The Old Curiosity Club discussion

Hello Fellow-Curiosities,

Now that Dickens has started to unravel some of the mysteries of Estella’s past, the following two chapters hold another revelation for Pip and the reader. The novel is approaching its end, and we are in for a lot of surprises since Dickens is tidying matters up.

In Chapter 49, the narrator tells us how he pays Miss Havisham another visit after learning from Jaggers that the old lady wants to see him once more. Again, he comes to his old home town like a thief in the night, not wanting to be seen by anyone and not even thinking of Joe, which is, maybe, excusable this time, considering Pip’s worries about Magwitch and being tailed by Compeyson. This time, there is no Sarah Pocket to open the door for him, but an elderly woman, and he finds Miss Havisham in dire solitude sitting by a dying fire, in a “ragged chair”. He comments that

”[t]here was an air of utter loneliness upon her, that would have moved me to pity though she had wilfully done me a deeper injury than I could charge her with.”

In short, he immediately begins to feel compassion for the lonely woman, who seems unsure whether Pip might not be angry with her, for although she makes a motion as if to touch him, she withdraws her hand before she can complete this motion. Miss Havisham speaks of the favour that Pip asked her to do to Herbert, thereby wanting to prove to him that there is still something human in her heart. After Pip has explained his intentions concerning Herbert to her, she agrees to let him have the money that is needed, writing a note to that effect for Jaggers and asking Pip whether his mind is now more at rest, a question he answers in the affirmative.

She also wants to know if Pip is very unhappy, not even daring to look at him as she puts forth her question, and Pip replies that, indeed, he is far from happy but that his unhappiness has other sources than Miss Havisham’s way of dealing with him. It is very obvious that a sea change has taken place in Miss Havisham, which is mirrored in her constant question, “What have I done?” She tries to find out whether she cannot do anything for Pip himself in order to atone for her former behaviour, and in a very heart-breaking scene she falls down on her knees before young Pip to implore his forgiveness – just after Pip confesses to his own faults, saying

”’[...] There have been sore mistakes; and my life has been a blind and thankless one; and I want forgiveness and direction far too much, to be bitter with you.’”

Nevertheless, she remains kneeling, even lying in front of him until he soothes her and gently puts her back into her chair. He sums up his own thoughts and feelings about the old lady in the following words:

”That she had done a grievous thing in taking an impressionable child to mould into the form that her wild resentment, spurned affection, and wounded pride found vengeance in, I knew full well. But that, in shutting out the light of day, she had shut out infinitely more; that, in seclusion, she had secluded herself from a thousand natural and healing influences; that, her mind, brooding solitary, had grown diseased, as all minds do and must and will that reverse the appointed order of their Maker, I knew equally well. And could I look upon her without compassion, seeing her punishment in the ruin she was, in her profound unfitness for this earth on which she was placed, in the vanity of sorrow which had become a master mania, like the vanity of penitence, the vanity of remorse, the vanity of unworthiness, and other monstrous vanities that have been curses in this world?”

Are these reflections a sign of Pip’s inner change towards a less egocentric personality? Miss Havisham is definitely changed, but the trigger that made this possible is, apparently, not so much her ability to put herself in Pip’s shoes but to see in Pip what she once was - or how would you take her following words?

”’Until you spoke to her the other day, and until I saw in you a looking-glass that showed me that what I once felt myself, I did not know what I had done. […]’”

In her grief and remorse, Miss Havisham also protests that originally, when taking Estella into her house, she had no intentions of making her the tool of her vengeance but she only wanted to save her from misery. Pip uses the opportunity to ascertain whether Estella can really be Molly’s daughter by asking at what age she came to Miss Havisham, and he finds the answer corroborating his assumption. Before he leaves Satis House, he once more takes a walk in the overgrown garden, and once again he fancies seeing Miss Havisham’s body hanging from a beam – a hallucination that makes him go back to see whether the old lady is well. When he enters her room, he finds her the centre of a conflagration – apparently, the ashes of the fire have set her bridal dress aflame ¬–, and he quickly puts out the flames of her dress, saving her life but leaving her a victim of shock. Interestingly, when the doctor arrives, he orders Miss Havisham to be laid unto the very table she had pointed out as the place where her relatives would one day gaze at her dead body. The immediate help he gave to Miss Havisham also causes his arms and hands to be burnt, which will postpone any attempts of getting Magwitch out of the country because in his present state, Pip cannot row a boat.

Chapter 50 sees Pip back in London, where he went directly from Miss Havisham’s place. His hands being badly burnt, he needs help from Herbert in order to treat his wounds, as he cannot afford to let his rowing exercises rest for too much time because otherwise, they could no longer be used as a cover for getting Magwitch out of the country when the time to do so has arrives. When Herbert comes and dresses his wounds, he tells his friend of another talk he had with Magwitch, in which the ex-convict told him the story of his tragic love affair: He married a woman “over the broomstick” but the wife turned out a very jealous woman, and not only did she kill another woman but she also told Magwitch that she had, in a fit of jealousy, destroyed their own child. Actually, there is no proof of the latter being true because the child’s body has never been discovered.

From certain similarities between Magwitch’s story and what he knows about Molly’s crime, Pip comes to the conclusion that Estella is actually Magwitch’s lost daughter. I was not so much surprised at that connection but at how Magwitch always happens to divulge the very bits and pieces of his biography that are needed at a certain moment for Pip and Herbert, as well as the reader, to complete the picture. It all falls into place …

Most of us, including me foremost, have been very critical and fault-finding as far as our protagonist Pip is concerned up to now, and I am afraid that the events reported in Chapter 51 will not exactly contribute to endear Pip any more to us – but see for yourselves.

As soon as a possible connection between Magwitch and Estella has dawned upon Pip, he describes himself as in a fever of finding out more about it, and as to his motives he says:

”I really do not know whether I felt that I did this for Estella’s sake, or whether I was glad to transfer to the man in whose preservation I was so much concerned some rays of the romantic interest that had so long surrounded me. Perhaps the latter possibility may be the nearer to the truth.”

Note the word “in whose preservation I was so much converned”. Are we to understand that at last, Pip has come to take some personal interest in his unloved benefactor, that he is genuinely worried about Magwitch’s lot – or is this just the prim and proper kind of fellowship-feeling that is speaking out of Pip, i.e. his idea of everyone being supposed to act kindly towards others?

One might also ask what good deeper knowledge about Estella’s origins can possibly do. Would it not be better to let sleeping dogs lie? Would definite knowledge about Estella being Magwitch’s daughter not also lead Drummles to treat her even worse if it ever came to his ears?

Be that as it may, Pip hies to Mr. Jaggers’s office, where he finds the lawyer and his chief clerk Wemmick going through their papers together. Of course, Wemmick is quite his Little Britain self, i.e. he hardly encourages Pip to show any familiarity with him – a point in fact that I think important for what is going to follow. Pip tells Mr. Jaggers what happened at Satis House, and he also draws the 900 Pounds for Herbert, but all this is just a pretence for what he really has in mind, and so Pip eventually leads their conversation towards the topic of Estella and her parents, saying that he thinks that Molly is Estella’s mother and that her father is none other than Magwitch. As could have been expected, Jaggers is not to be got out of his shell by these allegations, although he very briefly hesitates, but he tries to get rid of Pip by telling Wemmick to go on with their work. At this moment, Pip decides to draw Wemmick into the conversation, using the following words:

”’Wemmick, I know you to be a man with a gentle heart. I have seen your pleasant home, and your old father, and all the innocent, cheerful playful ways with which you refresh your business life. And I entreat you to say a word for me to Mr. Jaggers, and to represent to him that, all circumstances considered, he ought to be more open with me!’”

Jaggers is surprised at this turn of events, and for a moment Pip does not know whether the lawyer will give in or whether he will dismiss Wemmick, but then he sees “Jaggers relax into something like a smile”, and Wemmick becomes bolder. He even defends himself by saying that as long as his private life does not interfere with his business, there cannot be anything to be said against having a happy home. He even adds that he is sure that one of these days, Jaggers himself will try to build up a happy home. Jaggers eventually relaxes and tells Pip the background story of Estella and her mother, which – in a nutshell – boils down to this: When Jaggers could not know yet whether he would be able to get Molly off the hook, he saw an opportunity of getting Estella out of the way, into the household of Miss Havisham, and, by hook and crook, he managed to convince Molly to comply with his plan. His motive for doing so is best given in his own words:

”’Put the case that he lived in an atmosphere of evil, and that all he saw of children was their being generated in great numbers for certain destruction. Put the case that he often saw children solemnly tried at a criminal bar, where they were held up to be seen; put the case that he habitually knew of their being imprisoned, whipped, transported, neglected, cast out, qualified in all ways for the hangman, and growing up to be hanged. Put the case that pretty nigh all the children he saw in his daily business life he had reason to look upon as so much spawn, to develop into the fish that were to come to his net, – to be prosecuted, defended, forsworn, made orphans, bedevilled somehow.’

‘I follow you, sir.’

‘Put the case, Pip, that here was one pretty little child out of the heap who could be saved; whom the father believed dead, and dared make no stir about; as to whom, over the mother, the legal adviser had this power: “I know what you did, and how you did it. You came so and so, you did such and such things to divert suspicion. I have tracked you through it all, and I tell it you all. Part with the child, unless it should be necessary to produce it to clear you, and then it shall be produced. Give the child into my hands, and I will do my best to bring you off. If you are saved, your child is saved too; if you are lost, your child is still saved.” Put the case that this was done, and that the woman was cleared.’”

What do these words tell us about Jaggers?

What do they tell us about the penal system at that time?

Last, but not least: Do you think that Pip did well in betraying Wemmick’s secret to Jaggers, although Wemmick originally entreated him to keep silent about his private life and never to tell Jaggers or anybody else in the office about his little home and the aged parent? Pip could not know how Jaggers would have reacted, and he had nothing in Wemmick’s behaviour to go by which could have disengaged him from his vow of silence. This was actually a moment when I disliked Pip more strongly than ever, potentially betraying another friend of his in order to satisfy his curiosity about Estella.

In the following, Jaggers points out to Pip that there is no point in divulging the secret to anyone. Not even Estella’s father would be any the happier for it, and if her husband got wind of it, this would surely throw her into public disgrace. Pip agrees to keep mum about it, and we know how good he is at keeping this kind of promise. When Jaggers and Wemmick go back to the work they have been doing, Pip notices that they are quite ill at ease with each other because

”each of them seemed suspicious, not to say conscious, of having shown himself in a weak and unprofessional light to the other”,

but, luckily, the arrival of a client, who cannot control his feelings for his imprisoned father, soon unites them in their indignation at somebody showing his feelings in the office.

In Chapter 52, we are told that Pip, as soon as he left Jaggers, goes to Clarriker’s office to finally settle all affairs in favour of Herbert, and he rightly remarks:

”It was the only good thing I had done, and the only completed thing I had done, since I was first apprised of my great expectations.”

It is in the month of March that one day, Pip gets a secret note from Wemmick which tells him that now is the best moment to get Magwitch out of the country, preferably on Wednesday. Pip and Herbert develop a plan to put Magwitch on a steamer for Hamburg, a plan in which they want to rely on the rowing power of Startop. There is yet another note that Pip receives, “a very dirty letter, though not ill-written.” It reads:

”’If you are not afraid to come to the old marshes to-night or to-morrow night at nine, and to come to the little sluice-house by the limekiln, you had better come. If you want information regarding your uncle Provis, you had much better come and tell no one, and lose no time. You must come alone. Bring this with you.’”

Pip is at a loss as to who wrote this letter, and he is not too inclined to follow its instructions because he is pressed for time but the reference to Provis finally leads him to take the risk and go to the marshes. Who might have written that letter, and why does the writer make a point of Pip’s bringing the letter with him and coming alone? I also noticed the reference to the limekiln, which put The Mystery of Edwin Drood into my mind, where a limekiln plays a special role.

Pip returns to his old haunts, and this time the waiter of an inn, who does not recognize him, tells him about Pip, who now and then goes to see his old friends, but never the man who made his fortune – this poor, neglected saint being none other but uncle Pumblechook. Pip asks a very interesting, and telling (!), question and receives a funny answer:

”’Is he ungrateful to no one else?’

‘No doubt he would be, if he could,’ returned the landlord, ‘but he can’t. And why? Because Pumblechook done everything for him.’”

This conversation makes Pip think of poor Joe and Biddy, who never complain about him although they would have every right to do so. Does this indicate a change in Pip’s behaviour?

Tristram wrote: This was actually a moment when I disliked Pip more strongly than ever, potentially betraying another friend of his in order to satisfy his curiosity about Estella."

Me too.

"I saw her running at me"

Chapter 49

John McLenan

Text Illustrated:

I looked into the room where I had left her, and I saw her seated in the ragged chair upon the hearth close to the fire, with her back towards me. In the moment when I was withdrawing my head to go quietly away, I saw a great flaming light spring up. In the same moment I saw her running at me, shrieking, with a whirl of fire blazing all about her, and soaring at least as many feet above her head as she was high.

I had a double-caped great-coat on, and over my arm another thick coat. That I got them off, closed with her, threw her down, and got them over her; that I dragged the great cloth from the table for the same purpose, and with it dragged down the heap of rottenness in the midst, and all the ugly things that sheltered there; that we were on the ground struggling like desperate enemies, and that the closer I covered her, the more wildly she shrieked and tried to free herself,—that this occurred I knew through the result, but not through anything I felt, or thought, or knew I did. I knew nothing until I knew that we were on the floor by the great table, and that patches of tinder yet alight were floating in the smoky air, which, a moment ago, had been her faded bridal dress.

Commentary:

Her smoldering resentment of the male gender after being jilted on the very day of her wedding all those years ago and her training Estella to be a breaker of hearts results in this peculiar nemesis. Having shut herself from the light of day for much of her life, Miss Havisham has had to wander the gloomy halls of shut-up Satis House carrying candles. And, indeed, whenever she is depicted in the various nineteenth-century narrative-pictorial sequences (by Stone, McLenan, Fraser, and Green), candles are lit somewhere in the backdrop of the scene. But in this representation of the sensational death of the reclusive heiress the candles which Furniss has prominently displayed (perhaps as foreshadowing) in such scenes as Estella tells Pip of her Engagement to Mr. Drummle in Chapter XLIV disappear in the smoke haze that engulfs her sitting-room. For clarity and dramatic effect Furniss has eliminated "the ragged chair upon the hearth close to the fire" and made Miss Havisham's withered wedding-dress the kindling for the blaze.

After the early Miss Havisham plates in which she has the rooms and corridors of Satis House illuminated by candles because all the windows have remained curtained since she was jilted, she herself becomes a source of illumination, a human candle. As smoke billows (right) and flames engulf her skirts in this final Havisham illustration, we are still struck by the awkward rigidity of the figures: Miss Havisham's look of horror is utterly convincing, but her waist is not. Pip, on the other hand, is not a figure, but a statue. For the moment, he is paralyzed, incapable of acting.

Pip Rescues Miss Havisham

Chapter 49

Harry Furniss

Text Illustrated:

I looked into the room where I had left her, and I saw her seated in the ragged chair upon the hearth close to the fire, with her back towards me. In the moment when I was withdrawing my head to go quietly away, I saw a great flaming light spring up. In the same moment I saw her running at me, shrieking, with a whirl of fire blazing all about her, and soaring at least as many feet above her head as she was high.

I had a double-caped great-coat on, and over my arm another thick coat. That I got them off, closed with her, threw her down, and got them over her; that I dragged the great cloth from the table for the same purpose, and with it dragged down the heap of rottenness in the midst, and all the ugly things that sheltered there; that we were on the ground struggling like desperate enemies, and that the closer I covered her, the more wildly she shrieked and tried to free herself,—that this occurred I knew through the result, but not through anything I felt, or thought, or knew I did. I knew nothing until I knew that we were on the floor by the great table, and that patches of tinder yet alight were floating in the smoky air, which, a moment ago, had been her faded bridal dress.

Commentary:

Whenever Miss Haversham is depicted in the various nineteenth-century narrative-pictorial sequences (by Stone, McLenan, Fraser, and Green), candles are lit somewhere in the backdrop of the scene. But in this representation of the sensational death of the reclusive heiress the candles which Furniss has prominently displayed (perhaps as foreshadowing) in such scenes as Estella tells Pip of her Engagement to Mr. Drummle in Chapter XLIV disappear in the smoke haze that engulfs her sitting-room. For clarity and dramatic effect Furniss has eliminated "the ragged chair upon the hearth close to the fire" and made Miss Havisham's withered wedding-dress the kindling for the blaze.

In his 'double-caped great-coat' Pip vigorously attempts to stifle the conflagration, whose flames surge upwards immediately above the victim's body. She holds aloft her cane as Pip, having dragged the rotten cloth off the table (not shown), attempts to smother the flames. Furniss employs the very indistinctness of the backdrop to focus the viewer's attention on that arm and the kinetic figure of her would-be rescuer. Thus, fire, the vehicle of romance in the frontispiece, when Pip imagines the alluring Estella within the flames of the forge when he was a blacksmith's apprentice, Furniss now clarifies as dangerous and destructive, an emblem of passions run amok.

"I entreated her to rise"

Chapter 49

F. A. Fraser

Text Illustrated:

She read me what she had written; and it was direct and clear, and evidently intended to absolve me from any suspicion of profiting by the receipt of the money. I took the tablets from her hand, and it trembled again, and it trembled more as she took off the chain to which the pencil was attached, and put it in mine. All this she did without looking at me.

“My name is on the first leaf. If you can ever write under my name, “I forgive her,” though ever so long after my broken heart is dust pray do it!”

“O Miss Havisham,” said I, “I can do it now. There have been sore mistakes; and my life has been a blind and thankless one; and I want forgiveness and direction far too much, to be bitter with you.”

She turned her face to me for the first time since she had averted it, and, to my amazement, I may even add to my terror, dropped on her knees at my feet; with her folded hands raised to me in the manner in which, when her poor heart was young and fresh and whole, they must often have been raised to heaven from her mother’s side.

To see her with her white hair and her worn face kneeling at my feet gave me a shock through all my frame. I entreated her to rise, and got my arms about her to help her up; but she only pressed that hand of mine which was nearest to her grasp, and hung her head over it and wept. I had never seen her shed a tear before, and, in the hope that the relief might do her good, I bent over her without speaking. She was not kneeling now, but was down upon the ground.

“O!” she cried, despairingly. “What have I done! What have I done!”

"Confidential with Mr. Jaggers"

Chapter 51

F. W. Pailthorpe

Text Illustrated:

“So! You know the young lady’s father, Pip?” said Mr. Jaggers.

“Yes,” I replied, “and his name is Provis — from New South Wales.”

Even Mr. Jaggers started when I said those words. It was the slightest start that could escape a man, the most carefully repressed and the sooner checked, but he did start, though he made it a part of the action of taking out his pocket-handkerchief. How Wemmick received the announcement I am unable to say; for I was afraid to look at him just then, lest Mr. Jaggers’s sharpness should detect that there had been some communication unknown to him between us.

“And on what evidence, Pip,” asked Mr. Jaggers, very coolly, as he paused with his handkerchief half way to his nose, “does Provis make this claim?”

“He does not make it,” said I, “and has never made it, and has no knowledge or belief that his daughter is in existence.”

For once, the powerful pocket-handkerchief failed. My reply was so unexpected, that Mr. Jaggers put the handkerchief back into his pocket without completing the usual performance, folded his arms, and looked with stern attention at me, though with an immovable face.

Commentary:

Significantly, even years after receiving the news of his "Great Expectations" from Jaggers at the Jolly Bargemen, Pip still thinks of his guardian as "Mr." Jaggers. Their relationship remains legally rather than personally defined, and Pip remains his ward and responsibility rather than his adopted son. And the inscrutable attorney, keeper of secrets, even now refuses a frank communication about Estella's origins; he merely "puts the case" in a series of hypotheticals about Miss Havisham, Molly and Abel Magwitch. He affirms nothing in this scene that is critical to the revelation of a major plot secret.

"Pip at Mr. Jagger's Office"

Chapter 51

Harry Furniss

Text Illustrated:

. . I made a passionate, almost an indignant appeal, to him to be more frank and manly with me. I reminded him of the false hopes into which I had lapsed, the length of time they had lasted, and the discovery I had made: and I hinted at the danger that weighed upon my spirits. I represented myself as being surely worthy of some little confidence from him, in return for the confidence I had just now imparted. I said that I did not blame him, or suspect him, or mistrust him, but I wanted assurance of the truth from him. And if he asked me why I wanted it, and why I thought I had any right to it, I would tell him, little as he cared for such poor dreams, that I had loved Estella dearly and long, and that although I had lost her, and must live a bereaved life, whatever concerned her was still nearer and dearer to me than anything else in the world. And seeing that Mr. Jaggers stood quite still and silent, and apparently quite obdurate, under this appeal, I turned to Wemmick, and said, “Wemmick, I know you to be a man with a gentle heart. I have seen your pleasant home, and your old father, and all the innocent, cheerful playful ways with which you refresh your business life. And I entreat you to say a word for me to Mr. Jaggers, and to represent to him that, all circumstances considered, he ought to be more open with me!”

Commentary:

Significantly, even years after receiving the news of his "Great Expectations" from Jaggers at the Jolly Bargemen, Pip still thinks of his guardian as "Mr." Jaggers. Their relationship remains legally rather than personally defined, and Pip remains his ward and responsibility rather than his adopted son. And the inscrutable attorney, keeper of secrets, even now refuses a frank communication about Estella's origins; he merely "puts the case" in a series of hypotheticals about Miss Havisham, Molly and Abel Magwitch. He affirms nothing in this scene that is critical to the revelation of a major plot secret. Furniss poses Jaggers as if he is in court, cross-examining a witness, and making a hypothetical case. Furniss poses Jaggers as if he is in court, cross-examining a witness, and making a hypothetical case.

Furniss presents a somewhat theatrical Jaggers, who, striking a courtroom pose, is the only dynamic figure within the frame. As he points upward, as if to underscore his point about "an atmosphere of evil" , what he seems to be indicating physically is a pistol mounted on the wall (undoubtedly a key piece of evidence in some long-forgotten Old Bailey trial) and the death-masks of former clients, ominous reminders of the usual consequences of crime, even with so brilliant a defence attorney (barrister) as Jaggers. Pip, his arm still in a sling from burns sustained in trying heroically to rescue Miss Havisham, is once again a passive listener. Furniss captures the moment before Pip achieves enlightenment about the origins of Estella, and the connection between her, Molly (whom Pip has rightly identified as Estella's natural mother), and Abel Magwitch, the returned felon and "the young lady's father" . Wemmick, attending to every word, leans back in his chair. The fourth figure is Mike, the client in the fur cap, who in fact does not enter the office until after Jaggers has finished "putting the case."

"Know him!' repeated the landlord."

Chapter 52

John McLenan

Text Ilustrated:

It was dark before we got down, and the journey seemed long and dreary to me, who could see little of it inside, and who could not go outside in my disabled state. Avoiding the Blue Boar, I put up at an inn of minor reputation down the town, and ordered some dinner. While it was preparing, I went to Satis House and inquired for Miss Havisham; she was still very ill, though considered something better.

My inn had once been a part of an ancient ecclesiastical house, and I dined in a little octagonal common-room, like a font. As I was not able to cut my dinner, the old landlord with a shining bald head did it for me. This bringing us into conversation, he was so good as to entertain me with my own story,—of course with the popular feature that Pumblechook was my earliest benefactor and the founder of my fortunes.

“Do you know the young man?” said I.

“Know him!” repeated the landlord. “Ever since he was — no height at all.”

“Does he ever come back to this neighbourhood?”

“Ay, he comes back,” said the landlord, “to his great friends, now and again, and gives the cold shoulder to the man that made him.”

“What man is that?”

“Him that I speak of,” said the landlord. “Mr. Pumblechook.”

“Is he ungrateful to no one else?”

"No doubt he would be, if he could,” returned the landlord, “but he can’t. And why? Because Pumblechook done everything for him.”

“Does Pumblechook say so?”

“Say so!” replied the landlord. “He han’t no call to say so.”

“But does he say so?”

“It would turn a man’s blood to white wine winegar to hear him tell of it, sir,” said the landlord.

I thought, "Yet Joe, dear Joe, you never tell of it. Long-suffering and loving Joe, you never complain. Nor you, sweet-tempered Biddy!"

Commentary:

Essentially a comic, caricatural illustrator, McLenan recognized an opportunity for an ironically humourous scene as the unknowing landlord retails the local perspective about Pip's lack of appreciation of Pumblechook. The dialogue presents Pip to himself as the epitome of ingratitude.

The scene again suggests Dickens's "streaky bacon" construction as it is sandwiched in between preparations for Magwitch's escape and Pip's dangerous misadventure at the lime kiln. Back once again in the marsh country, Pip puts up for the night at a local inn "of modest distinction." But he is now too sophisticated, too "classy," or at least too class-conscious to stay at The Three Jolly Bargemen, the public house where he might run into some of his erstwhile cronies who are now beneath him. And so the scene is the coffee-room of the inn that caters to upper-middle-class travellers: The Blue Boar.

Whatever is Pip doing back here anyway? Having made preparations for Provis's escape to the Continent on the Rotterdam steamer, Pip ought to be in London, making preparations and securing travel documents. In fact, with his arm in a sling from burns incurred when he tried to assist Miss Havisham when she caught fire, Pip cannot practice his rowing. And he has just received an anonymous note summoning him back to the marshes to receive some mysterious communication about Magwitch.

On opening the outer door of our chambers with my key, I found a letter in the box, directed to me; a very dirty letter, though not ill-written. It had been delivered by hand (of course, since I left home), and its contents were these:—

“If you are not afraid to come to the old marshes to-night or to-morrow night at nine, and to come to the little sluice-house by the limekiln, you had better come. If you want information regarding your uncle Provis, you had much better come and tell no one, and lose no time. You must come alone. Bring this with you.”

Ominously, Pip has been instructed to come alone and to tell nobody about the actual purpose of his trip home; he is to bring the note, not leave it in his London rooms. In the note he leaves for Herbert, Pip says he is making a quick trip home by coach to check on Miss Havisham's recuperation. He is now installed in the inn after having checked on Miss Havisham.

The brilliance of the scene lies not in its red-nosed, bibulous waiter, but in the situational irony of the waiter's criticizing Pip for ingratitude, oblivious to the fact that he is in fact addressing Pip. It is therefore not just in clothing that Pip is quite different from the blacksmith's apprentice who left the village just six years earlier. He is more polished, more genteel, more of a "gentleman." As he assists the young Londoner in cutting his meat (not in evidence in McLenan's illustration) the bald-pated landlord tells Pip how Pumblechook made a young man’s fortune, not realizing that Pip is his interlocutor. The landlord states how the young man has poorly repaid Pumblechook for his "great expectations" in London by giving him the cold shoulder. When he comes down, says the landlord, he only sees his "fine friends" at Satis House. Pip reflects on how Joe has never complained, and feels guilty that he has neglected Joe and Biddy, with whom of course he could have met, but for his gentlemanly pretentions.

"Him that I speak of,' said the landlord, Mr. Pumbletook."

Chapter 52

F. A. Fraser

Text Illustrated:

My inn had once been a part of an ancient ecclesiastical house, and I dined in a little octagonal common-room, like a font. As I was not able to cut my dinner, the old landlord with a shining bald head did it for me. This bringing us into conversation, he was so good as to entertain me with my own story — of course with the popular feature that Pumblechook was my earliest benefactor and the founder of my fortunes.

"Do you know the young man?" said I.

"Know him!" repeated the landlord. "Ever since he was — no height at all."

"Does he ever come back to this neighbourhood?"

"Ay, he comes back," said the landlord, "to his great friends, now and again, and gives the cold shoulder to the man that made him."

"What man is that?"

"Him that I speak of," said the landlord. "Mr. Pumblechook."

"Is he ungrateful to no one else?"

"No doubt he would be, if he could," returned the landlord, "but he can't. And why? Because Pumblechook done everything for him."

"Does Pumblechook say so?"

"Say so!" replied the landlord. "He ha'n't no call to say so."

"But does he say so?"

"It would turn a man’s blood to white-wine winegar to hear him tell of it, sir," said the landlord.

I thought, "Yet Joe, dear Joe, you never tell of it. Long-suffering and loving Joe, you never complain. Nor you, sweet-tempered Biddy!"

Pip sees Miss Haversham in flames

Chapter 49

Edward Ardizzone

1939

Heritage Edition

Here is an illustration by I don't know who yet. I like to call it "Pip attacks poor Miss Haversham with a broom". That seems like a long title, I'll have to think of another one.

Then there is "Miss Haversham on the way to Heaven or perhaps hell". Again, I must think of a better title. I don't know who the artist is.

So what do you think, before or after the fire?

What do you think?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_mNY...

Tristram wrote: "Hello Fellow-Curiosities,

Now that Dickens has started to unravel some of the mysteries of Estella’s past, the following two chapters hold another revelation for Pip and the reader. The novel is a..."

Yes. I see this chapter as one that could be titled “What have we done; what have we become.” Miss Havisham is portrayed as lonely, indeed alone. Satis House is certainly not enough. Dickens signals the changes as Tristram has pointed out. Gone is anyone from opening the door. Gone is Estella. As pointed out, Miss Havisham finally acts on Herbert’s behalf. What has Miss Havisham learned about herself? Dare we see her tragic burning as a purification? There is much said by being left unsaid as she is placed upon the very table she predicted would hold her body one day.

What has amiss Havisham learned? As for Pip, here he is once again in a house devoid of love and people. He sees Miss Havisham changing her mind and offering help to Herbert. What will become of a Pip now his supposed benefactor has been fully revealed as not a benefactor at all.

In the back of our minds let us hold the following thought. Who, if anyone, will come to Pip’s rescue if he is to lose everything?

Tristram wrote: "Hello Fellow-Curiosities,

Now that Dickens has started to unravel some of the mysteries of Estella’s past, the following two chapters hold another revelation for Pip and the reader. The novel is a..."

There is so much family tragedy in this novel. The unfolding of the story of Molly and Magwitch, the story of Miss Havisham and Compeyson, the marriage of Estella to Drummle, the awkward relationship of Joe to Pip’s sister, and even the way our story began with Pip visiting the gravesite of his parents and many siblings. So much discord. It makes one wonder if there is any hope for marriage.

And yet, if we just read on …

Tristram wrote: "Most of us, including me foremost, have been very critical and fault-finding as far as our protagonist Pip is concerned up to now, and I am afraid that the events reported in Chapter 51 will not ex..."

Tristram

It was an interesting set of circumstances that occurred in the chapter. Jaggers is revealed as having at least a crack of decency and kindness, the secret life of Wemmick is revealed to Jaggers, and Pip Is front and centre in the various threads of this chapter that are being braided together.

I still feel, however, that Dickens is holding back his approval of Pip and Pip’s actions. Pip is the protagonist of this novel, Pip is the centre of all events, but unlike David Copperfield or Nicholas Nickleby or other protagonists, I still sense a disapproval of Pip on Dickens’s part. It is a strange path to follow in my reading of the novel.

Kim wrote: "

"I saw her running at me"

Chapter 49

John McLenan

Text Illustrated:

I looked into the room where I had left her, and I saw her seated in the ragged chair upon the hearth close to the fire, wi..."

Thanks for the illustrations Kim. So many to ponder. In the commentary to this illustration it is mentioned that Miss Havisham becomes herself a source of illumination within Satis House. We are reminded of the numerous times candle have been mentioned in regards to Satis House but here we see Miss Havisham becoming her own source of light. How tragic, how horrid. What a brilliant way for Dickens to bring the symbolism of candles to such a dramatic crescendo.