`How am I going to live?' repeated Biddy, striking in, with a momentary flush upon her face. `I'll tell you, Mr Pip. I am going to try to get the place of mistress in the new school nearly finished here. I can be well recommended by all the neighbours, and I hope I can be industrious and patient, and teach myself while I teach others. You know, Mr Pip,' pursued Biddy, with a smile, as she raised her eyes to my face, `the new schools are not like the old, but I learnt a good deal from you after that time, and have had time since then to improve.'
`I think you would always improve, Biddy, under any circumstances.'
`Ah! Except in my bad side of human nature,' murmured Biddy.
It was not so much a reproach, as an irresistible thinking aloud. Well!
I thought I would give up that point too. So, I walked a little further with Biddy, looking silently at her downcast eyes.
`I have not heard the particulars of my sister's death, Biddy.'
`They are very slight, poor thing. She had been in one of her bad states - though they had got better of late, rather than worse - for four days, when she came out of it in the evening, just at teatime, and said quite plainly, "Joe." As she had never said any word for a long while, I ran and fetched in Mr Gargery from the forge. She made signs to me that she wanted him to sit down close to her, and wanted me to put her arms round his neck. So I put them round his neck, and she laid her head down on his shoulder quite content and satisfied. And so she presently said "Joe" again, and once "Pardon," and once "Pip." And so she never lifted her head up any more, and it was just an hour later when we laid it down on her own bed, because we found she was gone.'
Biddy cried; the darkening garden, and the lane, and the stars that were coming out, were blurred in my own sight.
`Nothing was ever discovered, Biddy?'
`Nothing.'
`Do you know what is become of Orlick?'
`I should think from the colour of his clothes that he is working in the quarries.'
`Of course you have seen him then? - Why are you looking at that dark tree in the lane?'
`I saw him there, on the night she died.'
`That was not the last time either, Biddy?'
`No; I have seen him there, since we have been walking here. - It is of no use,' said Biddy, laying her hand upon my arm, as I was for running out, `you know I would not deceive you; he was not there a minute, and he is gone.'
It revived my utmost indignation to find that she was still pursued by this fellow, and I felt inveterate against him. I told her so, and told her that I would spend any money or take any pains to drive him out of that country. By degrees she led me into more temperate talk, and she told me how Joe loved me, and how Joe never complained of anything - she didn't say, of me; she had no need; I knew what she meant - but ever did his duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, quiet tonguè, and a gentle heart.
`Indeed, it would be hard to say too much for him,' said I; `and Biddy, we must often speak of these things, for of course I shall be often down here now. I am not going to leave poor Joe alone.'
Biddy said never a single word.
`Biddy, don't you hear me?'
`Yes, Mr Pip.'
`Not to mention your calling me Mr Pip - which appears to me to be in bad taste, Biddy - what do you mean?'
`What do I mean?' asked Biddy, timidly.
`Biddy,' said I, in a virtuously self-asserting manner, `I must request to know what you mean by this?'
`By this?' said Biddy.
`Now, don't echo,' I retorted. `You used not to echo, Biddy.'
`Used not!' said Biddy. `O Mr Pip! Used!'
Well! I rather thought I would give up that point too. After another silent turn in the garden, I fell back on the main position.
`Biddy,' said I, `I made a remark respecting my coming down here often, to see Joe, which you received with a marked silence. Have the goodness, Biddy, to tell me why.'
`Are you quite sure, then, that you WILL come to see him often?' asked Biddy, stopping in the narrow garden walk, and looking at me under the stars with a clear and honest eye.
`Oh dear me!' said I, as if I found myself compelled to give up Biddy in despair. `This really is a very bad side of human nature!Don't say any more, if you please, Biddy. This shocks me very much.'
For which cogent reason I kept Biddy at a distance during supper, and, when I went up to my own old little room, took as stately a leave of her as I could, in my murmuring soul, deem reconcilable with the churchyard and the event of the day. As often as I was restless in the night, and that was every quarter of an hour, I reflected what an unkindness, what an injury, what an injustice, Biddy had done me.
Early in the morning, I was to go. Early in the morning, I was out, and looking in, unseen, at one of the wooden windows of the forge. There I stood, for minutes, looking at Joe, already at work with a glow of health and strength upon his face that made it show as if the bright sun of the life in store for him were shining on it.
`Good-bye, dear Joe! - No, don't wipe it off - for God's sake, give me your blackened hand! - I shall be down soon, and often.'
`Never too soon, sir,' said Joe, `and never too often, Pip!'
Biddy was waiting for me at the kitchen door, with a mug of new milk and a crust of bread. `Biddy,' said I, when I gave her my hand at parting, `I am not angry, but I am hurt.'
`No, don't be hurt,' she pleaded quite pathetically; `let only me be hurt, if I have been ungenerous.'
Once more, the mists were rising as I walked away. If they disclosed to me, as I suspect they did, that I should not come back, and that Biddy was quite right, all I can say is - they were quite right too.
