Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (speed reading book TXT) 📕

“Ah! poultry, poultry! You little thought,” said Mr. Pumblechook,

apostrophizing the fowl in the dish, “when you was a young

fledgling, what was in store for you. You little thought you was to

be refreshment beneath this humble roof for one as—Call it a

weakness, if you will,” said Mr. Pumblechook, getting up again, “but

may I? may I—?”

It began to be unnecessary to repeat the form of saying he might,

so he did it at once. How he ever did it so often without wounding

himself with my knife, I don’t know.

“And your sister,” he resumed, after a little steady eating, “which

had the honor of bringing you up by hand! It’s a sad picter, to

reflect that she’s no longer equal to fully understanding the

honor. May—”

I saw he was about to come at me again, and I stopped him.

“We’ll drink her health,” said I.

“Ah!” cried Mr. Pumblechook, leaning back in his chair, quite

flaccid with admiration, “that’s the way you know ‘em, sir!” (I

don’t know who Sir was, but he certainly was not I, and there was

no third person present); “that’s the way you know the noble-minded,

sir! Ever forgiving and ever affable. It might,” said the servile

Pumblechook, putting down his untasted glass in a hurry and getting

up again, “to a common person, have the appearance of repeating—

but may I—?”

When he had done it, he resumed his seat and drank to my sister.

“Let us never be blind,” said Mr. Pumblechook, “to her faults of

temper, but it is to be hoped she meant well.”

At about this time, I began to observe that he was getting flushed

in the face; as to myself, I felt all face, steeped in wine and

smarting.

I mentioned to Mr. Pumblechook that I wished to have my new clothes

sent to his house, and he was ecstatic on my so distinguishing him.

I mentioned my reason for desiring to avoid observation in the

village, and he lauded it to the skies. There was nobody but

himself, he intimated, worthy of my confidence, and—in short,

might he? Then he asked me tenderly if I remembered our boyish

games at sums, and how we had gone together to have me bound

apprentice, and, in effect, how he had ever been my favorite fancy

and my chosen friend? If I had taken ten times as many glasses of

wine as I had, I should have known that he never had stood in that

relation towards me, and should in my heart of hearts have

repudiated the idea. Yet for all that, I remember feeling convinced

that I had been much mistaken in him, and that he was a sensible,

practical, good-hearted prime fellow.

By degrees he fell to reposing such great confidence in me, as to

ask my advice in reference to his own affairs. He mentioned that

there was an opportunity for a great amalgamation and monopoly of

the corn and seed trade on those premises, if enlarged, such as had

never occurred before in that or any other neighborhood. What

alone was wanting to the realization of a vast fortune, he

considered to be More Capital. Those were the two little words,

more capital. Now it appeared to him (Pumblechook) that if that

capital were got into the business, through a sleeping partner, sir,

—which sleeping partner would have nothing to do but walk in, by

self or deputy, whenever he pleased, and examine the books,—and

walk in twice a year and take his profits away in his pocket, to

the tune of fifty per cent,—it appeared to him that that might be

an opening for a young gentleman of spirit combined with property,

which would be worthy of his attention. But what did I think? He

had great confidence in my opinion, and what did I think? I gave it

as my opinion. “Wait a bit!” The united vastness and distinctness

of this view so struck him, that he no longer asked if he might

shake hands with me, but said he really must,—and did.

We drank all the wine, and Mr. Pumblechook pledged himself over and

over again to keep Joseph up to the mark (I don’t know what mark),

and to render me efficient and constant service (I don’t know what

service). He also made known to me for the first time in my life,

and certainly after having kept his secret wonderfully well, that

he had always said of me, “That boy is no common boy, and mark me,

his fortun’ will be no common fortun’.” He said with a tearful

smile that it was a singular thing to think of now, and I said so

too. Finally, I went out into the air, with a dim perception that

there was something unwonted in the conduct of the sunshine, and

found that I had slumberously got to the turnpike without having

taken any account of the road.

There, I was roused by Mr. Pumblechook’s hailing me. He was a long

way down the sunny street, and was making expressive gestures for

me to stop. I stopped, and he came up breathless.

“No, my dear friend,” said he, when he had recovered wind for

speech. “Not if I can help it. This occasion shall not entirely

pass without that affability on your part.—May I, as an old

friend and well-wisher? May I?”

We shook hands for the hundredth time at least, and he ordered a

young carter out of my way with the greatest indignation. Then, he

blessed me and stood waving his hand to me until I had passed the

crook in the road; and then I turned into a field and had a long

nap under a hedge before I pursued my way home.

I had scant luggage to take with me to London, for little of the

little I possessed was adapted to my new station. But I began

packing that same afternoon, and wildly packed up things that I

knew I should want next morning, in a fiction that there was not a

moment to be lost.

So, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, passed; and on Friday morning

I went to Mr. Pumblechook’s, to put on my new clothes and pay my

visit to Miss Havisham. Mr. Pumblechook’s own room was given up to

me to dress in, and was decorated with clean towels expressly for

the event. My clothes were rather a disappointment, of course.

Probably every new and eagerly expected garment ever put on since

clothes came in, fell a trifle short of the wearer’s expectation.

But after I had had my new suit on some half an hour, and had gone

through an immensity of posturing with Mr. Pumblechook’s very

limited dressing-glass, in the futile endeavor to see my legs, it

seemed to fit me better. It being market morning at a neighboring

town some ten miles off, Mr. Pumblechook was not at home. I had not

told him exactly when I meant to leave, and was not likely to shake

hands with him again before departing. This was all as it should

be, and I went out in my new array, fearfully ashamed of having to

pass the shopman, and suspicious after all that I was at a personal

disadvantage, something like Joe’s in his Sunday suit.

I went circuitously to Miss Havisham’s by all the back ways, and

rang at the bell constrainedly, on account of the stiff long

fingers of my gloves. Sarah Pocket came to the gate, and positively

reeled back when she saw me so changed; her walnut-shell

countenance likewise turned from brown to green and yellow.

“You?” said she. “You? Good gracious! What do you want?”

“I am going to London, Miss Pocket,” said I, “and want to say

good by to Miss Havisham.”

I was not expected, for she left me locked in the yard, while she

went to ask if I were to be admitted. After a very short delay, she

returned and took me up, staring at me all the way.

Miss Havisham was taking exercise in the room with the long spread

table, leaning on her crutch stick. The room was lighted as of

yore, and at the sound of our entrance, she stopped and turned. She

was then just abreast of the rotted bride-cake.

“Don’t go, Sarah,” she said. “Well, Pip?”

“I start for London, Miss Havisham, tomorrow,” I was exceedingly

careful what I said, “and I thought you would kindly not mind my

taking leave of you.”

“This is a gay figure, Pip,” said she, making her crutch stick play

round me, as if she, the fairy godmother who had changed me, were

bestowing the finishing gift.

“I have come into such good fortune since I saw you last, Miss

Havisham,” I murmured. “And I am so grateful for it, Miss

Havisham!”

“Ay, ay!” said she, looking at the discomfited and envious Sarah,

with delight. “I have seen Mr. Jaggers. I have heard about it, Pip.

So you go tomorrow?”

“Yes, Miss Havisham.”

“And you are adopted by a rich person?”

“Yes, Miss Havisham.”

“Not named?”

“No, Miss Havisham.”

“And Mr. Jaggers is made your guardian?”

“Yes, Miss Havisham.”

She quite gloated on these questions and answers, so keen was her

enjoyment of Sarah Pocket’s jealous dismay. “Well!” she went on;

“you have a promising career before you. Be good—deserve it—and

abide by Mr. Jaggers’s instructions.” She looked at me, and looked

at Sarah, and Sarah’s countenance wrung out of her watchful face a

cruel smile. “Good by, Pip!—you will always keep the name of

Pip, you know.”

“Yes, Miss Havisham.”

“Good by, Pip!”

She stretched out her hand, and I went down on my knee and put it

to my lips. I had not considered how I should take leave of her; it

came naturally to me at the moment to do this. She looked at Sarah

Pocket with triumph in her weird eyes, and so I left my fairy

godmother, with both her hands on her crutch stick, standing in the

midst of the dimly lighted room beside the rotten bride-cake that

was hidden in cobwebs.

Sarah Pocket conducted me down, as if I were a ghost who must be

seen out. She could not get over my appearance, and was in the last

degree confounded. I said “Good by, Miss Pocket;” but she merely

stared, and did not seem collected enough to know that I had

spoken. Clear of the house, I made the best of my way back to

Pumblechook’s, took off my new clothes, made them into a bundle,

and went back home in my older dress, carrying it—to speak the

truth—much more at my ease too, though I had the bundle to carry.

And now, those six days which were to have run out so slowly, had

run out fast and were gone, and tomorrow looked me in the face

more steadily than I could look at it. As the six evenings had

dwindled away, to five, to four, to three, to two, I had become

more and more appreciative of the society of Joe and Biddy. On this

last evening, I dressed my self out in my new clothes for their

delight, and sat in my splendor until bedtime. We had a hot supper

on the occasion, graced by the inevitable roast fowl, and we had

some flip to finish with. We were all very low, and none the higher

for pretending to be in spirits.

I was to leave our village at five in the morning, carrying my

little hand-portmanteau, and I had told Joe that I wished to walk

away all alone. I am afraid—sore afraid—that this purpose

originated in my sense of the contrast there would be between me

and Joe, if we went to the coach together. I had pretended with

myself that there was nothing of