I thought of her having said, "Matthew will come and see me at last when
I am laid dead upon that table;" and I asked Herbert whether his father
was so inveterate against her?
"It's not that," said he, "but she charged him, in the presence of her
intended husband, with being disappointed in the hope of fawning upon
her for his own advancement, and, if he were to go to her now, it would
look true--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 dresses were
bought, the wedding tour was planned out, the wedding guests were
invited. The day came, but not the bridegroom. He wrote her a letter--"
"Which she received," I struck in, "when she was dressing for her
marriage? At twenty minutes to nine?"
"At the hour and minute," said Herbert, nodding, "at which she
afterwards stopped all the clocks. What was in it, further than that
it most heartlessly broke the marriage off, I can't tell you, because I
don't know. When she recovered from a bad illness that she had, she
laid the whole place waste, as you have seen it, and she has never since
looked upon the light of day."
"Is that all the story?" I asked, after considering it.
"All I know of it; and indeed I only know so much, through piecing it
out for myself; for my father always avoids it, and, even when Miss
Havisham invited me to go there, told me no more of it than it was
absolutely requisite I should understand. But I have forgotten one
thing. It has been supposed that the man to whom she gave her misplaced
confidence acted throughout in concert with her half-brother; that it
was a conspiracy between them; and that they shared the profits."
"I wonder he didn't marry her and get all the property," said I.
"He may have been married already, and her cruel mortification may have
been a part of her half-brother's scheme," said Herbert. "Mind! I don't
know that."
"What became of the two men?" I asked, after again considering the
subject.
"They fell into deeper shame and degradation--if there can be
deeper--and ruin."
"Are they alive now?"
"I don't know."
"You said just now that Estella was not related to Miss Havisham, but
adopted. When adopted?"
Herbert shrugged his shoulders. "There has always been an Estella, since
I have heard of a Miss Havisham. I know no more. And now, Handel," said
he, finally throwing off the story as it were, "there is a perfectly
open understanding between us. All that I know about Miss Havisham, you
know."