Home Random Page


CATEGORIES:

BiologyChemistryConstructionCultureEcologyEconomyElectronicsFinanceGeographyHistoryInformaticsLawMathematicsMechanicsMedicineOtherPedagogyPhilosophyPhysicsPolicyPsychologySociologySportTourism






Charles Dickens 24 page

birthday, with a crowd of speculations and anticipations,

for we had both considered that my guardian could hardly

help saying something definite on that occasion.

I had taken care to have it well understood in Little

Britain, when my birthday was. On the day before it, I re-

ceived an official note from Wemmick, informing me that

Mr. Jaggers would be glad if I would call upon him at five

in the afternoon of the auspicious day. This convinced us

that something great was to happen, and threw me into an

unusual flutter when I repaired to my guardian’s office, a

model of punctuality.

In the outer office Wemmick offered me his congratu-

lations, and incidentally rubbed the side of his nose with

a folded piece of tissuepaper that I liked the look of. But

Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com

he said nothing respecting it, and motioned me with a nod

into my guardian’s room. It was November, and my guard-

ian was standing before his fire leaning his back against the

chimney-piece, with his hands under his coattails.

‘Well, Pip,’ said he, ‘I must call you Mr. Pip to-day. Con-

gratulations, Mr. Pip.’

We shook hands - he was always a remarkably short

shaker - and I thanked him.

‘Take a chair, Mr. Pip,’ said my guardian.

As I sat down, and he preserved his attitude and bent his

brows at his boots, I felt at a disadvantage, which reminded

me of that old time when I had been put upon a tombstone.

The two ghastly casts on the shelf were not far from him,

and their expression was as if they were making a stupid

apoplectic attempt to attend to the conversation.

‘Now my young friend,’ my guardian began, as if I were

a witness in the box, ‘I am going to have a word or two with

you.’

‘If you please, sir.’

‘What do you suppose,’ said Mr. Jaggers, bending for-

ward to look at the ground, and then throwing his head

back to look at the ceiling, ‘what do you suppose you are

living at the rate of?’

‘At the rate of, sir?’

‘At,’ repeated Mr. Jaggers, still looking at the ceiling, ‘the

- rate - of?’ And then looked all round the room, and paused

with his pocket-handkerchief in his hand, half way to his

nose.

I had looked into my affairs so often, that I had thor-

Great Expectations

oughly destroyed any slight notion I might ever have had of

their bearings. Reluctantly, I confessed myself quite unable

to answer the question. This reply seemed agreeable to Mr.

Jaggers, who said, ‘I thought so!’ and blew his nose with an

air of satisfaction.

‘Now, I have asked you a question, my friend,’ said Mr.

Jaggers. ‘Have you anything to ask me?’

‘Of course it would be a great relief to me to ask you sev-

eral questions, sir; but I remember your prohibition.’

‘Ask one,’ said Mr. Jaggers.

‘Is my benefactor to be made known to me to-day?’

‘No. Ask another.’

‘Is that confidence to be imparted to me soon?’

‘Waive that, a moment,’ said Mr. Jaggers, ‘and ask anoth-

er.’I looked about me, but there appeared to be now no pos-

sible escape from the inquiry, ‘Have - I - anything to receive,



sir?’ On that, Mr. Jaggers said, triumphantly, ‘I thought we

should come to it!’ and called to Wemmick to give him that

piece of paper. Wemmick appeared, handed it in, and dis-

appeared.

‘Now, Mr. Pip,’ said Mr. Jaggers, ‘attend, if you please.

You have been drawing pretty freely here; your name oc-

curs pretty often in Wemmick’s cash-book; but you are in

debt, of course?’

‘I am afraid I must say yes, sir.’

‘You know you must say yes; don’t you?’ said Mr. Jaggers.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I don’t ask you what you owe, because you don’t know;

Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com

and if you did know, you wouldn’t tell me; you would say

less. Yes, yes, my friend,’ cried Mr. Jaggers, waving his fore-

finger to stop me, as I made a show of protesting: ‘it’s likely

enough that you think you wouldn’t, but you would. You’ll

excuse me, but I know better than you. Now, take this piece

of paper in your hand. You have got it? Very good. Now, un-

fold it and tell me what it is.’

‘This is a bank-note,’ said I, ‘for five hundred pounds.’

‘That is a bank-note,’ repeated Mr. Jaggers, ‘for five hun-

dred pounds. And a very handsome sum of money too, I

think. You consider it so?’

‘How could I do otherwise!’

‘Ah! But answer the question,’ said Mr. Jaggers.

‘Undoubtedly.’

‘You consider it, undoubtedly, a handsome sum of money.

Now, that handsome sum of money, Pip, is your own. It is a

present to you on this day, in earnest of your expectations.

And at the rate of that handsome sum of money per annum,

and at no higher rate, you are to live until the donor of the

whole appears. That is to say, you will now take your mon-

ey affairs entirely into your own hands, and you will draw

from Wemmick one hundred and twenty-five pounds per

quarter, until you are in communication with the fountain-

head, and no longer with the mere agent. As I have told you

before, I am the mere agent. I execute my instructions, and I

am paid for doing so. I think them injudicious, but I am not

paid for giving any opinion on their merits.’

I was beginning to express my gratitude to my benefactor

for the great liberality with which I was treated, when Mr.

Great Expectations

Jaggers stopped me. ‘I am not paid, Pip,’ said he, coolly, ‘to

carry your words to any one;’ and then gathered up his coat-

tails, as he had gathered up the subject, and stood frowning

at his boots as if he suspected them of designs against him.

After a pause, I hinted:

‘There was a question just now, Mr. Jaggers, which you

desired me to waive for a moment. I hope I am doing noth-

ing wrong in asking it again?’

‘What is it?’ said he.

I might have known that he would never help me out; but

it took me aback to have to shape the question afresh, as if it

were quite new. ‘Is it likely,’ I said, after hesitating, ‘that my

patron, the fountain-head you have spoken of, Mr. Jaggers,

will soon—’ there I delicately stopped.

‘Will soon what?’ asked Mr. Jaggers. ‘That’s no question

as it stands, you know.’

‘Will soon come to London,’ said I, after casting about for

a precise form of words, ‘or summon me anywhere else?’

‘Now here,’ replied Mr. Jaggers, fixing me for the first

time with his dark deep-set eyes, ‘we must revert to the eve-

ning when we first encountered one another in your village.

What did I tell you then, Pip?’

‘You told me, Mr. Jaggers, that it might be years hence

when that person appeared.’

‘Just so,’ said Mr. Jaggers; ‘that’s my answer.’

As we looked full at one another, I felt my breath come

quicker in my strong desire to get something out of him.

And as I felt that it came quicker, and as I felt that he saw

that it came quicker, I felt that I had less chance than ever of

Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com

getting anything out of him.

‘Do you suppose it will still be years hence, Mr. Jaggers?’

Mr. Jaggers shook his head - not in negativing the ques-

tion, but in altogether negativing the notion that he could

anyhow be got to answer it - and the two horrible casts of

the twitched faces looked, when my eyes strayed up to them,

as if they had come to a crisis in their suspended attention,

and were going to sneeze.

‘Come!’ said Mr. Jaggers, warming the backs of his legs

with the backs of his warmed hands, ‘I’ll be plain with you,

my friend Pip. That’s a question I must not be asked. You’ll

understand that, better, when I tell you it’s a question that

might compromise me. Come! I’ll go a little further with

you; I’ll say something more.’

He bent down so low to frown at his boots, that he was

able to rub the calves of his legs in the pause he made.

‘When that person discloses,’ said Mr. Jaggers, straight-

ening himself, ‘you and that person will settle your own

affairs. When that person discloses, my part in this busi-

ness will cease and determine. When that person discloses,

it will not be necessary for me to know anything about it.

And that’s all I have got to say.’

We looked at one another until I withdrew my eyes, and

looked thoughtfully at the floor. From this last speech I de-

rived the notion that Miss Havisham, for some reason or

no reason, had not taken him into her confidence as to her

designing me for Estella; that he resented this, and felt a

jealousy about it; or that he really did object to that scheme,

and would have nothing to do with it. When I raised my

Great Expectations

eyes again, I found that he had been shrewdly looking at me

all the time, and was doing so still.

‘If that is all you have to say, sir,’ I remarked, ‘there can be

nothing left for me to say.’

He nodded assent, and pulled out his thief-dreaded

watch, and asked me where I was going to dine? I replied at

my own chambers, with Herbert. As a necessary sequence,

I asked him if he would favour us with his company, and he

promptly accepted the invitation. But he insisted on walk-

ing home with me, in order that I might make no extra

preparation for him, and first he had a letter or two to write,

and (of course) had his hands to wash. So, I said I would go

into the outer office and talk to Wemmick.

The fact was, that when the five hundred pounds had

come into my pocket, a thought had come into my head

which had been often there before; and it appeared to me

that Wemmick was a good person to advise with, concern-

ing such thought.

He had already locked up his safe, and made prepara-

tions for going home. He had left his desk, brought out

his two greasy office candlesticks and stood them in line

with the snuffers on a slab near the door, ready to be extin-

guished; he had raked his fire low, put his hat and great-coat

ready, and was beating himself all over the chest with his

safe-key, as an athletic exercise after business.

‘Mr. Wemmick,’ said I, ‘I want to ask your opinion. I am

very desirous to serve a friend.’

Wemmick tightened his post-office and shook his head,

as if his opinion were dead against any fatal weakness of

Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com

that sort.

‘This friend,’ I pursued, ‘is trying to get on in commercial

life, but has no money, and finds it difficult and dishearten-

ing to make a beginning. Now, I want somehow to help him

to a beginning.’

‘With money down?’ said Wemmick, in a tone drier than

any sawdust.

‘With some money down,’ I replied, for an uneasy re-

membrance shot across me of that symmetrical bundle

of papers at home; ‘with some money down, and perhaps

some anticipation of my expectations.’

‘Mr. Pip,’ said Wemmick, ‘I should like just to run over

with you on my fingers, if you please, the names of the vari-

ous bridges up as high as Chelsea Reach. Let’s see; there’s

London, one; Southwark, two; Blackfriars, three; Waterloo,

four; Westminster, five; Vauxhall, six.’ He had checked off

each bridge in its turn, with the handle of his safe-key on

the palm of his hand. ‘There’s as many as six, you see, to

choose from.’

‘I don’t understand you,’ said I.

‘Choose your bridge, Mr. Pip,’ returned Wemmick, ‘and

take a walk upon your bridge, and pitch your money into

the Thames over the centre arch of your bridge, and you

know the end of it. Serve a friend with it, and you may know

the end of it too - but it’s a less pleasant and profitable end.’

I could have posted a newspaper in his mouth, he made

it so wide after saying this.

‘This is very discouraging,’ said I.

‘Meant to be so,’ said Wemmick.

Great Expectations

‘Then is it your opinion,’ I inquired, with some little in-

dignation, ‘that a man should never—‘

‘ - Invest portable property in a friend?’ said Wemmick.

‘Certainly he should not. Unless he wants to get rid of the

friend - and then it becomes a question how much portable

property it may be worth to get rid of him.’

‘And that,’ said I, ‘is your deliberate opinion, Mr. Wem-

mick?’

‘That,’ he returned, ‘is my deliberate opinion in this of-

fice.’

‘Ah!’ said I, pressing him, for I thought I saw him near

a loophole here; ‘but would that be your opinion at Wal-

worth?’

‘Mr. Pip,’ he replied, with gravity, ‘Walworth is one place,

and this office is another. Much as the Aged is one person,

and Mr. Jaggers is another. They must not be confounded

together. My Walworth sentiments must be taken at Wal-

worth; none but my official sentiments can be taken in this

office.’

‘Very well,’ said I, much relieved, ‘then I shall look you up

at Walworth, you may depend upon it.’

‘Mr. Pip,’ he returned, ‘you will be welcome there, in a

private and personal capacity.’

We had held this conversation in a low voice, well know-

ing my guardian’s ears to be the sharpest of the sharp. As he

now appeared in his doorway, towelling his hands, Wem-

mick got on his greatcoat and stood by to snuff out the

candles. We all three went into the street together, and from

the door-step Wemmick turned his way, and Mr. Jaggers

Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com

and I turned ours.

I could not help wishing more than once that evening,

that Mr. Jaggers had had an Aged in Gerrard-street, or a

Stinger, or a Something, or a Somebody, to unbend his

brows a little. It was an uncomfortable consideration on a

twenty-first birthday, that coming of age at all seemed hard-

ly worth while in such a guarded and suspicious world as he

made of it. He was a thousand times better informed and

cleverer than Wemmick, and yet I would a thousand times

rather have had Wemmick to dinner. And Mr. Jaggers made

not me alone intensely melancholy, because, after he was

gone, Herbert said of himself, with his eyes fixed on the fire,

that he thought he must have committed a felony and for-

gotten the details of it, he felt so dejected and guilty.

Great Expectations

Chapter 37

Deeming Sunday the best day for taking Mr. Wemmick’s

Walworth sentiments, I devoted the next ensuing Sun-

day afternoon to a pilgrimage to the Castle. On arriving

before the battlements, I found the Union Jack flying and

the drawbridge up; but undeterred by this show of defiance

and resistance, I rang at the gate, and was admitted in a

most pacific manner by the Aged.

‘My son, sir,’ said the old man, after securing the draw-

bridge, ‘rather had it in his mind that you might happen to

drop in, and he left word that he would soon be home from

his afternoon’s walk. He is very regular in his walks, is my

son. Very regular in everything, is my son.’

I nodded at the old gentleman as Wemmick himself

might have nodded, and we went in and sat down by the

fireside.

‘You made acquaintance with my son, sir,’ said the old

man, in his chirping way, while he warmed his hands at the

blaze, ‘at his office, I expect?’ I nodded. ‘Hah! I have heerd

that my son is a wonderful hand at his business, sir?’ I nod-

ded hard. ‘Yes; so they tell me. His business is the Law?’ I

nodded harder. ‘Which makes it more surprising in my son,’

said the old man, ‘for he was not brought up to the Law, but

to the Wine-Coopering.’

Curious to know how the old gentleman stood informed

Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com

concerning the reputation of Mr. Jaggers, I roared that

name at him. He threw me into the greatest confusion by

laughing heartily and replying in a very sprightly manner,

‘No, to be sure; you’re right.’ And to this hour I have not the

faintest notion what he meant, or what joke he thought I

had made.

As I could not sit there nodding at him perpetually, with-

out making some other attempt to interest him, I shouted at

inquiry whether his own calling in life had been ‘the Wine-

Coopering.’ By dint of straining that term out of myself

several times and tapping the old gentleman on the chest

to associate it with him, I at last succeeded in making my

meaning understood.

‘No,’ said the old gentleman; ‘the warehousing, the ware-

housing. First, over yonder;’ he appeared to mean up the

chimney, but I believe he intended to refer me to Liverpool;

‘and then in the City of London here. However, having an

infirmity - for I am hard of hearing, sir—‘

I expressed in pantomime the greatest astonishment.

‘ - Yes, hard of hearing; having that infirmity coming

upon me, my son he went into the Law, and he took charge

of me, and he by little and little made out this elegant and

beautiful property. But returning to what you said, you

know,’ pursued the old man, again laughing heartily, ‘what

I say is, No to be sure; you’re right.’

I was modestly wondering whether my utmost ingenu-

ity would have enabled me to say anything that would have

amused him half as much as this imaginary pleasantry,

when I was startled by a sudden click in the wall on one side

Great Expectations

of the chimney, and the ghostly tumbling open of a little

wooden flap with ‘JOHN’ upon it. The old man, following

my eyes, cried with great triumph, ‘My son’s come home!’

and we both went out to the drawbridge.

It was worth any money to see Wemmick waving a salute

to me from the other side of the moat, when we might have

shaken hands across it with the greatest ease. The Aged was

so delighted to work the drawbridge, that I made no offer to

assist him, but stood quiet until Wemmick had come across,

and had presented me to Miss Skiffins: a lady by whom he

was accompanied.

Miss Skiffins was of a wooden appearance, and was,

like her escort, in the post-office branch of the service. She

might have been some two or three years younger than

Wemmick, and I judged her to stand possessed of portable

property. The cut of her dress from the waist upward, both

before and behind, made her figure very like a boy’s kite;

and I might have pronounced her gown a little too decid-

edly orange, and her gloves a little too intensely green. But

she seemed to be a good sort of fellow, and showed a high

regard for the Aged. I was not long in discovering that she

was a frequent visitor at the Castle; for, on our going in, and

my complimenting Wemmick on his ingenious contrivance

for announcing himself to the Aged, he begged me to give

my attention for a moment to the other side of the chimney,

and disappeared. Presently another click came, and anoth-

er little door tumbled open with ‘Miss Skiffins’ on it; then

Miss Skiffins shut up and John tumbled open; then Miss

Skiffins and John both tumbled open together, and final-

Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com

ly shut up together. On Wemmick’s return from working

these mechanical appliances, I expressed the great admi-

ration with which I regarded them, and he said, ‘Well, you

know, they’re both pleasant and useful to the Aged. And

by George, sir, it’s a thing worth mentioning, that of all the

people who come to this gate, the secret of those pulls is

only known to the Aged, Miss Skiffins, and me!’

‘And Mr. Wemmick made them,’ added Miss Skiffins,

‘with his own hands out of his own head.’

While Miss Skiffins was taking off her bonnet (she re-

tained her green gloves during the evening as an outward

and visible sign that there was company), Wemmick invit-

ed me to take a walk with him round the property, and see

how the island looked in wintertime. Thinking that he did

this to give me an opportunity of taking his Walworth sen-

timents, I seized the opportunity as soon as we were out of

the Castle.

Having thought of the matter with care, I approached

my subject as if I had never hinted at it before. I informed

Wemmick that I was anxious in behalf of Herbert Pocket,

and I told him how we had first met, and how we had fought.

I glanced at Herbert’s home, and at his character, and at his

having no means but such as he was dependent on his father

for: those, uncertain and unpunctual.

I alluded to the advantages I had derived in my first raw-

ness and ignorance from his society, and I confessed that

I feared I had but ill repaid them, and that he might have

done better without me and my expectations. Keeping Miss

Havisham in the background at a great distance, I still hint-

Great Expectations

ed at the possibility of my having competed with him in his

prospects, and at the certainty of his possessing a generous

soul, and being far above any mean distrusts, retaliations,

or designs. For all these reasons (I told Wemmick), and be-

cause he was my young companion and friend, and I had a

great affection for him, I wished my own good fortune to

reflect some rays upon him, and therefore I sought advice

from Wemmick’s experience and knowledge of men and af-

fairs, how I could best try with my resources to help Herbert

to some present income - say of a hundred a year, to keep

him in good hope and heart - and gradually to buy him on

to some small partnership. I begged Wemmick, in conclu-

sion, to understand that my help must always be rendered

without Herbert’s knowledge or suspicion, and that there

was no one else in the world with whom I could advise. I

wound up by laying my hand upon his shoulder, and say-

ing, ‘I can’t help confiding in you, though I know it must

be troublesome to you; but that is your fault, in having ever

brought me here.’

Wemmick was silent for a little while, and then said with

a kind of start, ‘Well you know, Mr. Pip, I must tell you one

thing. This is devilish good of you.’

‘Say you’ll help me to be good then,’ said I.

‘Ecod,’ replied Wemmick, shaking his head, ‘that’s not

my trade.’

‘Nor is this your trading-place,’ said I.

‘You are right,’ he returned. ‘You hit the nail on the head.

Mr. Pip, I’ll put on my considering-cap, and I think all you

want to do, may be done by degrees. Skiffins (that’s her

Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com

brother) is an accountant and agent. I’ll look him up and

go to work for you.’

‘I thank you ten thousand times.’

‘On the contrary,’ said he, ‘I thank you, for though we

are strictly in our private and personal capacity, still it may

be mentioned that there are Newgate cobwebs about, and it

brushes them away.’

After a little further conversation to the same effect, we

returned into the Castle where we found Miss Skiffins pre-

paring tea. The responsible duty of making the toast was

delegated to the Aged, and that excellent old gentleman was

so intent upon it that he seemed to me in some danger of

melting his eyes. It was no nominal meal that we were go-

ing to make, but a vigorous reality. The Aged prepared such

a haystack of buttered toast, that I could scarcely see him

over it as it simmered on an iron stand hooked on to the top-

bar; while Miss Skiffins brewed such a jorum of tea, that

the pig in the back premises became strongly excited, and

repeatedly expressed his desire to participate in the enter-

tainment.

The flag had been struck, and the gun had been fired, at

the right moment of time, and I felt as snugly cut off from

the rest of Walworth as if the moat were thirty feet wide

by as many deep. Nothing disturbed the tranquillity of the

Castle, but the occasional tumbling open of John and Miss

Skiffins: which little doors were a prey to some spasmodic

infirmity that made me sympathetically uncomfortable un-

til I got used to it. I inferred from the methodical nature of

Miss Skiffins’s arrangements that she made tea there every

Great Expectations

Sunday night; and I rather suspected that a classic brooch

she wore, representing the profile of an undesirable female

with a very straight nose and a very new moon, was a piece

of portable property that had been given her by Wemmick.

We ate the whole of the toast, and drank tea in propor-

tion, and it was delightful to see how warm and greasy we

all got after it. The Aged especially, might have passed for

some clean old chief of a savage tribe, just oiled. After a

short pause for repose, Miss Skiffins - in the absence of the

little servant who, it seemed, retired to the bosom of her

family on Sunday afternoons - washed up the tea-things,

in a trifling lady-like amateur manner that compromised

none of us. Then, she put on her gloves again, and we drew

round the fire, and Wemmick said, ‘Now Aged Parent, tip

us the paper.’

Wemmick explained to me while the Aged got his spec-

tacles out, that this was according to custom, and that it

gave the old gentleman infinite satisfaction to read the news

aloud. ‘I won’t offer an apology,’ said Wemmick, ‘for he isn’t

capable of many pleasures - are you, Aged P.?’

‘All right, John, all right,’ returned the old man, seeing

himself spoken to.

‘Only tip him a nod every now and then when he looks

off his paper,’ said Wemmick, ‘and he’ll be as happy as a

king. We are all attention, Aged One.’

‘All right, John, all right!’ returned the cheerful old man:

so busy and so pleased, that it really was quite charming.

The Aged’s reading reminded me of the classes at Mr.

Wopsle’s great-aunt’s, with the pleasanter peculiarity that

Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com

it seemed to come through a keyhole. As he wanted the

candles close to him, and as he was always on the verge

of putting either his head or the newspaper into them, he

required as much watching as a powder-mill. But Wem-

mick was equally untiring and gentle in his vigilance, and

the Aged read on, quite unconscious of his many rescues.

Whenever he looked at us, we all expressed the greatest in-

terest and amazement, and nodded until he resumed again.

As Wemmick and Miss Skiffins sat side by side, and as I

sat in a shadowy corner, I observed a slow and gradual elon-

gation of Mr. Wemmick’s mouth, powerfully suggestive of

his slowly and gradually stealing his arm round Miss Skif-

fins’s waist. In course of time I saw his hand appear on the

other side of Miss Skiffins; but at that moment Miss Skiffins

neatly stopped him with the green glove, unwound his arm

again as if it were an article of dress, and with the greatest

deliberation laid it on the table before her. Miss Skiffins’s

composure while she did this was one of the most remark-

able sights I have ever seen, and if I could have thought

the act consistent with abstraction of mind, I should have

deemed that Miss Skiffins performed it mechanically.

By-and-by, I noticed Wemmick’s arm beginning to dis-

appear again, and gradually fading out of view. Shortly

afterwards, his mouth began to widen again. After an inter-

val of suspense on my part that was quite enthralling and

almost painful, I saw his hand appear on the other side of

Miss Skiffins. Instantly, Miss Skiffins stopped it with the


Date: 2015-04-20; view: 443


<== previous page | next page ==>
Charles Dickens 23 page | Charles Dickens 25 page
doclecture.net - lectures - 2014-2024 year. Copyright infringement or personal data (0.034 sec.)