Speaker 1: Chapter fifty one of Great Expectations. This is a LibriVox recording.
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Speaker 1: recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. Great
Speaker 1: Expectations by Charles Dickens, chapter fifty one. What purpose I
Speaker 1: had in view when I was hot on tracing out
Speaker 1: improving Astella's parentage? I cannot say. It will presently be
Speaker 1: seen that the question was not before me in a
Speaker 1: distinct shape until it was put before me by a
Speaker 1: wiser head than my own. But when Herbert and I
Speaker 1: had held our momentous conversation, I was seized with a
Speaker 1: feverish conviction that I ought to hunt the matter down,
Speaker 1: that I ought not to let it rest, but that
Speaker 1: I ought to see mister Jaggers and come at the
Speaker 1: bare truth. I really do not know whether I felt
Speaker 1: that I did this for Estella's sake, or whether I
Speaker 1: was glad to transfer to the man in whose preservation
Speaker 1: I was so much concerned some rays of the romantic
Speaker 1: interest that had so long surrounded me. Perhaps the latter
Speaker 1: possibility may be the nearer to the truth anyway, I
Speaker 1: could scarcely be withheld from going out to Gerard Street
Speaker 1: that night. Herbert's representations that if I did, I should
Speaker 1: probably be laid up and stricken useless, when our fugitive
Speaker 1: safety would depend upon me alone restrained my impatience on
Speaker 1: the understanding again and again reiterated that come what would
Speaker 1: I was to go to mister Jagger's tomorrow. I at
Speaker 1: length submitted to keep quiet and to have my hurts
Speaker 1: looked after, and to stay at home. Early next morning
Speaker 1: we went out together, and at the corner of Guiltspur
Speaker 1: Street by Smithfield, I left Herbert to go his way
Speaker 1: into the city and took my way to Little Britain.
Speaker 1: There were periodical occasions when mister Jaggers and Wemmick went
Speaker 1: over the office accounts and checked off the vouchers and
Speaker 1: put all things straight. On these occasions, Wemmick took his
Speaker 1: books and papers into mister Jaggers's room, and one of
Speaker 1: the upstairs clerks came down into the outer office, finding
Speaker 1: such clerk on Wemmick's post. That morning, I knew what
Speaker 1: was going on, but I was not sorry to have
Speaker 1: mister Jaggers and Wemmick together, as Wemmick would then hear
Speaker 1: for himself that I said nothing to compromise him. My appearance,
Speaker 1: with my arm bandaged in my coat loose over my shoulders,
Speaker 1: favored my object. Although I had sent mister Jaggers a
Speaker 1: brief account of the accident as soon as I had
Speaker 1: arrived in town, yet I had to give him all
Speaker 1: the details now, and the specialty of the occasion caused
Speaker 1: our talk to be less dry and hard, and less
Speaker 1: strictly regulated by the rules of evidence than it had
Speaker 1: been before. When I described the disaster, mister Jaggers stood
Speaker 1: according to his wont before the fire. Wemmick leaned back
Speaker 1: in his chair, staring at me, with his hands in
Speaker 1: the pockets of his trousers and his pen put horizontally
Speaker 1: into the post. The two brutal casts, always inseparable in
Speaker 1: my mind from the official proceedings, seemed to be congestively
Speaker 1: considering whether they didn't smell fire. At the present moment,
Speaker 1: my narrative finished and their questions exhausted, I then produced
Speaker 1: Miss Havisham's authority to receive the nine hundred pounds for Herbert.
Speaker 1: Mister Jaggers's eyes retired a little deeper into his head
Speaker 1: when I handed him the tablets, but he presently handed
Speaker 1: them over to Wemmick with instructions to draw the check
Speaker 1: for his signature. While that was in course of being done,
Speaker 1: I looked on at Wemmick as he wrote, and mister Jaggers,
Speaker 1: poising and swaying himself on his well polished boots, looked
Speaker 1: done at me. I am sorry, Pip, said he, as
Speaker 1: I put the check in my pocket when he had
Speaker 1: signed it, that we do nothing for you. Miss Havisham
Speaker 1: was good enough to ask me. I returned whether she
Speaker 1: could do nothing for me? And I told her no.
Speaker 1: Everybody should know his own business, said mister Jaggers. And
Speaker 1: I saw Wemmick's lips form the words portable property. I
Speaker 1: should not have told her no if I had been you,
Speaker 1: said mister Jaggers. But every man ought to know his
Speaker 1: own business. Best. Every man's business, said Wemmick, rather reproachfully
Speaker 1: towards me is portable property. As I thought, the time
Speaker 1: was now come for pursuing the theme I had at heart,
Speaker 1: I said, turning on mister Jaggers, I did ask something
Speaker 1: of Miss Havisham. However, Sir, I asked her to give
Speaker 1: me some information relative to her adopted daughter, and she
Speaker 1: gave me all she possessed. Did she said mister Jaggers,
Speaker 1: bending forward to look at his boots and then straightening himself. Ah,
Speaker 1: I don't think I should have done so if I
Speaker 1: had been Miss Havisham, but she ought to know her
Speaker 1: own business best. I know more of the history of
Speaker 1: Miss Havisham's adopted child than Miss Havisham herself does, Sir.
Speaker 1: I know her mother. Mister Jaggers looked at me inquiringly
Speaker 1: and repeated, mother, I have seen her mother within these
Speaker 1: three days, yes, said mister Jaggers. And so have you, sir.
Speaker 1: And you have seen her still more recently, yes, said
Speaker 1: mister Jaggers. Perhaps I know more of Estella's history than
Speaker 1: even you do, said I I know her father too.
Speaker 1: A certain stop that mister Jaggers came to in his manner.
Speaker 1: He was too self possessed to change his manner, but
Speaker 1: he could not help its being brought to an indefinably
Speaker 1: attentive stop, assured me that he did not know who
Speaker 1: her father was. This I had strongly suspected from Provis's account,
Speaker 1: as Herbert had repeated it, of his having kept himself dark,
Speaker 1: which I pieced on to the fact that he himself
Speaker 1: was not mister Jagger's client until some four years later,
Speaker 1: and when he could have no reason for claiming his identity.
Speaker 1: But I could not be sure of this unconsciousness on
Speaker 1: mister Jaggers's part before, though I was quite sure of
Speaker 1: it now. So you know the young lady's father, Pip said,
Speaker 1: mister Jaggers, Yes, I replied, and his name is Provis
Speaker 1: from New South Wales. Even mister Jaggers started when I
Speaker 1: said those words. It was the slightest start they could
Speaker 1: escape a man, the most carefully repressed and the sooner checked.
Speaker 1: But he did start, though he made it a part
Speaker 1: of the action of taking out his pocket handkerchief. How
Speaker 1: Wemmick received the announcement, I am unable to say, for
Speaker 1: I was afraid to look at him just then, lest
Speaker 1: mister Jagger's sharpness should detect that there have been some
Speaker 1: communication unknown to him between us. And on what evidence?
Speaker 1: Pip asked mister Jaggers very coolly, as he paused with
Speaker 1: his handkerchief halfway to his nose does provis make this claim.
Speaker 1: He does not make it, said I, and has never
Speaker 1: made it, and has no knowledge or belief that his
Speaker 1: daughter is in existence. For once the powerful pocket handkerchief failed,
Speaker 1: my reply was so unexpected that mister Jaggers put the
Speaker 1: handkerchief back into his pocket without completing the usual performance,
Speaker 1: folded his arms, and looked with stern attention at me,
Speaker 1: though with then immovable face. Then I told him all
Speaker 1: I knew and how I knew it, with the one
Speaker 1: reservation that I left him to infer that I knew
Speaker 1: from Miss Havisham what I in fact knew from Wemmick.
Speaker 1: I was very careful, indeed as to that. Nor did
Speaker 1: I look towards Wemmick until I had finished all I
Speaker 1: had to tell, and had been for some time silently
Speaker 1: meeting mister Jaggers's look. When I did at last turned
Speaker 1: my eyes in Wemmick's direction, I found that he had
Speaker 1: unposted his pen and was intent upon the table before him. Ha,
Speaker 1: said mister Jaggers at last, as he moved towards the
Speaker 1: papers on the table. What item was it? You were at,
Speaker 1: Wemmick when mister Pip came in, but I could not
Speaker 1: submit to be thrown often that way, and I made
Speaker 1: a passionate, almost an indignant, appeal to him to be
Speaker 1: more frank and manly with me. I reminded him of
Speaker 1: the fall hopes into which I had lapsed, the length
Speaker 1: of time they had lasted, and the discovery I had made,
Speaker 1: and I hinted at the danger that weighed upon my spirits.
Speaker 1: I represented myself as being surely worthy of some little
Speaker 1: confidence from him in return for the confidence I had
Speaker 1: just now imparted. I said that I did not blame him,
Speaker 1: or suspect him, or mistrust him, but I wanted assurance
Speaker 1: of the truth from him, And if he asked me
Speaker 1: why I wanted it, and why I thought I had
Speaker 1: any right to it, I would tell him little, as
Speaker 1: he cared for such poor dreams, that I had loved
Speaker 1: Distella dearly and long, and that although I had lost
Speaker 1: her and must live a bereaved life, whatever concerned her,
Speaker 1: was still nearer and dearer to me than anything else
Speaker 1: in the world. And seeing that mister Jaggers stood quite
Speaker 1: still and silent, and apparently quite obdurate under this appeal,
Speaker 1: I turned to Wemmick and said Wemmick, I know you
Speaker 1: to be a man with a gentle heart. I have
Speaker 1: seen your pleasant home, and your old father, and all
Speaker 1: the innocent, cheerful, playful ways with which you refresh your
Speaker 1: business life. And I entreat you to say a word
Speaker 1: for me to mister Jaggers, and to represent to him
Speaker 1: that all circumstance is considered. He ought to be more
Speaker 1: open with me. I have never seen two men look
Speaker 1: more oddly at one another than mister Jaggers and Wemmick
Speaker 1: did after this apostrophe. At first a misgiving crossed me
Speaker 1: that Wemmick would be instantly dismissed from his employment. But
Speaker 1: it melted as I saw mister Jaggers relax into something
Speaker 1: like a smile, and Wemmick became bolder. What's all this,
Speaker 1: said mister Jaggers, You with an old father, and you
Speaker 1: with pleasant and playful ways, well, returned Wemmick. If I
Speaker 1: don't bring him here, what does it matter, Pip, said
Speaker 1: mister Jaggers, laying his hand upon my arm and smiling openly.
Speaker 1: This man must be the most cunning impostor in all London.
Speaker 1: Not a bit of it, returned Wemmick. Growing bolder and bolder.
Speaker 1: I think you're another again. They exchanged their former odd looks,
Speaker 1: each apparently still distrustful that the other was taking him in.
Speaker 1: You with a pleasant home, said mister Jaggers, since you
Speaker 1: don't interfere with business, returned Wemmick. Let it be so.
Speaker 1: Now I look at you, sir, I shouldn't wonder if
Speaker 1: you might be planning and contriving to have a pleasant
Speaker 1: home of your own one of these days, when you're
Speaker 1: tired of all this work. Mister Jaggers nodded his head
Speaker 1: retrospectively two or three times, and actually drew a sigh.
Speaker 1: Pip said he we won't talk about poor dreams. And
Speaker 1: you know more about such things then I having much
Speaker 1: pressure experience of that kind. But now about this other matter,
Speaker 1: how put a case to you? Mind, I admit nothing.
Speaker 1: He waited for me to declare that. I quite understood that.
Speaker 1: He expressly said that he admitted nothing. Now, Pip said,
Speaker 1: mister Jaggers. Put this case. Put the case that a woman,
Speaker 1: under such circumstances as you have mentioned, held her child
Speaker 1: concealed and was obliged to communicate the fact to her
Speaker 1: legal adviser. On his representing to her that he must
Speaker 1: know with an eye to the latitude of his defense,
Speaker 1: how the fact stood about that child. Put the case
Speaker 1: that at the same time he held a trust to
Speaker 1: find a child for an eccentric, rich lady to adopt
Speaker 1: and bring up. I follow you, sir. Put the case
Speaker 1: that he lived in an atmosphere of evil, and that
Speaker 1: all he saw of children was their being generated in
Speaker 1: great numbers for certain destruction. Put the case that he
Speaker 1: often saw children solemnly tried at a criminal bar, where
Speaker 1: they were held up to be seen. Put the case
Speaker 1: that he habitually knew of their being imprisoned, whipped, transported, neglected, cast,
Speaker 1: doubt qualified in all ways for the hangman, and growing
Speaker 1: up to be hanged. Put the case that pretty nigh
Speaker 1: all the children he saw in his daily business life
Speaker 1: he had reason to look upon as so much spawn
Speaker 1: to develop into the fish that were to come to
Speaker 1: his net to be prosecuted, defended, forsworn, made orphans be
Speaker 1: deviled somehow, I follow you, sir. Put the case, Pip
Speaker 1: that here was one pretty little child out of the
Speaker 1: heap who could be saved, whom the father believed dead
Speaker 1: and dared make no stir about as to whom over
Speaker 1: the mother the legal adviser had this power. I know
Speaker 1: what you did and how you did it. You came
Speaker 1: so and so you did such and such things to
Speaker 1: divert suspicion. I have tracked you through it all, and
Speaker 1: I tell it you all part with a child unless
Speaker 1: it should be necessary to produce it to clear you,
Speaker 1: And then it shall be produced. Give the child into
Speaker 1: my hands, and I will do my best to bring
Speaker 1: you off. If you are saved, your child is saved too.
Speaker 1: If you are lost, your child is still saved. Put
Speaker 1: the case that this was done, and that the woman
Speaker 1: was cleared. I understand you perfectly, but that I make
Speaker 1: no admissions. That you make no admissions, and Wemmick repeated
Speaker 1: no admissions. Put the case, Pip that passion and the
Speaker 1: terror of death had a little shaken the woman's intellects,
Speaker 1: and that when she was set at liberty, she was
Speaker 1: scared out of the ways of the world and went
Speaker 1: to him to be sheltered. Put the case that he
Speaker 1: took her in and that he kept down the old, wild,
Speaker 1: violent nature whenever he saw an inkling of its breaking
Speaker 1: out by asserting his power over her in the old way.
Speaker 1: Do you comprehend the imaginary case quite put the case
Speaker 1: that the child grew up and was married for money,
Speaker 1: That the mother was still living, that the father was
Speaker 1: still living, That the mother and father, unknown to one another,
Speaker 1: were dwelling within so many miles furlongs yards, if you like,
Speaker 1: of one another. That the secret was still a secret,
Speaker 1: except that you had got wind of it. Put that
Speaker 1: last case yourself very carefully. I do. I ask Wemmick
Speaker 1: to put it to himself very carefully, And Wemmick said,
Speaker 1: I do. For whose sake would you reveal the secret?
Speaker 1: For the father's I think he would not be much
Speaker 1: the better For the mother. For the mothers, I think
Speaker 1: if she had done such a deed, she would be
Speaker 1: safer where she was. For the daughters, I think it
Speaker 1: would hardly serve her to establish her parentage for the
Speaker 1: information of her husband, and to drag her back to
Speaker 1: disgrace after an escape of twenty years. Pretty secure to
Speaker 1: last for life. But add the case that you had
Speaker 1: loved her, Pip and had made her the subject of
Speaker 1: those poor dreams, which have it one time or another,
Speaker 1: been in the heads of more men than you think likely.
Speaker 1: Then I tell you that you had better and would
Speaker 1: much sooner when you would thought well of it. Chop
Speaker 1: off that bandage left hand of yours with your bandaged
Speaker 1: right hand, and then passed the chopper on to Wennick
Speaker 1: here to cut that off too. I looked at Wemmick,
Speaker 1: whose face was very grave. He gravely touched his lips
Speaker 1: with his forefinger. I did the same. Mister Jaggers did
Speaker 1: the same. Now, Wemmick said the latter, then resuming his
Speaker 1: usual manner. What item was it you were at? When
Speaker 1: mister Pipp came in Standing by for a little while
Speaker 1: they were at work, I observed that the odd looks
Speaker 1: they had cast at one another were repeated several times
Speaker 1: with this difference. Now that each of them seemed suspicious,
Speaker 1: not to say conscious of having shown himself in a
Speaker 1: weak and unprofessional light to the other. For this reason,
Speaker 1: I suppose they were now inflexible with one another, mister
Speaker 1: Jaggers being highly dictatorial, and Wemmick obstinately justifying himself whenever
Speaker 1: there was the smallest point in abeyance for a moment.
Speaker 1: I had never seen them on such ill terms, for
Speaker 1: generally they got on very well indeed together. But they
Speaker 1: were both happily relieved by the opportune appearance of Mike,
Speaker 1: the client with the fur cap and the habit of
Speaker 1: wiping his nose on his sleeve, whom I had seen
Speaker 1: on the very first day of my appearance within these walls.
Speaker 1: This individual, who, either in his own person or in
Speaker 1: that of some member of his family, seemed to be
Speaker 1: always in trouble, which, in that place meant Newgate called
Speaker 1: to announce that his eldest daughter was taken up on
Speaker 1: suspicion of shop lifting. As he imparted this melancholy circumstance
Speaker 1: to Whimmick, mister Jaggers, standing magisterially before the fire and
Speaker 1: taking no share in the proceedings, Mike's eye happened to
Speaker 1: twinkle with a tear. What are you about, demanded Wemmick,
Speaker 1: with the utmost indignation. What do you come sniveling here? For?
Speaker 1: I didn't go to do it, mister Wemmick, You did,
Speaker 1: said Wemmick, How dare you? You're not in a fit
Speaker 1: state to come here? If you can't come here without
Speaker 1: spluttering like a bad pen, what do you mean by it?
Speaker 1: A man can't help these feelings, mister Wemmick pleaded Mike.
Speaker 1: He's what, demanded Wemmick, quite savagely, say that again. Now
Speaker 1: look here, my man, said mister Jaggers, advancing a step
Speaker 1: and pointing to the door. Get out of this office.
Speaker 1: I'll have no feelings here. Get out. It's Sergey right,
Speaker 1: said Wemmick. Get out. So the unfortunate Mike very humbly
Speaker 1: Withdrew and mister Jaggers and Wemmick appeared to have re
Speaker 1: established their good understanding and went to work again, with
Speaker 1: an air of refreshment upon them, as if they had
Speaker 1: just had lunch. End of chapter