Alternate Ending to Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (English assignment)

Alternate Ending

A/N: This starts about a hundred words in to the final chapter, with the first line matching with a line in the book. If you haven't read Great Expectations, this will make no sense whatsoever.

I thought so too, and I took him out for a walk the next evening, and we talked immensely, understanding one another to perfection. It was a great relief to my mind to find the boy as all young ones are– open and innocent, pure of soul. It was evident there was no theft of wittles and file on the mind of this lad.

Presently absorbed as I was in reminiscence, I did not become aware of the path on which I led Young Pip until my hand laid on a browning metal gate-latch. I felt my eyes compelled to move as though by some spirit external to myself, and bring into vision a wrecked tombstone. The lichen now lay on it as clearly as the inscription of Philip Pirrip, late of this Parish, and Also Georgiana, Wife of the Above. I moved as though under a trance, and as Young Pip walked ahead with curiosity, I entertained the faintest imagining that it was the I of eight-and-twenty years past I now traced the footsteps of.

I placed my hand on the tombstone, then ran it lightly across, feeling the surface crumble to dust under my touch. To me, I had released more than dust from the stone. I felt the intense grief of the small child who had kneeled in this very spot, many years previous, as though Time had unwound itself. I near collapsed to my knees, the felling blow not one of the physical kind, but one of pure regret and sorrow. Only now I realised that my life so far had been for nought; I'd come upon my winding path at this very spot, as a child frightened by the sea wind's roar, chased along it like a wild animal by the convict I would later know as Magwitch. Next to rear its head was temptation; Satis house, London, money... focussed only on myself, sailing my ship of greed farther from home on the marshes. I had gained my pride, yet was too blind to brace for the inevitable fall. And as pride cometh before a fall, a fall did indeed cometh to me. Only now did I land, to find myself staring at my path from both ends.

I stifled a cry and lurched back from the gravestone and its five simple markers, to find myself thrust to reality. Around the overgrown yard frolicked Young Pip, performing feats of swordsmanship with a rotted branch, decisively beating unseen opponents.

He had not noticed my lapse from the present, and was laughing as he dodged around. I felt a wan smile tug at my lips at the sight of his happiness, and felt suddenly as though I were a child again. I'd long given up on the poisoned dream of living life a gentleman. Yet, it felt like more; it was as though years had been shaven off my life, years that had been wasted in a vain attempt to escape my roots. I felt ready, now, to truly start my life anew. To have a second turn around.

A warm breeze brushed through the churchyard, rustling the weeds. I cast my eyes up the hill to watch the ripples pass through the long-grass, and instead found myself staring at a distant figure, clothed all in a black dress, watching me. I stood abruptly and blinked, I confess, in the belief that the figure was an illusion. It was with not a moment's hesitation that I could identify the person; she would, without a shadow of doubt, remain in my memory always. She could not be here; the coincidence bordered on the impossible. Yet there she stood. Young Pip continued his play, unawares of the silence in which I contemplated the person. It was Estella, yet... she had changed. Where previously her air had been one of a haughty dignity, now her head and shoulders were as though a heavy weight rested upon them. A few moments passed, in which we simply stared after the gaze of the other. There were no words to be spoken. Slowly, as though the action carried great importance, she straightened, then nodded. I nodded back, and felt a mutual understanding between us. We had both experienced terrible things. For as long as we were each in the other's minds, we would only serve as a reminder of times past.

It was time we parted ways. She turned away. For a brief moment that, to my mind, spanned an eternity, the setting sun caught her dress, turning it golden in the impression of flame. The flames rose higher, turning from gold to white as Estella, the only woman I ever truly loved, departed from sight over the hill's crest. The wind quieted to a whisper, and the sky's blue now blazed red. In that moment I knew, with a certainty rarely achieved by mortal man, that I was not alone in beginning a new path this day.