I reluctantly accepted the blade, which was as long as my small forearm. Only in later years would I come to appreciate that the dagger was worth more than the combined value of Mrs. Joe’s house, the forge, and every object inside them. Such weapons were the only effective means of destroying a Howl Beast, and yet neither Joe nor any of the Brutal Hunters had ever handled one or any like it. And now, I, a scared and embarrassed boy was to use this precious object to chase a beautiful but awful girl in a silly game for the “sick fancy” of a withered old woman.
Seeing no alternative, I gave chase – slowly at first, for I did not want to alarm my prey. But, I soon found how agile and elusive Estella could be, and realized it would be no use holding back. As we scurried about the chamber, I began to understand that everything in the room had stopped, like the watch and the clock, a long time ago. Without this arrest of everything, this standing still of all the pale decayed objects, not even the withered bridal dress on the collapsed from could have looked so like grave-clothes, or the long veil so like a shroud.
Estella ran behind a curtain, but when I pulled it away, she was gone. I looked around but could find no trace of her. Suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder. Before I could react, it spun me around, slapped the dagger out of my hand, and pushed me to the ground in what seemed to be one fell motion.
She won the game. I was slow and weak, even when I knew she was lying in wait for me; and she denounced me for being a stupid, clumsy laboring-boy.
"You say nothing of her," remarked Miss Havisham to me, as she looked on. "She says many hard things of you, but you say nothing of her. What do you think of her?"
"I don't like to say," I stammered.
"Tell me in my ear," said Miss Havisham, bending down.
"I think she is very fast," I replied, in a whisper.
"Anything else?"
"I think she is very pretty."
"Anything else?"
"I think she is very insulting." (She was looking at me then with a look of supreme aversion.)
"Anything else?"
"I think I should like to go home."
"And never see her again, though she is so pretty?"
"I am not sure that I shouldn't like to see her again, but I should like to go home now."
"You shall go soon," said Miss Havisham, aloud. "When shall I have you here again? Let me think."
I was beginning to remind her that to-day was Wednesday, when she checked me with her former impatient movement of the fingers of her right hand.
"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."
"Estella, take him down. Let him roam and look about. Go, Pip."
I followed the candle down, as I had followed the candle up, and she stood it in the place where we had found it. Until she opened the side entrance, I had fancied, without thinking about it, that it must necessarily be night-time. The rush of the daylight quite confounded me, and made me feel as if I had been in the candlelight of the strange room many hours.
"You are to wait here, you boy," said Estella; and disappeared and closed the door.
