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Charles Dickens 20 page

‘You had no idea of your impending good fortune, in

those times?’ said Estella, with a slight wave of her hand,

signifying in the fighting times.

‘Not the least.’

The air of completeness and superiority with which she

walked at my side, and the air of youthfulness and submis-

sion with which I walked at hers, made a contrast that I

 

Great Expectations

strongly felt. It would have rankled in me more than it did,

if I had not regarded myself as eliciting it by being so set

apart for her and assigned to her.

The garden was too overgrown and rank for walking in

with ease, and after we had made the round of it twice or

thrice, we came out again into the brewery yard. I showed

her to a nicety where I had seen her walking on the casks,

that first old day, and she said, with a cold and careless look

in that direction, ‘Did I?’ I reminded her where she had

come out of the house and given me my meat and drink,

and she said, ‘I don’t remember.’ ‘Not remember that you

made me cry?’ said I. ‘No,’ said she, and shook her head and

looked about her. I verily believe that her not remembering

and not minding in the least, made me cry again, inwardly

- and that is the sharpest crying of all.

‘You must know,’ said Estella, condescending to me as a

brilliant and beautiful woman might, ‘that I have no heart

- if that has anything to do with my memory.’

I got through some jargon to the effect that I took the lib-

erty of doubting that. That I knew better. That there could

be no such beauty without it.

‘Oh! I have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in, I have

no doubt,’ said Estella, ‘and, of course, if it ceased to beat

I should cease to be. But you know what I mean. I have no

softness there, no - sympathy - sentiment - nonsense.’

What was it that was borne in upon my mind when she

stood still and looked attentively at me? Anything that I

had seen in Miss Havisham? No. In some of her looks and

gestures there was that tinge of resemblance to Miss Hav-

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isham which may often be noticed to have been acquired

by children, from grown person with whom they have been

much associated and secluded, and which, when childhood

is passed, will produce a remarkable occasional likeness of

expression between faces that are otherwise quite different.

And yet I could not trace this to Miss Havisham. I looked

again, and though she was still looking at me, the sugges-

tion was gone.

What was it?

‘I am serious,’ said Estella, not so much with a frown (for

her brow was smooth) as with a darkening of her face; ‘if we

are to be thrown much together, you had better believe it at

once. No!’ imperiously stopping me as I opened my lips. ‘I

have not bestowed my tenderness anywhere. I have never

had any such thing.’

In another moment we were in the brewery so long dis-

used, and she pointed to the high gallery where I had seen

her going out on that same first day, and told me she remem-

bered to have been up there, and to have seen me standing



scared below. As my eyes followed her white hand, again

the same dim suggestion that I could not possibly grasp,

crossed me. My involuntary start occasioned her to lay her

hand upon my arm. Instantly the ghost passed once more,

and was gone.

What was it?

‘What is the matter?’ asked Estella. ‘Are you scared

again?’

‘I should be, if I believed what you said just now,’ I replied,

to turn it off.

 

Great Expectations

‘Then you don’t? Very well. It is said, at any rate. Miss

Havisham will soon be expecting you at your old post,

though I think that might be laid aside now, with other old

belongings. Let us make one more round of the garden, and

then go in. Come! You shall not shed tears for my cruelty to-

day; you shall be my Page, and give me your shoulder.’

Her handsome dress had trailed upon the ground. She

held it in one hand now, and with the other lightly touched

my shoulder as we walked. We walked round the ruined

garden twice or thrice more, and it was all in bloom for me.

If the green and yellow growth of weed in the chinks of the

old wall had been the most precious flowers that ever blew,

it could not have been more cherished in my remembrance.

There was no discrepancy of years between us, to remove

her far from me; we were of nearly the same age, though of

course the age told for more in her case than in mine; but

the air of inaccessibility which her beauty and her manner

gave her, tormented me in the midst of my delight, and at

the height of the assurance I felt that our patroness had cho-

sen us for one another. Wretched boy!

At last we went back into the house, and there I heard,

with surprise, that my guardian had come down to see Miss

Havisham on business, and would come back to dinner.

The old wintry branches of chandeliers in the room where

the mouldering table was spread, had been lighted while we

were out, and Miss Havisham was in her chair and waiting

for me.

It was like pushing the chair itself back into the past,

when we began the old slow circuit round about the ashes

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of the bridal feast. But, in the funereal room, with that fig-

ure of the grave fallen back in the chair fixing its eyes upon

her, Estella looked more bright and beautiful than before,

and I was under stronger enchantment.

The time so melted away, that our early dinner-hour

drew close at hand, and Estella left us to prepare herself. We

had stopped near the centre of the long table, and Miss Hav-

isham, with one of her withered arms stretched out of the

chair, rested that clenched hand upon the yellow cloth. As

Estella looked back over her shoulder before going out at

the door, Miss Havisham kissed that hand to her, with a

ravenous intensity that was of its kind quite dreadful.

Then, Estella being gone and we two left alone, she turned

to me, and said in a whisper:

‘Is she beautiful, graceful, well-grown? Do you admire

her?’

‘Everybody must who sees her, Miss Havisham.’

She drew an arm round my neck, and drew my head

close down to hers as she sat in the chair. ‘Love her, love her,

love her! How does she use you?’

Before I could answer (if I could have answered so diffi-

cult a question at all), she repeated, ‘Love her, love her, love

her! If she favours you, love her. If she wounds you, love her.

If she tears your heart to pieces - and as it gets older and

stronger, it will tear deeper - love her, love her, love her!’

Never had I seen such passionate eagerness as was joined

to her utterance of these words. I could feel the muscles of

the thin arm round my neck, swell with the vehemence that

possessed her.

 

Great Expectations

‘Hear me, Pip! I adopted her to be loved. I bred her and

educated her, to be loved. I developed her into what she is,

that she might be loved. Love her!’

She said the word often enough, and there could be no

doubt that she meant to say it; but if the often repeated word

had been hate instead of love - despair - revenge - dire death

- it could not have sounded from her lips more like a curse.

‘I’ll tell you,’ said she, in the same hurried passionate

whisper, ‘what real love is. It is blind devotion, unques-

tioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief

against yourself and against the whole world, giving up

your whole heart and soul to the smiter - as I did!’

When she came to that, and to a wild cry that followed

that, I caught her round the waist. For she rose up in the

chair, in her shroud of a dress, and struck at the air as if

she would as soon have struck herself against the wall and

fallen dead.

All this passed in a few seconds. As I drew her down into

her chair, I was conscious of a scent that I knew, and turn-

ing, saw my guardian in the room.

He always carried (I have not yet mentioned it, I think)

a pocket-handkerchief of rich silk and of imposing propor-

tions, which was of great value to him in his profession. I

have seen him so terrify a client or a witness by ceremo-

niously unfolding this pocket-handkerchief as if he were

immediately going to blow his nose, and then pausing, as

if he knew he should not have time to do it before such cli-

ent or witness committed himself, that the self-committal

has followed directly, quite as a matter of course. When I

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saw him in the room, he had this expressive pockethand-

kerchief in both hands, and was looking at us. On meeting

my eye, he said plainly, by a momentary and silent pause in

that attitude, ‘Indeed? Singular!’ and then put the handker-

chief to its right use with wonderful effect.

Miss Havisham had seen him as soon as I, and was (like

everybody else) afraid of him. She made a strong attempt to

compose herself, and stammered that he was as punctual

as ever.

‘As punctual as ever,’ he repeated, coming up to us. ‘(How

do you do, Pip? Shall I give you a ride, Miss Havisham?

Once round?) And so you are here, Pip?’

I told him when I had arrived, and how Miss Havisham

had wished me to come and see Estella. To which he replied,

‘Ah! Very fine young lady!’ Then he pushed Miss Havisham

in her chair before him, with one of his large hands, and

put the other in his trousers-pocket as if the pocket were

full of secrets.

‘Well, Pip! How often have you seen Miss Estella before?’

said he, when he came to a stop.

‘How often?’

‘Ah! How many times? Ten thousand times?’

‘Oh! Certainly not so many.’

‘Twice?’

‘Jaggers,’ interposed Miss Havisham, much to my relief;

‘leave my Pip alone, and go with him to your dinner.’

He complied, and we groped our way down the dark

stairs together. While we were still on our way to those de-

tached apartments across the paved yard at the back, he

Great Expectations

asked me how often I had seen Miss Havisham eat and

drink; offering me a breadth of choice, as usual, between a

hundred times and once.

I considered, and said, ‘Never.’

‘And never will, Pip,’ he retorted, with a frowning smile.

‘She has never allowed herself to be seen doing either, since

she lived this present life of hers. She wanders about in the

night, and then lays hands on such food as she takes.’

‘Pray, sir,’ said I, ‘may I ask you a question?’

‘You may,’ said he, ‘and I may decline to answer it. Put

your question.’

‘Estella’s name. Is it Havisham or - ?’ I had nothing to

add.

‘Or what?’ said he.

‘Is it Havisham?’

‘It is Havisham.’

This brought us to the dinner-table, where she and Sarah

Pocket awaited us. Mr. Jaggers presided, Estella sat opposite

to him, I faced my green and yellow friend. We dined very

well, and were waited on by a maid-servant whom I had

never seen in all my comings and goings, but who, for any-

thing I know, had been in that mysterious house the whole

time. After dinner, a bottle of choice old port was placed

before my guardian (he was evidently well acquainted with

the vintage), and the two ladies left us.

Anything to equal the determined reticence of Mr. Jag-

gers under that roof, I never saw elsewhere, even in him. He

kept his very looks to himself, and scarcely directed his eyes

to Estella’s face once during dinner. When she spoke to him,

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he listened, and in due course answered, but never looked at

her, that I could see. On the other hand, she often looked at

him, with interest and curiosity, if not distrust, but his face

never, showed the least consciousness. Throughout dinner

he took a dry delight in making Sarah Pocket greener and

yellower, by often referring in conversation with me to my

expectations; but here, again, he showed no consciousness,

and even made it appear that he extorted - and even did ex-

tort, though I don’t know how - those references out of my

innocent self.

And when he and I were left alone together, he sat with

an air upon him of general lying by in consequence of in-

formation he possessed, that really was too much for me.

He cross-examined his very wine when he had nothing else

in hand. He held it between himself and the candle, tasted

the port, rolled it in his mouth, swallowed it, looked at his

glass again, smelt the port, tried it, drank it, filled again,

and cross-examined the glass again, until I was as nervous

as if I had known the wine to be telling him something

to my disadvantage. Three or four times I feebly thought

I would start conversation; but whenever he saw me going

to ask him anything, he looked at me with his glass in his

hand, and rolling his wine about in his mouth, as if request-

ing me to take notice that it was of no use, for he couldn’t

answer.

I think Miss Pocket was conscious that the sight of me

involved her in the danger of being goaded to madness, and

perhaps tearing off her cap - which was a very hideous one,

in the nature of a muslin mop - and strewing the ground

 

Great Expectations

with her hair - which assuredly had never grown on her

head. She did not appear when we afterwards went up to

Miss Havisham’s room, and we four played at whist. In the

interval, Miss Havisham, in a fantastic way, had put some of

the most beautiful jewels from her dressing-table into Estel-

la’s hair, and about her bosom and arms; and I saw even my

guardian look at her from under his thick eyebrows, and

raise them a little, when her loveliness was before him, with

those rich flushes of glitter and colour in it.

Of the manner and extent to which he took our trumps

into custody, and came out with mean little cards at the ends

of hands, before which the glory of our Kings and Queens

was utterly abased, I say nothing; nor, of the feeling that I

had, respecting his looking upon us personally in the light

of three very obvious and poor riddles that he had found

out long ago. What I suffered from, was the incompatibility

between his cold presence and my feelings towards Estella.

It was not that I knew I could never bear to speak to him

about her, that I knew I could never bear to hear him creak

his boots at her, that I knew I could never bear to see him

wash his hands of her; it was, that my admiration should be

within a foot or two of him - it was, that my feelings should

be in the same place with him - that, was the agonizing cir-

cumstance.

We played until nine o’clock, and then it was arranged

that when Estella came to London I should be forewarned

of her coming and should meet her at the coach; and then I

took leave of her, and touched her and left her.

My guardian lay at the Boar in the next room to mine.

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Far into the night, Miss Havisham’s words, ‘Love her, love

her, love her!’ sounded in my ears. I adapted them for my

own repetition, and said to my pillow, ‘I love her, I love her,

I love her!’ hundreds of times. Then, a burst of gratitude

came upon me, that she should be destined for me, once the

blacksmith’s boy. Then, I thought if she were, as I feared, by

no means rapturously grateful for that destiny yet, when

would she begin to be interested in me? When should I

awaken the heart within her, that was mute and sleeping

now?

Ah me! I thought those were high and great emotions.

But I never thought there was anything low and small in

my keeping away from Joe, because I knew she would be

contemptuous of him. It was but a day gone, and Joe had

brought the tears into my eyes; they had soon dried, God

forgive me! soon dried.

 

Great Expectations

Chapter 30

After well considering the matter while I was dressing

at the Blue Boar in the morning, I resolved to tell my

guardian that I doubted Orlick’s being the right sort of man

to fill a post of trust at Miss Havisham’s. ‘Why, of course he

is not the right sort of man, Pip,’ said my guardian, comfort-

ably satisfied beforehand on the general head, ‘because the

man who fills the post of trust never is the right sort of man.’

It seemed quite to put him into spirits, to find that this par-

ticular post was not exceptionally held by the right sort of

man, and he listened in a satisfied manner while I told him

what knowledge I had of Orlick. ‘Very good, Pip,’ he ob-

served, when I had concluded, ‘I’ll go round presently, and

pay our friend off.’ Rather alarmed by this summary action,

I was for a little delay, and even hinted that our friend him-

self might be difficult to deal with. ‘Oh no he won’t,’ said

my guardian, making his pocket-handkerchief-point, with

perfect confidence; ‘I should like to see him argue the ques-

tion with me.’

As we were going back together to London by the mid-

day coach, and as I breakfasted under such terrors of

Pumblechook that I could scarcely hold my cup, this gave

me an opportunity of saying that I wanted a walk, and that

I would go on along the London-road while Mr. Jaggers was

occupied, if he would let the coachman know that I would

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get into my place when overtaken. I was thus enabled to

fly from the Blue Boar immediately after breakfast. By then

making a loop of about a couple of miles into the open

country at the back of Pumblechook’s premises, I got round

into the High-street again, a little beyond that pitfall, and

felt myself in comparative security.

It was interesting to be in the quiet old town once more,

and it was not disagreeable to be here and there suddenly

recognized and stared after. One or two of the tradespeople

even darted out of their shops and went a little way down

the street before me, that they might turn, as if they had

forgotten something, and pass me face to face - on which

occasions I don’t know whether they or I made the worse

pretence; they of not doing it, or I of not seeing it. Still

my position was a distinguished one, and I was not at all

dissatisfied with it, until Fate threw me in the way of that

unlimited miscreant, Trabb’s boy.

Casting my eyes along the street at a certain point of my

progress, I beheld Trabb’s boy approaching, lashing himself

with an empty blue bag. Deeming that a serene and uncon-

scious contemplation of him would best beseem me, and

would be most likely to quell his evil mind, I advanced with

that expression of countenance, and was rather congratu-

lating myself on my success, when suddenly the knees of

Trabb’s boy smote together, his hair uprose, his cap fell off,

he trembled violently in every limb, staggered out into the

road, and crying to the populace, ‘Hold me! I’m so fright-

ened!’ feigned to be in a paroxysm of terror and contrition,

occasioned by the dignity of my appearance. As I passed

 

Great Expectations

him, his teeth loudly chattered in his head, and with every

mark of extreme humiliation, he prostrated himself in the

dust.

This was a hard thing to bear, but this was nothing. I

had not advanced another two hundred yards, when, to my

inexpressible terror, amazement, and indignation, I again

beheld Trabb’s boy approaching. He was coming round a

narrow corner. His blue bag was slung over his shoulder,

honest industry beamed in his eyes, a determination to pro-

ceed to Trabb’s with cheerful briskness was indicated in his

gait. With a shock he became aware of me, and was severe-

ly visited as before; but this time his motion was rotatory,

and he staggered round and round me with knees more af-

flicted, and with uplifted hands as if beseeching for mercy.

His sufferings were hailed with the greatest joy by a knot of

spectators, and I felt utterly confounded.

I had not got as much further down the street as the post-

office, when I again beheld Trabb’s boy shooting round by a

back way. This time, he was entirely changed. He wore the

blue bag in the manner of my great-coat, and was strutting

along the pavement towards me on the opposite side of the

street, attended by a company of delighted young friends to

whom he from time to time exclaimed, with a wave of his

hand, ‘Don’t know yah!’ Words cannot state the amount of

aggravation and injury wreaked upon me by Trabb’s boy,

when, passing abreast of me, he pulled up his shirt-collar,

twined his side-hair, stuck an arm akimbo, and smirked ex-

travagantly by, wriggling his elbows and body, and drawling

to his attendants, ‘Don’t know yah, don’t know yah, pon my

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soul don’t know yah!’ The disgrace attendant on his im-

mediately afterwards taking to crowing and pursuing me

across the bridge with crows, as from an exceedingly de-

jected fowl who had known me when I was a blacksmith,

culminated the disgrace with which I left the town, and was,

so to speak, ejected by it into the open country.

But unless I had taken the life of Trabb’s boy on that oc-

casion, I really do not even now see what I could have done

save endure. To have struggled with him in the street, or

to have exacted any lower recompense from him than his

heart’s best blood, would have been futile and degrading.

Moreover, he was a boy whom no man could hurt; an in-

vulnerable and dodging serpent who, when chased into a

corner, flew out again between his captor’s legs, scornfully

yelping. I wrote, however, to Mr. Trabb by next day’s post,

to say that Mr. Pip must decline to deal further with one

who could so far forget what he owed to the best interests

of society, as to employ a boy who excited Loathing in every

respectable mind.

The coach, with Mr. Jaggers inside, came up in due time,

and I took my box-seat again, and arrived in London safe

- but not sound, for my heart was gone. As soon as I arrived,

I sent a penitential codfish and barrel of oysters to Joe (as

reparation for not having gone myself), and then went on

to Barnard’s Inn.

I found Herbert dining on cold meat, and delighted to

welcome me back. Having despatched The Avenger to the

coffee-house for an addition to the dinner, I felt that I must

open my breast that very evening to my friend and chum.

 

Great Expectations

As confidence was out of the question with The Avenger

in the hall, which could merely be regarded in the light of

an ante-chamber to the keyhole, I sent him to the Play. A

better proof of the severity of my bondage to that taskmas-

ter could scarcely be afforded, than the degrading shifts to

which I was constantly driven to find him employment. So

mean is extremity, that I sometimes sent him to Hyde Park

Corner to see what o’clock it was.

Dinner done and we sitting with our feet upon the fend-

er, I said to Herbert, ‘My dear Herbert, I have something

very particular to tell you.’

‘My dear Handel,’ he returned, ‘I shall esteem and re-

spect your confidence.’

‘It concerns myself, Herbert,’ said I, ‘and one other per-

son.’

Herbert crossed his feet, looked at the fire with his head

on one side, and having looked at it in vain for some time,

looked at me because I didn’t go on.

‘Herbert,’ said I, laying my hand upon his knee, ‘I love - I

adore - Estella.’

Instead of being transfixed, Herbert replied in an easy

matter-ofcourse way, ‘Exactly. Well?’

‘Well, Herbert? Is that all you say? Well?’

‘What next, I mean?’ said Herbert. ‘Of course I know

that.’

‘How do you know it?’ said I.

‘How do I know it, Handel? Why, from you.’

‘I never told you.’

‘Told me! You have never told me when you have got your

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hair cut, but I have had senses to perceive it. You have al-

ways adored her, ever since I have known you. You brought

your adoration and your portmanteau here, together. Told

me! Why, you have always told me all day long. When you

told me your own story, you told me plainly that you began

adoring her the first time you saw her, when you were very

young indeed.’

‘Very well, then,’ said I, to whom this was a new and not

unwelcome light, ‘I have never left off adoring her. And she

has come back, a most beautiful and most elegant creature.

And I saw her yesterday. And if I adored her before, I now

doubly adore her.’

‘Lucky for you then, Handel,’ said Herbert, ‘that you are

picked out for her and allotted to her. Without encroaching

on forbidden ground, we may venture to say that there can

be no doubt between ourselves of that fact. Have you any

idea yet, of Estella’s views on the adoration question?’

I shook my head gloomily. ‘Oh! She is thousands of miles

away, from me,’ said I.

‘Patience, my dear Handel: time enough, time enough.

But you have something more to say?’

‘I am ashamed to say it,’ I returned, ‘and yet it’s no worse

to say it than to think it. You call me a lucky fellow. Of

course, I am. I was a blacksmith’s boy but yesterday; I am

- what shall I say I am - to-day?’

‘Say, a good fellow, if you want a phrase,’ returned Her-

bert, smiling, and clapping his hand on the back of mine, ‘a

good fellow, with impetuosity and hesitation, boldness and

diffidence, action and dreaming, curiously mixed in him.’

Great Expectations

I stopped for a moment to consider whether there really

was this mixture in my character. On the whole, I by no

means recognized the analysis, but thought it not worth

disputing.

‘When I ask what I am to call myself to-day, Herbert,’ I

went on, ‘I suggest what I have in my thoughts. You say I

am lucky. I know I have done nothing to raise myself in

life, and that Fortune alone has raised me; that is being very

lucky. And yet, when I think of Estella—‘

(“And when don’t you, you know?’ Herbert threw in,

with his eyes on the fire; which I thought kind and sympa-

thetic of him.)

‘ - Then, my dear Herbert, I cannot tell you how depen-

dent and uncertain I feel, and how exposed to hundreds of

chances. Avoiding forbidden ground, as you did just now,

I may still say that on the constancy of one person (nam-

ing no person) all my expectations depend. And at the best,

how indefinite and unsatisfactory, only to know so vaguely

what they are!’ In saying this, I relieved my mind of what

had always been there, more or less, though no doubt most

since yesterday.

‘Now, Handel,’ Herbert replied, in his gay hopeful way, ‘it

seems to me that in the despondency of the tender passion,

we are looking into our gift-horse’s mouth with a magnify-

ing-glass. Likewise, it seems to me that, concentrating our

attention on the examination, we altogether overlook one

of the best points of the animal. Didn’t you tell me that your


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