Chương Chương 12 · My mind grew very uneasy on the subject of the pale young gentleman.

. My mind grew very uneasy on the subject of the pale young gentleman.

The more I thought of the fight, and recalled the pale young gentleman

on his back in various stages of puffy and incrimsoned countenance, the

more certain it appeared that something would be done to me. I felt

that the pale young gentleman’s blood was on my head, and that the Law

would avenge it. Without having any definite idea of the penalties I

had incurred, it was clear to me that village boys could not go

stalking about the country, ravaging the houses of gentlefolks and

pitching into the studious youth of England, without laying themselves

open to severe punishment. For some days, I even kept close at home,

and looked out at the kitchen door with the greatest caution and

trepidation before going on an errand, lest the officers of the County

Jail should pounce upon me. The pale young gentleman’s nose had stained

my trousers, and I tried to wash out that evidence of my guilt in the

dead of night. I had cut my knuckles against the pale young gentleman’s

teeth, and I twisted my imagination into a thousand tangles, as I

devised incredible ways of accounting for that damnatory circumstance

when I should be haled before the Judges.

When the day came round for my return to the scene of the deed of

violence, my terrors reached their height. Whether myrmidons of

Justice, especially sent down from London, would be lying in ambush

behind the gate;—whether Miss Havisham, preferring to take personal

vengeance for an outrage done to her house, might rise in those

grave-clothes of hers, draw a pistol, and shoot me dead:—whether

suborned boys—a numerous band of mercenaries—might be engaged to fall

upon me in the brewery, and cuff me until I was no more;—it was high

testimony to my confidence in the spirit of the pale young gentleman,

that I never imagined _him_ accessory to these retaliations; they

always came into my mind as the acts of injudicious relatives of his,

goaded on by the state of his visage and an indignant sympathy with the

family features.

However, go to Miss Havisham’s I must, and go I did. And behold!

nothing came of the late struggle. It was not alluded to in any way,

and no pale young gentleman was to be discovered on the premises. I

found the same gate open, and I explored the garden, and even looked in

at the windows of the detached house; but my view was suddenly stopped

by the closed shutters within, and all was lifeless. Only in the corner

where the combat had taken place could I detect any evidence of the

young gentleman’s existence. There were traces of his gore in that

spot, and I covered them with garden-mould from the eye of man.

On the broad landing between Miss Havisham’s own room and that other

room in which the long table was laid out, I saw a garden-chair,—a

light chair on wheels, that you pushed from behind. It had been placed

there since my last visit, and I entered, that same day, on a regular

occupation of pushing Miss Havisham in this chair (when she was tired

of walking with her hand upon my shoulder) round her own room, and

across the landing, and round the other room. Over and over and over

again, we would make these journeys, and sometimes they would last as

long as three hours at a stretch. I insensibly fall into a general

mention of these journeys as numerous, because it was at once settled

that I should return every alternate day at noon for these purposes,

and because I am now going to sum up a period of at least eight or ten

months.

As we began to be more used to one another, Miss Havisham talked more

to me, and asked me such questions as what had I learnt and what was I

going to be? I told her I was going to be apprenticed to Joe, I

believed; and I enlarged upon my knowing nothing and wanting to know

everything, in the hope that she might offer some help towards that

desirable end. But she did not; on the contrary, she seemed to prefer

my being ignorant. Neither did she ever give me any money,—or anything

but my daily dinner,—nor ever stipulate that I should be paid for my

services.

Estella was always about, and always let me in and out, but never told

me I might kiss her again. Sometimes, she would coldly tolerate me;

sometimes, she would condescend to me; sometimes, she would be quite

familiar with me; sometimes, she would tell me energetically that she

hated me. Miss Havisham would often ask me in a whisper, or when we

were alone, “Does she grow prettier and prettier, Pip?” And when I said

yes (for indeed she did), would seem to enjoy it greedily. Also, when

we played at cards Miss Havisham would look on, with a miserly relish

of Estella’s moods, whatever they were. And sometimes, when her moods

were so many and so contradictory of one another that I was puzzled

what to say or do, Miss Havisham would embrace her with lavish

fondness, murmuring something in her ear that sounded like “Break their

hearts my pride and hope, break their hearts and have no mercy!”

There was a song Joe used to hum fragments of at the forge, of which

the burden was Old Clem. This was not a very ceremonious way of

rendering homage to a patron saint, but I believe Old Clem stood in

that relation towards smiths. It was a song that imitated the measure

of beating upon iron, and was a mere lyrical excuse for the

introduction of Old Clem’s respected name. Thus, you were to hammer

boys round—Old Clem! With a thump and a sound—Old Clem! Beat it out,

beat it out—Old Clem! With a clink for the stout—Old Clem! Blow the

fire, blow the fire—Old Clem! Roaring dryer, soaring higher—Old Clem!

One day soon after the appearance of the chair, Miss Havisham suddenly

saying to me, with the impatient movement of her fingers, “There,

there, there! Sing!” I was surprised into crooning this ditty as I

pushed her over the floor. It happened so to catch her fancy that she

took it up in a low brooding voice as if she were singing in her sleep.

After that, it became customary with us to have it as we moved about,

and Estella would often join in; though the whole strain was so

subdued, even when there were three of us, that it made less noise in

the grim old house than the lightest breath of wind.

What could I become with these surroundings? How could my character

fail to be influenced by them? Is it to be wondered at if my thoughts

were dazed, as my eyes were, when I came out into the natural light

from the misty yellow rooms?

Perhaps I might have told Joe about the pale young gentleman, if I had

not previously been betrayed into those enormous inventions to which I

had confessed. Under the circumstances, I felt that Joe could hardly

fail to discern in the pale young gentleman, an appropriate passenger

to be put into the black velvet coach; therefore, I said nothing of

him. Besides, that shrinking from having Miss Havisham and Estella

discussed, which had come upon me in the beginning, grew much more

potent as time went on. I reposed complete confidence in no one but

Biddy; but I told poor Biddy everything. Why it came natural to me to

do so, and why Biddy had a deep concern in everything I told her, I did

not know then, though I think I know now.

Meanwhile, councils went on in the kitchen at home, fraught with almost

insupportable aggravation to my exasperated spirit. That ass,

Pumblechook, used often to come over of a night for the purpose of

discussing my prospects with my sister; and I really do believe (to

this hour with less penitence than I ought to feel), that if these

hands could have taken a linchpin out of his chaise-cart, they would

have done it. The 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 favourable 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 favour 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 honour 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.