Charles Dickens 8 page

cobwebs on the table but not touching it, ‘was brought here.

It and I have worn away together. The mice have gnawed at

it, and sharper teeth than teeth of mice have gnawed at me.’

She held the head of her stick against her heart as she

stood looking at the table; she in her once white dress, all

yellow and withered; the once white cloth all yellow and

withered; everything around, in a state to crumble under

a touch.

‘When the ruin is complete,’ said she, with a ghastly

look, ‘and when they lay me dead, in my bride’s dress on the

bride’s table - which shall be done, and which will be the

finished curse upon him - so much the better if it is done

Great Expectations

on this day!’

She stood looking at the table as if she stood looking

at her own figure lying there. I remained quiet. Estella re-

turned, and she too remained quiet. It seemed to me that we

continued thus for a long time. In the heavy air of the room,

and the heavy darkness that brooded in its remoter corners,

I even had an alarming fancy that Estella and I might pres-

ently begin to decay.

At length, not coming out of her distraught state by de-

grees, but in an instant, Miss Havisham said, ‘Let me see

you two play cards; why have you not begun?’ With that,

we returned to her room, and sat down as before; I was

beggared, as before; and again, as before, Miss Havisham

watched us all the time, directed my attention to Estella’s

beauty, and made me notice it the more by trying her jewels

on Estella’s breast and hair.

Estella, for her part, likewise treated me as before; except

that she did not condescend to speak. When we had played

some halfdozen games, a day was appointed for my return,

and I was taken down into the yard to be fed in the for-

mer dog-like manner. There, too, I was again left to wander

about as I liked.

It is not much to the purpose whether a gate in that gar-

den wall which I had scrambled up to peep over on the last

occasion was, on that last occasion, open or shut. Enough

that I saw no gate then, and that I saw one now. As it stood

open, and as I knew that Estella had let the visitors out - for,

she had returned with the keys in her hand - I strolled into

the garden and strolled all over it. It was quite a wilderness,

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and there were old melon-frames and cucumber-frames in

it, which seemed in their decline to have produced a spon-

taneous growth of weak attempts at pieces of old hats and

boots, with now and then a weedy offshoot into the likeness

of a battered saucepan.

When I had exhausted the garden, and a greenhouse

with nothing in it but a fallen-down grape-vine and some

bottles, I found myself in the dismal corner upon which I

had looked out of the window. Never questioning for a mo-

ment that the house was now empty, I looked in at another

window, and found myself, to my great surprise, exchang-

ing a broad stare with a pale young gentleman with red

eyelids and light hair.

This pale young gentleman quickly disappeared, and

re-appeared beside me. He had been at his books when I

had found myself staring at him, and I now saw that he was

inky.

‘Halloa!’ said he, ‘young fellow!’

Halloa being a general observation which I had usually

observed to be best answered by itself, I said, ‘Halloa!’ po-

litely omitting young fellow.

‘Who let you in?’ said he.

‘Miss Estella.’

‘Who gave you leave to prowl about?’

‘Miss Estella.’

‘Come and fight,’ said the pale young gentleman.

What could I do but follow him? I have often asked my-

self the question since: but, what else could I do? His manner

was so final and I was so astonished, that I followed where

Great Expectations

he led, as if I had been under a spell.

‘Stop a minute, though,’ he said, wheeling round before

we had gone many paces. ‘I ought to give you a reason for

fighting, too. There it is!’ In a most irritating manner he in-

stantly slapped his hands against one another, daintily flung

one of his legs up behind him, pulled my hair, slapped his

hands again, dipped his head, and butted it into my stom-

ach.The bull-like proceeding last mentioned, besides that it

was unquestionably to be regarded in the light of a liber-

ty, was particularly disagreeable just after bread and meat.

I therefore hit out at him and was going to hit out again,

when he said, ‘Aha! Would you?’ and began dancing back-

wards and forwards in a manner quite unparalleled within

my limited experience.

‘Laws of the game!’ said he. Here, he skipped from his

left leg on to his right. ‘Regular rules!’ Here, he skipped

from his right leg on to his left. ‘Come to the ground, and

go through the preliminaries!’ Here, he dodged backwards

and forwards, and did all sorts of things while I looked

helplessly at him.

I was secretly afraid of him when I saw him so dexter-

ous; but, I felt morally and physically convinced that his

light head of hair could have had no business in the pit of

my stomach, and that I had a right to consider it irrelevant

when so obtruded on my attention. Therefore, I followed

him without a word, to a retired nook of the garden, formed

by the junction of two walls and screened by some rubbish.

On his asking me if I was satisfied with the ground, and on

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my replying Yes, he begged my leave to absent himself for a

moment, and quickly returned with a bottle of water and a

sponge dipped in vinegar. ‘Available for both,’ he said, plac-

ing these against the wall. And then fell to pulling off, not

only his jacket and waistcoat, but his shirt too, in a manner

at once light-hearted, businesslike, and bloodthirsty.

Although he did not look very healthy - having pimples

on his face, and a breaking out at his mouth - these dread-

ful preparations quite appalled me. I judged him to be about

my own age, but he was much taller, and he had a way of

spinning himself about that was full of appearance. For the

rest, he was a young gentleman in a grey suit (when not de-

nuded for battle), with his elbows, knees, wrists, and heels,

considerably in advance of the rest of him as to develop-

ment.

My heart failed me when I saw him squaring at me with

every demonstration of mechanical nicety, and eyeing my

anatomy as if he were minutely choosing his bone. I never

have been so surprised in my life, as I was when I let out

the first blow, and saw him lying on his back, looking up at

me with a bloody nose and his face exceedingly fore-short-

ened.

But, he was on his feet directly, and after sponging him-

self with a great show of dexterity began squaring again.

The second greatest surprise I have ever had in my life was

seeing him on his back again, looking up at me out of a

black eye.

His spirit inspired me with great respect. He seemed to

have no strength, and he never once hit me hard, and he

Great Expectations

was always knocked down; but, he would be up again in

a moment, sponging himself or drinking out of the water-

bottle, with the greatest satisfaction in seconding himself

according to form, and then came at me with an air and a

show that made me believe he really was going to do for me

at last. He got heavily bruised, for I am sorry to record that

the more I hit him, the harder I hit him; but, he came up

again and again and again, until at last he got a bad fall with

the back of his head against the wall. Even after that crisis

in our affairs, he got up and turned round and round con-

fusedly a few times, not knowing where I was; but finally

went on his knees to his sponge and threw it up: at the same

time panting out, ‘That means you have won.’

He seemed so brave and innocent, that although I had

not proposed the contest I felt but a gloomy satisfaction in

my victory. Indeed, I go so far as to hope that I regarded

myself while dressing, as a species of savage young wolf, or

other wild beast. However, I got dressed, darkly wiping my

sanguinary face at intervals, and I said, ‘Can I help you?’

and he said ‘No thankee,’ and I said ‘Good afternoon,’ and

he said ‘Same to you.’

When I got into the court-yard, I found Estella wait-

ing with the keys. But, she neither asked me where I had

been, nor why I had kept her waiting; and there was a bright

flush upon her face, as though something had happened to

delight her. Instead of going straight to the gate, too, she

stepped back into the passage, and beckoned me.

‘Come here! You may kiss me, if you like.’

I kissed her cheek as she turned it to me. I think I would

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have gone through a great deal to kiss her cheek. But, I felt

that the kiss was given to the coarse common boy as a piece

of money might have been, and that it was worth nothing.

What with the birthday visitors, and what with the cards,

and what with the fight, my stay had lasted so long, that

when I neared home the light on the spit of sand off the

point on the marshes was gleaming against a black night-

sky, and Joe’s furnace was flinging a path of fire across the

road.

Great Expectations

Chapter 12

My mind grew very uneasy on the subject of the pale

young gentleman. The more I thought of the fight,

and recalled the pale young gentleman on his back in vari-

ous stages of puffy and incrimsoned countenance, the more

certain it appeared that something would be done to me. I

felt that the pale young gentleman’s blood was on my head,

and that the Law would avenge it. Without having any defi-

nite idea of the penalties I had incurred, it was clear to me

that village boys could not go stalking about the country,

ravaging the houses of gentlefolks and pitching into the

studious youth of England, without laying themselves open

to severe punishment. For some days, I even kept close at

home, and looked out at the kitchen door with the great-

est caution and trepidation before going on an errand, lest

the officers of the County Jail should pounce upon me. The

pale young gentleman’s nose had stained my trousers, and

I tried to wash out that evidence of my guilt in the dead of

night. I had cut my knuckles against the pale young gentle-

man’s teeth, and I twisted my imagination into a thousand

tangles, as I devised incredible ways of accounting for that

damnatory circumstance when I should be haled before the

Judges.

When the day came round for my return to the scene

of the deed of violence, my terrors reached their height.

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Whether myrmidons of Justice, specially sent down from

London, would be lying in ambush behind the gate? Wheth-

er Miss Havisham, preferring to take personal vengeance

for an outrage done to her house, might rise in those grave-

clothes of hers, draw a pistol, and shoot me dead? Whether

suborned boys - a numerous band of mercenaries - might be

engaged to fall upon me in the brewery, and cuff me until I

was no more? It was high testimony to my confidence in the

spirit of the pale young gentleman, that I never imagined

him accessory to these retaliations; they always came into

my mind as the acts of injudicious relatives of his, goad-

ed on by the state of his visage and an indignant sympathy

with the family features.

However, go to Miss Havisham’s I must, and go I did.

And behold! nothing came of the late struggle. It was not al-

luded to in any way, and no pale young gentleman was to be

discovered on the premises. I found the same gate open, and

I explored the garden, and even looked in at the windows

of the detached house; but, my view was suddenly stopped

by the closed shutters within, and all was lifeless. Only in

the corner where the combat had taken place, could I de-

tect any evidence of the young gentleman’s existence. There

were traces of his gore in that spot, and I covered them with

garden-mould from the eye of man.

On the broad landing between Miss Havisham’s own

room and that other room in which the long table was laid

out, I saw a garden-chair - a light chair on wheels, that you

pushed from behind. It had been placed there since my last

visit, and I entered, that same day, on a regular occupa-

Great Expectations

tion of pushing Miss Havisham in this chair (when she was

tired of walking with her hand upon my shoulder) round

her own room, and across the landing, and round the other

room. Over and over and over again, we would make these

journeys, and sometimes they would last as long as three

hours at a stretch. I insensibly fall into a general mention of

these journeys as numerous, because it was at once settled

that I should return every alternate day at noon for these

purposes, and because I am now going to sum up a period

of at least eight or ten months.

As we began to be more used to one another, Miss Hav-

isham talked more to me, and asked me such questions as

what had I learnt and what was I going to be? I told her I was

going to be apprenticed to Joe, I believed; and I enlarged

upon my knowing nothing and wanting to know every-

thing, in the hope that she might offer some help towards

that desirable end. But, she did not; on the contrary, she

seemed to prefer my being ignorant. Neither did she ever

give me any money - or anything but my daily dinner - nor

ever stipulate that I should be paid for my services.

Estella was always about, and always let me in and out,

but never told me I might kiss her again. Sometimes, she

would coldly tolerate me; sometimes, she would conde-

scend to me; sometimes, she would be quite familiar with

me; sometimes, she would tell me energetically that she hat-

ed me. Miss Havisham would often ask me in a whisper, or

when we were alone, ‘Does she grow prettier and prettier,

Pip?’ And when I said yes (for indeed she did), would seem

to enjoy it greedily. Also, when we played at cards Miss

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Havisham would look on, with a miserly relish of Estel-

la’s moods, whatever they were. And sometimes, when her

moods were so many and so contradictory of one another

that I was puzzled what to say or do, Miss Havisham would

embrace her with lavish fondness, murmuring something

in her ear that sounded like ‘Break their hearts my pride

and hope, break their hearts and have no mercy!’

There was a song Joe used to hum fragments of at the forge,

of which the burden was Old Clem. This was not a very cer-

emonious way of rendering homage to a patron saint; but, I

believe Old Clem stood in that relation towards smiths. It

was a song that imitated the measure of beating upon iron,

and was a mere lyrical excuse for the introduction of Old

Clem’s respected name. Thus, you were to hammer boys

round - Old Clem! With a thump and a sound - Old Clem!

Beat it out, beat it out - Old Clem! With a clink for the stout

- Old Clem! Blow the fire, blow the fire - Old Clem! Roaring

dryer, soaring higher - Old Clem! One day soon after the

appearance of the chair, Miss Havisham suddenly saying

to me, with the impatient movement of her fingers, ‘There,

there, there! Sing!’ I was surprised into crooning this ditty

as I pushed her over the floor. It happened so to catch her

fancy, that she took it up in a low brooding voice as if she

were singing in her sleep. After that, it became customary

with us to have it as we moved about, and Estella would of-

ten join in; though the whole strain was so subdued, even

when there were three of us, that it made less noise in the

grim old house than the lightest breath of wind.

What could I become with these surroundings? How

Great Expectations

could my character fail to be influenced by them? Is it to

be wondered at if my thoughts were dazed, as my eyes were,

when I came out into the natural light from the misty yel-

low rooms?

Perhaps, I might have told Joe about the pale young gen-

tleman, if I had not previously been betrayed into those

enormous inventions to which I had confessed. Under the

circumstances, I felt that Joe could hardly fail to discern in

the pale young gentleman, an appropriate passenger to be

put into the black velvet coach; therefore, I said nothing of

him. Besides: that shrinking from having Miss Havisham

and Estella discussed, which had come upon me in the be-

ginning, grew much more potent as time went on. I reposed

complete confidence in no one but Biddy; but, I told poor

Biddy everything. Why it came natural to me to do so, and

why Biddy had a deep concern in everything I told her, I did

not know then, though I think I know now.

Meanwhile, councils went on in the kitchen at home,

fraught with almost insupportable aggravation to my exas-

perated spirit. That ass, Pumblechook, used often to come

over of a night for the purpose of discussing my prospects

with my sister; and I really do believe (to this hour with less

penitence than I ought to feel), that if these hands could

have taken a linchpin out of his chaise-cart, they would

have done it. The miserable man was a man of that confined

stolidity of mind, that he could not discuss my prospects

without having me before him - as it were, to operate upon

- and he would drag me up from my stool (usually by the

collar) where I was quiet in a corner, and, putting me be-

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fore the fire as if I were going to be cooked, would begin by

saying, ‘Now, Mum, here is this boy! Here is this boy which

you brought up by hand. Hold up your head, boy, and be for

ever grateful unto them which so did do. Now, Mum, with

respections to this boy!’ And then he would rumple my hair

the wrong way - which from my earliest remembrance, as

already hinted, I have in my soul denied the right of any

fellow-creature to do - and would hold me before him by

the sleeve: a spectacle of imbecility only to be equalled by

himself.

Then, he and my sister would pair off in such nonsensi-

cal speculations about Miss Havisham, and about what she

would do with me and for me, that I used to want - quite

painfully - to burst into spiteful tears, fly at Pumblechook,

and pummel him all over. In these dialogues, my sister

spoke to me as if she were morally wrenching one of my

teeth out at every reference; while Pumblechook himself,

self-constituted my patron, would sit supervising me with

a depreciatory eye, like the architect of my fortunes who

thought himself engaged on a very unremunerative job.

In these discussions, Joe bore no part. But he was often

talked at, while they were in progress, by reason of Mrs.

Joe’s perceiving that he was not favourable to my being

taken from the forge. I was fully old enough now, to be ap-

prenticed to Joe; and when Joe sat with the poker on his

knees thoughtfully raking out the ashes between the lower

bars, my sister would so distinctly construe that innocent

action into opposition on his part, that she would dive at

him, take the poker out of his hands, shake him, and put it

Great Expectations

away. There was a most irritating end to every one of these

debates. All in a moment, with nothing to lead up to it, my

sister would stop herself in a yawn, and catching sight of me

as it were incidentally, would swoop upon me with, ‘Come!

there’s enough of you! You get along to bed; you’ve given

trouble enough for one night, I hope!’ As if I had besought

them as a favour to bother my life out.

We went on in this way for a long time, and it seemed

likely that we should continue to go on in this way for a long

time, when, one day, Miss Havisham stopped short as she

and I were walking, she leaning on my shoulder; and said

with some displeasure:

‘You are growing tall, Pip!’

I thought it best to hint, through the medium of a medi-

tative look, that this might be occasioned by circumstances

over which I had no control.

She said no more at the time; but, she presently stopped

and looked at me again; and presently again; and after that,

looked frowning and moody. On the next day of my atten-

dance when our usual exercise was over, and I had landed

her at her dressingtable, she stayed me with a movement of

her impatient fingers:

‘Tell me the name again of that blacksmith of yours.’

‘Joe Gargery, ma’am.’

‘Meaning the master you were to be apprenticed to?’

‘Yes, Miss Havisham.’

‘You had better be apprenticed at once. Would Gargery

come here with you, and bring your indentures, do you

think?’

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I signified that I had no doubt he would take it as an hon-

our to be asked.

‘Then let him come.’

‘At any particular time, Miss Havisham?’

‘There, there! I know nothing about times. Let him come

soon, and come along with you.’

When I got home at night, and delivered this message

for Joe, my sister ‘went on the Rampage,’ in a more alarm-

ing degree than at any previous period. She asked me and

Joe whether we supposed she was door-mats under our feet,

and how we dared to use her so, and what company we gra-

ciously thought she was fit for? When she had exhausted

a torrent of such inquiries, she threw a candlestick at Joe,

burst into a loud sobbing, got out the dustpan - which was

always a very bad sign - put on her coarse apron, and be-

gan cleaning up to a terrible extent. Not satisfied with a

dry cleaning, she took to a pail and scrubbing-brush, and

cleaned us out of house and home, so that we stood shiver-

ing in the back-yard. It was ten o’clock at night before we

ventured to creep in again, and then she asked Joe why he

hadn’t married a Negress Slave at once? Joe offered no an-

swer, poor fellow, but stood feeling his whisker and looking

dejectedly at me, as if he thought it really might have been

a better speculation.

Great Expectations

Chapter 13

It was a trial to my feelings, on the next day but one, to see

Joe arraying himself in his Sunday clothes to accompany

me to Miss Havisham’s. However, as he thought his court-

suit necessary to the occasion, it was not for me tell him

that he looked far better in his working dress; the rather, be-

cause I knew he made himself so dreadfully uncomfortable,

entirely on my account, and that it was for me he pulled up

his shirt-collar so very high behind, that it made the hair on

the crown of his head stand up like a tuft of feathers.

At breakfast time my sister declared her intention of go-

ing to town with us, and being left at Uncle Pumblechook’s

and called for ‘when we had done with our fine ladies’ - a

way of putting the case, from which Joe appeared inclined

to augur the worst. The forge was shut up for the day, and

Joe inscribed in chalk upon the door (as it was his custom to

do on the very rare occasions when he was not at work) the

monosyllable HOUT, accompanied by a sketch of an arrow

supposed to be flying in the direction he had taken.

We walked to town, my sister leading the way in a very

large beaver bonnet, and carrying a basket like the Great

Seal of England in plaited straw, a pair of pattens, a spare

shawl, and an umbrella, though it was a fine bright day. I

am not quite clear whether these articles were carried pen-

itentially or ostentatiously; but, I rather think they were

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displayed as articles of property - much as Cleopatra or

any other sovereign lady on the Rampage might exhibit her

wealth in a pageant or procession.

When we came to Pumblechook’s, my sister bounced in

and left us. As it was almost noon, Joe and I held straight on

to Miss Havisham’s house. Estella opened the gate as usu-

al, and, the moment she appeared, Joe took his hat off and

stood weighing it by the brim in both his hands: as if he had

some urgent reason in his mind for being particular to half

a quarter of an ounce.

Estella took no notice of either of us, but led us the way

that I knew so well. I followed next to her, and Joe came last.

When I looked back at Joe in the long passage, he was still

weighing his hat with the greatest care, and was coming af-

ter us in long strides on the tips of his toes.

Estella told me we were both to go in, so I took Joe by

the coat-cuff and conducted him into Miss Havisham’s

presence. She was seated at her dressing-table, and looked

round at us immediately.

‘Oh!’ said she to Joe. ‘You are the husband of the sister of

this boy?’

I could hardly have imagined dear old Joe looking so un-

like himself or so like some extraordinary bird; standing, as

he did, speechless, with his tuft of feathers ruffled, and his

mouth open, as if he wanted a worm.

‘You are the husband,’ repeated Miss Havisham, ‘of the

sister of this boy?’

It was very aggravating; but, throughout the interview

Joe persisted in addressing Me instead of Miss Havisham.

Great Expectations

‘Which I meantersay, Pip,’ Joe now observed in a manner

that was at once expressive of forcible argumentation, strict

confidence, and great politeness, ‘as I hup and married your

sister, and I were at the time what you might call (if you was

anyways inclined) a single man.’

‘Well!’ said Miss Havisham. ‘And you have reared the

boy, with the intention of taking him for your apprentice;

is that so, Mr. Gargery?’

‘You know, Pip,’ replied Joe, ‘as you and me were ever

friends, and it were looked for’ard to betwixt us, as being

calc’lated to lead to larks. Not but what, Pip, if you had ever

made objections to the business - such as its being open to

black and sut, or such-like - not but what they would have

been attended to, don’t you see?’

‘Has the boy,’ said Miss Havisham, ‘ever made any objec-

tion? Does he like the trade?’

‘Which it is well beknown to yourself, Pip,’ returned Joe,

strengthening his former mixture of argumentation, con-

fidence, and politeness, ‘that it were the wish of your own

hart.’ (I saw the idea suddenly break upon him that he

would adapt his epitaph to the occasion, before he went on

to say) ‘And there weren’t no objection on your part, and

Pip it were the great wish of your heart!’

It was quite in vain for me to endeavour to make him

sensible that he ought to speak to Miss Havisham. The more

I made faces and gestures to him to do it, the more confi-

dential, argumentative, and polite, he persisted in being to

Me.‘Have you brought his indentures with you?’ asked Miss

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Havisham.

‘Well, Pip, you know,’ replied Joe, as if that were a little

unreasonable, ‘you yourself see me put ‘em in my ‘at, and

therefore you know as they are here.’ With which he took

them out, and gave them, not to Miss Havisham, but to me.

Date: 2015-04-20; view: 446