Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Chapter
11 At the appointed time I returned to Miss Havisham's,
and my hesitating ring at the gate brought out Estella. She locked it after admitting
me, as she had done before, and again preceded me into the dark passage
where her candle stood. She took no notice of me until she had the
candle in her hand, when she looked over her shoulder, superciliously
saying, "You are to come this way to-day," and took me to quite another
part of the house. The passage was a long one, and seemed to
pervade the whole square basement of the Manor House. We traversed but one side of the square,
however, and at the end of it she stopped, and put her candle down and
opened a door. Here, the daylight reappeared, and I found
myself in a small paved courtyard, the opposite side
of which was formed by a detached dwelling-house, that looked as if
it had once belonged to the manager or head clerk of the extinct brewery. There was a clock in the
outer wall of this house. Like the clock in Miss Havisham's room, and
like Miss Havisham's watch, it had stopped at twenty minutes to nine. We went in at the door, which stood open,
and into a gloomy room with a low ceiling, on the ground-floor at the back. There was some company in
the room, and Estella said to me as she joined it, "You are to go and
stand there boy, till you are wanted." "There", being the window, I
crossed to it, and stood "there," in a very uncomfortable state of mind,
looking out. It opened to the ground, and looked into a
most miserable corner of the neglected garden, upon a rank ruin of cabbage-stalks,
and one box-tree that had been clipped round long ago, like
a pudding, and had a new growth at the top of it, out of shape and
of a different color, as if that part of the pudding had stuck to the
saucepan and got burnt. This
was my homely thought, as I contemplated the box-tree. There had been
some light snow, overnight, and it lay nowhere else to my knowledge;
but, it had not quite melted from the cold shadow of this bit of garden,
and the wind caught it up in little eddies and threw it at the window,
as if it pelted me for coming there. I divined that my coming had stopped conversation
in the room, and that its other occupants were looking at me. I could see nothing of the room
except the shining of the fire in the window-glass, but I stiffened in
all my joints with the consciousness that I was under close inspection. There were three ladies in the room and one
gentleman. Before I had been
standing at the window five minutes, they somehow conveyed to me that
they were all toadies and humbugs, but that each of them pretended not
to know that the others were toadies and humbugs: because the admission
that he or she did know it, would have made him or her out to be a toady
and humbug. They all had a listless and dreary air of
waiting somebody's pleasure, and the most talkative of the ladies had to
speak quite rigidly to repress a yawn. This lady, whose name was Camilla, very much
reminded me of my sister, with the difference that
she was older, and (as I found when I caught sight of her) of a blunter cast
of features. Indeed, when
I knew her better I began to think it was a Mercy she had any features
at all, so very blank and high was the dead wall of her face. "Poor dear soul!" said this lady, with an
abruptness of manner quite my sister's. "Nobody's enemy but his own!" "It would be much more commendable to be somebody
else's enemy," said the gentleman; "far more natural." "Cousin Raymond," observed another lady, "we
are to love our neighbor." "Sarah Pocket," returned Cousin Raymond, "if
a man is not his own neighbor, who is?" Miss Pocket laughed, and Camilla laughed and
said (checking a yawn), "The idea!" But I thought they seemed to think it rather
a good idea too. The other lady, who had not spoken yet, said
gravely and emphatically, "Very true!" "Poor soul!" Camilla presently went on (I knew they had
all been looking at me in the mean time), "he is so very strange! Would anyone believe
that when Tom's wife died, he actually could not be induced to see the
importance of the children's having the deepest of trimmings to their
mourning? 'Good Lord!' says he, 'Camilla, what can it
signify so long as the poor bereaved little things are in
black?' So like Matthew! The
idea!" "Good points in him, good points in him,"
said Cousin Raymond; "Heaven forbid I should deny good points in him; but
he never had, and he never will have, any sense of the proprieties." "You know I was obliged," said Camilla,--"I
was obliged to be firm. I
said, 'It WILL NOT DO, for the credit of the family.' I told him that,
without deep trimmings, the family was disgraced. I cried about it from
breakfast till dinner. I injured my digestion. And at last he flung out
in his violent way, and said, with a D, 'Then do as you like.' Thank
Goodness it will always be a consolation to me to know that I instantly
went out in a pouring rain and bought the things." "He paid for them, did he not?" asked Estella. "It's not the question, my dear child, who
paid for them," returned Camilla. "I bought them. And I shall often think of that with peace,
when I wake up in the night." The ringing of a distant bell, combined with
the echoing of some cry or call along the passage by which I had come,
interrupted the conversation and caused Estella to say to me, "Now, boy!" On my turning round, they
all looked at me with the utmost contempt, and, as I went out, I heard
Sarah Pocket say, "Well I am sure! What next!" and Camilla add, with
indignation, "Was there ever such a fancy! The i-de-a!" As we were going with our candle along the
dark passage, Estella stopped all of a sudden, and, facing round, said in
her taunting manner, with her face quite close to mine,-- "Well?" "Well, miss?" I answered, almost falling over her and checking
myself. She stood looking at me, and, of course, I
stood looking at her. "Am I pretty?" "Yes; I think you are very pretty." "Am I insulting?" "Not so much so as you were last time," said
I. "Not so much so?" "No." She fired when she asked the last question,
and she slapped my face with such force as she had, when I answered it. "Now?" said she. "You little coarse monster, what do you think
of me now?" "I shall not tell you." "Because you are going to tell upstairs. Is that it?" "No," said I, "that's not it." "Why don't you cry again, you little wretch?" "Because I'll never cry for you again," said
I. Which was, I suppose, as false a declaration as ever was made; for
I was inwardly crying for her then, and I know what I know of the pain she
cost me afterwards. We went on our way upstairs after this episode;
and, as we were going up, we met a gentleman groping his way down. "Whom have we here?" asked the gentleman, stopping and looking
at me. "A boy," said Estella. He was a burly man of an exceedingly dark
complexion, with an exceedingly large head, and a corresponding
large hand. He took my chin
in his large hand and turned up my face to have a look at me by the
light of the candle. He was prematurely bald on the top of his
head, and had bushy black eyebrows that wouldn't lie
down but stood up bristling. His eyes were set very deep in his head, and
were disagreeably sharp and suspicious. He had a large watch-chain, and strong black
dots where his beard and whiskers would have been if he had
let them. He was nothing
to me, and I could have had no foresight then, that he ever would be
anything to me, but it happened that I had this opportunity of observing
him well. "Boy of the neighborhood? Hey?" said he. "Yes, sir," said I. "How do you come here?" "Miss Havisham sent for me, sir," I explained. "Well! Behave yourself. I have a pretty large experience of boys,
and you're a bad set of fellows. Now mind!" said he, biting the side of his
great forefinger as he frowned at me, "you behave yourself!" With those words, he released me--which I
was glad of, for his hand smelt of scented soap--and went his way downstairs. I wondered whether
he could be a doctor; but no, I thought; he couldn't be a doctor, or he
would have a quieter and more persuasive manner. There was not much time
to consider the subject, for we were soon in Miss Havisham's room, where
she and everything else were just as I had left them. Estella left me
standing near the door, and I stood there until Miss Havisham cast her
eyes upon me from the dressing-table. "So!" she said, without being startled or surprised:
"the days have worn away, have they?" "Yes, ma'am. To-day is--" "There, there, there!" with the impatient movement of her fingers. "I
don't want to know. Are you ready to play?" I was obliged to answer in some confusion,
"I don't think I am, ma'am." "Not at cards again?" she demanded, with a searching look. "Yes, ma'am; I could do that, if I was wanted." "Since this house strikes you old and grave,
boy," said Miss Havisham, impatiently, "and you are unwilling to play,
are you willing to work?" I could answer this inquiry with a better
heart than I had been able to find for the other question, and I said I
was quite willing. "Then go into that opposite room," said she,
pointing at the door behind me with her withered hand, "and wait there
till I come." I crossed the staircase landing, and entered
the room she indicated. From that room, too, the daylight was completely
excluded, and it had an airless smell that was oppressive. A fire had been lately kindled in
the damp old-fashioned grate, and it was more disposed to go out than
to burn up, and the reluctant smoke which hung in the room seemed colder
than the clearer air,--like our own marsh mist. Certain wintry branches
of candles on the high chimney-piece faintly lighted the chamber; or it
would be more expressive to say, faintly troubled its darkness. It was
spacious, and I dare say had once been handsome, but every discernible
thing in it was covered with dust and mould, and dropping to pieces. The
most prominent object was a long table with a tablecloth spread on it,
as if a feast had been in preparation when the house and the clocks all
stopped together. An epergne or centre-piece of some kind was
in the middle of this cloth; it was so heavily overhung
with cobwebs that its form was quite undistinguishable; and, as
I looked along the yellow expanse out of which I remember its seeming
to grow, like a black fungus, I saw speckle-legged spiders with
blotchy bodies running home to it, and running out from it, as if some
circumstances of the greatest public importance had just transpired in the
spider community. I heard the mice too, rattling behind the
panels, as if the same occurrence were important to their interests. But the black beetles took
no notice of the agitation, and groped about the hearth in a ponderous
elderly way, as if they were short-sighted and hard of hearing, and not
on terms with one another. These crawling things had fascinated my attention,
and I was watching them from a distance, when Miss Havisham laid
a hand upon my shoulder. In her other hand she had a crutch-headed
stick on which she leaned, and she looked like the Witch of the place. "This," said she, pointing to the long table
with her stick, "is where I will be laid when I am dead. They shall come and look at me here." With some vague misgiving that she might get
upon the table then and there and die at once, the complete realization
of the ghastly waxwork at the Fair, I shrank under her touch. "What do you think that is?" she asked me, again pointing with her
stick; "that, where those cobwebs are?" "I can't guess what it is, ma'am." "It's a great cake. A bride-cake. Mine!" She looked all round the room in a glaring
manner, and then said, leaning on me while her hand twitched my shoulder,
"Come, come, come! Walk me, walk me!" I made out from this, that the work I had
to do, was to walk Miss Havisham round and round the room. Accordingly, I started at once, and
she leaned upon my shoulder, and we went away at a pace that might have
been an imitation (founded on my first impulse under that roof) of Mr.
Pumblechook's chaise-cart. She was not physically strong, and after a
little time said, "Slower!" Still, we went at an impatient fitful speed,
and as we went, she twitched the hand upon my shoulder, and worked
her mouth, and led me to believe that we were going fast because her
thoughts went fast. After a
while she said, "Call Estella!" so I went out on the landing and
roared that name as I had done on the previous occasion. When her light
appeared, I returned to Miss Havisham, and we started away again round
and round the room. If only Estella had come to be a spectator
of our proceedings, I should have felt sufficiently discontented; but as
she brought with her the three ladies and the gentleman whom I had
seen below, I didn't know what to do. In my politeness, I would have stopped; but
Miss Havisham twitched my shoulder, and we posted
on,--with a shame-faced consciousness on my part that they would think
it was all my doing. "Dear Miss Havisham," said Miss Sarah Pocket. "How well you look!" "I do not," returned Miss Havisham. "I am yellow skin and bone." Camilla brightened when Miss Pocket met with
this rebuff; and she murmured, as she plaintively contemplated
Miss Havisham, "Poor dear soul! Certainly not to be expected to look well,
poor thing. The idea!" "And how are you?" said Miss Havisham to Camilla. As we were close to
Camilla then, I would have stopped as a matter of course, only Miss
Havisham wouldn't stop. We swept on, and I felt that I was highly
obnoxious to Camilla. "Thank you, Miss Havisham," she returned,
"I am as well as can be expected." "Why, what's the matter with you?" asked Miss
Havisham, with exceeding sharpness. "Nothing worth mentioning," replied Camilla. "I don't wish to make a
display of my feelings, but I have habitually thought of you more in the
night than I am quite equal to." "Then don't think of me," retorted Miss Havisham. "Very easily said!" remarked Camilla, amiably repressing a sob,
while a hitch came into her upper lip, and her tears
overflowed. "Raymond is a
witness what ginger and sal volatile I am obliged to take in the night. Raymond is a witness what nervous jerkings
I have in my legs. Chokings
and nervous jerkings, however, are nothing new to me when I think with
anxiety of those I love. If I could be less affectionate and sensitive,
I should have a better digestion and an iron set of nerves. I am sure
I wish it could be so. But as to not thinking of you in the night--The
idea!" Here, a burst of tears. The Raymond referred to, I understood to be
the gentleman present, and him I understood to be Mr. Camilla. He came to the rescue at this point,
and said in a consolatory and complimentary voice, "Camilla, my dear, it
is well known that your family feelings are gradually undermining you to
the extent of making one of your legs shorter than the other." "I am not aware," observed the grave lady
whose voice I had heard but once, "that to think of any person is to make
a great claim upon that person, my dear." Miss Sarah Pocket, whom I now saw to be a
little dry, brown, corrugated old woman, with a small face that might have
been made of walnut-shells, and a large mouth like a cat's without the
whiskers, supported this position by saying, "No, indeed, my dear. Hem!" "Thinking is easy enough," said the grave
lady. "What is easier, you know?" assented Miss Sarah Pocket. "Oh, yes, yes!" cried Camilla, whose fermenting
feelings appeared to rise from her legs to her bosom. "It's all very true! It's a weakness
to be so affectionate, but I can't help it. No doubt my health would be
much better if it was otherwise, still I wouldn't change my disposition
if I could. It's the cause of much suffering, but it's
a consolation to know I posses it, when I wake up in the night." Here another burst of
feeling. Miss Havisham and I had never stopped all
this time, but kept going round and round the room; now brushing against
the skirts of the visitors, now giving them the whole length
of the dismal chamber. "There's Matthew!" said Camilla. "Never mixing with any natural ties,
never coming here to see how Miss Havisham is! I have taken to the sofa
with my staylace cut, and have lain there hours insensible, with my head
over the side, and my hair all down, and my feet I don't know where--" ("Much higher than your head, my love," said
Mr. Camilla.) "I have gone off into that state, hours and
hours, on account of Matthew's strange and inexplicable conduct,
and nobody has thanked me." "Really I must say I should think not!" interposed the grave lady. "You see, my dear," added Miss Sarah Pocket
(a blandly vicious personage), "the question to put to yourself
is, who did you expect to thank you, my love?" "Without expecting any thanks, or anything
of the sort," resumed Camilla, "I have remained in that state, hours
and hours, and Raymond is a witness of the extent to which I have
choked, and what the total inefficacy of ginger has been, and I have
been heard at the piano-forte tuner's across the street, where the poor
mistaken children have even supposed it to be pigeons cooing at a distance,--and
now to be told--" Here Camilla put her hand to her throat, and
began to be quite chemical as to the formation of new combinations there. When this same Matthew was mentioned, Miss
Havisham stopped me and herself, and stood looking at the speaker. This change had a great
influence in bringing Camilla's chemistry to a sudden end. "Matthew will come and see me at last," said
Miss Havisham, sternly, "when I am laid on that table. That will be his place,--there," striking
the table with her stick, "at my head! And yours will be there! And your
husband's there! And Sarah Pocket's there! And Georgiana's there! Now
you all know where to take your stations when you come to feast upon me. And now go!" At the mention of each name, she had struck
the table with her stick in a new place. She now said, "Walk me, walk me!" and we went
on again. "I suppose there's nothing to be done," exclaimed
Camilla, "but comply and depart. It's something to have seen the object of
one's love and duty for even so short a time. I shall think of it with a melancholy
satisfaction when I wake up in the night. I wish Matthew could have
that comfort, but he sets it at defiance. I am determined not to make a
display of my feelings, but it's very hard to be told one wants to feast
on one's relations,--as if one was a Giant,--and to be told to go. The
bare idea!" Mr. Camilla interposing, as Mrs. Camilla laid
her hand upon her heaving bosom, that lady assumed an unnatural fortitude
of manner which I supposed to be expressive of an intention
to drop and choke when out of view, and kissing her hand to Miss Havisham,
was escorted forth. Sarah
Pocket and Georgiana contended who should remain last; but Sarah was
too knowing to be outdone, and ambled round Georgiana with that artful
slipperiness that the latter was obliged to take precedence. Sarah
Pocket then made her separate effect of departing with, "Bless you, Miss
Havisham dear!" and with a smile of forgiving pity on her walnut-shell
countenance for the weaknesses of the rest. While Estella was away lighting them down,
Miss Havisham still walked with her hand on my shoulder, but more and
more slowly. At last she
stopped before the fire, and said, after muttering and looking at it
some seconds,-- "This is my birthday, Pip." I was going to wish her many happy returns,
when she lifted her stick. "I don't suffer it to be spoken of. I don't suffer those who were here
just now, or any one to speak of it. They come here on the day, but they
dare not refer to it." Of course I made no further effort to refer
to it. "On this day of the year, long before you
were born, this heap of decay," stabbing with her crutched stick at
the pile of cobwebs on the table, but not touching it, "was brought here. It and I have worn away
together. The mice have gnawed at it, and sharper teeth
than teeth of mice have gnawed at me." She held the head of her stick against her
heart as she stood looking at the table; she in her once white dress,
all yellow and withered; the once white cloth all yellow and withered;
everything around in a state to crumble under a touch. "When the ruin is complete," said she, with
a ghastly look, "and when they lay me dead, in my bride's dress on the
bride's table,--which shall be done, and which will be the finished curse
upon him,--so much the better if it is done on this day!" She stood looking at the table as if she stood
looking at her own figure lying there. I remained quiet. Estella returned, and she too remained
quiet. It seemed to me that we continued thus for
a long time. In
the heavy air of the room, and the heavy darkness that brooded in its
remoter corners, I even had an alarming fancy that Estella and I might
presently begin to decay. At length, not coming out of her distraught
state by degrees, but in an instant, Miss Havisham said, "Let me see you
two play cards; why have you not begun?" With that, we returned to her room, and sat
down as before; I was beggared, as before; and again,
as before, Miss Havisham watched us all the time, directed my attention
to Estella's beauty, and made me notice it the more by trying her jewels
on Estella's breast and hair. Estella, for her part, likewise treated me
as before, except that she did not condescend to speak. When we had played some half-dozen games,
a day was appointed for my return, and I was taken down into the yard
to be fed in the former dog-like manner. There, too, I was again left to
wander about as I liked. It is not much to the purpose whether a gate
in that garden wall which I had scrambled up to peep over on the last
occasion was, on that last occasion, open or shut. Enough that I saw no gate then, and that I
saw one now. As it stood open, and as I knew that Estella
had let the visitors out,--for she had returned with
the keys in her hand,--I strolled into the garden, and strolled all
over it. It was quite a
wilderness, and there were old melon-frames and cucumber-frames in it,
which seemed in their decline to have produced a spontaneous growth of
weak attempts at pieces of old hats and boots, with now and then a weedy
offshoot into the likeness of a battered saucepan. When I had exhausted the garden and a greenhouse
with nothing in it but a fallen-down grape-vine and some bottles,
I found myself in the dismal corner upon which I had looked out of the
window. Never questioning for
a moment that the house was now empty, I looked in at another window,
and found myself, to my great surprise, exchanging a broad stare with a
pale young gentleman with red eyelids and light hair. This pale young gentleman quickly disappeared,
and reappeared beside me. He had been at his books when I had found
myself staring at him, and I now saw that he was inky. "Halloa!" said he, "young fellow!" Halloa being a general observation which I
had usually observed to be best answered by itself, I said, "Halloa!" politely omitting young
fellow. "Who let you in?" said he. "Miss Estella." "Who gave you leave to prowl about?" "Miss Estella." "Come and fight," said the pale young gentleman. What could I do but follow him? I have often asked myself the question
since; but what else could I do? His manner was so final, and I was
so astonished, that I followed where he led, as if I had been under a
spell. "Stop a minute, though," he said, wheeling
round before we had gone many paces. "I ought to give you a reason for fighting,
too. There it is!" In a most irritating manner he instantly slapped
his hands against one another, daintily flung one of his legs up
behind him, pulled my hair, slapped his hands again, dipped his head,
and butted it into my stomach. The bull-like proceeding last mentioned, besides
that it was unquestionably to be regarded in the light
of a liberty, was particularly disagreeable just after bread
and meat. I therefore hit out
at him and was going to hit out again, when he said, "Aha! Would you?"
and began dancing backwards and forwards in a manner quite unparalleled
within my limited experience. "Laws of the game!" said he. Here, he skipped from his left leg on to
his right. "Regular rules!" Here, he skipped from his right leg on to
his left. "Come to the ground, and go through the preliminaries!" Here,
he dodged backwards and forwards, and did all sorts of things while I
looked helplessly at him. I was secretly afraid of him when I saw him
so dexterous; but I felt morally and physically convinced that his
light head of hair could have had no business in the pit of my stomach,
and that I had a right to consider it irrelevant when so obtruded on
my attention. Therefore, I
followed him without a word, to a retired nook of the garden, formed by
the junction of two walls and screened by some rubbish. On his asking me
if I was satisfied with the ground, and on my replying Yes, he begged my
leave to absent himself for a moment, and quickly returned with a bottle
of water and a sponge dipped in vinegar. "Available for both," he said,
placing these against the wall. And then fell to pulling off, not
only his jacket and waistcoat, but his shirt too, in a manner at once
light-hearted, business-like, and bloodthirsty. Although he did not look very healthy,--having
pimples on his face, and a breaking out at his mouth,--these dreadful
preparations quite appalled me. I judged him to be about my own age, but he
was much taller, and he had a way of spinning himself about that was
full of appearance. For
the rest, he was a young gentleman in a gray suit (when not denuded
for battle), with his elbows, knees, wrists, and heels considerably in
advance of the rest of him as to development. My heart failed me when I saw him squaring
at me with every demonstration of mechanical nicety, and eyeing
my anatomy as if he were minutely choosing his bone. I never have been so surprised in my life,
as I was when I let out the first blow, and saw him lying on his
back, looking up at me with a bloody nose and his face exceedingly
fore-shortened. But, he was on his feet directly, and after
sponging himself with a great show of dexterity began squaring again. The second greatest
surprise I have ever had in my life was seeing him on his back again,
looking up at me out of a black eye. His spirit inspired me with great respect. He seemed to have no
strength, and he never once hit me hard, and he was always knocked down;
but he would be up again in a moment, sponging himself or drinking out
of the water-bottle, with the greatest satisfaction in seconding himself
according to form, and then came at me with an air and a show that made
me believe he really was going to do for me at last. He got heavily
bruised, for I am sorry to record that the more I hit him, the harder I
hit him; but he came up again and again and again, until at last he got
a bad fall with the back of his head against the wall. Even after that
crisis in our affairs, he got up and turned round and round confusedly a
few times, not knowing where I was; but finally went on his knees to his
sponge and threw it up: at the same time panting out, "That means you
have won." He seemed so brave and innocent, that although
I had not proposed the contest, I felt but a gloomy satisfaction
in my victory. Indeed, I go
so far as to hope that I regarded myself while dressing as a species of
savage young wolf or other wild beast. However, I got dressed, darkly
wiping my sanguinary face at intervals, and I said, "Can I help you?"
and he said "No thankee," and I said "Good afternoon," and he said "Same
to you." When I got into the courtyard, I found Estella
waiting with the keys. But she neither asked me where I had been,
nor why I had kept her waiting; and there was a bright flush upon
her face, as though something had happened to delight her. Instead of going straight to the gate, too,
she stepped back into the passage, and beckoned me. "Come here! You may kiss me, if you like." I kissed her cheek as she turned it to me. I think I would have gone
through a great deal to kiss her cheek. But I felt that the kiss was
given to the coarse common boy as a piece of money might have been, and
that it was worth nothing. What with the birthday visitors, and what
with the cards, and what with the fight, my stay had lasted so long, that
when I neared home the light on the spit of sand off the point on the marshes
was gleaming against a black night-sky, and Joe's furnace was flinging
a path of fire across the road. End of Chapter 11