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Charles Dickens 39 page

 

fore we went to bed, I had resolved that I would wait over

to-morrow, to-morrow being Sunday, and would begin

my new course with the new week. On Monday morning

I would speak to Joe about this change, I would lay aside

this last vestige of reserve, I would tell him what I had in

my thoughts (that Secondly, not yet arrived at), and why I

had not decided to go out to Herbert, and then the change

would be conquered for ever. As I cleared, Joe cleared, and it

seemed as though he had sympathetically arrived at a reso-

lution too.

We had a quiet day on the Sunday, and we rode out into

the country, and then walked in the fields.

‘I feel thankful that I have been ill, Joe,’ I said.

‘Dear old Pip, old chap, you’re a’most come round, sir.’

‘It has been a memorable time for me, Joe.’

‘Likeways for myself, sir,’ Joe returned.

‘We have had a time together, Joe, that I can never forget.

There were days once, I know, that I did for a while forget;

but I never shall forget these.’

‘Pip,’ said Joe, appearing a little hurried and troubled,

‘there has been larks, And, dear sir, what have been betwixt

us - have been.’

At night, when I had gone to bed, Joe came into my room,

as he had done all through my recovery. He asked me if I felt

sure that I was as well as in the morning?

‘Yes, dear Joe, quite.’

‘And are always a-getting stronger, old chap?’

‘Yes, dear Joe, steadily.’

Joe patted the coverlet on my shoulder with his great

 

Great Expectations

good hand, and said, in what I thought a husky voice, ‘Good

night!’

When I got up in the morning, refreshed and stronger

yet, I was full of my resolution to tell Joe all, without delay.

I would tell him before breakfast. I would dress at once and

go to his room and surprise him; for, it was the first day I

had been up early. I went to his room, and he was not there.

Not only was he not there, but his box was gone.

I hurried then to the breakfast-table, and on it found a

letter. These were its brief contents.

‘Not wishful to intrude I have departured fur you are

well again dear Pip and will do better without JO.

‘P.S. Ever the best of friends.’

Enclosed in the letter, was a receipt for the debt and costs

on which I had been arrested. Down to that moment I had

vainly supposed that my creditor had withdrawn or sus-

pended proceedings until I should be quite recovered. I had

never dreamed of Joe’s having paid the money; but, Joe had

paid it, and the receipt was in his name.

What remained for me now, but to follow him to the dear

old forge, and there to have out my disclosure to him, and

my penitent remonstrance with him, and there to relieve

my mind and heart of that reserved Secondly, which had

begun as a vague something lingering in my thoughts, and

had formed into a settled purpose?

The purpose was, that I would go to Biddy, that I would

show her how humbled and repentant I came back, that

I would tell her how I had lost all I once hoped for, that I

would remind her of our old confidences in my first un-



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happy time. Then, I would say to her, ‘Biddy, I think you

once liked me very well, when my errant heart, even while

it strayed away from you, was quieter and better with you

than it ever has been since. If you can like me only half as

well once more, if you can take me with all my faults and

disappointments on my head, if you can receive me like a

forgiven child (and indeed I am as sorry, Biddy, and have as

much need of a hushing voice and a soothing hand), I hope I

am a little worthier of you that I was - not much, but a little.

And, Biddy, it shall rest with you to say whether I shall work

at the forge with Joe, or whether I shall try for any differ-

ent occupation down in this country, or whether we shall

go away to a distant place where an opportunity awaits me,

which I set aside when it was offered, until I knew your an-

swer. And now, dear Biddy, if you can tell me that you will

go through the world with me, you will surely make it a bet-

ter world for me, and me a better man for it, and I will try

hard to make it a better world for you.’

Such was my purpose. After three days more of recovery,

I went down to the old place, to put it in execution; and how

I sped in it, is all I have left to tell.

 

Great Expectations

Chapter 58

The tidings of my high fortunes having had a heavy fall,

had got down to my native place and its neighbourhood,

before I got there. I found the Blue Boar in possession of

the intelligence, and I found that it made a great change in

the Boar’s demeanour. Whereas the Boar had cultivated my

good opinion with warm assiduity when I was coming into

property, the Boar was exceedingly cool on the subject now

that I was going out of property.

It was evening when I arrived, much fatigued by the

journey I had so often made so easily. The Boar could not

put me into my usual bedroom, which was engaged (prob-

ably by some one who had expectations), and could only

assign me a very indifferent chamber among the pigeons

and post-chaises up the yard. But, I had as sound a sleep

in that lodging as in the most superior accommodation the

Boar could have given me, and the quality of my dreams

was about the same as in the best bedroom.

Early in the morning while my breakfast was getting

ready, I strolled round by Satis House. There were printed

bills on the gate, and on bits of carpet hanging out of the

windows, announcing a sale by auction of the Household

Furniture and Effects, next week. The House itself was to

be sold as old building materials and pulled down. LOT 1

was marked in whitewashed knock-knee letters on the brew

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house; LOT 2 on that part of the main building which had

been so long shut up. Other lots were marked off on oth-

er parts of the structure, and the ivy had been torn down

to make room for the inscriptions, and much of it trailed

low in the dust and was withered already. Stepping in for a

moment at the open gate and looking around me with the

uncomfortable air of a stranger who had no business there,

I saw the auctioneer’s clerk walking on the casks and telling

them off for the information of a catalogue compiler, pen

in hand, who made a temporary desk of the wheeled chair I

had so often pushed along to the tune of Old Clem.

When I got back to my breakfast in the Boar’s cof-

fee-room, I found Mr. Pumblechook conversing with the

landlord. Mr. Pumblechook (not improved in appearance

by his late nocturnal adventure) was waiting for me, and

addressed me in the following terms.

‘Young man, I am sorry to see you brought low. But what

else could be expected! What else could be expected!’

As he extended his hand with a magnificently forgiving

air, and as I was broken by illness and unfit to quarrel, I

took it.

‘William,’ said Mr. Pumblechook to the waiter, ‘put a

muffin on table. And has it come to this! Has it come to

this!’

I frowningly sat down to my breakfast. Mr. Pumblechook

stood over me and poured out my tea - before I could touch

the teapot - with the air of a benefactor who was resolved to

be true to the last.

‘William,’ said Mr. Pumblechook, mournfully, ‘put the

Great Expectations

salt on. In happier times,’ addressing me, ‘I think you took

sugar. And did you take milk? You did. Sugar and milk.

William, bring a watercress.’

‘Thank you,’ said I, shortly, ‘but I don’t eat watercresses.’

‘You don’t eat ‘em,’ returned Mr. Pumblechook, sighing

and nodding his head several times, as if he might have ex-

pected that, and as if abstinence from watercresses were

consistent with my downfall. ‘True. The simple fruits of the

earth. No. You needn’t bring any, William.’

I went on with my breakfast, and Mr. Pumblechook

continued to stand over me, staring fishily and breathing

noisily, as he always did.

‘Little more than skin and bone!’ mused Mr. Pum-

blechook, aloud. ‘And yet when he went from here (I may

say with my blessing), and I spread afore him my humble

store, like the Bee, he was as plump as a Peach!’

This reminded me of the wonderful difference between

the servile manner in which he had offered his hand in my

new prosperity, saying, ‘May I?’ and the ostentatious clem-

ency with which he had just now exhibited the same fat five

fingers.

‘Hah!’ he went on, handing me the bread-and-butter.

‘And air you a-going to Joseph?’

‘In heaven’s name,’ said I, firing in spite of myself, ‘what

does it matter to you where I am going? Leave that teapot

alone.’

It was the worst course I could have taken, because it

gave Pumblechook the opportunity he wanted.

‘Yes, young man,’ said he, releasing the handle of the ar-

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ticle in question, retiring a step or two from my table, and

speaking for the behoof of the landlord and waiter at the

door, ‘I will leave that teapot alone. You are right, young

man. For once, you are right. I forgit myself when I take

such an interest in your breakfast, as to wish your frame,

exhausted by the debilitating effects of prodigygality, to be

stimilated by the ‘olesome nourishment of your forefathers.

And yet,’ said Pumblechook, turning to the landlord and

waiter, and pointing me out at arm’s length, ‘this is him as I

ever sported with in his days of happy infancy! Tell me not

it cannot be; I tell you this is him!’

A low murmur from the two replied. The waiter appeared

to be particularly affected.

‘This is him,’ said Pumblechook, ‘as I have rode in my

shaycart. This is him as I have seen brought up by hand.

This is him untoe the sister of which I was uncle by marriage,

as her name was Georgiana M’ria from her own mother, let

him deny it if he can!’

The waiter seemed convinced that I could not deny it,

and that it gave the case a black look.

‘Young man,’ said Pumblechook, screwing his head at me

in the old fashion, ‘you air a-going to Joseph. What does it

matter to me, you ask me, where you air a-going? I say to

you, Sir, you air a-going to Joseph.’

The waiter coughed, as if he modestly invited me to get

over that.

‘Now,’ said Pumblechook, and all this with a most ex-

asperating air of saying in the cause of virtue what was

perfectly convincing and conclusive, ‘I will tell you what to

 

Great Expectations

say to Joseph. Here is Squires of the Boar present, known

and respected in this town, and here is William, which his

father’s name was Potkins if I do not deceive myself.’

‘You do not, sir,’ said William.

‘In their presence,’ pursued Pumblechook, ‘I will tell

you, young man, what to say to Joseph. Says you, ‘Joseph, I

have this day seen my earliest benefactor and the founder of

my fortun’s. I will name no names, Joseph, but so they are

pleased to call him up-town, and I have seen that man.’

‘I swear I don’t see him here,’ said I.

‘Say that likewise,’ retorted Pumblechook. ‘Say you said

that, and even Joseph will probably betray surprise.’

‘There you quite mistake him,’ said I. ‘I know better.’

‘Says you,’ Pumblechook went on, ‘ Joseph, I have seen

that man, and that man bears you no malice and bears me

no malice. He knows your character, Joseph, and is well

acquainted with your pig-headedness and ignorance; and

he knows my character, Joseph, and he knows my want of

gratitoode. Yes, Joseph,’ says you,’ here Pumblechook shook

his head and hand at me, ‘ he knows my total deficiency of

common human gratitoode. He knows it, Joseph, as none

can. You do not know it, Joseph, having no call to know it,

but that man do.’

Windy donkey as he was, it really amazed me that he

could have the face to talk thus to mine.

‘Says you, ‘Joseph, he gave me a little message, which I

will now repeat. It was, that in my being brought low, he saw

the finger of Providence. He knowed that finger when he

saw it, Joseph, and he saw it plain. It pinted out this writing,

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Joseph. Reward of ingratitoode to his earliest benefactor,

and founder of fortun’s. But that man said he did not repent

of what he had done, Joseph. Not at all. It was right to do it,

it was kind to do it, it was benevolent to do it, and he would

do it again.’

‘It’s pity,’ said I, scornfully, as I finished my interrupted

breakfast, ‘that the man did not say what he had done and

would do again.’

‘Squires of the Boar!’ Pumblechook was now address-

ing the landlord, ‘and William! I have no objections to your

mentioning, either up-town or down-town, if such should

be your wishes, that it was right to do it, kind to do it, be-

nevolent to do it, and that I would do it again.’

With those words the Impostor shook them both by the

hand, with an air, and left the house; leaving me much more

astonished than delighted by the virtues of that same in-

definite ‘it.’ ‘I was not long after him in leaving the house

too, and when I went down the High-street I saw him hold-

ing forth (no doubt to the same effect) at his shop door to

a select group, who honoured me with very unfavourable

glances as I passed on the opposite side of the way.

But, it was only the pleasanter to turn to Biddy and to Joe,

whose great forbearance shone more brightly than before, if

that could be, contrasted with this brazen pretender. I went

towards them slowly, for my limbs were weak, but with a

sense of increasing relief as I drew nearer to them, and a

sense of leaving arrogance and untruthfulness further and

further behind.

The June weather was delicious. The sky was blue, the

 

Great Expectations

larks were soaring high over the green corn, I thought all

that country-side more beautiful and peaceful by far than I

had ever known it to be yet. Many pleasant pictures of the

life that I would lead there, and of the change for the better

that would come over my character when I had a guiding

spirit at my side whose simple faith and clear home-wisdom

I had proved, beguiled my way. They awakened a tender

emotion in me; for, my heart was softened by my return,

and such a change had come to pass, that I felt like one who

was toiling home barefoot from distant travel, and whose

wanderings had lasted many years.

The schoolhouse where Biddy was mistress, I had never

seen; but, the little roundabout lane by which I entered the

village for quietness’ sake, took me past it. I was disappoint-

ed to find that the day was a holiday; no children were there,

and Biddy’s house was closed. Some hopeful notion of see-

ing her busily engaged in her daily duties, before she saw

me, had been in my mind and was defeated.

But, the forge was a very short distance off, and I went to-

wards it under the sweet green limes, listening for the clink

of Joe’s hammer. Long after I ought to have heard it, and

long after I had fancied I heard it and found it but a fan-

cy, all was still. The limes were there, and the white thorns

were there, and the chestnut-trees were there, and their

leaves rustled harmoniously when I stopped to listen; but,

the clink of Joe’s hammer was not in the midsummer wind.

Almost fearing, without knowing why, to come in view

of the forge, I saw it at last, and saw that it was closed. No

gleam of fire, no glittering shower of sparks, no roar of bel-

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lows; all shut up, and still.

But, the house was not deserted, and the best parlour

seemed to be in use, for there were white curtains flutter-

ing in its window, and the window was open and gay with

flowers. I went softly towards it, meaning to peep over the

flowers, when Joe and Biddy stood before me, arm in arm.

At first Biddy gave a cry, as if she thought it was my ap-

parition, but in another moment she was in my embrace.

I wept to see her, and she wept to see me; I, because she

looked so fresh and pleasant; she, because I looked so worn

and white.

‘But dear Biddy, how smart you are!’

‘Yes, dear Pip.’

‘And Joe, how smart you are!’

‘Yes, dear old Pip, old chap.’

I looked at both of them, from one to the other, and

then—

‘It’s my wedding-day,’ cried Biddy, in a burst of happiness,

‘and I am married to Joe!’

They had taken me into the kitchen, and I had laid my

head down on the old deal table. Biddy held one of my

hands to her lips, and Joe’s restoring touch was on my

shoulder. ‘Which he warn’t strong enough, my dear, fur

to be surprised,’ said Joe. And Biddy said, ‘I ought to have

thought of it, dear Joe, but I was too happy.’ They were both

so overjoyed to see me, so proud to see me, so touched by

my coming to them, so delighted that I should have come by

accident to make their day complete!

My first thought was one of great thankfulness that I

 

Great Expectations

had never breathed this last baffled hope to Joe. How often,

while he was with me in my illness, had it risen to my lips.

How irrevocable would have been his knowledge of it, if he

had remained with me but another hour!

‘Dear Biddy,’ said I, ‘you have the best husband in the

whole world, and if you could have seen him by my bed you

would have - But no, you couldn’t love him better than you

do.’‘No, I couldn’t indeed,’ said Biddy.

‘And, dear Joe, you have the best wife in the whole world,

and she will make you as happy as even you deserve to be,

you dear, good, noble Joe!’

Joe looked at me with a quivering lip, and fairly put his

sleeve before his eyes.

‘And Joe and Biddy both, as you have been to church

to-day, and are in charity and love with all mankind, re-

ceive my humble thanks for all you have done for me and

all I have so ill repaid! And when I say that I am going away

within the hour, for I am soon going abroad, and that I shall

never rest until I have worked for the money with which

you have kept me out of prison, and have sent it to you, don’t

think, dear Joe and Biddy, that if I could repay it a thousand

times over, I suppose I could cancel a farthing of the debt I

owe you, or that I would do so if I could!’

They were both melted by these words, and both entreat-

ed me to say no more.

‘But I must say more. Dear Joe, I hope you will have

children to love, and that some little fellow will sit in this

chimney corner of a winter night, who may remind you of

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another little fellow gone out of it for ever. Don’t tell him,

Joe, that I was thankless; don’t tell him, Biddy, that I was

ungenerous and unjust; only tell him that I honoured you

both, because you were both so good and true, and that, as

your child, I said it would be natural to him to grow up a

much better man than I did.’

‘I ain’t a-going,’ said Joe, from behind his sleeve, ‘to tell

him nothink o’ that natur, Pip. Nor Biddy ain’t. Nor yet no

one ain’t.’

‘And now, though I know you have already done it in

your own kind hearts, pray tell me, both, that you forgive

me! Pray let me hear you say the words, that I may carry the

sound of them away with me, and then I shall be able to be-

lieve that you can trust me, and think better of me, in the

time to come!’

‘O dear old Pip, old chap,’ said Joe. ‘God knows as I for-

give you, if I have anythink to forgive!’

‘Amen! And God knows I do!’ echoed Biddy.

Now let me go up and look at my old little room, and rest

there a few minutes by myself, and then when I have eaten

and drunk with you, go with me as far as the finger-post,

dear Joe and Biddy, before we say good-bye!’

I sold all I had, and put aside as much as I could, for a

composition with my creditors - who gave me ample time

to pay them in full - and I went out and joined Herbert.

Within a month, I had quitted England, and within two

months I was clerk to Clarriker and Co., and within four

months I assumed my first undivided responsibility. For,

the beam across the parlour ceiling at Mill Pond Bank, had

 

Great Expectations

then ceased to tremble under old Bill Barley’s growls and

was at peace, and Herbert had gone away to marry Clara,

and I was left in sole charge of the Eastern Branch until he

brought her back.

Many a year went round, before I was a partner in the

House; but, I lived happily with Herbert and his wife, and

lived frugally, and paid my debts, and maintained a con-

stant correspondence with Biddy and Joe. It was not until

I became third in the Firm, that Clarriker betrayed me to

Herbert; but, he then declared that the secret of Herbert’s

partnership had been long enough upon his conscience,

and he must tell it. So, he told it, and Herbert was as much

moved as amazed, and the dear fellow and I were not the

worse friends for the long concealment. I must not leave

it to be supposed that we were ever a great house, or that

we made mints of money. We were not in a grand way of

business, but we had a good name, and worked for our prof-

its, and did very well. We owed so much to Herbert’s ever

cheerful industry and readiness, that I often wondered how

I had conceived that old idea of his inaptitude, until I was

one day enlightened by the reflection, that perhaps the in-

aptitude had never been in him at all, but had been in me.

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Chapter 59

For eleven years, I had not seen Joe nor Biddy with my

bodily eyes-though they had both been often before my

fancy in the East-when, upon an evening in December, an

hour or two after dark, I laid my hand softly on the latch

of the old kitchen door. I touched it so softly that I was not

heard, and looked in unseen. There, smoking his pipe in

the old place by the kitchen firelight, as hale and as strong

as ever though a little grey, sat Joe; and there, fenced into

the corner with Joe’s leg, and sitting on my own little stool

looking at the fire, was - I again!

‘We giv’ him the name of Pip for your sake, dear old chap,’

said Joe, delighted when I took another stool by the child’s

side (but I did not rumple his hair), ‘and we hoped he might

grow a little bit like you, and we think he do.’

I thought so too, and I took him out for a walk next morn-

ing, and we talked immensely, understanding one another

to perfection. And I took him down to the churchyard, and

set him on a certain tombstone there, and he showed me

from that elevation which stone was sacred to the memo-

ry of Philip Pirrip, late of this Parish, and Also Georgiana,

Wife of the Above.

‘Biddy,’ said I, when I talked with her after dinner, as her

little girl lay sleeping in her lap, ‘you must give Pip to me,

one of these days; or lend him, at all events.’

Great Expectations

‘No, no,’ said Biddy, gently. ‘You must marry.’

‘So Herbert and Clara say, but I don’t think I shall, Biddy.

I have so settled down in their home, that it’s not at all likely.

I am already quite an old bachelor.’

Biddy looked down at her child, and put its little hand to

her lips, and then put the good matronly hand with which

she had touched it, into mine. There was something in the

action and in the light pressure of Biddy’s wedding-ring,

that had a very pretty eloquence in it.

‘Dear Pip,’ said Biddy, ‘you are sure you don’t fret for

her?’

‘O no - I think not, Biddy.’

‘Tell me as an old, old friend. Have you quite forgotten

her?

‘My dear Biddy, I have forgotten nothing in my life that

ever had a foremost place there, and little that ever had any

place there. But that poor dream, as I once used to call it,

has all gone by, Biddy, all gone by!’

Nevertheless, I knew while I said those words, that I

secretly intended to revisit the site of the old house that eve-

ning, alone, for her sake. Yes even so. For Estella’s sake.

I had heard of her as leading a most unhappy life, and as

being separated from her husband, who had used her with

great cruelty, and who had become quite renowned as a

compound of pride, avarice, brutality, and meanness. And

I had heard of the death of her husband, from an accident

consequent on his ill-treatment of a horse. This release had

befallen her some two years before; for anything I knew, she

was married again.

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The early dinner-hour at Joe’s, left me abundance of time,

without hurrying my talk with Biddy, to walk over to the

old spot before dark. But, what with loitering on the way,

to look at old objects and to think of old times, the day had

quite declined when I came to the place.

There was no house now, no brewery, no building what-

ever left, but the wall of the old garden. The cleared space

had been enclosed with a rough fence, and, looking over it,

I saw that some of the old ivy had struck root anew, and was

growing green on low quiet mounds of ruin. A gate in the

fence standing ajar, I pushed it open, and went in.

A cold silvery mist had veiled the afternoon, and the

moon was not yet up to scatter it. But, the stars were shin-

ing beyond the mist, and the moon was coming, and the

evening was not dark. I could trace out where every part of

the old house had been, and where the brewery had been,

and where the gate, and where the casks. I had done so, and

was looking along the desolate gardenwalk, when I beheld

a solitary figure in it.

The figure showed itself aware of me, as I advanced. It

had been moving towards me, but it stood still. As I drew

nearer, I saw it to be the figure of a woman. As I drew nearer

yet, it was about to turn away, when it stopped, and let me

come up with it. Then, it faltered as if much surprised, and

uttered my name, and I cried out:

‘Estella!’

‘I am greatly changed. I wonder you know me.’

The freshness of her beauty was indeed gone, but its in-

describable majesty and its indescribable charm remained.

 

Great Expectations

Those attractions in it, I had seen before; what I had nev-

er seen before, was the saddened softened light of the once

proud eyes; what I had never felt before, was the friendly

touch of the once insensible hand.

We sat down on a bench that was near, and I said, ‘Af-

ter so many years, it is strange that we should thus meet

again, Estella, here where our first meeting was! Do you of-

ten come back?’

‘I have never been here since.’

‘Nor I.’

The moon began to rise, and I thought of the placid look

at the white ceiling, which had passed away. The moon be-

gan to rise, and I thought of the pressure on my hand when


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