bookssland.com » Fiction » Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (i want to read a book .txt) 📗

Book online «Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (i want to read a book .txt) 📗». Author Charles Dickens



1 ... 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 ... 94
Go to page:
miserable man was a man of that

confined stolidity of mind, that he could not discuss my prospects

without having me before him,—as it were, to operate upon,—and he

would drag me up from my stool (usually by the collar) where I was

quiet in a corner, and, putting me before the fire as if I were

going to be cooked, would begin by saying, “Now, Mum, here is this

boy! Here is this boy which you brought up by hand. Hold up your

head, boy, and be forever grateful unto them which so did do. Now,

Mum, with respections to this boy!” And then he would rumple my

hair the wrong way,—which from my earliest remembrance, as already

hinted, I have in my soul denied the right of any fellow-creature

to do,—and would hold me before him by the sleeve,—a spectacle of

imbecility only to be equalled by himself.

Then, he and my sister would pair off in such nonsensical

speculations about Miss Havisham, and about what she would do with

me and for me, that I used to want—quite painfully—to burst

into spiteful tears, fly at Pumblechook, and pummel him all over.

In these dialogues, my sister spoke to me as if she were morally

wrenching one of my teeth out at every reference; while Pumblechook

himself, self-constituted my patron, would sit supervising me with

a depreciatory eye, like the architect of my fortunes who thought

himself engaged on a very unremunerative job.

In these discussions, Joe bore no part. But he was often talked at,

while they were in progress, by reason of Mrs. Joe’s perceiving that

he was not favorable to my being taken from the forge. I was fully

old enough now to be apprenticed to Joe; and when Joe sat with the

poker on his knees thoughtfully raking out the ashes between the

lower bars, my sister would so distinctly construe that innocent

action into opposition on his part, that she would dive at him,

take the poker out of his hands, shake him, and put it away. There

was a most irritating end to every one of these debates. All in a

moment, with nothing to lead up to it, my sister would stop herself

in a yawn, and catching sight of me as it were incidentally, would

swoop upon me with, “Come! there’s enough of you! You get along to

bed; you’ve given trouble enough for one night, I hope!” As if I

had besought them as a favor to bother my life out.

We went on in this way for a long time, and it seemed likely that

we should continue to go on in this way for a long time, when one

day Miss Havisham stopped short as she and I were walking, she

leaning on my shoulder; and said with some displeasure,—

“You are growing tall, Pip!”

I thought it best to hint, through the medium of a meditative look,

that this might be occasioned by circumstances over which I had no

control.

She said no more at the time; but she presently stopped and looked

at me again; and presently again; and after that, looked frowning

and moody. On the next day of my attendance, when our usual exercise

was over, and I had landed her at her dressing-table, she stayed me

with a movement of her impatient fingers:—

“Tell me the name again of that blacksmith of yours.”

“Joe Gargery, ma’am.”

“Meaning the master you were to be apprenticed to?”

“Yes, Miss Havisham.”

“You had better be apprenticed at once. Would Gargery come here

with you, and bring your indentures, do you think?”

I signified that I had no doubt he would take it as an honor to be

asked.

“Then let him come.”

“At any particular time, Miss Havisham?”

“There, there! I know nothing about times. Let him come soon, and

come along with you.”

When I got home at night, and delivered this message for Joe, my

sister “went on the Rampage,” in a more alarming degree than at any

previous period. She asked me and Joe whether we supposed she was

door-mats under our feet, and how we dared to use her so, and what

company we graciously thought she was fit for? When she had

exhausted a torrent of such inquiries, she threw a candlestick at

Joe, burst into a loud sobbing, got out the dustpan,—which was

always a very bad sign,—put on her coarse apron, and began

cleaning up to a terrible extent. Not satisfied with a dry

cleaning, she took to a pail and scrubbing-brush, and cleaned us

out of house and home, so that we stood shivering in the back-yard.

It was ten o’clock at night before we ventured to creep in again,

and then she asked Joe why he hadn’t married a Negress Slave at

once? Joe offered no answer, poor fellow, but stood feeling his

whisker and looking dejectedly at me, as if he thought it really

might have been a better speculation.

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 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”—a 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,—much 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,—such as its being open to black and sut, or such-like,—

not 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,—I know I was ashamed of him,—when 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

answer—”

“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,—“and

now, old chap, may we do our duty! May you and me do our duty, both

on us, by one and

1 ... 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 ... 94
Go to page:

Free e-book «Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (i want to read a book .txt) 📗» - read online now

Comments (0)

There are no comments yet. You can be the first!
Add a comment