I think Miss Pocket was conscious that the sight of
me involved her in the danger of being goaded to madness,
and perhaps tearing off her cap — which was
a very hideous one, in the nature of a muslin mop
— and strewing the ground with her hair —
which assuredly had never grown on her head.
She did not appear when we afterwards went up to
Miss Havisham’s room, and we four played at whist.
In the interval, Miss Havisham, in a fantastic way,
had put some of the most beautiful jewels from her
dressing-table into Estella’s hair, and about
her bosom and arms; and I saw even my guardian look
at her from under his thick eyebrows, and raise them
a little, when her loveliness was before him, with
those rich flushes of glitter and colour in it.
Of the manner and extent to which he took our trumps
into custody, and came out with mean little cards
at the ends of hands, before which the glory of our
Kings and Queens was utterly abased, I say nothing;
nor, of the feeling that I had, respecting his looking
upon us personally in the light of three very obvious
and poor riddles that he had found out long ago.
What I suffered from, was the incompatibility between
his cold presence and my feelings towards Estella.
It was not that I knew I could never bear to speak
to him about her, that I knew I could never bear to
hear him creak his boots at her, that I knew I could
never bear to see him wash his hands of her; it was,
that my admiration should be within a foot or two
of him — it was, that my feelings should be in
the same place with him — that, was the agonizing
circumstance.
We played until nine o’clock, and then it was
arranged that when Estella came to London I should
be forewarned of her coming and should meet her at
the coach; and then I took leave of her, and touched
her and left her.
My guardian lay at the Boar in the next room to mine.
Far into the night, Miss Havisham’s words,
“Love her, love her, love her!” sounded
in my ears. I adapted them for my own repetition,
and said to my pillow, “I love her, I love her,
I love her!” hundreds of times. Then,
a burst of gratitude came upon me, that she should
be destined for me, once the blacksmith’s boy.
Then, I thought if she were, as I feared, by no means
rapturously grateful for that destiny yet, when would
she begin to be interested in me? When should
I awaken the heart within her, that was mute and sleeping
now?
Ah me! I thought those were high and great emotions.
But I never thought there was anything low and small
in my keeping away from Joe, because I knew she would
be contemptuous of him. It was but a day gone,
and Joe had brought the tears into my eyes; they had
soon dried, God forgive me! soon dried.
