Great Expectations
Charles Dickens
Chapter VIII Page 1
Mr. Pumblechook's premises in the High Street of the market town,
were of a peppercorny and farinaceous character, as the premises of
his shop; and I wondered I peeped into one or two on the lower
tiers, and saw the tied-up brown paper packets inside, whether the
flower-seeds and bulbs ever wanted of a fine day to break out of
those jails, and bloom.
It was in the early morning after my arrival that I entertained
this speculation. On the previous night, I had been sent straight
within a foot of my eyebrows. In the same early morning, I
discovered a singular affinity between seeds and corduroys. Mr.
Pumblechook wore corduroys, and so did his shopman; and somehow,
there was a general air and flavor about the corduroys, so much in
the nature of seeds, and a general air and flavor about the seeds,
so much in the nature of corduroys, that I hardly knew which was
which. The same opportunity served me for noticing that Mr.
Pumblechook appeared to conduct his business by looking across the
street at the saddler, who appeared to transact his business by
keeping his eye on the coachmaker, who appeared to get on in life
by putting his hands in his pockets and contemplating the baker,
who in his turn folded his arms and stared at the grocer, who stood
at his door and yawned at the chemist. The watchmaker, always
poring over a little desk with a magnifying-glass at his eye, and
always inspected by a group of smock-frocks poring over him through
the glass of his shop-window, seemed to be about the only person in
the High Street whose trade engaged his attention.
Mr. Pumblechook and I breakfasted at eight o'clock in the parlor
behind the shop, while the shopman took his mug of tea and hunch of
considered Mr. Pumblechook wretched company. Besides being possessed
by my sister's idea that a mortifying and penitential character
as possible in combination as little butter, and putting such
candid to have left the milk out altogether,--his conversation
consisted of nothing but arithmetic. On my politely bidding him
Good morning, he said, pompously, "Seven times nine, boy?" And how
should I be able to answer, dodged in that way, in a strange place,
on an empty stomach! I was hungry, but before I had swallowed a
morsel, he began a running sum that lasted all through the
breakfast. "Seven?" "And four?" "And eight?" "And six?" "And two?"
"And ten?" And so on. And after each figure was disposed of, it was
as much as I could do to get a bite or a sup, before the next came;
while he sat at his ease guessing nothing, and eating bacon and hot
roll, in (if I may be allowed the expression) a gorging and
gormandizing manner.
For such reasons, I was very glad when ten o'clock came and we
started for Miss Havisham's; though I was not at all at my ease
regarding the manner in which I should acquit myself under that
lady's roof. Within a quarter of an hour we came to Miss Havisham's
iron bars to it. Some of the windows had been walled up; of those
that remained, all the lower were rustily barred. There was a
courtyard in front, and that was barred; so we had to wait, after
ringing the bell, until some one should come to open it. While we
waited at the gate, I peeped in (even then Mr. Pumblechook said,
"And fourteen?" but I pretended not to hear him), and saw that at
on in it, and none seemed to have gone on for a long long time.
A window was raised, and a clear voice demanded "What name?" To
which my conductor replied, "Pumblechook." The voice returned,
"Quite right," and the window was shut again, and a young lady came
across the court-yard, with keys in her hand.
"This is Pip, is it?" returned the young lady, who was very pretty
and seemed very proud; "come in, Pip."
Mr. Pumblechook was coming in also, when she stopped him with the
gate.
"Oh!" she said. "Did you wish to see Miss Havisham?"
"If Miss Havisham wished to see me," returned Mr. Pumblechook,
discomfited.
"Ah!" said the girl; "but you see she don't."
She said it so finally, and in such an undiscussible way, that Mr.
Pumblechook, though in a condition of ruffled dignity, could not
protest. But he eyed me severely,--as if I had done anything to
him!--and departed with the words reproachfully delivered: "Boy!
Let your behavior here be a credit unto them which brought you up
by hand!" I was not free from apprehension that he would come back
to propound through the gate, "And sixteen?" But he didn't.
My young conductress locked the gate, and we went across the
courtyard. It was paved and clean, but grass was growing in every
crevice. The brewery buildings had a little lane of communication
brewery beyond stood open, away to the high enclosing wall; and
all was empty and disused. The cold wind seemed to blow colder
there than outside the gate; and it made a shrill noise in howling
in and out at the open sides of the brewery, like the noise of wind
She saw me looking at it, and she said, "You could drink without
hurt all the strong beer that's brewed there now, boy."
"I should think I could, miss," said I, in a shy way.
"Better not try to brew beer there now, or it would turn out sour,
boy; don't you think so?"
"Not that anybody means to try," she added, "for that's all done
with, and the place will stand as idle as it is till it falls. As
to strong beer, there's enough of it in the cellars already, to
drown the Manor House."
"Is that the name of this house, miss?"
"One of its names, boy."
"One more. Its other name was Satis; which is Greek, or Latin, or
Hebrew, or all three--or all one to me--for enough."
"Enough House," said I; "that's a curious name, miss."
"Yes," she replied; "but it meant more than it said. It meant, when
it was given, whoever had this house could want nothing else.
They must have been easily satisfied in those days, I should think.
But don't loiter, boy."
Though she called me "boy" so often, and with a carelessness that
was far from complimentary, she was of about my own age. She seemed
much older than I, of course, being a girl, and beautiful and
self-possessed; and she was as scornful of me as if she had been
one-and-twenty, and a queen.
had two chains across it outside,--and the first thing I noticed
was, that the passages were all dark, and that she had left a
candle burning there. She took it up, and we went through more
passages and up a staircase, and still it was all dark, and only
the candle lighted us.
At last we came to the door of a room, and she said, "Go in."
To this she returned: "Don't be ridiculous, boy; I am not going
in." And scornfully walked away, and--what was worse--took the
candle with her.
This was very uncomfortable, and I was half afraid. However, the
only thing to be done being to knock at the door, I knocked, and
myself in a pretty large room, well lighted with wax candles. No
as I supposed from the furniture, though much of it was of forms
and uses then quite unknown to me. But prominent in it was a draped
table with a gilded looking-glass, and that I made out at first
sight to be a fine lady's dressing-table.
Whether I should have made out this object so soon had
been no fine lady sitting at it, I cannot say. In an arm-chair,
with an elbow resting on the table and her head leaning on that
hand, sat the strangest lady I have ever seen, or shall ever see.
She was dressed in rich materials,--satins, and lace, and silks,--
all of white. Her shoes were white. And she had a long white veil
dependent from her hair, and she had bridal flowers in her hair,
but her hair was white. Some bright jewels sparkled on her neck and
on her hands, and some other jewels lay sparkling on the table.
Dresses, less splendid than the dress she wore, and half-packed
trunks, were scattered about. She had not quite finished dressing,
for she had but one shoe on,--the other was on the table near her
hand,--her veil was but half arranged, her watch and chain were not
put on, and some lace for her bosom lay with those trinkets, and
with her handkerchief, and gloves, and some flowers, and a
Prayer-Book all confusedly heaped about the looking-glass.
It was not in the first few moments that I saw all these things,
though I saw more of them in the first moments than might be
supposed. But I saw that everything within my view which ought to
be white, had been white long ago, and had lost its lustre and was
faded and yellow. I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had
withered like the dress, and like the flowers, and had no
brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes. I saw
the dress had been put upon the rounded figure of a young woman,
and that the figure upon which it now hung loose had shrunk to
skin and bone. Once, I had been taken to see some ghastly waxwork
at the Fair, representing I know not what impossible personage
lying in state. Once, I had been taken to one of our old marsh
been dug out of a vault under the church pavement. Now, waxwork and
skeleton seemed to have dark eyes moved and looked at me. I
should have cried out, if I could.
"is it?" said the lady at the table.
"Pip, ma'am."
"Pip?"
"Mr. Pumblechook's boy, ma'am. Come--to play."
"Come nearer; let me look at you. Come close."
It was when I stood before her, avoiding her eyes, that I took note
of the surrounding objects in detail, and saw that her watch had
stopped at twenty minutes to nine, and that a clock in the room had
"Look at me," said Miss Havisham. "You are not afraid of a woman
I regret to state that I was not afraid of telling the enormous lie
comprehended in the answer "No."
"Do you know what I touch here?" she said, laying her hands, one
upon the other, on her left side.
"Yes, ma'am." (It made me think of the young man.)
"What do I touch?"
"Your heart."
"Broken!"
She uttered the word with an eager look, and with strong emphasis,
and with a weird smile that had a kind of boast in it. Afterwards
she kept her hands there for a little while, and slowly took them
away as if they were heavy.
"I am tired," said Miss Havisham. "I want diversion, and I have
done with men and women. Play."
I think it will be conceded by my most disputatious reader, that
she could hardly have directed an unfortunate boy to do anything in
the wide world more difficult to be done under the circumstances.
"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, or had already said it, and we took another look at
each other.
Before she spoke again, she turned eyes from me, and looked at
the dress she wore, and at the dressing-table, and finally at
herself in the looking-glass.
"So new to him," she muttered, "so old to me; so strange to him, so
familiar to me; so melancholy to both of us! Call Estella."
As she was still looking at the reflection of herself, I thought
she was still talking to herself, and kept quiet.
"Call Estella," she repeated, flashing a look at me. "You can do
that. Call Estella. At the door."
To stand in the dark in a mysterious passage of an unknown house,
bawling Estella to a scornful young lady neither visible nor
responsive, and feeling it a dreadful liberty so to roar out her
name, was almost as bad as playing to order. But she answered at
last, and her light came along the dark passage like a star.
Miss Havisham beckoned her to come close, and took up a jewel from
against her pretty brown hair. "Your own, one day, my dear, and you
will use it well. Let me see you play cards with this boy."
"With this boy? Why, he is a common laboring boy!"
I thought I overheard Miss Havisham answer,--only it seemed so
Unlikely,--"Well? You can break his heart."
"What do you play, boy?" asked Estella of myself, with the greatest
disdain.
"Nothing but beggar my neighbor, miss."
"Beggar him," said Miss Havisham to Estella. So we sat down to
It was then I began to understand that everything in the room had
stopped, like the watch and the clock, a long time ago. I noticed