Chapter 39

I was three-and-twenty years of age. Nothing had I heard to enlighten me on the subject of my expectations. We had left Barnard’s Inn more than a year, and lived in the Temple. Our chambers were in Garden-court, down by the river.

Business had taken Herbert on a journey to Marseilles. I was alone, and had a dull sense of being alone. Dispirited and anxious, I sadly missed the cheerful face and ready response of my friend.

It was wretched weather; stormy and wet, stormy and wet; and mud, mud, mud, deep in all the streets.

I read with my watch upon the table, purposing to close my book at eleven o’clock. As I shut it, all the many church-clocks in the City – some leading, some accompanying, some following – struck that hour. Suddenly I heard the footstep stumble in coming on.

“There is some one down there, is there not?” I called out, looking down.

“Yes,” said a voice from the darkness beneath.

“What floor do you want?”

“The top. Mr. Pip.”

“That is my name. What’s the matter?”

“Nothing the matter,” returned the voice. And the man came on. In the instant, I had seen a smiling face that was strange to me. The man looked as a voyager by sea. He had long gray hair. His age was about sixty. He was a muscular man, strong on his legs.

“Pray what is your business?” I asked him.

“My business?” he repeated, pausing. “Ah! Yes. I will explain my business.”

“Do you wish to come in?”

“Yes,” he replied; “I wish to come in, master.”

He looked about him with the strangest air – an air of wondering pleasure.

“What do you want?” said I, half suspecting him to be mad.

He stopped in his looking at me, and slowly rubbed his right hand over his head. He sat down on a chair that stood before the fire, and covered his forehead with his large brown hands. I looked at him attentively then, and recoiled a little from him; but I did not know him.

“I’m glad you’ve grown up,” said he, shaking his head.

I knew him! Even yet I could not recall a single feature, but I knew him! It was my convict. He grasped my hands heartily, raised them to his lips, kissed them, and still held them.

“You acted noble, my boy,” said he. “Noble, Pip! And I have never forgot it!”

“Oh!” said I. “If you are grateful to me for what I did when I was a little child… If you have come here to thank me, it was not necessary. I am glad to believe you have repented and recovered yourself. I am glad to tell you so. I am glad that, thinking I deserve to be thanked, you have come to thank me. But our ways are different ways. You are wet, and you look weary. Will you drink something before you go?”

“I think,” he answered with the end at his mouth, “that I will drink (I thank you) before I go.”

There was a tray ready on a side-table. I brought it to the table near the fire, and asked him what he would have? He touched one of the bottles without looking at it or speaking, and I made him some hot rum and water.

“How are you living?” I asked him.

“I’ve been a sheep-farmer, stock-breeder, other trades besides, away in the new world,” said he; “many a thousand mile of stormy water off from this.”

“I hope you have done well?”

“I’ve done wonderfully well. I’m famous for it.”

“I am glad to hear it.”

“I hope to hear you say so, my dear boy.”

“May I ask you,” he said then, with a smile that was like a frown, and with a frown that was like a smile, “how you have done well, since you and me were out on them lone shivering marshes?”

“How?”

“Ah!”

He emptied his glass, got up, and stood at the side of the fire, with his heavy brown hand on the mantel-shelf. I answered that I had got some property.

“Might I ask what property?” said he.

I faltered, “I don’t know.”

“Might I ask whose property?” said he.

I faltered again, “I don’t know.”

“Could I make a guess, I wonder,” said the Convict, “at your income! As to the first figure now. Five? Concerning a guardian, as to the first letter of that lawyer’s name now. Would it be J? His name is Jaggers. How did I find you? I wrote to a person in London. That person’s name? Why, Wemmick.”

I could not have spoken one word. I stood, with a hand on the chair-back and a hand on my breast, where I seemed to be suffocating. He caught me, drew me to the sofa, put me up against the cushions, and bent on one knee before me.

“Yes, Pip, dear boy, I’ve made a gentleman on you! I swore that time, if I earned a guinea, that guinea should go to you. I swore afterwards, you should get rich. I worked hard, that you should be above work. Look here, Pip. I’m your second father. You’re my son. I’ve put away money, only for you to spend. I decided: when I get liberty and money, I’ll make that boy a gentleman! And I done it. Why, look at you, dear boy! A lord? Ah! You’re richer than many lords!”

In his heat and triumph, he did not notice my reaction to all this.

“Look here!” he went on, taking my watch out of my pocket, and turning towards him a ring on my finger, “gold and beauty: that’s gentleman’s, I hope! A diamond all set round with rubies; that’s a gentleman’s, I hope! Look at your linen; fine and beautiful! Look at your clothes; nothing is better! And your books too,” turning his eyes round the room, “on their shelves, by hundreds! And you read them; don’t you? I see were reading them when I came in. Ha, ha, ha! You will read them to me, dear boy!”

Again he took both my hands and put them to his lips, while my blood ran cold within me.

“Do not talk, Pip,” said he. “Didn’t you never think it might be me?”

“O no, no, no,” I returned, “Never, never!”

“Well, you see it was me.”

I tried to collect my thoughts, but I was stunned.

“Where will you put me?” he asked, presently. “I must be put somewhere, dear boy.”

“To sleep?” said I.

“Yes. And to sleep long,” he answered.

“My friend and companion,” said I, rising from the sofa, “is absent; you must have his room.”

“He won’t come back tomorrow; will he?”

“No,” said I, answering almost mechanically; “not tomorrow.”

“Because, look here, dear boy,” he said, dropping his voice, and laying a long finger on my breast in an impressive manner, “caution is necessary.”

“How do you mean? Caution?”

“I was sent for life. It’s death to come back.”

When I had gone into Herbert’s room, and had shut off any other communication between it and the staircase than through the room in which our conversation had been held, I asked him if he would go to bed? He said yes, but asked me for some of my “gentleman’s linen” to put on in the morning. I brought it out, and laid it ready for him, and my blood again ran cold when he again took me by both hands to give me good night.

This is the end of the second stage of pip’s expectations.

Chapter 40

I could not keep him concealed in the chambers. I asked the watchman, whether he had seen anybody or not. Yes, he said; a stranger asked for you.”

“My uncle,” I muttered.

“You saw him, sir?”

“Yes. Oh yes.”

“And the person with him?”

“And the person with him!” I repeated. “What sort of person?”

The watchman had not particularly noticed; he had a dust-coloured kind of clothes on, under a dark coat.

I came back and began to wait for Him to come to breakfast. By and by, his door opened and he came out. I thought he had a worse look by daylight.

“I do not even know,” said I, speaking low as he took his seat at the table, “by what name to call you. I have given out that you are my uncle.”

“That’s it, dear boy! Call me uncle.”

“You assumed some name, I suppose, on board ship?”

“Yes, dear boy. I took the name of Provis.”

“Do you mean to keep that name?”

“Why, yes, dear boy, it’s as good as another – unless you’d like another.”

“What is your real name?” I asked him in a whisper.

“Magwitch,” he answered, in the same tone; “Abel Magwitch.”

“When you came in at the gate and asked the watchman the way here, had you anyone with you?”

“With me? No, dear boy.”

“Are you known in London?”

“I hope not!” said he.

“Were you tried – in London?”

“Which time?” said he, with a sharp look.

“The last time.”

He nodded. “First knew Mr. Jaggers that way. Jaggers was for me.”

He ate in a way that was very disagreeable, and all his actions were uncouth, noisy, and greedy. He looked terribly like a hungry old dog.

“This,” said he, “this is the gentleman what I made! The real genuine One! It does me good to look at you, Pip, dear boy!”

He took out of his pocket a great thick pocket-book, bursting with papers, and tossed it on the table.

“There’s something worth spending in that book, dear boy. It’s yours. All I’ve got isn’t mine; it’s yours!”

“Stop!” said I, almost in a frenzy of fear and dislike, “I want to speak to you. I want to know what is to be done. I want to know how you are to be kept out of danger, how long you are going to stay, what projects you have.”

“Well, dear boy, the danger isn’t so great.”

“Is there no chance person who might identify you in the street?” said I.

“Well,” he returned, “not many. Here I am. Pip, I’m here, because I wanted to see you.”

I decided to find him a quiet lodging nearby. I then went from shop to shop, making necessary purchases to the change in his appearance. After that I went to Little Britain.

Mr. Jaggers was at his desk, but, seeing me enter, got up immediately and stood before his fire.

“Now, Pip,” said he, “be careful.”

“I will, sir,” I returned

“Don’t commit yourself,” said Mr. Jaggers, “and don’t commit any one. You understand – any one. Don’t tell me anything: I don’t want to know anything; I am not curious.”

Of course I saw that he knew the man was come.

“I merely want, Mr. Jaggers,” said I, “to assure myself that what I have been told is true. I have no hope of its being untrue, but at least I may verify it.”

Mr. Jaggers nodded. “But did you say ‘told’ or ‘informed’?” he asked me, with his head on one side, and not looking at me, but looking in a listening way at the floor. “Told would seem to imply verbal communication. You can’t have verbal communication with a man in New South Wales, you know.”

“I will say, informed, Mr. Jaggers.”

“Good.”

“I have been informed by a person named Abel Magwitch, that he is the benefactor so long unknown to me.”

“That is the man,” said Mr. Jaggers, “in New South Wales.”

“And only he?” said I.

“And only he,” said Mr. Jaggers.

“I am always supposed it was Miss Havisham.”

“Pip,” returned Mr. Jaggers, turning his eyes upon me coolly, and taking a bite at his forefinger, “I am not at all responsible for that.”

“I have no more to say,” said I, with a sigh, after standing silent for a little while. “I have verified my information, and there’s an end.”

“And Magwitch – in New South Wales – having at last disclosed himself, I communicated to Magwitch – in New South Wales – when he first wrote to me – from New South Wales. I cautioned him that he was not at all likely to obtain a pardon; that his coming back would cause the extreme penalty of the law. I gave Magwitch that caution,” said Mr. Jaggers, looking hard at me; “I wrote it to New South Wales. Good day, Pip, glad to have seen you. Good day, Pip!”

We shook hands, and he looked hard at me as long as he could see me.

Next day the clothes I had ordered all came home, and he put them on. One night I was roused by the welcome footstep on the staircase.

“Quiet! It’s Herbert!” I said.

“Handel, my dear fellow, how are you, and again how are you, and again how are you? Handel, my – Halloa! I beg your pardon.”

He was stopped in his running on and in his shaking hands with me, by seeing Provis.

“Herbert, my dear friend,” said I, shutting the double doors, while Herbert stood staring and wondering, “something very strange has happened. This is a visitor of mine.”