Great Expectations
in the terror of being certain that it had not been there a moment
before, I at first ran from it, and then ran towards it. And my terror
was greatest of all when I found no figure there.
Nothing less than the frosty light of the cheerful sky, the sight of
people passing beyond the bars of the court-yard gate, and the reviving
influence of the rest of the bread and meat and beer, would have
brought me round. Even with those aids, I might not have come to myself
as soon as I did, but that I saw Estella approaching with the keys, to
let me out. She would have some fair reason for looking down upon me, I
thought, if she saw me frightened; and she would have no fair reason.
She gave me a triumphant glance in passing me, as if she rejoiced that
my hands were so coarse and my boots were so thick, and she opened the
gate, and stood holding it. I was passing out without looking at her,
when she touched me with a taunting hand.
“Why don’t you cry?”
“Because I don’t want to.”
“You do,” said she. “You have been crying till you are half blind, and
you are near crying again now.”
She laughed contemptuously, pushed me out, and locked the gate upon me.
I went straight to Mr. Pumblechook’s, and was immensely relieved to
find him not at home. So, leaving word with the shopman on what day I
was wanted at Miss Havisham’s again, I set off on the four-mile walk to
our forge; pondering, as I went along, on all I had seen, and deeply
revolving that I was a common labouring-boy; that my hands were coarse;
that my boots were thick; that I had fallen into a despicable habit of
calling knaves Jacks; that I was much more ignorant than I had
considered myself last night, and generally that I was in a low-lived
bad way.
Chapter IX.
When I reached home, my sister was very curious to know all about Miss
Havisham’s, and asked a number of questions. And I soon found myself
getting heavily bumped from behind in the nape of the neck and the
small of the back, and having my face ignominiously shoved against the
kitchen wall, because I did not answer those questions at sufficient
length.
If a dread of not being understood be hidden in the breasts of other
young people to anything like the extent to which it used to be hidden
in mine,—which I consider probable, as I have no particular reason to
suspect myself of having been a monstrosity,—it is the key to many
reservations. I felt convinced that if I described Miss Havisham’s as
my eyes had seen it, I should not be understood. Not only that, but I
felt convinced that Miss Havisham too would not be understood; and
although she was perfectly incomprehensible to me, I entertained an
impression that there would be something coarse and treacherous in my
dragging her as she really was (to say nothing of Miss Estella) before
the contemplation of Mrs. Joe. Consequently, I said as little as I
could, and had my face shoved against the kitchen wall.
The worst of it was that that bullying old Pumblechook, preyed upon by
a devouring curiosity to be informed of all I had seen and heard, came
gaping over in his chaise-cart at tea-time, to have the details
divulged to him. And the mere sight of the torment, with his fishy eyes
and mouth open, his sandy hair inquisitively on end, and his waistcoat
heaving with windy arithmetic, made me vicious in my reticence.
“Well, boy,” Uncle Pumblechook began, as soon as he was seated in the
chair of honour by the fire. “How did you get on up town?”
I answered, “Pretty well, sir,” and my sister shook her fist at me.
“Pretty well?” Mr. Pumblechook repeated. “Pretty well is no answer.
Tell us what you mean by pretty well, boy?”
Whitewash on the forehead hardens the brain into a state of obstinacy
perhaps. Anyhow, with whitewash from the wall on my forehead, my
obstinacy was adamantine. I reflected for some time, and then answered
as if I had discovered a new idea, “I mean pretty well.”
My sister with an exclamation of impatience was going to fly at me,—I
had no shadow of defence, for Joe was busy in the forge,—when Mr.
Pumblechook interposed with “No! Don’t lose your temper. Leave this lad
to me, ma’am; leave this lad to me.” Mr. Pumblechook then turned me
towards him, as if he were going to cut my hair, and said,—
“First (to get our thoughts in order): Forty-three pence?”
I calculated the consequences of replying “Four Hundred Pound,” and
finding them against me, went as near the answer as I could—which was
somewhere about eightpence off. Mr. Pumblechook then put me through my
pence-table from “twelve pence make one shilling,” up to “forty pence
make three and fourpence,” and then triumphantly demanded, as if he had
done for me, “_Now!_ How much is forty-three pence?” To which I
replied, after a long interval of reflection, “I don’t know.” And I was
so aggravated that I almost doubt if I did know.
Mr. Pumblechook worked his head like a screw to screw it out of me, and
said, “Is forty-three pence seven and sixpence three fardens, for
instance?”
“Yes!” said I. And although my sister instantly boxed my ears, it was
highly gratifying to me to see that the answer spoilt his joke, and
brought him to a dead stop.
“Boy! What like is Miss Havisham?” Mr. Pumblechook began again when he
had recovered; folding his arms tight on his chest and applying the
screw.
“Very tall and dark,” I told him.
“Is she, uncle?” asked my sister.
Mr. Pumblechook winked assent; from which I at once inferred that he
had never seen Miss Havisham, for she was nothing of the kind.
“Good!” said Mr. Pumblechook conceitedly. (“This is the way to have
him! We are beginning to hold our own, I think, Mum?”)
“I am sure, uncle,” returned Mrs. Joe, “I wish you had him always; you
know so well how to deal with him.”
“Now, boy! What was she a-doing of, when you went in today?” asked Mr.
Pumblechook.
“She was sitting,” I answered, “in a black velvet coach.”
Mr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe stared at one another—as they well
might—and both repeated, “In a black velvet coach?”
“Yes,” said I. “And Miss Estella—that’s her niece, I think—handed her
in cake and wine at the coach-window, on a gold plate. And we all had
cake and wine on gold plates. And I got up behind the coach to eat
mine, because she told me to.”
“Was anybody else there?” asked Mr. Pumblechook.
“Four dogs,” said I.
“Large or small?”
“Immense,” said I. “And they fought for veal-cutlets out of a silver
basket.”
Mr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe stared at one another again, in utter
amazement. I was perfectly frantic,—a reckless witness under the
torture,—and would have told them anything.
“Where _was_ this coach, in the name of gracious?” asked my sister.
“In Miss Havisham’s room.” They stared again. “But there weren’t any
horses to it.” I added this saving clause, in the moment of rejecting
four richly caparisoned coursers which I had had wild thoughts of
harnessing.
“Can this be possible, uncle?” asked Mrs. Joe. “What can the boy mean?”
“I’ll tell you, Mum,” said Mr. Pumblechook. “My opinion is, it’s a
sedan-chair. She’s flighty, you know,—very flighty,—quite flighty
enough to pass her days in a sedan-chair.”
“Did you ever see her in it, uncle?” asked Mrs. Joe.
“How could I,” he returned, forced to the admission, “when I never see
her in my life? Never clapped eyes upon her!”
“Goodness, uncle! And yet you have spoken to her?”
“Why, don’t you know,” said Mr. Pumblechook, testily, “that when I have
been there, I have been took up to the outside of her door, and the
door has stood ajar, and she has spoke to me that way. Don’t say you
don’t know _that_, Mum. Howsever, the boy went there to play. What did
you play at, boy?”
“We played with flags,” I said. (I beg to observe that I think of
myself with amazement, when I recall the lies I told on this occasion.)
“Flags!” echoed my sister.
“Yes,” said I. “Estella waved a blue flag, and I waved a red one, and
Miss Havisham waved one sprinkled all over with little gold stars, out
at the coach-window. And then we all waved our swords and hurrahed.”
“Swords!” repeated my sister. “Where did you get swords from?”
“Out of a cupboard,” said I. “And I saw pistols in it,—and jam,—and
pills. And there was no daylight in the room, but it was all lighted up
with candles.”
“That’s true, Mum,” said Mr. Pumblechook, with a grave nod. “That’s the
state of the case, for that much I’ve seen myself.” And then they both
stared at me, and I, with an obtrusive show of artlessness on my
countenance, stared at them, and plaited the right leg of my trousers
with my right hand.
If they had asked me any more questions, I should undoubtedly have
betrayed myself, for I was even then on the point of mentioning that
there was a balloon in the yard, and should have hazarded the statement
but for my invention being divided between that phenomenon and a bear
in the brewery. They were so much occupied, however, in discussing the
marvels I had already presented for their consideration, that I
escaped. The subject still held them when Joe came in from his work to
have a cup of tea. To whom my sister, more for the relief of her own
mind than for the gratification of his, related my pretended
experiences.
Now, when I saw Joe open his blue eyes and roll them all round the
kitchen in helpless amazement, I was overtaken by penitence; but only
as regarded him,—not in the least as regarded the other two. Towards
Joe, and Joe only, I considered myself a young monster, while they sat
debating what results would come to me from Miss Havisham’s
acquaintance and favour. They had no doubt that Miss Havisham would “do
something” for me; their doubts related to the form that something
would take. My sister stood out for “property.” Mr. Pumblechook was in
favour of a handsome premium for binding me apprentice to some genteel
trade,—say, the corn and seed trade, for instance. Joe fell into the
deepest disgrace with both, for offering the bright suggestion that I
might only be presented with one of the dogs who had fought for the
veal-cutlets. “If a fool’s head can’t express better opinions than
that,” said my sister, “and you have got any work to do, you had better
go and do it.” So he went.
After Mr. Pumblechook had driven off, and when my sister was washing
up, I stole into the forge to Joe, and remained by him until he had
done for the night. Then I said, “Before the fire goes out, Joe, I
should like to tell you something.”
“Should you, Pip?” said Joe, drawing his shoeing-stool near the forge.
“Then tell us. What is it, Pip?”
“Joe,” said I, taking hold of his rolled-up shirt sleeve, and twisting
it between my finger and thumb, “you remember all that about Miss
Havisham’s?”
“Remember?” said Joe. “I believe you! Wonderful!”
“It’s a terrible thing, Joe; it ain’t true.”
“What are you telling of, Pip?” cried Joe, falling back in the greatest
amazement. “You don’t mean to say it’s—”
“Yes I do; it’s lies, Joe.”
“But not all of it? Why sure you don’t mean to say, Pip, that there was
no black welwet co—eh?” For, I stood shaking my head. “But at least
there was dogs, Pip? Come, Pip,” said Joe, persuasively, “if there
warn’t no weal-cutlets, at least there was dogs?”
“No, Joe.”
“A dog?” said Joe. “A puppy? Come?”
“No, Joe, there was nothing at all of the kind.”
As I fixed my eyes hopelessly on Joe, Joe contemplated me in dismay.
“Pip, old chap! This won’t do, old fellow! I say! Where do you expect
to go to?”
“It’s terrible, Joe; ain’t it?”
“Terrible?” cried Joe. “Awful! What possessed you?”
“I don’t know what possessed me, Joe,” I replied, letting his shirt
sleeve go, and sitting down in the ashes at his feet, hanging my head;
“but I wish you hadn’t taught me to call Knaves at cards Jacks; and I