"I sometimes have sick fancies," she went on, "and I have a sick fancy
that I want to see some play. There, there!" with an impatient movement
of the fingers of her right hand; "play, play, play!"
For a moment, with the fear of my sister's working me before my eyes, I
had a desperate idea of starting round the room in the assumed character
of Mr. Pumblechook's chaise-cart. But I felt myself so unequal to the
performance that I gave it up, and stood looking at Miss Havisham in
what I suppose she took for a dogged manner, inasmuch as she said, when
we had taken a good look at each other,
"Are you sullen and obstinate?"
"No, ma'am, I am very sorry for you, and very sorry I can't play just
now. If you complain of me I shall get into trouble with my sister, so
I would do it if I could; but it's so new here, and so strange, and so
fine, and melancholy--" I stopped, fearing I might say too much.
"Call Estella," she commanded, looking at me. "You can do that."
To stand in a strange house calling a scornful young lady by her first
name was almost as bad as playing to order. But she answered at last.
"My dear," said Miss Havisham, "let me see you play cards with this
boy."
"What do you play, boy?" asked Estella, with the greatest disdain.
"Nothing but 'beggar my neighbor,' Miss."
"Beggar him," said Miss Havisham to Estella. So we sat down to cards.
It was then I began to understand that everything in the room had
stopped, with the watch and the clock, a long time ago. I noticed that
Miss Havisham put down the jewel exactly on the spot from which she had
taken it up. As Estella dealt the cards, I glanced at the
dressing-table again, and saw that the shoe upon it, once white, now
yellow, had never been worn.
"He calls the knaves, Jacks, this boy!" said Estella with disdain,
before our first game was out. "And what coarse hands he has! And what
thick boots!"
I had never thought of being ashamed of my hands before; but now I began
to consider them. Her contempt for me was so strong that I caught it.
She won the game, and I dealt. I misdealt, as was only natural, when I
knew she was lying in wait for me to do wrong; and she denounced me for
a stupid, clumsy laboring-boy.
"You say nothing of her," remarked Miss Havisham to me, as she looked
on. "She says many hard things of you, but you say nothing of her.
What do you think of her?"
"I don't like to say," I stammered.
"Tell me in my ear," said Miss Havisham, bending down.
"I think she is very proud," I replied, in a whisper.
"Anything else?"
"I think she is very pretty."
"Anything else?"
"I think she is very insulting." (She was looking at me then with a
look of supreme aversion.)
"Anything else?"
"I think I should like to go home."
"You shall go soon," said Miss Havisham aloud; "play the game out."
I played the game to an end with Estella, and she beggared me. She
threw the cards down on the table when she had won them all, as if she
despised them for having been won of me.
"When shall I have you here again?" said Miss Havisham. "Let me think.
I know nothing of days of the week, or of weeks of the year. Come again
after six days. You hear?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Estella, take him down. Let him have something to eat, and let him
roam and look about him while he eats. Go, Pip."
I followed the candle down, as I had followed the candle up, and she
stood it in the place where we had found it. Until she opened the side
entrance, I had fancied, without thinking about it, that it must
necessarily be night-time. The rush of the daylight quite confounded me,
and made me feel as if I had been in the candle-light of the strange
room many hours.
When I reached home, my sister was very curious to know all about Miss
Havisham and what I had seen and done at her house. Uncle Pumblechook,
too, came hurrying over, armed with many questions.
I was naturally a truthful boy--as boys go--but I knew instinctively
that I could not make myself understood about that strange visit. So I
didn't try. When he fired his first question, as to What was Miss
Havisham like?
"Very tall and dark," I told him.
"Is she, uncle?" asked my sister.
Mr. Pumblechook winked assent; from which I at once inferred that he had
never seen Miss Havisham, for she was nothing of the kind.
"Good!" said Mr. Pumblechook conceitedly. "Now, boy! What was she a
doing of when you went in to-day?" he continued.
"She was sitting," I answered, "in a black velvet coach."
Mr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe stared at one another--as they well
might--and both repeated, "In a black velvet coach?"
"Yes," said I. "And Miss Estella--that's her niece, I think--handed her
in cake and wine at the coach-window, on a gold plate. And we all had
cake and wine on gold plates. And I got up behind the coach to eat mine,
because she told me to."
"Was anybody else there?" asked Mr. Pumblechook.
"Four dogs," said I.
"Large or small?"
"Immense," said I. "And they fought for veal cutlets out of a silver
basket."
Mr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe stared at one another again in utter
amazement. I was perfectly frantic--a reckless witness under the
torture--and would have told them anything.
"Where _was_ this coach, in the name of gracious?" asked my sister.
"In Miss Havisham's room." They stared again. "But there weren't any
horses to it." I added this saving clause, in the moment of rejecting
four richly caparisoned coursers which I had had wild thoughts of
harnessing.
"Can this be possible, uncle?" asked Mrs. Joe. "What can the boy mean?"
"I'll tell you, Mum," said Mr. Pumblechook. "My opinion is, it's a
sedan-chair. She's flighty, you know--very flighty--quite flighty
enough to pass her days in a sedan-chair."
"Did you ever see her in it, uncle?" asked Mrs. Joe.
"How could I?" he returned, forced to the admission, "when I never see
her in my life. Never clapped eyes upon her!"
"Goodness, uncle! And yet you have spoken to her!"
"Just through the door," he replied testily. "Now, boy, what did you
play?"
"We played with flags."
"Flags!" echoed my sister.
"Yes," said I. "Estella waved a blue flag, and I waved a red one, and
Miss Havisham waved one sprinkled all over with little gold stars, out
at the coach-window. And then we all waved our swords and hurrahed."
"Swords!" repeated my sister. "Where did you get swords from?"
"Out of a cupboard," said I. "And I saw pistols in it--and jam--and
pills. And there was no daylight in the room, but it was all lighted up
with candles."
"That's true, Mum," said Mr. Pumblechook, with a grave nod. "That's the
state of the case, for that much I've seen myself." And then they both
stared at me, and I at them, and plaited the right leg of my trousers
with my right hand.
If they had asked me any more questions I should undoubtedly have
betrayed myself, for I was even then on the point of mentioning that
there was a balloon in the yard, and should have hazarded the statement
but for my invention being divided between that phenomenon and a bear.
They were so much occupied, however, in discussing the marvels I had
already presented for their consideration, that I escaped. The subject
still held them when Joe came in from his work to have a cup of tea. To
whom my sister, more for the relief of her own mind than for the
gratification of his, related my pretended experiences.
Now, when I saw Joe open his blue eyes and roll them all round the
kitchen in helpless amazement, I was overtaken by penitence; but only as
regarded him--not in the least as regarded the other two. Towards Joe,
and Joe only, I considered myself a young monster, while they sat
debating what results would come to me from Miss Havisham's acquaintance
and favor. They had no doubt that Miss Havisham would "do something"
for me; their doubts related to the form that something would take. My
sister stood out for "property." Mr. Pumblechook was in favor of a
handsome premium for binding me apprentice to some genteel trade,--say,
the corn and seed trade, for instance. Joe fell into the deepest
disgrace with both, for offering the bright suggestion that I might only
be presented with one of the dogs who had fought for the veal cutlets.
"If a fool's head can't express better opinions than that," said my
sister, "and you have got any work to do, you had better go and do it."
So he went.
After Mr. Pumblechook had driven off, and when my sister was washing up,
I stole into the forge to Joe, and remained by him until he had done for
the night. Then I said, "Before the fire goes out, Joe, I should like
to tell you something."
"Should you, Pip?" said Joe, drawing his shoeing-stool near the forge.
"Then tell us. What is it, Pip?"
"Joe," said I, taking hold of his rolled-up shirt sleeve, and twisting
it between my finger and thumb, "you remember all that about Miss
Havisham's?"
"Remember?" said Joe. "I believe you! Wonderful!"
"It's a terrible thing, Joe; it ain't true."
"What are you telling of, Pip?" cried Joe, falling back in the greatest
amazement. "You don't mean to say it's--"
"Yes, I do; it's lies, Joe."
"But not all of it? Why sure you don't mean to say, Pip, that there was
no black welwet co--ch?" For, I stood shaking my head. "But at least
there was dogs, Pip? Come, Pip," said Joe persuasively, "if there warn't
no weal cutlets, at least there was dogs?"
"No, Joe."
"_A_ dog?" said Joe. "A puppy? Come?"
"No, Joe, there was nothing at all of the kind."
As I fixed my eyes hopelessly on Joe, Joe contemplated me in dismay.
"Pip, old chap! This won't do, old fellow! I say! Where do you expect
to go to?"
"It's terrible, Joe; ain't it?"
"Terrible?" cried Joe. "Awful! What possessed you?"
"I don't know what possessed me, Joe," I replied, letting his shirt
sleeve go, and sitting down in the ashes at his feet, hanging my head;
"but I wish you hadn't taught me to call knaves at cards, Jacks; and I
wish my boots weren't so thick nor my hands so coarse."
And then I told Joe that I felt very miserable, and that I hadn't been
able to explain myself to Mrs. Joe and Pumblechook, and that there had
been a beautiful young lady at Miss Havisham's who was dreadfully proud,
and that she had said I was common, and much more to that effect.
"There's one thing you maybe sure of, Pip," said Joe, after some
rumination, "namely, that lies is lies. Howsever they come, they didn't
ought to come, and they come from the father of lies, and work round to
the same. Don't you tell no more of 'em, Pip. _That_ ain't the way to
get out of being common, old chap. And as to being common, I don't make
it out at all clear. You are oncommon in some things. You're oncommon
small. Likewise you're a oncommon scholar."
"No, I am ignorant and backward, Joe."
"Why, see what a letter you wrote last night. Wrote in print even! I've
seen letters--Ah! and from gentlefolks!--that I'll swear weren't wrote
in print," said Joe.
"I have learnt next to nothing, Joe. You think much of me. It's only
that."
"Well, Pip," said Joe, "be it so or be it son't, you must be a common
scholar afore you can be a oncommon one, I should hope! The king upon
his throne, with his crown upon his 'ed, can't sit and write his acts of
Parliament in print, without having begun, when he were a unpromoted
prince, with the alphabet--Ah!" added Joe, with a shake of the head that
was full of meaning, "and begun at A too, and worked his way to Z!"
There was some hope in this piece of wisdom, and it rather encouraged
me.
"You're not angry with me, Joe?"
"No, old chap. But you might bear in mind about them dog fights and
weal cutlets when you say your prayers to-night. That's all, old chap,
and don't never do it no more."
*III. HOW PIP FELL HEIR TO GREAT EXPECTATIONS*
The happy idea occurred to me a morning or two later when I woke, that
the best step I could take towards making myself uncommon was to get out
of Biddy everything she knew. In pursuance of this idea, I mentioned to
Biddy, when I went to Mr. Wopsle's aunt's at night, that I had a
particular reason for wishing to get on in life, and that I should feel
very much obliged to her if she would impart all her learning to me.
Biddy, who was the most obliging of girls, immediately said she would,
and indeed began to carry out her promise within five minutes.
The books at the school were few and ragged, but we attacked them all
valiantly during the course of the winter, and even refreshed our
budding minds with newspaper scraps. And with every new piece of
knowledge I could fancy myself saying to Miss Estella, "Now am I
common?"
At the appointed time I returned to Miss Havisham's, and my hesitating
ring at the gate brought out Estella.
"You are to come this way to-day," she said after admitting me, and took
me to quite another part of the house.
We went in at a door, which stood open, and into a gloomy room with a
low ceiling on the ground floor at the back. There was some company in
the room, and Estella said to me as she joined it, "You are to go and
stand there, boy, till you are wanted." "There," being the window, I
crossed to it, and stood "there," in a very uncomfortable state of mind,
looking out.
Presently she brought a candle and led the way down a dark passage to a
staircase. As we went up the stairs we met a man coming down. He was
large and bald, with bushy black eyebrows and deep-set eyes which were
disagreeably keen. He was nothing to me at the time, and yet I couldn't
help observe him.
He stopped and looked at me.
"How do _you_ come here?" he asked.
"Miss Havisham sent for me, sir," I explained.
"Well! Behave yourself. I have a pretty large experience of boys, and
you're a bad set of fellows. Now mind!" said he, biting the side of his
great forefinger as he frowned at me, "you behave yourself!"
With those words he released me--which I was glad of, for his hand smelt
of scented soap--and went his way downstairs. I wondered whether he
could be a doctor; but no, I thought; he couldn't be a doctor, or he
would have a quieter manner. There was not much time to consider the
subject, for we were soon in Miss Havisham's room, where she and
everything else were just as I had left them. Estella left me standing
near the door, and I stood there until Miss Havisham cast her eyes upon
me from the dressing-table.
"So!" she said, without being startled or surprised; "the days have worn
away, have they?"
"Yes, ma'am. To-day is--"
"There, there, there!" with the impatient movement of her fingers. "I
don't want to know. Are you ready to play?"