GREAT EXPECTATIONS
PART 23
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 is no place like a great city when you are
once in it. Don't break cover too soon. Lie close. Wait till things slacken,
before you try the open, even for foreign air."
I thanked him for his valuable advice, and asked
him what Herbert had done?
"Mr. Herbert," said Wemmick, "after being
all of a heap for half an hour, struck out a plan. He mentioned to me as a
secret, that he is courting a young lady who has, as no doubt you are aware, a
bedridden Pa. Which Pa, having been in the Purser line of life, lies a-bed in a
bow-window where he can see the ships sail up and down the river. You are
acquainted with the young lady, most probably?"
"Not personally," said I.
The truth was, that she had objected to me as an
expensive companion who did Herbert no good, and that, when Herbert had first
proposed to present me to her, she had received the proposal with such very
moderate warmth, that Herbert had felt himself obliged to confide the state of
the case to me, with a view to the lapse of a little time before I made her
acquaintance. When I had begun to advance Herbert's prospects by stealth, I had
been able to bear this with cheerful philosophy: he and his affianced, for
their part, had naturally not been very anxious to introduce a third person
into their interviews; and thus, although I was assured that I had risen in
Clara's esteem, and although the young lady and I had long regularly
interchanged messages and remembrances by Herbert, I had never seen her.
However, I did not trouble Wemmick with these particulars.
"The house with the bow-window," said
Wemmick, "being by the river-side, down the Pool there between Limehouse
and Greenwich, and being kept, it seems, by a very respectable widow who has a
furnished upper floor to let, Mr. Herbert put it to me, what did I think of that
as a temporary tenement for Tom, Jack, or Richard? Now, I thought very well of
it, for three reasons I'll give you. That is to say: Firstly. It's altogether
out of all your beats, and is well away from the usual heap of streets great
and small. Secondly. Without going near it yourself, you could always hear of
the safety of Tom, Jack, or Richard, through Mr. Herbert. Thirdly. After a
while and when it might be prudent, if you should want to slip Tom, Jack, or
Richard on board a foreign packet-boat, there he is—ready."
Much comforted by these considerations, I thanked
Wemmick again and again, and begged him to proceed.
"Well, sir! Mr. Herbert threw himself into the
business with a will, and by nine o'clock last night he housed Tom, Jack, or
Richard,—whichever it may be,—you and I don't want to know,—quite successfully.
At the old lodgings it was understood that he was summoned to Dover, and, in
fact, he was taken down the Dover road and cornered out of it. Now, another
great advantage of all this is, that it was done without you, and when, if any
one was concerning himself about your movements, you must be known to be ever
so many miles off and quite otherwise engaged. This diverts suspicion and
confuses it; and for the same reason I recommended that, even if you came back
last night, you should not go home. It brings in more confusion, and you want
confusion."
Wemmick, having finished his breakfast, here looked
at his watch, and began to get his coat on.
"And now, Mr. Pip," said he, with his
hands still in the sleeves, "I have probably done the most I can do; but
if I can ever do more,—from a Walworth point of view, and in a strictly private
and personal capacity,—I shall be glad to do it. Here's the address. There can
be no harm in your going here to-night, and seeing for yourself that all is
well with Tom, Jack, or Richard, before you go home,—which is another reason
for your not going home last night. But, after you have gone home, don't go
back here. You are very welcome, I am sure, Mr. Pip"; his hands were now out
of his sleeves, and I was shaking them; "and let me finally impress one
important point upon you." He laid his hands upon my shoulders, and added
in a solemn whisper: "Avail yourself of this evening to lay hold of his
portable property. You don't know what may happen to him. Don't let anything
happen to the portable property."
Quite despairing of making my mind clear to Wemmick
on this point, I forbore to try.
"Time's up," said Wemmick, "and I
must be off. If you had nothing more pressing to do than to keep here till
dark, that's what I should advise. You look very much worried, and it would do
you good to have a perfectly quiet day with the Aged,—he'll be up
presently,—and a little bit of—you remember the pig?"
"Of course," said I.
"Well; and a little bit of him. That sausage
you toasted was his, and he was in all respects a first-rater. Do try him, if
it is only for old acquaintance sake. Good by, Aged Parent!" in a cheery
shout.
"All right, John; all right, my boy!"
piped the old man from within.
I soon fell asleep before Wemmick's fire, and the
Aged and I enjoyed one another's society by falling asleep before it more or
less all day. We had loin of pork for dinner, and greens grown on the estate;
and I nodded at the Aged with a good intention whenever I failed to do it
drowsily. When it was quite dark, I left the Aged preparing the fire for toast;
and I inferred from the number of teacups, as well as from his glances at the
two little doors in the wall, that Miss Skiffins was expected.
Eight o'clock had struck before I got into the air,
that was scented, not disagreeably, by the chips and shavings of the long-shore
boat-builders, and mast, oar, and block makers. All that water-side region of
the upper and lower Pool below Bridge was unknown ground to me; and when I
struck down by the river, I found that the spot I wanted was not where I had
supposed it to be, and was anything but easy to find. It was called Mill Pond
Bank, Chinks's Basin; and I had no other guide to Chinks's Basin than the Old
Green Copper Rope-walk.
It matters not what stranded ships repairing in dry
docks I lost myself among, what old hulls of ships in course of being knocked
to pieces, what ooze and slime and other dregs of tide, what yards of
ship-builders and ship-breakers, what rusty anchors blindly biting into the ground,
though for years off duty, what mountainous country of accumulated casks and
timber, how many ropewalks that were not the Old Green Copper. After several
times falling short of my destination and as often overshooting it, I came
unexpectedly round a corner, upon Mill Pond Bank. It was a fresh kind of place,
all circumstances considered, where the wind from the river had room to turn
itself round; and there were two or three trees in it, and there was the stump
of a ruined windmill, and there was the Old Green Copper Ropewalk,—whose long
and narrow vista I could trace in the moonlight, along a series of wooden
frames set in the ground, that looked like superannuated haymaking-rakes which
had grown old and lost most of their teeth.
Selecting from the few queer houses upon Mill Pond
Bank a house with a wooden front and three stories of bow-window (not
bay-window, which is another thing), I looked at the plate upon the door, and
read there, Mrs. Whimple. That being the name I wanted, I knocked, and an elderly
woman of a pleasant and thriving appearance responded. She was immediately
deposed, however, by Herbert, who silently led me into the parlor and shut the
door. It was an odd sensation to see his very familiar face established quite
at home in that very unfamiliar room and region; and I found myself looking at
him, much as I looked at the corner-cupboard with the glass and china, the
shells upon the chimney-piece, and the colored engravings on the wall,
representing the death of Captain Cook, a ship-launch, and his Majesty King
George the Third in a state coachman's wig, leather-breeches, and top-boots, on
the terrace at Windsor.
"All is well, Handel," said Herbert,
"and he is quite satisfied, though eager to see you. My dear girl is with
her father; and if you'll wait till she comes down, I'll make you known to her,
and then we'll go up stairs. That's her father."
I had become aware of an alarming growling
overhead, and had probably expressed the fact in my countenance.
"I am afraid he is a sad old rascal,"
said Herbert, smiling, "but I have never seen him. Don't you smell rum? He
is always at it."
"At rum?" said I.
"Yes," returned Herbert, "and you
may suppose how mild it makes his gout. He persists, too, in keeping all the
provisions up stairs in his room, and serving them out. He keeps them on
shelves over his head, and will weigh them all. His room must be like a
chandler's shop."
While he thus spoke, the growling noise became a
prolonged roar, and then died away.
"What else can be the consequence," said
Herbert, in explanation, "if he will cut the cheese? A man with the gout
in his right hand—and everywhere else—can't expect to get through a Double
Gloucester without hurting himself."
He seemed to have hurt himself very much, for he
gave another furious roar.
"To have Provis for an upper lodger is quite a
godsend to Mrs. Whimple," said Herbert, "for of course people in
general won't stand that noise. A curious place, Handel; isn't it?"
It was a curious place, indeed; but remarkably well
kept and clean.
"Mrs. Whimple," said Herbert, when I told
him so, "is the best of housewives, and I really do not know what my Clara
would do without her motherly help. For, Clara has no mother of her own,
Handel, and no relation in the world but old Gruffandgrim."
"Surely that's not his name, Herbert?"
"No, no," said Herbert, "that's my
name for him. His name is Mr. Barley. But what a blessing it is for the son of
my father and mother to love a girl who has no relations, and who can never
bother herself or anybody else about her family!"
Herbert had told me on former occasions, and now
reminded me, that he first knew Miss Clara Barley when she was completing her
education at an establishment at Hammersmith, and that on her being recalled
home to nurse her father, he and she had confided their affection to the
motherly Mrs. Whimple, by whom it had been fostered and regulated with equal
kindness and discretion, ever since. It was understood that nothing of a tender
nature could possibly be confided to old Barley, by reason of his being totally
unequal to the consideration of any subject more psychological than Gout, Rum,
and Purser's stores.
As we were thus conversing in a low tone while Old
Barley's sustained growl vibrated in the beam that crossed the ceiling, the
room door opened, and a very pretty, slight, dark-eyed girl of twenty or so
came in with a basket in her hand: whom Herbert tenderly relieved of the
basket, and presented, blushing, as "Clara." She really was a most
charming girl, and might have passed for a captive fairy, whom that truculent
Ogre, Old Barley, had pressed into his service.
"Look here," said Herbert, showing me the
basket, with a compassionate and tender smile, after we had talked a little;
"here's poor Clara's supper, served out every night. Here's her allowance
of bread, and here's her slice of cheese, and here's her rum,—which I drink.
This is Mr. Barley's breakfast for to-morrow, served out to be cooked. Two
mutton-chops, three potatoes, some split peas, a little flour, two ounces of butter,
a pinch of salt, and all this black pepper. It's stewed up together, and taken
hot, and it's a nice thing for the gout, I should think!"
There was something so natural and winning in
Clara's resigned way of looking at these stores in detail, as Herbert pointed
them out; and something so confiding, loving, and innocent in her modest manner
of yielding herself to Herbert's embracing arm; and something so gentle in her,
so much needing protection on Mill Pond Bank, by Chinks's Basin, and the Old
Green Copper Ropewalk, with Old Barley growling in the beam,—that I would not
have undone the engagement between her and Herbert for all the money in the
pocket-book I had never opened.
I was looking at her with pleasure and admiration,
when suddenly the growl swelled into a roar again, and a frightful bumping
noise was heard above, as if a giant with a wooden leg were trying to bore it
through the ceiling to come at us. Upon this Clara said to Herbert, "Papa
wants me, darling!" and ran away.
"There is an unconscionable old shark for
you!" said Herbert. "What do you suppose he wants now, Handel?"
"I don't know," said I. "Something
to drink?"
"That's it!" cried Herbert, as if I had
made a guess of extraordinary merit. "He keeps his grog ready mixed in a
little tub on the table. Wait a moment, and you'll hear Clara lift him up to
take some. There he goes!" Another roar, with a prolonged shake at the
end. "Now," said Herbert, as it was succeeded by silence, "he's
drinking. Now," said Herbert, as the growl resounded in the beam once
more, "he's down again on his back!"
Clara returned soon afterwards, and Herbert
accompanied me up stairs to see our charge. As we passed Mr. Barley's door, he
was heard hoarsely muttering within, in a strain that rose and fell like wind,
the following Refrain, in which I substitute good wishes for something quite
the reverse:—
"Ahoy! Bless your eyes, here's old Bill
Barley. Here's old Bill Barley, bless your eyes. Here's old Bill Barley on the
flat of his back, by the Lord. Lying on the flat of his back like a drifting
old dead flounder, here's your old Bill Barley, bless your eyes. Ahoy! Bless
you."
In this strain of consolation, Herbert informed me
the invisible Barley would commune with himself by the day and night together;
Often, while it was light, having, at the same time, one eye at a telescope
which was fitted on his bed for the convenience of sweeping the river.
In his two cabin rooms at the top of the house,
which were fresh and airy, and in which Mr. Barley was less audible than below,
I found Provis comfortably settled. He expressed no alarm, and seemed to feel
none that was worth mentioning; but it struck me that he was
softened,—indefinably, for I could not have said how, and could never
afterwards recall how when I tried, but certainly.
The opportunity that the day's rest had given me
for reflection had resulted in my fully determining to say nothing to him
respecting Compeyson. For anything I knew, his animosity towards the man might
otherwise lead to his seeking him out and rushing on his own destruction.
Therefore, when Herbert and I sat down with him by his fire, I asked him first
of all whether he relied on Wemmick's judgment and sources of information?
"Ay, ay, dear boy!" he answered, with a
grave nod, "Jaggers knows."
"Then, I have talked with Wemmick," said
I, "and have come to tell you what caution he gave me and what
advice."
This I did accurately, with the reservation just
mentioned; and I told him how Wemmick had heard, in Newgate prison (whether
from officers or prisoners I could not say), that he was under some suspicion,
and that my chambers had been watched; how Wemmick had recommended his keeping
close for a time, and my keeping away from him; and what Wemmick had said about
getting him abroad. I added, that of course, when the time came, I should go
with him, or should follow close upon him, as might be safest in Wemmick's
judgment. What was to follow that I did not touch upon; neither, indeed, was I
at all clear or comfortable about it in my own mind, now that I saw him in that
softer condition, and in declared peril for my sake. As to altering my way of
living by enlarging my expenses, I put it to him whether in our present
unsettled and difficult circumstances, it would not be simply ridiculous, if it
were no worse?
He could not deny this, and indeed was very
reasonable throughout. His coming back was a venture, he said, and he had
always known it to be a venture. He would do nothing to make it a desperate
venture, and he had very little fear of his safety with such good help.
Herbert, who had been looking at the fire and
pondering, here said that something had come into his thoughts arising out of
Wemmick's suggestion, which it might be worth while to pursue. "We are
both good watermen, Handel, and could take him down the river ourselves when
the right time comes. No boat would then be hired for the purpose, and no
boatmen; that would save at least a chance of suspicion, and any chance is
worth saving. Never mind the season; don't you think it might be a good thing
if you began at once to keep a boat at the Temple stairs, and were in the habit
of rowing up and down the river? You fall into that habit, and then who notices
or minds? Do it twenty or fifty times, and there is nothing special in your
doing it the twenty-first or fifty-first."
I liked this scheme, and Provis was quite elated by
it. We agreed that it should be carried into execution, and that Provis should
never recognize us if we came below Bridge, and rowed past Mill Pond Bank. But
we further agreed that he should pull down the blind in that part of his window
which gave upon the east, whenever he saw us and all was right.
Our conference being now ended, and everything
arranged, I rose to go; remarking to Herbert that he and I had better not go
home together, and that I would take half an hour's start of him. "I don't
like to leave you here," I said to Provis, "though I cannot doubt
your being safer here than near me. Good by!"
"Dear boy," he answered, clasping my
hands, "I don't know when we may meet again, and I don't like good by. Say
good night!"
"Good night! Herbert will go regularly between
us, and when the time comes you may be certain I shall be ready. Good night,
good night!"
We thought it best that he should stay in his own
rooms; and we left him on the landing outside his door, holding a light over
the stair-rail to light us down stairs. Looking back at him, I thought of the
first night of his return, when our positions were reversed, and when I little
supposed my heart could ever be as heavy and anxious at parting from him as it
was now.
Old Barley was growling and swearing when we
repassed his door, with no appearance of having ceased or of meaning to cease.
When we got to the foot of the stairs, I asked Herbert whether he had preserved
the name of Provis. He replied, certainly not, and that the lodger was Mr.
Campbell. He also explained that the utmost known of Mr. Campbell there was,
that he (Herbert) had Mr. Campbell consigned to him, and felt a strong personal
interest in his being well cared for, and living a secluded life. So, when we
went into the parlor where Mrs. Whimple and Clara were seated at work, I said
nothing of my own interest in Mr. Campbell, but kept it to myself.
When I had taken leave of the pretty, gentle,
dark-eyed girl, and of the motherly woman who had not outlived her honest
sympathy with a little affair of true love, I felt as if the Old Green Copper
Ropewalk had grown quite a different place. Old Barley might be as old as the
hills, and might swear like a whole field of troopers, but there were redeeming
youth and trust and hope enough in Chinks's Basin to fill it to overflowing.
And then I thought of Estella, and of our parting, and went home very sadly.
All things were as quiet in the Temple as ever I
had seen them. The windows of the rooms on that side, lately occupied by
Provis, were dark and still, and there was no lounger in Garden Court. I walked
past the fountain twice or thrice before I descended the steps that were
between me and my rooms, but I was quite alone. Herbert, coming to my bedside
when he came in,—for I went straight to bed, dispirited and fatigued,—made the
same report. Opening one of the windows after that, he looked out into the
moonlight, and told me that the pavement was a solemnly empty as the pavement of
any cathedral at that same hour.
Next day I set myself to get the boat. It was soon
done, and the boat was brought round to the Temple stairs, and lay where I
could reach her within a minute or two. Then, I began to go out as for training
and practice: sometimes alone, sometimes with Herbert. I was often out in cold,
rain, and sleet, but nobody took much note of me after I had been out a few
times. At first, I kept above Blackfriars Bridge; but as the hours of the tide
changed, I took towards London Bridge. It was Old London Bridge in those days,
and at certain states of the tide there was a race and fall of water there
which gave it a bad reputation. But I knew well enough how to 'shoot' the
bridge after seeing it done, and so began to row about among the shipping in
the Pool, and down to Erith. The first time I passed Mill Pond Bank, Herbert
and I were pulling a pair of oars; and, both in going and returning, we saw the
blind towards the east come down. Herbert was rarely there less frequently than
three times in a week, and he never brought me a single word of intelligence
that was at all alarming. Still, I knew that there was cause for alarm, and I
could not get rid of the notion of being watched. Once received, it is a
haunting idea; how many undesigning persons I suspected of watching me, it
would be hard to calculate.
In short, I was always full of fears for the rash
man who was in hiding. Herbert had sometimes said to me that he found it
pleasant to stand at one of our windows after dark, when the tide was running
down, and to think that it was flowing, with everything it bore, towards Clara.
But I thought with dread that it was flowing towards Magwitch, and that any
black mark on its surface might be his pursuers, going swiftly, silently, and
surely, to take him.
Chapter XLVII
Some weeks passed without bringing any change. We
waited for Wemmick, and he made no sign. If I had never known him out of Little
Britain, and had never enjoyed the privilege of being on a familiar footing at
the Castle, I might have doubted him; not so for a moment, knowing him as I
did.
My worldly affairs began to wear a gloomy
appearance, and I was pressed for money by more than one creditor. Even I
myself began to know the want of money (I mean of ready money in my own
pocket), and to relieve it by converting some easily spared articles of
jewelery into cash. But I had quite determined that it would be a heartless
fraud to take more money from my patron in the existing state of my uncertain
thoughts and plans. Therefore, I had sent him the unopened pocket-book by
Herbert, to hold in his own keeping, and I felt a kind of satisfaction—whether
it was a false kind or a true, I hardly know—in not having profited by his
generosity since his revelation of himself.
As the time wore on, an impression settled heavily
upon me that Estella was married. Fearful of having it confirmed, though it was
all but a conviction, I avoided the newspapers, and begged Herbert (to whom I
had confided the circumstances of our last interview) never to speak of her to
me. Why I hoarded up this last wretched little rag of the robe of hope that was
rent and given to the winds, how do I know? Why did you who read this, commit
that not dissimilar inconsistency of your own last year, last month, last week?
It was an unhappy life that I lived; and its one
dominant anxiety, towering over all its other anxieties, like a high mountain
above a range of mountains, never disappeared from my view. Still, no new cause
for fear arose. Let me start from my bed as I would, with the terror fresh upon
me that he was discovered; let me sit listening, as I would with dread, for
Herbert's returning step at night, lest it should be fleeter than ordinary, and
winged with evil news,—for all that, and much more to like purpose, the round
of things went on. Condemned to inaction and a state of constant restlessness
and suspense, I rowed about in my boat, and waited, waited, waited, as I best
could.
There were states of the tide when, having been
down the river, I could not get back through the eddy-chafed arches and
starlings of old London Bridge; then, I left my boat at a wharf near the Custom
House, to be brought up afterwards to the Temple stairs. I was not averse to
doing this, as it served to make me and my boat a commoner incident among the
water-side people there. From this slight occasion sprang two meetings that I
have now to tell of.
One afternoon, late in the month of February, I
came ashore at the wharf at dusk. I had pulled down as far as Greenwich with
the ebb tide, and had turned with the tide. It had been a fine bright day, but
had become foggy as the sun dropped, and I had had to feel my way back among
the shipping, pretty carefully. Both in going and returning, I had seen the
signal in his window, All well.
As it was a raw evening, and I was cold, I thought
I would comfort myself with dinner at once; and as I had hours of dejection and
solitude before me if I went home to the Temple, I thought I would afterwards
go to the play. The theatre where Mr. Wopsle had achieved his questionable
triumph was in that water-side neighborhood (it is nowhere now), and to that theatre
I resolved to go. I was aware that Mr. Wopsle had not succeeded in reviving the
Drama, but, on the contrary, had rather partaken of its decline. He had been
ominously heard of, through the play-bills, as a faithful Black, in connection
with a little girl of noble birth, and a monkey. And Herbert had seen him as a
predatory Tartar of comic propensities, with a face like a red brick, and an
outrageous hat all over bells.
I dined at what Herbert and I used to call a
geographical chop-house, where there were maps of the world in porter-pot rims
on every half-yard of the tablecloths, and charts of gravy on every one of the
knives,—to this day there is scarcely a single chop-house within the Lord
Mayor's dominions which is not geographical,—and wore out the time in dozing
over crumbs, staring at gas, and baking in a hot blast of dinners. By and by, I
roused myself, and went to the play.
There, I found a virtuous boatswain in His
Majesty's service,—a most excellent man, though I could have wished his trousers
not quite so tight in some places, and not quite so loose in others,—who
knocked all the little men's hats over their eyes, though he was very generous
and brave, and who wouldn't hear of anybody's paying taxes, though he was very
patriotic. He had a bag of money in his pocket, like a pudding in the cloth,
and on that property married a young person in bed-furniture, with great
rejoicings; the whole population of Portsmouth (nine in number at the last
census) turning out on the beach to rub their own hands and shake everybody
else's, and sing "Fill, fill!" A certain dark-complexioned Swab,
however, who wouldn't fill, or do anything else that was proposed to him, and
whose heart was openly stated (by the boatswain) to be as black as his figure-head,
proposed to two other Swabs to get all mankind into difficulties; which was so
effectually done (the Swab family having considerable political influence) that
it took half the evening to set things right, and then it was only brought
about through an honest little grocer with a white hat, black gaiters, and red
nose, getting into a clock, with a gridiron, and listening, and coming out, and
knocking everybody down from behind with the gridiron whom he couldn't confute
with what he had overheard. This led to Mr. Wopsle's (who had never been heard
of before) coming in with a star and garter on, as a plenipotentiary of great
power direct from the Admiralty, to say that the Swabs were all to go to prison
on the spot, and that he had brought the boatswain down the Union Jack, as a
slight acknowledgment of his public services. The boatswain, unmanned for the
first time, respectfully dried his eyes on the Jack, and then cheering up, and
addressing Mr. Wopsle as Your Honor, solicited permission to take him by the
fin. Mr. Wopsle, conceding his fin with a gracious dignity, was immediately
shoved into a dusty corner, while everybody danced a hornpipe; and from that
corner, surveying the public with a discontented eye, became aware of me.
The second piece was the last new grand comic
Christmas pantomime, in the first scene of which, it pained me to suspect that
I detected Mr. Wopsle with red worsted legs under a highly magnified phosphoric
countenance and a shock of red curtain-fringe for his hair, engaged in the
manufacture of thunderbolts in a mine, and displaying great cowardice when his
gigantic master came home (very hoarse) to dinner. But he presently presented
himself under worthier circumstances; for, the Genius of Youthful Love being in
want of assistance,—on account of the parental brutality of an ignorant farmer
who opposed the choice of his daughter's heart, by purposely falling upon the
object, in a flour-sack, out of the first-floor window,—summoned a sententious
Enchanter; and he, coming up from the antipodes rather unsteadily, after an
apparently violent journey, proved to be Mr. Wopsle in a high-crowned hat, with
a necromantic work in one volume under his arm. The business of this enchanter
on earth being principally to be talked at, sung at, butted at, danced at, and
flashed at with fires of various colors, he had a good deal of time on his
hands. And I observed, with great surprise, that he devoted it to staring in my
direction as if he were lost in amazement.
There was something so remarkable in the increasing
glare of Mr. Wopsle's eye, and he seemed to be turning so many things over in
his mind and to grow so confused, that I could not make it out. I sat thinking
of it long after he had ascended to the clouds in a large watch-case, and still
I could not make it out. I was still thinking of it when I came out of the
theatre an hour afterwards, and found him waiting for me near the door.
"How do you do?" said I, shaking hands
with him as we turned down the street together. "I saw that you saw
me."
"Saw you, Mr. Pip!" he returned.
"Yes, of course I saw you. But who else was there?"
"Who else?"
"It is the strangest thing," said Mr.
Wopsle, drifting into his lost look again; "and yet I could swear to
him."
Becoming alarmed, I entreated Mr. Wopsle to explain
his meaning.
"Whether I should have noticed him at first
but for your being there," said Mr. Wopsle, going on in the same lost way,
"I can't be positive; yet I think I should."
Involuntarily I looked round me, as I was
accustomed to look round me when I went home; for these mysterious words gave
me a chill.
"Oh! He can't be in sight," said Mr.
Wopsle. "He went out before I went off. I saw him go."
Having the reason that I had for being suspicious,
I even suspected this poor actor. I mistrusted a design to entrap me into some
admission. Therefore I glanced at him as we walked on together, but said
nothing.
"I had a ridiculous fancy that he must be with
you, Mr. Pip, till I saw that you were quite unconscious of him, sitting behind
you there like a ghost."
My former chill crept over me again, but I was
resolved not to speak yet, for it was quite consistent with his words that he
might be set on to induce me to connect these references with Provis. Of
course, I was perfectly sure and safe that Provis had not been there.
"I dare say you wonder at me, Mr. Pip; indeed,
I see you do. But it is so very strange! You'll hardly believe what I am going
to tell you. I could hardly believe it myself, if you told me."
"Indeed?" said I.
"No, indeed. Mr. Pip, you remember in old
times a certain Christmas Day, when you were quite a child, and I dined at
Gargery's, and some soldiers came to the door to get a pair of handcuffs
mended?"
"I remember it very well."
"And you remember that there was a chase after
two convicts, and that we joined in it, and that Gargery took you on his back,
and that I took the lead, and you kept up with me as well as you could?"
"I remember it all very well." Better
than he thought,—except the last clause.
"And you remember that we came up with the two
in a ditch, and that there was a scuffle between them, and that one of them had
been severely handled and much mauled about the face by the other?"
"I see it all before me."
"And that the soldiers lighted torches, and
put the two in the centre, and that we went on to see the last of them, over
the black marshes, with the torchlight shining on their faces,—I am particular
about that,—with the torchlight shining on their faces, when there was an outer
ring of dark night all about us?"
"Yes," said I. "I remember all
that."
"Then, Mr. Pip, one of those two prisoners sat
behind you tonight. I saw him over your shoulder."
"Steady!" I thought. I asked him then,
"Which of the two do you suppose you saw?"
"The one who had been mauled," he
answered readily, "and I'll swear I saw him! The more I think of him, the
more certain I am of him."
"This is very curious!" said I, with the
best assumption I could put on of its being nothing more to me. "Very
curious indeed!"
I cannot exaggerate the enhanced disquiet into
which this conversation threw me, or the special and peculiar terror I felt at
Compeyson's having been behind me "like a ghost." For if he had ever
been out of my thoughts for a few moments together since the hiding had begun,
it was in those very moments when he was closest to me; and to think that I
should be so unconscious and off my guard after all my care was as if I had
shut an avenue of a hundred doors to keep him out, and then had found him at my
elbow. I could not doubt, either, that he was there, because I was there, and
that, however slight an appearance of danger there might be about us, danger
was always near and active.
I put such questions to Mr. Wopsle as, When did the
man come in? He could not tell me that; he saw me, and over my shoulder he saw
the man. It was not until he had seen him for some time that he began to
identify him; but he had from the first vaguely associated him with me, and
known him as somehow belonging to me in the old village time. How was he
dressed? Prosperously, but not noticeably otherwise; he thought, in black. Was
his face at all disfigured? No, he believed not. I believed not too, for,
although in my brooding state I had taken no especial notice of the people behind
me, I thought it likely that a face at all disfigured would have attracted my
attention.
When Mr. Wopsle had imparted to me all that he
could recall or I extract, and when I had treated him to a little appropriate
refreshment, after the fatigues of the evening, we parted. It was between
twelve and one o'clock when I reached the Temple, and the gates were shut. No
one was near me when I went in and went home.
Herbert had come in, and we held a very serious
council by the fire. But there was nothing to be done, saving to communicate to
Wemmick what I had that night found out, and to remind him that we waited for
his hint. As I thought that I might compromise him if I went too often to the
Castle, I made this communication by letter. I wrote it before I went to bed,
and went out and posted it; and again no one was near me. Herbert and I agreed
that we could do nothing else but be very cautious. And we were very cautious
indeed,—more cautious than before, if that were possible,—and I for my part
never went near Chinks's Basin, except when I rowed by, and then I only looked
at Mill Pond Bank as I looked at anything else.
