Little, if any, community of feeling subsisted
between them and Estella, but the understanding was established
that they were necessary to her, and that she was necessary to
them. Mrs. Brandley had been a friend of Miss Havisham's before the
time of her seclusion.
In Mrs. Brandley's house and out of Mrs. Brandley's house, I suffered
every kind and degree of torture that Estella could cause me. The
nature of my relations with her, which placed me on terms of
familiarity without placing me on terms of favor, conduced to my
distraction. She made use of me to tease other admirers, and she
turned the very familiarity between herself and me to the account
of putting a constant slight on my devotion to her. If I had been
her secretary, steward, half-brother, poor relation,--if I had been
a younger brother of her appointed husband,--I could not have
seemed to myself further from my hopes when I was nearest to her.
The privilege of calling her by her name and hearing her call me by
mine became, under the circumstances an aggravation of my trials;
and while I think it likely that it almost maddened her other
lovers, I know too certainly that it almost maddened me.
She had admirers without end. No doubt my jealousy made an admirer
of every one who went near her; but there were more than enough of
them without that.
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