Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens (1860-1861) - Chapter 52
Chapter LII
From Little Britain I went, with my check in my pocket,
to Miss Skiffins's brother, the accountant; and Miss Skiffins's brother, the
accountant, going straight to Clarriker's and bringing Clarriker to me, I had
the great satisfaction of concluding that arrangement. It was the only good
thing I had done, and the only completed thing I had done, since I was first
apprised of my great expectations.
Clarriker informing me on that occasion that the affairs
of the House were steadily progressing, that he would now be able to establish a
small branch-house in the East which was much wanted for the extension of the
business, and that Herbert in his new partnership capacity would go out and take
charge of it, I found that I must have prepared for a separation from my friend,
even though my own affairs had been more settled. And now, indeed, I felt as if
my last anchor were loosening its hold, and I should soon be driving with the
winds and waves.
But there was recompense in the joy with which Herbert
would come home of a night and tell me of these changes, little imagining that
he told me no news, and would sketch airy pictures of himself conducting Clara
Barley to the land of the Arabian Nights, and of me going out to join them (with
a caravan of camels, I believe), and of our all going up the Nile and seeing
wonders. Without being sanguine as to my own part in those bright plans, I felt
that Herbert's way was clearing fast, and that old Bill Barley had but to stick
to his pepper and rum, and his daughter would soon be happily provided for.
We had now got into the month of March. My left arm,
though it presented no bad symptoms, took, in the natural course, so long to
heal that I was still unable to get a coat on. My right arm was tolerably
restored; disfigured, but fairly serviceable.
On a Monday morning, when Herbert and I were at
breakfast, I received the following letter from Wemmick by the post.
"Walworth. Burn this as soon as read. Early in the
week, or say Wednesday, you might do what you know of, if you felt disposed to
try it. Now burn."
When I had shown this to Herbert and had put it in the
fire--but not before we had both got it by heart--we considered what to do. For,
of course my being disabled could now be no longer kept out of view.
"I have thought it over again and again," said
Herbert, "and I think I know a better course than taking a Thames waterman.
Take Startop. A good fellow, a skilled hand, fond of us, and enthusiastic and
honorable."
I had thought of him more than once.
"But how much would you tell him, Herbert?"
"It is necessary to tell him very little. Let him
suppose it a mere freak, but a secret one, until the morning comes: then let him
know that there is urgent reason for your getting Provis aboard and away. You go
with him?"
"No doubt."
"Where?"
It had seemed to me, in the many anxious considerations
I had given the point, almost indifferent what port we made for,--Hamburg,
Rotterdam, Antwerp,--the place signified little, so that he was out of England.
Any foreign steamer that fell in our way and would take us up would do. I had
always proposed to myself to get him well down the river in the boat; certainly
well beyond Gravesend, which was a critical place for search or inquiry if
suspicion were afoot. As foreign steamers would leave London at about the time
of high-water, our plan would be to get down the river by a previous ebb-tide,
and lie by in some quiet spot until we could pull off to one. The time when one
would be due where we lay, wherever that might be, could be calculated pretty
nearly, if we made inquiries beforehand.
Herbert assented to all this, and we went out
immediately after breakfast to pursue our investigations. We found that a
steamer for Hamburg was likely to suit our purpose best, and we directed our
thoughts chiefly to that vessel. But we noted down what other foreign steamers
would leave London with the same tide, and we satisfied ourselves that we knew
the build and color of each. We then separated for a few hours: I, to get at
once such passports as were necessary; Herbert, to see Startop at his lodgings.
We both did what we had to do without any hindrance, and when we met again at
one o'clock reported it done. I, for my part, was prepared with passports;
Herbert had seen Startop, and he was more than ready to join.
Those two should pull a pair of oars, we settled, and I
would steer; our charge would be sitter, and keep quiet; as speed was not our
object, we should make way enough. We arranged that Herbert should not come home
to dinner before going to Mill Pond Bank that evening; that he should not go
there at all to-morrow evening, Tuesday; that he should prepare Provis to come
down to some stairs hard by the house, on Wednesday, when he saw us approach,
and not sooner; that all the arrangements with him should be concluded that
Monday night; and that he should be communicated with no more in any way, until
we took him on board.
These precautions well understood by both of us, I went
home.
On opening the outer door of our chambers with my key, I
found a letter in the box, directed to me; a very dirty letter, though not
ill-written. It had been delivered by hand (of course, since I left home), and
its contents were these:--
"If you are not afraid to come to the old marshes
to-night or tomorrow night at nine, and to come to the little sluice-house by
the limekiln, you had better come. If you want information regarding your uncle
Provis, you had much better come and tell no one, and lose no time. You must
come alone. Bring this with you."
I had had load enough upon my mind before the receipt of
this strange letter. What to do now, I could not tell. And the worst was, that I
must decide quickly, or I should miss the afternoon coach, which would take me
down in time for to-night. To-morrow night I could not think of going, for it
would be too close upon the time of the flight. And again, for anything I knew,
the proffered information might have some important bearing on the flight
itself.
If I had had ample time for consideration, I believe I
should still have gone. Having hardly any time for consideration,--my watch
showing me that the coach started within half an hour,--I resolved to go. I
should certainly not have gone, but for the reference to my Uncle Provis. That,
coming on Wemmick's letter and the morning's busy preparation, turned the scale.
It is so difficult to become clearly possessed of the
contents of almost any letter, in a violent hurry, that I had to read this
mysterious epistle again twice, before its injunction to me to be secret got
mechanically into my mind. Yielding to it in the same mechanical kind of way, I
left a note in pencil for Herbert, telling him that as I should be so soon going
away, I knew not for how long, I had decided to hurry down and back, to
ascertain for myself how Miss Havisham was faring. I had then barely time to get
my great-coat, lock up the chambers, and make for the coach-office by the short
by-ways. If I had taken a hackney-chariot and gone by the streets, I should have
missed my aim; going as I did, I caught the coach just as it came out of the
yard. I was the only inside passenger, jolting away knee-deep in straw, when I
came to myself.
For I really had not been myself since the receipt of
the letter; it had so bewildered me, ensuing on the hurry of the morning. The
morning hurry and flutter had been great; for, long and anxiously as I had
waited for Wemmick, his hint had come like a surprise at last. And now I began
to wonder at myself for being in the coach, and to doubt whether I had
sufficient reason for being there, and to consider whether I should get out
presently and go back, and to argue against ever heeding an anonymous
communication, and, in short, to pass through all those phases of contradiction
and indecision to which I suppose very few hurried people are strangers. Still,
the reference to Provis by name mastered everything. I reasoned as I had
reasoned already without knowing it, --if that be reasoning,--in case any harm
should befall him through my not going, how could I ever forgive myself!
It was dark before we got down, and the journey seemed
long and dreary to me, who could see little of it inside, and who could not go
outside in my disabled state. Avoiding the Blue Boar, I put up at an inn of
minor reputation down the town, and ordered some dinner. While it was preparing,
I went to Satis House and inquired for Miss Havisham; she was still very ill,
though considered something better.
My inn had once been a part of an ancient ecclesiastical
house, and I dined in a little octagonal common-room, like a font. As I was not
able to cut my dinner, the old landlord with a shining bald head did it for me.
This bringing us into conversation, he was so good as to entertain me with my
own story,--of course with the popular feature that Pumblechook was my earliest
benefactor and the founder of my fortunes.
"Do you know the young man?" said I.
"Know him!" repeated the landlord. "Ever
since he was--no height at all."
"Does he ever come back to this neighborhood?"
"Ay, he comes back," said the landlord,
"to his great friends, now and again, and gives the cold shoulder to the
man that made him."
"What man is that?"
"Him that I speak of," said the landlord.
"Mr. Pumblechook."
"Is he ungrateful to no one else?"
"No doubt he would be, if he could," returned
the landlord, "but he can't. And why? Because Pumblechook done everything
for him."
"Does Pumblechook say so?"
"Say so!" replied the landlord. "He han't
no call to say so."
"But does he say so?"
"It would turn a man's blood to white wine winegar
to hear him tell of it, sir," said the landlord.
I thought, "Yet Joe, dear Joe, you never tell of
it. Long-suffering and loving Joe, you never complain. Nor you, sweet-tempered
Biddy!"
"Your appetite's been touched like by your
accident," said the landlord, glancing at the bandaged arm under my coat.
"Try a tenderer bit."
"No, thank you," I replied, turning from the
table to brood over the fire. "I can eat no more. Please take it
away."
I had never been struck at so keenly, for my
thanklessness to Joe, as through the brazen impostor Pumblechook. The falser he,
the truer Joe; the meaner he, the nobler Joe.
My heart was deeply and most deservedly humbled as I
mused over the fire for an hour or more. The striking of the clock aroused me,
but not from my dejection or remorse, and I got up and had my coat fastened
round my neck, and went out. I had previously sought in my pockets for the
letter, that I might refer to it again; but I could not find it, and was uneasy
to think that it must have been dropped in the straw of the coach. I knew very
well, however, that the appointed place was the little sluice-house by the
limekiln on the marshes, and the hour nine. Towards the marshes I now went
straight, having no time to spare.