Charles Dickens 29 page her, take it away!’ And then he catched hold of us, and kep
on a-talking to her, and answering of her, till I half believed
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I see her myself.
‘Compeyson’s wife, being used to him, giv him some li-
quor to get the horrors off, and by-and-by he quieted. ‘Oh,
she’s gone! Has her keeper been for her?’ he says. ‘Yes,’ says
Compeyson’s wife. ‘Did you tell him to lock her and bar her
in?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And to take that ugly thing away from her?’ ‘Yes,
yes, all right.’ ‘You’re a good creetur,’ he says, ‘don’t leave me,
whatever you do, and thank you!’
‘He rested pretty quiet till it might want a few minutes
of five, and then he starts up with a scream, and screams
out, ‘Here she is! She’s got the shroud again. She’s unfold-
ing it. She’s coming out of the corner. She’s coming to the
bed. Hold me, both on you - one of each side - don’t let her
touch me with it. Hah! she missed me that time. Don’t let
her throw it over my shoulders. Don’t let her lift me up to
get it round me. She’s lifting me up. Keep me down!’ Then
he lifted himself up hard, and was dead.
‘Compeyson took it easy as a good riddance for both
sides. Him and me was soon busy, and first he swore me
(being ever artful) on my own book - this here little black
book, dear boy, what I swore your comrade on.
‘Not to go into the things that Compeyson planned, and
I done - which ‘ud take a week - I’ll simply say to you, dear
boy, and Pip’s comrade, that that man got me into such nets
as made me his black slave. I was always in debt to him, al-
ways under his thumb, always a-working, always a-getting
into danger. He was younger than me, but he’d got craft,
and he’d got learning, and he overmatched me five hundred
times told and no mercy. My Missis as I had the hard time
Great Expectations
wi’ - Stop though! I ain’t brought her in—‘
He looked about him in a confused way, as if he had lost
his place in the book of his remembrance; and he turned his
face to the fire, and spread his hands broader on his knees,
and lifted them off and put them on again.
‘There ain’t no need to go into it,’ he said, looking round
once more. ‘The time wi’ Compeyson was a’most as hard a
time as ever I had; that said, all’s said. Did I tell you as I was
tried, alone, for misdemeanour, while with Compeyson?’
I answered, No.
‘Well!’ he said, ‘I was, and got convicted. As to took up on
suspicion, that was twice or three times in the four or five
year that it lasted; but evidence was wanting. At last, me and
Compeyson was both committed for felony - on a charge
of putting stolen notes in circulation - and there was other
charges behind. Compeyson says to me, ‘Separate defences,
no communication,’ and that was all. And I was so miser-
able poor, that I sold all the clothes I had, except what hung
on my back, afore I could get Jaggers.
‘When we was put in the dock, I noticed first of all what
a gentleman Compeyson looked, wi’ his curly hair and his
black clothes and his white pocket-handkercher, and what
a common sort of a wretch I looked. When the prosecu-
tion opened and the evidence was put short, aforehand, I
noticed how heavy it all bore on me, and how light on him.
When the evidence was giv in the box, I noticed how it
was always me that had come for’ard, and could be swore
to, how it was always me that the money had been paid to,
how it was always me that had seemed to work the thing
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and get the profit. But, when the defence come on, then I
see the plan plainer; for, says the counsellor for Compey-
son, ‘My lord and gentlemen, here you has afore you, side
by side, two persons as your eyes can separate wide; one,
the younger, well brought up, who will be spoke to as such;
one, the elder, ill brought up, who will be spoke to as such;
one, the younger, seldom if ever seen in these here transac-
tions, and only suspected; t’other, the elder, always seen in
‘em and always wi’his guilt brought home. Can you doubt, if
there is but one in it, which is the one, and, if there is two in
it, which is much the worst one?’ And such-like. And when
it come to character, warn’t it Compeyson as had been to
the school, and warn’t it his schoolfellows as was in this po-
sition and in that, and warn’t it him as had been know’d by
witnesses in such clubs and societies, and nowt to his dis-
advantage? And warn’t it me as had been tried afore, and as
had been know’d up hill and down dale in Bridewells and
Lock-Ups? And when it come to speech-making, warn’t it
Compeyson as could speak to ‘em wi’ his face dropping ev-
ery now and then into his white pocket-handkercher - ah!
and wi’ verses in his speech, too - and warn’t it me as could
only say, ‘Gentlemen, this man at my side is a most precious
rascal’? And when the verdict come, warn’t it Compeyson
as was recommended to mercy on account of good char-
acter and bad company, and giving up all the information
he could agen me, and warn’t it me as got never a word but
Guilty? And when I says to Compeyson, ‘Once out of this
court, I’ll smash that face of yourn!’ ain’t it Compeyson as
prays the Judge to be protected, and gets two turnkeys stood
Great Expectations
betwixt us? And when we’re sentenced, ain’t it him as gets
seven year, and me fourteen, and ain’t it him as the Judge is
sorry for, because he might a done so well, and ain’t it me as
the Judge perceives to be a old offender of wiolent passion,
likely to come to worse?’
He had worked himself into a state of great excitement,
but he checked it, took two or three short breaths, swal-
lowed as often, and stretching out his hand towards me said,
in a reassuring manner, ‘I ain’t a-going to be low, dear boy!’
He had so heated himself that he took out his hand-
kerchief and wiped his face and head and neck and hands,
before he could go on.
‘I had said to Compeyson that I’d smash that face of his,
and I swore Lord smash mine! to do it. We was in the same
prison-ship, but I couldn’t get at him for long, though I
tried. At last I come behind him and hit him on the cheek
to turn him round and get a smashing one at him, when I
was seen and seized. The black-hole of that ship warn’t a
strong one, to a judge of black-holes that could swim and
dive. I escaped to the shore, and I was a hiding among the
graves there, envying them as was in ‘em and all over, when
I first see my boy!’
He regarded me with a look of affection that made him
almost abhorrent to me again, though I had felt great pity
for him.
‘By my boy, I was giv to understand as Compeyson was
out on them marshes too. Upon my soul, I half believe he
escaped in his terror, to get quit of me, not knowing it was
me as had got ashore. I hunted him down. I smashed his
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face. ‘And now,’ says I ‘as the worst thing I can do, caring
nothing for myself, I’ll drag you back.’ And I’d have swum
off, towing him by the hair, if it had come to that, and I’d a
got him aboard without the soldiers.
‘Of course he’d much the best of it to the last - his char-
acter was so good. He had escaped when he was made
half-wild by me and my murderous intentions; and his pun-
ishment was light. I was put in irons, brought to trial again,
and sent for life. I didn’t stop for life, dear boy and Pip’s
comrade, being here.’
‘He wiped himself again, as he had done before, and
then slowly took his tangle of tobacco from his pocket, and
plucked his pipe from his button-hole, and slowly filled it,
and began to smoke.
‘Is he dead?’ I asked, after a silence.
‘Is who dead, dear boy?’
‘Compeyson.’
‘He hopes I am, if he’s alive, you may be sure,’ with a
fierce look. ‘I never heerd no more of him.’
Herbert had been writing with his pencil in the cover
of a book. He softly pushed the book over to me, as Provis
stood smoking with his eyes on the fire, and I read in it:
‘Young Havisham’s name was Arthur. Compeyson is the
man who professed to be Miss Havisham’s lover.’
I shut the book and nodded slightly to Herbert, and put
the book by; but we neither of us said anything, and both
looked at Provis as he stood smoking by the fire.
Great Expectations
Chapter 43
Why should I pause to ask how much of my shrinking
from Provis might be traced to Estella? Why should
I loiter on my road, to compare the state of mind in which
I had tried to rid myself of the stain of the prison before
meeting her at the coach-office, with the state of mind in
which I now reflected on the abyss between Estella in her
pride and beauty, and the returned transport whom I har-
boured? The road would be none the smoother for it, the
end would be none the better for it, he would not be helped,
nor I extenuated.
A new fear had been engendered in my mind by his nar-
rative; or rather, his narrative had given form and purpose
to the fear that was already there. If Compeyson were alive
and should discover his return, I could hardly doubt the
consequence. That, Compeyson stood in mortal fear of him,
neither of the two could know much better than I; and that,
any such man as that man had been described to be, would
hesitate to release himself for good from a dreaded enemy
by the safe means of becoming an informer, was scarcely to
be imagined.
Never had I breathed, and never would I breathe - or so I
resolved - a word of Estella to Provis. But, I said to Herbert
that before I could go abroad, I must see both Estella and
Miss Havisham. This was when we were left alone on the
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night of the day when Provis told us his story. I resolved to
go out to Richmond next day, and I went.
On my presenting myself at Mrs. Brandley’s, Estella’s
maid was called to tell that Estella had gone into the coun-
try. Where? To Satis House, as usual. Not as usual, I said,
for she had never yet gone there without me; when was she
coming back? There was an air of reservation in the answer
which increased my perplexity, and the answer was, that
her maid believed she was only coming back at all for a lit-
tle while. I could make nothing of this, except that it was
meant that I should make nothing of it, and I went home
again in complete discomfiture.
Another night-consultation with Herbert after Provis
was gone home (I always took him home, and always looked
well about me), led us to the conclusion that nothing should
be said about going abroad until I came back from Miss
Havisham’s. In the meantime, Herbert and I were to con-
sider separately what it would be best to say; whether we
should devise any pretence of being afraid that he was un-
der suspicious observation; or whether I, who had never yet
been abroad, should propose an expedition. We both knew
that I had but to propose anything, and he would consent.
We agreed that his remaining many days in his present haz-
ard was not to be thought of.
Next day, I had the meanness to feign that I was under
a binding promise to go down to Joe; but I was capable of
almost any meanness towards Joe or his name. Provis was
to be strictly careful while I was gone, and Herbert was to
take the charge of him that I had taken. I was to be absent
Great Expectations
only one night, and, on my return, the gratification of his
impatience for my starting as a gentleman on a greater scale,
was to be begun. It occurred to me then, and as I afterwards
found to Herbert also, that he might be best got away across
the water, on that pretence - as, to make purchases, or the
like.Having thus cleared the way for my expedition to Miss
Havisham’s, I set off by the early morning coach before it
was yet light, and was out on the open country-road when
the day came creeping on, halting and whimpering and
shivering, and wrapped in patches of cloud and rags of mist,
like a beggar. When we drove up to the Blue Boar after a
drizzly ride, whom should I see come out under the gate-
way, toothpick in hand, to look at the coach, but Bentley
Drummle!
As he pretended not to see me, I pretended not to see
him. It was a very lame pretence on both sides; the lamer,
because we both went into the coffee-room, where he had
just finished his breakfast, and where I ordered mine. It was
poisonous to me to see him in the town, for I very well knew
why he had come there.
Pretending to read a smeary newspaper long out of date,
which had nothing half so legible in its local news, as the
foreign matter of coffee, pickles, fish-sauces, gravy, melted
butter, and wine, with which it was sprinkled all over, as
if it had taken the measles in a highly irregular form, I sat
at my table while he stood before the fire. By degrees it be-
came an enormous injury to me that he stood before the
fire, and I got up, determined to have my share of it. I had
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to put my hand behind his legs for the poker when I went
up to the fire-place to stir the fire, but still pretended not to
know him.
‘Is this a cut?’ said Mr. Drummle.
‘Oh!’ said I, poker in hand; ‘it’s you, is it? How do you do?
I was wondering who it was, who kept the fire off.’
With that, I poked tremendously, and having done so,
planted myself side by side with Mr. Drummle, my shoul-
ders squared and my back to the fire.
‘You have just come down?’ said Mr. Drummle, edging
me a little away with his shoulder.
‘Yes,’ said I, edging him a little away with my shoulder.
‘Beastly place,’ said Drummle. - ‘Your part of the coun-
try, I think?’
‘Yes,’ I assented. ‘I am told it’s very like your Shropshire.’
‘Not in the least like it,’ said Drummle.
Here Mr. Drummle looked at his boots, and I looked at
mine, and then Mr. Drummle looked at my boots, and I
looked at his.
‘Have you been here long?’ I asked, determined not to
yield an inch of the fire.
‘Long enough to be tired of it,’ returned Drummle, pre-
tending to yawn, but equally determined.
‘Do you stay here long?’
‘Can’t say,’ answered Mr. Drummle. ‘Do you?’
‘Can’t say,’ said I.
I felt here, through a tingling in my blood, that if Mr.
Drummle’s shoulder had claimed another hair’s breadth
of room, I should have jerked him into the window; equal-
Great Expectations
ly, that if my own shoulder had urged a similar claim, Mr.
Drummle would have jerked me into the nearest box. He
whistled a little. So did I.
‘Large tract of marshes about here, I believe?’ said Drum-
mle.
‘Yes. What of that?’ said I.
Mr. Drummle looked at me, and then at my boots, and
then said, ‘Oh!’ and laughed.
‘Are you amused, Mr. Drummle?’
‘No,’ said he, ‘not particularly. I am going out for a ride in
the saddle. I mean to explore those marshes for amusement.
Out-of-the-way villages there, they tell me. Curious little
public-houses - and smithies - and that. Waiter!’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Is that horse of mine ready?’
‘Brought round to the door, sir.’
‘I say. Look here, you sir. The lady won’t ride to-day; the
weather won’t do.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘And I don’t dine, because I’m going to dine at the lady’s.’
‘Very good, sir.’
Then, Drummle glanced at me, with an insolent triumph
on his great-jowled face that cut me to the heart, dull as he
was, and so exasperated me, that I felt inclined to take him
in my arms (as the robber in the story-book is said to have
taken the old lady), and seat him on the fire.
One thing was manifest to both of us, and that was, that
until relief came, neither of us could relinquish the fire.
There we stood, well squared up before it, shoulder to shoul-
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der and foot to foot, with our hands behind us, not budging
an inch. The horse was visible outside in the drizzle at the
door, my breakfast was put on the table, Drummle’s was
cleared away, the waiter invited me to begin, I nodded, we
both stood our ground.
‘Have you been to the Grove since?’ said Drummle.
‘No,’ said I, ‘I had quite enough of the Finches the last
time I was there.’
‘Was that when we had a difference of opinion?’
‘Yes,’ I replied, very shortly.
‘Come, come! They let you off easily enough,’ sneered
Drummle. ‘You shouldn’t have lost your temper.’
‘Mr. Drummle,’ said I, ‘you are not competent to give ad-
vice on that subject. When I lose my temper (not that I admit
having done so on that occasion), I don’t throw glasses.’
‘I do,’ said Drummle.
After glancing at him once or twice, in an increased state
of smouldering ferocity, I said:
‘Mr. Drummle, I did not seek this conversation, and I
don’t think it an agreeable one.’
‘I am sure it’s not,’ said he, superciliously over his shoul-
der; ‘I don’t think anything about it.’
‘And therefore,’ I went on, ‘with your leave, I will suggest
that we hold no kind of communication in future.’
‘Quite my opinion,’ said Drummle, ‘and what I should
have suggested myself, or done - more likely - without sug-
gesting. But don’t lose your temper. Haven’t you lost enough
without that?’
‘What do you mean, sir?’
Great Expectations
‘Wai-ter!,’ said Drummle, by way of answering me.
The waiter reappeared.
‘Look here, you sir. You quite understand that the young
lady don’t ride to-day, and that I dine at the young lady’s?’
‘Quite so, sir!’
When the waiter had felt my fast cooling tea-pot with the
palm of his hand, and had looked imploringly at me, and
had gone out, Drummle, careful not to move the shoulder
next me, took a cigar from his pocket and bit the end off, but
showed no sign of stirring. Choking and boiling as I was, I
felt that we could not go a word further, without introduc-
ing Estella’s name, which I could not endure to hear him
utter; and therefore I looked stonily at the opposite wall, as
if there were no one present, and forced myself to silence.
How long we might have remained in this ridiculous po-
sition it is impossible to say, but for the incursion of three
thriving farmers - led on by the waiter, I think - who came
into the coffee-room unbuttoning their great-coats and
rubbing their hands, and before whom, as they charged at
the fire, we were obliged to give way.
I saw him through the window, seizing his horse’s mane,
and mounting in his blundering brutal manner, and sidling
and backing away. I thought he was gone, when he came
back, calling for a light for the cigar in his mouth, which
he had forgotten. A man in a dustcoloured dress appeared
with what was wanted - I could not have said from where:
whether from the inn yard, or the street, or where not - and
as Drummle leaned down from the saddle and lighted his
cigar and laughed, with a jerk of his head towards the cof-
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fee-room windows, the slouching shoulders and ragged hair
of this man, whose back was towards me, reminded me of
Orlick.
Too heavily out of sorts to care much at the time whether
it were he or no, or after all to touch the breakfast, I washed
the weather and the journey from my face and hands, and
went out to the memorable old house that it would have
been so much the better for me never to have entered, never
to have seen.
Great Expectations
Chapter 44
In the room where the dressing-table stood, and where the
wax candles burnt on the wall, I found Miss Havisham
and Estella; Miss Havisham seated on a settee near the fire,
and Estella on a cushion at her feet. Estella was knitting,
and Miss Havisham was looking on. They both raised their
eyes as I went in, and both saw an alteration in me. I derived
that, from the look they interchanged.
‘And what wind,’ said Miss Havisham, ‘blows you here,
Pip?’
Though she looked steadily at me, I saw that she was
rather confused. Estella, pausing a moment in her knitting
with her eyes upon me, and then going on, I fancied that I
read in the action of her fingers, as plainly as if she had told
me in the dumb alphabet, that she perceived I had discov-
ered my real benefactor.
‘Miss Havisham,’ said I, ‘I went to Richmond yesterday,
to speak to Estella; and finding that some wind had blown
her here, I followed.’
Miss Havisham motioning to me for the third or fourth
time to sit down, I took the chair by the dressing-table,
which I had often seen her occupy. With all that ruin at my
feet and about me, it seemed a natural place for me, that
day.‘What I had to say to Estella, Miss Havisham, I will say
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before you, presently - in a few moments. It will not sur-
prise you, it will not displease you. I am as unhappy as you
can ever have meant me to be.’
Miss Havisham continued to look steadily at me. I could
see in the action of Estella’s fingers as they worked, that she
attended to what I said: but she did not look up.
‘I have found out who my patron is. It is not a fortunate
discovery, and is not likely ever to enrich me in reputation,
station, fortune, anything. There are reasons why I must say
no more of that. It is not my secret, but another’s.’
As I was silent for a while, looking at Estella and consid-
ering how to go on, Miss Havisham repeated, ‘It is not your
secret, but another’s. Well?’
‘When you first caused me to be brought here, Miss Hav-
isham; when I belonged to the village over yonder, that I
wish I had never left; I suppose I did really come here, as any
other chance boy might have come - as a kind of servant, to
gratify a want or a whim, and to be paid for it?’
‘Ay, Pip,’ replied Miss Havisham, steadily nodding her
head; ‘you did.’
‘And that Mr. Jaggers—‘
‘Mr. Jaggers,’ said Miss Havisham, taking me up in a firm
tone, ‘had nothing to do with it, and knew nothing of it. His
being my lawyer, and his being the lawyer of your patron, is
a coincidence. He holds the same relation towards numbers
of people, and it might easily arise. Be that as it may, it did
arise, and was not brought about by any one.’
Any one might have seen in her haggard face that there
was no suppression or evasion so far.
Great Expectations
‘But when I fell into the mistake I have so long remained
in, at least you led me on?’ said I.
‘Yes,’ she returned, again nodding, steadily, ‘I let you go
on.’‘Was that kind?’
‘Who am I,’ cried Miss Havisham, striking her stick
upon the floor and flashing into wrath so suddenly that Es-
tella glanced up at her in surprise, ‘who am I, for God’s sake,
that I should be kind?’
It was a weak complaint to have made, and I had not
meant to make it. I told her so, as she sat brooding after this
outburst.
‘Well, well, well!’ she said. ‘What else?’
‘I was liberally paid for my old attendance here,’ I said,
to soothe her, ‘in being apprenticed, and I have asked
these questions only for my own information. What fol-
lows has another (and I hope more disinterested) purpose.
In humouring my mistake, Miss Havisham, you punished
- practised on - perhaps you will supply whatever term ex-
presses your intention, without offence - your self-seeking
relations?’
‘I did. Why, they would have it so! So would you. What
has been my history, that I should be at the pains of entreat-
ing either them, or you, not to have it so! You made your
own snares. I never made them.’
Waiting until she was quiet again - for this, too, flashed
out of her in a wild and sudden way - I went on.
‘I have been thrown among one family of your relations,
Miss Havisham, and have been constantly among them
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since I went to London. I know them to have been as hon-
estly under my delusion as I myself. And I should be false
and base if I did not tell you, whether it is acceptable to you
or no, and whether you are inclined to give credence to it or
no, that you deeply wrong both Mr. Matthew Pocket and
his son Herbert, if you suppose them to be otherwise than
generous, upright, open, and incapable of anything design-
ing or mean.’
‘They are your friends,’ said Miss Havisham.
‘They made themselves my friends,’ said I, ‘when they
supposed me to have superseded them; and when Sarah
Pocket, Miss Georgiana, and Mistress Camilla, were not
my friends, I think.’
This contrasting of them with the rest seemed, I was glad
to see, to do them good with her. She looked at me keenly
for a little while, and then said quietly:
‘What do you want for them?’
‘Only,’ said I, ‘that you would not confound them with
the others. They may be of the same blood, but, believe me,
they are not of the same nature.’
Still looking at me keenly, Miss Havisham repeated:
‘What do you want for them?’
‘I am not so cunning, you see,’ I said, in answer, conscious
that I reddened a little, ‘as that I could hide from you, even if
I desired, that I do want something. Miss Havisham, if you
would spare the money to do my friend Herbert a lasting
service in life, but which from the nature of the case must
be done without his knowledge, I could show you how.’
‘Why must it be done without his knowledge?’ she asked,
Great Expectations
settling her hands upon her stick, that she might regard me
the more attentively.
‘Because,’ said I, ‘I began the service myself, more than
two years ago, without his knowledge, and I don’t want to
be betrayed. Why I fail in my ability to finish it, I cannot
explain. It is a part of the secret which is another person’s
and not mine.’
She gradually withdrew her eyes from me, and turned
them on the fire. After watching it for what appeared in the
silence and by the light of the slowly wasting candles to be
a long time, she was roused by the collapse of some of the
red coals, and looked towards me again - at first, vacant-
ly - then, with a gradually concentrating attention. All this
time, Estella knitted on. When Miss Havisham had fixed
her attention on me, she said, speaking as if there had been
no lapse in our dialogue:
‘What else?’
‘Estella,’ said I, turning to her now, and trying to com-
mand my trembling voice, ‘you know I love you. You know
that I have loved you long and dearly.’
She raised her eyes to my face, on being thus addressed,
and her fingers plied their work, and she looked at me
with an unmoved countenance. I saw that Miss Havisham
glanced from me to her, and from her to me.
‘I should have said this sooner, but for my long mistake.
It induced me to hope that Miss Havisham meant us for one
another. While I thought you could not help yourself, as it
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