Chapter 45

I drove to the Hummums in Covent Garden. In those times a bed was always to be got there at any hour of the night.

What a doleful night! How anxious, how dismal, how long! There was a strong smell in the room of hot dust.

Why was I not to go home? What had happened at home? When should I go home? These questions were occupying my mind.

I had left directions that I was to be called at seven; for I decided to see Wemmick before seeing any one else.

“Halloa, Mr. Pip!” said Wemmick. “You did come home, then?”

“Yes,” I returned; “but I didn’t go home.”

“That’s all right,” said he, rubbing his hands. “I left a note for you at each of the Temple gates, on the chance.”

I thanked him for his friendship and caution, and our discourse proceeded in a low tone.

“Now, Mr. Pip, you know,” said Wemmick, “you and I understand one another. We are in our private and personal capacities.”

I cordially assented. I was so very nervous.

“I heard there by chance, yesterday morning,” said Wemmick, “that a certain person – I don’t know who it may really be – we won’t name this person – ”

“Not necessary,” said I.

“ – Had made some noise in a certain part of the world where many people go. He disappeared from such place. I also heard that you at your chambers in Garden Court, Temple, had been watched, and might be watched again.”

“By whom?” said I.

“I wouldn’t go into that,” said Wemmick, “it might clash with official responsibilities.”

“You have heard of a man of bad character, whose name is Compeyson?”

He answered with one other nod.

“Is he living?”

One other nod.

“Is he in London?”

He gave me one other nod.

“Now,” said Wemmick, “questioning is over. I went to Garden Court to find you; not finding you, I went to Clarriker’s to find Mr. Herbert. I did not mention any names. Mr. Herbert knows the house by the river-side, between Limehouse and Greenwich, which is kept by a very respectable widow. It could be a house for our friend, right?”

Wemmick, having finished his breakfast, looked at his watch, and began to get his coat on.

“And now, Mr. Pip,” said he, with his hands still in the sleeves, “I have probably done the most I can do. Here’s the address. And let me give you some advice. Lay hold of his portable property. You don’t know what may happen to him. Don’t let anything happen to the portable property.”

I soon fell asleep before Wemmick’s fire. When it was quite dark, I left.

Chapter 46

I found the house very easily.

“All is well, Handel,” said Herbert, “and he is quite satisfied, though eager to see you. A curious place, Handel; isn’t it?”

It was a curious place, indeed; but remarkably well kept and clean.

In his two cabin rooms at the top of the house, which were fresh and airy, I found Provis comfortably settled. His coming back was a venture, he said, and he had always known it to be a venture.

Herbert, who had been looking at the fire, here said that something had come into his thoughts. “We are both good watermen, Handel, and could take him down the river ourselves when the right time comes.”

I liked this scheme, and Provis was quite elated by it.

“I don’t like to leave you here,” I said to Provis, “though I cannot doubt that you are safer here than near me. Good bye!”

“Dear boy,” he answered, clasping my hands, “I don’t know when we may meet again, and I don’t like good bye. Say good night!”

“Good night! Herbert will go regularly between us, and when the time comes you may be certain I shall be ready. Good night, good night!”

We thought it best that he should stay in his own rooms; and we left him on the landing outside his door.

All things were as quiet in the Temple as ever I had seen them. The windows of the rooms on that side, lately occupied by Provis, were dark and still.

Next day I set myself to get the boat. It was soon done, and the boat was brought round to the Temple stairs, and lay where I could reach her within a minute or two. Then, I began to practice: sometimes alone, sometimes with Herbert. But I was always full of fears for the man who was in hiding, that Magwitch.

Chapter 47

Some weeks passed without bringing any change. We waited for Wemmick, and he made no sign.

My affairs began to wear a gloomy appearance, and I was pressed for money by more than one creditor. Even I myself began to know the want of money (I mean of ready money in my own pocket). But I had quite determined that it would be a heartless fraud to take more money from my patron in the existing state of my uncertain thoughts and plans. Therefore, I had sent him the pocket-book by Herbert, to hold in his own keeping, and I felt a kind of satisfaction.

It was an unhappy life that I lived. Condemned to inaction, I rowed about in my boat, and waited, waited, waited, as I best could.

One afternoon, late in the month of February, I came ashore at dusk. As it was a raw evening, and I was cold, I thought I would comfort myself with dinner at once. Afterwards I went to the play. The theatre where Mr. Wopsle had achieved his triumph was in that water-side neighborhood, and to that theatre I resolved to go.

After the play I greeted Mr. Wopsle.

“How do you do?” said I, shaking hands with him as we turned down the street together. “I saw that you saw me.”

“Saw you, Mr. Pip!” he returned. “Yes, of course I saw you. But who else was there?”

“Who else?”

“It is the strangest thing,” said Mr. Wopsle, drifting into his lost look again. “You’ll hardly believe what I am going to tell you. I could hardly believe it myself, if you told me.”

“Indeed?” said I.

“No, indeed. Mr. Pip, you remember in old times a certain Christmas Day, when you were quite a child, and I dined at Gargery’s, and some soldiers came to the door to get a pair of handcuffs mended?”

“I remember it very well.”

“And you remember that there was a chase after two convicts, and that we joined in it, and that Gargery took you on his back, and that I took the lead?”

“I remember it all very well.” Better than he thought.

“Then, Mr. Pip, one of those two prisoners sat behind you tonight. I saw him over your shoulder.”

“But,” I asked him then, “which of the two do you suppose you saw?”

“The one who had been mauled,” he answered readily, “and I’ll swear I saw him! The more I think of him, the more certain I am of him.”

“This is very curious!” said I, with the best assumption I could put on of its being nothing more to me. “Very curious indeed!”

I put such questions to Mr. Wopsle as, When did the man come in? He could not tell me that; he saw me, and over my shoulder he saw the man. How was he dressed? He thought, in black.

It was between twelve and one o’clock when I reached the Temple, and the gates were shut. No one was near me when I went in and went home.

Herbert had come in, and we held a very serious council by the fire. But there was nothing to be done.

Chapter 48

The second meeting occurred about a week after the first. I was strolling along the street, when a large hand was laid upon my shoulder. It was Mr. Jaggers’s hand.

“As we are going in the same direction, Pip, we may walk together. Where are you going to?”

“To the Temple, I think,” said I.

“Don’t you know?” said Mr. Jaggers.

“Well,” I returned, “I do not know, for I have not made up my mind.”

“You are going to dine?” said Mr. Jaggers. “Are you engaged?”

“No, I am not engaged.”

“Then,” said Mr. Jaggers, “come and dine with me.”

I was going to excuse myself, when he added, “Wemmick’s coming.” So I changed my excuse into an acceptance.

At the office in Little Britain there was the usual letter-writing, hand-washing, candle-snuffing, and safe-locking, that closed the business of the day. We went to Gerrard Street, all three together. And, as soon as we got there, dinner was served. Wemmick turned his eyes on Mr. Jaggers whenever he raised them from the table, and was as dry and distant to me as if there were twin Wemmicks, and this was the wrong one.

“Did you send that note of Miss Havisham’s to Mr. Pip, Wemmick?” Mr. Jaggers asked, soon after we began dinner.

“No, sir,” returned Wemmick; “it was going by post, when you brought Mr. Pip into the office. Here it is.” He handed it to Mr. Jaggers instead of to me.

“It’s a note of two lines, Pip,” said Mr. Jaggers, handing it on, “Miss Havisham tells me that she wants to see you. You’ll go down?”

“Yes,” said I, casting my eyes over the note.

“When do you think of going down?”

“At once, I think.”

“If Mr. Pip has the intention of going at once,” said Wemmick to Mr. Jaggers, “he needn’t write an answer, you know.”

I settled that I would go tomorrow, and said so.

“So, Pip! Our friend the Spider,” said Mr. Jaggers, “has played his cards. He has won the pool. So here’s to Mrs. Bentley Drummle. Now, Molly, Molly, Molly, Molly, how slow you are today!”

It was a dull evening. We took our leave early, and left together. Mr. Jaggers went away. I felt that the right Wemmick was on his way back.

“Well!” said Wemmick, “that’s over!”

I asked him if he had ever seen Miss Havisham’s adopted daughter, Mrs. Bentley Drummle.

“Wemmick,” said I, “do you remember telling me, before I first went to Mr. Jaggers’s private house, to notice that housekeeper?”

“Did I?” he replied. “Ah, I dare say I did,” he added, suddenly.

“A wild beast tamed, you called her.”

“And what do you call her?”

“The same. How did Mr. Jaggers tame her, Wemmick?”

“That’s his secret. She has been with him for many years.”

“I wish you would tell me her story. You know that what is said between you and me goes no further.”

“Well!” Wemmick replied, “I don’t know her story – that is, I don’t know all of it. But what I do know I’ll tell you. We are in our private and personal capacities, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Twenty years ago that woman was tried at the Old Bailey for murder, and was acquitted. She was a very handsome young woman, and I believe had some gypsy blood in her.”

“But she was acquitted.”

“Mr. Jaggers was for her,” pursued Wemmick, with a look full of meaning, “and worked the case in a way quite astonishing. He worked it himself at the police-office, day after day for many days. The murdered person was a woman – a woman ten years older, very much larger, and very much stronger. It was a case of jealousy. They both led tramping lives, and this woman in Gerrard Street here had been married very young to a tramping man, and was fury in her jealousy. The murdered woman was found dead in a barn. There had been a violent struggle, perhaps a fight. Mr. Jaggers saved Molly.”

“Has she been in his service ever since?”

“Yes; but not only that,” said Wemmick, “They said she had a child.”

“Do you remember the sex of the child?”

“A girl.”

“You have nothing more to say to me tonight?”

We exchanged a cordial good-night, and I went home.