Great Expectations by Charles Dickens - Chapter 57

to underlet them at once. I put bills up in the windows, for I was in debt and had scarcely any money, and began to be seriously alarmed by the state of my affairs. I ought rather to write that I should have been alarmed if I had had energy and concentration enough to help me to the clear person reception of any truth beyond the fact that I was falling very ill. The late stress upon me had enabled me to put off illness, but not to put it away.

I knew that it was coming on me now, and I knew very little else, and was even careless as to that. For a day or two I lay on the sofa or on the floor anywhere, according as I happened to sink down with a heavy head and aching limbs, and no purpose and no power. Then there came one night which appeared of great duration, and which teemed with anxiety and horror. And when in the morning I tried to sit up in my bed and think of it,

I found I could not do so. Whether I really had been down in guarding court in the dead of the night, groping about for the boat that I supposed to be there. Whether I had two or three times come to myself on the staircase with great terror, not knowing how I had got out of bed. Whether I had found myself lighting the lamp, possessed by the idea that he was coming up the stairs, and that the

lights were blown out. Whether I had been inexpressibly harassed by the distracted talking, laughing and groaning of some one, and had half suspected those sounds to be of my own making. Whether there had been a closed iron furnace in a dark corner of the room, and a voice had called out over and over again that Miss Havisham was consuming within it. These were things that I tried

to settle with myself and get into some order. As I lay that morning on my bed, but the vapor of a lime kiln would come between me and them, disordering them all. And it was through the vapor at last that I saw two men looking at me. What do you want? I asked, starting I don't know you well, sir, returned one of them down and touching me on the shoulder. This is a matter that you'll soon arrange, I dare say, But you're arrested. What is the debt? Hundred and twenty

three pound fifteen six jewelers account? I think what is to be done? You had better come to my house, said the man. I keep a very nice house. I made some attempt to get up and dress myself. When I next attended to them, they were standing a little off from the bed, looking at me. I still lay there, you see my state, said I. I would come with you if I could, But indeed I'm quite unable. If you take me from here, I think I shall die

by the way. Perhaps they replied, or argued the point, or tried to encourage me to believe that I was better than I thought, forasmuch as they hang in my memory by only this one slender thread. I don't know what they did, except that they forebore to remove me. That I had a fever and was avoided, That I suffered greatly, that I often lost my reason, that the time seemed interminable, That I confounded impossible existences with my

own identity. That I was a brick in the house wall and yet entreating to be released from the giddy place where the builders had set me. That I was a steel beam of a vast engine, clashing and whirling over a gulf, and yet that I implored in my own person to have the engine stopped, and my part in it hammered off. That I passed through these phases of disease.

I know of my own remembrance, and did in some sort know at the time that I sometimes struggled with real people in the belief that they were murderers, and that I would all at once comprehend that they meant to do me good, and would then sink, exhausted in

their arms, and suffer them to lay me down. I also knew at the time, But above all, I knew that there was a constant tendency in all these people who, when I was very ill would present all kinds of extraordinary transformations of the human face, and would be much dilated in size. Above all, I say, I knew that there was an extraordinary tendency in all these people sooner or later to settle down into the likeness of Joe.

After I had turned the worst point of my illness, I began to notice that while all its other features changed, this one consistent feature did not change. Whoever came about me still settled down into Joe. I opened my eyes in the night, and I saw in the great chair at the bedside Joe. I opened my eyes in the day, sitting on the window seat, smoking his pipe in the shaded open window, still I saw Joe. I asked for a cooling drink, and the dear hand that gave it

me was Joe's. I sank back on my pillow after drinking, and the face that looked so hopefully and tenderly upon me was the face of Joe. At last. One day I took courage and said, is it Joe? And the dear old home voice answered, which it are, old Chap, Oh, Joe, you break my heart. Don't look angry at me, Joe, strike me, Joe, tell me of my ingratitude. Don't be

so good to me. For Joe had actually laid his head down on the pillow at my side and put his arm round my neck in his joy that I knew him, which dear old Pip Old Chap said, Joe, you and me was ever French. And when you're well enough to go out for a ride, what larks? After which Joe withdrew to the window and stood with his back towards me, wiping his eyes. And as my extreme weakness prevented me from getting up and going to him, I lay there penitently whispering, Oh God, bless him, Oh God,

bless this gentle Christian man. Joe's eyes were red when I next found him beside me, but I was holding his hand, and we both felt happy. How long, dear Joe, which you meander, say, Pip? How long has your illness lasted, dear old Jep, Yes, Joe, it's the end of May, Pip. Tomorrow is the first of June. And have you been here all that time? Dear Joe, pretty nigh old Jep, For as I says to Biddy, when the news of your being ill were brought by letter, which it were

brought by the post and being formally single. He is now married, though underpaid for a deal of walking and shoe leather. But wealth were not an object on his part, and marriage were the great wish of his heart. It is so delightful to hear you, Joe, But I interrupt

you in what you said to Biddy. Which it were said Joe, that how you might be amongst strangers, and that how you and me, having been ever friends, a visit at such a moment might not prove unacceptababble and Biddy her word were go to him without loss of time, that said Joe, summing up with his judicial air, were the word of Biddy. Go to him, Biddy say without

loss of time. In short, I shouldn't greatly deceive you, Joe added, after a little grave reflection, if I represented to you that the word of that young woman were without a minute's loss of time. There Joe cut himself short and informed me that I was to be talked to in great moderation, and that I was to take a little nourishment at stated frequent times, whether I felt inclined for it or not, and that I was to

submit myself to all his orders. So I kissed his hand and lay quiet while he proceeded to indict a note to Biddy with my love in it. Evidently Biddy had taught Joe to write. As I lay in bed looking at him, it made me, in my weak state, cry again with pleasure to see the pride with which

he set about his letter. My bedstead, divested of its curtains, had been removed, with me upon it, into the sitting room as the ariiest and largest, and the carpet had been taken away, and the room kept always fresh and wholesome night in day, at my own writing table, pushed into a corner and cumbered with little bottles, Joe now sat down to his great work, first choosing a pen from the pen tray as if it were a chest of large tools, and tucking up his sleeves as if

he were going to wheel the crowbar or sledgehammer. It was necessary for Joe to hold on heavily to the table with his left elbow, and to get his right leg well out behind him before he could begin, And when he did begin, he made every downstroke so slowly that it might have been six feet long, while at

every upstroke I could hear his pens, spluttering extensively. He had a curious idea that the inkstand was on the side of him, where it was not, and constantly dipped his pen into space, and seemed quite satisfied with the result. Occasionally he was tripped up by some orthographical stumbling block,

but on the whole he got on very well. Indeed, and when he had signed his name and had removed a finishing blot from the paper to the crown of his head with his two forefingers, he got up and hovered about the table, trying the effect of his performance from various points of view as it lay there, with unbounded satisfaction. Not to make Joe uneasy by talking too much. Even if I had been able to talk much, I

deferred asking him about Miss Havisham until next day. He shook his head when I then asked him if she had recovered? Is she dead? Joe? Why? Y see, old chup, said Joe in a tone of remonstrance, and by way of getting at it by degrees. I wouldn't go so far as to say that, for that's a deal to say. But she ain't living, Joe, that's nigher where it is,

said Joe. She ain't living, did she linger? Long? Joe, are to you was took ill pretty much about what you might call if you was put to it a week, said Joe, still determined on my account to come at everything by degrees. Dear Joe, have you heard what becomes of her property? Well, old Chap, said Joe. It do appear that she had settled the most of it, which I mean to say, tied it up a miss a stella. But she had rode out a cottages shell in her own hand a day or two afore the accident, leaving

a cool four thousand to mister Matthew pocket. And why do you suppose, above all things Pip, she left that cool four thousand unto him because of Pip's account of him, the said Matthew. I am told by Biddy that ere the writing, said Joe, repeating the legal term, as if it did him infinite good account of him, the said Matthew,

And a cool four thousand Pip. I never discovered from whom Joe derived the conventional temperature of the four thousand pounds, but it appeared to make the sum of money more to him, and he had a manifest relish in insisting on its being cool. This account gave me great joy, as it perfected the only good thing I had done. I asked Joe whether he had heard if any of the other relations had any legacies. Miss Sarah said Joe, she have twenty five pound perennium forred buy pills on

account of being bilious. Miss Georgiana she have twenty pound down. Missus n what's the name of them? While beasts with Hump's, Old Chap Camels, said I, wondering why he could possibly want to know. Joe nodded missus Camel's, by which I presently understood he meant Camilla, she have five pounds for to buy rush lights to put her in spirits when she wake up in the night. The accuracy of these recitals was sufficiently obvious to me to give me great

confidence in Joe's information. And now, said Joe, you ain't that strong yet, old Chap that you can take him more, nor one additional shovelful to day, old orlick. He's been a bustin' open, a dwellin' house. Who's said, I not I grant you, but what his manners is given to blusterus, said Joe, apologetically still on englishmen's houses as castle and castles must not be busted except when done in war time. And whatsomever the feelings on his part? He were a

corn and seedsman in his heart. Is it Pomblchuk's house that has been broken into? Then that si it, Pip, said Joe. And they took his till, and they took his cash box, and they drinked his wine, and they partook of his whittles, and they slapped his face, and they pulled his nose, and they tied him up to his bedpost, and they give him a dozen and they stuffed his mouth full of flowering annuals to prevent his crying out. But he knowed dorlc and Orle's in the

county jail. By these approaches we arrived at unrestricted conversation. I was slow to gain strength, but I did slowly and surely become less weak. And Joe stayed with me, and I fancied I was little Pip again, for the tenderness of Joe was so beautifully proportioned to my need

that I was like a child in his hands. He would sit and talk to me in the old confidence and with the old simplicity, and in the old, unassertive, protecting way, so that I would half believe that all my life since the days of the old kid was one of the mental troubles of the fever that was gone.

He did everything for me except the household work, for which he had engaged a very decent woman, after paying off the laundress on his first arrival, which I do assure you, Pip, he would often say, in explanation of that liberty, I found her a tap in the spare bed like a cask of beer, and drawn off the feathers in a bucket for sale, which she would have tapped your next, and drawed it off with you a layin on it, and was then a carrying away the

coals gradually in the soup tureen, and vegetable dishes, and the wine and spirits in your wellington boots. We looked forward to the day when I should go out for a ride, as we had once looked forward to the day of my apprenticeship. And when the day came and an open carriage was got into the lane, Joe wrapped me up, took me in his arms, carried me down to it, and put me in. If I were still the small, helpless creature to whom he had so abundantly

given the wealth of his great nature. And Joe got in beside me, and we drove away together into the country, where the rich summer growth was already on the trees and on the grass, and sweet summer sands filled all the air. The day happened to be Sunday, And when I looked on the loveliness around me and thought how it had grown and changed, and how the little wild flowers had been forming, and the voices of the birds had been strengthening by day and by night, under the

sun and under the stars. While poor I lay burning and tossing on my bed, the mere remembrance of having burned and tossed there came like a check upon my peace. But when I heard the Sunday bells and looked around a little more upon the outspread beauty, I felt that I was not nearly thankful enough, that I was too weak yet to be even that laid my head on Joe's shoulder, as I had laid it long ago, when he had taken me to the fair or where not,

And it was too much for my young senses. More composure came to me after a while, and we talked as we used to talk lying on the grass at the old Battery. There was no change whatever in Joe. Exactly what he had been in my eyes then He was, in my eyes still just as simply faithful and is simply right. When we got back again, and he lifted me out and carried me so easily across the court and up the stairs, I thought of that eventful Christmas

day when he had carried me over the marshes. We had not yet made any allusion to my change of fortune, nor did I know how much of my late history he was acquainted with. I was so doubtful of myself now, and put so much trust in him, that I could not satisfy myself whether I ought to refer to it when he did not, Have you heard, Joe? I asked him that evening, upon further consideration, as he smoked his

pipe at the window. Who my patron was? I heard, returned Joe, As it were not Miss Havisham old Chap. Did you hear who it was? Joe? Well? I heard, as it were a person? What sent the person? What give you the banknotes? At the Jolly bargeman, Pip. So it was astonishing, said Joe in the placidest way. Did you hear that he was dead? Joe? I presently asked,

with increasing diffidence, which him has sent the bank notes? Pip. Yes, I think, said Joe, after meditating a long time and looking rather evasively at the windows, as I did hear tell that how he were something or other? In a general way? In that direction? Did you hear anything of his circumstances, Joe, not particular, Pip, but if you would like to hear Joe, I was beginning when Joe got up and came to my sofa. Look you here, old Chap, said Joe, bending over me. Ever, the best of friends,

ain't us? Pip. I was ashamed to answer him. We'rey good, then, said Joe. As if I had answered, that's all right, that's agreed upon. Then why go into subjects, old Chap, which, as betwixt two such, must be forever unnecessary? There are subjects enough this betwixt two such without unnecessary ones. Lord, to think of your poor sister and her rampages. And

don't you remember toler I do? Indeed, Joe, looky here, old Chup, said Joe, I've done what I could to keep you antickler in asunders, but my power was not always fully equal to my inclinations. For when your poor sister had a mind to drop into you, it were not so much, said Joe, in his favorite argumentative way. That you dropped into me too if I put myself in opposition to her, But that she dropped into you

always heavier for it. I noticed that it ain't a grab at a man's whisker, nor yet a shake or two of a man, to which your sister was quite welcome. That it put a man off from getting a little child out of punishment. But when that little child is dropped into heavier for that grab a whisker or shaken, then that man naturally up and says to himself, where is the good as you are a doing? I grant you. I see the harm, said the man, But I don't see the good. I call upon you, sir, therefore, to

point out the good, the man says, I observed. As Joe waited for me to speak, the man says, Joe assented. Is he right, that man, Dear Joe, He is always right? Well, old Chap, said Joe. Then abide by your words. If he's always right, which in general he's more likely wrong, he's right when he says this. Supposing ever you kept any little matter to yourself when you was a little child, you kept it mostly because you knowed as j Gargery's power to part you and Tickler in sunders were not

fully equal to his inclinations. Therefore, I think no more of it as betwixt two such, and do not let us pass remarks upon unnecessary subject. Biddy give herself a deal of trouble with me before I left, for I am almost awful dull, as I should view it in this light, and viewing it in this light, as I should so put it, both of which said Joe, quite charmed with his logical arrangement being done. Now this to you, a true friend, say, namely, you mustn't go a overdoing

on it. But you must have your supper and your wine and water, and you must be put betwixt the sheets. The delicacy with which Joe dismissed this theme, and the sweet tact and kindness with which Biddy, who with her woman's wit had found me out so soon, had prepared him for it, made a deep impression on my mind. But whether Joe knew how poor I was, and how my great expectations had all dissolved like our own martial

mists before the sun. I could not understand another thing in Joe that I could not understand when it first began to develop itself, but which I soon arrived at a sorrowful comprehension of. Was this. As I became stronger and better, Joe became a little less easy with me in my weakness, an entire dependence on him. The dear fellow had fallen into the old tone and called me by the old names, the dear old pip old chap

that now were music in my ears. I too had fallen into the old ways, only happy and thankful that he let me. But imperceptibly, though I held by them fast, Joe's hold upon them began to slacken. And whereas I wondered at this at first, I soon began to understand that the cause of it was in me, and that the fault of it was all mine. Ah, Had I given Joe no reason to doubt my constancy and to think that, in prosperity I should grow cold to him

and cast him off? Had I given Joe's innocent heart no cause to feel instinctively that as I got stronger, his hold upon me would be weaker, and that he had better loosen it in time and let me go before I plucked myself away. It was on the third or fourth occasion of my going out walking in the Temple gardens, leading on Joe's arm, that I saw this change in him very plainly. We had been sitting in the bright, warm sunlight looking at the river, and I chanced to say, as we got up, see Joe, I

can walk quite strongly. Now you shall see me walk back by myself. Which do not overdo it, pip, said Joe. But I shall be happy for to see ye, able, sir. The last word grated on me, But how could I remonstrate? I walked no further than the gate of the gardens, and then pretended to be weaker than I was, and asked Joe for his arm. Joe gave it me, but

was thoughtful. I, for my part, was thoughtful too, for how best to check this growing change in Joe was a great perplexity to my remorseful thoughts that I was ashamed to tell him exactly how I was placed and what I had come down to. I do not seek to conceal, but I hope my reluctance was not quite an unworthy one. He would want to help me out of his little savings. I knew, and I knew that he ought not to help me, that I must not suffer him to do it. It was a thoughtful evening

with both of us. But before we went to bed, I had resolved that I would wait over tomorrow tomorrow being Sunday, and would begin my new course with the new week. On Monday morning. I would speak to Joe about this change. I would lay aside this last vestige of reserve. I would tell him what I had in my thoughts that secondly not yet arrived at, and why I had not decided to go out to Herbert, and

then the change would be conquered forever. As I cleared, Joe cleared, and it seemed as though he had sympathetically arrived at a resolution too. We had a quiet day on the Sunday, and we rode out into the country and then walked in the fields. I feel thankful that I have been ill, Joe, I said, dear old pip Old Chap, you're almost come round, sir. It has been a memorable time for me Joe, likewise for myself, Sir. Joe returned, We have had a time to gather, Joe,

that I can never forget. There were days once I know that I did did for a while forget, But I never shall forget these Pip, said Joe, appearing a little hurried and troubled. There has been larks, and dear sir, what has been betwixt us have been? At night, when I had gone to bed, Joe came into my room, as he had done all through my recovery. He asked me if I felt sure that I was as well as in the morning, Yes, dear Joe, quite, and are

always getting stronger, old Chap, Yes, dear Joe. Steadily, Joe patted the coverlet on my shoulder with his great good hand and said, in what I thought a husky voice, good night. When I got up in the morning, refreshed and stronger, yet I was full of my resolution to tell Joe all without delay. I would tell him before breakfast. I would dress it once, go to his room and surprise him, for it was the first day I had been up early. I went to his room and he

was not there. Not only was he not there, but his box was gone. I hurried then to the breakfast table, and on it found a letter. These were its brief contents, not wishful to intrude. I have departured for you are well again, dear Pip, and will do better without j O. P s Ever, the best of friends. Enclosed in the letter was a receipt for the debt and costs on which I had been arrested. Down to that moment, I had vainly supposed that my creditor had withdrawn or suspended

proceedings until I should be quite recovered. I had never dreamed of Joe's having paid the money. But Joe had paid it, and the receipt was in his name. What remained for me now but to follow him to the dear old Forge, and there to have out my disclosure to him, and my penitent remonstrance with him, and there to relieve my mind and heart of that reserved. Secondly, which had begun as a vague something lingering in my thoughts,

and it formed into a settled purpose. The purpose was that I would go to Biddy, that I would show her how humbled and repentant I came back, that I would tell her how I had lost all I once hoped for, that I would remind her of our old confidences in my first unhappy time. Then I would say to her, Biddy, I think you once liked me very well, when my errant heart, even while it strayed away from you, was quieter and better with you than it ever has

been since. If you can like me only half as well once more, if you can take me with all my faults and disappointments on my head, if you can receive me like a forgiven child. And indeed I am as sorry, Biddy, and have as much need of a hushing voice and a soothing hand. I hope I am a little worthier of you than I was. Not much

but a little. And Biddy, it shall rest with you to say whether I shall work at the forge with Joe, or whether I shall try for any different occupation down in this country, or whether we shall go away to a distant place where an opportunity awaits me, which I set aside when it was offered until I knew your answer. And now, dear Biddy, if you can tell me that you will go through the world with me. You will surely make it a better world for me, and me a better man for it, and I will try hard

to make it a better world for you. Such was my purpose. After three days more of recovery, I went down to the old place to put it in execution. And how I sped in it is all I have left to tell. End of chapter