you wrote to me to come to you, this time." "That's true," said Estella, with a cold careless smile that always
chilled me.
After looking at the twilight without, for a little while, she went
on to say:--
"The time has come round when Miss Havisham wishes to have me for a
day at Satis. You are to take me there, and bring me back, if you
will. She would rather I did not travel alone, and objects to
receiving my maid, for she has a sensitive horror of being talked
of by such people. Can you take me?"
"Can I take you, Estella!"
"You can then? The day after to-morrow, if you please. You are to
pay all charges out of my purse, You hear the condition of your
going?"
"And must obey," said I.
This was all the preparation I received for that visit, or for
others like it; Miss Havisham never wrote to me, nor had I ever so
much as seen her handwriting. We went down on the next day but one,
and we found her in the room where I had first beheld her, and it is needless to add that there was no change in Satis House.
She was even more dreadfully fond of Estella than she had been when
I last saw them together; I repeat the word advisedly, for there
was something positively dreadful in the energy of her looks and
embraces. She hung upon Estella's beauty, hung upon her words, hung
upon her gestures, and sat mumbling her own trembling fingers while
she looked at her, as though she were devouring the beautiful
creature she had reared.
From Estella she looked at me, with a searching glance that seemed
to pry into my heart and probe its wounds. "How does she use you,
Pip; how does she use you?" she asked me again, with her witch-like
eagerness, even in Estella's hearing. But, when we sat by her
flickering fire at night, she was most weird; for then, keeping
Estella's hand drawn through her arm and clutched in her own hand,
she extorted from her, by dint of referring back to what Estella
had told her in her regular letters, the names and conditions of
the men whom she had fascinated; and as Miss Havisham dwelt upon
this roll, with the intensity of a mind mortally hurt and diseased,
she sat with her other hand on her crutch stick, and her chin on
that, and her wan bright eyes glaring at me, a very spectre.
I saw in this, wretched though it made me, and bitter the sense of
dependence and even of degradation that it awakened,--I saw in this that Estella was set to wreak Miss Havisham's revenge on men,
and that she was not to be given to me until she had gratified it
for a term. I saw in this, a reason for her being beforehand
assigned to me. Sending her out to attract and torment and do
mischief, Miss Havisham sent her with the malicious assurance that
she was beyond the reach of all admirers, and that all who staked
upon that cast were secured to lose. I saw in this that I, too,
was tormented by a perversion of ingenuity, even while the prize
was reserved for me. I saw in this the reason for my being staved
off so long and the reason for my late guardian's declining to
commit himself to the formal knowledge of such a scheme. In a word,
I saw in this Miss Havisham as I had her then and there before my
eyes, and always had had her before my eyes; and I saw in this, the
distinct shadow of the darkened and unhealthy house in which her
life was hidden from the sun.
The candles that lighted that room of hers were placed in sconces
on the wall. They were high from the ground, and they burnt with
the steady dulness of artificial light in air that is seldom
renewed. As I looked round at them, and at the pale gloom they
made, and at the stopped clock, and at the withered articles of
bridal dress upon the table and the ground, and at her own awful
figure with its ghostly reflection thrown large by the fire upon
the ceiling and the wall, I saw in everything the construction that
my mind had come to, repeated and thrown back to me. My thoughts passed into the great room across the landing where the table was
spread, and I saw it written, as it were, in the falls of the
cobwebs from the centre-piece, in the crawlings of the spiders on
the cloth, in the tracks of the mice as they betook their little
quickened hearts behind the panels, and in the gropings and
pausings of the beetles on the floor.
It happened on the occasion of this visit that some sharp words
arose between Estella and Miss Havisham. It was the first time I
had ever seen them opposed.
We were seated by the fire, as just now described, and Miss
Havisham still had Estella's arm drawn through her own, and still
clutched Estella's hand in hers, when Estella gradually began to
detach herself. She had shown a proud impatience more than once
before, and had rather endured that fierce affection than accepted
or returned it.
"What!" said Miss Havisham, flashing her eyes upon her, "are you
tired of me?"
"Only a little tired of myself," replied Estella, disengaging her
arm, and moving to the great chimney-piece, where she stood looking
down at the fire. "Speak the truth, you ingrate!" cried Miss Havisham, passionately
striking her stick upon the floor; "you are tired of me."
Estella looked at her with perfect composure, and again looked down
at the fire. Her graceful figure and her beautiful face expressed a
self-possessed indifference to the wild heat of the other, that was
almost cruel.
"You stock and stone!" exclaimed Miss Havisham. "You cold, cold
heart!"
"What?" said Estella, preserving her attitude of indifference as
she leaned against the great chimney-piece and only moving her
eyes; "do you reproach me for being cold? You?"
"Are you not?" was the fierce retort.
"You should know," said Estella. "I am what you have made me. Take
all the praise, take all the blame; take all the success, take all
the failure; in short, take me."
"O, look at her, look at her!" cried Miss Havisham, bitterly; "Look
at her so hard and thankless, on the hearth where she was reared!
Where I took her into this wretched breast when it was first
bleeding from its stabs, and where I have lavished years of tenderness upon her!"
"At least I was no party to the compact," said Estella, "for if I
could walk and speak, when it was made, it was as much as I could
do. But what would you have? You have been very good to me, and I
owe everything to you. What would you have?"
"Love," replied the other.
"You have it."
"I have not," said Miss Havisham.
"Mother by adoption," retorted Estella, never departing from the
easy grace of her attitude, never raising her voice as the other
did, never yielding either to anger or tenderness,--"mother by
adoption, I have said that I owe everything to you. All I possess
is freely yours. All that you have given me, is at your command to
have again. Beyond that, I have nothing. And if you ask me to give
you, what you never gave me, my gratitude and duty cannot do
impossibilities."
"Did I never give her love!" cried Miss Havisham, turning wildly to
me. "Did I never give her a burning love, inseparable from jealousy
at all times, and from sharp pain, while she speaks thus to me! Let her call me mad, let her call me mad!"
"Why should I call you mad," returned Estella, "I, of all people?
Does any one live, who knows what set purposes you have, half as
well as I do? Does any one live, who knows what a steady memory you
have, half as well as I do? I who have sat on this same hearth on
the little stool that is even now beside you there, learning your
lessons and looking up into your face, when your face was strange
and frightened me!"
"Soon forgotten!" moaned Miss Havisham. "Times soon forgotten!"
"No, not forgotten," retorted Estella,--"not forgotten, but
treasured up in my memory. When have you found me false to your
teaching? When have you found me unmindful of your lessons? When
have you found me giving admission here," she touched her bosom
with her hand, "to anything that you excluded? Be just to me."
"So proud, so proud!" moaned Miss Havisham, pushing away her gray
hair with both her hands.
"Who taught me to be proud?" returned Estella. "Who praised me when
I learnt my lesson?"
"So hard, so hard!" moaned Miss Havisham, with her former action. "Who taught me to be hard?" returned Estella. "Who praised me when
I learnt my lesson?"
"But to be proud and hard to me!" Miss Havisham quite shrieked, as
she stretched out her arms. "Estella, Estella, Estella, to be proud
and hard to me!"
Estella looked at her for a moment with a kind of calm wonder, but
was not otherwise disturbed; when the moment was past, she looked
down at the fire again.
"I cannot think," said Estella, raising her eyes after a silence
"why you should be so unreasonable when I come to see you after a
separation. I have never forgotten your wrongs and their causes. I
have never been unfaithful to you or your schooling. I have never
shown any weakness that I can charge myself with."
"Would it be weakness to return my love?" exclaimed Miss Havisham.
"But yes, yes, she would call it so!"
"I begin to think," said Estella, in a musing way, after another
moment of calm wonder, "that I almost understand how this comes
about. If you had brought up your adopted daughter wholly in the
dark confinement of these rooms, and had never let her know that there was such a thing as the daylight by which she had never once
seen your face,--if you had done that, and then, for a purpose had
wanted her to understand the daylight and know all about it, you
would have been disappointed and angry?"
Miss Havisham, with her head in her hands, sat making a low
moaning, and swaying herself on her chair, but gave no answer.
"Or," said Estella,--"which is a nearer case,--if you had taught
her, from the dawn of her intelligence, with your utmost energy and
might, that there was such a thing as daylight, but that it was
made to be her enemy and destroyer, and she must always turn
against it, for it had blighted you and would else blight her;--if
you had done this, and then, for a purpose, had wanted her to take
naturally to the daylight and she could not do it, you would have
been disappointed and angry?"
Miss Havisham sat listening (or it seemed so, for I could not see
her face), but still made no answer.
"So," said Estella, "I must be taken as I have been made. The
success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together
make me."
Miss Havisham had settled down, I hardly knew how, upon the floor, among the faded bridal relics with which it was strewn. I took
advantage of the moment--I had sought one from the first--to
leave the room, after beseeching Estella's attention to her, with a
movement of my hand. When I left, Estella was yet standing by the
great chimney-piece, just as she had stood throughout. Miss
Havisham's gray hair was all adrift upon the ground, among the
other bridal wrecks, and was a miserable sight to see.
It was with a depressed heart that I walked in the starlight for an
hour and more, about the courtyard, and about the brewery, and
about the ruined garden. When I at last took courage to return to
the room, I found Estella sitting at Miss Havisham's knee, taking
up some stitches in one of those old articles of dress that were
dropping to pieces, and of which I have often been reminded since
by the faded tatters of old banners that I have seen hanging up in
cathedrals. Afterwards, Estella and I played at cards, as of yore,--
only we were skilful now, and played French games,--and so the
evening wore away, and I went to bed.
I lay in that separate building across the courtyard. It was the
first time I had ever lain down to rest in Satis House, and sleep
refused to come near me. A thousand Miss Havishams haunted me. She
was on this side of my pillow, on that, at the head of the bed, at
the foot, behind the half-opened door of the dressing-room, in the
dressing-room, in the room overhead, in the room beneath,-- everywhere. At last, when the night was slow to creep on towards
two o'clock, I felt that I absolutely could no longer bear the
place as a place to lie down in, and that I must get up. I
therefore got up and put on my clothes, and went out across the
yard into the long stone passage, designing to gain the outer
courtyard and walk there for the relief of my mind. But I was no
sooner in the passage than I extinguished my candle; for I saw
Miss Havisham going along it in a ghostly manner, making a low cry.
I followed her at a distance, and saw her go up the staircase. She
carried a bare candle in her hand, which she had probably taken
from one of the sconces in her own room, and was a most unearthly
object by its light. Standing at the bottom of the staircase, I
felt the mildewed air of the feast-chamber, without seeing her open
the door, and I heard her walking there, and so across into her own
room, and so across again into that, never ceasing the low cry.
After a time, I tried in the dark both to get out, and to go back,
but I could do neither until some streaks of day strayed in and
showed me where to lay my hands. During the whole interval,
whenever I went to the bottom of the staircase, I heard her
footstep, saw her light pass above, and heard her ceaseless low
cry.
Before we left next day, there was no revival of the difference
between her and Estella, nor was it ever revived on any similar
occasion; and there were four similar occasions, to the best of my remembrance. Nor, did Miss Havisham's manner towards Estella in
anywise change, except that I believed it to have something like
fear infused among its former characteristics.
It is impossible to turn this leaf of my life, without putting
Bentley Drummle's name upon it; or I would, very gladly.
On a certain occasion when the Finches were assembled in force, and
when good feeling was being promoted in the usual manner by
nobody's agreeing with anybody else, the presiding Finch called the
Grove to order, forasmuch as Mr. Drummle had not yet toasted a lady;
which, according to the solemn constitution of the society, it was
the brute's turn to do that day. I thought I saw him leer in an
ugly way at me while the decanters were going round, but as there
was no love lost between us, that might easily be. What was my
indignant surprise when he called upon the company to pledge him to
"Estella!"
"Estella who?" said I.
"Never you mind," retorted Drummle.
"Estella of where?" said I. "You are bound to say of where." Which
he was, as a Finch. "Of Richmond, gentlemen," said Drummle, putting me out of the
question, "and a peerless beauty."
Much he knew about peerless beauties, a mean, miserable idiot! I
whispered Herbert.
"I know that lady," said Herbert, across the table, when the toast
had been honored.
"Do you?" said Drummle.
"And so do I," I added, with a scarlet face.
"Do you?" said Drummle. "O, Lord!"
This was the only retort--except glass or crockery--that the
heavy creature was capable of making; but, I became as highly
incensed by it as if it had been barbed with wit, and I immediately
rose in my place and said that I could not but regard it as being
like the honorable Finch's impudence to come down to that Grove,--
we always talked about coming down to that Grove, as a neat
Parliamentary turn of expression,--down to that Grove, proposing a
lady of whom he knew nothing. Mr. Drummle, upon this, starting up,
demanded what I meant by that? Whereupon I made him the extreme
reply that I believed he knew where I was to be found. Whether