Taking the brewery on my way back,I raised the rusty latch of a little door at the garden end of it,and walked through.I was going out at the opposite door,—not easy to open now,for the damp wood had started and swelled,and the hinges were yielding,and the threshold was encumbered with a growth of fungus,—when I turned my head to look back.A childish association revived with wonderful force in the moment of the slight action, and I fancied that I saw Miss Havisham hanging to the beam. So strong was the impression, that I stood under the beam shuddering from head to foot before I knew it was a fancy,—though to be sure I was there in an instant.
The mournfulness of the place and time,and the great terror of this illusion,though it was but momentary,caused me to feel an indescribable awe as I came out between the open wooden gates where I had once wrung my hair after Estella had wrung my heart. Passing on into the front courtyard, I hesitated whether to call the woman to let me out at the locked gate of which she had the key, or first to go upstairs and assure myself that Miss Havisham was as safe and well as I had left her. I took the latter course and went up.
I looked into the room where I had left her,and I saw her seated in the ragged chair upon the hearth close to the fire,with her back towards me.In the moment when I was withdrawing my head to go quietly away,I saw a great flaming light spring up.In the same moment I saw her running at me, shrieking,with a whirl of fire blazing all about her,and soaring at least as many feet above her head as she was high.
I had a double-caped great-coat on,and over my arm another thick coat.That I got them off, closed with her, threw her down,and got them over her;that I dragged the great cloth from the table for the same purpose,and with it dragged down the heap of rottenness in the midst,and all the ugly things that sheltered there;that we were on the ground struggling like desperate enemies,and that the closer I covered her,the more wildly she shrieked and tried to free herself,—that this occurred I knew through the result,but not through anything I felt, or thought,or knew I did. I knew nothing until I knew that we were on the floor by the great table, and that patches of tinder yet alight were floating in the smoky air, which, a moment ago, had been her faded bridal dress.
Then, I looked round and saw the disturbed beetles and spiders running away over the floor, and the servants coming in with breathless cries at the door. I still held her forcibly down with all my strength, like a prisoner who might escape; and I doubt if I even knew who she was, or why we had struggled, or that she had been in flames, or that the flames were out, until I saw the patches of tinder that had been her garments no longer alight but falling in a black shower around us.
She was insensible, and I was afraid to have her moved,or even touched. Assistance was sent for,and I held her until it came,as if I unreasonably fancied (I think I did) that,if I let her go, the fire would break out again and consume her.When I got up, on the surgeon’s coming to her with other aid,I was astonished to see that both my hands were burnt;for, I had no knowledge of it through the sense of feeling.
On examination it was pronounced that she had received serious hurts,but that they of themselves were far from hopeless;the danger lay mainly in the nervous shock.By the surgeon’s directions,her bed was carried into that room and laid upon the great table,which happened to be well suited to the dressing of her injuries.When I saw her again, an hour afterwards, she lay,indeed, where I had seen her strike her stick,and had heard her say that she would lie one day.
Though every vestige of her dress was burnt,as they told me, she still had something of her old ghastly bridal appearance;for, they had covered her to the throat with white cotton-wool,and as she lay with a white sheet loosely overlying that,the phantom air of something that had been and was changed was still upon her.
I found, on questioning the servants,that Estella was in Paris,and I got a promise from the surgeon that he would write to her by the next post. Miss Havisham’s family I took upon myself; intending to communicate with Mr. Matthew Pocket only, and leave him to do as he liked about informing the rest. This I did next day, through Herbert, as soon as I returned to town.
There was a stage, that evening,when she spoke collectedly of what had happened,though with a certain terrible vivacity.Towards midnight she began to wander in her speech;and after that it gradually set in that she said innumerable times in a low solemn voice, “What have I done!” And then, “When she first came,I meant to save her from misery like mine.” And then,“Take the pencil and write under my name, ‘I forgive her!’” She never changed the order of these three sentences,but she sometimes left out a word in one or other of them;never putting in another word,but always leaving a blank and going on to the next word.
As I could do no service there, and as I had,nearer home, that pressing reason for anxiety and fear which even her wanderings could not drive out of my mind, I decided, in the course of the night that I would return by the early morning coach, walking on a mile or so, and being taken up clear of the town. At about six o’clock of the morning, therefore, I leaned over her and touched her lips with mine, just as they said, not stopping for being touched, “Take the pencil and write under my name, ‘I forgive her.’”
Chapter L.
My hands had been dressed twice or thrice in the night,and again in the morning.My left arm was a good deal burned to the elbow, and,less severely, as high as the shoulder;it was very painful,but the flames had set in that direction,and I felt thankful it was no worse.My right hand was not so badly burnt but that I could move the fingers.It was bandaged, of course,but much less inconveniently than my left hand and arm;those I carried in a sling;and I could only wear my coat like a cloak,loose over my shoulders and fastened at the neck.My hair had been caught by the fire,but not my head or face.
When Herbert had been down to Hammersmith and seen his father,he came back to me at our chambers,and devoted the day to attending on me.He was the kindest of nurses,and at stated times took off the bandages,and steeped them in the cooling liquid that was kept ready,and put them on again,with a patient tenderness that I was deeply grateful for.
At first, as I lay quiet on the sofa,I found it painfully difficult, I might say impossible,to get rid of the impression of the glare of the flames,their hurry and noise, and the fierce burning smell.If I dozed for a minute,I was awakened by Miss Havisham’s cries,and by her running at me with all that height of fire above her head.This pain of the mind was much harder to strive against than any bodily pain I suffered; and Herbert, seeing that, did his utmost to hold my attention engaged.
Neither of us spoke of the boat,but we both thought of it.That was made apparent by our avoidance of the subject,and by our agreeing—without agreement—to make my recovery of the use of my hands a question of so many hours, not of so many weeks.
My first question when I saw Herbert had been of course,whether all was well down the river?As he replied in the affirmative,with perfect confidence and cheerfulness,we did not resume the subject until the day was wearing away.But then, as Herbert changed the bandages,more by the light of the fire than by the outer light,he went back to it spontaneously.
“I sat with Provis last night, Handel, two good hours.”
“Where was Clara?”