The passage that is quoted above is from about the middle
of Chapter XXII of Dicken's Great Expectations. Herbert Pocket,
formerly the "pale young gentleman" and now the new roommate at Barnyard Inn where they
both have taken up residence in London, assists Pip with table manners while
entertaining him with the history of Miss Havisham. Miss Havisham was the only child of
very rich and very proud widower. As such she was spoiled, and not too pleased to later
learn that she had a half-brother as a result of her father's having married a cook.
This brother, named Arthur, was "riotous" and got himself into debt as he associated
with bad companions. Since his sister was an heiress, Arthur, who was disinherited by
the father, conspired with another man, who pretended to love Miss Havisham while
exploiting her:
"He got great sums of money from her and he
induced her to buy her rother out of a share in the
brewery."
Herbert tells Pip
that his father, Matthew Pocket, warned Miss Havisham, but she turned him out of the
house. Consequently,
"....The marriage day was fixed, the wedding
dresses were bought, the wedding guests were invited. The day came, but not the
bridegroom. He wrote a letter--"
"Which she received," I
struck in, "when she was dressing for her marraige? At twenty minutes to
nine?"
"At the hour and minute," said Herer, nodding, "at
which she afterward stopped all the
clocks."
Herbert concludes
his narrative with telling that after this, Satis House was laid to waste, and this is
all he knows.
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