Great Expectations
“Whether you scold me or approve of me,” returned poor Biddy, “you may
equally depend upon my trying to do all that lies in my power, here, at
all times. And whatever opinion you take away of me, shall make no
difference in my remembrance of you. Yet a gentleman should not be
unjust neither,” said Biddy, turning away her head.
I again warmly repeated that it was a bad side of human nature (in
which sentiment, waiving its application, I have since seen reason to
think I was right), and I walked down the little path away from Biddy,
and Biddy went into the house, and I went out at the garden gate and
took a dejected stroll until supper-time; again feeling it very
sorrowful and strange that this, the second night of my bright
fortunes, should be as lonely and unsatisfactory as the first.
But, morning once more brightened my view, and I extended my clemency
to Biddy, and we dropped the subject. Putting on the best clothes I
had, I went into town as early as I could hope to find the shops open,
and presented myself before Mr. Trabb, the tailor, who was having his
breakfast in the parlour behind his shop, and who did not think it
worth his while to come out to me, but called me in to him.
“Well!” said Mr. Trabb, in a hail-fellow-well-met kind of way. “How are
you, and what can I do for you?”
Mr. Trabb had sliced his hot roll into three feather-beds, and was
slipping butter in between the blankets, and covering it up. He was a
prosperous old bachelor, and his open window looked into a prosperous
little garden and orchard, and there was a prosperous iron safe let
into the wall at the side of his fireplace, and I did not doubt that
heaps of his prosperity were put away in it in bags.
“Mr. Trabb,” said I, “it’s an unpleasant thing to have to mention,
because it looks like boasting; but I have come into a handsome
property.”
A change passed over Mr. Trabb. He forgot the butter in bed, got up
from the bedside, and wiped his fingers on the tablecloth, exclaiming,
“Lord bless my soul!”
“I am going up to my guardian in London,” said I, casually drawing some
guineas out of my pocket and looking at them; “and I want a fashionable
suit of clothes to go in. I wish to pay for them,” I added—otherwise I
thought he might only pretend to make them, “with ready money.”
“My dear sir,” said Mr. Trabb, as he respectfully bent his body, opened
his arms, and took the liberty of touching me on the outside of each
elbow, “don’t hurt me by mentioning that. May I venture to congratulate
you? Would you do me the favour of stepping into the shop?”
Mr. Trabb’s boy was the most audacious boy in all that country-side.
When I had entered he was sweeping the shop, and he had sweetened his
labours by sweeping over me. He was still sweeping when I came out into
the shop with Mr. Trabb, and he knocked the broom against all possible
corners and obstacles, to express (as I understood it) equality with
any blacksmith, alive or dead.
“Hold that noise,” said Mr. Trabb, with the greatest sternness, “or
I’ll knock your head off!—Do me the favour to be seated, sir. Now,
this,” said Mr. Trabb, taking down a roll of cloth, and tiding it out
in a flowing manner over the counter, preparatory to getting his hand
under it to show the gloss, “is a very sweet article. I can recommend
it for your purpose, sir, because it really is extra super. But you
shall see some others. Give me Number Four, you!” (To the boy, and with
a dreadfully severe stare; foreseeing the danger of that miscreant’s
brushing me with it, or making some other sign of familiarity.)
Mr. Trabb never removed his stern eye from the boy until he had
deposited number four on the counter and was at a safe distance again.
Then he commanded him to bring number five, and number eight. “And let
me have none of your tricks here,” said Mr. Trabb, “or you shall repent
it, you young scoundrel, the longest day you have to live.”
Mr. Trabb then bent over number four, and in a sort of deferential
confidence recommended it to me as a light article for summer wear, an
article much in vogue among the nobility and gentry, an article that it
would ever be an honour to him to reflect upon a distinguished
fellow-townsman’s (if he might claim me for a fellow-townsman) having
worn. “Are you bringing numbers five and eight, you vagabond,” said Mr.
Trabb to the boy after that, “or shall I kick you out of the shop and
bring them myself?”
I selected the materials for a suit, with the assistance of Mr. Trabb’s
judgment, and re-entered the parlour to be measured. For although Mr.
Trabb had my measure already, and had previously been quite contented
with it, he said apologetically that it “wouldn’t do under existing
circumstances, sir,—wouldn’t do at all.” So, Mr. Trabb measured and
calculated me in the parlour, as if I were an estate and he the finest
species of surveyor, and gave himself such a world of trouble that I
felt that no suit of clothes could possibly remunerate him for his
pains. When he had at last done and had appointed to send the articles
to Mr. Pumblechook’s on the Thursday evening, he said, with his hand
upon the parlour lock, “I know, sir, that London gentlemen cannot be
expected to patronise local work, as a rule; but if you would give me a
turn now and then in the quality of a townsman, I should greatly esteem
it. Good-morning, sir, much obliged.—Door!”
The last word was flung at the boy, who had not the least notion what
it meant. But I saw him collapse as his master rubbed me out with his
hands, and my first decided experience of the stupendous power of money
was, that it had morally laid upon his back Trabb’s boy.
After this memorable event, I went to the hatter’s, and the
bootmaker’s, and the hosier’s, and felt rather like Mother Hubbard’s
dog whose outfit required the services of so many trades. I also went
to the coach-office and took my place for seven o’clock on Saturday
morning. It was not necessary to explain everywhere that I had come
into a handsome property; but whenever I said anything to that effect,
it followed that the officiating tradesman ceased to have his attention
diverted through the window by the High Street, and concentrated his
mind upon me. When I had ordered everything I wanted, I directed my
steps towards Pumblechook’s, and, as I approached that gentleman’s
place of business, I saw him standing at his door.
He was waiting for me with great impatience. He had been out early with
the chaise-cart, and had called at the forge and heard the news. He had
prepared a collation for me in the Barnwell parlour, and he too ordered
his shopman to “come out of the gangway” as my sacred person passed.
“My dear friend,” said Mr. Pumblechook, taking me by both hands, when
he and I and the collation were alone, “I give you joy of your good
fortune. Well deserved, well deserved!”
This was coming to the point, and I thought it a sensible way of
expressing himself.
“To think,” said Mr. Pumblechook, after snorting admiration at me for
some moments, “that I should have been the humble instrument of leading
up to this, is a proud reward.”
I begged Mr. Pumblechook to remember that nothing was to be ever said
or hinted, on that point.
“My dear young friend,” said Mr. Pumblechook; “if you will allow me to
call you so—”
I murmured “Certainly,” and Mr. Pumblechook took me by both hands
again, and communicated a movement to his waistcoat, which had an
emotional appearance, though it was rather low down, “My dear young
friend, rely upon my doing my little all in your absence, by keeping
the fact before the mind of Joseph.—Joseph!” said Mr. Pumblechook, in
the way of a compassionate adjuration. “Joseph!! Joseph!!!” Thereupon
he shook his head and tapped it, expressing his sense of deficiency in
Joseph.
“But my dear young friend,” said Mr. Pumblechook, “you must be hungry,
you must be exhausted. Be seated. Here is a chicken had round from the
Boar, here is a tongue had round from the Boar, here’s one or two
little things had round from the Boar, that I hope you may not despise.
But do I,” said Mr. Pumblechook, getting up again the moment after he
had sat down, “see afore me, him as I ever sported with in his times of
happy infancy? And may I—_may_ I—?”
This May I, meant might he shake hands? I consented, and he was
fervent, and then sat down again.
“Here is wine,” said Mr. Pumblechook. “Let us drink, Thanks to Fortune,
and may she ever pick out her favourites with equal judgment! And yet I
cannot,” said Mr. Pumblechook, getting up again, “see afore me One—and
likewise drink to One—without again expressing—May I—_may_ I—?”
I said he might, and he shook hands with me again, and emptied his
glass and turned it upside down. I did the same; and if I had turned
myself upside down before drinking, the wine could not have gone more
direct to my head.
Mr. Pumblechook helped me to the liver wing, and to the best slice of
tongue (none of those out-of-the-way No Thoroughfares of Pork now), and
took, comparatively speaking, no care of himself at all. “Ah! poultry,
poultry! You little thought,” said Mr. Pumblechook, apostrophising the
fowl in the dish, “when you was a young fledgling, what was in store
for you. You little thought you was to be refreshment beneath this
humble roof for one as—Call it a weakness, if you will,” said Mr.
Pumblechook, getting up again, “but may I? _may_ I—?”
It began to be unnecessary to repeat the form of saying he might, so he
did it at once. How he ever did it so often without wounding himself
with my knife, I don’t know.
“And your sister,” he resumed, after a little steady eating, “which had
the honour of bringing you up by hand! It’s a sad picter, to reflect
that she’s no longer equal to fully understanding the honour. May—”
I saw he was about to come at me again, and I stopped him.
“We’ll drink her health,” said I.
“Ah!” cried Mr. Pumblechook, leaning back in his chair, quite flaccid
with admiration, “that’s the way you know ’em, sir!” (I don’t know who
Sir was, but he certainly was not I, and there was no third person
present); “that’s the way you know the noble-minded, sir! Ever
forgiving and ever affable. It might,” said the servile Pumblechook,
putting down his untasted glass in a hurry and getting up again, “to a
common person, have the appearance of repeating—but _may_ I—?”
When he had done it, he resumed his seat and drank to my sister. “Let
us never be blind,” said Mr. Pumblechook, “to her faults of temper, but
it is to be hoped she meant well.”
At about this time, I began to observe that he was getting flushed in
the face; as to myself, I felt all face, steeped in wine and smarting.
I mentioned to Mr. Pumblechook that I wished to have my new clothes
sent to his house, and he was ecstatic on my so distinguishing him. I
mentioned my reason for desiring to avoid observation in the village,
and he lauded it to the skies. There was nobody but himself, he
intimated, worthy of my confidence, and—in short, might he? Then he
asked me tenderly if I remembered our boyish games at sums, and how we
had gone together to have me bound apprentice, and, in effect, how he
had ever been my favourite fancy and my chosen friend? If I had taken
ten times as many glasses of wine as I had, I should have known that he
never had stood in that relation towards me, and should in my heart of
hearts have repudiated the idea. Yet for all that, I remember feeling
convinced that I had been much mistaken in him, and that he was a
sensible, practical, good-hearted prime fellow.
By degrees he fell to reposing such great confidence in me, as to ask
my advice in reference to his own affairs. He mentioned that there was
an opportunity for a great amalgamation and monopoly of the corn and