Chapter 36

Herbert and I went on from bad to worse, in the way of increasing our
debts, looking into our affairs, leaving Margins, and the like exemplary
transactions; and Time went on, whether or no, as he has a way of doing; and I
came of age,—in fulfilment of Herbert’s prediction, that I should do so before I
knew where I was.

Herbert himself had come of age eight months before me. As he had nothing else
than his majority to come into, the event did not make a profound sensation in
Barnard’s Inn. But we had looked forward to my one-and-twentieth birthday, with
a crowd of speculations and anticipations, for we had both considered that my
guardian could hardly help saying something definite on that occasion.

I had taken care to have it well understood in Little Britain when my birthday
was. On the day before it, I received an official note from Wemmick, informing
me that Mr. Jaggers would be glad if I would call upon him at five in the
afternoon of the auspicious day. This convinced us that something great was to
happen, and threw me into an unusual flutter when I repaired to my guardian’s
office, a model of punctuality.

In the outer office Wemmick offered me his congratulations, and incidentally
rubbed the side of his nose with a folded piece of tissue-paper that I liked the
look of. But he said nothing respecting it, and motioned me with a nod into my
guardian’s room. It was November, and my guardian was standing before his fire
leaning his back against the chimney-piece, with his hands under his coattails.

"Well, Pip," said he, "I must call you Mr. Pip to-day. Congratulations, Mr.
Pip."

We shook hands,—he was always a remarkably short shaker,—and I thanked him.

"Take a chair, Mr. Pip," said my guardian.

As I sat down, and he preserved his attitude and bent his brows at his boots, I
felt at a disadvantage, which reminded me of that old time when I had been put
upon a tombstone. The two ghastly casts on the shelf were not far from him, and
their expression was as if they were making a stupid apoplectic attempt to
attend to the conversation.

"Now my young friend," my guardian began, as if I were a witness in the box, "I
am going to have a word or two with you."

"If you please, sir."

"What do you suppose," said Mr. Jaggers, bending forward to look at the ground,
and then throwing his head back to look at the ceiling,—"what do you suppose you
are living at the rate of?"

"At the rate of, sir?"

"At," repeated Mr. Jaggers, still looking at the ceiling, "the—rate—of?" And
then looked all round the room, and paused with his pocket-handkerchief in his
hand, half-way to his nose.

I had looked into my affairs so often, that I had thoroughly destroyed any
slight notion I might ever have had of their bearings. Reluctantly, I confessed
myself quite unable to answer the question. This reply seemed agreeable to Mr.
Jaggers, who said, "I thought so!" and blew his nose with an air of
satisfaction.

"Now, I have asked you a
question, my friend," said Mr. Jaggers. "Have you anything to ask me?"

"Of course it would be a great relief to me to ask you several questions, sir;
but I remember your prohibition."

"Ask one," said Mr. Jaggers.

"Is my benefactor to be made known to me to-day?"

"No. Ask another."

"Is that confidence to be imparted to me soon?"

"Waive that, a moment," said Mr. Jaggers, "and ask another."

I looked about me, but there appeared to be now no possible escape from the
inquiry, "Have-I—anything to receive, sir?" On that, Mr. Jaggers said,
triumphantly, "I thought we should come to it!" and called to Wemmick to give
him that piece of paper. Wemmick appeared, handed it in, and disappeared.

"Now, Mr. Pip," said Mr. Jaggers, "attend, if you please. You have been drawing
pretty freely here; your name occurs pretty often in Wemmick’s cash-book; but
you are in debt, of course?"

"I am afraid I must say yes, sir."

"You know you must say yes; don’t you?" said Mr. Jaggers.

"Yes, sir."

"I don’t ask you what you owe, because you don’t know; and if you did know, you
wouldn’t tell me; you would say less. Yes, yes, my friend," cried Mr. Jaggers,
waving his forefinger to stop me as I made a show of protesting: "it’s likely
enough that you think you wouldn’t, but you would. You’ll excuse me, but I know
better than you. Now, take this piece of paper in your hand. You have got it?
Very good. Now, unfold it and tell me what it is."

"This is a bank-note," said I, "for five hundred pounds."

"That is a bank-note," repeated Mr. Jaggers, "for five hundred pounds. And a
very handsome sum of money too, I think. You consider it so?"

"How could I do otherwise!"

"Ah! But answer the question," said Mr. Jaggers.

"Undoubtedly."

"You consider it, undoubtedly, a handsome sum of money. Now, that handsome sum
of money, Pip, is your own. It is a present to you on this day, in earnest of
your expectations. And at the rate of that handsome sum of money per annum, and
at no higher rate, you are to live until the donor of the whole appears. That is
to say, you will now take your money affairs entirely into your own hands, and
you will draw from Wemmick one hundred and twenty-five pounds per quarter, until
you are in communication with the fountain-head, and no longer with the mere
agent. As I have told you before, I am the mere agent. I execute my
instructions, and I am paid for doing so. I think them injudicious, but I am not
paid for giving any opinion on their merits."

I was beginning to express my gratitude to my benefactor for the great
liberality with which I was treated, when Mr. Jaggers stopped me. "I am not
paid, Pip," said he, coolly, "to carry your words to any one;" and then gathered
up his coat-tails, as he had gathered up the subject, and stood frowning at his
boots as if he suspected them of designs against him.

After a pause, I hinted,—

"There was a question just now, Mr. Jaggers, which you desired me to waive for a
moment. I hope I am doing nothing wrong in asking it again?"

"What is it?" said he.

I might have known that he would never help me out; but it took me aback to have
to shape the question afresh, as if it were quite new. "Is it likely," I said,
after hesitating, "that my patron, the fountain-head you have spoken of, Mr.
Jaggers, will soon—" there I delicately stopped.

"Will soon what?" asked Mr. Jaggers. "That’s no question as it stands, you
know."

"Will soon come to London," said I, after casting about for a precise form of
words, "or summon me anywhere else?"

"Now, here," replied Mr. Jaggers, fixing me for the first time with his dark
deep-set eyes, "we must revert to the evening when we first encountered one
another in your village. What did I tell you then, Pip?"

"You told me, Mr. Jaggers, that it might be years hence when that person
appeared."

"Just so," said Mr. Jaggers, "that’s my answer."

As we looked full at one another, I felt my breath come quicker in my strong
desire to get something out of him. And as I felt that it came quicker, and as I
felt that he saw that it came quicker, I felt that I had less chance than ever
of getting anything out of him.

"Do you suppose it will still be years hence, Mr. Jaggers?"

Mr. Jaggers shook his head,—not in negativing the question, but in altogether
negativing the notion that he could anyhow be got to answer it,—and the two
horrible casts of the twitched faces looked, when my eyes strayed up to them, as
if they had come to a crisis in their suspended attention, and were going to
sneeze.

"Come!" said Mr. Jaggers, warming the backs of his legs with the backs of his
warmed hands, "I’ll be plain with you, my friend Pip. That’s a question I must
not be asked. You’ll understand that better, when I tell you it’s a question
that might compromise me.
Come! I’ll go a little further with you; I’ll say something more."

He bent down so low to frown at his boots, that he was able to rub the calves of
his legs in the pause he made.

"When that person discloses," said Mr. Jaggers, straightening himself, "you and
that person will settle your own affairs. When that person discloses, my part in
this business will cease and determine. When that person discloses, it will not
be necessary for me to know anything about it. And that’s all I have got to
say."

We looked at one another until I withdrew my eyes, and looked thoughtfully at
the floor. From this last speech I derived the notion that Miss Havisham, for
some reason or no reason, had not taken him into her confidence as to her
designing me for Estella; that he resented this, and felt a jealousy about it;
or that he really did object to that scheme, and would have nothing to do with
it. When I raised my eyes again, I found that he had been shrewdly looking at me
all the time, and was doing so still.

"If that is all you have to say, sir," I remarked, "there can be nothing left
for me to say."

He nodded assent, and pulled out his thief-dreaded watch, and asked me where I
was going to dine? I replied at my own chambers, with Herbert. As a necessary
sequence, I asked him if he would favor us with his company, and he promptly
accepted the invitation. But he insisted on walking home with me, in order that
I might make no extra preparation for him, and first he had a letter or two to
write, and (of course) had his hands to wash. So I said I would go into the
outer office and talk to Wemmick.

The fact was, that when the five hundred pounds had come into my pocket, a
thought had come into my head which had been often there before; and it appeared
to me that Wemmick was a good person to advise with concerning such thought.

He had already locked up his safe, and made preparations for going home. He had
left his desk, brought out his two greasy office candlesticks and stood them in
line with the snuffers on a slab near the door, ready to be extinguished; he had
raked his fire low, put his hat and great-coat ready, and was beating himself
all over the chest with his safe-key, as an athletic exercise after business.

"Mr. Wemmick," said I, "I want to ask your opinion. I am very desirous to serve
a friend."

Wemmick tightened his post-office and shook his head, as if his opinion were
dead against any fatal weakness of that sort.

"This friend," I pursued, "is trying to get on in commercial life, but has no
money, and finds it difficult and disheartening to make a beginning. Now I want
somehow to help him to a beginning."

"With money down?" said Wemmick, in a tone drier than any sawdust.

"With some money
down," I replied, for an uneasy remembrance shot across me of that symmetrical
bundle of papers at home—"with some money
down, and perhaps some anticipation of my expectations."

"Mr. Pip," said Wemmick, "I should like just to run over with you on my fingers,
if you please, the names of the various bridges up as high as Chelsea Reach.
Let’s see; there’s London, one; Southwark, two; Blackfriars, three; Waterloo,
four; Westminster, five; Vauxhall, six." He had checked off each bridge in its
turn, with the handle of his safe-key on the palm of his hand. "There’s as many
as six, you see, to choose from."

"I don’t understand you," said I.

"Choose your bridge, Mr. Pip," returned Wemmick, "and take a walk upon your
bridge, and pitch your money into the Thames over the centre arch of your
bridge, and you know the end of it. Serve a friend with it, and you may know the
end of it too,—but it’s a less pleasant and profitable end."

I could have posted a newspaper in his mouth, he made it so wide after saying
this.

"This is very discouraging," said I.

"Meant to be so," said Wemmick.

"Then is it your opinion," I inquired, with some little indignation, "that a man
should never—"

"—Invest portable property in a friend?" said Wemmick. "Certainly he should not.
Unless he wants to get rid of the friend,—and then it becomes a question how
much portable property it may be worth to get rid of him."

"And that," said I, "is your deliberate opinion, Mr. Wemmick?"

"That," he returned, "is my deliberate opinion in this office."

"Ah!" said I, pressing him, for I thought I saw him near a loophole here; "but
would that be your opinion at Walworth?"

"Mr. Pip," he replied, with gravity, "Walworth is one place, and this office is
another. Much as the Aged is one person, and Mr. Jaggers is another. They must
not be confounded together. My Walworth sentiments must be taken at Walworth;
none but my official sentiments can be taken in this office."

"Very well," said I, much relieved, "then I shall look you up at Walworth, you
may depend upon it."

"Mr. Pip," he returned, "you will be welcome there, in a private and personal
capacity."

We had held this conversation in a low voice, well knowing my guardian’s ears to
be the sharpest of the sharp. As he now appeared in his doorway, towelling his
hands, Wemmick got on his great-coat and stood by to snuff out the candles. We
all three went into the street together, and from the door-step Wemmick turned
his way, and Mr. Jaggers and I turned ours.

I could not help wishing more than once that evening, that Mr. Jaggers had had
an Aged in Gerrard Street, or a Stinger, or a Something, or a Somebody, to
unbend his brows a little. It was an uncomfortable consideration on a
twenty-first birthday, that coming of age at all seemed hardly worth while in
such a guarded and suspicious world as he made of it. He was a thousand times
better informed and cleverer than Wemmick, and yet I would a thousand times
rather have had Wemmick to dinner. And Mr. Jaggers made not me alone intensely
melancholy, because, after he was gone, Herbert said of himself, with his eyes
fixed on the fire, that he thought he must have committed a felony and forgotten
the details of it, he felt so dejected and guilty.