Chapter 17

Inow fell into a regular routine of apprenticeship life, which was varied
beyond the limits of the village and the marshes, by no more remarkable
circumstance than the arrival of my birthday and my paying another visit to Miss
Havisham. I found Miss Sarah Pocket still on duty at the gate; I found Miss
Havisham just as I had left her, and she spoke of Estella in the very same way,
if not in the very same words. The interview lasted but a few minutes, and she
gave me a guinea when I was going, and told me to come again on my next
birthday. I may mention at once that this became an annual custom. I tried to
decline taking the guinea on the first occasion, but with no better effect than
causing her to ask me very angrily, if I expected more? Then, and after that, I
took it.

So unchanging was the dull old house, the yellow light in the darkened room, the
faded spectre in the chair by the dressing-table glass, that I felt as if the
stopping of the clocks had stopped Time in that mysterious place, and, while I
and everything else outside it grew older, it stood still. Daylight never
entered the house as to my thoughts and remembrances of it, any more than as to
the actual fact. It bewildered me, and under its influence I continued at heart
to hate my trade and to be ashamed of home.

Imperceptibly I became conscious of a change in Biddy, however. Her shoes came
up at the heel, her hair grew bright and neat, her hands were always clean. She
was not beautiful,—she was common, and could not be like Estella,—but she was
pleasant and wholesome and sweet-tempered. She had not been with us more than a
year (I remember her being newly out of mourning at the time it struck me), when
I observed to myself one evening that she had curiously thoughtful and attentive
eyes; eyes that were very pretty and very good.

It came of my lifting up my own eyes from a task I was poring at—writing some
passages from a book, to improve myself in two ways at once by a sort of
stratagem—and seeing Biddy observant of what I was about. I laid down my pen,
and Biddy stopped in her needlework without laying it down.

"Biddy," said I, "how do you manage it? Either I am very stupid, or you are very
clever."

"What is it that I manage? I don’t know," returned Biddy, smiling.

She managed our whole domestic life, and wonderfully too; but I did not mean
that, though that made what I did mean more surprising.

"How do you manage, Biddy," said I, "to learn everything that I learn, and
always to keep up with me?" I was beginning to be rather vain of my knowledge,
for I spent my birthday guineas on it, and set aside the greater part of my
pocket-money for similar investment; though I have no doubt, now, that the
little I knew was extremely dear at the price.

"I might as well ask you," said Biddy, "how you manage?"

"No; because when I come in from the forge of a night, any one can see me
turning to at it. But you never turn to at it, Biddy."

"I suppose I must catch it like a cough," said Biddy, quietly; and went on with
her sewing.

Pursuing my idea as I leaned back in my wooden chair, and looked at Biddy sewing
away with her head on one side, I began to think her rather an extraordinary
girl. For I called to mind now, that she was equally accomplished in the terms
of our trade, and the names of our different sorts of work, and our various
tools. In short, whatever I knew, Biddy knew. Theoretically, she was already as
good a blacksmith as I, or better.

"You are one of those, Biddy," said I, "who make the most of every chance. You
never had a chance before you came here, and see how improved you are!"

Biddy looked at me for an instant, and went on with her sewing. "I was your
first teacher though; wasn’t I?" said she, as she sewed.

"Biddy!" I exclaimed, in amazement. "Why, you are crying!"

"No I am not," said Biddy, looking up and laughing. "What put that in your
head?"

What could have put it in my head but the glistening of a tear as it dropped on
her work? I sat silent, recalling what a drudge she had been until Mr. Wopsle’s
great-aunt successfully overcame that bad habit of living, so highly desirable
to be got rid of by some people. I recalled the hopeless circumstances by which
she had been surrounded in the miserable little shop and the miserable little
noisy evening school, with that miserable old bundle of incompetence always to
be dragged and shouldered. I reflected that even in those untoward times there
must have been latent in Biddy what was now developing, for, in my first
uneasiness and discontent I had turned to her for help, as a matter of course.
Biddy sat quietly sewing, shedding no more tears, and while I looked at her and
thought about it all, it occurred to me that perhaps I had not been sufficiently
grateful to Biddy. I might have been too reserved, and should have patronized
her more (though I did not use that precise word in my meditations) with my
confidence.

"Yes, Biddy," I observed, when I had done turning it over, "you were my first
teacher, and that at a time when we little thought of ever being together like
this, in this kitchen."

"Ah, poor thing!" replied Biddy. It was like her self-forgetfulness to transfer
the remark to my sister, and to get up and be busy about her, making her more
comfortable; "that’s sadly true!"

"Well!" said I, "we must talk together a little more, as we used to do. And I
must consult you a little more, as I used to do. Let us have a quiet walk on the
marshes next Sunday, Biddy, and a long chat."

My sister was never left alone now; but Joe more than readily undertook the care
of her on that Sunday afternoon, and Biddy and I went out together. It was
summer-time, and lovely weather. When we had passed the village and the church
and the churchyard, and were out on the marshes and began to see the sails of
the ships as they sailed on, I began to combine Miss Havisham and Estella with
the prospect, in my usual way. When we came to the river-side and sat down on
the bank, with the water rippling at our feet, making it all more quiet than it
would have been without that sound, I resolved that it was a good time and place
for the admission of Biddy into my inner confidence.

"Biddy," said I, after binding her to secrecy, "I want to be a gentleman."

"O, I wouldn’t, if I was you!" she returned. "I don’t think it would answer."

"Biddy," said I, with some severity, "I have particular reasons for wanting to
be a gentleman."

"You know best, Pip; but don’t you think you are happier as you are?"

"Biddy," I exclaimed, impatiently, "I am not at all happy as I am. I am
disgusted with my calling and with my life. I have never taken to either, since
I was bound. Don’t be absurd."

"Was I absurd?" said Biddy, quietly raising her eyebrows; "I am sorry for that;
I didn’t mean to be. I only want you to do well, and to be comfortable."

"Well, then, understand once for all that I never shall or can be comfortable—or
anything but miserable—there, Biddy!—unless I can lead a very different sort of
life from the life I lead now."

"That’s a pity!" said Biddy, shaking her head with a sorrowful air.

Now, I too had so often thought it a pity, that, in the singular kind of quarrel
with myself which I was always carrying on, I was half inclined to shed tears of
vexation and distress when Biddy gave utterance to her sentiment and my own. I
told her she was right, and I knew it was much to be regretted, but still it was
not to be helped.

"If I could have settled down," I said to Biddy, plucking up the short grass
within reach, much as I had once upon a time pulled my feelings out of my hair
and kicked them into the brewery wall,—"if I could have settled down and been
but half as fond of the forge as I was when I was little, I know it would have
been much better for me. You and I and Joe would have wanted nothing then, and
Joe and I would perhaps have gone partners when I was out of my time, and I
might even have grown up to keep company with you, and we might have sat on this
very bank on a fine Sunday, quite different people. I should have been good
enough for you; shouldn’t I,
Biddy?"

Biddy sighed as she looked at the ships sailing on, and returned for answer,
"Yes; I am not over-particular." It scarcely sounded flattering, but I knew she
meant well.

"Instead of that," said I, plucking up more grass and chewing a blade or two,
"see how I am going on. Dissatisfied, and uncomfortable, and—what would it
signify to me, being coarse and common, if nobody had told me so!"

Biddy turned her face suddenly towards mine, and looked far more attentively at
me than she had looked at the sailing ships.

"It was neither a very true nor a very polite thing to say," she remarked,
directing her eyes to the ships again. "Who said it?"

I was disconcerted, for I had broken away without quite seeing where I was going
to. It was not to be shuffled off now, however, and I answered, "The beautiful
young lady at Miss Havisham’s, and she’s more beautiful than anybody ever was,
and I admire her dreadfully, and I want to be a gentleman on her account."
Having made this lunatic confession, I began to throw my torn-up grass into the
river, as if I had some thoughts of following it.

"Do you want to be a gentleman, to spite her or to gain her over?" Biddy quietly
asked me, after a pause.

"I don’t know," I moodily answered.

"Because, if it is to spite her," Biddy pursued, "I should think—but you know
best—that might be better and more independently done by caring nothing for her
words. And if it is to gain her over, I should think—but you know best—she was
not worth gaining over."

Exactly what I myself had thought, many times. Exactly what was perfectly
manifest to me at the moment. But how could I, a poor dazed village lad, avoid
that wonderful inconsistency into which the best and wisest of men fall every
day?

"It may be all quite true," said I to Biddy, "but I admire her dreadfully."

In short, I turned over on my face when I came to that, and got a good grasp on
the hair on each side of my head, and wrenched it well. All the while knowing
the madness of my heart to be so very mad and misplaced, that I was quite
conscious it would have served my face right, if I had lifted it up by my hair,
and knocked it against the pebbles as a punishment for belonging to such an
idiot.

Biddy was the wisest of girls, and she tried to reason no more with me. She put
her hand, which was a comfortable hand though roughened by work, upon my hands,
one after another, and gently took them out of my hair. Then she softly patted
my shoulder in a soothing way, while with my face upon my sleeve I cried a
little,—exactly as I had done in the brewery yard,—and felt vaguely convinced
that I was very much ill-used by somebody, or by everybody; I can’t say which.

"I am glad of one thing," said Biddy, "and that is, that you have felt you could
give me your confidence, Pip. And I am glad of another thing, and that is, that
of course you know you may depend upon my keeping it and always so far deserving
it. If your first teacher (dear! such a poor one, and so much in need of being
taught herself!) had been your teacher at the present time, she thinks she knows
what lesson she would set. But it would be a hard one to learn, and you have got
beyond her, and it’s of no use now." So, with a quiet sigh for me, Biddy rose
from the bank, and said, with a fresh and pleasant change of voice, "Shall we
walk a little farther, or go home?"

"Biddy," I cried, getting up, putting my arm round her neck, and giving her a
kiss, "I shall always tell you everything."

"Till you’re a gentleman," said Biddy.

"You know I never shall be, so that’s always. Not that I have any occasion to
tell you anything, for you know everything I know,—as I told you at home the
other night."

"Ah!" said Biddy, quite in a whisper, as she looked away at the ships. And then
repeated, with her former pleasant change, "shall we walk a little farther, or
go home?"

I said to Biddy we would walk a little farther, and we did so, and the summer
afternoon toned down into the summer evening, and it was very beautiful. I began
to consider whether I was not more naturally and wholesomely situated, after
all, in these circumstances, than playing beggar my neighbor by candle-light in
the room with the stopped clocks, and being despised by Estella. I thought it
would be very good for me if I could get her out of my head, with all the rest
of those remembrances and fancies, and could go to work determined to relish
what I had to do, and stick to it, and make the best of it. I asked myself the
question whether I did not surely know that if Estella were beside me at that
moment instead of Biddy, she would make me miserable? I was obliged to admit
that I did know it for a certainty, and I said to myself, "Pip, what a fool you
are!"

We talked a good deal as we walked, and all that Biddy said seemed right. Biddy
was never insulting, or capricious, or Biddy to-day and somebody else to-morrow;
she would have derived only pain, and no pleasure, from giving me pain; she
would far rather have wounded her own breast than mine. How could it be, then,
that I did not like her much the better of the two?

"Biddy," said I, when we were walking homeward, "I wish you could put me right."

"I wish I could!" said Biddy.

"If I could only get myself to fall in love with you,—you don’t mind my speaking
so openly to such an old acquaintance?"

"Oh dear, not at all!" said Biddy. "Don’t mind me."

"If I could only get myself to do it, that would
be the thing for me."

"But you never will, you see," said Biddy.

It did not appear quite so unlikely to me that evening, as it would have done if
we had discussed it a few hours before. I therefore observed I was not quite
sure of that. But Biddy said she was,
and she said it decisively. In my heart I believed her to be right; and yet I
took it rather ill, too, that she should be so positive on the point.

When we came near the churchyard, we had to cross an embankment, and get over a
stile near a sluice-gate. There started up, from the gate, or from the rushes,
or from the ooze (which was quite in his stagnant way), Old Orlick.

"Halloa!" he growled, "where are you two going?"

"Where should we be going, but home?"

"Well, then," said he, "I’m jiggered if I don’t see you home!"

This penalty of being jiggered was a favorite supposititious case of his. He
attached no definite meaning to the word that I am aware of, but used it, like
his own pretended Christian name, to affront mankind, and convey an idea of
something savagely damaging. When I was younger, I had had a general belief that
if he had jiggered me personally, he would have done it with a sharp and twisted
hook.

Biddy was much against his going with us, and said to me in a whisper, "Don’t
let him come; I don’t like him." As I did not like him either, I took the
liberty of saying that we thanked him, but we didn’t want seeing home. He
received that piece of information with a yell of laughter, and dropped back,
but came slouching after us at a little distance.

Curious to know whether Biddy suspected him of having had a hand in that
murderous attack of which my sister had never been able to give any account, I
asked her why she did not like him.

"Oh!" she replied, glancing over her shoulder as he slouched after us, "because
I—I am afraid he likes me."

"Did he ever tell you he liked you?" I asked indignantly.

"No," said Biddy, glancing over her shoulder again, "he never told me so; but he
dances at me, whenever he can catch my eye."

However novel and peculiar this testimony of attachment, I did not doubt the
accuracy of the interpretation. I was very hot indeed upon Old Orlick’s daring
to admire her; as hot as if it were an outrage on myself.

"But it makes no difference to you, you know," said Biddy, calmly.

"No, Biddy, it makes no difference to me; only I don’t like it; I don’t approve
of it."

"Nor I neither," said Biddy. "Though that makes
no difference to you."

"Exactly," said I; "but I must tell you I should have no opinion of you, Biddy,
if he danced at you with your own consent."

I kept an eye on Orlick after that night, and, whenever circumstances were
favorable to his dancing at Biddy, got before him to obscure that demonstration.
He had struck root in Joe’s establishment, by reason of my sister’s sudden fancy
for him, or I should have tried to get him dismissed. He quite understood and
reciprocated my good intentions, as I had reason to know thereafter.

And now, because my mind was not confused enough before, I complicated its
confusion fifty thousand-fold, by having states and seasons when I was clear
that Biddy was immeasurably better than Estella, and that the plain honest
working life to which I was born had nothing in it to be ashamed of, but offered
me sufficient means of self-respect and happiness. At those times, I would
decide conclusively that my disaffection to dear old Joe and the forge was gone,
and that I was growing up in a fair way to be partners with Joe and to keep
company with Biddy,—when all in a moment some confounding remembrance of the
Havisham days would fall upon me like a destructive missile, and scatter my wits
again. Scattered wits take a long time picking up; and often before I had got
them well together, they would be dispersed in all directions by one stray
thought, that perhaps after all Miss Havisham was going to make my fortune when
my time was out.

If my time had run out, it would have left me still at the height of my
perplexities, I dare say. It never did run out, however, but was brought to a
premature end, as I proceed to relate.