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Don't Go Home
Marcus Stone
Wood engraving
5 ¼ by 3 ½ inches (13.3 cm by 8.8 cm)
I opened it, the watchman holding up his light, and read inside, in Wemmick's writing: "DON'T GO HOME."
Dickens's Great Expectations, Garnett edition, facing p. 420.
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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It was past midnight when I crossed London Bridge. Pursuing the narrow intricacies of the streets which at that time tended westward near the Middlesex shore of the river, my readiest access to the Temple was close by the river-side, through Whitefriars. I was not expected till to-morrow; but I had my keys, and, if Herbert were gone to bed, could get to bed myself without disturbing him.
As it seldom happened that I came in at that Whitefriars gate after the Temple was closed, and as I was very muddy and weary, I did not take it ill that the night-porter examined me with much attention as he held the gate a little way open for me to pass in. To help his memory I mentioned my name.
“I was not quite sure, sir, but I thought so. Here’s a note, sir. The messenger that brought it, said would you be so good as read it by my lantern?”
Much surprised by the request, I took the note. It was directed to Philip Pip, Esquire, and on the top of the superscription were the words, “PLEASE READ THIS, HERE.” I opened it, the watchman holding up his light, and read inside, in Wemmick’s writing, —
“DON’T GO HOME.” [Chapter XLIV, 420]
The air of mystery, suspense, and menace that now pervades the narrative involves two entirely different threats. On the one hand, Compeyson has been behind the surveillance of Pip as he attempts to entrap and impeach Magwitch, whom he regards as his mortal enemy. On the other hand, Pip himself is in danger from quite another quarter, the brutal former journeyman who attacked Mrs. Joe and then lost his place as the porter at Satis House on account of a bad reference from Pip. Both plots are consistent with the conventions of a relatively new form of fiction, the Sensation Novel, inaugurated by Dickens's younger colleague Wilkie Collins with The Woman in White in the pages of All the Year Round (26 November 1859 through 25 August 1860).
We are still about a month away from the wrapping up of the serial. In instalment 26, Dickens begins to lay the groundwork for both Orlick's assault on Pip at the sluice-house on the marshes and the final confrontation between Compeyson and Magwitch on the Thames as "Provis" attempts to elude the minions of the law and his old enemy by escaping to the Continent on the Rotterdam steamer. The forty-fourth chapter shifts from a consideration of Pip's frustrated (and frustrating) relationship with Estella as it becomes clear that she intends to marry the odious Bentley Drummle in order to enact Miss Havisham's revenge on the male gender — and spare Pip a miserable marriage. Distraught by this unfortunate turn of events in his relationship with the girl he has loved for years, Pip walks back to London, arriving late at night. Abruptly, then, Dickens shifts from the mode of romance, with Pip as the jilted lover, to the mode of Sensation, with Pip as the detective who must solve the puzzle that Wemmick's enigmatic note poses.
The watchman's lantern (not actually depicted) fitfully illuminates the note that Pip struggles to read. The chiaroscuro throws the area behind the uniformed watchman of The Temple (near Fleet Street and the Thames where Pip and Herbert share rooms in Garden Court) into intense shadow, as befits the introduction of a mysterious note at the close of a serial curtain. However, Stone did not design the illustration expressly for serial publication, leaving the reader to speculate what part Dickens had in the selection of the scene for this atmospheric illustration.
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Created 26 February 2004 Last modified 1 November 2021