Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Chapter
22
The pale young gentleman and I stood contemplating
one another in Barnard's Inn, until we both
burst out laughing.
"The idea of its being you!" said he.
"The idea of its being you!" said I.
And then we contemplated one another afresh,
and laughed again.
"Well!" said the pale young gentleman, reaching
out his hand good-humoredly, "it's all over
now, I hope, and it will be magnanimous in
you if you'll forgive me for having knocked
you about so."
I derived from this speech that Mr. Herbert
Pocket (for Herbert was the pale young gentleman's
name) still rather confounded his intention
with his execution.
But I made a modest reply, and we shook hands
warmly.
"You hadn't come into your good fortune at
that time?" said Herbert Pocket.
"No," said I.
"No," he acquiesced: "I heard it had happened
very lately.
I was rather on the lookout for good fortune
then."
"Indeed?"
"Yes.
Miss Havisham had sent for me, to see if she
could take a fancy to me.
But she couldn't,—at all events, she didn't."
I thought it polite to remark that I was surprised
to hear that.
"Bad taste," said Herbert, laughing, "but
a fact.
Yes, she had sent for me on a trial visit,
and if I had come out of it successfully,
I suppose I should have been provided for;
perhaps I should have been what-you-may-called
it to Estella."
"What's that?"
I asked, with sudden gravity.
He was arranging his fruit in plates while
we talked, which divided his attention, and
was the cause of his having made this lapse
of a word.
"Affianced," he explained, still busy with
the fruit.
"Betrothed.
Engaged.
What's-his-named.
Any word of that sort."
"How did you bear your disappointment?"
I asked.
"Pooh!" said he, "I didn't care much for it.
She's a Tartar."
"Miss Havisham?"
"I don't say no to that, but I meant Estella.
That girl's hard and haughty and capricious
to the last degree, and has been brought up
by Miss Havisham to wreak revenge on all the
male sex."
"What relation is she to Miss Havisham?"
"None," said he.
"Only adopted."
"Why should she wreak revenge on all the male
sex?
What revenge?"
"Lord, Mr. Pip!" said he.
"Don't you know?"
"No," said I.
"Dear me!
It's quite a story, and shall be saved till
dinner-time.
And now let me take the liberty of asking
you a question.
How did you come there, that day?"
I told him, and he was attentive until I had
finished, and then burst out laughing again,
and asked me if I was sore afterwards?
I didn't ask him if he was, for my conviction
on that point was perfectly established.
"Mr. Jaggers is your guardian, I understand?"
he went on.
"Yes."
"You know he is Miss Havisham's man of business
and solicitor, and has her confidence when
nobody else has?"
This was bringing me (I felt) towards dangerous
ground.
I answered with a constraint I made no attempt
to disguise, that I had seen Mr. Jaggers in
Miss Havisham's house on the very day of our
combat, but never at any other time, and that
I believed he had no recollection of having
ever seen me there.
"He was so obliging as to suggest my father
for your tutor, and he called on my father
to propose it.
Of course he knew about my father from his
connection with Miss Havisham.
My father is Miss Havisham's cousin; not that
that implies familiar intercourse between
them, for he is a bad courtier and will not
propitiate her."
Herbert Pocket had a frank and easy way with
him that was very taking.
I had never seen any one then, and I have
never seen any one since, who more strongly
expressed to me, in every look and tone, a
natural incapacity to do anything secret and
mean.
There was something wonderfully hopeful about
his general air, and something that at the
same time whispered to me he would never be
very successful or rich.
I don't know how this was.
I became imbued with the notion on that first
occasion before we sat down to dinner, but
I cannot define by what means.
He was still a pale young gentleman, and had
a certain conquered languor about him in the
midst of his spirits and briskness, that did
not seem indicative of natural strength.
He had not a handsome face, but it was better
than handsome: being extremely amiable and
cheerful.
His figure was a little ungainly, as in the
days when my knuckles had taken such liberties
with it, but it looked as if it would always
be light and young.
Whether Mr. Trabb's local work would have
sat more gracefully on him than on me, may
be a question; but I am conscious that he
carried off his rather old clothes much better
than I carried off my new suit.
As he was so communicative, I felt that reserve
on my part would be a bad return unsuited
to our years.
I therefore told him my small story, and laid
stress on my being forbidden to inquire who
my benefactor was.
I further mentioned that as I had been brought
up a blacksmith in a country place, and knew
very little of the ways of politeness, I would
take it as a great kindness in him if he would
give me a hint whenever he saw me at a loss
or going wrong.
"With pleasure," said he, "though I venture
to prophesy that you'll want very few hints.
I dare say we shall be often together, and
I should like to banish any needless restraint
between us.
Will you do me the favour to begin at once
to call me by my Christian name, Herbert?"
I thanked him and said I would.
I informed him in exchange that my Christian
name was Philip.
"I don't take to Philip," said he, smiling,
"for it sounds like a moral boy out of the
spelling-book, who was so lazy that he fell
into a pond, or so fat that he couldn't see
out of his eyes, or so avaricious that he
locked up his cake till the mice ate it, or
so determined to go a bird's-nesting that
he got himself eaten by bears who lived handy
in the neighborhood.
I tell you what I should like.
We are so harmonious, and you have been a
blacksmith,—-would you mind it?"
"I shouldn't mind anything that you propose,"
I answered, "but I don't understand you."
"Would you mind Handel for a familiar name?
There's a charming piece of music by Handel,
called the Harmonious Blacksmith."
"I should like it very much."
"Then, my dear Handel," said he, turning round
as the door opened, "here is the dinner, and
I must beg of you to take the top of the table,
because the dinner is of your providing."
This I would not hear of, so he took the top,
and I faced him.
It was a nice little dinner,—seemed to me
then a very Lord Mayor's Feast,—and it acquired
additional relish from being eaten under those
independent circumstances, with no old people
by, and with London all around us.
This again was heightened by a certain gypsy
character that set the banquet off; for while
the table was, as Mr. Pumblechook might have
said, the lap of luxury,—being entirely
furnished forth from the coffee-house,—the
circumjacent region of sitting-room was of
a comparatively pastureless and shifty character;
imposing on the waiter the wandering habits
of putting the covers on the floor (where
he fell over them), the melted butter in the
arm-chair, the bread on the bookshelves, the
cheese in the coal-scuttle, and the boiled
fowl into my bed in the next room,—where
I found much of its parsley and butter in
a state of congelation when I retired for
the night.
All this made the feast delightful, and when
the waiter was not there to watch me, my pleasure
was without alloy.
We had made some progress in the dinner, when
I reminded Herbert of his promise to tell
me about Miss Havisham.
"True," he replied.
"I'll redeem it at once.
Let me introduce the topic, Handel, by mentioning
that in London it is not the custom to put
the knife in the mouth,—for fear of accidents,—and
that while the fork is reserved for that use,
it is not put further in than necessary.
It is scarcely worth mentioning, only it's
as well to do as other people do.
Also, the spoon is not generally used over-hand,
but under.
This has two advantages.
You get at your mouth better (which after
all is the object), and you save a good deal
of the attitude of opening oysters, on the
part of the right elbow."
He offered these friendly suggestions in such
a lively way, that we both laughed and I scarcely
blushed.
"Now," he pursued, "concerning Miss Havisham.
Miss Havisham, you must know, was a spoilt
child.
Her mother died when she was a baby, and her
father denied her nothing.
Her father was a country gentleman down in
your part of the world, and was a brewer.
I don't know why it should be a crack thing
to be a brewer; but it is indisputable that
while you cannot possibly be genteel and bake,
you may be as genteel as never was and brew.
You see it every day."
"Yet a gentleman may not keep a public-house;
may he?" said I.
"Not on any account," returned Herbert; "but
a public-house may keep a gentleman.
Well!
Mr. Havisham was very rich and very proud.
So was his daughter."
"Miss Havisham was an only child?"
I hazarded.
"Stop a moment, I am coming to that.
No, she was not an only child; she had a half-brother.
Her father privately married again—his cook,
I rather think."
"I thought he was proud," said I.
"My good Handel, so he was.
He married his second wife privately, because
he was proud, and in course of time she died.
When she was dead, I apprehend he first told
his daughter what he had done, and then the
son became a part of the family, residing
in the house you are acquainted with.
As the son grew a young man, he turned out
riotous, extravagant, undutiful,—altogether
bad.
At last his father disinherited him; but he
softened when he was dying, and left him well
off, though not nearly so well off as Miss
Havisham.—Take another glass of wine, and
excuse my mentioning that society as a body
does not expect one to be so strictly conscientious
in emptying one's glass, as to turn it bottom
upwards with the rim on one's nose."
I had been doing this, in an excess of attention
to his recital.
I thanked him, and apologized.
He said, "Not at all," and resumed.
"Miss Havisham was now an heiress, and you
may suppose was looked after as a great match.
Her half-brother had now ample means again,
but what with debts and what with new madness
wasted them most fearfully again.
There were stronger differences between him
and her than there had been between him and
his father, and it is suspected that he cherished
a deep and mortal grudge against her as having
influenced the father's anger.
Now, I come to the cruel part of the story,—merely
breaking off, my dear Handel, to remark that
a dinner-napkin will not go into a tumbler."
Why I was trying to pack mine into my tumbler,
I am wholly unable to say.
I only know that I found myself, with a perseverance
worthy of a much better cause, making the
most strenuous exertions to compress it within
those limits.
Again I thanked him and apologized, and again
he said in the cheerfullest manner, "Not at
all, I am sure!" and resumed.
"There appeared upon the scene—say at the
races, or the public balls, or anywhere else
you like—a certain man, who made love to
Miss Havisham.
I never saw him (for this happened five-and-twenty
years ago, before you and I were, Handel),
but I have heard my father mention that he
was a showy man, and the kind of man for the
purpose.
But that he was not to be, without ignorance
or prejudice, mistaken for a gentleman, my
father most strongly asseverates; because
it is a principle of his that no man who was
not a true gentleman at heart ever was, since
the world began, a true gentleman in manner.
He says, no varnish can hide the grain of
the wood; and that the more varnish you put
on, the more the grain will express itself.
Well!
This man pursued Miss Havisham closely, and
professed to be devoted to her.
I believe she had not shown much susceptibility
up to that time; but all the susceptibility
she possessed certainly came out then, and
she passionately loved him.
There is no doubt that she perfectly idolized
him.
He practised on her affection in that systematic
way, that he got great sums of money from
her, and he induced her to buy her brother
out of a share in the brewery (which had been
weakly left him by his father) at an immense
price, on the plea that when he was her husband
he must hold and manage it all.
Your guardian was not at that time in Miss
Havisham's counsels, and she was too haughty
and too much in love to be advised by any
one.
Her relations were poor and scheming, with
the exception of my father; he was poor enough,
but not time-serving or jealous.
The only independent one among them, he warned
her that she was doing too much for this man,
and was placing herself too unreservedly in
his power.
She took the first opportunity of angrily
ordering my father out of the house, in his
presence, and my father has never seen her
since."
I thought of her having said, "Matthew will
come and see me at last when I am laid dead
upon that table;" and I asked Herbert whether
his father was so inveterate against her?
"It's not that," said he, "but she charged
him, in the presence of her intended husband,
with being disappointed in the hope of fawning
upon her for his own advancement, and, if
he were to go to her now, it would look true—even
to him—and even to her.
To return to the man and make an end of him.
The marriage day was fixed, the wedding dresses
were bought, the wedding tour was planned
out, the wedding guests were invited.
The day came, but not the bridegroom.
He wrote her a letter—"
"Which she received," I struck in, "when she
was dressing for her marriage?
At twenty minutes to nine?"
"At the hour and minute," said Herbert, nodding,
"at which she afterwards stopped all the clocks.
What was in it, further than that it most
heartlessly broke the marriage off, I can't
tell you, because I don't know.
When she recovered from a bad illness that
she had, she laid the whole place waste, as
you have seen it, and she has never since
looked upon the light of day."
"Is that all the story?"
I asked, after considering it.
"All I know of it; and indeed I only know
so much, through piecing it out for myself;
for my father always avoids it, and, even
when Miss Havisham invited me to go there,
told me no more of it than it was absolutely
requisite I should understand.
But I have forgotten one thing.
It has been supposed that the man to whom
she gave her misplaced confidence acted throughout
in concert with her half-brother; that it
was a conspiracy between them; and that they
shared the profits."
"I wonder he didn't marry her and get all
the property," said I.
"He may have been married already, and her
cruel mortification may have been a part of
her half-brother's scheme," said Herbert.
"Mind!
I don't know that."
"What became of the two men?"
I asked, after again considering the subject.
"They fell into deeper shame and degradation—if
there can be deeper—and ruin."
"Are they alive now?"
"I don't know."
"You said just now that Estella was not related
to Miss Havisham, but adopted.
When adopted?"
Herbert shrugged his shoulders.
"There has always been an Estella, since I
have heard of a Miss Havisham.
I know no more.
And now, Handel," said he, finally throwing
off the story as it were, "there is a perfectly
open understanding between us.
All that I know about Miss Havisham, you know."
"And all that I know," I retorted, "you know."
"I fully believe it.
So there can be no competition or perplexity
between you and me.
And as to the condition on which you hold
your advancement in life,—namely, that you
are not to inquire or discuss to whom you
owe it,—you may be very sure that it will
never be encroached upon, or even approached,
by me, or by any one belonging to me."
In truth, he said this with so much delicacy,
that I felt the subject done with, even though
I should be under his father's roof for years
and years to come.
Yet he said it with so much meaning, too,
that I felt he as perfectly understood Miss
Havisham to be my benefactress, as I understood
the fact myself.
It had not occurred to me before, that he
had led up to the theme for the purpose of
clearing it out of our way; but we were so
much the lighter and easier for having broached
it, that I now perceived this to be the case.
We were very gay and sociable, and I asked
him, in the course of conversation, what he
was?
He replied, "A capitalist,—an Insurer of
Ships."
I suppose he saw me glancing about the room
in search of some tokens of Shipping, or capital,
for he added, "In the City."
I had grand ideas of the wealth and importance
of Insurers of Ships in the City, and I began
to think with awe of having laid a young Insurer
on his back, blackened his enterprising eye,
and cut his responsible head open.
But again there came upon me, for my relief,
that odd impression that Herbert Pocket would
never be very successful or rich.
"I shall not rest satisfied with merely employing
my capital in insuring ships.
I shall buy up some good Life Assurance shares,
and cut into the Direction.
I shall also do a little in the mining way.
None of these things will interfere with my
chartering a few thousand tons on my own account.
I think I shall trade," said he, leaning back
in his chair, "to the East Indies, for silks,
shawls, spices, dyes, drugs, and precious
woods.
It's an interesting trade."
"And the profits are large?" said I.
"Tremendous!" said he.
I wavered again, and began to think here were
greater expectations than my own.
"I think I shall trade, also," said he, putting
his thumbs in his waist-coat pockets, "to
the West Indies, for sugar, tobacco, and rum.
Also to Ceylon, specially for elephants' tusks."
"You will want a good many ships," said I.
"A perfect fleet," said he.
Quite overpowered by the magnificence of these
transactions, I asked him where the ships
he insured mostly traded to at present?
"I haven't begun insuring yet," he replied.
"I am looking about me."
Somehow, that pursuit seemed more in keeping
with Barnard's Inn.
I said (in a tone of conviction), "Ah-h!"
"Yes.
I am in a counting-house, and looking about
me."
"Is a counting-house profitable?"
I asked.
"To—do you mean to the young fellow who's
in it?" he asked, in reply.
"Yes; to you."
"Why, n-no; not to me."
He said this with the air of one carefully
reckoning up and striking a balance.
"Not directly profitable.
That is, it doesn't pay me anything, and I
have to—keep myself."
This certainly had not a profitable appearance,
and I shook my head as if I would imply that
it would be difficult to lay by much accumulative
capital from such a source of income.
"But the thing is," said Herbert Pocket, "that
you look about you.
That's the grand thing.
You are in a counting-house, you know, and
you look about you."
It struck me as a singular implication that
you couldn't be out of a counting-house, you
know, and look about you; but I silently deferred
to his experience.
"Then the time comes," said Herbert, "when
you see your opening.
And you go in, and you swoop upon it and you
make your capital, and then there you are!
When you have once made your capital, you
have nothing to do but employ it."
This was very like his way of conducting that
encounter in the garden; very like.
His manner of bearing his poverty, too, exactly
corresponded to his manner of bearing that
defeat.
It seemed to me that he took all blows and
buffets now with just the same air as he had
taken mine then.
It was evident that he had nothing around
him but the simplest necessaries, for everything
that I remarked upon turned out to have been
sent in on my account from the coffee-house
or somewhere else.
Yet, having already made his fortune in his
own mind, he was so unassuming with it that
I felt quite grateful to him for not being
puffed up.
It was a pleasant addition to his naturally
pleasant ways, and we got on famously.
In the evening we went out for a walk in the
streets, and went half-price to the Theatre;
and next day we went to church at Westminster
Abbey, and in the afternoon we walked in the
Parks; and I wondered who shod all the horses
there, and wished Joe did.
On a moderate computation, it was many months,
that Sunday, since I had left Joe and Biddy.
The space interposed between myself and them
partook of that expansion, and our marshes
were any distance off.
That I could have been at our old church in
my old church-going clothes, on the very last
Sunday that ever was, seemed a combination
of impossibilities, geographical and social,
solar and lunar.
Yet in the London streets so crowded with
people and so brilliantly lighted in the dusk
of evening, there were depressing hints of
reproaches for that I had put the poor old
kitchen at home so far away; and in the dead
of night, the footsteps of some incapable
impostor of a porter mooning about Barnard's
Inn, under pretence of watching it, fell hollow
on my heart.
On the Monday morning at a quarter before
nine, Herbert went to the counting-house to
report himself,—to look about him, too,
I suppose,—and I bore him company.
He was to come away in an hour or two to attend
me to Hammersmith, and I was to wait about
for him.
It appeared to me that the eggs from which
young Insurers were hatched were incubated
in dust and heat, like the eggs of ostriches,
judging from the places to which those incipient
giants repaired on a Monday morning.
Nor did the counting-house where Herbert assisted,
show in my eyes as at all a good Observatory;
being a back second floor up a yard, of a
grimy presence in all particulars, and with
a look into another back second floor, rather
than a look out.
I waited about until it was noon, and I went
upon 'Change, and I saw fluey men sitting
there under the bills about shipping, whom
I took to be great merchants, though I couldn't
understand why they should all be out of spirits.
When Herbert came, we went and had lunch at
a celebrated house which I then quite venerated,
but now believe to have been the most abject
superstition in Europe, and where I could
not help noticing, even then, that there was
much more gravy on the tablecloths and knives
and waiters' clothes, than in the steaks.
This collation disposed of at a moderate price
(considering the grease, which was not charged
for), we went back to Barnard's Inn and got
my little portmanteau, and then took coach
for Hammersmith.
We arrived there at two or three o'clock in
the afternoon, and had very little way to
walk to Mr. Pocket's house.
Lifting the latch of a gate, we passed direct
into a little garden overlooking the river,
where Mr. Pocket's children were playing about.
And unless I deceive myself on a point where
my interests or prepossessions are certainly
not concerned, I saw that Mr. and Mrs. Pocket's
children were not growing up or being brought
up, but were tumbling up.
Mrs. Pocket was sitting on a garden chair
under a tree, reading, with her legs upon
another garden chair; and Mrs. Pocket's two
nurse-maids were looking about them while
the children played.
"Mamma," said Herbert, "this is young Mr.
Pip."
Upon which Mrs. Pocket received me with an
appearance of amiable dignity.
"Master Alick and Miss Jane," cried one of
the nurses to two of the children, "if you
go a bouncing up against them bushes you'll
fall over into the river and be drownded,
and what'll your pa say then?"
At the same time this nurse picked up Mrs.
Pocket's handkerchief, and said, "If that
don't make six times you've dropped it, Mum!"
Upon which Mrs. Pocket laughed and said, "Thank
you, Flopson," and settling herself in one
chair only, resumed her book.
Her countenance immediately assumed a knitted
and intent expression as if she had been reading
for a week, but before she could have read
half a dozen lines, she fixed her eyes upon
me, and said, "I hope your mamma is quite
well?"
This unexpected inquiry put me into such a
difficulty that I began saying in the absurdest
way that if there had been any such person
I had no doubt she would have been quite well
and would have been very much obliged and
would have sent her compliments, when the
nurse came to my rescue.
"Well!" she cried, picking up the pocket-handkerchief,
"if that don't make seven times!
What ARE you a doing of this afternoon, Mum!"
Mrs. Pocket received her property, at first
with a look of unutterable surprise as if
she had never seen it before, and then with
a laugh of recognition, and said, "Thank you,
Flopson," and forgot me, and went on reading.
I found, now I had leisure to count them,
that there were no fewer than six little Pockets
present, in various stages of tumbling up.
I had scarcely arrived at the total when a
seventh was heard, as in the region of air,
wailing dolefully.
"If there ain't Baby!" said Flopson, appearing
to think it most surprising.
"Make haste up, Millers."
Millers, who was the other nurse, retired
into the house, and by degrees the child's
wailing was hushed and stopped, as if it were
a young ventriloquist with something in its
mouth.
Mrs. Pocket read all the time, and I was curious
to know what the book could be.
We were waiting, I supposed, for Mr. Pocket
to come out to us; at any rate we waited there,
and so I had an opportunity of observing the
remarkable family phenomenon that whenever
any of the children strayed near Mrs. Pocket
in their play, they always tripped themselves
up and tumbled over her,—always very much
to her momentary astonishment, and their own
more enduring lamentation.
I was at a loss to account for this surprising
circumstance, and could not help giving my
mind to speculations about it, until by and
by Millers came down with the baby, which
baby was handed to Flopson, which Flopson
was handing it to Mrs. Pocket, when she too
went fairly head foremost over Mrs. Pocket,
baby and all, and was caught by Herbert and
myself.
"Gracious me, Flopson!" said Mrs. Pocket,
looking off her book for a moment, "everybody's
tumbling!"
"Gracious you, indeed, Mum!" returned Flopson,
very red in the face; "what have you got there?"
"I got here, Flopson?" asked Mrs. Pocket.
"Why, if it ain't your footstool!" cried Flopson.
"And if you keep it under your skirts like
that, who's to help tumbling?
Here!
Take the baby, Mum, and give me your book."
Mrs. Pocket acted on the advice, and inexpertly
danced the infant a little in her lap, while
the other children played about it.
This had lasted but a very short time, when
Mrs. Pocket issued summary orders that they
were all to be taken into the house for a
nap.
Thus I made the second discovery on that first
occasion, that the nurture of the little Pockets
consisted of alternately tumbling up and lying
down.
Under these circumstances, when Flopson and
Millers had got the children into the house,
like a little flock of sheep, and Mr. Pocket
came out of it to make my acquaintance, I
was not much surprised to find that Mr. Pocket
was a gentleman with a rather perplexed expression
of face, and with his very gray hair disordered
on his head, as if he didn't quite see his
way to putting anything straight.
End of chapter 22
