Chapter 30

Great Expectations

by Charles Dickens

After well considering the matter while I was dressing at the
Blue Boar in the morning, I resolved to tell my guardian that I
doubted Orlick's being the right sort of man to fill a post of trust
at Miss Havisham's. "Why, of course he is not the right sort of man,
Pip," said my guardian, comfortably satisfied beforehand on the
general head, "because the man who fills the post of trust never is
the right sort of man." It seemed quite to put him into spirits, to
find that this particular post was not exceptionally held by the
right sort of man, and he listened in a satisfied manner while I told
him what knowledge I had of Orlick. "Very good, Pip," he observed,
when I had concluded, "I'll go round presently, and pay our friend
off." Rather alarmed by this summary action, I was for a little
delay, and even hinted that our friend himself might be difficult to
deal with. "Oh no he won't," said my guardian, making his
pocket-handkerchief-point, with perfect confidence; "I should like to
see him argue the question with me."

As we were going back together to London by the mid-day coach,
and as I breakfasted under such terrors of Pumblechook that I could
scarcely hold my cup, this gave me an opportunity of saying that I
wanted a walk, and that I would go on along the London-road while Mr.
Jaggers was occupied, if he would let the coachman know that I would
get into my place when overtaken. I was thus enabled to fly from the
Blue Boar immediately after breakfast. By then making a loop of
about a couple of miles into the open country at the back of
Pumblechook's premises, I got round into the High-street again, a
little beyond that pitfall, and felt myself in comparative
security.

It was interesting to be in the quiet old town once more, and it
was not disagreeable to be here and there suddenly recognized and
stared after. One or two of the tradespeople even darted out of
their shops and went a little way down the street before me, that
they might turn, as if they had forgotten something, and pass me face
to face - on which occasions I don't know whether they or I made the
worse pretence; they of not doing it, or I of not seeing it. Still
my position was a distinguished one, and I was not at all
dissatisfied with it, until Fate threw me in the way of that
unlimited miscreant, Trabb's boy.

Casting my eyes along the street at a certain point of my
progress, I beheld Trabb's boy approaching, lashing himself with an
empty blue bag. Deeming that a serene and unconscious contemplation
of him would best beseem me, and would be most likely to quell his
evil mind, I advanced with that expression of countenance, and was
rather congratulating myself on my success, when suddenly the knees
of Trabb's boy smote together, his hair uprose, his cap fell off, he
trembled violently in every limb, staggered out into the road, and
crying to the populace, "Hold me! I'm so frightened!" feigned to be
in a paroxysm of terror and contrition, occasioned by the dignity of
my appearance. As I passed him, his teeth loudly chattered in his
head, and with every mark of extreme humiliation, he prostrated
himself in the dust.

This was a hard thing to bear, but this was nothing. I had not
advanced another two hundred yards, when, to my inexpressible terror,
amazement, and indignation, I again beheld Trabb's boy approaching.
He was coming round a narrow corner. His blue bag was slung over his
shoulder, honest industry beamed in his eyes, a determination to
proceed to Trabb's with cheerful briskness was indicated in his gait.
With a shock he became aware of me, and was severely visited as
before; but this time his motion was rotatory, and he staggered round
and round me with knees more afflicted, and with uplifted hands as if
beseeching for mercy. His sufferings were hailed with the greatest
joy by a knot of spectators, and I felt utterly confounded.

I had not got as much further down the street as the
post-office, when I again beheld Trabb's boy shooting round by a back
way. This time, he was entirely changed. He wore the blue bag in
the manner of my great-coat, and was strutting along the pavement
towards me on the opposite side of the street, attended by a company
of delighted young friends to whom he from time to time exclaimed,
with a wave of his hand, "Don't know yah!" Words cannot state the
amount of aggravation and injury wreaked upon me by Trabb's boy,
when, passing abreast of me, he pulled up his shirt-collar, twined
his side-hair, stuck an arm akimbo, and smirked extravagantly by,
wriggling his elbows and body, and drawling to his attendants, "Don't
know yah, don't know yah, pon my soul don't know yah!" The disgrace
attendant on his immediately afterwards taking to crowing and
pursuing me across the bridge with crows, as from an exceedingly
dejected fowl who had known me when I was a blacksmith, culminated
the disgrace with which I left the town, and was, so to speak,
ejected by it into the open country.

But unless I had taken the life of Trabb's boy on that occasion,
I really do not even now see what I could have done save endure. To
have struggled with him in the street, or to have exacted any lower
recompense from him than his heart's best blood, would have been
futile and degrading. Moreover, he was a boy whom no man could hurt;
an invulnerable and dodging serpent who, when chased into a corner,
flew out again between his captor's legs, scornfully yelping. I
wrote, however, to Mr. Trabb by next day's post, to say that Mr. Pip
must decline to deal further with one who could so far forget what he
owed to the best interests of society, as to employ a boy who excited
Loathing in every respectable mind.

The coach, with Mr. Jaggers inside, came up in due time, and I
took my box-seat again, and arrived in London safe - but not sound,
for my heart was gone. As soon as I arrived, I sent a penitential
codfish and barrel of oysters to Joe (as reparation for not having
gone myself), and then went on to Barnard's Inn.

I found Herbert dining on cold meat, and delighted to welcome me
back. Having despatched The Avenger to the coffee-house for an
addition to the dinner, I felt that I must open my breast that very
evening to my friend and chum. As confidence was out of the question
with The Avenger in the hall, which could merely be regarded in the
light of an ante-chamber to the keyhole, I sent him to the Play. A
better proof of the severity of my bondage to that taskmaster could
scarcely be afforded, than the degrading shifts to which I was
constantly driven to find him employment. So mean is extremity, that
I sometimes sent him to Hyde Park Corner to see what o'clock it
was.

Dinner done and we sitting with our feet upon the fender, I said
to Herbert, "My dear Herbert, I have something very particular to
tell you."

"My dear Handel," he returned, "I shall esteem and respect your
confidence."

"It concerns myself, Herbert," said I, "and one other
person."

Herbert crossed his feet, looked at the fire with his head on
one side, and having looked at it in vain for some time, looked at me
because I didn't go on.

"Herbert," said I, laying my hand upon his knee, "I love - I
adore - Estella."

Instead of being transfixed, Herbert replied in an easy
matter-ofcourse way, "Exactly. Well?"

"Well, Herbert? Is that all you say? Well?"

"What next, I mean?" said Herbert. "Of course I know that."

"How do you know it?" said I.

"How do I know it, Handel? Why, from you."

"I never told you."

"Told me! You have never told me when you have got your hair
cut, but I have had senses to perceive it. You have always adored
her, ever since I have known you. You brought your adoration and
your portmanteau here, together. Told me! Why, you have always told
me all day long. When you told me your own story, you told me
plainly that you began adoring her the first time you saw her, when
you were very young indeed."

"Very well, then," said I, to whom this was a new and not
unwelcome light, "I have never left off adoring her. And she has
come back, a most beautiful and most elegant creature. And I saw her
yesterday. And if I adored her before, I now doubly adore her."

"Lucky for you then, Handel," said Herbert, "that you are picked
out for her and allotted to her. Without encroaching on forbidden
ground, we may venture to say that there can be no doubt between
ourselves of that fact. Have you any idea yet, of Estella's views on
the adoration question?"

I shook my head gloomily. "Oh! She is thousands of miles away,
from me," said I.

"Patience, my dear Handel: time enough, time enough. But you
have something more to say?"

"I am ashamed to say it," I returned, "and yet it's no worse to
say it than to think it. You call me a lucky fellow. Of course, I
am. I was a blacksmith's boy but yesterday; I am - what shall I say
I am - to-day?"

"Say, a good fellow, if you want a phrase," returned Herbert,
smiling, and clapping his hand on the back of mine, "a good fellow,
with impetuosity and hesitation, boldness and diffidence, action and
dreaming, curiously mixed in him."

I stopped for a moment to consider whether there really was this
mixture in my character. On the whole, I by no means recognized the
analysis, but thought it not worth disputing.

"When I ask what I am to call myself to-day, Herbert," I went
on, "I suggest what I have in my thoughts. You say I am lucky. I
know I have done nothing to raise myself in life, and that Fortune
alone has raised me; that is being very lucky. And yet, when I think
of Estella--"

("And when don't you, you know?" Herbert threw in, with his eyes
on the fire; which I thought kind and sympathetic of him.)

" - Then, my dear Herbert, I cannot tell you how dependent and
uncertain I feel, and how exposed to hundreds of chances. Avoiding
forbidden ground, as you did just now, I may still say that on the
constancy of one person (naming no person) all my expectations
depend. And at the best, how indefinite and unsatisfactory, only to
know so vaguely what they are!" In saying this, I relieved my mind
of what had always been there, more or less, though no doubt most
since yesterday.

"Now, Handel," Herbert replied, in his gay hopeful way, "it
seems to me that in the despondency of the tender passion, we are
looking into our gift-horse's mouth with a magnifying-glass.
Likewise, it seems to me that, concentrating our attention on the
examination, we altogether overlook one of the best points of the
animal. Didn't you tell me that your guardian, Mr. Jaggers, told you
in the beginning, that you were not endowed with expectations only?
And even if he had not told you so - though that is a very large If,
I grant - could you believe that of all men in London, Mr. Jaggers is
the man to hold his present relations towards you unless he were sure
of his ground?"

I said I could not deny that this was a strong point. I said it
(people often do so, in such cases) like a rather reluctant
concession to truth and justice; - as if I wanted to deny it!

"I should think it was a strong point," said Herbert, "and I
should think you would be puzzled to imagine a stronger; as to the
rest, you must bide your guardian's time, and he must bide his
client's time. You'll be one-and-twenty before you know where you
are, and then perhaps you'll get some further enlightenment. At all
events, you'll be nearer getting it, for it must come at last."

"What a hopeful disposition you have!" said I, gratefully
admiring his cheery ways.

"I ought to have," said Herbert, "for I have not much else. I
must acknowledge, by-the-bye, that the good sense of what I have just
said is not my own, but my father's. The only remark I ever heard
him make on your story, was the final one: "The thing is settled and
done, or Mr. Jaggers would not be in it." And now before I say
anything more about my father, or my father's son, and repay
confidence with confidence, I want to make myself seriously
disagreeable to you for a moment - positively repulsive."

"You won't succeed," said I.

"Oh yes I shall!" said he. "One, two, three, and now I am in
for it. Handel, my good fellow;" though he spoke in this light tone,
he was very much in earnest: "I have been thinking since we have
been talking with our feet on this fender, that Estella surely cannot
be a condition of your inheritance, if she was never referred to by
your guardian. Am I right in so understanding what you have told me,
as that he never referred to her, directly or indirectly, in any way?
Never even hinted, for instance, that your patron might have views
as to your marriage ultimately?"

"Never."

"Now, Handel, I am quite free from the flavour of sour grapes,
upon my soul and honour! Not being bound to her, can you not detach
yourself from her? - I told you I should be disagreeable."

I turned my head aside, for, with a rush and a sweep, like the
old marsh winds coming up from the sea, a feeling like that which had
subdued me on the morning when I left the forge, when the mists were
solemnly rising, and when I laid my hand upon the village
finger-post, smote upon my heart again. There was silence between us
for a little while.

"Yes; but my dear Handel," Herbert went on, as if we had been
talking instead of silent, "its having been so strongly rooted in the
breast of a boy whom nature and circumstances made so romantic,
renders it very serious. Think of her bringing-up, and think of Miss
Havisham. Think of what she is herself (now I am repulsive and you
abominate me). This may lead to miserable things."

"I know it, Herbert," said I, with my head still turned away,
"but I can't help it."

"You can't detach yourself?"

"No. Impossible!"

"You can't try, Handel?"

"No. Impossible!"

"Well!" said Herbert, getting up with a lively shake as if he
had been asleep, and stirring the fire; "now I'll endeavour to make
myself agreeable again!"

So he went round the room and shook the curtains out, put the
chairs in their places, tidied the books and so forth that were lying
about, looked into the hall, peeped into the letter-box, shut the
door, and came back to his chair by the fire: where he sat down,
nursing his left leg in both arms.

"I was going to say a word or two, Handel, concerning my father
and my father's son. I am afraid it is scarcely necessary for my
father's son to remark that my father's establishment is not
particularly brilliant in its housekeeping."

"There is always plenty, Herbert," said I: to say something
encouraging.

"Oh yes! and so the dustman says, I believe, with the strongest
approval, and so does the marine-store shop in the back street.
Gravely, Handel, for the subject is grave enough, you know how it is,
as well as I do. I suppose there was a time once when my father had
not given matters up; but if ever there was, the time is gone. May I
ask you if you have ever had an opportunity of remarking, down in
your part of the country, that the children of not exactly suitable
marriages, are always most particularly anxious to be married?"

This was such a singular question, that I asked him in return,
"Is it so?"

"I don't know," said Herbert, "that's what I want to know.
Because it is decidedly the case with us. My poor sister Charlotte
who was next me and died before she was fourteen, was a striking
example. Little Jane is the same. In her desire to be matrimonially
established, you might suppose her to have passed her short existence
in the perpetual contemplation of domestic bliss. Little Alick in a
frock has already made arrangements for his union with a suitable
young person at Kew. And indeed, I think we are all engaged, except
the baby."

"Then you are?" said I.

"I am," said Herbert; "but it's a secret."

I assured him of my keeping the secret, and begged to be
favoured with further particulars. He had spoken so sensibly and
feelingly of my weakness that I wanted to know something about his
strength.

"May I ask the name?" I said.

"Name of Clara," said Herbert.

"Live in London?"

"Yes. perhaps I ought to mention," said Herbert, who had become
curiously crestfallen and meek, since we entered on the interesting
theme, "that she is rather below my mother's nonsensical family
notions. Her father had to do with the victualling of
passenger-ships. I think he was a species of purser."

"What is he now?" said I.

"He's an invalid now," replied Herbert.

"Living on - ?"

"On the first floor," said Herbert. Which was not at all what I
meant, for I had intended my question to apply to his means. "I have
never seen him, for he has always kept his room overhead, since I
have known Clara. But I have heard him constantly. He makes
tremendous rows - roars, and pegs at the floor with some frightful
instrument." In looking at me and then laughing heartily, Herbert
for the time recovered his usual lively manner.

"Don't you expect to see him?" said I.

"Oh yes, I constantly expect to see him," returned Herbert,
"because I never hear him, without expecting him to come tumbling
through the ceiling. But I don't know how long the rafters may
hold."

When he had once more laughed heartily, he became meek again,
and told me that the moment he began to realize Capital, it was his
intention to marry this young lady. He added as a self-evident
proposition, engendering low spirits, "But you can't marry, you know,
while you're looking about you."

As we contemplated the fire, and as I thought what a difficult
vision to realize this same Capital sometimes was, I put my hands in
my pockets. A folded piece of paper in one of them attracting my
attention, I opened it and found it to be the playbill I had received
from Joe, relative to the celebrated provincial amateur of Roscian
renown. "And bless my heart," I involuntarily added aloud, "it's
to-night!"

This changed the subject in an instant, and made us hurriedly
resolve to go to the play. So, when I had pledged myself to comfort
and abet Herbert in the affair of his heart by all practicable and
impracticable means, and when Herbert had told me that his affianced
already knew me by reputation and that I should be presented to her,
and when we had warmly shaken hands upon our mutual confidence, we
blew out our candles, made up our fire, locked our door, and issued
forth in quest of Mr. Wopsle and Denmark.