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

the name of the person who is your liberal benefactor remains

a profound secret, until the person chooses to reveal it. I am

empowered to mention that it is the intention of the person to

reveal it at first hand by word of mouth to yourself. When or where

that intention may be carried out, I cannot say; no one can say. It

may be years hence. Now, you are distinctly to understand that you

are most positively prohibited from making any inquiry on this

head, or any allusion or reference, however distant, to any

individual whomsoever as the individual, in all the communications

you may have with me. If you have a suspicion in your own breast,

keep that suspicion in your own breast. It is not the least to the

purpose what the reasons of this prohibition are; they may be the

strongest and gravest reasons, or they may be mere whim. This is

not for you to inquire into. The condition is laid down. Your

acceptance of it, and your observance of it as binding, is the only

remaining condition that I am charged with, by the person from whom

I take my instructions, and for whom I am not otherwise

responsible. That person is the person from whom you derive your

expectations, and the secret is solely held by that person and by

me. Again, not a very difficult condition with which to encumber

such a rise in fortune; but if you have any objection to it, this

is the time to mention it. Speak out.”

Once more, I stammered with difficulty that I had no objection.

“I should think not! Now, Mr. Pip, I have done with stipulations.”

Though he called me Mr. Pip, and began rather to make up to me, he

still could not get rid of a certain air of bullying suspicion; and

even now he occasionally shut his eyes and threw his finger at me

while he spoke, as much as to express that he knew all kinds of

things to my disparagement, if he only chose to mention them. “We

come next, to mere details of arrangement. You must know that,

although I have used the term “expectations” more than once, you

are not endowed with expectations only. There is already lodged in

my hands a sum of money amply sufficient for your suitable

education and maintenance. You will please consider me your

guardian. Oh!” for I was going to thank him, “I tell you at once, I

am paid for my services, or I shouldn’t render them. It is

considered that you must be better educated, in accordance with

your altered position, and that you will be alive to the importance

and necessity of at once entering on that advantage.”

I said I had always longed for it.

“Never mind what you have always longed for, Mr. Pip,” he retorted;

“keep to the record. If you long for it now, that’s enough. Am I

answered that you are ready to be placed at once under some proper

tutor? Is that it?”

I stammered yes, that was it.

“Good. Now, your inclinations are to be consulted. I don’t think

that wise, mind, but it’s my trust. Have you ever heard of any

tutor whom you would prefer to another?”

I had never heard of any tutor but Biddy and Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt;

so, I replied in the negative.

“There is a certain tutor, of whom I have some knowledge, who I

think might suit the purpose,” said Mr. Jaggers. “I don’t recommend

him, observe; because I never recommend anybody. The gentleman I

speak of is one Mr. Matthew Pocket.”

Ah! I caught at the name directly. Miss Havisham’s relation. The

Matthew whom Mr. and Mrs. Camilla had spoken of. The Matthew whose

place was to be at Miss Havisham’s head, when she lay dead, in her

bride’s dress on the bride’s table.

“You know the name?” said Mr. Jaggers, looking shrewdly at me, and

then shutting up his eyes while he waited for my answer.

My answer was, that I had heard of the name.

“Oh!” said he. “You have heard of the name. But the question is,

what do you say of it?”

I said, or tried to say, that I was much obliged to him for his

recommendation—

“No, my young friend!” he interrupted, shaking his great head very

slowly. “Recollect yourself!”

Not recollecting myself, I began again that I was much obliged to

him for his recommendation—

“No, my young friend,” he interrupted, shaking his head and

frowning and smiling both at once,—“no, no, no; it’s very well

done, but it won’t do; you are too young to fix me with it.

Recommendation is not the word, Mr. Pip. Try another.”

Correcting myself, I said that I was much obliged to him for his

mention of Mr. Matthew Pocket—

“That’s more like it!” cried Mr. Jaggers.

—And (I added), I would gladly try that gentleman.

“Good. You had better try him in his own house. The way shall be

prepared for you, and you can see his son first, who is in London.

When will you come to London?”

I said (glancing at Joe, who stood looking on, motionless), that I

supposed I could come directly.

“First,” said Mr. Jaggers, “you should have some new clothes to come

in, and they should not be working-clothes. Say this day week.

You’ll want some money. Shall I leave you twenty guineas?”

He produced a long purse, with the greatest coolness, and counted

them out on the table and pushed them over to me. This was the

first time he had taken his leg from the chair. He sat astride of

the chair when he had pushed the money over, and sat swinging his

purse and eyeing Joe.

“Well, Joseph Gargery? You look dumbfoundered?”

“I am!” said Joe, in a very decided manner.

“It was understood that you wanted nothing for yourself, remember?”

“It were understood,” said Joe. “And it are understood. And it ever

will be similar according.”

“But what,” said Mr. Jaggers, swinging his purse,—“what if it was in

my instructions to make you a present, as compensation?”

“As compensation what for?” Joe demanded.

“For the loss of his services.”

Joe laid his hand upon my shoulder with the touch of a woman. I

have often thought him since, like the steam-hammer that can crush

a man or pat an egg-shell, in his combination of strength with

gentleness. “Pip is that hearty welcome,” said Joe, “to go free

with his services, to honor and fortun’, as no words can tell him.

But if you think as Money can make compensation to me for the loss

of the little child—what come to the forge—and ever the best of

friends!—”

O dear good Joe, whom I was so ready to leave and so unthankful to,

I see you again, with your muscular blacksmith’s arm before your

eyes, and your broad chest heaving, and your voice dying away. O

dear good faithful tender Joe, I feel the loving tremble of your

hand upon my arm, as solemnly this day as if it had been the rustle

of an angel’s wing!

But I encouraged Joe at the time. I was lost in the mazes of my

future fortunes, and could not retrace the by-paths we had trodden

together. I begged Joe to be comforted, for (as he said) we had

ever been the best of friends, and (as I said) we ever would be so.

Joe scooped his eyes with his disengaged wrist, as if he were bent

on gouging himself, but said not another word.

Mr. Jaggers had looked on at this, as one who recognized in Joe the

village idiot, and in me his keeper. When it was over, he said,

weighing in his hand the purse he had ceased to swing:—

“Now, Joseph Gargery, I warn you this is your last chance. No half

measures with me. If you mean to take a present that I have it in

charge to make you, speak out, and you shall have it. If on the

contrary you mean to say—” Here, to his great amazement, he was

stopped by Joe’s suddenly working round him with every

demonstration of a fell pugilistic purpose.

“Which I meantersay,” cried Joe, “that if you come into my place

bull-baiting and badgering me, come out! Which I meantersay as sech

if you’re a man, come on! Which I meantersay that what I say, I

meantersay and stand or fall by!”

I drew Joe away, and he immediately became placable; merely stating

to me, in an obliging manner and as a polite expostulatory notice

to any one whom it might happen to concern, that he were not a

going to be bull-baited and badgered in his own place. Mr. Jaggers

had risen when Joe demonstrated, and had backed near the door.

Without evincing any inclination to come in again, he there

delivered his valedictory remarks. They were these.

“Well, Mr. Pip, I think the sooner you leave here—as you are to be

a gentleman—the better. Let it stand for this day week, and you

shall receive my printed address in the meantime. You can take a

hackney-coach at the stage-coach office in London, and come

straight to me. Understand, that I express no opinion, one way or

other, on the trust I undertake. I am paid for undertaking it, and

I do so. Now, understand that, finally. Understand that!”

He was throwing his finger at both of us, and I think would have

gone on, but for his seeming to think Joe dangerous, and going off.

Something came into my head which induced me to run after him, as

he was going down to the Jolly Bargemen, where he had left a hired

carriage.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Jaggers.”

“Halloa!” said he, facing round, “what’s the matter?”

“I wish to be quite right, Mr. Jaggers, and to keep to your

directions; so I thought I had better ask. Would there be any

objection to my taking leave of any one I know, about here, before

I go away?”

“No,” said he, looking as if he hardly understood me.

“I don’t mean in the village only, but up town?”

“No,” said he. “No objection.”

I thanked him and ran home again, and there I found that Joe had

already locked the front door and vacated the state parlor, and

was seated by the kitchen fire with a hand on each knee, gazing

intently at the burning coals. I too sat down before the fire and

gazed at the coals, and nothing was said for a long time.

My sister was in her cushioned chair in her corner, and Biddy sat

at her needlework before the fire, and Joe sat next Biddy, and I

sat next Joe in the corner opposite my sister. The more I looked

into the glowing coals, the more incapable I became of looking at

Joe; the longer the silence lasted, the more unable I felt to

speak.

At length I got out, “Joe, have you told Biddy?”

“No, Pip,” returned Joe, still looking at the fire, and holding his

knees tight, as if he had private information that they intended to

make off somewhere, “which I left it to yourself, Pip.”

“I would rather you told, Joe.”

“Pip’s a gentleman of fortun’ then,” said Joe, “and God bless him

in it!”

Biddy dropped her work, and looked at me. Joe held his knees and

looked at me. I looked at both of them. After a pause, they both

heartily congratulated me; but there was a certain touch of sadness

in their congratulations that I rather resented.

I took it upon myself to impress Biddy (and through Biddy, Joe)

with the grave obligation I considered my friends under, to know

nothing and say nothing about the maker of my fortune. It would all

come out in good time, I observed, and in the meanwhile