Great Expectations
My heart was beating so fast, and there was such a singing in my ears,
that I could scarcely stammer I had no objection.
“I should think not! Now you are to understand, secondly, Mr. Pip, that
the name of the person who is your liberal benefactor remains a
profound secret, until the person chooses to reveal it. I am empowered
to mention that it is the intention of the person to reveal it at first
hand by word of mouth to yourself. When or where that intention may be
carried out, I cannot say; no one can say. It may be years hence. Now,
you are distinctly to understand that you are most positively
prohibited from making any inquiry on this head, or any allusion or
reference, however distant, to any individual whomsoever as _the_
individual, in all the communications you may have with me. If you have
a suspicion in your own breast, keep that suspicion in your own breast.
It is not the least to the purpose what the reasons of this prohibition
are; they may be the strongest and gravest reasons, or they may be mere
whim. This is not for you to inquire into. The condition is laid down.
Your acceptance of it, and your observance of it as binding, is the
only remaining condition that I am charged with, by the person from
whom I take my instructions, and for whom I am not otherwise
responsible. That person is the person from whom you derive your
expectations, and the secret is solely held by that person and by me.
Again, not a very difficult condition with which to encumber such a
rise in fortune; but if you have any objection to it, this is the time
to mention it. Speak out.”
Once more, I stammered with difficulty that I had no objection.
“I should think not! Now, Mr. Pip, I have done with stipulations.”
Though he called me Mr. Pip, and began rather to make up to me, he
still could not get rid of a certain air of bullying suspicion; and
even now he occasionally shut his eyes and threw his finger at me while
he spoke, as much as to express that he knew all kinds of things to my
disparagement, if he only chose to mention them. “We come next, to mere
details of arrangement. You must know that, although I have used the
term ‘expectations’ more than once, you are not endowed with
expectations only. There is already lodged in my hands a sum of money
amply sufficient for your suitable education and maintenance. You will
please consider me your guardian. Oh!” for I was going to thank him, “I
tell you at once, I am paid for my services, or I shouldn’t render
them. It is considered that you must be better educated, in accordance
with your altered position, and that you will be alive to the
importance and necessity of at once entering on that advantage.”
I said I had always longed for it.
“Never mind what you have always longed for, Mr. Pip,” he retorted;
“keep to the record. If you long for it now, that’s enough. Am I
answered that you are ready to be placed at once under some proper
tutor? Is that it?”
I stammered yes, that was it.
“Good. Now, your inclinations are to be consulted. I don’t think that
wise, mind, but it’s my trust. Have you ever heard of any tutor whom
you would prefer to another?”
I had never heard of any tutor but Biddy and Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt;
so, I replied in the negative.
“There is a certain tutor, of whom I have some knowledge, who I think
might suit the purpose,” said Mr. Jaggers. “I don’t recommend him,
observe; because I never recommend anybody. The gentleman I speak of is
one Mr. Matthew Pocket.”
Ah! I caught at the name directly. Miss Havisham’s relation. The
Matthew whom Mr. and Mrs. Camilla had spoken of. The Matthew whose
place was to be at Miss Havisham’s head, when she lay dead, in her
bride’s dress on the bride’s table.
“You know the name?” said Mr. Jaggers, looking shrewdly at me, and then
shutting up his eyes while he waited for my answer.
My answer was, that I had heard of the name.
“Oh!” said he. “You have heard of the name. But the question is, what
do you say of it?”
I said, or tried to say, that I was much obliged to him for his
recommendation—
“No, my young friend!” he interrupted, shaking his great head very
slowly. “Recollect yourself!”
Not recollecting myself, I began again that I was much obliged to him
for his recommendation—
“No, my young friend,” he interrupted, shaking his head and frowning
and smiling both at once,—“no, no, no; it’s very well done, but it
won’t do; you are too young to fix me with it. Recommendation is not
the word, Mr. Pip. Try another.”
Correcting myself, I said that I was much obliged to him for his
mention of Mr. Matthew Pocket—
“_That_’s more like it!” cried Mr. Jaggers.—And (I added), I would
gladly try that gentleman.
“Good. You had better try him in his own house. The way shall be
prepared for you, and you can see his son first, who is in London. When
will you come to London?”
I said (glancing at Joe, who stood looking on, motionless), that I
supposed I could come directly.
“First,” said Mr. Jaggers, “you should have some new clothes to come
in, and they should not be working-clothes. Say this day week. You’ll
want some money. Shall I leave you twenty guineas?”
He produced a long purse, with the greatest coolness, and counted them
out on the table and pushed them over to me. This was the first time he
had taken his leg from the chair. He sat astride of the chair when he
had pushed the money over, and sat swinging his purse and eyeing Joe.
“Well, Joseph Gargery? You look dumbfoundered?”
“I _am_!” said Joe, in a very decided manner.
“It was understood that you wanted nothing for yourself, remember?”
“It were understood,” said Joe. “And it are understood. And it ever
will be similar according.”
“But what,” said Mr. Jaggers, swinging his purse,—“what if it was in my
instructions to make you a present, as compensation?”
“As compensation what for?” Joe demanded.
“For the loss of his services.”
Joe laid his hand upon my shoulder with the touch of a woman. I have
often thought him since, like the steam-hammer that can crush a man or
pat an egg-shell, in his combination of strength with gentleness. “Pip
is that hearty welcome,” said Joe, “to go free with his services, to
honour and fortun’, as no words can tell him. But if you think as Money
can make compensation to me for the loss of the little child—what come
to the forge—and ever the best of friends!—”
O dear good Joe, whom I was so ready to leave and so unthankful to, I
see you again, with your muscular blacksmith’s arm before your eyes,
and your broad chest heaving, and your voice dying away. O dear good
faithful tender Joe, I feel the loving tremble of your hand upon my
arm, as solemnly this day as if it had been the rustle of an angel’s
wing!
But I encouraged Joe at the time. I was lost in the mazes of my future
fortunes, and could not retrace the by-paths we had trodden together. I
begged Joe to be comforted, for (as he said) we had ever been the best
of friends, and (as I said) we ever would be so. Joe scooped his eyes
with his disengaged wrist, as if he were bent on gouging himself, but
said not another word.
Mr. Jaggers had looked on at this, as one who recognised in Joe the
village idiot, and in me his keeper. When it was over, he said,
weighing in his hand the purse he had ceased to swing:—
“Now, Joseph Gargery, I warn you this is your last chance. No half
measures with me. If you mean to take a present that I have it in
charge to make you, speak out, and you shall have it. If on the
contrary you mean to say—” Here, to his great amazement, he was stopped
by Joe’s suddenly working round him with every demonstration of a fell
pugilistic purpose.
“Which I meantersay,” cried Joe, “that if you come into my place
bull-baiting and badgering me, come out! Which I meantersay as sech if
you’re a man, come on! Which I meantersay that what I say, I meantersay
and stand or fall by!”
I drew Joe away, and he immediately became placable; merely stating to
me, in an obliging manner and as a polite expostulatory notice to any
one whom it might happen to concern, that he were not a-going to be
bull-baited and badgered in his own place. Mr. Jaggers had risen when
Joe demonstrated, and had backed near the door. Without evincing any
inclination to come in again, he there delivered his valedictory
remarks. They were these.
“Well, Mr. Pip, I think the sooner you leave here—as you are to be a
gentleman—the better. Let it stand for this day week, and you shall
receive my printed address in the meantime. You can take a
hackney-coach at the stage-coach office in London, and come straight to
me. Understand, that I express no opinion, one way or other, on the
trust I undertake. I am paid for undertaking it, and I do so. Now,
understand that, finally. Understand that!”
He was throwing his finger at both of us, and I think would have gone
on, but for his seeming to think Joe dangerous, and going off.
Something came into my head which induced me to run after him, as he
was going down to the Jolly Bargemen, where he had left a hired
carriage.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Jaggers.”
“Halloa!” said he, facing round, “what’s the matter?”
“I wish to be quite right, Mr. Jaggers, and to keep to your directions;
so I thought I had better ask. Would there be any objection to my
taking leave of any one I know, about here, before I go away?”
“No,” said he, looking as if he hardly understood me.
“I don’t mean in the village only, but up town?”
“No,” said he. “No objection.”
I thanked him and ran home again, and there I found that Joe had
already locked the front door and vacated the state parlour, and was
seated by the kitchen fire with a hand on each knee, gazing intently at
the burning coals. I too sat down before the fire and gazed at the
coals, and nothing was said for a long time.
My sister was in her cushioned chair in her corner, and Biddy sat at
her needle-work before the fire, and Joe sat next Biddy, and I sat next
Joe in the corner opposite my sister. The more I looked into the
glowing coals, the more incapable I became of looking at Joe; the
longer the silence lasted, the more unable I felt to speak.
At length I got out, “Joe, have you told Biddy?”
“No, Pip,” returned Joe, still looking at the fire, and holding his
knees tight, as if he had private information that they intended to
make off somewhere, “which I left it to yourself, Pip.”
“I would rather you told, Joe.”
“Pip’s a gentleman of fortun’ then,” said Joe, “and God bless him in
it!”
Biddy dropped her work, and looked at me. Joe held his knees and looked
at me. I looked at both of them. After a pause, they both heartily
congratulated me; but there was a certain touch of sadness in their
congratulations that I rather resented.
I took it upon myself to impress Biddy (and through Biddy, Joe) with
the grave obligation I considered my friends under, to know nothing and
say nothing about the maker of my fortune. It would all come out in
good time, I observed, and in the meanwhile nothing was to be said,
save that I had come into great expectations from a mysterious patron.
Biddy nodded her head thoughtfully at the fire as she took up her work
again, and said she would be very particular; and Joe, still detaining
his knees, said, “Ay, ay, I’ll be ekervally partickler, Pip;” and then
they congratulated me again, and went on to express so much wonder at
the notion of my being a gentleman that I didn’t half like it.
Infinite pains were then taken by Biddy to convey to my sister some
idea of what had happened. To the best of my belief, those efforts
entirely failed. She laughed and nodded her head a great many times,
and even repeated after Biddy, the words “Pip” and “Property.” But I
doubt if they had more meaning in them than an election cry, and I