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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

Great Expectations

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

Great Expectations

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

Great Expectations

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-

Great Expectations

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.


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