When Pip is escorted by Uncle Pumblechook to Manor House,
also called ironically, Satis House, Estella is short with Pumblechook and condescending
to Pip. Sarcastically, she tells Pip who looks around him that he could drink without
hurt all the strong beer that is brewed there now, for everything is in decay. Then,
although she is almost the same age as Pip, she calls him "boy." When Pip tries to be
polite, telling her she may precede him as he readies himself after ascending the
stairs, to enter a room, she says, "Don't be ridiculous, boy. I'm not going
in."
Pip enters and encounters Miss Havisham for the first
time. When she tells him to call Estella, he is uncomfortable in calling out her name,
but does so. Estella responds and Pip narrates that she came along "like a star." When
Miss Havisham tells her she can play with Pip, Estella haughtily responds, "With this
boy? Why, he's a common labouring boy!" However, Miss Havisham has her sit down to
play cards with Pip. While doing so, Estella ridicules him: She remarks that he calls
knaves "jacks," and he has coarse hands and thick boots. Then, as Estella wins the card
game, she throws down the cards as though she despises
them.
As she escorts Pip out, she provides him with a meal,
but Pip is disconsolate at the scornful way that she has treated him. He finds himself
crying and Estella mocks him for it. Then, when Estella returns later with the keys to
let him out, she asks him mockingly why he does not cry then? When he tells her he does
not want to, Estella again laughs contemptuously,
readability="6">
"You do. You've been crying till you're half
blind, and you are near crying
now."
Estella laughs with
contempt again, pushes him out the gate, and locks it.
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