Great Expectations
Joe’s blue eyes turned a little watery; he rubbed first one of them,
and then the other, in a most uncongenial and uncomfortable manner,
with the round knob on the top of the poker.
“It were but lonesome then,” said Joe, “living here alone, and I got
acquainted with your sister. Now, Pip,”—Joe looked firmly at me as if
he knew I was not going to agree with him;—“your sister is a fine
figure of a woman.”
I could not help looking at the fire, in an obvious state of doubt.
“Whatever family opinions, or whatever the world’s opinions, on that
subject may be, Pip, your sister is,” Joe tapped the top bar with the
poker after every word following, “a-fine-figure—of—a—woman!”
I could think of nothing better to say than “I am glad you think so,
Joe.”
“So am I,” returned Joe, catching me up. “_I_ am glad I think so, Pip.
A little redness or a little matter of Bone, here or there, what does
it signify to Me?”
I sagaciously observed, if it didn’t signify to him, to whom did it
signify?
“Certainly!” assented Joe. “That’s it. You’re right, old chap! When I
got acquainted with your sister, it were the talk how she was bringing
you up by hand. Very kind of her too, all the folks said, and I said,
along with all the folks. As to you,” Joe pursued with a countenance
expressive of seeing something very nasty indeed, “if you could have
been aware how small and flabby and mean you was, dear me, you’d have
formed the most contemptible opinion of yourself!”
Not exactly relishing this, I said, “Never mind me, Joe.”
“But I did mind you, Pip,” he returned with tender simplicity. “When I
offered to your sister to keep company, and to be asked in church at
such times as she was willing and ready to come to the forge, I said to
her, ‘And bring the poor little child. God bless the poor little
child,’ I said to your sister, ‘there’s room for _him_ at the forge!’”
I broke out crying and begging pardon, and hugged Joe round the neck:
who dropped the poker to hug me, and to say, “Ever the best of friends;
an’t us, Pip? Don’t cry, old chap!”
When this little interruption was over, Joe resumed:—
“Well, you see, Pip, and here we are! That’s about where it lights;
here we are! Now, when you take me in hand in my learning, Pip (and I
tell you beforehand I am awful dull, most awful dull), Mrs. Joe mustn’t
see too much of what we’re up to. It must be done, as I may say, on the
sly. And why on the sly? I’ll tell you why, Pip.”
He had taken up the poker again; without which, I doubt if he could
have proceeded in his demonstration.
“Your sister is given to government.”
“Given to government, Joe?” I was startled, for I had some shadowy idea
(and I am afraid I must add, hope) that Joe had divorced her in a
favour of the Lords of the Admiralty, or Treasury.
“Given to government,” said Joe. “Which I meantersay the government of
you and myself.”
“Oh!”
“And she an’t over partial to having scholars on the premises,” Joe
continued, “and in partickler would not be over partial to my being a
scholar, for fear as I might rise. Like a sort of rebel, don’t you
see?”
I was going to retort with an inquiry, and had got as far as “Why—”
when Joe stopped me.
“Stay a bit. I know what you’re a-going to say, Pip; stay a bit! I
don’t deny that your sister comes the Mo-gul over us, now and again. I
don’t deny that she do throw us back-falls, and that she do drop down
upon us heavy. At such times as when your sister is on the Ram-page,
Pip,” Joe sank his voice to a whisper and glanced at the door, “candour
compels fur to admit that she is a Buster.”
Joe pronounced this word, as if it began with at least twelve capital
Bs.
“Why don’t I rise? That were your observation when I broke it off,
Pip?”
“Yes, Joe.”
“Well,” said Joe, passing the poker into his left hand, that he might
feel his whisker; and I had no hope of him whenever he took to that
placid occupation; “your sister’s a master-mind. A master-mind.”
“What’s that?” I asked, in some hope of bringing him to a stand. But
Joe was readier with his definition than I had expected, and completely
stopped me by arguing circularly, and answering with a fixed look,
“Her.”
“And I ain’t a master-mind,” Joe resumed, when he had unfixed his look,
and got back to his whisker. “And last of all, Pip,—and this I want to
say very serious to you, old chap,—I see so much in my poor mother, of
a woman drudging and slaving and breaking her honest hart and never
getting no peace in her mortal days, that I’m dead afeerd of going
wrong in the way of not doing what’s right by a woman, and I’d fur
rather of the two go wrong the t’other way, and be a little
ill-conwenienced myself. I wish it was only me that got put out, Pip; I
wish there warn’t no Tickler for you, old chap; I wish I could take it
all on myself; but this is the up-and-down-and-straight on it, Pip, and
I hope you’ll overlook shortcomings.”
Young as I was, I believe that I dated a new admiration of Joe from
that night. We were equals afterwards, as we had been before; but,
afterwards at quiet times when I sat looking at Joe and thinking about
him, I had a new sensation of feeling conscious that I was looking up
to Joe in my heart.
“However,” said Joe, rising to replenish the fire; “here’s the
Dutch-clock a-working himself up to being equal to strike Eight of ’em,
and she’s not come home yet! I hope Uncle Pumblechook’s mare mayn’t
have set a forefoot on a piece o’ ice, and gone down.”
Mrs. Joe made occasional trips with Uncle Pumblechook on market-days,
to assist him in buying such household stuffs and goods as required a
woman’s judgment; Uncle Pumblechook being a bachelor and reposing no
confidences in his domestic servant. This was market-day, and Mrs. Joe
was out on one of these expeditions.
Joe made the fire and swept the hearth, and then we went to the door to
listen for the chaise-cart. It was a dry cold night, and the wind blew
keenly, and the frost was white and hard. A man would die to-night of
lying out on the marshes, I thought. And then I looked at the stars,
and considered how awful it would be for a man to turn his face up to
them as he froze to death, and see no help or pity in all the
glittering multitude.
“Here comes the mare,” said Joe, “ringing like a peal of bells!”
The sound of her iron shoes upon the hard road was quite musical, as
she came along at a much brisker trot than usual. We got a chair out,
ready for Mrs. Joe’s alighting, and stirred up the fire that they might
see a bright window, and took a final survey of the kitchen that
nothing might be out of its place. When we had completed these
preparations, they drove up, wrapped to the eyes. Mrs. Joe was soon
landed, and Uncle Pumblechook was soon down too, covering the mare with
a cloth, and we were soon all in the kitchen, carrying so much cold air
in with us that it seemed to drive all the heat out of the fire.
“Now,” said Mrs. Joe, unwrapping herself with haste and excitement, and
throwing her bonnet back on her shoulders where it hung by the strings,
“if this boy ain’t grateful this night, he never will be!”
I looked as grateful as any boy possibly could, who was wholly
uninformed why he ought to assume that expression.
“It’s only to be hoped,” said my sister, “that he won’t be Pompeyed.
But I have my fears.”
“She ain’t in that line, Mum,” said Mr. Pumblechook. “She knows
better.”
She? I looked at Joe, making the motion with my lips and eyebrows,
“She?” Joe looked at me, making the motion with _his_ lips and
eyebrows, “She?” My sister catching him in the act, he drew the back of
his hand across his nose with his usual conciliatory air on such
occasions, and looked at her.
“Well?” said my sister, in her snappish way. “What are you staring at?
Is the house afire?”
“—Which some individual,” Joe politely hinted, “mentioned—she.”
“And she is a she, I suppose?” said my sister. “Unless you call Miss
Havisham a he. And I doubt if even you’ll go so far as that.”
“Miss Havisham, up town?” said Joe.
“Is there any Miss Havisham down town?” returned my sister.
“She wants this boy to go and play there. And of course he’s going. And
he had better play there,” said my sister, shaking her head at me as an
encouragement to be extremely light and sportive, “or I’ll work him.”
I had heard of Miss Havisham up town,—everybody for miles round had
heard of Miss Havisham up town,—as an immensely rich and grim lady who
lived in a large and dismal house barricaded against robbers, and who
led a life of seclusion.
“Well to be sure!” said Joe, astounded. “I wonder how she come to know
Pip!”
“Noodle!” cried my sister. “Who said she knew him?”
“—Which some individual,” Joe again politely hinted, “mentioned that
she wanted him to go and play there.”
“And couldn’t she ask Uncle Pumblechook if he knew of a boy to go and
play there? Isn’t it just barely possible that Uncle Pumblechook may be
a tenant of hers, and that he may sometimes—we won’t say quarterly or
half-yearly, for that would be requiring too much of you—but
sometimes—go there to pay his rent? And couldn’t she then ask Uncle
Pumblechook if he knew of a boy to go and play there? And couldn’t
Uncle Pumblechook, being always considerate and thoughtful for
us—though you may not think it, Joseph,” in a tone of the deepest
reproach, as if he were the most callous of nephews, “then mention this
boy, standing Prancing here”—which I solemnly declare I was not
doing—“that I have for ever been a willing slave to?”
“Good again!” cried Uncle Pumblechook. “Well put! Prettily pointed!
Good indeed! Now Joseph, you know the case.”
“No, Joseph,” said my sister, still in a reproachful manner, while Joe
apologetically drew the back of his hand across and across his nose,
“you do not yet—though you may not think it—know the case. You may
consider that you do, but you do _not_, Joseph. For you do not know
that Uncle Pumblechook, being sensible that for anything we can tell,
this boy’s fortune may be made by his going to Miss Havisham’s, has
offered to take him into town to-night in his own chaise-cart, and to
keep him to-night, and to take him with his own hands to Miss
Havisham’s to-morrow morning. And Lor-a-mussy me!” cried my sister,
casting off her bonnet in sudden desperation, “here I stand talking to
mere Mooncalfs, with Uncle Pumblechook waiting, and the mare catching
cold at the door, and the boy grimed with crock and dirt from the hair
of his head to the sole of his foot!”
With that, she pounced upon me, like an eagle on a lamb, and my face
was squeezed into wooden bowls in sinks, and my head was put under taps
of water-butts, and I was soaped, and kneaded, and towelled, and
thumped, and harrowed, and rasped, until I really was quite beside
myself. (I may here remark that I suppose myself to be better
acquainted than any living authority, with the ridgy effect of a
wedding-ring, passing unsympathetically over the human countenance.)
When my ablutions were completed, I was put into clean linen of the
stiffest character, like a young penitent into sackcloth, and was
trussed up in my tightest and fearfullest suit. I was then delivered
over to Mr. Pumblechook, who formally received me as if he were the
Sheriff, and who let off upon me the speech that I knew he had been
dying to make all along: “Boy, be forever grateful to all friends, but
especially unto them which brought you up by hand!”
“Good-bye, Joe!”
“God bless you, Pip, old chap!”
I had never parted from him before, and what with my feelings and what
with soapsuds, I could at first see no stars from the chaise-cart. But
they twinkled out one by one, without throwing any light on the
questions why on earth I was going to play at Miss Havisham’s, and what
on earth I was expected to play at.