Charles Dickens 11 page She managed our whole domestic life, and wonderfully
too; but I did not mean that, though that made what I did
mean, more surprising.
‘How do you manage, Biddy,’ said I, ‘to learn everything
that I learn, and always to keep up with me?’ I was beginning
to be rather vain of my knowledge, for I spent my birthday
guineas on it, and set aside the greater part of my pocket-
money for similar investment; though I have no doubt, now,
that the little I knew was extremely dear at the price.
‘I might as well ask you,’ said Biddy, ‘how you manage?’
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‘No; because when I come in from the forge of a night,
any one can see me turning to at it. But you never turn to
at it, Biddy.’
‘I suppose I must catch it - like a cough,’ said Biddy, qui-
etly; and went on with her sewing.
Pursuing my idea as I leaned back in my wooden chair
and looked at Biddy sewing away with her head on one
side, I began to think her rather an extraordinary girl. For,
I called to mind now, that she was equally accomplished in
the terms of our trade, and the names of our different sorts
of work, and our various tools. In short, whatever I knew,
Biddy knew. Theoretically, she was already as good a black-
smith as I, or better.
‘You are one of those, Biddy,’ said I, ‘who make the most
of every chance. You never had a chance before you came
here, and see how improved you are!’
Biddy looked at me for an instant, and went on with her
sewing. ‘I was your first teacher though; wasn’t I?’ said she,
as she sewed.
‘Biddy!’ I exclaimed, in amazement. ‘Why, you are cry-
ing!’
‘No I am not,’ said Biddy, looking up and laughing. ‘What
put that in your head?’
What could have put it in my head, but the glistening of a
tear as it dropped on her work? I sat silent, recalling what a
drudge she had been until Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt success-
fully overcame that bad habit of living, so highly desirable
to be got rid of by some people. I recalled the hopeless
circumstances by which she had been surrounded in the
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miserable little shop and the miserable little noisy evening
school, with that miserable old bundle of incompetence al-
ways to be dragged and shouldered. I reflected that even in
those untoward times there must have been latent in Biddy
what was now developing, for, in my first uneasiness and
discontent I had turned to her for help, as a matter of course.
Biddy sat quietly sewing, shedding no more tears, and while
I looked at her and thought about it all, it occurred to me
that perhaps I had not been sufficiently grateful to Biddy.
I might have been too reserved, and should have patron-
ized her more (though I did not use that precise word in my
meditations), with my confidence.
‘Yes, Biddy,’ I observed, when I had done turning it over,
‘you were my first teacher, and that at a time when we little
thought of ever being together like this, in this kitchen.’
‘Ah, poor thing!’ replied Biddy. It was like her self-for-
getfulness, to transfer the remark to my sister, and to get
up and be busy about her, making her more comfortable;
‘that’s sadly true!’
‘Well!’ said I, ‘we must talk together a little more, as we
used to do. And I must consult you a little more, as I used
to do. Let us have a quiet walk on the marshes next Sunday,
Biddy, and a long chat.’
My sister was never left alone now; but Joe more than
readily undertook the care of her on that Sunday afternoon,
and Biddy and I went out together. It was summer-time,
and lovely weather. When we had passed the village and
the church and the churchyard, and were out on the marsh-
es and began to see the sails of the ships as they sailed on,
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I began to combine Miss Havisham and Estella with the
prospect, in my usual way. When we came to the river-side
and sat down on the bank, with the water rippling at our
feet, making it all more quiet than it would have been with-
out that sound, I resolved that it was a good time and place
for the admission of Biddy into my inner confidence.
‘Biddy,’ said I, after binding her to secrecy, ‘I want to be
a gentleman.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t, if I was you!’ she returned. ‘I don’t think
it would answer.’
‘Biddy,’ said I, with some severity, ‘I have particular rea-
sons for wanting to be a gentleman.’
‘You know best, Pip; but don’t you think you are happier
as you are?’
‘Biddy,’ I exclaimed, impatiently, ‘I am not at all happy
as I am. I am disgusted with my calling and with my life. I
have never taken to either, since I was bound. Don’t be ab-
surd.’
‘Was I absurd?’ said Biddy, quietly raising her eyebrows;
‘I am sorry for that; I didn’t mean to be. I only want you to
do well, and to be comfortable.’
‘Well then, understand once for all that I never shall or
can be comfortable - or anything but miserable - there, Bid-
dy! - unless I can lead a very different sort of life from the
life I lead now.’
‘That’s a pity!’ said Biddy, shaking her head with a sor-
rowful air.
Now, I too had so often thought it a pity, that, in the
singular kind of quarrel with myself which I was always
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carrying on, I was half inclined to shed tears of vexation
and distress when Biddy gave utterance to her sentiment
and my own. I told her she was right, and I knew it was
much to be regretted, but still it was not to be helped.
‘If I could have settled down,’ I said to Biddy, plucking
up the short grass within reach, much as I had once upon a
time pulled my feelings out of my hair and kicked them into
the brewery wall: ‘if I could have settled down and been but
half as fond of the forge as I was when I was little, I know
it would have been much better for me. You and I and Joe
would have wanted nothing then, and Joe and I would per-
haps have gone partners when I was out of my time, and I
might even have grown up to keep company with you, and
we might have sat on this very bank on a fine Sunday, quite
different people. I should have been good enough for you;
shouldn’t I, Biddy?’
Biddy sighed as she looked at the ships sailing on, and re-
turned for answer, ‘Yes; I am not over-particular.’ It scarcely
sounded flattering, but I knew she meant well.
‘Instead of that,’ said I, plucking up more grass and chew-
ing a blade or two, ‘see how I am going on. Dissatisfied, and
uncomfortable, and - what would it signify to me, being
coarse and common, if nobody had told me so!’
Biddy turned her face suddenly towards mine, and
looked far more attentively at me than she had looked at the
sailing ships.
‘It was neither a very true nor a very polite thing to say,’
she remarked, directing her eyes to the ships again. ‘Who
said it?’
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I was disconcerted, for I had broken away without quite
seeing where I was going to. It was not to be shuffled off now,
however, and I answered, ‘The beautiful young lady at Miss
Havisham’s, and she’s more beautiful than anybody ever
was, and I admire her dreadfully, and I want to be a gentle-
man on her account.’ Having made this lunatic confession,
I began to throw my torn-up grass into the river, as if I had
some thoughts of following it.
‘Do you want to be a gentleman, to spite her or to gain her
over?’ Biddy quietly asked me, after a pause.
‘I don’t know,’ I moodily answered.
‘Because, if it is to spite her,’ Biddy pursued, ‘I should
think - but you know best - that might be better and more
independently done by caring nothing for her words. And
if it is to gain her over, I should think - but you know best
- she was not worth gaining over.’
Exactly what I myself had thought, many times. Exactly
what was perfectly manifest to me at the moment. But how
could I, a poor dazed village lad, avoid that wonderful in-
consistency into which the best and wisest of men fall every
day?
‘It may be all quite true,’ said I to Biddy, ‘but I admire her
dreadfully.’
In short, I turned over on my face when I came to that,
and got a good grasp on the hair on each side of my head,
and wrenched it well. All the while knowing the madness of
my heart to be so very mad and misplaced, that I was quite
conscious it would have served my face right, if I had lifted
it up by my hair, and knocked it against the pebbles as a
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punishment for belonging to such an idiot.
Biddy was the wisest of girls, and she tried to reason no
more with me. She put her hand, which was a comfortable
hand though roughened by work, upon my hands, one af-
ter another, and gently took them out of my hair. Then she
softly patted my shoulder in a soothing way, while with my
face upon my sleeve I cried a little - exactly as I had done
in the brewery yard - and felt vaguely convinced that I was
very much ill-used by somebody, or by everybody; I can’t
say which.
‘I am glad of one thing,’ said Biddy, ‘and that is, that you
have felt you could give me your confidence, Pip. And I am
glad of another thing, and that is, that of course you know
you may depend upon my keeping it and always so far de-
serving it. If your first teacher (dear! such a poor one, and
so much in need of being taught herself!) had been your
teacher at the present time, she thinks she knows what les-
son she would set. But It would be a hard one to learn, and
you have got beyond her, and it’s of no use now.’ So, with a
quiet sigh for me, Biddy rose from the bank, and said, with
a fresh and pleasant change of voice, ‘Shall we walk a little
further, or go home?’
‘Biddy,’ I cried, getting up, putting my arm round her
neck, and giving her a kiss, ‘I shall always tell you every-
thing.’
‘Till you’re a gentleman,’ said Biddy.
‘You know I never shall be, so that’s always. Not that I
have any occasion to tell you anything, for you know every-
thing I know - as I told you at home the other night.’
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‘Ah!’ said Biddy, quite in a whisper, as she looked away
at the ships. And then repeated, with her former pleasant
change; ‘shall we walk a little further, or go home?’
I said to Biddy we would walk a little further, and we did
so, and the summer afternoon toned down into the sum-
mer evening, and it was very beautiful. I began to consider
whether I was not more naturally and wholesomely situ-
ated, after all, in these circumstances, than playing beggar
my neighbour by candlelight in the room with the stopped
clocks, and being despised by Estella. I thought it would be
very good for me if I could get her out of my head, with all
the rest of those remembrances and fancies, and could go to
work determined to relish what I had to do, and stick to it,
and make the best of it. I asked myself the question whether
I did not surely know that if Estella were beside me at that
moment instead of Biddy, she would make me miserable? I
was obliged to admit that I did know it for a certainty, and I
said to myself, ‘Pip, what a fool you are!’
We talked a good deal as we walked, and all that Biddy
said seemed right. Biddy was never insulting, or capricious,
or Biddy to-day and somebody else to-morrow; she would
have derived only pain, and no pleasure, from giving me
pain; she would far rather have wounded her own breast
than mine. How could it be, then, that I did not like her
much the better of the two?
‘Biddy,’ said I, when we were walking homeward, ‘I wish
you could put me right.’
‘I wish I could!’ said Biddy.
‘If I could only get myself to fall in love with you - you
Great Expectations
don’t mind my speaking so openly to such an old acquain-
tance?’
‘Oh dear, not at all!’ said Biddy. ‘Don’t mind me.’
‘If I could only get myself to do it, that would be the thing
for me.’
‘But you never will, you see,’ said Biddy.
It did not appear quite so unlikely to me that evening, as
it would have done if we had discussed it a few hours be-
fore. I therefore observed I was not quite sure of that. But
Biddy said she was, and she said it decisively. In my heart I
believed her to be right; and yet I took it rather ill, too, that
she should be so positive on the point.
When we came near the churchyard, we had to cross an
embankment, and get over a stile near a sluice gate. There
started up, from the gate, or from the rushes, or from the
ooze (which was quite in his stagnant way), Old Orlick.
‘Halloa!’ he growled, ‘where are you two going?’
‘Where should we be going, but home?’
‘Well then,’ said he, ‘I’m jiggered if I don’t see you home!’
This penalty of being jiggered was a favourite suppositi-
tious case of his. He attached no definite meaning to the
word that I am aware of, but used it, like his own pretended
Christian name, to affront mankind, and convey an idea of
something savagely damaging. When I was younger, I had
had a general belief that if he had jiggered me personally, he
would have done it with a sharp and twisted hook.
Biddy was much against his going with us, and said to
me in a whisper, ‘Don’t let him come; I don’t like him.’ As
I did not like him either, I took the liberty of saying that
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we thanked him, but we didn’t want seeing home. He re-
ceived that piece of information with a yell of laughter, and
dropped back, but came slouching after us at a little dis-
tance.
Curious to know whether Biddy suspected him of hav-
ing had a hand in that murderous attack of which my sister
had never been able to give any account, I asked her why she
did not like him.
‘Oh!’ she replied, glancing over her shoulder as he
slouched after us, ‘because I - I am afraid he likes me.’
‘Did he ever tell you he liked you?’ I asked, indignantly.
‘No,’ said Biddy, glancing over her shoulder again, ‘he
never told me so; but he dances at me, whenever he can
catch my eye.’
However novel and peculiar this testimony of attach-
ment, I did not doubt the accuracy of the interpretation. I
was very hot indeed upon Old Orlick’s daring to admire
her; as hot as if it were an outrage on myself.
‘But it makes no difference to you, you know,’ said Biddy,
calmly.
‘No, Biddy, it makes no difference to me; only I don’t like
it; I don’t approve of it.’
‘Nor I neither,’ said Biddy. ‘Though that makes no differ-
ence to you.’
‘Exactly,’ said I; ‘but I must tell you I should have no
opinion of you, Biddy, if he danced at you with your own
consent.’
I kept an eye on Orlick after that night, and, whenever
circumstances were favourable to his dancing at Biddy, got
Great Expectations
before him, to obscure that demonstration. He had struck
root in Joe’s establishment, by reason of my sister’s sudden
fancy for him, or I should have tried to get him dismissed.
He quite understood and reciprocated my good intentions,
as I had reason to know thereafter.
And now, because my mind was not confused enough
before, I complicated its confusion fifty thousand-fold, by
having states and seasons when I was clear that Biddy was
immeasurably better than Estella, and that the plain hon-
est working life to which I was born, had nothing in it to be
ashamed of, but offered me sufficient means of self-respect
and happiness. At those times, I would decide conclusively
that my disaffection to dear old Joe and the forge, was gone,
and that I was growing up in a fair way to be partners with
Joe and to keep company with Biddy - when all in a moment
some confounding remembrance of the Havisham days
would fall upon me, like a destructive missile, and scatter
my wits again. Scattered wits take a long time picking up;
and often, before I had got them well together, they would
be dispersed in all directions by one stray thought, that per-
haps after all Miss Havisham was going to make my fortune
when my time was out.
If my time had run out, it would have left me still at the
height of my perplexities, I dare say. It never did run out,
however, but was brought to a premature end, as I proceed
to relate.
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Chapter 18
It was in the fourth year of my apprenticeship to Joe, and it
was a Saturday night. There was a group assembled round
the fire at the Three Jolly Bargemen, attentive to Mr. Wopsle
as he read the newspaper aloud. Of that group I was one.
A highly popular murder had been committed, and Mr.
Wopsle was imbrued in blood to the eyebrows. He gloated
over every abhorrent adjective in the description, and iden-
tified himself with every witness at the Inquest. He faintly
moaned, ‘I am done for,’ as the victim, and he barbarously
bellowed, ‘I’ll serve you out,’ as the murderer. He gave the
medical testimony, in pointed imitation of our local practi-
tioner; and he piped and shook, as the aged turnpike-keeper
who had heard blows, to an extent so very paralytic as to
suggest a doubt regarding the mental competency of that
witness. The coroner, in Mr. Wopsle’s hands, became Timon
of Athens; the beadle, Coriolanus. He enjoyed himself thor-
oughly, and we all enjoyed ourselves, and were delightfully
comfortable. In this cozy state of mind we came to the ver-
dict Wilful Murder.
Then, and not sooner, I became aware of a strange gentle-
man leaning over the back of the settle opposite me, looking
on. There was an expression of contempt on his face, and
he bit the side of a great forefinger as he watched the group
of faces.
Great Expectations
‘Well!’ said the stranger to Mr. Wopsle, when the reading
was done, ‘you have settled it all to your own satisfaction, I
have no doubt?’
Everybody started and looked up, as if it were the mur-
derer. He looked at everybody coldly and sarcastically.
‘Guilty, of course?’ said he. ‘Out with it. Come!’
‘Sir,’ returned Mr. Wopsle, ‘without having the honour of
your acquaintance, I do say Guilty.’ Upon this, we all took
courage to unite in a confirmatory murmur.
‘I know you do,’ said the stranger; ‘I knew you would. I
told you so. But now I’ll ask you a question. Do you know,
or do you not know, that the law of England supposes ev-
ery man to be innocent, until he is proved - proved - to be
guilty?’
‘Sir,’ Mr. Wopsle began to reply, ‘as an Englishman my-
self, I—‘
‘Come!’ said the stranger, biting his forefinger at him.
‘Don’t evade the question. Either you know it, or you don’t
know it. Which is it to be?’
He stood with his head on one side and himself on one
side, in a bullying interrogative manner, and he threw his
forefinger at Mr. Wopsle - as it were to mark him out - be-
fore biting it again.
‘Now!’ said he. ‘Do you know it, or don’t you know it?’
‘Certainly I know it,’ replied Mr. Wopsle.
‘Certainly you know it. Then why didn’t you say so at first?
Now, I’ll ask you another question;’ taking possession of Mr.
Wopsle, as if he had a right to him. ‘Do you know that none
of these witnesses have yet been cross-examined?’
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Mr. Wopsle was beginning, ‘I can only say—’ when the
stranger stopped him.
‘What? You won’t answer the question, yes or no? Now,
I’ll try you again.’ Throwing his finger at him again. ‘At-
tend to me. Are you aware, or are you not aware, that none
of these witnesses have yet been cross-examined? Come, I
only want one word from you. Yes, or no?’
Mr. Wopsle hesitated, and we all began to conceive rath-
er a poor opinion of him.
‘Come!’ said the stranger, ‘I’ll help you. You don’t deserve
help, but I’ll help you. Look at that paper you hold in your
hand. What is it?’
‘What is it?’ repeated Mr. Wopsle, eyeing it, much at a
loss.
‘Is it,’ pursued the stranger in his most sarcastic and
suspicious manner, ‘the printed paper you have just been
reading from?’
‘Undoubtedly.’
‘Undoubtedly. Now, turn to that paper, and tell me
whether it distinctly states that the prisoner expressly said
that his legal advisers instructed him altogether to reserve
his defence?’
‘I read that just now,’ Mr. Wopsle pleaded.
‘Never mind what you read just now, sir; I don’t ask you
what you read just now. You may read the Lord’s Prayer
backwards, if you like - and, perhaps, have done it before to-
day. Turn to the paper. No, no, no my friend; not to the top
of the column; you know better than that; to the bottom, to
the bottom.’ (We all began to think Mr. Wopsle full of sub-
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terfuge.) ‘Well? Have you found it?’
‘Here it is,’ said Mr. Wopsle.
‘Now, follow that passage with your eye, and tell me
whether it distinctly states that the prisoner expressly said
that he was instructed by his legal advisers wholly to re-
serve his defence? Come! Do you make that of it?’
Mr. Wopsle answered, ‘Those are not the exact words.’
‘Not the exact words!’ repeated the gentleman, bitterly.
‘Is that the exact substance?’
‘Yes,’ said Mr. Wopsle.
‘Yes,’ repeated the stranger, looking round at the rest
of the company with his right hand extended towards the
witness, Wopsle. ‘And now I ask you what you say to the
conscience of that man who, with that passage before his
eyes, can lay his head upon his pillow after having pro-
nounced a fellow-creature guilty, unheard?’
We all began to suspect that Mr. Wopsle was not the man
we had thought him, and that he was beginning to be found
out.‘And that same man, remember,’ pursued the gentleman,
throwing his finger at Mr. Wopsle heavily; ‘that same man
might be summoned as a juryman upon this very trial, and,
having thus deeply committed himself, might return to the
bosom of his family and lay his head upon his pillow, after
deliberately swearing that he would well and truly try the
issue joined between Our Sovereign Lord the King and the
prisoner at the bar, and would a true verdict give according
to the evidence, so help him God!’
We were all deeply persuaded that the unfortunate
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Wopsle had gone too far, and had better stop in his reckless
career while there was yet time.
The strange gentleman, with an air of authority not to be
disputed, and with a manner expressive of knowing some-
thing secret about every one of us that would effectually do
for each individual if he chose to disclose it, left the back
of the settle, and came into the space between the two set-
tles, in front of the fire, where he remained standing: his left
hand in his pocket, and he biting the forefinger of his right.
‘From information I have received,’ said he, looking
round at us as we all quailed before him, ‘I have reason to
believe there is a blacksmith among you, by name Joseph -
or Joe - Gargery. Which is the man?’
‘Here is the man,’ said Joe.
The strange gentleman beckoned him out of his place,
and Joe went.
‘You have an apprentice,’ pursued the stranger, ‘com-
monly known as Pip? Is he here?’
‘I am here!’ I cried.
The stranger did not recognize me, but I recognized him
as the gentleman I had met on the stairs, on the occasion of
my second visit to Miss Havisham. I had known him the
moment I saw him looking over the settle, and now that I
stood confronting him with his hand upon my shoulder, I
checked off again in detail, his large head, his dark com-
plexion, his deep-set eyes, his bushy black eyebrows, his
large watch-chain, his strong black dots of beard and whis-
ker, and even the smell of scented soap on his great hand.
‘I wish to have a private conference with you two,’ said he,
Great Expectations
when he had surveyed me at his leisure. ‘It will take a little
time. Perhaps we had better go to your place of residence. I
prefer not to anticipate my communication here; you will
impart as much or as little of it as you please to your friends
afterwards; I have nothing to do with that.’
Amidst a wondering silence, we three walked out of the
Jolly Bargemen, and in a wondering silence walked home.
While going along, the strange gentleman occasionally
looked at me, and occasionally bit the side of his finger. As
we neared home, Joe vaguely acknowledging the occasion
as an impressive and ceremonious one, went on ahead to
open the front door. Our conference was held in the state
parlour, which was feebly lighted by one candle.
It began with the strange gentleman’s sitting down at the
table, drawing the candle to him, and looking over some
entries in his pocket-book. He then put up the pocket-book
and set the candle a little aside: after peering round it into
the darkness at Joe and me, to ascertain which was which.
‘My name,’ he said, ‘is Jaggers, and I am a lawyer in Lon-
don. I am pretty well known. I have unusual business to
transact with you, and I commence by explaining that it is
not of my originating. If my advice had been asked, I should
not have been here. It was not asked, and you see me here.
What I have to do as the confidential agent of another, I do.
No less, no more.’
Finding that he could not see us very well from where he
sat, he got up, and threw one leg over the back of a chair and
leaned upon it; thus having one foot on the seat of the chair,
and one foot on the ground.
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‘Now, Joseph Gargery, I am the bearer of an offer to re-
lieve you of this young fellow your apprentice. You would
not object to cancel his indentures, at his request and for his
good? You would want nothing for so doing?’
‘Lord forbid that I should want anything for not standing
in Pip’s way,’ said Joe, staring.
‘Lord forbidding is pious, but not to the purpose,’ re-
turned Mr Jaggers. ‘The question is, Would you want
anything? Do you want anything?’
‘The answer is,’ returned Joe, sternly, ‘No.’
I thought Mr. Jaggers glanced at Joe, as if he considered
him a fool for his disinterestedness. But I was too much be-
wildered between breathless curiosity and surprise, to be
sure of it.
‘Very well,’ said Mr. Jaggers. ‘Recollect the admission you
have made, and don’t try to go from it presently.’
‘Who’s a-going to try?’ retorted Joe.
‘I don’t say anybody is. Do you keep a dog?’
‘Yes, I do keep a dog.’
‘Bear in mind then, that Brag is a good dog, but Holdfast
is a better. Bear that in mind, will you?’ repeated Mr. Jag-
gers, shutting his eyes and nodding his head at Joe, as if he
were forgiving him something. ‘Now, I return to this young
fellow. And the communication I have got to make is, that
he has great expectations.’
Joe and I gasped, and looked at one another.
Date: 2015-04-20; view: 434
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