Great Expectations
Somebody, to unbend his brows a little. It was an uncomfortable
consideration on a twenty-first birthday, that coming of age at all
seemed hardly worth while in such a guarded and suspicious world as he
made of it. He was a thousand times better informed and cleverer than
Wemmick, and yet I would a thousand times rather have had Wemmick to
dinner. And Mr. Jaggers made not me alone intensely melancholy,
because, after he was gone, Herbert said of himself, with his eyes
fixed on the fire, that he thought he must have committed a felony and
forgotten the details of it, he felt so dejected and guilty.
Chapter XXXVII.
Deeming Sunday the best day for taking Mr. Wemmick’s Walworth
sentiments, I devoted the next ensuing Sunday afternoon to a pilgrimage
to the Castle. On arriving before the battlements, I found the Union
Jack flying and the drawbridge up; but undeterred by this show of
defiance and resistance, I rang at the gate, and was admitted in a most
pacific manner by the Aged.
“My son, sir,” said the old man, after securing the drawbridge, “rather
had it in his mind that you might happen to drop in, and he left word
that he would soon be home from his afternoon’s walk. He is very
regular in his walks, is my son. Very regular in everything, is my
son.”
I nodded at the old gentleman as Wemmick himself might have nodded, and
we went in and sat down by the fireside.
“You made acquaintance with my son, sir,” said the old man, in his
chirping way, while he warmed his hands at the blaze, “at his office, I
expect?” I nodded. “Hah! I have heerd that my son is a wonderful hand
at his business, sir?” I nodded hard. “Yes; so they tell me. His
business is the Law?” I nodded harder. “Which makes it more surprising
in my son,” said the old man, “for he was not brought up to the Law,
but to the Wine-Coopering.”
Curious to know how the old gentleman stood informed concerning the
reputation of Mr. Jaggers, I roared that name at him. He threw me into
the greatest confusion by laughing heartily and replying in a very
sprightly manner, “No, to be sure; you’re right.” And to this hour I
have not the faintest notion what he meant, or what joke he thought I
had made.
As I could not sit there nodding at him perpetually, without making
some other attempt to interest him, I shouted at inquiry whether his
own calling in life had been “the Wine-Coopering.” By dint of straining
that term out of myself several times and tapping the old gentleman on
the chest to associate it with him, I at last succeeded in making my
meaning understood.
“No,” said the old gentleman; “the warehousing, the warehousing. First,
over yonder;” he appeared to mean up the chimney, but I believe he
intended to refer me to Liverpool; “and then in the City of London
here. However, having an infirmity—for I am hard of hearing, sir—”
I expressed in pantomime the greatest astonishment.
“—Yes, hard of hearing; having that infirmity coming upon me, my son he
went into the Law, and he took charge of me, and he by little and
little made out this elegant and beautiful property. But returning to
what you said, you know,” pursued the old man, again laughing heartily,
“what I say is, No to be sure; you’re right.”
I was modestly wondering whether my utmost ingenuity would have enabled
me to say anything that would have amused him half as much as this
imaginary pleasantry, when I was startled by a sudden click in the wall
on one side of the chimney, and the ghostly tumbling open of a little
wooden flap with “JOHN” upon it. The old man, following my eyes, cried
with great triumph, “My son’s come home!” and we both went out to the
drawbridge.
It was worth any money to see Wemmick waving a salute to me from the
other side of the moat, when we might have shaken hands across it with
the greatest ease. The Aged was so delighted to work the drawbridge,
that I made no offer to assist him, but stood quiet until Wemmick had
come across, and had presented me to Miss Skiffins; a lady by whom he
was accompanied.
Miss Skiffins was of a wooden appearance, and was, like her escort, in
the post-office branch of the service. She might have been some two or
three years younger than Wemmick, and I judged her to stand possessed
of portable property. The cut of her dress from the waist upward, both
before and behind, made her figure very like a boy’s kite; and I might
have pronounced her gown a little too decidedly orange, and her gloves
a little too intensely green. But she seemed to be a good sort of
fellow, and showed a high regard for the Aged. I was not long in
discovering that she was a frequent visitor at the Castle; for, on our
going in, and my complimenting Wemmick on his ingenious contrivance for
announcing himself to the Aged, he begged me to give my attention for a
moment to the other side of the chimney, and disappeared. Presently
another click came, and another little door tumbled open with “Miss
Skiffins” on it; then Miss Skiffins shut up and John tumbled open; then
Miss Skiffins and John both tumbled open together, and finally shut up
together. On Wemmick’s return from working these mechanical appliances,
I expressed the great admiration with which I regarded them, and he
said, “Well, you know, they’re both pleasant and useful to the Aged.
And by George, sir, it’s a thing worth mentioning, that of all the
people who come to this gate, the secret of those pulls is only known
to the Aged, Miss Skiffins, and me!”
“And Mr. Wemmick made them,” added Miss Skiffins, “with his own hands
out of his own head.”
While Miss Skiffins was taking off her bonnet (she retained her green
gloves during the evening as an outward and visible sign that there was
company), Wemmick invited me to take a walk with him round the
property, and see how the island looked in wintertime. Thinking that he
did this to give me an opportunity of taking his Walworth sentiments, I
seized the opportunity as soon as we were out of the Castle.
Having thought of the matter with care, I approached my subject as if I
had never hinted at it before. I informed Wemmick that I was anxious in
behalf of Herbert Pocket, and I told him how we had first met, and how
we had fought. I glanced at Herbert’s home, and at his character, and
at his having no means but such as he was dependent on his father for;
those, uncertain and unpunctual. I alluded to the advantages I had
derived in my first rawness and ignorance from his society, and I
confessed that I feared I had but ill repaid them, and that he might
have done better without me and my expectations. Keeping Miss Havisham
in the background at a great distance, I still hinted at the
possibility of my having competed with him in his prospects, and at the
certainty of his possessing a generous soul, and being far above any
mean distrusts, retaliations, or designs. For all these reasons (I told
Wemmick), and because he was my young companion and friend, and I had a
great affection for him, I wished my own good fortune to reflect some
rays upon him, and therefore I sought advice from Wemmick’s experience
and knowledge of men and affairs, how I could best try with my
resources to help Herbert to some present income,—say of a hundred a
year, to keep him in good hope and heart,—and gradually to buy him on
to some small partnership. I begged Wemmick, in conclusion, to
understand that my help must always be rendered without Herbert’s
knowledge or suspicion, and that there was no one else in the world
with whom I could advise. I wound up by laying my hand upon his
shoulder, and saying, “I can’t help confiding in you, though I know it
must be troublesome to you; but that is your fault, in having ever
brought me here.”
Wemmick was silent for a little while, and then said with a kind of
start, “Well you know, Mr. Pip, I must tell you one thing. This is
devilish good of you.”
“Say you’ll help me to be good then,” said I.
“Ecod,” replied Wemmick, shaking his head, “that’s not my trade.”
“Nor is this your trading-place,” said I.
“You are right,” he returned. “You hit the nail on the head. Mr. Pip,
I’ll put on my considering-cap, and I think all you want to do may be
done by degrees. Skiffins (that’s her brother) is an accountant and
agent. I’ll look him up and go to work for you.”
“I thank you ten thousand times.”
“On the contrary,” said he, “I thank you, for though we are strictly in
our private and personal capacity, still it may be mentioned that there
_are_ Newgate cobwebs about, and it brushes them away.”
After a little further conversation to the same effect, we returned
into the Castle where we found Miss Skiffins preparing tea. The
responsible duty of making the toast was delegated to the Aged, and
that excellent old gentleman was so intent upon it that he seemed to me
in some danger of melting his eyes. It was no nominal meal that we were
going to make, but a vigorous reality. The Aged prepared such a
hay-stack of buttered toast, that I could scarcely see him over it as
it simmered on an iron stand hooked on to the top-bar; while Miss
Skiffins brewed such a jorum of tea, that the pig in the back premises
became strongly excited, and repeatedly expressed his desire to
participate in the entertainment.
The flag had been struck, and the gun had been fired, at the right
moment of time, and I felt as snugly cut off from the rest of Walworth
as if the moat were thirty feet wide by as many deep. Nothing disturbed
the tranquillity of the Castle, but the occasional tumbling open of
John and Miss Skiffins: which little doors were a prey to some
spasmodic infirmity that made me sympathetically uncomfortable until I
got used to it. I inferred from the methodical nature of Miss
Skiffins’s arrangements that she made tea there every Sunday night; and
I rather suspected that a classic brooch she wore, representing the
profile of an undesirable female with a very straight nose and a very
new moon, was a piece of portable property that had been given her by
Wemmick.
We ate the whole of the toast, and drank tea in proportion, and it was
delightful to see how warm and greasy we all got after it. The Aged
especially, might have passed for some clean old chief of a savage
tribe, just oiled. After a short pause of repose, Miss Skiffins—in the
absence of the little servant who, it seemed, retired to the bosom of
her family on Sunday afternoons—washed up the tea-things, in a trifling
lady-like amateur manner that compromised none of us. Then, she put on
her gloves again, and we drew round the fire, and Wemmick said, “Now,
Aged Parent, tip us the paper.”
Wemmick explained to me while the Aged got his spectacles out, that
this was according to custom, and that it gave the old gentleman
infinite satisfaction to read the news aloud. “I won’t offer an
apology,” said Wemmick, “for he isn’t capable of many pleasures—are
you, Aged P.?”
“All right, John, all right,” returned the old man, seeing himself
spoken to.
“Only tip him a nod every now and then when he looks off his paper,”
said Wemmick, “and he’ll be as happy as a king. We are all attention,
Aged One.”
“All right, John, all right!” returned the cheerful old man, so busy
and so pleased, that it really was quite charming.
The Aged’s reading reminded me of the classes at Mr. Wopsle’s
great-aunt’s, with the pleasanter peculiarity that it seemed to come
through a keyhole. As he wanted the candles close to him, and as he was
always on the verge of putting either his head or the newspaper into
them, he required as much watching as a powder-mill. But Wemmick was
equally untiring and gentle in his vigilance, and the Aged read on,
quite unconscious of his many rescues. Whenever he looked at us, we all
expressed the greatest interest and amazement, and nodded until he
resumed again.