07: Great Expectations: Charles Dickens

At the time when I stood in the churchyard, reading the family tombstones, I had just enough learning to be able to spell them out. Even of their simple meaning was not correct.  I read "wife of the above" as a complimentary reference to my father's exaltation to a better world; if any one of my deceased relations had been referred to as "Below" I should have formed the worst opinion of that member of the family.  Neither were my notions of theological positions to which my Catechism bound me, at all accurate; I have a lively remembrance that I supposed my declaration that I was to "walk in the same all the days of my life," laid  me under an obligation always to go through the village from our house in one particular direction, and never to vary it by turning down by wheelwright's or up by the mill. 

When I was old enough, I was to be apprenticed to Joe, and until I could assume that dignity I was not to be what Mrs Joe called "Pompeyed" or as I render it, pampered.  Therefore I was not only an odd boy about the forge, but if any neighbour happened to want an extra boy to frighten the birds, or pick up the stones, or do any such job, I was favoured with the employment.  Not to compromise our superior position a money-box was kept on the kitchen mantle shelf, into which, it was publicly made known that all my earnings were dropped.  I have an impression that they were to be contributed eventually towards the liquidation of the National Debt , but I know I had no hope of any personal participation in the treasure. 

Wopsle's great aunt kept an evening school in the village; she was a ridiculous woman of limited means and unlimited infirmity, who used to go to sleep from six to seven every evening in the society of youth who paid twopence per week each, for the improving opportunity of seeing her do it.  She rented a small cottage, and Mr Wopsle had the room upstairs, where we students used to overhear him reading aloud in a most dignified and terrific manner, and occasionally bumping on the ceiling. 

There was a fiction that Mr Wopsle examined the scholars once a quarter.  What he did on those occasions was to turn up his cuffs, stick up his hair, and gives us Mark Antony's oration over the body of Caesar.  This was always followed by Collins's Ode on the Passions, wherein I particularly venerated Mr Wopsle as Revenge, throwing his blood stained sword in thunder down, and taking the war-denouncing trumpet withering look.  It was not with me then, as it was in later life, when I fell into the society of the Passions, and compared them with Collins and Wopsle, rather to the disadvantage of both gentlemen.

Mr Wopsle's great-aunt, besides keeping this village school, kept in the same room, a little general shop. She had no idea of what stock she had, what the price of anything in it was, but there was a little greasy memorandum book kept in a drawer, which served as a Catalogue of prices; Biddy arranged all the shop transactions.  Biddy was Wopsle's great-aunt's grand daughter.  I confess myself quite unequal to the working-out of the problem, what relation she was to Mr Wopsle.  She was an.orphan like myself; like me too, had been brought up by hand. She was most noticeable by her extremities: her hair always wanted brushing, her hands always wanted washing,.and her shoes always wanted mending and pulling up at the heels.  The description must be limited to week-days.  On Sundays she went to church elaborated. 

Much of my unassisted self, and more by the help of Biddy than Mr Wopsle's great-aunt, I struggled through the alphabet as if it had been a brambles bush; getting considerbly worried and scratched by every letter.

After that I fell among those thieves , the nine figures, who seemed every evening to do something new to disguise themselves and baffle recognition.  But at last, I began in a purblind groping way, to read, write, and cipher, on the very smallest scale.

One night, I was sitting in the chimney corner with my slate, expending great efforts in the production of a letter to Joe. I think it must have been a full year after our hunt on upon the marshes, for it was a long time after, and it was winter and hard frost.  With an alphabet on the hearth at my feet for reference, I contrived in an hour or two to print and smear this epistle:

My dear Joe.  Hope you are well.

There was no indispensable necessity for communicating with Joe by letter in as much he sat beside me and we were alone.  But I delivered this written communication with my own hand and Joe received it as a miracle of erudition.

"I say, Pip, old chap!" cried Joe, opening his blue eyes wide, "What a scholar you are!  Ain't you?" 

"I should like to be," said I glancing at the state as he held it: with the misgiving that the writing was rather hilly.

"Why, here's a J," said Joe, "and a O equal to anything! Here's a J and O Pip, and a J-O, Joe." 

I have never heard Joe read aloud to any greater extend than this monosyllable, and I observed at church last Sunday when I accidentally held our prayer book upside down, that it seemed to suit his convenience as well as if it had been alright.  Wishing to embrace the present occasion of finding out whether in teaching Joe I should have to begin quite at beginning, I said, "Ah! but read the rest Joe." 

"The rest, eh, Pip?" said Joe, looking at it with a slowly searching eye, one, two, three.  Why, here's the Js, and Os, and three Os, and three J-o, Joe's in it, Pip!" 

I leaned over Joe, and with the aid of my forefinger, read him the whole letter.

"Astonishing!" said Joe, when I had finished.

"You are a scholar."

"How do you spell Gargery, Joe?" I asked him, with a modest patronage.

"I don't spell it all," said Joe.

"But, supposing you did?"

"It can't be supposed," said Joe.  Though I am fond of reading, too." 

"Are you Joe?" 

"Uncommon.  Give me," said Joe, "Give me a good book, or a good news paper, and sit me down before a good fire, and ask me no better.  " "Lord! he continued after rubbing his knees a little, "when you come to J and O, and here at last is a J-O, Joe, how interesting reading is!" 

I derived from this, that Joe's education like steam was yet in its infancy.

"Didn't you ever go to school, Joe?"

"No, pip,

"Why?" 

"Well, Pip," said Joe, taking up the poker, and settling himself to his usual posture when he was thoughtful, and raking the fire between the lower bars:  I'll tell you.  My father, Pip, were given to drink, and when he were overtook with drink, he hammered away at my mother.  Most unmerciful was he. It were almost only hammering he did with a vigour equalled by vigour with which he didn't hammer at his anwil.

Are you listening me, Pip?"

"Yes, Joe."

"Consequence? Mother and me ran away from my father, several times.

And then she would go to work.  She would say, "Joe you shall have some schooling, child.  And she had put me to school.  My father was that good in his heart, he couldn't bear without us, and he would come with a crowd at the doors of the house we were, and the crowd would assure us that there would no more hammering.  

And then he took us home, and hammered us."  Joe paused in his meditative raking of the fire, looked at me and said, "there ended my school days." 

"Certainly, poor Joe." 

"Didn't you see Pip," said Joe, with a judicial touch or two of the poker on the top of the bar, "my father was that good in his heart, don't you see?"

"I didn't see, but I didn't say so."

"Well," Joe pursued, "somebody must keep the pot boiling, or the pot won't boil, don't you know?" 

I know that and I said so.

"My father didn't make any objections against my going to work.

So I went to work at my present calling.  My calling was his calling too.  If he would have stuck on to it I worked tolerably hard.  I were able to keep him till he went off, in a stroke.

Remember reader whatsoever he were that good in his heart.  I have decided to put a tombstone for him.

Joe recited this couplet with such manifest Pride and careful clarity, that I asked him if he had made it himself.

"I made it," said Joe, "myself. I made it in a moment. It was like striking out a horseshoe complete, in a single blow.  I never was so much surprised in all my life - couldn't credit my own ed - to tell you the truth, hardly believed it were my own ed.  As I was saying, Pip, it were my intentions to have had it cut over him, but poetry costs money, cut it how you will, small or large, and it were done.  Not to mention bearers, all the money that could be spared were wanted for my mother.  She were in poor health, and quite broke.  She weren't long of following, poor soul, and her share of peace came round at last." 

Joe's blue eyes turned a little watery, he rubbed, first one of them, and then the other, in most uncongenial and uncomfortable manner, with the round knob on the top of the poker.

"It were but lonesome then," said Joe, "living here alone, and I got acquainted with your sister.  Now, Pip," Joe looked firmly at me, as if he knew I was not going to agree with him; "your sister is a fine figure of a woman."  I could not help looking at fire, in an obvious state of doubt.

"Whatever family opinions, or whatever the world's opinions, on that subject may be, Pip, your sister is," Joe tapped the top bar with the poker after every word following, "a - fine - figure - of- a - woman!" 

I could think of nothing better to say than, "I am glad to think so, Joe." 

"So am I," returned Joe, catching me up.  "I am glad I think so, Pip.  A little redness, or a little matter of bone, here or there?  What does it signify to me?" 

I sagaciously observed, if it didn't signify to him, to whom did it signify?" 

"Certainly," said Joe.  "That's it.  You are right, old chap!  When I got acquainted with your sister, it were the talk how she was bringing you up by hand.  Very kind of her too, all the folks said, and I said along with all the folks.  As to you," Joe pursued, with a countenance expressive of seeing something very nasty indeed: "if you could have been aware of how small and flabby and mean you were, dear me, you would have formed the most contemptible opinions of yourself!" 

Not exactly relishing this, I said, "Never mind me, Joe."

"But I did mind you, Pip," he returned with tender simplicity.  "When I offered to your sister to keep company, and to be asked in church at such times as she was willing to ready to come to forge. And when she was ready, I said to her, "bring the child to the forge, there's room for him at the forge!" 

I broke out crying and begging pardon and hugged Joe round the neck, who dropped the poker, to hug me, and said, "Ever the best of friends, aren't we? Don't cry Pip, old chap"  

After this interruption Joe resumed, "That's about where it lights.  Here we are. You teach me learning alphabets and numbers.  I was awful dull before the learning.  Mrs Joe mustn't know what we are upto. It must be done on .  I'll tell you why, Pip." 

He took up the poker again, without which he could not have proceeded.

"Your sister is given to government."

"Given to government, Joe!" said l.

I was baffled by his statement.  Then came the answer of Joe.  "Given to government means," said Joe, "she is given to the government of you and I myself."

"Oh!"

"And she isn't over partial to having scholars on the premises," Joe continued, "and in particular would not be over partial to my being a scholar, for fear as I might rise.  Like a sort of rebel, don't you see?"

I was going to retort with an inquiry, and had got so far as "Why --- " when Joe stopped me.

"Stay a bit.  I know what you are going to say, Pip, I don't deny that your sister comes the Mo--gul over us now and again.  I don't deny that she do throw us back falls, snd that she do drop down upon us heavy.  At such times as when your sister is on the Ram-page," Joe sank his voice to a whisper and glanced at the door, "candour compels to admit that she is a Buster." 

Joe pronounced this word, as if it began with at least twelve capital Bs.

"Why don't I rise?  That were your observation when I broke it off, Pip?" 

"Yes, Joe." 

"Well," said Joe, passing the poker into his left hand, that he might feel his whisker and I had no hope of him whenever he took to that placid occupation.

"Your sister's a master-mind.  A master-mind."

"What's thst?" I asked him in some hope of bringing him to a stand.  But, Joe was redier with his definition, and completely stopped me by arguing circularly, and answering with a fixed look, "Her."

"And I am not a master-mind," Joe resumed, when he had unfixed his look, and got back to his whisker.

"And last of all, Pip -- and this I want to say very serious to you, old chap -- I see so much in my poor mother, of a woman drudging and slaving and breaking her honest heart and never getting peace in her mortal days, that I am dead afraid of going wrong in the way of not doing what's right by a woman and I would rather of the two go wrong the other way, and be little inconvenienced myself.  I wish it was only me that got put out, Pip; I wish there weren't no tickler for you, old chap; I wish I could take it all on myself, but this is the up-and-down-and-straight on it, Pip, and I hope you will overlook shortcomongs."

Young as I was, I believe that I dated a new admiration of Joe from that night.  We were equals afterwards, as we had been before.  But I had a new sensation of feeling that I was looking upto Joe in my heart.

"However," said Joe rising to replenish the fire; "here is the Dutch-clock working himself up to strike eight o'clock and she is not come home yet.  I hope uncle Pumblechook's mare may not have set fore-foot on a piece of ice, and gone down."

Mrs Joe made occasional trips with uncle Pumblechook on market days, to assist him buying such household stuffs and goods as required a woman's judgement; uncle being a bachelor and reposing no confidence in his domestic servant.

Joe made the fire and swept the hearth.  Then he went to the door to listen for the chaise cart.  It was a dry cold night.  The wind blew keenly. The frost was white and hard.  A man would die tonight of lying out on the marshes, I thought.  And then I looked at the stars, how awful it would be for a man to turn his face up to them as he froze to death, and see no help or pity in all the glittering multitude.

"Here comes the mare," said Joe, "ringing like a peal.of bells!" 

The sound of iron-shoes upon the hard road was quite rhythmical as she came along at a much brisker trot than usual.  We got a chair out, ready for Mrs Joe slighting, and stirred up the fire that they might see a bright window, and took a final survey of the kitchen that nothing might be out of its place.  When we had completed these preparations, they drove up wrapped to the eyes.  Mrs Joe was soon landed, and uncle Pumblechook was soon down too, covering the mare with a cloth, and we were all soon in kitchen, carrying so much cold air in with us that seemed to drive all the heat out of the fire.

"Now," said Mrs Joe, unwrapping herself with haste snd excitement, and throwing her bonnet back on her shoulders where it hung by the strings, "if this boy isn't grateful this night, he never will be." 

I looked as grateful as any boy possibly could, who was wholly uninformed why he aught to assume that expression.

"It's only to be hoped," said my sister, "that he won't be Pompeyed" 

"She isn't that line, said Mr Pumblechook. "She knows better."

She? I looked at Joe making the motion with my lips and eyebrows.

"She?" Joe looked at me with making the motion with his lips and eyebrows.

"She?" my sister catching him in the act, he threw back his hand across his nose with his usual conciliatory air on such occasions, and looked at her.

"Well," said my sister, in her snappish way.  "What are you staring at? Is the house on fire?"

"Who is this 'she' Joe politely asked.

"And she is a she, I suppose, said my sister.  "Unless you call Miss Havisham a she.  And I doubt if even you will go so far as that." 

"Miss Havisham, up town?" said Joe.

"Is there any Miss Havisham down town?" returned my sister, she wants the boy to go and play there.  And of course he is going.  And he had better play there," said my sister, shaking her head at me as an encouragement to be extremely light and sportive, "or I will work him."

I had heard of Miss Havisham 

up town --- as an immensely rich and grim lady who lived in a large and dismal house barricaded against robbers, and who led a life of seclusion.

"Well, to be sure!" said Joe, astounded.  "I wonder how she comes to know Pip!" 

"Noodle," cried my sister.  Who said she knew him?" 

"---Which some individual," Joe again politely hinted, "mentioned that she wanted him to go and play there." 

"And couldn't she ask uncle Pumblechook if he knew of a boy to go and play there?   Isn't it just barely possible that uncle Pumblechook may be a tenant of hers, and that he may sometimes go there to pay his rent?  And couldn't she then ask uncle Pumblechook, if he knew of a boy to go and play there?  And couldn't uncle Pumblechook, being always considerate and thoughtful for us -- though you may not think it 

Joseph," in a tone of the deep reproach, as if he were the most callous of nephews, "then mention this boy, standing prancing here" which I solemnly declare I was not doing -- that I have for ever been a willing slave to ?" 

"Good again," cried Pumblechook. Well put, pretty pointed!  Good indeed!  Now Joseph, you know the case."

"No, Joseph," said my sister, still in a reproachful manner, while Joe apologetically drew the back of his hand across and across his nose, "you do not knew the case.  For you do not know that uncle Pumblechook being sensible that for anything we can tell, this boy's fortune may be made by his going to Miss Havisham's has offered to take into town tonight, and take him with his own hands to Miss Havisham's tomorrow morning.  And Lor-a-mussy

me!" cried my sister, casting off her bonnet in sudden desperation, "here I stand talking to mere Mooncalfs, with uncle Pumblechook waiting, and the mare catching cold at the door, and the boy grimmed with crock and dirt from the hair of his head to the sole of his foot!" 

With that she pounced upon me, like an eagle on a lamb, and my face was squeezed into wooden bowls in sinks, and my head was put under taps of water-butts, and I was soaped and kneeded, and towelled and thumped, and harrowed and rasped, until I really was quite beside myself 

When my ablutions were completed, I was put into a clean linen of the stiffest character and was trussed up in my tight and fearful suit.  I was then delivered over to uncle Pumblechook, who formally received me as if he were the Sheriff.  He let off upon me the speech that I know he had been dying to make all along.

"Boy, be for ever grateful to all friends, but especially unto them which brought you up by hand!" 

"Good bye, Joe." 

"God bless you Pip, old chap!" 

I have never parted from him before, and what with my feelings, and what with my soapsuds, I could at first see no stars from the chaise cart.  But they twinkled out one by one, without throwing any lights on the questions why on earth I was going to play at Miss Havisham's, and what on earth I was expected to play at. 

End of the Chapter 7