Great Expectations
public-house, he gave it readily: merely observing that he must take
charge of everything his prisoner had about him. So the pocket-book
which had once been in my hands passed into the officer’s. He further
gave me leave to accompany the prisoner to London; but declined to
accord that grace to my two friends.
The Jack at the Ship was instructed where the drowned man had gone
down, and undertook to search for the body in the places where it was
likeliest to come ashore. His interest in its recovery seemed to me to
be much heightened when he heard that it had stockings on. Probably, it
took about a dozen drowned men to fit him out completely; and that may
have been the reason why the different articles of his dress were in
various stages of decay.
We remained at the public-house until the tide turned, and then
Magwitch was carried down to the galley and put on board. Herbert and
Startop were to get to London by land, as soon as they could. We had a
doleful parting, and when I took my place by Magwitch’s side, I felt
that that was my place henceforth while he lived.
For now, my repugnance to him had all melted away; and in the hunted,
wounded, shackled creature who held my hand in his, I only saw a man
who had meant to be my benefactor, and who had felt affectionately,
gratefully, and generously, towards me with great constancy through a
series of years. I only saw in him a much better man than I had been to
Joe.
His breathing became more difficult and painful as the night drew on,
and often he could not repress a groan. I tried to rest him on the arm
I could use, in any easy position; but it was dreadful to think that I
could not be sorry at heart for his being badly hurt, since it was
unquestionably best that he should die. That there were, still living,
people enough who were able and willing to identify him, I could not
doubt. That he would be leniently treated, I could not hope. He who had
been presented in the worst light at his trial, who had since broken
prison and had been tried again, who had returned from transportation
under a life sentence, and who had occasioned the death of the man who
was the cause of his arrest.
As we returned towards the setting sun we had yesterday left behind us,
and as the stream of our hopes seemed all running back, I told him how
grieved I was to think that he had come home for my sake.
“Dear boy,” he answered, “I’m quite content to take my chance. I’ve
seen my boy, and he can be a gentleman without me.”
No. I had thought about that, while we had been there side by side. No.
Apart from any inclinations of my own, I understood Wemmick’s hint now.
I foresaw that, being convicted, his possessions would be forfeited to
the Crown.
“Lookee here, dear boy,” said he “It’s best as a gentleman should not
be knowed to belong to me now. Only come to see me as if you come by
chance alonger Wemmick. Sit where I can see you when I am swore to, for
the last o’ many times, and I don’t ask no more.”
“I will never stir from your side,” said I, “when I am suffered to be
near you. Please God, I will be as true to you as you have been to me!”
I felt his hand tremble as it held mine, and he turned his face away as
he lay in the bottom of the boat, and I heard that old sound in his
throat,—softened now, like all the rest of him. It was a good thing
that he had touched this point, for it put into my mind what I might
not otherwise have thought of until too late,—that he need never know
how his hopes of enriching me had perished.
Chapter LV.
He was taken to the Police Court next day, and would have been
immediately committed for trial, but that it was necessary to send down
for an old officer of the prison-ship from which he had once escaped,
to speak to his identity. Nobody doubted it; but Compeyson, who had
meant to depose to it, was tumbling on the tides, dead, and it happened
that there was not at that time any prison officer in London who could
give the required evidence. I had gone direct to Mr. Jaggers at his
private house, on my arrival over night, to retain his assistance, and
Mr. Jaggers on the prisoner’s behalf would admit nothing. It was the
sole resource; for he told me that the case must be over in five
minutes when the witness was there, and that no power on earth could
prevent its going against us.
I imparted to Mr. Jaggers my design of keeping him in ignorance of the
fate of his wealth. Mr. Jaggers was querulous and angry with me for
having “let it slip through my fingers,” and said we must memorialise
by and by, and try at all events for some of it. But he did not conceal
from me that, although there might be many cases in which the
forfeiture would not be exacted, there were no circumstances in this
case to make it one of them. I understood that very well. I was not
related to the outlaw, or connected with him by any recognisable tie;
he had put his hand to no writing or settlement in my favour before his
apprehension, and to do so now would be idle. I had no claim, and I
finally resolved, and ever afterwards abided by the resolution, that my
heart should never be sickened with the hopeless task of attempting to
establish one.
There appeared to be reason for supposing that the drowned informer had
hoped for a reward out of this forfeiture, and had obtained some
accurate knowledge of Magwitch’s affairs. When his body was found, many
miles from the scene of his death, and so horribly disfigured that he
was only recognisable by the contents of his pockets, notes were still
legible, folded in a case he carried. Among these were the name of a
banking-house in New South Wales, where a sum of money was, and the
designation of certain lands of considerable value. Both these heads of
information were in a list that Magwitch, while in prison, gave to Mr.
Jaggers, of the possessions he supposed I should inherit. His
ignorance, poor fellow, at last served him; he never mistrusted but
that my inheritance was quite safe, with Mr. Jaggers’s aid.
After three days’ delay, during which the crown prosecution stood over
for the production of the witness from the prison-ship, the witness
came, and completed the easy case. He was committed to take his trial
at the next Sessions, which would come on in a month.
It was at this dark time of my life that Herbert returned home one
evening, a good deal cast down, and said,—
“My dear Handel, I fear I shall soon have to leave you.”
His partner having prepared me for that, I was less surprised than he
thought.
“We shall lose a fine opportunity if I put off going to Cairo, and I am
very much afraid I must go, Handel, when you most need me.”
“Herbert, I shall always need you, because I shall always love you; but
my need is no greater now than at another time.”
“You will be so lonely.”
“I have not leisure to think of that,” said I. “You know that I am
always with him to the full extent of the time allowed, and that I
should be with him all day long, if I could. And when I come away from
him, you know that my thoughts are with him.”
The dreadful condition to which he was brought, was so appalling to
both of us, that we could not refer to it in plainer words.
“My dear fellow,” said Herbert, “let the near prospect of our
separation—for, it is very near—be my justification for troubling you
about yourself. Have you thought of your future?”
“No, for I have been afraid to think of any future.”
“But yours cannot be dismissed; indeed, my dear dear Handel, it must
not be dismissed. I wish you would enter on it now, as far as a few
friendly words go, with me.”
“I will,” said I.
“In this branch house of ours, Handel, we must have a—”
I saw that his delicacy was avoiding the right word, so I said, “A
clerk.”
“A clerk. And I hope it is not at all unlikely that he may expand (as a
clerk of your acquaintance has expanded) into a partner. Now,
Handel,—in short, my dear boy, will you come to me?”
There was something charmingly cordial and engaging in the manner in
which after saying “Now, Handel,” as if it were the grave beginning of
a portentous business exordium, he had suddenly given up that tone,
stretched out his honest hand, and spoken like a schoolboy.
“Clara and I have talked about it again and again,” Herbert pursued,
“and the dear little thing begged me only this evening, with tears in
her eyes, to say to you that, if you will live with us when we come
together, she will do her best to make you happy, and to convince her
husband’s friend that he is her friend too. We should get on so well,
Handel!”
I thanked her heartily, and I thanked him heartily, but said I could
not yet make sure of joining him as he so kindly offered. Firstly, my
mind was too preoccupied to be able to take in the subject clearly.
Secondly,—Yes! Secondly, there was a vague something lingering in my
thoughts that will come out very near the end of this slight narrative.
“But if you thought, Herbert, that you could, without doing any injury
to your business, leave the question open for a little while—”
“For any while,” cried Herbert. “Six months, a year!”
“Not so long as that,” said I. “Two or three months at most.”
Herbert was highly delighted when we shook hands on this arrangement,
and said he could now take courage to tell me that he believed he must
go away at the end of the week.
“And Clara?” said I.
“The dear little thing,” returned Herbert, “holds dutifully to her
father as long as he lasts; but he won’t last long. Mrs. Whimple
confides to me that he is certainly going.”
“Not to say an unfeeling thing,” said I, “he cannot do better than go.”
“I am afraid that must be admitted,” said Herbert; “and then I shall
come back for the dear little thing, and the dear little thing and I
will walk quietly into the nearest church. Remember! The blessed
darling comes of no family, my dear Handel, and never looked into the
red book, and hasn’t a notion about her grandpapa. What a fortune for
the son of my mother!”
On the Saturday in that same week, I took my leave of Herbert,—full of
bright hope, but sad and sorry to leave me,—as he sat on one of the
seaport mail coaches. I went into a coffee-house to write a little note
to Clara, telling her he had gone off, sending his love to her over and
over again, and then went to my lonely home,—if it deserved the name;
for it was now no home to me, and I had no home anywhere.
On the stairs I encountered Wemmick, who was coming down, after an
unsuccessful application of his knuckles to my door. I had not seen him
alone since the disastrous issue of the attempted flight; and he had
come, in his private and personal capacity, to say a few words of
explanation in reference to that failure.
“The late Compeyson,” said Wemmick, “had by little and little got at
the bottom of half of the regular business now transacted; and it was
from the talk of some of his people in trouble (some of his people
being always in trouble) that I heard what I did. I kept my ears open,
seeming to have them shut, until I heard that he was absent, and I
thought that would be the best time for making the attempt. I can only
suppose now, that it was a part of his policy, as a very clever man,
habitually to deceive his own instruments. You don’t blame me, I hope,
Mr. Pip? I am sure I tried to serve you, with all my heart.”
“I am as sure of that, Wemmick, as you can be, and I thank you most
earnestly for all your interest and friendship.”
“Thank you, thank you very much. It’s a bad job,” said Wemmick,
scratching his head, “and I assure you I haven’t been so cut up for a
long time. What I look at is the sacrifice of so much portable
property. Dear me!”
“What _I_ think of, Wemmick, is the poor owner of the property.”