Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (best ereader under 100 TXT) 📖

Chapter XLV

Turning from the Temple gate as soon as I had read the warning, I

made the best of my way to Fleet Street, and there got a late

hackney chariot and drove to the Hummums in Covent Garden. In those

times a bed was always to be got there at any hour of the night,

and the chamberlain, letting me in at his ready wicket, lighted the

candle next in order on his shelf, and showed me straight into the

bedroom next in order on his list. It was a sort of vault on the

ground floor at the back, with a despotic monster of a four-post

bedstead in it, straddling over the whole place, putting one of his

arbitrary legs into the fireplace and another into the doorway,

and squeezing the wretched little washing-stand in quite a Divinely

Righteous manner.

As I had asked for a night-light, the chamberlain had brought me

in, before he left me, the good old constitutional rushlight of

those virtuous days.—an object like the ghost of a walking-cane,

which instantly broke its back if it were touched, which nothing

could ever be lighted at, and which was placed in solitary

confinement at the bottom of a high tin tower, perforated with

round holes that made a staringly wide-awake pattern on the walls.

When I had got into bed, and lay there footsore, weary, and

wretched, I found that I could no more close my own eyes than I

could close the eyes of this foolish Argus. And thus, in the gloom

and death of the night, we stared at one another.

What a doleful night! How anxious, how dismal, how long! There was

an inhospitable smell in the room, of cold soot and hot dust; and,

as I looked up into the corners of the tester over my head, I

thought what a number of blue-bottle flies from the butchers’, and

earwigs from the market, and grubs from the country, must be

holding on up there, lying by for next summer. This led me to

speculate whether any of them ever tumbled down, and then I fancied

that I felt light falls on my face,—a disagreeable turn of thought,

suggesting other and more objectionable approaches up my back. When

I had lain awake a little while, those extraordinary voices with

which silence teems began to make themselves audible. The closet

whispered, the fireplace sighed, the little washing-stand ticked,

and one guitar-string played occasionally in the chest of drawers.

At about the same time, the eyes on the wall acquired a new

expression, and in every one of those staring rounds I saw

written, DON’T GO HOME.

Whatever night-fancies and night-noises crowded on me, they never

warded off this DON’T GO HOME. It plaited itself into whatever I

thought of, as a bodily pain would have done. Not long before, I

had read in the newspapers, how a gentleman unknown had come to the

Hummums in the night, and had gone to bed, and had destroyed

himself, and had been found in the morning weltering in blood. It

came into my head that he must have occupied this very vault of

mine, and I got out of bed to assure myself that there were no red

marks about; then opened the door to look out into the passages,

and cheer myself with the companionship of a distant light, near

which I knew the chamberlain to be dozing. But all this time, why I

was not to go home, and what had happened at home, and when I

should go home, and whether Provis was safe at home, were questions

occupying my mind so busily, that one might have supposed there

could be no more room in it for any other theme. Even when I

thought of Estella, and how we had parted that day forever, and

when I recalled all the circumstances of our parting, and all her

looks and tones, and the action of her fingers while she knitted,—

even then I was pursuing, here and there and everywhere, the

caution, Don’t go home. When at last I dozed, in sheer exhaustion of

mind and body, it became a vast shadowy verb which I had to

conjugate. Imperative mood, present tense: Do not thou go home, let

him not go home, let us not go home, do not ye or you go home, let

not them go home. Then potentially: I may not and I cannot go

home; and I might not, could not, would not, and should not go

home; until I felt that I was going distracted, and rolled over on

the pillow, and looked at the staring rounds upon the wall again.

I had left directions that I was to be called at seven; for it was

plain that I must see Wemmick before seeing any one else, and

equally plain that this was a case in which his Walworth

sentiments only could be taken. It was a relief to get out of the

room where the night had been so miserable, and I needed no second

knocking at the door to startle me from my uneasy bed.

The Castle battlements arose upon my view at eight o’clock. The

little servant happening to be entering the fortress with two hot

rolls, I passed through the postern and crossed the drawbridge in

her company, and so came without announcement into the presence of

Wemmick as he was making tea for himself and the Aged. An open door

afforded a perspective view of the Aged in bed.

“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. Which gate did you

come to?”

I told him.

“I’ll go round to the others in the course of the day and destroy

the notes,” said Wemmick; “it’s a good rule never to leave

documentary evidence if you can help it, because you don’t know

when it may be put in. I’m going to take a liberty with you.

Would you mind toasting this sausage for the Aged P.?”

I said I should be delighted to do it.

“Then you can go about your work, Mary Anne,” said Wemmick to the

little servant; “which leaves us to ourselves, don’t you see, Mr.

Pip?” he added, winking, as she disappeared.

I thanked him for his friendship and caution, and our discourse

proceeded in a low tone, while I toasted the Aged’s sausage and he

buttered the crumb of the Aged’s roll.

“Now, Mr. Pip, you know,” said Wemmick, “you and I understand one

another. We are in our private and personal capacities, and we have

been engaged in a confidential transaction before to-day. Official

sentiments are one thing. We are extra official.”

I cordially assented. I was so very nervous, that I had already

lighted the Aged’s sausage like a torch, and been obliged to blow

it out.

“I accidentally heard, yesterday morning,” said Wemmick, “being in

a certain place where I once took you,—even between you and me,

it’s as well not to mention names when avoidable—”

“Much better not,” said I. “I understand you.”

“I heard there by chance, yesterday morning,” said Wemmick, “that a

certain person not altogether of uncolonial pursuits, and not

unpossessed of portable property,—I don’t know who it may really

be,—we won’t name this person—”

“Not necessary,” said I.

“—Had made some little stir in a certain part of the world where

a good many people go, not always in gratification of their own

inclinations, and not quite irrespective of the government

expense—”

In watching his face, I made quite a firework of the Aged’s

sausage, and greatly discomposed both my own attention and

Wemmick’s; for which I apologized.

“—By disappearing from such place, and being no more heard of

thereabouts. From which,” said Wemmick, “conjectures had been

raised and theories formed. 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, evasively, “it might clash

with official responsibilities. I heard it, as I have in my time

heard other curious things in the same place. I don’t tell it you

on information received. I heard it.”

He took the toasting-fork and sausage from me as he spoke, and set

forth the Aged’s breakfast neatly on a little tray. Previous to

placing it before him, he went into the Aged’s room with a clean

white cloth, and tied the same under the old gentleman’s chin, and

propped him up, and put his nightcap on one side, and gave him

quite a rakish air. Then he placed his breakfast before him with

great care, and said, “All right, ain’t you, Aged P.?” To which the

cheerful Aged replied, “All right, John, my boy, all right!” As

there seemed to be a tacit understanding that the Aged was not in a

presentable state, and was therefore to be considered invisible, I

made a pretence of being in complete ignorance of these

proceedings.

“This watching of me at my chambers (which I have once had reason

to suspect),” I said to Wemmick when he came back, “is inseparable

from the person to whom you have adverted; is it?”

Wemmick looked very serious. “I couldn’t undertake to say that, of

my own knowledge. I mean, I couldn’t undertake to say it was at

first. But it either is, or it will be, or it’s in great danger of

being.”

As I saw that he was restrained by fealty to Little Britain from

saying as much as he could, and as I knew with thankfulness to him

how far out of his way he went to say what he did, I could not

press him. But I told him, after a little meditation over the fire,

that I would like to ask him a question, subject to his answering

or not answering, as he deemed right, and sure that his course

would be right. He paused in his breakfast, and crossing his arms,

and pinching his shirt-sleeves (his notion of in-door comfort was to

sit without any coat), he nodded to me once, to put my question.

“You have heard of a man of bad character, whose true 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, compressed the post-office exceedingly,

gave me one last nod, and went on with his breakfast.

“Now,” said Wemmick, “questioning being over,” which he emphasized

and repeated for my guidance, “I come to what I did, after hearing

what I heard. I went to Garden Court to find you; not finding you,

I went to Clarriker’s to find Mr. Herbert.”

“And him you found?” said I, with great anxiety.

“And him I found. Without mentioning any names or going into any

details, I gave him to understand that if he was aware of anybody—

Tom, Jack, or Richard—being about the chambers, or about the

immediate neighborhood, he had better get Tom, Jack, or Richard

out of the way while you were out of the way.”

“He would be greatly puzzled what to do?”

“He was puzzled what to do; not the less, because I gave him my

opinion that it was not safe to try to get Tom, Jack, or Richard

too far out of the way at present. Mr. Pip, I’ll tell you something.

Under existing circumstances, there