Kitabı oku: «Гордость и предубеждение / Pride and Prejudice. Большие надежды / Great Expectations», sayfa 12
Chapter 21
Mr. Wemmick was a dry man, rather short in stature, with a square wooden face.
“So you were never in London before?” said Mr. Wemmick to me.
“No,” said I.
“I was new here once,” said Mr. Wemmick.
“You are well acquainted with it now?”
“Why, yes,” said Mr. Wemmick.
“Is it a very wicked place?” I asked, more for the sake96 of saying something than for information.
“You may get cheated, robbed, and murdered in London. But there are plenty of people anywhere, who’ll do that for you.”
His mouth was such a post-office of a mouth that he had a mechanical appearance of smiling.
“Do you know where Mr. Matthew Pocket lives?” I asked Mr. Wemmick.
“Yes,” said he, nodding in the direction. “At Hammersmith,97 west of London.”
“Is that far?”
“Well! Say five miles.”
“Do you know him?”
“Yes, I know him. I know him!”
Barnard’s Inn. I had supposed that establishment to be an hotel kept by Mr. Barnard. I found Barnard to be a disembodied spirit, or a fiction, and his inn the dingiest collection of shabby buildings ever squeezed together.
I looked in dismay at Mr. Wemmick. “Ah!” said he; “the retirement reminds you of the country.”
He led me into a corner and conducted me up a flight of stairs – to a set of chambers on the top floor. MR. POCKET, JUN., was painted on the door, and there was a label on the letter-box, “Return shortly.98”
“You don’t want me any more?” asked Mr. Wemmick.
“No, thank you,” said I.
“As I keep the cash,” Mr. Wemmick observed, “we shall most likely meet pretty often. Good day.”
“Good day.”
I put out my hand, and Mr. Wemmick at first looked at it as if he thought I wanted something. Then he looked at me, and said, correcting himself —
“To be sure! Yes. You’re in the habit of shaking hands?”
I was rather confused, thinking it must be out of the London fashion, but said yes.
When we had shaken hands and he was gone, I opened the staircase window. Mr. Pocket, Junior, returned in half an hour. He had a paper-bag under each arm and some strawberries in one hand, and was out of breath.
“Mr. Pip?” said he.
“Mr. Pocket?” said I.
“Dear me!” he exclaimed. “I am extremely sorry. The fact is, I have been out on your account – for I thought, coming from the country, you might like a little fruit after dinner, and I went to Covent Garden Market99 to get it good. Pray come in, allow me to lead the way. We might like to take a walk about London. I am sure I shall be very happy to show London to you. As to our table, you won’t find that bad, I hope, for it will be supplied from our coffee-house here,100 and at your expense,101 such being Mr. Jaggers’s directions. As to our lodging, it’s not by any means splendid, because I have my own bread to earn, and my father hasn’t anything to give me, and I shouldn’t be willing to take it, if he had. This is our sitting-room – just such chairs and tables and carpet and so forth, you see. This is your bedroom; the furniture’s hired for the occasion, but I trust it will answer the purpose; if you should want anything, I’ll go and fetch it. The chambers are retired, and we shall be alone together, but we shan’t fight, I dare say. But, I beg your pardon, you’re holding the fruit all this time. Pray let me take these bags from you. I am quite ashamed.”
Suddenly Mr. Pocket, Junior, said, falling back —
“Lord bless me, you’re the prowling boy!”
“And you,” said I, “are the pale young gentleman!”
Chapter 22
The pale young gentleman and I stood contemplating one another in Barnard’s Inn, until we both burst out laughing.
“Well!” said the pale young gentleman, reaching out his hand good-humoredly, “it’s all over now, I hope you’ll forgive me.”
I derived from this speech that Mr. Herbert Pocket102 (for Herbert was the pale young gentleman’s name) did not remember anything.
“Miss Havisham had sent for me, to see if she could take a fancy to me. But she couldn’t – she didn’t.”
I thought it polite to remark that I was surprised to hear that.
“Bad taste,” said Herbert, laughing, “but a fact. Yes, she had sent for me on a trial visit, and if I had come out of it successfully, I suppose I should have been provided for; perhaps I should have been engaged to Estella.”
“How did you bear your disappointment?” I asked.
“Pooh!” said he, “I didn’t care much for it. She’s a Tartar.103”
“Miss Havisham?”
“I don’t say no to that, but I meant Estella. That girl’s hard and haughty and capricious to the last degree, and has been brought up by Miss Havisham to wreak revenge on all the male sex.104”
“What relation is she to Miss Havisham?”
“None,” said he. “Only adopted.”
“Why should she wreak revenge on all the male sex? What revenge?”
“Lord, Mr. Pip!” said he. “Don’t you know?”
“No,” said I.
“Dear me! It’s quite a story, and shall be saved till dinner-time. And now let me take the liberty of asking you a question. How did you come there, that day?”
I told him, and he was attentive until I had finished, and then burst out laughing again.
“Mr. Jaggers is your guardian, I understand?” he went on.
“Yes.”
“You know he is Miss Havisham’s man of business and solicitor, and has her confidence when nobody else has?”
I answered with a constraint, that I had seen Mr. Jaggers in Miss Havisham’s house on the very day of our combat, but never at any other time.
“He was so obliging105 as to suggest my father for your tutor, and he called on my father to propose it. Of course he knew about my father from his connection with Miss Havisham. My father is Miss Havisham’s cousin.”
Herbert Pocket was still a pale young gentleman. He had not a handsome face, but it was better than handsome: being extremely amiable and cheerful.
As he was so communicative, I told him my small story, and stressed on my being forbidden to inquire who my benefactor was. I further mentioned that as I had been brought up a blacksmith in a country place, and knew very little of the ways of politeness, I would take it as a great kindness in him if he would give me a hint whenever he saw going wrong.
“With pleasure,” said he, “Will you do me the favour to begin at once to call me by my Christian name, Herbert?”
I thanked him and said I would. I informed him in exchange that my Christian name was Philip.
“No,” said he, smiling, “Would you mind Handel106 for a familiar name? There’s a charming piece of music by Handel, called the Harmonious Blacksmith.107”
“I should like it very much.”
“Then, my dear Handel,” said he, turning round as the door opened, “here is the dinner!”
It was a nice little dinner. Everything made the feast delightful. We had made some progress in the dinner, when I reminded Herbert of his promise to tell me about Miss Havisham.
“True,” he replied. “ Let me introduce the topic, Handel, by mentioning that in London it is not the custom to put the knife in the mouth – for fear of accidents – and that while the fork is reserved for that use. Also, the spoon is not generally used over-hand, but under.108”
He offered these friendly suggestions in such a lively way, that we both laughed and I scarcely blushed.
“Now,” he pursued, “concerning Miss Havisham. Miss Havisham, you must know, was a spoilt child. Her mother died when she was a baby, and her father denied her nothing.109 Her father was a country gentleman down in your part of the world, and was a brewer. Well! Mr. Havisham was very rich and very proud. So was his daughter.”
“Miss Havisham was an only child?” I hazarded.
“Stop a moment, I am coming to that. No, she was not an only child; she had a half-brother.110 Her father privately married again – his cook, I rather think.”
“I thought he was proud,” said I.
“My good Handel, so he was. He married his second wife privately, because he was proud, and in course of time she died. When she was dead, I apprehend he first told his daughter what he had done, and then the son became a part of the family, residing in the house you are acquainted with. As the son grew a young man, he turned out riotous, extravagant – altogether bad. At last his father disinherited him; but he softened when he was dying, and gave him something, though less than to Miss Havisham. Miss Havisham was now an heiress.111 Her half-brother had debts. There were stronger differences between him and her than there had been between him and his father. Now, I come to the cruel part of the story. There appeared a certain man, who made love to Miss Havisham. I never saw him (for this happened five-and-twenty years ago, before you and I were, Handel), but I have heard my father mention that he was a showy man.112 Well! This man pursued Miss Havisham closely. And she passionately loved him. There is no doubt that she perfectly idolized him. Your guardian was not at that time in Miss Havisham’s counsels, and she was too haughty and too much in love to be advised by any one. Her relations were poor, with the exception of my father; he was poor enough, but not jealous. The only independent one among them, he warned her that she was doing too much for this man. She took the first opportunity of angrily ordering my father out of the house, in his presence, and my father has never seen her since.”
