Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Chapter 13
It was a trial to my feelings, on the next day but one, to see
Joe arraying himself in his Sunday clothes to accompany me to Miss
Havisham's.
However, as he thought his court-suit necessary to the
occasion, it was not for me to tell him that he looked far better in his
working-dress; the rather, because I knew he made himself so dreadfully
uncomfortable, entirely on my account, and that it was for me he pulled
up his shirt-collar so very high behind, that it made the hair on the
crown of his head stand up like a tuft of feathers.
At breakfast-time my sister declared her intention of going to town with
us, and being left at Uncle Pumblechook's and called for "when we had
done with our fine ladies"--a way of putting the case, from which Joe
appeared inclined to augur the worst.
The forge was shut up for the day, and Joe inscribed in chalk upon the door (as
it was his custom to do on the very rare occasions when he was not at
work) the monosyllable HOUT, accompanied by a sketch of an arrow
supposed to be flying in the direction he had taken.
We walked to town, my sister leading the way in a very large beaver
bonnet, and carrying a basket like the Great Seal of England in plaited
Straw, a pair of pattens, a spare shawl, and an umbrella, though it
was a fine bright day.
I am not quite clear whether these articles were
carried penitentially or ostentatiously; but I rather think they were
displayed as articles of property,--much as Cleopatra or any other
sovereign lady on the Rampage might exhibit her wealth in a pageant or
procession.
When we came to Pumblechook's, my sister bounced in and left us.
As it was almost noon, Joe and I held straight on
to Miss Havisham's house.
Estella opened the gate as usual, and, the moment she appeared, Joe took
his hat off and stood weighing it by the brim in both his hands; as if
he had some urgent reason in his mind for being particular to half a
quarter of an ounce.
Estella took no notice of either of us, but led us the way that I knew
so well.
I followed next to her, and Joe came last.
When I looked back at Joe in the long passage, he was still weighing
his hat with the greatest care, and was coming after us in
long strides on the tips of his toes.
Estella told me we were both to go in, so I took Joe by the coat-cuff
and conducted him into Miss Havisham's presence.
She was seated at her dressing-table, and looked round at us immediately.
"Oh!" said she to Joe.
"You are the husband of the sister of this boy?"
I could hardly have imagined dear old Joe looking so unlike himself or
so like some extraordinary bird; standing as he did speechless, with his
tuft of feathers ruffled, and his mouth open as if he wanted a worm.
"You are the husband," repeated Miss Havisham, "of the sister of this
boy?"
It was very aggravating; but, throughout the interview, Joe persisted in
addressing Me instead of Miss Havisham.
"Which I meantersay, Pip," Joe now observed in a manner that was at
once expressive of forcible argumentation, strict confidence, and great
politeness, "as I hup and married your sister, and I were at the time
what you might call (if you was anyways inclined) a single man."
"Well!" said Miss Havisham.
"And you have reared the boy, with the intention of taking him for your apprentice;
is that so, Mr. Gargery?"
"You know, Pip," replied Joe, "as you and me were ever friends, and it
were looked for'ard to betwixt us, as being calc'lated to lead to
larks.
Not but what, Pip, if you had ever made objections to the
business,--such as its being open to black and sut, or such-like,--not
but what they would have been attended to, don't you see?"
"Has the boy," said Miss Havisham, "ever made any objection?
Does he like the trade?"
"Which it is well beknown to yourself, Pip," returned Joe, strengthening
his former mixture of argumentation, confidence, and politeness, "that
it were the wish of your own hart."
(I saw the idea suddenly break upon him that he would adapt his epitaph to the
occasion, before he went on to say) "And there weren't no objection on
your part, and Pip it were the great wish of your hart!"
It was quite in vain for me to endeavor to make him sensible that he
ought to speak to Miss Havisham.
The more I made faces and gestures to him to do it, the more confidential, argumentative,
and polite, he persisted in being to Me.
"Have you brought his indentures with you?" asked Miss Havisham.
"Well, Pip, you know," replied Joe, as if that were a little
unreasonable, "you yourself see me put 'em in my 'at, and therefore you
know as they are here."
With which he took them out, and gave them, not
to Miss Havisham, but to me.
I am afraid I was ashamed of the dear good fellow,--I know I was ashamed of him,--when
I saw that Estella stood at the back of Miss Havisham's chair, and
that her eyes laughed mischievously.
I took the indentures out of his hand and gave them to
Miss Havisham.
"You expected," said Miss Havisham, as she looked them over, "no premium
with the boy?"
"Joe!"
I remonstrated, for he made no reply at all.
"Why don't you answer--"
"Pip," returned Joe, cutting me short as if he were hurt, "which I
meantersay that were not a question requiring a answer betwixt yourself
and me, and which you know the answer to be full well No.
You know it to be No, Pip, and wherefore should I say it?"
Miss Havisham glanced at him as if she understood what he really was
better than I had thought possible, seeing what he was there; and took
up a little bag from the table beside her.
"Pip has earned a premium here," she said, "and here it is.
There are five-and-twenty guineas in this bag.
Give it to your master, Pip."
As if he were absolutely out of his mind with the wonder awakened in
him by her strange figure and the strange room, Joe, even at this pass,
persisted in addressing me.
"This is wery liberal on your part, Pip," said Joe, "and it is as such
received and grateful welcome, though never looked for, far nor near,
nor nowheres.
And now, old chap," said Joe, conveying to me a sensation,
first of burning and then of freezing, for I felt as if that familiar
expression were applied to Miss Havisham,--"and now, old chap, may we
do our duty!
May you and me do our duty, both on us, by one and 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-bye, 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 upstairs
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.
End of Chapter 13