Chapter 56

Magwitch lay in prison very ill. He had broken two ribs, they had wounded one of his lungs, and he breathed with great pain and difficulty. He spoke so low; therefore he spoke very little. But he was ever ready to listen to me; and it became the first duty of my life to say to him, and read to him.

I saw him every day; he wasted, and became slowly weaker and worse, day by day.

The trial was very short and very clear. The punishment for his return to the land that had cast him out, was death, so he had to prepare himself to die.

I earnestly hoped and prayed that he might die before the execution. As the days went on, I noticed more and more that he would lie looking at the white ceiling.

The number of the days had risen to ten, when I saw a greater change in him than I had seen yet. His eyes were turned towards the door, and lighted up as I entered.

“Dear boy,” he said, as I sat down by his bed: “Thank you, dear boy. God bless you! You’ve never deserted me, dear boy.”

I pressed his hand in silence, for I could not forget that I had once meant to desert him.

He lay on his back, breathing with great difficulty.

“Are you in much pain today?”

“I don’t complain, dear boy.”

“You never do complain.”

He had spoken his last words. He smiled, and I understood his touch to mean that he wished to lift my hand, and lay it on his breast. I laid it there, and he smiled again, and put both his hands upon it.

“Dear Magwitch, I must tell you now, at last. You understand what I say?”

A gentle pressure on my hand.

“You had a child once, whom you loved and lost.”

A stronger pressure on my hand.

“She lived, and found powerful friends. She is living now. She is a lady and very beautiful. And I love her!”

With a last faint effort, he raised my hand to his lips. The placid look at the white ceiling came back, and passed away, and his head dropped quietly on his breast.

I knew there were no better words that I could say beside his bed, than “O Lord, be merciful to him a sinner!”

Chapter 57

I was in debt, and had scarcely any money, and began to be seriously alarmed by the state of my affairs. My illness was coming on me now.

For a day or two, I lay on the sofa, or on the floor with a heavy head and aching limbs, and no purpose, and no power. One day I saw two men looking at me.

“What do you want?” I asked, starting; “I don’t know you.”

“Well, sir,” returned one of them, bending down and touching me on the shoulder, “I dare say, but you’re arrested.”

“What is the debt?”

“Hundred and twenty-three pound, fifteen, six. Jeweller’s account, I think.”

“You see my state,” said I. “I would come with you if I could; but indeed I am quite unable. If you take me from here, I think I shall die by the way.”

I had a fever and was avoided, I suffered greatly, I often lost my reason.

After I had turned the worst point of my illness, I opened my eyes in the night, and I saw, in the great chair at the bedside, Joe. I opened my eyes in the day, and, sitting on the window-seat, smoking his pipe in the shaded open window, still I saw Joe. I asked for cooling drink, and the dear hand that gave it me was Joe’s. I sank back on my pillow after drinking, and the face that looked so hopefully and tenderly upon me was the face of Joe.

At last, one day, I took courage, and said, “Is it Joe?”

And the dear old home-voice answered, “Yes, that’s me, old chap.”

After which, Joe withdrew to the window, and stood with his back towards me, wiping his eyes.

“How long, dear Joe?”

“You mean, Pip, how long have your illness lasted, dear old chap?”

“Yes, Joe.”

“It’s the end of May, Pip. Tomorrow is the first of June.”

“And have you been here all that time, dear Joe?”

“Yes, old chap. When the news of your illness were brought by letter, Biddy said, ‘Go to him, without loss of time.’”

I kissed his hand, and lay quiet, while he proceeded to write a note to Biddy, with my love in it. Evidently Biddy had taught Joe to write.

I asked Joe about Miss Havisham. He shook his head.

“Is she dead, Joe?”

“Why you see, old chap,” said Joe, “She isn’t living.”

“Dear Joe, have you heard what becomes of her property?”

“Well, old chap,” said Joe, “it do appear that she had settled the most of it on Miss Estella. But she left four thousand to Mr. Matthew Pocket.”

“Have you heard, Joe,” I asked him that evening, upon further consideration, as he smoked his pipe at the window, “who my patron was?”

“I heard,” returned Joe, “it was not Miss Havisham, old chap.”

“Did you hear who it was, Joe?”

“Well! I heard it was a person who sent the person who gave you the bank-notes at the Jolly Bargemen, Pip.”

“So it was.”

“Astonishing!” said Joe, in the placidest way.

“Did you hear that he was dead, Joe?” I presently asked, with increasing diffidence.

“I think so,” said Joe.”

“Did you hear anything of his circumstances, Joe?”

“Not much, Pip.”

“If you would like to hear, Joe – ” I was beginning, when Joe got up and came to my sofa.

“Look here, old chap,” said Joe, bending over me. “We are the best of friends; aren’t us, Pip?”

I was ashamed to answer him.

“Very good, then,” said Joe, as if I had answered; “that’s all right. Let’s not speak about unnecessary things, right? You are quite tired, you must have your supper and your wine and water, and sleep.”

Time was flying, and I was recovering. We had a quiet day on the Sunday, and we rode out into the country, and then walked in the fields.

“I feel thankful that I have been ill, Joe,” I said. “It has been a memorable time for me. We have had a time together, Joe, that I can never forget.”

When I got up in the morning, refreshed and stronger yet, I was full of my resolution to tell Joe all, without delay. I would tell him before breakfast. I went to his room, and he was not there. Not only was he not there, but his box was gone.

I hurried then to the breakfast-table, and on it found a letter.

“I have departured for you are well again, dear Pip and will do better without Joe.”

Enclosed in the letter was a receipt for the debt and costs on which I had been arrested. Joe had paid the money, and the receipt was in his name.

What remained for me now, but to follow him to the dear old forge, and something had formed into a settled purpose.

The purpose was, that I would go to Biddy, that I would show her how humbled and repentant I came back, that I would tell her how I had lost all I once hoped for. Then I would say to her, “Biddy, I think you once liked me very well, when my errant heart was quieter and better with you than it ever has been since. If you can like me only half as well once more, if you can take me with all my faults and disappointments on my head, if you can receive me like a forgiven child, I hope I am a little worthier of you that I was – not much, but a little. And now, dear Biddy, if you can tell me that you will go through the world with me, you will surely make it a better world for me, and me a better man for it, and I will try hard to make it a better world for you.”

Such was my purpose.

Chapter 58

It was evening when I arrived, much fatigued by the journey I had so often made so easily. Early in the morning, while my breakfast was getting ready, I strolled round by Miss Havisham’s House. There were printed bills on the gate and on bits of carpet hanging out of the windows, announcing a sale by auction of the Household Furniture and Effects, next week. The House itself was to be sold as old building materials, and pulled down.

When I got back to my breakfast in the Boar’s coffee-room, I found Mr. Pumblechook conversing with the landlord. Mr. Pumblechook was waiting for me, and addressed me in the following terms:

“Young man, I am sorry to see you brought low. But what else could be expected! what else could be expected!”

I sat down to my breakfast. Mr. Pumblechook stood over me and poured out my tea.

“Hah!” he said, handing me the bread and butter. “Are you going to Joseph?”

“What does it matter to you,” said I, firing, “where I am going?”

The June weather was delicious. The sky was blue, the larks were soaring high over the green corn. They awakened a tender emotion in me; for my heart was softened by my return.

I went softly towards the forge, when Joe and Biddy stood before me, arm in arm.

At first Biddy gave a cry, but in another moment she was in my embrace. I wept to see her, and she wept to see me; I, because she looked so fresh and pleasant; she, because I looked so worn and white.

“But dear Biddy, how smart you are!”

“Yes, dear Pip.”

“And Joe, how smart you are!”

“Yes, dear old Pip, old chap.”

I looked at both of them, from one to the other, and then —

“It’s my wedding-day!” cried Biddy, in a burst of happiness, “and I am married to Joe!”

My first thought was one of great thankfulness that I had never breathed this last baffled hope to Joe. How often, while he was with me in my illness, had it risen to my lips!

“Dear Biddy,” said I, “you have the best husband in the whole world. And, dear Joe, you have the best wife in the whole world, and she will make you as happy as even you deserve to be, you dear, good, noble Joe!”

Joe looked at me with a quivering lip, and fairly put his sleeve before his eyes.

“And Joe and Biddy both, receive my humble thanks for all you have done for me! But I must say more. Dear Joe, I hope you will have children to love, and that some little fellow will sit in this chimney-corner of a winter night. Now let me go up and look at my old little room, and rest there a few minutes by myself. And then, dear Joe and Biddy, we’ll say good bye!”

I sold all I had, and put aside as much as I could – and I went out and joined Herbert. Within a month, I had quitted England, and within two months I was clerk to Clarriker and Co. We were not in a grand way of business, but we had a good name, and worked for our profits, and did very well.