Chapter 12

Great Expectations

by Charles Dickens

My mind grew very uneasy on the subject of the pale young
gentleman. The more I thought of the fight, and recalled the pale
young gentleman on his back in various stages of puffy and
incrimsoned countenance, the more certain it appeared that something
would be done to me. I felt that 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 looked out at the kitchen
door with the greatest caution 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 Judges.

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
suborned boys - a numerous band of mercenaries - might be engaged 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 retaliations;
they always came into my mind as the acts of injudicious relatives of
his, goaded on by the state of his visage and an indignant sympathy
with the family features.

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 was lifeless.
Only in the corner where the combat had taken place, 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
other room in which the long table was laid out, I saw a garden-chair
- a light chair on wheels, that you pushed from 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
tolerate me; sometimes, she would condescend to me; sometimes, she
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, with a miserly relish of Estella's moods, whatever
they were. And sometimes, when her moods were so many and so
contradictory of one another that I was puzzled what to say or 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
of rendering homage to a patron saint; but, I believe Old Clem stood
in that 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! With a thump and a sound - Old Clem! Beat it
out, beat it out - Old Clem! With a clink for the stout - 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 old house than the lightest
breath of wind.

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
complete confidence in no one but Biddy; but, I told poor Biddy
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
almost insupportable aggravation to my exasperated spirit. That 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 these
hands could have taken a linchpin out of his chaise-cart, 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 going to be cooked,
would begin by saying, "Now, Mum, here is this boy! Here is this boy
which you brought up by hand. Hold up your head, boy, and be for
ever 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 favourable 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 that 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 was a
most irritating end to every one of these debates. All in a 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 favour to bother my life out.

We went on in this way for a long time, and it seemed likely
that we should continue to go on in this way for a long time, when,
one 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 her dressingtable, she
stayed me with a movement of her impatient fingers:

"Tell me the name again of that blacksmith of yours."

"Joe Gargery, ma'am."

"Meaning the master you were to be apprenticed to?"

"Yes, Miss Havisham."

"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 honour 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."

When 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
always a very bad sign - put on her coarse apron, and began 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.