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Haunted by dreams of escape, Estella wakes to find that she cannot change the world around her. Instead, Miss Havisham is there, forcing her to prepare for the day’s trip to London. Estella must try on her wedding dress and go to meet her fiancé, Mr Drummle. The only advice or care Miss Havisham shows is to tell Estella to wash especially well. Mr Drummle deals in spices, so he must have a particular keen sense of smell.

Pip meanwhile is acclimatising to his life as a river rat. Now working for Mr Drummle, rented out by Mr Jaggers, in service of the deal he and Drummle have struck up, Pip uses his innocent face and his vast knowledge of Thames traffic to find unsuspecting targets who may need Drummle’s insurance.

More often than not, this new line of work finds Pip in the Phoenix Pub, where his distaste for his life in London has led to an overreliance on rum. He is keen to wash away the innocence of the blacksmith boy he once was, but he finds himself in over his head when he drunkenly insults Monsieur Dorget, a French corsair and pirate, and the latest target for Jaggers’s scheme. Dangerous at the best of times, he doesn’t take kindly to a drunken boy’s slur, and Pip is only saved from harm by the timely arrival of Jaggers and his loaded pistol.

Overwhelmed and chastened for showing off, Pip barely has time to recover before Jaggers has another plan with him in mind. Pip thinks he is headed to entertain a client of Mr Drummle’s – an American cotton trader – but Jaggers is aware that for Pip to truly be able to help him with his plan, he must hate Drummle first. And so, while he takes care of the American, Jaggers makes Pip act as chaperone between Drummle and his bride-to-be, Estella. Furious, but in no position to refuse, Pip must row back to the Royal Exchange to face his love – and her future husband.