Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

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At the same time this nurse picked up Mrs. Pocket's handkerchief,
and said, "If that don't make six times you've dropped it, Mum!"
Upon which Mrs. Pocket laughed and said, "Thank you, Flopson," and
settling herself in one chair only, resumed her book. Her
countenance immediately assumed a knitted and intent expression as
if she had been reading for a week, but before she could have read
half a dozen lines, she fixed her eyes upon me, and said, "I hope
your mamma is quite well?" This unexpected inquiry put me into such
a difficulty that I began saying in the absurdest way that if there
had been any such person I had no doubt she would have been quite
well and would have been very much obliged and would have sent her
compliments, when the nurse came to my rescue.

"Well!" she cried, picking up the pocket handkerchief, "if that
don't make seven times! What ARE you a-doing of this afternoon,
Mum!" Mrs. Pocket received her property, at first with a look of
unutterable surprise as if she had never seen it before, and then
with a laugh of recognition, and said, "Thank you, Flopson," and
forgot me, and went on reading.

I found, now I had leisure to count them, that there were no fewer
than six little Pockets present, in various stages of tumbling up.
I had scarcely arrived at the total when a seventh was heard, as in
the region of air, wailing dolefully.

"If there ain't Baby!" said Flopson, appearing to think it most
surprising. "Make haste up, Millers."

Millers, who was the other nurse, retired into the house, and by
degrees the child's wailing was hushed and stopped, as if it were a
young ventriloquist with something in its mouth. Mrs. Pocket read
all the time, and I was curious to know what the book could be.

We were waiting, I supposed, for Mr. Pocket to come out to us; at
any rate we waited there, and so I had an opportunity of observing
the remarkable family phenomenon that whenever any of the children
strayed near Mrs. Pocket in their play, they always tripped
themselves up and tumbled over her - always very much to her
momentary astonishment, and their own more enduring lamentation. I
was at a loss to account for this surprising circumstance, and
could not help giving my mind to speculations about it, until
by-and-by Millers came down with the baby, which baby was handed to
Flopson, which Flopson was handing it to Mrs. Pocket, when she too
went fairly head foremost over Mrs. Pocket, baby and all, and was
caught by Herbert and myself.

"Gracious me, Flopson!" said Mrs. Pocket, looking off her book for a
moment, "everybody's tumbling!"

"Gracious you, indeed, Mum!" returned Flopson, very red in the
face; "what have you got there?"

"I got here, Flopson?" asked Mrs. Pocket.

"Why, if it ain't your footstool!" cried Flopson. "And if you keep
it under your skirts like that, who's to help tumbling? Here! Take
the baby, Mum, and give me your book."

Mrs. Pocket acted on the advice, and inexpertly danced the infant a
little in her lap, while the other children played about it. This
had lasted but a very short time, when Mrs. Pocket issued summary
orders that they were all to be taken into the house for a nap.
Thus I made the second discovery on that first occasion, that the
nurture of the little Pockets consisted of alternately tumbling up
and lying down.

Under these circumstances, when Flopson and Millers had got the
children into the house, like a little flock of sheep, and Mr.
Pocket came out of it to make my acquaintance, I was not much
surprised to find that Mr. Pocket was a gentleman with a rather
perplexed expression of face, and with his very grey hair
disordered on his head, as if he didn't quite see his way to
putting anything straight.

Chapter 23

Mr. Pocket said he was glad to see me, and he hoped I was not sorry
to see him. "For, I really am not," he added, with his son's smile,
"an alarming personage." He was a young-looking man, in spite of
his perplexities and his very grey hair, and his manner seemed
quite natural. I use the word natural, in the sense of its being
unaffected; there was something comic in his distraught way, as
though it would have been downright ludicrous but for his own
perception that it was very near being so. When he had talked with
me a little, he said to Mrs. Pocket, with a rather anxious
contraction of his eyebrows, which were black and handsome,
"Belinda, I hope you have welcomed Mr. Pip?" And she looked up from
her book, and said, "Yes." She then smiled upon me in an absent
state of mind, and asked me if I liked the taste of orange-flower
water? As the question had no bearing, near or remote, on any
foregone or subsequent transaction, I consider it to have been
thrown out, like her previous approaches, in general conversational
condescension.

I found out within a few hours, and may mention at once, that Mrs.
Pocket was the only daughter of a certain quite accidental deceased
Knight, who had invented for himself a conviction that his deceased
father would have been made a Baronet but for somebody's determined
opposition arising out of entirely personal motives - I forget
whose, if I ever knew - the Sovereign's, the Prime Minister's, the
Lord Chancellor's, the Archbishop of Canterbury's, anybody's - and
had tacked himself on to the nobles of the earth in right of this
quite supposititious fact. I believe he had been knighted himself
for storming the English grammar at the point of the pen, in a
desperate address engrossed on vellum, on the occasion of the
laying of the first stone of some building or other, and for
handing some Royal Personage either the trowel or the mortar. Be
that as it may, he had directed Mrs. Pocket to be brought up from
her cradle as one who in the nature of things must marry a title,
and who was to be guarded from the acquisition of plebeian domestic
knowledge.

So successful a watch and ward had been established over the young
lady by this judicious parent, that she had grown up highly
ornamental, but perfectly helpless and useless. With her character
thus happily formed, in the first bloom of her youth she had
encountered Mr. Pocket: who was also in the first bloom of youth,
and not quite decided whether to mount to the Woolsack, or to roof
himself in with a mitre. As his doing the one or the other was a
mere question of time, he and Mrs. Pocket had taken Time by the
forelock (when, to judge from its length, it would seem to have
wanted cutting), and had married without the knowledge of the
judicious parent. The judicious parent, having nothing to bestow or
withhold but his blessing, had handsomely settled that dower upon
them after a short struggle, and had informed Mr. Pocket that his
wife was "a treasure for a Prince." Mr. Pocket had invested the
Prince's treasure in the ways of the world ever since, and it was
supposed to have brought him in but indifferent interest. Still,
Mrs. Pocket was in general the object of a queer sort of respectful
pity, because she had not married a title; while Mr. Pocket was the
object of a queer sort of forgiving reproach, because he had never
got one.

Mr. Pocket took me into the house and showed me my room: which was a
pleasant one, and so furnished as that I could use it with comfort
for my own private sitting-room. He then knocked at the doors of
two other similar rooms, and introduced me to their occupants, by
name Drummle and Startop. Drummle, an old-looking young man of a
heavy order of architecture, was whistling. Startop, younger in
years and appearance, was reading and holding his head, as if he
thought himself in danger of exploding it with too strong a charge
of knowledge.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Pocket had such a noticeable air of being in
somebody else's hands, that I wondered who really was in possession
of the house and let them live there, until I found this unknown
power to be the servants. It was a smooth way of going on, perhaps,
in respect of saving trouble; but it had the appearance of being
expensive, for the servants felt it a duty they owed to themselves
to be nice in their eating and drinking, and to keep a deal of
company down stairs. They allowed a very liberal table to Mr. and
Mrs. Pocket, yet it always appeared to me that by far the best part
of the house to have boarded in, would have been the kitchen -
always supposing the boarder capable of self-defence, for, before I
had been there a week, a neighbouring lady with whom the family
were personally unacquainted, wrote in to say that she had seen
Millers slapping the baby. This greatly distressed Mrs. Pocket, who
burst into tears on receiving the note, and said that it was an
extraordinary thing that the neighbours couldn't mind their own
business.

By degrees I learnt, and chiefly from Herbert, that Mr. Pocket had
been educated at Harrow and at Cambridge, where he had
distinguished himself; but that when he had had the happiness of
marrying Mrs. Pocket very early in life, he had impaired his
prospects and taken up the calling of a Grinder. After grinding a
number of dull blades - of whom it was remarkable that their
fathers, when influential, were always going to help him to
preferment, but always forgot to do it when the blades had left the
Grindstone - he had wearied of that poor work and had come to
London. Here, after gradually failing in loftier hopes, he had
"read" with divers who had lacked opportunities or neglected them,
and had refurbished divers others for special occasions, and had
turned his acquirements to the account of literary compilation and
correction, and on such means, added to some very moderate private
resources, still maintained the house I saw.

Mr. and Mrs. Pocket had a toady neighbour; a widow lady of that
highly sympathetic nature that she agreed with everybody, blessed
everybody, and shed smiles and tears on everybody, according to
circumstances. This lady's name was Mrs. Coiler, and I had the
honour of taking her down to dinner on the day of my installation.
She gave me to understand on the stairs, that it was a blow to dear
Mrs. Pocket that dear Mr. Pocket should be under the necessity of
receiving gentlemen to read with him. That did not extend to me,
she told me in a gush of love and confidence (at that time, I had
known her something less than five minutes); if they were all like
Me, it would be quite another thing.

"But dear Mrs. Pocket," said Mrs. Coiler, "after her early
disappointment (not that dear Mr. Pocket was to blame in that),
requires so much luxury and elegance--"

"Yes, ma'am," I said, to stop her, for I was afraid she was going
to cry.

"And she is of so aristocratic a disposition--"

"Yes, ma'am," I said again, with the same object as before.

" - that it is hard," said Mrs. Coiler, "to have dear Mr. Pocket's
time and attention diverted from dear Mrs. Pocket."

I could not help thinking that it might be harder if the butcher's
time and attention were diverted from dear Mrs. Pocket; but I said
nothing, and indeed had enough to do in keeping a bashful watch
upon my company-manners.

It came to my knowledge, through what passed between Mrs. Pocket and
Drummle while I was attentive to my knife and fork, spoon, glasses,
and other instruments of self-destruction, that Drummle, whose
Christian name was Bentley, was actually the next heir but one to a
baronetcy. It further appeared that the book I had seen Mrs. Pocket
reading in the garden, was all about titles, and that she knew the
exact date at which her grandpapa would have come into the book, if
he ever had come at all. Drummle didn't say much, but in his
limited way (he struck me as a sulky kind of fellow) he spoke as
one of the elect, and recognized Mrs. Pocket as a woman and a
sister. No one but themselves and Mrs. Coiler the toady neighbour
showed any interest in this part of the conversation, and it
appeared to me that it was painful to Herbert; but it promised to
last a long time, when the page came in with the announcement of a
domestic affliction. It was, in effect, that the cook had mislaid
the beef. To my unutterable amazement, I now, for the first time,
saw Mr. Pocket relieve his mind by going through a performance that
struck me as very extraordinary, but which made no impression on
anybody else, and with which I soon became as familiar as the rest.
He laid down the carving-knife and fork - being engaged in carving,
at the moment - put his two hands into his disturbed hair, and
appeared to make an extraordinary effort to lift himself up by it.
When he had done this, and had not lifted himself up at all, he
quietly went on with what he was about.

Mrs. Coiler then changed the subject, and began to flatter me. I
liked it for a few moments, but she flattered me so very grossly
that the pleasure was soon over. She had a serpentine way of coming
close at me when she pretended to be vitally interested in the
friends and localities I had left, which was altogether snaky and
fork-tongued; and when she made an occasional bounce upon Startop
(who said very little to her), or upon Drummle (who said less), I
rather envied them for being on the opposite side of the table.

After dinner the children were introduced, and Mrs. Coiler made
admiring comments on their eyes, noses, and legs - a sagacious way
of improving their minds. There were four little girls, and two
little boys, besides the baby who might have been either, and the
baby's next successor who was as yet neither. They were brought in
by Flopson and Millers, much as though those two noncommissioned
officers had been recruiting somewhere for children and had
enlisted these: while Mrs. Pocket looked at the young Nobles that
ought to have been, as if she rather thought she had had the
pleasure of inspecting them before, but didn't quite know what to
make of them.

"Here! Give me your fork, Mum, and take the baby," said Flopson.
"Don't take it that way, or you'll get its head under the table."

Thus advised, Mrs. Pocket took it the other way, and got its head
upon the table; which was announced to all present by a prodigious
concussion.

"Dear, dear! Give it me back, Mum," said Flopson; "and Miss Jane,
come and dance to baby, do!"

One of the little girls, a mere mite who seemed to have prematurely
taken upon herself some charge of the others, stepped out of her
place by me, and danced to and from the baby until it left off
crying, and laughed. Then, all the children laughed, and Mr. Pocket
(who in the meantime had twice endeavoured to lift himself up by
the hair) laughed, and we all laughed and were glad.

Flopson, by dint of doubling the baby at the joints like a Dutch
doll, then got it safely into Mrs. Pocket's lap, and gave it the
nutcrackers to play with: at the same time recommending Mrs. Pocket
to take notice that the handles of that instrument were not likely
to agree with its eyes, and sharply charging Miss Jane to look
after the same. Then, the two nurses left the room, and had a
lively scuffle on the staircase with a dissipated page who had
waited at dinner, and who had clearly lost half his buttons at the
gamingtable.

I was made very uneasy in my mind by Mrs. Pocket's falling into a
discussion with Drummle respecting two baronetcies, while she ate a
sliced orange steeped in sugar and wine, and forgetting all about
the baby on her lap: who did most appalling things with the
nutcrackers. At length, little Jane perceiving its young brains to
be imperilled, softly left her place, and with many small artifices
coaxed the dangerous weapon away. Mrs. Pocket finishing her orange
at about the same time, and not approving of this, said to Jane:

"You naughty child, how dare you? Go and sit down this instant!"

"Mamma dear," lisped the little girl, "baby ood have put hith eyeth
out."

"How dare you tell me so?" retorted Mrs. Pocket. "Go and sit down in
your chair this moment!"

Mrs. Pocket's dignity was so crushing, that I felt quite abashed: as
if I myself had done something to rouse it.

"Belinda," remonstrated Mr. Pocket, from the other end of the table,
"how can you be so unreasonable? Jane only interfered for the
protection of baby."

"I will not allow anybody to interfere," said Mrs. Pocket. "I am
surprised, Matthew, that you should expose me to the affront of
interference."

"Good God!" cried Mr. Pocket, in an outbreak of desolate
desperation. "Are infants to be nutcrackered into their tombs, and
is nobody to save them?"

"I will not be interfered with by Jane," said Mrs. Pocket, with a
majestic glance at that innocent little offender. "I hope I know my
poor grandpapa's position. Jane, indeed!"

Mr. Pocket got his hands in his hair again, and this time really did
lift himself some inches out of his chair. "Hear this!" he
helplessly exclaimed to the elements. "Babies are to be
nutcrackered dead, for people's poor grandpapa's positions!" Then
he let himself down again, and became silent.

We all looked awkwardly at the table-cloth while this was going on.
A pause succeeded, during which the honest and irrepressible baby
made a series of leaps and crows at little Jane, who appeared to me
to be the only member of the family (irrespective of servants) with
whom it had any decided acquaintance.

"Mr. Drummle," said Mrs. Pocket, "will you ring for Flopson? Jane,
you undutiful little thing, go and lie down. Now, baby darling,
come with ma!"

The baby was the soul of honour, and protested with all its might.
It doubled itself up the wrong way over Mrs. Pocket's arm, exhibited
a pair of knitted shoes and dimpled ankles to the company in lieu
of its soft face, and was carried out in the highest state of
mutiny. And it gained its point after all, for I saw it through the
window within a few minutes, being nursed by little Jane.

It happened that the other five children were left behind at the
dinner-table, through Flopson's having some private engagement, and
their not being anybody else's business. I thus became aware of the
mutual relations between them and Mr. Pocket, which were exemplified
in the following manner. Mr. Pocket, with the normal perplexity of
his face heightened and his hair rumpled, looked at them for some
minutes, as if he couldn't make out how they came to be boarding
and lodging in that establishment, and why they hadn't been
billeted by Nature on somebody else. Then, in a distant, Missionary
way he asked them certain questions - as why little Joe had that
hole in his frill: who said, Pa, Flopson was going to mend it when
she had time - and how little Fanny came by that whitlow: who said,
Pa, Millers was going to poultice it when she didn't forget. Then,
he melted into parental tenderness, and gave them a shilling apiece
and told them to go and play; and then as they went out, with one
very strong effort to lift himself up by the hair he dismissed the
hopeless subject.

In the evening there was rowing on the river. As Drummle and
Startop had each a boat, I resolved to set up mine, and to cut them
both out. I was pretty good at most exercises in which countryboys
are adepts, but, as I was conscious of wanting elegance of style
for the Thames - not to say for other waters - I at once engaged to
place myself under the tuition of the winner of a prizewherry who
plied at our stairs, and to whom I was introduced by my new allies.
This practical authority confused me very much, by saying I had the
arm of a blacksmith. If he could have known how nearly the
compliment lost him his pupil, I doubt if he would have paid it.

There was a supper-tray after we got home at night, and I think we
should all have enjoyed ourselves, but for a rather disagreeable
domestic occurrence. Mr. Pocket was in good spirits, when a
housemaid came in, and said, "If you please, sir, I should wish to
speak to you."

"Speak to your master?" said Mrs. Pocket, whose dignity was roused
again. "How can you think of such a thing? Go and speak to Flopson.
Or speak to me - at some other time."

"Begging your pardon, ma'am," returned the housemaid, "I should
wish to speak at once, and to speak to master."

Hereupon, Mr. Pocket went out of the room, and we made the best of
ourselves until he came back.

"This is a pretty thing, Belinda!" said Mr. Pocket, returning with a
countenance expressive of grief and despair. "Here's the cook lying
insensibly drunk on the kitchen floor, with a large bundle of fresh
butter made up in the cupboard ready to sell for grease!"

Mrs. Pocket instantly showed much amiable emotion, and said, "This
is that odious Sophia's doing!"

"What do you mean, Belinda?" demanded Mr. Pocket.

"Sophia has told you," said Mrs. Pocket. "Did I not see her with my
own eyes and hear her with my own ears, come into the room just now
and ask to speak to you?"

"But has she not taken me down stairs, Belinda," returned Mr.
Pocket, "and shown me the woman, and the bundle too?"

"And do you defend her, Matthew," said Mrs. Pocket, "for making
mischief?"

Mr. Pocket uttered a dismal groan.

"Am I, grandpapa's granddaughter, to be nothing in the house?" said
Mrs. Pocket. "Besides, the cook has always been a very nice
respectful woman, and said in the most natural manner when she came
to look after the situation, that she felt I was born to be a
Duchess."

There was a sofa where Mr. Pocket stood, and he dropped upon it in
the attitude of the Dying Gladiator. Still in that attitude he
said, with a hollow voice, "Good night, Mr. Pip," when I deemed it
advisable to go to bed and leave him.

Chapter 24

After two or three days, when I had established myself in my room
and had gone backwards and forwards to London several times, and
had ordered all I wanted of my tradesmen, Mr. Pocket and I had a
long talk together. He knew more of my intended career than I knew
myself, for he referred to his having been told by Mr. Jaggers that
I was not designed for any profession, and that I should be well
enough educated for my destiny if I could "hold my own" with the
average of young men in prosperous circumstances. I acquiesced, of
course, knowing nothing to the contrary.

He advised my attending certain places in London, for the
acquisition of such mere rudiments as I wanted, and my investing
him with the functions of explainer and director of all my studies.
He hoped that with intelligent assistance I should meet with little
to discourage me, and should soon be able to dispense with any aid
but his. Through his way of saying this, and much more to similar
purpose, he placed himself on confidential terms with me in an
admirable manner; and I may state at once that he was always so
zealous and honourable in fulfilling his compact with me, that he
made me zealous and honourable in fulfilling mine with him. If he
had shown indifference as a master, I have no doubt I should have
returned the compliment as a pupil; he gave me no such excuse, and
each of us did the other justice. Nor, did I ever regard him as
having anything ludicrous about him - or anything but what was
serious, honest, and good - in his tutor communication with me.

When these points were settled, and so far carried out as that I
had begun to work in earnest, it occurred to me that if I could
retain my bedroom in Barnard's Inn, my life would be agreeably
varied, while my manners would be none the worse for Herbert's
society. Mr. Pocket did not object to this arrangement, but urged
that before any step could possibly be taken in it, it must be
submitted to my guardian. I felt that this delicacy arose out of
the consideration that the plan would save Herbert some expense, so
I went off to Little Britain and imparted my wish to Mr. Jaggers.

"If I could buy the furniture now hired for me," said I, "and one
or two other little things, I should be quite at home there."

"Go it!" said Mr. Jaggers, with a short laugh. "I told you you'd get
on. Well! How much do you want?"

I said I didn't know how much.

"Come!" retorted Mr. Jaggers. "How much? Fifty pounds?"

"Oh, not nearly so much."

"Five pounds?" said Mr. Jaggers.

This was such a great fall, that I said in discomfiture, "Oh! more
than that."

"More than that, eh!" retorted Mr. Jaggers, lying in wait for me,
with his hands in his pockets, his head on one side, and his eyes
on the wall behind me; "how much more?"

"It is so difficult to fix a sum," said I, hesitating.

"Come!" said Mr. Jaggers. "Let's get at it. Twice five; will that
do? Three times five; will that do? Four times five; will that do?"

I said I thought that would do handsomely.

"Four times five will do handsomely, will it?" said Mr. Jaggers,
knitting his brows. "Now, what do you make of four times five?"

"What do I make of it?"

"Ah!" said Mr. Jaggers; "how much?"

"I suppose you make it twenty pounds," said I, smiling.

"Never mind what I make it, my friend," observed Mr. Jaggers, with a
knowing and contradictory toss of his head. "I want to know what
you make it."

"Twenty pounds, of course."

"Wemmick!" said Mr. Jaggers, opening his office door. "Take Mr. Pip's
written order, and pay him twenty pounds."

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