There, I was roused by Mr. Pumblechook’s hailing me. He was a long way down the sunny street, and was making expressive gestures for me to stop. I stopped, and he came up breathless.
“No, my dear friend,” said he, when he had recovered wind for speech. “Not if I can help it. This occasion shall not entirely pass without that affability on your part. – May I, as an old friend and well-wisher? May I?”
We shook hands for the hundredth time at least, and he ordered a young carter out of my way with the greatest indignation. Then, he blessed me and stood waving his hand to me until I had passed the crook in the road; and then I turned into a field and had a long nap under a hedge before I pursued my way home.
I had scant luggage to take with me to London, for little of the little I possessed was adapted to my new station. But, I began packing that same afternoon, and wildly packed up things that I knew I should want next morning, in a fiction that there was not a moment to be lost.
So, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, passed; and on Friday morning I went to Mr. Pumblechook’s, to put on my new clothes and pay my visit to Miss Havisham. Mr. Pumblechook’s own room was given up to me to dress in, and was decorated with clean towels expressly for the event. My clothes were rather a disappointment, of course. Probably every new and eagerly expected garment ever put on since clothes came in, fell a trifle short of the wearer’s expectation. But after I had had my new suit on, some half an hour, and had gone through an immensity of posturing with Mr. Pumblechook’s very limited dressing-glass, in the futile endeavour to see my legs, it seemed to fit me better. It being market morning at a neighbouring town some ten miles off, Mr. Pumblechook was not at home. I had not told him exactly when I meant to leave, and was not likely to shake hands with him again before departing. This was all as it should be, and I went out in my new array: fearfully ashamed of having to pass the shopman, and suspicious after all that I was at a personal disadvantage, something like Joe’s in his Sunday suit.
I went circuitously to Miss Havisham’s by all the back ways, and rang at the bell constrainedly, on account of the stiff long fingers of my gloves. Sarah Pocket came to the gate, and positively reeled back when she saw me so changed; her walnut-shell countenance likewise, turned from brown to green and yellow.
“You?” said she. “You, good gracious! What do you want?”
“I am going to London, Miss Pocket,” said I, “and want to say good-bye to Miss Havisham.”
I was not expected, for she left me locked in the yard, while she went to ask if I were to be admitted. After a very short delay, she returned and took me up, staring at me all the way.
Miss Havisham was taking exercise in the room with the long spread table, leaning on her crutch stick. The room was lighted as of yore, and at the sound of our entrance, she stopped and turned. She was then just abreast of the rotted bride-cake.
“Don’t go, Sarah,” she said. “Well, Pip?”
“I start for London, Miss Havisham, to-morrow,” I was exceedingly careful what I said, “and I thought you would kindly not mind my taking leave of you.”
“This is a gay figure, Pip,” said she, making her crutch stick play round me, as if she, the fairy godmother who had changed me, were bestowing the finishing gift.
“I have come into such good fortune since I saw you last, Miss Havisham,” I murmured. “And I am so grateful for it, Miss Havisham!”
“Ay, ay!” said she, looking at the discomfited and envious Sarah, with delight. “I have seen Mr. Jaggers. I have heard about it, Pip. So you go to-morrow?”
“Yes, Miss Havisham.”
“And you are adopted by a rich person?”
“Yes, Miss Havisham.”
“Not named?”
“No, Miss Havisham.”
“And Mr. Jaggers is made your guardian?”