Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (speed reading book TXT) đź“•
"Now lookee here," he said, "the question being whether you're tobe let to live. You know what a file is?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you know what wittles is?"
"Yes, sir."
After each question he tilted me over a little more, so as to giveme a greater sense of helplessness and danger.
"You get me a file." He tilted me again. "And you get me wittles."He tilted me again. "You bring 'em both to me." He tilted me again."Or I'll have your heart and liver out." He tilted me again.
I was dreadfully frightened, and so giddy that I clung to him withboth hands, and said, "If you would kindly please to let me keepupright, sir, perhaps I shouldn't be sick, and perhaps I couldattend more."
He gave me a most tremendous dip and roll,
Read free book «Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (speed reading book TXT) 📕» - read online or download for free at americanlibrarybooks.com
- Author: Charles Dickens
- Performer: 0141439564
Read book online «Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (speed reading book TXT) 📕». Author - Charles Dickens
from the methodical nature of Miss Skiffins’s arrangements that she
made tea there every Sunday night; and I rather suspected that a
classic brooch she wore, representing the profile of an undesirable
female with a very straight nose and a very new moon, was a piece
of portable property that had been given her by Wemmick.
We ate the whole of the toast, and drank tea in proportion, and it
was delightful to see how warm and greasy we all got after it. The
Aged especially, might have passed for some clean old chief of a
savage tribe, just oiled. After a short pause of repose, Miss
Skiffins—in the absence of the little servant who, it seemed,
retired to the bosom of her family on Sunday afternoons—washed up
the tea-things, in a trifling lady-like amateur manner that
compromised none of us. Then, she put on her gloves again, and we
drew round the fire, and Wemmick said, “Now, Aged Parent, tip us the
paper.”
Wemmick explained to me while the Aged got his spectacles out, that
this was according to custom, and that it gave the old gentleman
infinite satisfaction to read the news aloud. “I won’t offer an
apology,” said Wemmick, “for he isn’t capable of many pleasures—
are you, Aged P.?”
“All right, John, all right,” returned the old man, seeing himself
spoken to.
“Only tip him a nod every now and then when he looks off his
paper,” said Wemmick, “and he’ll be as happy as a king. We are all
attention, Aged One.”
“All right, John, all right!” returned the cheerful old man, so
busy and so pleased, that it really was quite charming.
The Aged’s reading reminded me of the classes at Mr. Wopsle’s
great-aunt’s, with the pleasanter peculiarity that it seemed to
come through a keyhole. As he wanted the candles close to him, and
as he was always on the verge of putting either his head or the
newspaper into them, he required as much watching as a powder-mill.
But Wemmick was equally untiring and gentle in his vigilance, and
the Aged read on, quite unconscious of his many rescues. Whenever
he looked at us, we all expressed the greatest interest and
amazement, and nodded until he resumed again.
As Wemmick and Miss Skiffins sat side by side, and as I sat in a
shadowy corner, I observed a slow and gradual elongation of Mr.
Wemmick’s mouth, powerfully suggestive of his slowly and gradually
stealing his arm round Miss Skiffins’s waist. In course of time I
saw his hand appear on the other side of Miss Skiffins; but at that
moment Miss Skiffins neatly stopped him with the green glove,
unwound his arm again as if it were an article of dress, and with
the greatest deliberation laid it on the table before her. Miss
Skiffins’s composure while she did this was one of the most
remarkable sights I have ever seen, and if I could have thought the
act consistent with abstraction of mind, I should have deemed that
Miss Skiffins performed it mechanically.
By and by, I noticed Wemmick’s arm beginning to disappear again,
and gradually fading out of view. Shortly afterwards, his mouth
began to widen again. After an interval of suspense on my part that
was quite enthralling and almost painful, I saw his hand appear on
the other side of Miss Skiffins. Instantly, Miss Skiffins stopped
it with the neatness of a placid boxer, took off that girdle or
cestus as before, and laid it on the table. Taking the table to
represent the path of virtue, I am justified in stating that during
the whole time of the Aged’s reading, Wemmick’s arm was straying
from the path of virtue and being recalled to it by Miss Skiffins.
At last, the Aged read himself into a light slumber. This was the
time for Wemmick to produce a little kettle, a tray of glasses, and
a black bottle with a porcelain-topped cork, representing some
clerical dignitary of a rubicund and social aspect. With the aid of
these appliances we all had something warm to drink, including the
Aged, who was soon awake again. Miss Skiffins mixed, and I observed
that she and Wemmick drank out of one glass. Of course I knew
better than to offer to see Miss Skiffins home, and under the
circumstances I thought I had best go first; which I did, taking a
cordial leave of the Aged, and having passed a pleasant evening.
Before a week was out, I received a note from Wemmick, dated
Walworth, stating that he hoped he had made some advance in that
matter appertaining to our private and personal capacities, and
that he would be glad if I could come and see him again upon it.
So, I went out to Walworth again, and yet again, and yet again, and
I saw him by appointment in the City several times, but never held
any communication with him on the subject in or near Little
Britain. The upshot was, that we found a worthy young merchant or
shipping-broker, not long established in business, who wanted
intelligent help, and who wanted capital, and who in due course of
time and receipt would want a partner. Between him and me, secret
articles were signed of which Herbert was the subject, and I paid
him half of my five hundred pounds down, and engaged for sundry
other payments: some, to fall due at certain dates out of my
income: some, contingent on my coming into my property. Miss
Skiffins’s brother conducted the negotiation. Wemmick pervaded it
throughout, but never appeared in it.
The whole business was so cleverly managed, that Herbert had not
the least suspicion of my hand being in it. I never shall forget
the radiant face with which he came home one afternoon, and told
me, as a mighty piece of news, of his having fallen in with one
Clarriker (the young merchant’s name), and of Clarriker’s having
shown an extraordinary inclination towards him, and of his belief
that the opening had come at last. Day by day as his hopes grew
stronger and his face brighter, he must have thought me a more and
more affectionate friend, for I had the greatest difficulty in
restraining my tears of triumph when I saw him so happy. At length,
the thing being done, and he having that day entered Clarriker’s
House, and he having talked to me for a whole evening in a flush of
pleasure and success, I did really cry in good earnest when I went
to bed, to think that my expectations had done some good to
somebody.
A great event in my life, the turning point of my life, now opens
on my view. But, before I proceed to narrate it, and before I pass
on to all the changes it involved, I must give one chapter to
Estella. It is not much to give to the theme that so long filled
my heart.
If that staid old house near the Green at Richmond should ever come
to be haunted when I am dead, it will be haunted, surely, by my
ghost. O the many, many nights and days through which the unquiet
spirit within me haunted that house when Estella lived there! Let
my body be where it would, my spirit was always wandering,
wandering, wandering, about that house.
The lady with whom Estella was placed, Mrs. Brandley by name, was a
widow, with one daughter several years older than Estella. The
mother looked young, and the daughter looked old; the mother’s
complexion was pink, and the daughter’s was yellow; the mother set
up for frivolity, and the daughter for theology. They were in what
is called a good position, and visited, and were visited by,
numbers of people. Little, if any, community of feeling subsisted
between them and Estella, but the understanding was established
that they were necessary to her, and that she was necessary to
them. Mrs. Brandley had been a friend of Miss Havisham’s before the
time of her seclusion.
In Mrs. Brandley’s house and out of Mrs. Brandley’s house, I suffered
every kind and degree of torture that Estella could cause me. The
nature of my relations with her, which placed me on terms of
familiarity without placing me on terms of favor, conduced to my
distraction. She made use of me to tease other admirers, and she
turned the very familiarity between herself and me to the account
of putting a constant slight on my devotion to her. If I had been
her secretary, steward, half-brother, poor relation,—if I had been
a younger brother of her appointed husband,—I could not have
seemed to myself further from my hopes when I was nearest to her.
The privilege of calling her by her name and hearing her call me by
mine became, under the circumstances an aggravation of my trials;
and while I think it likely that it almost maddened her other
lovers, I know too certainly that it almost maddened me.
She had admirers without end. No doubt my jealousy made an admirer
of every one who went near her; but there were more than enough of
them without that.
I saw her often at Richmond, I heard of her often in town, and I
used often to take her and the Brandleys on the water; there were
picnics, f�te days, plays, operas, concerts, parties, all sorts of
pleasures, through which I pursued her,—and they were all miseries
to me. I never had one hour’s happiness in her society, and yet my
mind all round the four-and-twenty hours was harping on the
happiness of having her with me unto death.
Throughout this part of our intercourse,—and it lasted, as will
presently be seen, for what I then thought a long time,—she
habitually reverted to that tone which expressed that our
association was forced upon us. There were other times when she
would come to a sudden check in this tone and in all her many
tones, and would seem to pity me.
“Pip, Pip,” she said one evening, coming to such a check, when we
sat apart at a darkening window of the house in Richmond; “will you
never take warning?”
“Of what?”
“Of me.”
“Warning not to be attracted by you, do you mean, Estella?”
“Do I mean! If you don’t know what I mean, you are blind.”
I should have replied that Love was commonly reputed blind, but for
the reason that I always was restrained—and this was not the
least of my miseries—by a feeling that it was ungenerous to press
myself upon her, when she knew that she could not choose but obey
Miss Havisham. My dread always was, that this knowledge on her part
laid me under a heavy disadvantage with her pride, and made me the
subject of a rebellious struggle in her bosom.
“At any rate,” said I, “I have no warning given me just now, for
you wrote to me to come to you, this time.”
“That’s true,” said Estella, with a cold careless smile that always
chilled me.
After looking at the twilight without, for a little while, she went
on to say:—
“The time has come round when Miss Havisham wishes to have me for a
day at Satis. You are to take me there, and bring me back, if you
will. She would rather I did not travel alone, and objects to
receiving my maid, for she has a sensitive horror of being talked
of by such people. Can you take me?”
“Can I take you, Estella!”
“You can then? The day after tomorrow, if you please. You are to
pay all charges out of my purse, You hear the condition of your
going?”
“And must obey,” said I.
This was all the preparation I received for that visit, or for
others like it; Miss Havisham never wrote to me, nor
Comments (0)