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GREAT EXPECTATIONS
by Charles Dickens
Chapter XIII
It was a trial to my feelings, on the next day but one, to see Joe arraying himself in
his Sunday clothes to accompany me to Miss Havisham's. However, as he thought his court-suit
necessary to the occasion, it was not for me to tell him that he looked far better in
his working-dress; the rather, because I knew he made himself so dreadfully uncomfortable,
entirely on my account, and that it was for me he pulled up his shirt-collar so very high
behind, that it made the hair on the crown of his head stand up like a tuft of feathers.
At breakfast-time my sister declared her intention of going to town with us, and being left at
Uncle Pumblechook's and called for "when we had done with our fine ladies"óa way of putting
the case, from which Joe appeared inclined to augur the worst. The forge was shut up
for the day, and Joe inscribed in chalk upon the door (as it was his custom to do on the
very rare occasions when he was not at work) the monosyllable HOUT, accompanied by a sketch
of an arrow supposed to be flying in the direction he had taken.
We walked to town, my sister leading the way in a very large beaver bonnet, and carrying
a basket like the Great Seal of England in plaited Straw, a pair of pattens, a spare
shawl, and an umbrella, though it was a fine bright day. I am not quite clear whether these
articles were carried penitentially or ostentatiously; but I rather think they were displayed as
articles of property,ómuch as Cleopatra or any other sovereign lady on the Rampage might
exhibit her wealth in a pageant or procession. When we came to Pumblechook's, my sister bounced
in and left us. As it was almost noon, Joe and I held straight on to Miss Havisham's
house. Estella opened the gate as usual, and, the moment she appeared, Joe took his hat
off and stood weighing it by the brim in both his hands; as if he had some urgent reason
in his mind for being particular to half a quarter of an ounce.
Estella took no notice of either of us, but led us the way that I knew so well. I followed
next to her, and Joe came last. When I looked back at Joe in the long passage, he was still
weighing his hat with the greatest care, and was coming after us in long strides on the
tips of his toes. Estella told me we were both to go in, so
I took Joe by the coat-cuff and conducted him into Miss Havisham's presence. She was
seated at her dressing-table, and looked round at us immediately.
"Oh!" said she to Joe. "You are the husband of the sister of this boy?"
I could hardly have imagined dear old Joe looking so unlike himself or so like some
extraordinary bird; standing as he did speechless, with his tuft of feathers ruffled, and his
mouth open as if he wanted a worm. "You are the husband," repeated Miss Havisham,
"of the sister of this boy?" It was very aggravating; but, throughout the
interview, Joe persisted in addressing Me instead of Miss Havisham.
"Which I meantersay, Pip," Joe now observed in a manner that was at once expressive of
forcible argumentation, strict confidence, and great politeness, "as I hup and married
your sister, and I were at the time what you might call (if you was anyways inclined) a
single man." "Well!" said Miss Havisham. "And you have
reared the boy, with the intention of taking him for your apprentice; is that so, Mr. Gargery?"
"You know, Pip," replied Joe, "as you and me were ever friends, and it were looked for'ard
to betwixt us, as being calc'lated to lead to larks. Not but what, Pip, if you had ever
made objections to the business,ósuch as its being open to black and sut, or such-like,ónot
but what they would have been attended to, don't you see?"
"Has the boy," said Miss Havisham, "ever made any objection? Does he like the trade?"
"Which it is well beknown to yourself, Pip," returned Joe, strengthening his former mixture
of argumentation, confidence, and politeness, "that it were the wish of your own hart."
(I saw the idea suddenly break upon him that he would adapt his epitaph to the occasion,
before he went on to say) "And there weren't no objection on your part, and Pip it were
the great wish of your hart!" It was quite in vain for me to endeavor to
make him sensible that he ought to speak to Miss Havisham. The more I made faces and gestures
to him to do it, the more confidential, argumentative, and polite, he persisted in being to Me.
"Have you brought his indentures with you?" asked Miss Havisham.
"Well, Pip, you know," replied Joe, as if that were a little unreasonable, "you yourself
see me put 'em in my 'at, and therefore you know as they are here." With which he took
them out, and gave them, not to Miss Havisham, but to me. I am afraid I was ashamed of the
dear good fellow,óI know I was ashamed of him,ówhen I saw that Estella stood at the
back of Miss Havisham's chair, and that her eyes laughed mischievously. I took the indentures
out of his hand and gave them to Miss Havisham. "You expected," said Miss Havisham, as she
looked them over, "no premium with the boy?" "Joe!" I remonstrated, for he made no reply
at all. "Why don't you answeró" "Pip," returned Joe, cutting me short as if
he were hurt, "which I meantersay that were not a question requiring a answer betwixt
yourself and me, and which you know the answer to be full well No. You know it to be No,
Pip, and wherefore should I say it?" Miss Havisham glanced at him as if she understood
what he really was better than I had thought possible, seeing what he was there; and took
up a little bag from the table beside her. "Pip has earned a premium here," she said,
"and here it is. There are five-and-twenty guineas in this bag. Give it to your master,
Pip." As if he were absolutely out of his mind with
the wonder awakened in him by her strange figure and the strange room, Joe, even at
this pass, persisted in addressing me. "This is wery liberal on your part, Pip,"
said Joe, "and it is as such received and grateful welcome, though never looked for,
far nor near, nor nowheres. And now, old chap," said Joe, conveying to me a sensation, first
of burning and then of freezing, for I felt as if that familiar expression were applied
to Miss Havisham,ó"and now, old chap, may we do our duty! May you and me do our duty,
both on us, by one and another, and by them which your liberal presentóhave-conweyedóto
beófor the satisfaction of mind-ofóthem as neveró" here Joe showed that he felt he
had fallen into frightful difficulties, until he triumphantly rescued himself with the words,
"and from myself far be it!" These words had such a round and convincing sound for him
that he said them twice. "Good by, Pip!" said Miss Havisham. "Let them
out, Estella." "Am I to come again, Miss Havisham?" I asked.
"No. Gargery is your master now. Gargery! One word!"
Thus calling him back as I went out of the door, I heard her say to Joe in a distinct
emphatic voice, "The boy has been a good boy here, and that is his reward. Of course, as
an honest man, you will expect no other and no more."
How Joe got out of the room, I have never been able to determine; but I know that when
he did get out he was steadily proceeding up stairs instead of coming down, and was
deaf to all remonstrances until I went after him and laid hold of him. In another minute
we were outside the gate, and it was locked, and Estella was gone. When we stood in the
daylight alone again, Joe backed up against a wall, and said to me, "Astonishing!" And
there he remained so long saying, "Astonishing" at intervals, so often, that I began to think
his senses were never coming back. At length he prolonged his remark into "Pip, I do assure
you this is as-TON-ishing!" and so, by degrees, became conversational and able to walk away.
I have reason to think that Joe's intellects were brightened by the encounter they had
passed through, and that on our way to Pumblechook's he invented a subtle and deep design. My reason
is to be found in what took place in Mr. Pumblechook's parlor: where, on our presenting ourselves,
my sister sat in conference with that detested seedsman.
"Well?" cried my sister, addressing us both at once. "And what's happened to you? I wonder
you condescend to come back to such poor society as this, I am sure I do!"
"Miss Havisham," said Joe, with a fixed look at me, like an effort of remembrance, "made
it wery partick'ler that we should give herówere it compliments or respects, Pip?"
"Compliments," I said. "Which that were my own belief," answered
Joe; "her compliments to Mrs. J. Gargeryó" "Much good they'll do me!" observed my sister;
but rather gratified too. "And wishing," pursued Joe, with another fixed
look at me, like another effort of remembrance, "that the state of Miss Havisham's elth were
sitch as would haveóallowed, were it, Pip?" "Of her having the pleasure," I added.
"Of ladies' company," said Joe. And drew a long breath.
"Well!" cried my sister, with a mollified glance at Mr. Pumblechook. "She might have
had the politeness to send that message at first, but it's better late than never. And
what did she give young Rantipole here?" "She giv' him," said Joe, "nothing."
Mrs. Joe was going to break out, but Joe went on.
"What she giv'," said Joe, "she giv' to his friends. 'And by his friends,' were her explanation,
'I mean into the hands of his sister Mrs. J. Gargery.' Them were her words; 'Mrs. J.
Gargery.' She mayn't have know'd," added Joe, with an appearance of reflection, "whether
it were Joe, or Jorge." My sister looked at Pumblechook: who smoothed
the elbows of his wooden arm-chair, and nodded at her and at the fire, as if he had known
all about it beforehand. "And how much have you got?" asked my sister,
laughing. Positively laughing! "What would present company say to ten pound?"
demanded Joe. "They'd say," returned my sister, curtly,
"pretty well. Not too much, but pretty well." "It's more than that, then," said Joe.
That fearful Impostor, Pumblechook, immediately nodded, and said, as he rubbed the arms of
his chair, "It's more than that, Mum." "Why, you don't mean to sayó" began my sister.
"Yes I do, Mum," said Pumblechook; "but wait a bit. Go on, Joseph. Good in you! Go on!"
"What would present company say," proceeded Joe, "to twenty pound?"
"Handsome would be the word," returned my sister.
"Well, then," said Joe, "It's more than twenty pound."
That abject hypocrite, Pumblechook, nodded again, and said, with a patronizing laugh,
"It's more than that, Mum. Good again! Follow her up, Joseph!"
"Then to make an end of it," said Joe, delightedly handing the bag to my sister; "it's five-and-twenty
pound." "It's five-and-twenty pound, Mum," echoed
that basest of swindlers, Pumblechook, rising to shake hands with her; "and it's no more
than your merits (as I said when my opinion was asked), and I wish you joy of the money!"
If the villain had stopped here, his case would have been sufficiently awful, but he
blackened his guilt by proceeding to take me into custody, with a right of patronage
that left all his former criminality far behind. "Now you see, Joseph and wife," said Pumblechook,
as he took me by the arm above the elbow, "I am one of them that always go right through
with what they've begun. This boy must be bound, out of hand. That's my way. Bound out
of hand." "Goodness knows, Uncle Pumblechook," said
my sister (grasping the money), "we're deeply beholden to you."
"Never mind me, Mum," returned that diabolical cornchandler. "A pleasure's a pleasure all
the world over. But this boy, you know; we must have him bound. I said I'd see to itóto
tell you the truth." The Justices were sitting in the Town Hall
near at hand, and we at once went over to have me bound apprentice to Joe in the Magisterial
presence. I say we went over, but I was pushed over by Pumblechook, exactly as if I had that
moment picked a pocket or fired a rick; indeed, it was the general impression in Court that
I had been taken red-handed; for, as Pumblechook shoved me before him through the crowd, I
heard some people say, "What's he done?" and others, "He's a young 'un, too, but looks
bad, don't he?" One person of mild and benevolent aspect even gave me a tract ornamented with
a woodcut of a malevolent young man fitted up with a perfect sausage-shop of fetters,
and entitled TO BE READ IN MY CELL. The Hall was a *** place, I thought, with
higher pews in it than a church,óand with people hanging over the pews looking on,óand
with mighty Justices (one with a powdered head) leaning back in chairs, with folded
arms, or taking snuff, or going to sleep, or writing, or reading the newspapers,óand
with some shining black portraits on the walls, which my unartistic eye regarded as a composition
of hardbake and sticking-plaster. Here, in a corner my indentures were duly signed and
attested, and I was "bound"; Mr. Pumblechook holding me all the while as if we had looked
in on our way to the scaffold, to have those little preliminaries disposed of.
When we had come out again, and had got rid of the boys who had been put into great spirits
by the expectation of seeing me publicly tortured, and who were much disappointed to find that
my friends were merely rallying round me, we went back to Pumblechook's. And there my
sister became so excited by the twenty-five guineas, that nothing would serve her but
we must have a dinner out of that windfall at the Blue Boar, and that Pumblechook must
go over in his chaise-cart, and bring the Hubbles and Mr. Wopsle.
It was agreed to be done; and a most melancholy day I passed. For, it inscrutably appeared
to stand to reason, in the minds of the whole company, that I was an excrescence on the
entertainment. And to make it worse, they all asked me from time to time,óin short,
whenever they had nothing else to do,ówhy I didn't enjoy myself? And what could I possibly
do then, but say I was enjoying myself,ówhen I wasn't!
However, they were grown up and had their own way, and they made the most of it. That
swindling Pumblechook, exalted into the beneficent contriver of the whole occasion, actually
took the top of the table; and, when he addressed them on the subject of my being bound, and
had fiendishly congratulated them on my being liable to imprisonment if I played at cards,
drank strong liquors, kept late hours or bad company, or indulged in other vagaries which
the form of my indentures appeared to contemplate as next to inevitable, he placed me standing
on a chair beside him to illustrate his remarks. My only other remembrances of the great festival
are, That they wouldn't let me go to sleep, but whenever they saw me dropping off, woke
me up and told me to enjoy myself. That, rather late in the evening Mr. Wopsle gave us Collins's
ode, and threw his bloodstained sword in thunder down, with such effect, that a waiter came
in and said, "The Commercials underneath sent up their compliments, and it wasn't the Tumblers'
Arms." That, they were all in excellent spirits on the road home, and sang, O Lady Fair! Mr.
Wopsle taking the bass, and asserting with a tremendously strong voice (in reply to the
inquisitive bore who leads that piece of music in a most impertinent manner, by wanting to
know all about everybody's private affairs) that he was the man with his white locks flowing,
and that he was upon the whole the weakest pilgrim going.
Finally, I remember that when I got into my little bedroom, I was truly wretched, and
had a strong conviction on me that I should never like Joe's trade. I had liked it once,
but once was not now.