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Charles Dickens 30 page

were, I refrained from saying it. But I must say it now.’

Preserving her unmoved countenance, and with her fin-

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gers still going, Estella shook her head.

‘I know,’ said I, in answer to that action; ‘I know. I have

no hope that I shall ever call you mine, Estella. I am igno-

rant what may become of me very soon, how poor I may be,

or where I may go. Still, I love you. I have loved you ever

since I first saw you in this house.’

Looking at me perfectly unmoved and with her fingers

busy, she shook her head again.

‘It would have been cruel in Miss Havisham, horribly

cruel, to practise on the susceptibility of a poor boy, and to

torture me through all these years with a vain hope and an

idle pursuit, if she had reflected on the gravity of what she

did. But I think she did not. I think that in the endurance of

her own trial, she forgot mine, Estella.’

I saw Miss Havisham put her hand to her heart and hold

it there, as she sat looking by turns at Estella and at me.

‘It seems,’ said Estella, very calmly, ‘that there are senti-

ments, fancies - I don’t know how to call them - which I am

not able to comprehend. When you say you love me, I know

what you mean, as a form of words; but nothing more. You

address nothing in my breast, you touch nothing there. I

don’t care for what you say at all. I have tried to warn you of

this; now, have I not?’

I said in a miserable manner, ‘Yes.’

‘Yes. But you would not be warned, for you thought I did

not mean it. Now, did you not think so?’

‘I thought and hoped you could not mean it. You, so

young, untried, and beautiful, Estella! Surely it is not in Na-

ture.’

Great Expectations

‘It is in my nature,’ she returned. And then she added,

with a stress upon the words, ‘It is in the nature formed

within me. I make a great difference between you and all

other people when I say so much. I can do no more.’

‘Is it not true,’ said I, ‘that Bentley Drummle is in town

here, and pursuing you?’

‘It is quite true,’ she replied, referring to him with the in-

difference of utter contempt.

‘That you encourage him, and ride out with him, and that

he dines with you this very day?’

She seemed a little surprised that I should know it, but

again replied, ‘Quite true.’

‘You cannot love him, Estella!’

Her fingers stopped for the first time, as she retorted

rather angrily, ‘What have I told you? Do you still think, in

spite of it, that I do not mean what I say?’

‘You would never marry him, Estella?’

She looked towards Miss Havisham, and considered for

a moment with her work in her hands. Then she said, ‘Why

not tell you the truth? I am going to be married to him.’

I dropped my face into my hands, but was able to con-

trol myself better than I could have expected, considering

what agony it gave me to hear her say those words. When

I raised my face again, there was such a ghastly look upon

Miss Havisham’s, that it impressed me, even in my passion-

ate hurry and grief.



‘Estella, dearest dearest Estella, do not let Miss Havisham

lead you into this fatal step. Put me aside for ever - you have

done so, I well know - but bestow yourself on some wor-

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thier person than Drummle. Miss Havisham gives you to

him, as the greatest slight and injury that could be done to

the many far better men who admire you, and to the few

who truly love you. Among those few, there may be one who

loves you even as dearly, though he has not loved you as

long, as I. Take him, and I can bear it better, for your sake!’

My earnestness awoke a wonder in her that seemed as if

it would have been touched with compassion, if she could

have rendered me at all intelligible to her own mind.

‘I am going,’ she said again, in a gentler voice, ‘to be mar-

ried to him. The preparations for my marriage are making,

and I shall be married soon. Why do you injuriously in-

troduce the name of my mother by adoption? It is my own

act.’‘Your own act, Estella, to fling yourself away upon a

brute?’

‘On whom should I fling myself away?’ she retorted, with a

smile. ‘Should I fling myself away upon the man who would

the soonest feel (if people do feel such things) that I took

nothing to him? There! It is done. I shall do well enough,

and so will my husband. As to leading me into what you call

this fatal step, Miss Havisham would have had me wait, and

not marry yet; but I am tired of the life I have led, which has

very few charms for me, and I am willing enough to change

it. Say no more. We shall never understand each other.’

‘Such a mean brute, such a stupid brute!’ I urged in de-

spair.

‘Don’t be afraid of my being a blessing to him,’ said Estel-

la; ‘I shall not be that. Come! Here is my hand. Do we part

Great Expectations

on this, you visionary boy - or man?’

‘O Estella!’ I answered, as my bitter tears fell fast on her

hand, do what I would to restrain them; ‘even if I remained

in England and could hold my head up with the rest, how

could I see you Drummle’s wife?’

‘Nonsense,’ she returned, ‘nonsense. This will pass in no

time.’

‘Never, Estella!’

‘You will get me out of your thoughts in a week.’

‘Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of

myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since

I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart

you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I

have ever seen since - on the river, on the sails of the ships,

on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness,

in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have

been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind

has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the

strongest London buildings are made, are not more real, or

more impossible to be displaced by your hands, than your

presence and influence have been to me, there and every-

where, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you

cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the

little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation I

associate you only with the good, and I will faithfully hold

you to that always, for you must have done me far more

good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may.

O God bless you, God forgive you!’

In what ecstasy of unhappiness I got these broken words

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out of myself, I don’t know. The rhapsody welled up within

me, like blood from an inward wound, and gushed out. I

held her hand to my lips some lingering moments, and so I

left her. But ever afterwards, I remembered - and soon after-

wards with stronger reason - that while Estella looked at me

merely with incredulous wonder, the spectral figure of Miss

Havisham, her hand still covering her heart, seemed all re-

solved into a ghastly stare of pity and remorse.

All done, all gone! So much was done and gone, that

when I went out at the gate, the light of the day seemed of a

darker colour than when I went in. For a while, I hid myself

among some lanes and by-paths, and then struck off to walk

all the way to London. For, I had by that time come to my-

self so far, as to consider that I could not go back to the inn

and see Drummle there; that I could not bear to sit upon

the coach and be spoken to; that I could do nothing half so

good for myself as tire myself out.

It was past midnight when I crossed London Bridge.

Pursuing the narrow intricacies of the streets which at that

time tended westward near the Middlesex shore of the river,

my readiest access to the Temple was close by the river-side,

through Whitefriars. I was not expected till to-morrow, but

I had my keys, and, if Herbert were gone to bed, could get to

bed myself without disturbing him.

As it seldom happened that I came in at that Whitefriars

gate after the Temple was closed, and as I was very muddy

and weary, I did not take it ill that the night-porter exam-

ined me with much attention as he held the gate a little way

open for me to pass in. To help his memory I mentioned

Great Expectations

my name.

‘I was not quite sure, sir, but I thought so. Here’s a note,

sir. The messenger that brought it, said would you be so

good as read it by my lantern?’

Much surprised by the request, I took the note. It was

directed to Philip Pip, Esquire, and on the top of the super-

scription were the words, ‘PLEASE READ THIS, HERE.’ I

opened it, the watchman holding up his light, and read in-

side, in Wemmick’s writing:

‘DON’T GO HOME.’

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Chapter 45

Turning from the Temple gate as soon as I had read the

warning, I made the best of my way to Fleet-street, and

there got a late hackney chariot and drove to the Hummums

in Covent Garden. In those times a bed was always to be got

there at any hour of the night, and the chamberlain, letting

me in at his ready wicket, lighted the candle next in order

on his shelf, and showed me straight into the bedroom next

in order on his list. It was a sort of vault on the ground floor

at the back, with a despotic monster of a four-post bedstead

in it, straddling over the whole place, putting one of his ar-

bitrary legs into the fire-place and another into the doorway,

and squeezing the wretched little washing-stand in quite a

Divinely Righteous manner.

As I had asked for a night-light, the chamberlain had

brought me in, before he left me, the good old constitution-

al rush-light of those virtuous days - an object like the ghost

of a walking-cane, which instantly broke its back if it were

touched, which nothing could ever be lighted at, and which

was placed in solitary confinement at the bottom of a high

tin tower, perforated with round holes that made a staringly

wide-awake pattern on the walls. When I had got into bed,

and lay there footsore, weary, and wretched, I found that I

could no more close my own eyes than I could close the eyes

of this foolish Argus. And thus, in the gloom and death of

Great Expectations

the night, we stared at one another.

What a doleful night! How anxious, how dismal, how

long! There was an inhospitable smell in the room, of cold

soot and hot dust; and, as I looked up into the corners of the

tester over my head, I thought what a number of blue-bottle

flies from the butchers’, and earwigs from the market, and

grubs from the country, must be holding on up there, lying

by for next summer. This led me to speculate whether any of

them ever tumbled down, and then I fancied that I felt light

falls on my face - a disagreeable turn of thought, suggest-

ing other and more objectionable approaches up my back.

When I had lain awake a little while, those extraordinary

voices with which silence teems, began to make themselves

audible. The closet whispered, the fireplace sighed, the little

washing-stand ticked, and one guitar-string played occa-

sionally in the chest of drawers. At about the same time,

the eyes on the wall acquired a new expression, and in ev-

ery one of those staring rounds I saw written, DON’T GO

HOME.

Whatever night-fancies and night-noises crowded on me,

they never warded off this DON’T GO HOME. It plaited it-

self into whatever I thought of, as a bodily pain would have

done. Not long before, I had read in the newspapers, how

a gentleman unknown had come to the Hummums in the

night, and had gone to bed, and had destroyed himself, and

had been found in the morning weltering in blood. It came

into my head that he must have occupied this very vault of

mine, and I got out of bed to assure myself that there were

no red marks about; then opened the door to look out into

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the passages, and cheer myself with the companionship of

a distant light, near which I knew the chamberlain to be

dozing. But all this time, why I was not to go home, and

what had happened at home, and when I should go home,

and whether Provis was safe at home, were questions oc-

cupying my mind so busily, that one might have supposed

there could be no more room in it for any other theme.

Even when I thought of Estella, and how we had parted that

day for ever, and when I recalled all the circumstances of

our parting, and all her looks and tones, and the action of

her fingers while she knitted - even then I was pursuing,

here and there and everywhere, the caution Don’t go home.

When at last I dozed, in sheer exhaustion of mind and body,

it became a vast shadowy verb which I had to conjugate. Im-

perative mood, present tense: Do not thou go home, let him

not go home, let us not go home, do not ye or you go home,

let not them go home. Then, potentially: I may not and I

cannot go home; and I might not, could not, would not, and

should not go home; until I felt that I was going distract-

ed, and rolled over on the pillow, and looked at the staring

rounds upon the wall again.

I had left directions that I was to be called at seven; for it

was plain that I must see Wemmick before seeing any one

else, and equally plain that this was a case in which his Wal-

worth sentiments, only, could be taken. It was a relief to get

out of the room where the night had been so miserable, and

I needed no second knocking at the door to startle me from

my uneasy bed.

The Castle battlements arose upon my view at eight

Great Expectations

o’clock. The little servant happening to be entering the for-

tress with two hot rolls, I passed through the postern and

crossed the drawbridge, in her company, and so came with-

out announcement into the presence of Wemmick as he was

making tea for himself and the Aged. An open door afford-

ed a perspective view of the Aged in bed.

‘Halloa, Mr. Pip!’ said Wemmick. ‘You did come home,

then?’

‘Yes,’ I returned; ‘but I didn’t go home.’

‘That’s all right,’ said he, rubbing his hands. ‘I left a note

for you at each of the Temple gates, on the chance. Which

gate did you come to?’

I told him.

‘I’ll go round to the others in the course of the day and

destroy the notes,’ said Wemmick; ‘it’s a good rule never to

leave documentary evidence if you can help it, because you

don’t know when it may be put in. I’m going to take a lib-

erty with you. - Would you mind toasting this sausage for

the Aged P.?’

I said I should be delighted to do it.

‘Then you can go about your work, Mary Anne,’ said

Wemmick to the little servant; ‘which leaves us to ourselves,

don’t you see, Mr. Pip?’ he added, winking, as she disap-

peared.

I thanked him for his friendship and caution, and our

discourse proceeded in a low tone, while I toasted the Aged’s

sausage and he buttered the crumb of the Aged’s roll.

‘Now, Mr. Pip, you know,’ said Wemmick, ‘you and I

understand one another. We are in our private and person-

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al capacities, and we have been engaged in a confidential

transaction before today. Official sentiments are one thing.

We are extra official.’

I cordially assented. I was so very nervous, that I had

already lighted the Aged’s sausage like a torch, and been

obliged to blow it out.

‘I accidentally heard, yesterday morning,’ said Wemmick,

‘being in a certain place where I once took you - even be-

tween you and me, it’s as well not to mention names when

avoidable—‘

‘Much better not,’ said I. ‘I understand you.’

‘I heard there by chance, yesterday morning,’ said Wem-

mick, ‘that a certain person not altogether of uncolonial

pursuits, and not unpossessed of portable property - I don’t

know who it may really be - we won’t name this person—‘

‘Not necessary,’ said I.

‘ - had made some little stir in a certain part of the world

where a good many people go, not always in gratification

of their own inclinations, and not quite irrespective of the

government expense—‘

In watching his face, I made quite a firework of the

Aged’s sausage, and greatly discomposed both my own at-

tention and Wemmick’s; for which I apologized.

‘ - by disappearing from such place, and being no more

heard of thereabouts. From which,’ said Wemmick, ‘conjec-

tures had been raised and theories formed. I also heard that

you at your chambers in Garden Court, Temple, had been

watched, and might be watched again.’

‘By whom?’ said I.

Great Expectations

‘I wouldn’t go into that,’ said Wemmick, evasively, ‘it

might clash with official responsibilities. I heard it, as I have

in my time heard other curious things in the same place. I

don’t tell it you on information received. I heard it.’

He took the toasting-fork and sausage from me as he

spoke, and set forth the Aged’s breakfast neatly on a lit-

tle tray. Previous to placing it before him, he went into the

Aged’s room with a clean white cloth, and tied the same un-

der the old gentleman’s chin, and propped him up, and put

his nightcap on one side, and gave him quite a rakish air.

Then, he placed his breakfast before him with great care,

and said, ‘All right, ain’t you, Aged P.?’ To which the cheer-

ful Aged replied, ‘All right, John, my boy, all right!’ As there

seemed to be a tacit understanding that the Aged was not in

a presentable state, and was therefore to be considered in-

visible, I made a pretence of being in complete ignorance of

these proceedings.

‘This watching of me at my chambers (which I have once

had reason to suspect),’ I said to Wemmick when he came

back, ‘is inseparable from the person to whom you have ad-

verted; is it?’

Wemmick looked very serious. ‘I couldn’t undertake to

say that, of my own knowledge. I mean, I couldn’t under-

take to say it was at first. But it either is, or it will be, or it’s

in great danger of being.’

As I saw that he was restrained by fealty to Little Britain

from saying as much as he could, and as I knew with thank-

fulness to him how far out of his way he went to say what he

did, I could not press him. But I told him, after a little medi-

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tation over the fire, that I would like to ask him a question,

subject to his answering or not answering, as he deemed

right, and sure that his course would be right. He paused in

his breakfast, and crossing his arms, and pinching his shirt-

sleeves (his notion of indoor comfort was to sit without any

coat), he nodded to me once, to put my question.

‘You have heard of a man of bad character, whose true

name is Compeyson?’

He answered with one other nod.

‘Is he living?’

One other nod.

‘Is he in London?’

He gave me one other nod, compressed the post-office

exceedingly, gave me one last nod, and went on with his

breakfast.

‘Now,’ said Wemmick, ‘questioning being over;’ which he

emphasized and repeated for my guidance; ‘I come to what

I did, after hearing what I heard. I went to Garden Court to

find you; not finding you, I went to Clarriker’s to find Mr.

Herbert.’

‘And him you found?’ said I, with great anxiety.

‘And him I found. Without mentioning any names or go-

ing into any details, I gave him to understand that if he was

aware of anybody - Tom, Jack, or Richard - being about the

chambers, or about the immediate neighbourhood, he had

better get Tom, Jack, or Richard, out of the way while you

were out of the way.’

‘He would be greatly puzzled what to do?’

‘He was puzzled what to do; not the less, because I gave

 

Great Expectations

him my opinion that it was not safe to try to get Tom, Jack,

or Richard, too far out of the way at present. Mr. Pip, I’ll tell

you something. Under existing circumstances there is no

place like a great city when you are once in it. Don’t break

cover too soon. Lie close. Wait till things slacken, before

you try the open, even for foreign air.’

I thanked him for his valuable advice, and asked him

what Herbert had done?

‘Mr. Herbert,’ said Wemmick, ‘after being all of a heap

for half an hour, struck out a plan. He mentioned to me as a

secret, that he is courting a young lady who has, as no doubt

you are aware, a bedridden Pa. Which Pa, having been in

the Purser line of life, lies a-bed in a bow-window where

he can see the ships sail up and down the river. You are ac-

quainted with the young lady, most probably?’

‘Not personally,’ said I.

The truth was, that she had objected to me as an expen-

sive companion who did Herbert no good, and that, when

Herbert had first proposed to present me to her, she had re-

ceived the proposal with such very moderate warmth, that

Herbert had felt himself obliged to confide the state of the

case to me, with a view to the lapse of a little time before I

made her acquaintance. When I had begun to advance Her-

bert’s prospects by Stealth, I had been able to bear this with

cheerful philosophy; he and his affianced, for their part,

had naturally not been very anxious to introduce a third

person into their interviews; and thus, although I was as-

sured that I had risen in Clara’s esteem, and although the

young lady and I had long regularly interchanged messages

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and remembrances by Herbert, I had never seen her. How-

ever, I did not trouble Wemmick with these particulars.

‘The house with the bow-window,’ said Wemmick, ‘being

by the river-side, down the Pool there between Limehouse

and Greenwich, and being kept, it seems, by a very respect-

able widow who has a furnished upper floor to let, Mr.

Herbert put it to me, what did I think of that as a temporary

tenement for Tom, Jack, or Richard? Now, I thought very

well of it, for three reasons I’ll give you. That is to say. Firstly.

It’s altogether out of all your beats, and is well away from

the usual heap of streets great and small. Secondly. Without

going near it yourself, you could always hear of the safety of

Tom, Jack, or Richard, through Mr. Herbert. Thirdly. After

a while and when it might be prudent, if you should want to

slip Tom, Jack, or Richard, on board a foreign packet-boat,

there he is - ready.’

Much comforted by these considerations, I thanked

Wemmick again and again, and begged him to proceed.

‘Well, sir! Mr. Herbert threw himself into the business

with a will, and by nine o’clock last night he housed Tom,

Jack, or Richard - whichever it may be - you and I don’t

want to know - quite successfully. At the old lodgings it was

understood that he was summoned to Dover, and in fact

he was taken down the Dover road and cornered out of it.

Now, another great advantage of all this, is, that it was done

without you, and when, if any one was concerning himself

about your movements, you must be known to be ever so

many miles off and quite otherwise engaged. This diverts

suspicion and confuses it; and for the same reason I recom-

 

Great Expectations

mended that even if you came back last night, you should

not go home. It brings in more confusion, and you want

confusion.’

Wemmick, having finished his breakfast, here looked at

his watch, and began to get his coat on.

‘And now, Mr. Pip,’ said he, with his hands still in the

sleeves, ‘I have probably done the most I can do; but if I

can ever do more - from a Walworth point of view, and in

a strictly private and personal capacity - I shall be glad to

do it. Here’s the address. There can be no harm in your go-

ing here to-night and seeing for yourself that all is well with

Tom, Jack, or Richard, before you go home - which is an-

other reason for your not going home last night. But after

you have gone home, don’t go back here. You are very wel-

come, I am sure, Mr. Pip;’ his hands were now out of his

sleeves, and I was shaking them; ‘and let me finally impress

one important point upon you.’ He laid his hands upon my

shoulders, and added in a solemn whisper: ‘Avail yourself of

this evening to lay hold of his portable property. You don’t

know what may happen to him. Don’t let anything happen

to the portable property.’

Quite despairing of making my mind clear to Wemmick

on this point, I forbore to try.

‘Time’s up,’ said Wemmick, ‘and I must be off. If you had

nothing more pressing to do than to keep here till dark,

that’s what I should advise. You look very much worried,

and it would do you good to have a perfectly quiet day with

the Aged - he’ll be up presently - and a little bit of - you re-

member the pig?’

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‘Of course,’ said I.

‘Well; and a little bit of him. That sausage you toasted was

his, and he was in all respects a first-rater. Do try him, if it

is only for old acquaintance sake. Good-bye, Aged Parent!’

in a cheery shout.

‘All right, John; all right, my boy!’ piped the old man

from within.

I soon fell asleep before Wemmick’s fire, and the Aged

and I enjoyed one another’s society by falling asleep before

it more or less all day. We had loin of pork for dinner, and

greens grown on the estate, and I nodded at the Aged with

a good intention whenever I failed to do it drowsily. When

it was quite dark, I left the Aged preparing the fire for toast;

and I inferred from the number of teacups, as well as from

his glances at the two little doors in the wall, that Miss Skif-

fins was expected.

 

Great Expectations

Chapter 46

Eight o’clock had struck before I got into the air that was

scented, not disagreeably, by the chips and shavings of

the long-shore boatbuilders, and mast oar and block mak-

ers. All that water-side region of the upper and lower Pool

below Bridge, was unknown ground to me, and when I

struck down by the river, I found that the spot I wanted was

not where I had supposed it to be, and was anything but

easy to find. It was called Mill Pond Bank, Chinks’s Basin;

and I had no other guide to Chinks’s Basin than the Old

Green Copper Rope-Walk.

It matters not what stranded ships repairing in dry

docks I lost myself among, what old hulls of ships in course

of being knocked to pieces, what ooze and slime and other

dregs of tide, what yards of ship-builders and ship-breakers,

what rusty anchors blindly biting into the ground though

for years off duty, what mountainous country of accumu-

lated casks and timber, how many rope-walks that were not

the Old Green Copper. After several times falling short of

my destination and as often over-shooting it, I came un-

expectedly round a corner, upon Mill Pond Bank. It was

a fresh kind of place, all circumstances considered, where

the wind from the river had room to turn itself round; and


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