Great Expectations
Page 234I should have been chary of discussing my guardian too freely even with
her; but I should have gone on with the subject so far as to describe
the dinner in Gerrard Street, if we had not then come into a sudden
glare of gas. It seemed, while it lasted, to be all alight and alive
with that inexplicable feeling I had had before; and when we were out of
it, I was as much dazed for a few moments as if I had been in lightning.
So we fell into other talk, and it was principally about the way by
which we were travelling, and about what parts of London lay on this
side of it, and what on that. The great city was almost new to her, she
had gone to France, and she had merely passed through London then in
going and returning. I asked her if my guardian had any charge of her
while she remained here? To that she emphatically said "God forbid!" and
no more.
It was impossible for me to avoid seeing that she cared to attract me;
that she made herself winning, and would have won me even if the task
had needed pains. Yet this made me none the happier, for even if she had
not taken that tone of our being disposed of by others, I should have
it, and not because it would have wrung any tenderness in her to crush
it and throw it away.
When we passed through Hammersmith, I showed her where Mr. Matthew
Pocket lived, and said it was no great way from Richmond, and that I
hoped I should see her sometimes.
"O yes, you are to see me; you are to come when you think proper; you
are to be mentioned to the family; indeed you are already mentioned."
I inquired was it a large household she was going to be a member of?
some station, though not averse to increasing her income."
"I wonder Miss Havisham could part with you again so soon."
"It is a part of Miss Havisham's plans for me, Pip," said Estella, with
a sigh, as if she were tired; "I am to write to her constantly and see
her regularly and report how I go on,--I and the jewels,--for they are
nearly all mine now."