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1The second of the two meetings referred to in the last chapter occurred about a week after the first. I had again left
2my boat at the wharf below Bridge; the time was an hour earlier in the afternoon; and, undecided where to dine, I had
3strolled up into Cheapside, and was strolling along it, surely the most unsettled person in all the busy concourse, when
4a large hand was laid upon my shoulder by some one overtaking me. It was Mr. Jaggers's hand, and he passed it through my
5arm. "As we are going in the same direction, Pip, we may walk together. Where are you bound for?" "For the Temple, I
6think," said I. "Don't you know?" said Mr. Jaggers. "Well," I returned, glad for once to get the better of him in
7cross-examination, "I do not know, for I have not made up my mind." "You are going to dine?" said Mr. Jaggers. "You
8don't mind admitting that, I suppose?" "No," I returned, "I don't mind admitting that." "And are not engaged?" "I don't
9mind admitting also that I am not engaged." "Then," said Mr. Jaggers, "come and dine with me." I was going to excuse
10myself, when he added, "Wemmick's coming." So I changed my excuse into an acceptance,--the few words I had uttered,
11serving for the beginning of either,--and we went along Cheapside and slanted off to Little Britain, while the lights
12were springing up brilliantly in the shop windows, and the street lamp-lighters, scarcely finding ground enough to plant
13their ladders on in the midst of the afternoon's bustle, were skipping up and down and running in and out, opening more
14red eyes in the gathering fog than my rushlight tower at the Hummums had opened white eyes in the ghostly wall. At the
15office in Little Britain there was the usual letter-writing, hand-washing, candle-snuffing, and safe-locking, that
16closed the business of the day. As I stood idle by Mr. Jaggers's fire, its rising and falling flame made the two casts
17on the shelf look as if they were playing a diabolical game at bo-peep with me; while the pair of coarse, fat office
18candles that dimly lighted Mr. Jaggers as he wrote in a corner were decorated with dirty winding-sheets, as if in
19remembrance of a host of hanged clients. We went to Gerrard Street, all three together, in a hackney-coach: And, as soon
20as we got there, dinner was served. Although I should not have thought of making, in that place, the most distant
21reference by so much as a look to Wemmick's Walworth sentiments, yet I should have had no objection to catching his eye
22now and then in a friendly way. But it was not to be done. He turned his eyes on Mr. Jaggers whenever he raised them
23from the table, and was as dry and distant to me as if there were twin Wemmicks, and this was the wrong one. "Did you
24send that note of Miss Havisham's to Mr. Pip, Wemmick?" Mr. Jaggers asked, soon after we began dinner. "No, sir,"
25returned Wemmick; "it was going by post, when you brought Mr. Pip into the office. Here it is." He handed it to his
26principal instead of to me. "It's a note of two lines, Pip," said Mr. Jaggers, handing it on, "sent up to me by Miss
27Havisham on account of her not being sure of your address. She tells me that she wants to see you on a little matter of
28business you mentioned to her. You'll go down?" "Yes," said I, casting my eyes over the note, which was exactly in those
29terms. "When do you think of going down?" "I have an impending engagement," said I, glancing at Wemmick, who was putting
30fish into the post-office, "that renders me rather uncertain of my time. At once, I think." "If Mr. Pip has the
31intention of going at once," said Wemmick to Mr. Jaggers, "he needn't write an answer, you know." Receiving this as an
32intimation that it was best not to delay, I settled that I would go to-morrow, and said so. Wemmick drank a glass of
33wine, and looked with a grimly satisfied air at Mr. Jaggers, but not at me. "So, Pip! Our friend the Spider," said Mr.
34Jaggers, "has played his cards. He has won the pool." It was as much as I could do to assent. "Hah! He is a promising
35fellow--in his way--but he may not have it all his own way. The stronger will win in the end, but the stronger has to be
36found out first. If he should turn to, and beat her--" "Surely," I interrupted, with a burning face and heart, "you do
37not seriously think that he is scoundrel enough for that, Mr. Jaggers?" "I didn't say so, Pip. I am putting a case. If
38he should turn to and beat her, he may possibly get the strength on his side; if it should be a question of intellect,
39he certainly will not. It would be chance work to give an opinion how a fellow of that sort will turn out in such
40circumstances, because it's a toss-up between two results." "May I ask what they are?" "A fellow like our friend the
41Spider," answered Mr. Jaggers, "either beats or cringes. He may cringe and growl, or cringe and not growl; but he either
42beats or cringes. Ask Wemmick his opinion." "Either beats or cringes," said Wemmick, not at all addressing himself to
43me. "So here's to Mrs. Bentley Drummle," said Mr. Jaggers, taking a decanter of choicer wine from his dumb-waiter, and
44filling for each of us and for himself, "and may the question of supremacy be settled to the lady's satisfaction! To the
45satisfaction of the lady and the gentleman, it never will be. Now, Molly, Molly, Molly, Molly, how slow you are to-day!"
46She was at his elbow when he addressed her, putting a dish upon the table. As she withdrew her hands from it, she fell
47back a step or two, nervously muttering some excuse. And a certain action of her fingers, as she spoke, arrested my
48attention. "What's the matter?" said Mr. Jaggers. "Nothing. Only the subject we were speaking of," said I, "was rather
49painful to me." The action of her fingers was like the action of knitting. She stood looking at her master, not
50understanding whether she was free to go, or whether he had more to say to her and would call her back if she did go.
51Her look was very intent. Surely, I had seen exactly such eyes and such hands on a memorable occasion very lately! He
52dismissed her, and she glided out of the room. But she remained before me as plainly as if she were still there. I
53looked at those hands, I looked at those eyes, I looked at that flowing hair; and I compared them with other hands,
54other eyes, other hair, that I knew of, and with what those might be after twenty years of a brutal husband and a stormy
55life. I looked again at those hands and eyes of the housekeeper, and thought of the inexplicable feeling that had come
56over me when I last walked--not alone--in the ruined garden, and through the deserted brewery. I thought how the same
57feeling had come back when I saw a face looking at me, and a hand waving to me from a stage-coach window; and how it had
58come back again and had flashed about me like lightning, when I had passed in a carriage--not alone--through a sudden
59glare of light in a dark street. I thought how one link of association had helped that identification in the theatre,
60and how such a link, wanting before, had been riveted for me now, when I had passed by a chance swift from Estella's
61name to the fingers with their knitting action, and the attentive eyes. And I felt absolutely certain that this woman
62was Estella's mother. Mr. Jaggers had seen me with Estella, and was not likely to have missed the sentiments I had been
63at no pains to conceal. He nodded when I said the subject was painful to me, clapped me on the back, put round the wine
64again, and went on with his dinner. Only twice more did the housekeeper reappear, and then her stay in the room was very
65short, and Mr. Jaggers was sharp with her. But her hands were Estella's hands, and her eyes were Estella's eyes, and if
66she had reappeared a hundred times I could have been neither more sure nor less sure that my conviction was the truth.
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