CHAPTER THREE

A Good Chance for Pip

I always knew I would serve under and be taught by Joe as soon as I was old enough, and so I used to spend most of the day helping him in the iron workshop. However, I also attended the village evening school, which was organized by an ancient relation of Mr Wopsle's. Her teaching mostly consisted of falling asleep while we children fought each other, but Mr Wopsle's young cousin, Biddy, tried to keep us under control and teach us to read, write and count. Mr Wopsle would come every three months and give us an examination. The truth is he never asked us any questions at all, but read Shakespeare to us, playing the roles and enjoying the sound of his own voice.

One night, almost a year after the event with the escaped prisoners, I was sitting by the kitchen fire writing a letter to Joe. There wasn't any need for me to write him a letter because he was sitting right next to me, but I wanted to practice my writing. After working hard for an hour or two, I gave this letter to him.

"My dear Joe I hope you are well soon I can teach you what I have learnt what fun Joe love Pip"

"Pip, my boy!" cried Joe. He opened his kind blue eyes very wide and shouted, "What a lot of wonderful things you've learnt! Here's a J and an O, that's for Joe, isn't it, Pip?"

"How do you write Gargery, Joe?"

"I don't know much about writing," said Joe. "But, you know, I like reading. Give me a good book or newspaper, a good fire and I'm happy. Well! When you can find a J and an O, how interesting reading is!"

"Did you go to school, Joe, when you were young?"

"No, Pip. You see, there wasn't a chance for me to go to school. My father wasn't the nicest of men and he used to drink a lot. Sometimes my mother and I would run away from him and she'd always say, 'Joe, now you can go to school.' But my father had such love for us he couldn't be without us. He always came to find us, and took us home, and hit us. So you see, Pip, I never learnt much."

"That's terrible! Poor Joe!"

"But remember, Pip, my father had a good heart and a lot of love."

I wondered whether that was true, but I didn't say anything to Joe.

"He let me become an ironworker, which was his job too, you know. But he never worked much and I earned the money for the family until he died. And listen to this, Pip. I wanted to put these words above his grave:

'Whatever the fault he had from the start,

Remember, reader, he had a good heart.'"

"Did you make that up yourself, Joe?" I asked, surprised.

"I certainly did," answered Joe proudly. "But Pip, sad to say, we couldn't buy a gravestone. My poor mother needed money as she was in bad health. She died soon after and found her peace at last." I looked at Joe and could see tears in his blue eyes. "I was really lonely then, and I met your sister. Now look here, Pip," said Joe, looking straight at me, because he knew I had different thoughts than his. "Your sister is a fine woman!" he said.

I could say nothing better than "I'm glad you think so, Joe."

"So am I," said Joe. "I'm glad I think so. So very kind of her to bring you up by hand. And what a tiny baby you were! When I offered to marry your sister, I said to her, 'And bring the poor little child to live with us. We'll make room for him at the iron workshop!'" I jumped up and put my arms round Joe's neck, crying into his shirt.

"There now! Don't cry, old boy!" he said. "We'll always be the best of friends, you and me!" "So here we are, Pip! Now if you teach me a little (and I warn you now that I'm very stupid) Mrs Joe must never find out. Why? Because she likes to be—in charge—you know—giving the orders."

"Joe," I asked him, "why don't you ever stand up to her and fight for yourself?"

"Well," said Joe, "your sister's really clever and I'm not. And another thing, and this is serious, old boy, I think of the hard life my poor mother had and I promised myself I would always behave right to a woman. I'd much rather seem a bit weak or foolish than fight or hit her. I feel badly that she treats you the way she does. I wish I could take all the scolding myself. But there it is, Pip."

Just then we heard Mrs Joe and Uncle Pumblechook returning from the market. The carriage stopped and soon, in a rush of cold air, they came into the kitchen.

"Now if this boy isn't thankful tonight, he never will be!" Mrs Joe shouted at me.

"What a great opportunity she's giving the boy," agreed Pumblechook. I tried to look grateful and looked at Joe, making the word "She?" silently with my lips. Joe clearly did not know what was going on either.

"Did you say 'she'?" he asked politely.

"She is a she, I suppose," Mrs Joe replied impatiently. "Unless you think Miss Havisham could be a 'he'. And even you wouldn't do that."

"Do you mean the rich Miss Havisham who lives all alone in the big house in town?" asked Joe.

"Do you know any other Miss Havishams?! She wants the boy to go and play there at her house. She asked Uncle Pumblechook if he knew of any young boys. And Uncle Pumblechook, taking care of us as he always does, suggested Pip. What's even better is, as Uncle Pumblechook so cleverly knows, this boy's fortune may be made! Our kind uncle has offered to take him into town tonight in his carriage, putting him up for the night to deliver him tomorrow to Miss Havisham's. And look!" she cried, pointing her finger at me. "Look at how dirty he is!"

Mrs Joe washed me from head to toe in her usual violent manner, and handed me over in my tightest Sunday clothes to Mr Pumblechook. I cried a little riding into town because I had never been away from Joe before, and I had no idea what was going to happen to me at Miss Havisham's.

Mr Pumblechook's thoughts about children were the same as my sister's, and so for breakfast the next morning he gave me a large piece of bread with very little butter, followed by a cup of warm water with very little milk. Then he demanded to test my math.

"What's seven and thirteen, boy?" All through breakfast he continued testing me. "And nine? And eleven?"

I was actually glad to arrive at Miss Havisham's house at about ten o'clock. It was a large house made of old stone, and there were iron bars on the windows. Even at the gate Mr Pumblechook continued to test me. "And fourteen?" he asked. But I pretended not to hear him. Then a young lady came to open the gate. Mr Pumblechook was following me through the gate when she stopped him.

"Do you wish to see Miss Havisham as well?" she asked.

"If Miss Havisham wishes to see me," answered Mr Pumblechook, a little confused.

"Ah!" said the girl, "she doesn't."

Mr Pumblechook was shocked but dared not disobey Miss Havisham's wishes. Before leaving he whispered angrily to me, saying "Boy! Remember those who brought you up by hand and behave well!" I expected him to call through the gate, "And sixteen?" but he did not.

The garden leading to the house looked like it hadn't been kept in ages. The young lady leading me through the garden was not very friendly, either. She was the same age as me, but kept calling me 'boy'. To me she seemed much older than her age. She was as beautiful and as proud as a queen. After going through many dark passages we reached a door, where she left me, outside, taking her candle with her.

I knocked at the door and heard a voice to enter. I was in the middle of a large dark room where the curtains were shut. A hundred candles lit the room. In the middle of the room, sitting at a table, was the strangest lady I have ever seen, or shall ever see. Wearing a wedding dress made of rich material, she still had wedding flowers in her hair, but her hair was all white from age. Around her were suitcases of dresses and jewels, as if she was getting ready to go for a trip. She also had only one white shoe on. I realized that the white wedding dress had become yellow with age, and that the flowers in her hair had all died, and that the bride inside the dress had grown old. The room and everything in it was old and dying. Her dark eyes seemed the only thing alive in the room.

"Who are you?" said the strange lady.

"Pip, madam. Mr Pumblechook's boy. I've come here—to play."

"Come closer and let me look at you." Standing in front of her, I saw that both her watch and a clock in the room had stopped at twenty minutes to nine.

"Are you afraid of an old woman who has never seen the sun since you were born?" asked Miss Havisham.

Though I knew it was a lie I said, "No."

Putting her hand on her left side, she asked, "Do you know what this is?"

All of a sudden I remembered my prisoner's traveling companion. "That's your heart, madam," I answered.

"My heart! Broken!" she cried with a strange, proud smile. Then she said, "I am tired and need something different. Play for me."

No request could have been more difficult to obey in that house and that room. I just stood there helplessly.

"I'm very sorry, madam," I said, "Even though I know my sister will be very angry with me if you complain, I can't play just now. This place is so strange, and new, and sad ... " I stopped, afraid of making Miss Havisham angry. Then she looked down at her dress, and then at herself in the mirror on the table.

"So strange to him, so well-known to me," she whispered as if forgetting I was there. "So new to him, so old to me. And so sad to us both! Call Estella!"

Estella finally came in with her candle. Miss Havisham picked up a jewel that was on her table and put it in Estella's hair. "You look very pretty, my darling. One day it will be yours. Now let me watch you play cards with this boy."

"With him! He's a common working boy!" she cried.

Then I heard Miss Havisham whisper, "So be it! You can break his heart, anyway!" She sat by her table as if she were already dead and watched us play cards in the candlelight. I began to wonder if daylight would turn her into dust.

"What ugly and rough hands this boy has! And look at his thick boots!" cried Estella before we had finished our first game. I became ashamed because I knew what she said was true.

"And what do you think of her?" whispered Miss Havisham to me.

"She's very proud," I whispered back.

"Anything else?"

"I think she's very pretty."

"Anything else?"

"She's not polite. And—and I'd like to go home now."

"And never see her again, even though she's so very pretty?"

"I, I'd—I'd like to go home now."

My answer finally made Miss Havisham smile. "You can go home. Come again in six days' time. Estella, give him some food to eat. You can go, Pip."

And so I found myself back in the overgrown garden in the bright daylight. Estella put some bread and meat down on the ground for me, like I was a dog. I was so upset by the way she treated me that I started to cry. As soon as she saw this, she started to laugh, and pushed me out of the gate. I walked the four miles home to the iron workshop, thinking about all I had seen at that strange house. Looking at my hands and boots made me sad, and I knew that I was only a common working boy and wished to be different.

My sister wouldn't stop asking me questions. She wanted to know all the details of my visit. Because it was so strange and also because I felt I did not want to, I couldn't explain what happened at Miss Havisham's or her strange house. I knew my sister would not understand. Worst of all old fool Pumblechook arrived around tea time to ask me more questions. His staring eyes and open mouth reminded me of a fish and made me want to keep silent.

"Let me try to make this boy speak, madam," he told Mrs Joe. "I'll make him answer our questions. Now, boy, what's forty-three and seventy-two?"

"I don't know," I replied. I didn't care, either.

Trying to be funny, he jokingly said, "Is it eighty-five, for example?"

"Yes!" I answered, even though I knew it wasn't. For that answer my sister hit me hard on the head.

"Boy!" he yelled. "Tell us about Miss Havisham."

Even though I knew it was wrong, I decided to lie. "Very tall and dark," I said.

"Is she, uncle?" asked my curious sister.

"Oh yes," answered Mr Pumblechook. Then I knew immediately that he had never seen her before. "This is how to get information from this boy," he added with authority to Mrs Joe.

"How wonderful you make him obey you, uncle!" said Mrs Joe.

"Now, boy!" he began again, "what was Miss Havisham doing when you arrived?"

"She was sitting inside a huge black box that was in the living room," I replied.

Mr Pumblechook and Mrs Joe looked hard at each other. "In a black box?" they repeated.

"Yes," I said. I started to become more confident. "And Miss Estella, who is her niece, I think, was giving her gold plates with cake and wine through little windows that were in the box."

"Was there anybody else in the living room?" asked Mr Pumblechook.

"Four dogs, and they were huge. They were eating meat out of a silver basket."

"Can this be possible, uncle?" asked Mrs Joe.

"I know she's a strange woman, madam. It's certainly possible. What did you play at, boy?"

"We played with flags," I answered, surprised at the lies I was telling. "Estella had a blue one, and I was given a red one, and Miss Havisham had a flag with little gold stars on it that she stuck out of a window of that huge black box."

Fortunately they didn't ask me anymore questions. They were still talking about all the wonderful things I had seen when Joe came into the room. They repeated what I had said and I saw his blue eyes open wide in surprise. This made me feel very sorry that I had lied. Later that evening, as soon as I was alone with Joe for a moment, I told him that I had lied about my visit to Miss Havisham's.

"None of it is true, Pip?" he asked, surprised. "No huge black box? There were dogs, though, weren't there, Pip? No? Not even one dog?"

"No, Joe, I'm sorry I lied."

His kind face looked very unhappy and he said, "Pip dear boy! If you tell lies, what will happen to you when you die?"

"I know, Joe, it's terrible to lie, but I couldn't help myself. Today a beautiful young lady at Miss Havisham's said I was common because of my thick boots and rough hands. And I know I am! I feel so miserable and somehow I thought I'd feel better if I told some lies."

"Oh, Pip," said Joe, lighting his pipe slowly, "you can't stop being common by telling lies. Lies are wrong and can never make you any better. And remember you're learning all the time, Pip! Just think of that letter you wrote me last night! All the rich people, even the King, they had to start their learning from the beginning, too, isn't that right? So I guess no flags at Miss Havisham's? That's a pity. Look here, Pip, as a true friend speaking to you, take my advice and remember, 'No more lies, live well, and die happy.'"

Joe's honest words made me feel better and I went to bed, but I couldn't stop myself thinking about Estella and how she would think that Joe's boots were also too thick and his hands also too coarse. I knew that she would consider our whole family common. From that night on, I decided never to work in the iron workshop.

(end of section)