WHAT purpose I had in view when I was hot on tracing out and
proving Estella's parentage, I cannot say. It will presently be seen that the
question was not before me in a distinct shape, until it was put before me by a
wiser head than my own.
But, when Herbert and I had held our momentous conversation, I was seized
with a feverish conviction that I ought to hunt the matter down - that I ought
not to let it rest, but that I ought to see Mr Jaggers, and come at the bare
truth. I really do not know whether I felt that I did this for Estella's sake,
or whether I was glad to transfer to the man in whose preservation I was so much
concerned, some rays of the romantic interest that had so long surrounded her.
Perhaps the latter possibility may be the nearer to the truth.
Any way, I could scarcely be withheld from going out to Gerrard-street that
night. Herbert's representations that if I did, I should probably be laid up and
stricken useless, when our fugitive's safety would depend upon me, alone
restrained my impatience. On the understanding, again and again reiterated, that
come what would, I was to go to Mr Jaggers to-morrow, I at length submitted to
keep quiet, and to have my hurts looked after, and to stay at home. Early next
morning we went out together, and at the corner of Giltspur-street by
Smithfield, I left Herbert to go his way into the City, and took my way to
Little Britain.
There were periodical occasions when Mr Jaggers and Wemmick went over the
office accounts, and checked off the vouchers, and put all things straight. On
these occasions Wemmick took his books and papers into Mr Jaggers's room, and
one of the up-stairs clerks came down into the outer office. Finding such clerk
on Wemmick's post that morning, I knew what was going on; but, I was not sorry
to have Mr Jaggers and Wemmick together, as Wemmick would then hear for himself
that I said nothing to compromise him.
My appearance with my arm bandaged and my coat loose over my shoulders,
favoured my object. Although I had sent Mr Jaggers a brief account of the
accident as soon as I had arrived in town, yet I had to give him all the details
now; and the speciality of the occasion caused our talk to be less dry and hard,
and less strictly regulated by the rules of evidence, than it had been before.
While I described the disaster, Mr Jaggers stood, according to his wont, before
the fire. Wemmick leaned back in his chair, staring at me, with his hands in the
pockets of his trousers, and his pen put horizontally into the post. The two
brutal casts, always inseparable in my mind from the official proceedings,
seemed to be congestively considering whether they didn't smell fire at the
present moment.
My narrative finished, and their questions exhausted, I then produced Miss
Havisham's authority to receive the nine hundred pounds for Herbert. Mr
Jaggers's eyes retired a little deeper into his head when I handed him the
tablets, but he presently handed them over to Wemmick, with instructions to draw
the cheque for his signature. While that was in course of being done, I looked
on at Wemmick as he wrote, and Mr Jaggers, poising and swaying himself on his
well-polished boots, looked on at me. `I am sorry, Pip,' said he, as I put the
cheque in my pocket, when he had signed it, `that we do nothing for you.'
`Miss Havisham was good enough to ask me,' I returned, `whether she could do
nothing for me, and I told her No.'
`Everybody should know his own business,' said Mr Jaggers. And I saw
Wemmick's lips form the words `portable property.'
`I should not have told her No, if I had been you,' said Mr Jaggers; `but
every man ought to know his own business best.'
`Every man's business,' said Wemmick, rather reproachfully towards me, `is
portable property.'
As I thought the time was now come for pursuing the theme I had at heart, I
said, turning on Mr Jaggers:
`I did ask something of Miss Havisham, however, sir. I asked her to give me
some information relative to her adopted daughter, and she gave me all she
possessed.'
`Did she?' said Mr Jaggers, bending forward to look at his boots and then
straightening himself. `Hah! I don't think I should have done so, if I had been
Miss Havisham. But she ought to know her own business best.'
`I know more of the history of Miss Havisham's adopted child, than Miss
Havisham herself does, sir. I know her mother.'
Mr Jaggers looked at me inquiringly, and repeated `Mother?'
`I have seen her mother within these three days.'
`Yes?' said Mr Jaggers.
`And so have you, sir. And you have seen her still more recently.'
`Yes?' said Mr Jaggers.
`Perhaps I know more of Estella's history than even you do,' said I. `I know
her father too.'
A certain stop that Mr Jaggers came to in his manner - he was too
self-possessed to change his manner, but he could not help its being brought to
an indefinably attentive stop - assured me that he did not know who her father
was. This I had strongly suspected from Provis's account (as Herbert had
repeated it) of his having kept himself dark; which I pieced on to the fact that
he himself was not Mr Jaggers's client until some four years later, and when he
could have no reason for claiming his identity. But, I could not be sure of this
unconsciousness on Mr Jaggers's part before, though I was quite sure of it now.
`So! You know the young lady's father, Pip?' said Mr Jaggers.
`Yes,' I replied, `and his name is Provis - from New South Wales.'
Even Mr Jaggers started when I said those words. It was the slightest start
that could escape a man, the most carefully repressed and the soonest checked,
but he did start, though he made it a part of the action of taking out his
pocket-handkerchief. How Wemmick received the announcement I am unable to say,
for I was afraid to look at him just then, lest Mr Jaggers's sharpness should
detect that there had been some communication unknown to him between us.
`And on what evidence, Pip,' asked Mr. Jaggers, very coolly, as he paused
with his handkerchief half way to his nose, `does Provis make this claim?'
`He does not make it,' said I, `and has never made it, and has no knowledge
or belief that his daughter is in existence.'
For once, the powerful pocket-handkerchief failed. My reply was so unexpected
that Mr Jaggers put the handkerchief back into his pocket without completing the
usual performance, folded his arms, and looked with stern attention at me,
though with an immovable face.
Then I told him all I knew, and how I knew it; with the one reservation that
I left him to infer that I knew from Miss Havisham what I in fact knew from
Wemmick. I was very careful indeed as to that. Nor, did I look towards Wemmick
until I had finished all I had to tell, and had been for some time silently
meeting Mr Jaggers's look. When I did at last turn my eyes in Wemmick's
direction, I found that he had unposted his pen, and was intent upon the table
before him.
`Hah!' said Mr Jaggers at last, as he moved towards the papers on the table,
` - What item was it you were at, Wemmick, when Mr. Pip came in?'
But I could not submit to be thrown off in that way, and I made a passionate,
almost an indignant, appeal to him to be more frank and manly with me. I
reminded him of the false hopes into which I had lapsed, the length of time they
had lasted, and the discovery I had made: and I hinted at the danger that
weighed upon my spirits. I represented myself as being surely worthy of some
little confidence from him, in return for the confidence I had just now
imparted. I said that I did not blame him, or suspect him, or mistrust him, but
I wanted assurance of the truth from him. And if he asked me why I wanted it and
why I thought I had any right to it, I would tell him, little as he cared for
such poor dreams, that I had loved Estella dearly and long, and that, although I
had lost her and must live a bereaved life, whatever concerned her was still
nearer and dearer to me than anything else in the world. And seeing that Mr
Jaggers stood quite still and silent, and apparently quite obdurate, under this
appeal, I turned to Wemmick, and said, `Wemmick, I know you to be a man with a
gentle heart. I have seen your pleasant home, and your old father, and all the
innocent cheerful playful ways with which you refresh your business life. And I
entreat you to say a word for me to Mr Jaggers, and to represent to him that,
all circumstances considered, he ought to be more open with me!'
I have never seen two men look more oddly at one another than Mr Jaggers and
Wemmick did after this apostrophe. At first, a misgiving crossed me that Wemmick
would be instantly dismissed from his employment; but, it melted as I saw Mr
Jaggers relax into something like a smile, and Wemmick become bolder.
`What's all this?' said Mr Jaggers. `You with an old father, and you with
pleasant and playful ways?'
`Well!' returned Wemmick. `If I don't bring 'em here, what does it matter?'
`Pip,' said Mr Jaggers, laying his hand upon my arm, and smiling openly,
`this man must be the most cunning impostor in all London.'
`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, this was your manner of attack and
this the manner of resistance, you went so and so, you did such and such things
to divert suspicion. I have tracked you through it all, and I tell it you all.
Part with the child, unless it should be necessary 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
shop-lifting. 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.
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