الفصل الفصل 36 · Herbert and I went on from bad to worse, in the way of increasing our

. Herbert and I went on from bad to worse, in the way of increasing our

debts, looking into our affairs, leaving Margins, and the like

exemplary transactions; and Time went on, whether or no, as he has a

way of doing; and I came of age,—in fulfilment of Herbert’s prediction,

that I should do so before I knew where I was.

Herbert himself had come of age eight months before me. As he had

nothing else than his majority to come into, the event did not make a

profound sensation in Barnard’s Inn. But we had looked forward to my

one-and-twentieth birthday, with a crowd of speculations and

anticipations, for we had both considered that my guardian could hardly

help saying something definite on that occasion.

I had taken care to have it well understood in Little Britain when my

birthday was. On the day before it, I received an official note from

Wemmick, informing me that Mr. Jaggers would be glad if I would call

upon him at five in the afternoon of the auspicious day. This convinced

us that something great was to happen, and threw me into an unusual

flutter when I repaired to my guardian’s office, a model of

punctuality.

In the outer office Wemmick offered me his congratulations, and

incidentally rubbed the side of his nose with a folded piece of

tissue-paper that I liked the look of. But he said nothing respecting

it, and motioned me with a nod into my guardian’s room. It was

November, and my guardian was standing before his fire leaning his back

against the chimney-piece, with his hands under his coattails.

“Well, Pip,” said he, “I must call you Mr. Pip to-day. Congratulations,

Mr. Pip.”

We shook hands,—he was always a remarkably short shaker,—and I thanked

him.

“Take a chair, Mr. Pip,” said my guardian.

As I sat down, and he preserved his attitude and bent his brows at his

boots, I felt at a disadvantage, which reminded me of that old time

when I had been put upon a tombstone. The two ghastly casts on the

shelf were not far from him, and their expression was as if they were

making a stupid apoplectic attempt to attend to the conversation.

“Now my young friend,” my guardian began, as if I were a witness in the

box, “I am going to have a word or two with you.”

“If you please, sir.”

“What do you suppose,” said Mr. Jaggers, bending forward to look at the

ground, and then throwing his head back to look at the ceiling,—“what

do you suppose you are living at the rate of?”

“At the rate of, sir?”

“At,” repeated Mr. Jaggers, still looking at the ceiling,

“the—rate—of?” And then looked all round the room, and paused with his

pocket-handkerchief in his hand, half-way to his nose.

I had looked into my affairs so often, that I had thoroughly destroyed

any slight notion I might ever have had of their bearings. Reluctantly,

I confessed myself quite unable to answer the question. This reply

seemed agreeable to Mr. Jaggers, who said, “I thought so!” and blew his

nose with an air of satisfaction.

“Now, I have asked _you_ a question, my friend,” said Mr. Jaggers.

“Have you anything to ask _me_?”

“Of course it would be a great relief to me to ask you several

questions, sir; but I remember your prohibition.”

“Ask one,” said Mr. Jaggers.

“Is my benefactor to be made known to me to-day?”

“No. Ask another.”

“Is that confidence to be imparted to me soon?”

“Waive that, a moment,” said Mr. Jaggers, “and ask another.”

I looked about me, but there appeared to be now no possible escape from

the inquiry, “Have-I—anything to receive, sir?” On that, Mr. Jaggers

said, triumphantly, “I thought we should come to it!” and called to

Wemmick to give him that piece of paper. Wemmick appeared, handed it

in, and disappeared.

“Now, Mr. Pip,” said Mr. Jaggers, “attend, if you please. You have been

drawing pretty freely here; your name occurs pretty often in Wemmick’s

cash-book; but you are in debt, of course?”

“I am afraid I must say yes, sir.”

“You know you must say yes; don’t you?” said Mr. Jaggers.

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t ask you what you owe, because you don’t know; and if you did

know, you wouldn’t tell me; you would say less. Yes, yes, my friend,”

cried Mr. Jaggers, waving his forefinger to stop me as I made a show of

protesting: “it’s likely enough that you think you wouldn’t, but you

would. You’ll excuse me, but I know better than you. Now, take this

piece of paper in your hand. You have got it? Very good. Now, unfold it

and tell me what it is.”

“This is a bank-note,” said I, “for five hundred pounds.”

“That is a bank-note,” repeated Mr. Jaggers, “for five hundred pounds.

And a very handsome sum of money too, I think. You consider it so?”

“How could I do otherwise!”

“Ah! But answer the question,” said Mr. Jaggers.

“Undoubtedly.”

“You consider it, undoubtedly, a handsome sum of money. Now, that

handsome sum of money, Pip, is your own. It is a present to you on this

day, in earnest of your expectations. And at the rate of that handsome

sum of money per annum, and at no higher rate, you are to live until

the donor of the whole appears. That is to say, you will now take your

money affairs entirely into your own hands, and you will draw from

Wemmick one hundred and twenty-five pounds per quarter, until you are

in communication with the fountain-head, and no longer with the mere

agent. As I have told you before, I am the mere agent. I execute my

instructions, and I am paid for doing so. I think them injudicious, but

I am not paid for giving any opinion on their merits.”

I was beginning to express my gratitude to my benefactor for the great

liberality with which I was treated, when Mr. Jaggers stopped me. “I am

not paid, Pip,” said he, coolly, “to carry your words to any one;” and

then gathered up his coat-tails, as he had gathered up the subject, and

stood frowning at his boots as if he suspected them of designs against

him.

After a pause, I hinted,—

“There was a question just now, Mr. Jaggers, which you desired me to

waive for a moment. I hope I am doing nothing wrong in asking it

again?”

“What is it?” said he.

I might have known that he would never help me out; but it took me

aback to have to shape the question afresh, as if it were quite new.

“Is it likely,” I said, after hesitating, “that my patron, the

fountain-head you have spoken of, Mr. Jaggers, will soon—” there I

delicately stopped.

“Will soon what?” asked Mr. Jaggers. “That’s no question as it stands,

you know.”

“Will soon come to London,” said I, after casting about for a precise

form of words, “or summon me anywhere else?”

“Now, here,” replied Mr. Jaggers, fixing me for the first time with his

dark deep-set eyes, “we must revert to the evening when we first

encountered one another in your village. What did I tell you then,

Pip?”

“You told me, Mr. Jaggers, that it might be years hence when that

person appeared.”

“Just so,” said Mr. Jaggers, “that’s my answer.”

As we looked full at one another, I felt my breath come quicker in my

strong desire to get something out of him. And as I felt that it came

quicker, and as I felt that he saw that it came quicker, I felt that I

had less chance than ever of getting anything out of him.

“Do you suppose it will still be years hence, Mr. Jaggers?”

Mr. Jaggers shook his head,—not in negativing the question, but in

altogether negativing the notion that he could anyhow be got to answer

it,—and the two horrible casts of the twitched faces looked, when my

eyes strayed up to them, as if they had come to a crisis in their

suspended attention, and were going to sneeze.

“Come!” said Mr. Jaggers, warming the backs of his legs with the backs

of his warmed hands, “I’ll be plain with you, my friend Pip. That’s a

question I must not be asked. You’ll understand that better, when I

tell you it’s a question that might compromise _me_. Come! I’ll go a

little further with you; I’ll say something more.”

He bent down so low to frown at his boots, that he was able to rub the

calves of his legs in the pause he made.

“When that person discloses,” said Mr. Jaggers, straightening himself,

“you and that person will settle your own affairs. When that person

discloses, my part in this business will cease and determine. When that

person discloses, it will not be necessary for me to know anything

about it. And that’s all I have got to say.”

We looked at one another until I withdrew my eyes, and looked

thoughtfully at the floor. From this last speech I derived the notion

that Miss Havisham, for some reason or no reason, had not taken him

into her confidence as to her designing me for Estella; that he

resented this, and felt a jealousy about it; or that he really did

object to that scheme, and would have nothing to do with it. When I

raised my eyes again, I found that he had been shrewdly looking at me

all the time, and was doing so still.

“If that is all you have to say, sir,” I remarked, “there can be

nothing left for me to say.”

He nodded assent, and pulled out his thief-dreaded watch, and asked me

where I was going to dine? I replied at my own chambers, with Herbert.

As a necessary sequence, I asked him if he would favour us with his

company, and he promptly accepted the invitation. But he insisted on

walking home with me, in order that I might make no extra preparation

for him, and first he had a letter or two to write, and (of course) had

his hands to wash. So I said I would go into the outer office and talk

to Wemmick.

The fact was, that when the five hundred pounds had come into my

pocket, a thought had come into my head which had been often there

before; and it appeared to me that Wemmick was a good person to advise

with concerning such thought.

He had already locked up his safe, and made preparations for going

home. He had left his desk, brought out his two greasy office

candlesticks and stood them in line with the snuffers on a slab near

the door, ready to be extinguished; he had raked his fire low, put his

hat and great-coat ready, and was beating himself all over the chest

with his safe-key, as an athletic exercise after business.

“Mr. Wemmick,” said I, “I want to ask your opinion. I am very desirous

to serve a friend.”

Wemmick tightened his post-office and shook his head, as if his opinion

were dead against any fatal weakness of that sort.

“This friend,” I pursued, “is trying to get on in commercial life, but

has no money, and finds it difficult and disheartening to make a

beginning. Now I want somehow to help him to a beginning.”

“With money down?” said Wemmick, in a tone drier than any sawdust.

“With _some_ money down,” I replied, for an uneasy remembrance shot

across me of that symmetrical bundle of papers at home—“with _some_

money down, and perhaps some anticipation of my expectations.”

“Mr. Pip,” said Wemmick, “I should like just to run over with you on my

fingers, if you please, the names of the various bridges up as high as

Chelsea Reach. Let’s see; there’s London, one; Southwark, two;

Blackfriars, three; Waterloo, four; Westminster, five; Vauxhall, six.”

He had checked off each bridge in its turn, with the handle of his

safe-key on the palm of his hand. “There’s as many as six, you see, to

choose from.”

“I don’t understand you,” said I.

“Choose your bridge, Mr. Pip,” returned Wemmick, “and take a walk upon

your bridge, and pitch your money into the Thames over the centre arch

of your bridge, and you know the end of it. Serve a friend with it, and

you may know the end of it too,—but it’s a less pleasant and profitable

end.”

I could have posted a newspaper in his mouth, he made it so wide after

saying this.

“This is very discouraging,” said I.

“Meant to be so,” said Wemmick.

“Then is it your opinion,” I inquired, with some little indignation,

“that a man should never—”

“—Invest portable property in a friend?” said Wemmick. “Certainly he

should not. Unless he wants to get rid of the friend,—and then it

becomes a question how much portable property it may be worth to get

rid of him.”

“And that,” said I, “is your deliberate opinion, Mr. Wemmick?”

“That,” he returned, “is my deliberate opinion in this office.”

“Ah!” said I, pressing him, for I thought I saw him near a loophole

here; “but would that be your opinion at Walworth?”

“Mr. Pip,” he replied, with gravity, “Walworth is one place, and this

office is another. Much as the Aged is one person, and Mr. Jaggers is

another. They must not be confounded together. My Walworth sentiments

must be taken at Walworth; none but my official sentiments can be taken

in this office.”

“Very well,” said I, much relieved, “then I shall look you up at

Walworth, you may depend upon it.”

“Mr. Pip,” he returned, “you will be welcome there, in a private and

personal capacity.”

We had held this conversation in a low voice, well knowing my

guardian’s ears to be the sharpest of the sharp. As he now appeared in

his doorway, towelling his hands, Wemmick got on his great-coat and

stood by to snuff out the candles. We all three went into the street

together, and from the door-step Wemmick turned his way, and Mr.

Jaggers and I turned ours.

I could not help wishing more than once that evening, that Mr. Jaggers

had had an Aged in Gerrard Street, or a Stinger, or a Something, or a

Somebody, to unbend his brows a little. It was an uncomfortable

consideration on a twenty-first birthday, that coming of age at all

seemed hardly worth while in such a guarded and suspicious world as he

made of it. He was a thousand times better informed and cleverer than

Wemmick, and yet I would a thousand times rather have had Wemmick to

dinner. And Mr. Jaggers made not me alone intensely melancholy,

because, after he was gone, Herbert said of himself, with his eyes

fixed on the fire, that he thought he must have committed a felony and

forgotten the details of it, he felt so dejected and guilty.