"I dare say you wonder at me, Mr. Pip; indeed I see you do. But itis so very strange! You'll hardly believe what I am going to tellyou. I could hardly believe it myself, if you told me."

"Indeed?" said I.

"No, indeed. Mr. Pip, you remember in old times a certain ChristmasDay, when you were quite a child, and I dined at Gargery's, andsome soldiers came to the door to get a pair of handcuffs mended?"

"I remember it very well."

"And you remember that there was a chase after two convicts, andthat we joined in it, and that Gargery took you on his back, andthat I took the lead and you kept up with me as well as you could?"

"I remember it all very well." Better than he thought - except thelast clause.

"And you remember that we came up with the two in a ditch, and thatthere was a scuffle between them, and that one of them had beenseverely handled and much mauled about the face, by the other?"

"I see it all before me."

"And that the soldiers lighted torches, and put the two in thecentre, and that we went on to see the last of them, over the blackmarshes, with the torchlight shining on their faces - I amparticular about that; with the torchlight shining on their faces,when there was an outer ring of dark night all about us?"

"Yes," said I. "I remember all that."

"Then, Mr. Pip, one of those two prisoners sat behind you tonight. Isaw him over your shoulder."

"Steady!" I thought. I asked him then, "Which of the two do yousuppose you saw?"

"The one who had been mauled," he answered readily, "and I'll swearI saw him! The more I think of him, the more certain I am of him."

"This is very curious!" said I, with the best assumption I couldput on, of its being nothing more to me. "Very curious indeed!"

I cannot exaggerate the enhanced disquiet into which thisconversation threw me, or the special and peculiar terror I felt atCompeyson's having been behind me "like a ghost." For, if he hadever been out of my thoughts for a few moments together since thehiding had begun, it was in those very moments when he was closestto me; and to think that I should be so unconscious and off myguard after all my care, was as if I had shut an avenue of ahundred doors to keep him out, and then had found him at my elbow.I could not doubt either that he was there, because I was there,and that however slight an appearance of danger there might beabout us, danger was always near and active.

I put such questions to Mr. Wopsle as, When did the man come in? Hecould not tell me that; he saw me, and over my shoulder he saw theman. It was not until he had seen him for some time that he beganto identify him; but he had from the first vaguely associated himwith me, and known him as somehow belonging to me in the oldvillage time. How was he dressed? Prosperously, but not noticeablyotherwise; he thought, in black. Was his face at all disfigured?No, he believed not. I believed not, too, for, although in mybrooding state I had taken no especial notice of the people behindme, I thought it likely that a face at all disfigured would haveattracted my attention.

When Mr. Wopsle had imparted to me all that he could recall or Iextract, and when I had treated him to a little appropriaterefreshment after the fatigues of the evening, we parted. It wasbetween twelve and one o'clock when I reached the Temple, and thegates were shut. No one was near me when I went in and went home.

Herbert had come in, and we held a very serious council by thefire. But there was nothing to be done, saving to communicate toWemmick what I had that night found out, and to remind him that wewaited for his hint. As I thought that I might compromise him if Iwent too often to the Castle, I made this communication by letter.I wrote it before I went to bed, and went out and posted it; andagain no one was near me. Herbert and I agreed that we could donothing else but be very cautious. And we were very cautious indeed- more cautious than before, if that were possible - and I for mypart never went near Chinks's Basin, except when I rowed by, andthen I only looked at Mill Pond Bank as I looked at anything else.

Chapter 48

The second of the two meetings referred to in the last chapter,occurred about a week after the first. I had again left my boat atthe wharf below Bridge; the time was an hour earlier in theafternoon; and, undecided where to dine, I had strolled up intoCheapside, and was strolling along it, surely the most unsettledperson in all the busy concourse, when a large hand was laid uponmy shoulder, by some one overtaking me. It was Mr. Jaggers's hand,and he passed it through my arm.

"As we are going in the same direction, Pip, we may walk together.Where are you bound for?"

"For the Temple, I think," said I.

"Don't you know?" said Mr. Jaggers.

"Well," I returned, glad for once to get the better of him incross-examination, "I do not know, for I have not made up my mind."

"You are going to dine?" said Mr. Jaggers. "You don't mind admittingthat, I suppose?"

"No," I returned, "I don't mind admitting that."

"And are not engaged?"

"I don't mind admitting also, that I am not engaged."

"Then," said Mr. Jaggers, "come and dine with me."

I was going to excuse myself, when he added, "Wemmick's coming."So, I changed my excuse into an acceptance - the few words I haduttered, serving for the beginning of either - and we went alongCheapside and slanted off to Little Britain, while the lights werespringing up brilliantly in the shop windows, and the streetlamp-lighters, scarcely finding ground enough to plant theirladders on in the midst of the afternoon's bustle, were skipping upand down and running in and out, opening more red eyes in thegathering fog than my rushlight tower at the Hummums had openedwhite eyes in the ghostly wall.

At the office in Little Britain there was the usual letter-writing,hand-washing, candle-snuffing, and safe-locking, that closed thebusiness of the day. As I stood idle by Mr. Jaggers's fire, itsrising and falling flame made the two casts on the shelf look as ifthey were playing a diabolical game at bo-peep with me; while thepair of coarse fat office candles that dimly lighted Mr. Jaggers ashe wrote in a corner, were decorated with dirty winding-sheets, asif in remembrance of a host of hanged clients.

We went to Gerrard-street, all three together, in a hackney coach:and as soon as we got there, dinner was served. Although I shouldnot have thought of making, in that place, the most distantreference by so much as a look to Wemmick's Walworth sentiments,yet I should have had no objection to catching his eye now and thenin a friendly way. But it was not to be done. He turned his eyes onMr. Jaggers whenever he raised them from the table, and was as dryand distant to me as if there were twin Wemmicks and this was thewrong one.

"Did you send that note of Miss Havisham's to Mr. Pip, Wemmick?" Mr.Jaggers asked, soon after we began dinner.

"No, sir," returned Wemmick; "it was going by post, when youbrought Mr. Pip into the office. Here it is." He handed it to hisprincipal, instead of to me.

"It's a note of two lines, Pip," said Mr. Jaggers, handing it on,"sent up to me by Miss Havisham, on account of her not being sureof your address. She tells me that she wants to see you on a littlematter of business you mentioned to her. You'll go down?"

"Yes," said I, casting my eyes over the note, which was exactly inthose terms.

"When do you think of going down?"

"I have an impending engagement," said I, glancing at Wemmick, whowas putting fish into the post-office, "that renders me ratheruncertain of my time. At once, I think."

"If Mr. Pip has the intention of going at once," said Wemmick to Mr.Jaggers, "he needn't write an answer, you know."

Receiving this as an intimation that it was best not to delay, Isettled that I would go to-morrow, and said so. Wemmick drank aglass of wine and looked with a grimly satisfied air at Mr. Jaggers,but not at me.

"So, Pip! Our friend the Spider," said Mr. Jaggers, "has played hiscards. He has won the pool."

It was as much as I could do to assent.

"Hah! He is a promising fellow - in his way - but he may not haveit all his own way. The stronger will win in the end, but thestronger has to be found out first. If he should turn to, and beather--"

"Surely," I interrupted, with a burning face and heart, "you do notseriously think that he is scoundrel enough for that, Mr. Jaggers?"

"I didn't say so, Pip. I am putting a case. If he should turn toand beat her, he may possibly get the strength on his side; if itshould be a question of intellect, he certainly will not. It wouldbe chance work to give an opinion how a fellow of that sort willturn out in such circumstances, because it's a toss-up between tworesults."

"May I ask what they are?"

"A fellow like our friend the Spider," answered Mr. Jaggers, "eitherbeats, or cringes. He may cringe and growl, or cringe and notgrowl; but he either beats or cringes. Ask Wemmick his opinion."

"Either beats or cringes," said Wemmick, not at all addressinghimself to me.

"So, here's to Mrs. Bentley Drummle," said Mr. Jaggers, taking adecanter of choicer wine from his dumb-waiter, and filling for eachof us and for himself, "and may the question of supremacy besettled to the lady's satisfaction! To the satisfaction of the ladyand the gentleman, it never will be. Now, Molly, Molly, Molly,Molly, how slow you are to-day!"

She was at his elbow when he addressed her, putting a dish upon thetable. As she withdrew her hands from it, she fell back a step ortwo, nervously muttering some excuse. And a certain action of herfingers as she spoke arrested my attention.

"What's the matter?" said Mr. Jaggers.

"Nothing. Only the subject we were speaking of," said I, "wasrather painful to me."

The action of her fingers was like the action of knitting. Shestood looking at her master, not understanding whether she was freeto go, or whether he had more to say to her and would call her backif she did go. Her look was very intent. Surely, I had seen exactlysuch eyes and such hands, on a memorable occasion very lately!

He dismissed her, and she glided out of the room. But she remainedbefore me, as plainly as if she were still there. I looked at thosehands, I looked at those eyes, I looked at that flowing hair; and Icompared them with other hands, other eyes, other hair, that I knewof, and with what those might be after twenty years of a brutalhusband and a stormy life. I looked again at those hands and eyesof the housekeeper, and thought of the inexplicable feeling thathad come over me when I last walked - not alone - in the ruinedgarden, and through the deserted brewery. I thought how the samefeeling had come back when I saw a face looking at me, and a handwaving to me, from a stage-coach window; and how it had come backagain and had flashed about me like Lightning, when I had passed ina carriage - not alone - through a sudden glare of light in a darkstreet. I thought how one link of association had helped thatidentification in the theatre, and how such a link, wanting before,had been riveted for me now, when I had passed by a chance swiftfrom Estella's name to the fingers with their knitting action, andthe attentive eyes. And I felt absolutely certain that this womanwas Estella's mother.

Mr. Jaggers had seen me with Estella, and was not likely to havemissed the sentiments I had been at no pains to conceal. He noddedwhen I said the subject was painful to me, clapped me on the back,put round the wine again, and went on with his dinner.

Only twice more, did the housekeeper reappear, and then her stay inthe room was very short, and Mr. Jaggers was sharp with her. But herhands were Estella's hands, and her eyes were Estella's eyes, andif she had reappeared a hundred times I could have been neithermore sure nor less sure that my conviction was the truth.

It was a dull evening, for Wemmick drew his wine when it cameround, quite as a matter of business - just as he might have drawnhis salary when that came round - and with his eyes on his chief,sat in a state of perpetual readiness for cross-examination. As tothe quantity of wine, his post-office was as indifferent and readyas any other post-office for its quantity of letters. From my pointof view, he was the wrong twin all the time, and only externallylike the Wemmick of Walworth.

We took our leave early, and left together. Even when we weregroping among Mr. Jaggers's stock of boots for our hats, I felt thatthe right twin was on his way back; and we had not gone half adozen yards down Gerrard-street in the Walworth direction before Ifound that I was walking arm-in-arm with the right twin, and thatthe wrong twin had evaporated into the evening air.

"Well!" said Wemmick, "that's over! He's a wonderful man, withouthis living likeness; but I feel that I have to screw myself up whenI dine with him - and I dine more comfortably unscrewed."

I felt that this was a good statement of the case, and told him so.

"Wouldn't say it to anybody but yourself," he answered. "I knowthat what is said between you and me, goes no further."

I asked him if he had ever seen Miss Havisham's adopted daughter,Mrs. Bentley Drummle? He said no. To avoid being too abrupt, I thenspoke of the Aged, and of Miss Skiffins. He looked rather sly whenI mentioned Miss Skiffins, and stopped in the street to blow hisnose, with a roll of the head and a flourish not quite free fromlatent boastfulness.

"Wemmick," said I, "do you remember telling me before I first wentto Mr. Jaggers's private house, to notice that housekeeper?"

Title: Great Expectations
Author: Charles Dickens
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