Charles Dickens 9 page

I am afraid I was ashamed of the dear good fellow - I know

I was ashamed of him - when I saw that Estella stood at the

back of Miss Havisham’s chair, and that her eyes laughed

mischievously. I took the indentures out of his hand and

gave them to Miss Havisham.

‘You expected,’ said Miss Havisham, as she looked them

over, ‘no premium with the boy?’

‘Joe!’ I remonstrated; for he made no reply at all. ‘Why

don’t you answer—‘

‘Pip,’ returned Joe, cutting me short as if he were hurt,

‘which I meantersay that were not a question requiring a

answer betwixt yourself and me, and which you know the

answer to be full well No. You know it to be No, Pip, and

wherefore should I say it?’

Miss Havisham glanced at him as if she understood what

he really was, better than I had thought possible, seeing

what he was there; and took up a little bag from the table

beside her.

‘Pip has earned a premium here,’ she said, ‘and here it

is. There are five-and-twenty guineas in this bag. Give it to

your master, Pip.’

As if he were absolutely out of his mind with the won-

der awakened in him by her strange figure and the strange

room, Joe, even at this pass, persisted in addressing me.

Great Expectations

‘This is wery liberal on your part, Pip,’ said Joe, ‘and it

is as such received and grateful welcome, though never

looked for, far nor near nor nowheres. And now, old chap,’

said Joe, conveying to me a sensation, first of burning and

then of freezing, for I felt as if that familiar expression were

applied to Miss Havisham; ‘and now, old chap, may we do

our duty! May you and me do our duty, both on us by one

and another, and by them which your liberal present - have

- conweyed - to be - for the satisfaction of mind - of - them

as never—’ here Joe showed that he felt he had fallen into

frightful difficulties, until he triumphantly rescued himself

with the words, ‘and from myself far be it!’ These words had

such a round and convincing sound for him that he said

them twice.

‘Good-bye, Pip!’ said Miss Havisham. ‘Let them out, Es-

tella.’

‘Am I to come again, Miss Havisham?’ I asked.

‘No. Gargery is your master now. Gargery! One word!’

Thus calling him back as I went out of the door, I heard

her say to Joe, in a distinct emphatic voice, ‘The boy has

been a good boy here, and that is his reward. Of course, as

an honest man, you will expect no other and no more.’

How Joe got out of the room, I have never been able to

determine; but, I know that when he did get out he was

steadily proceeding up-stairs instead of coming down, and

was deaf to all remonstrances until I went after him and laid

hold of him. In another minute we were outside the gate,

and it was locked, and Estella was gone.

When we stood in the daylight alone again, Joe backed

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up against a wall, and said to me, ‘Astonishing!’ And there

he remained so long, saying ‘Astonishing’ at intervals, so of-

ten, that I began to think his senses were never coming back.

At length he prolonged his remark into ‘Pip, I do assure you

this is as-TONishing!’ and so, by degrees, became conversa-

tional and able to walk away.

I have reason to think that Joe’s intellects were bright-

ened by the encounter they had passed through, and that

on our way to Pumblechook’s he invented a subtle and deep

design. My reason is to be found in what took place in Mr.

Pumblechook’s parlour: where, on our presenting ourselves,

my sister sat in conference with that detested seedsman.

‘Well?’ cried my sister, addressing us both at once. ‘And

what’s happened to you? I wonder you condescend to come

back to such poor society as this, I am sure I do!’

‘Miss Havisham,’ said Joe, with a fixed look at me, like

an effort of remembrance, ‘made it wery partick’ler that we

should give her - were it compliments or respects, Pip?’

‘Compliments,’ I said.

‘Which that were my own belief,’ answered Joe - ‘her

compliments to Mrs. J. Gargery—‘

‘Much good they’ll do me!’ observed my sister; but rather

gratified too.

‘And wishing,’ pursued Joe, with another fixed look at

me, like another effort of remembrance, ‘that the state of

Miss Havisham’s elth were sitch as would have - allowed,

were it, Pip?’

‘Of her having the pleasure,’ I added.

‘Of ladies’ company,’ said Joe. And drew a long breath.

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‘Well!’ cried my sister, with a mollified glance at Mr.

Pumblechook. ‘She might have had the politeness to send

that message at first, but it’s better late than never. And

what did she give young Rantipole here?’

‘She giv’ him,’ said Joe, ‘nothing.’

Mrs. Joe was going to break out, but Joe went on.

‘What she giv’,’ said Joe, ‘she giv’ to his friends. ‘And by

his friends,’ were her explanation, ‘I mean into the hands

of his sister Mrs. J. Gargery.’ Them were her words; ‘Mrs. J.

Gargery.’ She mayn’t have know’d,’ added Joe, with an ap-

pearance of reflection, ‘whether it were Joe, or Jorge.’

My sister looked at Pumblechook: who smoothed the el-

bows of his wooden armchair, and nodded at her and at the

fire, as if he had known all about it beforehand.

‘And how much have you got?’ asked my sister, laughing.

Positively, laughing!

‘What would present company say to ten pound?’ de-

manded Joe.

‘They’d say,’ returned my sister, curtly, ‘pretty well. Not

too much, but pretty well.’

‘It’s more than that, then,’ said Joe.

That fearful Impostor, Pumblechook, immediately nod-

ded, and said, as he rubbed the arms of his chair: ‘It’s more

than that, Mum.’

‘Why, you don’t mean to say—’ began my sister.

‘Yes I do, Mum,’ said Pumblechook; ‘but wait a bit. Go on,

Joseph. Good in you! Go on!’

‘What would present company say,’ proceeded Joe, ‘to

twenty pound?’

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‘Handsome would be the word,’ returned my sister.

‘Well, then,’ said Joe, ‘It’s more than twenty pound.’

That abject hypocrite, Pumblechook, nodded again, and

said, with a patronizing laugh, ‘It’s more than that, Mum.

Good again! Follow her up, Joseph!’

‘Then to make an end of it,’ said Joe, delightedly handing

the bag to my sister; ‘it’s five-and-twenty pound.’

‘It’s five-and-twenty pound, Mum,’ echoed that basest of

swindlers, Pumblechook, rising to shake hands with her;

‘and it’s no more than your merits (as I said when my opin-

ion was asked), and I wish you joy of the money!’

If the villain had stopped here, his case would have been

sufficiently awful, but he blackened his guilt by proceeding

to take me into custody, with a right of patronage that left

all his former criminality far behind.

‘Now you see, Joseph and wife,’ said Pumblechook, as he

took me by the arm above the elbow, ‘I am one of them that

always go right through with what they’ve begun. This boy

must be bound, out of hand. That’s my way. Bound out of

hand.’

‘Goodness knows, Uncle Pumblechook,’ said my sister

(grasping the money), ‘we’re deeply beholden to you.’

‘Never mind me, Mum, returned that diabolical corn-

chandler. ‘A pleasure’s a pleasure, all the world over. But

this boy, you know; we must have him bound. I said I’d see

to it - to tell you the truth.’

The Justices were sitting in the Town Hall near at hand,

and we at once went over to have me bound apprentice to

Joe in the Magisterial presence. I say, we went over, but I

Great Expectations

was pushed over by Pumblechook, exactly as if I had that

moment picked a pocket or fired a rick; indeed, it was the

general impression in Court that I had been taken red-hand-

ed, for, as Pumblechook shoved me before him through the

crowd, I heard some people say, ‘What’s he done?’ and oth-

ers, ‘He’s a young ‘un, too, but looks bad, don’t he? One

person of mild and benevolent aspect even gave me a tract

ornamented with a woodcut of a malevolent young man fit-

ted up with a perfect sausage-shop of fetters, and entitled,

TO BE READ IN MY CELL.

The Hall was a queer place, I thought, with higher pews

in it than a church - and with people hanging over the pews

looking on - and with mighty Justices (one with a powdered

head) leaning back in chairs, with folded arms, or taking

snuff, or going to sleep, or writing, or reading the newspa-

pers - and with some shining black portraits on the walls,

which my unartistic eye regarded as a composition of hard-

bake and sticking-plaister. Here, in a corner, my indentures

were duly signed and attested, and I was ‘bound;’ Mr. Pum-

blechook holding me all the while as if we had looked in on

our way to the scaffold, to have those little preliminaries

disposed of.

When we had come out again, and had got rid of the

boys who had been put into great spirits by the expectation

of seeing me publicly tortured, and who were much disap-

pointed to find that my friends were merely rallying round

me, we went back to Pumblechook’s. And there my sister

became so excited by the twenty-five guineas, that nothing

would serve her but we must have a dinner out of that wind-

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fall, at the Blue Boar, and that Pumblechook must go over in

his chaise-cart, and bring the Hubbles and Mr. Wopsle.

It was agreed to be done; and a most melancholy day I

passed. For, it inscrutably appeared to stand to reason, in

the minds of the whole company, that I was an excrescence

on the entertainment. And to make it worse, they all asked

me from time to time - in short, whenever they had noth-

ing else to do - why I didn’t enjoy myself. And what could

I possibly do then, but say I was enjoying myself - when I

wasn’t?

However, they were grown up and had their own way,

and they made the most of it. That swindling Pumblechook,

exalted into the beneficent contriver of the whole occasion,

actually took the top of the table; and, when he addressed

them on the subject of my being bound, and had fiendish-

ly congratulated them on my being liable to imprisonment

if I played at cards, drank strong liquors, kept late hours

or bad company, or indulged in other vagaries which the

form of my indentures appeared to contemplate as next to

inevitable, he placed me standing on a chair beside him, to

illustrate his remarks.

My only other remembrances of the great festival are,

That they wouldn’t let me go to sleep, but whenever they

saw me dropping off, woke me up and told me to enjoy my-

self. That, rather late in the evening Mr. Wopsle gave us

Collins’s ode, and threw his bloodstain’d sword in thunder

down, with such effect, that a waiter came in and said, ‘The

Commercials underneath sent up their compliments, and

it wasn’t the Tumblers’ Arms.’ That, they were all in excel-

Great Expectations

lent spirits on the road home, and sang O Lady Fair! Mr.

Wopsle taking the bass, and asserting with a tremendously

strong voice (in reply to the inquisitive bore who leads that

piece of music in a most impertinent manner, by wanting to

know all about everybody’s private affairs) that he was the

man with his white locks flowing, and that he was upon the

whole the weakest pilgrim going.

Finally, I remember that when I got into my little bed-

room I was truly wretched, and had a strong conviction on

me that I should never like Joe’s trade. I had liked it once,

but once was not now.

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Chapter 14

It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home. There

may be black ingratitude in the thing, and the punish-

ment may be retributive and well deserved; but, that it is a

miserable thing, I can testify.

Home had never been a very pleasant place to me, be-

cause of my sister’s temper. But, Joe had sanctified it, and

I had believed in it. I had believed in the best parlour as

a most elegant saloon; I had believed in the front door, as

a mysterious portal of the Temple of State whose solemn

opening was attended with a sacrifice of roast fowls; I had

believed in the kitchen as a chaste though not magnificent

apartment; I had believed in the forge as the glowing road

to manhood and independence. Within a single year, all

this was changed. Now, it was all coarse and common, and

I would not have had Miss Havisham and Estella see it on

any account.

How much of my ungracious condition of mind may

have been my own fault, how much Miss Havisham’s, how

much my sister’s, is now of no moment to me or to any one.

The change was made in me; the thing was done. Well or ill

done, excusably or inexcusably, it was done.

Once, it had seemed to me that when I should at last roll

up my shirt-sleeves and go into the forge, Joe’s ‘prentice, I

should be distinguished and happy. Now the reality was in

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my hold, I only felt that I was dusty with the dust of small

coal, and that I had a weight upon my daily remembrance

to which the anvil was a feather. There have been occasions

in my later life (I suppose as in most lives) when I have felt

for a time as if a thick curtain had fallen on all its interest

and romance, to shut me out from anything save dull en-

durance any more. Never has that curtain dropped so heavy

and blank, as when my way in life lay stretched out straight

before me through the newly-entered road of apprentice-

ship to Joe.

I remember that at a later period of my ‘time,’ I used to

stand about the churchyard on Sunday evenings when night

was falling, comparing my own perspective with the windy

marsh view, and making out some likeness between them

by thinking how flat and low both were, and how on both

there came an unknown way and a dark mist and then the

sea. I was quite as dejected on the first working-day of my

apprenticeship as in that after-time; but I am glad to know

that I never breathed a murmur to Joe while my indentures

lasted. It is about the only thing I am glad to know of myself

in that connection.

For, though it includes what I proceed to add, all the

merit of what I proceed to add was Joe’s. It was not because

I was faithful, but because Joe was faithful, that I never ran

away and went for a soldier or a sailor. It was not because I

had a strong sense of the virtue of industry, but because Joe

had a strong sense of the virtue of industry, that I worked

with tolerable zeal against the grain. It is not possible to

know how far the influence of any amiable honest-hearted

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duty-doing man flies out into the world; but it is very pos-

sible to know how it has touched one’s self in going by, and

I know right well, that any good that intermixed itself with

my apprenticeship came of plain contented Joe, and not of

restlessly aspiring discontented me.

What I wanted, who can say? How can I say, when I never

knew? What I dreaded was, that in some unlucky hour I, be-

ing at my grimiest and commonest, should lift up my eyes

and see Estella looking in at one of the wooden windows of

the forge. I was haunted by the fear that she would, sooner

or later, find me out, with a black face and hands, doing

the coarsest part of my work, and would exult over me and

despise me. Often after dark, when I was pulling the bel-

lows for Joe, and we were singing Old Clem, and when the

thought how we used to sing it at Miss Havisham’s would

seem to show me Estella’s face in the fire, with her pretty

hair fluttering in the wind and her eyes scorning me, - often

at such a time I would look towards those panels of black

night in the wall which the wooden windows then were,

and would fancy that I saw her just drawing her face away,

and would believe that she had come at last.

After that, when we went in to supper, the place and the

meal would have a more homely look than ever, and I would

feel more ashamed of home than ever, in my own ungra-

cious breast.

Great Expectations

Chapter 15

As I was getting too big for Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt’s

room, my education under that preposterous female

terminated. Not, however, until Biddy had imparted to me

everything she knew, from the little catalogue of prices, to a

comic song she had once bought for a halfpenny. Although

the only coherent part of the latter piece of literature were

the opening lines,

When I went to Lunnon town sirs, Too rul loo rul Too

rul loo rul Wasn’t I done very brown sirs? Too rul loo rul

Too rul loo rul

- still, in my desire to be wiser, I got this composition

by heart with the utmost gravity; nor do I recollect that I

questioned its merit, except that I thought (as I still do) the

amount of Too rul somewhat in excess of the poetry. In my

hunger for information, I made proposals to Mr. Wopsle

to bestow some intellectual crumbs upon me; with which

he kindly complied. As it turned out, however, that he

only wanted me for a dramatic lay-figure, to be contradict-

ed and embraced and wept over and bullied and clutched

and stabbed and knocked about in a variety of ways, I soon

declined that course of instruction; though not until Mr.

Wopsle in his poetic fury had severely mauled me.

Whatever I acquired, I tried to impart to Joe. This state-

ment sounds so well, that I cannot in my conscience let it

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pass unexplained. I wanted to make Joe less ignorant and

common, that he might be worthier of my society and less

open to Estella’s reproach.

The old Battery out on the marshes was our place of study,

and a broken slate and a short piece of slate pencil were our

educational implements: to which Joe always added a pipe

of tobacco. I never knew Joe to remember anything from

one Sunday to another, or to acquire, under my tuition, any

piece of information whatever. Yet he would smoke his pipe

at the Battery with a far more sagacious air than anywhere

else - even with a learned air - as if he considered himself to

be advancing immensely. Dear fellow, I hope he did.

It was pleasant and quiet, out there with the sails on the

river passing beyond the earthwork, and sometimes, when

the tide was low, looking as if they belonged to sunken ships

that were still sailing on at the bottom of the water. When-

ever I watched the vessels standing out to sea with their

white sails spread, I somehow thought of Miss Havisham

and Estella; and whenever the light struck aslant, afar off,

upon a cloud or sail or green hill-side or water-line, it was

just the same. - Miss Havisham and Estella and the strange

house and the strange life appeared to have something to do

with everything that was picturesque.

One Sunday when Joe, greatly enjoying his pipe, had so

plumed himself on being ‘most awful dull,’ that I had given

him up for the day, I lay on the earthwork for some time

with my chin on my hand, descrying traces of Miss Hav-

isham and Estella all over the prospect, in the sky and in the

water, until at last I resolved to mention a thought concern-

Great Expectations

ing them that had been much in my head.

‘Joe,’ said I; ‘don’t you think I ought to make Miss Hav-

isham a visit?’

‘Well, Pip,’ returned Joe, slowly considering. ‘What for?’

‘What for, Joe? What is any visit made for?’

‘There is some wisits, p’r’aps,’ said Joe, ‘as for ever re-

mains open to the question, Pip. But in regard to wisiting

Miss Havisham. She might think you wanted something -

expected something of her.’

‘Don’t you think I might say that I did not, Joe?’

‘You might, old chap,’ said Joe. ‘And she might credit it.

Similarly she mightn’t.’

Joe felt, as I did, that he had made a point there, and he

pulled hard at his pipe to keep himself from weakening it

by repetition.

‘You see, Pip,’ Joe pursued, as soon as he was past that

danger, ‘Miss Havisham done the handsome thing by you.

When Miss Havisham done the handsome thing by you,

she called me back to say to me as that were all.’

‘Yes, Joe. I heard her.’

‘ALL,’ Joe repeated, very emphatically.

‘Yes, Joe. I tell you, I heard her.’

‘Which I meantersay, Pip, it might be that her meaning

were - Make a end on it! - As you was! - Me to the North,

and you to the South! - Keep in sunders!’

I had thought of that too, and it was very far from com-

forting to me to find that he had thought of it; for it seemed

to render it more probable.

‘But, Joe.’

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‘Yes, old chap.’

‘Here am I, getting on in the first year of my time, and,

since the day of my being bound, I have never thanked

Miss Havisham, or asked after her, or shown that I remem-

ber her.’

‘That’s true, Pip; and unless you was to turn her out a set

of shoes all four round - and which I meantersay as even a

set of shoes all four round might not be acceptable as a pres-

ent, in a total wacancy of hoofs—‘

‘I don’t mean that sort of remembrance, Joe; I don’t mean

a present.’

But Joe had got the idea of a present in his head and must

harp upon it. ‘Or even,’ said he, ‘if you was helped to knock-

ing her up a new chain for the front door - or say a gross or

two of shark-headed screws for general use - or some light

fancy article, such as a toasting-fork when she took her muf-

fins - or a gridiron when she took a sprat or such like—‘

‘I don’t mean any present at all, Joe,’ I interposed.

‘Well,’ said Joe, still harping on it as though I had par-

ticularly pressed it, ‘if I was yourself, Pip, I wouldn’t. No, I

would not. For what’s a door-chain when she’s got one al-

ways up? And shark-headers is open to misrepresentations.

And if it was a toasting-fork, you’d go into brass and do

yourself no credit. And the oncommonest workman can’t

show himself oncommon in a gridiron - for a gridiron IS

a gridiron,’ said Joe, steadfastly impressing it upon me, as

if he were endeavouring to rouse me from a fixed delusion,

‘and you may haim at what you like, but a gridiron it will

come out, either by your leave or again your leave, and you

Great Expectations

can’t help yourself—‘

‘My dear Joe,’ I cried, in desperation, taking hold of his

coat, ‘don’t go on in that way. I never thought of making

Miss Havisham any present.’

‘No, Pip,’ Joe assented, as if he had been contending for

that, all along; ‘and what I say to you is, you are right, Pip.’

‘Yes, Joe; but what I wanted to say, was, that as we are

rather slack just now, if you would give me a half-holiday

to-morrow, I think I would go up-town and make a call on

Miss Est - Havisham.’

‘Which her name,’ said Joe, gravely, ‘ain’t Estavisham,

Pip, unless she have been rechris’ened.’

‘I know, Joe, I know. It was a slip of mine. What do you

think of it, Joe?’

In brief, Joe thought that if I thought well of it, he thought

well of it. But, he was particular in stipulating that if I were

not received with cordiality, or if I were not encouraged to

repeat my visit as a visit which had no ulterior object but

was simply one of gratitude for a favour received, then this

experimental trip should have no successor. By these condi-

tions I promised to abide.

Now, Joe kept a journeyman at weekly wages whose

name was Orlick. He pretended that his Christian name

was Dolge - a clear impossibility - but he was a fellow of

that obstinate disposition that I believe him to have been

the prey of no delusion in this particular, but wilfully to

have imposed that name upon the village as an affront to

its understanding. He was a broadshouldered loose-limbed

swarthy fellow of great strength, never in a hurry, and al-

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ways slouching. He never even seemed to come to his work

on purpose, but would slouch in as if by mere accident; and

when he went to the Jolly Bargemen to eat his dinner, or

went away at night, he would slouch out, like Cain or the

Wandering Jew, as if he had no idea where he was going

and no intention of ever coming back. He lodged at a sluice-

keeper’s out on the marshes, and on working days would

come slouching from his hermitage, with his hands in his

pockets and his dinner loosely tied in a bundle round his

neck and dangling on his back. On Sundays he mostly lay

all day on the sluice-gates, or stood against ricks and barns.

He always slouched, locomotively, with his eyes on the

ground; and, when accosted or otherwise required to raise

them, he looked up in a half resentful, half puzzled way, as

though the only thought he ever had, was, that it was rather

an odd and injurious fact that he should never be thinking.

This morose journeyman had no liking for me. When I

was very small and timid, he gave me to understand that

the Devil lived in a black corner of the forge, and that he

knew the fiend very well: also that it was necessary to make

up the fire, once in seven years, with a live boy, and that

I might consider myself fuel. When I became Joe’s ‘pren-

tice, Orlick was perhaps confirmed in some suspicion that

I should displace him; howbeit, he liked me still less. Not

that he ever said anything, or did anything, openly import-

ing hostility; I only noticed that he always beat his sparks in

my direction, and that whenever I sang Old Clem, he came

in out of time.

Dolge Orlick was at work and present, next day, when

Great Expectations

I reminded Joe of my half-holiday. He said nothing at the

moment, for he and Joe had just got a piece of hot iron be-

tween them, and I was at the bellows; but by-and-by he said,

leaning on his hammer:

‘Now, master! Sure you’re not a-going to favour only one

of us. If Young Pip has a half-holiday, do as much for Old

Orlick.’ I suppose he was about five-and-twenty, but he usu-

ally spoke of himself as an ancient person.

‘Why, what’ll you do with a half-holiday, if you get it?’

said Joe.

‘What’ll I do with it! What’ll he do with it? I’ll do as much

with it as him,’ said Orlick.

‘As to Pip, he’s going up-town,’ said Joe.

‘Well then, as to Old Orlick, he’s a-going up-town,’ re-

torted that worthy. ‘Two can go up-town. Tan’t only one wot

can go up-town.

‘Don’t lose your temper,’ said Joe.

‘Shall if I like,’ growled Orlick. ‘Some and their up-town-

ing! Now, master! Come. No favouring in this shop. Be a

man!’

The master refusing to entertain the subject until the

journeyman was in a better temper, Orlick plunged at the

furnace, drew out a red-hot bar, made at me with it as if he

were going to run it through my body, whisked it round my

head, laid it on the anvil, hammered it out - as if it were I, I

thought, and the sparks were my spirting blood - and finally

said, when he had hammered himself hot and the iron cold,

and he again leaned on his hammer:

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