第91章

BETIMES in the morning I was up and out. It was too early yet to go to Miss Havisham's, so I loitered into the country on Miss Havisham's side of town - which was not Joe's side; I could go there to-morrow - thinking about my patroness, and painting brilliant pictures of her plans for me.

She had adopted Estella, she has as good as adopted me, and it could not fail to be her intention to bring us together. She reserved it for me to restore the desolate house, admit the sunshine into the dark rooms, set the clocks a going and the cold hearths a blazing, tear down the cobwebs, destroy the vermin - in short, do all the shining deeds of the young Knight of romance, and marry the Princess. I had stopped to look at the house as I passed; and its seared red brick walls, blocked windows, and strong green ivy clasping even the stacks of chimneys with its twigs and tendons, as if with sinewy old arms, had made up a rich attractive mystery, of which I was the hero. Estella was the inspiration of it, and the heart of it, of course. But, though she had taken such strong possession of me, though my fancy and my hope were so set upon her, though her influence on my boyish life and character had been all-powerful, I did not, even that romantic morning, invest her with any attributes save those she possessed. I mention this in this place, of a fixed purpose, because it is the clue by which I am to be followed into my poor labyrinth. According to my experience, the conventional notion of a lover cannot be always true. The unqualified truth is, that when I loved Estella with the love of man, I loved her simply because I found her irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I loved her none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me, than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection.

I so shaped out my walk as to arrive at the gate at my old time. When I had rung at the bell with an unsteady hand, I turned my back upon the gate, while I tried to get my breath and keep the beating of my heart moderately quiet. I heard the side door open, and steps come across the court-yard;but I pretended not to hear, even when the gate swung on its rusty hinges.

Being at last touched on the shoulder, I started and turned. I started much more naturally then, to find myself confronted by a man in a sober grey dress. The last man I should have expected to see in that place of porter at Miss Havisham's door.

`Orlick!'

`Ah, young master, there's more changes than yours. But come in, come in. It's opposed to my orders to hold the gate open.'

I entered and he swung it, and locked it, and took the key out. `Yes!'

said he, facing round, after doggedly preceding me a few steps towards the house. `Here I am!'

`How did you come here?'

`I come her,' he retorted, `on my legs. I had my box brought alongside me in a barrow.'

`Are you here for good?'

`I ain't her for harm, young master, I suppose?'

I was not so sure of that. I had leisure to entertain the retort in my mind, while he slowly lifted his heavy glance from the pavement, up my legs and arms, to my face.

`Then you have left the forge?' I said.

`Do this look like a forge?' replied Orlick, sending his glance all round him with an air of injury. `Now, do it look like it?'

I asked him how long he had left Gargery's forge?

`One day is so like another here,' he replied, `that I don't know without casting it up. However, I come her some time since you left.'

`I could have told you that, Orlick.'

`Ah!' said he, drily. `But then you've got to be a scholar.'

By this time we had come to the house, where I found his room to be one just within the side door, with a little window in it looking on the court-yard. In its small proportions, it was not unlike the kind of place usually assigned to a gate-porter in Paris. Certain keys were hanging on the wall, to which he now added the gatekey; and his patchwork-covered bed was in a little inner division or recess. The whole had a slovenly confined and sleepy look, like a cage for a human dormouse: while he, looming dark and heavy in the shadow of a corner by the window, looked like the human dormouse for whom it was fitted up - as indeed he was.

`I never saw this room before,' I remarked; `but there used to be no Porter here.'

`No,' said he; `not till it got about that there was no protection on the premises, and it come to be considered dangerous, with convicts and Tag and Rag and Bobtail going up and down. And then I was recommended to the plàce as a man who could give another man as good as he brought, and I took it. It's easier than bellowsing and hammering. - That's loaded, that is.'

My eye had been caught by a gun with a brass bound stock over the chimney-piece, and his eye had followed mine.

`Well,' said I, not desirous of more conversation, `shall I go up to Miss Havisham?'

`Burn me, if I know!' he retorted, first stretching himself and then shaking himself; `my orders ends here, young master. I give this here bell a rap with this here hammer, and you go on along the passage till you meet somebody.'

`I am expected, I believe?'

`Burn me twice over, if I can say!' said he.

Upon that, I turned down the long passage which I had first trodden in my thick boots, and he made his bell sound. At the end of the passage, while the bell was still reverberating, I found Sarah Pocket: who appeared to have now become constitutionally green and yellow by reason of me.

`Oh!' said she. `You, is it, Mr Pip?'

`It is, Miss Pocket. I am glad to tell you that Mr Pocket and family are all well.'

`Are they any wiser?' said Sarah, with a dismal shake of the head; `they had better be wiser, than well. Ah, Matthew, Matthew!You know your way, sir?'

Tolerably, for I had gone up the staircase in the dark, many a time.

I ascended it now, in lighter boots than of yore, and tapped in my old way at the door of Miss Havisham's room. `Pip's rap,' I heard her say, immediately; `come in, Pip.'