Charles Dickens 14 page

me alone.

Mr. Jaggers’s room was lighted by a skylight only, and

was a most dismal place; the skylight, eccentrically pitched

like a broken head, and the distorted adjoining houses

looking as if they had twisted themselves to peep down at

me through it. There were not so many papers about, as I

should have expected to see; and there were some odd ob-

jects about, that I should not have expected to see - such as

an old rusty pistol, a sword in a scabbard, several strange-

looking boxes and packages, and two dreadful casts on a

shelf, of faces peculiarly swollen, and twitchy about the

nose. Mr. Jaggers’s own high-backed chair was of deadly

black horse-hair, with rows of brass nails round it, like a

coffin; and I fancied I could see how he leaned back in it,

and bit his forefinger at the clients. The room was but small,

and the clients seemed to have had a habit of backing up

against the wall: the wall, especially opposite to Mr. Jag-

gers’s chair, being greasy with shoulders. I recalled, too, that

the one-eyed gentleman had shuffled forth against the wall

when I was the innocent cause of his being turned out.

I sat down in the cliental chair placed over against Mr.

Jaggers’s chair, and became fascinated by the dismal atmo-

sphere of the place. I called to mind that the clerk had the

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same air of knowing something to everybody else’s disad-

vantage, as his master had. I wondered how many other

clerks there were up-stairs, and whether they all claimed

to have the same detrimental mastery of their fellow-crea-

tures. I wondered what was the history of all the odd litter

about the room, and how it came there. I wondered whether

the two swollen faces were of Mr. Jaggers’s family, and, if he

were so unfortunate as to have had a pair of such ill-look-

ing relations, why he stuck them on that dusty perch for the

blacks and flies to settle on, instead of giving them a place

at home. Of course I had no experience of a London sum-

mer day, and my spirits may have been oppressed by the hot

exhausted air, and by the dust and grit that lay thick on ev-

erything. But I sat wondering and waiting in Mr. Jaggers’s

close room, until I really could not bear the two casts on the

shelf above Mr. Jaggers’s chair, and got up and went out.

When I told the clerk that I would take a turn in the air

while I waited, he advised me to go round the corner and

I should come into Smithfield. So, I came into Smithfield;

and the shameful place, being all asmear with filth and fat

and blood and foam, seemed to stick to me. So, I rubbed it

off with all possible speed by turning into a street where I

saw the great black dome of Saint Paul’s bulging at me from

behind a grim stone building which a bystander said was

Newgate Prison. Following the wall of the jail, I found the

roadway covered with straw to deaden the noise of pass-

ing vehicles; and from this, and from the quantity of people

standing about, smelling strongly of spirits and beer, I in-

ferred that the trials were on.

Great Expectations

While I looked about me here, an exceedingly dirty and

partially drunk minister of justice asked me if I would like

to step in and hear a trial or so: informing me that he could

give me a front place for half-a-crown, whence I should

command a full view of the Lord Chief Justice in his wig

and robes - mentioning that awful personage like wax-

work, and presently offering him at the reduced price of

eighteenpence. As I declined the proposal on the plea of an

appointment, he was so good as to take me into a yard and

show me where the gallows was kept, and also where people

were publicly whipped, and then he showed me the Debtors’

Door, out of which culprits came to be hanged: heightening

the interest of that dreadful portal by giving me to under-

stand that ‘four on ‘em’ would come out at that door the

day after to-morrow at eight in the morning, to be killed

in a row. This was horrible, and gave me a sickening idea of

London: the more so as the Lord Chief Justice’s proprietor

wore (from his hat down to his boots and up again to his

pocket-handkerchief inclusive) mildewed clothes, which

had evidently not belonged to him originally, and which, I

took it into my head, he had bought cheap of the execution-

er. Under these circumstances I thought myself well rid of

him for a shilling.

I dropped into the office to ask if Mr. Jaggers had come

in yet, and I found he had not, and I strolled out again. This

time, I made the tour of Little Britain, and turned into Bar-

tholomew Close; and now I became aware that other people

were waiting about for Mr. Jaggers, as well as I. There were

two men of secret appearance lounging in Bartholomew

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Close, and thoughtfully fitting their feet into the cracks

of the pavement as they talked together, one of whom said

to the other when they first passed me, that ‘Jaggers would

do it if it was to be done.’ There was a knot of three men

and two women standing at a corner, and one of the wom-

en was crying on her dirty shawl, and the other comforted

her by saying, as she pulled her own shawl over her shoul-

ders, ‘Jaggers is for him, ‘Melia, and what more could you

have?’ There was a red-eyed little Jew who came into the

Close while I was loitering there, in company with a second

little Jew whom he sent upon an errand; and while the mes-

senger was gone, I remarked this Jew, who was of a highly

excitable temperament, performing a jig of anxiety under a

lamp-post and accompanying himself, in a kind of frenzy,

with the words, ‘Oh Jaggerth, Jaggerth, Jaggerth! all otherth

ith Cag-Maggerth, give me Jaggerth!’ These testimonies to

the popularity of my guardian made a deep impression on

me, and I admired and wondered more than ever.

At length, as I was looking out at the iron gate of Bar-

tholomew Close into Little Britain, I saw Mr. Jaggers coming

across the road towards me. All the others who were wait-

ing, saw him at the same time, and there was quite a rush

at him. Mr. Jaggers, putting a hand on my shoulder and

walking me on at his side without saying anything to me,

addressed himself to his followers.

First, he took the two secret men.

‘Now, I have nothing to say to you,’ said Mr. Jaggers,

throwing his finger at them. ‘I want to know no more than I

know. As to the result, it’s a toss-up. I told you from the first

Great Expectations

it was a toss-up. Have you paid Wemmick?’

‘We made the money up this morning, sir,’ said one of

the men, submissively, while the other perused Mr. Jag-

gers’s face.

‘I don’t ask you when you made it up, or where, or wheth-

er you made it up at all. Has Wemmick got it?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said both the men together.

‘Very well; then you may go. Now, I won’t have it!’ said

Mr Jaggers, waving his hand at them to put them behind

him. ‘If you say a word to me, I’ll throw up the case.’

‘We thought, Mr. Jaggers—’ one of the men began, pull-

ing off his hat.

‘That’s what I told you not to do,’ said Mr. Jaggers. ‘You

thought! I think for you; that’s enough for you. If I want you,

I know where to find you; I don’t want you to find me. Now

I won’t have it. I won’t hear a word.’

The two men looked at one another as Mr. Jaggers waved

them behind again, and humbly fell back and were heard

no more.

‘And now you!’ said Mr. Jaggers, suddenly stopping, and

turning on the two women with the shawls, from whom the

three men had meekly separated. - ‘Oh! Amelia, is it?’

‘Yes, Mr. Jaggers.’

‘And do you remember,’ retorted Mr. Jaggers, ‘that but for

me you wouldn’t be here and couldn’t be here?’

‘Oh yes, sir!’ exclaimed both women together. ‘Lord bless

you, sir, well we knows that!’

‘Then why,’ said Mr. Jaggers, ‘do you come here?’

‘My Bill, sir!’ the crying woman pleaded.

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‘Now, I tell you what!’ said Mr. Jaggers. ‘Once for all. If

you don’t know that your Bill’s in good hands, I know it.

And if you come here, bothering about your Bill, I’ll make

an example of both your Bill and you, and let him slip

through my fingers. Have you paid Wemmick?’

‘Oh yes, sir! Every farden.’

‘Very well. Then you have done all you have got to do. Say

another word - one single word - and Wemmick shall give

you your money back.’

This terrible threat caused the two women to fall off im-

mediately. No one remained now but the excitable Jew, who

had already raised the skirts of Mr. Jaggers’s coat to his lips

several times.

‘I don’t know this man!’ said Mr. Jaggers, in the same

devastating strain: ‘What does this fellow want?’

‘Ma thear Mithter Jaggerth. Hown brother to Habraham

Latharuth?’

‘Who’s he?’ said Mr. Jaggers. ‘Let go of my coat.’

The suitor, kissing the hem of the garment again before

relinquishing it, replied, ‘Habraham Latharuth, on thuth-

pithion of plate.’

‘You’re too late,’ said Mr. Jaggers. ‘I am over the way.’

‘Holy father, Mithter Jaggerth!’ cried my excitable

acquaintance, turning white, ‘don’t thay you’re again Hab-

raham Latharuth!’

‘I am,’ said Mr. Jaggers, ‘and there’s an end of it. Get out

of the way.’

‘Mithter Jaggerth! Half a moment! My hown cuthen’th

gone to Mithter Wemmick at thith prethent minute, to hof-

Great Expectations

fer him hany termth. Mithter Jaggerth! Half a quarter of a

moment! If you’d have the condethenthun to be bought off

from the t’other thide - at hany thuperior prithe! - money

no object! - Mithter Jaggerth - Mithter - !’

My guardian threw his supplicant off with supreme in-

difference, and left him dancing on the pavement as if it

were red-hot. Without further interruption, we reached the

front office, where we found the clerk and the man in velve-

teen with the fur cap.

‘Here’s Mike,’ said the clerk, getting down from his stool,

and approaching Mr. Jaggers confidentially.

‘Oh!’ said Mr. Jaggers, turning to the man, who was pull-

ing a lock of hair in the middle of his forehead, like the Bull

in Cock Robin pulling at the bell-rope; ‘your man comes on

this afternoon. Well?’

‘Well, Mas’r Jaggers,’ returned Mike, in the voice of a suf-

ferer from a constitutional cold; ‘arter a deal o’ trouble, I’ve

found one, sir, as might do.’

‘What is he prepared to swear?’

‘Well, Mas’r Jaggers,’ said Mike, wiping his nose on his

fur cap this time; ‘in a general way, anythink.’

Mr. Jaggers suddenly became most irate. ‘Now, I warned

you before,’ said he, throwing his forefinger at the terrified

client, ‘that if you ever presumed to talk in that way here, I’d

make an example of you. You infernal scoundrel, how dare

you tell ME that?’

The client looked scared, but bewildered too, as if he were

unconscious what he had done.

‘Spooney!’ said the clerk, in a low voice, giving him a stir

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with his elbow. ‘Soft Head! Need you say it face to face?’

‘Now, I ask you, you blundering booby,’ said my guard-

ian, very sternly, ‘once more and for the last time, what the

man you have brought here is prepared to swear?’

Mike looked hard at my guardian, as if he were trying to

learn a lesson from his face, and slowly replied, ‘Ayther to

character, or to having been in his company and never left

him all the night in question.’

‘Now, be careful. In what station of life is this man?’

Mike looked at his cap, and looked at the floor, and looked

at the ceiling, and looked at the clerk, and even looked at

me, before beginning to reply in a nervous manner, ‘We’ve

dressed him up like—’ when my guardian blustered out:

‘What? You WILL, will you?’

(“Spooney!’ added the clerk again, with another stir.)

After some helpless casting about, Mike brightened and

began again:

‘He is dressed like a ‘spectable pieman. A sort of a pas-

try-cook.’

‘Is he here?’ asked my guardian.

‘I left him,’ said Mike, ‘a settin on some doorsteps round

the corner.’

‘Take him past that window, and let me see him.’

The window indicated, was the office window. We all

three went to it, behind the wire blind, and presently saw

the client go by in an accidental manner, with a murderous-

looking tall individual, in a short suit of white linen and a

paper cap. This guileless confectioner was not by any means

sober, and had a black eye in the green stage of recovery,

Great Expectations

which was painted over.

‘Tell him to take his witness away directly,’ said my

guardian to the clerk, in extreme disgust, ‘and ask him what

he means by bringing such a fellow as that.’

My guardian then took me into his own room, and while

he lunched, standing, from a sandwich-box and a pocket

flask of sherry (he seemed to bully his very sandwich as he

ate it), informed me what arrangements he had made for

me. I was to go to ‘Barnard’s Inn,’ to young Mr. Pocket’s

rooms, where a bed had been sent in for my accommoda-

tion; I was to remain with young Mr. Pocket until Monday;

on Monday I was to go with him to his father’s house on a

visit, that I might try how I liked it. Also, I was told what

my allowance was to be - it was a very liberal one - and had

handed to me from one of my guardian’s drawers, the cards

of certain tradesmen with whom I was to deal for all kinds

of clothes, and such other things as I could in reason want.

‘You will find your credit good, Mr. Pip,’ said my guardian,

whose flask of sherry smelt like a whole cask-full, as he hast-

ily refreshed himself, ‘but I shall by this means be able to

check your bills, and to pull you up if I find you outrun-

ning the constable. Of course you’ll go wrong somehow, but

that’s no fault of mine.’

After I had pondered a little over this encouraging senti-

ment, I asked Mr. Jaggers if I could send for a coach? He said

it was not worth while, I was so near my destination; Wem-

mick should walk round with me, if I pleased.

I then found that Wemmick was the clerk in the next

room. Another clerk was rung down from up-stairs to take

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his place while he was out, and I accompanied him into the

street, after shaking hands with my guardian. We found a

new set of people lingering outside, but Wemmick made a

way among them by saying coolly yet decisively, ‘I tell you

it’s no use; he won’t have a word to say to one of you;’ and we

soon got clear of them, and went on side by side.

Great Expectations

Chapter 21

Casting my eyes on Mr. Wemmick as we went along, to

see what he was like in the light of day, I found him to

be a dry man, rather short in stature, with a square wooden

face, whose expression seemed to have been imperfect-

ly chipped out with a dull-edged chisel. There were some

marks in it that might have been dimples, if the material

had been softer and the instrument finer, but which, as it

was, were only dints. The chisel had made three or four of

these attempts at embellishment over his nose, but had giv-

en them up without an effort to smooth them off. I judged

him to be a bachelor from the frayed condition of his linen,

and he appeared to have sustained a good many bereave-

ments; for, he wore at least four mourning rings, besides a

brooch representing a lady and a weeping willow at a tomb

with an urn on it. I noticed, too, that several rings and seals

hung at his watch chain, as if he were quite laden with re-

membrances of departed friends. He had glittering eyes

- small, keen, and black - and thin wide mottled lips. He had

had them, to the best of my belief, from forty to fifty years.

‘So you were never in London before?’ said Mr. Wem-

mick to me.

‘No,’ said I.

‘I was new here once,’ said Mr. Wemmick. ‘Rum to think

of now!’

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‘You are well acquainted with it now?’

‘Why, yes,’ said Mr. Wemmick. ‘I know the moves of it.’

‘Is it a very wicked place?’ I asked, more for the sake of

saying something than for information.

‘You may get cheated, robbed, and murdered, in London.

But there are plenty of people anywhere, who’ll do that for

you.’

‘If there is bad blood between you and them,’ said I, to

soften it off a little.

‘Oh! I don’t know about bad blood,’ returned Mr. Wem-

mick; ‘there’s not much bad blood about. They’ll do it, if

there’s anything to be got by it.’

‘That makes it worse.’

‘You think so?’ returned Mr. Wemmick. ‘Much about the

same, I should say.’

He wore his hat on the back of his head, and looked

straight before him: walking in a self-contained way as if

there were nothing in the streets to claim his attention. His

mouth was such a postoffice of a mouth that he had a me-

chanical appearance of smiling. We had got to the top of

Holborn Hill before I knew that it was merely a mechanical

appearance, and that he was not smiling at all.

‘Do you know where Mr. Matthew Pocket lives?’ I asked

Mr. Wemmick.

‘Yes,’ said he, nodding in the direction. ‘At Hammer-

smith, west of London.’

‘Is that far?’

‘Well! Say five miles.’

‘Do you know him?’

Great Expectations

‘Why, you’re a regular cross-examiner!’ said Mr. Wem-

mick, looking at me with an approving air. ‘Yes, I know him.

I know him!’

There was an air of toleration or depreciation about his

utterance of these words, that rather depressed me; and I

was still looking sideways at his block of a face in search

of any encouraging note to the text, when he said here we

were at Barnard’s Inn. My depression was not alleviated by

the announcement, for, I had supposed that establishment

to be an hotel kept by Mr. Barnard, to which the Blue Boar

in our town was a mere public-house. Whereas I now found

Barnard to be a disembodied spirit, or a fiction, and his inn

the dingiest collection of shabby buildings ever squeezed

together in a rank corner as a club for Tom-cats.

We entered this haven through a wicket-gate, and were

disgorged by an introductory passage into a melancholy

little square that looked to me like a flat burying-ground.

I thought it had the most dismal trees in it, and the most

dismal sparrows, and the most dismal cats, and the most

dismal houses (in number half a dozen or so), that I had

ever seen. I thought the windows of the sets of chambers

into which those houses were divided, were in every stage of

dilapidated blind and curtain, crippled flower-pot, cracked

glass, dusty decay, and miserable makeshift; while To Let

To Let To Let, glared at me from empty rooms, as if no new

wretches ever came there, and the vengeance of the soul of

Barnard were being slowly appeased by the gradual suicide

of the present occupants and their unholy interment under

the gravel. A frouzy mourning of soot and smoke attired

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this forlorn creation of Barnard, and it had strewn ashes on

its head, and was undergoing penance and humiliation as

a mere dust-hole. Thus far my sense of sight; while dry rot

and wet rot and all the silent rots that rot in neglected roof

and cellar - rot of rat and mouse and bug and coaching-sta-

bles near at hand besides - addressed themselves faintly to

my sense of smell, and moaned, ‘Try Barnard’s Mixture.’

So imperfect was this realization of the first of my great

expectations, that I looked in dismay at Mr. Wemmick. ‘Ah!’

said he, mistaking me; ‘the retirement reminds you of the

country. So it does me.’

He led me into a corner and conducted me up a flight of

stairs - which appeared to me to be slowly collapsing into

sawdust, so that one of those days the upper lodgers would

look out at their doors and find themselves without the

means of coming down - to a set of chambers on the top

floor. MR. POCKET, JUN., was painted on the door, and

there was a label on the letter-box, ‘Return shortly.’

‘He hardly thought you’d come so soon,’ Mr. Wemmick

explained. ‘You don’t want me any more?’

‘No, thank you,’ said I.

‘As I keep the cash,’ Mr. Wemmick observed, ‘we shall

most likely meet pretty often. Good day.’

‘Good day.’

I put out my hand, and Mr. Wemmick at first looked at it

as if he thought I wanted something. Then he looked at me,

and said, correcting himself,

‘To be sure! Yes. You’re in the habit of shaking hands?’

I was rather confused, thinking it must be out of the

Great Expectations

London fashion, but said yes.

‘I have got so out of it!’ said Mr. Wemmick - ‘except at last.

Very glad, I’m sure, to make your acquaintance. Good day!’

When we had shaken hands and he was gone, I opened

the staircase window and had nearly beheaded myself, for,

the lines had rotted away, and it came down like the guil-

lotine. Happily it was so quick that I had not put my head

out. After this escape, I was content to take a foggy view of

the Inn through the window’s encrusting dirt, and to stand

dolefully looking out, saying to myself that London was de-

cidedly overrated.

Mr. Pocket, Junior’s, idea of Shortly was not mine, for

I had nearly maddened myself with looking out for half

an hour, and had written my name with my finger sever-

al times in the dirt of every pane in the window, before I

heard footsteps on the stairs. Gradually there arose before

me the hat, head, neckcloth, waistcoat, trousers, boots, of a

member of society of about my own standing. He had a pa-

per-bag under each arm and a pottle of strawberries in one

hand, and was out of breath.

‘Mr. Pip?’ said he.

‘Mr. Pocket?’ said I.

‘Dear me!’ he exclaimed. ‘I am extremely sorry; but I

knew there was a coach from your part of the country at

midday, and I thought you would come by that one. The

fact is, I have been out on your account - not that that is any

excuse - for I thought, coming from the country, you might

like a little fruit after dinner, and I went to Covent Garden

Market to get it good.’

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For a reason that I had, I felt as if my eyes would start out

of my head. I acknowledged his attention incoherently, and

began to think this was a dream.

‘Dear me!’ said Mr. Pocket, Junior. ‘This door sticks so!’

As he was fast making jam of his fruit by wrestling with

the door while the paper-bags were under his arms, I begged

him to allow me to hold them. He relinquished them with

an agreeable smile, and combated with the door as if it were

a wild beast. It yielded so suddenly at last, that he staggered

back upon me, and I staggered back upon the opposite door,

and we both laughed. But still I felt as if my eyes must start

out of my head, and as if this must be a dream.

‘Pray come in,’ said Mr. Pocket, Junior. ‘Allow me to lead

the way. I am rather bare here, but I hope you’ll be able to

make out tolerably well till Monday. My father thought you

would get on more agreeably through to-morrow with me

than with him, and might like to take a walk about London.

I am sure I shall be very happy to show London to you. As

to our table, you won’t find that bad, I hope, for it will be

supplied from our coffee-house here, and (it is only right

I should add) at your expense, such being Mr. Jaggers’s di-

rections. As to our lodging, it’s not by any means splendid,

because I have my own bread to earn, and my father hasn’t

anything to give me, and I shouldn’t be willing to take it,

if he had. This is our sitting-room - just such chairs and

tables and carpet and so forth, you see, as they could spare

from home. You mustn’t give me credit for the tablecloth

and spoons and castors, because they come for you from

the coffee-house. This is my little bedroom; rather musty,

Great Expectations

but Barnard’s is musty. This is your bed-room; the furni-

ture’s hired for the occasion, but I trust it will answer the

purpose; if you should want anything, I’ll go and fetch it.

The chambers are retired, and we shall be alone together,

but we shan’t fight, I dare say. But, dear me, I beg your par-

don, you’re holding the fruit all this time. Pray let me take

these bags from you. I am quite ashamed.’

As I stood opposite to Mr. Pocket, Junior, delivering him

the bags, One, Two, I saw the starting appearance come into

his own eyes that I knew to be in mine, and he said, falling

back:

‘Lord bless me, you’re the prowling boy!’

‘And you,’ said I, ‘are the pale young gentleman!’

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Chapter 22

The pale young gentleman and I stood contemplating one

another in Barnard’s Inn, until we both burst out laugh-

ing. ‘The idea of its being you!’ said he. ‘The idea of its being

you!’ said I. And then we contemplated one another afresh,

and laughed again. ‘Well!’ said the pale young gentleman,

reaching out his hand goodhumouredly, ‘it’s all over now,

I hope, and it will be magnanimous in you if you’ll forgive

me for having knocked you about so.’

I derived from this speech that Mr. Herbert Pocket (for

Herbert was the pale young gentleman’s name) still rather

confounded his intention with his execution. But I made a

modest reply, and we shook hands warmly.

‘You hadn’t come into your good fortune at that time?’

said Herbert Pocket.

‘No,’ said I.

‘No,’ he acquiesced: ‘I heard it had happened very lately. I

was rather on the look-out for good-fortune then.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Yes. Miss Havisham had sent for me, to see if she could

take a fancy to me. But she couldn’t - at all events, she

didn’t.’

I thought it polite to remark that I was surprised to hear

that.

‘Bad taste,’ said Herbert, laughing, ‘but a fact. Yes, she

Great Expectations

had sent for me on a trial visit, and if I had come out of it

successfully, I suppose I should have been provided for; per-

haps I should have been what-you-may-called it to Estella.’

‘What’s that?’ I asked, with sudden gravity.

He was arranging his fruit in plates while we talked,

which divided his attention, and was the cause of his hav-

ing made this lapse of a word. ‘Affianced,’ he explained,

still busy with the fruit. ‘Betrothed. Engaged. What’s-his-

named. Any word of that sort.’

‘How did you bear your disappointment?’ I asked.

‘Pooh!’ said he, ‘I didn’t care much for it. She’s a Tartar.’

‘Miss Havisham?’

‘I don’t say no to that, but I meant Estella. That girl’s hard

and haughty and capricious to the last degree, and has been

brought up by Miss Havisham to wreak revenge on all the

male sex.’

Date: 2015-04-20; view: 552