Charles Dickens 18 page

her face looked to me as if it were all disturbed by fiery air,

like the faces I had seen rise out of the Witches’ caldron.

She set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on the

arm with a finger to notify that dinner was ready, and van-

ished. We took our seats at the round table, and my guardian

kept Drummle on one side of him, while Startop sat on the

other. It was a noble dish of fish that the housekeeper had

put on table, and we had a joint of equally choice mutton

afterwards, and then an equally choice bird. Sauces, wines,

all the accessories we wanted, and all of the best, were given

out by our host from his dumb-waiter; and when they had

made the circuit of the table, he always put them back again.

Similarly, he dealt us clean plates and knives and forks, for

each course, and dropped those just disused into two bas-

kets on the ground by his chair. No other attendant than

the housekeeper appeared. She set on every dish; and I al-

ways saw in her face, a face rising out of the caldron. Years

afterwards, I made a dreadful likeness of that woman, by

causing a face that had no other natural resemblance to it

than it derived from flowing hair, to pass behind a bowl of

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flaming spirits in a dark room.

Induced to take particular notice of the housekeeper,

both by her own striking appearance and by Wemmick’s

preparation, I observed that whenever she was in the room,

she kept her eyes attentively on my guardian, and that she

would remove her hands from any dish she put before him,

hesitatingly, as if she dreaded his calling her back, and

wanted him to speak when she was nigh, if he had anything

to say. I fancied that I could detect in his manner a con-

sciousness of this, and a purpose of always holding her in

suspense.

Dinner went off gaily, and, although my guardian

seemed to follow rather than originate subjects, I knew that

he wrenched the weakest part of our dispositions out of us.

For myself, I found that I was expressing my tendency to

lavish expenditure, and to patronize Herbert, and to boast

of my great prospects, before I quite knew that I had opened

my lips. It was so with all of us, but with no one more than

Drummle: the development of whose inclination to gird in

a grudging and suspicious way at the rest, was screwed out

of him before the fish was taken off.

It was not then, but when we had got to the cheese, that

our conversation turned upon our rowing feats, and that

Drummle was rallied for coming up behind of a night in

that slow amphibious way of his. Drummle upon this, in-

formed our host that he much preferred our room to our

company, and that as to skill he was more than our mas-

ter, and that as to strength he could scatter us like chaff.

By some invisible agency, my guardian wound him up to

Great Expectations

a pitch little short of ferocity about this trifle; and he fell to

baring and spanning his arm to show how muscular it was,

and we all fell to baring and spanning our arms in a ridicu-

lous manner.

Now, the housekeeper was at that time clearing the ta-

ble; my guardian, taking no heed of her, but with the side

of his face turned from her, was leaning back in his chair

biting the side of his forefinger and showing an interest in

Drummle, that, to me, was quite inexplicable. Suddenly, he

clapped his large hand on the housekeeper’s, like a trap, as

she stretched it across the table. So suddenly and smartly

did he do this, that we all stopped in our foolish conten-

tion.

‘If you talk of strength,’ said Mr. Jaggers, ‘I’ll show you a

wrist. Molly, let them see your wrist.’

Her entrapped hand was on the table, but she had already

put her other hand behind her waist. ‘Master,’ she said, in

a low voice, with her eyes attentively and entreatingly fixed

upon him. ‘Don’t.’

‘I’ll show you a wrist,’ repeated Mr. Jaggers, with an im-

movable determination to show it. ‘Molly, let them see your

wrist.’

‘Master,’ she again murmured. ‘Please!’

‘Molly,’ said Mr. Jaggers, not looking at her, but obsti-

nately looking at the opposite side of the room, ‘let them see

both your wrists. Show them. Come!’

He took his hand from hers, and turned that wrist up on

the table. She brought her other hand from behind her, and

held the two out side by side. The last wrist was much disfig-

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ured - deeply scarred and scarred across and across. When

she held her hands out, she took her eyes from Mr. Jaggers,

and turned them watchfully on every one of the rest of us

in succession.

‘There’s power here,’ said Mr. Jaggers, coolly tracing out

the sinews with his forefinger. ‘Very few men have the pow-

er of wrist that this woman has. It’s remarkable what mere

force of grip there is in these hands. I have had occasion to

notice many hands; but I never saw stronger in that respect,

man’s or woman’s, than these.’

While he said these words in a leisurely critical style, she

continued to look at every one of us in regular succession

as we sat. The moment he ceased, she looked at him again.

‘That’ll do, Molly,’ said Mr. Jaggers, giving her a slight nod;

‘you have been admired, and can go.’ She withdrew her

hands and went out of the room, and Mr. Jaggers, putting

the decanters on from his dumbwaiter, filled his glass and

passed round the wine.

‘At half-past nine, gentlemen,’ said he, ‘we must break up.

Pray make the best use of your time. I am glad to see you all.

Mr. Drummle, I drink to you.’

If his object in singling out Drummle were to bring him

out still more, it perfectly succeeded. In a sulky triumph,

Drummle showed his morose depreciation of the rest of

us, in a more and more offensive degree until he became

downright intolerable. Through all his stages, Mr. Jaggers

followed him with the same strange interest. He actually

seemed to serve as a zest to Mr. Jaggers’s wine.

In our boyish want of discretion I dare say we took too

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much to drink, and I know we talked too much. We became

particularly hot upon some boorish sneer of Drummle’s, to

the effect that we were too free with our money. It led to

my remarking, with more zeal than discretion, that it came

with a bad grace from him, to whom Startop had lent mon-

ey in my presence but a week or so before.

‘Well,’ retorted Drummle; ‘he’ll be paid.’

‘I don’t mean to imply that he won’t,’ said I, ‘but it might

make you hold your tongue about us and our money, I

should think.’

‘You should think!’ retorted Drummle. ‘Oh Lord!’

‘I dare say,’ I went on, meaning to be very severe, ‘that

you wouldn’t lend money to any of us, if we wanted it.’

‘You are right,’ said Drummle. ‘I wouldn’t lend one of

you a sixpence. I wouldn’t lend anybody a sixpence.’

‘Rather mean to borrow under those circumstances, I

should say.’

‘You should say,’ repeated Drummle. ‘Oh Lord!’

This was so very aggravating - the more especially as I

found myself making no way against his surly obtuseness

- that I said, disregarding Herbert’s efforts to check me:

‘Come, Mr. Drummle, since we are on the subject, I’ll tell

you what passed between Herbert here and me, when you

borrowed that money.’

‘I don’t want to know what passed between Herbert there

and you,’ growled Drummle. And I think he added in a

lower growl, that we might both go to the devil and shake

ourselves.

‘I’ll tell you, however,’ said I, ‘whether you want to know

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or not. We said that as you put it in your pocket very glad to

get it, you seemed to be immensely amused at his being so

weak as to lend it.’

Drummle laughed outright, and sat laughing in our fac-

es, with his hands in his pockets and his round shoulders

raised: plainly signifying that it was quite true, and that he

despised us, as asses all.

Hereupon Startop took him in hand, though with a

much better grace than I had shown, and exhorted him

to be a little more agreeable. Startop, being a lively bright

young fellow, and Drummle being the exact opposite, the

latter was always disposed to resent him as a direct person-

al affront. He now retorted in a coarse lumpish way, and

Startop tried to turn the discussion aside with some small

pleasantry that made us all laugh. Resenting this little suc-

cess more than anything, Drummle, without any threat or

warning, pulled his hands out of his pockets, dropped his

round shoulders, swore, took up a large glass, and would

have flung it at his adversary’s head, but for our entertain-

er’s dexterously seizing it at the instant when it was raised

for that purpose.

‘Gentlemen,’ said Mr. Jaggers, deliberately putting down

the glass, and hauling out his gold repeater by its massive

chain, ‘I am exceedingly sorry to announce that it’s half-

past nine.’

On this hint we all rose to depart. Before we got to the

street door, Startop was cheerily calling Drummle ‘old

boy,’ as if nothing had happened. But the old boy was so far

from responding, that he would not even walk to Hammer-

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smith on the same side of the way; so, Herbert and I, who

remained in town, saw them going down the street on op-

posite sides; Startop leading, and Drummle lagging behind

in the shadow of the houses, much as he was wont to follow

in his boat.

As the door was not yet shut, I thought I would leave

Herbert there for a moment, and run up-stairs again to say

a word to my guardian. I found him in his dressing-room

surrounded by his stock of boots, already hard at it, wash-

ing his hands of us.

I told him I had come up again to say how sorry I was

that anything disagreeable should have occurred, and that I

hoped he would not blame me much.

‘Pooh!’ said he, sluicing his face, and speaking through the

water-drops; ‘it’s nothing, Pip. I like that Spider though.’

He had turned towards me now, and was shaking his

head, and blowing, and towelling himself.

‘I am glad you like him, sir,’ said I - ‘but I don’t.’

‘No, no,’ my guardian assented; ‘don’t have too much to

do with him. Keep as clear of him as you can. But I like the

fellow, Pip; he is one of the true sort. Why, if I was a fortune-

teller—‘

Looking out of the towel, he caught my eye.

‘But I am not a fortune-teller,’ he said, letting his head

drop into a festoon of towel, and towelling away at his two

ears. ‘You know what I am, don’t you? Good-night, Pip.’

‘Good-night, sir.’

In about a month after that, the Spider’s time with Mr.

Pocket was up for good, and, to the great relief of all the

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house but Mrs. Pocket, he went home to the family hole.

Great Expectations

Chapter 27

‘MY DEAR MR PIP,

‘I write this by request of Mr. Gargery, for to let you know

that he is going to London in company with Mr. Wopsle

and would be glad if agreeable to be allowed to see you. He

would call at Barnard’s Hotel Tuesday morning 9 o’clock,

when if not agreeable please leave word. Your poor sister is

much the same as when you left. We talk of you in the kitch-

en every night, and wonder what you are saying and doing.

If now considered in the light of a liberty, excuse it for the

love of poor old days. No more, dear Mr. Pip, from

‘Your ever obliged, and affectionate servant,

‘BIDDY.’

‘P.S. He wishes me most particular to write what larks.

He says you will understand. I hope and do not doubt it will

be agreeable to see him even though a gentleman, for you

had ever a good heart, and he is a worthy worthy man. I

have read him all excepting only the last little sentence, and

he wishes me most particular to write again what larks.’

I received this letter by the post on Monday morning,

and therefore its appointment was for next day. Let me con-

fess exactly, with what feelings I looked forward to Joe’s

coming.

Not with pleasure, though I was bound to him by so

many ties; no; with considerable disturbance, some mortifi-

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cation, and a keen sense of incongruity. If I could have kept

him away by paying money, I certainly would have paid

money. My greatest reassurance was, that he was coming

to Barnard’s Inn, not to Hammersmith, and consequently

would not fall in Bentley Drummle’s way. I had little objec-

tion to his being seen by Herbert or his father, for both of

whom I had a respect; but I had the sharpest sensitiveness

as to his being seen by Drummle, whom I held in contempt.

So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses

are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we

most despise.

I had begun to be always decorating the chambers in

some quite unnecessary and inappropriate way or other,

and very expensive those wrestles with Barnard proved to

be. By this time, the rooms were vastly different from what

I had found them, and I enjoyed the honour of occupying a

few prominent pages in the books of a neighbouring uphol-

sterer. I had got on so fast of late, that I had even started a

boy in boots - top boots - in bondage and slavery to whom I

might have been said to pass my days. For, after I had made

the monster (out of the refuse of my washerwoman’s fam-

ily) and had clothed him with a blue coat, canary waistcoat,

white cravat, creamy breeches, and the boots already men-

tioned, I had to find him a little to do and a great deal to eat;

and with both of those horrible requirements he haunted

my existence.

This avenging phantom was ordered to be on duty at

eight on Tuesday morning in the hall (it was two feet

square, as charged for floorcloth), and Herbert suggested

Great Expectations

certain things for breakfast that he thought Joe would like.

While I felt sincerely obliged to him for being so interested

and considerate, I had an odd half-provoked sense of sus-

picion upon me, that if Joe had been coming to see him, he

wouldn’t have been quite so brisk about it.

However, I came into town on the Monday night to be

ready for Joe, and I got up early in the morning, and caused

the sittingroom and breakfast-table to assume their most

splendid appearance. Unfortunately the morning was driz-

zly, and an angel could not have concealed the fact that

Barnard was shedding sooty tears outside the window, like

some weak giant of a Sweep.

As the time approached I should have liked to run away,

but the Avenger pursuant to orders was in the hall, and

presently I heard Joe on the staircase. I knew it was Joe, by

his clumsy manner of coming up-stairs - his state boots be-

ing always too big for him - and by the time it took him to

read the names on the other floors in the course of his as-

cent. When at last he stopped outside our door, I could hear

his finger tracing over the painted letters of my name, and I

afterwards distinctly heard him breathing in at the keyhole.

Finally he gave a faint single rap, and Pepper - such was the

compromising name of the avenging boy - announced ‘Mr.

Gargery!’ I thought he never would have done wiping his

feet, and that I must have gone out to lift him off the mat,

but at last he came in.

‘Joe, how are you, Joe?’

‘Pip, how AIR you, Pip?’

With his good honest face all glowing and shining, and

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his hat put down on the floor between us, he caught both

my hands and worked them straight up and down, as if I

had been the lastpatented Pump.

‘I am glad to see you, Joe. Give me your hat.’

But Joe, taking it up carefully with both hands, like a

bird’s-nest with eggs in it, wouldn’t hear of parting with

that piece of property, and persisted in standing talking

over it in a most uncomfortable way.

‘Which you have that growed,’ said Joe, ‘and that swelled,

and that gentle-folked;’ Joe considered a little before he dis-

covered this word; ‘as to be sure you are a honour to your

king and country.’

‘And you, Joe, look wonderfully well.’

‘Thank God,’ said Joe, ‘I’m ekerval to most. And your sis-

ter, she’s no worse than she were. And Biddy, she’s ever right

and ready. And all friends is no backerder, if not no forarder.

‘Ceptin Wopsle; he’s had a drop.’

All this time (still with both hands taking great care of

the bird’s-nest), Joe was rolling his eyes round and round

the room, and round and round the flowered pattern of my

dressing-gown.

‘Had a drop, Joe?’

‘Why yes,’ said Joe, lowering his voice, ‘he’s left the

Church, and went into the playacting. Which the playacting

have likeways brought him to London along with me. And

his wish were,’ said Joe, getting the bird’s-nest under his left

arm for the moment and groping in it for an egg with his

right; ‘if no offence, as I would ‘and you that.’

I took what Joe gave me, and found it to be the crum-

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pled playbill of a small metropolitan theatre, announcing

the first appearance, in that very week, of ‘the celebrated

Provincial Amateur of Roscian renown, whose unique per-

formance in the highest tragic walk of our National Bard

has lately occasioned so great a sensation in local dramatic

circles.’

‘Were you at his performance, Joe?’ I inquired.

‘I were,’ said Joe, with emphasis and solemnity.

‘Was there a great sensation?’

‘Why,’ said Joe, ‘yes, there certainly were a peck of orange-

peel. Partickler, when he see the ghost. Though I put it to

yourself, sir, whether it were calc’lated to keep a man up to

his work with a good hart, to be continiwally cutting in be-

twixt him and the Ghost with ‘Amen!’ A man may have had

a misfortun’ and been in the Church,’ said Joe, lowering his

voice to an argumentative and feeling tone, ‘but that is no

reason why you should put him out at such a time. Which I

meantersay, if the ghost of a man’s own father cannot be al-

lowed to claim his attention, what can, Sir? Still more, when

his mourning ‘at is unfortunately made so small as that the

weight of the black feathers brings it off, try to keep it on

how you may.’

A ghost-seeing effect in Joe’s own countenance informed

me that Herbert had entered the room. So, I presented Joe

to Herbert, who held out his hand; but Joe backed from it,

and held on by the bird’s-nest.

‘Your servant, Sir,’ said Joe, ‘which I hope as you and Pip’ -

here his eye fell on the Avenger, who was putting some toast

on table, and so plainly denoted an intention to make that

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young gentleman one of the family, that I frowned it down

and confused him more - ‘I meantersay, you two gentlemen

- which I hope as you get your elths in this close spot? For

the present may be a werry good inn, according to London

opinions,’ said Joe, confidentially, ‘and I believe its charac-

ter do stand i; but I wouldn’t keep a pig in it myself - not in

the case that I wished him to fatten wholesome and to eat

with a meller flavour on him.’

Having borne this flattering testimony to the merits of

our dwelling-place, and having incidentally shown this ten-

dency to call me ‘sir,’ Joe, being invited to sit down to table,

looked all round the room for a suitable spot on which to

deposit his hat - as if it were only on some very few rare

substances in nature that it could find a resting place - and

ultimately stood it on an extreme corner of the chimney-

piece, from which it ever afterwards fell off at intervals.

‘Do you take tea, or coffee, Mr. Gargery?’ asked Herbert,

who always presided of a morning.

‘Thankee, Sir,’ said Joe, stiff from head to foot, ‘I’ll take

whichever is most agreeable to yourself.’

‘What do you say to coffee?’

‘Thankee, Sir,’ returned Joe, evidently dispirited by the

proposal, ‘since you are so kind as make chice of coffee, I

will not run contrairy to your own opinions. But don’t you

never find it a little ‘eating?’

‘Say tea then,’ said Herbert, pouring it out.

Here Joe’s hat tumbled off the mantel-piece, and he start-

ed out of his chair and picked it up, and fitted it to the same

exact spot. As if it were an absolute point of good breeding

Great Expectations

that it should tumble off again soon.

‘When did you come to town, Mr. Gargery?’

‘Were it yesterday afternoon?’ said Joe, after coughing

behind his hand, as if he had had time to catch the whoop-

ing-cough since he came. ‘No it were not. Yes it were. Yes. It

were yesterday afternoon’ (with an appearance of mingled

wisdom, relief, and strict impartiality).

‘Have you seen anything of London, yet?’

‘Why, yes, Sir,’ said Joe, ‘me and Wopsle went off straight

to look at the Blacking Ware’us. But we didn’t find that it

come up to its likeness in the red bills at the shop doors;

which I meantersay,’ added Joe, in an explanatory manner,

‘as it is there drawd too architectooralooral.’

I really believe Joe would have prolonged this word

(mightily expressive to my mind of some architecture that

I know) into a perfect Chorus, but for his attention being

providentially attracted by his hat, which was toppling. In-

deed, it demanded from him a constant attention, and a

quickness of eye and hand, very like that exacted by wicket-

keeping. He made extraordinary play with it, and showed

the greatest skill; now, rushing at it and catching it neatly

as it dropped; now, merely stopping it midway, beating it up,

and humouring it in various parts of the room and against

a good deal of the pattern of the paper on the wall, before he

felt it safe to close with it; finally, splashing it into the slop-

basin, where I took the liberty of laying hands upon it.

As to his shirt-collar, and his coat-collar, they were per-

plexing to reflect upon - insoluble mysteries both. Why

should a man scrape himself to that extent, before he could

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consider himself full dressed? Why should he suppose it

necessary to be purified by suffering for his holiday clothes?

Then he fell into such unaccountable fits of meditation,

with his fork midway between his plate and his mouth; had

his eyes attracted in such strange directions; was afflicted

with such remarkable coughs; sat so far from the table, and

dropped so much more than he ate, and pretended that he

hadn’t dropped it; that I was heartily glad when Herbert left

us for the city.

I had neither the good sense nor the good feeling to

know that this was all my fault, and that if I had been easier

with Joe, Joe would have been easier with me. I felt impa-

tient of him and out of temper with him; in which condition

he heaped coals of fire on my head.

‘Us two being now alone, Sir,’ - began Joe.

‘Joe,’ I interrupted, pettishly, ‘how can you call me, Sir?’

Joe looked at me for a single instant with something

faintly like reproach. Utterly preposterous as his cravat was,

and as his collars were, I was conscious of a sort of dignity

in the look.

‘Us two being now alone,’ resumed Joe, ‘and me having

the intentions and abilities to stay not many minutes more,

I will now conclude - leastways begin - to mention what

have led to my having had the present honour. For was it

not,’ said Joe, with his old air of lucid exposition, ‘that my

only wish were to be useful to you, I should not have had

the honour of breaking wittles in the company and abode

of gentlemen.’

I was so unwilling to see the look again, that I made no

Great Expectations

remonstrance against this tone.

‘Well, Sir,’ pursued Joe, ‘this is how it were. I were at the

Bargemen t’other night, Pip;’ whenever he subsided into af-

fection, he called me Pip, and whenever he relapsed into

politeness he called me Sir; ‘when there come up in his shay-

cart, Pumblechook. Which that same identical,’ said Joe,

going down a new track, ‘do comb my ‘air the wrong way

sometimes, awful, by giving out up and down town as it

were him which ever had your infant companionation and

were looked upon as a playfellow by yourself.’

‘Nonsense. It was you, Joe.’

‘Which I fully believed it were, Pip,’ said Joe, slightly toss-

ing his head, ‘though it signify little now, Sir. Well, Pip; this

same identical, which his manners is given to blusterous,

come to me at the Bargemen (wot a pipe and a pint of beer

do give refreshment to the working-man, Sir, and do not

over stimilate), and his word were, ‘Joseph, Miss Havisham

she wish to speak to you.’

‘Miss Havisham, Joe?’

‘ She wish,’ were Pumblechook’s word, ‘to speak to you.’’

Joe sat and rolled his eyes at the ceiling.

‘Yes, Joe? Go on, please.’

‘Next day, Sir,’ said Joe, looking at me as if I were a long

way off, ‘having cleaned myself, I go and I see Miss A.’

‘Miss A., Joe? Miss Havisham?’

‘Which I say, Sir,’ replied Joe, with an air of legal formality,

as if he were making his will, ‘Miss A., or otherways Hav-

isham. Her expression air then as follering: ‘Mr. Gargery.

You air in correspondence with Mr. Pip?’ Having had a let-

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ter from you, I were able to say ‘I am.’ (When I married

your sister, Sir, I said ‘I will;’ and when I answered your

friend, Pip, I said ‘I am.’) ‘Would you tell him, then,’ said

she, ‘that which Estella has come home and would be glad

to see him.’

I felt my face fire up as I looked at Joe. I hope one remote

cause of its firing, may have been my consciousness that if

I had known his errand, I should have given him more en-

couragement.

‘Biddy,’ pursued Joe, ‘when I got home and asked her fur

to write the message to you, a little hung back. Biddy says,

‘I know he will be very glad to have it by word of mouth, it

is holidaytime, you want to see him, go!’ I have now con-

cluded, Sir,’ said Joe, rising from his chair, ‘and, Pip, I wish

you ever well and ever prospering to a greater and a greater

heighth.’

‘But you are not going now, Joe?’

‘Yes I am,’ said Joe.

‘But you are coming back to dinner, Joe?’

‘No I am not,’ said Joe.

Our eyes met, and all the ‘Sir’ melted out of that manly

heart as he gave me his hand.

‘Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings

welded together, as I may say, and one man’s a blacksmith,

and one’s a whitesmith, and one’s a goldsmith, and one’s a

coppersmith. Diwisions among such must come, and must

be met as they come. If there’s been any fault at all to-day,

it’s mine. You and me is not two figures to be together in

London; nor yet anywheres else but what is private, and be-

Great Expectations

known, and understood among friends. It ain’t that I am

proud, but that I want to be right, as you shall never see me

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