My mind grew very uneasy on the subject of the pale young gentleman. The
more I thought of the fight, and recalled the pale young gentleman on his back
in various stages of puffy and incrimsoned countenance, the more certain it
appeared that something would be done to me. I felt that the pale young
gentleman’s blood was on my head, and that the Law would avenge it. Without
having any definite idea of the penalties I had incurred, it was clear to me
that village boys could not go stalking about the country, ravaging the houses
of gentlefolks and pitching into the studious youth of England, without laying
themselves open to severe punishment. For some days, I even kept close at home,
and looked out at the kitchen door with the greatest caution and trepidation
before going on an errand, lest the officers of the County Jail should pounce
upon me. The pale young gentleman’s nose had stained my trousers, and I tried to
wash out that evidence of my guilt in the dead of night. I had cut my knuckles
against the pale young gentleman’s teeth, and I twisted my imagination into a
thousand tangles, as I devised incredible ways of accounting for that damnatory
circumstance when I should be haled before the Judges.
When the day came round for my return to the scene of the deed of violence, my
terrors reached their height. Whether myrmidons of Justice, specially sent down
from London, would be lying in ambush behind the gate;—whether Miss Havisham,
preferring to take personal vengeance for an outrage done to her house, might
rise in those grave-clothes of hers, draw a pistol, and shoot me dead:—whether
suborned boys—a numerous band of mercenaries—might be engaged to fall upon me in
the brewery, and cuff me until I was no more;—it was high testimony to my
confidence in the spirit of the pale young gentleman, that I never imagined him accessory
to these retaliations; they always came into my mind as the acts of injudicious
relatives of his, goaded on by the state of his visage and an indignant sympathy
with the family features.
However, go to Miss Havisham’s I must, and go I did. And behold! nothing came of
the late struggle. It was not alluded to in any way, and no pale young gentleman
was to be discovered on the premises. I found the same gate open, and I explored
the garden, and even looked in at the windows of the detached house; but my view
was suddenly stopped by the closed shutters within, and all was lifeless. Only
in the corner where the combat had taken place could I detect any evidence of
the young gentleman’s existence. There were traces of his gore in that spot, and
I covered them with garden-mould from the eye of man.
On the broad landing between Miss Havisham’s own room and that other room in
which the long table was laid out, I saw a garden-chair,—a light chair on
wheels, that you pushed from behind. It had been placed there since my last
visit, and I entered, that same day, on a regular occupation of pushing Miss
Havisham in this chair (when she was tired of walking with her hand upon my
shoulder) round her own room, and across the landing, and round the other room.
Over and over and over again, we would make these journeys, and sometimes they
would last as long as three hours at a stretch. I insensibly fall into a general
mention of these journeys as numerous, because it was at once settled that I
should return every alternate day at noon for these purposes, and because I am
now going to sum up a period of at least eight or ten months.
As we began to be more used to one another, Miss Havisham talked more to me, and
asked me such questions as what had I learnt and what was I going to be? I told
her I was going to be apprenticed to Joe, I believed; and I enlarged upon my
knowing nothing and wanting to know everything, in the hope that she might offer
some help towards that desirable end. But she did not; on the contrary, she
seemed to prefer my being ignorant. Neither did she ever give me any money,—or
anything but my daily dinner,—nor ever stipulate that I should be paid for my
services.
Estella was always about, and always let me in and out, but never told me I
might kiss her again. Sometimes, she would coldly tolerate me; sometimes, she
would condescend to me; sometimes, she would be quite familiar with me;
sometimes, she would tell me energetically that she hated me. Miss Havisham
would often ask me in a whisper, or when we were alone, "Does she grow prettier
and prettier, Pip?" And when I said yes (for indeed she did), would seem to
enjoy it greedily. Also, when we played at cards Miss Havisham would look on,
with a miserly relish of Estella’s moods, whatever they were. And sometimes,
when her moods were so many and so contradictory of one another that I was
puzzled what to say or do, Miss Havisham would embrace her with lavish fondness,
murmuring something in her ear that sounded like "Break their hearts my pride
and hope, break their hearts and have no mercy!"
There was a song Joe used to hum fragments of at the forge, of which the burden
was Old Clem. This was not a very ceremonious way of rendering homage to a
patron saint, but I believe Old Clem stood in that relation towards smiths. It
was a song that imitated the measure of beating upon iron, and was a mere
lyrical excuse for the introduction of Old Clem’s respected name. Thus, you were
to hammer boys round—Old Clem! With a thump and a sound—Old Clem! Beat it out,
beat it out—Old Clem! With a clink for the stout—Old Clem! Blow the fire, blow
the fire—Old Clem! Roaring dryer, soaring higher—Old Clem! One day soon after
the appearance of the chair, Miss Havisham suddenly saying to me, with the
impatient movement of her fingers, "There, there, there! Sing!" I was surprised
into crooning this ditty as I pushed her over the floor. It happened so to catch
her fancy that she took it up in a low brooding voice as if she were singing in
her sleep. After that, it became customary with us to have it as we moved about,
and Estella would often join in; though the whole strain was so subdued, even
when there were three of us, that it made less noise in the grim old house than
the lightest breath of wind.
What could I become with these surroundings? How could my character fail to be
influenced by them? Is it to be wondered at if my thoughts were dazed, as my
eyes were, when I came out into the natural light from the misty yellow rooms?
Perhaps I might have told Joe about the pale young gentleman, if I had not
previously been betrayed into those enormous inventions to which I had
confessed. Under the circumstances, I felt that Joe could hardly fail to discern
in the pale young gentleman, an appropriate passenger to be put into the black
velvet coach; therefore, I said nothing of him. Besides, that shrinking from
having Miss Havisham and Estella discussed, which had come upon me in the
beginning, grew much more potent as time went on. I reposed complete confidence
in no one but Biddy; but I told poor Biddy everything. Why it came natural to me
to do so, and why Biddy had a deep concern in everything I told her, I did not
know then, though I think I know now.
Meanwhile, councils went on in the kitchen at home, fraught with almost
insupportable aggravation to my exasperated spirit. That ass, Pumblechook, used
often to come over of a night for the purpose of discussing my prospects with my
sister; and I really do believe (to this hour with less penitence than I ought
to feel), that if these hands could have taken a linchpin out of his
chaise-cart, they would have done it. The miserable man was a man of that
confined stolidity of mind, that he could not discuss my prospects without
having me before him,—as it were, to operate upon,—and he would drag me up from
my stool (usually by the collar) where I was quiet in a corner, and, putting me
before the fire as if I were going to be cooked, would begin by saying, "Now,
Mum, here is this boy! Here is this boy which you brought up by hand. Hold up
your head, boy, and be forever grateful unto them which so did do. Now, Mum,
with respections to this boy!" And then he would rumple my hair the wrong
way,—which from my earliest remembrance, as already hinted, I have in my soul
denied the right of any fellow-creature to do,—and would hold me before him by
the sleeve,—a spectacle of imbecility only to be equalled by himself.
Then, he and my sister would pair off in such nonsensical speculations about
Miss Havisham, and about what she would do with me and for me, that I used to
want—quite painfully—to burst into spiteful tears, fly at Pumblechook, and
pummel him all over. In these dialogues, my sister spoke to me as if she were
morally wrenching one of my teeth out at every reference; while Pumblechook
himself, self-constituted my patron, would sit supervising me with a
depreciatory eye, like the architect of my fortunes who thought himself engaged
on a very unremunerative job.
In these discussions, Joe bore no part. But he was often talked at, while they
were in progress, by reason of Mrs. Joe’s perceiving that he was not favorable
to my being taken from the forge. I was fully old enough now to be apprenticed
to Joe; and when Joe sat with the poker on his knees thoughtfully raking out the
ashes between the lower bars, my sister would so distinctly construe that
innocent action into opposition on his part, that she would dive at him, take
the poker out of his hands, shake him, and put it away. There was a most
irritating end to every one of these debates. All in a moment, with nothing to
lead up to it, my sister would stop herself in a yawn, and catching sight of me
as it were incidentally, would swoop upon me with, "Come! there’s enough of you! You get
along to bed; you’ve given
trouble enough for one night, I hope!" As if I had besought them as a favor to
bother my life out.
We went on in this way for a long time, and it seemed likely that we should
continue to go on in this way for a long time, when one day Miss Havisham
stopped short as she and I were walking, she leaning on my shoulder; and said
with some displeasure,—
"You are growing tall, Pip!"
I thought it best to hint, through the medium of a meditative look, that this
might be occasioned by circumstances over which I had no control.
She said no more at the time; but she presently stopped and looked at me again;
and presently again; and after that, looked frowning and moody. On the next day
of my attendance, when our usual exercise was over, and I had landed her at her
dressing-table, she stayed me with a movement of her impatient fingers:—
"Tell me the name again of that blacksmith of yours."
"Joe Gargery, ma’am."
"Meaning the master you were to be apprenticed to?"
"Yes, Miss Havisham."
"You had better be apprenticed at once. Would Gargery come here with you, and
bring your indentures, do you think?"
I signified that I had no doubt he would take it as an honor to be asked.
"Then let him come."
"At any particular time, Miss Havisham?"
"There, there! I know nothing about times. Let him come soon, and come along
with you."
When I got home at night, and delivered this message for Joe, my sister "went on
the Rampage," in a more alarming degree than at any previous period. She asked
me and Joe whether we supposed she was door-mats under our feet, and how we
dared to use her so, and what company we graciously thought she was fit
for? When she had exhausted a torrent of such inquiries, she threw a candlestick
at Joe, burst into a loud sobbing, got out the dustpan,—which was always a very
bad sign,—put on her coarse apron, and began cleaning up to a terrible extent.
Not satisfied with a dry cleaning, she took to a pail and scrubbing-brush, and
cleaned us out of house and home, so that we stood shivering in the back-yard.
It was ten o’clock at night before we ventured to creep in again, and then she
asked Joe why he hadn’t married a Negress Slave at once? Joe offered no answer,
poor fellow, but stood feeling his whisker and looking dejectedly at me, as if
he thought it really might have been a better speculation.