Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

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"Matthew will come and see me at last," said Miss Havisham,
sternly, "when I am laid on that table. That will be his place -
there," striking the table with her stick, "at my head! And yours
will be there! And your husband's there! And Sarah Pocket's there!
And Georgiana's there! Now you all know where to take your stations
when you come to feast upon me. And now go!"

At the mention of each name, she had struck the table with her
stick in a new place. She now said, "Walk me, walk me!" and we went
on again.

"I suppose there's nothing to be done," exclaimed Camilla, "but
comply and depart. It's something to have seen the object of one's
love and duty, for even so short a time. I shall think of it with a
melancholy satisfaction when I wake up in the night. I wish Matthew
could have that comfort, but he sets it at defiance. I am
determined not to make a display of my feelings, but it's very hard
to be told one wants to feast on one's relations - as if one was a
Giant - and to be told to go. The bare idea!"

Mr. Camilla interposing, as Mrs. Camilla laid her hand upon her
heaving bosom, that lady assumed an unnatural fortitude of manner
which I supposed to be expressive of an intention to drop and choke
when out of view, and kissing her hand to Miss Havisham, was
escorted forth. Sarah Pocket and Georgiana contended who should
remain last; but, Sarah was too knowing to be outdone, and ambled
round Georgiana with that artful slipperiness, that the latter was
obliged to take precedence. Sarah Pocket then made her separate
effect of departing with "Bless you, Miss Havisham dear!" and with
a smile of forgiving pity on her walnut-shell countenance for the
weaknesses of the rest.

While Estella was away lighting them down, Miss Havisham still
walked with her hand on my shoulder, but more and more slowly. At
last she stopped before the fire, and said, after muttering and
looking at it some seconds:

"This is my birthday, Pip."

I was going to wish her many happy returns, when she lifted her
stick.

"I don't suffer it to be spoken of. I don't suffer those who were
here just now, or any one, to speak of it. They come here on the
day, but they dare not refer to it."

Of course I made no further effort to refer to it.

"On this day of the year, long before you were born, this heap of
decay," stabbing with her crutched stick at the pile of 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 on this day!"

She stood looking at the table as if she stood looking at her own
figure lying there. I remained quiet. Estella returned, 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 presently begin to decay.

At length, not coming out of her distraught state by degrees, 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 former 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 garden 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, and there were old melon-frames and
cucumber-frames in it, which seemed in their decline to have
produced a spontaneous 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 moment that the house was now empty, I looked in
at another window, and found myself, to my great surprise,
exchanging 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!" politely 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 myself the
question since: but, what else could I do? His manner was so final
and I was so astonished, that I followed where 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 instantly 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 stomach.

The bull-like proceeding last mentioned, besides that it was
unquestionably to be regarded in the light of a liberty, 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 backwards 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 dexterous; 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 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, placing 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 dreadful 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 denuded for battle), with his elbows, knees, wrists, and
heels, considerably in advance of the rest of him as to
development.

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-shortened.

But, he was on his feet directly, and after sponging himself 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 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 confusedly 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 waiting 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 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.

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 various 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 definite 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 greatest 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 gentleman'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. Whether myrmidons of
Justice, specially sent down from London, would be lying in ambush
behind the gate? Whether 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, goaded 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 alluded 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 detect 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 occupation 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 Havisham 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 everything, 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 condescend to me; sometimes, she
would be quite familiar with me; sometimes, she would tell me
energetically that she hated 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
Havisham would look on, with a miserly relish of Estella'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 ceremonious 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 often 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 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 yellow rooms?

Perhaps, I might have told Joe about the pale young gentleman, 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 beginning, 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 exasperated 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 before 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 nonsensical
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 apprenticed 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 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 meditative 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 attendance 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?"

I signified that I had no doubt he would take it as an honour 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 alarming 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 graciously 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 began
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 shivering 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 answer, poor fellow, but stood feeling his
whisker and looking dejectedly at me, as if he thought it really
might have been a better speculation.

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, because 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 going 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 penitentially or ostentatiously; but, I
rather think they were 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 usual, 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.

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