Great Expectations
Charles Dickens
Chapter XXXVIII Page 2
among the faded bridal relics with which it was strewn. I took
advantage of the moment--I had sought one from the first--to
leave the room, after beseeching Estella's attention to her, with a
movement of my hand. When I left, Estella was yet standing by the
great chimney-piece, just as she had stood throughout. Miss
Havisham's gray hair was all adrift upon the ground, among the
other bridal wrecks, and was a miserable sight to see.
It was with a depressed heart that I walked in the starlight for an
hour and more, about the courtyard, and about the brewery, and
about the ruined garden. When I at last took courage to return to
the room, I found Estella sitting at Miss Havisham's knee, taking
up some stitches in one of those old articles of dress that were
dropping to pieces, and of which I have often been reminded since
by the faded tatters of old banners that I have seen hanging up in
only we were skilful now, and played French games,--and so the
I lay in that separate building across the courtyard. It was the
first time I had ever lain down to rest in Satis House, and sleep
refused to come near me. A thousand Miss Havishams haunted me. She
was on this side of my pillow, on that, at the head of the bed, at
the foot, behind the half-opened door of the dressing-room, in the
dressing-room, in the room overhead, in the room beneath,--
everywhere. At last, when the night was slow to creep on towards
place as a place to lie down in, and that I must get up. I
therefore got up and put on my clothes, and went out across the
yard into the long stone passage, designing to gain the outer
courtyard and walk there for the relief of my mind. But I was no
sooner in the passage than I extinguished my candle; for I saw
Miss Havisham going along it in a ghostly manner, making a low cry.
I followed her at a distance, and saw her go up the staircase. She
carried a bare candle in her hand, which she had probably taken
from one of the sconces in her own room, and was a most unearthly
felt the mildewed air of the feast-chamber, without seeing her open
the door, and I heard her walking there, and so across into own
room, and so across again into that, never ceasing the low cry.
After a time, I tried in the dark both to get out, and to go back,
but I could do neither until some streaks of day strayed in and
showed me where to lay my hands. During the whole interval,
whenever I went to the bottom of the staircase, I heard her
cry.
between her and Estella, nor was it ever revived on any similar
occasion; and there were four similar occasions, to the best of my
remembrance. Nor, did Miss Havisham's manner towards Estella in
anywise change, except that I believed it to have something like
fear infused among its former characteristics.
It is impossible to turn this leaf of my life, without putting
On a certain occasion when the Finches were assembled in force, and
when good feeling was being promoted in the usual manner by
nobody's agreeing with anybody else, the presiding Finch called the
Grove to order, forasmuch as Mr. Drummle had not yet toasted a lady;
which, according to the solemn constitution of the society, it was
the brute's turn to do that day. I thought I saw him leer in an
ugly way at me while the decanters were going round, but as there
indignant surprise when he called upon the company to pledge him to
"Estella!"
"Estella who?" said I.
"Never you mind," retorted Drummle.
"Estella of where?" said I. "You are bound to say of where." Which
he was, as a Finch.
Much he knew about peerless beauties, a mean, miserable idiot! I
whispered Herbert.
"I know that lady," said Herbert, across the table, when the toast
had been honored.
"Do you?" said Drummle.
"And so do I," I added, with a scarlet face.
"Do you?" said Drummle. "O, Lord!"
This was the only retort--except glass or crockery--that the
heavy creature was capable of making; but, I became as highly
incensed by it as if it had been barbed with wit, and I immediately
rose in my place and said that I could not but regard it as being
like the honorable Finch's impudence to come down to that Grove,--
we always talked about coming down to that Grove, as a neat
Parliamentary turn of expression,--down to that Grove, proposing a
lady of whom he knew nothing. Mr. Drummle, upon this, starting up,
demanded what I meant by that? Whereupon I made him the extreme
reply that I believed he knew where I was to be found.
Whether it was possible in a Christian country to get on without
blood, after this, was a question on which the Finches were
divided. The debate upon it grew so lively, indeed, that at least
six more honorable members told six more, during the discussion,
that they believed they knew they were to be found. However,
it was decided at last (the Grove being a Court of Honor) that if
Mr. Drummle would bring never so slight a certificate from the lady,
importing that he had the honor of her acquaintance, Mr. Pip must
betrayed into a warmth which." Next day was appointed for the
production (lest our honor should take cold from delay), and next
day Drummle appeared with a polite little avowal in Estella's hand,
that she had had the honor of dancing with him several times. This
left me no course but to regret that I had been "betrayed into a
warmth which," and on the whole to repudiate, as untenable, the
idea that I was to be found anywhere. Drummle and I then sat
snorting at one another for an hour, while the Grove engaged in
feeling was declared to have gone ahead at an amazing rate.
I tell this lightly, but it was no light thing to me. For, I cannot
adequately express what pain it gave me to think that Estella
very far below the average. To the present moment, I believe it to
have been referable to some pure fire of generosity and
disinterestedness in my love for her, that I could not endure the
thought of her stooping to that hound. No doubt I should have been
have caused me a different kind and degree of distress.
It was easy for me to find out, and I did soon find out, that
to do it. A little while, and he was always in pursuit of her, and
he and I crossed one another every day. He held on, in a dull
persistent way, and Estella held him on; now with encouragement,
now with discouragement, now almost flattering him, now openly
despising him, now knowing him very well, now scarcely remembering
who he was.
wait, however, and had the patience of his tribe. Added to that, he
had a blockhead confidence in his money and in his family
greatness, which sometimes did him good service,--almost taking the
place of concentration and determined purpose. So, the Spider,
would often uncoil himself and drop at the right nick of time.
At a certain Assembly Ball at Richmond (there used to be Assembly
Balls at most places then), where Estella had outshone all other
beauties, this blundering Drummle so hung about her, and with so
much toleration on her part, that I resolved to speak to her
concerning him. I took the next opportunity; which was she was
waiting for Mrs. Blandley to take her home, and was sitting apart
among some flowers, ready to go. I was with her, for I almost
always accompanied them to and from such places.
"Are you tired, Estella?"
"Rather, Pip."
"You should be."
"Say rather, I should not be; for I have my letter to Satis House
to write, before I go to sleep."
"Recounting to-night's triumph?" said I. "Surely a very poor one,
Estella."
"What do you mean? I didn't know there had been any."
"Estella," said I, "do look at that fellow in the corner yonder,
who is looking over here at us."
"Why should I look at him?" returned Estella, with her eyes on me
instead. "What is there in that fellow in the corner yonder,--to
use your words,--that I need look at?"
"Indeed, that is the very question I want to ask you," said I. "For
he has been hovering about you all night."
"Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures," replied Estella, with a
glance towards him, "hover about a lighted candle. Can the candle
help it?"
"No," I returned; "but cannot the Estella help it?"
"Well!" said she, laughing, after a moment, "perhaps. Yes. Anything
you like."
"But, Estella, do hear me speak. It makes me wretched that you
should encourage a man so generally despised as Drummle. You know
he is despised."
"Well?" said she.
"You know he is as ungainly within as without. A deficient,
ill-tempered, lowering, stupid fellow."
"Well?" said she.
"You know he has nothing to recommend him but money and a
ridiculous roll of addle-headed predecessors; now, don't you?"
"Well?" said she again; and each time she said it, she opened her
To overcome the difficulty of getting past that monosyllable, I
took it from her, and said, repeating it with emphasis, "Well! Then,
that is why it makes me wretched."
Now, if I could have believed that she favored Drummle with any
idea of making me-me--wretched, I should have been in better
heart about it; but in that habitual way of hers, she put me so
entirely out of the question, that I could believe nothing of the
kind.
"Pip," said Estella, casting her glance over the room, "don't be
foolish about its effect on you. It may have its effect on others,
and may be meant to have. It's not worth discussing."
"Yes it is," said I, "because I cannot bear that people should say,
'she throws away graces and attractions on a mere boor, the
lowest in the crowd.'"
"I can bear it," said Estella.
"Oh! don't be so proud, Estella, and so inflexible."
"Calls me proud and inflexible in this breath!" said Estella,
stooping to a boor!"
"There is no doubt you do," said I, something hurriedly, "for I
you never give to--me."
and serious, if not angry, look, "to deceive and entrap you?"
"Do you deceive and entrap him, Estella?"
I'll say no more."
And now that I have given the one chapter to the theme that so
filled my heart, and so often made it ache and ache again, I pass
on unhindered, to the event that had impended over me longer yet;
world held Estella, and in the days when her baby intelligence was
In the Eastern story, the heavy slab that was to fall on the bed of
state in the flush of conquest was slowly wrought out of the
quarry, the tunnel for the rope to hold it in its place was slowly
carried through the leagues of rock, the slab was slowly raised and
fitted in the roof, the rope was rove to it and slowly taken
ready with much labor, and the hour come, the sultan was aroused
in the dead of the night, and the sharpened axe that was to sever
the rope from the great iron ring was put into his hand, and he
struck with it, and the rope parted and rushed away, and the
ceiling fell. So, in my case; all the work, near and afar, that
tended to the end, had been accomplished; and in an instant the
blow was struck, and the roof of my stronghold dropped upon me.