Great Expectations
Charles Dickens
Chapter XII
My mind grew very uneasy on the subject of the pale young
gentleman. The more I thought of the fight, and recalled the pale
incrimsoned countenance, the more certain it appeared
something would be done to me. I felt 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
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
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
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
injudicious relatives of his, goaded on by the state of his visage
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
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
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
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, a miserly relish of Estella's moods,
whatever they were. And sometimes, when her moods were so many and
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
stood in 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! a thump and a sound--Old Clem!
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
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
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
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
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
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 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
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 botmy life out.
We went on in this way for a long time, and it seemed likely that
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 dressing-table, she stayed me
with a movement of her impatient fingers:--
"Meaning the master you were to be apprenticed to?"
"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."
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
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.