Войти в систему
Войти с помощью соц. сетей:
I went down again by the coach next day.
An elderly woman, whom I had seen before as one of the servants who lived in the small house across the back courtyard, opened the gate. The lighted candle stood in the dark passage within, as usual, and I took it up and ascended the staircase alone. Miss Havisham was not in her own room, but was in the larger room. Her eyes rested on me. She stared, and said in a low voice, “Is it real?”
“It is I, Pip. Mr. Jaggers gave me your note yesterday, and I have lost no time.”
“Thank you. Thank you.”
As I brought another of the ragged chairs to the hearth and sat down, I remarked a new expression on her face, as if she were afraid of me.
“Are you very unhappy now?”
I could not reply at the moment, for my voice failed me. She put her left arm across the head of her stick, and softly laid her forehead on it.
“I am far from happy, Miss Havisham.”
After a little while, she raised her head, and looked at the fire again.
“O!” she cried. “What have I done! What have I done!”
“If you mean, Miss Havisham, what have you done to injure me, let me answer. Very little. I should have loved her under any circumstances. Is she married?”
“Yes. What have I done! What have I done!” She wrung her hands, and crushed her white hair, and returned to this cry over and over again. “What have I done!”
I knew not how to answer, or how to comfort her.
“What have I done! What have I done!” And so again, twenty, fifty times over, What had she done! “Pip – my dear! My dear! Believe this: when she first came to me, I meant to save her from misery like my own. At first, I meant no more.”
“Well, well!” said I. “I hope so.”
“But as she grew, and promised to be very beautiful, I gradually did worse, and with my praises, and with my jewels, and with my teachings, and with this figure of myself always before her, I stole her heart away, and put ice in its place. If you knew all my story,” she pleaded, “you would have some compassion for me and a better understanding of me.”
“Miss Havisham,” I answered, as delicately as I could, “I believe I may say that I do know your story, and have known it ever since I first left this neighborhood. But may I ask you a question relative to Estella?”
She was seated on the ground, with her arms on the ragged chair, and her head leaning on them. She looked at me when I said this, and replied, “Go on.”
“Whose child was Estella?”
She shook her head.
“You don’t know?”
She shook her head again.
“But Mr. Jaggers brought her here, or sent her here?”
“Brought her here. I told him that I wanted a little girl to rear and love. He told me that he would try to find an orphan child. One night he brought her here asleep, and I called her Estella.”
“Might I ask her age then?”
“Two or three. She herself knows nothing, but that she was left an orphan and I adopted her.”
What more could I hope to learn here? Miss Havisham had told me all she knew of Estella, I had said and done what I could to ease her mind. We parted.
This place and time, and the great terror of this illusion, though it was but momentary, caused me to feel an awe. But before my going out I went up again.
I looked into the room where I had left Miss Havisham, and I saw her seated in the ragged chair upon the hearth close to the fire, with her back towards me. In the moment when I was withdrawing my head to go quietly away, I saw a great flaming light spring up. In the same moment I saw her running at me.
I had a coat on. I got it off, closed with her, threw her down, and got it over her. Then, I looked round and saw the disturbed beetles and spiders running away over the floor, and the servants coming in with breathless cries at the door.
Miss Havisham did not move, and I was afraid to move or even touch her. Assistance was sent for, and I held her until it came.
I found, on questioning the servants, that Estella was in Paris, and I got a promise from the surgeon that he would write to her by the next post.
My left arm was burned to the elbow, and it was very painful. My right hand was not so badly burnt but that I could move the fingers. My hair had been caught by the fire, but not my head or face.
My first question when I saw Herbert had been of course, whether all was well down the river? He replied in the affirmative.
“I sat with Provis last night, Handel, two hours. Do you know, Handel, he improves?”
“I said to you I thought he was softened when I last saw him.”
“So you did. And so he is. He was very communicative last night, and told me more of his life. He told me about some woman that he had had great trouble with. Shall I tell you?”
“Tell me by all means. Every word.”
“It seems,” said Herbert, “that the woman was a young woman, and a jealous woman, Handel, to the last degree.”
“To what last degree?”
“Murder.”
“How did she murder? Whom did she murder?”
“She was tried for it,” said Herbert, “and Mr. Jaggers defended her, and the reputation of that defence first made his name known to Provis. This acquitted young woman and Provis had a little child; a little child of whom Provis was exceedingly fond. After the acquittal she disappeared, and thus he lost the child and the child’s mother.”
“Herbert,” said I, after a short silence, in a hurried way, “The man we have in hiding down the river, is Estella’s Father.”
There were some occasions when Mr. Jaggers and Wemmick went over the office accounts, 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. “Miss Havisham was good enough to ask me,” I said, “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.”
“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.
“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, 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.”
“So! You know the young lady’s father, Pip?” said Mr. Jaggers.
“Yes,” I replied, “and his name is Provis – from New South Wales.”
“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 alive.”
“Hah!” said Mr. Jaggers at last, as he moved towards the papers on the table. “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. Now, Wemmick, what item was it you were at when Mr. Pip came in?”
Clarriker informed me that the affairs of the House were steadily progressing, that he would now be able to establish a small branch-house in the East, and that Herbert in his new partnership capacity would go out and take charge of it.
It was the month of March. My right arm was restored.
On a Monday morning, when Herbert and I were at breakfast, I received the following letter from Wemmick by the post.
“Walworth. Burn this as soon as read. Early in the week, or say Wednesday, you might do what you know of. Now burn.”
When I had shown this to Herbert and had put it in the fire, we considered what to do. I could not row.
“I have thought it over again and again,” said Herbert, “and I think I know what to do: we will take Startop. A good fellow, a skilled hand, and enthusiastic and honorable.”
I had thought of him more than once.
“But how much would you tell him, Herbert?”
“It is necessary to tell him very little. Let him know that there is urgent reason for your getting Provis aboard and away. You go with him?”
“No doubt.”
“Where?”
I thought about Hamburg, Rotterdam, Antwerp – he must be out of England. Any foreign steamer that would take us up would do.
We found that a steamer for Hamburg was likely to suit our purpose best, and we directed our thoughts chiefly to that vessel. Herbert went to see Startop at his lodgings. We both did what we had to do without any hindrance, and when we met again. I, for my part, was prepared with passports; Herbert had seen Startop, and he was more than ready to join.
Войти с помощью соц. сетей: