“I am ashamed to say it,” I returned, “and yet it’s no worse to say it than to think it.You call me a lucky fellow. Of course, I am. I was a blacksmith’s boy but yesterday; I am—what shall I say I am—to-day?”
“Say a good fellow, if you want a phrase,” returned Herbert, smiling,and clapping his hand on the back of mine—“a good fellow, with impetuosity and hesitation,boldness and diffidence, action and dreaming, curiously mixed in him.”
I stopped for a moment to consider whether there really was this mixture in my character.On the whole, I by no means recognised the analysis, but thought it not worth disputing.
“When I ask what I am to call myself to-day, Herbert,” I went on,“I suggest what I have in my thoughts. You say I am lucky.I know I have done nothing to raise myself in life, and that Fortune alone has raised me;that is being very lucky. And yet, when I think of Estella—”
(“And when don’t you, you know?” Herbert threw in, with his eyes on the fire; which I thought kind and sympathetic of him.)
“—Then, my dear Herbert, I cannot tell you how dependent and uncertain I feel,and how exposed to hundreds of chances. Avoiding forbidden ground, as you did just now,I may still say that on the constancy of one person (naming no person) all my expectations depend.And at the best, how indefinite and unsatisfactory, only to know so vaguely what they are!” In saying this, I relieved my mind of what had always been there, more or less, though no doubt most since yesterday.
“Now, Handel,” Herbert replied, in his gay, hopeful way,“it seems to me that in the despondency of the tender passion,we are looking into our gift-horse’s mouth with a magnifying-glass. Likewise, it seems to me that,concentrating our attention on the examination,we altogether overlook one of the best points of the animal. Didn’t you tell me that your guardian,Mr. Jaggers, told you in the beginning, that you were not endowed with expectations only?And even if he had not told you so,—though that is a very large If, I grant,—could you believe that of all men in London, Mr.Jaggers is the man to hold his present relations towards you unless he were sure of his ground?”
I said I could not deny that this was a strong point. I said it (people often do so,in such cases) like a rather reluctant concession to truth and justice;—as if I wanted to deny it!
“I should think it _was_ a strong point,” said Herbert,“and I should think you would be puzzled to imagine a stronger; as to the rest,you must bide your guardian’s time, and he must bide his client’s time.You’ll be one-and-twenty before you know where you are,and then perhaps you’ll get some further enlightenment. At all events, you’ll be nearer getting it, for it must come at last.”
“What a hopeful disposition you have!” said I, gratefully admiring his cheery ways.
“I ought to have,” said Herbert, “for I have not much else. I must acknowledge, by the by,that the good sense of what I have just said is not my own, but my father’s.The only remark I ever heard him make on your story, was the final one,“The thing is settled and done, or Mr. Jaggers would not be in it.” And now before I say anything more about my father, or my father’s son,and repay confidence with confidence, I want to make myself seriously disagreeable to you for a moment, —positively repulsive.”
“You won’t succeed,” said I.
“O yes I shall!” said he. “One, two, three, and now I am in for it. Handel, my good fellow;”—though he spoke in this light tone, he was very much in earnest,—“I have been thinking since we have been talking with our feet on this fender,that Estella surely cannot be a condition of your inheritance,if she was never referred to by your guardian.Am I right in so understanding what you have told me, as that he never referred to her, directly or indirectly, in any way?Never even hinted, for instance, that your patron might have views as to your marriage ultimately?”
“Never.”
“Now, Handel, I am quite free from the flavour of sour grapes, upon my soul and honour!Not being bound to her, can you not detach yourself from her?—I told you I should be disagreeable.”
I turned my head aside, for, with a rush and a sweep,like the old marsh winds coming up from the sea,a feeling like that which had subdued me on the morning when I left the forge,when the mists were solemnly rising, and when I laid my hand upon the village finger-post,smote upon my heart again. There was silence between us for a little while.
“Yes; but my dear Handel,” Herbert went on, as if we had been talking, instead of silent,“its having been so strongly rooted in the breast of a boy whom nature and circumstances made so romantic,renders it very serious. Think of her bringing-up, and think of Miss Havisham.Think of what she is herself (now I am repulsive and you abominate me). This may lead to miserable things.”
“I know it, Herbert,” said I, with my head still turned away, “but I can’t help it.”
“You can’t detach yourself?”
“No. Impossible!”
“You can’t try, Handel?”
“No. Impossible!”
“Well!” said Herbert, getting up with a lively shake as if he had been asleep, and stirring the fire,“now I’ll endeavour to make myself agreeable again!”
So he went round the room and shook the curtains out, put the chairs in their places,tidied the books and so forth that were lying about, looked into the hall,peeped into the letter-box, shut the door, and came back to his chair by the fire:where he sat down, nursing his left leg in both arms.
“I was going to say a word or two, Handel, concerning my father and my father’s son.I am afraid it is scarcely necessary for my father’s son to remark that my father’s establishment is not particularly brilliant in its housekeeping. ”
“There is always plenty, Herbert,” said I, to say something encouraging.
“O yes!and so the dustman says, I believe, with the strongest approval,and so does the marine-store shop in the back street. Gravely, Handel,for the subject is grave enough, you know how it is as well as I do.I suppose there was a time once when my father had not given matters up; but if ever there was,the time is gone. May I ask you if you have ever had an opportunity of remarking,down in your part of the country, that the children of not exactly suitable marriages are always most particularly anxious to be married?”
This was such a singular question, that I asked him in return, “Is it so?”
“I don’t know,” said Herbert, “that’s what I want to know. Because it is decidedly the case with us.My poor sister Charlotte, who was next me and died before she was fourteen, was a striking example.Little Jane is the same. In her desire to be matrimonially established,you might suppose her to have passed her short existence in the perpetual contemplation of domestic bliss.Little Alick in a frock has already made arrangements for his union with a suitable young person at Kew.And indeed, I think we are all engaged, except the baby.”
“Then you are?” said I.
“I am,” said Herbert; “but it’s a secret.”
I assured him of my keeping the secret, and begged to be favoured with further particulars.He had spoken so sensibly and feelingly of my weakness that I wanted to know something about his strength.
“May I ask the name?” I said.
“Name of Clara,” said Herbert.
“Live in London?”
“Yes, perhaps I ought to mention,” said Herbert, who had become curiously crestfallen and meek,since we entered on the interesting theme,“that she is rather below my mother’s nonsensical family notions.Her father had to do with the victualling of passenger-ships. I think he was a species of purser.”
“What is he now?” said I.
“He’s an invalid now,” replied Herbert.
“Living on—?”
“On the first floor,” said Herbert. Which was not at all what I meant,for I had intended my question to apply to his means. “I have never seen him,for he has always kept his room overhead, since I have known Clara.But I have heard him constantly. He makes tremendous rows,—roars,and pegs at the floor with some frightful instrument.” In looking at me and then laughing heartily,Herbert for the time recovered his usual lively manner.
“Don’t you expect to see him?” said I.
“O yes, I constantly expect to see him,” returned Herbert, “because I never hear him,without expecting him to come tumbling through the ceiling.But I don’t know how long the rafters may hold.”
When he had once more laughed heartily, he became meek again,and told me that the moment he began to realise Capital,it was his intention to marry this young lady. He added as a self-evident proposition,engendering low spirits, “But you _can’t_ marry, you know, while you’re looking about you.”
As we contemplated the fire, and as I thought what a difficult vision to realise this same Capital sometimes was,I put my hands in my pockets. A folded piece of paper in one of them attracting my attention,I opened it and found it to be the play-bill I had received from Joe,relative to the celebrated provincial amateur of Roscian renown. “And bless my heart,” I involuntarily added aloud, “it’s to-night!”
This changed the subject in an instant, and made us hurriedly resolve to go to the play. So,when I had pledged myself to comfort and abet Herbert in the affair of his heart by all practicable and impracticable means,and when Herbert had told me that his affianced already knew me by reputation and that I should be presented to her,and when we had warmly shaken hands upon our mutual confidence, we blew out our candles,made up our fire, locked our door, and issued forth in quest of Mr. Wopsle and Denmark.
Chapter XXXI.
On our arrival in Denmark, we found the king and queen of that country elevated in two arm-chairs on a kitchen-table,holding a Court. The whole of the Danish nobility were in attendance;consisting of a noble boy in the wash-leather boots of a gigantic ancestor,a venerable Peer with a dirty face who seemed to have risen from the people late in life,and the Danish chivalry with a comb in its hair and a pair of white silk legs,and presenting on the whole a feminine appearance. My gifted townsman stood gloomily apart,with folded arms, and I could have wished that his curls and forehead had been more probable.
Several curious little circumstances transpired as the action proceeded.The late king of the country not only appeared to have been troubled with a cough at the time of his decease,but to have taken it with him to the tomb, and to have brought it back.The royal phantom also carried a ghostly manuscript round its truncheon,to which it had the appearance of occasionally referring, and that too,with an air of anxiety and a tendency to lose the place of reference which were suggestive of a state of mortality.It was this, I conceive, which led to the Shade’s being advised by the gallery to “turn over!”—a recommendation which it took extremely ill. It was likewise to be noted of this majestic spirit,that whereas it always appeared with an air of having been out a long time and walked an immense distance,it perceptibly came from a closely contiguous wall.This occasioned its terrors to be received derisively. The Queen of Denmark, a very buxom lady,though no doubt historically brazen, was considered by the public to have too much brass about her;her chin being attached to her diadem by a broad band of that metal (as if she had a gorgeous toothache),her waist being encircled by another, and each of her arms by another,so that she was openly mentioned as “the kettle-drum.” The noble boy in the ancestral boots was inconsistent, representing himself,as it were in one breath, as an able seaman, a strolling actor, a grave-digger, a clergyman,and a person of the utmost importance at a Court fencing-match,on the authority of whose practised eye and nice discrimination the finest strokes were judged.This gradually led to a want of toleration for him, and even—on his being detected in holy orders,and declining to perform the funeral service—to the general indignation taking the form of nuts.Lastly, Ophelia was a prey to such slow musical madness, that when, in course of time,she had taken off her white muslin scarf, folded it up, and buried it,a sulky man who had been long cooling his impatient nose against an iron bar in the front row of the gallery,growled, “Now the baby’s put to bed let’s have supper!” Which, to say the least of it, was out of keeping.
Upon my unfortunate townsman all these incidents accumulated with playful effect.Whenever that undecided Prince had to ask a question or state a doubt,the public helped him out with it. As for example;on the question whether ’twas nobler in the mind to suffer, some roared yes, and some no,and some inclining to both opinions said “Toss up for it;” and quite a Debating Society arose.When he asked what should such fellows as he do crawling between earth and heaven,he was encouraged with loud cries of “Hear, hear!” When he appeared with his stocking disordered (its disorder expressed, according to usage,by one very neat fold in the top, which I suppose to be always got up with a flat iron),a conversation took place in the gallery respecting the paleness of his leg,and whether it was occasioned by the turn the ghost had given him. On his taking the recorders,—very like a little black flute that had just been played in the orchestra and handed out at the door,—he was called upon unanimously for Rule Britannia.When he recommended the player not to saw the air thus, the sulky man said, “And don’t _you_ do it,neither; you’re a deal worse than _him_!” And I grieve to add that peals of laughter greeted Mr. Wopsle on every one of these occasions.
But his greatest trials were in the churchyard, which had the appearance of a primeval forest,with a kind of small ecclesiastical wash-house on one side, and a turnpike gate on the other. Mr.Wopsle in a comprehensive black cloak, being descried entering at the turnpike,the gravedigger was admonished in a friendly way, “Look out!Here’s the undertaker a coming, to see how you’re a getting on with your work!” I believe it is well known in a constitutional country that Mr.Wopsle could not possibly have returned the skull, after moralizing over it,without dusting his fingers on a white napkin taken from his breast;but even that innocent and indispensable action did not pass without the comment, “Wai-ter!” The arrival of the body for interment (in an empty black box with the lid tumbling open),was the signal for a general joy, which was much enhanced by the discovery, among the bearers,of an individual obnoxious to identification. The joy attended Mr.Wopsle through his struggle with Laertes on the brink of the orchestra and the grave,and slackened no more until he had tumbled the king off the kitchen-table,and had died by inches from the ankles upward.
We had made some pale efforts in the beginning to applaud Mr. Wopsle;but they were too hopeless to be persisted in. Therefore we had sat, feeling keenly for him,but laughing, nevertheless, from ear to ear. I laughed in spite of myself all the time,the whole thing was so droll; and yet I had a latent impression that there was something decidedly fine in Mr.Wopsle’s elocution,—not for old associations’ sake, I am afraid, but because it was very slow,very dreary, very uphill and downhill, and very unlike any way in which any man in any natural circumstances of life or death ever expressed himself about anything. When the tragedy was over, and he had been called for and hooted, I said to Herbert, “Let us go at once, or perhaps we shall meet him.”
We made all the haste we could downstairs, but we were not quick enough either.Standing at the door was a Jewish man with an unnatural heavy smear of eyebrow,who caught my eyes as we advanced, and said, when we came up with him,—
“Mr. Pip and friend?”
Identity of Mr. Pip and friend confessed.
“Mr. Waldengarver,” said the man, “would be glad to have the honour.”
“Waldengarver?” I repeated—when Herbert murmured in my ear, “Probably Wopsle.”
“Oh!” said I. “Yes. Shall we follow you?”
“A few steps, please.” When we were in a side alley, he turned and asked, “How did you think he looked?—I dressed him.”
I don’t know what he had looked like, except a funeral;with the addition of a large Danish sun or star hanging round his neck by a blue ribbon,that had given him the appearance of being insured in some extraordinary Fire Office. But I said he had looked very nice.
“When he come to the grave,” said our conductor, “he showed his cloak beautiful. But,judging from the wing, it looked to me that when he see the ghost in the queen’s apartment,he might have made more of his stockings.”
I modestly assented, and we all fell through a little dirty swing door,into a sort of hot packing-case immediately behind it. Here Mr.Wopsle was divesting himself of his Danish garments,and here there was just room for us to look at him over one another’s shoulders,by keeping the packing-case door, or lid, wide open.
“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Wopsle, “I am proud to see you. I hope, Mr. Pip,you will excuse my sending round. I had the happiness to know you in former times,and the Drama has ever had a claim which has ever been acknowledged, on the noble and the affluent. ”
Meanwhile, Mr. Waldengarver, in a frightful perspiration,was trying to get himself out of his princely sables.
“Skin the stockings off Mr. Waldengarver,” said the owner of that property, “or you’ll bust ’em.Bust ’em, and you’ll bust five-and-thirty shillings.Shakspeare never was complimented with a finer pair. Keep quiet in your chair now, and leave ’em to me.”
With that, he went upon his knees, and began to flay his victim; who,on the first stocking coming off, would certainly have fallen over backward with his chair,but for there being no room to fall anyhow.
I had been afraid until then to say a word about the play. But then, Mr.Waldengarver looked up at us complacently, and said,—
“Gentlemen, how did it seem to you, to go, in front?”
Herbert said from behind (at the same time poking me), “Capitally.” So I said “Capitally.”
“How did you like my reading of the character, gentlemen?” said Mr. Waldengarver, almost, if not quite, with patronage.
Herbert said from behind (again poking me), “Massive and concrete.” So I said boldly,as if I had originated it, and must beg to insist upon it, “Massive and concrete.”
“I am glad to have your approbation, gentlemen,” said Mr. Waldengarver, with an air of dignity,in spite of his being ground against the wall at the time, and holding on by the seat of the chair.
“But I’ll tell you one thing, Mr. Waldengarver,” said the man who was on his knees,“in which you’re out in your reading. Now mind!I don’t care who says contrairy; I tell you so.You’re out in your reading of Hamlet when you get your legs in profile.The last Hamlet as I dressed, made the same mistakes in his reading at rehearsal,till I got him to put a large red wafer on each of his shins,and then at that rehearsal (which was the last) I went in front, sir, to the back of the pit,and whenever his reading brought him into profile, I called out “I don’t see no wafers!” And at night his reading was lovely.”
Mr. Waldengarver smiled at me, as much as to say “a faithful Dependent—I overlook his folly;” and then said aloud, “My view is a little classic and thoughtful for them here;but they will improve, they will improve.”
Herbert and I said together, O, no doubt they would improve.
“Did you observe, gentlemen,” said Mr. Waldengarver,“that there was a man in the gallery who endeavoured to cast derision on the service,—I mean, the representation?”
We basely replied that we rather thought we had noticed such a man. I added, “He was drunk, no doubt.”
“O dear no, sir,” said Mr. Wopsle, “not drunk. His employer would see to that, sir.His employer would not allow him to be drunk.”
“You know his employer?” said I.
Mr. Wopsle shut his eyes, and opened them again; performing both ceremonies very slowly.“You must have observed, gentlemen,” said he, “an ignorant and a blatant ass,with a rasping throat and a countenance expressive of low malignity,who went through—I will not say sustained—the rôle (if I may use a French expression) of Claudius,King of Denmark. That is his employer, gentlemen. Such is the profession!”
Without distinctly knowing whether I should have been more sorry for Mr.Wopsle if he had been in despair, I was so sorry for him as it was,that I took the opportunity of his turning round to have his braces put on,—which jostled us out at the doorway,—to ask Herbert what he thought of having him home to supper?Herbert said he thought it would be kind to do so; therefore I invited him,and he went to Barnard’s with us, wrapped up to the eyes, and we did our best for him,and he sat until two o’clock in the morning, reviewing his success and developing his plans.I forget in detail what they were, but I have a general recollection that he was to begin with reviving the Drama,and to end with crushing it; inasmuch as his decease would leave it utterly bereft and without a chance or hope.
Miserably I went to bed after all, and miserably thought of Estella,and miserably dreamed that my expectations were all cancelled,and that I had to give my hand in marriage to Herbert’s Clara,or play Hamlet to Miss Havisham’s Ghost, before twenty thousand people, without knowing twenty words of it.
Chapter XXXII.
One day when I was busy with my books and Mr. Pocket, I received a note by the post,the mere outside of which threw me into a great flutter; for,though I had never seen the handwriting in which it was addressed, I divined whose hand it was.It had no set beginning, as Dear Mr. Pip, or Dear Pip, or Dear Sir, or Dear Anything, but ran thus: —
“I am to come to London the day after to-morrow by the midday coach.I believe it was settled you should meet me?At all events Miss Havisham has that impression, and I write in obedience to it. She sends you her regard.
“Yours, ESTELLA.”
If there had been time, I should probably have ordered several suits of clothes for this occasion;but as there was not, I was fain to be content with those I had. My appetite vanished instantly,and I knew no peace or rest until the day arrived. Not that its arrival brought me either; for,then I was worse than ever, and began haunting the coach-office in Wood Street, Cheapside,before the coach had left the Blue Boar in our town. For all that I knew this perfectly well,I still felt as if it were not safe to let the coach-office be out of my sight longer than five minutes at a time;and in this condition of unreason I had performed the first half-hour of a watch of four or five hours, when Wemmick ran against me.
“Halloa, Mr. Pip,” said he; “how do you do?I should hardly have thought this was _your_ beat.”
I explained that I was waiting to meet somebody who was coming up by coach,and I inquired after the Castle and the Aged.
“Both flourishing thankye,” said Wemmick, “and particularly the Aged. He’s in wonderful feather.He’ll be eighty-two next birthday. I have a notion of firing eighty-two times,if the neighbourhood shouldn’t complain,and that cannon of mine should prove equal to the pressure. However, this is not London talk. Where do you think I am going to?”
“To the office?” said I, for he was tending in that direction.
“Next thing to it,” returned Wemmick, “I am going to Newgate.We are in a banker’s-parcel case just at present,and I have been down the road taking a squint at the scene of action,and thereupon must have a word or two with our client.”
“Did your client commit the robbery?” I asked.
“Bless your soul and body, no,” answered Wemmick, very drily. “But he is accused of it.So might you or I be. Either of us might be accused of it, you know.”
“Only neither of us is,” I remarked.
“Yah!” said Wemmick, touching me on the breast with his forefinger; “you’re a deep one, Mr. Pip!Would you like to have a look at Newgate?Have you time to spare?”
I had so much time to spare, that the proposal came as a relief,notwithstanding its irreconcilability with my latent desire to keep my eye on the coach-office.Muttering that I would make the inquiry whether I had time to walk with him,I went into the office, and ascertained from the clerk with the nicest precision and much to the trying of his temper,the earliest moment at which the coach could be expected,—which I knew beforehand,quite as well as he. I then rejoined Mr. Wemmick, and affecting to consult my watch,and to be surprised by the information I had received, accepted his offer.
We were at Newgate in a few minutes, and we passed through the lodge where some fetters were hanging up on the bare walls among the prison rules,into the interior of the jail. At that time jails were much neglected,and the period of exaggerated reaction consequent on all public wrongdoing—and which is always its heaviest and longest punishment—was still far off.So, felons were not lodged and fed better than soldiers (to say nothing of paupers),and seldom set fire to their prisons with the excusable object of improving the flavour of their soup.It was visiting time when Wemmick took me in, and a potman was going his rounds with beer;and the prisoners, behind bars in yards, were buying beer, and talking to friends; and a frowzy,ugly, disorderly, depressing scene it was.
It struck me that Wemmick walked among the prisoners much as a gardener might walk among his plants.This was first put into my head by his seeing a shoot that had come up in the night, and saying, “What, Captain Tom?Are _you_ there?Ah, indeed!” and also, “Is that Black Bill behind the cistern?Why I didn’t look for you these two months; how do you find yourself?” Equally in his stopping at the bars and attending to anxious whisperers,—always singly,—Wemmick with his post-office in an immovable state, looked at them while in conference,as if he were taking particular notice of the advance they had made, since last observed,towards coming out in full blow at their trial.
He was highly popular, and I found that he took the familiar department of Mr. Jaggers’s business;though something of the state of Mr. Jaggers hung about him too,forbidding approach beyond certain limits.His personal recognition of each successive client was comprised in a nod,and in his settling his hat a little easier on his head with both hands,and then tightening the post-office, and putting his hands in his pockets.In one or two instances there was a difficulty respecting the raising of fees, and then Mr.Wemmick, backing as far as possible from the insufficient money produced, said, “it’s no use,my boy. I’m only a subordinate. I can’t take it. Don’t go on in that way with a subordinate.If you are unable to make up your quantum, my boy, you had better address yourself to a principal;there are plenty of principals in the profession, you know, and what is not worth the while of one,may be worth the while of another; that’s my recommendation to you, speaking as a subordinate.Don’t try on useless measures. Why should you?Now, who’s next?”
Thus, we walked through Wemmick’s greenhouse, until he turned to me and said,“Notice the man I shall shake hands with.” I should have done so, without the preparation, as he had shaken hands with no one yet.
Almost as soon as he had spoken, a portly upright man (whom I can see now,as I write) in a well-worn olive-coloured frock-coat,with a peculiar pallor overspreading the red in his complexion,and eyes that went wandering about when he tried to fix them, came up to a corner of the bars,and put his hand to his hat—which had a greasy and fatty surface like cold broth—with a half-serious and half-jocose military salute.
“Colonel, to you!” said Wemmick; “how are you, Colonel?”
“All right, Mr. Wemmick.”
“Everything was done that could be done, but the evidence was too strong for us, Colonel.”
“Yes, it was too strong, sir,—but _I_ don’t care.”
“No, no,” said Wemmick, coolly, “_you_ don’t care.” Then, turning to me,“Served His Majesty this man. Was a soldier in the line and bought his discharge.”
I said, “Indeed?” and the man’s eyes looked at me, and then looked over my head, and then looked all round me,and then he drew his hand across his lips and laughed.
“I think I shall be out of this on Monday, sir,” he said to Wemmick.
“Perhaps,” returned my friend, “but there’s no knowing.”
“I am glad to have the chance of bidding you good-bye, Mr. Wemmick,” said the man,stretching out his hand between two bars.
“Thankye,” said Wemmick, shaking hands with him. “Same to you, Colonel.”
“If what I had upon me when taken had been real, Mr. Wemmick,” said the man,unwilling to let his hand go, “I should have asked the favour of your wearing another ring—in acknowledgment of your attentions. ”
“I’ll accept the will for the deed,” said Wemmick. “By the by; you were quite a pigeon-fancier.” The man looked up at the sky. “I am told you had a remarkable breed of tumblers._Could_ you commission any friend of yours to bring me a pair, if you’ve no further use for ’em?”
“It shall be done, sir.”
“All right,” said Wemmick, “they shall be taken care of. Good-afternoon, Colonel. Good-bye!” They shook hands again, and as we walked away Wemmick said to me, “A Coiner, a very good workman.The Recorder’s report is made to-day, and he is sure to be executed on Monday. Still you see,as far as it goes, a pair of pigeons are portable property all the same.” With that,he looked back, and nodded at this dead plant,and then cast his eyes about him in walking out of the yard,as if he were considering what other pot would go best in its place.