Charles Dickens 34 page him just then, lest Mr. Jaggers’s sharpness should detect
that there had been some communication unknown to him
between us.
‘And on what evidence, Pip,’ asked Mr. Jaggers, very cool-
ly, as he paused with his handkerchief half way to his nose,
‘does Provis make this claim?’
‘He does not make it,’ said I, ‘and has never made it, and
has no knowledge or belief that his daughter is in exis-
tence.’
For once, the powerful pocket-handkerchief failed. My
reply was so unexpected that Mr. Jaggers put the handker-
chief back into his pocket without completing the usual
performance, folded his arms, and looked with stern atten-
tion at me, though with an immovable face.
Then I told him all I knew, and how I knew it; with the
one reservation that I left him to infer that I knew from
Miss Havisham what I in fact knew from Wemmick. I was
very careful indeed as to that. Nor, did I look towards Wem-
mick until I had finished all I had to tell, and had been for
some time silently meeting Mr. Jaggers’s look. When I did
at last turn my eyes in Wemmick’s direction, I found that
he had unposted his pen, and was intent upon the table be-
fore him.
‘Hah!’ said Mr. Jaggers at last, as he moved towards the
papers on the table, ‘ - What item was it you were at, Wem-
mick, when Mr. Pip came in?’
But I could not submit to be thrown off in that way, and I
made a passionate, almost an indignant, appeal to him to be
Great Expectations
more frank and manly with me. I reminded him of the false
hopes into which I had lapsed, the length of time they had
lasted, and the discovery I had made: and I hinted at the
danger that weighed upon my spirits. I represented myself
as being surely worthy of some little confidence from him,
in return for the confidence I had just now imparted. I said
that I did not blame him, or suspect him, or mistrust him,
but I wanted assurance of the truth from him. And if he
asked me why I wanted it and why I thought I had any right
to it, I would tell him, little as he cared for such poor dreams,
that I had loved Estella dearly and long, and that, although
I had lost her and must live a bereaved life, whatever con-
cerned her was still nearer and dearer to me than anything
else in the world. And seeing that Mr. Jaggers stood quite
still and silent, and apparently quite obdurate, under this
appeal, I turned to Wemmick, and said, ‘Wemmick, I know
you to be a man with a gentle heart. I have seen your pleas-
ant home, and your old father, and all the innocent cheerful
playful ways with which you refresh your business life. And
I entreat you to say a word for me to Mr. Jaggers, and to rep-
resent to him that, all circumstances considered, he ought
to be more open with me!’
I have never seen two men look more oddly at one anoth-
er than Mr. Jaggers and Wemmick did after this apostrophe.
At first, a misgiving crossed me that Wemmick would be
instantly dismissed from his employment; but, it melted
as I saw Mr. Jaggers relax into something like a smile, and
Wemmick become bolder.
‘What’s all this?’ said Mr. Jaggers. ‘You with an old father,
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and you with pleasant and playful ways?’
‘Well!’ returned Wemmick. ‘If I don’t bring ‘em here,
what does it matter?’
‘Pip,’ said Mr. Jaggers, laying his hand upon my arm, and
smiling openly, ‘this man must be the most cunning impos-
tor in all London.’
‘Not a bit of it,’ returned Wemmick, growing bolder and
bolder. ‘I think you’re another.’
Again they exchanged their former odd looks, each ap-
parently still distrustful that the other was taking him in.
‘You with a pleasant home?’ said Mr. Jaggers.
‘Since it don’t interfere with business,’ returned Wem-
mick, ‘let it be so. Now, I look at you, sir, I shouldn’t wonder
if you might be planning and contriving to have a pleasant
home of your own, one of these days, when you’re tired of
all this work.’
Mr. Jaggers nodded his head retrospectively two or three
times, and actually drew a sigh. ‘Pip,’ said he, ‘we won’t talk
about ‘poor dreams;’ you know more about such things
than I, having much fresher experience of that kind. But
now, about this other matter. I’ll put a case to you. Mind! I
admit nothing.’
He waited for me to declare that I quite understood that
he expressly said that he admitted nothing.
‘Now, Pip,’ said Mr. Jaggers, ‘put this case. Put the case
that a woman, under such circumstances as you have
mentioned, held her child concealed, and was obliged to
communicate the fact to her legal adviser, on his represent-
ing to her that he must know, with an eye to the latitude
Great Expectations
of his defence, how the fact stood about that child. Put the
case that at the same time he held a trust to find a child for
an eccentric rich lady to adopt and bring up.’
‘I follow you, sir.’
‘Put the case that he lived in an atmosphere of evil, and
that all he saw of children, was, their being generated in
great numbers for certain destruction. Put the case that he
often saw children solemnly tried at a criminal bar, where
they were held up to be seen; put the case that he habitually
knew of their being imprisoned, whipped, transported, ne-
glected, cast out, qualified in all ways for the hangman, and
growing up to be hanged. Put the case that pretty nigh all
the children he saw in his daily business life, he had reason
to look upon as so much spawn, to develop into the fish that
were to come to his net - to be prosecuted, defended, for-
sworn, made orphans, bedevilled somehow.’
‘I follow you, sir.’
‘Put the case, Pip, that here was one pretty little child out
of the heap, who could be saved; whom the father believed
dead, and dared make no stir about; as to whom, over the
mother, the legal adviser had this power: ‘I know what you
did, and how you did it. You came so and so, this was your
manner of attack and this the manner of resistance, you
went so and so, you did such and such things to divert sus-
picion. I have tracked you through it all, and I tell it you all.
Part with the child, unless it should be necessary to produce
it to clear you, and then it shall be produced. Give the child
into my hands, and I will do my best to bring you off. If you
are saved, your child is saved too; if you are lost, your child
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is still saved.’ Put the case that this was done, and that the
woman was cleared.’
‘I understand you perfectly.’
‘But that I make no admissions?’
‘That you make no admissions.’ And Wemmick repeated,
‘No admissions.’
‘Put the case, Pip, that passion and the terror of death
had a little shaken the woman’s intellect, and that when she
was set at liberty, she was scared out of the ways of the world
and went to him to be sheltered. Put the case that he took
her in, and that he kept down the old wild violent nature
whenever he saw an inkling of its breaking out, by asserting
his power over her in the old way. Do you comprehend the
imaginary case?’
‘Quite.’
‘Put the case that the child grew up, and was married for
money. That the mother was still living. That the father was
still living. That the mother and father unknown to one an-
other, were dwelling within so many miles, furlongs, yards
if you like, of one another. That the secret was still a secret,
except that you had got wind of it. Put that last case to your-
self very carefully.’
‘I do.’
‘I ask Wemmick to put it to himself very carefully.’
And Wemmick said, ‘I do.’
‘For whose sake would you reveal the secret? For the
father’s? I think he would not be much the better for the
mother. For the mother’s? I think if she had done such a
deed she would be safer where she was. For the daughter’s?
Great Expectations
I think it would hardly serve her, to establish her parent-
age for the information of her husband, and to drag her
back to disgrace, after an escape of twenty years, pretty se-
cure to last for life. But, add the case that you had loved her,
Pip, and had made her the subject of those ‘poor dreams’
which have, at one time or another, been in the heads of
more men than you think likely, then I tell you that you
had better - and would much sooner when you had thought
well of it - chop off that bandaged left hand of yours with
your bandaged right hand, and then pass the chopper on to
Wemmick there, to cut that off, too.’
I looked at Wemmick, whose face was very grave. He
gravely touched his lips with his forefinger. I did the same.
Mr. Jaggers did the same. ‘Now, Wemmick,’ said the lat-
ter then, resuming his usual manner, ‘what item was it you
were at, when Mr. Pip came in?’
Standing by for a little, while they were at work, I ob-
served that the odd looks they had cast at one another were
repeated several times: with this difference now, that each
of them seemed suspicious, not to say conscious, of having
shown himself in a weak and unprofessional light to the
other. For this reason, I suppose, they were now inflexible
with one another; Mr. Jaggers being highly dictatorial, and
Wemmick obstinately justifying himself whenever there
was the smallest point in abeyance for a moment. I had nev-
er seen them on such ill terms; for generally they got on very
well indeed together.
But, they were both happily relieved by the opportune
appearance of Mike, the client with the fur cap and the hab-
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it of wiping his nose on his sleeve, whom I had seen on the
very first day of my appearance within those walls. This in-
dividual, who, either in his own person or in that of some
member of his family, seemed to be always in trouble (which
in that place meant Newgate), called to announce that his
eldest daughter was taken up on suspicion of shop-lifting.
As he imparted this melancholy circumstance to Wemmick,
Mr. Jaggers standing magisterially before the fire and tak-
ing no share in the proceedings, Mike’s eye happened to
twinkle with a tear.
‘What are you about?’ demanded Wemmick, with the ut-
most indignation. ‘What do you come snivelling here for?’
‘I didn’t go to do it, Mr. Wemmick.’
‘You did,’ said Wemmick. ‘How dare you? You’re not in a
fit state to come here, if you can’t come here without splut-
tering like a bad pen. What do you mean by it?’
‘A man can’t help his feelings, Mr. Wemmick,’ pleaded
Mike.
‘His what?’ demanded Wemmick, quite savagely. ‘Say
that again!’
‘Now, look here my man,’ said Mr. Jaggers, advancing a
step, and pointing to the door. ‘Get out of this office. I’ll
have no feelings here. Get out.’
‘It serves you right,’ said Wemmick, ‘Get out.’
So the unfortunate Mike very humbly withdrew, and Mr.
Jaggers and Wemmick appeared to have re-established their
good understanding, and went to work again with an air of
refreshment upon them as if they had just had lunch.
Great Expectations
Chapter 52
From Little Britain, I went, with my cheque in my pocket,
to Miss Skiffins’s brother, the accountant; and Miss Skif-
fins’s brother, the accountant, going straight to Clarriker’s
and bringing Clarriker to me, I had the great satisfaction of
concluding that arrangement. It was the only good thing I
had done, and the only completed thing I had done, since I
was first apprised of my great expectations.
Clarriker informing me on that occasion that the affairs
of the House were steadily progressing, that he would now
be able to establish a small branch-house in the East which
was much wanted for the extension of the business, and that
Herbert in his new partnership capacity would go out and
take charge of it, I found that I must have prepared for a
separation from my friend, even though my own affairs had
been more settled. And now indeed I felt as if my last an-
chor were loosening its hold, and I should soon be driving
with the winds and waves.
But, there was recompense in the joy with which Herbert
would come home of a night and tell me of these changes,
little imagining that he told me no news, and would sketch
airy pictures of himself conducting Clara Barley to the land
of the Arabian Nights, and of me going out to join them
(with a caravan of camels, I believe), and of our all going up
the Nile and seeing wonders. Without being sanguine as to
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my own part in these bright plans, I felt that Herbert’s way
was clearing fast, and that old Bill Barley had but to stick to
his pepper and rum, and his daughter would soon be hap-
pily provided for.
We had now got into the month of March. My left arm,
though it presented no bad symptoms, took in the natural
course so long to heal that I was still unable to get a coat on.
My right arm was tolerably restored; - disfigured, but fairly
serviceable.
On a Monday morning, when Herbert and I were at
breakfast, I received the following letter from Wemmick by
the post.
‘Walworth. Burn this as soon as read. Early in the week,
or say Wednesday, you might do what you know of, if you
felt disposed to try it. Now burn.’
When I had shown this to Herbert and had put it in the
fire - but not before we had both got it by heart - we consid-
ered what to do. For, of course my being disabled could now
be no longer kept out of view.
‘I have thought it over, again and again,’ said Herbert,
‘and I think I know a better course than taking a Thames
waterman. Take Startop. A good fellow, a skilled hand, fond
of us, and enthusiastic and honourable.’
I had thought of him, more than once.
‘But how much would you tell him, Herbert?’
‘It is necessary to tell him very little. Let him suppose it a
mere freak, but a secret one, until the morning comes: then
let him know that there is urgent reason for your getting
Provis aboard and away. You go with him?’
Great Expectations
‘No doubt.’
‘Where?’
It had seemed to me, in the many anxious considerations
I had given the point, almost indifferent what port we made
for - Hamburg, Rotterdam, Antwerp - the place signified
little, so that he was got out of England. Any foreign steam-
er that fell in our way and would take us up, would do. I
had always proposed to myself to get him well down the
river in the boat; certainly well beyond Gravesend, which
was a critical place for search or inquiry if suspicion were
afoot. As foreign steamers would leave London at about the
time of high-water, our plan would be to get down the river
by a previous ebb-tide, and lie by in some quiet spot until
we could pull off to one. The time when one would be due
where we lay, wherever that might be, could be calculated
pretty nearly, if we made inquiries beforehand.
Herbert assented to all this, and we went out immediately
after breakfast to pursue our investigations. We found that
a steamer for Hamburg was likely to suit our purpose best,
and we directed our thoughts chiefly to that vessel. But we
noted down what other foreign steamers would leave Lon-
don with the same tide, and we satisfied ourselves that we
knew the build and colour of each. We then separated for a
few hours; I, to get at once such passports as were necessary;
Herbert, to see Startop at his lodgings. We both did what we
had to do without any hindrance, and when we met again
at one o’clock reported it done. I, for my part, was prepared
with passports; Herbert had seen Startop, and he was more
than ready to join.
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Those two should pull a pair of oars, we settled, and I
would steer; our charge would be sitter, and keep quiet; as
speed was not our object, we should make way enough. We
arranged that Herbert should not come home to dinner be-
fore going to Mill Pond Bank that evening; that he should
not go there at all, to-morrow evening, Tuesday; that he
should prepare Provis to come down to some Stairs hard
by the house, on Wednesday, when he saw us approach, and
not sooner; that all the arrangements with him should be
concluded that Monday night; and that he should be com-
municated with no more in any way, until we took him on
board.
These precautions well understood by both of us, I went
home.
On opening the outer door of our chambers with my key,
I found a letter in the box, directed to me; a very dirty let-
ter, though not ill-written. It had been delivered by hand (of
course since I left home), and its contents were these:
‘If you are not afraid to come to the old marshes to-night
or tomorrow night at Nine, and to come to the little sluice-
house by the limekiln, you had better come. If you want
information regarding your uncle Provis, you had much
better come and tell no one and lose no time. You must
come alone. Bring this with you.’
I had had load enough upon my mind before the receipt
of this strange letter. What to do now, I could not tell. And
the worst was, that I must decide quickly, or I should miss
the afternoon coach, which would take me down in time for
to-night. To-morrow night I could not think of going, for it
Great Expectations
would be too close upon the time of the flight. And again,
for anything I knew, the proffered information might have
some important bearing on the flight itself.
If I had had ample time for consideration, I believe I
should still have gone. Having hardly any time for consider-
ation - my watch showing me that the coach started within
half an hour - I resolved to go. I should certainly not have
gone, but for the reference to my Uncle Provis; that, coming
on Wemmick’s letter and the morning’s busy preparation,
turned the scale.
It is so difficult to become clearly possessed of the con-
tents of almost any letter, in a violent hurry, that I had to
read this mysterious epistle again, twice, before its injunc-
tion to me to be secret got mechanically into my mind.
Yielding to it in the same mechanical kind of way, I left a
note in pencil for Herbert, telling him that as I should be
so soon going away, I knew not for how long, I had decided
to hurry down and back, to ascertain for myself how Miss
Havisham was faring. I had then barely time to get my great-
coat, lock up the chambers, and make for the coach-office
by the short by-ways. If I had taken a hackney-chariot and
gone by the streets, I should have missed my aim; going as I
did, I caught the coach just as it came out of the yard. I was
the only inside passenger, jolting away knee-deep in straw,
when I came to myself.
For, I really had not been myself since the receipt of the
letter; it had so bewildered me ensuing on the hurry of the
morning. The morning hurry and flutter had been great, for,
long and anxiously as I had waited for Wemmick, his hint
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had come like a surprise at last. And now, I began to wonder
at myself for being in the coach, and to doubt whether I had
sufficient reason for being there, and to consider whether I
should get out presently and go back, and to argue against
ever heeding an anonymous communication, and, in short,
to pass through all those phases of contradiction and in-
decision to which I suppose very few hurried people are
strangers. Still, the reference to Provis by name, mastered
everything. I reasoned as I had reasoned already without
knowing it - if that be reasoning - in case any harm should
befall him through my not going, how could I ever forgive
myself!
It was dark before we got down, and the journey seemed
long and dreary to me who could see little of it inside, and
who could not go outside in my disabled state. Avoiding the
Blue Boar, I put up at an inn of minor reputation down the
town, and ordered some dinner. While it was preparing, I
went to Satis House and inquired for Miss Havisham; she
was still very ill, though considered something better.
My inn had once been a part of an ancient ecclesiastical
house, and I dined in a little octagonal common-room, like
a font. As I was not able to cut my dinner, the old landlord
with a shining bald head did it for me. This bringing us into
conversation, he was so good as to entertain me with my
own story - of course with the popular feature that Pum-
blechook was my earliest benefactor and the founder of my
fortunes.
‘Do you know the young man?’ said I.
‘Know him!’ repeated the landlord. ‘Ever since he was -
Great Expectations
no height at all.’
‘Does he ever come back to this neighbourhood?’
‘Ay, he comes back,’ said the landlord, ‘to his great friends,
now and again, and gives the cold shoulder to the man that
made him.’
‘What man is that?’
‘Him that I speak of,’ said the landlord. ‘Mr. Pum-
blechook.’
‘Is he ungrateful to no one else?’
‘No doubt he would be, if he could,’ returned the land-
lord, ‘but he can’t. And why? Because Pumblechook done
everything for him.’
‘Does Pumblechook say so?’
‘Say so!’ replied the landlord. ‘He han’t no call to say so.’
‘But does he say so?’
‘It would turn a man’s blood to white wine winegar to
hear him tell of it, sir,’ said the landlord.
I thought, ‘Yet Joe, dear Joe, you never tell of it. Long-
suffering and loving Joe, you never complain. Nor you,
sweet-tempered Biddy!’
‘Your appetite’s been touched like, by your accident,’ said
the landlord, glancing at the bandaged arm under my coat.
‘Try a tenderer bit.’
‘No thank you,’ I replied, turning from the table to brood
over the fire. ‘I can eat no more. Please take it away.’
I had never been struck at so keenly, for my thankless-
ness to Joe, as through the brazen impostor Pumblechook.
The falser he, the truer Joe; the meaner he, the nobler Joe.
My heart was deeply and most deservedly humbled as I
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mused over the fire for an hour or more. The striking of the
clock aroused me, but not from my dejection or remorse,
and I got up and had my coat fastened round my neck, and
went out. I had previously sought in my pockets for the let-
ter, that I might refer to it again, but I could not find it, and
was uneasy to think that it must have been dropped in the
straw of the coach. I knew very well, however, that the ap-
pointed place was the little sluice-house by the limekiln on
the marshes, and the hour nine. Towards the marshes I now
went straight, having no time to spare.
Great Expectations
Chapter 53
It was a dark night, though the full moon rose as I left the
enclosed lands, and passed out upon the marshes. Be-
yond their dark line there was a ribbon of clear sky, hardly
broad enough to hold the red large moon. In a few minutes
she had ascended out of that clear field, in among the piled
mountains of cloud.
There was a melancholy wind, and the marshes were very
dismal. A stranger would have found them insupportable,
and even to me they were so oppressive that I hesitated, half
inclined to go back. But, I knew them well, and could have
found my way on a far darker night, and had no excuse for
returning, being there. So, having come there against my
inclination, I went on against it.
The direction that I took, was not that in which my old
home lay, nor that in which we had pursued the convicts.
My back was turned towards the distant Hulks as I walked
on, and, though I could see the old lights away on the spits
of sand, I saw them over my shoulder. I knew the limekiln
as well as I knew the old Battery, but they were miles apart;
so that if a light had been burning at each point that night,
there would have been a long strip of the blank horizon be-
tween the two bright specks.
At first, I had to shut some gates after me, and now and
then to stand still while the cattle that were lying in the
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banked-up pathway, arose and blundered down among the
grass and reeds. But after a little while, I seemed to have the
whole flats to myself.
It was another half-hour before I drew near to the kiln.
The lime was burning with a sluggish stifling smell, but the
fires were made up and left, and no workmen were visible.
Hard by, was a small stone-quarry. It lay directly in my way,
and had been worked that day, as I saw by the tools and bar-
rows that were lying about.
Coming up again to the marsh level out of this excava-
tion - for the rude path lay through it - I saw a light in the
old sluice-house. I quickened my pace, and knocked at the
door with my hand. Waiting for some reply, I looked about
me, noticing how the sluice was abandoned and broken,
and how the house - of wood with a tiled roof - would not
be proof against the weather much longer, if it were so even
now, and how the mud and ooze were coated with lime, and
how the choking vapour of the kiln crept in a ghostly way
towards me. Still there was no answer, and I knocked again.
No answer still, and I tried the latch.
It rose under my hand, and the door yielded. Looking
in, I saw a lighted candle on a table, a bench, and a mattress
on a truckle bedstead. As there was a loft above, I called, ‘Is
there any one here?’ but no voice answered. Then, I looked
at my watch, and, finding that it was past nine, called again,
‘Is there any one here?’ There being still no answer, I went
out at the door, irresolute what to do.
It was beginning to rain fast. Seeing nothing save what
I had seen already, I turned back into the house, and stood
Great Expectations
just within the shelter of the doorway, looking out into the
night. While I was considering that some one must have
been there lately and must soon be coming back, or the can-
dle would not be burning, it came into my head to look if the
wick were long. I turned round to do so, and had taken up
the candle in my hand, when it was extinguished by some
violent shock, and the next thing I comprehended, was, that
I had been caught in a strong running noose, thrown over
my head from behind.
‘Now,’ said a suppressed voice with an oath, ‘I’ve got
you!’
‘What is this?’ I cried, struggling. ‘Who is it? Help, help,
help!’
Not only were my arms pulled close to my sides, but the
pressure on my bad arm caused me exquisite pain. Some-
times, a strong man’s hand, sometimes a strong man’s
breast, was set against my mouth to deaden my cries, and
with a hot breath always close to me, I struggled ineffectu-
ally in the dark, while I was fastened tight to the wall. ‘And
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