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“Though, look here, Pip’s comrade,” he said to Herbert, “I know the life very well. I made Pip a gentleman, and Pip is going to make you a gentleman. Dear boy, and Pip’s comrade, you two may count upon me.”
Herbert said, “Certainly,” but looked as if there were no specific consolation in this, and remained perplexed and dismayed. It was midnight before I took him round to Essex Street, and saw him safely in at his own dark door. When it closed upon him, I experienced the first moment of relief I had known since the night of his arrival.
Herbert received me with open arms, and I had never felt before so well what it is to have a friend. When he had spoken some words of sympathy and encouragement, we sat down to consider the question, What was to be done?
“What,” said I to Herbert, – “what is to be done?”
“My poor dear Handel,” he replied, holding his head, “I am too stunned to think.”
“So was I, Herbert. Still, something must be done. He is intent upon various new expenses – horses, and carriages, and lavish appearances of all kinds. He must be stopped somehow.”
“You mean that you can’t accept – ”
“How can I?” I interposed, as Herbert paused. “Think of him! Look at him! Yet I am afraid the dreadful truth is, Herbert, that he is attached to me, strongly attached to me!”
“My poor dear Handel,” Herbert repeated.
“Then,” said I, “after all, stopping here, never taking another penny from him, think what I owe him already! Then again: I am heavily in debt – very heavily for me, who have now no expectations, and I am fit for nothing.”
“Well, well, well!” Herbert remonstrated. “Don’t say fit for nothing.”
“What am I fit for? I know only one thing that I am fit for, and that is, to go for a soldier.”
“Anyhow, my dear Handel,” said Herbert presently, “soldiering won’t do. Besides, it’s absurd. You would be infinitely better in Clarriker’s house. I am working up towards a partnership, you know.”
Poor fellow! He little suspected with whose money. But what was to be done?
“The first and the main thing to be done,” said Herbert, “is to get him out of England. You will have to go with him.”
Herbert got up, and linked his arm in mine, and we slowly walked to and fro together, studying the carpet.
“Handel,” said Herbert, stopping, “you feel convinced that you can take no further benefits from him; do you?”
“Fully. Surely you would, too, if you were in my place?”
“And you feel convinced that you must break with him?”
“Herbert, can you ask me?”
“Then you must get him out of England.”
We went to bed. I had the wildest dreams concerning him.
He came round at the appointed time, took out his knife, and sat down to his meal. He was full of plans. When he had made an end of his breakfast, and was wiping his knife on his leg, I said to him, without a word of preface —
“I told my friend of the struggle that the soldiers found you engaged in on the marshes. You remember?”
“Remember!” said he. “I think so!”
“We want to know something about that man – and about you.”
“Dear boy and Pip’s comrade. I am not a going to tell you my life like a song, or a story-book. In jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail. That’s all. That’s my life.
I knew my name to be Magwitch, Abel Magwitch. Tramping, begging, thieving, working sometimes when I could. A deserting soldier learnt me to read; and a travelling Giant learnt me to write.
At Epsom races, twenty years ago, I got acquainted with a man. His right name was Compeyson; and that’s the man, dear boy, whom I was pounding in the ditch.
‘What can you do?’ said Compeyson.
‘Eat and drink,’ said I.
Compeyson laughed, looked at me again very noticing, gave me five shillings, and appointed me for next night.
I went to Compeyson next night, and Compeyson took me on to be his partner. And what was Compeyson’s business? Compeyson’s business was the swindling, handwriting forging, stolen bank-note passing, and such like. He was as cold as death, and he had the head of the Devil.
There was another in with Compeyson, Arthur. Arthur and Compeyson had made a bad thing with a rich lady some years before, and they’d made a pot of money by it. At last, me and Compeyson was both committed for felony. Compeyson said to me, ‘Separate defences, no communication,’ and that was all.
Compeyson blamed me, and everybody was convinced that I was to blame alone. So my punishment was much harder. When we’re sentenced, he got seven years, and I got fourteen. I said to Compeyson that I’d smash his face!”
“Is he dead?” I asked, after a silence.
“Is who dead, dear boy?”
“Compeyson.”
“He hopes I am, if he’s alive, you may be sure,” with a fierce look. “I never heard anymore of him.”
Herbert had been writing with his pencil in the cover of a book. He softly pushed the book over to me, as Provis stood smoking with his eyes on the fire, and I read in it: —
“Young Havisham’s name was Arthur. Compeyson is the man who was Miss Havisham’s lover.”
I shut the book and nodded slightly to Herbert. We did not say anything, and both looked at Provis as he stood smoking by the fire.
If Compeyson were alive and should discover his return, I could hardly doubt the consequence. Compeyson is afraid of Provis and will become an informer.
I did not tell Provis about Estella. But, I said to Herbert that, before I could go abroad, I must see both Estella and Miss Havisham. I resolved to go out to Richmond next day, and I went.
Mrs. Brandley told me that Estella had gone into the country. Where? To Miss Havisham, as usual.
Another night consultation with Herbert after Provis led us to the conclusion that nothing should be said about going abroad until I came back from Miss Havisham’s.
When I drove up to the Blue Boar after a drizzly ride, whom should I see come out under the gateway, toothpick in hand, to look at the coach, but Bentley Drummle!
“Oh!” said I, “it’s you, is it? How do you do?”
“You have just come down?” said Mr. Drummle.
“Yes,” said I.
“Beastly place,” said Drummle. “Your part of the country, I think.”
Here Mr. Drummle looked at his boots and I looked at mine, and then Mr. Drummle looked at my boots, and I looked at his.
“Have you been here long?” I asked, determined not to yield an inch of the fire.
“Long enough to be tired of it,” returned Drummle, pretending to yawn.
“Do you stay here long?”
“Can’t say,” answered Mr. Drummle. “Do you?”
“Can’t say,” said I. “Mr. Drummle, I did not seek this conversation, and I don’t think it an agreeable one.”
“I am sure it’s not,” said he.
“And therefore,” I went on, “I will suggest that we hold no kind of communication in future.”
“Quite my opinion,” said Drummle. “But don’t lose your temper. Haven’t you lost enough without that?”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“Waiter!” said Drummle, instead of answering me.
The waiter reappeared.
“Look here. You quite understand that the young lady doesn’t ride today, and that I dine at the young lady’s?”
“Quite so, sir!”
In the room where the dressing-table stood, and where the wax candles burnt on the wall, I found Miss Havisham and Estella; Miss Havisham seated near the fire, and Estella on a cushion at her feet. Estella was knitting, and Miss Havisham was looking on. They both raised their eyes as I went in.
“And what wind,” said Miss Havisham, “blows you here, Pip?”
“Miss Havisham,” said I, “I went to Richmond yesterday, to speak to Estella.”
I took the chair by the dressing-table.
“What I had to say to Estella, Miss Havisham, I will say before you. It will not surprise you, it will not displease you. I am very unhappy.”
Miss Havisham continued to look steadily at me.
“I have found out who my patron is. It is not a fortunate discovery, and is not likely ever to enrich me in reputation, station, fortune, anything. It is not my secret, but another’s.”
“Miss Havisham, you deeply wrong both Mr. Matthew Pocket and his son Herbert.”
“They are your friends,” said Miss Havisham.
“They made themselves my friends,” said I.
Still looking at me keenly, Miss Havisham asked:
“What do you want, then?”
“Estella,” said I, turning to her now, and trying to command my trembling voice, “you know I love you. You know that I have loved you long and dearly.”
She raised her eyes to my face.
“I should have said this sooner, but I refrained from saying it. But I must say it now.”
Estella shook her head.
“I know,” said I, in answer to that action – “I know. I have no hope that I shall ever call you mine, Estella. I am ignorant what may become of me very soon, how poor I may be, or where I may go. Still, I love you. I have loved you ever since I first saw you in this house.”
Looking at me perfectly unmoved and with her fingers busy, she shook her head again.
“It seems,” said Estella, very calmly, “that there are sentiments, fancies – I don’t know how to call them – which I am not able to comprehend. When you say you love me, I know what you mean, as a form of words; but nothing more. You address nothing in my breast, you touch nothing there. I don’t care for what you say at all. I have tried to warn you of this; now, have I not?”
I said in a miserable manner, “Yes.”
“Yes. I can do no more.”
“Is it not true,” said I, “that Bentley Drummle is in town here, and pursuing you?”
“It is quite true,” she replied.
“That you encourage him, and ride out with him, and that he dines with you this very day?”
She seemed a little surprised that I should know it, but again replied, “Quite true.”
“You cannot love him, Estella!”
Her fingers stopped for the first time, as she retorted rather angrily, “What have I told you? Do you still think, in spite of it, that I do not mean what I say?”
“You would never marry him, Estella?”
She looked towards Miss Havisham, and considered for a moment with her work in her hands. Then she said, “Why not tell you the truth? I am going to be married to him.”
I dropped my face into my hands.
“I am going,” she said again, in a gentler voice, “to be married to him. The preparations for my marriage are making, and I shall be married soon.”
“Such a mean brute, such a stupid brute!” I urged, in despair. “O Estella! How could I see you Drummle’s wife?”
“You will forget me in a week.”
“You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read since I first came here! You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since – on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets! O God bless you, God forgive you!”
I held her hand to my lips some moments, and so I left her.
It was past midnight when I crossed London Bridge. The night-porter examined me with much attention. To help his memory I mentioned my name.
“Here’s a note, sir. The messenger said that you should read it immediately.”
Much surprised by the request, I took the note. It was directed to Philip Pip, Esquire, and on the top were the words, “PLEASE READ THIS, HERE.” I opened it, the watchman holding up his light, and read inside, in Wemmick’s writing —
“DON’T GO HOME.”
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