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Read books online » Fiction » Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (best ereader under 100 TXT) 📖

Book online «Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (best ereader under 100 TXT) 📖». Author Charles Dickens



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used to it. I inferred

from the methodical nature of Miss Skiffins’s arrangements that she

made tea there every Sunday night; and I rather suspected that a

classic brooch she wore, representing the profile of an undesirable

female with a very straight nose and a very new moon, was a piece

of portable property that had been given her by Wemmick.

We ate the whole of the toast, and drank tea in proportion, and it

was delightful to see how warm and greasy we all got after it. The

Aged especially, might have passed for some clean old chief of a

savage tribe, just oiled. After a short pause of repose, Miss

Skiffins—in the absence of the little servant who, it seemed,

retired to the bosom of her family on Sunday afternoons—washed up

the tea-things, in a trifling lady-like amateur manner that

compromised none of us. Then, she put on her gloves again, and we

drew round the fire, and Wemmick said, “Now, Aged Parent, tip us the

paper.”

Wemmick explained to me while the Aged got his spectacles out, that

this was according to custom, and that it gave the old gentleman

infinite satisfaction to read the news aloud. “I won’t offer an

apology,” said Wemmick, “for he isn’t capable of many pleasures—

are you, Aged P.?”

“All right, John, all right,” returned the old man, seeing himself

spoken to.

“Only tip him a nod every now and then when he looks off his

paper,” said Wemmick, “and he’ll be as happy as a king. We are all

attention, Aged One.”

“All right, John, all right!” returned the cheerful old man, so

busy and so pleased, that it really was quite charming.

The Aged’s reading reminded me of the classes at Mr. Wopsle’s

great-aunt’s, with the pleasanter peculiarity that it seemed to

come through a keyhole. As he wanted the candles close to him, and

as he was always on the verge of putting either his head or the

newspaper into them, he required as much watching as a powder-mill.

But Wemmick was equally untiring and gentle in his vigilance, and

the Aged read on, quite unconscious of his many rescues. Whenever

he looked at us, we all expressed the greatest interest and

amazement, and nodded until he resumed again.

As Wemmick and Miss Skiffins sat side by side, and as I sat in a

shadowy corner, I observed a slow and gradual elongation of Mr.

Wemmick’s mouth, powerfully suggestive of his slowly and gradually

stealing his arm round Miss Skiffins’s waist. In course of time I

saw his hand appear on the other side of Miss Skiffins; but at that

moment Miss Skiffins neatly stopped him with the green glove,

unwound his arm again as if it were an article of dress, and with

the greatest deliberation laid it on the table before her. Miss

Skiffins’s composure while she did this was one of the most

remarkable sights I have ever seen, and if I could have thought the

act consistent with abstraction of mind, I should have deemed that

Miss Skiffins performed it mechanically.

By and by, I noticed Wemmick’s arm beginning to disappear again,

and gradually fading out of view. Shortly afterwards, his mouth

began to widen again. After an interval of suspense on my part that

was quite enthralling and almost painful, I saw his hand appear on

the other side of Miss Skiffins. Instantly, Miss Skiffins stopped

it with the neatness of a placid boxer, took off that girdle or

cestus as before, and laid it on the table. Taking the table to

represent the path of virtue, I am justified in stating that during

the whole time of the Aged’s reading, Wemmick’s arm was straying

from the path of virtue and being recalled to it by Miss Skiffins.

At last, the Aged read himself into a light slumber. This was the

time for Wemmick to produce a little kettle, a tray of glasses, and

a black bottle with a porcelain-topped cork, representing some

clerical dignitary of a rubicund and social aspect. With the aid of

these appliances we all had something warm to drink, including the

Aged, who was soon awake again. Miss Skiffins mixed, and I observed

that she and Wemmick drank out of one glass. Of course I knew

better than to offer to see Miss Skiffins home, and under the

circumstances I thought I had best go first; which I did, taking a

cordial leave of the Aged, and having passed a pleasant evening.

Before a week was out, I received a note from Wemmick, dated

Walworth, stating that he hoped he had made some advance in that

matter appertaining to our private and personal capacities, and

that he would be glad if I could come and see him again upon it.

So, I went out to Walworth again, and yet again, and yet again, and

I saw him by appointment in the City several times, but never held

any communication with him on the subject in or near Little

Britain. The upshot was, that we found a worthy young merchant or

shipping-broker, not long established in business, who wanted

intelligent help, and who wanted capital, and who in due course of

time and receipt would want a partner. Between him and me, secret

articles were signed of which Herbert was the subject, and I paid

him half of my five hundred pounds down, and engaged for sundry

other payments: some, to fall due at certain dates out of my

income: some, contingent on my coming into my property. Miss

Skiffins’s brother conducted the negotiation. Wemmick pervaded it

throughout, but never appeared in it.

The whole business was so cleverly managed, that Herbert had not

the least suspicion of my hand being in it. I never shall forget

the radiant face with which he came home one afternoon, and told

me, as a mighty piece of news, of his having fallen in with one

Clarriker (the young merchant’s name), and of Clarriker’s having

shown an extraordinary inclination towards him, and of his belief

that the opening had come at last. Day by day as his hopes grew

stronger and his face brighter, he must have thought me a more and

more affectionate friend, for I had the greatest difficulty in

restraining my tears of triumph when I saw him so happy. At length,

the thing being done, and he having that day entered Clarriker’s

House, and he having talked to me for a whole evening in a flush of

pleasure and success, I did really cry in good earnest when I went

to bed, to think that my expectations had done some good to

somebody.

A great event in my life, the turning point of my life, now opens

on my view. But, before I proceed to narrate it, and before I pass

on to all the changes it involved, I must give one chapter to

Estella. It is not much to give to the theme that so long filled

my heart.

Chapter XXXVIII

If that staid old house near the Green at Richmond should ever come

to be haunted when I am dead, it will be haunted, surely, by my

ghost. O the many, many nights and days through which the unquiet

spirit within me haunted that house when Estella lived there! Let

my body be where it would, my spirit was always wandering,

wandering, wandering, about that house.

The lady with whom Estella was placed, Mrs. Brandley by name, was a

widow, with one daughter several years older than Estella. The

mother looked young, and the daughter looked old; the mother’s

complexion was pink, and the daughter’s was yellow; the mother set

up for frivolity, and the daughter for theology. They were in what

is called a good position, and visited, and were visited by,

numbers of people. Little, if any, community of feeling subsisted

between them and Estella, but the understanding was established

that they were necessary to her, and that she was necessary to

them. Mrs. Brandley had been a friend of Miss Havisham’s before the

time of her seclusion.

In Mrs. Brandley’s house and out of Mrs. Brandley’s house, I suffered

every kind and degree of torture that Estella could cause me. The

nature of my relations with her, which placed me on terms of

familiarity without placing me on terms of favor, conduced to my

distraction. She made use of me to tease other admirers, and she

turned the very familiarity between herself and me to the account

of putting a constant slight on my devotion to her. If I had been

her secretary, steward, half-brother, poor relation,—if I had been

a younger brother of her appointed husband,—I could not have

seemed to myself further from my hopes when I was nearest to her.

The privilege of calling her by her name and hearing her call me by

mine became, under the circumstances an aggravation of my trials;

and while I think it likely that it almost maddened her other

lovers, I know too certainly that it almost maddened me.

She had admirers without end. No doubt my jealousy made an admirer

of every one who went near her; but there were more than enough of

them without that.

I saw her often at Richmond, I heard of her often in town, and I

used often to take her and the Brandleys on the water; there were

picnics, f�te days, plays, operas, concerts, parties, all sorts of

pleasures, through which I pursued her,—and they were all miseries

to me. I never had one hour’s happiness in her society, and yet my

mind all round the four-and-twenty hours was harping on the

happiness of having her with me unto death.

Throughout this part of our intercourse,—and it lasted, as will

presently be seen, for what I then thought a long time,—she

habitually reverted to that tone which expressed that our

association was forced upon us. There were other times when she

would come to a sudden check in this tone and in all her many

tones, and would seem to pity me.

“Pip, Pip,” she said one evening, coming to such a check, when we

sat apart at a darkening window of the house in Richmond; “will you

never take warning?”

“Of what?”

“Of me.”

“Warning not to be attracted by you, do you mean, Estella?”

“Do I mean! If you don’t know what I mean, you are blind.”

I should have replied that Love was commonly reputed blind, but for

the reason that I always was restrained—and this was not the

least of my miseries—by a feeling that it was ungenerous to press

myself upon her, when she knew that she could not choose but obey

Miss Havisham. My dread always was, that this knowledge on her part

laid me under a heavy disadvantage with her pride, and made me the

subject of a rebellious struggle in her bosom.

“At any rate,” said I, “I have no warning given me just now, for

you wrote to me to come to you, this time.”

“That’s true,” said Estella, with a cold careless smile that always

chilled me.

After looking at the twilight without, for a little while, she went

on to say:—

“The time has come round when Miss Havisham wishes to have me for a

day at Satis. You are to take me there, and bring me back, if you

will. She would rather I did not travel alone, and objects to

receiving my maid, for she has a sensitive horror of being talked

of by such people. Can you take me?”

“Can I take you, Estella!”

“You can then? The day after tomorrow, if you please. You are to

pay all charges out of my purse, You hear the condition of your

going?”

“And must obey,” said I.

This was all the preparation I received for that visit, or for

others like it; Miss Havisham never wrote to me, nor

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