第152章

THE second of the two meetings referred to in the last chapter, occurred about a week after the first. I had again left my boat at the wharf below Bridge; the time was an hour earlier in the afternoon; and, undecided where to dine, I had strolled up into Cheapside, and was strolling along it, surely the most unsettled person in all the busy concourse, when a large hand was laid upon my shoulder, by some one overtaking me. It was Mr Jaggers's hand, and he passed it through my arm.

`As we are going in the same direction, Pip, we may walk together. Where are you bound for?'

`For the Temple, I think,' said I.

`Don't you know?' said Mr Jaggers.

`Well,' I returned, glad for once to get the better of him in cross-examination, `I do not know, for I have not made up mn mind.'

`You are going to dine?' said Mr Jaggers. `You don't mind admitting that, I suppose?'

`No,' I returned, `I don't mind admitting that.'

`And are not engaged?'

`I don't mind admitting also, that I am not engaged.'

`Then,' said Mr Jaggers, `come and dine with me.'

I was going to excuse myself, when he added, `Wemmick's coming.' So, I changed my excuse into an acceptance - the few words I had uttered, serving for the beginning of either - and we went along Cheapside and slanted off to Little Britain, while the lights were springing up brilliantly in the shop windows, and the street lamp-lighters, scarcely finding ground enough to plant their ladders on in the midst of the afternoon's bustle, were skipping up and down and running in and out, opening more red eyes in the gathering fog than my rushlight tower at the Hummums had opened white eyes in the ghostly wall.

At the office in Little Britain there was the usual letter-writing, hand-washing, candle-snuffing, and safe-locking, that closed the business of the day. As I stood idle by Mr Jagger's fire, its rising and falling flame made the two casts on the shelf look as if they were playing a diabolical game at bo-peep with me; while the pair of coarse fat office candles that dimly lighted Mr Jaggers as he wrote in a corner, were decorated with dirty winding-sheets, as if in remembrance of a host of hanged clients.

We went to Gerrard-street, all three together, in a hackneycoach: and as soon as we got there, dinner was served. Although I should not have thought of making, in that place, the most distant reference by so much as a look to Wemmick's Walworth sentiments, yet I should have had no objection to catching his eye now and then in a friendly way. But it was not to be done. He turned his eyes on Mr Jaggers whenever he raised them from the table, and was as dry and distant to me as if there were twin Wemmicks and this was the wrong one.

`Did you send that note of Miss Havisham's to Mr Pip, Wemmick?' Mr Jaggers asked, soon after we began dinner.

`No, sir,' returned Wemmick; `it was going by post, when you brought Mr Pip into the office. Here it is.' He handed it to his principal, instead of to me.

`It's a note of two lines, Pip,' said Mr Jaggers, handing it on, `sent up to me by Miss Havisham, on account of her not being sure of your address.

She tells me that she wants to see you on a little matter of business you mentioned to her. You'll go down?'

`Yes,' said I, casting my eyes over the note, which was exactly in those terms.

`When do you think of going down?'

`I have an impending engagement,' said I, glancing at Wemmick, who was putting fish into the post-office, `that renders me rather uncertain of my time. At once, I think.'

`If Mr Pip has the intention of going at once,' said Wemmick to Mr Jaggers, `he needn't write an answer, you know.'

Receiving this as an intimation that it was best not to delay, I settled that I would go to-morrow, and said so. Wemmick drank a glass of wine and looked with a grimly satisfied air at Mr Jaggers, but not at me.

`So, Pip! Our friend the Spider,' said Mr Jaggers, `has played his cards.

He has won the pool.'

It was as much as I could do to assent.

`Hah! He is a promising fellow - 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 found out first. If he should turn to, and beat her--'

`Surely,' I interrupted, with a burning face and heart, `you do not seriously think that he is scoundrel enough for that, Mr Jaggers?'

`I didn't say so, Pip. I am putting a case. If he should turn to and beat her, he may possibly get the strength on his side; if it should be a question of intellect, he certainly will not. It would be chance work to give an opinion how a fellow of that sort will turn out in such circumstances, because it's a toss-up between two results.'

`May I ask what they are?'

`A fellow like our friend the Spider,' answered Mr Jaggers, `either beats, or cringes. He may cringe and growl, or cringe and not growl; but he either beats or cringes. Ask Wemmick his opinion.'

`Either beats or cringes,' said Wemmick, not at all addressing himself to me.

`So, here's to Mrs Bentley Drummle,' said Mr Jaggers, taking a decanter of choicer wine from his dumb-waiter, and filing for each of us and for himself, `and may the question of supremacy be settled to the lady's satisfaction!

To the satisfaction of the lady and the gentleman, it never will be. Now, Molly, Molly, Molly, Molly, how slow you are to-day!'

She was at his elbow when he addressed her, putting a dish upon the table. As she withdrew her hands from it, she fell back a step or two, nervously muttering some excuse. And a certain action of her fingers as she spoke arrested my attention.

`What's the matter?' said Mr Jaggers.

`Nothing. Only the subject we were speaking of,' said I, `was rather painful to me.'

The action of her fingers was like the action of knitting. She stood looking at her master, not understanding whether she was free to go, or whether he had more to say to her and would call her back if she did go.

Her look was very intent. Surely, I had seen exactly such eyes and such hands, on a memorable occasion very lately!