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

I felt that I was

not nearly thankful enough,—that I was too weak yet to be even

that,—and I laid my head on Joe’s shoulder, as I had laid it long

ago when he had taken me to the Fair or where not, and it was too

much for my young senses.

More composure came to me after a while, and we talked as we used

to talk, lying on the grass at the old Battery. There was no change

whatever in Joe. Exactly what he had been in my eyes then, he was

in my eyes still; just as simply faithful, and as simply right.

When we got back again, and he lifted me out, and carried me—so

easily!—across the court and up the stairs, I thought of that

eventful Christmas Day when he had carried me over the marshes. We

had not yet made any allusion to my change of fortune, nor did I

know how much of my late history he was acquainted with. I was so

doubtful of myself now, and put so much trust in him, that I could

not satisfy myself whether I ought to refer to it when he did not.

“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 heerd,” returned Joe, “as it were not Miss Havisham, old chap.”

“Did you hear who it was, Joe?”

“Well! I heerd as it were a person what sent the person what

giv’ 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.

“Which? Him as sent the bank-notes, Pip?”

“Yes.”

“I think,” said Joe, after meditating a long time, and looking

rather evasively at the window-seat, “as I did hear tell that how

he were something or another in a general way in that direction.”

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

“Not partickler, Pip.”

“If you would like to hear, Joe—” I was beginning, when Joe got up

and came to my sofa.

“Lookee here, old chap,” said Joe, bending over me. “Ever the best

of friends; ain’t us, Pip?”

I was ashamed to answer him.

“Wery good, then,” said Joe, as if I had answered; “that’s all

right; that’s agreed upon. Then why go into subjects, old chap,

which as betwixt two sech must be for ever onnecessary? There’s

subjects enough as betwixt two sech, without onnecessary ones.

Lord! To think of your poor sister and her Rampages! And don’t you

remember Tickler?”

“I do indeed, Joe.”

“Lookee here, old chap,” said Joe. “I done what I could to keep you

and Tickler in sunders, but my power were not always fully equal to

my inclinations. For when your poor sister had a mind to drop into

you, it were not so much,” said Joe, in his favorite argumentative

way, “that she dropped into me too, if I put myself in opposition

to her, but that she dropped into you always heavier for it. I

noticed that. It ain’t a grab at a man’s whisker, not yet a shake

or two of a man (to which your sister was quite welcome), that ‘ud

put a man off from getting a little child out of punishment. But

when that little child is dropped into heavier for that grab of

whisker or shaking, then that man naterally up and says to himself,

‘Where is the good as you are a doing? I grant you I see the ‘arm,’

says the man, ‘but I don’t see the good. I call upon you, sir,

therefore, to pint out the good.’”

“The man says?” I observed, as Joe waited for me to speak.

“The man says,” Joe assented. “Is he right, that man?”

“Dear Joe, he is always right.”

“Well, old chap,” said Joe, “then abide by your words. If he’s

always right (which in general he’s more likely wrong), he’s right

when he says this: Supposing ever you kep any little matter to

yourself, when you was a little child, you kep it mostly because

you know’d as J. Gargery’s power to part you and Tickler in

sunders were not fully equal to his inclinations. Theerfore, think

no more of it as betwixt two sech, and do not let us pass remarks

upon onnecessary subjects. Biddy giv’ herself a deal o’ trouble

with me afore I left (for I am almost awful dull), as I should view

it in this light, and, viewing it in this light, as I should so put

it. Both of which,” said Joe, quite charmed with his logical

arrangement, “being done, now this to you a true friend, say.

Namely. You mustn’t go a overdoing on it, but you must have your

supper and your wine and water, and you must be put betwixt the

sheets.”

The delicacy with which Joe dismissed this theme, and the sweet

tact and kindness with which Biddy—who with her woman’s wit had

found me out so soon—had prepared him for it, made a deep

impression on my mind. But whether Joe knew how poor I was, and how

my great expectations had all dissolved, like our own marsh mists

before the sun, I could not understand.

Another thing in Joe that I could not understand when it first

began to develop itself, but which I soon arrived at a sorrowful

comprehension of, was this: As I became stronger and better, Joe

became a little less easy with me. In my weakness and entire

dependence on him, the dear fellow had fallen into the old tone,

and called me by the old names, the dear “old Pip, old chap,” that

now were music in my ears. I too had fallen into the old ways, only

happy and thankful that he let me. But, imperceptibly, though I

held by them fast, Joe’s hold upon them began to slacken; and

whereas I wondered at this, at first, I soon began to understand

that the cause of it was in me, and that the fault of it was all

mine.

Ah! Had I given Joe no reason to doubt my constancy, and to think

that in prosperity I should grow cold to him and cast him off? Had

I given Joe’s innocent heart no cause to feel instinctively that as

I got stronger, his hold upon me would be weaker, and that he had

better loosen it in time and let me go, before I plucked myself

away?

It was on the third or fourth occasion of my going out walking in

the Temple Gardens leaning on Joe’s arm, that I saw this change in

him very plainly. We had been sitting in the bright warm sunlight,

looking at the river, and I chanced to say as we got up,—

“See, Joe! I can walk quite strongly. Now, you shall see me walk

back by myself.”

“Which do not overdo it, Pip,” said Joe; “but I shall be happy fur

to see you able, sir.”

The last word grated on me; but how could I remonstrate! I walked

no further than the gate of the gardens, and then pretended to be

weaker than I was, and asked Joe for his arm. Joe gave it me, but

was thoughtful.

I, for my part, was thoughtful too; for, how best to check this

growing change in Joe was a great perplexity to my remorseful

thoughts. That I was ashamed to tell him exactly how I was placed,

and what I had come down to, I do not seek to conceal; but I hope

my reluctance was not quite an unworthy one. He would want to help

me out of his little savings, I knew, and I knew that he ought not

to help me, and that I must not suffer him to do it.

It was a thoughtful evening with both of us. But, before we went to

bed, I had resolved that I would wait over tomorrow,—tomorrow

being Sunday,—and would begin my new course with the new week. On

Monday morning I would speak to Joe about this change, I would lay

aside this last vestige of reserve, I would tell him what I had in

my thoughts (that Secondly, not yet arrived at), and why I had not

decided to go out to Herbert, and then the change would be

conquered for ever. As I cleared, Joe cleared, and it seemed as

though he had sympathetically arrived at a resolution too.

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.

“Dear old Pip, old chap, you’re a’most come round, sir.”

“It has been a memorable time for me, Joe.”

“Likeways for myself, sir,” Joe returned.

“We have had a time together, Joe, that I can never forget. There

were days once, I know, that I did for a while forget; but I never

shall forget these.”

“Pip,” said Joe, appearing a little hurried and troubled, “there

has been larks. And, dear sir, what have been betwixt us—have

been.”

At night, when I had gone to bed, Joe came into my room, as he had

done all through my recovery. He asked me if I felt sure that I was

as well as in the morning?

“Yes, dear Joe, quite.”

“And are always a getting stronger, old chap?”

“Yes, dear Joe, steadily.”

Joe patted the coverlet on my shoulder with his great good hand,

and said, in what I thought a husky voice, “Good night!”

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 would dress at once and go to his room and

surprise him; for, it was the first day I had been up early. 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.

These were its brief contents:—

“Not wishful to intrude I have departured fur you are well again

dear Pip and will do better without JO.

“P.S. Ever the best of friends.”

Enclosed in the letter was a receipt for the debt and costs on

which I had been arrested. Down to that moment, I had vainly

supposed that my creditor had withdrawn, or suspended proceedings

until I should be quite recovered. I had never dreamed of Joe’s

having paid the money; but Joe had paid it, and the receipt was in

his name.

What remained for me now, but to follow him to the dear old forge,

and there to have out my disclosure to him, and my penitent

remonstrance with him, and there to relieve my mind and heart of

that reserved Secondly, which had begun as a vague something

lingering in my thoughts, and 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, that I would remind her of our old

confidences in my first unhappy time. Then I would say to her,

“Biddy, I think you once liked me very well, when my errant heart,

even while it strayed away from you, 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 (and indeed I am as sorry, Biddy, and have as much need of a

hushing voice and a soothing hand), I hope I