When Wemmick runs into Pip outside the coach-office, Pip inquires about Wemmick’s home and the Aged Parent. Wemmick chats a bit about them, but then reminds Pip that “this is not London talk.” He is firm in keeping his two lives separate, although he pushes his limits more when talking to Pip than he does with anyone else.
Dickens uses the very effective plant metaphors when showing Wemmick talking to the clients in prison. Wemmick is the gardener, the prison is the greenhouse, the prisoners are the various plants, and the Colonel is the dead plant. The issues of mourning rings and portable property come up again when the Colonel, unable to buy a ring for Wemmick, agrees to give the clerk two pigeons. When one’s finances are limited, even pigeons are portable property. Jaggers’ renown in the prison both impresses and unnerves Pip. At times, he wishes he had a guardian of lesser abilities.
Pip is irrational, as usual, where Estella is concerned. Hearing she is coming to London, he regrets there is no time to have several new suits made, and he arrives five hours early to meet her. The taint of prison and crime continues to plague him and he feels contaminated in her presence after his visit to Newgate. He makes himself feel better when he demeans the waiter who brings Estella’s tea. Regarding Estella, he continues to know she is wrong for him, observing that everything they do together gives him pain. He spends every minute dreaming of being with her and when he is, is it sheer agony. Estella continues to be honest in her warnings to him. Her mention of gratitude to him for making Miss Havisham’s relatives miserable does give insight to her strange loyalty to him and a glimpse of an unhappy childhood.
