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A childish association revived with wonderful force in the moment of the slight action, and I fancied that I saw Miss Havisham hanging to the beam. So strong was the impression, that I stood under the beam shuddering from head to foot before I knew it was a fancy, though to be sure I was there in an instant.
"It's twinty-foive dollars is here. Where be's the misthress?" "I think I shall have to go and explain it to her," Mrs. Errol said. So she, too, went out of the room and Mr. Havisham was left alone for a while. He went to the window and stood looking out into the street reflectively.
I had been doing this, in an excess of attention to his recital. I thanked him, and apologized. He said, "Not at all," and resumed. "Miss Havisham was now an heiress, and you may suppose was looked after as a great match. Her half-brother had now ample means again, but what with debts and what with new madness wasted them most fearfully again.
After asking a number of questions with no satisfaction, Uncle Pumblechook began again. "Now, boy," he said, "what was Miss Havisham a-doing of when you went in to-day?" "She was sitting," I answered, "in a black velvet coach." My hearers stared at one another as they well might and repeated, "In a black velvet coach?"
Once a covey of partridges rose with a sudden whir and flew away, and then he shouted and clapped his hands. "It's a beautiful place, isn't it?" he said to Mr. Havisham. "I never saw such a beautiful place. It's prettier even than Central Park." He was rather puzzled by the length of time they were on their way. "How far is it," he said, at length, "from the gate to the front door?"
"I think she is very proud," I replied, in a whisper. "Anything else?" "I think she is very pretty." "Anything else?" "I think she is very insulting." "Anything else?" "I think I should like to go home." "And never see her again, though she is so pretty?" "I am not sure that I shouldn't like to see her again, but I should like to go home now." "You shall go soon," said Miss Havisham, aloud.
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.
"Well!" she went on; "you have a promising career before you. Be good deserve it and abide by Mr. Jaggers's instructions." She looked at me, and looked at Sarah, and Sarah's countenance wrung out of her watchful face a cruel smile. "Good by, Pip! you will always keep the name of Pip, you know." "Yes, Miss Havisham." "Good by, Pip!"
"Miss Havisham, Joe?" "'She wish, were Pumblechook's word, 'to speak to you." Joe sat and rolled his eyes at the ceiling. "Yes, Joe? Go on, please." "Next day, sir," said Joe, looking at me as if I were a long way off, "having cleaned myself, I go and I see Miss A." "Miss A., Joe? Miss Havisham?"
White and black, servant and slave, rustic, convict, Jew, Turk, Indian, mulatto, quadroon, coal black, untamed African the motley crowd pressed and jostled towards that end of the square at which stood the master, his kinsman, the overseer, and Godfrey Landless. Behind them on the steps of the overseer's house were the Muggletonian, Havisham, and Trail. They had been unbound.
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