Great Expectations, Charles Dickens [top 10 best books of all time txt] 📗

another, and by them which your liberal present—

have-conweyed—to be—for the satisfaction of mind-of—them

as never—” here Joe showed that he felt he had fallen into

frightful difficulties, until he triumphantly rescued himself with

the words, “and from myself far be it!” These words had such a

round and convincing sound for him that he said them twice.

“Good by, Pip!” said Miss Havisham. “Let them out, Estella.”

“Am I to come again, Miss Havisham?” I asked.

“No. Gargery is your master now. Gargery! One word!”

Thus calling him back as I went out of the door, I heard her say to

Joe in a distinct emphatic voice, “The boy has been a good boy

here, and that is his reward. Of course, as an honest man, you will

expect no other and no more.”

How Joe got out of the room, I have never been able to determine;

but I know that when he did get out he was steadily proceeding

up stairs instead of coming down, and was deaf to all remonstrances

until I went after him and laid hold of him. In another minute we

were outside the gate, and it was locked, and Estella was gone.

When we stood in the daylight alone again, Joe backed up against a

wall, and said to me, “Astonishing!” And there he remained so long

saying, “Astonishing” at intervals, so often, that I began to think

his senses were never coming back. At length he prolonged his

remark into “Pip, I do assure you this is as-TON-ishing!” and so, by

degrees, became conversational and able to walk away.

I have reason to think that Joe’s intellects were brightened by the

encounter they had passed through, and that on our way to

Pumblechook’s he invented a subtle and deep design. My reason is to

be found in what took place in Mr. Pumblechook’s parlor: where, on

our presenting ourselves, my sister sat in conference with that

detested seedsman.

“Well?” cried my sister, addressing us both at once. “And what’s

happened to you? I wonder you condescend to come back to such poor

society as this, I am sure I do!”

“Miss Havisham,” said Joe, with a fixed look at me, like an effort

of remembrance, “made it wery partick’ler that we should give her—

were it compliments or respects, Pip?”

“Compliments,” I said.

“Which that were my own belief,” answered Joe; “her compliments to

Mrs. J. Gargery—”

“Much good they’ll do me!” observed my sister; but rather gratified

too.

“And wishing,” pursued Joe, with another fixed look at me, like

another effort of remembrance, “that the state of Miss Havisham’s

elth were sitch as would have—allowed, were it, Pip?”

“Of her having the pleasure,” I added.

“Of ladies’ company,” said Joe. And drew a long breath.

“Well!” cried my sister, with a mollified glance at Mr. Pumblechook.

“She might have had the politeness to send that message at first,

but it’s better late than never. And what did she give young

Rantipole here?”

“She giv’ him,” said Joe, “nothing.”

Mrs. Joe was going to break out, but Joe went on.

“What she giv’,” said Joe, “she giv’ to his friends. ‘And by his

friends,’ were her explanation, ‘I mean into the hands of his

sister Mrs. J. Gargery.’ Them were her words; ‘Mrs. J. Gargery.’ She

mayn’t have know’d,” added Joe, with an appearance of reflection,

“whether it were Joe, or Jorge.”

My sister looked at Pumblechook: who smoothed the elbows of his

wooden arm-chair, and nodded at her and at the fire, as if he had

known all about it beforehand.

“And how much have you got?” asked my sister, laughing. Positively

laughing!

“What would present company say to ten pound?” demanded Joe.

“They’d say,” returned my sister, curtly, “pretty well. Not too

much, but pretty well.”

“It’s more than that, then,” said Joe.

That fearful Impostor, Pumblechook, immediately nodded, and said,

as he rubbed the arms of his chair, “It’s more than that, Mum.”

“Why, you don’t mean to say—” began my sister.

“Yes I do, Mum,” said Pumblechook; “but wait a bit. Go on, Joseph.

Good in you! Go on!”

“What would present company say,” proceeded Joe, “to twenty pound?”

“Handsome would be the word,” returned my sister.

“Well, then,” said Joe, “It’s more than twenty pound.”

That abject hypocrite, Pumblechook, nodded again, and said, with a

patronizing laugh, “It’s more than that, Mum. Good again! Follow her

up, Joseph!”

“Then to make an end of it,” said Joe, delightedly handing the bag

to my sister; “it’s five-and-twenty pound.”

“It’s five-and-twenty pound, Mum,” echoed that basest of swindlers,

Pumblechook, rising to shake hands with her; “and it’s no more than

your merits (as I said when my opinion was asked), and I wish you

joy of the money!”

If the villain had stopped here, his case would have been

sufficiently awful, but he blackened his guilt by proceeding to

take me into custody, with a right of patronage that left all his

former criminality far behind.

“Now you see, Joseph and wife,” said Pumblechook, as he took me by

the arm above the elbow, “I am one of them that always go right

through with what they’ve begun. This boy must be bound, out of

hand. That’s my way. Bound out of hand.”

“Goodness knows, Uncle Pumblechook,” said my sister (grasping the

money), “we’re deeply beholden to you.”

“Never mind me, Mum, returned that diabolical cornchandler. “A

pleasure’s a pleasure all the world over. But this boy, you know;

we must have him bound. I said I’d see to it—to tell you the

truth.”

The Justices were sitting in the Town Hall near at hand, and we at

once went over to have me bound apprentice to Joe in the

Magisterial presence. I say we went over, but I was pushed over by

Pumblechook, exactly as if I had that moment picked a pocket or

fired a rick; indeed, it was the general impression in Court that I

had been taken red-handed; for, as Pumblechook shoved me before him

through the crowd, I heard some people say, “What’s he done?” and

others, “He’s a young ‘un, too, but looks bad, don’t he? One person

of mild and benevolent aspect even gave me a tract ornamented with

a woodcut of a malevolent young man fitted up with a perfect

sausage-shop of fetters, and entitled TO BE READ IN MY CELL.

The Hall was a queer place, I thought, with higher pews in it than

a church,—and with people hanging over the pews looking on,—and

with mighty Justices (one with a powdered head) leaning back in

chairs, with folded arms, or taking snuff, or going to sleep, or

writing, or reading the newspapers,—and with some shining black

portraits on the walls, which my unartistic eye regarded as a

composition of hardbake and sticking-plaster. Here, in a corner

my indentures were duly signed and attested, and I was “bound”; Mr.

Pumblechook holding me all the while as if we had looked in on our

way to the scaffold, to have those little preliminaries disposed

of.

When we had come out again, and had got rid of the boys who had

been put into great spirits by the expectation of seeing me

publicly tortured, and who were much disappointed to find that my

friends were merely rallying round me, we went back to

Pumblechook’s. And there my sister became so excited by the

twenty-five guineas, that nothing would serve her but we must have

a dinner out of that windfall at the Blue Boar, and that

Pumblechook must go over in his chaise-cart, and bring the Hubbles

and Mr. Wopsle.

It was agreed to be done; and a most melancholy day I passed. For,

it inscrutably appeared to stand to reason, in the minds of the

whole company, that I was an excrescence on the entertainment. And

to make it worse, they all asked me from time to time,—in short,

whenever they had nothing else to do,—why I didn’t enjoy myself?

And what could I possibly do then, but say I was enjoying myself,—

when I wasn’t!

However, they were grown up and had their own way, and they made

the most of it. That swindling Pumblechook, exalted into the

beneficent contriver of the whole occasion, actually took the top

of the table; and, when he addressed them on the subject of my

being bound, and had fiendishly congratulated them on my being

liable to imprisonment if I played at cards, drank strong liquors,

kept late hours or bad company, or indulged in other vagaries which

the form of my indentures appeared to contemplate as next to

inevitable, he placed me standing on a chair beside him to

illustrate his remarks.

My only other remembrances of the great festival are, That they

wouldn’t let me go to sleep, but whenever they saw me dropping off,

woke me up and told me to enjoy myself. That, rather late in the

evening Mr. Wopsle gave us Collins’s ode, and threw his bloodstained

sword in thunder down, with such effect, that a waiter came in and

said, “The Commercials underneath sent up their compliments, and it

wasn’t the Tumblers’ Arms.” That, they were all in excellent

spirits on the road home, and sang, O Lady Fair! Mr. Wopsle taking

the bass, and asserting with a tremendously strong voice (in reply

to the inquisitive bore who leads that piece of music in a most

impertinent manner, by wanting to know all about everybody’s

private affairs) that he was the man with his white locks flowing,

and that he was upon the whole the weakest pilgrim going.

Finally, I remember that when I got into my little bedroom, I was

truly wretched, and had a strong conviction on me that I should

never like Joe’s trade. I had liked it once, but once was not now.