Great Expectations, Charles Dickens [top 10 best books of all time txt] 📗
- Author: Charles Dickens
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“Not a bit of it,” returned Wemmick, growing bolder and bolder. “I
think you’re another.”
Again they exchanged their former odd looks, each apparently still
distrustful that the other was taking him in.
“You with a pleasant home?” said Mr. Jaggers.
“Since it don’t interfere with business,” returned Wemmick, “let it
be so. Now, I look at you, sir, I shouldn’t wonder if you might be
planning and contriving to have a pleasant home of your own one of
these days, when you’re tired of all this work.”
Mr. Jaggers nodded his head retrospectively two or three times, and
actually drew a sigh. “Pip,” said he, “we won’t talk about ‘poor
dreams;’ you know more about such things than I, having much
fresher experience of that kind. But now about this other matter.
I’ll put a case to you. Mind! I admit nothing.”
He waited for me to declare that I quite understood that he
expressly said that he admitted nothing.
“Now, Pip,” said Mr. Jaggers, “put this case. Put the case that a
woman, under such circumstances as you have mentioned, held her
child concealed, and was obliged to communicate the fact to her
legal adviser, on his representing to her that he must know, with
an eye to the latitude of his defence, how the fact stood about
that child. Put the case that, at the same time he held a trust to
find a child for an eccentric rich lady to adopt and bring up.”
“I follow you, sir.”
“Put the case that he lived in an atmosphere of evil, and that all
he saw of children was their being generated in great numbers for
certain destruction. Put the case that he often saw children
solemnly tried at a criminal bar, where they were held up to be
seen; put the case that he habitually knew of their being
imprisoned, whipped, transported, neglected, cast out, qualified in
all ways for the hangman, and growing up to be hanged. Put the case
that pretty nigh all the children he saw in his daily business
life he had reason to look upon as so much spawn, to develop into
the fish that were to come to his net,—to be prosecuted, defended,
forsworn, made orphans, bedevilled somehow.”
“I follow you, sir.”
“Put the case, Pip, that here was one pretty little child out of
the heap who could be saved; whom the father believed dead, and
dared make no stir about; as to whom, over the mother, the legal
adviser had this power: “I know what you did, and how you did it.
You came so and so, you did such and such things to divert suspicion.
I have tracked you through it all, andI tell it you all. Part
with the child, unless it should benecessary to produce it to
clear you, and then it shall be produced. Give the child into
my hands, and I will do my best to bring you off. If you are
saved, your child is saved too; if you are lost, your child is
still saved.” Put the case that this was done, and that the
woman was cleared.”
“I understand you perfectly.”
“But that I make no admissions?”
“That you make no admissions.” And Wemmick repeated, “No
admissions.”
“Put the case, Pip, that passion and the terror of death had a
little shaken the woman’s intellects, and that when she was set at
liberty, she was scared out of the ways of the world, and went to
him to be sheltered. Put the case that he took her in, and that he
kept down the old, wild, violent nature whenever he saw an inkling of
its breaking out, by asserting his power over her in the old way.
Do you comprehend the imaginary case?”
“Quite.”
“Put the case that the child grew up, and was married for money.
That the mother was still living. That the father was still living.
That the mother and father, unknown to one another, were dwelling
within so many miles, furlongs, yards if you like, of one another.
That the secret was still a secret, except that you had got wind of
it. Put that last case to yourself very carefully.”
“I do.”
“I ask Wemmick to put it to himself very carefully.”
And Wemmick said, “I do.”
“For whose sake would you reveal the secret? For the father’s? I
think he would not be much the better for the mother. For the
mother’s? I think if she had done such a deed she would be safer
where she was. For the daughter’s? I think it would hardly serve
her to establish her parentage for the information of her husband,
and to drag her back to disgrace, after an escape of twenty years,
pretty secure to last for life. But add the case that you had
loved her, Pip, and had made her the subject of those ‘poor dreams’
which have, at one time or another, been in the heads of more men
than you think likely, then I tell you that you had better—and
would much sooner when you had thought well of it—chop off that
bandaged left hand of yours with your bandaged right hand, and then
pass the chopper on to Wemmick there, to cut that off too.”
I looked at Wemmick, whose face was very grave. He gravely touched
his lips with his forefinger. I did the same. Mr. Jaggers did the
same. “Now, Wemmick,” said the latter then, resuming his usual
manner, “what item was it you were at when Mr. Pip came in?”
Standing by for a little, while they were at work, I observed that
the odd looks they had cast at one another were repeated several
times: with this difference now, that each of them seemed
suspicious, not to say conscious, of having shown himself in a weak
and unprofessional light to the other. For this reason, I suppose,
they were now inflexible with one another; Mr. Jaggers being highly
dictatorial, and Wemmick obstinately justifying himself whenever
there was the smallest point in abeyance for a moment. I had never
seen them on such ill terms; for generally they got on very well
indeed together.
But they were both happily relieved by the opportune appearance of
Mike, the client with the fur cap and the habit of wiping his nose
on his sleeve, whom I had seen on the very first day of my
appearance within those walls. This individual, who, either in his
own person or in that of some member of his family, seemed to be
always in trouble (which in that place meant Newgate), called to
announce that his eldest daughter was taken up on suspicion of
shoplifting. As he imparted this melancholy circumstance to
Wemmick, Mr. Jaggers standing magisterially before the fire and
taking no share in the proceedings, Mike’s eye happened to twinkle
with a tear.
“What are you about?” demanded Wemmick, with the utmost
indignation. “What do you come snivelling here for?”
“I didn’t go to do it, Mr. Wemmick.”
“You did,” said Wemmick. “How dare you? You’re not in a fit state
to come here, if you can’t come here without spluttering like a bad
pen. What do you mean by it?”
“A man can’t help his feelings, Mr. Wemmick,” pleaded Mike.
“His what?” demanded Wemmick, quite savagely. “Say that again!”
“Now look here my man,” said Mr. Jaggers, advancing a step, and
pointing to the door. “Get out of this office. I’ll have no
feelings here. Get out.”
“It serves you right,” said Wemmick, “Get out.”
So, the unfortunate Mike very humbly withdrew, and Mr. Jaggers and
Wemmick appeared to have re-established their good understanding,
and went to work again with an air of refreshment upon them as if
they had just had lunch.
From Little Britain I went, with my check in my pocket, to Miss
Skiffins’s brother, the accountant; and Miss Skiffins’s brother,
the accountant, going straight to Clarriker’s and bringing
Clarriker to me, I had the great satisfaction of concluding that
arrangement. It was the only good thing I had done, and the only
completed thing I had done, since I was first apprised of my great
expectations.
Clarriker informing me on that occasion that the affairs of the
House were steadily progressing, that he would now be able to
establish a small branch-house in the East which was much wanted
for the extension of the business, and that Herbert in his new
partnership capacity would go out and take charge of it, I found
that I must have prepared for a separation from my friend, even
though my own affairs had been more settled. And now, indeed, I felt
as if my last anchor were loosening its hold, and I should soon be
driving with the winds and waves.
But there was recompense in the joy with which Herbert would come
home of a night and tell me of these changes, little imagining that
he told me no news, and would sketch airy pictures of himself
conducting Clara Barley to the land of the Arabian Nights, and of
me going out to join them (with a caravan of camels, I believe),
and of our all going up the Nile and seeing wonders. Without being
sanguine as to my own part in those bright plans, I felt that
Herbert’s way was clearing fast, and that old Bill Barley had but
to stick to his pepper and rum, and his daughter would soon be
happily provided for.
We had now got into the month of March. My left arm, though it
presented no bad symptoms, took, in the natural course, so long to
heal that I was still unable to get a coat on. My right arm was
tolerably restored; disfigured, but fairly serviceable.
On a Monday morning, when Herbert and I were at breakfast, I
received the following letter from Wemmick by the post.
“Walworth. Burn this as soon as read. Early in the week, or say
Wednesday, you might do what you know of, if you felt disposed to
try it. Now burn.”
When I had shown this to Herbert and had put it in the fire—but
not before we had both got it by heart—we considered what to do.
For, of course my being disabled could now be no longer kept out of
view.
“I have thought it over again and again,” said Herbert, “and I
think I know a better course than taking a Thames waterman. Take
Startop. A good fellow, a skilled hand, fond of us, and
enthusiastic and honorable.”
I had thought of him more than once.
“But how much would you tell him, Herbert?”
“It is necessary to tell him very little. Let him suppose it a mere
freak, but a secret one, until the morning comes: then let him know
that there is urgent reason for your getting Provis aboard and
away. You go with him?”
“No doubt.”
“Where?”
It had seemed to me, in the many anxious considerations I had given
the point, almost indifferent what port we made for,—Hamburg,
Rotterdam, Antwerp,—the place signified little, so that he was
out of England. Any foreign steamer that fell in our way and would
take us up would do. I had always proposed to myself to get him
well down the river in the boat; certainly well beyond Gravesend,
which was a critical place for search or inquiry if suspicion were
afoot. As foreign steamers would leave London at about the time of
high-water, our plan would be to get down the river by a previous
ebb-tide, and lie by in some quiet spot until we could pull off to
one. The time when one would be due where we lay, wherever that
might be, could be calculated pretty nearly, if we made inquiries
beforehand.
Herbert assented to all this, and we went out immediately after
breakfast to
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