Bab Bab 27 · “MY DEAR MR PIP:—

. “MY DEAR MR PIP:—

“I write this by request of Mr. Gargery, for to let you know that he is

going to London in company with Mr. Wopsle and would be glad if

agreeable to be allowed to see you. He would call at Barnard’s Hotel

Tuesday morning at nine o’clock, when if not agreeable please leave

word. Your poor sister is much the same as when you left. We talk of

you in the kitchen every night, and wonder what you are saying and

doing. If now considered in the light of a liberty, excuse it for the

love of poor old days. No more, dear Mr. Pip, from

“Your ever obliged, and affectionate servant,

“BIDDY.”

“P.S. He wishes me most particular to write _what larks_. He says you

will understand. I hope and do not doubt it will be agreeable to see

him, even though a gentleman, for you had ever a good heart, and he is

a worthy, worthy man. I have read him all, excepting only the last

little sentence, and he wishes me most particular to write again _what

larks_.”

I received this letter by the post on Monday morning, and therefore its

appointment was for next day. Let me confess exactly with what feelings

I looked forward to Joe’s coming.

Not with pleasure, though I was bound to him by so many ties; no; with

considerable disturbance, some mortification, and a keen sense of

incongruity. If I could have kept him away by paying money, I certainly

would have paid money. My greatest reassurance was that he was coming

to Barnard’s Inn, not to Hammersmith, and consequently would not fall

in Bentley Drummle’s way. I had little objection to his being seen by

Herbert or his father, for both of whom I had a respect; but I had the

sharpest sensitiveness as to his being seen by Drummle, whom I held in

contempt. So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are

usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise.

I had begun to be always decorating the chambers in some quite

unnecessary and inappropriate way or other, and very expensive those

wrestles with Barnard proved to be. By this time, the rooms were vastly

different from what I had found them, and I enjoyed the honour of

occupying a few prominent pages in the books of a neighbouring

upholsterer. I had got on so fast of late, that I had even started a

boy in boots,—top boots,—in bondage and slavery to whom I might have

been said to pass my days. For, after I had made the monster (out of

the refuse of my washerwoman’s family), and had clothed him with a blue

coat, canary waistcoat, white cravat, creamy breeches, and the boots

already mentioned, I had to find him a little to do and a great deal to

eat; and with both of those horrible requirements he haunted my

existence.

This avenging phantom was ordered to be on duty at eight on Tuesday

morning in the hall, (it was two feet square, as charged for

floorcloth,) and Herbert suggested certain things for breakfast that he

thought Joe would like. While I felt sincerely obliged to him for being

so interested and considerate, I had an odd half-provoked sense of

suspicion upon me, that if Joe had been coming to see _him_, he

wouldn’t have been quite so brisk about it.

However, I came into town on the Monday night to be ready for Joe, and

I got up early in the morning, and caused the sitting-room and

breakfast-table to assume their most splendid appearance. Unfortunately

the morning was drizzly, and an angel could not have concealed the fact

that Barnard was shedding sooty tears outside the window, like some

weak giant of a Sweep.

As the time approached I should have liked to run away, but the Avenger

pursuant to orders was in the hall, and presently I heard Joe on the

staircase. I knew it was Joe, by his clumsy manner of coming

upstairs,—his state boots being always too big for him,—and by the time

it took him to read the names on the other floors in the course of his

ascent. When at last he stopped outside our door, I could hear his

finger tracing over the painted letters of my name, and I afterwards

distinctly heard him breathing in at the keyhole. Finally he gave a

faint single rap, and Pepper—such was the compromising name of the

avenging boy—announced “Mr. Gargery!” I thought he never would have

done wiping his feet, and that I must have gone out to lift him off the

mat, but at last he came in.

“Joe, how are you, Joe?”

“Pip, how AIR you, Pip?”

With his good honest face all glowing and shining, and his hat put down

on the floor between us, he caught both my hands and worked them

straight up and down, as if I had been the last-patented Pump.

“I am glad to see you, Joe. Give me your hat.”

But Joe, taking it up carefully with both hands, like a bird’s-nest

with eggs in it, wouldn’t hear of parting with that piece of property,

and persisted in standing talking over it in a most uncomfortable way.

“Which you have that growed,” said Joe, “and that swelled, and that

gentle-folked;” Joe considered a little before he discovered this word;

“as to be sure you are a honour to your king and country.”

“And you, Joe, look wonderfully well.”

“Thank God,” said Joe, “I’m ekerval to most. And your sister, she’s no

worse than she were. And Biddy, she’s ever right and ready. And all

friends is no backerder, if not no forarder. ’Ceptin Wopsle; he’s had a

drop.”

All this time (still with both hands taking great care of the

bird’s-nest), Joe was rolling his eyes round and round the room, and

round and round the flowered pattern of my dressing-gown.

“Had a drop, Joe?”

“Why yes,” said Joe, lowering his voice, “he’s left the Church and went

into the playacting. Which the playacting have likeways brought him to

London along with me. And his wish were,” said Joe, getting the

bird’s-nest under his left arm for the moment, and groping in it for an

egg with his right; “if no offence, as I would ’and you that.”

I took what Joe gave me, and found it to be the crumpled play-bill of a

small metropolitan theatre, announcing the first appearance, in that

very week, of “the celebrated Provincial Amateur of Roscian renown,

whose unique performance in the highest tragic walk of our National

Bard has lately occasioned so great a sensation in local dramatic

circles.”

“Were you at his performance, Joe?” I inquired.

“I _were_,” said Joe, with emphasis and solemnity.

“Was there a great sensation?”

“Why,” said Joe, “yes, there certainly were a peck of orange-peel.

Partickler when he see the ghost. Though I put it to yourself, sir,

whether it were calc’lated to keep a man up to his work with a good

hart, to be continiwally cutting in betwixt him and the Ghost with

“Amen!” A man may have had a misfortun’ and been in the Church,” said

Joe, lowering his voice to an argumentative and feeling tone, “but that

is no reason why you should put him out at such a time. Which I

meantersay, if the ghost of a man’s own father cannot be allowed to

claim his attention, what can, Sir? Still more, when his mourning ’at

is unfortunately made so small as that the weight of the black feathers

brings it off, try to keep it on how you may.”

A ghost-seeing effect in Joe’s own countenance informed me that Herbert

had entered the room. So, I presented Joe to Herbert, who held out his

hand; but Joe backed from it, and held on by the bird’s-nest.

“Your servant, Sir,” said Joe, “which I hope as you and Pip”—here his

eye fell on the Avenger, who was putting some toast on table, and so

plainly denoted an intention to make that young gentleman one of the

family, that I frowned it down and confused him more—“I meantersay, you

two gentlemen,—which I hope as you get your elths in this close spot?

For the present may be a werry good inn, according to London opinions,”

said Joe, confidentially, “and I believe its character do stand it; but

I wouldn’t keep a pig in it myself,—not in the case that I wished him

to fatten wholesome and to eat with a meller flavour on him.”

Having borne this flattering testimony to the merits of our

dwelling-place, and having incidentally shown this tendency to call me

“sir,” Joe, being invited to sit down to table, looked all round the

room for a suitable spot on which to deposit his hat,—as if it were

only on some very few rare substances in nature that it could find a

resting place,—and ultimately stood it on an extreme corner of the

chimney-piece, from which it ever afterwards fell off at intervals.

“Do you take tea, or coffee, Mr. Gargery?” asked Herbert, who always

presided of a morning.

“Thankee, Sir,” said Joe, stiff from head to foot, “I’ll take whichever

is most agreeable to yourself.”

“What do you say to coffee?”

“Thankee, Sir,” returned Joe, evidently dispirited by the proposal,

“since you _are_ so kind as make chice of coffee, I will not run

contrairy to your own opinions. But don’t you never find it a little

’eating?”

“Say tea then,” said Herbert, pouring it out.

Here Joe’s hat tumbled off the mantel-piece, and he started out of his

chair and picked it up, and fitted it to the same exact spot. As if it

were an absolute point of good breeding that it should tumble off again

soon.

“When did you come to town, Mr. Gargery?”

“Were it yesterday afternoon?” said Joe, after coughing behind his

hand, as if he had had time to catch the whooping-cough since he came.

“No it were not. Yes it were. Yes. It were yesterday afternoon” (with

an appearance of mingled wisdom, relief, and strict impartiality).

“Have you seen anything of London yet?”

“Why, yes, Sir,” said Joe, “me and Wopsle went off straight to look at

the Blacking Ware’us. But we didn’t find that it come up to its

likeness in the red bills at the shop doors; which I meantersay,” added

Joe, in an explanatory manner, “as it is there drawd too

architectooralooral.”

I really believe Joe would have prolonged this word (mightily

expressive to my mind of some architecture that I know) into a perfect

Chorus, but for his attention being providentially attracted by his

hat, which was toppling. Indeed, it demanded from him a constant

attention, and a quickness of eye and hand, very like that exacted by

wicket-keeping. He made extraordinary play with it, and showed the

greatest skill; now, rushing at it and catching it neatly as it

dropped; now, merely stopping it midway, beating it up, and humouring

it in various parts of the room and against a good deal of the pattern

of the paper on the wall, before he felt it safe to close with it;

finally splashing it into the slop-basin, where I took the liberty of

laying hands upon it.

[Illustration]

As to his shirt-collar, and his coat-collar, they were perplexing to

reflect upon,—insoluble mysteries both. Why should a man scrape himself

to that extent, before he could consider himself full dressed? Why

should he suppose it necessary to be purified by suffering for his

holiday clothes? Then he fell into such unaccountable fits of

meditation, with his fork midway between his plate and his mouth; had

his eyes attracted in such strange directions; was afflicted with such

remarkable coughs; sat so far from the table, and dropped so much more

than he ate, and pretended that he hadn’t dropped it; that I was

heartily glad when Herbert left us for the City.

I had neither the good sense nor the good feeling to know that this was

all my fault, and that if I had been easier with Joe, Joe would have

been easier with me. I felt impatient of him and out of temper with

him; in which condition he heaped coals of fire on my head.

“Us two being now alone, sir,”—began Joe.

“Joe,” I interrupted, pettishly, “how can you call me, sir?”

Joe looked at me for a single instant with something faintly like

reproach. Utterly preposterous as his cravat was, and as his collars

were, I was conscious of a sort of dignity in the look.

“Us two being now alone,” resumed Joe, “and me having the intentions

and abilities to stay not many minutes more, I will now

conclude—leastways begin—to mention what have led to my having had the

present honour. For was it not,” said Joe, with his old air of lucid

exposition, “that my only wish were to be useful to you, I should not

have had the honour of breaking wittles in the company and abode of

gentlemen.”

I was so unwilling to see the look again, that I made no remonstrance

against this tone.

“Well, sir,” pursued Joe, “this is how it were. I were at the Bargemen

t’other night, Pip;”—whenever he subsided into affection, he called me

Pip, and whenever he relapsed into politeness he called me sir; “when

there come up in his shay-cart, Pumblechook. Which that same

identical,” said Joe, going down a new track, “do comb my ’air the

wrong way sometimes, awful, by giving out up and down town as it were

him which ever had your infant companionation and were looked upon as a

playfellow by yourself.”

“Nonsense. It was you, Joe.”

“Which I fully believed it were, Pip,” said Joe, slightly tossing his

head, “though it signify little now, sir. Well, Pip; this same

identical, which his manners is given to blusterous, come to me at the

Bargemen (wot a pipe and a pint of beer do give refreshment to the

workingman, sir, and do not over stimilate), and his word were,

‘Joseph, Miss Havisham she wish to speak to you.’”

“Miss Havisham, Joe?”

“‘She wish,’ were Pumblechook’s word, ‘to speak to you.’” Joe sat and

rolled his eyes at the ceiling.

“Yes, Joe? Go on, please.”

“Next day, sir,” said Joe, looking at me as if I were a long way off,

“having cleaned myself, I go and I see Miss A.”

“Miss A., Joe? Miss Havisham?”

“Which I say, sir,” replied Joe, with an air of legal formality, as if

he were making his will, “Miss A., or otherways Havisham. Her

expression air then as follering: ‘Mr. Gargery. You air in

correspondence with Mr. Pip?’ Having had a letter from you, I were able

to say ‘I am.’ (When I married your sister, sir, I said ‘I will;’ and

when I answered your friend, Pip, I said ‘I am.’) ‘Would you tell him,

then,’ said she, ‘that which Estella has come home and would be glad to

see him.’”

I felt my face fire up as I looked at Joe. I hope one remote cause of

its firing may have been my consciousness that if I had known his

errand, I should have given him more encouragement.

“Biddy,” pursued Joe, “when I got home and asked her fur to write the

message to you, a little hung back. Biddy says, ‘I know he will be very

glad to have it by word of mouth, it is holiday time, you want to see

him, go!’ I have now concluded, sir,” said Joe, rising from his chair,

“and, Pip, I wish you ever well and ever prospering to a greater and a

greater height.”

“But you are not going now, Joe?”

“Yes I am,” said Joe.

“But you are coming back to dinner, Joe?”

“No I am not,” said Joe.

Our eyes met, and all the “Sir” melted out of that manly heart as he

gave me his hand.

“Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded

together, as I may say, and one man’s a blacksmith, and one’s a

whitesmith, and one’s a goldsmith, and one’s a coppersmith. Diwisions

among such must come, and must be met as they come. If there’s been any

fault at all to-day, it’s mine. You and me is not two figures to be

together in London; nor yet anywheres else but what is private, and

beknown, and understood among friends. It ain’t that I am proud, but

that I want to be right, as you shall never see me no more in these

clothes. I’m wrong in these clothes. I’m wrong out of the forge, the

kitchen, or off th’ meshes. You won’t find half so much fault in me if

you think of me in my forge dress, with my hammer in my hand, or even

my pipe. You won’t find half so much fault in me if, supposing as you

should ever wish to see me, you come and put your head in at the forge

window and see Joe the blacksmith, there, at the old anvil, in the old

burnt apron, sticking to the old work. I’m awful dull, but I hope I’ve

beat out something nigh the rights of this at last. And so GOD bless

you, dear old Pip, old chap, GOD bless you!”

I had not been mistaken in my fancy that there was a simple dignity in

him. The fashion of his dress could no more come in its way when he

spoke these words than it could come in its way in Heaven. He touched

me gently on the forehead, and went out. As soon as I could recover

myself sufficiently, I hurried out after him and looked for him in the

neighbouring streets; but he was gone.