Tales from Dickens Part 14

After that he had no need to leave the city to see Estella, for Miss Havisham soon sent her to live in London. From there she required her to write letters weekly, telling how many men she had fascinated and made wretched. Pip saw her constantly and tortured himself with the growing belief that Miss Havisham's training (the purpose of which he had begun to guess) was really succeeding in crus.h.i.+ng her heart, and was leaving her with no power to love any one.

Thus, between hope and despair, Pip became of age. Mr. Jaggers now told him that a certain large sum was his to spend each year. He was deeply in debt and a great part of his first year's portion went to pay his creditors. But with the remainder he did a good and unselfish deed: he bought secretly a share in a good business for Herbert, so that his comrade became a partner in it.

A great blow was now to fall upon Pip without warning--something that changed the whole course of his life. One rainy night, when Herbert was away from London, as he sat alone in their rooms, a heavy step stumbled up the stair and a man entered. He was coa.r.s.e and rough-looking and tanned with exposure, with a furrowed bald head, tufted at the sides with gray hair.

There was something strangely familiar to Pip in his face, but at first he did not recognize him. Seeing this, the stranger threw down his hat, twisted a handkerchief around his head, took a file from his pocket and walked across the room with a curious s.h.i.+vering gait that brought back to Pip's mind, like a lightning flash, the scene in the churchyard so many years ago, when he had sat perched on a tombstone looking in terror at that same man's face. And he knew all at once that the man was the escaped convict of that day!

It was a strange tale the new-comer told then, one that Pip's heart sank to hear. Miss Havisham had not been his benefactor after all. The one whose money had educated him, had set him there in London to live the life of a gentleman, the one to whom he was indebted for every penny he owned, was Abel Magwitch, a criminal--the convict for whom he had once stolen food years before!

Pip sank into a chair trembling as Magwitch, in a hoa.r.s.e voice, told his story. He told how the man Compeyson had led him into crime and then deserted him. How he had hated the other so fiercely that after they both had escaped from the prison-hulks he had dragged Compeyson back to imprisonment even at the loss of his own liberty. How for that attempt to escape he had been sentenced to transportation for life, and had been sent to Botany Bay in Australia, where in time he became in a measure free, though forbidden under penalty of death to return to England. How he had never forgotten the little Pip who had tried to aid him, and how he had sworn that he would repay him many times over. How he had taken to sheep-raising and prospered, and became a rich man. How he had written to Mr. Jaggers, the lawyer who had defended him, and paid him to find Pip and educate him. And how at last he had dared even the death penalty to come to England to see how he fared.

His voice shook as he told how he had slaved through all the years, looking forward only to this moment when he should come back to see the little Pip whom he had made into a gentleman.

Poor Pip! It was an end to all his dreams of Miss Havisham and of Estella. He shrank from Magwitch, horrified at the bare thought of what he owed to him. He forced himself to utter some trembling words and set food before the convict, watching him as he ate like a ravenous old dog.

His heart was like lead, all his plans knocked askew. Even while he pitied the old man, he shrank from him as if from a wild beast, with all his childish dread increased a hundredfold.

At length Pip put Magwitch in Herbert's room to sleep, but all that night he himself lay tossing and sleepless, staring into the darkness and listening to the rain outside.

IV

PIP COMES TO HIMSELF

The days that followed were one long agony to Pip. When Herbert returned he told him the whole story. Herbert was shocked and surprised, but he was true to his friends.h.i.+p and together they planned what to do.

It was clear to Pip that he could not spend any more of Magwitch's money; indeed, recoiling from him as he did, he would gladly have repaid every penny if it had been possible. To make the matter worse, it seemed that Magwitch had brought a great deal of money with him and was determined that Pip should move into a fas.h.i.+onable house, buy fast horses, keep servants and live most expensively.

Pip hesitated to tell Magwitch his decision, however, for what the convict now planned showed how much he had thought of him and loved him in his rough way during all his years in Australia.

Meanwhile he and Herbert kept Magwitch hidden as much as possible, and gave out that the old man was Pip's uncle, on a visit from the country.

Unluckily, however, Magwitch's presence in London had been seen. He had been recognized in the street and followed to Pip's rooms. And the man who saw him was his bitterest enemy--Compeyson, the breaker of Miss Havisham's heart, who had first made Magwitch a criminal, and whom the convict so hated. Compeyson had served out his term, and was now free.

He saw his chance to pay the old grudge with Magwitch's life. In order, however, to make sure of his capture he decided to entice Pip away and bring the police upon Magwitch when he would have no one to warn him.

Meanwhile, unconscious of this plot, Pip made a last visit to Miss Havisham. He felt now that he was again poor and without prospects, and with small hope of winning Estella.

But finding her there, in Miss Havisham's presence, he told her how dearly he had always loved her since the first day they had met. She seemed moved by his distress, but her heart had not yet awakened. She told him that she was about to marry one whom he knew for a coa.r.s.e, brutal man, in every way beneath her. And then Pip knew for certain that Miss Havisham's bitter teaching had borne its fruit at last, and that Estella was to marry this man, not because she loved him, but merely as a final stab to all the other worthier ones.

In spite of her years of self-torture and revengeful thoughts, Miss Havisham had still a spark of real pity. As Pip reminded her of the wreck she had made of him, through Estella, and through allowing him falsely to believe her his benefactor, his agony struck her with remorse. She put her hand to her heart as he ended, and as he left them he saw through his own tears her hand still pressed to her side and her faded face ghastly in the candlelight.

Sick with despair, Pip went back to London, to learn from Wemmick, Mr.

Jaggers's friendly clerk, that the rooms were being watched, and that he and Herbert (who in the absence of Pip had confided in him) had removed Magwitch to another lodging--a room overlooking the river, from which it would be easier, if worst came to worst, to get him on a s.h.i.+p and so out of the country.

To do this it was necessary to wait for a favorable chance. So Pip, providing for Magwitch's comfort meantime, bought a boat, and he and Herbert rowed daily up and down the river, so that when the time came to row the convict to some sea-going s.h.i.+p they would know the turns of the stream.

Pip soon learned that Compeyson was their spy. Wopsle, who in Pip's boyhood had been the clerk in the village church, had turned actor (he made, to be sure, a very poor one!), and was now playing in London. In the theater one night he recognized in the audience the pale-faced convict whom he had once, with Joe, the blacksmith, and little Pip, seen dragged back to capture by his more powerful fellow. Pip had long ago learned from Magwitch that this man was Compeyson, and when Wopsle said he had seen him sitting directly back of Pip at the play, the latter realized that they had this bitter enemy to reckon with, and that Magwitch was in terrible danger.

Only once was this time of waiting interrupted, and that was by a letter from Miss Havisham begging Pip to come to see her. He went, and she told him she realized now too late how wicked her plans had been, and begged him with tears to try to forgive her. Pip, sore as his own heart was, forgave her freely, and he was glad ever afterward that he had done so, for that same evening, while he was standing near her, her yellowed wedding veil, sweeping too near the hearth, caught fire and in an instant her whole dress burst into flame. Pip worked desperately to put out the fire, but she was so frightfully burned that it was plain she could not live long. His own hands and arms were painfully injured, so that he returned to London with one arm, for the time being, almost useless.

Compeyson, meanwhile, made friends with Orlick, and between them they wrote Pip a letter, decoying him to a lonely hut in the marshes. When he came there Orlick threw a noose over his head, tied him to the wall and would have killed him with a great stone-hammer but for Herbert, who broke down the door and rushed in just in time to put Orlick to flight and to save Pip's life. Herbert had picked up the letter Pip had thrown down, read it, seen in it something suspicious, and had followed from London.

Pip saw now there was no time to lose if he would save Magwitch. They made haste to London, and when night fell, took the convict in the rowboat and rowing a few miles down the river, waited to board a steamer bound for Germany.

What happened next happened very speedily. They were about to board the steamer when a boat containing Compeyson and some police shot out from the bank, Compeyson calling on Magwitch to surrender. The two boats clashed together, and the steamer, unable to stop, ran them both down.

At the same moment Magwitch seized Compeyson and they went into the water together.

When Pip came to himself the steamer had gone, his own boat had sunk and he and Herbert had been dragged aboard the other. A few minutes later Magwitch was picked up, badly injured in the chest, and was handcuffed.

But they did not find Compeyson--the other had killed him in that fearful struggle under water.

That night Magwitch was lodged in jail. Before many days he was tried for returning to England and was sentenced to be hanged. But it was clear before the trial ended that his injury would never let him live to suffer this penalty.

And now, as he saw the convict lying day by day drawing nearer to death, calling him "dear boy" and watching for his face, all the loathing and repugnance Pip had felt for him vanished away. He had sat beside the sick man at his trial; now he sat beside his cot each day in his cell, holding his hand. He knew there could be no longer any possibility of his taking the fortune the convict would leave, for, being condemned to death, all Magwitch's property went to the Crown. But he did not tell this to Magwitch.

One thing he discovered, however, which he told the dying man. This concerned Estella. As the film of death came over the convict's face Pip said:

"Dear Magwitch, you had a child once, whom you loved and lost. She is living still. She is a lady and very beautiful. And I love her!" And hearing this last glad news, Magwitch died.

Before this happened Herbert had left England for Egypt where his business took him. Left alone, after the strain, Pip fell sick of a fever and in the midst of this found himself arrested for debt.

That was the last he knew for many weeks. When he came to himself he found Joe, the true-hearted blacksmith, nursing him. He had paid Pip's debts. Miss Havisham was dead and Orlick had been sent to jail for robbing Uncle Pumblechook's house.

Joe's faithfulness smote Pip with a sense of his own ingrat.i.tude. After a visit to the old forge with Joe and Biddy, now Joe's wife, Pip felt how true were the old friends. He buried for ever the past false pride and folly and knew himself for all his trials a n.o.bler man.

He sailed to Egypt, where he became a clerk in Herbert's business house, and finally a partner, and it was eleven years before he was in England again.

Then, one day he went down to the old ruined house where Miss Havisham had lived.

He entered the weed-grown garden, and there on a bench, a sad, beautiful widow, sat Estella. Her husband had treated her brutally till he died, and she had learned through suffering to know that she had a heart and had thrown away the one thing that could have made her happy--Pip's love.

When Pip and she left the old house that day it was hand in hand, never to part again.

LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF NICHOLAS NICKLEBY

Published 1839

_Scene_: London, Portsmouth and the Country

_Time_: About 1830

CHARACTERS

Nicholas Nickleby A young gentleman

Mrs. Nickleby His mother