I had been doing this, in an excess of attention to his recital. I
thanked him, and apologized. He said, "Not at all," and resumed.
"Miss Havisham was now an heiress, and you may suppose was looked after
as a great match. Her half-brother had now ample means again, but what
with debts and what with new madness wasted them most fearfully again.
There were stronger differences between him and her than there had been
between him and his father, and it is suspected that he cherished a deep
and mortal grudge against her as having influenced the father's anger.
Now, I come to the cruel part of the story,--merely breaking off, my
dear Handel, to remark that a dinner-napkin will not go into a tumbler."
Why I was trying to pack mine into my tumbler, I am wholly unable to
say. I only know that I found myself, with a perseverance worthy of a
much better cause, making the most strenuous exertions to compress it
within those limits. Again I thanked him and apologized, and again he
said in the cheerfullest manner, "Not at all, I am sure!" and resumed.
"There appeared upon the scene--say at the races, or the public
balls, or anywhere else you like--a certain man, who made love to Miss
Havisham. I never saw him (for this happened five-and-twenty years ago,
before you and I were, Handel), but I have heard my father mention that
he was a showy man, and the kind of man for the purpose. But that he was
not to be, without ignorance or prejudice, mistaken for a gentleman, my
father most strongly asseverates; because it is a principle of his that
no man who was not a true gentleman at heart ever was, since the world
began, a true gentleman in manner. He says, no varnish can hide the
grain of the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the
grain will express itself. Well! This man pursued Miss Havisham closely,
and professed to be devoted to her. I believe she had not shown much
susceptibility up to that time; but all the susceptibility she possessed
certainly came out then, and she passionately loved him. There is no
doubt that she perfectly idolized him. He practised on her affection in
that systematic way, that he 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 weakly left him by his father) at an immense price, on the plea
that when he was her husband he must hold and manage it all. Your
guardian was not at that time in Miss Havisham's counsels, and she was
too haughty and too much in love to be advised by any one. Her relations
were poor and scheming, with the exception of my father; he was poor
enough, but not time-serving or jealous. The only independent one among
them, he warned her that she was doing too much for this man, and
was placing herself too unreservedly in his power. She took the first
opportunity of angrily ordering my father out of the house, in his
presence, and my father has never seen her since."