Great Expectations
Charles Dickens
Chapter XL Page 2
Once more, he took me by both hands and surveyed me an air of
admiring proprietorship: smoking with great complacency all the
while.
It appeared to me that I could do no better than secure him some
quiet lodging hard by, of which he might take possession when
Herbert returned: whom I expected in two or three days. That the
secret must be confided to Herbert as a matter of unavoidable
necessity, even if I could have put the immense relief I should
derive from sharing it with him out of the question, was plain to
me. But it was by no means so plain to Mr. Provis (I resolved to
call him by that name), who reserved his consent to Herbert's
participation until he should have seen him and formed a favorable
judgment of his physiognomy. "And even then, dear boy," said he,
"we'll have him on his oath."
To state that my terrible patron carried this little black book
about the world solely to swear people on in cases of emergency,
say, that I never knew him put it to any other use. The book itself
had the appearance of having been stolen from some court of
justice, and perhaps his knowledge of its antecedents, combined
with his own experience in that wise, gave him a reliance on its
powers as a sort of legal spell or charm. On this first occasion of
his producing it, I recalled how he had made me swear fidelity in
the churchyard long ago, and he had described himself last
night as always swearing to his resolutions in his solitude.
As he was at present dressed in a seafaring slop suit, in which he
looked as if he had some parrots and cigars to dispose of, I next
discussed with him what dress he should wear. He cherished an
had in his own mind sketched a dress for himself would have
made him something between a dean and a dentist. It was with
considerable difficulty that I won him over to the assumption of a
dress more like a prosperous farmer's; and we arranged that he
should cut his hair close, and wear a little powder. Lastly, as he
had not yet been seen by the laundress or her niece, he was to keep
himself out of their view until his change of dress was made.
in my dazed, not to say distracted, state, it took so long, that I
did not get out to further them until two or three in the
afternoon. He was to remain shut up in the chambers while I was
gone, and was on no account to open the door.
There being to my knowledge a respectable lodging-house in
Essex Street, the back of which looked into the Temple, and was
almost within hail of my windows, I first of all repaired to that
house, and was so fortunate as to secure the second floor for my
uncle, Mr. Provis. I then went from shop to shop, making such
purchases as were necessary to the change in his appearance. This
Britain. Mr. Jaggers was at his desk, but, seeing me enter, got up
immediately and stood before his fire.
"Now, Pip," said he, "be careful."
"I will, sir," I returned. For, coming along I had thought well of
what I was going to say.
"Don't commit yourself," said Mr. Jaggers, "and don't commit any
one. You understand--any one. Don't tell me anything: I don't want
to know anything; I am not curious."
Of course I saw that he knew the man was come.
have been told is true. I have no hope of its being untrue, but at
least I may verify it."
me, with his head on one side, and not looking at me, but looking
communication. You can't have verbal communication a man in
New South Wales, you know."
"I will say, informed, Mr. Jaggers."
"Good."
"I have been informed by a person named Abel Magwitch, that he is
the benefactor so long unknown to me."
"That is the man," said Mr. Jaggers, "in New South Wales."
"And only he?" said I.
"And only he," said Mr. Jaggers.
"I am not so unreasonable, sir, as to think you at all responsible
for my mistakes and wrong conclusions; but I always supposed it was
Miss Havisham."
coolly, and taking a bite at his forefinger, "I am not at all
responsible for that."
"And yet it looked so like it, sir," I pleaded with a downcast
heart.
"Not a particle of evidence, Pip," said Mr. Jaggers, shaking his
head and gathering up his skirts. "Take nothing on its looks; take
everything on evidence. There's no better rule."
"I have no more to say," said I, with a sigh, after standing silent
for a little while. "I have verified my information, and there's an
end."
"And Magwitch--in New South Wales--having at last disclosed
throughout my communication with you, I have always adhered to the
strict line of fact. There has never been the least departure from
the strict line of fact. You are quite aware of that?"
"Quite, sir."
"I communicated to Magwitch--in New South Wales--when he first
wrote to me--from New South Wales--the caution that he must not
expect me ever to deviate from the strict line of fact. I also
communicated to him another caution. He appeared to me to have
obscurely hinted in his letter at some distant idea he had of
seeing you in England here. I cautioned him that I must hear no
more of that; that he was not at all likely to obtain a pardon;
that he was expatriated for the term of his natural life; and that
his presenting himself in this country would be an act of felony,
rendering him liable to the extreme penalty of the law. I gave
Magwitch caution," said Mr. Jaggers, looking hard at me; "I
"No doubt," said I.
"I have been informed by Wemmick," pursued Mr. Jaggers, still
looking hard at me, "that he has received a letter, under date
Portsmouth, from a colonist of the name of Purvis, or--"
"Or Provis," I suggested.
"Or Provis--thank you, Pip. Perhaps it is Provis? Perhaps you know
it's Provis?"
"You know it's Provis. A letter, under date Portsmouth, from a
colonist of the name of Provis, asking for the particulars of your
address, on behalf of Magwitch. Wemmick sent him the particulars, I
understand, by return of post. Probably it is through Provis that
you have received the explanation of Magwitch--in New South
Wales?"
"It came through Provis," I replied.
"Good day, Pip," said Mr. Jaggers, offering his hand; "glad to have
seen you. In writing by post to Magwitch--in New South Wales--or
in communicating with him through Provis, have the goodness to
mention that the particulars and vouchers of our long account shall
be sent to you, together with the balance; for there is still a
balance remaining. Good day, Pip!"
We shook hands, and he looked hard at me as long as he could see
me. I turned at the door, and he was still looking hard at me,
while the two vile casts on the shelf seemed to be trying to get
their eyelids open, and to force out of their swollen throats, "O,
what a man he is!"
Wemmick was out, and though he had been at his desk he could have
done nothing for me. I went straight back to the Temple, where I
found the terrible Provis drinking rum and water and smoking
negro-head, in safety.
Next day the clothes I had ordered all came home, and he put them
on. Whatever he put on, became him less (it dismally seemed to me)
than what he had worn before. To my thinking, there was something
in him that made it hopeless to attempt to disguise him. The more I
dressed him and the better I dressed him, the more he looked like
the slouching fugitive on the marshes. This effect on my anxious
fancy was partly referable, no doubt, to his old face and manner
growing more familiar to me; but I believe too that he dragged one
of his legs as if there were still a weight of iron on it, and that
from head to foot there was Convict in the very grain of the man.
The influences of his solitary hut-life were upon him besides, and
gave him a savage air that no dress could tame; added to these
were the influences of his subsequent branded life among men, and,
crowning all, his consciousness that he was dodging and hiding now.
In all his ways of sitting and standing, and eating and drinking,--
of brooding about in a high-shouldered reluctant style,--of taking
out his great horn-handled jackknife and wiping it on his legs and
cutting his food,--of lifting light glasses and cups to his lips,
as if they were clumsy pannikins,--of chopping a wedge off his
bread, and soaking up with it the last fragments of gravy round and
round his plate, as if to make the most of an allowance, and then
drying his finger-ends on it, and then swallowing it,--in these
ways and a thousand other small nameless instances arising every
minute in the day, there was Prisoner, Felon, Bondsman, plain as
It had been his own idea to wear that touch of powder, and I had
conceded the powder after overcoming the shorts. But I can compare
the effect of it, when on, to nothing but the probable effect of
rouge upon the dead; so awful was the manner in which everything in
him that it was most desirable to repress, started through that
thin layer of pretence, and seemed to come blazing out at the crown
of his head. It was abandoned as soon as tried, and he wore his
grizzled hair cut short.
Words cannot tell what a sense I had, at the same time, of the
easy-chair, and his bald head tattooed with deep wrinkles falling
forward on his breast, I would sit and look at him, wondering what
he had done, and loading him with all the crimes in the Calendar,
until the impulse was powerful on me to start up and fly from him.
Every hour so increased my abhorrence of him, that I even think I
might have yielded to this impulse in the first agonies of being so
haunted, notwithstanding all he had done for me and the risk he
ran, but for the knowledge that Herbert must soon come back. Once,
I actually did start out of bed in the night, and begin to dress
myself in my worst clothes, hurriedly intending to leave him there
with everything else I possessed, and enlist for India as a private
soldier.
I doubt if a ghost could have been more terrible to me, up in those
lonely rooms in the long evenings and long nights, with the wind
and the rain always rushing by. A ghost could not have been taken
and hanged on my account, and the consideration that he could be,
and the dread he would be, were no small addition to my
horrors. When he was not asleep, or playing a complicated kind of
Patience with a ragged pack of cards of his own,--a game that I
never saw before or since, and in which he recorded his winnings by
sticking his jackknife into the table,--when he was not engaged in
either of these pursuits, he would ask me to read to him,--"Foreign
language, dear boy!" While I complied, he, not comprehending a
single word, would stand before the fire surveying me with the air
of an Exhibitor, and I would see him, between the fingers of the
hand with which I shaded my face, appealing in dumb show to the
furniture to take notice of my proficiency. The imaginary student
pursued by the misshapen creature he had impiously made, was not
more wretched than I, pursued by the creature had made me, and
recoiling from him with a stronger repulsion, the more he admired
me and the fonder he was of me.
This is written of, I am sensible, as if it had lasted a year. It
lasted about five days. Expecting Herbert all the time, I dared not
length, one evening when dinner was over and I had dropped into a
slumber quite worn out,--for my nights had been agitated and my
rest broken by fearful dreams,--I was roused by the welcome
footstep on the staircase. Provis, who had been asleep too,
staggered up at the noise I made, and in an instant I saw his
jackknife shining in his hand.
"Quiet! It's Herbert!" I said; and Herbert came bursting in,
the airy freshness of six hundred miles of France upon him.
again how are you? I seem to have been gone a twelvemonth! Why, so I
must have been, for you have grown quite thin and pale! Handel, my--
Halloa! I beg your pardon."
He was stopped in his running on and in his shaking hands with me,
by seeing Provis. Provis, regarding him with a fixed attention, was
slowly putting up his jackknife, and groping in another pocket for
something else.
"Herbert, my dear friend," said I, shutting the double doors, while
Herbert stood staring and wondering, "something very strange has
"It's all right, dear boy!" said Provis coming forward, with his
little clasped black book, and then addressing himself to Herbert.
"Take it in your right hand. Lord strike you dead on the spot, if
ever you split in any way sumever! Kiss it!"
"Do so, as he wishes it," I said to Herbert. So, Herbert, looking
at me with a friendly uneasiness and amazement, complied, and
your oath, you know. And never believe me on mine, if Pip shan't
make a gentleman on you!"