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1"Now," he pursued, "concerning Miss Havisham. Miss Havisham, you must know, was a spoilt child. Her mother died when she
2was a baby, and her father denied her nothing. Her father was a country gentleman down in your part of the world, and
3was a brewer. I don't know why it should be a crack thing to be a brewer; but it is indisputable that while you cannot
4possibly be genteel and bake, you may be as genteel as never was and brew. You see it every day." "Yet a gentleman may
5not keep a public-house; may he?" said I. "Not on any account," returned Herbert; "but a public-house may keep a
6gentleman. Well! Mr. Havisham was very rich and very proud. So was his daughter." "Miss Havisham was an only child?" I
7hazarded. "Stop a moment, I am coming to that. No, she was not an only child; she had a half-brother. Her father
8privately married again--his cook, I rather think." "I thought he was proud," said I. "My good Handel, so he was. He
9married his second wife privately, because he was proud, and in course of time she died. When she was dead, I apprehend
10he first told his daughter what he had done, and then the son became a part of the family, residing in the house you are
11acquainted with. As the son grew a young man, he turned out riotous, extravagant, undutiful,--altogether bad. At last
12his father disinherited him; but he softened when he was dying, and left him well off, though not nearly so well off as
13Miss Havisham.--Take another glass of wine, and excuse my mentioning that society as a body does not expect one to be so
14strictly conscientious in emptying one's glass, as to turn it bottom upwards with the rim on one's nose." I had been
15doing this, in an excess of attention to his recital. I thanked him, and apologised. He said, "Not at all," and resumed.
16"Miss Havisham was now an heiress, and you may suppose was looked after as a great match. Her half-brother had now ample
17means again, but what with debts and what with new madness wasted them most fearfully again. There were stronger
18differences between him and her than there had been between him and his father, and it is suspected that he cherished a
19deep and mortal grudge against her as having influenced the father's anger. Now, I come to the cruel part of the
20story,--merely breaking off, my dear Handel, to remark that a dinner-napkin will not go into a tumbler." Why I was
21trying to pack mine into my tumbler, I am wholly unable to say. I only know that I found myself, with a perseverance
22worthy of a much better cause, making the most strenuous exertions to compress it within those limits. Again I thanked
23him and apologised, and again he said in the cheerfullest manner, "Not at all, I am sure!" and resumed. "There appeared
24upon the scene--say at the races, or the public balls, or anywhere else you like--a certain man, who made love to Miss
25Havisham. I never saw him (for this happened five-and-twenty years ago, before you and I were, Handel), but I have heard
26my father mention that he was a showy man, and the kind of man for the purpose. But that he was not to be, without
27ignorance or prejudice, mistaken for a gentleman, my father most strongly asseverates; because it is a principle of his
28that no man who was not a true gentleman at heart ever was, since the world began, a true gentleman in manner. He says,
29no varnish can hide the grain of the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself.
30Well! This man pursued Miss Havisham closely, and professed to be devoted to her. I believe she had not shown much
31susceptibility up to that time; but all the susceptibility she possessed certainly came out then, and she passionately
32loved him. There is no doubt that she perfectly idolized him. He practised on her affection in that systematic way, that
33he got great sums of money from her, and he induced her to buy her brother out of a share in the brewery (which had been
34weakly left him by his father) at an immense price, on the plea that when he was her husband he must hold and manage it
35all. Your guardian was not at that time in Miss Havisham's counsels, and she was too haughty and too much in love to be
36advised by any one. Her relations were poor and scheming, with the exception of my father; he was poor enough, but not
37time-serving or jealous. The only independent one among them, he warned her that she was doing too much for this man,
38and was placing herself too unreservedly in his power. She took the first opportunity of angrily ordering my father out
39of the house, in his presence, and my father has never seen her since." I thought of her having said, "Matthew will come
40and see me at last when I am laid dead upon that table;" and I asked Herbert whether his father was so inveterate
41against her? "It's not that," said he, "but she charged him, in the presence of her intended husband, with being
42disappointed in the hope of fawning upon her for his own advancement, and, if he were to go to her now, it would look
43true--even to him--and even to her. To return to the man and make an end of him. The marriage day was fixed, the wedding
44dresses were bought, the wedding tour was planned out, the wedding guests were invited. The day came, but not the
45bridegroom. He wrote her a letter--" "Which she received," I struck in, "when she was dressing for her marriage? At
46twenty minutes to nine?" "At the hour and minute," said Herbert, nodding, "at which she afterwards stopped all the
47clocks. What was in it, further than that it most heartlessly broke the marriage off, I can't tell you, because I don't
48know. When she recovered from a bad illness that she had, she laid the whole place waste, as you have seen it, and she
49has never since looked upon the light of day." "Is that all the story?" I asked, after considering it. "All I know of
50it; and indeed I only know so much, through piecing it out for myself; for my father always avoids it, and, even when
51Miss Havisham invited me to go there, told me no more of it than it was absolutely requisite I should understand. But I
52have forgotten one thing. It has been supposed that the man to whom she gave her misplaced confidence acted throughout
53in concert with her half-brother; that it was a conspiracy between them; and that they shared the profits." "I wonder he
54didn't marry her and get all the property," said I. "He may have been married already, and her cruel mortification may
55have been a part of her half-brother's scheme," said Herbert. "Mind! I don't know that." "What became of the two men?" I
56asked, after again considering the subject. "They fell into deeper shame and degradation--if there can be deeper--and
57ruin." "Are they alive now?" "I don't know." "You said just now that Estella was not related to Miss Havisham, but
58adopted. When adopted?" Herbert shrugged his shoulders. "There has always been an Estella, since I have heard of a Miss
59Havisham. I know no more. And now, Handel," said he, finally throwing off the story as it were, "there is a perfectly
60open understanding between us. All that I know about Miss Havisham, you know." "And all that I know," I retorted, "you
61know." "I fully believe it. So there can be no competition or perplexity between you and me. And as to the condition on
62which you hold your advancement in life,--namely, that you are not to inquire or discuss to whom you owe it,--you may be
63very sure that it will never be encroached upon, or even approached, by me, or by any one belonging to me." In truth, he
64said this with so much delicacy, that I felt the subject done with, even though I should be under his father's roof for
65years and years to come. Yet he said it with so much meaning, too, that I felt he as perfectly understood Miss Havisham
66to be my benefactress, as I understood the fact myself.
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