the bottom of the boat, and I heard that old sound in his
throat,--softened now, like all the rest of him. It was a good thing
that he had touched this point, for it put into my mind what I might not
otherwise have thought of until too late,--that he need never know how
his hopes of enriching me had perished.
Chapter LV
He was taken to the Police Court next day, and would have been
immediately committed for trial, but that it was necessary to send down
for an old officer of the prison-ship from which he had once escaped, to
speak to his identity. Nobody doubted it; but Compeyson, who had meant
to depose to it, was tumbling on the tides, dead, and it happened that
there was not at that time any prison officer in London who could give
the required evidence. I had gone direct to Mr. Jaggers at his private
house, on my arrival over night, to retain his assistance, and Mr.
Jaggers on the prisoner's behalf would admit nothing. It was the sole
resource; for he told me that the case must be over in five minutes
when the witness was there, and that no power on earth could prevent its
going against us.
I imparted to Mr. Jaggers my design of keeping him in ignorance of the
fate of his wealth. Mr. Jaggers was querulous and angry with me for
having "let it slip through my fingers," and said we must 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 favor 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 upstairs, and refresh himself with a glass
of grog before walking to Walworth. He accepted the invitation. While he
was drinking his moderate allowance, he said, with nothing to lead up to
it, and after having appeared rather fidgety,--
"What do you think of my meaning to take a holiday on Monday, Mr. Pip?"
"Why, I suppose you have not done such a thing these twelve months."
"These twelve years, more likely," said Wemmick. "Yes. I'm going to take
a holiday. More than that; I'm going to take a walk. More than that; I'm
going to ask you to take a walk with me."
I was about to excuse myself, as being but a bad companion just then,
when Wemmick anticipated me.
"I know your engagements," said he, "and I know you are out of sorts,
Mr. Pip. But if you 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 again, I was rather
surprised, when he said, as if he were animated by a brilliant idea,--
"Let's go in!"
We went in, Wemmick leaving his fishing-rod in the porch, and looked all
round. In the mean time, Wemmick was diving into his coat-pockets, and
getting something out of paper there.
"Halloa!" said he. "Here's a couple of pair of gloves! Let's put 'em
on!"
As the gloves were white kid gloves, and as the post-office was widened
to its utmost extent, I now began to have my strong suspicions. They
were strengthened into certainty when I beheld the Aged enter at a side
door, escorting a lady.
"Halloa!" said Wemmick. "Here's Miss Skiffins! Let's have a wedding."
That discreet damsel was attired as usual, except that she was now
engaged in substituting for her green kid gloves a pair of white. The
Aged was likewise occupied in preparing a similar sacrifice for
the altar of Hymen. The old gentleman, however, experienced so much
difficulty in getting his gloves on, that Wemmick found it necessary
to put him with his back against a pillar, and then to get behind the
pillar himself and pull away at them, while I for my part held the old
gentleman round the waist, that he might present an equal and safe
resistance. By dint of this ingenious scheme, his gloves were got on to
perfection.
The clerk and clergyman then appearing, we were ranged in order at
those fatal rails. True to his notion of seeming to do it all without
preparation, I heard Wemmick say to himself, as he took something out of
his waistcoat-pocket before the service began, "Halloa! Here's a ring!"
I acted in the capacity of backer, or best-man, to the bridegroom; while
a little limp pew-opener in a soft bonnet like a baby's, made a feint
of being the bosom friend of Miss Skiffins. The responsibility of giving
the lady away devolved upon the Aged, which led to the clergyman's being
unintentionally scandalized, and it happened thus. When he said, "Who
giveth this woman to be married to this man?" the old gentleman, not in
the least knowing what point of the ceremony we had arrived at, stood
most amiably beaming at the ten commandments. Upon which, the clergyman
said again, "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 LVI
He lay in prison very ill, during the whole interval between his
committal for trial and the coming round of the Sessions. He had broken
two ribs, they had wounded one of his lungs, and he breathed with great
pain and difficulty, which increased daily. It was a consequence of his
hurt that he spoke so low as to be scarcely audible; therefore he spoke
very little. But he was ever ready to listen to me; and it became the
first duty of my life to say to him, and read to him, what I knew he
ought to hear.
Being far too ill to remain in the common prison, he was removed, after
the first day or so, into the infirmary. This gave me opportunities
of being with him that I could not otherwise have had. And but for
his illness he would have been put in irons, for he was regarded as a
determined prison-breaker, and I know not what else.
Although I saw him every day, it was for only a short time; hence, the
regularly recurring spaces of our separation were long enough to record
on his face any slight changes that occurred in his physical state. I
do not recollect that I once saw any change in it for the better; he
wasted, and became slowly weaker and worse, day by day, from the day
when the prison door closed upon him.
The kind of submission or resignation that he showed was that of a man
who was tired out. I sometimes derived an impression, from his manner
or from a whispered word or two which escaped him, that he pondered
over the question whether he might have been a better man under better
circumstances. But he never justified himself by a hint tending that
way, or tried to bend the past out of its eternal shape.
It happened on two or three occasions in my presence, that his desperate
reputation was alluded to by one or other of the people in attendance on
him. A smile crossed his face then, and he turned his eyes on me with
a trustful look, as if he were confident that I had seen some small
redeeming touch in him, even so long ago as when I was a little child.
As to all the rest, he was humble and contrite, and I never knew him
complain.
When the Sessions came round, Mr. Jaggers caused an application to be
made for the postponement of his trial until the following Sessions. It
was obviously made with the assurance that he could not live so long,
and was refused. The trial came on at once, and, when he was put to the
bar, he was seated in a chair. No objection was made to my getting
close to the dock, on the outside of it, and holding the hand that he
stretched forth to me.
The trial was very short and very clear. Such things as could be said
for him were said,--how he had taken to industrious habits, and had
thriven lawfully and reputably. But nothing could unsay the fact that
he had returned, and was there in presence of the Judge and Jury. It was
impossible to try him for that, and do otherwise than find him guilty.
At that time, it was the custom (as I learnt from my terrible experience
of that Sessions) to devote a concluding day to the passing of
Sentences, and to make a finishing effect with the Sentence of Death.
But for the indelible picture that my remembrance now holds before me,
I could scarcely believe, even as I write these words, that I saw
two-and-thirty men and women put before the Judge to receive that
sentence together. Foremost among the two-and-thirty was he; seated,
that he might get breath enough to keep life in him.
The whole scene starts out again in the vivid colors of the moment, down
to the drops of April rain on the windows of the court, glittering in
the rays of April sun. Penned in the dock, as I again stood outside it
at the corner with his hand in mine, were the two-and-thirty men
and women; some defiant, some stricken with terror, some sobbing and
weeping, some covering their faces, some staring gloomily about. There
had been shrieks from among the women convicts; but they had been
stilled, and a hush had succeeded. The sheriffs with their great chains
and nosegays, other civic gewgaws and monsters, criers, ushers, a great
gallery full of people,--a large theatrical audience,--looked on, as the
two-and-thirty and the Judge were solemnly confronted. Then the Judge
addressed them. Among the wretched creatures before him whom he must
single out for special address was one who almost from his infancy had
been an offender against the laws; who, after repeated imprisonments and
punishments, had been at length sentenced to exile for a term of years;
and who, under circumstances of great violence and daring, had made his
escape and been re-sentenced to exile for life. That miserable man would
seem for a time to have become convinced of his errors, when far removed
from the scenes of his old offences, and to have lived a peaceable and
honest life. But in a fatal moment, yielding to those propensities and
passions, the indulgence of which had so long rendered him a scourge to
society, he had quitted his haven of rest and repentance, and had
come back to the country where he was proscribed. Being here presently
denounced, he had for a time succeeded in evading the officers of
Justice, but being at length seized while in the act of flight, he had
resisted them, and had--he best knew whether by express design, or in
the blindness of his hardihood--caused the death of his denouncer, to
whom his whole career was known. The appointed punishment for his return
to the land that had cast him out, being Death, and his case being this
aggravated case, he must prepare himself to Die.
The sun was striking in at the great windows of the court, through the
glittering drops of rain upon the glass, and it made a broad shaft of
light between the two-and-thirty and the Judge, linking both together,
and perhaps reminding some among the audience how both were passing on,
with absolute equality, to the greater Judgment that knoweth all things,
and cannot err. Rising for a moment, a distinct speck of face in this
way of light, the prisoner said, "My Lord, I have received my sentence
of Death from the Almighty, but I bow to yours," and sat down again.
There was some hushing, and the Judge went on with what he had to say
to the rest. Then they were all formally doomed, and some of them were
supported out, and some of them sauntered out with a haggard look of
bravery, and a few nodded to the gallery, and two or three shook hands,
and others went out chewing the fragments of herb they had taken from
the sweet herbs lying about. He went last of all, because of having to
be helped from his chair, and to go very slowly; and he held my hand
while all the others were removed, and while the audience got up
(putting their dresses right, as they might at church or elsewhere), and
pointed down at this criminal or at that, and most of all at him and me.
I earnestly hoped and prayed that he might die before the Recorder's
Report was made; but, in the dread of his lingering on, I began that
night to write out a petition to the Home Secretary of State, setting
forth my knowledge of him, and how it was that he had come back for my
sake. I wrote it as fervently and pathetically as I could; and when I
had finished it and sent it in, I wrote out other petitions to such men
in authority as I hoped were the most merciful, and drew up one to the
Crown itself. For several days and nights after he was sentenced I took
no rest except when I fell asleep in my chair, but was wholly absorbed
in these appeals. And after I had sent them in, I could not keep away
from the places where they were, but felt as if they were more
hopeful and less desperate when I was near them. In this unreasonable
restlessness and pain of mind I would roam the streets of an evening,
wandering by those offices and houses where I had left the petitions. To
the present hour, the weary western streets of London on a cold, dusty
spring night, with their ranges of stern, shut-up mansions, and their
long rows of lamps, are melancholy to me from this association.
The daily visits I could make him were shortened now, and he was more
strictly kept. Seeing, or fancying, that I was suspected of an intention
of carrying poison to him, I asked to be searched before I sat down
at his bedside, and told the officer who was always there, that I was
willing to do anything that would assure him of the singleness of my
designs. Nobody was hard with him or with me. There was duty to be
done, and it was done, but not harshly. The officer always gave me the
assurance that he was worse, and some other sick prisoners in the
room, and some other prisoners who attended on them as sick nurses,
(malefactors, but not incapable of kindness, God be thanked!) always
joined in the same report.
As the days went on, I noticed more and more that he would lie placidly
looking at the white ceiling, with an absence of light in his face
until some word of mine brightened it for an instant, and then it would
subside again. Sometimes he was almost or quite unable to speak, then
he would answer me with slight pressures on my hand, and I grew to
understand his meaning very well.
The number of the days had risen to ten, when I saw a greater change
in him than I had seen yet. His eyes were turned towards the door, and
lighted up as I entered.
"Dear boy," he said, as I sat down by his bed: "I thought you was late.
But I knowed you couldn't be that."
"It is just the time," said I. "I waited for it at the gate."
"You always waits at the gate; don't you, dear boy?"
"Yes. Not to lose a moment of the time."
"Thank'ee dear boy, thank'ee. God bless you! You've never deserted me,
dear boy."
I pressed his hand in silence, for I could not forget that I had once
meant to desert him.
"And what's the best of all," he said, "you've been more comfortable
alonger me, since I was under a dark cloud, than when the sun shone.
That's best of all."
He lay on his back, breathing with great difficulty. Do what he would,
and love me though he did, the light left his face ever and again, and a
film came over the placid look at the white ceiling.
"Are you in much pain to-day?"
"I don't complain of none, dear boy."
"You never do complain."
He had spoken his last words. He smiled, and I understood his touch to
mean that he wished to lift my hand, and lay it on his breast. I laid it
there, and he smiled again, and put both his hands upon it.
The allotted time ran out, while we were thus; but, looking round, I
found the governor of the prison standing near me, and he whispered,
"You needn't go yet." I thanked him gratefully, and asked, "Might I
speak to him, if he can hear me?"
The governor stepped aside, and beckoned the officer away. The change,
though it was made without noise, drew back the film from the placid
look at the white ceiling, and he looked most affectionately at me.
"Dear Magwitch, I must tell you now, at last. You understand what I
say?"
A gentle pressure on my hand.
"You had a child once, whom you loved and lost."
A stronger pressure on my hand.
"She lived, and found powerful friends. She is living now. She is a lady
and very beautiful. And I love her!"
With a last faint effort, which would have been powerless but for my
yielding to it and assisting it, he raised my hand to his lips. Then,
he gently let it sink upon his breast again, with his own hands lying on
it. The placid look at the white ceiling came back, and passed away, and
his head dropped quietly on his breast.
Mindful, then, of what we had read together, I thought of the two men
who went up into the Temple to pray, and I knew there were no better
words that I could say beside his bed, than "O Lord, be merciful to him
a sinner!"
Chapter LVII
Now that I was left wholly to myself, I gave notice of my intention
to quit the chambers in the Temple as soon as my tenancy could legally
determine, and in the meanwhile to underlet them. At once I put bills
up in the windows; for, I was in debt, and had scarcely any money, and
began to be seriously alarmed by the state of my affairs. I ought
rather to write that I should have been alarmed if I had had energy and
concentration enough to help me to the clear perception of any truth
beyond the fact that I was falling very ill. The late stress upon me had
enabled me to put off illness, but not to put it away; I knew that it
was coming on me now, and I knew very little else, and was even careless
as to that.
For a day or two, I lay on the sofa, or on the floor,--anywhere,
according as I happened to sink down,--with a heavy head and aching
limbs, and no purpose, and no power. Then there came, one night which
appeared of great duration, and which teemed with anxiety and horror;
and when in the morning I tried to sit up in my bed and think of it, I
found I could not do so.
Whether I really had been down in Garden Court in the dead of the night,
groping about for the boat that I supposed to be there; whether I had
two or three times come to myself on the staircase with great terror,
not knowing how I had got out of bed; whether I had found myself
lighting the lamp, possessed by the idea that he was coming up
the stairs, and that the lights were blown out; whether I had been
inexpressibly harassed by the distracted talking, laughing, and groaning
of some one, and had half suspected those sounds to be of my own making;
whether there had been a closed iron furnace in a dark corner of
the room, and a voice had called out, over and over again, that Miss
Havisham was consuming within it,--these were things that I tried to
settle with myself and get into some order, as I lay that morning on
my bed. But the vapor of a limekiln would come between me and them,
disordering them all, and it was through the vapor 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 sitting-room, as
the airiest and largest, and the carpet had been taken away, and
the room kept always fresh and wholesome night and day. At my own
writing-table, pushed into a corner and cumbered with little bottles,
Joe now sat down to his great work, first choosing a pen from the
pen-tray as if it were a chest of large tools, and tucking up his
sleeves as if he were going to wield a crow-bar or sledgehammer. It was
necessary for Joe to hold on heavily to the table with his left elbow,
and to get his right leg well out behind him, before he could begin; and
when he did begin he made every downstroke so slowly that it might
have been six feet long, while at every upstroke I could hear his pen
spluttering extensively. He had a curious idea that the inkstand was
on the side of him where it was not, and constantly dipped his pen into
space, and seemed quite satisfied with the result. Occasionally, he was
tripped up by some orthographical stumbling-block; but on the whole
he got on very well indeed; and when he had signed his name, and had
removed a finishing blot from the paper to the crown of his head with
his two forefingers, he got up and hovered about the table, trying the
effect of his performance from various points of view, as it lay there,
with unbounded satisfaction.
Not to make Joe uneasy by talking too much, even if I had been able to
talk much, I deferred asking him about Miss Havisham until next day. He
shook his head when I then asked him if she had recovered.
"Is she dead, Joe?"
"Why you see, old chap," said Joe, in a tone of remonstrance, and by way
of getting at it by degrees, "I wouldn't go so far as to say that, for
that's a deal to say; but she ain't--"
"Living, Joe?"
"That's nigher where it is," said Joe; "she ain't living."
"Did she linger long, Joe?"
"Arter you was took ill, pretty much about what you might call (if you
was put to it) a week," said Joe; still determined, on my account, to
come at everything by degrees.
"Dear Joe, have you heard what becomes of her property?"
"Well, old chap," said Joe, "it do appear that she had settled the most
of it, which I meantersay tied it up, on Miss Estella. But she had
wrote out a little coddleshell in her own hand a day or two afore the
accident, leaving a cool four thousand to Mr. Matthew Pocket. And why,
do you suppose, above all things, Pip, she left that cool four thousand
unto him? 'Because of Pip's account of him, the said Matthew.' I am told
by Biddy, that air the writing," said Joe, repeating the legal turn as
if it did him infinite good, "'account of him the said Matthew.' And a
cool four thousand, Pip!"
I never discovered from whom Joe derived the conventional temperature of
the four thousand pounds; but it appeared to make the sum of money more
to him, and he had a manifest relish in insisting on its being cool.
This account gave me great joy, as it perfected the only good thing I
had done. I asked Joe whether he had heard if any of the other relations
had any legacies?
"Miss Sarah," said Joe, "she have twenty-five pound perannium fur to
buy pills, on account of being bilious. Miss Georgiana, she have twenty
pound down. Mrs.--what's the name of them wild beasts with humps, old
chap?"
"Camels?" said I, wondering why he could possibly want to know.
Joe nodded. "Mrs. Camels," by which I presently understood he meant
Camilla, "she have five pound fur to buy rushlights to put her in
spirits when she wake up in the night."
The accuracy of these recitals was sufficiently obvious to me, to give
me great confidence in Joe's information. "And now," said Joe, "you
ain't that strong yet, old chap, that you can take in more nor one
additional shovelful to-day. Old Orlick he's been a bustin' open a
dwelling-ouse."
"Whose?" said I.
"Not, I grant you, but what his manners is given to blusterous," said
Joe, apologetically; "still, a Englishman's ouse is his Castle, and
castles must not be busted 'cept when done in war time. And wotsume'er
the failings on his part, he were a corn and seedsman in his hart."
"Is it Pumblechook's house that has been broken into, then?"
"That's it, Pip," said Joe; "and they took his till, and they took his
cash-box, and they drinked his wine, and they partook of his wittles,
and they slapped his face, and they pulled his nose, and they tied him
up to his bedpust, and they giv' him a dozen, and they stuffed his
mouth full of flowering annuals to prewent his crying out. But he knowed
Orlick, and Orlick's in the county jail."
By these approaches we arrived at unrestricted conversation. I was slow
to gain strength, but I did slowly and surely become less weak, and Joe
stayed with me, and I fancied I was little Pip again.
For the tenderness of Joe was so beautifully proportioned to my need,
that I was like a child in his hands. He would sit and talk to me in the
old confidence, and with the old simplicity, and in the old unassertive
protecting way, so that I would half believe that all my life since the
days of the old kitchen was one of the mental troubles of the fever that
was gone. He did everything for me except the household work, for which
he had engaged a very decent woman, after paying off the laundress on
his first arrival. "Which I do assure you, Pip," he would often say, in
explanation of that liberty; "I found her a tapping the spare bed, like
a cask of beer, and drawing off the feathers in a bucket, for sale.
Which she would have tapped yourn next, and draw'd it off with you a
laying on it, and was then a carrying away the coals gradiwally in
the soup-tureen and wegetable-dishes, and the wine and spirits in your
Wellington boots."
We looked forward to the day when I should go out for a ride, as we had
once looked forward to the day of my apprenticeship. And when the day
came, and an open carriage was got into the Lane, Joe wrapped me up,
took me in his arms, carried me down to it, and put me in, as if I were
still the small helpless creature to whom he had so abundantly given of
the wealth of his great nature.
And Joe got in beside me, and we drove away together into the country,
where the rich summer growth was already on the trees and on the grass,
and sweet summer scents filled all the air. The day happened to be
Sunday, and when I looked on the loveliness around me, and thought
how it had grown and changed, and how the little wild-flowers had been
forming, and the voices of the birds had been strengthening, by day and
by night, under the sun and under the stars, while poor I lay burning
and tossing on my bed, the mere remembrance of having burned and tossed
there came like a check upon my peace. But when I heard the Sunday
bells, and looked around a little more upon the outspread beauty, I felt
that I was not nearly thankful enough,--that I was too weak yet to be
even that,--and I laid my head on Joe's shoulder, as I had laid it long
ago when he had taken me to the Fair or where not, and it was too much
for my young senses.
More composure came to me after a while, and we talked as we used
to talk, lying on the grass at the old Battery. There was no change
whatever in Joe. Exactly what he had been in my eyes then, he was in my
eyes still; just as simply faithful, and as simply right.
When we got back again, and he lifted me out, and carried me--so
easily!--across the court and up the stairs, I thought of that eventful
Christmas Day when he had carried me over the marshes. We had not yet
made any allusion to my change of fortune, nor did I know how much of
my late history he was acquainted with. I was so doubtful of myself now,
and put so much trust in him, that I could not satisfy myself whether I
ought to refer to it when he did not.
"Have you heard, Joe," I asked him that evening, upon further
consideration, as he smoked his pipe at the window, "who my patron was?"
"I heerd," returned Joe, "as it were not Miss Havisham, old chap."
"Did you hear who it was, Joe?"
"Well! I heerd as it were a person what sent the person what giv' you
the bank-notes at the Jolly Bargemen, Pip."
"So it was."
"Astonishing!" said Joe, in the placidest way.
"Did you hear that he was dead, Joe?" I presently asked, with increasing
diffidence.
"Which? Him as sent the bank-notes, Pip?"
"Yes."
"I think," said Joe, after meditating a long time, and looking rather
evasively at the window-seat, "as I 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 favorite argumentative way, "that
she dropped into me too, if I put myself in opposition to her, but that
she dropped into you always heavier for it. I noticed that. It ain't a
grab at a man's whisker, not yet a shake or two of a man (to which your
sister was quite welcome), that 'ud put a man off from getting a little
child out of punishment. But when that little child is dropped into
heavier for that grab of whisker or shaking, then that man naterally up
and says to himself, 'Where is the good as you are a doing? I grant you
I see the 'arm,' says the man, 'but I don't see the good. I call upon
you, sir, therefore, to pint out the good.'"
"The man says?" I observed, as Joe waited for me to speak.
"The man says," Joe assented. "Is he right, that man?"
"Dear Joe, he is always right."
"Well, old chap," said Joe, "then abide by your words. If he's always
right (which in general he's more likely wrong), he's right when he says
this: Supposing ever you kep any little matter to yourself, when you
was a little child, you kep it mostly because you know'd as J. Gargery's
power to part you and Tickler in sunders were not fully equal to his
inclinations. Theerfore, think no more of it as betwixt two sech, and do
not let us pass remarks upon onnecessary subjects. Biddy giv' herself a
deal o' trouble with me afore I left (for I am almost awful dull), as I
should view it in this light, and, viewing it in this light, as I should
so put it. Both of which," said Joe, quite charmed with his logical
arrangement, "being done, now this to you a true friend, say. Namely.
You mustn't go a overdoing on it, but you must have your supper and your
wine and water, and you must be put betwixt the sheets."
The delicacy with which Joe dismissed this theme, and the sweet tact and
kindness with which Biddy--who with her woman's wit had found me out so
soon--had prepared him for it, made a deep impression on my mind. But
whether Joe knew how poor I was, and how my great expectations had
all dissolved, like our own marsh mists before the sun, I could not
understand.
Another thing in Joe that I could not understand when it first began to
develop itself, but which I soon arrived at a sorrowful comprehension
of, was this: As I became stronger and better, Joe became a little less
easy with me. In my weakness and entire dependence on him, the dear
fellow had fallen into the old tone, and called me by the old names,
the dear "old Pip, old chap," that now were music in my ears. I too had
fallen into the old ways, only happy and thankful that he let me. But,
imperceptibly, though I held by them fast, Joe's hold upon them began
to slacken; and whereas I wondered at this, at first, I soon began to
understand that the cause of it was in me, and that the fault of it was
all mine.
Ah! Had I given Joe no reason to doubt my constancy, and to think that
in prosperity I should grow cold to him and cast him off? Had I given
Joe's innocent heart no cause to feel instinctively that as I got
stronger, his hold upon me would be weaker, and that he had better
loosen it in time and let me go, before I plucked myself away?
It was on the third or fourth occasion of my going out walking in the
Temple Gardens leaning on Joe's arm, that I saw this change in him very
plainly. We had been sitting in the bright warm sunlight, looking at the
river, and I chanced to say as we got up,--
"See, Joe! I can walk quite strongly. Now, you shall see me walk back by
myself."
"Which do not overdo it, Pip," said Joe; "but I shall be happy fur to
see you able, sir."
The last word grated on me; but how could I remonstrate! I walked no
further than the gate of the gardens, and then pretended to be
weaker than I was, and asked Joe for his arm. Joe gave it me, but was
thoughtful.
I, for my part, was thoughtful too; for, how best to check this growing
change in Joe was a great perplexity to my remorseful thoughts. That I
was ashamed to tell him exactly how I was placed, and what I had come
down to, I do not seek to conceal; but I hope my reluctance was not
quite an unworthy one. He would want to help me out of his little
savings, I knew, and I knew that he ought not to help me, and that I
must not suffer him to do it.
It was a thoughtful evening with both of us. But, before we went to
bed, I had resolved that I would wait over to-morrow,--to-morrow being
Sunday,--and would begin my new course with the new week. On Monday
morning I would speak to Joe about this change, I would lay aside this
last vestige of reserve, I would tell him what I had in my thoughts
(that Secondly, not yet arrived at), and why I had not decided to go
out to Herbert, and then the change would be conquered for ever. As I
cleared, Joe cleared, and it seemed as though he had sympathetically
arrived at a resolution too.
We had a quiet day on the Sunday, and we rode out into the country, and
then walked in the fields.
"I feel thankful that I have been ill, Joe," I said.
"Dear old Pip, old chap, you're a'most come round, sir."
"It has been a memorable time for me, Joe."
"Likeways for myself, sir," Joe returned.
"We have had a time together, Joe, that I can never forget. There were
days once, I know, that I did for a while forget; but I never shall
forget these."
"Pip," said Joe, appearing a little hurried and troubled, "there has
been larks. And, dear sir, what have been betwixt us--have been."
At night, when I had gone to bed, Joe came into my room, as he had done
all through my recovery. He asked me if I felt sure that I was as well
as in the morning?
"Yes, dear Joe, quite."
"And are always a getting stronger, old chap?"
"Yes, dear Joe, steadily."
Joe patted the coverlet on my shoulder with his great good hand, and
said, in what I thought a husky voice, "Good night!"
When I got up in the morning, refreshed and stronger yet, I was full of
my resolution to tell Joe all, without delay. I would tell him before
breakfast. I would dress at once and go to his room and surprise him;
for, it was the first day I had been up early. I went to his room, and
he was not there. Not only was he not there, but his box was gone.
I hurried then to the breakfast-table, and on it found a letter. These
were its brief contents:--
"Not wishful to intrude I have departured fur you are well again dear
Pip and will do better without 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 LVIII
The tidings of my high fortunes having had a heavy fall had got down
to my native place and its neighborhood 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 shay-cart. This
is him as I have seen brought up by hand. This is him untoe the sister
of which I was uncle by marriage, as her name was Georgiana M'ria from
her own mother, let him deny it if he can!"
The waiter seemed convinced that I could not deny it, and that it gave
the case a black look.
"Young man," said Pumblechook, screwing his head at me in the old
fashion, "you air a going to Joseph. What does it matter to me, you
ask me, where you air a going? I say to you, Sir, you air a going to
Joseph."
The waiter coughed, as if he modestly invited me to get over that.
"Now," said Pumblechook, and all this with a most exasperating air
of saying in the cause of virtue what was perfectly convincing and
conclusive, "I will tell you what to say to Joseph. Here is Squires of
the Boar present, known and respected in this town, and here is William,
which his father's name was Potkins if I do not deceive myself."
"You do not, sir," said William.
"In their presence," pursued Pumblechook, "I will tell you, young
man, what to say to Joseph. Says you, "Joseph, I have this day seen
my earliest benefactor and the founder of my fortun's. I will name no
names, Joseph, but so they are pleased to call him up town, and I have
seen that man."
"I swear I don't see him here," said I.
"Say that likewise," retorted Pumblechook. "Say you said that, and even
Joseph will probably betray surprise."
"There you quite mistake him," said I. "I know better."
"Says you," Pumblechook went on, "'Joseph, I have seen that man, and
that man bears you no malice and bears me no malice. He knows your
character, Joseph, and is well acquainted with your pig-headedness and
ignorance; and he knows my character, Joseph, and he knows my want of
gratitoode. Yes, Joseph,' says you," here Pumblechook shook his head and
hand at me, "'he knows my total deficiency of common human gratitoode.
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 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 honored me with very unfavorable glances as I passed on the
opposite side of the way.
But, it was only the pleasanter to turn to Biddy and to Joe, whose
great forbearance shone more brightly than before, if that could be,
contrasted with this brazen pretender. I went towards them slowly, for
my limbs were weak, but with a sense of increasing relief as I drew
nearer to them, and a sense of leaving arrogance and untruthfulness
further and further behind.
The June weather was delicious. The sky was blue, the larks were soaring
high over the green corn, I thought all that countryside more beautiful
and peaceful by far than I had ever known it to be yet. Many pleasant
pictures of the life that I would lead there, and of the change for the
better that would come over my character when I had a guiding spirit at
my side whose simple faith and clear home wisdom I had proved, beguiled
my way. They awakened a tender emotion in me; for my heart was softened
by my return, and such a change had come to pass, that I felt like one
who was toiling home barefoot from distant travel, and whose wanderings
had lasted many years.
The schoolhouse where Biddy was mistress I had never seen; but, the
little roundabout lane by which I entered the village, for quietness'
sake, took me past it. I was disappointed to find that the day was a
holiday; no children were there, and Biddy's house was closed. Some
hopeful notion of seeing her, busily engaged in her daily duties, before
she saw me, had been in my mind and was defeated.
But the forge was a very short distance off, and I went towards it under
the sweet green limes, listening for the clink of Joe's hammer. Long
after I ought to have heard it, and long after I had fancied I heard it
and found it but a fancy, all was still. The limes were there, and the
white thorns were there, and the chestnut-trees were there, and their
leaves rustled harmoniously when I stopped to listen; but, the clink of
Joe's hammer was not in the midsummer wind.
Almost fearing, without knowing why, to come in view of the forge, I saw
it at last, and saw that it was closed. No gleam of fire, no glittering
shower of sparks, no roar of bellows; all shut up, and still.
But the house was not deserted, and the best parlor 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 honored 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 parlor ceiling at Mill Pond Bank had then ceased to tremble under
old Bill Barley's growls and was at peace, and Herbert had gone away to
marry Clara, and I was left in sole charge of the Eastern Branch until
he brought her back.
Many a year went round before I was a partner in the House; but I lived
happily with Herbert and his wife, and lived frugally, and paid my
debts, and maintained a constant correspondence with Biddy and Joe. It
was not until I became third in the Firm, that Clarriker betrayed me to
Herbert; but he then declared that the secret of Herbert's partnership
had been long enough upon his conscience, and he must tell it. So he
told it, and Herbert was as much moved as amazed, and the dear fellow
and I were not the worse friends for the long concealment. I must not
leave it to be supposed that we were ever a great House, or that we made
mints of money. We were not in a grand way of business, but we had a
good name, and worked for our profits, and did very well. We owed so
much to Herbert's ever cheerful industry and readiness, that I often
wondered how I had conceived that old idea of his inaptitude, until I
was one day enlightened by the reflection, that perhaps the inaptitude
had never been in him at all, but had been in me.
Chapter LIX
For eleven years, I had not seen Joe nor Biddy with my bodily
eyes,--though they had both been often before my fancy in the
East,--when, upon an evening in December, an hour or two after dark, I
laid my hand softly on the latch of the old kitchen door. I touched it
so softly that I was not heard, and looked in unseen. There, smoking his
pipe in the old place by the kitchen firelight, as hale and as strong as
ever, though a little gray, 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 gates, and where the casks. I had done so, and was looking
along the desolate garden walk, when I beheld a solitary figure in it.
The figure showed itself aware of me, as I advanced. It had been moving
towards me, but it stood still. As I drew nearer, I saw it to be the
figure of a woman. As I drew nearer yet, it was about to turn away, when
it stopped, and let me come up with it. Then, it faltered, as if much
surprised, and uttered my name, and I cried out,--
"Estella!"
"I am greatly changed. I wonder you know me."
The freshness of her beauty was indeed gone, but its indescribable
majesty and its indescribable charm remained. Those attractions in it,
I had seen before; what I had never seen before, was the saddened,
softened light of the once proud eyes; what I had never felt before was
the friendly touch of the once insensible hand.
We sat down on a bench that was near, and I said, "After so many years,
it is strange that we should thus meet again, Estella, here where our
first meeting was! Do you often come back?"
"I have never been here since."
"Nor I."
The moon began to rise, and I thought of the placid look at the white
ceiling, which had passed away. The moon began to rise, and I thought of
the pressure on my hand when I had spoken the last words he had heard on
earth.
Estella was the next to break the silence that ensued between us.
"I have very often hoped and intended to come back, but have been
prevented by many circumstances. Poor, poor old place!"
The silvery mist was touched with the first rays of the moonlight, and
the same rays touched the tears that dropped from her eyes. Not knowing
that I saw them, and setting herself to get the better of them, she said
quietly,--
"Were you wondering, as you walked along, how it came to be left in this
condition?"
"Yes, Estella."
"The ground belongs to me. It is the only possession I have not
relinquished. Everything else has gone from me, little by little, but I
have kept this. It was the subject of the only determined resistance I
made in all the wretched years."
"Is it to be built on?"
"At last, it is. I came here to take leave of it before its change. And
you," she said, in a voice of touching interest to a wanderer,--"you
live abroad still?"
"Still."
"And do well, I am sure?"
"I work pretty hard for a sufficient living, and therefore--yes, I do
well."
"I have often thought of you," said Estella.
"Have you?"
"Of late, very often. There was a long hard time when I kept far from me
the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant
of its worth. But since my duty has not been incompatible with the
admission of that remembrance, I have given it a place in my heart."
"You have always held your place in my heart," I answered.
And we were silent again until she spoke.
"I little thought," said Estella, "that I should take leave of you in
taking leave of this spot. I am very glad to do so."
"Glad to part again, Estella? To me, parting is a painful thing. To me,
the remembrance of our last parting has been ever mournful and painful."
"But you said to me," returned Estella, very earnestly, "'God bless you,
God forgive you!' And if you could say that to me then, you will not
hesitate to say that to me now,--now, when suffering has been stronger
than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart
used to be. I have been bent and broken, but--I hope--into a better
shape. Be as considerate and good to me as you were, and tell me we are
friends."
"We are friends," said I, rising and bending over her, as she rose from
the bench.
"And will continue friends apart," said Estella.
I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as
the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the
evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil
light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.