IN vain should I attempt to describe the astonishment and disquiet of Herbert, when he and I and Provis sat down before the fire, and I recounted the whole of the secret. Enough, that I saw my own feelings reflected in Herbert's face, and, not least among them, my repugnance towards the man who had done so much for me.
What would alone have set a division between that man and us, if there had been no other dividing circumstance, was his triumph in my story. Saving his troublesome sense of having been `low' on one occasion since his return - on which point he began to hold forth to Herbert, the moment my revelation was finished - he had no perception of the possibility of my finding any fault with my good fortune. His boast that he had made me a gentleman, and that he had come to see me support the character on his ample resources, was made for me quite as much as for himself; and that it was a highly agreeable boast to both of us, and that we must both be very proud of it, was a conclusion quite established in his own mind.
`Though, look'ee here, Pip's comrade,' he said to Herbert, after having discoursed for some time, `I know very well that once since I come back - for half a minute - I've been low. I said to Pip, I knowed as I had been low. But don't you fret yourself on that score. I ain't made Pip a gentleman, and Pip ain't a going to make you a gentleman, not fur me not to know what's due to ye both. Dear boy, and Pip's comrade, you two may count upon me always having a gen-teel muzzle on. Muzzled I have been since that half a minute when I was betrayed into lowness, muzzled I am at the present time, muzzled I ever will be.'
Herbert said, `Certainly,' but looked as if there were no specific consolation in this, and remained perplexed and dismayed. We were anxious for the time when he would go to his lodging, and leave us together, but he was evidently jealous of leaving us together, and sat late. It was midnight before Itook him round to Essex-street, and saw him safely in at his own dark door.
When it closed upon him, I experienced the first moment of relief I had known since the night of his arrival.
Never quite free from an uneasy remembrance of the man on the stairs, I had always looked about me in taking my guest out after dark, and in bringing him back; and I looked about me now. Difficult as it is in a large city to avoid the suspicion of being watched, when the mind is conscious of danger in that regard, I could not persuade myself that any of the people within sight cared about my movements. The few who were passing, passed on their several ways, and the street was empty when I turned back into the Temple. Nobody had come out at the gate with us, nobody went in at the gate with me. As I crossed by the fountain, I saw his lighted back windows looking bright and quiet, and, when I stood for a few moments in the doorway of the building where I lived, before going up the stairs, Garden-court was as still and lifeless as the staircase was when I ascended it.
Herbert received me with open arms, and I had never felt before, so blessedly, what it is to have a friend. When he had spoken some sound words of sympathy and encouragement, we sat down to consider the question, What was to be done?
The chair that Provis had occupied still remaining where it had stood - for he had a barrack way with him of hanging about one spot, in one unsettled manner, and going through one round of observances with his pipe and his negro-head and his jack-knife and his pack of cards, and what not, as if it were all put down for him on a slate - I say, his chair remaining where it had stood, Herbert unconsciously took it, but next moment started out of it, pushed it away, and took another. He had no occasion to say, after that, that he had conceived an aversion for my patron, neither had I occasion to confess my own. We interchanged that confidence without shaping a syllable.
`What,' said I to Herbert, when he was safe in another chair, `what is to be done?'
`My poor dear Handel,' he replied, holding his head, `I am too stunned to think.'
`So was I, Herbert, when the blow first fell. Still, something must be done. He is intent upon various new expenses - horses, and carriages, and lavish appearance of all kinds. He must be stopped somehow.'
`You mean that you can't accept--'
`How can I?' I interposed, as Herbert paused. `Think of him!Look at him!'
An involuntary shudder passed over both of us.
`Yet I am afraid the dreadful truth is, Herbert, that he is attached to me, strongly attached to me. Was there ever such a fate!'
`My poor dear Handel,' Herbert repeated.
`Then,' said I, `after all, stopping short here, never taking another penny from him, think what I owe him already! Then again: I am heavily in debt - very heavily for me, who have now no expectations - and I have been bred to no calling, and I am fit for nothing.'
`Well, well, well!' Herbert remonstrated. `Don't say fit for nothing.'
`What am I fit for? I know only one thing that I am fit for, and that is, to go for a soldier. And I might have gone, my dear Herbert, but for the prospect of taking counsel with your friendship and affection.'
Of course I broke down there: and of course Herbert, beyond seizing a warm grip of my hand, pretended not to know it.
`Anyhow, my dear Handel,' said he presently, `soldiering won't do. If you were to renounce this patronage and these favours, I suppose you would do so with some faint hope of one day repaying what you have already had.
Not very strong, that hope, if you went soldiering! Besides, it's absurd.
You would be infinitely better in Clarriker's house, small as it is. Iam working up towards a partnership, you know.'
