Great Expectations
Charles Dickens
Chapter XVIII Page 2
tutor whom you would prefer to another?"
I had never heard of any tutor but Biddy and Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt;
so, I replied in the negative.
think might suit the purpose," said Mr. Jaggers. "I don't recommend
him, observe; because I never recommend anybody. The gentleman I
speak of is one Mr. Matthew Pocket."
Matthew whom Mr. and Mrs. Camilla had spoken of. The Matthew whose
place was to be at Miss Havisham's head, when she lay dead, in
bride's dress on the bride's table.
then shutting up his eyes while he waited for my answer.
My answer was, that I had heard of the name.
"Oh!" said he. "You have heard of the name. But the question is,
what do you say of it?"
I said, or tried to say, that I was much obliged to him for his
recommendation--
"No, my young friend!" he interrupted, shaking his great head very
slowly. "Recollect yourself!"
Not recollecting myself, I began again that I was much obliged to
him for his recommendation--
"No, my young friend," he interrupted, shaking his head and
frowning and smiling both at once,--"no, no, no; it's very well
done, but it won't do; you are too young to fix me with it.
Recommendation is not the word, Mr. Pip. Try another."
Correcting myself, I said that I was much obliged to him for his
mention of Mr. Matthew Pocket--
"That's more like it!" cried Mr. Jaggers.
--And (I added), I would gladly try that gentleman.
"Good. You had better try him in his own house. The way shall be
prepared for you, and you can see his son first, who is in London.
When will you come to London?"
I said (glancing at Joe, who stood looking on, motionless), that I
supposed I could come directly.
"First," said Mr. Jaggers, "you should have some new clothes to come
in, and they should not be working-clothes. Say this day week.
You'll want some money. Shall I leave you twenty guineas?"
He produced a long purse, with the greatest coolness, and counted
them out on the table and pushed them over to me. This was the
first time he had taken his leg from the chair. He sat astride of
the chair when he had pushed the money over, and sat swinging his
purse and eyeing Joe.
"Well, Joseph Gargery? You look dumbfoundered?"
"I am!" said Joe, in a very decided manner.
"It was understood you wanted nothing for yourself, remember?"
"It were understood," said Joe. "And it are understood. And it ever
will be similar according."
"But what," said Mr. Jaggers, swinging his purse,--"what if it was in
"As compensation what for?" Joe demanded.
Joe laid his hand upon my shoulder with the touch of a woman. I
have often thought him since, like the steam-hammer that can crush
a man or pat an egg-shell, in his combination of strength with
gentleness. "Pip is that hearty welcome," said Joe, "to go free
with his services, to honor and fortun', as no words can tell him.
But if you think as Money can make compensation to me for the loss
of the little child--what come to the forge--and ever the best of
friends!--"
O dear good Joe, whom I was so ready to leave and so unthankful to,
I see you again, with your muscular blacksmith's arm before your
eyes, and your broad chest heaving, and your voice dying away. O
hand upon my arm, as solemnly this day as if it had been the rustle
of an angel's wing!
But I encouraged Joe at the time. I was lost in the mazes of my
future fortunes, and could not retrace the by-paths we had trodden
together. I begged Joe to be comforted, for (as he said) we had
ever been the best of friends, and (as I said) we ever would be so.
Joe scooped his eyes with his disengaged wrist, as if he were bent
on gouging himself, but said not another word.
Mr. Jaggers had looked on at this, as one who recognized in Joe the
village idiot, and in me his keeper. When it was over, he said,
weighing in his hand the purse he had ceased to swing:--
"Now, Joseph Gargery, I warn you this is your last chance. No half
measures with me. If you mean to take a present that I have it in
charge to make you, speak out, and you shall have it. If on the
contrary you mean to say--" Here, to his great amazement, he was
stopped by Joe's suddenly working round him with every
demonstration of a fell pugilistic purpose.
"Which I meantersay," cried Joe, "that if you come into my place
bull-baiting and badgering me, come out! Which I meantersay as sech
if you're a man, come on! Which I meantersay I say, I
meantersay and stand or fall by!"
I drew Joe away, and he immediately became placable; merely stating
to me, in an obliging manner and as a polite expostulatory notice
to any one whom it might happen to concern, that he were not a
going to be bull-baited and badgered in his own place. Mr. Jaggers
had risen when Joe demonstrated, and had backed near the door.
Without evincing any inclination to come in again, he there
delivered his valedictory remarks. They were these.
"Well, Mr. Pip, I think the sooner you leave here--as you are to be
a gentleman--the better. Let it stand for this day week, and you
shall receive my printed address in the meantime. You can take a
hackney-coach at the stage-coach office in London, and come
straight to me. Understand, that I express no opinion, one way or
I do so. Now, understand that, finally. Understand that!"
He was throwing his finger at both of us, and I think would have
gone on, but for his seeming to think Joe dangerous, and going off.
Something came into my head which induced me to run after him, as
he was going down to the Jolly Bargemen, where he had left a hired
carriage.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Jaggers."
"Halloa!" said he, facing round, "what's the matter?"
"I wish to be quite right, Mr. Jaggers, and to keep to your
I go away?"
"No," said he, looking as if he hardly understood me.
"I don't mean in the village only, but up town?"
"No," said he. "No objection."
I thanked him and ran home again, and there I found that Joe had
already locked the front door and vacated the state parlor, and
was seated by the kitchen fire with a hand on each knee, gazing
intently at the burning coals. I too sat down before the fire and
My sister was in her cushioned chair in her corner, and Biddy sat
at her needle-work before the fire, and Joe sat next Biddy, and I
sat next Joe in the corner opposite my sister. The more I looked
into the glowing coals, the more incapable I became of looking at
Joe; the longer the silence lasted, the more unable I felt to
speak.
At length I got out, "Joe, have you told Biddy?"
"No, Pip," returned Joe, still looking at the fire, and holding his
make off somewhere, "which I left it to yourself, Pip."
"I would rather you told, Joe."
in it!"
Biddy dropped her work, and looked at me. Joe held his knees and
looked at me. I looked at both of them. After a pause, they both
heartily congratulated me; but there was a certain touch of sadness
in their congratulations that I rather resented.
I took it upon myself to impress Biddy (and through Biddy, Joe)
with the grave obligation I considered my friends under, to know
nothing and say nothing about the maker of my fortune. It would all
come out in good time, I observed, and in the meanwhile nothing was
to be said, save that I had come into great expectations from a
mysterious patron. Biddy nodded her head thoughtfully at the fire
as she took up her work again, and said she would be very
particular; and Joe, still detaining his knees, said, "Ay, ay, I'll
be ekervally partickler, Pip;" and then they congratulated me
again, and went on to express so much wonder at the notion of my
being a gentleman that I didn't half like it.
Infinite pains were then taken by Biddy to convey to my sister some
idea of what had happened. To the best of my belief, those efforts
entirely failed. She laughed and nodded her head a great many
times, and even repeated after Biddy, the words "Pip" and
"Property." But I doubt if they had more meaning in them than an
election cry, and I cannot suggest a darker picture of her state of
mind.
I never could have believed it without experience, but as Joe and
Biddy became more at their cheerful ease again, I became quite
gloomy. Dissatisfied with my fortune, of course I could not be; but
it is possible that I may have been, without quite knowing it,
dissatisfied with myself.
Any how, I sat with my elbow on my knee and my face upon my hand,
caught one of them looking at me, though never so pleasantly (and
they often looked at me,--particularly Biddy), I felt offended: as
if they were expressing some mistrust of me. Though Heaven knows
they never did by word or sign.
At those times I would get up and look out at the door; for our
kitchen door opened at once upon the night, and stood open on
summer evenings to air the room. The very stars to which I then
raised my eyes, I am afraid I took to be but poor and humble stars
for glittering on the rustic objects among which I had passed my
life.
"Saturday night," said I, when we sat at our supper of
bread and cheese and beer. "Five more days, and then the day before
"Yes, Pip," observed Joe, whose voice sounded hollow in his beer-
mug. "They'll soon go."
"Soon, soon go," said Biddy.
"I have been thinking, Joe, that when I go down town on Monday, and
order my new clothes, I shall tell the tailor I'll come and
put them on there, or that I'll have them sent to Mr. Pumblechook's.
It would be very disagreeable to be stared at by all the people
here."
"Mr. and Mrs. Hubble might like to see you in your new gen-teel figure
too, Pip," said Joe, industriously cutting his bread, with his
cheese on it, in the palm of his left hand, and glancing at my
untasted supper as if he thought of the time when we used to
it as a compliment."
"That's just what I don't want, Joe. They would make such a
business of it,--such a coarse and common business,--that I
couldn't bear myself."
"Ah, that indeed, Pip!" said Joe. "If you couldn't abear
yourself--"
you thought about when you'll show yourself to Mr. Gargery, and your
sister and me? You will show yourself to us; won't you?"
"Biddy," I returned with some resentment, "you are so exceedingly
quick that it's difficult to keep up with you."
("She always were quick," observed Joe.)
"If you had waited another moment, Biddy, you would have heard me
say that I shall bring my clothes here in a bundle one evening,--
most likely on the evening before I go away."
Biddy said no more. Handsomely forgiving her, I soon exchanged an
affectionate good night with her and Joe, and went up to bed. When
I got into my little room, I sat down and took a long look at it,
above, for ever. It was furnished with fresh young remembrances
too, and even at the same moment I fell into much the same confused
division of mind between it and the better rooms to which I was
going, as I had been in so often between the forge and Miss
Havisham's, and Biddy and Estella.
The sun had been shining brightly all day on the roof of my attic,
and the room was warm. As I put the window open and stood looking
out, I saw Joe come slowly forth at the dark door, below, and take a
turn or two in the air; and then I saw Biddy come, and bring him a
pipe and light it for him. He never smoked so late, and it seemed
to hint to me that he wanted comforting, for some reason or other.
He presently stood at the door immediately beneath me, smoking his
pipe, and Biddy stood too, quietly talking to him, and I knew
that they talked of me, for I heard my name mentioned in an
endearing tone by both of them more than once. I would not have
listened for more, if I could have heard more; so I drew away from
the window, and sat down in my one chair by the bedside, feeling it
very sorrowful and strange that this first night of my bright
fortunes should be the loneliest I had ever known.
Looking towards the open window, I saw light wreaths from Joe's
pipe floating there, and I fancied it was like a blessing from Joe,
--not obtruded on me or paraded before me, but pervading the air we
an uneasy bed now, and I never slept the old sound sleep in it any
more.