“Dear boy and Pip’s comrade,” Magwitch began. “I am not going to tell you my life like a song or a storybook. I will give it to you simply. In jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail. There, that is my life. That was my story until the time I was sent away, after Pip helped me.
“I have had almost everything done to me—except being hanged. I’ve been locked up, driven out of towns, beaten, and worried. I don’t even know where I was born. My first memory is stealing food just to stay alive. A man I was with had run away and left me alone and cold.
“I knew my name was Abel Magwitch. How did I know? I knew it the same way I knew the names of the birds in the fields. I just assumed it was true.
“As a child, everyone who saw me was frightened of me. They either chased me away or arrested me. I was arrested so many times that I basically grew up in prison. People called me ‘hardened’ and ‘terrible,’ even when I was just a ragged little boy. They gave me books I couldn’t read and made speeches I couldn’t understand. They always talked to me about the Devil. But what was I supposed to do? I had to put something in my stomach, didn’t I?
“I spent my life tramping, begging, and stealing. Sometimes I worked as a laborer or a haymaker, but mostly I did things that led to trouble. I finally learned to read from a soldier and to write from a man in a traveling show. I wasn't in jail as often as before, but I still had my share of trouble.
“About twenty years ago, I met a man named Compeyson. If I had him here now, I would crush him. He was the man I was fighting in the ditch on the marshes all those years ago.
“Compeyson acted like a gentleman. He had been to a good school and was highly educated. He was a smooth talker and knew the ways of rich people. He was good-looking, too. We met at a racecourse. He was wearing a handsome suit with a gold watch and a diamond ring.
“‘You look like you’re out of luck,’ Compeyson said to me.
“‘I’ve never had much luck, master,’ I replied.
“He gave me some money and told me to meet him the next night. He took me on as his partner. And what was his business? It was cheating, forging signatures, and stealing bank notes. Compeyson was the brains. He set the traps, took the profits, and let other men take the blame. He was as cold as death and very clever.
“There was another man working with him called Arthur. Arthur was very sick and dying. He and Compeyson had once stolen a lot of money from a rich lady. But Compeyson had spent all the money on gambling. Arthur was dying in poverty and was haunted by terrible visions. He kept screaming that he saw a woman in white standing in the corner of his room. He said she was ‘awful mad’ and had a broken heart. He believed she was waiting to wrap him in a white burial cloth. One morning, he screamed that she was touching him, and then he fell back dead.
“Compeyson didn't care. He just saw it as one less person to worry about. He made me his slave. I was always in debt to him and always in danger. He was younger than me, but because he was educated, he was much more powerful.
“Eventually, we were both arrested for stealing bank notes. At the trial, I noticed how different we looked. Compeyson looked like a gentleman with his curly hair and white handkerchief. I looked like a common criminal. When the lawyers spoke, they blamed everything on me. They said Compeyson was a young man from a good family who had been led into trouble by a ‘bad companion’—me!
“Compeyson had friends to speak for him. I had no one. Compeyson acted sad and cried into his handkerchief. In the end, the judge felt sorry for him. Compeyson was sentenced to seven years, but I was given fourteen. The judge said I was a violent, old offender. I told Compeyson I would smash his face when we got out, and he actually asked the judge for protection from me!
“We were sent to the same prison ship. I eventually escaped and found him on the marshes. I didn't care about my own freedom; I just wanted to drag him back to prison with me. I wanted him to suffer as I had.
“Of course, he had the best of it again. Because he had a ‘good character,’ his punishment for escaping was light. But I was put in irons and sent away to Australia for life. But I didn't stay there forever, as you can see.”
Magwitch stopped talking and began to smoke his pipe again.
“Is he dead?” I asked after a long silence.
“Compeyson? I never heard of him again,” Magwitch said fiercely.
While Magwitch was looking at the fire, Herbert quietly pushed a note across the table to me. I read the words he had written:
“The rich lady’s name was Havisham. Arthur was her half-brother. Compeyson is the man who pretended to love her and then left her on her wedding day.”
I shut the book and nodded to Herbert. We both sat in silence, looking at the man who had linked our lives to Miss Havisham’s dark past.