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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