'Oh, it's nothing,' said the cat, and with a wave of his paw he started to fade, very slowly, from the tip of his tail. He just had time to ask me to get some tuna-flavoured Moggilicious for him the next time I was home – before he vanished completely and I was alone in front of the granite Boojumorial, the quiet tapping of the mason's hammer echoing around the lofty heights of the library vestibule.
I took the marble stairs into the library, ascended by one of the wrought-iron lifts, and walked down the c
orridor until I came across several shelves of Dickens novels. There were, I noted, twenty-nine different editions of Great Expectations from early drafts to the last of Dickens's own revised editions. I picked up the newest tome, opened it at the first chapter and heard the gentle sound of wind in the trees. I nipped through the pages, the sounds changing as I moved from scene to scene, page to page. I located the first mention of Miss Havisham, found a good place to start and then read loudly to myself, willing the words to live. And live they did.
17
Miss Havisham
* * *
'Great Expectations was written in 1860-61 to reverse flagging sales of All the Year Round, the weekly periodical founded by Dickens himself. The novel was regarded as a great success. The tale of Pip the blacksmith's apprentice and his rise to the position of young gentleman through an anonymous benefactor introduced readers to many new and varied characters: Joe Gargery, the simple and honourable blacksmith, Abel Magwitch, the convict Pip helps in the first chapter, Jaggers, the lawyer, Herbert Pocket, who befriends him and teaches him how to behave in London society. But it is Miss Havisham, abandoned at the altar and living her life in dreary isolation dressed in her tattered wedding robes, that steals the show. She remains one of the book's most memorable fixtures.'
MILLON DE FLOSS – Great Expectations, a Study
I found myself in a large and dark hall which smelt of musty decay. The windows were tightly shuttered, the only light from a few candles scattered around the room; they added little to the room except to heighten the gloominess. In the centre a long table was covered with what had once been a wedding banquet but was now a sad arrangement of tarnished silver and dusty crockery. In the bowls and meat platters dried remnants of food were visible, and in the middle of the table a large wedding cake bedecked with cobwebs had begun to collapse like a dilapidated building. I had read the scene many times, but it was somehow different when you saw it for real. I was on the other side of the room from Miss Havisham, Estella and Pip. I stood silently and watched.
A game of cards had just ended between Pip and Estella, and Miss Havisham, resplendently shabby in her rotting wedding dress and veil, seemed to be trying to come to a decision.
'When shall I have you here again?' she said in a low growl. 'Let me think.'
'Today is Wednesday, ma'am—' began Pip, but he was silenced by Miss Havisham.
'There, there! I know nothing of days of the week; I know nothing of weeks of the year. Come again after six days. You hear?'
'Yes, ma'am.'
Miss Havisham sighed deeply and addressed the young woman, who seemed to spend most of her time glaring at Pip, his discomfort in the strange surroundings seemed to fill her with inner mirth.
'Estella, take him down. Let him have something to eat, and let him roam and look about him while he eats. Go, Pip.'
They left the darkened room and I watched as Miss Havisham stared at the floor, then at the half-filled trunks of old and yellowed clothes that might have accompanied her on her honeymoon. I watched her as she pulled off her veil, ran her fingers through her greying hair and kicked off her shoes. She looked about her, checked the door was closed and then opened a bureau which I could see was full, not of the trappings of her wretched life, but of small luxuries that must, I presumed, make her existence here that much more bearable. Amongst other things I saw a Sony Walkman, a stack of National Geographics, a few Daphne Farquitt novels, and one of those bats that has a rubber ball attached to a piece of elastic. She rummaged some more and took out a pair of trainers and pulled them on with a great deal of relief. She was just about to tie the laces when I shifted my weight and knocked against a small table. Havisham, her senses heightened by her long incarceration in silent introspection, gazed in my direction, her sharp eyes piercing the gloom.
'Who is there'' she asked sharply. 'Estella, is that you?'
Hiding didn't seem to be a worthwhile option, so I stepped from the shadows. She looked me up and down with a critical eye.
'What is your name, child?' she asked sternly.
'Thursday Next, ma'am.'
'Ah!' she said again. 'The Next girl. Took you long enough to find your way in here, didn't it?'
'Sorry?'
'Never be sorry, girl – it's a waste of time, believe me. If only you had seriously attempted to come to Jurisfiction after Mrs Nakajima showed you how up at Haworth … well, I'm wasting my breath, I can see.'
'I had no idea!'
'I don't often take apprentices,' she carried on, disregarding me completely, 'but they were going to allocate you to the Red Queen. The Red Queen and I don't get along. I suppose you've heard that?'
'No, I've—'
'Half of all she says is nonsense and the other half is irrelevant. Mrs Nakajima recommended you most highly but she has been wrong before; cause any trouble and I'll bounce you out of Jurisfiction quicker than you can say ketchup. How are you at tying shoelaces?'
So I tied Miss Havisham's trainers for her, there in Satis House among the rotted trappings of her abandoned marriage. If you had told me I would be doing this even an hour previously I would have considered you insane.
'There are three simple rules if you want to stay with me,' began Miss Havisham in the sort of voice that brooks no argument. 'Rule One – you do exactly as I tell you. Rule Two – you don't patronise me with your pity. I have no desire to be helped in any way. What I do to myself and others is my business and my business alone. Do you understand?'