Great Expectations
be taken. It was a relief to get out of the room where the night had
been so miserable, and I needed no second knocking at the door to
startle me from my uneasy bed.
The Castle battlements arose upon my view at eight o’clock. The little
servant happening to be entering the fortress with two hot rolls, I
passed through the postern and crossed the drawbridge in her company,
and so came without announcement into the presence of Wemmick as he was
making tea for himself and the Aged. An open door afforded a
perspective view of the Aged in bed.
“Halloa, Mr. Pip!” said Wemmick. “You did come home, then?”
“Yes,” I returned; “but I didn’t go home.”
“That’s all right,” said he, rubbing his hands. “I left a note for you
at each of the Temple gates, on the chance. Which gate did you come
to?”
I told him.
“I’ll go round to the others in the course of the day and destroy the
notes,” said Wemmick; “it’s a good rule never to leave documentary
evidence if you can help it, because you don’t know when it may be put
in. I’m going to take a liberty with you. _Would_ you mind toasting
this sausage for the Aged P.?”
I said I should be delighted to do it.
“Then you can go about your work, Mary Anne,” said Wemmick to the
little servant; “which leaves us to ourselves, don’t you see, Mr. Pip?”
he added, winking, as she disappeared.
I thanked him for his friendship and caution, and our discourse
proceeded in a low tone, while I toasted the Aged’s sausage and he
buttered the crumb of the Aged’s roll.
“Now, Mr. Pip, you know,” said Wemmick, “you and I understand one
another. We are in our private and personal capacities, and we have
been engaged in a confidential transaction before to-day. Official
sentiments are one thing. We are extra official.”
I cordially assented. I was so very nervous, that I had already lighted
the Aged’s sausage like a torch, and been obliged to blow it out.
“I accidentally heard, yesterday morning,” said Wemmick, “being in a
certain place where I once took you,—even between you and me, it’s as
well not to mention names when avoidable—”
“Much better not,” said I. “I understand you.”
“I heard there by chance, yesterday morning,” said Wemmick, “that a
certain person not altogether of uncolonial pursuits, and not
unpossessed of portable property,—I don’t know who it may really be,—we
won’t name this person—”
“Not necessary,” said I.
“—Had made some little stir in a certain part of the world where a good
many people go, not always in gratification of their own inclinations,
and not quite irrespective of the government expense—”
In watching his face, I made quite a firework of the Aged’s sausage,
and greatly discomposed both my own attention and Wemmick’s; for which
I apologised.
“—By disappearing from such place, and being no more heard of
thereabouts. From which,” said Wemmick, “conjectures had been raised
and theories formed. I also heard that you at your chambers in Garden
Court, Temple, had been watched, and might be watched again.”
“By whom?” said I.
“I wouldn’t go into that,” said Wemmick, evasively, “it might clash
with official responsibilities. I heard it, as I have in my time heard
other curious things in the same place. I don’t tell it you on
information received. I heard it.”
He took the toasting-fork and sausage from me as he spoke, and set
forth the Aged’s breakfast neatly on a little tray. Previous to placing
it before him, he went into the Aged’s room with a clean white cloth,
and tied the same under the old gentleman’s chin, and propped him up,
and put his nightcap on one side, and gave him quite a rakish air. Then
he placed his breakfast before him with great care, and said, “All
right, ain’t you, Aged P.?” To which the cheerful Aged replied, “All
right, John, my boy, all right!” As there seemed to be a tacit
understanding that the Aged was not in a presentable state, and was
therefore to be considered invisible, I made a pretence of being in
complete ignorance of these proceedings.
“This watching of me at my chambers (which I have once had reason to
suspect),” I said to Wemmick when he came back, “is inseparable from
the person to whom you have adverted; is it?”
Wemmick looked very serious. “I couldn’t undertake to say that, of my
own knowledge. I mean, I couldn’t undertake to say it was at first. But
it either is, or it will be, or it’s in great danger of being.”
As I saw that he was restrained by fealty to Little Britain from saying
as much as he could, and as I knew with thankfulness to him how far out
of his way he went to say what he did, I could not press him. But I
told him, after a little meditation over the fire, that I would like to
ask him a question, subject to his answering or not answering, as he
deemed right, and sure that his course would be right. He paused in his
breakfast, and crossing his arms, and pinching his shirt-sleeves (his
notion of in-door comfort was to sit without any coat), he nodded to me
once, to put my question.
“You have heard of a man of bad character, whose true name is
Compeyson?”
He answered with one other nod.
“Is he living?”
One other nod.
“Is he in London?”
He gave me one other nod, compressed the post-office exceedingly, gave
me one last nod, and went on with his breakfast.
“Now,” said Wemmick, “questioning being over,” which he emphasised and
repeated for my guidance, “I come to what I did, after hearing what I
heard. I went to Garden Court to find you; not finding you, I went to
Clarriker’s to find Mr. Herbert.”
“And him you found?” said I, with great anxiety.
“And him I found. Without mentioning any names or going into any
details, I gave him to understand that if he was aware of anybody—Tom,
Jack, or Richard—being about the chambers, or about the immediate
neighbourhood, he had better get Tom, Jack, or Richard out of the way
while you were out of the way.”
“He would be greatly puzzled what to do?”
“He _was_ puzzled what to do; not the less, because I gave him my
opinion that it was not safe to try to get Tom, Jack, or Richard too
far out of the way at present. Mr. Pip, I’ll tell you something. Under
existing circumstances, there is no place like a great city when you
are once in it. Don’t break cover too soon. Lie close. Wait till things
slacken, before you try the open, even for foreign air.”
I thanked him for his valuable advice, and asked him what Herbert had
done?
“Mr. Herbert,” said Wemmick, “after being all of a heap for half an
hour, struck out a plan. He mentioned to me as a secret, that he is
courting a young lady who has, as no doubt you are aware, a bedridden
Pa. Which Pa, having been in the Purser line of life, lies a-bed in a
bow-window where he can see the ships sail up and down the river. You
are acquainted with the young lady, most probably?”
“Not personally,” said I.
The truth was, that she had objected to me as an expensive companion
who did Herbert no good, and that, when Herbert had first proposed to
present me to her, she had received the proposal with such very
moderate warmth, that Herbert had felt himself obliged to confide the
state of the case to me, with a view to the lapse of a little time
before I made her acquaintance. When I had begun to advance Herbert’s
prospects by stealth, I had been able to bear this with cheerful
philosophy: he and his affianced, for their part, had naturally not
been very anxious to introduce a third person into their interviews;
and thus, although I was assured that I had risen in Clara’s esteem,
and although the young lady and I had long regularly interchanged
messages and remembrances by Herbert, I had never seen her. However, I
did not trouble Wemmick with these particulars.
“The house with the bow-window,” said Wemmick, “being by the
river-side, down the Pool there between Limehouse and Greenwich, and
being kept, it seems, by a very respectable widow who has a furnished
upper floor to let, Mr. Herbert put it to me, what did I think of that
as a temporary tenement for Tom, Jack, or Richard? Now, I thought very
well of it, for three reasons I’ll give you. That is to say: _Firstly_.
It’s altogether out of all your beats, and is well away from the usual
heap of streets great and small. _Secondly_. Without going near it
yourself, you could always hear of the safety of Tom, Jack, or Richard,
through Mr. Herbert. _Thirdly_. After a while and when it might be
prudent, if you should want to slip Tom, Jack, or Richard on board a
foreign packet-boat, there he is—ready.”
Much comforted by these considerations, I thanked Wemmick again and
again, and begged him to proceed.
“Well, sir! Mr. Herbert threw himself into the business with a will,
and by nine o’clock last night he housed Tom, Jack, or
Richard,—whichever it may be,—you and I don’t want to know,—quite
successfully. At the old lodgings it was understood that he was
summoned to Dover, and, in fact, he was taken down the Dover road and
cornered out of it. Now, another great advantage of all this is, that
it was done without you, and when, if any one was concerning himself
about your movements, you must be known to be ever so many miles off
and quite otherwise engaged. This diverts suspicion and confuses it;
and for the same reason I recommended that, even if you came back last
night, you should not go home. It brings in more confusion, and you
want confusion.”
Wemmick, having finished his breakfast, here looked at his watch, and
began to get his coat on.
“And now, Mr. Pip,” said he, with his hands still in the sleeves, “I
have probably done the most I can do; but if I can ever do more,—from a
Walworth point of view, and in a strictly private and personal
capacity,—I shall be glad to do it. Here’s the address. There can be no
harm in your going here to-night, and seeing for yourself that all is
well with Tom, Jack, or Richard, before you go home,—which is another
reason for your not going home last night. But, after you have gone
home, don’t go back here. You are very welcome, I am sure, Mr. Pip”;
his hands were now out of his sleeves, and I was shaking them; “and let
me finally impress one important point upon you.” He laid his hands
upon my shoulders, and added in a solemn whisper: “Avail yourself of
this evening to lay hold of his portable property. You don’t know what
may happen to him. Don’t let anything happen to the portable property.”
Quite despairing of making my mind clear to Wemmick on this point, I
forbore to try.
“Time’s up,” said Wemmick, “and I must be off. If you had nothing more
pressing to do than to keep here till dark, that’s what I should
advise. You look very much worried, and it would do you good to have a
perfectly quiet day with the Aged,—he’ll be up presently,—and a little
bit of—you remember the pig?”
“Of course,” said I.
“Well; and a little bit of _him_. That sausage you toasted was his, and
he was in all respects a first-rater. Do try him, if it is only for old
acquaintance sake. Good-bye, Aged Parent!” in a cheery shout.
“All right, John; all right, my boy!” piped the old man from within.
I soon fell asleep before Wemmick’s fire, and the Aged and I enjoyed
one another’s society by falling asleep before it more or less all day.
We had loin of pork for dinner, and greens grown on the estate; and I
nodded at the Aged with a good intention whenever I failed to do it
drowsily. When it was quite dark, I left the Aged preparing the fire
for toast; and I inferred from the number of teacups, as well as from
his glances at the two little doors in the wall, that Miss Skiffins was
expected.
Chapter XLVI.
Eight o’clock had struck before I got into the air, that was scented,
not disagreeably, by the chips and shavings of the long-shore