Charles Dickens' Most Influential Works (Illustrated). Charles Dickens

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Название Charles Dickens' Most Influential Works (Illustrated)
Автор произведения Charles Dickens
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with his hands under his coattails.

      “Well, Pip,” said he, “I must call you Mr. Pip to-day. Congratulations, Mr. Pip.”

      We shook hands, — he was always a remarkably short shaker, — and I thanked him.

      “Take a chair, Mr. Pip,” said my guardian.

      As I sat down, and he preserved his attitude and bent his brows at his boots, I felt at a disadvantage, which reminded me of that old time when I had been put upon a tombstone. The two ghastly casts on the shelf were not far from him, and their expression was as if they were making a stupid apoplectic attempt to attend to the conversation.

      “Now my young friend,” my guardian began, as if I were a witness in the box, “I am going to have a word or two with you.”

      “If you please, sir.”

      “What do you suppose,” said Mr. Jaggers, bending forward to look at the ground, and then throwing his head back to look at the ceiling, — ”what do you suppose you are living at the rate of?”

      “At the rate of, sir?”

      “At,” repeated Mr. Jaggers, still looking at the ceiling, “the — rate — of?” And then looked all round the room, and paused with his pockethandkerchief in his hand, halfway to his nose.

      I had looked into my affairs so often, that I had thoroughly destroyed any slight notion I might ever have had of their bearings. Reluctantly, I confessed myself quite unable to answer the question. This reply seemed agreeable to Mr. Jaggers, who said, “I thought so!” and blew his nose with an air of satisfaction.

      “Now, I have asked you a question, my friend,” said Mr. Jaggers. “Have you anything to ask me?”

      “Of course it would be a great relief to me to ask you several questions, sir; but I remember your prohibition.”

      “Ask one,” said Mr. Jaggers.

      “Is my benefactor to be made known to me to-day?”

      “No. Ask another.”

      “Is that confidence to be imparted to me soon?”

      “Waive that, a moment,” said Mr. Jaggers, “and ask another.”

      I looked about me, but there appeared to be now no possible escape from the inquiry, “Have-I — anything to receive, sir?” On that, Mr. Jaggers said, triumphantly, “I thought we should come to it!” and called to Wemmick to give him that piece of paper. Wemmick appeared, handed it in, and disappeared.

      “Now, Mr. Pip,” said Mr. Jaggers, “attend, if you please. You have been drawing pretty freely here; your name occurs pretty often in Wemmick’s cashbook; but you are in debt, of course?”

      “I am afraid I must say yes, sir.”

      “You know you must say yes; don’t you?” said Mr. Jaggers.

      “Yes, sir.”

      “I don’t ask you what you owe, because you don’t know; and if you did know, you wouldn’t tell me; you would say less. Yes, yes, my friend,” cried Mr. Jaggers, waving his forefinger to stop me as I made a show of protesting: “it’s likely enough that you think you wouldn’t, but you would. You’ll excuse me, but I know better than you. Now, take this piece of paper in your hand. You have got it? Very good. Now, unfold it and tell me what it is.”

      “This is a banknote,” said I, “for five hundred pounds.”

      “That is a banknote,” repeated Mr. Jaggers, “for five hundred pounds. And a very handsome sum of money too, I think. You consider it so?”

      “How could I do otherwise!”

      “Ah! But answer the question,” said Mr. Jaggers.

      “Undoubtedly.”

      “You consider it, undoubtedly, a handsome sum of money. Now, that handsome sum of money, Pip, is your own. It is a present to you on this day, in earnest of your expectations. And at the rate of that handsome sum of money per annum, and at no higher rate, you are to live until the donor of the whole appears. That is to say, you will now take your money affairs entirely into your own hands, and you will draw from Wemmick one hundred and twentyfive pounds per quarter, until you are in communication with the fountain-head, and no longer with the mere agent. As I have told you before, I am the mere agent. I execute my instructions, and I am paid for doing so. I think them injudicious, but I am not paid for giving any opinion on their merits.”

      I was beginning to express my gratitude to my benefactor for the great liberality with which I was treated, when Mr. Jaggers stopped me. “I am not paid, Pip,” said he, coolly, “to carry your words to any one;” and then gathered up his coattails, as he had gathered up the subject, and stood frowning at his boots as if he suspected them of designs against him.

      After a pause, I hinted, —

      “There was a question just now, Mr. Jaggers, which you desired me to waive for a moment. I hope I am doing nothing wrong in asking it again?”

      “What is it?” said he.

      I might have known that he would never help me out; but it took me aback to have to shape the question afresh, as if it were quite new. “Is it likely,” I said, after hesitating, “that my patron, the fountain-head you have spoken of, Mr. Jaggers, will soon — ” there I delicately stopped.

      “Will soon what?” asked Mr. Jaggers. “That’s no question as it stands, you know.”

      “Will soon come to London,” said I, after casting about for a precise form of words, “or summon me anywhere else?”

      “Now, here,” replied Mr. Jaggers, fixing me for the first time with his dark deep-set eyes, “we must revert to the evening when we first encountered one another in your village. What did I tell you then, Pip?”

      “You told me, Mr. Jaggers, that it might be years hence when that person appeared.”

      “Just so,” said Mr. Jaggers, “that’s my answer.”

      As we looked full at one another, I felt my breath come quicker in my strong desire to get something out of him. And as I felt that it came quicker, and as I felt that he saw that it came quicker, I felt that I had less chance than ever of getting anything out of him.

      “Do you suppose it will still be years hence, Mr. Jaggers?”

      Mr. Jaggers shook his head, — not in negativing the question, but in altogether negativing the notion that he could anyhow be got to answer it, — and the two horrible casts of the twitched faces looked, when my eyes strayed up to them, as if they had come to a crisis in their suspended attention, and were going to sneeze.

      “Come!” said Mr. Jaggers, warming the backs of his legs with the backs of his warmed hands, “I’ll be plain with you, my friend Pip. That’s a question I must not be asked. You’ll understand that better, when I tell you it’s a question that might compromise me. Come! I’ll go a little further with you; I’ll say something more.”

      He bent down so low to frown at his boots, that he was able to rub the calves of his legs in the pause he made.

      “When that person discloses,” said Mr. Jaggers, straightening himself, “you and that person will settle your own affairs. When that person discloses, my part in this business will cease and determine. When that person discloses, it will not be necessary for me to know anything about it. And that’s all I have got to say.”

      We looked at one another until I withdrew my eyes, and looked thoughtfully at the floor. From this last speech I derived the notion that Miss Havisham, for some reason or no reason, had not taken him into her confidence as to her designing me for Estella; that he resented this, and felt a jealousy about it; or that he really did object to that scheme, and would have nothing to do with it. When I raised my eyes again, I found that he had been shrewdly looking at me all the time, and was doing so still.