Great Expectations

"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 filling 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!

He dismissed her, and she glided out of the room. But she remained

before me as plainly as if she were still there. I looked at those

hands, I looked at those eyes, I looked at that flowing hair; and I

compared them with other hands, other eyes, other hair, that I knew of,

and with what those might be after twenty years of a brutal husband

and a stormy life. I looked again at those hands and eyes of the

housekeeper, and thought of the inexplicable feeling that had come over

me when I last walked--not alone--in the ruined garden, and through the

deserted brewery. I thought how the same feeling had come back when I

saw a face looking at me, and a hand waving to me from a stage-coach

window; and how it had come back again and had flashed about me like

lightning, when I had passed in a carriage--not alone--through a sudden

glare of light in a dark street. I thought how one link of association

had helped that identification in the theatre, and how such a link,

wanting before, had been riveted for me now, when I had passed by a

chance swift from Estella's name to the fingers with their knitting

action, and the attentive eyes. And I felt absolutely certain that this

woman was Estella's mother.