WHEN I reached home, my sister was very curious to know all
about Miss Havisham's, and asked a number of questions. And I soon found myself
getting heavily bumped from behind in the nape of the neck and the small of the
back, and having my face ignominiously shoved against the kitchen wall, because
I did not answer those questions at sufficient length.
If a dread of not being understood be hidden in the breasts of other young
people to anything like the extent to which it used to be hidden in mine - which
I consider probable, as I have no particular reason to suspect myself of having
been a monstrosity - it is the key to many reservations. I felt convinced that
if I described Miss Havisham's as my eyes had seen it, I should not be
understood. Not only that, but I felt convinced that Miss Havisham too would not
be understood; and although she was perfectly incomprehensible to me, I
entertained an impression that there would be something coarse and treacherous
in my dragging her as she really was (to say nothing of Miss Estella) before the
contemplation of Mrs Joe. Consequently, I said as little as I could, and had my
face shoved against the kitchen wall.
The worst of it was that that bullying old Pumblechook, preyed upon by a
devouring curiosity to be informed of all I had seen and heard, came gaping over
in his chaise-cart at tea-time, to have the details divulged to him. And the
mere sight of the torment, with his fishy eyes and mouth open, his sandy hair
inquisitively on end, and his waistcoat heaving with windy arithmetic, made me
vicious in my reticence.
`Well, boy,' Uncle Pumblechook began, as soon as he was seated in the chair
of honour by the fire. `How did you get on up town?'
I answered, `Pretty well, sir,' and my sister shook her fist at me.
`Pretty well?' Mr. Pumblechook repeated. `Pretty well is no answer. Tell us
what you mean by pretty well, boy?'
Whitewash on the forehead hardens the brain into a state of obstinacy
perhaps. Anyhow, with whitewash from the wall on my forehead, my obstinacy was
adamantine. I reflected for some time, and then answered as if I had discovered
a new idea, `I mean pretty well.'
My sister with an exclamation of impatience was going to fly at me - I had no
shadow of defence, for Joe was busy in the forge when Mr Pumblechook interposed
with `No! Don't lose your temper. Leave this lad to me, ma'am; leave this lad to
me.' Mr Pumblechook then turned me towards him, as if he were going to cut my
hair, and said:
`First (to get our thoughts in order): Forty-three pence?'
I calculated the consequences of replying `Four Hundred Pound,' and finding
them against me, went as near the answer as I could - which was somewhere about
eightpence off. Mr Pumblechook then put me through my pence-table from `twelve
pence make one shilling,' up to `forty pence make three and fourpence,' and then
triumphantly demanded, as if he had done for me, `Now!How much is forty-three
pence?' To which I replied, after a long interval of reflection, `I don't know.'
And I was so aggravated that I almost doubt if I did know.
Mr Pumblechook worked his head like a screw to screw it out of me, and said,
`Is forty-three pence seven and sixpence three fardens, for instance?'
`Yes!' said I. And although my sister instantly boxed my ears, it was highly
gratifying to me to see that the answer spoilt his joke, and brought him to a
dead stop.
`Boy! What like is Miss Havisham?' Mr Pumblechook began again when he had
recovered; folding his arms tight on his chest and applying the screw.
`Very tall and dark,' I told him.
`Is she, uncle?' asked my sister.
Mr Pumblechook winked assent; from which I at once inferred that he had never
seen Miss Havisham, for she was nothing of the kind.
`Good!' said Mr Pumblechook conceitedly. (`This is the way to have him! We
are beginning to hold our own, I think, Mum?')
`I am sure, uncle,' returned Mrs Joe, `I wish you had him always: you know so
well how to deal with him.'
`Now, boy! What was she a doing of, when you went in today?' asked Mr
Pumblechook.
`She was sitting,' I answered, `in a black velvet coach.'
Mr Pumblechook and Mrs Joe stared at one another - as they well might - and
both repeated, `In a black velvet coach?'
`Yes,' said I. `And Miss Estella - that's her niece, I think - handed her in
cake and wine at the coach-window, on a gold plate. And we all had cake and wine
on gold plates. And I got up behind the coach to eat mine, because she told me
to.'
`Was anybody else there?' asked Mr Pumblechook.
`Four dogs,' said I.
`Large or small?'
`Immense,' said I. `And they fought for veal cutlets out of a silver basket.'
Mr Pumblechook and Mrs Joe stared at one another again, in utter amazement. I
was perfectly frantic - a reckless witness under the torture - and would have
told them anything.
`Where was this coach, in the name of gracious?' asked my sister.
`In Miss Havisham's room.' They stared again. `But there weren't any horses
to it.' I added this saving clause, in the moment of rejecting four richly
caparisoned coursers which I had had wild thoughts of harnessing.
`Can this be possible, uncle?' asked Mrs Joe. `What can the boy mean?'
`I'll tell you, Mum,' said Mr Pumblechook. `My opinion is, it's a
sedan-chair. She's flighty, you know - very flighty - quite flighty enough to
pass her days in a sedan-chair.'
`Did you ever see her in it, uncle?' asked Mrs Joe.
`How could I,' he returned, forced to the admission, `when I never see her in
my life? Never clapped eyes upon her!'
`Goodness, uncle! And yet you have spoken to her?'
`Why, don't you know,' said Mr Pumblechook, testily, `that when I have been
there, I have been took up to the outside of her door, and the door has stood
ajar, and she has spoke to me that way. Don't say you don't know that, Mum.
Howsever, the boy went there to play. What did you play at, boy?'
`We played with flags,' I said. (I beg to observe that I think of myself with
amazement, when I recall the lies I told on this occasion.)
`Flags!' echoed my sister.
`Yes,' said I. `Estella waved a blue flag, and I waved a red one, and Miss
Havisham waved one sprinkled all over with little gold stars, out at the
coach-window. And then we all waved our swords and hurrahed.'
`Swords!' repeated my sister. `Where did you get swords from?'
`Out of a cupboard,' sand I. `And I saw pistols in it - and jam - and pills.
And there was no daylight in the room, but it was all lighted up with candles.'
`That's true, Mum,' said Mr Pumblechook, with a grave nod. `That's the state
of the case, for that much I've seen myself.' And then they both stared at me,
and I, with an obtrusive show of artlessness on my countenance, stared at them,
and plaited the right leg of my trousers with my right hand.
If they had asked me any more questions I should undoubtedly have betrayed
myself, for I was even then on the point of mentioning that there was a balloon
in the yard, and should have hazarded the statement but for my invention being
divided between that phenomenon and a bear in the brewery. They were so much
occupied, however, in discussing the marvels I had already presented for their
consideration, that I escaped. The subject still held them when Joe came in from
his work to have a cup of tea. To whom my sister, more for the relief of her own
mind than for the gratification of his, related my pretended experiences.
Now, when I saw Joe open his blue eyes and roll them all round the kitchen in
helpless amazement, I was overtaken by penitence; but only as regarded him - not
in the least as regarded the other two. Towards Joe, and Joe only, I considered
myself a young monster, while they sat debating what results would come to me
from Miss Havisham's acquaintance and favour. They had no doubt that Miss
Havisham would `do something' for me; their doubts related to the form that
something would take. My sister stood out for `property.' Mr Pumblechook was in
favour of a handsome premium for binding me apprentice to some genteel trade -
say, the corn and seed trade, for instance. Joe fell into the deepest disgrace
with both, for offering the bright suggestion that I might only be presented
with one of the dogs who had fought for the veal-cutlets. `If a fool's head
can't express better opinions than that,' said my sister, `and you have got any
work to do, you had better go and do it.' So he went.
After Mr Pumblechook had driven off, and when my sister was washing up, I
stole into the forge to Joe, and remained by him until he had done for the
night. Then I said, `Before the fire goes out, Joe, I should like to tell you
something.'
`Should you, Pip?' said Joe, drawing his shoeing-stool near the forge. `Then
tell us. What is it, Pip?'
`Joe,' said I, taking hold of his rolled-up shirt sleeve, and twisting it
between my finger and thumb, `you remember all that about Miss Havisham's?'
`Remember?' said Joe. `I believe you! Wonderful!'
`It's a terrible thing, Joe; it ain't true.'
`What are you telling of, Pip?' cried Joe, falling back in the greatest
amazement. `You don't mean to say it's--'
`Yes I do; it's lies, Joe.'
`But not all of it? Why sure you don't mean to say, Pip, that there was no
black welwet co - eh?' For, I stood shaking my head. `But at least there was
dogs, Pip? Come, Pip,' said Joe, persuasively, `if there warn't no weal-cutlets,
at least there was dogs?'
`No, Joe.'
`A dog?' said Joe. `A puppy? Come?'
`No, Joe, there was nothing at all of the kind.'
As I fixed my eyes hopelessly on Joe, Joe contemplated me in dismay. `Pip,
old chap! This won't do, old fellow! I say! Where do you expect to go to?'
`It's terrible, Joe; an't it?'
`Terrible?' cried Joe. `Awful! What possessed you?'
`I don't know what possessed me, Joe,' I replied, letting his shirt sleeve
go, and sitting down in the ashes at his feet, hanging my head; `but I wish you
hadn't taught me to call Knaves at cards, Jacks; and I wish my boots weren't so
thick not my hands so coarse.'
And then I told Joe that I felt very miserable, and that I hadn't been able
to explain myself to Mrs Joe and Pumblechook who were so rude to me, and that
there had been a beautiful young lady at Miss Havisham's who was dreadfully
proud, and that she had said I was common, and that I knew I was common, and
that I wished I was not common, and that the lies had come of it somehow, though
I didn't know how.
This was a case of metaphysics, at least as difficult for Joe to deal with,
as for me. But Joe took the case altogether out of the region of metaphysics,
and by that means vanquished it.
`There's one thing you may be sure of, Pip,' said Joe, after some rumination,
`namely, that lies is lies. Howsever they come, they didn't ought to come, and
they come from the father of lies, and work round to the same. Don't you tell no
more of 'em, Pip. That ain't the way to get out of being common, old chap. And
as to being common, I don't make it out at all clear. You are oncommon in some
things. You're oncommon small. Likewise you're a oncommon scholar.'
`No, I am ignorant and backward, Joe.'
`Why, see what a letter you wrote last night! Wrote in print even! I've seen
letters - Ah! and from gentlefolks! - that I'll swear weren't wrote in print,'
said Joe.
`I have learnt next to nothing, Joe. You think much of me. It's only that.'
`Well, Pip,' said Joe, `be it so or be it son't, you must be a common scholar
afore you can be a oncommon one, I should hope!The king upon his throne, with
his crown upon his 'ed, can't sit and write his acts of Parliament in print,
without having begun, when he were a unpromoted Prince, with the alphabet - Ah!'
added Joe, with a shake of the head that was full of meaning, `and begun at A
too, and worked his way to Z. And I know what that is to do, though I can't say
I've exactly done it.'
There was some hope in this piece of wisdom, and it rather encouraged me.
`Whether common ones as to callings and earnings,' pursued Joe, reflectively,
`mightn't be the better of continuing for a keep company with common ones,
instead of going out to play with oncommon ones - which reminds me to hope that
there were a flag, perhaps?'
`No, Joe.'
`(I'm sorry there weren't a flag, Pip). Whether that might be, or mightn't
be, is a thing as can't be looked into now, without putting your sister on the
Rampage; and that's a thing not to be thought of, as being done intentional.
Lookee here, Pip, at what is said to you by a true friend. Which this to you the
true friend say. If you can't get to be oncommon through going straight, you'll
never get to do it through going crooked. So don't tell no more on 'em, Pip, and
live well and die happy.'
`You are not angry with me, Joe?'
`No, old chap. But bearing in mind that them were which I meantersay of a
stunning and outdacious sort - alluding to them which bordered on weal-cutlets
and dog-fighting - a sincere wellwisher would adwise, Pip, their being dropped
into your meditations, when you go up-stairs to bed. That's all, old chap, and
don't never do it no more.'
When I got up to my little room and said my prayers, I did not forget Joe's
recommendation, and yet my young mind was in that disturbed and unthankful
state, that I thought long after I laid me down, how common Estella would
consider Joe, a mere blacksmith: how thick his boots, and how coarse his hands.
I thought how Joe and my sister were then sitting in the kitchen, and how I had
come up to bed from the kitchen, and how Miss Havisham and Estella never sat in
a kitchen, but were far above the level of such common doings. I fell asleep
recalling what I `used to do' when I was at Miss Havisham's; as though I had
been there weeks or months, instead of hours; and as though it were quite an old
subject of remembrance, instead of one that had arisen only that day.
That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But, it is
the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how
different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a
moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never
have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.
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