PUTTING Miss Havisham's note in my pocket, that it might serve
as my credentials for so soon reappearing at Satis House, in case her
waywardness should lead her to express any surprise at seeing me, I went down
again by the coach next day. But I alighted at the Halfway House, and
breakfasted there, and walked the rest of the distance; for, I sought to get
into the town quietly by the unfrequented ways, and to leave it in the same
manner.
The best light of the day was gone when I passed along the quiet echoing
courts behind the High-street. The nooks of ruin where the old monks had once
had their refectories and gardens, and where the strong walls were now pressed
into the service of humble sheds and stables, were almost as silent as the old
monks in their graves. The cathedral chimes had at once a sadder and a more
remote sound to me, as I hurried on avoiding observation, than they had ever had
before; so, the swell of the old organ was borne to my ears like funeral music;
and the rooks, as they hovered about the grey tower and swung in the bare high
trees of the priory-garden, seemed to call to me that the place was changed, and
that Estella was gone out of it for ever.
An elderly woman whom I had seen before as one of the servants who lived in
the supplementary house across the back court-yard, opened the gate. The lighted
candle stood in the dark passage within, as of old, and I took it up and
ascended the staircase alone. Miss Havisham was not in her own room, but was in
the larger room across the landing. Looking in at the door, after knocking in
vain, I saw her sitting on the hearth in a ragged chair, close before, and lost
in the contemplation of, the ashy fire.
Doing as I had often done, I went in, and stood, touching the old
chimney-piece, where she could see me when she raised her eyes. There was an air
or utter loneliness upon her, that would have moved me to pity though she had
wilfully done me a deeper injury than I could charge her with. As I stood
compassionating her, and thinking how in the progress of time I too had come to
be a part of the wrecked fortunes of that house, her eyes rested on me. She
stared, and said in a low voice, `Is it real?'
`It is I, Pip. Mr Jaggers gave me your note yesterday, and I have lost no
time.'
`Thank you. Thank you.'
As I brought another of the ragged chairs to the hearth and sat down, I
remarked a new expression on her face, as if she were afraid of me.
`I want,' she said, `to pursue that subject you mentioned to me when you were
last here, and to show you that I am not all stone. But perhaps you can never
believe, now, that there is anything human in my heart?'
When I said some reassuring words, she stretched out her tremulous right
hand, as though she was going to touch me; but she recalled it again before I
understood the action, or knew how to receive it.
`You said, speaking for your friend, that you could tell me how to do
something useful and good. Something that you would like done, is it not?'
`Something that I would like done very much.'
`What is it?'
I began explaining to her that secret history of the partnership. I had not
got far into it, when I judged from her looks that she was thinking in a
discursive way of me, rather than of what I said. It seemed to be so, for, when
I stopped speaking, many moments passed before she showed that she was conscious
of the fact.
`Do you break off,' she asked then, with her former air of being afraid of
me, `because you hate me too much to bear to speak to me?'
`No, no,' I answered, `how can you think so, Miss Havisham! I stopped because
I thought you were not following what I said.'
`Perhaps I was not,' she answered, putting a hand to her head. `Begin again,
and let me look at something else. Stay! Now tell me.'
She set her hand upon her stick, in the resolute way that sometimes was
habitual to her, and looked at the fire with a strong expression of forcing
herself to attend. I went on with my explanation, and told her how I had hoped
to complete the transaction out of my means, but how in this I was disappointed.
That part of the subject (I reminded her) involved matters which could form no
part of my explanation, for they were the weighty secrets of another.
`So!' said she, assenting with her head, but not looking at me. `And how much
money is wanting to complete the purchase?'
I was rather afraid of stating it, for it sounded a large sum. `Nine hundred
pounds.'
`If I give you the money for this purpose, will you keep my secret as you
have kept your own?'
`Quite as faithfully.'
`And your mind will be more at rest?'
`Much more at rest.'
`Are you very unhappy now?'
She asked this question, still without looking at me, but in an unwonted tone
of sympathy. I could not reply at the moment, for my voice failed me. She put
her left arm across the head of her stick, and softly laid her forehead on it.
`I am far from happy, Miss Havisham; but I have other causes of disquiet than
any you know of. They are the secrets I have mentioned.'
After a little while, she raised her head and looked at the fire again.
`It is noble in you to tell me that you have other causes of unhappiness, Is
it true?'
`Too true.'
`Can I only serve you, Pip, by serving your friend? Regarding that as done,
is there nothing I can do for you yourself?'
`Nothing. I thank you for the question. I thank you even more for the tone of
the question. But, there is nothing.'
She presently rose from her seat, and looked about the blighted room for the
means of writing. There were non there, and she took from her pocket a yellow
set of ivory tablets, mounted in tarnished gold, and wrote upon them with a
pencil in a case of tarnished gold that hung from her neck.
`You are still on friendly terms with Mr Jaggers?'
`Quite. I dined with him yesterday.'
`This is an authority to him to pay you that money, to lay out at your
irresponsible discretion for your friend. I keep no money here; but if you would
rather Mr Jaggers knew nothing of the matter, I will send it to you.'
`Thank you, Miss Havisham; I have not the least objection to receiving it
from him.'
She read me what she had written, and it was direct and clear, and evidently
intended to absolve me from any suspicion of profiting by the receipt of the
money. I took the tablets from her hand, and it trembled again, and it trembled
more as she took off the chain to which the pencil was attached, and put it in
mine. All this she did, without looking at me.
`My name is on the first leaf. If you can ever write under my name, "I
forgive her," though ever so long after my broken heart is dust - pray do it!'
`O Miss Havisham,' said I, `I can do it now. There have been sore mistakes;
and my life has been a blind and thankless one; and I want forgiveness and
direction far too much, to be bitter with you.'
She turned her face to me for the first time since she had averted it, and,
to my amazement, I may even add to my terror, dropped on her knees at my feet;
with her folded hands raised to me in the manner in which, when her poor heart
was young and fresh and whole, they must often have been raised to heaven from
her mother's side.
To see her with her white hair and her worn face kneeling at my feet, gave me
a shock through all my frame. I entreated her to rise, and got my arms about her
to help her up; but she only pressed that hand of mine which was nearest to her
grasp, and hung her head over it and wept. I had never seen her shed a tear
before, and, in the hope that the relief might do her good, I bent over her
without speaking. She was not kneeling now, but was down upon the ground.
`O!' she cried, despairingly. `What have I done! What have I done!'
`If you mean, Miss Havisham, what have you done to injure me, let me answer.
Very little. I should have loved her under any circumstances. - Is she married?'
`Yes.'
It was a needless question, for a new desolation in the desolate house had
told me so.
`What have I done! What have I done!' She wrung her hands, and crushed her
white hair, and returned to this cry over and over again. `What have I done!'
I knew not how to answer, or how to comfort her. That she had done a grievous
thing in taking an impressionable child to mould into the form that her wild
resentment, spurned affection, and wounded pride, found vengeance in, I knew
full well. But that, in shutting out the light of day, she had shut out
infinitely more; that, in seclusion, she had secluded herself from a thousand
natural and healing influences; that, her mind, brooding solitary, had grown
diseased, as all minds do and must and will that reverse the appointed order of
their Maker; I knew equally well. And could I look upon her without compassion,
seeing her punishment in the ruin she was, in her profound unfitness for this
earth on which she was placed, in the vanity of sorrow which had become a master
mania, like the vanity of penitence, the vanity of remorse, the vanity of
unworthiness, and other monstrous vanities that have been curses in this world?
`Until you spoke to her the other day, and until I saw in you a looking-glass
that showed me what I once felt myself, I did not know what I had done. What
have I done! What have I done!' And so again, twenty, fifty times over, What had
she done!
`Miss Havisham,' I said, when her cry had died away, `you may dismiss me from
your mind and conscience. But Estella is a different case, and if you can ever
undo any scrap of what you have done amiss in keeping a part of her right nature
away from her, it will be better to do that, than to bemoan the past through a
hundred years.'
`Yes, yes, I know it. But, Pip - my Dear!' There was an earnest womanly
compassion for me in her new affection. `My Dear! Believe this: when she first
came to me, I meant to save her from misery like my own. At first I meant no
more.'
`Well, well!' said I. `I hope so.'
`But as she grew, and promised to be very beautiful, I gradually did worse,
and with my praises, and with my jewels, and with my teachings, and with this
figure of myself always before her a warning to back and point my lessons, I
stole her heart away and put ice in its place.'
`Better,' I could not help saying, `to have left her a natural heart, even to
be bruised or broken.'
With that, Miss Havisham looked distractedly at me for a while, and then
burst out again, What had she done!
`If you knew all my story,' she pleaded, `you would have some compassion for
me and a better understanding of me.'
`Miss Havisham,' I answered, as delicately as I could, `I believe I may say
that I do know your story, and have known it ever since I first left this
neighbourhood. It has inspired me with great commiseration, and I hope I
understand it and its influences. Does what has passed between us give me any
excuse for asking you a question relative to Estella? Not as she is, but as she
was when she first came here?'
She was seated on the ground, with her arms on the ragged chair, and her head
leaning on them. She looked full at me when I said this, and replied, `Go on.'
`Whose child was Estella?'
She shook her head.
`You don't know?'
She shook her head again.
`But Mr Jaggers brought her here, or sent her here?'
`Brought her here.'
`Will you tell me how that came about?'
She answered in a low whisper and with caution: `I had been shut up in these
rooms a long time (I don't know how long; you know what time the clocks keep
here), when I told him that I wanted a little girl to rear and love, and save
from my fate. I had first seen him when I sent for him to lay this place waste
for me; having read of him in the newspapers, before I and the world parted. He
told me that he would look about him for such an orphan child. One night he
brought her here asleep, and I called her Estella.'
`Might I ask her age then?'
`Two or three. She herself knows nothing, but that she was left an orphan and
I adopted her.'
So convinced I was of that woman's being her mother, that I wanted no
evidence to establish the fact in my own mind. But, to any mind, I thought, the
connection here was clear and straight.
What more could I hope to do by prolonging the interview? I had succeeded on
behalf of Herbert, Miss Havisham had told me all she knew of Estella, I had said
and done what I could to ease her mind. No matter with what other words we
parted; we parted.
Twilight was closing in when I went down stairs into the natural air. I
called to the woman who had opened the gate when I entered, that I would not
trouble her just yet, but would walk round the place before leaving. For, I had
a presentiment that I should never be there again, and I felt that the dying
light was suited to my last view of it.
By the wilderness of casks that I had walked on long ago, and on which the
rain of years had fallen since, rotting them in many places, and leaving
miniature swamps and pools of water upon those that stood on end, I made my way
to the ruined garden. I went all round it; round by the corner where Herbert and
I had fought our battle; round by the paths where Estella and I had walked. So
cold, so lonely, so dreary all!
Taking the brewery on my way back, I raised the rusty latch of a little door
at the garden end of it, and walked through. I was going out at the opposite
door - not easy to open now, for the damp wood had started and swelled, and the
hinges were yielding, and the threshold was encumbered with a growth of fungus -
when I turned my head to look back. A childish association revived with
wonderful force in the moment of the slight action, and I fancied that I saw
Miss Havisham hanging to the beam. So strong was the impression, that I stood
under the beam shuddering from head to foot before I knew it was a fancy -
though to be sure I was there in an instant.
The mournfulness of the place and time, and the great terror of this
illusion, though it was but momentary, caused me to feel an indescribable awe as
I came out between the open wooden gates where I had once wrung my hair after
Estella had wrung my heart. Passing on into the front court-yard, I hesitated
whether to call the woman to let me out at the locked gate of which she had the
key, or first to go up-stairs and assure myself that Miss Havisham was as safe
and well as I had left her. I took the latter course and went up.
I looked into the room where I had left her, and I saw her seated in the
ragged chair upon the hearth close to the fire, with her back towards me. In the
moment when I was withdrawing my head to go quietly away, I saw a great flaming
light spring up. In the same moment, I saw her running at me, shrieking, with a
whirl of fire blazing all about her, and soaring at least as many feet above her
head as she was high.
I had a double-caped great-coat on, and over my arm another thick coat. That
I got them off, closed with her, threw her down, and got them over her; that I
dragged the great cloth from the table for the same purpose, and with it dragged
down the heap of rottenness in the midst, and all the ugly things that sheltered
there; that we were on the ground struggling like desperate enemies, and that
the closer I covered her, the more wildly she shrieked and tried to free
herself; that this occurred I knew through the result, but not through anything
I felt, or thought, or knew I did. I knew nothing until I knew that we were on
the floor by the great table, and that patches of tinder yet alight were
floating in the smoky air, which, a moment ago, had been her faded bridal dress.
Then, I looked round and saw the disturbed beetles and spiders running away
over the floor, and the servants coming in with breathless cries at the door. I
still held her forcibly down with all my strength, like a prisoner who might
escape; and I doubt if I even knew who she was, or why we had struggled, or that
she had been in flames, or that the flames were out, until I saw the patches of
tinder that had been her garments, no longer alight but falling in a black
shower around us.
She was insensible, and I was afraid to have her moved, or even touched.
Assistance was sent for and I held her until it came, as if I unreasonably
fancied (I think I did) that if I let her go, the fire would break out again and
consume her. When I got up, on the surgeon's coming to her with other aid, I was
astonished to see that both my hands were burnt; for, I had no knowledge of it
through the sense of feeling.
On examination it was pronounced that she had received serious hurts, but
that they of themselves were far from hopeless; the danger lay mainly in the
nervous shock. By the surgeon's directions, her bed was carried into that room
and laid upon the great table: which happened to be well suited to the dressing
of her injuries. When I saw her again, an hour afterwards, she lay indeed where
I had seen her strike her stick, and had heard her say that she would lie one
day.
Though every vestige of her dress was burnt, as they told me, she still had
something of her old ghastly bridal appearance; for, they had covered her to the
throat with white cotton-wool, and as she lay with a white sheet loosely
overlying that, the phantom air of something that had been and was changed, was
still upon her.
I found, on questioning the servants, that Estella was in Paris, and I got a
promise from the surgeon that he would write to her by the next post. Miss
Havisham's family I took upon myself; intending to communicate with Mr Matthew
Pocket only, and leave him to do as he liked about informing the rest. This I
did next day, through Herbert, as soon as I returned to town.
There was a stage, that evening, when she spoke collectedly of what had
happened, though with a certain terrible vivacity. Towards midnight she began to
wander in her speech, and after that it gradually set in that she said
innumerable times in a low solemn voice, `What have I done!' And then, `When she
first came, I meant to save her from misery like mine.' And then, `Take the
pencil and write under my name, "I forgive her!"' She never changed the order of
these three sentences, but she sometimes left out a word in one or other of
them; never putting in another word, but always leaving a blank and going on to
the next word.
As I could do no service there, and as I had, nearer home, that pressing
reason for anxiety and fear which even her wanderings could not drive out of my
mind, I decided in the course of the night that I would return by the early
morning coach: walking on a mile or so, and being taken up clear of the town. At
about six o'clock of the morning, therefore, I leaned over her and touched her
lips with mine, just as they said, not stopping for being touched, `Take the
pencil and write under my name, "I forgive her."'
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