
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 up stairs, and led us to the black hole of the
establishment, fitted up with a diminishing mirror (quite a
superfluous article, considering the hole's proportions), an
anchovy sauce-cruet, and somebody's pattens. On my objecting
to this retreat, he took us into another room with a
dinner-table for thirty, and in the grate a scorched leaf of
a copy-book under a bushel of coal-dust. Having looked at
this extinct conflagration and shaken his head, he took my
order; which, proving to be merely, "Some tea for the lady,"
sent him out of the room in a very low state of mind.
I was, and I am, sensible that the air of this chamber,
in its strong combination of stable with soup-stock, might
have led one to infer that the coaching department was not
doing well, and that the enterprising proprietor was boiling
down the horses for the refreshment department. Yet the room
was all in all to me, Estella being in it. I thought that
with her I could have been happy there for life. (I was not
at all happy there at the time, observe, and I knew it
well.)
"Where are you going to, at Richmond?" I asked Estella.
"I am going to live," said she, "at a great expense, with
a lady there, who has the power—or says she has—of taking me
about, and introducing me, and showing people to me and
showing me to people."
"I suppose you will be glad of variety and admiration?"
"Yes, I suppose so."
She answered so carelessly, that I said, "You speak of
yourself as if you were some one else."
"Where did you learn how I speak of others? Come, come,"
said Estella, smiling delightfully, "you must not expect me
to go to school to you; I must talk in my own way. How do
you thrive with Mr. Pocket?"
"I live quite pleasantly there; at least—" It appeared to
me that I was losing a chance.
"At least?" repeated Estella.
"As pleasantly as I could anywhere, away from you."
"You silly boy," said Estella, quite composedly, "how can
you talk such nonsense? Your friend Mr. Matthew, I believe,
is superior to the rest of his family?"
"Very superior indeed. He is nobody's enemy—" —"Don't add
but his own," interposed Estella, "for I hate that class of
man. But he really is disinterested, and above small
jealousy and spite, I have heard?"
"I am sure I have every reason to say so."
"You have not every reason to say so of the rest of his
people," said Estella, nodding at me with an expression of
face that was at once grave and rallying, "for they beset
Miss Havisham with reports and insinuations to your
disadvantage. They watch you, misrepresent you, write
letters about you (anonymous sometimes), and you are the
torment and the occupation of their lives. You can scarcely
realize to yourself the hatred those people feel for you."
"They do me no harm, I hope?"
Instead of answering, Estella burst out laughing. This
was very singular to me, and I looked at her in considerable
perplexity. When she left off—and she had not laughed
languidly, but with real enjoyment—I said, in my diffident
way with her,—
"I hope I may suppose that you would not be amused if
they did me any harm."
"No, no you may be sure of that," said Estella. "You may
be certain that I laugh because they fail. 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 out
affairs."
We always derived profound satisfaction from making an
appointment for this purpose. I always thought this was
business, this was the way to confront the thing, this was
the way to take the foe by the throat. And I know Herbert
thought so too.
We ordered something rather special for dinner, with a
bottle of something similarly out of the common way, in
order that our minds might be fortified for the occasion,
and we might come well up to the mark. Dinner over, we
produced a bundle of pens, a copious supply of ink, and a
goodly show of writing and blotting paper. For there was
something very comfortable in having plenty of stationery.
I would then take a sheet of paper, and write across the
top of it, in a neat hand, the heading, "Memorandum of Pip's
debts"; with Barnard's Inn and the date very carefully
added. Herbert would also take a sheet of paper, and write
across it with similar formalities, "Memorandum of Herbert's
debts."
Each of us would then refer to a confused heap of papers
at his side, which had been thrown into drawers, worn into
holes in pockets, half burnt in lighting candles, stuck for
weeks into the looking-glass, and otherwise damaged. The
sound of our pens going refreshed us exceedingly, insomuch
that I sometimes found it difficult to distinguish between
this edifying business proceeding and actually paying the
money. In point of meritorious character, the two things
seemed about equal.
When we had written a little while, I would ask Herbert
how he got on? Herbert probably would have been scratching
his head in a most rueful manner at the sight of his
accumulating figures.
"They are mounting up, Handel," Herbert would say; "upon
my life, they are mounting up."
"Be firm, Herbert," I would retort, plying my own pen
with great assiduity. "Look the thing in the face. Look into
your affairs. Stare them out of countenance."
"So I would, Handel, only they are staring me out of
countenance."
However, my determined manner would have its effect, and
Herbert would fall to work again. After a time he would give
up once more, on the plea that he had not got Cobbs's bill,
or Lobbs's, or Nobbs's, as the case might be.
"Then, Herbert, estimate; estimate it in round numbers,
and put it down."
"What a fellow of resource you are!" my friend would
reply, with admiration. "Really your business powers are
very remarkable."
I thought so too. I established with myself, on these
occasions, the reputation of a first-rate man of
business,—prompt, decisive, energetic, clear, cool-headed.
When I had got all my responsibilities down upon my list, I
compared each with the bill, and ticked it off. My
self-approval when I ticked an entry was quite a luxurious
sensation. When I had no more ticks to make, I folded all my
bills up uniformly, docketed each on the back, and tied the
whole into a symmetrical bundle. Then I did the same for
Herbert (who modestly said he had not my administrative
genius), and felt that I had brought his affairs into a
focus for him.
My business habits had one other bright feature, which I
called "leaving a Margin." For example; supposing Herbert's
debts to be one hundred and sixty-four pounds
four-and-twopence, I would say, "Leave a margin, and put
them down at two hundred." Or, supposing my own to be four
times as much, I would leave a margin, and put them down at
seven hundred. I had the highest opinion of the wisdom of
this same Margin, but I am bound to acknowledge that on
looking back, I deem it to have been an expensive device.
For, we always ran into new debt immediately, to the full
extent of the margin, and sometimes, in the sense of freedom
and solvency it imparted, got pretty far on into another
margin.
But there was a calm, a rest, a virtuous hush, consequent
on these examinations of our affairs that gave me, for the
time, an admirable opinion of myself. Soothed by my
exertions, my method, and Herbert's compliments, I would sit
with his symmetrical bundle and my own on the table before
me among the stationary, and feel like a Bank of some sort,
rather than a private individual.
We shut our outer door on these solemn occasions, in
order that we might not be interrupted. I had fallen into my
serene state one evening, when we heard a letter dropped
through the slit in the said door, and fall on the ground.
"It's for you, Handel," said Herbert, going out and coming
back with it, "and I hope there is nothing the matter." This
was in allusion to its heavy black seal and border.
The letter was signed Trabb & Co., and its contents were
simply, that I was an 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 by, 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, fête days, plays, operas,
concerts, parties, all sorts of pleasures, through which I
pursued her,—and they were all miseries to me. I never had
one hour's happiness in her society, and yet my mind all
round the four-and-twenty hours was harping on the happiness
of having her with me unto death.
Throughout this part of our intercourse,—and it lasted,
as will presently be seen, for what I then thought a long
time,—she habitually reverted to that tone which expressed
that our association was forced upon us. There were other
times when she would come to a sudden check in this tone and
in all her many tones, and would seem to pity me.
"Pip, Pip," she said one evening, coming to such a check,
when we sat apart at a darkening window of the house in
Richmond; "will you never take warning?"
"Of what?"
"Of me."
"Warning not to be attracted by you, do you mean,
Estella?"
"Do I mean! If you don't know what I mean, you are
blind."
I should have replied that Love was commonly reputed
blind, but for the reason that I always was restrained—and
this was not the least of my miseries—by a feeling that it
was ungenerous to press myself upon her, when she knew that
she could not choose but obey Miss Havisham. My dread always
was, that this knowledge on her part laid me under a heavy
disadvantage with her pride, and made me the subject of a
rebellious struggle in her bosom.
"At any rate," said I, "I have no warning given me just
now, for you wrote to me to come to you, this time."
"That's true," said Estella, with a cold careless smile
that always chilled me.
After looking at the twilight without, for a little
while, she went on to say:—
"The time has come round when Miss Havisham wishes to
have me for a day at Satis. You are to take me there, and
bring me back, if you will. She would rather I did not
travel alone, and objects to receiving my maid, for she has
a sensitive horror of being talked of by such people. Can
you take me?"
"Can I take you, Estella!"
"You can then? The day after to-morrow, if you please.
You are to pay all charges out of my purse, You hear the
condition of your going?"
"And must obey," said I.
This was all the preparation I received for that visit,
or for others like it; Miss Havisham never wrote to me, nor
had I ever so much as seen her handwriting. We went down on
the next day but one, and we found her in the room where I
had first beheld her, and it is needless to add that there
was no change in Satis House.
She was even more dreadfully fond of Estella than she had
been when I last saw them together; I repeat the word
advisedly, for there was something positively dreadful in
the energy of her looks and embraces. She hung upon
Estella's beauty, hung upon her words, hung upon her
gestures, and sat mumbling her own trembling fingers while
she looked at her, as though she were devouring the
beautiful creature she had reared.
From Estella she looked at me, with a searching glance
that seemed to pry into my heart and probe its wounds. "How
does she use you, Pip; how does she use you?" she asked me
again, with her witch-like eagerness, even in Estella's
hearing. But, when we sat by her flickering fire at night,
she was most weird; for then, keeping Estella's hand drawn
through her arm and clutched in her own hand, she extorted
from her, by dint of referring back to what Estella had told
her in her regular letters, the names and conditions of the
men whom she had fascinated; and as Miss Havisham dwelt upon
this roll, with the intensity of a mind mortally hurt and
diseased, she sat with her other hand on her crutch stick,
and her chin on that, and her wan bright eyes glaring at me,
a very spectre.
I saw in this, wretched though it made me, and bitter the
sense of dependence and even of degradation that it
awakened,—I saw in this that Estella was set to wreak Miss
Havisham's revenge on men, and that she was not to be given
to me until she had gratified it for a term. I saw in this,
a reason for her being beforehand assigned to me. Sending
her out to attract and torment and do mischief, Miss
Havisham sent her with the malicious assurance that she was
beyond the reach of all admirers, and that all who staked
upon that cast were secured to lose. I saw in this that I,
too, was tormented by a perversion of ingenuity, even while
the prize was reserved for me. I saw in this the reason for
my being staved off so long and the reason for my late
guardian's declining to commit himself to the formal
knowledge of such a scheme. In a word, I saw in this Miss
Havisham as I had her then and there before my eyes, and
always had had her before my eyes; and I saw in this, the
distinct shadow of the darkened and unhealthy house in which
her life was hidden from the sun.
The candles that lighted that room of hers were placed in
sconces on the wall. They were high from the ground, and
they burnt with the steady dulness of artificial light in
air that is seldom renewed. As I looked round at them, and
at the pale gloom they made, and at the stopped clock, and
at the withered articles of bridal dress upon the table and
the ground, and at her own awful figure with its ghostly
reflection thrown large by the fire upon the ceiling and the
wall, I saw in everything the construction that my mind had
come to, repeated and thrown back to me. My thoughts passed
into the great room across the landing where the table was
spread, and I saw it written, as it were, in the falls of
the cobwebs from the centre-piece, in the crawlings of the
spiders on the cloth, in the tracks of the mice as they
betook their little quickened hearts behind the panels, and
in the gropings and pausings of the beetles on the floor.
It happened on the occasion of this visit that some sharp
words arose between Estella and Miss Havisham. It was the
first time I had ever seen them opposed.
We were seated by the fire, as just now described, and
Miss Havisham still had Estella's arm drawn through her own,
and still clutched Estella's hand in hers, when Estella
gradually began to detach herself. She had shown a proud
impatience more than once before, and had rather endured
that fierce affection than accepted or returned it.
"What!" said Miss Havisham, flashing her eyes upon her,
"are you tired of me?"
"Only a little tired of myself," replied Estella,
disengaging her arm, and moving to the great chimney-piece,
where she stood looking down at the fire.
"Speak the truth, you ingrate!" cried Miss Havisham,
passionately striking her stick upon the floor; "you are
tired of me."
Estella looked at her with perfect composure, and again
looked down at the fire. Her graceful figure and her
beautiful face expressed a self-possessed indifference to
the wild heat of the other, that was almost cruel.
"You stock and stone!" exclaimed Miss Havisham. "You
cold, cold heart!"
"What?" said Estella, preserving her attitude of
indifference as she leaned against the great chimney-piece
and only moving her eyes; "do you reproach me for being
cold? You?"
"Are you not?" was the fierce retort.
"You should know," said Estella. "I am what you have made
me. Take all the praise, take all the blame; take all the
success, take all the failure; in short, take me."
"O, look at her, look at her!" cried Miss Havisham,
bitterly; "Look at her so hard and thankless, on the hearth
where she was reared! Where I took her into this wretched
breast when it was first bleeding from its stabs, and where
I have lavished years of tenderness upon her!"
"At least I was no party to the compact," said Estella,
"for if I could walk and speak, when it was made, it was as
much as I could do. But what would you have? You have been
very good to me, and I owe everything to you. What would you
have?"
"Love," replied the other.
"You have it."
"I have not," said Miss Havisham.
"Mother by adoption," retorted Estella, never departing
from the easy grace of her attitude, never raising her voice
as the other did, never yielding either to anger or
tenderness,—"mother by adoption, I have said that I owe
everything to you. All I possess is freely yours. All that
you have given me, is at your command to have again. Beyond
that, I have nothing. And if you ask me to give you, what
you never gave me, my gratitude and duty cannot do
impossibilities."
"Did I never give her love!" cried Miss Havisham, turning
wildly to me. "Did I never give her a burning love,
inseparable from jealousy at all times, and from sharp pain,
while she speaks thus to me! Let her call me mad, let her
call me mad!"
"Why should I call you mad," returned Estella, "I, of all
people? Does any one live, who knows what set purposes you
have, half as well as I do? Does any one live, who knows
what a steady memory you have, half as well as I do? I who
have sat on this same hearth on the little stool that is
even now beside you there, learning your lessons and looking
up into your face, when your face was strange and frightened
me!"
"Soon forgotten!" moaned Miss Havisham. "Times soon
forgotten!"
"No, not forgotten," retorted Estella,—"not forgotten,
but treasured up in my memory. When have you found me false
to your teaching? When have you found me unmindful of your
lessons? When have you found me giving admission here," she
touched her bosom with her hand, "to anything that you
excluded? Be just to me."
"So proud, so proud!" moaned Miss Havisham, pushing away
her 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
up-stairs.
"The night being so bad, sir," said the watchman, as he
gave me back my glass, "uncommon few have come in at my
gate. Besides them three gentlemen that I have named, I
don't call to mind another since about eleven o'clock, when
a stranger asked for you."
"My uncle," I muttered. "Yes."
"You saw him, sir?"
"Yes. Oh yes."
"Likewise the person with him?"
"Person with him!" I repeated.
"I judged the person to be with him," returned the
watchman. "The person stopped, when he stopped to make
inquiry of me, and the person took this way when he took
this way."
"What sort of person?"
The watchman had not particularly noticed; he should say
a working person; to the best of his belief, he had a
dust-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 by, 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 ropewalks 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
Ropewalk,—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 up stairs. That's her
father."
I had become aware of an alarming growling overhead, and
had probably expressed the fact in my countenance.
"I am afraid he is a sad old rascal," said Herbert,
smiling, "but I have never seen him. Don't you smell rum? He
is always at it."
"At rum?" said I.
"Yes," returned Herbert, "and you may suppose how mild it
makes his gout. He persists, too, in keeping all the
provisions up stairs 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 Ropewalk, 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 up stairs to see our charge. As we passed Mr. Barley's
door, he was heard hoarsely muttering within, in a strain
that rose and fell like wind, the following Refrain, in
which I substitute good wishes for something quite the
reverse:—
"Ahoy! Bless your eyes, here's old Bill Barley. Here's
old Bill Barley, bless your eyes. Here's old Bill Barley on
the flat of his back, by the Lord. Lying on the flat of his
back like a drifting old dead flounder, here's your old Bill
Barley, bless your eyes. Ahoy! Bless you."
In this strain of consolation, Herbert informed me the
invisible Barley would commune with himself by the day and
night together; Often, while it was light, having, at the
same time, one eye at a telescope which was fitted on his
bed for the convenience of sweeping the river.
In his two cabin rooms at the top of the house, which
were fresh and airy, and in which Mr. Barley was less
audible than below, I found Provis comfortably settled. He
expressed no alarm, and seemed to feel none that was worth
mentioning; but it struck me that he was
softened,—indefinably, for I could not have said how, and
could never afterwards recall how when I tried, but
certainly.
The opportunity that the day's rest had given me for
reflection had resulted in my fully determining to say
nothing to him respecting Compeyson. For anything I knew,
his animosity towards the man might otherwise lead to his
seeking him out and rushing on his own destruction.
Therefore, when Herbert and I sat down with him by his fire,
I asked him first of all whether he relied on Wemmick's
judgment and sources of information?
"Ay, ay, dear boy!" he answered, with a grave nod,
"Jaggers knows."
"Then, I have talked with Wemmick," said I, "and have
come to tell you what caution he gave me and what advice."
This I did accurately, with the reservation just
mentioned; and I told him how Wemmick had heard, in Newgate
prison (whether from officers or prisoners I could not say),
that he was under some suspicion, and that my chambers had
been watched; how Wemmick had recommended his keeping close
for a time, and my keeping away from him; and what Wemmick
had said about getting him abroad. I added, that of course,
when the time came, I should go with him, or should follow
close upon him, as might be safest in Wemmick's judgment.
What was to follow that I did not touch upon; neither,
indeed, was I at all clear or comfortable about it in my own
mind, now that I saw him in that softer condition, and in
declared peril for my sake. As to altering my way of living
by enlarging my expenses, I put it to him whether in our
present unsettled and difficult circumstances, it would not
be simply ridiculous, if it were no worse?
He could not deny this, and indeed was very reasonable
throughout. His coming back was a venture, he said, and he
had always known it to be a venture. He would do nothing to
make it a desperate venture, and he had very little fear of
his safety with such good help.
Herbert, who had been looking at the fire and pondering,
here said that something had come into his thoughts arising
out of Wemmick's suggestion, which it might be worth while
to pursue. "We are both good watermen, Handel, and could
take him down the river ourselves when the right time comes.
No boat would then be hired for the purpose, and no boatmen;
that would save at least a chance of suspicion, and any
chance is worth saving. Never mind the season; don't you
think it might be a good thing if you began at once to keep
a boat at the Temple stairs, and were in the habit of rowing
up and down the river? You fall into that habit, and then
who notices or minds? Do it twenty or fifty times, and there
is nothing special in your doing it the twenty-first or
fifty-first."
I liked this scheme, and Provis was quite elated by it.
We agreed that it should be carried into execution, and that
Provis should never recognize us if we came below Bridge,
and rowed past Mill Pond Bank. But we further agreed that he
should pull down the blind in that part of his window which
gave upon the east, whenever he saw us and all was right.
Our conference being now ended, and everything arranged,
I rose to go; remarking to Herbert that he and I had better
not go home together, and that I would take half an hour's
start of him. "I don't like to leave you here," I said to
Provis, "though I cannot doubt your being safer here than
near me. Good by!"
"Dear boy," he answered, clasping my hands, "I don't know
when we may meet again, and I don't like good by. Say good
night!"
"Good night! Herbert will go regularly between us, and
when the time comes you may be certain I shall be ready.
Good night, good night!"
We thought it best that he should stay in his own rooms;
and we left him on the landing outside his door, holding a
light over the stair-rail to light us down stairs. Looking
back at him, I thought of the first night of his return,
when our positions were reversed, and when I little supposed
my heart could ever be as heavy and anxious at parting from
him as it was now.
Old Barley was growling and swearing when we repassed his
door, with no appearance of having ceased or of meaning to
cease. When we got to the foot of the stairs, I asked
Herbert whether he had preserved the name of Provis. He
replied, certainly not, and that the lodger was Mr.
Campbell. He also explained that the utmost known of Mr.
Campbell there was, that he (Herbert) had Mr. Campbell
consigned to him, and felt a strong personal interest in his
being well cared for, and living a secluded life. So, when
we went into the 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 Ropewalk had grown quite a different
place. Old Barley might be as old as the hills, and might
swear like a whole field of troopers, but there were
redeeming youth and trust and hope enough in Chinks's Basin
to fill it to overflowing. And then I thought of Estella,
and of our parting, and went home very sadly.
All things were as quiet in the Temple as ever I had seen
them. The windows of the rooms on that side, lately occupied
by Provis, were dark and still, and there was no lounger in
Garden Court. I walked past the fountain twice or thrice
before I descended the steps that were between me and my
rooms, but I was quite alone. Herbert, coming to my bedside
when he came in,—for I went straight to bed, dispirited and
fatigued,—made the same report. Opening one of the windows
after that, he looked out into the moonlight, and told me
that the pavement was a solemnly empty as the pavement of
any cathedral at that same hour.
Next day I set myself to get the boat. It was soon done,
and the boat was brought round to the Temple stairs, and lay
where I could reach her within a minute or two. Then, I
began to go out as for training and practice: sometimes
alone, sometimes with Herbert. I was often out in cold,
rain, and sleet, but nobody took much note of me after I had
been out a few times. At first, I kept above Blackfriars
Bridge; but as the hours of the tide changed, I took towards
London Bridge. It was Old London Bridge in those days, and
at certain states of the tide there was a race and fall of
water there which gave it a bad reputation. But I knew well
enough how to 'shoot' the bridge after seeing it done, and
so began to row about among the shipping in the Pool, and
down to Erith. The first time I passed Mill Pond Bank,
Herbert and I were pulling a pair of oars; and, both in
going and returning, we saw the blind towards the east come
down. Herbert was rarely there less frequently than three
times in a week, and he never brought me a single word of
intelligence that was at all alarming. Still, I knew that
there was cause for alarm, and I could not get rid of the
notion of being watched. Once received, it is a haunting
idea; how many undesigning persons I suspected of watching
me, it would be hard to calculate.
In short, I was always full of fears for the rash man who
was in hiding. Herbert had sometimes said to me that he
found it pleasant to stand at one of our windows after dark,
when the tide was running down, and to think that it was
flowing, with everything it bore, towards Clara. But I
thought with dread that it was flowing towards Magwitch, and
that any black mark on its surface might be his pursuers,
going swiftly, silently, and surely, to take him.

Chapter 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 or utter loneliness upon
her, that would have moved me to pity though she had
wilfully done me a deeper injury than I could charge her
with. As I stood compassionating her, and thinking how, in
the progress of time, I too had come to be a part of the
wrecked fortunes of that house, her eyes rested on me. She
stared, and said in a low voice, "Is it real?"
"It is I, Pip. Mr. Jaggers gave me your note yesterday,
and I have lost no time."
"Thank you. Thank you."
As I brought another of the ragged chairs to the hearth
and sat down, I remarked a new expression on her face, as if
she were afraid of me.
"I want," she said, "to pursue that subject you mentioned
to me when you were last here, and to show you that I am not
all stone. But perhaps you can never believe, now, that
there is anything human in my heart?"
When I said some reassuring words, she stretched out her
tremulous right hand, as though she was going to touch me;
but she recalled it again before I understood the action, or
knew how to receive it.
"You said, speaking for your friend, that you could tell
me how to do something useful and good. Something that you
would like done, is it not?"
"Something that I would like done very much."
"What is it?"
I began explaining to her that secret history of the
partnership. I had not got far into it, when I judged from
her looks that she was thinking in a discursive way of me,
rather than of what I said. It seemed to be so; for, when I
stopped speaking, many moments passed before she showed that
she was conscious of the fact.
"Do you break off," she asked then, with her former air
of being afraid of me, "because you hate me too much to bear
to speak to me?"
"No, no," I answered, "how can you think so, Miss
Havisham! I stopped because I thought you were not following
what I said."
"Perhaps I was not," she answered, putting a hand to her
head. "Begin again, and let me look at something else. Stay!
Now tell me."
She set her hand upon her stick in the resolute way that
sometimes was habitual to her, and looked at the fire with a
strong expression of forcing herself to attend. I went on
with my explanation, and told her how I had hoped to
complete the transaction out of my means, but how in this I
was disappointed. That part of the subject (I reminded her)
involved matters which could form no part of my explanation,
for they were the weighty secrets of another.
"So!" said she, assenting with her head, but not looking
at me. "And how much money is wanting to complete the
purchase?"
I was rather afraid of stating it, for it sounded a large
sum. "Nine hundred pounds."
"If I give you the money for this purpose, will you keep
my secret as you have kept your own?"
"Quite as faithfully."
"And your mind will be more at rest?"
"Much more at rest."
"Are you very unhappy now?"
She asked this question, still without looking at me, but
in an unwonted tone of sympathy. I could not reply at the
moment, for my voice failed me. She put her left arm across
the head of her stick, and softly laid her forehead on it.
"I am far from happy, Miss Havisham; but I have other
causes of disquiet than any you know of. They are the
secrets I have mentioned."
After a little while, she raised her head, and looked at
the fire Again.
"It is noble in you to tell me that you have other causes
of unhappiness, Is it true?"
"Too true."
"Can I only serve you, Pip, by serving your friend?
Regarding that as done, is there nothing I can do for you
yourself?"
"Nothing. I thank you for the question. I thank you even
more for the tone of the question. But there is nothing."
She presently rose from her seat, and looked about the
blighted room for the means of writing. There were 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 down stairs into the
natural air. I called to the woman who had opened the gate
when I entered, that I would not trouble her just yet, but
would walk round the place before leaving. For I had a
presentiment that I should never be there again, and I felt
that the dying light was suited to my last view of it.
By the wilderness of casks that I had walked on long ago,
and on which the rain of years had fallen since, rotting
them in many places, and leaving miniature swamps and pools
of water upon those that stood on end, I made my way to the
ruined garden. I went all round it; round by the corner
where Herbert and I had fought our battle; round by the
paths where Estella and I had walked. So cold, so lonely, so
dreary all!
Taking the brewery on my way back, I raised the rusty
latch of a little door at the garden end of it, and walked
through. I was going out at the opposite door,—not easy to
open now, for the damp wood had started and swelled, and the
hinges were yielding, and the threshold was encumbered with
a growth of fungus,—when I turned my head to look back. A
childish association revived with wonderful force in the
moment of the slight action, and I fancied that I saw Miss
Havisham hanging to the beam. So strong was the impression,
that I stood under the beam shuddering from head to foot
before I knew it was a fancy,—though to be sure I was there
in an instant.
The mournfulness of the place and time, and the great
terror of this illusion, though it was but momentary, caused
me to feel an indescribable awe as I came out between the
open wooden gates where I had once wrung my hair after
Estella had wrung my heart. Passing on into the front
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 up stairs and assure myself that Miss Havisham was as
safe and well as I had left her. I took the latter course
and went up.
I looked into the room where I had left her, and I saw
her seated in the ragged chair upon the hearth close to the
fire, with her back towards me. In the moment when I was
withdrawing my head to go quietly away, I saw a great
flaming light spring up. In the same moment I saw her
running at me, shrieking, with a whirl of fire blazing all
about her, and soaring at least as many feet above her head
as she was high.
I had a double-caped great-coat on, and over my arm
another thick coat. That I got them off, closed with her,
threw her down, and got them over her; that I dragged the
great cloth from the table for the same purpose, and with it
dragged down the heap of rottenness in the midst, and all
the ugly things that sheltered there; that we were on the
ground struggling like desperate enemies, and that the
closer I covered her, the more wildly she shrieked and tried
to free herself,—that this occurred I knew through the
result, but not through anything I felt, or thought, or knew
I did. I knew nothing until I knew that we were on the floor
by the great table, and that patches of tinder yet alight
were floating in the smoky air, which, a moment ago, had
been her faded bridal dress.
Then, I looked round and saw the disturbed beetles and
spiders running away over the floor, and the servants coming
in with breathless cries at the door. I still held her
forcibly down with all my strength, like a prisoner who
might escape; and I doubt if I even knew who she was, or why
we had struggled, or that she had been in flames, or that
the flames were out, until I saw the patches of tinder that
had been her garments no longer alight but falling in a
black shower around us.
She was insensible, and I was afraid to have her moved,
or even touched. Assistance was sent for, and I held her
until it came, as if I unreasonably fancied (I think I did)
that, if I let her go, the fire would break out again and
consume her. When I got up, on the surgeon's coming to her
with other aid, I was astonished to see that both my hands
were burnt; for, I had no knowledge of it through the sense
of feeling.
On examination it was pronounced that she had received
serious hurts, but that they of themselves were far from
hopeless; the danger lay mainly in the nervous shock. By the
surgeon's directions, her bed was carried into that room and
laid upon the great table, which happened to be well suited
to the dressing of her injuries. When I saw her again, an
hour afterwards, she lay, indeed, where I had seen her
strike her stick, and had heard her say that she would lie
one day.
Though every vestige of her dress was burnt, as they told
me, she still had something of her old ghastly bridal
appearance; for, they had covered her to the throat with
white cotton-wool, and as she lay with a white sheet loosely
overlying that, the phantom air of something that had been
and was changed was still upon her.
I found, on questioning the servants, that Estella was in
Paris, and I got a promise from the surgeon that he would
write to her by the next post. Miss Havisham's family I took
upon myself; intending to communicate with Mr. Matthew
Pocket only, and leave him to do as he liked about informing
the rest. This I did next day, through Herbert, as soon as I
returned to town.
There was a stage, that evening, when she spoke
collectedly of what had happened, though with a certain
terrible vivacity. Towards midnight she began to wander in
her speech; and after that it gradually set in that she said
innumerable times in a low solemn voice, "What have I done!"
And then, "When she first came, I meant to save her from
misery like mine." And then, "Take the pencil and write
under my name, 'I forgive her!'" She never changed the order
of these three sentences, but she sometimes left out a word
in one or other of them; never putting in another word, but
always leaving a blank and going on to the next word.
As I could do no service there, and as I had, nearer
home, that pressing reason for anxiety and fear which even
her wanderings could not drive out of my mind, I decided, in
the course of the night that I would return by the early
morning coach, walking on a mile or so, and being taken up
clear of the town. At about six o'clock of the morning,
therefore, I leaned over her and touched her lips with mine,
just as they said, not stopping for being touched, "Take the
pencil and write under my name, 'I forgive her.'"
Chapter 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 up-stairs clerks came down into the outer
office. Finding such clerk on Wemmick's post that morning, I
knew what was going on; but I was not sorry to have Mr.
Jaggers and Wemmick together, as Wemmick would then hear for
himself that I said nothing to compromise him.
My appearance, with my arm bandaged and my coat loose
over my shoulders, 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 tomorrow night at nine, and to come to the
little sluice-house by the limekiln, you had better come. If
you want information regarding your uncle Provis, you had
much better come and tell no one, and lose no time. You must
come alone. Bring this with you."
I had had load enough upon my mind before the receipt of
this strange letter. What to do now, I could not tell. And
the worst was, that I must decide quickly, or I should miss
the afternoon coach, which would take me down in time for
to-night. To-morrow night I could not think of going, for it
would be too close upon the time of the flight. And again,
for anything I knew, the proffered information might have
some important bearing on the flight itself.
If I had had ample time for consideration, I believe I
should still have gone. Having hardly any time for
consideration,—my watch showing me that the coach started
within half an hour,—I resolved to go. I should certainly
not have gone, but for the reference to my Uncle Provis.
That, coming on Wemmick's letter and the morning's busy
preparation, turned the scale.
It is so difficult to become clearly possessed of the
contents of almost any letter, in a violent hurry, that I
had to read this mysterious epistle again twice, before its
injunction to me to be secret got mechanically into my mind.
Yielding to it in the same mechanical kind of way, I left a
note in pencil for Herbert, telling him that as I should be
so soon going away, I knew not for how long, I had decided
to hurry down and back, to ascertain for myself how Miss
Havisham was faring. I had then barely time to get my
great-coat, lock up the chambers, and make for the
coach-office by the short by-ways. If I had taken a
hackney-chariot and gone by the streets, I should have
missed my aim; going as I did, I caught the coach just as it
came out of the yard. I was the only inside passenger,
jolting away knee-deep in straw, when I came to myself.
For I really had not been myself since the receipt of the
letter; it had so bewildered me, ensuing on the hurry of the
morning. The morning hurry and flutter had been great; for,
long and anxiously as I had waited for Wemmick, his hint had
come like a surprise at last. And now I began to wonder at
myself for being in the coach, and to doubt whether I had
sufficient reason for being there, and to consider whether I
should get out presently and go back, and to argue against
ever heeding an anonymous communication, and, in short, to
pass through all those phases of contradiction and
indecision to which I suppose very few hurried people are
strangers. Still, the reference to Provis by name mastered
everything. I reasoned as I had reasoned already without
knowing it,—if that be reasoning,—in case any harm should
befall him through my not going, how could I ever forgive
myself!
It was dark before we got down, and the journey seemed
long and dreary to me, who could see little of it inside,
and who could not go outside in my disabled state. Avoiding
the Blue Boar, I put up at an inn of minor reputation down
the town, and ordered some dinner. While it was preparing, I
went to Satis House and inquired for Miss Havisham; she was
still very ill, though considered something better.
My inn had once been a part of an ancient ecclesiastical
house, and I dined in a little octagonal common-room, like a
font. As I was not able to cut my dinner, the old landlord
with a shining bald head did it for me. This bringing us
into conversation, he was so good as to entertain me with my
own story,—of course with the popular feature that
Pumblechook was my earliest benefactor and the founder of my
fortunes.
"Do you know the young man?" said I.
"Know him!" repeated the landlord. "Ever since he was—no
height at all."
"Does he ever come back to this 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 Ropewalk, 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 tomorrow, was so besetting, that I wonder it
did not disable me of itself. It would have done so, pretty
surely, in conjunction with the mental wear and tear I had
suffered, but for the unnatural strain upon me that
to-morrow was. So anxiously looked forward to, charged with
such consequences, its results so impenetrably hidden,
though so near.
No precaution could have been more obvious than our
refraining from communication with him that day; yet this
again increased my restlessness. I started at every footstep
and every sound, believing that he was discovered and taken,
and this was the messenger to tell me so. I persuaded myself
that I knew he was taken; that there was something more upon
my mind than a fear or a presentiment; that the fact had
occurred, and I had a mysterious knowledge of it. As the
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 out pea-coats with us, and I
took a bag. Of all my worldly possessions I took no more
than the few necessaries that filled the bag. Where I might
go, what I might do, or when I might return, were questions
utterly unknown to me; nor did I vex my mind with them, for
it was wholly set on Provis's safety. I only wondered for
the passing moment, as I stopped at the door and looked
back, under what altered circumstances I should next see
those rooms, if ever.
We loitered down to the Temple stairs, and stood
loitering there, as if we were not quite decided to go upon
the water at all. Of course, I had taken care that the boat
should be ready and everything in order. After a little show
of indecision, which there were none to see but the two or
three amphibious creatures belonging to our Temple stairs,
we went on board and cast off; Herbert in the bow, I
steering. It was then about high-water,—half-past eight.
Our plan was this. The tide, beginning to run down at
nine, and being with us until three, we intended still to
creep on after it had turned, and row against it until dark.
We should then be well in those long reaches below
Gravesend, between Kent and Essex, where the river is broad
and solitary, where the 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 by
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 up stairs, and refresh himself
with a glass of grog before walking to Walworth. He accepted
the invitation. While he was drinking his moderate
allowance, he said, with nothing to lead up to it, and after
having appeared rather fidgety,—
"What do you think of my meaning to take a holiday on
Monday, Mr. Pip?"
"Why, I suppose you have not done such a thing these
twelve months."
"These twelve years, more likely," said Wemmick. "Yes.
I'm going to take a holiday. More than that; I'm going to
take a walk. More than that; I'm going to ask you to take a
walk with me."
I was about to excuse myself, as being but a bad
companion just 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 and equal and safe resistance. By dint of this
ingenious scheme, his gloves were got on to perfection.
The clerk and clergyman then appearing, we were ranged in
order at those fatal rails. True to his notion of seeming to
do it all without preparation, I heard Wemmick say to
himself, as he took something out of his waistcoat-pocket
before the service began, "Halloa! Here's a ring!"
I acted in the capacity of backer, or best-man, to the
bridegroom; while a little limp pew-opener in a soft bonnet
like a baby's, made a feint of being the bosom friend of
Miss Skiffins. The responsibility of giving the lady away
devolved upon the Aged, which led to the clergyman's being
unintentionally scandalized, and it happened thus. When he
said, "Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?" the
old gentlemen, not in the least knowing what point of the
ceremony we had arrived at, stood most amiably beaming at
the ten commandments. Upon which, the clergyman said again,
"WHO giveth this woman to be married to this man?" The old
gentleman being still in a state of most estimable
unconsciousness, the bridegroom cried out in his accustomed
voice, "Now Aged P. you know; who giveth?" To which the Aged
replied with great briskness, before saying that he gave,
"All right, John, all right, my boy!" And the clergyman came
to so gloomy a pause upon it, that I had doubts for the
moment whether we should get completely married that day.
It was completely done, however, and when we were going
out of church Wemmick took the cover off the font, and put
his white gloves in it, and put the cover on again. Mrs.
Wemmick, more heedful of the future, put her white gloves in
her pocket and assumed her green. "Now, Mr. Pip," said
Wemmick, triumphantly shouldering the fishing-rod as we came
out, "let me ask you whether anybody would suppose this to
be a wedding-party!"
Breakfast had been ordered at a pleasant little tavern, a
mile or so away upon the rising ground beyond the green; and
there was a bagatelle board in the room, in case we should
desire to unbend our minds after the solemnity. It was
pleasant to observe that Mrs. Wemmick no longer unwound
Wemmick's arm when it adapted itself to her figure, but sat
in a high-backed chair against the wall, like a violoncello
in its case, and submitted to be embraced as that melodious
instrument might have done.
We had an excellent breakfast, and when any one declined
anything on table, Wemmick said, "Provided by contract, you
know; don't be afraid of it!" I drank to the new couple,
drank to the Aged, drank to the Castle, saluted the bride at
parting, and made myself as agreeable as I could.
Wemmick came down to the door with me, and I again shook
hands with him, and wished him joy.
"Thankee!" said Wemmick, rubbing his hands. "She's such a
manager of fowls, you have no idea. You shall have some
eggs, and judge for yourself. I say, Mr. Pip!" calling me
back, and speaking low. "This is altogether a Walworth
sentiment, please."
"I understand. Not to be mentioned in Little Britain,"
said I.
Wemmick nodded. "After what you let out the other day,
Mr. Jaggers may as well not know of it. He might think my
brain was softening, or something of the kind."
Chapter 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 down-stroke so
slowly that it might have been six feet long, while at every
up-stroke I could hear his pen spluttering extensively. He
had a curious idea that the inkstand was on the side of him
where it was not, and constantly dipped his pen into space,
and seemed quite satisfied with the result. Occasionally, he
was tripped up by some orthographical stumbling-block; but
on the whole he got on very well indeed; and when he had
signed his name, and had removed a finishing blot from the
paper to the crown of his head with his two forefingers, he
got up and hovered about the table, trying the effect of his
performance from various points of view, as it lay there,
with unbounded satisfaction.
Not to make Joe uneasy by talking too much, even if I had
been able to talk much, I deferred asking him about Miss
Havisham until next day. He shook his head when I then asked
him if she had recovered.
"Is she dead, Joe?"
"Why you see, old chap," said Joe, in a tone of
remonstrance, and by way of getting at it by degrees, "I
wouldn't go so far as to say that, for that's a deal to say;
but she ain't—"
"Living, Joe?"
"That's nigher where it is," said Joe; "she ain't
living."
"Did she linger long, Joe?"
"Arter you was took ill, pretty much about what you might
call (if you was put to it) a week," said Joe; still
determined, on my account, to come at everything by degrees.
"Dear Joe, have you heard what becomes of her property?"
"Well, old chap," said Joe, "it do appear that she had
settled the most of it, which I meantersay tied it up, on
Miss Estella. But she had wrote out a little coddleshell in
her own hand a day or two afore the accident, leaving a cool
four thousand to Mr. Matthew Pocket. And why, do you
suppose, above all things, Pip, she left that cool four
thousand unto him? 'Because of Pip's account of him, the
said Matthew.' I am told by Biddy, that air the writing,"
said Joe, repeating the legal turn as if it did him infinite
good, "'account of him the said Matthew.' And a cool four
thousand, Pip!"
I never discovered from whom Joe derived the conventional
temperature of the four thousand pounds; but it appeared to
make the sum of money more to him, and he had a manifest
relish in insisting on its being cool.
This account gave me great joy, as it perfected the only
good thing I had done. I asked Joe whether he had heard if
any of the other relations had any legacies?
"Miss Sarah," said Joe, "she have twenty-five pound
perannium fur to buy pills, on account of being bilious.
Miss Georgiana, she have twenty pound down. Mrs.—what's the
name of them wild beasts with humps, old chap?"
"Camels?" said I, wondering why he could possibly want to
know.
Joe nodded. "Mrs. Camels," by which I presently
understood he meant Camilla, "she have five pound fur to buy
rushlights to put her in spirits when she wake up in the
night."
The accuracy of these recitals was sufficiently obvious
to me, to give me great confidence in Joe's information.
"And now," said Joe, "you ain't that strong yet, old chap,
that you can take in more nor one additional 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 by!"
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.