Chapter 22

The pale young gentleman and I stood contemplating one another in Barnard’s Inn, until we both burst out laughing.

“Well!” said the pale young gentleman, reaching out his hand good-humoredly, “it’s all over now, I hope you’ll forgive me.”

I derived from this speech that Mr. Herbert Pocket^[102] (for Herbert was the pale young gentleman’s name) did not remember anything.

“Miss Havisham had sent for me, to see if she could take a fancy to me. But she couldn’t – she didn’t.”

I thought it polite to remark that I was surprised to hear that.

“Bad taste,” said Herbert, laughing, “but a fact. Yes, she had sent for me on a trial visit, and if I had come out of it successfully, I suppose I should have been provided for; perhaps I should have been engaged to Estella.”

“How did you bear your disappointment?” I asked.

“Pooh!” said he, “I didn’t care much for it. She’s a Tartar.^[103]”

“Miss Havisham?”

“I don’t say no to that, but I meant Estella. That girl’s hard and haughty and capricious to the last degree, and has been brought up by Miss Havisham to wreak revenge on all the male sex.^[104]”

“What relation is she to Miss Havisham?”

“None,” said he. “Only adopted.”

“Why should she wreak revenge on all the male sex? What revenge?”

“Lord, Mr. Pip!” said he. “Don’t you know?”

“No,” said I.

“Dear me! It’s quite a story, and shall be saved till dinner-time. And now let me take the liberty of asking you a question. How did you come there, that day?”

I told him, and he was attentive until I had finished, and then burst out laughing again.

“Mr. Jaggers is your guardian, I understand?” he went on.

“Yes.”

“You know he is Miss Havisham’s man of business and solicitor, and has her confidence when nobody else has?”

I answered with a constraint, that I had seen Mr. Jaggers in Miss Havisham’s house on the very day of our combat, but never at any other time.

“He was so obliging^[105] as to suggest my father for your tutor, and he called on my father to propose it. Of course he knew about my father from his connection with Miss Havisham. My father is Miss Havisham’s cousin.”

Herbert Pocket was still a pale young gentleman. He had not a handsome face, but it was better than handsome: being extremely amiable and cheerful.

As he was so communicative, I told him my small story, and stressed on my being forbidden to inquire who my benefactor was. I further mentioned that as I had been brought up a blacksmith in a country place, and knew very little of the ways of politeness, I would take it as a great kindness in him if he would give me a hint whenever he saw going wrong.

“With pleasure,” said he, “Will you do me the favour to begin at once to call me by my Christian name, Herbert?”

I thanked him and said I would. I informed him in exchange that my Christian name was Philip.

“No,” said he, smiling, “Would you mind Handel^[106] for a familiar name? There’s a charming piece of music by Handel, called the Harmonious Blacksmith.^[107]”

“I should like it very much.”

“Then, my dear Handel,” said he, turning round as the door opened, “here is the dinner!”

It was a nice little dinner. Everything made the feast delightful. We had made some progress in the dinner, when I reminded Herbert of his promise to tell me about Miss Havisham.

“True,” he replied. “ Let me introduce the topic, Handel, by mentioning that in London it is not the custom to put the knife in the mouth – for fear of accidents – and that while the fork is reserved for that use. Also, the spoon is not generally used over-hand, but under.^[108]”

He offered these friendly suggestions in such a lively way, that we both laughed and I scarcely blushed.

“Now,” he pursued, “concerning Miss Havisham. Miss Havisham, you must know, was a spoilt child. Her mother died when she was a baby, and her father denied her nothing.^[109] Her father was a country gentleman down in your part of the world, and was a brewer. Well! Mr. Havisham was very rich and very proud. So was his daughter.”

“Miss Havisham was an only child?” I hazarded.

“Stop a moment, I am coming to that. No, she was not an only child; she had a half-brother.^[110] Her father privately married again – his cook, I rather think.”

“I thought he was proud,” said I.

“My good Handel, so he was. He married his second wife privately, because he was proud, and in course of time she died. When she was dead, I apprehend he first told his daughter what he had done, and then the son became a part of the family, residing in the house you are acquainted with. As the son grew a young man, he turned out riotous, extravagant – altogether bad. At last his father disinherited him; but he softened when he was dying, and gave him something, though less than to Miss Havisham. Miss Havisham was now an heiress.^[111] Her half-brother had debts. There were stronger differences between him and her than there had been between him and his father. Now, I come to the cruel part of the story. There appeared a certain man, who made love to Miss Havisham. I never saw him (for this happened five-and-twenty years ago, before you and I were, Handel), but I have heard my father mention that he was a showy man.^[112] Well! This man pursued Miss Havisham closely. And she passionately loved him. There is no doubt that she perfectly idolized him. Your guardian was not at that time in Miss Havisham’s counsels, and she was too haughty and too much in love to be advised by any one. Her relations were poor, with the exception of my father; he was poor enough, but not jealous. The only independent one among them, he warned her that she was doing too much for this man. She took the first opportunity of angrily ordering my father out of the house, in his presence, and my father has never seen her since.”

I thought of her having said, “Matthew will come and see me at last when I am laid dead upon that table;” and I asked Herbert whether his father was so inveterate against her?

“It’s not that,” said he, “To return to the man and make an end of him. The marriage day was fixed, the wedding dresses were bought, the wedding tour was planned out, the wedding guests were invited. The day came, but not the bridegroom. He wrote her a letter – ”

“Which she received,” I struck in, “when she was dressing for her marriage? At twenty minutes to nine?”

“At the hour and minute,” said Herbert, nodding, “at which she afterwards stopped all the clocks.”

“Is that all the story?” I asked.

“All I know of it. But I have forgotten one thing. It has been supposed that the man to whom she gave her misplaced confidence acted throughout in concert^[113] with her half-brother; that it was a conspiracy between them; and that they shared the profits.”

“I wonder he didn’t marry her and get all the property,” said I.

“He may have been married already,” said Herbert. “But I don’t know that.”

“What became of the two men?” I asked, after considering the subject.

“They fell into deeper shame and degradation – if there can be deeper – and ruin.”

“Are they alive now?”

“I don’t know.”

“You said just now that Estella was not related to Miss Havisham, but adopted. When adopted?”

Herbert shrugged his shoulders. “There has always been an Estella, since I have heard of a Miss Havisham. I know no more. And now, Handel, all that I know about Miss Havisham, you know.”

“And all that I know,” I retorted, “you know.”

On the Monday morning at a quarter before nine, Herbert went to the counting-house. He was to come away in an hour or two to attend me to Hammersmith, and I was to wait about for him. We went back to Barnard’s Inn and got my little bag, and then took coach for Hammersmith. We arrived there at two or three o’clock in the afternoon, and had very little way to walk to Mr. Pocket’s house. Lifting the latch of a gate, we passed direct into a little garden overlooking the river, where Mr. Pocket’s children were playing about.

Mrs. Pocket was sitting on a garden chair under a tree, reading, with her legs upon another garden chair; and Mrs. Pocket’s two nurse-maids were looking about them while the children played. “Mamma,” said Herbert, “this is young Mr. Pip.”

Chapter 23

Mr. Pocket said he was glad to see me, and he hoped I was not sorry to see him. He was a young-looking man, in spite of his very gray hair, and his manner seemed quite natural. When he had talked with me a little, he said to Mrs. Pocket, “Belinda,^[114] I hope you have welcomed Mr. Pip?^[115]” And she looked up from her book, and said, “Yes.”

I found out within a few hours, that Mrs. Pocket was the only daughter of a certain gentleman. The young lady had grown up highly ornamental, but perfectly helpless and useless. I learnt, and chiefly from Herbert, that Mr. Pocket had been educated at Harrow^[116] and at Cambridge;^[117] and he had had the happiness of marrying Mrs. Pocket very early in life.

After dinner the children were introduced. There were four little girls, and two little boys. One of the little girls have prematurely taken upon herself some charge of the others.

I looked awkwardly at the tablecloth while this was going on. A pause succeeded. But the time was going on, and soon the evening came.

There was a sofa where Mr. Pocket stood, and he dropped upon it in the attitude of the Dying Gladiator.^[118] Still in that attitude he said, with a hollow voice, “Good night, Mr. Pip.” So I decided to go to bed and leave him.

Chapter 24

After two or three days, when I had established myself in my room, Mr. Pocket and I had a long talk together. He knew more of my intended career than I knew myself.

He advised my attending certain places in London. Through his way of saying this, and much more to similar purpose, he placed himself on confidential terms with me in an admirable manner.

I thought if I could retain my bedroom in Barnard’s Inn, my life would be agreeably varied. So I went off to Little Britain and expressed my wish to Mr. Jaggers.

“If I could buy the furniture now hired for me,” said I, “and one or two other little things, I should be quite at home there.”

“Go it!^[119]” said Mr. Jaggers, with a short laugh. “Well! How much do you want?”

I said I didn’t know how much.

“Come!” retorted Mr. Jaggers. “How much? Fifty pounds?”

“O, not nearly so much.”

“Five pounds?” said Mr. Jaggers.

This was such a great fall, that I said in discomfiture, “O, more than that.”

“More than that, eh!” retorted Mr. Jaggers, lying in wait for me, with his hands in his pockets, his head on one side, and his eyes on the wall behind me; “how much more?”

“It is so difficult to fix a sum,” said I, hesitating.

“Come!” said Mr. Jaggers. “Twice five; will that do? Three times five; will that do? Four times five; will that do?”

“Twenty pounds, of course,” said I, smiling.

“Wemmick!” said Mr. Jaggers, opening his office door. “Take Mr. Pip’s written order, and pay him twenty pounds.”

Mr. Jaggers never laughed. As he happened to go out now, and as Wemmick was brisk and talkative, I said to Wemmick that I hardly knew what to make of Mr. Jaggers’s manner.

“Tell him that, and he’ll take it as a compliment,” answered Wemmick. “It’s not personal; it’s professional: only professional.”

Wemmick was at his desk, lunching – and crunching – on a dry hard biscuit; pieces of which he threw from time to time into his mouth, as if he were posting them.

“Always seems to me,” said Wemmick, “as if he had set a man-trap and was watching it. Suddenly – click – you’re caught!”

I said I supposed he was very skilful?

“Deep,” said Wemmick, “as Australia. If there was anything deeper,” added Wemmick, bringing his pen to paper, “he’d be it.”

Then I asked if there were many clerks? to which he replied —

“We don’t run much into clerks,^[120] because there’s only one Jaggers. There are only four of us. Would you like to see them? You are one of us, as I may say.”

I accepted the offer. When Mr. Wemmick had paid me my money from a cash-box in a safe, the key of which safe he kept somewhere down his back, we went up stairs. The house was dark and shabby. In the front first floor, a clerk who looked something between a publican and a rat-catcher^[121] – a large pale, puffed, swollen man – was attentively engaged with three or four people of shabby appearance. In the room over that, a little flabby terrier of a clerk with dangling hair was similarly engaged with a man with weak eyes. In a back room, a high-shouldered man,^[122] who was dressed in old black clothes, was stooping over his work of making fair copies of the notes of the other two gentlemen, for Mr. Jaggers’s own use.

This was all the establishment. When we went down stairs again, Wemmick led me into my guardian’s room, and said, “This you’ve seen already.”

Then he went on to say, in a friendly manner:

“If at any odd time when you have nothing better to do, you wouldn’t mind coming over to see me at Walworth,^[123] I could offer you a bed, and I should consider it an honor. I have not much to show you; but such two or three curiosities as I have got you might like to look over; and I am fond of^[124] a bit of garden and a summer-house.”

I said I should be delighted to accept his invitation.

“Thank you,” said he. “Have you dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Well,” said Wemmick, “he’ll give you wine, and good wine. I’ll give you punch, and not bad punch. And now I’ll tell you something. When you go to dine with Mr. Jaggers, look at his housekeeper.”

“Shall I see something very uncommon?”

“Well,” said Wemmick, “you’ll see a wild beast tamed.”

I told him I would do so, with all the interest and curiosity that his preparation awakened.

Chapter 25

When I had been in Mr. Pocket’s family a month or two, Mr. and Mrs. Camilla^[125] turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocket’s sister. Georgiana, whom I had seen at Miss Havisham’s on the same occasion, also turned up. She was a cousin – an indigestive single woman. These people hated me with the hatred of disappointment. Towards Mr. Pocket they showed the complacent forbearance.

These were the surroundings among which I settled down, and applied myself to my education. I soon began to spend an amount of money that within a few short months I should have thought almost fabulous; but I stuck to my books. There was no other merit in this, than my having sense enough to feel my deficiencies.

I had not seen Mr. Wemmick for some weeks, when I thought I would write him a note and propose to go home with him on a certain evening. He replied that it would give him much pleasure, and that he would expect me at the office at six o’clock. Thither I went, and there I found him, putting the key of his safe down his back as the clock struck.

“Did you think of walking down to Walworth?” said he.

“Certainly,” said I, “if you approve.”

Wemmick’s house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted.

“My own doing,” said Wemmick. “Looks pretty; doesn’t it?”

I highly commended it, I think it was the smallest house I ever saw; with the queerest gothic windows,^[126] and a gothic door almost too small to get in at.

“That’s a real flagstaff, you see,” said Wemmick, “and on Sundays I run up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this bridge, I hoist it.”

The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and two deep. But it was very pleasant to see the pride with which he hoisted it up; smiling as he did so, and not merely mechanically.

“At nine o’clock every night, Greenwich time,^[127]” said Wemmick, “the gun fires. There it is, you see! Then, at the back, out of sight, there’s a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits.”

Then, he conducted me to a bower; and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth. Our punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower was raised.

“I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and my own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades,^[128]” said Wemmick, in acknowledging my compliments. “Well; it’s a good thing, you know. It pleases the Aged. You wouldn’t mind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you?”

I expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the castle. There we found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat: clean, cheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but deaf.

“Well aged parent,” said Wemmick, shaking hands with him in a cordial way, “how are you?”

“All right, John; all right!” replied the old man.

“Here’s Mr. Pip, aged parent,” said Wemmick, “and I wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that’s what he likes. Nod away at him, if you please.”

“This is a fine place of my son’s, sir,” cried the old man, while I nodded as hard as I possibly could.

“You’re as proud of it; aren’t you, Aged?” said Wemmick, contemplating the old man, with his hard face really softened; “there’s a nod for you;” giving him a tremendous one; “there’s another for you;” giving him a still more tremendous one; “you like that, don’t you? If you’re not tired, Mr. Pip, will you nod away at him again? You can’t think how it pleases him.”

I nodded away at him several more, and he was in great spirits.^[129] We left him bestirring himself to feed the fowls, and we sat down. Wemmick told me, as he smoked a pipe, that it had taken him many years to bring the property up to its present condition.

“Is it your own, Mr. Wemmick?”

“O yes,” said Wemmick, “I have got hold of it!”

“Is it indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it?”

“Never seen it,” said Wemmick. “Never heard of it. Never seen the Aged. Never heard of him. No; the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If it’s not in any way disagreeable to you, you’ll oblige me by doing the same. I don’t wish it spoken about.”

Before supper Wemmick showed me his collection of curiosities. They were mostly of a felonious character: the pen with which a celebrated forgery had been committed, a razor or two, some locks of hair, and several manuscript confessions written under condemnation.

There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after the Aged in the day. When she had laid the supper-cloth, the bridge was lowered, and she went away for the night. The supper was excellent; and I was heartily pleased with my whole entertainment.

Wemmick was up early in the morning, and I am afraid I heard him cleaning my boots. After that, he fell to gardening, and I saw him from my gothic window pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at him in a most devoted manner. Our breakfast was as good as the supper, and at half-past eight precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees,^[130] Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along. At last, when we got to his place of business and he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he looked quite different.