The Mystery of Edwin Drood

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Title: The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Author: Charles Dickens
Release Date: May 28, 2020 [eBook #564]
[This file was first posted on April 15, 1996]
Language: English
Character set encoding: UTF-8
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD***
Transcribed from the Chapman and Hall, 1914 edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org
[Picture: Book cover]
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD
[Picture: Rochester castle]
CHAPTER I—THE DAWN
An ancient English Cathedral Tower? How can the ancient English
Cathedral tower be here! The well-known massive gray square tower of its
old Cathedral? How can that be here! There is no spike of rusty iron in
the air, between the eye and it, from any point of the real prospect.
What is the spike that intervenes, and who has set it up? Maybe it is
set up by the Sultan’s orders for the impaling of a horde of Turkish
robbers, one by one. It is so, for cymbals clash, and the Sultan goes by
to his palace in long procession. Ten thousand scimitars flash in the
sunlight, and thrice ten thousand dancing-girls strew flowers. Then,
follow white elephants caparisoned in countless gorgeous colours, and
infinite in number and attendants. Still the Cathedral Tower rises in
the background, where it cannot be, and still no writhing figure is on
the grim spike. Stay! Is the spike so low a thing as the rusty spike on
the top of a post of an old bedstead that has tumbled all awry? Some
vague period of drowsy laughter must be devoted to the consideration of
this possibility.
Shaking from head to foot, the man whose scattered consciousness has thus
fantastically pieced itself together, at length rises, supports his
trembling frame upon his arms, and looks around. He is in the meanest
and closest of small rooms. Through the ragged window-curtain, the light
of early day steals in from a miserable court. He lies, dressed, across
a large unseemly bed, upon a bedstead that has indeed given way under the
weight upon it. Lying, also dressed and also across the bed, not
longwise, are a Chinaman, a Lascar, and a haggard woman. The two first
are in a sleep or stupor; the last is blowing at a kind of pipe, to
kindle it. And as she blows, and shading it with her lean hand,
concentrates its red spark of light, it serves in the dim morning as a
lamp to show him what he sees of her.
‘Another?’ says this woman, in a querulous, rattling whisper. ‘Have
another?’
He looks about him, with his hand to his forehead.
‘Ye’ve smoked as many as five since ye come in at midnight,’ the woman
goes on, as she chronically complains. ‘Poor me, poor me, my head is so
bad. Them two come in after ye. Ah, poor me, the business is slack, is
slack! Few Chinamen about the Docks, and fewer Lascars, and no ships
coming in, these say! Here’s another ready for ye, deary. Ye’ll
remember like a good soul, won’t ye, that the market price is dreffle
high just now? More nor three shillings and sixpence for a thimbleful!
And ye’ll remember that nobody but me (and Jack Chinaman t’other side the
court; but he can’t do it as well as me) has the true secret of mixing
it? Ye’ll pay up accordingly, deary, won’t ye?’
She blows at the pipe as she speaks, and, occasionally bubbling at it,
inhales much of its contents.
‘O me, O me, my lungs is weak, my lungs is bad! It’s nearly ready for
ye, deary. Ah, poor me, poor me, my poor hand shakes like to drop off!
I see ye coming-to, and I ses to my poor self, “I’ll have another ready
for him, and he’ll bear in mind the market price of opium, and pay
according.” O my poor head! I makes my pipes of old penny ink-bottles,
ye see, deary—this is one—and I fits-in a mouthpiece, this way, and I
takes my mixter out of this thimble with this little horn spoon; and so I
fills, deary. Ah, my poor nerves! I got Heavens-hard drunk for sixteen
year afore I took to this; but this don’t hurt me, not to speak of. And
it takes away the hunger as well as wittles, deary.’
She hands him the nearly-emptied pipe, and sinks back, turning over on
her face.
He rises unsteadily from the bed, lays the pipe upon the hearth-stone,
draws back the ragged curtain, and looks with repugnance at his three
companions. He notices that the woman has opium-smoked herself into a
strange likeness of the Chinaman. His form of cheek, eye, and temple,
and his colour, are repeated in her. Said Chinaman convulsively wrestles
with one of his many Gods or Devils, perhaps, and snarls horribly. The
Lascar laughs and dribbles at the mouth. The hostess is still.
[Picture: In the Court]
‘What visions can _she_ have?’ the waking man muses, as he turns her face
towards him, and stands looking down at it. ‘Visions of many butchers’
shops, and public-houses, and much credit? Of an increase of hideous
customers, and this horrible bedstead set upright again, and this
horrible court swept clean? What can she rise to, under any quantity of
opium, higher than that!—Eh?’
He bends down his ear, to listen to her mutterings.
‘Unintelligible!’
As he watches the spasmodic shoots and darts that break out of her face
and limbs, like fitful lightning out of a dark sky, some contagion in
them seizes upon him: insomuch that he has to withdraw himself to a lean
arm-chair by the hearth—placed there, perhaps, for such emergencies—and
to sit in it, holding tight, until he has got the better of this unclean
spirit of imitation.
Then he comes back, pounces on the Chinaman, and seizing him with both
hands by the throat, turns him violently on the bed. The Chinaman
clutches the aggressive hands, resists, gasps, and protests.
‘What do you say?’
A watchful pause.
‘Unintelligible!’
Slowly loosening his grasp as he listens to the incoherent jargon with an
attentive frown, he turns to the Lascar and fairly drags him forth upon
the floor. As he falls, the Lascar starts into a half-risen attitude,
glares with his eyes, lashes about him fiercely with his arms, and draws
a phantom knife. It then becomes apparent that the woman has taken
possession of this knife, for safety’s sake; for, she too starting up,
and restraining and expostulating with him, the knife is visible in her
dress, not in his, when they drowsily drop back, side by side.
There has been chattering and clattering enough between them, but to no
purpose. When any distinct word has been flung into the air, it has had
no sense or sequence. Wherefore ‘unintelligible!’ is again the comment
of the watcher, made with some reassured nodding of his head, and a
gloomy smile. He then lays certain silver money on the table, finds his
hat, gropes his way down the broken stairs, gives a good morning to some
rat-ridden doorkeeper, in bed in a black hutch beneath the stairs, and
passes out.
* * * * *
That same afternoon, the massive gray square tower of an old Cathedral
rises before the sight of a jaded traveller. The bells are going for
daily vesper service, and he must needs attend it, one would say, from
his haste to reach the open Cathedral door. The choir are getting on
their sullied white robes, in a hurry, when he arrives among them, gets
on his own robe, and falls into the procession filing in to service.
Then, the Sacristan locks the iron-barred gates that divide the sanctuary
from the chancel, and all of the procession having scuttled into their
places, hide their faces; and then the intoned words, ‘WHEN THE WICKED
MAN—’ rise among groins of arches and beams of roof, awakening muttered
thunder.
CHAPTER II—A DEAN, AND A CHAPTER ALSO
Whosoever has observed that sedate and clerical bird, the rook, may
perhaps have noticed that when he wings his way homeward towards
nightfall, in a sedate and clerical company, two rooks will suddenly
detach themselves from the rest, will retrace their flight for some
distance, and will there poise and linger; conveying to mere men the
fancy that it is of some occult importance to the body politic, that this
artful couple should pretend to have renounced connection with it.
Similarly, service being over in the old Cathedral with the square tower,
and the choir scuffling out again, and divers venerable persons of
rook-like aspect dispersing, two of these latter retrace their steps, and
walk together in the echoing Close.
Not only is the day waning, but the year. The low sun is fiery and yet
cold behind the monastery ruin, and the Virginia creeper on the Cathedral
wall has showered half its deep-red leaves down on the pavement. There
has been rain this afternoon, and a wintry shudder goes among the little
pools on the cracked, uneven flag-stones, and through the giant elm-trees
as they shed a gust of tears. Their fallen leaves lie strewn thickly
about. Some of these leaves, in a timid rush, seek sanctuary within the
low arched Cathedral door; but two men coming out resist them, and cast
them forth again with their feet; this done, one of the two locks the
door with a goodly key, and the other flits away with a folio music-book.
‘Mr. Jasper was that, Tope?’
‘Yes, Mr. Dean.’
‘He has stayed late.’
‘Yes, Mr. Dean. I have stayed for him, your Reverence. He has been took
a little poorly.’
‘Say “taken,” Tope—to the Dean,’ the younger rook interposes in a low
tone with this touch of correction, as who should say: ‘You may offer bad
grammar to the laity, or the humbler clergy, not to the Dean.’
Mr. Tope, Chief Verger and Showman, and accustomed to be high with
excursion parties, declines with a silent loftiness to perceive that any
suggestion has been tendered to him.
‘And when and how has Mr. Jasper been taken—for, as Mr. Crisparkle has
remarked, it is better to say taken—taken—’ repeats the Dean; ‘when and
how has Mr. Jasper been Taken—’
‘Taken, sir,’ Tope deferentially murmurs.
‘—Poorly, Tope?’
‘Why, sir, Mr. Jasper was that breathed—’
‘I wouldn’t say “That breathed,” Tope,’ Mr. Crisparkle interposes with
the same touch as before. ‘Not English—to the Dean.’
‘Breathed to that extent,’ the Dean (not unflattered by this indirect
homage) condescendingly remarks, ‘would be preferable.’
‘Mr. Jasper’s breathing was so remarkably short’—thus discreetly does Mr.
Tope work his way round the sunken rock—‘when he came in, that it
distressed him mightily to get his notes out: which was perhaps the cause
of his having a kind of fit on him after a little. His memory grew
DAZED.’ Mr. Tope, with his eyes on the Reverend Mr. Crisparkle, shoots
this word out, as defying him to improve upon it: ‘and a dimness and
giddiness crept over him as strange as ever I saw: though he didn’t seem
to mind it particularly, himself. However, a little time and a little
water brought him out of his DAZE.’ Mr. Tope repeats the word and its
emphasis, with the air of saying: ‘As I _have_ made a success, I’ll make
it again.’
‘And Mr. Jasper has gone home quite himself, has he?’ asked the Dean.
‘Your Reverence, he has gone home quite himself. And I’m glad to see
he’s having his fire kindled up, for it’s chilly after the wet, and the
Cathedral had both a damp feel and a damp touch this afternoon, and he
was very shivery.’
They all three look towards an old stone gatehouse crossing the Close,
with an arched thoroughfare passing beneath it. Through its latticed
window, a fire shines out upon the fast-darkening scene, involving in
shadow the pendent masses of ivy and creeper covering the building’s
front. As the deep Cathedral-bell strikes the hour, a ripple of wind
goes through these at their distance, like a ripple of the solemn sound
that hums through tomb and tower, broken niche and defaced statue, in the
pile close at hand.
‘Is Mr. Jasper’s nephew with him?’ the Dean asks.
‘No, sir,’ replied the Verger, ‘but expected. There’s his own solitary
shadow betwixt his two windows—the one looking this way, and the one
looking down into the High Street—drawing his own curtains now.’
‘Well, well,’ says the Dean, with a sprightly air of breaking up the
little conference, ‘I hope Mr. Jasper’s heart may not be too much set
upon his nephew. Our affections, however laudable, in this transitory
world, should never master us; we should guide them, guide them. I find
I am not disagreeably reminded of my dinner, by hearing my dinner-bell.
Perhaps, Mr. Crisparkle, you will, before going home, look in on Jasper?’
‘Certainly, Mr. Dean. And tell him that you had the kindness to desire
to know how he was?’
‘Ay; do so, do so. Certainly. Wished to know how he was. By all means.
Wished to know how he was.’
With a pleasant air of patronage, the Dean as nearly cocks his quaint hat
as a Dean in good spirits may, and directs his comely gaiters towards the
ruddy dining-room of the snug old red-brick house where he is at present,
‘in residence’ with Mrs. Dean and Miss Dean.
Mr. Crisparkle, Minor Canon, fair and rosy, and perpetually pitching
himself head-foremost into all the deep running water in the surrounding
country; Mr. Crisparkle, Minor Canon, early riser, musical, classical,
cheerful, kind, good-natured, social, contented, and boy-like; Mr.
Crisparkle, Minor Canon and good man, lately ‘Coach’ upon the chief Pagan
high roads, but since promoted by a patron (grateful for a well-taught
son) to his present Christian beat; betakes himself to the gatehouse, on
his way home to his early tea.
‘Sorry to hear from Tope that you have not been well, Jasper.’
‘O, it was nothing, nothing!’
‘You look a little worn.’
‘Do I? O, I don’t think so. What is better, I don’t feel so. Tope has
made too much of it, I suspect. It’s his trade to make the most of
everything appertaining to the Cathedral, you know.’
‘I may tell the Dean—I call expressly from the Dean—that you are all
right again?’
The reply, with a slight smile, is: ‘Certainly; with my respects and
thanks to the Dean.’
‘I’m glad to hear that you expect young Drood.’
‘I expect the dear fellow every moment.’
‘Ah! He will do you more good than a doctor, Jasper.’
‘More good than a dozen doctors. For I love him dearly, and I don’t love
doctors, or doctors’ stuff.’
Mr. Jasper is a dark man of some six-and-twenty, with thick, lustrous,
well-arranged black hair and whiskers. He looks older than he is, as
dark men often do. His voice is deep and good, his face and figure are
good, his manner is a little sombre. His room is a little sombre, and
may have had its influence in forming his manner. It is mostly in
shadow. Even when the sun shines brilliantly, it seldom touches the
grand piano in the recess, or the folio music-books on the stand, or the
book-shelves on the wall, or the unfinished picture of a blooming
schoolgirl hanging over the chimneypiece; her flowing brown hair tied
with a blue riband, and her beauty remarkable for a quite childish,
almost babyish, touch of saucy discontent, comically conscious of itself.
(There is not the least artistic merit in this picture, which is a mere
daub; but it is clear that the painter has made it humorously—one might
almost say, revengefully—like the original.)
‘We shall miss you, Jasper, at the “Alternate Musical Wednesdays”
to-night; but no doubt you are best at home. Good-night. God bless you!
“Tell me, shep-herds, te-e-ell me; tell me-e-e, have you seen (have you
seen, have you seen, have you seen) my-y-y Flo-o-ora-a pass this way!”’
Melodiously good Minor Canon the Reverend Septimus Crisparkle thus
delivers himself, in musical rhythm, as he withdraws his amiable face
from the doorway and conveys it down-stairs.
Sounds of recognition and greeting pass between the Reverend Septimus and
somebody else, at the stair-foot. Mr. Jasper listens, starts from his
chair, and catches a young fellow in his arms, exclaiming:
‘My dear Edwin!’
‘My dear Jack! So glad to see you!’
‘Get off your greatcoat, bright boy, and sit down here in your own
corner. Your feet are not wet? Pull your boots off. Do pull your boots
off.’
‘My dear Jack, I am as dry as a bone. Don’t moddley-coddley, there’s a
good fellow. I like anything better than being moddley-coddleyed.’
With the check upon him of being unsympathetically restrained in a genial
outburst of enthusiasm, Mr. Jasper stands still, and looks on intently at
the young fellow, divesting himself of his outward coat, hat, gloves, and
so forth. Once for all, a look of intentness and intensity—a look of
hungry, exacting, watchful, and yet devoted affection—is always, now and
ever afterwards, on the Jasper face whenever the Jasper face is addressed
in this direction. And whenever it is so addressed, it is never, on this
occasion or on any other, dividedly addressed; it is always concentrated.
‘Now I am right, and now I’ll take my corner, Jack. Any dinner, Jack?’
Mr. Jasper opens a door at the upper end of the room, and discloses a
small inner room pleasantly lighted and prepared, wherein a comely dame
is in the act of setting dishes on table.
‘What a jolly old Jack it is!’ cries the young fellow, with a clap of his
hands. ‘Look here, Jack; tell me; whose birthday is it?’
‘Not yours, I know,’ Mr. Jasper answers, pausing to consider.
‘Not mine, you know? No; not mine, _I_ know! Pussy’s!’
Fixed as the look the young fellow meets, is, there is yet in it some
strange power of suddenly including the sketch over the chimneypiece.
‘Pussy’s, Jack! We must drink Many happy returns to her. Come, uncle;
take your dutiful and sharp-set nephew in to dinner.’
As the boy (for he is little more) lays a hand on Jasper’s shoulder,
Jasper cordially and gaily lays a hand on _his_ shoulder, and so
Marseillaise-wise they go in to dinner.
‘And, Lord! here’s Mrs. Tope!’ cries the boy. ‘Lovelier than ever!’
‘Never you mind me, Master Edwin,’ retorts the Verger’s wife; ‘I can take
care of myself.’
‘You can’t. You’re much too handsome. Give me a kiss because it’s
Pussy’s birthday.’
‘I’d Pussy you, young man, if I was Pussy, as you call her,’ Mrs. Tope
blushingly retorts, after being saluted. ‘Your uncle’s too much wrapt up
in you, that’s where it is. He makes so much of you, that it’s my
opinion you think you’ve only to call your Pussys by the dozen, to make
’em come.’
‘You forget, Mrs. Tope,’ Mr. Jasper interposes, taking his place at the
table with a genial smile, ‘and so do you, Ned, that Uncle and Nephew are
words prohibited here by common consent and express agreement. For what
we are going to receive His holy name be praised!’
‘Done like the Dean! Witness, Edwin Drood! Please to carve, Jack, for I
can’t.’
This sally ushers in the dinner. Little to the present purpose, or to
any purpose, is said, while it is in course of being disposed of. At
length the cloth is drawn, and a dish of walnuts and a decanter of
rich-coloured sherry are placed upon the table.
‘I say! Tell me, Jack,’ the young fellow then flows on: ‘do you really
and truly feel as if the mention of our relationship divided us at all?
_I_ don’t.’
‘Uncles as a rule, Ned, are so much older than their nephews,’ is the
reply, ‘that I have that feeling instinctively.’
‘As a rule! Ah, may-be! But what is a difference in age of half-a-dozen
years or so? And some uncles, in large families, are even younger than
their nephews. By George, I wish it was the case with us!’
‘Why?’
‘Because if it was, I’d take the lead with you, Jack, and be as wise as
Begone, dull Care! that turned a young man gray, and Begone, dull Care!
that turned an old man to clay.—Halloa, Jack! Don’t drink.’
‘Why not?’
‘Asks why not, on Pussy’s birthday, and no Happy returns proposed!
Pussy, Jack, and many of ’em! Happy returns, I mean.’
Laying an affectionate and laughing touch on the boy’s extended hand, as
if it were at once his giddy head and his light heart, Mr. Jasper drinks
the toast in silence.
‘Hip, hip, hip, and nine times nine, and one to finish with, and all
that, understood. Hooray, hooray, hooray!—And now, Jack, let’s have a
little talk about Pussy. Two pairs of nut-crackers? Pass me one, and
take the other.’ Crack. ‘How’s Pussy getting on Jack?’
‘With her music? Fairly.’
‘What a dreadfully conscientious fellow you are, Jack! But _I_ know,
Lord bless you! Inattentive, isn’t she?’
‘She can learn anything, if she will.’
‘_If_ she will! Egad, that’s it. But if she won’t?’
Crack!—on Mr. Jasper’s part.
‘How’s she looking, Jack?’
Mr. Jasper’s concentrated face again includes the portrait as he returns:
‘Very like your sketch indeed.’
‘I _am_ a little proud of it,’ says the young fellow, glancing up at the
sketch with complacency, and then shutting one eye, and taking a
corrected prospect of it over a level bridge of nut-crackers in the air:
‘Not badly hit off from memory. But I ought to have caught that
expression pretty well, for I have seen it often enough.’
Crack!—on Edwin Drood’s part.
Crack!—on Mr. Jasper’s part.
‘In point of fact,’ the former resumes, after some silent dipping among
his fragments of walnut with an air of pique, ‘I see it whenever I go to
see Pussy. If I don’t find it on her face, I leave it there.—You know I
do, Miss Scornful Pert. Booh!’ With a twirl of the nut-crackers at the
portrait.
Crack! crack! crack. Slowly, on Mr. Jasper’s part.
Crack. Sharply on the part of Edwin Drood.
Silence on both sides.
‘Have you lost your tongue, Jack?’
‘Have you found yours, Ned?’
‘No, but really;—isn’t it, you know, after all—’
Mr. Jasper lifts his dark eyebrows inquiringly.
‘Isn’t it unsatisfactory to be cut off from choice in such a matter?
There, Jack! I tell you! If I could choose, I would choose Pussy from
all the pretty girls in the world.’
‘But you have not got to choose.’
‘That’s what I complain of. My dead and gone father and Pussy’s dead and
gone father must needs marry us together by anticipation. Why the—Devil,
I was going to say, if it had been respectful to their memory—couldn’t
they leave us alone?’
‘Tut, tut, dear boy,’ Mr. Jasper remonstrates, in a tone of gentle
deprecation.
‘Tut, tut? Yes, Jack, it’s all very well for _you_. _You_ can take it
easily. _Your_ life is not laid down to scale, and lined and dotted out
for you, like a surveyor’s plan. _You_ have no uncomfortable suspicion
that you are forced upon anybody, nor has anybody an uncomfortable
suspicion that she is forced upon you, or that you are forced upon her.
_You_ can choose for yourself. Life, for _you_, is a plum with the
natural bloom on; it hasn’t been over-carefully wiped off for _you_—’
‘Don’t stop, dear fellow. Go on.’
‘Can I anyhow have hurt your feelings, Jack?’
‘How can you have hurt my feelings?’
‘Good Heaven, Jack, you look frightfully ill! There’s a strange film
come over your eyes.’
Mr. Jasper, with a forced smile, stretches out his right hand, as if at
once to disarm apprehension and gain time to get better. After a while
he says faintly:
‘I have been taking opium for a pain—an agony—that sometimes overcomes
me. The effects of the medicine steal over me like a blight or a cloud,
and pass. You see them in the act of passing; they will be gone
directly. Look away from me. They will go all the sooner.’
With a scared face the younger man complies by casting his eyes downward
at the ashes on the hearth. Not relaxing his own gaze on the fire, but
rather strengthening it with a fierce, firm grip upon his elbow-chair,
the elder sits for a few moments rigid, and then, with thick drops
standing on his forehead, and a sharp catch of his breath, becomes as he
was before. On his so subsiding in his chair, his nephew gently and
assiduously tends him while he quite recovers. When Jasper is restored,
he lays a tender hand upon his nephew’s shoulder, and, in a tone of voice
less troubled than the purport of his words—indeed with something of
raillery or banter in it—thus addresses him:
‘There is said to be a hidden skeleton in every house; but you thought
there was none in mine, dear Ned.’
‘Upon my life, Jack, I did think so. However, when I come to consider
that even in Pussy’s house—if she had one—and in mine—if I had one—’
‘You were going to say (but that I interrupted you in spite of myself)
what a quiet life mine is. No whirl and uproar around me, no distracting
commerce or calculation, no risk, no change of place, myself devoted to
the art I pursue, my business my pleasure.’
‘I really was going to say something of the kind, Jack; but you see, you,
speaking of yourself, almost necessarily leave out much that I should
have put in. For instance: I should have put in the foreground your
being so much respected as Lay Precentor, or Lay Clerk, or whatever you
call it, of this Cathedral; your enjoying the reputation of having done
such wonders with the choir; your choosing your society, and holding such
an independent position in this queer old place; your gift of teaching
(why, even Pussy, who don’t like being taught, says there never was such
a Master as you are!), and your connexion.’
‘Yes; I saw what you were tending to. I hate it.’
‘Hate it, Jack?’ (Much bewildered.)
‘I hate it. The cramped monotony of my existence grinds me away by the
grain. How does our service sound to you?’
‘Beautiful! Quite celestial!’
‘It often sounds to me quite devilish. I am so weary of it. The echoes
of my own voice among the arches seem to mock me with my daily drudging
round. No wretched monk who droned his life away in that gloomy place,
before me, can have been more tired of it than I am. He could take for
relief (and did take) to carving demons out of the stalls and seats and
desks. What shall I do? Must I take to carving them out of my heart?’
‘I thought you had so exactly found your niche in life, Jack,’ Edwin
Drood returns, astonished, bending forward in his chair to lay a
sympathetic hand on Jasper’s knee, and looking at him with an anxious
face.
‘I know you thought so. They all think so.’
‘Well, I suppose they do,’ says Edwin, meditating aloud. ‘Pussy thinks
so.’
‘When did she tell you that?’
‘The last time I was here. You remember when. Three months ago.’
‘How did she phrase it?’
‘O, she only said that she had become your pupil, and that you were made
for your vocation.’
The younger man glances at the portrait. The elder sees it in him.
‘Anyhow, my dear Ned,’ Jasper resumes, as he shakes his head with a grave
cheerfulness, ‘I must subdue myself to my vocation: which is much the
same thing outwardly. It’s too late to find another now. This is a
confidence between us.’
‘It shall be sacredly preserved, Jack.’
‘I have reposed it in you, because—’
‘I feel it, I assure you. Because we are fast friends, and because you
love and trust me, as I love and trust you. Both hands, Jack.’
As each stands looking into the other’s eyes, and as the uncle holds the
nephew’s hands, the uncle thus proceeds:
‘You know now, don’t you, that even a poor monotonous chorister and
grinder of music—in his niche—may be troubled with some stray sort of
ambition, aspiration, restlessness, dissatisfaction, what shall we call
it?’
‘Yes, dear Jack.’
‘And you will remember?’
‘My dear Jack, I only ask you, am I likely to forget what you have said
with so much feeling?’
‘Take it as a warning, then.’
In the act of having his hands released, and of moving a step back, Edwin
pauses for an instant to consider the application of these last words.
The instant over, he says, sensibly touched:
‘I am afraid I am but a shallow, surface kind of fellow, Jack, and that
my headpiece is none of the best. But I needn’t say I am young; and
perhaps I shall not grow worse as I grow older. At all events, I hope I
have something impressible within me, which feels—deeply feels—the
disinterestedness of your painfully laying your inner self bare, as a
warning to me.’
Mr. Jasper’s steadiness of face and figure becomes so marvellous that his
breathing seems to have stopped.
‘I couldn’t fail to notice, Jack, that it cost you a great effort, and
that you were very much moved, and very unlike your usual self. Of
course I knew that you were extremely fond of me, but I really was not
prepared for your, as I may say, sacrificing yourself to me in that way.’
Mr. Jasper, becoming a breathing man again without the smallest stage of
transition between the two extreme states, lifts his shoulders, laughs,
and waves his right arm.
‘No; don’t put the sentiment away, Jack; please don’t; for I am very much
in earnest. I have no doubt that that unhealthy state of mind which you
have so powerfully described is attended with some real suffering, and is
hard to bear. But let me reassure you, Jack, as to the chances of its
overcoming me. I don’t think I am in the way of it. In some few months
less than another year, you know, I shall carry Pussy off from school as
Mrs. Edwin Drood. I shall then go engineering into the East, and Pussy
with me. And although we have our little tiffs now, arising out of a
certain unavoidable flatness that attends our love-making, owing to its
end being all settled beforehand, still I have no doubt of our getting on
capitally then, when it’s done and can’t be helped. In short, Jack, to
go back to the old song I was freely quoting at dinner (and who knows old
songs better than you?), my wife shall dance, and I will sing, so merrily
pass the day. Of Pussy’s being beautiful there cannot be a doubt;—and
when you are good besides, Little Miss Impudence,’ once more
apostrophising the portrait, ‘I’ll burn your comic likeness, and paint
your music-master another.’
Mr. Jasper, with his hand to his chin, and with an expression of musing
benevolence on his face, has attentively watched every animated look and
gesture attending the delivery of these words. He remains in that
attitude after they, are spoken, as if in a kind of fascination attendant
on his strong interest in the youthful spirit that he loves so well.
Then he says with a quiet smile:
‘You won’t be warned, then?’
‘No, Jack.’
‘You can’t be warned, then?’
‘No, Jack, not by you. Besides that I don’t really consider myself in
danger, I don’t like your putting yourself in that position.’
‘Shall we go and walk in the churchyard?’
‘By all means. You won’t mind my slipping out of it for half a moment to
the Nuns’ House, and leaving a parcel there? Only gloves for Pussy; as
many pairs of gloves as she is years old to-day. Rather poetical, Jack?’
Mr. Jasper, still in the same attitude, murmurs: ‘“Nothing half so sweet
in life,” Ned!’
‘Here’s the parcel in my greatcoat-pocket. They must be presented
to-night, or the poetry is gone. It’s against regulations for me to call
at night, but not to leave a packet. I am ready, Jack!’
Mr. Jasper dissolves his attitude, and they go out together.
CHAPTER III—THE NUNS’ HOUSE
For sufficient reasons, which this narrative will itself unfold as it
advances, a fictitious name must be bestowed upon the old Cathedral town.
Let it stand in these pages as Cloisterham. It was once possibly known
to the Druids by another name, and certainly to the Romans by another,
and to the Saxons by another, and to the Normans by another; and a name
more or less in the course of many centuries can be of little moment to
its dusty chronicles.
An ancient city, Cloisterham, and no meet dwelling-place for any one with
hankerings after the noisy world. A monotonous, silent city, deriving an
earthy flavour throughout from its Cathedral crypt, and so abounding in
vestiges of monastic graves, that the Cloisterham children grow small
salad in the dust of abbots and abbesses, and make dirt-pies of nuns and
friars; while every ploughman in its outlying fields renders to once
puissant Lord Treasurers, Archbishops, Bishops, and such-like, the
attention which the Ogre in the story-book desired to render to his
unbidden visitor, and grinds their bones to make his bread.
A drowsy city, Cloisterham, whose inhabitants seem to suppose, with an
inconsistency more strange than rare, that all its changes lie behind it,
and that there are no more to come. A queer moral to derive from
antiquity, yet older than any traceable antiquity. So silent are the
streets of Cloisterham (though prone to echo on the smallest
provocation), that of a summer-day the sunblinds of its shops scarce dare
to flap in the south wind; while the sun-browned tramps, who pass along
and stare, quicken their limp a little, that they may the sooner get
beyond the confines of its oppressive respectability. This is a feat not
difficult of achievement, seeing that the streets of Cloisterham city are
little more than one narrow street by which you get into it and get out
of it: the rest being mostly disappointing yards with pumps in them and
no thoroughfare—exception made of the Cathedral-close, and a paved Quaker
settlement, in colour and general confirmation very like a Quakeress’s
bonnet, up in a shady corner.
In a word, a city of another and a bygone time is Cloisterham, with its
hoarse Cathedral-bell, its hoarse rooks hovering about the Cathedral
tower, its hoarser and less distinct rooks in the stalls far beneath.
Fragments of old wall, saint’s chapel, chapter-house, convent and
monastery, have got incongruously or obstructively built into many of its
houses and gardens, much as kindred jumbled notions have become
incorporated into many of its citizens’ minds. All things in it are of
the past. Even its single pawnbroker takes in no pledges, nor has he for
a long time, but offers vainly an unredeemed stock for sale, of which the
costlier articles are dim and pale old watches apparently in a slow
perspiration, tarnished sugar-tongs with ineffectual legs, and odd
volumes of dismal books. The most abundant and the most agreeable
evidences of progressing life in Cloisterham are the evidences of
vegetable life in many gardens; even its drooping and despondent little
theatre has its poor strip of garden, receiving the foul fiend, when he
ducks from its stage into the infernal regions, among scarlet-beans or
oyster-shells, according to the season of the year.
In the midst of Cloisterham stands the Nuns’ House: a venerable brick
edifice, whose present appellation is doubtless derived from the legend
of its conventual uses. On the trim gate enclosing its old courtyard is
a resplendent brass plate flashing forth the legend: ‘Seminary for Young
Ladies. Miss Twinkleton.’ The house-front is so old and worn, and the
brass plate is so shining and staring, that the general result has
reminded imaginative strangers of a battered old beau with a large modern
eye-glass stuck in his blind eye.
Whether the nuns of yore, being of a submissive rather than a
stiff-necked generation, habitually bent their contemplative heads to
avoid collision with the beams in the low ceilings of the many chambers
of their House; whether they sat in its long low windows telling their
beads for their mortification, instead of making necklaces of them for
their adornment; whether they were ever walled up alive in odd angles and
jutting gables of the building for having some ineradicable leaven of
busy mother Nature in them which has kept the fermenting world alive ever
since; these may be matters of interest to its haunting ghosts (if any),
but constitute no item in Miss Twinkleton’s half-yearly accounts. They
are neither of Miss Twinkleton’s inclusive regulars, nor of her extras.
The lady who undertakes the poetical department of the establishment at
so much (or so little) a quarter has no pieces in her list of recitals
bearing on such unprofitable questions.
As, in some cases of drunkenness, and in others of animal magnetism,
there are two states of consciousness which never clash, but each of
which pursues its separate course as though it were continuous instead of
broken (thus, if I hide my watch when I am drunk, I must be drunk again
before I can remember where), so Miss Twinkleton has two distinct and
separate phases of being. Every night, the moment the young ladies have
retired to rest, does Miss Twinkleton smarten up her curls a little,
brighten up her eyes a little, and become a sprightlier Miss Twinkleton
than the young ladies have ever seen. Every night, at the same hour,
does Miss Twinkleton resume the topics of the previous night,
comprehending the tenderer scandal of Cloisterham, of which she has no
knowledge whatever by day, and references to a certain season at
Tunbridge Wells (airily called by Miss Twinkleton in this state of her
existence ‘The Wells’), notably the season wherein a certain finished
gentleman (compassionately called by Miss Twinkleton, in this stage of
her existence, ‘Foolish Mr. Porters’) revealed a homage of the heart,
whereof Miss Twinkleton, in her scholastic state of existence, is as
ignorant as a granite pillar. Miss Twinkleton’s companion in both states
of existence, and equally adaptable to either, is one Mrs. Tisher: a
deferential widow with a weak back, a chronic sigh, and a suppressed
voice, who looks after the young ladies’ wardrobes, and leads them to
infer that she has seen better days. Perhaps this is the reason why it
is an article of faith with the servants, handed down from race to race,
that the departed Tisher was a hairdresser.
The pet pupil of the Nuns’ House is Miss Rosa Bud, of course called
Rosebud; wonderfully pretty, wonderfully childish, wonderfully whimsical.
An awkward interest (awkward because romantic) attaches to Miss Bud in
the minds of the young ladies, on account of its being known to them that
a husband has been chosen for her by will and bequest, and that her
guardian is bound down to bestow her on that husband when he comes of
age. Miss Twinkleton, in her seminarial state of existence, has combated
the romantic aspect of this destiny by affecting to shake her head over
it behind Miss Bud’s dimpled shoulders, and to brood on the unhappy lot
of that doomed little victim. But with no better effect—possibly some
unfelt touch of foolish Mr. Porters has undermined the endeavour—than to
evoke from the young ladies an unanimous bedchamber cry of ‘O, what a
pretending old thing Miss Twinkleton is, my dear!’
The Nuns’ House is never in such a state of flutter as when this allotted
husband calls to see little Rosebud. (It is unanimously understood by
the young ladies that he is lawfully entitled to this privilege, and that
if Miss Twinkleton disputed it, she would be instantly taken up and
transported.) When his ring at the gate-bell is expected, or takes
place, every young lady who can, under any pretence, look out of window,
looks out of window; while every young lady who is ‘practising,’
practises out of time; and the French class becomes so demoralised that
the mark goes round as briskly as the bottle at a convivial party in the
last century.
On the afternoon of the day next after the dinner of two at the
gatehouse, the bell is rung with the usual fluttering results.
‘Mr. Edwin Drood to see Miss Rosa.’
This is the announcement of the parlour-maid in chief. Miss Twinkleton,
with an exemplary air of melancholy on her, turns to the sacrifice, and
says, ‘You may go down, my dear.’ Miss Bud goes down, followed by all
eyes.
Mr. Edwin Drood is waiting in Miss Twinkleton’s own parlour: a dainty
room, with nothing more directly scholastic in it than a terrestrial and
a celestial globe. These expressive machines imply (to parents and
guardians) that even when Miss Twinkleton retires into the bosom of
privacy, duty may at any moment compel her to become a sort of Wandering
Jewess, scouring the earth and soaring through the skies in search of
knowledge for her pupils.
The last new maid, who has never seen the young gentleman Miss Rosa is
engaged to, and who is making his acquaintance between the hinges of the
open door, left open for the purpose, stumbles guiltily down the kitchen
stairs, as a charming little apparition, with its face concealed by a
little silk apron thrown over its head, glides into the parlour.
‘O! _it is_ so ridiculous!’ says the apparition, stopping and shrinking.
‘Don’t, Eddy!’
‘Don’t what, Rosa?’
‘Don’t come any nearer, please. It _is_ so absurd.’
‘What is absurd, Rosa?’
‘The whole thing is. It _is_ so absurd to be an engaged orphan and it
_is_ so absurd to have the girls and the servants scuttling about after
one, like mice in the wainscot; and it _is_ so absurd to be called upon!’
The apparition appears to have a thumb in the corner of its mouth while
making this complaint.
‘You give me an affectionate reception, Pussy, I must say.’
‘Well, I will in a minute, Eddy, but I can’t just yet. How are you?’
(very shortly.)
‘I am unable to reply that I am much the better for seeing you, Pussy,
inasmuch as I see nothing of you.’
This second remonstrance brings a dark, bright, pouting eye out from a
corner of the apron; but it swiftly becomes invisible again, as the
apparition exclaims: ‘O good gracious! you have had half your hair cut
off!’
‘I should have done better to have had my head cut off, I think,’ says
Edwin, rumpling the hair in question, with a fierce glance at the
looking-glass, and giving an impatient stamp. ‘Shall I go?’
‘No; you needn’t go just yet, Eddy. The girls would all be asking
questions why you went.’
‘Once for all, Rosa, will you uncover that ridiculous little head of
yours and give me a welcome?’
The apron is pulled off the childish head, as its wearer replies: ‘You’re
very welcome, Eddy. There! I’m sure that’s nice. Shake hands. No, I
can’t kiss you, because I’ve got an acidulated drop in my mouth.’
‘Are you at all glad to see me, Pussy?’
‘O, yes, I’m dreadfully glad.—Go and sit down.—Miss Twinkleton.’
It is the custom of that excellent lady when these visits occur, to
appear every three minutes, either in her own person or in that of Mrs.
Tisher, and lay an offering on the shrine of Propriety by affecting to
look for some desiderated article. On the present occasion Miss
Twinkleton, gracefully gliding in and out, says in passing: ‘How do you
do, Mr. Drood? Very glad indeed to have the pleasure. Pray excuse me.
Tweezers. Thank you!’
‘I got the gloves last evening, Eddy, and I like them very much. They
are beauties.’
‘Well, that’s something,’ the affianced replies, half grumbling. ‘The
smallest encouragement thankfully received. And how did you pass your
birthday, Pussy?’
‘Delightfully! Everybody gave me a present. And we had a feast. And we
had a ball at night.’
‘A feast and a ball, eh? These occasions seem to go off tolerably well
without me, Pussy.’
‘De-lightfully!’ cries Rosa, in a quite spontaneous manner, and without
the least pretence of reserve.
‘Hah! And what was the feast?’
‘Tarts, oranges, jellies, and shrimps.’
‘Any partners at the ball?’
‘We danced with one another, of course, sir. But some of the girls made
game to be their brothers. It _was_ so droll!’
‘Did anybody make game to be—’
‘To be you? O dear yes!’ cries Rosa, laughing with great enjoyment.
‘That was the first thing done.’
‘I hope she did it pretty well,’ says Edwin rather doubtfully.
‘O, it was excellent!—I wouldn’t dance with you, you know.’
Edwin scarcely seems to see the force of this; begs to know if he may
take the liberty to ask why?
‘Because I was so tired of you,’ returns Rosa. But she quickly adds, and
pleadingly too, seeing displeasure in his face: ‘Dear Eddy, you were just
as tired of me, you know.’
‘Did I say so, Rosa?’
‘Say so! Do you ever say so? No, you only showed it. O, she did it so
well!’ cries Rosa, in a sudden ecstasy with her counterfeit betrothed.
‘It strikes me that she must be a devilish impudent girl,’ says Edwin
Drood. ‘And so, Pussy, you have passed your last birthday in this old
house.’
‘Ah, yes!’ Rosa clasps her hands, looks down with a sigh, and shakes her
head.
‘You seem to be sorry, Rosa.’
‘I am sorry for the poor old place. Somehow, I feel as if it would miss
me, when I am gone so far away, so young.’
‘Perhaps we had better stop short, Rosa?’
She looks up at him with a swift bright look; next moment shakes her
head, sighs, and looks down again.
‘That is to say, is it, Pussy, that we are both resigned?’
She nods her head again, and after a short silence, quaintly bursts out
with: ‘You know we must be married, and married from here, Eddy, or the
poor girls will be so dreadfully disappointed!’
For the moment there is more of compassion, both for her and for himself,
in her affianced husband’s face, than there is of love. He checks the
look, and asks: ‘Shall I take you out for a walk, Rosa dear?’
Rosa dear does not seem at all clear on this point, until her face, which
has been comically reflective, brightens. ‘O, yes, Eddy; let us go for a
walk! And I tell you what we’ll do. You shall pretend that you are
engaged to somebody else, and I’ll pretend that I am not engaged to
anybody, and then we shan’t quarrel.’
‘Do you think that will prevent our falling out, Rosa?’
‘I know it will. Hush! Pretend to look out of window—Mrs. Tisher!’
Through a fortuitous concourse of accidents, the matronly Tisher heaves
in sight, says, in rustling through the room like the legendary ghost of
a dowager in silken skirts: ‘I hope I see Mr. Drood well; though I
needn’t ask, if I may judge from his complexion. I trust I disturb no
one; but there _was_ a paper-knife—O, thank you, I am sure!’ and
disappears with her prize.
‘One other thing you must do, Eddy, to oblige me,’ says Rosebud. ‘The
moment we get into the street, you must put me outside, and keep close to
the house yourself—squeeze and graze yourself against it.’
‘By all means, Rosa, if you wish it. Might I ask why?’
‘O! because I don’t want the girls to see you.’
‘It’s a fine day; but would you like me to carry an umbrella up?’
‘Don’t be foolish, sir. You haven’t got polished leather boots on,’
pouting, with one shoulder raised.
‘Perhaps that might escape the notice of the girls, even if they did see
me,’ remarks Edwin, looking down at his boots with a sudden distaste for
them.
‘Nothing escapes their notice, sir. And then I know what would happen.
Some of them would begin reflecting on me by saying (for _they_ are free)
that they never will on any account engage themselves to lovers without
polished leather boots. Hark! Miss Twinkleton. I’ll ask for leave.’
That discreet lady being indeed heard without, inquiring of nobody in a
blandly conversational tone as she advances: ‘Eh? Indeed! Are you quite
sure you saw my mother-of-pearl button-holder on the work-table in my
room?’ is at once solicited for walking leave, and graciously accords it.
And soon the young couple go out of the Nuns’ House, taking all
precautions against the discovery of the so vitally defective boots of
Mr. Edwin Drood: precautions, let us hope, effective for the peace of
Mrs. Edwin Drood that is to be.
‘Which way shall we take, Rosa?’
Rosa replies: ‘I want to go to the Lumps-of-Delight shop.’
‘To the—?’
‘A Turkish sweetmeat, sir. My gracious me, don’t you understand
anything? Call yourself an Engineer, and not know _that_?’
‘Why, how should I know it, Rosa?’
‘Because I am very fond of them. But O! I forgot what we are to pretend.
No, you needn’t know anything about them; never mind.’
So he is gloomily borne off to the Lumps-of-Delight shop, where Rosa
makes her purchase, and, after offering some to him (which he rather
indignantly declines), begins to partake of it with great zest:
previously taking off and rolling up a pair of little pink gloves, like
rose-leaves, and occasionally putting her little pink fingers to her rosy
lips, to cleanse them from the Dust of Delight that comes off the Lumps.
‘Now, be a good-tempered Eddy, and pretend. And so you are engaged?’
‘And so I am engaged.’
‘Is she nice?’
‘Charming.’
‘Tall?’
‘Immensely tall!’ Rosa being short.
‘Must be gawky, I should think,’ is Rosa’s quiet commentary.
‘I beg your pardon; not at all,’ contradiction rising in him.
‘What is termed a fine woman; a splendid woman.’
‘Big nose, no doubt,’ is the quiet commentary again.
‘Not a little one, certainly,’ is the quick reply, (Rosa’s being a little
one.)
‘Long pale nose, with a red knob in the middle. I know the sort of
nose,’ says Rosa, with a satisfied nod, and tranquilly enjoying the
Lumps.
‘You _don’t_ know the sort of nose, Rosa,’ with some warmth; ‘because
it’s nothing of the kind.’
‘Not a pale nose, Eddy?’
‘No.’ Determined not to assent.
‘A red nose? O! I don’t like red noses. However; to be sure she can
always powder it.’
‘She would scorn to powder it,’ says Edwin, becoming heated.
‘Would she? What a stupid thing she must be! Is she stupid in
everything?’
‘No; in nothing.’
After a pause, in which the whimsically wicked face has not been
unobservant of him, Rosa says:
‘And this most sensible of creatures likes the idea of being carried off
to Egypt; does she, Eddy?’
‘Yes. She takes a sensible interest in triumphs of engineering skill:
especially when they are to change the whole condition of an undeveloped
country.’
‘Lor!’ says Rosa, shrugging her shoulders, with a little laugh of wonder.
‘Do you object,’ Edwin inquires, with a majestic turn of his eyes
downward upon the fairy figure: ‘do you object, Rosa, to her feeling that
interest?’
‘Object? my dear Eddy! But really, doesn’t she hate boilers and things?’
‘I can answer for her not being so idiotic as to hate Boilers,’ he
returns with angry emphasis; ‘though I cannot answer for her views about
Things; really not understanding what Things are meant.’
‘But don’t she hate Arabs, and Turks, and Fellahs, and people?’
‘Certainly not.’ Very firmly.
‘At least she _must_ hate the Pyramids? Come, Eddy?’
‘Why should she be such a little—tall, I mean—goose, as to hate the
Pyramids, Rosa?’
‘Ah! you should hear Miss Twinkleton,’ often nodding her head, and much
enjoying the Lumps, ‘bore about them, and then you wouldn’t ask.
Tiresome old burying-grounds! Isises, and Ibises, and Cheopses, and
Pharaohses; who cares about them? And then there was Belzoni, or
somebody, dragged out by the legs, half-choked with bats and dust. All
the girls say: Serve him right, and hope it hurt him, and wish he had
been quite choked.’
The two youthful figures, side by side, but not now arm-in-arm, wander
discontentedly about the old Close; and each sometimes stops and slowly
imprints a deeper footstep in the fallen leaves.
‘Well!’ says Edwin, after a lengthy silence. ‘According to custom. We
can’t get on, Rosa.’
Rosa tosses her head, and says she don’t want to get on.
‘That’s a pretty sentiment, Rosa, considering.’
‘Considering what?’
‘If I say what, you’ll go wrong again.’
‘_You’ll_ go wrong, you mean, Eddy. Don’t be ungenerous.’
‘Ungenerous! I like that!’
‘Then I _don’t_ like that, and so I tell you plainly,’ Rosa pouts.
‘Now, Rosa, I put it to you. Who disparaged my profession, my
destination—’
‘You are not going to be buried in the Pyramids, I hope?’ she interrupts,
arching her delicate eyebrows. ‘You never said you were. If you are,
why haven’t you mentioned it to me? I can’t find out your plans by
instinct.’
‘Now, Rosa, you know very well what I mean, my dear.’
‘Well then, why did you begin with your detestable red-nosed giantesses?
And she would, she would, she would, she would, she WOULD powder it!’
cries Rosa, in a little burst of comical contradictory spleen.
‘Somehow or other, I never can come right in these discussions,’ says
Edwin, sighing and becoming resigned.
‘How is it possible, sir, that you ever can come right when you’re always
wrong? And as to Belzoni, I suppose he’s dead;—I’m sure I hope he is—and
how can his legs or his chokes concern you?’
‘It is nearly time for your return, Rosa. We have not had a very happy
walk, have we?’
‘A happy walk? A detestably unhappy walk, sir. If I go up-stairs the
moment I get in and cry till I can’t take my dancing lesson, you are
responsible, mind!’
‘Let us be friends, Rosa.’
‘Ah!’ cries Rosa, shaking her head and bursting into real tears, ‘I wish
we _could_ be friends! It’s because we can’t be friends, that we try one
another so. I am a young little thing, Eddy, to have an old heartache;
but I really, really have, sometimes. Don’t be angry. I know you have
one yourself too often. We should both of us have done better, if What
is to be had been left What might have been. I am quite a little serious
thing now, and not teasing you. Let each of us forbear, this one time,
on our own account, and on the other’s!’
Disarmed by this glimpse of a woman’s nature in the spoilt child, though
for an instant disposed to resent it as seeming to involve the enforced
infliction of himself upon her, Edwin Drood stands watching her as she
childishly cries and sobs, with both hands to the handkerchief at her
eyes, and then—she becoming more composed, and indeed beginning in her
young inconstancy to laugh at herself for having been so moved—leads her
to a seat hard by, under the elm-trees.
[Picture: Under the trees]
‘One clear word of understanding, Pussy dear. I am not clever out of my
own line—now I come to think of it, I don’t know that I am particularly
clever in it—but I want to do right. There is not—there may be—I really
don’t see my way to what I want to say, but I must say it before we
part—there is not any other young—’
‘O no, Eddy! It’s generous of you to ask me; but no, no, no!’
They have come very near to the Cathedral windows, and at this moment the
organ and the choir sound out sublimely. As they sit listening to the
solemn swell, the confidence of last night rises in young Edwin Drood’s
mind, and he thinks how unlike this music is to that discordance.
‘I fancy I can distinguish Jack’s voice,’ is his remark in a low tone in
connection with the train of thought.
‘Take me back at once, please,’ urges his Affianced, quickly laying her
light hand upon his wrist. ‘They will all be coming out directly; let us
get away. O, what a resounding chord! But don’t let us stop to listen
to it; let us get away!’
Her hurry is over as soon as they have passed out of the Close. They go
arm-in-arm now, gravely and deliberately enough, along the old
High-street, to the Nuns’ House. At the gate, the street being within
sight empty, Edwin bends down his face to Rosebud’s.
She remonstrates, laughing, and is a childish schoolgirl again.
‘Eddy, no! I’m too sticky to be kissed. But give me your hand, and I’ll
blow a kiss into that.’
He does so. She breathes a light breath into it and asks, retaining it
and looking into it:—
‘Now say, what do you see?’
‘See, Rosa?’
‘Why, I thought you Egyptian boys could look into a hand and see all
sorts of phantoms. Can’t you see a happy Future?’
For certain, neither of them sees a happy Present, as the gate opens and
closes, and one goes in, and the other goes away.
CHAPTER IV—MR. SAPSEA
Accepting the Jackass as the type of self-sufficient stupidity and
conceit—a custom, perhaps, like some few other customs, more conventional
than fair—then the purest jackass in Cloisterham is Mr. Thomas Sapsea,
Auctioneer.
Mr. Sapsea ‘dresses at’ the Dean; has been bowed to for the Dean, in
mistake; has even been spoken to in the street as My Lord, under the
impression that he was the Bishop come down unexpectedly, without his
chaplain. Mr. Sapsea is very proud of this, and of his voice, and of his
style. He has even (in selling landed property) tried the experiment of
slightly intoning in his pulpit, to make himself more like what he takes
to be the genuine ecclesiastical article. So, in ending a Sale by Public
Auction, Mr. Sapsea finishes off with an air of bestowing a benediction
on the assembled brokers, which leaves the real Dean—a modest and worthy
gentleman—far behind.
Mr. Sapsea has many admirers; indeed, the proposition is carried by a
large local majority, even including non-believers in his wisdom, that he
is a credit to Cloisterham. He possesses the great qualities of being
portentous and dull, and of having a roll in his speech, and another roll
in his gait; not to mention a certain gravely flowing action with his
hands, as if he were presently going to Confirm the individual with whom
he holds discourse. Much nearer sixty years of age than fifty, with a
flowing outline of stomach, and horizontal creases in his waistcoat;
reputed to be rich; voting at elections in the strictly respectable
interest; morally satisfied that nothing but he himself has grown since
he was a baby; how can dunder-headed Mr. Sapsea be otherwise than a
credit to Cloisterham, and society?
Mr. Sapsea’s premises are in the High-street, over against the Nuns’
House. They are of about the period of the Nuns’ House, irregularly
modernised here and there, as steadily deteriorating generations found,
more and more, that they preferred air and light to Fever and the Plague.
Over the doorway is a wooden effigy, about half life-size, representing
Mr. Sapsea’s father, in a curly wig and toga, in the act of selling. The
chastity of the idea, and the natural appearance of the little finger,
hammer, and pulpit, have been much admired.
Mr. Sapsea sits in his dull ground-floor sitting-room, giving first on
his paved back yard; and then on his railed-off garden. Mr. Sapsea has a
bottle of port wine on a table before the fire—the fire is an early
luxury, but pleasant on the cool, chilly autumn evening—and is
characteristically attended by his portrait, his eight-day clock, and his
weather-glass. Characteristically, because he would uphold himself
against mankind, his weather-glass against weather, and his clock against
time.
By Mr. Sapsea’s side on the table are a writing-desk and writing
materials. Glancing at a scrap of manuscript, Mr. Sapsea reads it to
himself with a lofty air, and then, slowly pacing the room with his
thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, repeats it from memory: so
internally, though with much dignity, that the word ‘Ethelinda’ is alone
audible.
There are three clean wineglasses in a tray on the table. His
serving-maid entering, and announcing ‘Mr. Jasper is come, sir,’ Mr.
Sapsea waves ‘Admit him,’ and draws two wineglasses from the rank, as
being claimed.
‘Glad to see you, sir. I congratulate myself on having the honour of
receiving you here for the first time.’ Mr. Sapsea does the honours of
his house in this wise.
‘You are very good. The honour is mine and the self-congratulation is
mine.’
‘You are pleased to say so, sir. But I do assure you that it is a
satisfaction to me to receive you in my humble home. And that is what I
would not say to everybody.’ Ineffable loftiness on Mr. Sapsea’s part
accompanies these words, as leaving the sentence to be understood: ‘You
will not easily believe that your society can be a satisfaction to a man
like myself; nevertheless, it is.’
‘I have for some time desired to know you, Mr. Sapsea.’
‘And I, sir, have long known you by reputation as a man of taste. Let me
fill your glass. I will give you, sir,’ says Mr. Sapsea, filling his
own:
‘When the French come over,
May we meet them at Dover!’
This was a patriotic toast in Mr. Sapsea’s infancy, and he is therefore
fully convinced of its being appropriate to any subsequent era.
‘You can scarcely be ignorant, Mr. Sapsea,’ observes Jasper, watching the
auctioneer with a smile as the latter stretches out his legs before the
fire, ‘that you know the world.’
‘Well, sir,’ is the chuckling reply, ‘I think I know something of it;
something of it.’
‘Your reputation for that knowledge has always interested and surprised
me, and made me wish to know you. For Cloisterham is a little place.
Cooped up in it myself, I know nothing beyond it, and feel it to be a
very little place.’
‘If I have not gone to foreign countries, young man,’ Mr. Sapsea begins,
and then stops:—‘You will excuse me calling you young man, Mr. Jasper?
You are much my junior.’
‘By all means.’
‘If I have not gone to foreign countries, young man, foreign countries
have come to me. They have come to me in the way of business, and I have
improved upon my opportunities. Put it that I take an inventory, or make
a catalogue. I see a French clock. I never saw him before, in my life,
but I instantly lay my finger on him and say “Paris!” I see some cups
and saucers of Chinese make, equally strangers to me personally: I put my
finger on them, then and there, and I say “Pekin, Nankin, and Canton.”
It is the same with Japan, with Egypt, and with bamboo and sandalwood
from the East Indies; I put my finger on them all. I have put my finger
on the North Pole before now, and said “Spear of Esquimaux make, for half
a pint of pale sherry!”’
‘Really? A very remarkable way, Mr. Sapsea, of acquiring a knowledge of
men and things.’
‘I mention it, sir,’ Mr. Sapsea rejoins, with unspeakable complacency,
‘because, as I say, it don’t do to boast of what you are; but show how
you came to be it, and then you prove it.’
‘Most interesting. We were to speak of the late Mrs. Sapsea.’
‘We were, sir.’ Mr. Sapsea fills both glasses, and takes the decanter
into safe keeping again. ‘Before I consult your opinion as a man of
taste on this little trifle’—holding it up—‘which is _but_ a trifle, and
still has required some thought, sir, some little fever of the brow, I
ought perhaps to describe the character of the late Mrs. Sapsea, now dead
three quarters of a year.’
Mr. Jasper, in the act of yawning behind his wineglass, puts down that
screen and calls up a look of interest. It is a little impaired in its
expressiveness by his having a shut-up gape still to dispose of, with
watering eyes.
‘Half a dozen years ago, or so,’ Mr. Sapsea proceeds, ‘when I had
enlarged my mind up to—I will not say to what it now is, for that might
seem to aim at too much, but up to the pitch of wanting another mind to
be absorbed in it—I cast my eye about me for a nuptial partner. Because,
as I say, it is not good for man to be alone.’
Mr. Jasper appears to commit this original idea to memory.
‘Miss Brobity at that time kept, I will not call it the rival
establishment to the establishment at the Nuns’ House opposite, but I
will call it the other parallel establishment down town. The world did
have it that she showed a passion for attending my sales, when they took
place on half holidays, or in vacation time. The world did put it about,
that she admired my style. The world did notice that as time flowed by,
my style became traceable in the dictation-exercises of Miss Brobity’s
pupils. Young man, a whisper even sprang up in obscure malignity, that
one ignorant and besotted Churl (a parent) so committed himself as to
object to it by name. But I do not believe this. For is it likely that
any human creature in his right senses would so lay himself open to be
pointed at, by what I call the finger of scorn?’
Mr. Jasper shakes his head. Not in the least likely. Mr. Sapsea, in a
grandiloquent state of absence of mind, seems to refill his visitor’s
glass, which is full already; and does really refill his own, which is
empty.
‘Miss Brobity’s Being, young man, was deeply imbued with homage to Mind.
She revered Mind, when launched, or, as I say, precipitated, on an
extensive knowledge of the world. When I made my proposal, she did me
the honour to be so overshadowed with a species of Awe, as to be able to
articulate only the two words, “O Thou!” meaning myself. Her limpid blue
eyes were fixed upon me, her semi-transparent hands were clasped
together, pallor overspread her aquiline features, and, though encouraged
to proceed, she never did proceed a word further. I disposed of the
parallel establishment by private contract, and we became as nearly one
as could be expected under the circumstances. But she never could, and
she never did, find a phrase satisfactory to her perhaps-too-favourable
estimate of my intellect. To the very last (feeble action of liver), she
addressed me in the same unfinished terms.’
Mr. Jasper has closed his eyes as the auctioneer has deepened his voice.
He now abruptly opens them, and says, in unison with the deepened voice
‘Ah!’—rather as if stopping himself on the extreme verge of adding—‘men!’
‘I have been since,’ says Mr. Sapsea, with his legs stretched out, and
solemnly enjoying himself with the wine and the fire, ‘what you behold
me; I have been since a solitary mourner; I have been since, as I say,
wasting my evening conversation on the desert air. I will not say that I
have reproached myself; but there have been times when I have asked
myself the question: What if her husband had been nearer on a level with
her? If she had not had to look up quite so high, what might the
stimulating action have been upon the liver?’
Mr. Jasper says, with an appearance of having fallen into dreadfully low
spirits, that he ‘supposes it was to be.’
‘We can only suppose so, sir,’ Mr. Sapsea coincides. ‘As I say, Man
proposes, Heaven disposes. It may or may not be putting the same thought
in another form; but that is the way I put it.’
Mr. Jasper murmurs assent.
‘And now, Mr. Jasper,’ resumes the auctioneer, producing his scrap of
manuscript, ‘Mrs. Sapsea’s monument having had full time to settle and
dry, let me take your opinion, as a man of taste, on the inscription I
have (as I before remarked, not without some little fever of the brow)
drawn out for it. Take it in your own hand. The setting out of the
lines requires to be followed with the eye, as well as the contents with
the mind.’
Mr. Jasper complying, sees and reads as follows:
ETHELINDA,
Reverential Wife of
MR. THOMAS SAPSEA,
AUCTIONEER, VALUER, ESTATE AGENT, &c.,
OF THIS CITY.
Whose Knowledge of the World,
Though somewhat extensive,
Never brought him acquainted with
A SPIRIT
More capable of
LOOKING UP TO HIM.
STRANGER, PAUSE
And ask thyself the Question,
CANST THOU DO LIKEWISE?
If Not,
WITH A BLUSH RETIRE.
Mr. Sapsea having risen and stationed himself with his back to the fire,
for the purpose of observing the effect of these lines on the countenance
of a man of taste, consequently has his face towards the door, when his
serving-maid, again appearing, announces, ‘Durdles is come, sir!’ He
promptly draws forth and fills the third wineglass, as being now claimed,
and replies, ‘Show Durdles in.’
‘Admirable!’ quoth Mr. Jasper, handing back the paper.
‘You approve, sir?’
‘Impossible not to approve. Striking, characteristic, and complete.’
The auctioneer inclines his head, as one accepting his due and giving a
receipt; and invites the entering Durdles to take off that glass of wine
(handing the same), for it will warm him.
Durdles is a stonemason; chiefly in the gravestone, tomb, and monument
way, and wholly of their colour from head to foot. No man is better
known in Cloisterham. He is the chartered libertine of the place. Fame
trumpets him a wonderful workman—which, for aught that anybody knows, he
may be (as he never works); and a wonderful sot—which everybody knows he
is. With the Cathedral crypt he is better acquainted than any living
authority; it may even be than any dead one. It is said that the
intimacy of this acquaintance began in his habitually resorting to that
secret place, to lock-out the Cloisterham boy-populace, and sleep off
fumes of liquor: he having ready access to the Cathedral, as contractor
for rough repairs. Be this as it may, he does know much about it, and,
in the demolition of impedimental fragments of wall, buttress, and
pavement, has seen strange sights. He often speaks of himself in the
third person; perhaps, being a little misty as to his own identity, when
he narrates; perhaps impartially adopting the Cloisterham nomenclature in
reference to a character of acknowledged distinction. Thus he will say,
touching his strange sights: ‘Durdles come upon the old chap,’ in
reference to a buried magnate of ancient time and high degree, ‘by
striking right into the coffin with his pick. The old chap gave Durdles
a look with his open eyes, as much as to say, “Is your name Durdles?
Why, my man, I’ve been waiting for you a devil of a time!” And then he
turned to powder.’ With a two-foot rule always in his pocket, and a
mason’s hammer all but always in his hand, Durdles goes continually
sounding and tapping all about and about the Cathedral; and whenever he
says to Tope: ‘Tope, here’s another old ’un in here!’ Tope announces it
to the Dean as an established discovery.
In a suit of coarse flannel with horn buttons, a yellow neckerchief with
draggled ends, an old hat more russet-coloured than black, and laced
boots of the hue of his stony calling, Durdles leads a hazy, gipsy sort
of life, carrying his dinner about with him in a small bundle, and
sitting on all manner of tombstones to dine. This dinner of Durdles’s
has become quite a Cloisterham institution: not only because of his never
appearing in public without it, but because of its having been, on
certain renowned occasions, taken into custody along with Durdles (as
drunk and incapable), and exhibited before the Bench of justices at the
townhall. These occasions, however, have been few and far apart: Durdles
being as seldom drunk as sober. For the rest, he is an old bachelor, and
he lives in a little antiquated hole of a house that was never finished:
supposed to be built, so far, of stones stolen from the city wall. To
this abode there is an approach, ankle-deep in stone chips, resembling a
petrified grove of tombstones, urns, draperies, and broken columns, in
all stages of sculpture. Herein two journeymen incessantly chip, while
other two journeymen, who face each other, incessantly saw stone; dipping
as regularly in and out of their sheltering sentry-boxes, as if they were
mechanical figures emblematical of Time and Death.
To Durdles, when he had consumed his glass of port, Mr. Sapsea intrusts
that precious effort of his Muse. Durdles unfeelingly takes out his
two-foot rule, and measures the lines calmly, alloying them with
stone-grit.
‘This is for the monument, is it, Mr. Sapsea?’
‘The Inscription. Yes.’ Mr. Sapsea waits for its effect on a common
mind.
‘It’ll come in to a eighth of a inch,’ says Durdles. ‘Your servant, Mr.
Jasper. Hope I see you well.’
‘How are you Durdles?’
‘I’ve got a touch of the Tombatism on me, Mr. Jasper, but that I must
expect.’
‘You mean the Rheumatism,’ says Sapsea, in a sharp tone. (He is nettled
by having his composition so mechanically received.)
‘No, I don’t. I mean, Mr. Sapsea, the Tombatism. It’s another sort from
Rheumatism. Mr. Jasper knows what Durdles means. You get among them
Tombs afore it’s well light on a winter morning, and keep on, as the
Catechism says, a-walking in the same all the days of your life, and
_you’ll_ know what Durdles means.’
‘It is a bitter cold place,’ Mr. Jasper assents, with an antipathetic
shiver.
‘And if it’s bitter cold for you, up in the chancel, with a lot of live
breath smoking out about you, what the bitterness is to Durdles, down in
the crypt among the earthy damps there, and the dead breath of the old
’uns,’ returns that individual, ‘Durdles leaves you to judge.—Is this to
be put in hand at once, Mr. Sapsea?’
Mr. Sapsea, with an Author’s anxiety to rush into publication, replies
that it cannot be out of hand too soon.
‘You had better let me have the key then,’ says Durdles.
‘Why, man, it is not to be put inside the monument!’
‘Durdles knows where it’s to be put, Mr. Sapsea; no man better. Ask ’ere
a man in Cloisterham whether Durdles knows his work.’
Mr. Sapsea rises, takes a key from a drawer, unlocks an iron safe let
into the wall, and takes from it another key.
‘When Durdles puts a touch or a finish upon his work, no matter where,
inside or outside, Durdles likes to look at his work all round, and see
that his work is a-doing him credit,’ Durdles explains, doggedly.
The key proffered him by the bereaved widower being a large one, he slips
his two-foot rule into a side-pocket of his flannel trousers made for it,
and deliberately opens his flannel coat, and opens the mouth of a large
breast-pocket within it before taking the key to place it in that
repository.
‘Why, Durdles!’ exclaims Jasper, looking on amused, ‘you are undermined
with pockets!’
‘And I carries weight in ’em too, Mr. Jasper. Feel those!’ producing two
other large keys.
‘Hand me Mr. Sapsea’s likewise. Surely this is the heaviest of the
three.’
‘You’ll find ’em much of a muchness, I expect,’ says Durdles. ‘They all
belong to monuments. They all open Durdles’s work. Durdles keeps the
keys of his work mostly. Not that they’re much used.’
‘By the bye,’ it comes into Jasper’s mind to say, as he idly examines the
keys, ‘I have been going to ask you, many a day, and have always
forgotten. You know they sometimes call you Stony Durdles, don’t you?’
‘Cloisterham knows me as Durdles, Mr. Jasper.’
‘I am aware of that, of course. But the boys sometimes—’
‘O! if you mind them young imps of boys—’ Durdles gruffly interrupts.
‘I don’t mind them any more than you do. But there was a discussion the
other day among the Choir, whether Stony stood for Tony;’ clinking one
key against another.
(‘Take care of the wards, Mr. Jasper.’)
‘Or whether Stony stood for Stephen;’ clinking with a change of keys.
(‘You can’t make a pitch pipe of ’em, Mr. Jasper.’)
‘Or whether the name comes from your trade. How stands the fact?’
Mr. Jasper weighs the three keys in his hand, lifts his head from his
idly stooping attitude over the fire, and delivers the keys to Durdles
with an ingenuous and friendly face.
But the stony one is a gruff one likewise, and that hazy state of his is
always an uncertain state, highly conscious of its dignity, and prone to
take offence. He drops his two keys back into his pocket one by one, and
buttons them up; he takes his dinner-bundle from the chair-back on which
he hung it when he came in; he distributes the weight he carries, by
tying the third key up in it, as though he were an Ostrich, and liked to
dine off cold iron; and he gets out of the room, deigning no word of
answer.
Mr. Sapsea then proposes a hit at backgammon, which, seasoned with his
own improving conversation, and terminating in a supper of cold roast
beef and salad, beguiles the golden evening until pretty late. Mr.
Sapsea’s wisdom being, in its delivery to mortals, rather of the diffuse
than the epigrammatic order, is by no means expended even then; but his
visitor intimates that he will come back for more of the precious
commodity on future occasions, and Mr. Sapsea lets him off for the
present, to ponder on the instalment he carries away.
CHAPTER V—MR. DURDLES AND FRIEND
John Jasper, on his way home through the Close, is brought to a
stand-still by the spectacle of Stony Durdles, dinner-bundle and all,
leaning his back against the iron railing of the burial-ground enclosing
it from the old cloister-arches; and a hideous small boy in rags flinging
stones at him as a well-defined mark in the moonlight. Sometimes the
stones hit him, and sometimes they miss him, but Durdles seems
indifferent to either fortune. The hideous small boy, on the contrary,
whenever he hits Durdles, blows a whistle of triumph through a jagged
gap, convenient for the purpose, in the front of his mouth, where half
his teeth are wanting; and whenever he misses him, yelps out ‘Mulled
agin!’ and tries to atone for the failure by taking a more correct and
vicious aim.
‘What are you doing to the man?’ demands Jasper, stepping out into the
moonlight from the shade.
‘Making a cock-shy of him,’ replies the hideous small boy.
‘Give me those stones in your hand.’
‘Yes, I’ll give ’em you down your throat, if you come a-ketching hold of
me,’ says the small boy, shaking himself loose, and backing. ‘I’ll smash
your eye, if you don’t look out!’
‘Baby-Devil that you are, what has the man done to you?’
‘He won’t go home.’
‘What is that to you?’
‘He gives me a ’apenny to pelt him home if I ketches him out too late,’
says the boy. And then chants, like a little savage, half stumbling and
half dancing among the rags and laces of his dilapidated boots:—
‘Widdy widdy wen!
I—ket—ches—Im—out—ar—ter—ten,
Widdy widdy wy!
Then—E—don’t—go—then—I—shy—
Widdy Widdy Wake-cock warning!’
—with a comprehensive sweep on the last word, and one more delivery at
Durdles.
This would seem to be a poetical note of preparation, agreed upon, as a
caution to Durdles to stand clear if he can, or to betake himself
homeward.
John Jasper invites the boy with a beck of his head to follow him
(feeling it hopeless to drag him, or coax him), and crosses to the iron
railing where the Stony (and stoned) One is profoundly meditating.
‘Do you know this thing, this child?’ asks Jasper, at a loss for a word
that will define this thing.
‘Deputy,’ says Durdles, with a nod.
‘Is that its—his—name?’
‘Deputy,’ assents Durdles.
‘I’m man-servant up at the Travellers’ Twopenny in Gas Works Garding,’
this thing explains. ‘All us man-servants at Travellers’ Lodgings is
named Deputy. When we’re chock full and the Travellers is all a-bed I
come out for my ’elth.’ Then withdrawing into the road, and taking aim,
he resumes:—
‘Widdy widdy wen!
I—ket—ches—Im—out—ar—ter—’
‘Hold your hand,’ cries Jasper, ‘and don’t throw while I stand so near
him, or I’ll kill you! Come, Durdles; let me walk home with you
to-night. Shall I carry your bundle?’
‘Not on any account,’ replies Durdles, adjusting it. ‘Durdles was making
his reflections here when you come up, sir, surrounded by his works, like
a poplar Author.—Your own brother-in-law;’ introducing a sarcophagus
within the railing, white and cold in the moonlight. ‘Mrs. Sapsea;’
introducing the monument of that devoted wife. ‘Late Incumbent;’
introducing the Reverend Gentleman’s broken column. ‘Departed Assessed
Taxes;’ introducing a vase and towel, standing on what might represent
the cake of soap. ‘Former pastrycook and Muffin-maker, much respected;’
introducing gravestone. ‘All safe and sound here, sir, and all Durdles’s
work. Of the common folk, that is merely bundled up in turf and
brambles, the less said the better. A poor lot, soon forgot.’
‘This creature, Deputy, is behind us,’ says Jasper, looking back. ‘Is he
to follow us?’
The relations between Durdles and Deputy are of a capricious kind; for,
on Durdles’s turning himself about with the slow gravity of beery
suddenness, Deputy makes a pretty wide circuit into the road and stands
on the defensive.
‘You never cried Widdy Warning before you begun to-night,’ says Durdles,
unexpectedly reminded of, or imagining, an injury.
‘Yer lie, I did,’ says Deputy, in his only form of polite contradiction.
‘Own brother, sir,’ observes Durdles, turning himself about again, and as
unexpectedly forgetting his offence as he had recalled or conceived it;
‘own brother to Peter the Wild Boy! But I gave him an object in life.’
‘At which he takes aim?’ Mr. Jasper suggests.
‘That’s it, sir,’ returns Durdles, quite satisfied; ‘at which he takes
aim. I took him in hand and gave him an object. What was he before? A
destroyer. What work did he do? Nothing but destruction. What did he
earn by it? Short terms in Cloisterham jail. Not a person, not a piece
of property, not a winder, not a horse, nor a dog, nor a cat, nor a bird,
nor a fowl, nor a pig, but what he stoned, for want of an enlightened
object. I put that enlightened object before him, and now he can turn
his honest halfpenny by the three penn’orth a week.’
‘I wonder he has no competitors.’
‘He has plenty, Mr. Jasper, but he stones ’em all away. Now, I don’t
know what this scheme of mine comes to,’ pursues Durdles, considering
about it with the same sodden gravity; ‘I don’t know what you may
precisely call it. It ain’t a sort of a—scheme of a—National Education?’
‘I should say not,’ replies Jasper.
‘I should say not,’ assents Durdles; ‘then we won’t try to give it a
name.’
‘He still keeps behind us,’ repeats Jasper, looking over his shoulder;
‘is he to follow us?’
‘We can’t help going round by the Travellers’ Twopenny, if we go the
short way, which is the back way,’ Durdles answers, ‘and we’ll drop him
there.’
So they go on; Deputy, as a rear rank one, taking open order, and
invading the silence of the hour and place by stoning every wall, post,
pillar, and other inanimate object, by the deserted way.
‘Is there anything new down in the crypt, Durdles?’ asks John Jasper.
‘Anything old, I think you mean,’ growls Durdles. ‘It ain’t a spot for
novelty.’
‘Any new discovery on your part, I meant.’
‘There’s a old ’un under the seventh pillar on the left as you go down
the broken steps of the little underground chapel as formerly was; I make
him out (so fur as I’ve made him out yet) to be one of them old ’uns with
a crook. To judge from the size of the passages in the walls, and of the
steps and doors, by which they come and went, them crooks must have been
a good deal in the way of the old ’uns! Two on ’em meeting promiscuous
must have hitched one another by the mitre pretty often, I should say.’
Without any endeavour to correct the literality of this opinion, Jasper
surveys his companion—covered from head to foot with old mortar, lime,
and stone grit—as though he, Jasper, were getting imbued with a romantic
interest in his weird life.
‘Yours is a curious existence.’
Without furnishing the least clue to the question, whether he receives
this as a compliment or as quite the reverse, Durdles gruffly answers:
‘Yours is another.’
‘Well! inasmuch as my lot is cast in the same old earthy, chilly,
never-changing place, Yes. But there is much more mystery and interest
in your connection with the Cathedral than in mine. Indeed, I am
beginning to have some idea of asking you to take me on as a sort of
student, or free ’prentice, under you, and to let me go about with you
sometimes, and see some of these odd nooks in which you pass your days.’
The Stony One replies, in a general way, ‘All right. Everybody knows
where to find Durdles, when he’s wanted.’ Which, if not strictly true,
is approximately so, if taken to express that Durdles may always be found
in a state of vagabondage somewhere.
‘What I dwell upon most,’ says Jasper, pursuing his subject of romantic
interest, ‘is the remarkable accuracy with which you would seem to find
out where people are buried.—What is the matter? That bundle is in your
way; let me hold it.’
Durdles has stopped and backed a little (Deputy, attentive to all his
movements, immediately skirmishing into the road), and was looking about
for some ledge or corner to place his bundle on, when thus relieved of
it.
‘Just you give me my hammer out of that,’ says Durdles, ‘and I’ll show
you.’
Clink, clink. And his hammer is handed him.
‘Now, lookee here. You pitch your note, don’t you, Mr. Jasper?’
‘Yes.’
‘So I sound for mine. I take my hammer, and I tap.’ (Here he strikes
the pavement, and the attentive Deputy skirmishes at a rather wider
range, as supposing that his head may be in requisition.) ‘I tap, tap,
tap. Solid! I go on tapping. Solid still! Tap again. Holloa!
Hollow! Tap again, persevering. Solid in hollow! Tap, tap, tap, to try
it better. Solid in hollow; and inside solid, hollow again! There you
are! Old ’un crumbled away in stone coffin, in vault!’
‘Astonishing!’
‘I have even done this,’ says Durdles, drawing out his two-foot rule
(Deputy meanwhile skirmishing nearer, as suspecting that Treasure may be
about to be discovered, which may somehow lead to his own enrichment, and
the delicious treat of the discoverers being hanged by the neck, on his
evidence, until they are dead). ‘Say that hammer of mine’s a wall—my
work. Two; four; and two is six,’ measuring on the pavement. ‘Six foot
inside that wall is Mrs. Sapsea.’
‘Not really Mrs. Sapsea?’
‘Say Mrs. Sapsea. Her wall’s thicker, but say Mrs. Sapsea. Durdles
taps, that wall represented by that hammer, and says, after good
sounding: “Something betwixt us!” Sure enough, some rubbish has been
left in that same six-foot space by Durdles’s men!’
Jasper opines that such accuracy ‘is a gift.’
‘I wouldn’t have it at a gift,’ returns Durdles, by no means receiving
the observation in good part. ‘I worked it out for myself. Durdles
comes by _his_ knowledge through grubbing deep for it, and having it up
by the roots when it don’t want to come.—Holloa you Deputy!’
‘Widdy!’ is Deputy’s shrill response, standing off again.
‘Catch that ha’penny. And don’t let me see any more of you to-night,
after we come to the Travellers’ Twopenny.’
‘Warning!’ returns Deputy, having caught the halfpenny, and appearing by
this mystic word to express his assent to the arrangement.
They have but to cross what was once the vineyard, belonging to what was
once the Monastery, to come into the narrow back lane wherein stands the
crazy wooden house of two low stories currently known as the Travellers’
Twopenny:—a house all warped and distorted, like the morals of the
travellers, with scant remains of a lattice-work porch over the door, and
also of a rustic fence before its stamped-out garden; by reason of the
travellers being so bound to the premises by a tender sentiment (or so
fond of having a fire by the roadside in the course of the day), that
they can never be persuaded or threatened into departure, without
violently possessing themselves of some wooden forget-me-not, and bearing
it off.
The semblance of an inn is attempted to be given to this wretched place
by fragments of conventional red curtaining in the windows, which rags
are made muddily transparent in the night-season by feeble lights of rush
or cotton dip burning dully in the close air of the inside. As Durdles
and Jasper come near, they are addressed by an inscribed paper lantern
over the door, setting forth the purport of the house. They are also
addressed by some half-dozen other hideous small boys—whether twopenny
lodgers or followers or hangers-on of such, who knows!—who, as if
attracted by some carrion-scent of Deputy in the air, start into the
moonlight, as vultures might gather in the desert, and instantly fall to
stoning him and one another.
‘Stop, you young brutes,’ cries Jasper angrily, ‘and let us go by!’
This remonstrance being received with yells and flying stones, according
to a custom of late years comfortably established among the police
regulations of our English communities, where Christians are stoned on
all sides, as if the days of Saint Stephen were revived, Durdles remarks
of the young savages, with some point, that ‘they haven’t got an object,’
and leads the way down the lane.
At the corner of the lane, Jasper, hotly enraged, checks his companion
and looks back. All is silent. Next moment, a stone coming rattling at
his hat, and a distant yell of ‘Wake-Cock! Warning!’ followed by a crow,
as from some infernally-hatched Chanticleer, apprising him under whose
victorious fire he stands, he turns the corner into safety, and takes
Durdles home: Durdles stumbling among the litter of his stony yard as if
he were going to turn head foremost into one of the unfinished tombs.
John Jasper returns by another way to his gatehouse, and entering softly
with his key, finds his fire still burning. He takes from a locked press
a peculiar-looking pipe, which he fills—but not with tobacco—and, having
adjusted the contents of the bowl, very carefully, with a little
instrument, ascends an inner staircase of only a few steps, leading to
two rooms. One of these is his own sleeping chamber: the other is his
nephew’s. There is a light in each.
His nephew lies asleep, calm and untroubled. John Jasper stands looking
down upon him, his unlighted pipe in his hand, for some time, with a
fixed and deep attention. Then, hushing his footsteps, he passes to his
own room, lights his pipe, and delivers himself to the Spectres it
invokes at midnight.
CHAPTER VI—PHILANTHROPY IN MINOR CANON CORNER
The Reverend Septimus Crisparkle (Septimus, because six little brother
Crisparkles before him went out, one by one, as they were born, like six
weak little rushlights, as they were lighted), having broken the thin
morning ice near Cloisterham Weir with his amiable head, much to the
invigoration of his frame, was now assisting his circulation by boxing at
a looking-glass with great science and prowess. A fresh and healthy
portrait the looking-glass presented of the Reverend Septimus, feinting
and dodging with the utmost artfulness, and hitting out from the shoulder
with the utmost straightness, while his radiant features teemed with
innocence, and soft-hearted benevolence beamed from his boxing-gloves.
It was scarcely breakfast-time yet, for Mrs. Crisparkle—mother, not wife
of the Reverend Septimus—was only just down, and waiting for the urn.
Indeed, the Reverend Septimus left off at this very moment to take the
pretty old lady’s entering face between his boxing-gloves and kiss it.
Having done so with tenderness, the Reverend Septimus turned to again,
countering with his left, and putting in his right, in a tremendous
manner.
‘I say, every morning of my life, that you’ll do it at last, Sept,’
remarked the old lady, looking on; ‘and so you will.’
‘Do what, Ma dear?’
‘Break the pier-glass, or burst a blood-vessel.’
‘Neither, please God, Ma dear. Here’s wind, Ma. Look at this!’ In a
concluding round of great severity, the Reverend Septimus administered
and escaped all sorts of punishment, and wound up by getting the old
lady’s cap into Chancery—such is the technical term used in scientific
circles by the learned in the Noble Art—with a lightness of touch that
hardly stirred the lightest lavender or cherry riband on it.
Magnanimously releasing the defeated, just in time to get his gloves into
a drawer and feign to be looking out of window in a contemplative state
of mind when a servant entered, the Reverend Septimus then gave place to
the urn and other preparations for breakfast. These completed, and the
two alone again, it was pleasant to see (or would have been, if there had
been any one to see it, which there never was), the old lady standing to
say the Lord’s Prayer aloud, and her son, Minor Canon nevertheless,
standing with bent head to hear it, he being within five years of forty:
much as he had stood to hear the same words from the same lips when he
was within five months of four.
What is prettier than an old lady—except a young lady—when her eyes are
bright, when her figure is trim and compact, when her face is cheerful
and calm, when her dress is as the dress of a china shepherdess: so
dainty in its colours, so individually assorted to herself, so neatly
moulded on her? Nothing is prettier, thought the good Minor Canon
frequently, when taking his seat at table opposite his long-widowed
mother. Her thought at such times may be condensed into the two words
that oftenest did duty together in all her conversations: ‘My Sept!’
They were a good pair to sit breakfasting together in Minor Canon Corner,
Cloisterham. For Minor Canon Corner was a quiet place in the shadow of
the Cathedral, which the cawing of the rooks, the echoing footsteps of
rare passers, the sound of the Cathedral bell, or the roll of the
Cathedral organ, seemed to render more quiet than absolute silence.
Swaggering fighting men had had their centuries of ramping and raving
about Minor Canon Corner, and beaten serfs had had their centuries of
drudging and dying there, and powerful monks had had their centuries of
being sometimes useful and sometimes harmful there, and behold they were
all gone out of Minor Canon Corner, and so much the better. Perhaps one
of the highest uses of their ever having been there, was, that there
might be left behind, that blessed air of tranquillity which pervaded
Minor Canon Corner, and that serenely romantic state of the
mind—productive for the most part of pity and forbearance—which is
engendered by a sorrowful story that is all told, or a pathetic play that
is played out.
Red-brick walls harmoniously toned down in colour by time, strong-rooted
ivy, latticed windows, panelled rooms, big oaken beams in little places,
and stone-walled gardens where annual fruit yet ripened upon monkish
trees, were the principal surroundings of pretty old Mrs. Crisparkle and
the Reverend Septimus as they sat at breakfast.
‘And what, Ma dear,’ inquired the Minor Canon, giving proof of a
wholesome and vigorous appetite, ‘does the letter say?’
The pretty old lady, after reading it, had just laid it down upon the
breakfast-cloth. She handed it over to her son.
Now, the old lady was exceedingly proud of her bright eyes being so clear
that she could read writing without spectacles. Her son was also so
proud of the circumstance, and so dutifully bent on her deriving the
utmost possible gratification from it, that he had invented the pretence
that he himself could _not_ read writing without spectacles. Therefore
he now assumed a pair, of grave and prodigious proportions, which not
only seriously inconvenienced his nose and his breakfast, but seriously
impeded his perusal of the letter. For, he had the eyes of a microscope
and a telescope combined, when they were unassisted.
‘It’s from Mr. Honeythunder, of course,’ said the old lady, folding her
arms.
‘Of course,’ assented her son. He then lamely read on:
‘“Haven of Philanthropy,
Chief Offices, London, Wednesday.
‘“DEAR MADAM,
‘“I write in the—;” In the what’s this? What does he write in?’
‘In the chair,’ said the old lady.
The Reverend Septimus took off his spectacles, that he might see her
face, as he exclaimed:
‘Why, what should he write in?’
‘Bless me, bless me, Sept,’ returned the old lady, ‘you don’t see the
context! Give it back to me, my dear.’
Glad to get his spectacles off (for they always made his eyes water), her
son obeyed: murmuring that his sight for reading manuscript got worse and
worse daily.
‘“I write,”’ his mother went on, reading very perspicuously and
precisely, ‘“from the chair, to which I shall probably be confined for
some hours.”’
Septimus looked at the row of chairs against the wall, with a
half-protesting and half-appealing countenance.
‘“We have,”’ the old lady read on with a little extra emphasis, ‘“a
meeting of our Convened Chief Composite Committee of Central and District
Philanthropists, at our Head Haven as above; and it is their unanimous
pleasure that I take the chair.”’
Septimus breathed more freely, and muttered: ‘O! if he comes to _that_,
let him.’
‘“Not to lose a day’s post, I take the opportunity of a long report being
read, denouncing a public miscreant—”’
‘It is a most extraordinary thing,’ interposed the gentle Minor Canon,
laying down his knife and fork to rub his ear in a vexed manner, ‘that
these Philanthropists are always denouncing somebody. And it is another
most extraordinary thing that they are always so violently flush of
miscreants!’
‘“Denouncing a public miscreant—”’—the old lady resumed, ‘“to get our
little affair of business off my mind. I have spoken with my two wards,
Neville and Helena Landless, on the subject of their defective education,
and they give in to the plan proposed; as I should have taken good care
they did, whether they liked it or not.”’
‘And it is another most extraordinary thing,’ remarked the Minor Canon in
the same tone as before, ‘that these philanthropists are so given to
seizing their fellow-creatures by the scruff of the neck, and (as one may
say) bumping them into the paths of peace.—I beg your pardon, Ma dear,
for interrupting.’
‘“Therefore, dear Madam, you will please prepare your son, the Rev. Mr.
Septimus, to expect Neville as an inmate to be read with, on Monday next.
On the same day Helena will accompany him to Cloisterham, to take up her
quarters at the Nuns’ House, the establishment recommended by yourself
and son jointly. Please likewise to prepare for her reception and
tuition there. The terms in both cases are understood to be exactly as
stated to me in writing by yourself, when I opened a correspondence with
you on this subject, after the honour of being introduced to you at your
sister’s house in town here. With compliments to the Rev. Mr. Septimus,
I am, Dear Madam, Your affectionate brother (In Philanthropy), LUKE
HONEYTHUNDER.”’
‘Well, Ma,’ said Septimus, after a little more rubbing of his ear, ‘we
must try it. There can be no doubt that we have room for an inmate, and
that I have time to bestow upon him, and inclination too. I must confess
to feeling rather glad that he is not Mr. Honeythunder himself. Though
that seems wretchedly prejudiced—does it not?—for I never saw him. Is he
a large man, Ma?’
‘I should call him a large man, my dear,’ the old lady replied after some
hesitation, ‘but that his voice is so much larger.’
‘Than himself?’
‘Than anybody.’
‘Hah!’ said Septimus. And finished his breakfast as if the flavour of
the Superior Family Souchong, and also of the ham and toast and eggs,
were a little on the wane.
Mrs. Crisparkle’s sister, another piece of Dresden china, and matching
her so neatly that they would have made a delightful pair of ornaments
for the two ends of any capacious old-fashioned chimneypiece, and by
right should never have been seen apart, was the childless wife of a
clergyman holding Corporation preferment in London City. Mr.
Honeythunder in his public character of Professor of Philanthropy had
come to know Mrs. Crisparkle during the last re-matching of the china
ornaments (in other words during her last annual visit to her sister),
after a public occasion of a philanthropic nature, when certain devoted
orphans of tender years had been glutted with plum buns, and plump
bumptiousness. These were all the antecedents known in Minor Canon
Corner of the coming pupils.
‘I am sure you will agree with me, Ma,’ said Mr. Crisparkle, after
thinking the matter over, ‘that the first thing to be done, is, to put
these young people as much at their ease as possible. There is nothing
disinterested in the notion, because we cannot be at our ease with them
unless they are at their ease with us. Now, Jasper’s nephew is down here
at present; and like takes to like, and youth takes to youth. He is a
cordial young fellow, and we will have him to meet the brother and sister
at dinner. That’s three. We can’t think of asking him, without asking
Jasper. That’s four. Add Miss Twinkleton and the fairy bride that is to
be, and that’s six. Add our two selves, and that’s eight. Would eight
at a friendly dinner at all put you out, Ma?’
‘Nine would, Sept,’ returned the old lady, visibly nervous.
‘My dear Ma, I particularise eight.’
‘The exact size of the table and the room, my dear.’
So it was settled that way: and when Mr. Crisparkle called with his
mother upon Miss Twinkleton, to arrange for the reception of Miss Helena
Landless at the Nuns’ House, the two other invitations having reference
to that establishment were proffered and accepted. Miss Twinkleton did,
indeed, glance at the globes, as regretting that they were not formed to
be taken out into society; but became reconciled to leaving them behind.
Instructions were then despatched to the Philanthropist for the departure
and arrival, in good time for dinner, of Mr. Neville and Miss Helena; and
stock for soup became fragrant in the air of Minor Canon Corner.
In those days there was no railway to Cloisterham, and Mr. Sapsea said
there never would be. Mr. Sapsea said more; he said there never should
be. And yet, marvellous to consider, it has come to pass, in these days,
that Express Trains don’t think Cloisterham worth stopping at, but yell
and whirl through it on their larger errands, casting the dust off their
wheels as a testimony against its insignificance. Some remote fragment
of Main Line to somewhere else, there was, which was going to ruin the
Money Market if it failed, and Church and State if it succeeded, and (of
course), the Constitution, whether or no; but even that had already so
unsettled Cloisterham traffic, that the traffic, deserting the high road,
came sneaking in from an unprecedented part of the country by a back
stable-way, for many years labelled at the corner: ‘Beware of the Dog.’
To this ignominious avenue of approach, Mr. Crisparkle repaired, awaiting
the arrival of a short, squat omnibus, with a disproportionate heap of
luggage on the roof—like a little Elephant with infinitely too much
Castle—which was then the daily service between Cloisterham and external
mankind. As this vehicle lumbered up, Mr. Crisparkle could hardly see
anything else of it for a large outside passenger seated on the box, with
his elbows squared, and his hands on his knees, compressing the driver
into a most uncomfortably small compass, and glowering about him with a
strongly-marked face.
‘Is this Cloisterham?’ demanded the passenger, in a tremendous voice.
‘It is,’ replied the driver, rubbing himself as if he ached, after
throwing the reins to the ostler. ‘And I never was so glad to see it.’
‘Tell your master to make his box-seat wider, then,’ returned the
passenger. ‘Your master is morally bound—and ought to be legally, under
ruinous penalties—to provide for the comfort of his fellow-man.’
The driver instituted, with the palms of his hands, a superficial
perquisition into the state of his skeleton; which seemed to make him
anxious.
‘Have I sat upon you?’ asked the passenger.
‘You have,’ said the driver, as if he didn’t like it at all.
‘Take that card, my friend.’
‘I think I won’t deprive you on it,’ returned the driver, casting his
eyes over it with no great favour, without taking it. ‘What’s the good
of it to me?’
‘Be a Member of that Society,’ said the passenger.
‘What shall I get by it?’ asked the driver.
‘Brotherhood,’ returned the passenger, in a ferocious voice.
‘Thankee,’ said the driver, very deliberately, as he got down; ‘my mother
was contented with myself, and so am I. I don’t want no brothers.’
‘But you must have them,’ replied the passenger, also descending,
‘whether you like it or not. I am your brother.’
‘I say!’ expostulated the driver, becoming more chafed in temper, ‘not
too fur! The worm _will_, when—’
But here, Mr. Crisparkle interposed, remonstrating aside, in a friendly
voice: ‘Joe, Joe, Joe! don’t forget yourself, Joe, my good fellow!’ and
then, when Joe peaceably touched his hat, accosting the passenger with:
‘Mr. Honeythunder?’
‘That is my name, sir.’
‘My name is Crisparkle.’
‘Reverend Mr. Septimus? Glad to see you, sir. Neville and Helena are
inside. Having a little succumbed of late, under the pressure of my
public labours, I thought I would take a mouthful of fresh air, and come
down with them, and return at night. So you are the Reverend Mr.
Septimus, are you?’ surveying him on the whole with disappointment, and
twisting a double eyeglass by its ribbon, as if he were roasting it, but
not otherwise using it. ‘Hah! I expected to see you older, sir.’
‘I hope you will,’ was the good-humoured reply.
‘Eh?’ demanded Mr. Honeythunder.
‘Only a poor little joke. Not worth repeating.’
‘Joke? Ay; I never see a joke,’ Mr. Honeythunder frowningly retorted.
‘A joke is wasted upon me, sir. Where are they? Helena and Neville,
come here! Mr. Crisparkle has come down to meet you.’
An unusually handsome lithe young fellow, and an unusually handsome lithe
girl; much alike; both very dark, and very rich in colour; she of almost
the gipsy type; something untamed about them both; a certain air upon
them of hunter and huntress; yet withal a certain air of being the
objects of the chase, rather than the followers. Slender, supple, quick
of eye and limb; half shy, half defiant; fierce of look; an indefinable
kind of pause coming and going on their whole expression, both of face
and form, which might be equally likened to the pause before a crouch or
a bound. The rough mental notes made in the first five minutes by Mr.
Crisparkle would have read thus, _verbatim_.
He invited Mr. Honeythunder to dinner, with a troubled mind (for the
discomfiture of the dear old china shepherdess lay heavy on it), and gave
his arm to Helena Landless. Both she and her brother, as they walked all
together through the ancient streets, took great delight in what he
pointed out of the Cathedral and the Monastery ruin, and wondered—so his
notes ran on—much as if they were beautiful barbaric captives brought
from some wild tropical dominion. Mr. Honeythunder walked in the middle
of the road, shouldering the natives out of his way, and loudly
developing a scheme he had, for making a raid on all the unemployed
persons in the United Kingdom, laying them every one by the heels in
jail, and forcing them, on pain of prompt extermination, to become
philanthropists.
Mrs. Crisparkle had need of her own share of philanthropy when she beheld
this very large and very loud excrescence on the little party. Always
something in the nature of a Boil upon the face of society, Mr.
Honeythunder expanded into an inflammatory Wen in Minor Canon Corner.
Though it was not literally true, as was facetiously charged against him
by public unbelievers, that he called aloud to his fellow-creatures:
‘Curse your souls and bodies, come here and be blessed!’ still his
philanthropy was of that gunpowderous sort that the difference between it
and animosity was hard to determine. You were to abolish military force,
but you were first to bring all commanding officers who had done their
duty, to trial by court-martial for that offence, and shoot them. You
were to abolish war, but were to make converts by making war upon them,
and charging them with loving war as the apple of their eye. You were to
have no capital punishment, but were first to sweep off the face of the
earth all legislators, jurists, and judges, who were of the contrary
opinion. You were to have universal concord, and were to get it by
eliminating all the people who wouldn’t, or conscientiously couldn’t, be
concordant. You were to love your brother as yourself, but after an
indefinite interval of maligning him (very much as if you hated him), and
calling him all manner of names. Above all things, you were to do
nothing in private, or on your own account. You were to go to the
offices of the Haven of Philanthropy, and put your name down as a Member
and a Professing Philanthropist. Then, you were to pay up your
subscription, get your card of membership and your riband and medal, and
were evermore to live upon a platform, and evermore to say what Mr.
Honeythunder said, and what the Treasurer said, and what the
sub-Treasurer said, and what the Committee said, and what the
sub-Committee said, and what the Secretary said, and what the
Vice-Secretary said. And this was usually said in the
unanimously-carried resolution under hand and seal, to the effect: ‘That
this assembled Body of Professing Philanthropists views, with indignant
scorn and contempt, not unmixed with utter detestation and loathing
abhorrence’—in short, the baseness of all those who do not belong to it,
and pledges itself to make as many obnoxious statements as possible about
them, without being at all particular as to facts.
The dinner was a most doleful breakdown. The philanthropist deranged the
symmetry of the table, sat himself in the way of the waiting, blocked up
the thoroughfare, and drove Mr. Tope (who assisted the parlour-maid) to
the verge of distraction by passing plates and dishes on, over his own
head. Nobody could talk to anybody, because he held forth to everybody
at once, as if the company had no individual existence, but were a
Meeting. He impounded the Reverend Mr. Septimus, as an official
personage to be addressed, or kind of human peg to hang his oratorical
hat on, and fell into the exasperating habit, common among such orators,
of impersonating him as a wicked and weak opponent. Thus, he would ask:
‘And will you, sir, now stultify yourself by telling me’—and so forth,
when the innocent man had not opened his lips, nor meant to open them.
Or he would say: ‘Now see, sir, to what a position you are reduced. I
will leave you no escape. After exhausting all the resources of fraud
and falsehood, during years upon years; after exhibiting a combination of
dastardly meanness with ensanguined daring, such as the world has not
often witnessed; you have now the hypocrisy to bend the knee before the
most degraded of mankind, and to sue and whine and howl for mercy!’
Whereat the unfortunate Minor Canon would look, in part indignant and in
part perplexed; while his worthy mother sat bridling, with tears in her
eyes, and the remainder of the party lapsed into a sort of gelatinous
state, in which there was no flavour or solidity, and very little
resistance.
But the gush of philanthropy that burst forth when the departure of Mr.
Honeythunder began to impend, must have been highly gratifying to the
feelings of that distinguished man. His coffee was produced, by the
special activity of Mr. Tope, a full hour before he wanted it. Mr.
Crisparkle sat with his watch in his hand for about the same period, lest
he should overstay his time. The four young people were unanimous in
believing that the Cathedral clock struck three-quarters, when it
actually struck but one. Miss Twinkleton estimated the distance to the
omnibus at five-and-twenty minutes’ walk, when it was really five. The
affectionate kindness of the whole circle hustled him into his greatcoat,
and shoved him out into the moonlight, as if he were a fugitive traitor
with whom they sympathised, and a troop of horse were at the back door.
Mr. Crisparkle and his new charge, who took him to the omnibus, were so
fervent in their apprehensions of his catching cold, that they shut him
up in it instantly and left him, with still half-an-hour to spare.
CHAPTER VII—MORE CONFIDENCES THAN ONE
‘I know very little of that gentleman, sir,’ said Neville to the Minor
Canon as they turned back.
‘You know very little of your guardian?’ the Minor Canon repeated.
‘Almost nothing!’
‘How came he—’
‘To _be_ my guardian? I’ll tell you, sir. I suppose you know that we
come (my sister and I) from Ceylon?’
‘Indeed, no.’
‘I wonder at that. We lived with a stepfather there. Our mother died
there, when we were little children. We have had a wretched existence.
She made him our guardian, and he was a miserly wretch who grudged us
food to eat, and clothes to wear. At his death, he passed us over to
this man; for no better reason that I know of, than his being a friend or
connexion of his, whose name was always in print and catching his
attention.’
‘That was lately, I suppose?’
‘Quite lately, sir. This stepfather of ours was a cruel brute as well as
a grinding one. It is well he died when he did, or I might have killed
him.’
Mr. Crisparkle stopped short in the moonlight and looked at his hopeful
pupil in consternation.
‘I surprise you, sir?’ he said, with a quick change to a submissive
manner.
‘You shock me; unspeakably shock me.’
The pupil hung his head for a little while, as they walked on, and then
said: ‘You never saw him beat your sister. I have seen him beat mine,
more than once or twice, and I never forgot it.’
‘Nothing,’ said Mr. Crisparkle, ‘not even a beloved and beautiful
sister’s tears under dastardly ill-usage;’ he became less severe, in
spite of himself, as his indignation rose; ‘could justify those horrible
expressions that you used.’
‘I am sorry I used them, and especially to you, sir. I beg to recall
them. But permit me to set you right on one point. You spoke of my
sister’s tears. My sister would have let him tear her to pieces, before
she would have let him believe that he could make her shed a tear.’
Mr. Crisparkle reviewed those mental notes of his, and was neither at all
surprised to hear it, nor at all disposed to question it.
‘Perhaps you will think it strange, sir,’—this was said in a hesitating
voice—‘that I should so soon ask you to allow me to confide in you, and
to have the kindness to hear a word or two from me in my defence?’
‘Defence?’ Mr. Crisparkle repeated. ‘You are not on your defence, Mr.
Neville.’
‘I think I am, sir. At least I know I should be, if you were better
acquainted with my character.’
‘Well, Mr. Neville,’ was the rejoinder. ‘What if you leave me to find it
out?’
‘Since it is your pleasure, sir,’ answered the young man, with a quick
change in his manner to sullen disappointment: ‘since it is your pleasure
to check me in my impulse, I must submit.’
There was that in the tone of this short speech which made the
conscientious man to whom it was addressed uneasy. It hinted to him that
he might, without meaning it, turn aside a trustfulness beneficial to a
mis-shapen young mind and perhaps to his own power of directing and
improving it. They were within sight of the lights in his windows, and
he stopped.
‘Let us turn back and take a turn or two up and down, Mr. Neville, or you
may not have time to finish what you wish to say to me. You are hasty in
thinking that I mean to check you. Quite the contrary. I invite your
confidence.’
‘You have invited it, sir, without knowing it, ever since I came here. I
say “ever since,” as if I had been here a week. The truth is, we came
here (my sister and I) to quarrel with you, and affront you, and break
away again.’
‘Really?’ said Mr. Crisparkle, at a dead loss for anything else to say.
‘You see, we could not know what you were beforehand, sir; could we?’
‘Clearly not,’ said Mr. Crisparkle.
‘And having liked no one else with whom we have ever been brought into
contact, we had made up our minds not to like you.’
‘Really?’ said Mr. Crisparkle again.
‘But we do like you, sir, and we see an unmistakable difference between
your house and your reception of us, and anything else we have ever
known. This—and my happening to be alone with you—and everything around
us seeming so quiet and peaceful after Mr. Honeythunder’s departure—and
Cloisterham being so old and grave and beautiful, with the moon shining
on it—these things inclined me to open my heart.’
‘I quite understand, Mr. Neville. And it is salutary to listen to such
influences.’
‘In describing my own imperfections, sir, I must ask you not to suppose
that I am describing my sister’s. She has come out of the disadvantages
of our miserable life, as much better than I am, as that Cathedral tower
is higher than those chimneys.’
Mr. Crisparkle in his own breast was not so sure of this.
‘I have had, sir, from my earliest remembrance, to suppress a deadly and
bitter hatred. This has made me secret and revengeful. I have been
always tyrannically held down by the strong hand. This has driven me, in
my weakness, to the resource of being false and mean. I have been
stinted of education, liberty, money, dress, the very necessaries of
life, the commonest pleasures of childhood, the commonest possessions of
youth. This has caused me to be utterly wanting in I don’t know what
emotions, or remembrances, or good instincts—I have not even a name for
the thing, you see!—that you have had to work upon in other young men to
whom you have been accustomed.’
‘This is evidently true. But this is not encouraging,’ thought Mr.
Crisparkle as they turned again.
‘And to finish with, sir: I have been brought up among abject and servile
dependents, of an inferior race, and I may easily have contracted some
affinity with them. Sometimes, I don’t know but that it may be a drop of
what is tigerish in their blood.’
‘As in the case of that remark just now,’ thought Mr. Crisparkle.
‘In a last word of reference to my sister, sir (we are twin children),
you ought to know, to her honour, that nothing in our misery ever subdued
her, though it often cowed me. When we ran away from it (we ran away
four times in six years, to be soon brought back and cruelly punished),
the flight was always of her planning and leading. Each time she dressed
as a boy, and showed the daring of a man. I take it we were seven years
old when we first decamped; but I remember, when I lost the pocket-knife
with which she was to have cut her hair short, how desperately she tried
to tear it out, or bite it off. I have nothing further to say, sir,
except that I hope you will bear with me and make allowance for me.’
‘Of that, Mr. Neville, you may be sure,’ returned the Minor Canon. ‘I
don’t preach more than I can help, and I will not repay your confidence
with a sermon. But I entreat you to bear in mind, very seriously and
steadily, that if I am to do you any good, it can only be with your own
assistance; and that you can only render that, efficiently, by seeking
aid from Heaven.’
‘I will try to do my part, sir.’
‘And, Mr. Neville, I will try to do mine. Here is my hand on it. May
God bless our endeavours!’
They were now standing at his house-door, and a cheerful sound of voices
and laughter was heard within.
‘We will take one more turn before going in,’ said Mr. Crisparkle, ‘for I
want to ask you a question. When you said you were in a changed mind
concerning me, you spoke, not only for yourself, but for your sister
too?’
‘Undoubtedly I did, sir.’
‘Excuse me, Mr. Neville, but I think you have had no opportunity of
communicating with your sister, since I met you. Mr. Honeythunder was
very eloquent; but perhaps I may venture to say, without ill-nature, that
he rather monopolised the occasion. May you not have answered for your
sister without sufficient warrant?’
Neville shook his head with a proud smile.
‘You don’t know, sir, yet, what a complete understanding can exist
between my sister and me, though no spoken word—perhaps hardly as much as
a look—may have passed between us. She not only feels as I have
described, but she very well knows that I am taking this opportunity of
speaking to you, both for her and for myself.’
Mr. Crisparkle looked in his face, with some incredulity; but his face
expressed such absolute and firm conviction of the truth of what he said,
that Mr. Crisparkle looked at the pavement, and mused, until they came to
his door again.
‘I will ask for one more turn, sir, this time,’ said the young man, with
a rather heightened colour rising in his face. ‘But for Mr.
Honeythunder’s—I think you called it eloquence, sir?’ (somewhat slyly.)
‘I—yes, I called it eloquence,’ said Mr. Crisparkle.
‘But for Mr. Honeythunder’s eloquence, I might have had no need to ask
you what I am going to ask you. This Mr. Edwin Drood, sir: I think
that’s the name?’
‘Quite correct,’ said Mr. Crisparkle. ‘D-r-double o-d.’
‘Does he—or did he—read with you, sir?’
‘Never, Mr. Neville. He comes here visiting his relation, Mr. Jasper.’
‘Is Miss Bud his relation too, sir?’
(‘Now, why should he ask that, with sudden superciliousness?’ thought Mr.
Crisparkle.) Then he explained, aloud, what he knew of the little story
of their betrothal.
‘O! _that’s_ it, is it?’ said the young man. ‘I understand his air of
proprietorship now!’
This was said so evidently to himself, or to anybody rather than Mr.
Crisparkle, that the latter instinctively felt as if to notice it would
be almost tantamount to noticing a passage in a letter which he had read
by chance over the writer’s shoulder. A moment afterwards they
re-entered the house.
Mr. Jasper was seated at the piano as they came into his drawing-room,
and was accompanying Miss Rosebud while she sang. It was a consequence
of his playing the accompaniment without notes, and of her being a
heedless little creature, very apt to go wrong, that he followed her lips
most attentively, with his eyes as well as hands; carefully and softly
hinting the key-note from time to time. Standing with an arm drawn round
her, but with a face far more intent on Mr. Jasper than on her singing,
stood Helena, between whom and her brother an instantaneous recognition
passed, in which Mr. Crisparkle saw, or thought he saw, the understanding
that had been spoken of, flash out. Mr. Neville then took his admiring
station, leaning against the piano, opposite the singer; Mr. Crisparkle
sat down by the china shepherdess; Edwin Drood gallantly furled and
unfurled Miss Twinkleton’s fan; and that lady passively claimed that sort
of exhibitor’s proprietorship in the accomplishment on view, which Mr.
Tope, the Verger, daily claimed in the Cathedral service.
[Picture: At the piano]
The song went on. It was a sorrowful strain of parting, and the fresh
young voice was very plaintive and tender. As Jasper watched the pretty
lips, and ever and again hinted the one note, as though it were a low
whisper from himself, the voice became less steady, until all at once the
singer broke into a burst of tears, and shrieked out, with her hands over
her eyes: ‘I can’t bear this! I am frightened! Take me away!’
With one swift turn of her lithe figures Helena laid the little beauty on
a sofa, as if she had never caught her up. Then, on one knee beside her,
and with one hand upon her rosy mouth, while with the other she appealed
to all the rest, Helena said to them: ‘It’s nothing; it’s all over; don’t
speak to her for one minute, and she is well!’
Jasper’s hands had, in the same instant, lifted themselves from the keys,
and were now poised above them, as though he waited to resume. In that
attitude he yet sat quiet: not even looking round, when all the rest had
changed their places and were reassuring one another.
‘Pussy’s not used to an audience; that’s the fact,’ said Edwin Drood.
‘She got nervous, and couldn’t hold out. Besides, Jack, you are such a
conscientious master, and require so much, that I believe you make her
afraid of you. No wonder.’
‘No wonder,’ repeated Helena.
‘There, Jack, you hear! You would be afraid of him, under similar
circumstances, wouldn’t you, Miss Landless?’
‘Not under any circumstances,’ returned Helena.
Jasper brought down his hands, looked over his shoulder, and begged to
thank Miss Landless for her vindication of his character. Then he fell
to dumbly playing, without striking the notes, while his little pupil was
taken to an open window for air, and was otherwise petted and restored.
When she was brought back, his place was empty. ‘Jack’s gone, Pussy,’
Edwin told her. ‘I am more than half afraid he didn’t like to be charged
with being the Monster who had frightened you.’ But she answered never a
word, and shivered, as if they had made her a little too cold.
Miss Twinkleton now opining that indeed these were late hours, Mrs.
Crisparkle, for finding ourselves outside the walls of the Nuns’ House,
and that we who undertook the formation of the future wives and mothers
of England (the last words in a lower voice, as requiring to be
communicated in confidence) were really bound (voice coming up again) to
set a better example than one of rakish habits, wrappers were put in
requisition, and the two young cavaliers volunteered to see the ladies
home. It was soon done, and the gate of the Nuns’ House closed upon
them.
The boarders had retired, and only Mrs. Tisher in solitary vigil awaited
the new pupil. Her bedroom being within Rosa’s, very little introduction
or explanation was necessary, before she was placed in charge of her new
friend, and left for the night.
‘This is a blessed relief, my dear,’ said Helena. ‘I have been dreading
all day, that I should be brought to bay at this time.’
‘There are not many of us,’ returned Rosa, ‘and we are good-natured
girls; at least the others are; I can answer for them.’
‘I can answer for you,’ laughed Helena, searching the lovely little face
with her dark, fiery eyes, and tenderly caressing the small figure. ‘You
will be a friend to me, won’t you?’
‘I hope so. But the idea of my being a friend to you seems too absurd,
though.’
‘Why?’
‘O, I am such a mite of a thing, and you are so womanly and handsome.
You seem to have resolution and power enough to crush me. I shrink into
nothing by the side of your presence even.’
‘I am a neglected creature, my dear, unacquainted with all
accomplishments, sensitively conscious that I have everything to learn,
and deeply ashamed to own my ignorance.’
‘And yet you acknowledge everything to me!’ said Rosa.
‘My pretty one, can I help it? There is a fascination in you.’
‘O! is there though?’ pouted Rosa, half in jest and half in earnest.
‘What a pity Master Eddy doesn’t feel it more!’
Of course her relations towards that young gentleman had been already
imparted in Minor Canon Corner.
‘Why, surely he must love you with all his heart!’ cried Helena, with an
earnestness that threatened to blaze into ferocity if he didn’t.
‘Eh? O, well, I suppose he does,’ said Rosa, pouting again; ‘I am sure I
have no right to say he doesn’t. Perhaps it’s my fault. Perhaps I am
not as nice to him as I ought to be. I don’t think I am. But it _is_ so
ridiculous!’
Helena’s eyes demanded what was.
‘_We_ are,’ said Rosa, answering as if she had spoken. ‘We are such a
ridiculous couple. And we are always quarrelling.’
‘Why?’
‘Because we both know we are ridiculous, my dear!’ Rosa gave that answer
as if it were the most conclusive answer in the world.
Helena’s masterful look was intent upon her face for a few moments, and
then she impulsively put out both her hands and said:
‘You will be my friend and help me?’
‘Indeed, my dear, I will,’ replied Rosa, in a tone of affectionate
childishness that went straight and true to her heart; ‘I will be as good
a friend as such a mite of a thing can be to such a noble creature as
you. And be a friend to me, please; I don’t understand myself: and I
want a friend who can understand me, very much indeed.’
Helena Landless kissed her, and retaining both her hands said:
‘Who is Mr. Jasper?’
Rosa turned aside her head in answering: ‘Eddy’s uncle, and my
music-master.’
‘You do not love him?’
‘Ugh!’ She put her hands up to her face, and shook with fear or horror.
‘You know that he loves you?’
‘O, don’t, don’t, don’t!’ cried Rosa, dropping on her knees, and clinging
to her new resource. ‘Don’t tell me of it! He terrifies me. He haunts
my thoughts, like a dreadful ghost. I feel that I am never safe from
him. I feel as if he could pass in through the wall when he is spoken
of.’ She actually did look round, as if she dreaded to see him standing
in the shadow behind her.
‘Try to tell me more about it, darling.’
‘Yes, I will, I will. Because you are so strong. But hold me the while,
and stay with me afterwards.’
‘My child! You speak as if he had threatened you in some dark way.’
‘He has never spoken to me about—that. Never.’
‘What has he done?’
‘He has made a slave of me with his looks. He has forced me to
understand him, without his saying a word; and he has forced me to keep
silence, without his uttering a threat. When I play, he never moves his
eyes from my hands. When I sing, he never moves his eyes from my lips.
When he corrects me, and strikes a note, or a chord, or plays a passage,
he himself is in the sounds, whispering that he pursues me as a lover,
and commanding me to keep his secret. I avoid his eyes, but he forces me
to see them without looking at them. Even when a glaze comes over them
(which is sometimes the case), and he seems to wander away into a
frightful sort of dream in which he threatens most, he obliges me to know
it, and to know that he is sitting close at my side, more terrible to me
than ever.’
‘What is this imagined threatening, pretty one? What is threatened?’
‘I don’t know. I have never even dared to think or wonder what it is.’
‘And was this all, to-night?’
‘This was all; except that to-night when he watched my lips so closely as
I was singing, besides feeling terrified I felt ashamed and passionately
hurt. It was as if he kissed me, and I couldn’t bear it, but cried out.
You must never breathe this to any one. Eddy is devoted to him. But you
said to-night that you would not be afraid of him, under any
circumstances, and that gives me—who am so much afraid of him—courage to
tell only you. Hold me! Stay with me! I am too frightened to be left
by myself.’
The lustrous gipsy-face drooped over the clinging arms and bosom, and the
wild black hair fell down protectingly over the childish form. There was
a slumbering gleam of fire in the intense dark eyes, though they were
then softened with compassion and admiration. Let whomsoever it most
concerned look well to it!
CHAPTER VIII—DAGGERS DRAWN
The two young men, having seen the damsels, their charges, enter the
courtyard of the Nuns’ House, and finding themselves coldly stared at by
the brazen door-plate, as if the battered old beau with the glass in his
eye were insolent, look at one another, look along the perspective of the
moonlit street, and slowly walk away together.
‘Do you stay here long, Mr. Drood?’ says Neville.
‘Not this time,’ is the careless answer. ‘I leave for London again,
to-morrow. But I shall be here, off and on, until next Midsummer; then I
shall take my leave of Cloisterham, and England too; for many a long day,
I expect.’
‘Are you going abroad?’
‘Going to wake up Egypt a little,’ is the condescending answer.
‘Are you reading?’
‘Reading?’ repeats Edwin Drood, with a touch of contempt. ‘No. Doing,
working, engineering. My small patrimony was left a part of the capital
of the Firm I am with, by my father, a former partner; and I am a charge
upon the Firm until I come of age; and then I step into my modest share
in the concern. Jack—you met him at dinner—is, until then, my guardian
and trustee.’
‘I heard from Mr. Crisparkle of your other good fortune.’
‘What do you mean by my other good fortune?’
Neville has made his remark in a watchfully advancing, and yet furtive
and shy manner, very expressive of that peculiar air already noticed, of
being at once hunter and hunted. Edwin has made his retort with an
abruptness not at all polite. They stop and interchange a rather heated
look.
‘I hope,’ says Neville, ‘there is no offence, Mr. Drood, in my innocently
referring to your betrothal?’
‘By George!’ cries Edwin, leading on again at a somewhat quicker pace;
‘everybody in this chattering old Cloisterham refers to it I wonder no
public-house has been set up, with my portrait for the sign of The
Betrothed’s Head. Or Pussy’s portrait. One or the other.’
‘I am not accountable for Mr. Crisparkle’s mentioning the matter to me,
quite openly,’ Neville begins.
‘No; that’s true; you are not,’ Edwin Drood assents.
‘But,’ resumes Neville, ‘I am accountable for mentioning it to you. And
I did so, on the supposition that you could not fail to be highly proud
of it.’
Now, there are these two curious touches of human nature working the
secret springs of this dialogue. Neville Landless is already enough
impressed by Little Rosebud, to feel indignant that Edwin Drood (far
below her) should hold his prize so lightly. Edwin Drood is already
enough impressed by Helena, to feel indignant that Helena’s brother (far
below her) should dispose of him so coolly, and put him out of the way so
entirely.
However, the last remark had better be answered. So, says Edwin:
‘I don’t know, Mr. Neville’ (adopting that mode of address from Mr.
Crisparkle), ‘that what people are proudest of, they usually talk most
about; I don’t know either, that what they are proudest of, they most
like other people to talk about. But I live a busy life, and I speak
under correction by you readers, who ought to know everything, and I
daresay do.’
By this time they had both become savage; Mr. Neville out in the open;
Edwin Drood under the transparent cover of a popular tune, and a stop now
and then to pretend to admire picturesque effects in the moonlight before
him.
‘It does not seem to me very civil in you,’ remarks Neville, at length,
‘to reflect upon a stranger who comes here, not having had your
advantages, to try to make up for lost time. But, to be sure, I was not
brought up in “busy life,” and my ideas of civility were formed among
Heathens.’
‘Perhaps, the best civility, whatever kind of people we are brought up
among,’ retorts Edwin Drood, ‘is to mind our own business. If you will
set me that example, I promise to follow it.’
‘Do you know that you take a great deal too much upon yourself?’ is the
angry rejoinder, ‘and that in the part of the world I come from, you
would be called to account for it?’
‘By whom, for instance?’ asks Edwin Drood, coming to a halt, and
surveying the other with a look of disdain.
But, here a startling right hand is laid on Edwin’s shoulder, and Jasper
stands between them. For, it would seem that he, too, has strolled round
by the Nuns’ House, and has come up behind them on the shadowy side of
the road.
‘Ned, Ned, Ned!’ he says; ‘we must have no more of this. I don’t like
this. I have overheard high words between you two. Remember, my dear
boy, you are almost in the position of host to-night. You belong, as it
were, to the place, and in a manner represent it towards a stranger. Mr.
Neville is a stranger, and you should respect the obligations of
hospitality. And, Mr. Neville,’ laying his left hand on the inner
shoulder of that young gentleman, and thus walking on between them, hand
to shoulder on either side: ‘you will pardon me; but I appeal to you to
govern your temper too. Now, what is amiss? But why ask! Let there be
nothing amiss, and the question is superfluous. We are all three on a
good understanding, are we not?’
After a silent struggle between the two young men who shall speak last,
Edwin Drood strikes in with: ‘So far as I am concerned, Jack, there is no
anger in me.’
‘Nor in me,’ says Neville Landless, though not so freely; or perhaps so
carelessly. ‘But if Mr. Drood knew all that lies behind me, far away
from here, he might know better how it is that sharp-edged words have
sharp edges to wound me.’
‘Perhaps,’ says Jasper, in a soothing manner, ‘we had better not qualify
our good understanding. We had better not say anything having the
appearance of a remonstrance or condition; it might not seem generous.
Frankly and freely, you see there is no anger in Ned. Frankly and
freely, there is no anger in you, Mr. Neville?’
‘None at all, Mr. Jasper.’ Still, not quite so frankly or so freely; or,
be it said once again, not quite so carelessly perhaps.
‘All over then! Now, my bachelor gatehouse is a few yards from here, and
the heater is on the fire, and the wine and glasses are on the table, and
it is not a stone’s throw from Minor Canon Corner. Ned, you are up and
away to-morrow. We will carry Mr. Neville in with us, to take a
stirrup-cup.’
‘With all my heart, Jack.’
‘And with all mine, Mr. Jasper.’ Neville feels it impossible to say
less, but would rather not go. He has an impression upon him that he has
lost hold of his temper; feels that Edwin Drood’s coolness, so far from
being infectious, makes him red-hot.
Mr. Jasper, still walking in the centre, hand to shoulder on either side,
beautifully turns the Refrain of a drinking song, and they all go up to
his rooms. There, the first object visible, when he adds the light of a
lamp to that of the fire, is the portrait over the chimneypicce. It is
not an object calculated to improve the understanding between the two
young men, as rather awkwardly reviving the subject of their difference.
Accordingly, they both glance at it consciously, but say nothing.
Jasper, however (who would appear from his conduct to have gained but an
imperfect clue to the cause of their late high words), directly calls
attention to it.
‘You recognise that picture, Mr. Neville?’ shading the lamp to throw the
light upon it.
‘I recognise it, but it is far from flattering the original.’
‘O, you are hard upon it! It was done by Ned, who made me a present of
it.’
‘I am sorry for that, Mr. Drood.’ Neville apologises, with a real
intention to apologise; ‘if I had known I was in the artist’s presence—’
‘O, a joke, sir, a mere joke,’ Edwin cuts in, with a provoking yawn. ‘A
little humouring of Pussy’s points! I’m going to paint her gravely, one
of these days, if she’s good.’
The air of leisurely patronage and indifference with which this is said,
as the speaker throws himself back in a chair and clasps his hands at the
back of his head, as a rest for it, is very exasperating to the excitable
and excited Neville. Jasper looks observantly from the one to the other,
slightly smiles, and turns his back to mix a jug of mulled wine at the
fire. It seems to require much mixing and compounding.
‘I suppose, Mr. Neville,’ says Edwin, quick to resent the indignant
protest against himself in the face of young Landless, which is fully as
visible as the portrait, or the fire, or the lamp: ‘I suppose that if you
painted the picture of your lady love—’
‘I can’t paint,’ is the hasty interruption.
‘That’s your misfortune, and not your fault. You would if you could.
But if you could, I suppose you would make her (no matter what she was in
reality), Juno, Minerva, Diana, and Venus, all in one. Eh?’
‘I have no lady love, and I can’t say.’
‘If I were to try my hand,’ says Edwin, with a boyish boastfulness
getting up in him, ‘on a portrait of Miss Landless—in earnest, mind you;
in earnest—you should see what I could do!’
‘My sister’s consent to sit for it being first got, I suppose? As it
never will be got, I am afraid I shall never see what you can do. I must
bear the loss.’
Jasper turns round from the fire, fills a large goblet glass for Neville,
fills a large goblet glass for Edwin, and hands each his own; then fills
for himself, saying:
‘Come, Mr. Neville, we are to drink to my nephew, Ned. As it is his foot
that is in the stirrup—metaphorically—our stirrup-cup is to be devoted to
him. Ned, my dearest fellow, my love!’
Jasper sets the example of nearly emptying his glass, and Neville follows
it. Edwin Drood says, ‘Thank you both very much,’ and follows the double
example.
‘Look at him,’ cries Jasper, stretching out his hand admiringly and
tenderly, though rallyingly too. ‘See where he lounges so easily, Mr.
Neville! The world is all before him where to choose. A life of
stirring work and interest, a life of change and excitement, a life of
domestic ease and love! Look at him!’
Edwin Drood’s face has become quickly and remarkably flushed with the
wine; so has the face of Neville Landless. Edwin still sits thrown back
in his chair, making that rest of clasped hands for his head.
‘See how little he heeds it all!’ Jasper proceeds in a bantering vein.
‘It is hardly worth his while to pluck the golden fruit that hangs ripe
on the tree for him. And yet consider the contrast, Mr. Neville. You
and I have no prospect of stirring work and interest, or of change and
excitement, or of domestic ease and love. You and I have no prospect
(unless you are more fortunate than I am, which may easily be), but the
tedious unchanging round of this dull place.’
‘Upon my soul, Jack,’ says Edwin, complacently, ‘I feel quite apologetic
for having my way smoothed as you describe. But you know what I know,
Jack, and it may not be so very easy as it seems, after all. May it,
Pussy?’ To the portrait, with a snap of his thumb and finger. ‘We have
got to hit it off yet; haven’t we, Pussy? You know what I mean, Jack.’
[Picture: On dangerous ground]
His speech has become thick and indistinct. Jasper, quiet and
self-possessed, looks to Neville, as expecting his answer or comment.
When Neville speaks, _his_ speech is also thick and indistinct.
‘It might have been better for Mr. Drood to have known some hardships,’
he says, defiantly.
‘Pray,’ retorts Edwin, turning merely his eyes in that direction, ‘pray
why might it have been better for Mr. Drood to have known some
hardships?’
‘Ay,’ Jasper assents, with an air of interest; ‘let us know why?’
‘Because they might have made him more sensible,’ says Neville, ‘of good
fortune that is not by any means necessarily the result of his own
merits.’
Mr. Jasper quickly looks to his nephew for his rejoinder.
‘Have _you_ known hardships, may I ask?’ says Edwin Drood, sitting
upright.
Mr. Jasper quickly looks to the other for his retort.
‘I have.’
‘And what have they made you sensible of?’
Mr. Jasper’s play of eyes between the two holds good throughout the
dialogue, to the end.
‘I have told you once before to-night.’
‘You have done nothing of the sort.’
‘I tell you I have. That you take a great deal too much upon yourself.’
‘You added something else to that, if I remember?’
‘Yes, I did say something else.’
‘Say it again.’
‘I said that in the part of the world I come from, you would be called to
account for it.’
‘Only there?’ cries Edwin Drood, with a contemptuous laugh. ‘A long way
off, I believe? Yes; I see! That part of the world is at a safe
distance.’
‘Say here, then,’ rejoins the other, rising in a fury. ‘Say anywhere!
Your vanity is intolerable, your conceit is beyond endurance; you talk as
if you were some rare and precious prize, instead of a common boaster.
You are a common fellow, and a common boaster.’
‘Pooh, pooh,’ says Edwin Drood, equally furious, but more collected; ‘how
should you know? You may know a black common fellow, or a black common
boaster, when you see him (and no doubt you have a large acquaintance
that way); but you are no judge of white men.’
This insulting allusion to his dark skin infuriates Neville to that
violent degree, that he flings the dregs of his wine at Edwin Drood, and
is in the act of flinging the goblet after it, when his arm is caught in
the nick of time by Jasper.
‘Ned, my dear fellow!’ he cries in a loud voice; ‘I entreat you, I
command you, to be still!’ There has been a rush of all the three, and a
clattering of glasses and overturning of chairs. ‘Mr. Neville, for
shame! Give this glass to me. Open your hand, sir. I WILL have it!’
But Neville throws him off, and pauses for an instant, in a raging
passion, with the goblet yet in his uplifted hand. Then, he dashes it
down under the grate, with such force that the broken splinters fly out
again in a shower; and he leaves the house.
When he first emerges into the night air, nothing around him is still or
steady; nothing around him shows like what it is; he only knows that he
stands with a bare head in the midst of a blood-red whirl, waiting to be
struggled with, and to struggle to the death.
But, nothing happening, and the moon looking down upon him as if he were
dead after a fit of wrath, he holds his steam-hammer beating head and
heart, and staggers away. Then, he becomes half-conscious of having
heard himself bolted and barred out, like a dangerous animal; and thinks
what shall he do?
Some wildly passionate ideas of the river dissolve under the spell of the
moonlight on the Cathedral and the graves, and the remembrance of his
sister, and the thought of what he owes to the good man who has but that
very day won his confidence and given him his pledge. He repairs to
Minor Canon Corner, and knocks softly at the door.
It is Mr. Crisparkle’s custom to sit up last of the early household, very
softly touching his piano and practising his favourite parts in concerted
vocal music. The south wind that goes where it lists, by way of Minor
Canon Corner on a still night, is not more subdued than Mr. Crisparkle at
such times, regardful of the slumbers of the china shepherdess.
His knock is immediately answered by Mr. Crisparkle himself. When he
opens the door, candle in hand, his cheerful face falls, and disappointed
amazement is in it.
‘Mr. Neville! In this disorder! Where have you been?’
‘I have been to Mr. Jasper’s, sir. With his nephew.’
‘Come in.’
The Minor Canon props him by the elbow with a strong hand (in a strictly
scientific manner, worthy of his morning trainings), and turns him into
his own little book-room, and shuts the door.’
‘I have begun ill, sir. I have begun dreadfully ill.’
‘Too true. You are not sober, Mr. Neville.’
‘I am afraid I am not, sir, though I can satisfy you at another time that
I have had a very little indeed to drink, and that it overcame me in the
strangest and most sudden manner.’
‘Mr. Neville, Mr. Neville,’ says the Minor Canon, shaking his head with a
sorrowful smile; ‘I have heard that said before.’
‘I think—my mind is much confused, but I think—it is equally true of Mr.
Jasper’s nephew, sir.’
‘Very likely,’ is the dry rejoinder.
‘We quarrelled, sir. He insulted me most grossly. He had heated that
tigerish blood I told you of to-day, before then.’
‘Mr. Neville,’ rejoins the Minor Canon, mildly, but firmly: ‘I request
you not to speak to me with that clenched right hand. Unclench it, if
you please.’
‘He goaded me, sir,’ pursues the young man, instantly obeying, ‘beyond my
power of endurance. I cannot say whether or no he meant it at first, but
he did it. He certainly meant it at last. In short, sir,’ with an
irrepressible outburst, ‘in the passion into which he lashed me, I would
have cut him down if I could, and I tried to do it.’
‘You have clenched that hand again,’ is Mr. Crisparkle’s quiet
commentary.
‘I beg your pardon, sir.’
‘You know your room, for I showed it you before dinner; but I will
accompany you to it once more. Your arm, if you please. Softly, for the
house is all a-bed.’
Scooping his hand into the same scientific elbow-rest as before, and
backing it up with the inert strength of his arm, as skilfully as a
Police Expert, and with an apparent repose quite unattainable by novices,
Mr. Crisparkle conducts his pupil to the pleasant and orderly old room
prepared for him. Arrived there, the young man throws himself into a
chair, and, flinging his arms upon his reading-table, rests his head upon
them with an air of wretched self-reproach.
The gentle Minor Canon has had it in his thoughts to leave the room,
without a word. But looking round at the door, and seeing this dejected
figure, he turns back to it, touches it with a mild hand, says ‘Good
night!’ A sob is his only acknowledgment. He might have had many a
worse; perhaps, could have had few better.
Another soft knock at the outer door attracts his attention as he goes
down-stairs. He opens it to Mr. Jasper, holding in his hand the pupil’s
hat.
‘We have had an awful scene with him,’ says Jasper, in a low voice.
‘Has it been so bad as that?’
‘Murderous!’
Mr. Crisparkle remonstrates: ‘No, no, no. Do not use such strong words.’
‘He might have laid my dear boy dead at my feet. It is no fault of his,
that he did not. But that I was, through the mercy of God, swift and
strong with him, he would have cut him down on my hearth.’
The phrase smites home. ‘Ah!’ thinks Mr. Crisparkle, ‘his own words!’
‘Seeing what I have seen to-night, and hearing what I have heard,’ adds
Jasper, with great earnestness, ‘I shall never know peace of mind when
there is danger of those two coming together, with no one else to
interfere. It was horrible. There is something of the tiger in his dark
blood.’
‘Ah!’ thinks Mr. Crisparkle, ‘so he said!’
‘You, my dear sir,’ pursues Jasper, taking his hand, ‘even you, have
accepted a dangerous charge.’
‘You need have no fear for me, Jasper,’ returns Mr. Crisparkle, with a
quiet smile. ‘I have none for myself.’
‘I have none for myself,’ returns Jasper, with an emphasis on the last
pronoun, ‘because I am not, nor am I in the way of being, the object of
his hostility. But you may be, and my dear boy has been. Good night!’
Mr. Crisparkle goes in, with the hat that has so easily, so almost
imperceptibly, acquired the right to be hung up in his hall; hangs it up;
and goes thoughtfully to bed.
CHAPTER IX—BIRDS IN THE BUSH
Rosa, having no relation that she knew of in the world, had, from the
seventh year of her age, known no home but the Nuns’ House, and no mother
but Miss Twinkleton. Her remembrance of her own mother was of a pretty
little creature like herself (not much older than herself it seemed to
her), who had been brought home in her father’s arms, drowned. The fatal
accident had happened at a party of pleasure. Every fold and colour in
the pretty summer dress, and even the long wet hair, with scattered
petals of ruined flowers still clinging to it, as the dead young figure,
in its sad, sad beauty lay upon the bed, were fixed indelibly in Rosa’s
recollection. So were the wild despair and the subsequent bowed-down
grief of her poor young father, who died broken-hearted on the first
anniversary of that hard day.
The betrothal of Rosa grew out of the soothing of his year of mental
distress by his fast friend and old college companion, Drood: who
likewise had been left a widower in his youth. But he, too, went the
silent road into which all earthly pilgrimages merge, some sooner, and
some later; and thus the young couple had come to be as they were.
The atmosphere of pity surrounding the little orphan girl when she first
came to Cloisterham, had never cleared away. It had taken brighter hues
as she grew older, happier, prettier; now it had been golden, now
roseate, and now azure; but it had always adorned her with some soft
light of its own. The general desire to console and caress her, had
caused her to be treated in the beginning as a child much younger than
her years; the same desire had caused her to be still petted when she was
a child no longer. Who should be her favourite, who should anticipate
this or that small present, or do her this or that small service; who
should take her home for the holidays; who should write to her the
oftenest when they were separated, and whom she would most rejoice to see
again when they were reunited; even these gentle rivalries were not
without their slight dashes of bitterness in the Nuns’ House. Well for
the poor Nuns in their day, if they hid no harder strife under their
veils and rosaries!
Thus Rosa had grown to be an amiable, giddy, wilful, winning little
creature; spoilt, in the sense of counting upon kindness from all around
her; but not in the sense of repaying it with indifference. Possessing
an exhaustless well of affection in her nature, its sparkling waters had
freshened and brightened the Nuns’ House for years, and yet its depths
had never yet been moved: what might betide when that came to pass; what
developing changes might fall upon the heedless head, and light heart,
then; remained to be seen.
By what means the news that there had been a quarrel between the two
young men overnight, involving even some kind of onslaught by Mr. Neville
upon Edwin Drood, got into Miss Twinkleton’s establishment before
breakfast, it is impossible to say. Whether it was brought in by the
birds of the air, or came blowing in with the very air itself, when the
casement windows were set open; whether the baker brought it kneaded into
the bread, or the milkman delivered it as part of the adulteration of his
milk; or the housemaids, beating the dust out of their mats against the
gateposts, received it in exchange deposited on the mats by the town
atmosphere; certain it is that the news permeated every gable of the old
building before Miss Twinkleton was down, and that Miss Twinkleton
herself received it through Mrs. Tisher, while yet in the act of
dressing; or (as she might have expressed the phrase to a parent or
guardian of a mythological turn) of sacrificing to the Graces.
Miss Landless’s brother had thrown a bottle at Mr. Edwin Drood.
Miss Landless’s brother had thrown a knife at Mr. Edwin Drood.
A knife became suggestive of a fork; and Miss Landless’s brother had
thrown a fork at Mr. Edwin Drood.
As in the governing precedence of Peter Piper, alleged to have picked the
peck of pickled pepper, it was held physically desirable to have evidence
of the existence of the peck of pickled pepper which Peter Piper was
alleged to have picked; so, in this case, it was held psychologically
important to know why Miss Landless’s brother threw a bottle, knife, or
fork-or bottle, knife, _and_ fork—for the cook had been given to
understand it was all three—at Mr. Edwin Drood?
Well, then. Miss Landless’s brother had said he admired Miss Bud. Mr.
Edwin Drood had said to Miss Landless’s brother that he had no business
to admire Miss Bud. Miss Landless’s brother had then ‘up’d’ (this was
the cook’s exact information) with the bottle, knife, fork, and decanter
(the decanter now coolly flying at everybody’s head, without the least
introduction), and thrown them all at Mr. Edwin Drood.
Poor little Rosa put a forefinger into each of her ears when these
rumours began to circulate, and retired into a corner, beseeching not to
be told any more; but Miss Landless, begging permission of Miss
Twinkleton to go and speak with her brother, and pretty plainly showing
that she would take it if it were not given, struck out the more definite
course of going to Mr. Crisparkle’s for accurate intelligence.
When she came back (being first closeted with Miss Twinkleton, in order
that anything objectionable in her tidings might be retained by that
discreet filter), she imparted to Rosa only, what had taken place;
dwelling with a flushed cheek on the provocation her brother had
received, but almost limiting it to that last gross affront as crowning
‘some other words between them,’ and, out of consideration for her new
friend, passing lightly over the fact that the other words had originated
in her lover’s taking things in general so very easily. To Rosa direct,
she brought a petition from her brother that she would forgive him; and,
having delivered it with sisterly earnestness, made an end of the
subject.
It was reserved for Miss Twinkleton to tone down the public mind of the
Nuns’ House. That lady, therefore, entering in a stately manner what
plebeians might have called the school-room, but what, in the patrician
language of the head of the Nuns’ House, was euphuistically, not to say
round-aboutedly, denominated ‘the apartment allotted to study,’ and
saying with a forensic air, ‘Ladies!’ all rose. Mrs. Tisher at the same
time grouped herself behind her chief, as representing Queen Elizabeth’s
first historical female friend at Tilbury fort. Miss Twinkleton then
proceeded to remark that Rumour, Ladies, had been represented by the bard
of Avon—needless were it to mention the immortal SHAKESPEARE, also called
the Swan of his native river, not improbably with some reference to the
ancient superstition that that bird of graceful plumage (Miss Jennings
will please stand upright) sang sweetly on the approach of death, for
which we have no ornithological authority,—Rumour, Ladies, had been
represented by that bard—hem!—
‘who drew
The celebrated Jew,’
as painted full of tongues. Rumour in Cloisterham (Miss Ferdinand will
honour me with her attention) was no exception to the great limner’s
portrait of Rumour elsewhere. A slight _fracas_ between two young
gentlemen occurring last night within a hundred miles of these peaceful
walls (Miss Ferdinand, being apparently incorrigible, will have the
kindness to write out this evening, in the original language, the first
four fables of our vivacious neighbour, Monsieur La Fontaine) had been
very grossly exaggerated by Rumour’s voice. In the first alarm and
anxiety arising from our sympathy with a sweet young friend, not wholly
to be dissociated from one of the gladiators in the bloodless arena in
question (the impropriety of Miss Reynolds’s appearing to stab herself in
the hand with a pin, is far too obvious, and too glaringly unladylike, to
be pointed out), we descended from our maiden elevation to discuss this
uncongenial and this unfit theme. Responsible inquiries having assured
us that it was but one of those ‘airy nothings’ pointed at by the Poet
(whose name and date of birth Miss Giggles will supply within half an
hour), we would now discard the subject, and concentrate our minds upon
the grateful labours of the day.
But the subject so survived all day, nevertheless, that Miss Ferdinand
got into new trouble by surreptitiously clapping on a paper moustache at
dinner-time, and going through the motions of aiming a water-bottle at
Miss Giggles, who drew a table-spoon in defence.
Now, Rosa thought of this unlucky quarrel a great deal, and thought of it
with an uncomfortable feeling that she was involved in it, as cause, or
consequence, or what not, through being in a false position altogether as
to her marriage engagement. Never free from such uneasiness when she was
with her affianced husband, it was not likely that she would be free from
it when they were apart. To-day, too, she was cast in upon herself, and
deprived of the relief of talking freely with her new friend, because the
quarrel had been with Helena’s brother, and Helena undisguisedly avoided
the subject as a delicate and difficult one to herself. At this critical
time, of all times, Rosa’s guardian was announced as having come to see
her.
Mr. Grewgious had been well selected for his trust, as a man of
incorruptible integrity, but certainly for no other appropriate quality
discernible on the surface. He was an arid, sandy man, who, if he had
been put into a grinding-mill, looked as if he would have ground
immediately into high-dried snuff. He had a scanty flat crop of hair, in
colour and consistency like some very mangy yellow fur tippet; it was so
unlike hair, that it must have been a wig, but for the stupendous
improbability of anybody’s voluntarily sporting such a head. The little
play of feature that his face presented, was cut deep into it, in a few
hard curves that made it more like work; and he had certain notches in
his forehead, which looked as though Nature had been about to touch them
into sensibility or refinement, when she had impatiently thrown away the
chisel, and said: ‘I really cannot be worried to finish off this man; let
him go as he is.’
With too great length of throat at his upper end, and too much ankle-bone
and heel at his lower; with an awkward and hesitating manner; with a
shambling walk; and with what is called a near sight—which perhaps
prevented his observing how much white cotton stocking he displayed to
the public eye, in contrast with his black suit—Mr. Grewgious still had
some strange capacity in him of making on the whole an agreeable
impression.
Mr. Grewgious was discovered by his ward, much discomfited by being in
Miss Twinkleton’s company in Miss Twinkleton’s own sacred room. Dim
forebodings of being examined in something, and not coming well out of
it, seemed to oppress the poor gentleman when found in these
circumstances.
‘My dear, how do you do? I am glad to see you. My dear, how much
improved you are. Permit me to hand you a chair, my dear.’
Miss Twinkleton rose at her little writing-table, saying, with general
sweetness, as to the polite Universe: ‘Will you permit me to retire?’
‘By no means, madam, on my account. I beg that you will not move.’
‘I must entreat permission to _move_,’ returned Miss Twinkleton,
repeating the word with a charming grace; ‘but I will not withdraw, since
you are so obliging. If I wheel my desk to this corner window, shall I
be in the way?’
‘Madam! In the way!’
‘You are very kind.—Rosa, my dear, you will be under no restraint, I am
sure.’
Here Mr. Grewgious, left by the fire with Rosa, said again: ‘My dear, how
do you do? I am glad to see you, my dear.’ And having waited for her to
sit down, sat down himself.
‘My visits,’ said Mr. Grewgious, ‘are, like those of the angels—not that
I compare myself to an angel.’
‘No, sir,’ said Rosa.
‘Not by any means,’ assented Mr. Grewgious. ‘I merely refer to my
visits, which are few and far between. The angels are, we know very
well, up-stairs.’
Miss Twinkleton looked round with a kind of stiff stare.
‘I refer, my dear,’ said Mr. Grewgious, laying his hand on Rosa’s, as the
possibility thrilled through his frame of his otherwise seeming to take
the awful liberty of calling Miss Twinkleton my dear; ‘I refer to the
other young ladies.’
Miss Twinkleton resumed her writing.
Mr. Grewgious, with a sense of not having managed his opening point quite
as neatly as he might have desired, smoothed his head from back to front
as if he had just dived, and were pressing the water out—this smoothing
action, however superfluous, was habitual with him—and took a pocket-book
from his coat-pocket, and a stump of black-lead pencil from his
waistcoat-pocket.
‘I made,’ he said, turning the leaves: ‘I made a guiding memorandum or
so—as I usually do, for I have no conversational powers whatever—to which
I will, with your permission, my dear, refer. “Well and happy.” Truly.
You are well and happy, my dear? You look so.’
‘Yes, indeed, sir,’ answered Rosa.
‘For which,’ said Mr. Grewgious, with a bend of his head towards the
corner window, ‘our warmest acknowledgments are due, and I am sure are
rendered, to the maternal kindness and the constant care and
consideration of the lady whom I have now the honour to see before me.’
This point, again, made but a lame departure from Mr. Grewgious, and
never got to its destination; for, Miss Twinkleton, feeling that the
courtesies required her to be by this time quite outside the
conversation, was biting the end of her pen, and looking upward, as
waiting for the descent of an idea from any member of the Celestial Nine
who might have one to spare.
Mr. Grewgious smoothed his smooth head again, and then made another
reference to his pocket-book; lining out ‘well and happy,’ as disposed
of.
‘“Pounds, shillings, and pence,” is my next note. A dry subject for a
young lady, but an important subject too. Life is pounds, shillings, and
pence. Death is—’ A sudden recollection of the death of her two parents
seemed to stop him, and he said in a softer tone, and evidently inserting
the negative as an after-thought: ‘Death is _not_ pounds, shillings, and
pence.’
His voice was as hard and dry as himself, and Fancy might have ground it
straight, like himself, into high-dried snuff. And yet, through the very
limited means of expression that he possessed, he seemed to express
kindness. If Nature had but finished him off, kindness might have been
recognisable in his face at this moment. But if the notches in his
forehead wouldn’t fuse together, and if his face would work and couldn’t
play, what could he do, poor man!
‘“Pounds, shillings, and pence.” You find your allowance always
sufficient for your wants, my dear?’
Rosa wanted for nothing, and therefore it was ample.
‘And you are not in debt?’
Rosa laughed at the idea of being in debt. It seemed, to her
inexperience, a comical vagary of the imagination. Mr. Grewgious
stretched his near sight to be sure that this was her view of the case.
‘Ah!’ he said, as comment, with a furtive glance towards Miss Twinkleton,
and lining out pounds, shillings, and pence: ‘I spoke of having got among
the angels! So I did!’
Rosa felt what his next memorandum would prove to be, and was blushing
and folding a crease in her dress with one embarrassed hand, long before
he found it.
‘“Marriage.” Hem!’ Mr. Grewgious carried his smoothing hand down over
his eyes and nose, and even chin, before drawing his chair a little
nearer, and speaking a little more confidentially: ‘I now touch, my dear,
upon the point that is the direct cause of my troubling you with the
present visit. Otherwise, being a particularly Angular man, I should not
have intruded here. I am the last man to intrude into a sphere for which
I am so entirely unfitted. I feel, on these premises, as if I was a
bear—with the cramp—in a youthful Cotillon.’
His ungainliness gave him enough of the air of his simile to set Rosa off
laughing heartily.
‘It strikes you in the same light,’ said Mr. Grewgious, with perfect
calmness. ‘Just so. To return to my memorandum. Mr. Edwin has been to
and fro here, as was arranged. You have mentioned that, in your
quarterly letters to me. And you like him, and he likes you.’
‘I _like_ him very much, sir,’ rejoined Rosa.
‘So I said, my dear,’ returned her guardian, for whose ear the timid
emphasis was much too fine. ‘Good. And you correspond.’
‘We write to one another,’ said Rosa, pouting, as she recalled their
epistolary differences.
‘Such is the meaning that I attach to the word “correspond” in this
application, my dear,’ said Mr. Grewgious. ‘Good. All goes well, time
works on, and at this next Christmas-time it will become necessary, as a
matter of form, to give the exemplary lady in the corner window, to whom
we are so much indebted, business notice of your departure in the ensuing
half-year. Your relations with her are far more than business relations,
no doubt; but a residue of business remains in them, and business is
business ever. I am a particularly Angular man,’ proceeded Mr.
Grewgious, as if it suddenly occurred to him to mention it, ‘and I am not
used to give anything away. If, for these two reasons, some competent
Proxy would give _you_ away, I should take it very kindly.’
Rosa intimated, with her eyes on the ground, that she thought a
substitute might be found, if required.
‘Surely, surely,’ said Mr. Grewgious. ‘For instance, the gentleman who
teaches Dancing here—he would know how to do it with graceful propriety.
He would advance and retire in a manner satisfactory to the feelings of
the officiating clergyman, and of yourself, and the bridegroom, and all
parties concerned. I am—I am a particularly Angular man,’ said Mr.
Grewgious, as if he had made up his mind to screw it out at last: ‘and
should only blunder.’
Rosa sat still and silent. Perhaps her mind had not got quite so far as
the ceremony yet, but was lagging on the way there.
‘Memorandum, “Will.” Now, my dear,’ said Mr. Grewgious, referring to his
notes, disposing of ‘Marriage’ with his pencil, and taking a paper from
his pocket; ‘although. I have before possessed you with the contents of
your father’s will, I think it right at this time to leave a certified
copy of it in your hands. And although Mr. Edwin is also aware of its
contents, I think it right at this time likewise to place a certified
copy of it in Mr. Jasper’s hand—’
‘Not in his own!’ asked Rosa, looking up quickly. ‘Cannot the copy go to
Eddy himself?’
‘Why, yes, my dear, if you particularly wish it; but I spoke of Mr.
Jasper as being his trustee.’
‘I do particularly wish it, if you please,’ said Rosa, hurriedly and
earnestly; ‘I don’t like Mr. Jasper to come between us, in any way.’
‘It is natural, I suppose,’ said Mr. Grewgious, ‘that your young husband
should be all in all. Yes. You observe that I say, I suppose. The fact
is, I am a particularly Unnatural man, and I don’t know from my own
knowledge.’
Rosa looked at him with some wonder.
‘I mean,’ he explained, ‘that young ways were never my ways. I was the
only offspring of parents far advanced in life, and I half believe I was
born advanced in life myself. No personality is intended towards the
name you will so soon change, when I remark that while the general growth
of people seem to have come into existence, buds, I seem to have come
into existence a chip. I was a chip—and a very dry one—when I first
became aware of myself. Respecting the other certified copy, your wish
shall be complied with. Respecting your inheritance, I think you know
all. It is an annuity of two hundred and fifty pounds. The savings upon
that annuity, and some other items to your credit, all duly carried to
account, with vouchers, will place you in possession of a lump-sum of
money, rather exceeding Seventeen Hundred Pounds. I am empowered to
advance the cost of your preparations for your marriage out of that fund.
All is told.’
‘Will you please tell me,’ said Rosa, taking the paper with a prettily
knitted brow, but not opening it: ‘whether I am right in what I am going
to say? I can understand what you tell me, so very much better than what
I read in law-writings. My poor papa and Eddy’s father made their
agreement together, as very dear and firm and fast friends, in order that
we, too, might be very dear and firm and fast friends after them?’
‘Just so.’
‘For the lasting good of both of us, and the lasting happiness of both of
us?’
‘Just so.’
‘That we might be to one another even much more than they had been to one
another?’
‘Just so.’
‘It was not bound upon Eddy, and it was not bound upon me, by any
forfeit, in case—’
‘Don’t be agitated, my dear. In the case that it brings tears into your
affectionate eyes even to picture to yourself—in the case of your not
marrying one another—no, no forfeiture on either side. You would then
have been my ward until you were of age. No worse would have befallen
you. Bad enough perhaps!’
‘And Eddy?’
‘He would have come into his partnership derived from his father, and
into its arrears to his credit (if any), on attaining his majority, just
as now.’
Rosa, with her perplexed face and knitted brow, bit the corner of her
attested copy, as she sat with her head on one side, looking abstractedly
on the floor, and smoothing it with her foot.
‘In short,’ said Mr. Grewgious, ‘this betrothal is a wish, a sentiment, a
friendly project, tenderly expressed on both sides. That it was strongly
felt, and that there was a lively hope that it would prosper, there can
be no doubt. When you were both children, you began to be accustomed to
it, and it _has_ prospered. But circumstances alter cases; and I made
this visit to-day, partly, indeed principally, to discharge myself of the
duty of telling you, my dear, that two young people can only be betrothed
in marriage (except as a matter of convenience, and therefore mockery and
misery) of their own free will, their own attachment, and their own
assurance (it may or it may not prove a mistaken one, but we must take
our chance of that), that they are suited to each other, and will make
each other happy. Is it to be supposed, for example, that if either of
your fathers were living now, and had any mistrust on that subject, his
mind would not be changed by the change of circumstances involved in the
change of your years? Untenable, unreasonable, inconclusive, and
preposterous!’
Mr. Grewgious said all this, as if he were reading it aloud; or, still
more, as if he were repeating a lesson. So expressionless of any
approach to spontaneity were his face and manner.
‘I have now, my dear,’ he added, blurring out ‘Will’ with his pencil,
‘discharged myself of what is doubtless a formal duty in this case, but
still a duty in such a case. Memorandum, “Wishes.” My dear, is there
any wish of yours that I can further?’
Rosa shook her head, with an almost plaintive air of hesitation in want
of help.
‘Is there any instruction that I can take from you with reference to your
affairs?’
‘I—I should like to settle them with Eddy first, if you please,’ said
Rosa, plaiting the crease in her dress.
‘Surely, surely,’ returned Mr. Grewgious. ‘You two should be of one mind
in all things. Is the young gentleman expected shortly?’
‘He has gone away only this morning. He will be back at Christmas.’
‘Nothing could happen better. You will, on his return at Christmas,
arrange all matters of detail with him; you will then communicate with
me; and I will discharge myself (as a mere business acquaintance) of my
business responsibilities towards the accomplished lady in the corner
window. They will accrue at that season.’ Blurring pencil once again.
‘Memorandum, “Leave.” Yes. I will now, my dear, take my leave.’
‘Could I,’ said Rosa, rising, as he jerked out of his chair in his
ungainly way: ‘could I ask you, most kindly to come to me at Christmas,
if I had anything particular to say to you?’
‘Why, certainly, certainly,’ he rejoined; apparently—if such a word can
be used of one who had no apparent lights or shadows about
him—complimented by the question. ‘As a particularly Angular man, I do
not fit smoothly into the social circle, and consequently I have no other
engagement at Christmas-time than to partake, on the twenty-fifth, of a
boiled turkey and celery sauce with a—with a particularly Angular clerk I
have the good fortune to possess, whose father, being a Norfolk farmer,
sends him up (the turkey up), as a present to me, from the neighbourhood
of Norwich. I should be quite proud of your wishing to see me, my dear.
As a professional Receiver of rents, so very few people _do_ wish to see
me, that the novelty would be bracing.’
For his ready acquiescence, the grateful Rosa put her hands upon his
shoulders, stood on tiptoe, and instantly kissed him.
‘Lord bless me!’ cried Mr. Grewgious. ‘Thank you, my dear! The honour
is almost equal to the pleasure. Miss Twinkleton, madam, I have had a
most satisfactory conversation with my ward, and I will now release you
from the incumbrance of my presence.’
‘Nay, sir,’ rejoined Miss Twinkleton, rising with a gracious
condescension: ‘say not incumbrance. Not so, by any means. I cannot
permit you to say so.’
‘Thank you, madam. I have read in the newspapers,’ said Mr. Grewgious,
stammering a little, ‘that when a distinguished visitor (not that I am
one: far from it) goes to a school (not that this is one: far from it),
he asks for a holiday, or some sort of grace. It being now the afternoon
in the—College—of which you are the eminent head, the young ladies might
gain nothing, except in name, by having the rest of the day allowed them.
But if there is any young lady at all under a cloud, might I solicit—’
‘Ah, Mr. Grewgious, Mr. Grewgious!’ cried Miss Twinkleton, with a
chastely-rallying forefinger. ‘O you gentlemen, you gentlemen! Fie for
shame, that you are so hard upon us poor maligned disciplinarians of our
sex, for your sakes! But as Miss Ferdinand is at present weighed down by
an incubus’—Miss Twinkleton might have said a pen-and-ink-ubus of writing
out Monsieur La Fontaine—‘go to her, Rosa my dear, and tell her the
penalty is remitted, in deference to the intercession of your guardian,
Mr. Grewgious.’
Miss Twinkleton here achieved a curtsey, suggestive of marvels happening
to her respected legs, and which she came out of nobly, three yards
behind her starting-point.
As he held it incumbent upon him to call on Mr. Jasper before leaving
Cloisterham, Mr. Grewgious went to the gatehouse, and climbed its postern
stair. But Mr. Jasper’s door being closed, and presenting on a slip of
paper the word ‘Cathedral,’ the fact of its being service-time was borne
into the mind of Mr. Grewgious. So he descended the stair again, and,
crossing the Close, paused at the great western folding-door of the
Cathedral, which stood open on the fine and bright, though short-lived,
afternoon, for the airing of the place.
‘Dear me,’ said Mr. Grewgious, peeping in, ‘it’s like looking down the
throat of Old Time.’
Old Time heaved a mouldy sigh from tomb and arch and vault; and gloomy
shadows began to deepen in corners; and damps began to rise from green
patches of stone; and jewels, cast upon the pavement of the nave from
stained glass by the declining sun, began to perish. Within the
grill-gate of the chancel, up the steps surmounted loomingly by the
fast-darkening organ, white robes could be dimly seen, and one feeble
voice, rising and falling in a cracked, monotonous mutter, could at
intervals be faintly heard. In the free outer air, the river, the green
pastures, and the brown arable lands, the teeming hills and dales, were
reddened by the sunset: while the distant little windows in windmills and
farm homesteads, shone, patches of bright beaten gold. In the Cathedral,
all became gray, murky, and sepulchral, and the cracked monotonous mutter
went on like a dying voice, until the organ and the choir burst forth,
and drowned it in a sea of music. Then, the sea fell, and the dying
voice made another feeble effort, and then the sea rose high, and beat
its life out, and lashed the roof, and surged among the arches, and
pierced the heights of the great tower; and then the sea was dry, and all
was still.
Mr. Grewgious had by that time walked to the chancel-steps, where he met
the living waters coming out.
‘Nothing is the matter?’ Thus Jasper accosted him, rather quickly. ‘You
have not been sent for?’
‘Not at all, not at all. I came down of my own accord. I have been to
my pretty ward’s, and am now homeward bound again.’
‘You found her thriving?’
‘Blooming indeed. Most blooming. I merely came to tell her, seriously,
what a betrothal by deceased parents is.’
‘And what is it—according to your judgment?’
Mr. Grewgious noticed the whiteness of the lips that asked the question,
and put it down to the chilling account of the Cathedral.
‘I merely came to tell her that it could not be considered binding,
against any such reason for its dissolution as a want of affection, or
want of disposition to carry it into effect, on the side of either
party.’
‘May I ask, had you any especial reason for telling her that?’
Mr. Grewgious answered somewhat sharply: ‘The especial reason of doing my
duty, sir. Simply that.’ Then he added: ‘Come, Mr. Jasper; I know your
affection for your nephew, and that you are quick to feel on his behalf.
I assure you that this implies not the least doubt of, or disrespect to,
your nephew.’
‘You could not,’ returned Jasper, with a friendly pressure of his arm, as
they walked on side by side, ‘speak more handsomely.’
Mr. Grewgious pulled off his hat to smooth his head, and, having smoothed
it, nodded it contentedly, and put his hat on again.
‘I will wager,’ said Jasper, smiling—his lips were still so white that he
was conscious of it, and bit and moistened them while speaking: ‘I will
wager that she hinted no wish to be released from Ned.’
‘And you will win your wager, if you do,’ retorted Mr. Grewgious. ‘We
should allow some margin for little maidenly delicacies in a young
motherless creature, under such circumstances, I suppose; it is not in my
line; what do you think?’
‘There can be no doubt of it.’
‘I am glad you say so. Because,’ proceeded Mr. Grewgious, who had all
this time very knowingly felt his way round to action on his remembrance
of what she had said of Jasper himself: ‘because she seems to have some
little delicate instinct that all preliminary arrangements had best be
made between Mr. Edwin Drood and herself, don’t you see? She don’t want
us, don’t you know?’
Jasper touched himself on the breast, and said, somewhat indistinctly:
‘You mean me.’
Mr. Grewgious touched himself on the breast, and said: ‘I mean us.
Therefore, let them have their little discussions and councils together,
when Mr. Edwin Drood comes back here at Christmas; and then you and I
will step in, and put the final touches to the business.’
‘So, you settled with her that you would come back at Christmas?’
observed Jasper. ‘I see! Mr. Grewgious, as you quite fairly said just
now, there is such an exceptional attachment between my nephew and me,
that I am more sensitive for the dear, fortunate, happy, happy fellow
than for myself. But it is only right that the young lady should be
considered, as you have pointed out, and that I should accept my cue from
you. I accept it. I understand that at Christmas they will complete
their preparations for May, and that their marriage will be put in final
train by themselves, and that nothing will remain for us but to put
ourselves in train also, and have everything ready for our formal release
from our trusts, on Edwin’s birthday.’
‘That is my understanding,’ assented Mr. Grewgious, as they shook hands
to part. ‘God bless them both!’
‘God save them both!’ cried Jasper.
‘I said, bless them,’ remarked the former, looking back over his
shoulder.
‘I said, save them,’ returned the latter. ‘Is there any difference?’
CHAPTER X—SMOOTHING THE WAY
It has been often enough remarked that women have a curious power of
divining the characters of men, which would seem to be innate and
instinctive; seeing that it is arrived at through no patient process of
reasoning, that it can give no satisfactory or sufficient account of
itself, and that it pronounces in the most confident manner even against
accumulated observation on the part of the other sex. But it has not
been quite so often remarked that this power (fallible, like every other
human attribute) is for the most part absolutely incapable of
self-revision; and that when it has delivered an adverse opinion which by
all human lights is subsequently proved to have failed, it is
undistinguishable from prejudice, in respect of its determination not to
be corrected. Nay, the very possibility of contradiction or disproof,
however remote, communicates to this feminine judgment from the first, in
nine cases out of ten, the weakness attendant on the testimony of an
interested witness; so personally and strongly does the fair diviner
connect herself with her divination.
‘Now, don’t you think, Ma dear,’ said the Minor Canon to his mother one
day as she sat at her knitting in his little book-room, ‘that you are
rather hard on Mr. Neville?’
‘No, I do _not_, Sept,’ returned the old lady.
‘Let us discuss it, Ma.’
‘I have no objection to discuss it, Sept. I trust, my dear, I am always
open to discussion.’ There was a vibration in the old lady’s cap, as
though she internally added: ‘and I should like to see the discussion
that would change _my_ mind!’
‘Very good, Ma,’ said her conciliatory son. ‘There is nothing like being
open to discussion.’
‘I hope not, my dear,’ returned the old lady, evidently shut to it.
‘Well! Mr. Neville, on that unfortunate occasion, commits himself under
provocation.’
‘And under mulled wine,’ added the old lady.
‘I must admit the wine. Though I believe the two young men were much
alike in that regard.’
‘I don’t,’ said the old lady.
‘Why not, Ma?’
‘Because I _don’t_,’ said the old lady. ‘Still, I am quite open to
discussion.’
‘But, my dear Ma, I cannot see how we are to discuss, if you take that
line.’
‘Blame Mr. Neville for it, Sept, and not me,’ said the old lady, with
stately severity.
‘My dear Ma! why Mr. Neville?’
‘Because,’ said Mrs. Crisparkle, retiring on first principles, ‘he came
home intoxicated, and did great discredit to this house, and showed great
disrespect to this family.’
‘That is not to be denied, Ma. He was then, and he is now, very sorry
for it.’
‘But for Mr. Jasper’s well-bred consideration in coming up to me, next
day, after service, in the Nave itself, with his gown still on, and
expressing his hope that I had not been greatly alarmed or had my rest
violently broken, I believe I might never have heard of that disgraceful
transaction,’ said the old lady.
‘To be candid, Ma, I think I should have kept it from you if I could:
though I had not decidedly made up my mind. I was following Jasper out,
to confer with him on the subject, and to consider the expediency of his
and my jointly hushing the thing up on all accounts, when I found him
speaking to you. Then it was too late.’
‘Too late, indeed, Sept. He was still as pale as gentlemanly ashes at
what had taken place in his rooms overnight.’
‘If I _had_ kept it from you, Ma, you may be sure it would have been for
your peace and quiet, and for the good of the young men, and in my best
discharge of my duty according to my lights.’
The old lady immediately walked across the room and kissed him: saying,
‘Of course, my dear Sept, I am sure of that.’
‘However, it became the town-talk,’ said Mr. Crisparkle, rubbing his ear,
as his mother resumed her seat, and her knitting, ‘and passed out of my
power.’
‘And I said then, Sept,’ returned the old lady, ‘that I thought ill of
Mr. Neville. And I say now, that I think ill of Mr. Neville. And I said
then, and I say now, that I hope Mr. Neville may come to good, but I
don’t believe he will.’ Here the cap vibrated again considerably.
‘I am sorry to hear you say so, Ma—’
‘I am sorry to say so, my dear,’ interposed the old lady, knitting on
firmly, ‘but I can’t help it.’
‘—For,’ pursued the Minor Canon, ‘it is undeniable that Mr. Neville is
exceedingly industrious and attentive, and that he improves apace, and
that he has—I hope I may say—an attachment to me.’
‘There is no merit in the last article, my dear,’ said the old lady,
quickly; ‘and if he says there is, I think the worse of him for the
boast.’
‘But, my dear Ma, he never said there was.’
‘Perhaps not,’ returned the old lady; ‘still, I don’t see that it greatly
signifies.’
There was no impatience in the pleasant look with which Mr. Crisparkle
contemplated the pretty old piece of china as it knitted; but there was,
certainly, a humorous sense of its not being a piece of china to argue
with very closely.
‘Besides, Sept, ask yourself what he would be without his sister. You
know what an influence she has over him; you know what a capacity she
has; you know that whatever he reads with you, he reads with her. Give
her her fair share of your praise, and how much do you leave for him?’
At these words Mr. Crisparkle fell into a little reverie, in which he
thought of several things. He thought of the times he had seen the
brother and sister together in deep converse over one of his own old
college books; now, in the rimy mornings, when he made those sharpening
pilgrimages to Cloisterham Weir; now, in the sombre evenings, when he
faced the wind at sunset, having climbed his favourite outlook, a
beetling fragment of monastery ruin; and the two studious figures passed
below him along the margin of the river, in which the town fires and
lights already shone, making the landscape bleaker. He thought how the
consciousness had stolen upon him that in teaching one, he was teaching
two; and how he had almost insensibly adapted his explanations to both
minds—that with which his own was daily in contact, and that which he
only approached through it. He thought of the gossip that had reached
him from the Nuns’ House, to the effect that Helena, whom he had
mistrusted as so proud and fierce, submitted herself to the fairy-bride
(as he called her), and learnt from her what she knew. He thought of the
picturesque alliance between those two, externally so very different. He
thought—perhaps most of all—could it be that these things were yet but so
many weeks old, and had become an integral part of his life?
As, whenever the Reverend Septimus fell a-musing, his good mother took it
to be an infallible sign that he ‘wanted support,’ the blooming old lady
made all haste to the dining-room closet, to produce from it the support
embodied in a glass of Constantia and a home-made biscuit. It was a most
wonderful closet, worthy of Cloisterham and of Minor Canon Corner. Above
it, a portrait of Handel in a flowing wig beamed down at the spectator,
with a knowing air of being up to the contents of the closet, and a
musical air of intending to combine all its harmonies in one delicious
fugue. No common closet with a vulgar door on hinges, openable all at
once, and leaving nothing to be disclosed by degrees, this rare closet
had a lock in mid-air, where two perpendicular slides met; the one
falling down, and the other pushing up. The upper slide, on being pulled
down (leaving the lower a double mystery), revealed deep shelves of
pickle-jars, jam-pots, tin canisters, spice-boxes, and agreeably
outlandish vessels of blue and white, the luscious lodgings of preserved
tamarinds and ginger. Every benevolent inhabitant of this retreat had
his name inscribed upon his stomach. The pickles, in a uniform of rich
brown double-breasted buttoned coat, and yellow or sombre drab
continuations, announced their portly forms, in printed capitals, as
Walnut, Gherkin, Onion, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Mixed, and other members of
that noble family. The jams, as being of a less masculine temperament,
and as wearing curlpapers, announced themselves in feminine caligraphy,
like a soft whisper, to be Raspberry, Gooseberry, Apricot, Plum, Damson,
Apple, and Peach. The scene closing on these charmers, and the lower
slide ascending, oranges were revealed, attended by a mighty japanned
sugar-box, to temper their acerbity if unripe. Home-made biscuits waited
at the Court of these Powers, accompanied by a goodly fragment of
plum-cake, and various slender ladies’ fingers, to be dipped into sweet
wine and kissed. Lowest of all, a compact leaden-vault enshrined the
sweet wine and a stock of cordials: whence issued whispers of Seville
Orange, Lemon, Almond, and Caraway-seed. There was a crowning air upon
this closet of closets, of having been for ages hummed through by the
Cathedral bell and organ, until those venerable bees had made sublimated
honey of everything in store; and it was always observed that every
dipper among the shelves (deep, as has been noticed, and swallowing up
head, shoulders, and elbows) came forth again mellow-faced, and seeming
to have undergone a saccharine transfiguration.
The Reverend Septimus yielded himself up quite as willing a victim to a
nauseous medicinal herb-closet, also presided over by the china
shepherdess, as to this glorious cupboard. To what amazing infusions of
gentian, peppermint, gilliflower, sage, parsley, thyme, rue, rosemary,
and dandelion, did his courageous stomach submit itself! In what
wonderful wrappers, enclosing layers of dried leaves, would he swathe his
rosy and contented face, if his mother suspected him of a toothache!
What botanical blotches would he cheerfully stick upon his cheek, or
forehead, if the dear old lady convicted him of an imperceptible pimple
there! Into this herbaceous penitentiary, situated on an upper
staircase-landing: a low and narrow whitewashed cell, where bunches of
dried leaves hung from rusty hooks in the ceiling, and were spread out
upon shelves, in company with portentous bottles: would the Reverend
Septimus submissively be led, like the highly popular lamb who has so
long and unresistingly been led to the slaughter, and there would he,
unlike that lamb, bore nobody but himself. Not even doing that much, so
that the old lady were busy and pleased, he would quietly swallow what
was given him, merely taking a corrective dip of hands and face into the
great bowl of dried rose-leaves, and into the other great bowl of dried
lavender, and then would go out, as confident in the sweetening powers of
Cloisterham Weir and a wholesome mind, as Lady Macbeth was hopeless of
those of all the seas that roll.
In the present instance the good Minor Canon took his glass of Constantia
with an excellent grace, and, so supported to his mother’s satisfaction,
applied himself to the remaining duties of the day. In their orderly and
punctual progress they brought round Vesper Service and twilight. The
Cathedral being very cold, he set off for a brisk trot after service; the
trot to end in a charge at his favourite fragment of ruin, which was to
be carried by storm, without a pause for breath.
He carried it in a masterly manner, and, not breathed even then, stood
looking down upon the river. The river at Cloisterham is sufficiently
near the sea to throw up oftentimes a quantity of seaweed. An unusual
quantity had come in with the last tide, and this, and the confusion of
the water, and the restless dipping and flapping of the noisy gulls, and
an angry light out seaward beyond the brown-sailed barges that were
turning black, foreshadowed a stormy night. In his mind he was
contrasting the wild and noisy sea with the quiet harbour of Minor Canon
Corner, when Helena and Neville Landless passed below him. He had had
the two together in his thoughts all day, and at once climbed down to
speak to them together. The footing was rough in an uncertain light for
any tread save that of a good climber; but the Minor Canon was as good a
climber as most men, and stood beside them before many good climbers
would have been half-way down.
‘A wild evening, Miss Landless! Do you not find your usual walk with
your brother too exposed and cold for the time of year? Or at all
events, when the sun is down, and the weather is driving in from the
sea?’
Helena thought not. It was their favourite walk. It was very retired.
‘It is very retired,’ assented Mr. Crisparkle, laying hold of his
opportunity straightway, and walking on with them. ‘It is a place of all
others where one can speak without interruption, as I wish to do. Mr.
Neville, I believe you tell your sister everything that passes between
us?’
‘Everything, sir.’
‘Consequently,’ said Mr. Crisparkle, ‘your sister is aware that I have
repeatedly urged you to make some kind of apology for that unfortunate
occurrence which befell on the night of your arrival here.’ In saying it
he looked to her, and not to him; therefore it was she, and not he, who
replied:
‘Yes.’
‘I call it unfortunate, Miss Helena,’ resumed Mr. Crisparkle, ‘forasmuch
as it certainly has engendered a prejudice against Neville. There is a
notion about, that he is a dangerously passionate fellow, of an
uncontrollable and furious temper: he is really avoided as such.’
‘I have no doubt he is, poor fellow,’ said Helena, with a look of proud
compassion at her brother, expressing a deep sense of his being
ungenerously treated. ‘I should be quite sure of it, from your saying
so; but what you tell me is confirmed by suppressed hints and references
that I meet with every day.’
‘Now,’ Mr. Crisparkle again resumed, in a tone of mild though firm
persuasion, ‘is not this to be regretted, and ought it not to be amended?
These are early days of Neville’s in Cloisterham, and I have no fear of
his outliving such a prejudice, and proving himself to have been
misunderstood. But how much wiser to take action at once, than to trust
to uncertain time! Besides, apart from its being politic, it is right.
For there can be no question that Neville was wrong.’
‘He was provoked,’ Helena submitted.
‘He was the assailant,’ Mr. Crisparkle submitted.
They walked on in silence, until Helena raised her eyes to the Minor
Canon’s face, and said, almost reproachfully: ‘O Mr. Crisparkle, would
you have Neville throw himself at young Drood’s feet, or at Mr. Jasper’s,
who maligns him every day? In your heart you cannot mean it. From your
heart you could not do it, if his case were yours.’
‘I have represented to Mr. Crisparkle, Helena,’ said Neville, with a
glance of deference towards his tutor, ‘that if I could do it from my
heart, I would. But I cannot, and I revolt from the pretence. You
forget however, that to put the case to Mr. Crisparkle as his own, is to
suppose to have done what I did.’
‘I ask his pardon,’ said Helena.
‘You see,’ remarked Mr. Crisparkle, again laying hold of his opportunity,
though with a moderate and delicate touch, ‘you both instinctively
acknowledge that Neville did wrong. Then why stop short, and not
otherwise acknowledge it?’
‘Is there no difference,’ asked Helena, with a little faltering in her
manner; ‘between submission to a generous spirit, and submission to a
base or trivial one?’
Before the worthy Minor Canon was quite ready with his argument in
reference to this nice distinction, Neville struck in:
‘Help me to clear myself with Mr. Crisparkle, Helena. Help me to
convince him that I cannot be the first to make concessions without
mockery and falsehood. My nature must be changed before I can do so, and
it is not changed. I am sensible of inexpressible affront, and
deliberate aggravation of inexpressible affront, and I am angry. The
plain truth is, I am still as angry when I recall that night as I was
that night.’
‘Neville,’ hinted the Minor Canon, with a steady countenance, ‘you have
repeated that former action of your hands, which I so much dislike.’
‘I am sorry for it, sir, but it was involuntary. I confessed that I was
still as angry.’
‘And I confess,’ said Mr. Crisparkle, ‘that I hoped for better things.’
‘I am sorry to disappoint you, sir, but it would be far worse to deceive
you, and I should deceive you grossly if I pretended that you had
softened me in this respect. The time may come when your powerful
influence will do even that with the difficult pupil whose antecedents
you know; but it has not come yet. Is this so, and in spite of my
struggles against myself, Helena?’
She, whose dark eyes were watching the effect of what he said on Mr.
Crisparkle’s face, replied—to Mr. Crisparkle, not to him: ‘It is so.’
After a short pause, she answered the slightest look of inquiry
conceivable, in her brother’s eyes, with as slight an affirmative bend of
her own head; and he went on:
‘I have never yet had the courage to say to you, sir, what in full
openness I ought to have said when you first talked with me on this
subject. It is not easy to say, and I have been withheld by a fear of
its seeming ridiculous, which is very strong upon me down to this last
moment, and might, but for my sister, prevent my being quite open with
you even now.—I admire Miss Bud, sir, so very much, that I cannot bear
her being treated with conceit or indifference; and even if I did not
feel that I had an injury against young Drood on my own account, I should
feel that I had an injury against him on hers.’
Mr. Crisparkle, in utter amazement, looked at Helena for corroboration,
and met in her expressive face full corroboration, and a plea for advice.
‘The young lady of whom you speak is, as you know, Mr. Neville, shortly
to be married,’ said Mr. Crisparkle, gravely; ‘therefore your admiration,
if it be of that special nature which you seem to indicate, is
outrageously misplaced. Moreover, it is monstrous that you should take
upon yourself to be the young lady’s champion against her chosen husband.
Besides, you have seen them only once. The young lady has become your
sister’s friend; and I wonder that your sister, even on her behalf, has
not checked you in this irrational and culpable fancy.’
‘She has tried, sir, but uselessly. Husband or no husband, that fellow
is incapable of the feeling with which I am inspired towards the
beautiful young creature whom he treats like a doll. I say he is as
incapable of it, as he is unworthy of her. I say she is sacrificed in
being bestowed upon him. I say that I love her, and despise and hate
him!’ This with a face so flushed, and a gesture so violent, that his
sister crossed to his side, and caught his arm, remonstrating, ‘Neville,
Neville!’
Thus recalled to himself, he quickly became sensible of having lost the
guard he had set upon his passionate tendency, and covered his face with
his hand, as one repentant and wretched.
Mr. Crisparkle, watching him attentively, and at the same time meditating
how to proceed, walked on for some paces in silence. Then he spoke:
‘Mr. Neville, Mr. Neville, I am sorely grieved to see in you more traces
of a character as sullen, angry, and wild, as the night now closing in.
They are of too serious an aspect to leave me the resource of treating
the infatuation you have disclosed, as undeserving serious consideration.
I give it very serious consideration, and I speak to you accordingly.
This feud between you and young Drood must not go on. I cannot permit it
to go on any longer, knowing what I now know from you, and you living
under my roof. Whatever prejudiced and unauthorised constructions your
blind and envious wrath may put upon his character, it is a frank,
good-natured character. I know I can trust to it for that. Now, pray
observe what I am about to say. On reflection, and on your sister’s
representation, I am willing to admit that, in making peace with young
Drood, you have a right to be met half-way. I will engage that you shall
be, and even that young Drood shall make the first advance. This
condition fulfilled, you will pledge me the honour of a Christian
gentleman that the quarrel is for ever at an end on your side. What may
be in your heart when you give him your hand, can only be known to the
Searcher of all hearts; but it will never go well with you, if there be
any treachery there. So far, as to that; next as to what I must again
speak of as your infatuation. I understand it to have been confided to
me, and to be known to no other person save your sister and yourself. Do
I understand aright?’
Helena answered in a low voice: ‘It is only known to us three who are
here together.’
‘It is not at all known to the young lady, your friend?’
‘On my soul, no!’
‘I require you, then, to give me your similar and solemn pledge, Mr.
Neville, that it shall remain the secret it is, and that you will take no
other action whatsoever upon it than endeavouring (and that most
earnestly) to erase it from your mind. I will not tell you that it will
soon pass; I will not tell you that it is the fancy of the moment; I will
not tell you that such caprices have their rise and fall among the young
and ardent every hour; I will leave you undisturbed in the belief that it
has few parallels or none, that it will abide with you a long time, and
that it will be very difficult to conquer. So much the more weight shall
I attach to the pledge I require from you, when it is unreservedly
given.’
The young man twice or thrice essayed to speak, but failed.
‘Let me leave you with your sister, whom it is time you took home,’ said
Mr. Crisparkle. ‘You will find me alone in my room by-and-by.’
‘Pray do not leave us yet,’ Helena implored him. ‘Another minute.’
‘I should not,’ said Neville, pressing his hand upon his face, ‘have
needed so much as another minute, if you had been less patient with me,
Mr. Crisparkle, less considerate of me, and less unpretendingly good and
true. O, if in my childhood I had known such a guide!’
‘Follow your guide now, Neville,’ murmured Helena, ‘and follow him to
Heaven!’
There was that in her tone which broke the good Minor Canon’s voice, or
it would have repudiated her exaltation of him. As it was, he laid a
finger on his lips, and looked towards her brother.
‘To say that I give both pledges, Mr. Crisparkle, out of my innermost
heart, and to say that there is no treachery in it, is to say nothing!’
Thus Neville, greatly moved. ‘I beg your forgiveness for my miserable
lapse into a burst of passion.’
‘Not mine, Neville, not mine. You know with whom forgiveness lies, as
the highest attribute conceivable. Miss Helena, you and your brother are
twin children. You came into this world with the same dispositions, and
you passed your younger days together surrounded by the same adverse
circumstances. What you have overcome in yourself, can you not overcome
in him? You see the rock that lies in his course. Who but you can keep
him clear of it?’
‘Who but you, sir?’ replied Helena. ‘What is my influence, or my weak
wisdom, compared with yours!’
‘You have the wisdom of Love,’ returned the Minor Canon, ‘and it was the
highest wisdom ever known upon this earth, remember. As to mine—but the
less said of that commonplace commodity the better. Good night!’
She took the hand he offered her, and gratefully and almost reverently
raised it to her lips.
‘Tut!’ said the Minor Canon softly, ‘I am much overpaid!’ and turned
away.
[Picture: Mr. Crisparkle is overpaid]
Retracing his steps towards the Cathedral Close, he tried, as he went
along in the dark, to think out the best means of bringing to pass what
he had promised to effect, and what must somehow be done. ‘I shall
probably be asked to marry them,’ he reflected, ‘and I would they were
married and gone! But this presses first.’
He debated principally whether he should write to young Drood, or whether
he should speak to Jasper. The consciousness of being popular with the
whole Cathedral establishment inclined him to the latter course, and the
well-timed sight of the lighted gatehouse decided him to take it. ‘I
will strike while the iron is hot,’ he said, ‘and see him now.’
Jasper was lying asleep on a couch before the fire, when, having ascended
the postern-stair, and received no answer to his knock at the door, Mr.
Crisparkle gently turned the handle and looked in. Long afterwards he
had cause to remember how Jasper sprang from the couch in a delirious
state between sleeping and waking, and crying out: ‘What is the matter?
Who did it?’
‘It is only I, Jasper. I am sorry to have disturbed you.’
The glare of his eyes settled down into a look of recognition, and he
moved a chair or two, to make a way to the fireside.
‘I was dreaming at a great rate, and am glad to be disturbed from an
indigestive after-dinner sleep. Not to mention that you are always
welcome.’
‘Thank you. I am not confident,’ returned Mr. Crisparkle, as he sat
himself down in the easy-chair placed for him, ‘that my subject will at
first sight be quite as welcome as myself; but I am a minister of peace,
and I pursue my subject in the interests of peace. In a word, Jasper, I
want to establish peace between these two young fellows.’
A very perplexed expression took hold of Mr. Jasper’s face; a very
perplexing expression too, for Mr. Crisparkle could make nothing of it.
‘How?’ was Jasper’s inquiry, in a low and slow voice, after a silence.
‘For the “How” I come to you. I want to ask you to do me the great
favour and service of interposing with your nephew (I have already
interposed with Mr. Neville), and getting him to write you a short note,
in his lively way, saying that he is willing to shake hands. I know what
a good-natured fellow he is, and what influence you have with him. And
without in the least defending Mr. Neville, we must all admit that he was
bitterly stung.’
Jasper turned that perplexed face towards the fire. Mr. Crisparkle
continuing to observe it, found it even more perplexing than before,
inasmuch as it seemed to denote (which could hardly be) some close
internal calculation.
‘I know that you are not prepossessed in Mr. Neville’s favour,’ the Minor
Canon was going on, when Jasper stopped him:
‘You have cause to say so. I am not, indeed.’
‘Undoubtedly; and I admit his lamentable violence of temper, though I
hope he and I will get the better of it between us. But I have exacted a
very solemn promise from him as to his future demeanour towards your
nephew, if you do kindly interpose; and I am sure he will keep it.’
‘You are always responsible and trustworthy, Mr. Crisparkle. Do you
really feel sure that you can answer for him so confidently?’
‘I do.’
The perplexed and perplexing look vanished.
‘Then you relieve my mind of a great dread, and a heavy weight,’ said
Jasper; ‘I will do it.’
Mr. Crisparkle, delighted by the swiftness and completeness of his
success, acknowledged it in the handsomest terms.
‘I will do it,’ repeated Jasper, ‘for the comfort of having your
guarantee against my vague and unfounded fears. You will laugh—but do
you keep a Diary?’
‘A line for a day; not more.’
‘A line for a day would be quite as much as my uneventful life would
need, Heaven knows,’ said Jasper, taking a book from a desk, ‘but that my
Diary is, in fact, a Diary of Ned’s life too. You will laugh at this
entry; you will guess when it was made:
‘“Past midnight.—After what I have just now seen, I have a morbid
dread upon me of some horrible consequences resulting to my dear boy,
that I cannot reason with or in any way contend against. All my
efforts are vain. The demoniacal passion of this Neville Landless,
his strength in his fury, and his savage rage for the destruction of
its object, appal me. So profound is the impression, that twice
since I have gone into my dear boy’s room, to assure myself of his
sleeping safely, and not lying dead in his blood.”
‘Here is another entry next morning:
‘“Ned up and away. Light-hearted and unsuspicious as ever. He
laughed when I cautioned him, and said he was as good a man as
Neville Landless any day. I told him that might be, but he was not
as bad a man. He continued to make light of it, but I travelled with
him as far as I could, and left him most unwillingly. I am unable to
shake off these dark intangible presentiments of evil—if feelings
founded upon staring facts are to be so called.”
‘Again and again,’ said Jasper, in conclusion, twirling the leaves of the
book before putting it by, ‘I have relapsed into these moods, as other
entries show. But I have now your assurance at my back, and shall put it
in my book, and make it an antidote to my black humours.’
‘Such an antidote, I hope,’ returned Mr. Crisparkle, ‘as will induce you
before long to consign the black humours to the flames. I ought to be
the last to find any fault with you this evening, when you have met my
wishes so freely; but I must say, Jasper, that your devotion to your
nephew has made you exaggerative here.’
‘You are my witness,’ said Jasper, shrugging his shoulders, ‘what my
state of mind honestly was, that night, before I sat down to write, and
in what words I expressed it. You remember objecting to a word I used,
as being too strong? It was a stronger word than any in my Diary.’
‘Well, well. Try the antidote,’ rejoined Mr. Crisparkle; ‘and may it
give you a brighter and better view of the case! We will discuss it no
more now. I have to thank you for myself, thank you sincerely.’
‘You shall find,’ said Jasper, as they shook hands, ‘that I will not do
the thing you wish me to do, by halves. I will take care that Ned,
giving way at all, shall give way thoroughly.’
On the third day after this conversation, he called on Mr. Crisparkle
with the following letter:
‘MY DEAR JACK,
‘I am touched by your account of your interview with Mr. Crisparkle,
whom I much respect and esteem. At once I openly say that I forgot
myself on that occasion quite as much as Mr. Landless did, and that I
wish that bygone to be a bygone, and all to be right again.
‘Look here, dear old boy. Ask Mr. Landless to dinner on Christmas
Eve (the better the day the better the deed), and let there be only
we three, and let us shake hands all round there and then, and say no
more about it.
‘My dear Jack,
‘Ever your most affectionate,
‘EDWIN DROOD.
‘P.S. Love to Miss Pussy at the next music-lesson.’
‘You expect Mr. Neville, then?’ said Mr. Crisparkle.
‘I count upon his coming,’ said Mr. Jasper.
CHAPTER XI—A PICTURE AND A RING
Behind the most ancient part of Holborn, London, where certain gabled
houses some centuries of age still stand looking on the public way, as if
disconsolately looking for the Old Bourne that has long run dry, is a
little nook composed of two irregular quadrangles, called Staple Inn. It
is one of those nooks, the turning into which out of the clashing street,
imparts to the relieved pedestrian the sensation of having put cotton in
his ears, and velvet soles on his boots. It is one of those nooks where
a few smoky sparrows twitter in smoky trees, as though they called to one
another, ‘Let us play at country,’ and where a few feet of garden-mould
and a few yards of gravel enable them to do that refreshing violence to
their tiny understandings. Moreover, it is one of those nooks which are
legal nooks; and it contains a little Hall, with a little lantern in its
roof: to what obstructive purposes devoted, and at whose expense, this
history knoweth not.
In the days when Cloisterham took offence at the existence of a railroad
afar off, as menacing that sensitive constitution, the property of us
Britons: the odd fortune of which sacred institution it is to be in
exactly equal degrees croaked about, trembled for, and boasted of,
whatever happens to anything, anywhere in the world: in those days no
neighbouring architecture of lofty proportions had arisen to overshadow
Staple Inn. The westering sun bestowed bright glances on it, and the
south-west wind blew into it unimpeded.
Neither wind nor sun, however, favoured Staple Inn one December afternoon
towards six o’clock, when it was filled with fog, and candles shed murky
and blurred rays through the windows of all its then-occupied sets of
chambers; notably from a set of chambers in a corner house in the little
inner quadrangle, presenting in black and white over its ugly portal the
mysterious inscription:
P
J T
1747
In which set of chambers, never having troubled his head about the
inscription, unless to bethink himself at odd times on glancing up at it,
that haply it might mean Perhaps John Thomas, or Perhaps Joe Tyler, sat
Mr. Grewgious writing by his fire.
Who could have told, by looking at Mr. Grewgious, whether he had ever
known ambition or disappointment? He had been bred to the Bar, and had
laid himself out for chamber practice; to draw deeds; ‘convey the wise it
call,’ as Pistol says. But Conveyancing and he had made such a very
indifferent marriage of it that they had separated by consent—if there
can be said to be separation where there has never been coming together.
No. Coy Conveyancing would not come to Mr. Grewgious. She was wooed,
not won, and they went their several ways. But an Arbitration being
blown towards him by some unaccountable wind, and he gaining great credit
in it as one indefatigable in seeking out right and doing right, a pretty
fat Receivership was next blown into his pocket by a wind more traceable
to its source. So, by chance, he had found his niche. Receiver and
Agent now, to two rich estates, and deputing their legal business, in an
amount worth having, to a firm of solicitors on the floor below, he had
snuffed out his ambition (supposing him to have ever lighted it), and had
settled down with his snuffers for the rest of his life under the dry
vine and fig-tree of P. J. T., who planted in seventeen-forty-seven.
Many accounts and account-books, many files of correspondence, and
several strong boxes, garnished Mr. Grewgious’s room. They can scarcely
be represented as having lumbered it, so conscientious and precise was
their orderly arrangement. The apprehension of dying suddenly, and
leaving one fact or one figure with any incompleteness or obscurity
attaching to it, would have stretched Mr. Grewgious stone-dead any day.
The largest fidelity to a trust was the life-blood of the man. There are
sorts of life-blood that course more quickly, more gaily, more
attractively; but there is no better sort in circulation.
There was no luxury in his room. Even its comforts were limited to its
being dry and warm, and having a snug though faded fireside. What may be
called its private life was confined to the hearth, and all easy-chair,
and an old-fashioned occasional round table that was brought out upon the
rug after business hours, from a corner where it elsewise remained turned
up like a shining mahogany shield. Behind it, when standing thus on the
defensive, was a closet, usually containing something good to drink. An
outer room was the clerk’s room; Mr. Grewgious’s sleeping-room was across
the common stair; and he held some not empty cellarage at the bottom of
the common stair. Three hundred days in the year, at least, he crossed
over to the hotel in Furnival’s Inn for his dinner, and after dinner
crossed back again, to make the most of these simplicities until it
should become broad business day once more, with P. J. T., date
seventeen-forty-seven.
As Mr. Grewgious sat and wrote by his fire that afternoon, so did the
clerk of Mr. Grewgious sit and write by _his_ fire. A pale, puffy-faced,
dark-haired person of thirty, with big dark eyes that wholly wanted
lustre, and a dissatisfied doughy complexion, that seemed to ask to be
sent to the baker’s, this attendant was a mysterious being, possessed of
some strange power over Mr. Grewgious. As though he had been called into
existence, like a fabulous Familiar, by a magic spell which had failed
when required to dismiss him, he stuck tight to Mr. Grewgious’s stool,
although Mr. Grewgious’s comfort and convenience would manifestly have
been advanced by dispossessing him. A gloomy person with tangled locks,
and a general air of having been reared under the shadow of that baleful
tree of Java which has given shelter to more lies than the whole
botanical kingdom, Mr. Grewgious, nevertheless, treated him with
unaccountable consideration.
‘Now, Bazzard,’ said Mr. Grewgious, on the entrance of his clerk: looking
up from his papers as he arranged them for the night: ‘what is in the
wind besides fog?’
‘Mr. Drood,’ said Bazzard.
‘What of him?’
‘Has called,’ said Bazzard.
‘You might have shown him in.’
‘I am doing it,’ said Bazzard.
The visitor came in accordingly.
‘Dear me!’ said Mr. Grewgious, looking round his pair of office candles.
‘I thought you had called and merely left your name and gone. How do you
do, Mr. Edwin? Dear me, you’re choking!’
‘It’s this fog,’ returned Edwin; ‘and it makes my eyes smart, like
Cayenne pepper.’
‘Is it really so bad as that? Pray undo your wrappers. It’s fortunate I
have so good a fire; but Mr. Bazzard has taken care of me.’
‘No I haven’t,’ said Mr. Bazzard at the door.
‘Ah! then it follows that I must have taken care of myself without
observing it,’ said Mr. Grewgious. ‘Pray be seated in my chair. No. I
beg! Coming out of such an atmosphere, in _my_ chair.’
Edwin took the easy-chair in the corner; and the fog he had brought in
with him, and the fog he took off with his greatcoat and neck-shawl, was
speedily licked up by the eager fire.
‘I look,’ said Edwin, smiling, ‘as if I had come to stop.’
‘—By the by,’ cried Mr. Grewgious; ‘excuse my interrupting you; do stop.
The fog may clear in an hour or two. We can have dinner in from just
across Holborn. You had better take your Cayenne pepper here than
outside; pray stop and dine.’
‘You are very kind,’ said Edwin, glancing about him as though attracted
by the notion of a new and relishing sort of gipsy-party.
‘Not at all,’ said Mr. Grewgious; ‘_you_ are very kind to join issue with
a bachelor in chambers, and take pot-luck. And I’ll ask,’ said Mr.
Grewgious, dropping his voice, and speaking with a twinkling eye, as if
inspired with a bright thought: ‘I’ll ask Bazzard. He mightn’t like it
else.—Bazzard!’
Bazzard reappeared.
‘Dine presently with Mr. Drood and me.’
‘If I am ordered to dine, of course I will, sir,’ was the gloomy answer.
‘Save the man!’ cried Mr. Grewgious. ‘You’re not ordered; you’re
invited.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Bazzard; ‘in that case I don’t care if I do.’
‘That’s arranged. And perhaps you wouldn’t mind,’ said Mr. Grewgious,
‘stepping over to the hotel in Furnival’s, and asking them to send in
materials for laying the cloth. For dinner we’ll have a tureen of the
hottest and strongest soup available, and we’ll have the best made-dish
that can be recommended, and we’ll have a joint (such as a haunch of
mutton), and we’ll have a goose, or a turkey, or any little stuffed thing
of that sort that may happen to be in the bill of fare—in short, we’ll
have whatever there is on hand.’
These liberal directions Mr. Grewgious issued with his usual air of
reading an inventory, or repeating a lesson, or doing anything else by
rote. Bazzard, after drawing out the round table, withdrew to execute
them.
‘I was a little delicate, you see,’ said Mr. Grewgious, in a lower tone,
after his clerk’s departure, ‘about employing him in the foraging or
commissariat department. Because he mightn’t like it.’
‘He seems to have his own way, sir,’ remarked Edwin.
‘His own way?’ returned Mr. Grewgious. ‘O dear no! Poor fellow, you
quite mistake him. If he had his own way, he wouldn’t be here.’
‘I wonder where he would be!’ Edwin thought. But he only thought it,
because Mr. Grewgious came and stood himself with his back to the other
corner of the fire, and his shoulder-blades against the chimneypiece, and
collected his skirts for easy conversation.
‘I take it, without having the gift of prophecy, that you have done me
the favour of looking in to mention that you are going down yonder—where
I can tell you, you are expected—and to offer to execute any little
commission from me to my charming ward, and perhaps to sharpen me up a
bit in any proceedings? Eh, Mr. Edwin?’
‘I called, sir, before going down, as an act of attention.’
‘Of attention!’ said Mr. Grewgious. ‘Ah! of course, not of impatience?’
‘Impatience, sir?’
Mr. Grewgious had meant to be arch—not that he in the remotest degree
expressed that meaning—and had brought himself into scarcely supportable
proximity with the fire, as if to burn the fullest effect of his archness
into himself, as other subtle impressions are burnt into hard metals.
But his archness suddenly flying before the composed face and manner of
his visitor, and only the fire remaining, he started and rubbed himself.
‘I have lately been down yonder,’ said Mr. Grewgious, rearranging his
skirts; ‘and that was what I referred to, when I said I could tell you
you are expected.’
‘Indeed, sir! Yes; I knew that Pussy was looking out for me.’
‘Do you keep a cat down there?’ asked Mr. Grewgious.
Edwin coloured a little as he explained: ‘I call Rosa Pussy.’
‘O, really,’ said Mr. Grewgious, smoothing down his head; ‘that’s very
affable.’
Edwin glanced at his face, uncertain whether or no he seriously objected
to the appellation. But Edwin might as well have glanced at the face of
a clock.
‘A pet name, sir,’ he explained again.
‘Umps,’ said Mr. Grewgious, with a nod. But with such an extraordinary
compromise between an unqualified assent and a qualified dissent, that
his visitor was much disconcerted.
‘Did PRosa—’ Edwin began by way of recovering himself.
‘PRosa?’ repeated Mr. Grewgious.
‘I was going to say Pussy, and changed my mind;—did she tell you anything
about the Landlesses?’
‘No,’ said Mr. Grewgious. ‘What is the Landlesses? An estate? A villa?
A farm?’
‘A brother and sister. The sister is at the Nuns’ House, and has become
a great friend of P—’
‘PRosa’s,’ Mr. Grewgious struck in, with a fixed face.
‘She is a strikingly handsome girl, sir, and I thought she might have
been described to you, or presented to you perhaps?’
‘Neither,’ said Mr. Grewgious. ‘But here is Bazzard.’
Bazzard returned, accompanied by two waiters—an immovable waiter, and a
flying waiter; and the three brought in with them as much fog as gave a
new roar to the fire. The flying waiter, who had brought everything on
his shoulders, laid the cloth with amazing rapidity and dexterity; while
the immovable waiter, who had brought nothing, found fault with him. The
flying waiter then highly polished all the glasses he had brought, and
the immovable waiter looked through them. The flying waiter then flew
across Holborn for the soup, and flew back again, and then took another
flight for the made-dish, and flew back again, and then took another
flight for the joint and poultry, and flew back again, and between whiles
took supplementary flights for a great variety of articles, as it was
discovered from time to time that the immovable waiter had forgotten them
all. But let the flying waiter cleave the air as he might, he was always
reproached on his return by the immovable waiter for bringing fog with
him, and being out of breath. At the conclusion of the repast, by which
time the flying waiter was severely blown, the immovable waiter gathered
up the tablecloth under his arm with a grand air, and having sternly (not
to say with indignation) looked on at the flying waiter while he set the
clean glasses round, directed a valedictory glance towards Mr. Grewgious,
conveying: ‘Let it be clearly understood between us that the reward is
mine, and that Nil is the claim of this slave,’ and pushed the flying
waiter before him out of the room.
It was like a highly-finished miniature painting representing My Lords of
the Circumlocution Department, Commandership-in-Chief of any sort,
Government. It was quite an edifying little picture to be hung on the
line in the National Gallery.
As the fog had been the proximate cause of this sumptuous repast, so the
fog served for its general sauce. To hear the out-door clerks sneezing,
wheezing, and beating their feet on the gravel was a zest far surpassing
Doctor Kitchener’s. To bid, with a shiver, the unfortunate flying waiter
shut the door before he had opened it, was a condiment of a profounder
flavour than Harvey. And here let it be noticed, parenthetically, that
the leg of this young man, in its application to the door, evinced the
finest sense of touch: always preceding himself and tray (with something
of an angling air about it), by some seconds: and always lingering after
he and the tray had disappeared, like Macbeth’s leg when accompanying him
off the stage with reluctance to the assassination of Duncan.
The host had gone below to the cellar, and had brought up bottles of
ruby, straw-coloured, and golden drinks, which had ripened long ago in
lands where no fogs are, and had since lain slumbering in the shade.
Sparkling and tingling after so long a nap, they pushed at their corks to
help the corkscrew (like prisoners helping rioters to force their gates),
and danced out gaily. If P. J. T. in seventeen-forty-seven, or in any
other year of his period, drank such wines—then, for a certainty, P. J.
T. was Pretty Jolly Too.
Externally, Mr. Grewgious showed no signs of being mellowed by these
glowing vintages. Instead of his drinking them, they might have been
poured over him in his high-dried snuff form, and run to waste, for any
lights and shades they caused to flicker over his face. Neither was his
manner influenced. But, in his wooden way, he had observant eyes for
Edwin; and when at the end of dinner, he motioned Edwin back to his own
easy-chair in the fireside corner, and Edwin sank luxuriously into it
after very brief remonstrance, Mr. Grewgious, as he turned his seat round
towards the fire too, and smoothed his head and face, might have been
seen looking at his visitor between his smoothing fingers.
‘Bazzard!’ said Mr. Grewgious, suddenly turning to him.
‘I follow you, sir,’ returned Bazzard; who had done his work of consuming
meat and drink in a workmanlike manner, though mostly in speechlessness.
‘I drink to you, Bazzard; Mr. Edwin, success to Mr. Bazzard!’
‘Success to Mr. Bazzard!’ echoed Edwin, with a totally unfounded
appearance of enthusiasm, and with the unspoken addition: ‘What in, I
wonder!’
‘And May!’ pursued Mr. Grewgious—‘I am not at liberty to be
definite—May!—my conversational powers are so very limited that I know I
shall not come well out of this—May!—it ought to be put imaginatively,
but I have no imagination—May!—the thorn of anxiety is as nearly the mark
as I am likely to get—May it come out at last!’
Mr. Bazzard, with a frowning smile at the fire, put a hand into his
tangled locks, as if the thorn of anxiety were there; then into his
waistcoat, as if it were there; then into his pockets, as if it were
there. In all these movements he was closely followed by the eyes of
Edwin, as if that young gentleman expected to see the thorn in action.
It was not produced, however, and Mr. Bazzard merely said: ‘I follow you,
sir, and I thank you.’
‘I am going,’ said Mr. Grewgious, jingling his glass on the table with
one hand, and bending aside under cover of the other, to whisper to
Edwin, ‘to drink to my ward. But I put Bazzard first. He mightn’t like
it else.’
This was said with a mysterious wink; or what would have been a wink, if,
in Mr. Grewgious’s hands, it could have been quick enough. So Edwin
winked responsively, without the least idea what he meant by doing so.
‘And now,’ said Mr. Grewgious, ‘I devote a bumper to the fair and
fascinating Miss Rosa. Bazzard, the fair and fascinating Miss Rosa!’
‘I follow you, sir,’ said Bazzard, ‘and I pledge you!’
‘And so do I!’ said Edwin.
‘Lord bless me,’ cried Mr. Grewgious, breaking the blank silence which of
course ensued: though why these pauses _should_ come upon us when we have
performed any small social rite, not directly inducive of
self-examination or mental despondency, who can tell? ‘I am a
particularly Angular man, and yet I fancy (if I may use the word, not
having a morsel of fancy), that I could draw a picture of a true lover’s
state of mind, to-night.’
‘Let us follow you, sir,’ said Bazzard, ‘and have the picture.’
‘Mr. Edwin will correct it where it’s wrong,’ resumed Mr. Grewgious, ‘and
will throw in a few touches from the life. I dare say it is wrong in
many particulars, and wants many touches from the life, for I was born a
Chip, and have neither soft sympathies nor soft experiences. Well! I
hazard the guess that the true lover’s mind is completely permeated by
the beloved object of his affections. I hazard the guess that her dear
name is precious to him, cannot be heard or repeated without emotion, and
is preserved sacred. If he has any distinguishing appellation of
fondness for her, it is reserved for her, and is not for common ears. A
name that it would be a privilege to call her by, being alone with her
own bright self, it would be a liberty, a coldness, an insensibility,
almost a breach of good faith, to flaunt elsewhere.’
It was wonderful to see Mr. Grewgious sitting bolt upright, with his
hands on his knees, continuously chopping this discourse out of himself:
much as a charity boy with a very good memory might get his catechism
said: and evincing no correspondent emotion whatever, unless in a certain
occasional little tingling perceptible at the end of his nose.
‘My picture,’ Mr. Grewgious proceeded, ‘goes on to represent (under
correction from you, Mr. Edwin), the true lover as ever impatient to be
in the presence or vicinity of the beloved object of his affections; as
caring very little for his case in any other society; and as constantly
seeking that. If I was to say seeking that, as a bird seeks its nest, I
should make an ass of myself, because that would trench upon what I
understand to be poetry; and I am so far from trenching upon poetry at
any time, that I never, to my knowledge, got within ten thousand miles of
it. And I am besides totally unacquainted with the habits of birds,
except the birds of Staple Inn, who seek their nests on ledges, and in
gutter-pipes and chimneypots, not constructed for them by the beneficent
hand of Nature. I beg, therefore, to be understood as foregoing the
bird’s-nest. But my picture does represent the true lover as having no
existence separable from that of the beloved object of his affections,
and as living at once a doubled life and a halved life. And if I do not
clearly express what I mean by that, it is either for the reason that
having no conversational powers, I cannot express what I mean, or that
having no meaning, I do not mean what I fail to express. Which, to the
best of my belief, is not the case.’
Edwin had turned red and turned white, as certain points of this picture
came into the light. He now sat looking at the fire, and bit his lip.
‘The speculations of an Angular man,’ resumed Mr. Grewgious, still
sitting and speaking exactly as before, ‘are probably erroneous on so
globular a topic. But I figure to myself (subject, as before, to Mr.
Edwin’s correction), that there can be no coolness, no lassitude, no
doubt, no indifference, no half fire and half smoke state of mind, in a
real lover. Pray am I at all near the mark in my picture?’
As abrupt in his conclusion as in his commencement and progress, he
jerked this inquiry at Edwin, and stopped when one might have supposed
him in the middle of his oration.
‘I should say, sir,’ stammered Edwin, ‘as you refer the question to me—’
‘Yes,’ said Mr. Grewgious, ‘I refer it to you, as an authority.’
‘I should say, then, sir,’ Edwin went on, embarrassed, ‘that the picture
you have drawn is generally correct; but I submit that perhaps you may be
rather hard upon the unlucky lover.’
‘Likely so,’ assented Mr. Grewgious, ‘likely so. I am a hard man in the
grain.’
‘He may not show,’ said Edwin, ‘all he feels; or he may not—’
There he stopped so long, to find the rest of his sentence, that Mr.
Grewgious rendered his difficulty a thousand times the greater by
unexpectedly striking in with:
‘No to be sure; he _may_ not!’
After that, they all sat silent; the silence of Mr. Bazzard being
occasioned by slumber.
‘His responsibility is very great, though,’ said Mr. Grewgious at length,
with his eyes on the fire.
Edwin nodded assent, with _his_ eyes on the fire.
‘And let him be sure that he trifles with no one,’ said Mr. Grewgious;
‘neither with himself, nor with any other.’
Edwin bit his lip again, and still sat looking at the fire.
‘He must not make a plaything of a treasure. Woe betide him if he does!
Let him take that well to heart,’ said Mr. Grewgious.
Though he said these things in short sentences, much as the
supposititious charity boy just now referred to might have repeated a
verse or two from the Book of Proverbs, there was something dreamy (for
so literal a man) in the way in which he now shook his right forefinger
at the live coals in the grate, and again fell silent.
But not for long. As he sat upright and stiff in his chair, he suddenly
rapped his knees, like the carved image of some queer Joss or other
coming out of its reverie, and said: ‘We must finish this bottle, Mr.
Edwin. Let me help you. I’ll help Bazzard too, though he _is_ asleep.
He mightn’t like it else.’
He helped them both, and helped himself, and drained his glass, and stood
it bottom upward on the table, as though he had just caught a bluebottle
in it.
‘And now, Mr. Edwin,’ he proceeded, wiping his mouth and hands upon his
handkerchief: ‘to a little piece of business. You received from me, the
other day, a certified copy of Miss Rosa’s father’s will. You knew its
contents before, but you received it from me as a matter of business. I
should have sent it to Mr. Jasper, but for Miss Rosa’s wishing it to come
straight to you, in preference. You received it?’
‘Quite safely, sir.’
‘You should have acknowledged its receipt,’ said Mr. Grewgious; ‘business
being business all the world over. However, you did not.’
‘I meant to have acknowledged it when I first came in this evening, sir.’
‘Not a business-like acknowledgment,’ returned Mr. Grewgious; ‘however,
let that pass. Now, in that document you have observed a few words of
kindly allusion to its being left to me to discharge a little trust,
confided to me in conversation, at such time as I in my discretion may
think best.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Mr. Edwin, it came into my mind just now, when I was looking at the
fire, that I could, in my discretion, acquit myself of that trust at no
better time than the present. Favour me with your attention, half a
minute.’
He took a bunch of keys from his pocket, singled out by the candle-light
the key he wanted, and then, with a candle in his hand, went to a bureau
or escritoire, unlocked it, touched the spring of a little secret drawer,
and took from it an ordinary ring-case made for a single ring. With this
in his hand, he returned to his chair. As he held it up for the young
man to see, his hand trembled.
‘Mr. Edwin, this rose of diamonds and rubies delicately set in gold, was
a ring belonging to Miss Rosa’s mother. It was removed from her dead
hand, in my presence, with such distracted grief as I hope it may never
be my lot to contemplate again. Hard man as I am, I am not hard enough
for that. See how bright these stones shine!’ opening the case. ‘And
yet the eyes that were so much brighter, and that so often looked upon
them with a light and a proud heart, have been ashes among ashes, and
dust among dust, some years! If I had any imagination (which it is
needless to say I have not), I might imagine that the lasting beauty of
these stones was almost cruel.’
He closed the case again as he spoke.
‘This ring was given to the young lady who was drowned so early in her
beautiful and happy career, by her husband, when they first plighted
their faith to one another. It was he who removed it from her
unconscious hand, and it was he who, when his death drew very near,
placed it in mine. The trust in which I received it, was, that, you and
Miss Rosa growing to manhood and womanhood, and your betrothal prospering
and coming to maturity, I should give it to you to place upon her finger.
Failing those desired results, it was to remain in my possession.’
Some trouble was in the young man’s face, and some indecision was in the
action of his hand, as Mr. Grewgious, looking steadfastly at him, gave
him the ring.
‘Your placing it on her finger,’ said Mr. Grewgious, ‘will be the solemn
seal upon your strict fidelity to the living and the dead. You are going
to her, to make the last irrevocable preparations for your marriage.
Take it with you.’
The young man took the little case, and placed it in his breast.
‘If anything should be amiss, if anything should be even slightly wrong,
between you; if you should have any secret consciousness that you are
committing yourself to this step for no higher reason than because you
have long been accustomed to look forward to it; then,’ said Mr.
Grewgious, ‘I charge you once more, by the living and by the dead, to
bring that ring back to me!’
Here Bazzard awoke himself by his own snoring; and, as is usual in such
cases, sat apoplectically staring at vacancy, as defying vacancy to
accuse him of having been asleep.
‘Bazzard!’ said Mr. Grewgious, harder than ever.
‘I follow you, sir,’ said Bazzard, ‘and I have been following you.’
‘In discharge of a trust, I have handed Mr. Edwin Drood a ring of
diamonds and rubies. You see?’
Edwin reproduced the little case, and opened it; and Bazzard looked into
it.
‘I follow you both, sir,’ returned Bazzard, ‘and I witness the
transaction.’
Evidently anxious to get away and be alone, Edwin Drood now resumed his
outer clothing, muttering something about time and appointments. The fog
was reported no clearer (by the flying waiter, who alighted from a
speculative flight in the coffee interest), but he went out into it; and
Bazzard, after his manner, ‘followed’ him.
Mr. Grewgious, left alone, walked softly and slowly to and fro, for an
hour and more. He was restless to-night, and seemed dispirited.
‘I hope I have done right,’ he said. ‘The appeal to him seemed
necessary. It was hard to lose the ring, and yet it must have gone from
me very soon.’
He closed the empty little drawer with a sigh, and shut and locked the
escritoire, and came back to the solitary fireside.
‘Her ring,’ he went on. ‘Will it come back to me? My mind hangs about
her ring very uneasily to-night. But that is explainable. I have had it
so long, and I have prized it so much! I wonder—’
He was in a wondering mood as well as a restless; for, though he checked
himself at that point, and took another walk, he resumed his wondering
when he sat down again.
‘I wonder (for the ten-thousandth time, and what a weak fool I, for what
can it signify now!) whether he confided the charge of their orphan child
to me, because he knew—Good God, how like her mother she has become!’
‘I wonder whether he ever so much as suspected that some one doted on
her, at a hopeless, speechless distance, when he struck in and won her.
I wonder whether it ever crept into his mind who that unfortunate some
one was!’
‘I wonder whether I shall sleep to-night! At all events, I will shut out
the world with the bedclothes, and try.’
Mr. Grewgious crossed the staircase to his raw and foggy bedroom, and was
soon ready for bed. Dimly catching sight of his face in the misty
looking-glass, he held his candle to it for a moment.
‘A likely some one, _you_, to come into anybody’s thoughts in such an
aspect!’ he exclaimed. ‘There! there! there! Get to bed, poor man, and
cease to jabber!’
With that, he extinguished his light, pulled up the bedclothes around
him, and with another sigh shut out the world. And yet there are such
unexplored romantic nooks in the unlikeliest men, that even old tinderous
and touchwoody P. J. T. Possibly Jabbered Thus, at some odd times, in or
about seventeen-forty-seven.
CHAPTER XII—A NIGHT WITH DURDLES
When Mr. Sapsea has nothing better to do, towards evening, and finds the
contemplation of his own profundity becoming a little monotonous in spite
of the vastness of the subject, he often takes an airing in the Cathedral
Close and thereabout. He likes to pass the churchyard with a swelling
air of proprietorship, and to encourage in his breast a sort of
benignant-landlord feeling, in that he has been bountiful towards that
meritorious tenant, Mrs. Sapsea, and has publicly given her a prize. He
likes to see a stray face or two looking in through the railings, and
perhaps reading his inscription. Should he meet a stranger coming from
the churchyard with a quick step, he is morally convinced that the
stranger is ‘with a blush retiring,’ as monumentally directed.
Mr. Sapsea’s importance has received enhancement, for he has become Mayor
of Cloisterham. Without mayors, and many of them, it cannot be disputed
that the whole framework of society—Mr. Sapsea is confident that he
invented that forcible figure—would fall to pieces. Mayors have been
knighted for ‘going up’ with addresses: explosive machines intrepidly
discharging shot and shell into the English Grammar. Mr. Sapsea may ‘go
up’ with an address. Rise, Sir Thomas Sapsea! Of such is the salt of
the earth.
Mr. Sapsea has improved the acquaintance of Mr. Jasper, since their first
meeting to partake of port, epitaph, backgammon, beef, and salad. Mr.
Sapsea has been received at the gatehouse with kindred hospitality; and
on that occasion Mr. Jasper seated himself at the piano, and sang to him,
tickling his ears—figuratively—long enough to present a considerable area
for tickling. What Mr. Sapsea likes in that young man is, that he is
always ready to profit by the wisdom of his elders, and that he is sound,
sir, at the core. In proof of which, he sang to Mr. Sapsea that evening,
no kickshaw ditties, favourites with national enemies, but gave him the
genuine George the Third home-brewed; exhorting him (as ‘my brave boys’)
to reduce to a smashed condition all other islands but this island, and
all continents, peninsulas, isthmuses, promontories, and other
geographical forms of land soever, besides sweeping the seas in all
directions. In short, he rendered it pretty clear that Providence made a
distinct mistake in originating so small a nation of hearts of oak, and
so many other verminous peoples.
Mr. Sapsea, walking slowly this moist evening near the churchyard with
his hands behind him, on the look-out for a blushing and retiring
stranger, turns a corner, and comes instead into the goodly presence of
the Dean, conversing with the Verger and Mr. Jasper. Mr. Sapsea makes
his obeisance, and is instantly stricken far more ecclesiastical than any
Archbishop of York or Canterbury.
‘You are evidently going to write a book about us, Mr. Jasper,’ quoth the
Dean; ‘to write a book about us. Well! We are very ancient, and we
ought to make a good book. We are not so richly endowed in possessions
as in age; but perhaps you will put _that_ in your book, among other
things, and call attention to our wrongs.’
Mr. Tope, as in duty bound, is greatly entertained by this.
‘I really have no intention at all, sir,’ replies Jasper, ‘of turning
author or archæologist. It is but a whim of mine. And even for my whim,
Mr. Sapsea here is more accountable than I am.’
‘How so, Mr. Mayor?’ says the Dean, with a nod of good-natured
recognition of his Fetch. ‘How is that, Mr. Mayor?’
‘I am not aware,’ Mr. Sapsea remarks, looking about him for information,
‘to what the Very Reverend the Dean does me the honour of referring.’
And then falls to studying his original in minute points of detail.
‘Durdles,’ Mr. Tope hints.
‘Ay!’ the Dean echoes; ‘Durdles, Durdles!’
‘The truth is, sir,’ explains Jasper, ‘that my curiosity in the man was
first really stimulated by Mr. Sapsea. Mr. Sapsea’s knowledge of mankind
and power of drawing out whatever is recluse or odd around him, first led
to my bestowing a second thought upon the man: though of course I had met
him constantly about. You would not be surprised by this, Mr. Dean, if
you had seen Mr. Sapsea deal with him in his own parlour, as I did.’
‘O!’ cries Sapsea, picking up the ball thrown to him with ineffable
complacency and pomposity; ‘yes, yes. The Very Reverend the Dean refers
to that? Yes. I happened to bring Durdles and Mr. Jasper together. I
regard Durdles as a Character.’
‘A character, Mr. Sapsea, that with a few skilful touches you turn inside
out,’ says Jasper.
‘Nay, not quite that,’ returns the lumbering auctioneer. ‘I may have a
little influence over him, perhaps; and a little insight into his
character, perhaps. The Very Reverend the Dean will please to bear in
mind that I have seen the world.’ Here Mr. Sapsea gets a little behind
the Dean, to inspect his coat-buttons.
‘Well!’ says the Dean, looking about him to see what has become of his
copyist: ‘I hope, Mr. Mayor, you will use your study and knowledge of
Durdles to the good purpose of exhorting him not to break our worthy and
respected Choir-Master’s neck; we cannot afford it; his head and voice
are much too valuable to us.’
Mr. Tope is again highly entertained, and, having fallen into respectful
convulsions of laughter, subsides into a deferential murmur, importing
that surely any gentleman would deem it a pleasure and an honour to have
his neck broken, in return for such a compliment from such a source.
‘I will take it upon myself, sir,’ observes Sapsea loftily, ‘to answer
for Mr. Jasper’s neck. I will tell Durdles to be careful of it. He will
mind what _I_ say. How is it at present endangered?’ he inquires,
looking about him with magnificent patronage.
‘Only by my making a moonlight expedition with Durdles among the tombs,
vaults, towers, and ruins,’ returns Jasper. ‘You remember suggesting,
when you brought us together, that, as a lover of the picturesque, it
might be worth my while?’
‘I remember!’ replies the auctioneer. And the solemn idiot really
believes that he does remember.
‘Profiting by your hint,’ pursues Jasper, ‘I have had some day-rambles
with the extraordinary old fellow, and we are to make a moonlight
hole-and-corner exploration to-night.’
‘And here he is,’ says the Dean.
Durdles with his dinner-bundle in his hand, is indeed beheld slouching
towards them. Slouching nearer, and perceiving the Dean, he pulls off
his hat, and is slouching away with it under his arm, when Mr. Sapsea
stops him.
‘Mind you take care of my friend,’ is the injunction Mr. Sapsea lays upon
him.
‘What friend o’ yourn is dead?’ asks Durdles. ‘No orders has come in for
any friend o’ yourn.’
‘I mean my live friend there.’
‘O! him?’ says Durdles. ‘He can take care of himself, can Mister
Jarsper.’
‘But do you take care of him too,’ says Sapsea.
Whom Durdles (there being command in his tone) surlily surveys from head
to foot.
‘With submission to his Reverence the Dean, if you’ll mind what concerns
you, Mr. Sapsea, Durdles he’ll mind what concerns him.’
‘You’re out of temper,’ says Mr. Sapsea, winking to the company to
observe how smoothly he will manage him. ‘My friend concerns me, and Mr.
Jasper is my friend. And you are my friend.’
‘Don’t you get into a bad habit of boasting,’ retorts Durdles, with a
grave cautionary nod. ‘It’ll grow upon you.’
[Picture: Durdles cautions Mr. Sapsea against boasting]
‘You are out of temper,’ says Sapsea again; reddening, but again sinking
to the company.
‘I own to it,’ returns Durdles; ‘I don’t like liberties.’
Mr. Sapsea winks a third wink to the company, as who should say: ‘I think
you will agree with me that I have settled _his_ business;’ and stalks
out of the controversy.
Durdles then gives the Dean a good evening, and adding, as he puts his
hat on, ‘You’ll find me at home, Mister Jarsper, as agreed, when you want
me; I’m a-going home to clean myself,’ soon slouches out of sight. This
going home to clean himself is one of the man’s incomprehensible
compromises with inexorable facts; he, and his hat, and his boots, and
his clothes, never showing any trace of cleaning, but being uniformly in
one condition of dust and grit.
The lamplighter now dotting the quiet Close with specks of light, and
running at a great rate up and down his little ladder with that
object—his little ladder under the sacred shadow of whose inconvenience
generations had grown up, and which all Cloisterham would have stood
aghast at the idea of abolishing—the Dean withdraws to his dinner, Mr.
Tope to his tea, and Mr. Jasper to his piano. There, with no light but
that of the fire, he sits chanting choir-music in a low and beautiful
voice, for two or three hours; in short, until it has been for some time
dark, and the moon is about to rise.
Then he closes his piano softly, softly changes his coat for a
pea-jacket, with a goodly wicker-cased bottle in its largest pocket, and
putting on a low-crowned, flap-brimmed hat, goes softly out. Why does he
move so softly to-night? No outward reason is apparent for it. Can
there be any sympathetic reason crouching darkly within him?
Repairing to Durdles’s unfinished house, or hole in the city wall, and
seeing a light within it, he softly picks his course among the
gravestones, monuments, and stony lumber of the yard, already touched
here and there, sidewise, by the rising moon. The two journeymen have
left their two great saws sticking in their blocks of stone; and two
skeleton journeymen out of the Dance of Death might be grinning in the
shadow of their sheltering sentry-boxes, about to slash away at cutting
out the gravestones of the next two people destined to die in
Cloisterham. Likely enough, the two think little of that now, being
alive, and perhaps merry. Curious, to make a guess at the two;—or say
one of the two!
‘Ho! Durdles!’
The light moves, and he appears with it at the door. He would seem to
have been ‘cleaning himself’ with the aid of a bottle, jug, and tumbler;
for no other cleansing instruments are visible in the bare brick room
with rafters overhead and no plastered ceiling, into which he shows his
visitor.
‘Are you ready?’
‘I am ready, Mister Jarsper. Let the old ’uns come out if they dare,
when we go among their tombs. My spirit is ready for ’em.’
‘Do you mean animal spirits, or ardent?’
‘The one’s the t’other,’ answers Durdles, ‘and I mean ’em both.’
He takes a lantern from a hook, puts a match or two in his pocket
wherewith to light it, should there be need; and they go out together,
dinner-bundle and all.
Surely an unaccountable sort of expedition! That Durdles himself, who is
always prowling among old graves, and ruins, like a Ghoul—that he should
be stealing forth to climb, and dive, and wander without an object, is
nothing extraordinary; but that the Choir-Master or any one else should
hold it worth his while to be with him, and to study moonlight effects in
such company is another affair. Surely an unaccountable sort of
expedition, therefore!
‘’Ware that there mound by the yard-gate, Mister Jarsper.’
‘I see it. What is it?’
‘Lime.’
Mr. Jasper stops, and waits for him to come up, for he lags behind.
‘What you call quick-lime?’
‘Ay!’ says Durdles; ‘quick enough to eat your boots. With a little handy
stirring, quick enough to eat your bones.’
They go on, presently passing the red windows of the Travellers’
Twopenny, and emerging into the clear moonlight of the Monks’ Vineyard.
This crossed, they come to Minor Canon Corner: of which the greater part
lies in shadow until the moon shall rise higher in the sky.
The sound of a closing house-door strikes their ears, and two men come
out. These are Mr. Crisparkle and Neville. Jasper, with a strange and
sudden smile upon his face, lays the palm of his hand upon the breast of
Durdles, stopping him where he stands.
At that end of Minor Canon Corner the shadow is profound in the existing
state of the light: at that end, too, there is a piece of old dwarf wall,
breast high, the only remaining boundary of what was once a garden, but
is now the thoroughfare. Jasper and Durdles would have turned this wall
in another instant; but, stopping so short, stand behind it.
‘Those two are only sauntering,’ Jasper whispers; ‘they will go out into
the moonlight soon. Let us keep quiet here, or they will detain us, or
want to join us, or what not.’
Durdles nods assent, and falls to munching some fragments from his
bundle. Jasper folds his arms upon the top of the wall, and, with his
chin resting on them, watches. He takes no note whatever of the Minor
Canon, but watches Neville, as though his eye were at the trigger of a
loaded rifle, and he had covered him, and were going to fire. A sense of
destructive power is so expressed in his face, that even Durdles pauses
in his munching, and looks at him, with an unmunched something in his
cheek.
Meanwhile Mr. Crisparkle and Neville walk to and fro, quietly talking
together. What they say, cannot be heard consecutively; but Mr. Jasper
has already distinguished his own name more than once.
‘This is the first day of the week,’ Mr. Crisparkle can be distinctly
heard to observe, as they turn back; ‘and the last day of the week is
Christmas Eve.’
‘You may be certain of me, sir.’
The echoes were favourable at those points, but as the two approach, the
sound of their talking becomes confused again. The word ‘confidence,’
shattered by the echoes, but still capable of being pieced together, is
uttered by Mr. Crisparkle. As they draw still nearer, this fragment of a
reply is heard: ‘Not deserved yet, but shall be, sir.’ As they turn away
again, Jasper again hears his own name, in connection with the words from
Mr. Crisparkle: ‘Remember that I said I answered for you confidently.’
Then the sound of their talk becomes confused again; they halting for a
little while, and some earnest action on the part of Neville succeeding.
When they move once more, Mr. Crisparkle is seen to look up at the sky,
and to point before him. They then slowly disappear; passing out into
the moonlight at the opposite end of the Corner.
It is not until they are gone, that Mr. Jasper moves. But then he turns
to Durdles, and bursts into a fit of laughter. Durdles, who still has
that suspended something in his cheek, and who sees nothing to laugh at,
stares at him until Mr. Jasper lays his face down on his arms to have his
laugh out. Then Durdles bolts the something, as if desperately resigning
himself to indigestion.
Among those secluded nooks there is very little stir or movement after
dark. There is little enough in the high tide of the day, but there is
next to none at night. Besides that the cheerfully frequented High
Street lies nearly parallel to the spot (the old Cathedral rising between
the two), and is the natural channel in which the Cloisterham traffic
flows, a certain awful hush pervades the ancient pile, the cloisters, and
the churchyard, after dark, which not many people care to encounter. Ask
the first hundred citizens of Cloisterham, met at random in the streets
at noon, if they believed in Ghosts, they would tell you no; but put them
to choose at night between these eerie Precincts and the thoroughfare of
shops, and you would find that ninety-nine declared for the longer round
and the more frequented way. The cause of this is not to be found in any
local superstition that attaches to the Precincts—albeit a mysterious
lady, with a child in her arms and a rope dangling from her neck, has
been seen flitting about there by sundry witnesses as intangible as
herself—but it is to be sought in the innate shrinking of dust with the
breath of life in it from dust out of which the breath of life has
passed; also, in the widely diffused, and almost as widely
unacknowledged, reflection: ‘If the dead do, under any circumstances,
become visible to the living, these are such likely surroundings for the
purpose that I, the living, will get out of them as soon as I can.’
Hence, when Mr. Jasper and Durdles pause to glance around them, before
descending into the crypt by a small side door, of which the latter has a
key, the whole expanse of moonlight in their view is utterly deserted.
One might fancy that the tide of life was stemmed by Mr. Jasper’s own
gatehouse. The murmur of the tide is heard beyond; but no wave passes
the archway, over which his lamp burns red behind his curtain, as if the
building were a Lighthouse.
They enter, locking themselves in, descend the rugged steps, and are down
in the Crypt. The lantern is not wanted, for the moonlight strikes in at
the groined windows, bare of glass, the broken frames for which cast
patterns on the ground. The heavy pillars which support the roof
engender masses of black shade, but between them there are lanes of
light. Up and down these lanes they walk, Durdles discoursing of the
‘old uns’ he yet counts on disinterring, and slapping a wall, in which he
considers ‘a whole family on ’em’ to be stoned and earthed up, just as if
he were a familiar friend of the family. The taciturnity of Durdles is
for the time overcome by Mr. Jasper’s wicker bottle, which circulates
freely;—in the sense, that is to say, that its contents enter freely into
Mr. Durdles’s circulation, while Mr. Jasper only rinses his mouth once,
and casts forth the rinsing.
They are to ascend the great Tower. On the steps by which they rise to
the Cathedral, Durdles pauses for new store of breath. The steps are
very dark, but out of the darkness they can see the lanes of light they
have traversed. Durdles seats himself upon a step. Mr. Jasper seats
himself upon another. The odour from the wicker bottle (which has
somehow passed into Durdles’s keeping) soon intimates that the cork has
been taken out; but this is not ascertainable through the sense of sight,
since neither can descry the other. And yet, in talking, they turn to
one another, as though their faces could commune together.
‘This is good stuff, Mister Jarsper!’
‘It is very good stuff, I hope.—I bought it on purpose.’
‘They don’t show, you see, the old uns don’t, Mister Jarsper!’
‘It would be a more confused world than it is, if they could.’
‘Well, it _would_ lead towards a mixing of things,’ Durdles acquiesces:
pausing on the remark, as if the idea of ghosts had not previously
presented itself to him in a merely inconvenient light, domestically or
chronologically. ‘But do you think there may be Ghosts of other things,
though not of men and women?’
‘What things? Flower-beds and watering-pots? horses and harness?’
‘No. Sounds.’
‘What sounds?’
‘Cries.’
‘What cries do you mean? Chairs to mend?’
‘No. I mean screeches. Now I’ll tell you, Mr. Jarsper. Wait a bit till
I put the bottle right.’ Here the cork is evidently taken out again, and
replaced again. ‘There! _Now_ it’s right! This time last year, only a
few days later, I happened to have been doing what was correct by the
season, in the way of giving it the welcome it had a right to expect,
when them town-boys set on me at their worst. At length I gave ’em the
slip, and turned in here. And here I fell asleep. And what woke me?
The ghost of a cry. The ghost of one terrific shriek, which shriek was
followed by the ghost of the howl of a dog: a long, dismal, woeful howl,
such as a dog gives when a person’s dead. That was _my_ last Christmas
Eve.’
‘What do you mean?’ is the very abrupt, and, one might say, fierce
retort.
‘I mean that I made inquiries everywhere about, and, that no living ears
but mine heard either that cry or that howl. So I say they was both
ghosts; though why they came to me, I’ve never made out.’
‘I thought you were another kind of man,’ says Jasper, scornfully.
‘So I thought myself,’ answers Durdles with his usual composure; ‘and yet
I was picked out for it.’
Jasper had risen suddenly, when he asked him what he meant, and he now
says, ‘Come; we shall freeze here; lead the way.’
Durdles complies, not over-steadily; opens the door at the top of the
steps with the key he has already used; and so emerges on the Cathedral
level, in a passage at the side of the chancel. Here, the moonlight is
so very bright again that the colours of the nearest stained-glass window
are thrown upon their faces. The appearance of the unconscious Durdles,
holding the door open for his companion to follow, as if from the grave,
is ghastly enough, with a purple hand across his face, and a yellow
splash upon his brow; but he bears the close scrutiny of his companion in
an insensible way, although it is prolonged while the latter fumbles
among his pockets for a key confided to him that will open an iron gate,
so to enable them to pass to the staircase of the great tower.
‘That and the bottle are enough for you to carry,’ he says, giving it to
Durdles; ‘hand your bundle to me; I am younger and longer-winded than
you.’ Durdles hesitates for a moment between bundle and bottle; but
gives the preference to the bottle as being by far the better company,
and consigns the dry weight to his fellow-explorer.
Then they go up the winding staircase of the great tower, toilsomely,
turning and turning, and lowering their heads to avoid the stairs above,
or the rough stone pivot around which they twist. Durdles has lighted
his lantern, by drawing from the cold, hard wall a spark of that
mysterious fire which lurks in everything, and, guided by this speck,
they clamber up among the cobwebs and the dust. Their way lies through
strange places. Twice or thrice they emerge into level, low-arched
galleries, whence they can look down into the moon-lit nave; and where
Durdles, waving his lantern, waves the dim angels’ heads upon the corbels
of the roof, seeming to watch their progress. Anon they turn into
narrower and steeper staircases, and the night-air begins to blow upon
them, and the chirp of some startled jackdaw or frightened rook precedes
the heavy beating of wings in a confined space, and the beating down of
dust and straws upon their heads. At last, leaving their light behind a
stair—for it blows fresh up here—they look down on Cloisterham, fair to
see in the moonlight: its ruined habitations and sanctuaries of the dead,
at the tower’s base: its moss-softened red-tiled roofs and red-brick
houses of the living, clustered beyond: its river winding down from the
mist on the horizon, as though that were its source, and already heaving
with a restless knowledge of its approach towards the sea.
Once again, an unaccountable expedition this! Jasper (always moving
softly with no visible reason) contemplates the scene, and especially
that stillest part of it which the Cathedral overshadows. But he
contemplates Durdles quite as curiously, and Durdles is by times
conscious of his watchful eyes.
Only by times, because Durdles is growing drowsy. As aëronauts lighten
the load they carry, when they wish to rise, similarly Durdles has
lightened the wicker bottle in coming up. Snatches of sleep surprise him
on his legs, and stop him in his talk. A mild fit of calenture seizes
him, in which he deems that the ground so far below, is on a level with
the tower, and would as lief walk off the tower into the air as not.
Such is his state when they begin to come down. And as aëronauts make
themselves heavier when they wish to descend, similarly Durdles charges
himself with more liquid from the wicker bottle, that he may come down
the better.
The iron gate attained and locked—but not before Durdles has tumbled
twice, and cut an eyebrow open once—they descend into the crypt again,
with the intent of issuing forth as they entered. But, while returning
among those lanes of light, Durdles becomes so very uncertain, both of
foot and speech, that he half drops, half throws himself down, by one of
the heavy pillars, scarcely less heavy than itself, and indistinctly
appeals to his companion for forty winks of a second each.
‘If you will have it so, or must have it so,’ replies Jasper, ‘I’ll not
leave you here. Take them, while I walk to and fro.’
Durdles is asleep at once; and in his sleep he dreams a dream.
It is not much of a dream, considering the vast extent of the domains of
dreamland, and their wonderful productions; it is only remarkable for
being unusually restless and unusually real. He dreams of lying there,
asleep, and yet counting his companion’s footsteps as he walks to and
fro. He dreams that the footsteps die away into distance of time and of
space, and that something touches him, and that something falls from his
hand. Then something clinks and gropes about, and he dreams that he is
alone for so long a time, that the lanes of light take new directions as
the moon advances in her course. From succeeding unconsciousness he
passes into a dream of slow uneasiness from cold; and painfully awakes to
a perception of the lanes of light—really changed, much as he had
dreamed—and Jasper walking among them, beating his hands and feet.
‘Holloa!’ Durdles cries out, unmeaningly alarmed.
‘Awake at last?’ says Jasper, coming up to him. ‘Do you know that your
forties have stretched into thousands?’
‘No.’
‘They have though.’
‘What’s the time?’
‘Hark! The bells are going in the Tower!’
They strike four quarters, and then the great bell strikes.
‘Two!’ cries Durdles, scrambling up; ‘why didn’t you try to wake me,
Mister Jarsper?’
‘I did. I might as well have tried to wake the dead—your own family of
dead, up in the corner there.’
‘Did you touch me?’
‘Touch you! Yes. Shook you.’
As Durdles recalls that touching something in his dream, he looks down on
the pavement, and sees the key of the crypt door lying close to where he
himself lay.
‘I dropped you, did I?’ he says, picking it up, and recalling that part
of his dream. As he gathers himself up again into an upright position,
or into a position as nearly upright as he ever maintains, he is again
conscious of being watched by his companion.
‘Well?’ says Jasper, smiling, ‘are you quite ready? Pray don’t hurry.’
‘Let me get my bundle right, Mister Jarsper, and I’m with you.’ As he
ties it afresh, he is once more conscious that he is very narrowly
observed.
‘What do you suspect me of, Mister Jarsper?’ he asks, with drunken
displeasure. ‘Let them as has any suspicions of Durdles name ’em.’
‘I’ve no suspicions of you, my good Mr. Durdles; but I have suspicions
that my bottle was filled with something stiffer than either of us
supposed. And I also have suspicions,’ Jasper adds, taking it from the
pavement and turning it bottom upwards, ‘that it’s empty.’
Durdles condescends to laugh at this. Continuing to chuckle when his
laugh is over, as though remonstrant with himself on his drinking powers,
he rolls to the door and unlocks it. They both pass out, and Durdles
relocks it, and pockets his key.
‘A thousand thanks for a curious and interesting night,’ says Jasper,
giving him his hand; ‘you can make your own way home?’
‘I should think so!’ answers Durdles. ‘If you was to offer Durdles the
affront to show him his way home, he wouldn’t go home.
Durdles wouldn’t go home till morning;
And _then_ Durdles wouldn’t go home,
Durdles wouldn’t.’ This with the utmost defiance.
‘Good-night, then.’
‘Good-night, Mister Jarsper.’
Each is turning his own way, when a sharp whistle rends the silence, and
the jargon is yelped out:
Widdy widdy wen!
I—ket—ches—Im—out—ar—ter—ten.
Widdy widdy wy!
Then—E—don’t—go—then—I—shy—
Widdy Widdy Wake-cock warning!’
Instantly afterwards, a rapid fire of stones rattles at the Cathedral
wall, and the hideous small boy is beheld opposite, dancing in the
moonlight.
‘What! Is that baby-devil on the watch there!’ cries Jasper in a fury:
so quickly roused, and so violent, that he seems an older devil himself.
‘I shall shed the blood of that impish wretch! I know I shall do it!’
Regardless of the fire, though it hits him more than once, he rushes at
Deputy, collars him, and tries to bring him across. But Deputy is not to
be so easily brought across. With a diabolical insight into the
strongest part of his position, he is no sooner taken by the throat than
he curls up his legs, forces his assailant to hang him, as it were, and
gurgles in his throat, and screws his body, and twists, as already
undergoing the first agonies of strangulation. There is nothing for it
but to drop him. He instantly gets himself together, backs over to
Durdles, and cries to his assailant, gnashing the great gap in front of
his mouth with rage and malice:
‘I’ll blind yer, s’elp me! I’ll stone yer eyes out, s’elp me! If I
don’t have yer eyesight, bellows me!’ At the same time dodging behind
Durdles, and snarling at Jasper, now from this side of him, and now from
that: prepared, if pounced upon, to dart away in all manner of
curvilinear directions, and, if run down after all, to grovel in the
dust, and cry: ‘Now, hit me when I’m down! Do it!’
‘Don’t hurt the boy, Mister Jarsper,’ urges Durdles, shielding him.
‘Recollect yourself.’
‘He followed us to-night, when we first came here!’
‘Yer lie, I didn’t!’ replies Deputy, in his one form of polite
contradiction.
‘He has been prowling near us ever since!’
‘Yer lie, I haven’t,’ returns Deputy. ‘I’d only jist come out for my
’elth when I see you two a-coming out of the Kin-freederel. If
I—ket—ches—Im—out—ar—ter—ten!’
(with the usual rhythm and dance, though dodging behind Durdles), ‘it
ain’t _any_ fault, is it?’
‘Take him home, then,’ retorts Jasper, ferociously, though with a strong
check upon himself, ‘and let my eyes be rid of the sight of you!’
Deputy, with another sharp whistle, at once expressing his relief, and
his commencement of a milder stoning of Mr. Durdles, begins stoning that
respectable gentleman home, as if he were a reluctant ox. Mr. Jasper
goes to his gatehouse, brooding. And thus, as everything comes to an
end, the unaccountable expedition comes to an end—for the time.
CHAPTER XIII—BOTH AT THEIR BEST
Miss Twinkleton’s establishment was about to undergo a serene hush. The
Christmas recess was at hand. What had once, and at no remote period,
been called, even by the erudite Miss Twinkleton herself, ‘the half;’ but
what was now called, as being more elegant, and more strictly collegiate,
‘the term,’ would expire to-morrow. A noticeable relaxation of
discipline had for some few days pervaded the Nuns’ House. Club suppers
had occurred in the bedrooms, and a dressed tongue had been carved with a
pair of scissors, and handed round with the curling tongs. Portions of
marmalade had likewise been distributed on a service of plates
constructed of curlpaper; and cowslip wine had been quaffed from the
small squat measuring glass in which little Rickitts (a junior of weakly
constitution) took her steel drops daily. The housemaids had been bribed
with various fragments of riband, and sundry pairs of shoes more or less
down at heel, to make no mention of crumbs in the beds; the airiest
costumes had been worn on these festive occasions; and the daring Miss
Ferdinand had even surprised the company with a sprightly solo on the
comb-and-curlpaper, until suffocated in her own pillow by two
flowing-haired executioners.
Nor were these the only tokens of dispersal. Boxes appeared in the
bedrooms (where they were capital at other times), and a surprising
amount of packing took place, out of all proportion to the amount packed.
Largess, in the form of odds and ends of cold cream and pomatum, and also
of hairpins, was freely distributed among the attendants. On charges of
inviolable secrecy, confidences were interchanged respecting golden youth
of England expected to call, ‘at home,’ on the first opportunity. Miss
Giggles (deficient in sentiment) did indeed profess that she, for her
part, acknowledged such homage by making faces at the golden youth; but
this young lady was outvoted by an immense majority.
On the last night before a recess, it was always expressly made a point
of honour that nobody should go to sleep, and that Ghosts should be
encouraged by all possible means. This compact invariably broke down,
and all the young ladies went to sleep very soon, and got up very early.
The concluding ceremony came off at twelve o’clock on the day of
departure; when Miss Twinkleton, supported by Mrs. Tisher, held a
drawing-room in her own apartment (the globes already covered with brown
Holland), where glasses of white-wine and plates of cut pound-cake were
discovered on the table. Miss Twinkleton then said: Ladies, another
revolving year had brought us round to that festive period at which the
first feelings of our nature bounded in our—Miss Twinkleton was annually
going to add ‘bosoms,’ but annually stopped on the brink of that
expression, and substituted ‘hearts.’ Hearts; our hearts. Hem! Again a
revolving year, ladies, had brought us to a pause in our studies—let us
hope our greatly advanced studies—and, like the mariner in his bark, the
warrior in his tent, the captive in his dungeon, and the traveller in his
various conveyances, we yearned for home. Did we say, on such an
occasion, in the opening words of Mr. Addison’s impressive tragedy:
‘The dawn is overcast, the morning lowers,
And heavily in clouds brings on the day,
The great, th’ important day—?’
Not so. From horizon to zenith all was _couleur de rose_, for all was
redolent of our relations and friends. Might _we_ find _them_ prospering
as _we_ expected; might _they_ find _us_ prospering as _they_ expected!
Ladies, we would now, with our love to one another, wish one another
good-bye, and happiness, until we met again. And when the time should
come for our resumption of those pursuits which (here a general
depression set in all round), pursuits which, pursuits which;—then let us
ever remember what was said by the Spartan General, in words too trite
for repetition, at the battle it were superfluous to specify.
The handmaidens of the establishment, in their best caps, then handed the
trays, and the young ladies sipped and crumbled, and the bespoken coaches
began to choke the street. Then leave-taking was not long about; and
Miss Twinkleton, in saluting each young lady’s cheek, confided to her an
exceedingly neat letter, addressed to her next friend at law, ‘with Miss
Twinkleton’s best compliments’ in the corner. This missive she handed
with an air as if it had not the least connexion with the bill, but were
something in the nature of a delicate and joyful surprise.
So many times had Rosa seen such dispersals, and so very little did she
know of any other Home, that she was contented to remain where she was,
and was even better contented than ever before, having her latest friend
with her. And yet her latest friendship had a blank place in it of which
she could not fail to be sensible. Helena Landless, having been a party
to her brother’s revelation about Rosa, and having entered into that
compact of silence with Mr. Crisparkle, shrank from any allusion to Edwin
Drood’s name. Why she so avoided it, was mysterious to Rosa, but she
perfectly perceived the fact. But for the fact, she might have relieved
her own little perplexed heart of some of its doubts and hesitations, by
taking Helena into her confidence. As it was, she had no such vent: she
could only ponder on her own difficulties, and wonder more and more why
this avoidance of Edwin’s name should last, now that she knew—for so much
Helena had told her—that a good understanding was to be reëstablished
between the two young men, when Edwin came down.
It would have made a pretty picture, so many pretty girls kissing Rosa in
the cold porch of the Nuns’ House, and that sunny little creature peeping
out of it (unconscious of sly faces carved on spout and gable peeping at
her), and waving farewells to the departing coaches, as if she
represented the spirit of rosy youth abiding in the place to keep it
bright and warm in its desertion. The hoarse High Street became musical
with the cry, in various silvery voices, ‘Good-bye, Rosebud darling!’ and
the effigy of Mr. Sapsea’s father over the opposite doorway seemed to say
to mankind: ‘Gentlemen, favour me with your attention to this charming
little last lot left behind, and bid with a spirit worthy of the
occasion!’ Then the staid street, so unwontedly sparkling, youthful, and
fresh for a few rippling moments, ran dry, and Cloisterham was itself
again.
[Picture: “Good-bye, Rosebud darling”]
If Rosebud in her bower now waited Edwin Drood’s coming with an uneasy
heart, Edwin for his part was uneasy too. With far less force of purpose
in his composition than the childish beauty, crowned by acclamation fairy
queen of Miss Twinkleton’s establishment, he had a conscience, and Mr.
Grewgious had pricked it. That gentleman’s steady convictions of what
was right and what was wrong in such a case as his, were neither to be
frowned aside nor laughed aside. They would not be moved. But for the
dinner in Staple Inn, and but for the ring he carried in the breast
pocket of his coat, he would have drifted into their wedding-day without
another pause for real thought, loosely trusting that all would go well,
left alone. But that serious putting him on his truth to the living and
the dead had brought him to a check. He must either give the ring to
Rosa, or he must take it back. Once put into this narrowed way of
action, it was curious that he began to consider Rosa’s claims upon him
more unselfishly than he had ever considered them before, and began to be
less sure of himself than he had ever been in all his easy-going days.
‘I will be guided by what she says, and by how we get on,’ was his
decision, walking from the gatehouse to the Nuns’ House. ‘Whatever comes
of it, I will bear his words in mind, and try to be true to the living
and the dead.’
Rosa was dressed for walking. She expected him. It was a bright, frosty
day, and Miss Twinkleton had already graciously sanctioned fresh air.
Thus they got out together before it became necessary for either Miss
Twinkleton, or the deputy high-priest Mrs. Tisher, to lay even so much as
one of those usual offerings on the shrine of Propriety.
‘My dear Eddy,’ said Rosa, when they had turned out of the High Street,
and had got among the quiet walks in the neighbourhood of the Cathedral
and the river: ‘I want to say something very serious to you. I have been
thinking about it for a long, long time.’
‘I want to be serious with you too, Rosa dear. I mean to be serious and
earnest.’
‘Thank you, Eddy. And you will not think me unkind because I begin, will
you? You will not think I speak for myself only, because I speak first?
That would not be generous, would it? And I know you are generous!’
He said, ‘I hope I am not ungenerous to you, Rosa.’ He called her Pussy
no more. Never again.
‘And there is no fear,’ pursued Rosa, ‘of our quarrelling, is there?
Because, Eddy,’ clasping her hand on his arm, ‘we have so much reason to
be very lenient to each other!’
‘We will be, Rosa.’
‘That’s a dear good boy! Eddy, let us be courageous. Let us change to
brother and sister from this day forth.’
‘Never be husband and wife?’
‘Never!’
Neither spoke again for a little while. But after that pause he said,
with some effort:
‘Of course I know that this has been in both our minds, Rosa, and of
course I am in honour bound to confess freely that it does not originate
with you.’
‘No, nor with you, dear,’ she returned, with pathetic earnestness. ‘That
sprung up between us. You are not truly happy in our engagement; I am
not truly happy in it. O, I am so sorry, so sorry!’ And there she broke
into tears.
‘I am deeply sorry too, Rosa. Deeply sorry for you.’
‘And I for you, poor boy! And I for you!’
This pure young feeling, this gentle and forbearing feeling of each
towards the other, brought with it its reward in a softening light that
seemed to shine on their position. The relations between them did not
look wilful, or capricious, or a failure, in such a light; they became
elevated into something more self-denying, honourable, affectionate, and
true.
‘If we knew yesterday,’ said Rosa, as she dried her eyes, ‘and we did
know yesterday, and on many, many yesterdays, that we were far from right
together in those relations which were not of our own choosing, what
better could we do to-day than change them? It is natural that we should
be sorry, and you see how sorry we both are; but how much better to be
sorry now than then!’
‘When, Rosa?’
‘When it would be too late. And then we should be angry, besides.’
Another silence fell upon them.
‘And you know,’ said Rosa innocently, ‘you couldn’t like me then; and you
can always like me now, for I shall not be a drag upon you, or a worry to
you. And I can always like you now, and your sister will not tease or
trifle with you. I often did when I was not your sister, and I beg your
pardon for it.’
‘Don’t let us come to that, Rosa; or I shall want more pardoning than I
like to think of.’
‘No, indeed, Eddy; you are too hard, my generous boy, upon yourself. Let
us sit down, brother, on these ruins, and let me tell you how it was with
us. I think I know, for I have considered about it very much since you
were here last time. You liked me, didn’t you? You thought I was a nice
little thing?’
‘Everybody thinks that, Rosa.’
‘Do they?’ She knitted her brow musingly for a moment, and then flashed
out with the bright little induction: ‘Well, but say they do. Surely it
was not enough that you should think of me only as other people did; now,
was it?’
The point was not to be got over. It was not enough.
‘And that is just what I mean; that is just how it was with us,’ said
Rosa. ‘You liked me very well, and you had grown used to me, and had
grown used to the idea of our being married. You accepted the situation
as an inevitable kind of thing, didn’t you? It was to be, you thought,
and why discuss or dispute it?’
It was new and strange to him to have himself presented to himself so
clearly, in a glass of her holding up. He had always patronised her, in
his superiority to her share of woman’s wit. Was that but another
instance of something radically amiss in the terms on which they had been
gliding towards a life-long bondage?
‘All this that I say of you is true of me as well, Eddy. Unless it was,
I might not be bold enough to say it. Only, the difference between us
was, that by little and little there crept into my mind a habit of
thinking about it, instead of dismissing it. My life is not so busy as
yours, you see, and I have not so many things to think of. So I thought
about it very much, and I cried about it very much too (though that was
not your fault, poor boy); when all at once my guardian came down, to
prepare for my leaving the Nuns’ House. I tried to hint to him that I
was not quite settled in my mind, but I hesitated and failed, and he
didn’t understand me. But he is a good, good man. And he put before me
so kindly, and yet so strongly, how seriously we ought to consider, in
our circumstances, that I resolved to speak to you the next moment we
were alone and grave. And if I seemed to come to it easily just now,
because I came to it all at once, don’t think it was so really, Eddy, for
O, it was very, very hard, and O, I am very, very sorry!’
Her full heart broke into tears again. He put his arm about her waist,
and they walked by the river-side together.
‘Your guardian has spoken to me too, Rosa dear. I saw him before I left
London.’ His right hand was in his breast, seeking the ring; but he
checked it, as he thought: ‘If I am to take it back, why should I tell
her of it?’
‘And that made you more serious about it, didn’t it, Eddy? And if I had
not spoken to you, as I have, you would have spoken to me? I hope you
can tell me so? I don’t like it to be _all_ my doing, though it _is_ so
much better for us.’
‘Yes, I should have spoken; I should have put everything before you; I
came intending to do it. But I never could have spoken to you as you
have spoken to me, Rosa.’
‘Don’t say you mean so coldly or unkindly, Eddy, please, if you can help
it.’
‘I mean so sensibly and delicately, so wisely and affectionately.’
‘That’s my dear brother!’ She kissed his hand in a little rapture. ‘The
dear girls will be dreadfully disappointed,’ added Rosa, laughing, with
the dewdrops glistening in her bright eyes. ‘They have looked forward to
it so, poor pets!’
‘Ah! but I fear it will be a worse disappointment to Jack,’ said Edwin
Drood, with a start. ‘I never thought of Jack!’
Her swift and intent look at him as he said the words could no more be
recalled than a flash of lightning can. But it appeared as though she
would have instantly recalled it, if she could; for she looked down,
confused, and breathed quickly.
‘You don’t doubt its being a blow to Jack, Rosa?’
She merely replied, and that evasively and hurriedly: Why should she?
She had not thought about it. He seemed, to her, to have so little to do
with it.
‘My dear child! can you suppose that any one so wrapped up in
another—Mrs. Tope’s expression: not mine—as Jack is in me, could fail to
be struck all of a heap by such a sudden and complete change in my life?
I say sudden, because it will be sudden to _him_, you know.’
She nodded twice or thrice, and her lips parted as if she would have
assented. But she uttered no sound, and her breathing was no slower.
‘How shall I tell Jack?’ said Edwin, ruminating. If he had been less
occupied with the thought, he must have seen her singular emotion. ‘I
never thought of Jack. It must be broken to him, before the town-crier
knows it. I dine with the dear fellow to-morrow and next day—Christmas
Eve and Christmas Day—but it would never do to spoil his feast-days. He
always worries about me, and moddley-coddleys in the merest trifles. The
news is sure to overset him. How on earth shall this be broken to Jack?’
‘He must be told, I suppose?’ said Rosa.
‘My dear Rosa! who ought to be in our confidence, if not Jack?’
‘My guardian promised to come down, if I should write and ask him. I am
going to do so. Would you like to leave it to him?’
‘A bright idea!’ cried Edwin. ‘The other trustee. Nothing more natural.
He comes down, he goes to Jack, he relates what we have agreed upon, and
he states our case better than we could. He has already spoken feelingly
to you, he has already spoken feelingly to me, and he’ll put the whole
thing feelingly to Jack. That’s it! I am not a coward, Rosa, but to
tell you a secret, I am a little afraid of Jack.’
‘No, no! you are not afraid of him!’ cried Rosa, turning white, and
clasping her hands.
‘Why, sister Rosa, sister Rosa, what do you see from the turret?’ said
Edwin, rallying her. ‘My dear girl!’
‘You frightened me.’
‘Most unintentionally, but I am as sorry as if I had meant to do it.
Could you possibly suppose for a moment, from any loose way of speaking
of mine, that I was literally afraid of the dear fond fellow? What I
mean is, that he is subject to a kind of paroxysm, or fit—I saw him in it
once—and I don’t know but that so great a surprise, coming upon him
direct from me whom he is so wrapped up in, might bring it on perhaps.
Which—and this is the secret I was going to tell you—is another reason
for your guardian’s making the communication. He is so steady, precise,
and exact, that he will talk Jack’s thoughts into shape, in no time:
whereas with me Jack is always impulsive and hurried, and, I may say,
almost womanish.’
Rosa seemed convinced. Perhaps from her own very different point of view
of ‘Jack,’ she felt comforted and protected by the interposition of Mr.
Grewgious between herself and him.
And now, Edwin Drood’s right hand closed again upon the ring in its
little case, and again was checked by the consideration: ‘It is certain,
now, that I am to give it back to him; then why should I tell her of it?’
That pretty sympathetic nature which could be so sorry for him in the
blight of their childish hopes of happiness together, and could so
quietly find itself alone in a new world to weave fresh wreaths of such
flowers as it might prove to bear, the old world’s flowers being
withered, would be grieved by those sorrowful jewels; and to what
purpose? Why should it be? They were but a sign of broken joys and
baseless projects; in their very beauty they were (as the unlikeliest of
men had said) almost a cruel satire on the loves, hopes, plans, of
humanity, which are able to forecast nothing, and are so much brittle
dust. Let them be. He would restore them to her guardian when he came
down; he in his turn would restore them to the cabinet from which he had
unwillingly taken them; and there, like old letters or old vows, or other
records of old aspirations come to nothing, they would be disregarded,
until, being valuable, they were sold into circulation again, to repeat
their former round.
Let them be. Let them lie unspoken of, in his breast. However
distinctly or indistinctly he entertained these thoughts, he arrived at
the conclusion, Let them be. Among the mighty store of wonderful chains
that are for ever forging, day and night, in the vast iron-works of time
and circumstance, there was one chain forged in the moment of that small
conclusion, riveted to the foundations of heaven and earth, and gifted
with invincible force to hold and drag.
They walked on by the river. They began to speak of their separate
plans. He would quicken his departure from England, and she would remain
where she was, at least as long as Helena remained. The poor dear girls
should have their disappointment broken to them gently, and, as the first
preliminary, Miss Twinkleton should be confided in by Rosa, even in
advance of the reappearance of Mr. Grewgious. It should be made clear in
all quarters that she and Edwin were the best of friends. There had
never been so serene an understanding between them since they were first
affianced. And yet there was one reservation on each side; on hers, that
she intended through her guardian to withdraw herself immediately from
the tuition of her music-master; on his, that he did already entertain
some wandering speculations whether it might ever come to pass that he
would know more of Miss Landless.
The bright, frosty day declined as they walked and spoke together. The
sun dipped in the river far behind them, and the old city lay red before
them, as their walk drew to a close. The moaning water cast its seaweed
duskily at their feet, when they turned to leave its margin; and the
rooks hovered above them with hoarse cries, darker splashes in the
darkening air.
‘I will prepare Jack for my flitting soon,’ said Edwin, in a low voice,
‘and I will but see your guardian when he comes, and then go before they
speak together. It will be better done without my being by. Don’t you
think so?’
‘Yes.’
‘We know we have done right, Rosa?’
‘Yes.’
‘We know we are better so, even now?’
‘And shall be far, far better so by-and-by.’
Still there was that lingering tenderness in their hearts towards the old
positions they were relinquishing, that they prolonged their parting.
When they came among the elm-trees by the Cathedral, where they had last
sat together, they stopped as by consent, and Rosa raised her face to
his, as she had never raised it in the old days;—for they were old
already.
‘God bless you, dear! Good-bye!’
‘God bless you, dear! Good-bye!’
They kissed each other fervently.
‘Now, please take me home, Eddy, and let me be by myself.’
‘Don’t look round, Rosa,’ he cautioned her, as he drew her arm through
his, and led her away. ‘Didn’t you see Jack?’
‘No! Where?’
‘Under the trees. He saw us, as we took leave of each other. Poor
fellow! he little thinks we have parted. This will be a blow to him, I
am much afraid!’
She hurried on, without resting, and hurried on until they had passed
under the gatehouse into the street; once there, she asked:
‘Has he followed us? You can look without seeming to. Is he behind?’
‘No. Yes, he is! He has just passed out under the gateway. The dear,
sympathetic old fellow likes to keep us in sight. I am afraid he will be
bitterly disappointed!’
She pulled hurriedly at the handle of the hoarse old bell, and the gate
soon opened. Before going in, she gave him one last, wide, wondering
look, as if she would have asked him with imploring emphasis: ‘O! don’t
you understand?’ And out of that look he vanished from her view.
CHAPTER XIV—WHEN SHALL THESE THREE MEET AGAIN?
Christmas Eve in Cloisterham. A few strange faces in the streets; a few
other faces, half strange and half familiar, once the faces of
Cloisterham children, now the faces of men and women who come back from
the outer world at long intervals to find the city wonderfully shrunken
in size, as if it had not washed by any means well in the meanwhile. To
these, the striking of the Cathedral clock, and the cawing of the rooks
from the Cathedral tower, are like voices of their nursery time. To such
as these, it has happened in their dying hours afar off, that they have
imagined their chamber-floor to be strewn with the autumnal leaves fallen
from the elm-trees in the Close: so have the rustling sounds and fresh
scents of their earliest impressions revived when the circle of their
lives was very nearly traced, and the beginning and the end were drawing
close together.
Seasonable tokens are about. Red berries shine here and there in the
lattices of Minor Canon Corner; Mr. and Mrs. Tope are daintily sticking
sprigs of holly into the carvings and sconces of the Cathedral stalls, as
if they were sticking them into the coat-button-holes of the Dean and
Chapter. Lavish profusion is in the shops: particularly in the articles
of currants, raisins, spices, candied peel, and moist sugar. An unusual
air of gallantry and dissipation is abroad; evinced in an immense bunch
of mistletoe hanging in the greengrocer’s shop doorway, and a poor little
Twelfth Cake, culminating in the figure of a Harlequin—such a very poor
little Twelfth Cake, that one would rather called it a Twenty-fourth Cake
or a Forty-eighth Cake—to be raffled for at the pastrycook’s, terms one
shilling per member. Public amusements are not wanting. The Wax-Work
which made so deep an impression on the reflective mind of the Emperor of
China is to be seen by particular desire during Christmas Week only, on
the premises of the bankrupt livery-stable-keeper up the lane; and a new
grand comic Christmas pantomime is to be produced at the Theatre: the
latter heralded by the portrait of Signor Jacksonini the clown, saying
‘How do you do to-morrow?’ quite as large as life, and almost as
miserably. In short, Cloisterham is up and doing: though from this
description the High School and Miss Twinkleton’s are to be excluded.
From the former establishment the scholars have gone home, every one of
them in love with one of Miss Twinkleton’s young ladies (who knows
nothing about it); and only the handmaidens flutter occasionally in the
windows of the latter. It is noticed, by the bye, that these damsels
become, within the limits of decorum, more skittish when thus intrusted
with the concrete representation of their sex, than when dividing the
representation with Miss Twinkleton’s young ladies.
Three are to meet at the gatehouse to-night. How does each one of the
three get through the day?
* * * * *
Neville Landless, though absolved from his books for the time by Mr.
Crisparkle—whose fresh nature is by no means insensible to the charms of
a holiday—reads and writes in his quiet room, with a concentrated air,
until it is two hours past noon. He then sets himself to clearing his
table, to arranging his books, and to tearing up and burning his stray
papers. He makes a clean sweep of all untidy accumulations, puts all his
drawers in order, and leaves no note or scrap of paper undestroyed, save
such memoranda as bear directly on his studies. This done, he turns to
his wardrobe, selects a few articles of ordinary wear—among them, change
of stout shoes and socks for walking—and packs these in a knapsack. This
knapsack is new, and he bought it in the High Street yesterday. He also
purchased, at the same time and at the same place, a heavy walking-stick;
strong in the handle for the grip of the hand, and iron-shod. He tries
this, swings it, poises it, and lays it by, with the knapsack, on a
window-seat. By this time his arrangements are complete.
He dresses for going out, and is in the act of going—indeed has left his
room, and has met the Minor Canon on the staircase, coming out of his
bedroom upon the same story—when he turns back again for his
walking-stick, thinking he will carry it now. Mr. Crisparkle, who has
paused on the staircase, sees it in his hand on his immediately
reappearing, takes it from him, and asks him with a smile how he chooses
a stick?
‘Really I don’t know that I understand the subject,’ he answers. ‘I
chose it for its weight.’
‘Much too heavy, Neville; _much_ too heavy.’
‘To rest upon in a long walk, sir?’
‘Rest upon?’ repeats Mr. Crisparkle, throwing himself into pedestrian
form. ‘You don’t rest upon it; you merely balance with it.’
‘I shall know better, with practice, sir. I have not lived in a walking
country, you know.’
‘True,’ says Mr. Crisparkle. ‘Get into a little training, and we will
have a few score miles together. I should leave you nowhere now. Do you
come back before dinner?’
‘I think not, as we dine early.’
Mr. Crisparkle gives him a bright nod and a cheerful good-bye; expressing
(not without intention) absolute confidence and ease.
Neville repairs to the Nuns’ House, and requests that Miss Landless may
be informed that her brother is there, by appointment. He waits at the
gate, not even crossing the threshold; for he is on his parole not to put
himself in Rosa’s way.
His sister is at least as mindful of the obligation they have taken on
themselves as he can be, and loses not a moment in joining him. They
meet affectionately, avoid lingering there, and walk towards the upper
inland country.
‘I am not going to tread upon forbidden ground, Helena,’ says Neville,
when they have walked some distance and are turning; ‘you will understand
in another moment that I cannot help referring to—what shall I say?—my
infatuation.’
‘Had you not better avoid it, Neville? You know that I can hear
nothing.’
‘You can hear, my dear, what Mr. Crisparkle has heard, and heard with
approval.’
‘Yes; I can hear so much.’
‘Well, it is this. I am not only unsettled and unhappy myself, but I am
conscious of unsettling and interfering with other people. How do I know
that, but for my unfortunate presence, you, and—and—the rest of that
former party, our engaging guardian excepted, might be dining cheerfully
in Minor Canon Corner to-morrow? Indeed it probably would be so. I can
see too well that I am not high in the old lady’s opinion, and it is easy
to understand what an irksome clog I must be upon the hospitalities of
her orderly house—especially at this time of year—when I must be kept
asunder from this person, and there is such a reason for my not being
brought into contact with that person, and an unfavourable reputation has
preceded me with such another person; and so on. I have put this very
gently to Mr. Crisparkle, for you know his self-denying ways; but still I
have put it. What I have laid much greater stress upon at the same time
is, that I am engaged in a miserable struggle with myself, and that a
little change and absence may enable me to come through it the better.
So, the weather being bright and hard, I am going on a walking
expedition, and intend taking myself out of everybody’s way (my own
included, I hope) to-morrow morning.’
‘When to come back?’
‘In a fortnight.’
‘And going quite alone?’
‘I am much better without company, even if there were any one but you to
bear me company, my dear Helena.’
‘Mr. Crisparkle entirely agrees, you say?’
‘Entirely. I am not sure but that at first he was inclined to think it
rather a moody scheme, and one that might do a brooding mind harm. But
we took a moonlight walk last Monday night, to talk it over at leisure,
and I represented the case to him as it really is. I showed him that I
do want to conquer myself, and that, this evening well got over, it is
surely better that I should be away from here just now, than here. I
could hardly help meeting certain people walking together here, and that
could do no good, and is certainly not the way to forget. A fortnight
hence, that chance will probably be over, for the time; and when it again
arises for the last time, why, I can again go away. Farther, I really do
feel hopeful of bracing exercise and wholesome fatigue. You know that
Mr. Crisparkle allows such things their full weight in the preservation
of his own sound mind in his own sound body, and that his just spirit is
not likely to maintain one set of natural laws for himself and another
for me. He yielded to my view of the matter, when convinced that I was
honestly in earnest; and so, with his full consent, I start to-morrow
morning. Early enough to be not only out of the streets, but out of
hearing of the bells, when the good people go to church.’
Helena thinks it over, and thinks well of it. Mr. Crisparkle doing so,
she would do so; but she does originally, out of her own mind, think well
of it, as a healthy project, denoting a sincere endeavour and an active
attempt at self-correction. She is inclined to pity him, poor fellow,
for going away solitary on the great Christmas festival; but she feels it
much more to the purpose to encourage him. And she does encourage him.
He will write to her?
He will write to her every alternate day, and tell her all his
adventures.
Does he send clothes on in advance of him?
‘My dear Helena, no. Travel like a pilgrim, with wallet and staff. My
wallet—or my knapsack—is packed, and ready for strapping on; and here is
my staff!’
He hands it to her; she makes the same remark as Mr. Crisparkle, that it
is very heavy; and gives it back to him, asking what wood it is?
Iron-wood.
Up to this point he has been extremely cheerful. Perhaps, the having to
carry his case with her, and therefore to present it in its brightest
aspect, has roused his spirits. Perhaps, the having done so with
success, is followed by a revulsion. As the day closes in, and the
city-lights begin to spring up before them, he grows depressed.
‘I wish I were not going to this dinner, Helena.’
‘Dear Neville, is it worth while to care much about it? Think how soon
it will be over.’
‘How soon it will be over!’ he repeats gloomily. ‘Yes. But I don’t like
it.’
There may be a moment’s awkwardness, she cheeringly represents to him,
but it can only last a moment. He is quite sure of himself.
‘I wish I felt as sure of everything else, as I feel of myself,’ he
answers her.
‘How strangely you speak, dear! What do you mean?’
‘Helena, I don’t know. I only know that I don’t like it. What a strange
dead weight there is in the air!’
She calls his attention to those copperous clouds beyond the river, and
says that the wind is rising. He scarcely speaks again, until he takes
leave of her, at the gate of the Nuns’ House. She does not immediately
enter, when they have parted, but remains looking after him along the
street. Twice he passes the gatehouse, reluctant to enter. At length,
the Cathedral clock chiming one quarter, with a rapid turn he hurries in.
And so _he_ goes up the postern stair.
* * * * *
Edwin Drood passes a solitary day. Something of deeper moment than he
had thought, has gone out of his life; and in the silence of his own
chamber he wept for it last night. Though the image of Miss Landless
still hovers in the background of his mind, the pretty little
affectionate creature, so much firmer and wiser than he had supposed,
occupies its stronghold. It is with some misgiving of his own
unworthiness that he thinks of her, and of what they might have been to
one another, if he had been more in earnest some time ago; if he had set
a higher value on her; if, instead of accepting his lot in life as an
inheritance of course, he had studied the right way to its appreciation
and enhancement. And still, for all this, and though there is a sharp
heartache in all this, the vanity and caprice of youth sustain that
handsome figure of Miss Landless in the background of his mind.
That was a curious look of Rosa’s when they parted at the gate. Did it
mean that she saw below the surface of his thoughts, and down into their
twilight depths? Scarcely that, for it was a look of astonished and keen
inquiry. He decides that he cannot understand it, though it was
remarkably expressive.
As he only waits for Mr. Grewgious now, and will depart immediately after
having seen him, he takes a sauntering leave of the ancient city and its
neighbourhood. He recalls the time when Rosa and he walked here or
there, mere children, full of the dignity of being engaged. Poor
children! he thinks, with a pitying sadness.
Finding that his watch has stopped, he turns into the jeweller’s shop, to
have it wound and set. The jeweller is knowing on the subject of a
bracelet, which he begs leave to submit, in a general and quite aimless
way. It would suit (he considers) a young bride, to perfection;
especially if of a rather diminutive style of beauty. Finding the
bracelet but coldly looked at, the jeweller invites attention to a tray
of rings for gentlemen; here is a style of ring, now, he remarks—a very
chaste signet—which gentlemen are much given to purchasing, when changing
their condition. A ring of a very responsible appearance. With the date
of their wedding-day engraved inside, several gentlemen have preferred it
to any other kind of memento.
The rings are as coldly viewed as the bracelet. Edwin tells the tempter
that he wears no jewellery but his watch and chain, which were his
father’s; and his shirt-pin.
‘That I was aware of,’ is the jeweller’s reply, ‘for Mr. Jasper dropped
in for a watch-glass the other day, and, in fact, I showed these articles
to him, remarking that if he _should_ wish to make a present to a
gentleman relative, on any particular occasion—But he said with a smile
that he had an inventory in his mind of all the jewellery his gentleman
relative ever wore; namely, his watch and chain, and his shirt-pin.’
Still (the jeweller considers) that might not apply to all times, though
applying to the present time. ‘Twenty minutes past two, Mr. Drood, I set
your watch at. Let me recommend you not to let it run down, sir.’
Edwin takes his watch, puts it on, and goes out, thinking: ‘Dear old
Jack! If I were to make an extra crease in my neckcloth, he would think
it worth noticing!’
He strolls about and about, to pass the time until the dinner-hour. It
somehow happens that Cloisterham seems reproachful to him to-day; has
fault to find with him, as if he had not used it well; but is far more
pensive with him than angry. His wonted carelessness is replaced by a
wistful looking at, and dwelling upon, all the old landmarks. He will
soon be far away, and may never see them again, he thinks. Poor youth!
Poor youth!
As dusk draws on, he paces the Monks’ Vineyard. He has walked to and
fro, full half an hour by the Cathedral chimes, and it has closed in
dark, before he becomes quite aware of a woman crouching on the ground
near a wicket gate in a corner. The gate commands a cross bye-path,
little used in the gloaming; and the figure must have been there all the
time, though he has but gradually and lately made it out.
He strikes into that path, and walks up to the wicket. By the light of a
lamp near it, he sees that the woman is of a haggard appearance, and that
her weazen chin is resting on her hands, and that her eyes are
staring—with an unwinking, blind sort of steadfastness—before her.
Always kindly, but moved to be unusually kind this evening, and having
bestowed kind words on most of the children and aged people he has met,
he at once bends down, and speaks to this woman.
‘Are you ill?’
‘No, deary,’ she answers, without looking at him, and with no departure
from her strange blind stare.
‘Are you blind?’
‘No, deary.’
‘Are you lost, homeless, faint? What is the matter, that you stay here
in the cold so long, without moving?’
By slow and stiff efforts, she appears to contract her vision until it
can rest upon him; and then a curious film passes over her, and she
begins to shake.
He straightens himself, recoils a step, and looks down at her in a dread
amazement; for he seems to know her.
‘Good Heaven!’ he thinks, next moment. ‘Like Jack that night!’
As he looks down at her, she looks up at him, and whimpers: ‘My lungs is
weakly; my lungs is dreffle bad. Poor me, poor me, my cough is rattling
dry!’ and coughs in confirmation horribly.
‘Where do you come from?’
‘Come from London, deary.’ (Her cough still rending her.)
‘Where are you going to?’
‘Back to London, deary. I came here, looking for a needle in a haystack,
and I ain’t found it. Look’ee, deary; give me three-and-sixpence, and
don’t you be afeard for me. I’ll get back to London then, and trouble no
one. I’m in a business.—Ah, me! It’s slack, it’s slack, and times is
very bad!—but I can make a shift to live by it.’
‘Do you eat opium?’
‘Smokes it,’ she replies with difficulty, still racked by her cough.
‘Give me three-and-sixpence, and I’ll lay it out well, and get back. If
you don’t give me three-and-sixpence, don’t give me a brass farden. And
if you do give me three-and-sixpence, deary, I’ll tell you something.’
He counts the money from his pocket, and puts it in her hand. She
instantly clutches it tight, and rises to her feet with a croaking laugh
of satisfaction.
‘Bless ye! Hark’ee, dear genl’mn. What’s your Chris’en name?’
‘Edwin.’
‘Edwin, Edwin, Edwin,’ she repeats, trailing off into a drowsy repetition
of the word; and then asks suddenly: ‘Is the short of that name Eddy?’
‘It is sometimes called so,’ he replies, with the colour starting to his
face.
‘Don’t sweethearts call it so?’ she asks, pondering.
‘How should I know?’
‘Haven’t you a sweetheart, upon your soul?’
‘None.’
She is moving away, with another ‘Bless ye, and thank’ee, deary!’ when he
adds: ‘You were to tell me something; you may as well do so.’
‘So I was, so I was. Well, then. Whisper. You be thankful that your
name ain’t Ned.’
He looks at her quite steadily, as he asks: ‘Why?’
‘Because it’s a bad name to have just now.’
‘How a bad name?’
‘A threatened name. A dangerous name.’
‘The proverb says that threatened men live long,’ he tells her, lightly.
‘Then Ned—so threatened is he, wherever he may be while I am a-talking to
you, deary—should live to all eternity!’ replies the woman.
She has leaned forward to say it in his ear, with her forefinger shaking
before his eyes, and now huddles herself together, and with another
‘Bless ye, and thank’ee!’ goes away in the direction of the Travellers’
Lodging House.
This is not an inspiriting close to a dull day. Alone, in a sequestered
place, surrounded by vestiges of old time and decay, it rather has a
tendency to call a shudder into being. He makes for the better-lighted
streets, and resolves as he walks on to say nothing of this to-night, but
to mention it to Jack (who alone calls him Ned), as an odd coincidence,
to-morrow; of course only as a coincidence, and not as anything better
worth remembering.
Still, it holds to him, as many things much better worth remembering
never did. He has another mile or so, to linger out before the
dinner-hour; and, when he walks over the bridge and by the river, the
woman’s words are in the rising wind, in the angry sky, in the troubled
water, in the flickering lights. There is some solemn echo of them even
in the Cathedral chime, which strikes a sudden surprise to his heart as
he turns in under the archway of the gatehouse.
And so _he_ goes up the postern stair.
* * * * *
John Jasper passes a more agreeable and cheerful day than either of his
guests. Having no music-lessons to give in the holiday season, his time
is his own, but for the Cathedral services. He is early among the
shopkeepers, ordering little table luxuries that his nephew likes. His
nephew will not be with him long, he tells his provision-dealers, and so
must be petted and made much of. While out on his hospitable
preparations, he looks in on Mr. Sapsea; and mentions that dear Ned, and
that inflammable young spark of Mr. Crisparkle’s, are to dine at the
gatehouse to-day, and make up their difference. Mr. Sapsea is by no
means friendly towards the inflammable young spark. He says that his
complexion is ‘Un-English.’ And when Mr. Sapsea has once declared
anything to be Un-English, he considers that thing everlastingly sunk in
the bottomless pit.
John Jasper is truly sorry to hear Mr. Sapsea speak thus, for he knows
right well that Mr. Sapsea never speaks without a meaning, and that he
has a subtle trick of being right. Mr. Sapsea (by a very remarkable
coincidence) is of exactly that opinion.
Mr. Jasper is in beautiful voice this day. In the pathetic supplication
to have his heart inclined to keep this law, he quite astonishes his
fellows by his melodious power. He has never sung difficult music with
such skill and harmony, as in this day’s Anthem. His nervous temperament
is occasionally prone to take difficult music a little too quickly;
to-day, his time is perfect.
These results are probably attained through a grand composure of the
spirits. The mere mechanism of his throat is a little tender, for he
wears, both with his singing-robe and with his ordinary dress, a large
black scarf of strong close-woven silk, slung loosely round his neck.
But his composure is so noticeable, that Mr. Crisparkle speaks of it as
they come out from Vespers.
‘I must thank you, Jasper, for the pleasure with which I have heard you
to-day. Beautiful! Delightful! You could not have so outdone yourself,
I hope, without being wonderfully well.’
‘I _am_ wonderfully well.’
‘Nothing unequal,’ says the Minor Canon, with a smooth motion of his
hand: ‘nothing unsteady, nothing forced, nothing avoided; all thoroughly
done in a masterly manner, with perfect self-command.’
‘Thank you. I hope so, if it is not too much to say.’
‘One would think, Jasper, you had been trying a new medicine for that
occasional indisposition of yours.’
‘No, really? That’s well observed; for I have.’
‘Then stick to it, my good fellow,’ says Mr. Crisparkle, clapping him on
the shoulder with friendly encouragement, ‘stick to it.’
‘I will.’
‘I congratulate you,’ Mr. Crisparkle pursues, as they come out of the
Cathedral, ‘on all accounts.’
‘Thank you again. I will walk round to the Corner with you, if you don’t
object; I have plenty of time before my company come; and I want to say a
word to you, which I think you will not be displeased to hear.’
‘What is it?’
‘Well. We were speaking, the other evening, of my black humours.’
Mr. Crisparkle’s face falls, and he shakes his head deploringly.
‘I said, you know, that I should make you an antidote to those black
humours; and you said you hoped I would consign them to the flames.’
‘And I still hope so, Jasper.’
‘With the best reason in the world! I mean to burn this year’s Diary at
the year’s end.’
‘Because you—?’ Mr. Crisparkle brightens greatly as he thus begins.
‘You anticipate me. Because I feel that I have been out of sorts,
gloomy, bilious, brain-oppressed, whatever it may be. You said I had
been exaggerative. So I have.’
Mr. Crisparkle’s brightened face brightens still more.
‘I couldn’t see it then, because I _was_ out of sorts; but I am in a
healthier state now, and I acknowledge it with genuine pleasure. I made
a great deal of a very little; that’s the fact.’
‘It does me good,’ cries Mr. Crisparkle, ‘to hear you say it!’
‘A man leading a monotonous life,’ Jasper proceeds, ‘and getting his
nerves, or his stomach, out of order, dwells upon an idea until it loses
its proportions. That was my case with the idea in question. So I shall
burn the evidence of my case, when the book is full, and begin the next
volume with a clearer vision.’
‘This is better,’ says Mr. Crisparkle, stopping at the steps of his own
door to shake hands, ‘than I could have hoped.’
‘Why, naturally,’ returns Jasper. ‘You had but little reason to hope
that I should become more like yourself. You are always training
yourself to be, mind and body, as clear as crystal, and you always are,
and never change; whereas I am a muddy, solitary, moping weed. However,
I have got over that mope. Shall I wait, while you ask if Mr. Neville
has left for my place? If not, he and I may walk round together.’
‘I think,’ says Mr. Crisparkle, opening the entrance-door with his key,
‘that he left some time ago; at least I know he left, and I think he has
not come back. But I’ll inquire. You won’t come in?’
‘My company wait,’ said Jasper, with a smile.
The Minor Canon disappears, and in a few moments returns. As he thought,
Mr. Neville has not come back; indeed, as he remembers now, Mr. Neville
said he would probably go straight to the gatehouse.
‘Bad manners in a host!’ says Jasper. ‘My company will be there before
me! What will you bet that I don’t find my company embracing?’
‘I will bet—or I would, if ever I did bet,’ returns Mr. Crisparkle, ‘that
your company will have a gay entertainer this evening.’
Jasper nods, and laughs good-night!
He retraces his steps to the Cathedral door, and turns down past it to
the gatehouse. He sings, in a low voice and with delicate expression, as
he walks along. It still seems as if a false note were not within his
power to-night, and as if nothing could hurry or retard him. Arriving
thus under the arched entrance of his dwelling, he pauses for an instant
in the shelter to pull off that great black scarf, and bang it in a loop
upon his arm. For that brief time, his face is knitted and stern. But
it immediately clears, as he resumes his singing, and his way.
And so _he_ goes up the postern stair.
* * * * *
The red light burns steadily all the evening in the lighthouse on the
margin of the tide of busy life. Softened sounds and hum of traffic pass
it and flow on irregularly into the lonely Precincts; but very little
else goes by, save violent rushes of wind. It comes on to blow a
boisterous gale.
The Precincts are never particularly well lighted; but the strong blasts
of wind blowing out many of the lamps (in some instances shattering the
frames too, and bringing the glass rattling to the ground), they are
unusually dark to-night. The darkness is augmented and confused, by
flying dust from the earth, dry twigs from the trees, and great ragged
fragments from the rooks’ nests up in the tower. The trees themselves so
toss and creak, as this tangible part of the darkness madly whirls about,
that they seem in peril of being torn out of the earth: while ever and
again a crack, and a rushing fall, denote that some large branch has
yielded to the storm.
Not such power of wind has blown for many a winter night. Chimneys
topple in the streets, and people hold to posts and corners, and to one
another, to keep themselves upon their feet. The violent rushes abate
not, but increase in frequency and fury until at midnight, when the
streets are empty, the storm goes thundering along them, rattling at all
the latches, and tearing at all the shutters, as if warning the people to
get up and fly with it, rather than have the roofs brought down upon
their brains.
Still, the red light burns steadily. Nothing is steady but the red
light.
All through the night the wind blows, and abates not. But early in the
morning, when there is barely enough light in the east to dim the stars,
it begins to lull. From that time, with occasional wild charges, like a
wounded monster dying, it drops and sinks; and at full daylight it is
dead.
It is then seen that the hands of the Cathedral clock are torn off; that
lead from the roof has been stripped away, rolled up, and blown into the
Close; and that some stones have been displaced upon the summit of the
great tower. Christmas morning though it be, it is necessary to send up
workmen, to ascertain the extent of the damage done. These, led by
Durdles, go aloft; while Mr. Tope and a crowd of early idlers gather down
in Minor Canon Corner, shading their eyes and watching for their
appearance up there.
This cluster is suddenly broken and put aside by the hands of Mr. Jasper;
all the gazing eyes are brought down to the earth by his loudly inquiring
of Mr. Crisparkle, at an open window:
‘Where is my nephew?’
‘He has not been here. Is he not with you?’
‘No. He went down to the river last night, with Mr. Neville, to look at
the storm, and has not been back. Call Mr. Neville!’
‘He left this morning, early.’
‘Left this morning early? Let me in! let me in!’
There is no more looking up at the tower, now. All the assembled eyes
are turned on Mr. Jasper, white, half-dressed, panting, and clinging to
the rail before the Minor Canon’s house.
CHAPTER XV—IMPEACHED
Neville Landless had started so early and walked at so good a pace, that
when the church-bells began to ring in Cloisterham for morning service,
he was eight miles away. As he wanted his breakfast by that time, having
set forth on a crust of bread, he stopped at the next roadside tavern to
refresh.
Visitors in want of breakfast—unless they were horses or cattle, for
which class of guests there was preparation enough in the way of
water-trough and hay—were so unusual at the sign of The Tilted Wagon,
that it took a long time to get the wagon into the track of tea and toast
and bacon. Neville in the interval, sitting in a sanded parlour,
wondering in how long a time after he had gone, the sneezy fire of damp
fagots would begin to make somebody else warm.
Indeed, The Tilted Wagon, as a cool establishment on the top of a hill,
where the ground before the door was puddled with damp hoofs and trodden
straw; where a scolding landlady slapped a moist baby (with one red sock
on and one wanting), in the bar; where the cheese was cast aground upon a
shelf, in company with a mouldy tablecloth and a green-handled knife, in
a sort of cast-iron canoe; where the pale-faced bread shed tears of crumb
over its shipwreck in another canoe; where the family linen, half washed
and half dried, led a public life of lying about; where everything to
drink was drunk out of mugs, and everything else was suggestive of a
rhyme to mugs; The Tilted Wagon, all these things considered, hardly kept
its painted promise of providing good entertainment for Man and Beast.
However, Man, in the present case, was not critical, but took what
entertainment he could get, and went on again after a longer rest than he
needed.
He stopped at some quarter of a mile from the house, hesitating whether
to pursue the road, or to follow a cart track between two high hedgerows,
which led across the slope of a breezy heath, and evidently struck into
the road again by-and-by. He decided in favour of this latter track, and
pursued it with some toil; the rise being steep, and the way worn into
deep ruts.
He was labouring along, when he became aware of some other pedestrians
behind him. As they were coming up at a faster pace than his, he stood
aside, against one of the high banks, to let them pass. But their manner
was very curious. Only four of them passed. Other four slackened speed,
and loitered as intending to follow him when he should go on. The
remainder of the party (half-a-dozen perhaps) turned, and went back at a
great rate.
He looked at the four behind him, and he looked at the four before him.
They all returned his look. He resumed his way. The four in advance
went on, constantly looking back; the four in the rear came closing up.
When they all ranged out from the narrow track upon the open slope of the
heath, and this order was maintained, let him diverge as he would to
either side, there was no longer room to doubt that he was beset by these
fellows. He stopped, as a last test; and they all stopped.
‘Why do you attend upon me in this way?’ he asked the whole body. ‘Are
you a pack of thieves?’
‘Don’t answer him,’ said one of the number; he did not see which.
‘Better be quiet.’
‘Better be quiet?’ repeated Neville. ‘Who said so?’
Nobody replied.
‘It’s good advice, whichever of you skulkers gave it,’ he went on
angrily. ‘I will not submit to be penned in between four men there, and
four men there. I wish to pass, and I mean to pass, those four in
front.’
They were all standing still; himself included.
‘If eight men, or four men, or two men, set upon one,’ he proceeded,
growing more enraged, ‘the one has no chance but to set his mark upon
some of them. And, by the Lord, I’ll do it, if I am interrupted any
farther!’
Shouldering his heavy stick, and quickening his pace, he shot on to pass
the four ahead. The largest and strongest man of the number changed
swiftly to the side on which he came up, and dexterously closed with him
and went down with him; but not before the heavy stick had descended
smartly.
‘Let him be!’ said this man in a suppressed voice, as they struggled
together on the grass. ‘Fair play! His is the build of a girl to mine,
and he’s got a weight strapped to his back besides. Let him alone. I’ll
manage him.’
After a little rolling about, in a close scuffle which caused the faces
of both to be besmeared with blood, the man took his knee from Neville’s
chest, and rose, saying: ‘There! Now take him arm-in-arm, any two of
you!’
It was immediately done.
‘As to our being a pack of thieves, Mr. Landless,’ said the man, as he
spat out some blood, and wiped more from his face; ‘you know better than
that at midday. We wouldn’t have touched you if you hadn’t forced us.
We’re going to take you round to the high road, anyhow, and you’ll find
help enough against thieves there, if you want it.—Wipe his face,
somebody; see how it’s a-trickling down him!’
When his face was cleansed, Neville recognised in the speaker, Joe,
driver of the Cloisterham omnibus, whom he had seen but once, and that on
the day of his arrival.
‘And what I recommend you for the present, is, don’t talk, Mr. Landless.
You’ll find a friend waiting for you, at the high road—gone ahead by the
other way when we split into two parties—and you had much better say
nothing till you come up with him. Bring that stick along, somebody
else, and let’s be moving!’
Utterly bewildered, Neville stared around him and said not a word.
Walking between his two conductors, who held his arms in theirs, he went
on, as in a dream, until they came again into the high road, and into the
midst of a little group of people. The men who had turned back were
among the group; and its central figures were Mr. Jasper and Mr.
Crisparkle. Neville’s conductors took him up to the Minor Canon, and
there released him, as an act of deference to that gentleman.
‘What is all this, sir? What is the matter? I feel as if I had lost my
senses!’ cried Neville, the group closing in around him.
‘Where is my nephew?’ asked Mr. Jasper, wildly.
‘Where is your nephew?’ repeated Neville, ‘Why do you ask me?’
‘I ask you,’ retorted Jasper, ‘because you were the last person in his
company, and he is not to be found.’
‘Not to be found!’ cried Neville, aghast.
‘Stay, stay,’ said Mr. Crisparkle. ‘Permit me, Jasper. Mr. Neville, you
are confounded; collect your thoughts; it is of great importance that you
should collect your thoughts; attend to me.’
‘I will try, sir, but I seem mad.’
‘You left Mr. Jasper last night with Edwin Drood?’
‘Yes.’
‘At what hour?’
‘Was it at twelve o’clock?’ asked Neville, with his hand to his confused
head, and appealing to Jasper.
‘Quite right,’ said Mr. Crisparkle; ‘the hour Mr. Jasper has already
named to me. You went down to the river together?’
‘Undoubtedly. To see the action of the wind there.’
‘What followed? How long did you stay there?’
‘About ten minutes; I should say not more. We then walked together to
your house, and he took leave of me at the door.’
‘Did he say that he was going down to the river again?’
‘No. He said that he was going straight back.’
The bystanders looked at one another, and at Mr. Crisparkle. To whom Mr.
Jasper, who had been intensely watching Neville, said, in a low,
distinct, suspicious voice: ‘What are those stains upon his dress?’
All eyes were turned towards the blood upon his clothes.
‘And here are the same stains upon this stick!’ said Jasper, taking it
from the hand of the man who held it. ‘I know the stick to be his, and
he carried it last night. What does this mean?’
‘In the name of God, say what it means, Neville!’ urged Mr. Crisparkle.
‘That man and I,’ said Neville, pointing out his late adversary, ‘had a
struggle for the stick just now, and you may see the same marks on him,
sir. What was I to suppose, when I found myself molested by eight
people? Could I dream of the true reason when they would give me none at
all?’
They admitted that they had thought it discreet to be silent, and that
the struggle had taken place. And yet the very men who had seen it
looked darkly at the smears which the bright cold air had already dried.
‘We must return, Neville,’ said Mr. Crisparkle; ‘of course you will be
glad to come back to clear yourself?’
‘Of course, sir.’
‘Mr. Landless will walk at my side,’ the Minor Canon continued, looking
around him. ‘Come, Neville!’
They set forth on the walk back; and the others, with one exception,
straggled after them at various distances. Jasper walked on the other
side of Neville, and never quitted that position. He was silent, while
Mr. Crisparkle more than once repeated his former questions, and while
Neville repeated his former answers; also, while they both hazarded some
explanatory conjectures. He was obstinately silent, because Mr.
Crisparkle’s manner directly appealed to him to take some part in the
discussion, and no appeal would move his fixed face. When they drew near
to the city, and it was suggested by the Minor Canon that they might do
well in calling on the Mayor at once, he assented with a stern nod; but
he spake no word until they stood in Mr. Sapsea’s parlour.
Mr. Sapsea being informed by Mr. Crisparkle of the circumstances under
which they desired to make a voluntary statement before him, Mr. Jasper
broke silence by declaring that he placed his whole reliance, humanly
speaking, on Mr. Sapsea’s penetration. There was no conceivable reason
why his nephew should have suddenly absconded, unless Mr. Sapsea could
suggest one, and then he would defer. There was no intelligible
likelihood of his having returned to the river, and been accidentally
drowned in the dark, unless it should appear likely to Mr. Sapsea, and
then again he would defer. He washed his hands as clean as he could of
all horrible suspicions, unless it should appear to Mr. Sapsea that some
such were inseparable from his last companion before his disappearance
(not on good terms with previously), and then, once more, he would defer.
His own state of mind, he being distracted with doubts, and labouring
under dismal apprehensions, was not to be safely trusted; but Mr.
Sapsea’s was.
Mr. Sapsea expressed his opinion that the case had a dark look; in short
(and here his eyes rested full on Neville’s countenance), an Un-English
complexion. Having made this grand point, he wandered into a denser haze
and maze of nonsense than even a mayor might have been expected to
disport himself in, and came out of it with the brilliant discovery that
to take the life of a fellow-creature was to take something that didn’t
belong to you. He wavered whether or no he should at once issue his
warrant for the committal of Neville Landless to jail, under
circumstances of grave suspicion; and he might have gone so far as to do
it but for the indignant protest of the Minor Canon: who undertook for
the young man’s remaining in his own house, and being produced by his own
hands, whenever demanded. Mr. Jasper then understood Mr. Sapsea to
suggest that the river should be dragged, that its banks should be
rigidly examined, that particulars of the disappearance should be sent to
all outlying places and to London, and that placards and advertisements
should be widely circulated imploring Edwin Drood, if for any unknown
reason he had withdrawn himself from his uncle’s home and society, to
take pity on that loving kinsman’s sore bereavement and distress, and
somehow inform him that he was yet alive. Mr. Sapsea was perfectly
understood, for this was exactly his meaning (though he had said nothing
about it); and measures were taken towards all these ends immediately.
It would be difficult to determine which was the more oppressed with
horror and amazement: Neville Landless, or John Jasper. But that
Jasper’s position forced him to be active, while Neville’s forced him to
be passive, there would have been nothing to choose between them. Each
was bowed down and broken.
With the earliest light of the next morning, men were at work upon the
river, and other men—most of whom volunteered for the service—were
examining the banks. All the livelong day the search went on; upon the
river, with barge and pole, and drag and net; upon the muddy and rushy
shore, with jack-boots, hatchet, spade, rope, dogs, and all imaginable
appliances. Even at night, the river was specked with lanterns, and
lurid with fires; far-off creeks, into which the tide washed as it
changed, had their knots of watchers, listening to the lapping of the
stream, and looking out for any burden it might bear; remote shingly
causeways near the sea, and lonely points off which there was a race of
water, had their unwonted flaring cressets and rough-coated figures when
the next day dawned; but no trace of Edwin Drood revisited the light of
the sun.
All that day, again, the search went on. Now, in barge and boat; and now
ashore among the osiers, or tramping amidst mud and stakes and jagged
stones in low-lying places, where solitary watermarks and signals of
strange shapes showed like spectres, John Jasper worked and toiled. But
to no purpose; for still no trace of Edwin Drood revisited the light of
the sun.
Setting his watches for that night again, so that vigilant eyes should be
kept on every change of tide, he went home exhausted. Unkempt and
disordered, bedaubed with mud that had dried upon him, and with much of
his clothing torn to rags, he had but just dropped into his easy-chair,
when Mr. Grewgious stood before him.
‘This is strange news,’ said Mr. Grewgious.
‘Strange and fearful news.’
Jasper had merely lifted up his heavy eyes to say it, and now dropped
them again as he drooped, worn out, over one side of his easy-chair.
Mr. Grewgious smoothed his head and face, and stood looking at the fire.
‘How is your ward?’ asked Jasper, after a time, in a faint, fatigued
voice.
‘Poor little thing! You may imagine her condition.’
‘Have you seen his sister?’ inquired Jasper, as before.
‘Whose?’
The curtness of the counter-question, and the cool, slow manner in which,
as he put it, Mr. Grewgious moved his eyes from the fire to his
companion’s face, might at any other time have been exasperating. In his
depression and exhaustion, Jasper merely opened his eyes to say: ‘The
suspected young man’s.’
‘Do you suspect him?’ asked Mr. Grewgious.
‘I don’t know what to think. I cannot make up my mind.’
‘Nor I,’ said Mr. Grewgious. ‘But as you spoke of him as the suspected
young man, I thought you _had_ made up your mind.—I have just left Miss
Landless.’
[Picture: Mr. Grewgious has his suspicions]
‘What is her state?’
‘Defiance of all suspicion, and unbounded faith in her brother.’
‘Poor thing!’
‘However,’ pursued Mr. Grewgious, ‘it is not of her that I came to speak.
It is of my ward. I have a communication to make that will surprise you.
At least, it has surprised me.’
Jasper, with a groaning sigh, turned wearily in his chair.
‘Shall I put it off till to-morrow?’ said Mr. Grewgious. ‘Mind, I warn
you, that I think it will surprise you!’
More attention and concentration came into John Jasper’s eyes as they
caught sight of Mr. Grewgious smoothing his head again, and again looking
at the fire; but now, with a compressed and determined mouth.
‘What is it?’ demanded Jasper, becoming upright in his chair.
‘To be sure,’ said Mr. Grewgious, provokingly slowly and internally, as
he kept his eyes on the fire: ‘I might have known it sooner; she gave me
the opening; but I am such an exceedingly Angular man, that it never
occurred to me; I took all for granted.’
‘What is it?’ demanded Jasper once more.
Mr. Grewgious, alternately opening and shutting the palms of his hands as
he warmed them at the fire, and looking fixedly at him sideways, and
never changing either his action or his look in all that followed, went
on to reply.
‘This young couple, the lost youth and Miss Rosa, my ward, though so long
betrothed, and so long recognising their betrothal, and so near being
married—’
Mr. Grewgious saw a staring white face, and two quivering white lips, in
the easy-chair, and saw two muddy hands gripping its sides. But for the
hands, he might have thought he had never seen the face.
‘—This young couple came gradually to the discovery (made on both sides
pretty equally, I think), that they would be happier and better, both in
their present and their future lives, as affectionate friends, or say
rather as brother and sister, than as husband and wife.’
Mr. Grewgious saw a lead-coloured face in the easy-chair, and on its
surface dreadful starting drops or bubbles, as if of steel.
‘This young couple formed at length the healthy resolution of
interchanging their discoveries, openly, sensibly, and tenderly. They
met for that purpose. After some innocent and generous talk, they agreed
to dissolve their existing, and their intended, relations, for ever and
ever.’
Mr. Grewgious saw a ghastly figure rise, open-mouthed, from the
easy-chair, and lift its outspread hands towards its head.
‘One of this young couple, and that one your nephew, fearful, however,
that in the tenderness of your affection for him you would be bitterly
disappointed by so wide a departure from his projected life, forbore to
tell you the secret, for a few days, and left it to be disclosed by me,
when I should come down to speak to you, and he would be gone. I speak
to you, and he is gone.’
Mr. Grewgious saw the ghastly figure throw back its head, clutch its hair
with its hands, and turn with a writhing action from him.
‘I have now said all I have to say: except that this young couple parted,
firmly, though not without tears and sorrow, on the evening when you last
saw them together.’
Mr. Grewgious heard a terrible shriek, and saw no ghastly figure, sitting
or standing; saw nothing but a heap of torn and miry clothes upon the
floor.
Not changing his action even then, he opened and shut the palms of his
hands as he warmed them, and looked down at it.
CHAPTER XVI—DEVOTED
When John Jasper recovered from his fit or swoon, he found himself being
tended by Mr. and Mrs. Tope, whom his visitor had summoned for the
purpose. His visitor, wooden of aspect, sat stiffly in a chair, with his
hands upon his knees, watching his recovery.
‘There! You’ve come to nicely now, sir,’ said the tearful Mrs. Tope;
‘you were thoroughly worn out, and no wonder!’
‘A man,’ said Mr. Grewgious, with his usual air of repeating a lesson,
‘cannot have his rest broken, and his mind cruelly tormented, and his
body overtaxed by fatigue, without being thoroughly worn out.’
‘I fear I have alarmed you?’ Jasper apologised faintly, when he was
helped into his easy-chair.
‘Not at all, I thank you,’ answered Mr. Grewgious.
‘You are too considerate.’
‘Not at all, I thank you,’ answered Mr. Grewgious again.
‘You must take some wine, sir,’ said Mrs. Tope, ‘and the jelly that I had
ready for you, and that you wouldn’t put your lips to at noon, though I
warned you what would come of it, you know, and you not breakfasted; and
you must have a wing of the roast fowl that has been put back twenty
times if it’s been put back once. It shall all be on table in five
minutes, and this good gentleman belike will stop and see you take it.’
This good gentleman replied with a snort, which might mean yes, or no, or
anything or nothing, and which Mrs. Tope would have found highly
mystifying, but that her attention was divided by the service of the
table.
‘You will take something with me?’ said Jasper, as the cloth was laid.
‘I couldn’t get a morsel down my throat, I thank you,’ answered Mr.
Grewgious.
Jasper both ate and drank almost voraciously. Combined with the hurry in
his mode of doing it, was an evident indifference to the taste of what he
took, suggesting that he ate and drank to fortify himself against any
other failure of the spirits, far more than to gratify his palate. Mr.
Grewgious in the meantime sat upright, with no expression in his face,
and a hard kind of imperturbably polite protest all over him: as though
he would have said, in reply to some invitation to discourse; ‘I couldn’t
originate the faintest approach to an observation on any subject
whatever, I thank you.’
‘Do you know,’ said Jasper, when he had pushed away his plate and glass,
and had sat meditating for a few minutes: ‘do you know that I find some
crumbs of comfort in the communication with which you have so much amazed
me?’
‘_Do_ you?’ returned Mr. Grewgious, pretty plainly adding the unspoken
clause: ‘I don’t, I thank you!’
‘After recovering from the shock of a piece of news of my dear boy, so
entirely unexpected, and so destructive of all the castles I had built
for him; and after having had time to think of it; yes.’
‘I shall be glad to pick up your crumbs,’ said Mr. Grewgious, dryly.
‘Is there not, or is there—if I deceive myself, tell me so, and shorten
my pain—is there not, or is there, hope that, finding himself in this new
position, and becoming sensitively alive to the awkward burden of
explanation, in this quarter, and that, and the other, with which it
would load him, he avoided the awkwardness, and took to flight?’
‘Such a thing might be,’ said Mr. Grewgious, pondering.
‘Such a thing has been. I have read of cases in which people, rather
than face a seven days’ wonder, and have to account for themselves to the
idle and impertinent, have taken themselves away, and been long unheard
of.’
‘I believe such things have happened,’ said Mr. Grewgious, pondering
still.
‘When I had, and could have, no suspicion,’ pursued Jasper, eagerly
following the new track, ‘that the dear lost boy had withheld anything
from me—most of all, such a leading matter as this—what gleam of light
was there for me in the whole black sky? When I supposed that his
intended wife was here, and his marriage close at hand, how could I
entertain the possibility of his voluntarily leaving this place, in a
manner that would be so unaccountable, capricious, and cruel? But now
that I know what you have told me, is there no little chink through which
day pierces? Supposing him to have disappeared of his own act, is not
his disappearance more accountable and less cruel? The fact of his
having just parted from your ward, is in itself a sort of reason for his
going away. It does not make his mysterious departure the less cruel to
me, it is true; but it relieves it of cruelty to her.’
Mr. Grewgious could not but assent to this.
‘And even as to me,’ continued Jasper, still pursuing the new track, with
ardour, and, as he did so, brightening with hope: ‘he knew that you were
coming to me; he knew that you were intrusted to tell me what you have
told me; if your doing so has awakened a new train of thought in my
perplexed mind, it reasonably follows that, from the same premises, he
might have foreseen the inferences that I should draw. Grant that he did
foresee them; and even the cruelty to me—and who am I!—John Jasper, Music
Master, vanishes!’—
Once more, Mr. Grewgious could not but assent to this.
‘I have had my distrusts, and terrible distrusts they have been,’ said
Jasper; ‘but your disclosure, overpowering as it was at first—showing me
that my own dear boy had had a great disappointing reservation from me,
who so fondly loved him, kindles hope within me. You do not extinguish
it when I state it, but admit it to be a reasonable hope. I begin to
believe it possible:’ here he clasped his hands: ‘that he may have
disappeared from among us of his own accord, and that he may yet be alive
and well.’
Mr. Crisparkle came in at the moment. To whom Mr. Jasper repeated:
‘I begin to believe it possible that he may have disappeared of his own
accord, and may yet be alive and well.’
Mr. Crisparkle taking a seat, and inquiring: ‘Why so?’ Mr. Jasper
repeated the arguments he had just set forth. If they had been less
plausible than they were, the good Minor Canon’s mind would have been in
a state of preparation to receive them, as exculpatory of his unfortunate
pupil. But he, too, did really attach great importance to the lost young
man’s having been, so immediately before his disappearance, placed in a
new and embarrassing relation towards every one acquainted with his
projects and affairs; and the fact seemed to him to present the question
in a new light.
‘I stated to Mr. Sapsea, when we waited on him,’ said Jasper: as he
really had done: ‘that there was no quarrel or difference between the two
young men at their last meeting. We all know that their first meeting
was unfortunately very far from amicable; but all went smoothly and
quietly when they were last together at my house. My dear boy was not in
his usual spirits; he was depressed—I noticed that—and I am bound
henceforth to dwell upon the circumstance the more, now that I know there
was a special reason for his being depressed: a reason, moreover, which
may possibly have induced him to absent himself.’
‘I pray to Heaven it may turn out so!’ exclaimed Mr. Crisparkle.
‘_I_ pray to Heaven it may turn out so!’ repeated Jasper. ‘You know—and
Mr. Grewgious should now know likewise—that I took a great prepossession
against Mr. Neville Landless, arising out of his furious conduct on that
first occasion. You know that I came to you, extremely apprehensive, on
my dear boy’s behalf, of his mad violence. You know that I even entered
in my Diary, and showed the entry to you, that I had dark forebodings
against him. Mr. Grewgious ought to be possessed of the whole case. He
shall not, through any suppression of mine, be informed of a part of it,
and kept in ignorance of another part of it. I wish him to be good
enough to understand that the communication he has made to me has
hopefully influenced my mind, in spite of its having been, before this
mysterious occurrence took place, profoundly impressed against young
Landless.’
This fairness troubled the Minor Canon much. He felt that he was not as
open in his own dealing. He charged against himself reproachfully that
he had suppressed, so far, the two points of a second strong outbreak of
temper against Edwin Drood on the part of Neville, and of the passion of
jealousy having, to his own certain knowledge, flamed up in Neville’s
breast against him. He was convinced of Neville’s innocence of any part
in the ugly disappearance; and yet so many little circumstances combined
so wofully against him, that he dreaded to add two more to their
cumulative weight. He was among the truest of men; but he had been
balancing in his mind, much to its distress, whether his volunteering to
tell these two fragments of truth, at this time, would not be tantamount
to a piecing together of falsehood in the place of truth.
However, here was a model before him. He hesitated no longer.
Addressing Mr. Grewgious, as one placed in authority by the revelation he
had brought to bear on the mystery (and surpassingly Angular Mr.
Grewgious became when he found himself in that unexpected position), Mr.
Crisparkle bore his testimony to Mr. Jasper’s strict sense of justice,
and, expressing his absolute confidence in the complete clearance of his
pupil from the least taint of suspicion, sooner or later, avowed that his
confidence in that young gentleman had been formed, in spite of his
confidential knowledge that his temper was of the hottest and fiercest,
and that it was directly incensed against Mr. Jasper’s nephew, by the
circumstance of his romantically supposing himself to be enamoured of the
same young lady. The sanguine reaction manifest in Mr. Jasper was proof
even against this unlooked-for declaration. It turned him paler; but he
repeated that he would cling to the hope he had derived from Mr.
Grewgious; and that if no trace of his dear boy were found, leading to
the dreadful inference that he had been made away with, he would cherish
unto the last stretch of possibility the idea, that he might have
absconded of his own wild will.
Now, it fell out that Mr. Crisparkle, going away from this conference
still very uneasy in his mind, and very much troubled on behalf of the
young man whom he held as a kind of prisoner in his own house, took a
memorable night walk.
He walked to Cloisterham Weir.
He often did so, and consequently there was nothing remarkable in his
footsteps tending that way. But the preoccupation of his mind so
hindered him from planning any walk, or taking heed of the objects he
passed, that his first consciousness of being near the Weir, was derived
from the sound of the falling water close at hand.
‘How did I come here!’ was his first thought, as he stopped.
‘Why did I come here!’ was his second.
Then, he stood intently listening to the water. A familiar passage in
his reading, about airy tongues that syllable men’s names, rose so
unbidden to his ear, that he put it from him with his hand, as if it were
tangible.
It was starlight. The Weir was full two miles above the spot to which
the young men had repaired to watch the storm. No search had been made
up here, for the tide had been running strongly down, at that time of the
night of Christmas Eve, and the likeliest places for the discovery of a
body, if a fatal accident had happened under such circumstances, all
lay—both when the tide ebbed, and when it flowed again—between that spot
and the sea. The water came over the Weir, with its usual sound on a
cold starlight night, and little could be seen of it; yet Mr. Crisparkle
had a strange idea that something unusual hung about the place.
He reasoned with himself: What was it? Where was it? Put it to the
proof. Which sense did it address?
No sense reported anything unusual there. He listened again, and his
sense of hearing again checked the water coming over the Weir, with its
usual sound on a cold starlight night.
Knowing very well that the mystery with which his mind was occupied,
might of itself give the place this haunted air, he strained those hawk’s
eyes of his for the correction of his sight. He got closer to the Weir,
and peered at its well-known posts and timbers. Nothing in the least
unusual was remotely shadowed forth. But he resolved that he would come
back early in the morning.
The Weir ran through his broken sleep, all night, and he was back again
at sunrise. It was a bright frosty morning. The whole composition
before him, when he stood where he had stood last night, was clearly
discernible in its minutest details. He had surveyed it closely for some
minutes, and was about to withdraw his eyes, when they were attracted
keenly to one spot.
He turned his back upon the Weir, and looked far away at the sky, and at
the earth, and then looked again at that one spot. It caught his sight
again immediately, and he concentrated his vision upon it. He could not
lose it now, though it was but such a speck in the landscape. It
fascinated his sight. His hands began plucking off his coat. For it
struck him that at that spot—a corner of the Weir—something glistened,
which did not move and come over with the glistening water-drops, but
remained stationary.
He assured himself of this, he threw off his clothes, he plunged into the
icy water, and swam for the spot. Climbing the timbers, he took from
them, caught among their interstices by its chain, a gold watch, bearing
engraved upon its back E. D.
He brought the watch to the bank, swam to the Weir again, climbed it, and
dived off. He knew every hole and corner of all the depths, and dived
and dived and dived, until he could bear the cold no more. His notion
was, that he would find the body; he only found a shirt-pin sticking in
some mud and ooze.
With these discoveries he returned to Cloisterham, and, taking Neville
Landless with him, went straight to the Mayor. Mr. Jasper was sent for,
the watch and shirt-pin were identified, Neville was detained, and the
wildest frenzy and fatuity of evil report rose against him. He was of
that vindictive and violent nature, that but for his poor sister, who
alone had influence over him, and out of whose sight he was never to be
trusted, he would be in the daily commission of murder. Before coming to
England he had caused to be whipped to death sundry ‘Natives’—nomadic
persons, encamping now in Asia, now in Africa, now in the West Indies,
and now at the North Pole—vaguely supposed in Cloisterham to be always
black, always of great virtue, always calling themselves Me, and
everybody else Massa or Missie (according to sex), and always reading
tracts of the obscurest meaning, in broken English, but always accurately
understanding them in the purest mother tongue. He had nearly brought
Mrs. Crisparkle’s grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. (Those original
expressions were Mr. Sapsea’s.) He had repeatedly said he would have Mr.
Crisparkle’s life. He had repeatedly said he would have everybody’s
life, and become in effect the last man. He had been brought down to
Cloisterham, from London, by an eminent Philanthropist, and why? Because
that Philanthropist had expressly declared: ‘I owe it to my
fellow-creatures that he should be, in the words of BENTHAM, where he is
the cause of the greatest danger to the smallest number.’
These dropping shots from the blunderbusses of blunderheadedness might
not have hit him in a vital place. But he had to stand against a trained
and well-directed fire of arms of precision too. He had notoriously
threatened the lost young man, and had, according to the showing of his
own faithful friend and tutor who strove so hard for him, a cause of
bitter animosity (created by himself, and stated by himself), against
that ill-starred fellow. He had armed himself with an offensive weapon
for the fatal night, and he had gone off early in the morning, after
making preparations for departure. He had been found with traces of
blood on him; truly, they might have been wholly caused as he
represented, but they might not, also. On a search-warrant being issued
for the examination of his room, clothes, and so forth, it was discovered
that he had destroyed all his papers, and rearranged all his possessions,
on the very afternoon of the disappearance. The watch found at the Weir
was challenged by the jeweller as one he had wound and set for Edwin
Drood, at twenty minutes past two on that same afternoon; and it had run
down, before being cast into the water; and it was the jeweller’s
positive opinion that it had never been re-wound. This would justify the
hypothesis that the watch was taken from him not long after he left Mr.
Jasper’s house at midnight, in company with the last person seen with
him, and that it had been thrown away after being retained some hours.
Why thrown away? If he had been murdered, and so artfully disfigured, or
concealed, or both, as that the murderer hoped identification to be
impossible, except from something that he wore, assuredly the murderer
would seek to remove from the body the most lasting, the best known, and
the most easily recognisable, things upon it. Those things would be the
watch and shirt-pin. As to his opportunities of casting them into the
river; if he were the object of these suspicions, they were easy. For,
he had been seen by many persons, wandering about on that side of the
city—indeed on all sides of it—in a miserable and seemingly
half-distracted manner. As to the choice of the spot, obviously such
criminating evidence had better take its chance of being found anywhere,
rather than upon himself, or in his possession. Concerning the
reconciliatory nature of the appointed meeting between the two young men,
very little could be made of that in young Landless’s favour; for it
distinctly appeared that the meeting originated, not with him, but with
Mr. Crisparkle, and that it had been urged on by Mr. Crisparkle; and who
could say how unwillingly, or in what ill-conditioned mood, his enforced
pupil had gone to it? The more his case was looked into, the weaker it
became in every point. Even the broad suggestion that the lost young man
had absconded, was rendered additionally improbable on the showing of the
young lady from whom he had so lately parted; for; what did she say, with
great earnestness and sorrow, when interrogated? That he had, expressly
and enthusiastically, planned with her, that he would await the arrival
of her guardian, Mr. Grewgious. And yet, be it observed, he disappeared
before that gentleman appeared.
On the suspicions thus urged and supported, Neville was detained, and
re-detained, and the search was pressed on every hand, and Jasper
laboured night and day. But nothing more was found. No discovery being
made, which proved the lost man to be dead, it at length became necessary
to release the person suspected of having made away with him. Neville
was set at large. Then, a consequence ensued which Mr. Crisparkle had
too well foreseen. Neville must leave the place, for the place shunned
him and cast him out. Even had it not been so, the dear old china
shepherdess would have worried herself to death with fears for her son,
and with general trepidation occasioned by their having such an inmate.
Even had that not been so, the authority to which the Minor Canon
deferred officially, would have settled the point.
‘Mr. Crisparkle,’ quoth the Dean, ‘human justice may err, but it must act
according to its lights. The days of taking sanctuary are past. This
young man must not take sanctuary with us.’
‘You mean that he must leave my house, sir?’
‘Mr. Crisparkle,’ returned the prudent Dean, ‘I claim no authority in
your house. I merely confer with you, on the painful necessity you find
yourself under, of depriving this young man of the great advantages of
your counsel and instruction.’
‘It is very lamentable, sir,’ Mr. Crisparkle represented.
‘Very much so,’ the Dean assented.
‘And if it be a necessity—’ Mr. Crisparkle faltered.
‘As you unfortunately find it to be,’ returned the Dean.
Mr. Crisparkle bowed submissively: ‘It is hard to prejudge his case, sir,
but I am sensible that—’
‘Just so. Perfectly. As you say, Mr. Crisparkle,’ interposed the Dean,
nodding his head smoothly, ‘there is nothing else to be done. No doubt,
no doubt. There is no alternative, as your good sense has discovered.’
‘I am entirely satisfied of his perfect innocence, sir, nevertheless.’
‘We-e-ell!’ said the Dean, in a more confidential tone, and slightly
glancing around him, ‘I would not say so, generally. Not generally.
Enough of suspicion attaches to him to—no, I think I would not say so,
generally.’
Mr. Crisparkle bowed again.
‘It does not become us, perhaps,’ pursued the Dean, ‘to be partisans.
Not partisans. We clergy keep our hearts warm and our heads cool, and we
hold a judicious middle course.’
‘I hope you do not object, sir, to my having stated in public,
emphatically, that he will reappear here, whenever any new suspicion may
be awakened, or any new circumstance may come to light in this
extraordinary matter?’
‘Not at all,’ returned the Dean. ‘And yet, do you know, I don’t think,’
with a very nice and neat emphasis on those two words: ‘I _don’t think_ I
would state it emphatically. State it? Ye-e-es! But emphatically?
No-o-o. I _think_ not. In point of fact, Mr. Crisparkle, keeping our
hearts warm and our heads cool, we clergy need do nothing emphatically.’
So Minor Canon Row knew Neville Landless no more; and he went
whithersoever he would, or could, with a blight upon his name and fame.
It was not until then that John Jasper silently resumed his place in the
choir. Haggard and red-eyed, his hopes plainly had deserted him, his
sanguine mood was gone, and all his worst misgivings had come back. A
day or two afterwards, while unrobing, he took his Diary from a pocket of
his coat, turned the leaves, and with an impressive look, and without one
spoken word, handed this entry to Mr. Crisparkle to read:
‘My dear boy is murdered. The discovery of the watch and shirt-pin
convinces me that he was murdered that night, and that his jewellery was
taken from him to prevent identification by its means. All the delusive
hopes I had founded on his separation from his betrothed wife, I give to
the winds. They perish before this fatal discovery. I now swear, and
record the oath on this page, That I nevermore will discuss this mystery
with any human creature until I hold the clue to it in my hand. That I
never will relax in my secrecy or in my search. That I will fasten the
crime of the murder of my dear dead boy upon the murderer. And, That I
devote myself to his destruction.’
CHAPTER XVII—PHILANTHROPY, PROFESSIONAL AND UNPROFESSIONAL
Full half a year had come and gone, and Mr. Crisparkle sat in a
waiting-room in the London chief offices of the Haven of Philanthropy,
until he could have audience of Mr. Honeythunder.
In his college days of athletic exercises, Mr. Crisparkle had known
professors of the Noble Art of fisticuffs, and had attended two or three
of their gloved gatherings. He had now an opportunity of observing that
as to the phrenological formation of the backs of their heads, the
Professing Philanthropists were uncommonly like the Pugilists. In the
development of all those organs which constitute, or attend, a propensity
to ‘pitch into’ your fellow-creatures, the Philanthropists were
remarkably favoured. There were several Professors passing in and out,
with exactly the aggressive air upon them of being ready for a turn-up
with any Novice who might happen to be on hand, that Mr. Crisparkle well
remembered in the circles of the Fancy. Preparations were in progress
for a moral little Mill somewhere on the rural circuit, and other
Professors were backing this or that Heavy-Weight as good for such or
such speech-making hits, so very much after the manner of the sporting
publicans, that the intended Resolutions might have been Rounds. In an
official manager of these displays much celebrated for his platform
tactics, Mr. Crisparkle recognised (in a suit of black) the counterpart
of a deceased benefactor of his species, an eminent public character,
once known to fame as Frosty-faced Fogo, who in days of yore
superintended the formation of the magic circle with the ropes and
stakes. There were only three conditions of resemblance wanting between
these Professors and those. Firstly, the Philanthropists were in very
bad training: much too fleshy, and presenting, both in face and figure, a
superabundance of what is known to Pugilistic Experts as Suet Pudding.
Secondly, the Philanthropists had not the good temper of the Pugilists,
and used worse language. Thirdly, their fighting code stood in great
need of revision, as empowering them not only to bore their man to the
ropes, but to bore him to the confines of distraction; also to hit him
when he was down, hit him anywhere and anyhow, kick him, stamp upon him,
gouge him, and maul him behind his back without mercy. In these last
particulars the Professors of the Noble Art were much nobler than the
Professors of Philanthropy.
Mr. Crisparkle was so completely lost in musing on these similarities and
dissimilarities, at the same time watching the crowd which came and went
by, always, as it seemed, on errands of antagonistically snatching
something from somebody, and never giving anything to anybody, that his
name was called before he heard it. On his at length responding, he was
shown by a miserably shabby and underpaid stipendiary Philanthropist (who
could hardly have done worse if he had taken service with a declared
enemy of the human race) to Mr. Honeythunder’s room.
‘Sir,’ said Mr. Honeythunder, in his tremendous voice, like a
schoolmaster issuing orders to a boy of whom he had a bad opinion, ‘sit
down.’
Mr. Crisparkle seated himself.
Mr. Honeythunder having signed the remaining few score of a few thousand
circulars, calling upon a corresponding number of families without means
to come forward, stump up instantly, and be Philanthropists, or go to the
Devil, another shabby stipendiary Philanthropist (highly disinterested,
if in earnest) gathered these into a basket and walked off with them.
‘Now, Mr. Crisparkle,’ said Mr. Honeythunder, turning his chair half
round towards him when they were alone, and squaring his arms with his
hands on his knees, and his brows knitted, as if he added, I am going to
make short work of _you_: ‘Now, Mr. Crisparkle, we entertain different
views, you and I, sir, of the sanctity of human life.’
‘Do we?’ returned the Minor Canon.
‘We do, sir?’
‘Might I ask you,’ said the Minor Canon: ‘what are your views on that
subject?’
‘That human life is a thing to be held sacred, sir.’
‘Might I ask you,’ pursued the Minor Canon as before: ‘what you suppose
to be my views on that subject?’
‘By George, sir!’ returned the Philanthropist, squaring his arms still
more, as he frowned on Mr. Crisparkle: ‘they are best known to yourself.’
‘Readily admitted. But you began by saying that we took different views,
you know. Therefore (or you could not say so) you must have set up some
views as mine. Pray, what views _have_ you set up as mine?’
‘Here is a man—and a young man,’ said Mr. Honeythunder, as if that made
the matter infinitely worse, and he could have easily borne the loss of
an old one, ‘swept off the face of the earth by a deed of violence. What
do you call that?’
‘Murder,’ said the Minor Canon.
‘What do you call the doer of that deed, sir?
‘A murderer,’ said the Minor Canon.
‘I am glad to hear you admit so much, sir,’ retorted Mr. Honeythunder, in
his most offensive manner; ‘and I candidly tell you that I didn’t expect
it.’ Here he lowered heavily at Mr. Crisparkle again.
‘Be so good as to explain what you mean by those very unjustifiable
expressions.’
‘I don’t sit here, sir,’ returned the Philanthropist, raising his voice
to a roar, ‘to be browbeaten.’
‘As the only other person present, no one can possibly know that better
than I do,’ returned the Minor Canon very quietly. ‘But I interrupt your
explanation.’
‘Murder!’ proceeded Mr. Honeythunder, in a kind of boisterous reverie,
with his platform folding of his arms, and his platform nod of abhorrent
reflection after each short sentiment of a word. ‘Bloodshed! Abel!
Cain! I hold no terms with Cain. I repudiate with a shudder the red
hand when it is offered me.’
Instead of instantly leaping into his chair and cheering himself hoarse,
as the Brotherhood in public meeting assembled would infallibly have done
on this cue, Mr. Crisparkle merely reversed the quiet crossing of his
legs, and said mildly: ‘Don’t let me interrupt your explanation—when you
begin it.’
‘The Commandments say, no murder. NO murder, sir!’ proceeded Mr.
Honeythunder, platformally pausing as if he took Mr. Crisparkle to task
for having distinctly asserted that they said: You may do a little
murder, and then leave off.
‘And they also say, you shall bear no false witness,’ observed Mr.
Crisparkle.
‘Enough!’ bellowed Mr. Honeythunder, with a solemnity and severity that
would have brought the house down at a meeting, ‘E-e-nough! My late
wards being now of age, and I being released from a trust which I cannot
contemplate without a thrill of horror, there are the accounts which you
have undertaken to accept on their behalf, and there is a statement of
the balance which you have undertaken to receive, and which you cannot
receive too soon. And let me tell you, sir, I wish that, as a man and a
Minor Canon, you were better employed,’ with a nod. ‘Better employed,’
with another nod. ‘Bet-ter em-ployed!’ with another and the three nods
added up.
Mr. Crisparkle rose; a little heated in the face, but with perfect
command of himself.
‘Mr. Honeythunder,’ he said, taking up the papers referred to: ‘my being
better or worse employed than I am at present is a matter of taste and
opinion. You might think me better employed in enrolling myself a member
of your Society.’
‘Ay, indeed, sir!’ retorted Mr. Honeythunder, shaking his head in a
threatening manner. ‘It would have been better for you if you had done
that long ago!’
‘I think otherwise.’
‘Or,’ said Mr. Honeythunder, shaking his head again, ‘I might think one
of your profession better employed in devoting himself to the discovery
and punishment of guilt than in leaving that duty to be undertaken by a
layman.’
‘I may regard my profession from a point of view which teaches me that
its first duty is towards those who are in necessity and tribulation, who
are desolate and oppressed,’ said Mr. Crisparkle. ‘However, as I have
quite clearly satisfied myself that it is no part of my profession to
make professions, I say no more of that. But I owe it to Mr. Neville,
and to Mr. Neville’s sister (and in a much lower degree to myself), to
say to you that I _know_ I was in the full possession and understanding
of Mr. Neville’s mind and heart at the time of this occurrence; and that,
without in the least colouring or concealing what was to be deplored in
him and required to be corrected, I feel certain that his tale is true.
Feeling that certainty, I befriend him. As long as that certainty shall
last, I will befriend him. And if any consideration could shake me in
this resolve, I should be so ashamed of myself for my meanness, that no
man’s good opinion—no, nor no woman’s—so gained, could compensate me for
the loss of my own.’
Good fellow! manly fellow! And he was so modest, too. There was no more
self-assertion in the Minor Canon than in the schoolboy who had stood in
the breezy playing-fields keeping a wicket. He was simply and staunchly
true to his duty alike in the large case and in the small. So all true
souls ever are. So every true soul ever was, ever is, and ever will be.
There is nothing little to the really great in spirit.
‘Then who do you make out did the deed?’ asked Mr. Honeythunder, turning
on him abruptly.
‘Heaven forbid,’ said Mr. Crisparkle, ‘that in my desire to clear one man
I should lightly criminate another! I accuse no one.’
‘Tcha!’ ejaculated Mr. Honeythunder with great disgust; for this was by
no means the principle on which the Philanthropic Brotherhood usually
proceeded. ‘And, sir, you are not a disinterested witness, we must bear
in mind.’
‘How am I an interested one?’ inquired Mr. Crisparkle, smiling
innocently, at a loss to imagine.
‘There was a certain stipend, sir, paid to you for your pupil, which may
have warped your judgment a bit,’ said Mr. Honeythunder, coarsely.
‘Perhaps I expect to retain it still?’ Mr. Crisparkle returned,
enlightened; ‘do you mean that too?’
‘Well, sir,’ returned the professional Philanthropist, getting up and
thrusting his hands down into his trousers-pockets, ‘I don’t go about
measuring people for caps. If people find I have any about me that fit
’em, they can put ’em on and wear ’em, if they like. That’s their look
out: not mine.’
Mr. Crisparkle eyed him with a just indignation, and took him to task
thus:
‘Mr. Honeythunder, I hoped when I came in here that I might be under no
necessity of commenting on the introduction of platform manners or
platform manœuvres among the decent forbearances of private life. But
you have given me such a specimen of both, that I should be a fit subject
for both if I remained silent respecting them. They are detestable.’
‘They don’t suit _you_, I dare say, sir.’
‘They are,’ repeated Mr. Crisparkle, without noticing the interruption,
‘detestable. They violate equally the justice that should belong to
Christians, and the restraints that should belong to gentlemen. You
assume a great crime to have been committed by one whom I, acquainted
with the attendant circumstances, and having numerous reasons on my side,
devoutly believe to be innocent of it. Because I differ from you on that
vital point, what is your platform resource? Instantly to turn upon me,
charging that I have no sense of the enormity of the crime itself, but am
its aider and abettor! So, another time—taking me as representing your
opponent in other cases—you set up a platform credulity; a moved and
seconded and carried-unanimously profession of faith in some ridiculous
delusion or mischievous imposition. I decline to believe it, and you
fall back upon your platform resource of proclaiming that I believe
nothing; that because I will not bow down to a false God of your making,
I deny the true God! Another time you make the platform discovery that
War is a calamity, and you propose to abolish it by a string of twisted
resolutions tossed into the air like the tail of a kite. I do not admit
the discovery to be yours in the least, and I have not a grain of faith
in your remedy. Again, your platform resource of representing me as
revelling in the horrors of a battle-field like a fiend incarnate!
Another time, in another of your undiscriminating platform rushes, you
would punish the sober for the drunken. I claim consideration for the
comfort, convenience, and refreshment of the sober; and you presently
make platform proclamation that I have a depraved desire to turn Heaven’s
creatures into swine and wild beasts! In all such cases your movers, and
your seconders, and your supporters—your regular Professors of all
degrees, run amuck like so many mad Malays; habitually attributing the
lowest and basest motives with the utmost recklessness (let me call your
attention to a recent instance in yourself for which you should blush),
and quoting figures which you know to be as wilfully onesided as a
statement of any complicated account that should be all Creditor side and
no Debtor, or all Debtor side and no Creditor. Therefore it is, Mr.
Honeythunder, that I consider the platform a sufficiently bad example and
a sufficiently bad school, even in public life; but hold that, carried
into private life, it becomes an unendurable nuisance.’
‘These are strong words, sir!’ exclaimed the Philanthropist.
‘I hope so,’ said Mr. Crisparkle. ‘Good morning.’
He walked out of the Haven at a great rate, but soon fell into his
regular brisk pace, and soon had a smile upon his face as he went along,
wondering what the china shepherdess would have said if she had seen him
pounding Mr. Honeythunder in the late little lively affair. For Mr.
Crisparkle had just enough of harmless vanity to hope that he had hit
hard, and to glow with the belief that he had trimmed the Philanthropic
Jacket pretty handsomely.
He took himself to Staple Inn, but not to P. J. T. and Mr. Grewgious.
Full many a creaking stair he climbed before he reached some attic rooms
in a corner, turned the latch of their unbolted door, and stood beside
the table of Neville Landless.
An air of retreat and solitude hung about the rooms and about their
inhabitant. He was much worn, and so were they. Their sloping ceilings,
cumbrous rusty locks and grates, and heavy wooden bins and beams, slowly
mouldering withal, had a prisonous look, and he had the haggard face of a
prisoner. Yet the sunlight shone in at the ugly garret-window, which had
a penthouse to itself thrust out among the tiles; and on the cracked and
smoke-blackened parapet beyond, some of the deluded sparrows of the place
rheumatically hopped, like little feathered cripples who had left their
crutches in their nests; and there was a play of living leaves at hand
that changed the air, and made an imperfect sort of music in it that
would have been melody in the country.
The rooms were sparely furnished, but with good store of books.
Everything expressed the abode of a poor student. That Mr. Crisparkle
had been either chooser, lender, or donor of the books, or that he
combined the three characters, might have been easily seen in the
friendly beam of his eyes upon them as he entered.
‘How goes it, Neville?’
‘I am in good heart, Mr. Crisparkle, and working away.’
‘I wish your eyes were not quite so large and not quite so bright,’ said
the Minor Canon, slowly releasing the hand he had taken in his.
‘They brighten at the sight of you,’ returned Neville. ‘If you were to
fall away from me, they would soon be dull enough.’
‘Rally, rally!’ urged the other, in a stimulating tone. ‘Fight for it,
Neville!’
‘If I were dying, I feel as if a word from you would rally me; if my
pulse had stopped, I feel as if your touch would make it beat again,’
said Neville. ‘But I _have_ rallied, and am doing famously.’
Mr. Crisparkle turned him with his face a little more towards the light.
‘I want to see a ruddier touch here, Neville,’ he said, indicating his
own healthy cheek by way of pattern. ‘I want more sun to shine upon
you.’
Neville drooped suddenly, as he replied in a lowered voice: ‘I am not
hardy enough for that, yet. I may become so, but I cannot bear it yet.
If you had gone through those Cloisterham streets as I did; if you had
seen, as I did, those averted eyes, and the better sort of people
silently giving me too much room to pass, that I might not touch them or
come near them, you wouldn’t think it quite unreasonable that I cannot go
about in the daylight.’
‘My poor fellow!’ said the Minor Canon, in a tone so purely sympathetic
that the young man caught his hand, ‘I never said it was unreasonable;
never thought so. But I should like you to do it.’
‘And that would give me the strongest motive to do it. But I cannot yet.
I cannot persuade myself that the eyes of even the stream of strangers I
pass in this vast city look at me without suspicion. I feel marked and
tainted, even when I go out—as I do only—at night. But the darkness
covers me then, and I take courage from it.’
Mr. Crisparkle laid a hand upon his shoulder, and stood looking down at
him.
‘If I could have changed my name,’ said Neville, ‘I would have done so.
But as you wisely pointed out to me, I can’t do that, for it would look
like guilt. If I could have gone to some distant place, I might have
found relief in that, but the thing is not to be thought of, for the same
reason. Hiding and escaping would be the construction in either case.
It seems a little hard to be so tied to a stake, and innocent; but I
don’t complain.’
‘And you must expect no miracle to help you, Neville,’ said Mr.
Crisparkle, compassionately.
‘No, sir, I know that. The ordinary fulness of time and circumstances is
all I have to trust to.’
‘It will right you at last, Neville.’
‘So I believe, and I hope I may live to know it.’
But perceiving that the despondent mood into which he was falling cast a
shadow on the Minor Canon, and (it may be) feeling that the broad hand
upon his shoulder was not then quite as steady as its own natural
strength had rendered it when it first touched him just now, he
brightened and said:
‘Excellent circumstances for study, anyhow! and you know, Mr. Crisparkle,
what need I have of study in all ways. Not to mention that you have
advised me to study for the difficult profession of the law, specially,
and that of course I am guiding myself by the advice of such a friend and
helper. Such a good friend and helper!’
He took the fortifying hand from his shoulder, and kissed it. Mr.
Crisparkle beamed at the books, but not so brightly as when he had
entered.
‘I gather from your silence on the subject that my late guardian is
adverse, Mr. Crisparkle?’
The Minor Canon answered: ‘Your late guardian is a—a most unreasonable
person, and it signifies nothing to any reasonable person whether he is
_ad_verse, _per_verse, or the _re_verse.’
‘Well for me that I have enough with economy to live upon,’ sighed
Neville, half wearily and half cheerily, ‘while I wait to be learned, and
wait to be righted! Else I might have proved the proverb, that while the
grass grows, the steed starves!’
He opened some books as he said it, and was soon immersed in their
interleaved and annotated passages; while Mr. Crisparkle sat beside him,
expounding, correcting, and advising. The Minor Canon’s Cathedral duties
made these visits of his difficult to accomplish, and only to be
compassed at intervals of many weeks. But they were as serviceable as
they were precious to Neville Landless.
When they had got through such studies as they had in hand, they stood
leaning on the window-sill, and looking down upon the patch of garden.
‘Next week,’ said Mr. Crisparkle, ‘you will cease to be alone, and will
have a devoted companion.’
‘And yet,’ returned Neville, ‘this seems an uncongenial place to bring my
sister to.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said the Minor Canon. ‘There is duty to be done
here; and there are womanly feeling, sense, and courage wanted here.’
‘I meant,’ explained Neville, ‘that the surroundings are so dull and
unwomanly, and that Helena can have no suitable friend or society here.’
‘You have only to remember,’ said Mr. Crisparkle, ‘that you are here
yourself, and that she has to draw you into the sunlight.’
They were silent for a little while, and then Mr. Crisparkle began anew.
‘When we first spoke together, Neville, you told me that your sister had
risen out of the disadvantages of your past lives as superior to you as
the tower of Cloisterham Cathedral is higher than the chimneys of Minor
Canon Corner. Do you remember that?’
‘Right well!’
‘I was inclined to think it at the time an enthusiastic flight. No
matter what I think it now. What I would emphasise is, that under the
head of Pride your sister is a great and opportune example to you.’
‘Under _all_ heads that are included in the composition of a fine
character, she is.’
‘Say so; but take this one. Your sister has learnt how to govern what is
proud in her nature. She can dominate it even when it is wounded through
her sympathy with you. No doubt she has suffered deeply in those same
streets where you suffered deeply. No doubt her life is darkened by the
cloud that darkens yours. But bending her pride into a grand composure
that is not haughty or aggressive, but is a sustained confidence in you
and in the truth, she has won her way through those streets until she
passes along them as high in the general respect as any one who treads
them. Every day and hour of her life since Edwin Drood’s disappearance,
she has faced malignity and folly—for you—as only a brave nature well
directed can. So it will be with her to the end. Another and weaker
kind of pride might sink broken-hearted, but never such a pride as hers:
which knows no shrinking, and can get no mastery over her.’
The pale cheek beside him flushed under the comparison, and the hint
implied in it.
‘I will do all I can to imitate her,’ said Neville.
‘Do so, and be a truly brave man, as she is a truly brave woman,’
answered Mr. Crisparkle stoutly. ‘It is growing dark. Will you go my
way with me, when it is quite dark? Mind! it is not I who wait for
darkness.’
Neville replied, that he would accompany him directly. But Mr.
Crisparkle said he had a moment’s call to make on Mr. Grewgious as an act
of courtesy, and would run across to that gentleman’s chambers, and
rejoin Neville on his own doorstep, if he would come down there to meet
him.
Mr. Grewgious, bolt upright as usual, sat taking his wine in the dusk at
his open window; his wineglass and decanter on the round table at his
elbow; himself and his legs on the window-seat; only one hinge in his
whole body, like a bootjack.
‘How do you do, reverend sir?’ said Mr. Grewgious, with abundant offers
of hospitality, which were as cordially declined as made. ‘And how is
your charge getting on over the way in the set that I had the pleasure of
recommending to you as vacant and eligible?’
Mr. Crisparkle replied suitably.
‘I am glad you approve of them,’ said Mr. Grewgious, ‘because I entertain
a sort of fancy for having him under my eye.’
As Mr. Grewgious had to turn his eye up considerably before he could see
the chambers, the phrase was to be taken figuratively and not literally.
‘And how did you leave Mr. Jasper, reverend sir?’ said Mr. Grewgious.
Mr. Crisparkle had left him pretty well.
‘And where did you leave Mr. Jasper, reverend sir?’ Mr. Crisparkle had
left him at Cloisterham.
‘And when did you leave Mr. Jasper, reverend sir?’ That morning.
‘Umps!’ said Mr. Grewgious. ‘He didn’t say he was coming, perhaps?’
‘Coming where?’
‘Anywhere, for instance?’ said Mr. Grewgious.
‘No.’
‘Because here he is,’ said Mr. Grewgious, who had asked all these
questions, with his preoccupied glance directed out at window. ‘And he
don’t look agreeable, does he?’
Mr. Crisparkle was craning towards the window, when Mr. Grewgious added:
‘If you will kindly step round here behind me, in the gloom of the room,
and will cast your eye at the second-floor landing window in yonder
house, I think you will hardly fail to see a slinking individual in whom
I recognise our local friend.’
‘You are right!’ cried Mr. Crisparkle.
‘Umps!’ said Mr. Grewgious. Then he added, turning his face so abruptly
that his head nearly came into collision with Mr. Crisparkle’s: ‘what
should you say that our local friend was up to?’
The last passage he had been shown in the Diary returned on Mr.
Crisparkle’s mind with the force of a strong recoil, and he asked Mr.
Grewgious if he thought it possible that Neville was to be harassed by
the keeping of a watch upon him?
‘A watch?’ repeated Mr. Grewgious musingly. ‘Ay!’
‘Which would not only of itself haunt and torture his life,’ said Mr.
Crisparkle warmly, ‘but would expose him to the torment of a perpetually
reviving suspicion, whatever he might do, or wherever he might go.’
‘Ay!’ said Mr. Grewgious musingly still. ‘Do I see him waiting for you?’
‘No doubt you do.’
‘Then _would_ you have the goodness to excuse my getting up to see you
out, and to go out to join him, and to go the way that you were going,
and to take no notice of our local friend?’ said Mr. Grewgious. ‘I
entertain a sort of fancy for having _him_ under my eye to-night, do you
know?’
Mr. Crisparkle, with a significant need complied; and rejoining Neville,
went away with him. They dined together, and parted at the yet
unfinished and undeveloped railway station: Mr. Crisparkle to get home;
Neville to walk the streets, cross the bridges, make a wide round of the
city in the friendly darkness, and tire himself out.
It was midnight when he returned from his solitary expedition and climbed
his staircase. The night was hot, and the windows of the staircase were
all wide open. Coming to the top, it gave him a passing chill of
surprise (there being no rooms but his up there) to find a stranger
sitting on the window-sill, more after the manner of a venturesome
glazier than an amateur ordinarily careful of his neck; in fact, so much
more outside the window than inside, as to suggest the thought that he
must have come up by the water-spout instead of the stairs.
The stranger said nothing until Neville put his key in his door; then,
seeming to make sure of his identity from the action, he spoke:
‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, coming from the window with a frank and
smiling air, and a prepossessing address; ‘the beans.’
Neville was quite at a loss.
‘Runners,’ said the visitor. ‘Scarlet. Next door at the back.’
‘O,’ returned Neville. ‘And the mignonette and wall-flower?’
‘The same,’ said the visitor.
‘Pray walk in.’
‘Thank you.’
Neville lighted his candles, and the visitor sat down. A handsome
gentleman, with a young face, but with an older figure in its robustness
and its breadth of shoulder; say a man of eight-and-twenty, or at the
utmost thirty; so extremely sunburnt that the contrast between his brown
visage and the white forehead shaded out of doors by his hat, and the
glimpses of white throat below the neckerchief, would have been almost
ludicrous but for his broad temples, bright blue eyes, clustering brown
hair, and laughing teeth.
‘I have noticed,’ said he; ‘—my name is Tartar.’
Neville inclined his head.
‘I have noticed (excuse me) that you shut yourself up a good deal, and
that you seem to like my garden aloft here. If you would like a little
more of it, I could throw out a few lines and stays between my windows
and yours, which the runners would take to directly. And I have some
boxes, both of mignonette and wall-flower, that I could shove on along
the gutter (with a boathook I have by me) to your windows, and draw back
again when they wanted watering or gardening, and shove on again when
they were ship-shape; so that they would cause you no trouble. I
couldn’t take this liberty without asking your permission, so I venture
to ask it. Tartar, corresponding set, next door.’
‘You are very kind.’
‘Not at all. I ought to apologise for looking in so late. But having
noticed (excuse me) that you generally walk out at night, I thought I
should inconvenience you least by awaiting your return. I am always
afraid of inconveniencing busy men, being an idle man.’
‘I should not have thought so, from your appearance.’
‘No? I take it as a compliment. In fact, I was bred in the Royal Navy,
and was First Lieutenant when I quitted it. But, an uncle disappointed
in the service leaving me his property on condition that I left the Navy,
I accepted the fortune, and resigned my commission.’
‘Lately, I presume?’
‘Well, I had had twelve or fifteen years of knocking about first. I came
here some nine months before you; I had had one crop before you came. I
chose this place, because, having served last in a little corvette, I
knew I should feel more at home where I had a constant opportunity of
knocking my head against the ceiling. Besides, it would never do for a
man who had been aboard ship from his boyhood to turn luxurious all at
once. Besides, again; having been accustomed to a very short allowance
of land all my life, I thought I’d feel my way to the command of a landed
estate, by beginning in boxes.’
Whimsically as this was said, there was a touch of merry earnestness in
it that made it doubly whimsical.
‘However,’ said the Lieutenant, ‘I have talked quite enough about myself.
It is not my way, I hope; it has merely been to present myself to you
naturally. If you will allow me to take the liberty I have described, it
will be a charity, for it will give me something more to do. And you are
not to suppose that it will entail any interruption or intrusion on you,
for that is far from my intention.’
Neville replied that he was greatly obliged, and that he thankfully
accepted the kind proposal.
‘I am very glad to take your windows in tow,’ said the Lieutenant. ‘From
what I have seen of you when I have been gardening at mine, and you have
been looking on, I have thought you (excuse me) rather too studious and
delicate. May I ask, is your health at all affected?’
‘I have undergone some mental distress,’ said Neville, confused, ‘which
has stood me in the stead of illness.’
‘Pardon me,’ said Mr. Tartar.
With the greatest delicacy he shifted his ground to the windows again,
and asked if he could look at one of them. On Neville’s opening it, he
immediately sprang out, as if he were going aloft with a whole watch in
an emergency, and were setting a bright example.
‘For Heaven’s sake,’ cried Neville, ‘don’t do that! Where are you going
Mr. Tartar? You’ll be dashed to pieces!’
‘All well!’ said the Lieutenant, coolly looking about him on the
housetop. ‘All taut and trim here. Those lines and stays shall be
rigged before you turn out in the morning. May I take this short cut
home, and say good-night?’
‘Mr. Tartar!’ urged Neville. ‘Pray! It makes me giddy to see you!’
But Mr. Tartar, with a wave of his hand and the deftness of a cat, had
already dipped through his scuttle of scarlet runners without breaking a
leaf, and ‘gone below.’
Mr. Grewgious, his bedroom window-blind held aside with his hand,
happened at the moment to have Neville’s chambers under his eye for the
last time that night. Fortunately his eye was on the front of the house
and not the back, or this remarkable appearance and disappearance might
have broken his rest as a phenomenon. But Mr. Grewgious seeing nothing
there, not even a light in the windows, his gaze wandered from the
windows to the stars, as if he would have read in them something that was
hidden from him. Many of us would, if we could; but none of us so much
as know our letters in the stars yet—or seem likely to do it, in this
state of existence—and few languages can be read until their alphabets
are mastered.
CHAPTER XVIII—A SETTLER IN CLOISTERHAM
At about this time a stranger appeared in Cloisterham; a white-haired
personage, with black eyebrows. Being buttoned up in a tightish blue
surtout, with a buff waistcoat and gray trousers, he had something of a
military air, but he announced himself at the Crozier (the orthodox
hotel, where he put up with a portmanteau) as an idle dog who lived upon
his means; and he farther announced that he had a mind to take a lodging
in the picturesque old city for a month or two, with a view of settling
down there altogether. Both announcements were made in the coffee-room
of the Crozier, to all whom it might or might not concern, by the
stranger as he stood with his back to the empty fireplace, waiting for
his fried sole, veal cutlet, and pint of sherry. And the waiter
(business being chronically slack at the Crozier) represented all whom it
might or might not concern, and absorbed the whole of the information.
This gentleman’s white head was unusually large, and his shock of white
hair was unusually thick and ample. ‘I suppose, waiter,’ he said,
shaking his shock of hair, as a Newfoundland dog might shake his before
sitting down to dinner, ‘that a fair lodging for a single buffer might be
found in these parts, eh?’
The waiter had no doubt of it.
‘Something old,’ said the gentleman. ‘Take my hat down for a moment from
that peg, will you? No, I don’t want it; look into it. What do you see
written there?’
The waiter read: ‘Datchery.’
‘Now you know my name,’ said the gentleman; ‘Dick Datchery. Hang it up
again. I was saying something old is what I should prefer, something odd
and out of the way; something venerable, architectural, and
inconvenient.’
‘We have a good choice of inconvenient lodgings in the town, sir, I
think,’ replied the waiter, with modest confidence in its resources that
way; ‘indeed, I have no doubt that we could suit you that far, however
particular you might be. But a architectural lodging!’ That seemed to
trouble the waiter’s head, and he shook it.
‘Anything Cathedraly, now,’ Mr. Datchery suggested.
‘Mr. Tope,’ said the waiter, brightening, as he rubbed his chin with his
hand, ‘would be the likeliest party to inform in that line.’
‘Who is Mr. Tope?’ inquired Dick Datchery.
The waiter explained that he was the Verger, and that Mrs. Tope had
indeed once upon a time let lodgings herself or offered to let them; but
that as nobody had ever taken them, Mrs. Tope’s window-bill, long a
Cloisterham Institution, had disappeared; probably had tumbled down one
day, and never been put up again.
‘I’ll call on Mrs. Tope,’ said Mr. Datchery, ‘after dinner.’
So when he had done his dinner, he was duly directed to the spot, and
sallied out for it. But the Crozier being an hotel of a most retiring
disposition, and the waiter’s directions being fatally precise, he soon
became bewildered, and went boggling about and about the Cathedral Tower,
whenever he could catch a glimpse of it, with a general impression on his
mind that Mrs. Tope’s was somewhere very near it, and that, like the
children in the game of hot boiled beans and very good butter, he was
warm in his search when he saw the Tower, and cold when he didn’t see it.
He was getting very cold indeed when he came upon a fragment of
burial-ground in which an unhappy sheep was grazing. Unhappy, because a
hideous small boy was stoning it through the railings, and had already
lamed it in one leg, and was much excited by the benevolent sportsmanlike
purpose of breaking its other three legs, and bringing it down.
‘’It ’im agin!’ cried the boy, as the poor creature leaped; ‘and made a
dint in his wool.’
‘Let him be!’ said Mr. Datchery. ‘Don’t you see you have lamed him?’
‘Yer lie,’ returned the sportsman. ‘’E went and lamed isself. I see ’im
do it, and I giv’ ’im a shy as a Widdy-warning to ’im not to go
a-bruisin’ ’is master’s mutton any more.’
‘Come here.’
‘I won’t; I’ll come when yer can ketch me.’
‘Stay there then, and show me which is Mr. Tope’s.’
‘Ow can I stay here and show you which is Topeseses, when Topeseses is
t’other side the Kinfreederal, and over the crossings, and round ever so
many comers? Stoo-pid! Ya-a-ah!’
‘Show me where it is, and I’ll give you something.’
‘Come on, then.’
This brisk dialogue concluded, the boy led the way, and by-and-by stopped
at some distance from an arched passage, pointing.
‘Lookie yonder. You see that there winder and door?’
‘That’s Tope’s?’
‘Yer lie; it ain’t. That’s Jarsper’s.’
‘Indeed?’ said Mr. Datchery, with a second look of some interest.
‘Yes, and I ain’t a-goin’ no nearer ’IM, I tell yer.’
‘Why not?’
‘’Cos I ain’t a-goin’ to be lifted off my legs and ’ave my braces bust
and be choked; not if I knows it, and not by ‘Im. Wait till I set a
jolly good flint a-flyin’ at the back o’ ’is jolly old ’ed some day! Now
look t’other side the harch; not the side where Jarsper’s door is;
t’other side.’
‘I see.’
‘A little way in, o’ that side, there’s a low door, down two steps.
That’s Topeseses with ’is name on a hoval plate.’
‘Good. See here,’ said Mr. Datchery, producing a shilling. ‘You owe me
half of this.’
‘Yer lie! I don’t owe yer nothing; I never seen yer.’
‘I tell you you owe me half of this, because I have no sixpence in my
pocket. So the next time you meet me you shall do something else for me,
to pay me.’
‘All right, give us ’old.’
‘What is your name, and where do you live?’
‘Deputy. Travellers’ Twopenny, ’cross the green.’
The boy instantly darted off with the shilling, lest Mr. Datchery should
repent, but stopped at a safe distance, on the happy chance of his being
uneasy in his mind about it, to goad him with a demon dance expressive of
its irrevocability.
Mr. Datchery, taking off his hat to give that shock of white hair of his
another shake, seemed quite resigned, and betook himself whither he had
been directed.
Mr. Tope’s official dwelling, communicating by an upper stair with Mr.
Jasper’s (hence Mrs. Tope’s attendance on that gentleman), was of very
modest proportions, and partook of the character of a cool dungeon. Its
ancient walls were massive, and its rooms rather seemed to have been dug
out of them, than to have been designed beforehand with any reference to
them. The main door opened at once on a chamber of no describable shape,
with a groined roof, which in its turn opened on another chamber of no
describable shape, with another groined roof: their windows small, and in
the thickness of the walls. These two chambers, close as to their
atmosphere, and swarthy as to their illumination by natural light, were
the apartments which Mrs. Tope had so long offered to an unappreciative
city. Mr. Datchery, however, was more appreciative. He found that if he
sat with the main door open he would enjoy the passing society of all
comers to and fro by the gateway, and would have light enough. He found
that if Mr. and Mrs. Tope, living overhead, used for their own egress and
ingress a little side stair that came plump into the Precincts by a door
opening outward, to the surprise and inconvenience of a limited public of
pedestrians in a narrow way, he would be alone, as in a separate
residence. He found the rent moderate, and everything as quaintly
inconvenient as he could desire. He agreed, therefore, to take the
lodging then and there, and money down, possession to be had next
evening, on condition that reference was permitted him to Mr. Jasper as
occupying the gatehouse, of which on the other side of the gateway, the
Verger’s hole-in-the-wall was an appanage or subsidiary part.
The poor dear gentleman was very solitary and very sad, Mrs. Tope said,
but she had no doubt he would ‘speak for her.’ Perhaps Mr. Datchery had
heard something of what had occurred there last winter?
Mr. Datchery had as confused a knowledge of the event in question, on
trying to recall it, as he well could have. He begged Mrs. Tope’s pardon
when she found it incumbent on her to correct him in every detail of his
summary of the facts, but pleaded that he was merely a single buffer
getting through life upon his means as idly as he could, and that so many
people were so constantly making away with so many other people, as to
render it difficult for a buffer of an easy temper to preserve the
circumstances of the several cases unmixed in his mind.
Mr. Jasper proving willing to speak for Mrs. Tope, Mr. Datchery, who had
sent up his card, was invited to ascend the postern staircase. The Mayor
was there, Mr. Tope said; but he was not to be regarded in the light of
company, as he and Mr. Jasper were great friends.
‘I beg pardon,’ said Mr. Datchery, making a leg with his hat under his
arm, as he addressed himself equally to both gentlemen; ‘a selfish
precaution on my part, and not personally interesting to anybody but
myself. But as a buffer living on his means, and having an idea of doing
it in this lovely place in peace and quiet, for remaining span of life, I
beg to ask if the Tope family are quite respectable?’
Mr. Jasper could answer for that without the slightest hesitation.
‘That is enough, sir,’ said Mr. Datchery.
‘My friend the Mayor,’ added Mr. Jasper, presenting Mr. Datchery with a
courtly motion of his hand towards that potentate; ‘whose recommendation
is actually much more important to a stranger than that of an obscure
person like myself, will testify in their behalf, I am sure.’
‘The Worshipful the Mayor,’ said Mr. Datchery, with a low bow, ‘places me
under an infinite obligation.’
‘Very good people, sir, Mr. and Mrs. Tope,’ said Mr. Sapsea, with
condescension. ‘Very good opinions. Very well behaved. Very
respectful. Much approved by the Dean and Chapter.’
‘The Worshipful the Mayor gives them a character,’ said Mr. Datchery, ‘of
which they may indeed be proud. I would ask His Honour (if I might be
permitted) whether there are not many objects of great interest in the
city which is under his beneficent sway?’
‘We are, sir,’ returned Mr. Sapsea, ‘an ancient city, and an
ecclesiastical city. We are a constitutional city, as it becomes such a
city to be, and we uphold and maintain our glorious privileges.’
‘His Honour,’ said Mr. Datchery, bowing, ‘inspires me with a desire to
know more of the city, and confirms me in my inclination to end my days
in the city.’
‘Retired from the Army, sir?’ suggested Mr. Sapsea.
‘His Honour the Mayor does me too much credit,’ returned Mr. Datchery.
‘Navy, sir?’ suggested Mr. Sapsea.
‘Again,’ repeated Mr. Datchery, ‘His Honour the Mayor does me too much
credit.’
‘Diplomacy is a fine profession,’ said Mr. Sapsea, as a general remark.
‘There, I confess, His Honour the Mayor is too many for me,’ said Mr.
Datchery, with an ingenious smile and bow; ‘even a diplomatic bird must
fall to such a gun.’
Now this was very soothing. Here was a gentleman of a great, not to say
a grand, address, accustomed to rank and dignity, really setting a fine
example how to behave to a Mayor. There was something in that
third-person style of being spoken to, that Mr. Sapsea found particularly
recognisant of his merits and position.
‘But I crave pardon,’ said Mr. Datchery. ‘His Honour the Mayor will bear
with me, if for a moment I have been deluded into occupying his time, and
have forgotten the humble claims upon my own, of my hotel, the Crozier.’
‘Not at all, sir,’ said Mr. Sapsea. ‘I am returning home, and if you
would like to take the exterior of our Cathedral in your way, I shall be
glad to point it out.’
‘His Honour the Mayor,’ said Mr. Datchery, ‘is more than kind and
gracious.’
As Mr. Datchery, when he had made his acknowledgments to Mr. Jasper,
could not be induced to go out of the room before the Worshipful, the
Worshipful led the way down-stairs; Mr. Datchery following with his hat
under his arm, and his shock of white hair streaming in the evening
breeze.
‘Might I ask His Honour,’ said Mr. Datchery, ‘whether that gentleman we
have just left is the gentleman of whom I have heard in the neighbourhood
as being much afflicted by the loss of a nephew, and concentrating his
life on avenging the loss?’
‘That is the gentleman. John Jasper, sir.’
‘Would His Honour allow me to inquire whether there are strong suspicions
of any one?’
‘More than suspicions, sir,’ returned Mr. Sapsea; ‘all but certainties.’
‘Only think now!’ cried Mr. Datchery.
‘But proof, sir, proof must be built up stone by stone,’ said the Mayor.
‘As I say, the end crowns the work. It is not enough that justice should
be morally certain; she must be immorally certain—legally, that is.’
‘His Honour,’ said Mr. Datchery, ‘reminds me of the nature of the law.
Immoral. How true!’
‘As I say, sir,’ pompously went on the Mayor, ‘the arm of the law is a
strong arm, and a long arm. That is the way I put it. A strong arm and
a long arm.’
‘How forcible!—And yet, again, how true!’ murmured Mr. Datchery.
‘And without betraying, what I call the secrets of the prison-house,’
said Mr. Sapsea; ‘the secrets of the prison-house is the term I used on
the bench.’
‘And what other term than His Honour’s would express it?’ said Mr.
Datchery.
‘Without, I say, betraying them, I predict to you, knowing the iron will
of the gentleman we have just left (I take the bold step of calling it
iron, on account of its strength), that in this case the long arm will
reach, and the strong arm will strike.—This is our Cathedral, sir. The
best judges are pleased to admire it, and the best among our townsmen own
to being a little vain of it.’
All this time Mr. Datchery had walked with his hat under his arm, and his
white hair streaming. He had an odd momentary appearance upon him of
having forgotten his hat, when Mr. Sapsea now touched it; and he clapped
his hand up to his head as if with some vague expectation of finding
another hat upon it.
‘Pray be covered, sir,’ entreated Mr. Sapsea; magnificently plying: ‘I
shall not mind it, I assure you.’
‘His Honour is very good, but I do it for coolness,’ said Mr. Datchery.
Then Mr. Datchery admired the Cathedral, and Mr. Sapsea pointed it out as
if he himself had invented and built it: there were a few details indeed
of which he did not approve, but those he glossed over, as if the workmen
had made mistakes in his absence. The Cathedral disposed of, he led the
way by the churchyard, and stopped to extol the beauty of the evening—by
chance—in the immediate vicinity of Mrs. Sapsea’s epitaph.
‘And by the by,’ said Mr. Sapsea, appearing to descend from an elevation
to remember it all of a sudden; like Apollo shooting down from Olympus to
pick up his forgotten lyre; ‘_that_ is one of our small lions. The
partiality of our people has made it so, and strangers have been seen
taking a copy of it now and then. I am not a judge of it myself, for it
is a little work of my own. But it was troublesome to turn, sir; I may
say, difficult to turn with elegance.’
Mr. Datchery became so ecstatic over Mr. Sapsea’s composition, that, in
spite of his intention to end his days in Cloisterham, and therefore his
probably having in reserve many opportunities of copying it, he would
have transcribed it into his pocket-book on the spot, but for the
slouching towards them of its material producer and perpetuator, Durdles,
whom Mr. Sapsea hailed, not sorry to show him a bright example of
behaviour to superiors.
‘Ah, Durdles! This is the mason, sir; one of our Cloisterham worthies;
everybody here knows Durdles. Mr. Datchery, Durdles a gentleman who is
going to settle here.’
‘I wouldn’t do it if I was him,’ growled Durdles. ‘We’re a heavy lot.’
‘You surely don’t speak for yourself, Mr. Durdles,’ returned Mr.
Datchery, ‘any more than for His Honour.’
‘Who’s His Honour?’ demanded Durdles.
‘His Honour the Mayor.’
‘I never was brought afore him,’ said Durdles, with anything but the look
of a loyal subject of the mayoralty, ‘and it’ll be time enough for me to
Honour him when I am. Until which, and when, and where,
“Mister Sapsea is his name,
England is his nation,
Cloisterham’s his dwelling-place,
Aukshneer’s his occupation.”’
Here, Deputy (preceded by a flying oyster-shell) appeared upon the scene,
and requested to have the sum of threepence instantly ‘chucked’ to him by
Mr. Durdles, whom he had been vainly seeking up and down, as lawful wages
overdue. While that gentleman, with his bundle under his arm, slowly
found and counted out the money, Mr. Sapsea informed the new settler of
Durdles’s habits, pursuits, abode, and reputation. ‘I suppose a curious
stranger might come to see you, and your works, Mr. Durdles, at any odd
time?’ said Mr. Datchery upon that.
‘Any gentleman is welcome to come and see me any evening if he brings
liquor for two with him,’ returned Durdles, with a penny between his
teeth and certain halfpence in his hands; ‘or if he likes to make it
twice two, he’ll be doubly welcome.’
‘I shall come. Master Deputy, what do you owe me?’
‘A job.’
‘Mind you pay me honestly with the job of showing me Mr. Durdles’s house
when I want to go there.’
Deputy, with a piercing broadside of whistle through the whole gap in his
mouth, as a receipt in full for all arrears, vanished.
The Worshipful and the Worshipper then passed on together until they
parted, with many ceremonies, at the Worshipful’s door; even then the
Worshipper carried his hat under his arm, and gave his streaming white
hair to the breeze.
Said Mr. Datchery to himself that night, as he looked at his white hair
in the gas-lighted looking-glass over the coffee-room chimneypiece at the
Crozier, and shook it out: ‘For a single buffer, of an easy temper,
living idly on his means, I have had a rather busy afternoon!’
CHAPTER XIX—SHADOW ON THE SUN-DIAL
Again Miss Twinkleton has delivered her valedictory address, with the
accompaniments of white-wine and pound-cake, and again the young ladies
have departed to their several homes. Helena Landless has left the Nuns’
House to attend her brother’s fortunes, and pretty Rosa is alone.
Cloisterham is so bright and sunny in these summer days, that the
Cathedral and the monastery-ruin show as if their strong walls were
transparent. A soft glow seems to shine from within them, rather than
upon them from without, such is their mellowness as they look forth on
the hot corn-fields and the smoking roads that distantly wind among them.
The Cloisterham gardens blush with ripening fruit. Time was when
travel-stained pilgrims rode in clattering parties through the city’s
welcome shades; time is when wayfarers, leading a gipsy life between
haymaking time and harvest, and looking as if they were just made of the
dust of the earth, so very dusty are they, lounge about on cool
door-steps, trying to mend their unmendable shoes, or giving them to the
city kennels as a hopeless job, and seeking others in the bundles that
they carry, along with their yet unused sickles swathed in bands of
straw. At all the more public pumps there is much cooling of bare feet,
together with much bubbling and gurgling of drinking with hand to spout
on the part of these Bedouins; the Cloisterham police meanwhile looking
askant from their beats with suspicion, and manifest impatience that the
intruders should depart from within the civic bounds, and once more fry
themselves on the simmering high-roads.
On the afternoon of such a day, when the last Cathedral service is done,
and when that side of the High Street on which the Nuns’ House stands is
in grateful shade, save where its quaint old garden opens to the west
between the boughs of trees, a servant informs Rosa, to her terror, that
Mr. Jasper desires to see her.
If he had chosen his time for finding her at a disadvantage, he could
have done no better. Perhaps he has chosen it. Helena Landless is gone,
Mrs. Tisher is absent on leave, Miss Twinkleton (in her amateur state of
existence) has contributed herself and a veal pie to a picnic.
‘O why, why, why, did you say I was at home!’ cried Rosa, helplessly.
The maid replies, that Mr. Jasper never asked the question.
That he said he knew she was at home, and begged she might be told that
he asked to see her.
‘What shall I do! what shall I do!’ thinks Rosa, clasping her hands.
Possessed by a kind of desperation, she adds in the next breath, that she
will come to Mr. Jasper in the garden. She shudders at the thought of
being shut up with him in the house; but many of its windows command the
garden, and she can be seen as well as heard there, and can shriek in the
free air and run away. Such is the wild idea that flutters through her
mind.
She has never seen him since the fatal night, except when she was
questioned before the Mayor, and then he was present in gloomy
watchfulness, as representing his lost nephew and burning to avenge him.
She hangs her garden-hat on her arm, and goes out. The moment she sees
him from the porch, leaning on the sun-dial, the old horrible feeling of
being compelled by him, asserts its hold upon her. She feels that she
would even then go back, but that he draws her feet towards him. She
cannot resist, and sits down, with her head bent, on the garden-seat
beside the sun-dial. She cannot look up at him for abhorrence, but she
has perceived that he is dressed in deep mourning. So is she. It was
not so at first; but the lost has long been given up, and mourned for, as
dead.
He would begin by touching her hand. She feels the intention, and draws
her hand back. His eyes are then fixed upon her, she knows, though her
own see nothing but the grass.
‘I have been waiting,’ he begins, ‘for some time, to be summoned back to
my duty near you.’
After several times forming her lips, which she knows he is closely
watching, into the shape of some other hesitating reply, and then into
none, she answers: ‘Duty, sir?’
‘The duty of teaching you, serving you as your faithful music-master.’
‘I have left off that study.’
‘Not left off, I think. Discontinued. I was told by your guardian that
you discontinued it under the shock that we have all felt so acutely.
When will you resume?’
‘Never, sir.’
‘Never? You could have done no more if you had loved my dear boy.’
‘I did love him!’ cried Rosa, with a flash of anger.
‘Yes; but not quite—not quite in the right way, shall I say? Not in the
intended and expected way. Much as my dear boy was, unhappily, too
self-conscious and self-satisfied (I’ll draw no parallel between him and
you in that respect) to love as he should have loved, or as any one in
his place would have loved—must have loved!’
She sits in the same still attitude, but shrinking a little more.
‘Then, to be told that you discontinued your study with me, was to be
politely told that you abandoned it altogether?’ he suggested.
‘Yes,’ says Rosa, with sudden spirit, ‘The politeness was my guardian’s,
not mine. I told him that I was resolved to leave off, and that I was
determined to stand by my resolution.’
‘And you still are?’
‘I still am, sir. And I beg not to be questioned any more about it. At
all events, I will not answer any more; I have that in my power.’
She is so conscious of his looking at her with a gloating admiration of
the touch of anger on her, and the fire and animation it brings with it,
that even as her spirit rises, it falls again, and she struggles with a
sense of shame, affront, and fear, much as she did that night at the
piano.
‘I will not question you any more, since you object to it so much; I will
confess—’
‘I do not wish to hear you, sir,’ cries Rosa, rising.
This time he does touch her with his outstretched hand. In shrinking
from it, she shrinks into her seat again.
‘We must sometimes act in opposition to our wishes,’ he tells her in a
low voice. ‘You must do so now, or do more harm to others than you can
ever set right.’
‘What harm?’
‘Presently, presently. You question _me_, you see, and surely that’s not
fair when you forbid me to question you. Nevertheless, I will answer the
question presently. Dearest Rosa! Charming Rosa!’
She starts up again.
This time he does not touch her. But his face looks so wicked and
menacing, as he stands leaning against the sun-dial-setting, as it were,
his black mark upon the very face of day—that her flight is arrested by
horror as she looks at him.
‘I do not forget how many windows command a view of us,’ he says,
glancing towards them. ‘I will not touch you again; I will come no
nearer to you than I am. Sit down, and there will be no mighty wonder in
your music-master’s leaning idly against a pedestal and speaking with
you, remembering all that has happened, and our shares in it. Sit down,
my beloved.’
She would have gone once more—was all but gone—and once more his face,
darkly threatening what would follow if she went, has stopped her.
Looking at him with the expression of the instant frozen on her face, she
sits down on the seat again.
‘Rosa, even when my dear boy was affianced to you, I loved you madly;
even when I thought his happiness in having you for his wife was certain,
I loved you madly; even when I strove to make him more ardently devoted
to you, I loved you madly; even when he gave me the picture of your
lovely face so carelessly traduced by him, which I feigned to hang always
in my sight for his sake, but worshipped in torment for years, I loved
you madly; in the distasteful work of the day, in the wakeful misery of
the night, girded by sordid realities, or wandering through Paradises and
Hells of visions into which I rushed, carrying your image in my arms, I
loved you madly.’
If anything could make his words more hideous to her than they are in
themselves, it would be the contrast between the violence of his look and
delivery, and the composure of his assumed attitude.
‘I endured it all in silence. So long as you were his, or so long as I
supposed you to be his, I hid my secret loyally. Did I not?’
This lie, so gross, while the mere words in which it is told are so true,
is more than Rosa can endure. She answers with kindling indignation:
‘You were as false throughout, sir, as you are now. You were false to
him, daily and hourly. You know that you made my life unhappy by your
pursuit of me. You know that you made me afraid to open his generous
eyes, and that you forced me, for his own trusting, good, good sake, to
keep the truth from him, that you were a bad, bad man!’
His preservation of his easy attitude rendering his working features and
his convulsive hands absolutely diabolical, he returns, with a fierce
extreme of admiration:
‘How beautiful you are! You are more beautiful in anger than in repose.
I don’t ask you for your love; give me yourself and your hatred; give me
yourself and that pretty rage; give me yourself and that enchanting
scorn; it will be enough for me.’
Impatient tears rise to the eyes of the trembling little beauty, and her
face flames; but as she again rises to leave him in indignation, and seek
protection within the house, he stretches out his hand towards the porch,
as though he invited her to enter it.
‘I told you, you rare charmer, you sweet witch, that you must stay and
hear me, or do more harm than can ever be undone. You asked me what
harm. Stay, and I will tell you. Go, and I will do it!’
Again Rosa quails before his threatening face, though innocent of its
meaning, and she remains. Her panting breathing comes and goes as if it
would choke her; but with a repressive hand upon her bosom, she remains.
‘I have made my confession that my love is mad. It is so mad, that had
the ties between me and my dear lost boy been one silken thread less
strong, I might have swept even him from your side, when you favoured
him.’
A film comes over the eyes she raises for an instant, as though he had
turned her faint.
‘Even him,’ he repeats. ‘Yes, even him! Rosa, you see me and you hear
me. Judge for yourself whether any other admirer shall love you and
live, whose life is in my hand.’
‘What do you mean, sir?’
‘I mean to show you how mad my love is. It was hawked through the late
inquiries by Mr. Crisparkle, that young Landless had confessed to him
that he was a rival of my lost boy. That is an inexpiable offence in my
eyes. The same Mr. Crisparkle knows under my hand that I have devoted
myself to the murderer’s discovery and destruction, be he whom he might,
and that I determined to discuss the mystery with no one until I should
hold the clue in which to entangle the murderer as in a net. I have
since worked patiently to wind and wind it round him; and it is slowly
winding as I speak.’
[Picture: Jasper’s sacrifices]
‘Your belief, if you believe in the criminality of Mr. Landless, is not
Mr. Crisparkle’s belief, and he is a good man,’ Rosa retorts.
‘My belief is my own; and I reserve it, worshipped of my soul!
Circumstances may accumulate so strongly _even against an innocent man_,
that directed, sharpened, and pointed, they may slay him. One wanting
link discovered by perseverance against a guilty man, proves his guilt,
however slight its evidence before, and he dies. Young Landless stands
in deadly peril either way.’
‘If you really suppose,’ Rosa pleads with him, turning paler, ‘that I
favour Mr. Landless, or that Mr. Landless has ever in any way addressed
himself to me, you are wrong.’
He puts that from him with a slighting action of his hand and a curled
lip.
‘I was going to show you how madly I love you. More madly now than ever,
for I am willing to renounce the second object that has arisen in my life
to divide it with you; and henceforth to have no object in existence but
you only. Miss Landless has become your bosom friend. You care for her
peace of mind?’
‘I love her dearly.’
‘You care for her good name?’
‘I have said, sir, I love her dearly.’
‘I am unconsciously,’ he observes with a smile, as he folds his hands
upon the sun-dial and leans his chin upon them, so that his talk would
seem from the windows (faces occasionally come and go there) to be of the
airiest and playfullest—‘I am unconsciously giving offence by questioning
again. I will simply make statements, therefore, and not put questions.
You do care for your bosom friend’s good name, and you do care for her
peace of mind. Then remove the shadow of the gallows from her, dear
one!’
‘You dare propose to me to—’
‘Darling, I dare propose to you. Stop there. If it be bad to idolise
you, I am the worst of men; if it be good, I am the best. My love for
you is above all other love, and my truth to you is above all other
truth. Let me have hope and favour, and I am a forsworn man for your
sake.’
Rosa puts her hands to her temples, and, pushing back her hair, looks
wildly and abhorrently at him, as though she were trying to piece
together what it is his deep purpose to present to her only in fragments.
‘Reckon up nothing at this moment, angel, but the sacrifices that I lay
at those dear feet, which I could fall down among the vilest ashes and
kiss, and put upon my head as a poor savage might. There is my fidelity
to my dear boy after death. Tread upon it!’
With an action of his hands, as though he cast down something precious.
‘There is the inexpiable offence against my adoration of you. Spurn it!’
With a similar action.
‘There are my labours in the cause of a just vengeance for six toiling
months. Crush them!’
With another repetition of the action.
‘There is my past and my present wasted life. There is the desolation of
my heart and my soul. There is my peace; there is my despair. Stamp
them into the dust; so that you take me, were it even mortally hating
me!’
The frightful vehemence of the man, now reaching its full height, so
additionally terrifies her as to break the spell that has held her to the
spot. She swiftly moves towards the porch; but in an instant he is at
her side, and speaking in her ear.
‘Rosa, I am self-repressed again. I am walking calmly beside you to the
house. I shall wait for some encouragement and hope. I shall not strike
too soon. Give me a sign that you attend to me.’
She slightly and constrainedly moves her hand.
‘Not a word of this to any one, or it will bring down the blow, as
certainly as night follows day. Another sign that you attend to me.’
She moves her hand once more.
‘I love you, love you, love you! If you were to cast me off now—but you
will not—you would never be rid of me. No one should come between us. I
would pursue you to the death.’
The handmaid coming out to open the gate for him, he quietly pulls off
his hat as a parting salute, and goes away with no greater show of
agitation than is visible in the effigy of Mr. Sapsea’s father opposite.
Rosa faints in going up-stairs, and is carefully carried to her room and
laid down on her bed. A thunderstorm is coming on, the maids say, and
the hot and stifling air has overset the pretty dear: no wonder; they
have felt their own knees all of a tremble all day long.
CHAPTER XX—A FLIGHT
Rosa no sooner came to herself than the whole of the late interview was
before her. It even seemed as if it had pursued her into her
insensibility, and she had not had a moment’s unconsciousness of it.
What to do, she was at a frightened loss to know: the only one clear
thought in her mind was, that she must fly from this terrible man.
But where could she take refuge, and how could she go? She had never
breathed her dread of him to any one but Helena. If she went to Helena,
and told her what had passed, that very act might bring down the
irreparable mischief that he threatened he had the power, and that she
knew he had the will, to do. The more fearful he appeared to her excited
memory and imagination, the more alarming her responsibility appeared;
seeing that a slight mistake on her part, either in action or delay,
might let his malevolence loose on Helena’s brother.
Rosa’s mind throughout the last six months had been stormily confused. A
half-formed, wholly unexpressed suspicion tossed in it, now heaving
itself up, and now sinking into the deep; now gaining palpability, and
now losing it. Jasper’s self-absorption in his nephew when he was alive,
and his unceasing pursuit of the inquiry how he came by his death, if he
were dead, were themes so rife in the place, that no one appeared able to
suspect the possibility of foul play at his hands. She had asked herself
the question, ‘Am I so wicked in my thoughts as to conceive a wickedness
that others cannot imagine?’ Then she had considered, Did the suspicion
come of her previous recoiling from him before the fact? And if so, was
not that a proof of its baselessness? Then she had reflected, ‘What
motive could he have, according to my accusation?’ She was ashamed to
answer in her mind, ‘The motive of gaining _me_!’ And covered her face,
as if the lightest shadow of the idea of founding murder on such an idle
vanity were a crime almost as great.
She ran over in her mind again, all that he had said by the sun-dial in
the garden. He had persisted in treating the disappearance as murder,
consistently with his whole public course since the finding of the watch
and shirt-pin. If he were afraid of the crime being traced out, would he
not rather encourage the idea of a voluntary disappearance? He had even
declared that if the ties between him and his nephew had been less
strong, he might have swept ‘even him’ away from her side. Was that like
his having really done so? He had spoken of laying his six months’
labours in the cause of a just vengeance at her feet. Would he have done
that, with that violence of passion, if they were a pretence? Would he
have ranged them with his desolate heart and soul, his wasted life, his
peace and his despair? The very first sacrifice that he represented
himself as making for her, was his fidelity to his dear boy after death.
Surely these facts were strong against a fancy that scarcely dared to
hint itself. And yet he was so terrible a man! In short, the poor girl
(for what could she know of the criminal intellect, which its own
professed students perpetually misread, because they persist in trying to
reconcile it with the average intellect of average men, instead of
identifying it as a horrible wonder apart) could get by no road to any
other conclusion than that he _was_ a terrible man, and must be fled
from.
She had been Helena’s stay and comfort during the whole time. She had
constantly assured her of her full belief in her brother’s innocence, and
of her sympathy with him in his misery. But she had never seen him since
the disappearance, nor had Helena ever spoken one word of his avowal to
Mr. Crisparkle in regard of Rosa, though as a part of the interest of the
case it was well known far and wide. He was Helena’s unfortunate
brother, to her, and nothing more. The assurance she had given her
odious suitor was strictly true, though it would have been better (she
considered now) if she could have restrained herself from so giving it.
Afraid of him as the bright and delicate little creature was, her spirit
swelled at the thought of his knowing it from her own lips.
But where was she to go? Anywhere beyond his reach, was no reply to the
question. Somewhere must be thought of. She determined to go to her
guardian, and to go immediately. The feeling she had imparted to Helena
on the night of their first confidence, was so strong upon her—the
feeling of not being safe from him, and of the solid walls of the old
convent being powerless to keep out his ghostly following of her—that no
reasoning of her own could calm her terrors. The fascination of
repulsion had been upon her so long, and now culminated so darkly, that
she felt as if he had power to bind her by a spell. Glancing out at
window, even now, as she rose to dress, the sight of the sun-dial on
which he had leaned when he declared himself, turned her cold, and made
her shrink from it, as though he had invested it with some awful quality
from his own nature.
She wrote a hurried note to Miss Twinkleton, saying that she had sudden
reason for wishing to see her guardian promptly, and had gone to him;
also, entreating the good lady not to be uneasy, for all was well with
her. She hurried a few quite useless articles into a very little bag,
left the note in a conspicuous place, and went out, softly closing the
gate after her.
It was the first time she had ever been even in Cloisterham High Street
alone. But knowing all its ways and windings very well, she hurried
straight to the corner from which the omnibus departed. It was, at that
very moment, going off.
‘Stop and take me, if you please, Joe. I am obliged to go to London.’
In less than another minute she was on her road to the railway, under
Joe’s protection. Joe waited on her when she got there, put her safely
into the railway carriage, and handed in the very little bag after her,
as though it were some enormous trunk, hundredweights heavy, which she
must on no account endeavour to lift.
‘Can you go round when you get back, and tell Miss Twinkleton that you
saw me safely off, Joe?’
‘It shall be done, Miss.’
‘With my love, please, Joe.’
‘Yes, Miss—and I wouldn’t mind having it myself!’ But Joe did not
articulate the last clause; only thought it.
Now that she was whirling away for London in real earnest, Rosa was at
leisure to resume the thoughts which her personal hurry had checked. The
indignant thought that his declaration of love soiled her; that she could
only be cleansed from the stain of its impurity by appealing to the
honest and true; supported her for a time against her fears, and
confirmed her in her hasty resolution. But as the evening grew darker
and darker, and the great city impended nearer and nearer, the doubts
usual in such cases began to arise. Whether this was not a wild
proceeding, after all; how Mr. Grewgious might regard it; whether she
should find him at the journey’s end; how she would act if he were
absent; what might become of her, alone, in a place so strange and
crowded; how if she had but waited and taken counsel first; whether, if
she could now go back, she would not do it thankfully; a multitude of
such uneasy speculations disturbed her, more and more as they
accumulated. At length the train came into London over the housetops;
and down below lay the gritty streets with their yet un-needed lamps
a-glow, on a hot, light, summer night.
‘Hiram Grewgious, Esquire, Staple Inn, London.’ This was all Rosa knew
of her destination; but it was enough to send her rattling away again in
a cab, through deserts of gritty streets, where many people crowded at
the corner of courts and byways to get some air, and where many other
people walked with a miserably monotonous noise of shuffling of feet on
hot paving-stones, and where all the people and all their surroundings
were so gritty and so shabby!
There was music playing here and there, but it did not enliven the case.
No barrel-organ mended the matter, and no big drum beat dull care away.
Like the chapel bells that were also going here and there, they only
seemed to evoke echoes from brick surfaces, and dust from everything. As
to the flat wind-instruments, they seemed to have cracked their hearts
and souls in pining for the country.
Her jingling conveyance stopped at last at a fast-closed gateway, which
appeared to belong to somebody who had gone to bed very early, and was
much afraid of housebreakers; Rosa, discharging her conveyance, timidly
knocked at this gateway, and was let in, very little bag and all, by a
watchman.
‘Does Mr. Grewgious live here?’
‘Mr. Grewgious lives there, Miss,’ said the watchman, pointing further
in.
So Rosa went further in, and, when the clocks were striking ten, stood on
P. J. T.’s doorsteps, wondering what P. J. T. had done with his
street-door.
Guided by the painted name of Mr. Grewgious, she went up-stairs and
softly tapped and tapped several times. But no one answering, and Mr.
Grewgious’s door-handle yielding to her touch, she went in, and saw her
guardian sitting on a window-seat at an open window, with a shaded lamp
placed far from him on a table in a corner.
Rosa drew nearer to him in the twilight of the room. He saw her, and he
said, in an undertone: ‘Good Heaven!’
Rosa fell upon his neck, with tears, and then he said, returning her
embrace:
‘My child, my child! I thought you were your mother!—But what, what,
what,’ he added, soothingly, ‘has happened? My dear, what has brought
you here? Who has brought you here?’
‘No one. I came alone.’
‘Lord bless me!’ ejaculated Mr. Grewgious. ‘Came alone! Why didn’t you
write to me to come and fetch you?’
‘I had no time. I took a sudden resolution. Poor, poor Eddy!’
‘Ah, poor fellow, poor fellow!’
‘His uncle has made love to me. I cannot bear it,’ said Rosa, at once
with a burst of tears, and a stamp of her little foot; ‘I shudder with
horror of him, and I have come to you to protect me and all of us from
him, if you will?’
‘I will,’ cried Mr. Grewgious, with a sudden rush of amazing energy.
‘Damn him!
“Confound his politics!
Frustrate his knavish tricks!
On Thee his hopes to fix?
Damn him again!”’
After this most extraordinary outburst, Mr. Grewgious, quite beside
himself, plunged about the room, to all appearance undecided whether he
was in a fit of loyal enthusiasm, or combative denunciation.
He stopped and said, wiping his face: ‘I beg your pardon, my dear, but
you will be glad to know I feel better. Tell me no more just now, or I
might do it again. You must be refreshed and cheered. What did you take
last? Was it breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea, or supper? And what will
you take next? Shall it be breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea, or supper?’
The respectful tenderness with which, on one knee before her, he helped
her to remove her hat, and disentangle her pretty hair from it, was quite
a chivalrous sight. Yet who, knowing him only on the surface, would have
expected chivalry—and of the true sort, too; not the spurious—from Mr.
Grewgious?
‘Your rest too must be provided for,’ he went on; ‘and you shall have the
prettiest chamber in Furnival’s. Your toilet must be provided for, and
you shall have everything that an unlimited head chambermaid—by which
expression I mean a head chambermaid not limited as to outlay—can
procure. Is that a bag?’ he looked hard at it; sooth to say, it required
hard looking at to be seen at all in a dimly lighted room: ‘and is it
your property, my dear?’
‘Yes, sir. I brought it with me.’
‘It is not an extensive bag,’ said Mr. Grewgious, candidly, ‘though
admirably calculated to contain a day’s provision for a canary-bird.
Perhaps you brought a canary-bird?’
Rosa smiled and shook her head.
‘If you had, he should have been made welcome,’ said Mr. Grewgious, ‘and
I think he would have been pleased to be hung upon a nail outside and pit
himself against our Staple sparrows; whose execution must be admitted to
be not quite equal to their intention. Which is the case with so many of
us! You didn’t say what meal, my dear. Have a nice jumble of all
meals.’
Rosa thanked him, but said she could only take a cup of tea. Mr.
Grewgious, after several times running out, and in again, to mention such
supplementary items as marmalade, eggs, watercresses, salted fish, and
frizzled ham, ran across to Furnival’s without his hat, to give his
various directions. And soon afterwards they were realised in practice,
and the board was spread.
‘Lord bless my soul,’ cried Mr. Grewgious, putting the lamp upon it, and
taking his seat opposite Rosa; ‘what a new sensation for a poor old
Angular bachelor, to be sure!’
[Picture: Mr. Grewgious experiences a new sensation]
Rosa’s expressive little eyebrows asked him what he meant?
‘The sensation of having a sweet young presence in the place, that
whitewashes it, paints it, papers it, decorates it with gilding, and
makes it Glorious!’ said Mr. Grewgious. ‘Ah me! Ah me!’
As there was something mournful in his sigh, Rosa, in touching him with
her tea-cup, ventured to touch him with her small hand too.
‘Thank you, my dear,’ said Mr. Grewgious. ‘Ahem! Let’s talk!’
‘Do you always live here, sir?’ asked Rosa.
‘Yes, my dear.’
‘And always alone?’
‘Always alone; except that I have daily company in a gentleman by the
name of Bazzard, my clerk.’
‘_He_ doesn’t live here?’
‘No, he goes his way, after office hours. In fact, he is off duty here,
altogether, just at present; and a firm down-stairs, with which I have
business relations, lend me a substitute. But it would be extremely
difficult to replace Mr. Bazzard.’
‘He must be very fond of you,’ said Rosa.
‘He bears up against it with commendable fortitude if he is,’ returned
Mr. Grewgious, after considering the matter. ‘But I doubt if he is. Not
particularly so. You see, he is discontented, poor fellow.’
‘Why isn’t he contented?’ was the natural inquiry.
‘Misplaced,’ said Mr. Grewgious, with great mystery.
Rosa’s eyebrows resumed their inquisitive and perplexed expression.
‘So misplaced,’ Mr. Grewgious went on, ‘that I feel constantly apologetic
towards him. And he feels (though he doesn’t mention it) that I have
reason to be.’
Mr. Grewgious had by this time grown so very mysterious, that Rosa did
not know how to go on. While she was thinking about it Mr. Grewgious
suddenly jerked out of himself for the second time:
‘Let’s talk. We were speaking of Mr. Bazzard. It’s a secret, and
moreover it is Mr. Bazzard’s secret; but the sweet presence at my table
makes me so unusually expansive, that I feel I must impart it in
inviolable confidence. What do you think Mr. Bazzard has done?’
‘O dear!’ cried Rosa, drawing her chair a little nearer, and her mind
reverting to Jasper, ‘nothing dreadful, I hope?’
‘He has written a play,’ said Mr. Grewgious, in a solemn whisper. ‘A
tragedy.’
Rosa seemed much relieved.
‘And nobody,’ pursued Mr. Grewgious in the same tone, ‘will hear, on any
account whatever, of bringing it out.’
Rosa looked reflective, and nodded her head slowly; as who should say,
‘Such things are, and why are they!’
‘Now, you know,’ said Mr. Grewgious, ‘_I_ couldn’t write a play.’
‘Not a bad one, sir?’ said Rosa, innocently, with her eyebrows again in
action.
‘No. If I was under sentence of decapitation, and was about to be
instantly decapitated, and an express arrived with a pardon for the
condemned convict Grewgious if he wrote a play, I should be under the
necessity of resuming the block, and begging the executioner to proceed
to extremities,—meaning,’ said Mr. Grewgious, passing his hand under his
chin, ‘the singular number, and this extremity.’
Rosa appeared to consider what she would do if the awkward supposititious
case were hers.
‘Consequently,’ said Mr. Grewgious, ‘Mr. Bazzard would have a sense of my
inferiority to himself under any circumstances; but when I am his master,
you know, the case is greatly aggravated.’
Mr. Grewgious shook his head seriously, as if he felt the offence to be a
little too much, though of his own committing.
‘How came you to be his master, sir?’ asked Rosa.
‘A question that naturally follows,’ said Mr. Grewgious. ‘Let’s talk.
Mr. Bazzard’s father, being a Norfolk farmer, would have furiously laid
about him with a flail, a pitch-fork, and every agricultural implement
available for assaulting purposes, on the slightest hint of his son’s
having written a play. So the son, bringing to me the father’s rent
(which I receive), imparted his secret, and pointed out that he was
determined to pursue his genius, and that it would put him in peril of
starvation, and that he was not formed for it.’
‘For pursuing his genius, sir?’
‘No, my dear,’ said Mr. Grewgious, ‘for starvation. It was impossible to
deny the position, that Mr. Bazzard was not formed to be starved, and Mr.
Bazzard then pointed out that it was desirable that I should stand
between him and a fate so perfectly unsuited to his formation. In that
way Mr. Bazzard became my clerk, and he feels it very much.’
‘I am glad he is grateful,’ said Rosa.
‘I didn’t quite mean that, my dear. I mean, that he feels the
degradation. There are some other geniuses that Mr. Bazzard has become
acquainted with, who have also written tragedies, which likewise nobody
will on any account whatever hear of bringing out, and these choice
spirits dedicate their plays to one another in a highly panegyrical
manner. Mr. Bazzard has been the subject of one of these dedications.
Now, you know, I never had a play dedicated to _me_!’
Rosa looked at him as if she would have liked him to be the recipient of
a thousand dedications.
‘Which again, naturally, rubs against the grain of Mr. Bazzard,’ said Mr.
Grewgious. ‘He is very short with me sometimes, and then I feel that he
is meditating, “This blockhead is my master! A fellow who couldn’t write
a tragedy on pain of death, and who will never have one dedicated to him
with the most complimentary congratulations on the high position he has
taken in the eyes of posterity!” Very trying, very trying. However, in
giving him directions, I reflect beforehand: “Perhaps he may not like
this,” or “He might take it ill if I asked that;” and so we get on very
well. Indeed, better than I could have expected.’
‘Is the tragedy named, sir?’ asked Rosa.
‘Strictly between ourselves,’ answered Mr. Grewgious, ‘it has a
dreadfully appropriate name. It is called The Thorn of Anxiety. But Mr.
Bazzard hopes—and I hope—that it will come out at last.’
It was not hard to divine that Mr. Grewgious had related the Bazzard
history thus fully, at least quite as much for the recreation of his
ward’s mind from the subject that had driven her there, as for the
gratification of his own tendency to be social and communicative.
‘And now, my dear,’ he said at this point, ‘if you are not too tired to
tell me more of what passed to-day—but only if you feel quite able—I
should be glad to hear it. I may digest it the better, if I sleep on it
to-night.’
Rosa, composed now, gave him a faithful account of the interview. Mr.
Grewgious often smoothed his head while it was in progress, and begged to
be told a second time those parts which bore on Helena and Neville. When
Rosa had finished, he sat grave, silent, and meditative for a while.
‘Clearly narrated,’ was his only remark at last, ‘and, I hope, clearly
put away here,’ smoothing his head again. ‘See, my dear,’ taking her to
the open window, ‘where they live! The dark windows over yonder.’
‘I may go to Helena to-morrow?’ asked Rosa.
‘I should like to sleep on that question to-night,’ he answered
doubtfully. ‘But let me take you to your own rest, for you must need
it.’
With that Mr. Grewgious helped her to get her hat on again, and hung upon
his arm the very little bag that was of no earthly use, and led her by
the hand (with a certain stately awkwardness, as if he were going to walk
a minuet) across Holborn, and into Furnival’s Inn. At the hotel door, he
confided her to the Unlimited head chambermaid, and said that while she
went up to see her room, he would remain below, in case she should wish
it exchanged for another, or should find that there was anything she
wanted.
Rosa’s room was airy, clean, comfortable, almost gay. The Unlimited had
laid in everything omitted from the very little bag (that is to say,
everything she could possibly need), and Rosa tripped down the great many
stairs again, to thank her guardian for his thoughtful and affectionate
care of her.
‘Not at all, my dear,’ said Mr. Grewgious, infinitely gratified; ‘it is I
who thank you for your charming confidence and for your charming company.
Your breakfast will be provided for you in a neat, compact, and graceful
little sitting-room (appropriate to your figure), and I will come to you
at ten o’clock in the morning. I hope you don’t feel very strange
indeed, in this strange place.’
‘O no, I feel so safe!’
‘Yes, you may be sure that the stairs are fire-proof,’ said Mr.
Grewgious, ‘and that any outbreak of the devouring element would be
perceived and suppressed by the watchmen.’
‘I did not mean that,’ Rosa replied. ‘I mean, I feel so safe from him.’
‘There is a stout gate of iron bars to keep him out,’ said Mr. Grewgious,
smiling; ‘and Furnival’s is fire-proof, and specially watched and
lighted, and _I_ live over the way!’ In the stoutness of his
knight-errantry, he seemed to think the last-named protection all
sufficient. In the same spirit he said to the gate-porter as he went
out, ‘If some one staying in the hotel should wish to send across the
road to me in the night, a crown will be ready for the messenger.’ In
the same spirit, he walked up and down outside the iron gate for the best
part of an hour, with some solicitude; occasionally looking in between
the bars, as if he had laid a dove in a high roost in a cage of lions,
and had it on his mind that she might tumble out.
CHAPTER XXI—A RECOGNITION
Nothing occurred in the night to flutter the tired dove; and the dove
arose refreshed. With Mr. Grewgious, when the clock struck ten in the
morning, came Mr. Crisparkle, who had come at one plunge out of the river
at Cloisterham.
‘Miss Twinkleton was so uneasy, Miss Rosa,’ he explained to her, ‘and
came round to Ma and me with your note, in such a state of wonder, that,
to quiet her, I volunteered on this service by the very first train to be
caught in the morning. I wished at the time that you had come to me; but
now I think it best that you did _as_ you did, and came to your
guardian.’
‘I did think of you,’ Rosa told him; ‘but Minor Canon Corner was so near
him—’
‘I understand. It was quite natural.’
‘I have told Mr. Crisparkle,’ said Mr. Grewgious, ‘all that you told me
last night, my dear. Of course I should have written it to him
immediately; but his coming was most opportune. And it was particularly
kind of him to come, for he had but just gone.’
‘Have you settled,’ asked Rosa, appealing to them both, ‘what is to be
done for Helena and her brother?’
‘Why really,’ said Mr. Crisparkle, ‘I am in great perplexity. If even
Mr. Grewgious, whose head is much longer than mine, and who is a whole
night’s cogitation in advance of me, is undecided, what must I be!’
The Unlimited here put her head in at the door—after having rapped, and
been authorised to present herself—announcing that a gentleman wished for
a word with another gentleman named Crisparkle, if any such gentleman
were there. If no such gentleman were there, he begged pardon for being
mistaken.
‘Such a gentleman is here,’ said Mr. Crisparkle, ‘but is engaged just
now.’
‘Is it a dark gentleman?’ interposed Rosa, retreating on her guardian.
‘No, Miss, more of a brown gentleman.’
‘You are sure not with black hair?’ asked Rosa, taking courage.
‘Quite sure of that, Miss. Brown hair and blue eyes.’
‘Perhaps,’ hinted Mr. Grewgious, with habitual caution, ‘it might be well
to see him, reverend sir, if you don’t object. When one is in a
difficulty or at a loss, one never knows in what direction a way out may
chance to open. It is a business principle of mine, in such a case, not
to close up any direction, but to keep an eye on every direction that may
present itself. I could relate an anecdote in point, but that it would
be premature.’
‘If Miss Rosa will allow me, then? Let the gentleman come in,’ said Mr.
Crisparkle.
The gentleman came in; apologised, with a frank but modest grace, for not
finding Mr. Crisparkle alone; turned to Mr. Crisparkle, and smilingly
asked the unexpected question: ‘Who am I?’
‘You are the gentleman I saw smoking under the trees in Staple Inn, a few
minutes ago.’
‘True. There I saw you. Who else am I?’
Mr. Crisparkle concentrated his attention on a handsome face, much
sunburnt; and the ghost of some departed boy seemed to rise, gradually
and dimly, in the room.
The gentleman saw a struggling recollection lighten up the Minor Canon’s
features, and smiling again, said: ‘What will you have for breakfast this
morning? You are out of jam.’
‘Wait a moment!’ cried Mr. Crisparkle, raising his right hand. ‘Give me
another instant! Tartar!’
The two shook hands with the greatest heartiness, and then went the
wonderful length—for Englishmen—of laying their hands each on the other’s
shoulders, and looking joyfully each into the other’s face.
‘My old fag!’ said Mr. Crisparkle.
‘My old master!’ said Mr. Tartar.
‘You saved me from drowning!’ said Mr. Crisparkle.
‘After which you took to swimming, you know!’ said Mr. Tartar.
‘God bless my soul!’ said Mr. Crisparkle.
‘Amen!’ said Mr. Tartar.
And then they fell to shaking hands most heartily again.
‘Imagine,’ exclaimed Mr. Crisparkle, with glistening eyes: ‘Miss Rosa Bud
and Mr. Grewgious, imagine Mr. Tartar, when he was the smallest of
juniors, diving for me, catching me, a big heavy senior, by the hair of
the head, and striking out for the shore with me like a water-giant!’
‘Imagine my not letting him sink, as I was his fag!’ said Mr. Tartar.
‘But the truth being that he was my best protector and friend, and did me
more good than all the masters put together, an irrational impulse seized
me to pick him up, or go down with him.’
‘Hem! Permit me, sir, to have the honour,’ said Mr. Grewgious, advancing
with extended hand, ‘for an honour I truly esteem it. I am proud to make
your acquaintance. I hope you didn’t take cold. I hope you were not
inconvenienced by swallowing too much water. How have you been since?’
It was by no means apparent that Mr. Grewgious knew what he said, though
it was very apparent that he meant to say something highly friendly and
appreciative.
If Heaven, Rosa thought, had but sent such courage and skill to her poor
mother’s aid! And he to have been so slight and young then!
‘I don’t wish to be complimented upon it, I thank you; but I think I have
an idea,’ Mr. Grewgious announced, after taking a jog-trot or two across
the room, so unexpected and unaccountable that they all stared at him,
doubtful whether he was choking or had the cramp—‘I _think_ I have an
idea. I believe I have had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Tartar’s name as
tenant of the top set in the house next the top set in the corner?’
‘Yes, sir,’ returned Mr. Tartar. ‘You are right so far.’
‘I am right so far,’ said Mr. Grewgious. ‘Tick that off;’ which he did,
with his right thumb on his left. ‘Might you happen to know the name of
your neighbour in the top set on the other side of the party-wall?’
coming very close to Mr. Tartar, to lose nothing of his face, in his
shortness of sight.
‘Landless.’
‘Tick that off,’ said Mr. Grewgious, taking another trot, and then coming
back. ‘No personal knowledge, I suppose, sir?’
‘Slight, but some.’
‘Tick that off,’ said Mr. Grewgious, taking another trot, and again
coming back. ‘Nature of knowledge, Mr. Tartar?’
‘I thought he seemed to be a young fellow in a poor way, and I asked his
leave—only within a day or so—to share my flowers up there with him; that
is to say, to extend my flower-garden to his windows.’
‘Would you have the kindness to take seats?’ said Mr. Grewgious. ‘I
_have_ an idea!’
They complied; Mr. Tartar none the less readily, for being all abroad;
and Mr. Grewgious, seated in the centre, with his hands upon his knees,
thus stated his idea, with his usual manner of having got the statement
by heart.
‘I cannot as yet make up my mind whether it is prudent to hold open
communication under present circumstances, and on the part of the fair
member of the present company, with Mr. Neville or Miss Helena. I have
reason to know that a local friend of ours (on whom I beg to bestow a
passing but a hearty malediction, with the kind permission of my reverend
friend) sneaks to and fro, and dodges up and down. When not doing so
himself, he may have some informant skulking about, in the person of a
watchman, porter, or such-like hanger-on of Staple. On the other hand,
Miss Rosa very naturally wishes to see her friend Miss Helena, and it
would seem important that at least Miss Helena (if not her brother too,
through her) should privately know from Miss Rosa’s lips what has
occurred, and what has been threatened. Am I agreed with generally in
the views I take?’
‘I entirely coincide with them,’ said Mr. Crisparkle, who had been very
attentive.
‘As I have no doubt I should,’ added Mr. Tartar, smiling, ‘if I
understood them.’
‘Fair and softly, sir,’ said Mr. Grewgious; ‘we shall fully confide in
you directly, if you will favour us with your permission. Now, if our
local friend should have any informant on the spot, it is tolerably clear
that such informant can only be set to watch the chambers in the
occupation of Mr. Neville. He reporting, to our local friend, who comes
and goes there, our local friend would supply for himself, from his own
previous knowledge, the identity of the parties. Nobody can be set to
watch all Staple, or to concern himself with comers and goers to other
sets of chambers: unless, indeed, mine.’
‘I begin to understand to what you tend,’ said Mr. Crisparkle, ‘and
highly approve of your caution.’
‘I needn’t repeat that I know nothing yet of the why and wherefore,’ said
Mr. Tartar; ‘but I also understand to what you tend, so let me say at
once that my chambers are freely at your disposal.’
‘There!’ cried Mr. Grewgious, smoothing his head triumphantly, ‘now we
have all got the idea. You have it, my dear?’
‘I think I have,’ said Rosa, blushing a little as Mr. Tartar looked
quickly towards her.
‘You see, you go over to Staple with Mr. Crisparkle and Mr. Tartar,’ said
Mr. Grewgious; ‘I going in and out, and out and in alone, in my usual
way; you go up with those gentlemen to Mr. Tartar’s rooms; you look into
Mr. Tartar’s flower-garden; you wait for Miss Helena’s appearance there,
or you signify to Miss Helena that you are close by; and you communicate
with her freely, and no spy can be the wiser.’
‘I am very much afraid I shall be—’
‘Be what, my dear?’ asked Mr. Grewgious, as she hesitated. ‘Not
frightened?’
‘No, not that,’ said Rosa, shyly; ‘in Mr. Tartar’s way. We seem to be
appropriating Mr. Tartar’s residence so very coolly.’
‘I protest to you,’ returned that gentleman, ‘that I shall think the
better of it for evermore, if your voice sounds in it only once.’
Rosa, not quite knowing what to say about that, cast down her eyes, and
turning to Mr. Grewgious, dutifully asked if she should put her hat on?
Mr. Grewgious being of opinion that she could not do better, she withdrew
for the purpose. Mr. Crisparkle took the opportunity of giving Mr.
Tartar a summary of the distresses of Neville and his sister; the
opportunity was quite long enough, as the hat happened to require a
little extra fitting on.
Mr. Tartar gave his arm to Rosa, and Mr. Crisparkle walked, detached, in
front.
‘Poor, poor Eddy!’ thought Rosa, as they went along.
Mr. Tartar waved his right hand as he bent his head down over Rosa,
talking in an animated way.
‘It was not so powerful or so sun-browned when it saved Mr. Crisparkle,’
thought Rosa, glancing at it; ‘but it must have been very steady and
determined even then.’
Mr. Tartar told her he had been a sailor, roving everywhere for years and
years.
‘When are you going to sea again?’ asked Rosa.
‘Never!’
Rosa wondered what the girls would say if they could see her crossing the
wide street on the sailor’s arm. And she fancied that the passers-by
must think her very little and very helpless, contrasted with the strong
figure that could have caught her up and carried her out of any danger,
miles and miles without resting.
She was thinking further, that his far-seeing blue eyes looked as if they
had been used to watch danger afar off, and to watch it without
flinching, drawing nearer and nearer: when, happening to raise her own
eyes, she found that he seemed to be thinking something about _them_.
This a little confused Rosebud, and may account for her never afterwards
quite knowing how she ascended (with his help) to his garden in the air,
and seemed to get into a marvellous country that came into sudden bloom
like the country on the summit of the magic bean-stalk. May it flourish
for ever!
CHAPTER XXII—A GRITTY STATE OF THINGS COMES ON
Mr. Tartar’s chambers were the neatest, the cleanest, and the
best-ordered chambers ever seen under the sun, moon, and stars. The
floors were scrubbed to that extent, that you might have supposed the
London blacks emancipated for ever, and gone out of the land for good.
Every inch of brass-work in Mr. Tartar’s possession was polished and
burnished, till it shone like a brazen mirror. No speck, nor spot, nor
spatter soiled the purity of any of Mr. Tartar’s household gods, large,
small, or middle-sized. His sitting-room was like the admiral’s cabin,
his bath-room was like a dairy, his sleeping-chamber, fitted all about
with lockers and drawers, was like a seedsman’s shop; and his
nicely-balanced cot just stirred in the midst, as if it breathed.
Everything belonging to Mr. Tartar had quarters of its own assigned to
it: his maps and charts had their quarters; his books had theirs; his
brushes had theirs; his boots had theirs; his clothes had theirs; his
case-bottles had theirs; his telescopes and other instruments had theirs.
Everything was readily accessible. Shelf, bracket, locker, hook, and
drawer were equally within reach, and were equally contrived with a view
to avoiding waste of room, and providing some snug inches of stowage for
something that would have exactly fitted nowhere else. His gleaming
little service of plate was so arranged upon his sideboard as that a
slack salt-spoon would have instantly betrayed itself; his toilet
implements were so arranged upon his dressing-table as that a toothpick
of slovenly deportment could have been reported at a glance. So with the
curiosities he had brought home from various voyages. Stuffed, dried,
repolished, or otherwise preserved, according to their kind; birds,
fishes, reptiles, arms, articles of dress, shells, seaweeds, grasses, or
memorials of coral reef; each was displayed in its especial place, and
each could have been displayed in no better place. Paint and varnish
seemed to be kept somewhere out of sight, in constant readiness to
obliterate stray finger-marks wherever any might become perceptible in
Mr. Tartar’s chambers. No man-of-war was ever kept more spick and span
from careless touch. On this bright summer day, a neat awning was rigged
over Mr. Tartar’s flower-garden as only a sailor can rig it, and there
was a sea-going air upon the whole effect, so delightfully complete, that
the flower-garden might have appertained to stern-windows afloat, and the
whole concern might have bowled away gallantly with all on board, if Mr.
Tartar had only clapped to his lips the speaking-trumpet that was slung
in a corner, and given hoarse orders to heave the anchor up, look alive
there, men, and get all sail upon her!
Mr. Tartar doing the honours of this gallant craft was of a piece with
the rest. When a man rides an amiable hobby that shies at nothing and
kicks nobody, it is only agreeable to find him riding it with a humorous
sense of the droll side of the creature. When the man is a cordial and
an earnest man by nature, and withal is perfectly fresh and genuine, it
may be doubted whether he is ever seen to greater advantage than at such
a time. So Rosa would have naturally thought (even if she hadn’t been
conducted over the ship with all the homage due to the First Lady of the
Admiralty, or First Fairy of the Sea), that it was charming to see and
hear Mr. Tartar half laughing at, and half rejoicing in, his various
contrivances. So Rosa would have naturally thought, anyhow, that the
sunburnt sailor showed to great advantage when, the inspection finished,
he delicately withdrew out of his admiral’s cabin, beseeching her to
consider herself its Queen, and waving her free of his flower-garden with
the hand that had had Mr. Crisparkle’s life in it.
‘Helena! Helena Landless! Are you there?’
‘Who speaks to me? Not Rosa?’ Then a second handsome face appearing.
‘Yes, my darling!’
‘Why, how did you come here, dearest?’
‘I—I don’t quite know,’ said Rosa with a blush; ‘unless I am dreaming!’
Why with a blush? For their two faces were alone with the other flowers.
Are blushes among the fruits of the country of the magic bean-stalk?
‘_I_ am not dreaming,’ said Helena, smiling. ‘I should take more for
granted if I were. How do we come together—or so near together—so very
unexpectedly?’
Unexpectedly indeed, among the dingy gables and chimney-pots of P. J.
T.’s connection, and the flowers that had sprung from the salt sea. But
Rosa, waking, told in a hurry how they came to be together, and all the
why and wherefore of that matter.
‘And Mr. Crisparkle is here,’ said Rosa, in rapid conclusion; ‘and, could
you believe it? long ago he saved his life!’
‘I could believe any such thing of Mr. Crisparkle,’ returned Helena, with
a mantling face.
(More blushes in the bean-stalk country!)
‘Yes, but it wasn’t Crisparkle,’ said Rosa, quickly putting in the
correction.
‘I don’t understand, love.’
‘It was very nice of Mr. Crisparkle to be saved,’ said Rosa, ‘and he
couldn’t have shown his high opinion of Mr. Tartar more expressively.
But it was Mr. Tartar who saved him.’
Helena’s dark eyes looked very earnestly at the bright face among the
leaves, and she asked, in a slower and more thoughtful tone:
‘Is Mr. Tartar with you now, dear?’
‘No; because he has given up his rooms to me—to us, I mean. It is such a
beautiful place!’
‘Is it?’
‘It is like the inside of the most exquisite ship that ever sailed. It
is like—it is like—’
‘Like a dream?’ suggested Helena.
Rosa answered with a little nod, and smelled the flowers.
Helena resumed, after a short pause of silence, during which she seemed
(or it was Rosa’s fancy) to compassionate somebody: ‘My poor Neville is
reading in his own room, the sun being so very bright on this side just
now. I think he had better not know that you are so near.’
‘O, I think so too!’ cried Rosa very readily.
‘I suppose,’ pursued Helena, doubtfully, ‘that he must know by-and-by all
you have told me; but I am not sure. Ask Mr. Crisparkle’s advice, my
darling. Ask him whether I may tell Neville as much or as little of what
you have told me as I think best.’
Rosa subsided into her state-cabin, and propounded the question. The
Minor Canon was for the free exercise of Helena’s judgment.
‘I thank him very much,’ said Helena, when Rosa emerged again with her
report. ‘Ask him whether it would be best to wait until any more
maligning and pursuing of Neville on the part of this wretch shall
disclose itself, or to try to anticipate it: I mean, so far as to find
out whether any such goes on darkly about us?’
The Minor Canon found this point so difficult to give a confident opinion
on, that, after two or three attempts and failures, he suggested a
reference to Mr. Grewgious. Helena acquiescing, he betook himself (with
a most unsuccessful assumption of lounging indifference) across the
quadrangle to P. J. T.’s, and stated it. Mr. Grewgious held decidedly to
the general principle, that if you could steal a march upon a brigand or
a wild beast, you had better do it; and he also held decidedly to the
special case, that John Jasper was a brigand and a wild beast in
combination.
Thus advised, Mr. Crisparkle came back again and reported to Rosa, who in
her turn reported to Helena. She now steadily pursuing her train of
thought at her window, considered thereupon.
‘We may count on Mr. Tartar’s readiness to help us, Rosa?’ she inquired.
O yes! Rosa shyly thought so. O yes, Rosa shyly believed she could
almost answer for it. But should she ask Mr. Crisparkle? ‘I think your
authority on the point as good as his, my dear,’ said Helena, sedately,
‘and you needn’t disappear again for that.’ Odd of Helena!
‘You see, Neville,’ Helena pursued after more reflection, ‘knows no one
else here: he has not so much as exchanged a word with any one else here.
If Mr. Tartar would call to see him openly and often; if he would spare a
minute for the purpose, frequently; if he would even do so, almost daily;
something might come of it.’
‘Something might come of it, dear?’ repeated Rosa, surveying her friend’s
beauty with a highly perplexed face. ‘Something might?’
‘If Neville’s movements are really watched, and if the purpose really is
to isolate him from all friends and acquaintance and wear his daily life
out grain by grain (which would seem to be the threat to you), does it
not appear likely,’ said Helena, ‘that his enemy would in some way
communicate with Mr. Tartar to warn him off from Neville? In which case,
we might not only know the fact, but might know from Mr. Tartar what the
terms of the communication were.’
‘I see!’ cried Rosa. And immediately darted into her state-cabin again.
Presently her pretty face reappeared, with a greatly heightened colour,
and she said that she had told Mr. Crisparkle, and that Mr. Crisparkle
had fetched in Mr. Tartar, and that Mr. Tartar—‘who is waiting now, in
case you want him,’ added Rosa, with a half look back, and in not a
little confusion between the inside of the state-cabin and out—had
declared his readiness to act as she had suggested, and to enter on his
task that very day.
‘I thank him from my heart,’ said Helena. ‘Pray tell him so.’
Again not a little confused between the Flower-garden and the Cabin, Rosa
dipped in with her message, and dipped out again with more assurances
from Mr. Tartar, and stood wavering in a divided state between Helena and
him, which proved that confusion is not always necessarily awkward, but
may sometimes present a very pleasant appearance.
‘And now, darling,’ said Helena, ‘we will be mindful of the caution that
has restricted us to this interview for the present, and will part. I
hear Neville moving too. Are you going back?’
‘To Miss Twinkleton’s?’ asked Rosa.
‘Yes.’
‘O, I could never go there any more. I couldn’t indeed, after that
dreadful interview!’ said Rosa.
‘Then where _are_ you going, pretty one?’
‘Now I come to think of it, I don’t know,’ said Rosa. ‘I have settled
nothing at all yet, but my guardian will take care of me. Don’t be
uneasy, dear. I shall be sure to be somewhere.’
(It did seem likely.)
‘And I shall hear of my Rosebud from Mr. Tartar?’ inquired Helena.
‘Yes, I suppose so; from—’ Rosa looked back again in a flutter, instead
of supplying the name. ‘But tell me one thing before we part, dearest
Helena. Tell me—that you are sure, sure, sure, I couldn’t help it.’
‘Help it, love?’
‘Help making him malicious and revengeful. I couldn’t hold any terms
with him, could I?’
‘You know how I love you, darling,’ answered Helena, with indignation;
‘but I would sooner see you dead at his wicked feet.’
‘That’s a great comfort to me! And you will tell your poor brother so,
won’t you? And you will give him my remembrance and my sympathy? And
you will ask him not to hate me?’
With a mournful shake of the head, as if that would be quite a
superfluous entreaty, Helena lovingly kissed her two hands to her friend,
and her friend’s two hands were kissed to her; and then she saw a third
hand (a brown one) appear among the flowers and leaves, and help her
friend out of sight.
The refection that Mr. Tartar produced in the Admiral’s Cabin by merely
touching the spring knob of a locker and the handle of a drawer, was a
dazzling enchanted repast. Wonderful macaroons, glittering liqueurs,
magically-preserved tropical spices, and jellies of celestial tropical
fruits, displayed themselves profusely at an instant’s notice. But Mr.
Tartar could not make time stand still; and time, with his hard-hearted
fleetness, strode on so fast, that Rosa was obliged to come down from the
bean-stalk country to earth and her guardian’s chambers.
‘And now, my dear,’ said Mr. Grewgious, ‘what is to be done next? To put
the same thought in another form; what is to be done with you?’
Rosa could only look apologetically sensible of being very much in her
own way and in everybody else’s. Some passing idea of living, fireproof,
up a good many stairs in Furnival’s Inn for the rest of her life, was the
only thing in the nature of a plan that occurred to her.
‘It has come into my thoughts,’ said Mr. Grewgious, ‘that as the
respected lady, Miss Twinkleton, occasionally repairs to London in the
recess, with the view of extending her connection, and being available
for interviews with metropolitan parents, if any—whether, until we have
time in which to turn ourselves round, we might invite Miss Twinkleton to
come and stay with you for a month?’
‘Stay where, sir?’
‘Whether,’ explained Mr. Grewgious, ‘we might take a furnished lodging in
town for a month, and invite Miss Twinkleton to assume the charge of you
in it for that period?’
‘And afterwards?’ hinted Rosa.
‘And afterwards,’ said Mr. Grewgious, ‘we should be no worse off than we
are now.’
‘I think that might smooth the way,’ assented Rosa.
‘Then let us,’ said Mr. Grewgious, rising, ‘go and look for a furnished
lodging. Nothing could be more acceptable to me than the sweet presence
of last evening, for all the remaining evenings of my existence; but
these are not fit surroundings for a young lady. Let us set out in quest
of adventures, and look for a furnished lodging. In the meantime, Mr.
Crisparkle here, about to return home immediately, will no doubt kindly
see Miss Twinkleton, and invite that lady to co-operate in our plan.’
Mr. Crisparkle, willingly accepting the commission, took his departure;
Mr. Grewgious and his ward set forth on their expedition.
As Mr. Grewgious’s idea of looking at a furnished lodging was to get on
the opposite side of the street to a house with a suitable bill in the
window, and stare at it; and then work his way tortuously to the back of
the house, and stare at that; and then not go in, but make similar trials
of another house, with the same result; their progress was but slow. At
length he bethought himself of a widowed cousin, divers times removed, of
Mr. Bazzard’s, who had once solicited his influence in the lodger world,
and who lived in Southampton Street, Bloomsbury Square. This lady’s
name, stated in uncompromising capitals of considerable size on a brass
door-plate, and yet not lucidly as to sex or condition, was BILLICKIN.
Personal faintness, and an overpowering personal candour, were the
distinguishing features of Mrs. Billickin’s organisation. She came
languishing out of her own exclusive back parlour, with the air of having
been expressly brought-to for the purpose, from an accumulation of
several swoons.
‘I hope I see you well, sir,’ said Mrs. Billickin, recognising her
visitor with a bend.
‘Thank you, quite well. And you, ma’am?’ returned Mr. Grewgious.
‘I am as well,’ said Mrs. Billickin, becoming aspirational with excess of
faintness, ‘as I hever ham.’
‘My ward and an elderly lady,’ said Mr. Grewgious, ‘wish to find a
genteel lodging for a month or so. Have you any apartments available,
ma’am?’
‘Mr. Grewgious,’ returned Mrs. Billickin, ‘I will not deceive you; far
from it. I _have_ apartments available.’
This with the air of adding: ‘Convey me to the stake, if you will; but
while I live, I will be candid.’
‘And now, what apartments, ma’am?’ asked Mr. Grewgious, cosily. To tame
a certain severity apparent on the part of Mrs. Billickin.
‘There is this sitting-room—which, call it what you will, it is the front
parlour, Miss,’ said Mrs. Billickin, impressing Rosa into the
conversation: ‘the back parlour being what I cling to and never part
with; and there is two bedrooms at the top of the ’ouse with gas laid on.
I do not tell you that your bedroom floors is firm, for firm they are
not. The gas-fitter himself allowed, that to make a firm job, he must go
right under your jistes, and it were not worth the outlay as a yearly
tenant so to do. The piping is carried above your jistes, and it is best
that it should be made known to you.’
Mr. Grewgious and Rosa exchanged looks of some dismay, though they had
not the least idea what latent horrors this carriage of the piping might
involve. Mrs. Billickin put her hand to her heart, as having eased it of
a load.
‘Well! The roof is all right, no doubt,’ said Mr. Grewgious, plucking up
a little.
‘Mr. Grewgious,’ returned Mrs. Billickin, ‘if I was to tell you, sir,
that to have nothink above you is to have a floor above you, I should put
a deception upon you which I will not do. No, sir. Your slates WILL
rattle loose at that elewation in windy weather, do your utmost, best or
worst! I defy you, sir, be you what you may, to keep your slates tight,
try how you can.’ Here Mrs. Billickin, having been warm with Mr.
Grewgious, cooled a little, not to abuse the moral power she held over
him. ‘Consequent,’ proceeded Mrs. Billickin, more mildly, but still
firmly in her incorruptible candour: ‘consequent it would be worse than
of no use for me to trapse and travel up to the top of the ’ouse with
you, and for you to say, “Mrs. Billickin, what stain do I notice in the
ceiling, for a stain I do consider it?” and for me to answer, “I do not
understand you, sir.” No, sir, I will not be so underhand. I _do_
understand you before you pint it out. It is the wet, sir. It do come
in, and it do not come in. You may lay dry there half your lifetime; but
the time will come, and it is best that you should know it, when a
dripping sop would be no name for you.’
Mr. Grewgious looked much disgraced by being prefigured in this pickle.
‘Have you any other apartments, ma’am?’ he asked.
‘Mr. Grewgious,’ returned Mrs. Billickin, with much solemnity, ‘I have.
You ask me have I, and my open and my honest answer air, I have. The
first and second floors is wacant, and sweet rooms.’
‘Come, come! There’s nothing against _them_,’ said Mr. Grewgious,
comforting himself.
‘Mr. Grewgious,’ replied Mrs. Billickin, ‘pardon me, there is the stairs.
Unless your mind is prepared for the stairs, it will lead to inevitable
disappointment. You cannot, Miss,’ said Mrs. Billickin, addressing Rosa
reproachfully, ‘place a first floor, and far less a second, on the level
footing ‘of a parlour. No, you cannot do it, Miss, it is beyond your
power, and wherefore try?’
Mrs. Billickin put it very feelingly, as if Rosa had shown a headstrong
determination to hold the untenable position.
‘Can we see these rooms, ma’am?’ inquired her guardian.
‘Mr. Grewgious,’ returned Mrs. Billickin, ‘you can. I will not disguise
it from you, sir; you can.’
Mrs. Billickin then sent into her back parlour for her shawl (it being a
state fiction, dating from immemorial antiquity, that she could never go
anywhere without being wrapped up), and having been enrolled by her
attendant, led the way. She made various genteel pauses on the stairs
for breath, and clutched at her heart in the drawing-room as if it had
very nearly got loose, and she had caught it in the act of taking wing.
‘And the second floor?’ said Mr. Grewgious, on finding the first
satisfactory.
‘Mr. Grewgious,’ replied Mrs. Billickin, turning upon him with ceremony,
as if the time had now come when a distinct understanding on a difficult
point must be arrived at, and a solemn confidence established, ‘the
second floor is over this.’
‘Can we see that too, ma’am?’
‘Yes, sir,’ returned Mrs. Billickin, ‘it is open as the day.’
That also proving satisfactory, Mr. Grewgious retired into a window with
Rosa for a few words of consultation, and then asking for pen and ink,
sketched out a line or two of agreement. In the meantime Mrs. Billickin
took a seat, and delivered a kind of Index to, or Abstract of, the
general question.
‘Five-and-forty shillings per week by the month certain at the time of
year,’ said Mrs. Billickin, ‘is only reasonable to both parties. It is
not Bond Street nor yet St. James’s Palace; but it is not pretended that
it is. Neither is it attempted to be denied—for why should it?—that the
Arching leads to a mews. Mewses must exist. Respecting attendance; two
is kep’, at liberal wages. Words _has_ arisen as to tradesmen, but dirty
shoes on fresh hearth-stoning was attributable, and no wish for a
commission on your orders. Coals is either _by_ the fire, or _per_ the
scuttle.’ She emphasised the prepositions as marking a subtle but
immense difference. ‘Dogs is not viewed with favour. Besides litter,
they gets stole, and sharing suspicions is apt to creep in, and
unpleasantness takes place.’
By this time Mr. Grewgious had his agreement-lines, and his
earnest-money, ready. ‘I have signed it for the ladies, ma’am,’ he said,
‘and you’ll have the goodness to sign it for yourself, Christian and
Surname, there, if you please.’
‘Mr. Grewgious,’ said Mrs. Billickin in a new burst of candour, ‘no, sir!
You must excuse the Christian name.’
Mr. Grewgious stared at her.
‘The door-plate is used as a protection,’ said Mrs. Billickin, ‘and acts
as such, and go from it I will not.’
Mr. Grewgious stared at Rosa.
‘No, Mr. Grewgious, you must excuse me. So long as this ’ouse is known
indefinite as Billickin’s, and so long as it is a doubt with the
riff-raff where Billickin may be hidin’, near the street-door or down the
airy, and what his weight and size, so long I feel safe. But commit
myself to a solitary female statement, no, Miss! Nor would you for a
moment wish,’ said Mrs. Billickin, with a strong sense of injury, ‘to
take that advantage of your sex, if you were not brought to it by
inconsiderate example.’
Rosa reddening as if she had made some most disgraceful attempt to
overreach the good lady, besought Mr. Grewgious to rest content with any
signature. And accordingly, in a baronial way, the sign-manual BILLICKIN
got appended to the document.
Details were then settled for taking possession on the next day but one,
when Miss Twinkleton might be reasonably expected; and Rosa went back to
Furnival’s Inn on her guardian’s arm.
Behold Mr. Tartar walking up and down Furnival’s Inn, checking himself
when he saw them coming, and advancing towards them!
‘It occurred to me,’ hinted Mr. Tartar, ‘that we might go up the river,
the weather being so delicious and the tide serving. I have a boat of my
own at the Temple Stairs.’
‘I have not been up the river for this many a day,’ said Mr. Grewgious,
tempted.
‘I was never up the river,’ added Rosa.
Within half an hour they were setting this matter right by going up the
river. The tide was running with them, the afternoon was charming. Mr.
Tartar’s boat was perfect. Mr. Tartar and Lobley (Mr. Tartar’s man)
pulled a pair of oars. Mr. Tartar had a yacht, it seemed, lying
somewhere down by Greenhithe; and Mr. Tartar’s man had charge of this
yacht, and was detached upon his present service. He was a
jolly-favoured man, with tawny hair and whiskers, and a big red face. He
was the dead image of the sun in old woodcuts, his hair and whiskers
answering for rays all around him. Resplendent in the bow of the boat,
he was a shining sight, with a man-of-war’s man’s shirt on—or off,
according to opinion—and his arms and breast tattooed all sorts of
patterns. Lobley seemed to take it easily, and so did Mr. Tartar; yet
their oars bent as they pulled, and the boat bounded under them. Mr.
Tartar talked as if he were doing nothing, to Rosa who was really doing
nothing, and to Mr. Grewgious who was doing this much that he steered all
wrong; but what did that matter, when a turn of Mr. Tartar’s skilful
wrist, or a mere grin of Mr. Lobley’s over the bow, put all to rights!
The tide bore them on in the gayest and most sparkling manner, until they
stopped to dine in some ever-lastingly-green garden, needing no
matter-of-fact identification here; and then the tide obligingly
turned—being devoted to that party alone for that day; and as they
floated idly among some osier-beds, Rosa tried what she could do in the
rowing way, and came off splendidly, being much assisted; and Mr.
Grewgious tried what he could do, and came off on his back, doubled up
with an oar under his chin, being not assisted at all. Then there was an
interval of rest under boughs (such rest!) what time Mr. Lobley mopped,
and, arranging cushions, stretchers, and the like, danced the tight-rope
the whole length of the boat like a man to whom shoes were a superstition
and stockings slavery; and then came the sweet return among delicious
odours of limes in bloom, and musical ripplings; and, all too soon, the
great black city cast its shadow on the waters, and its dark bridges
spanned them as death spans life, and the everlastingly-green garden
seemed to be left for everlasting, unregainable and far away.
[Picture: Up the river]
‘Cannot people get through life without gritty stages, I wonder?’ Rosa
thought next day, when the town was very gritty again, and everything had
a strange and an uncomfortable appearance of seeming to wait for
something that wouldn’t come. NO. She began to think, that, now the
Cloisterham school-days had glided past and gone, the gritty stages would
begin to set in at intervals and make themselves wearily known!
Yet what did Rosa expect? Did she expect Miss Twinkleton? Miss
Twinkleton duly came. Forth from her back parlour issued the Billickin
to receive Miss Twinkleton, and War was in the Billickin’s eye from that
fell moment.
Miss Twinkleton brought a quantity of luggage with her, having all Rosa’s
as well as her own. The Billickin took it ill that Miss Twinkleton’s
mind, being sorely disturbed by this luggage, failed to take in her
personal identity with that clearness of perception which was due to its
demands. Stateliness mounted her gloomy throne upon the Billickin’s brow
in consequence. And when Miss Twinkleton, in agitation taking stock of
her trunks and packages, of which she had seventeen, particularly counted
in the Billickin herself as number eleven, the B. found it necessary to
repudiate.
‘Things cannot too soon be put upon the footing,’ said she, with a
candour so demonstrative as to be almost obtrusive, ‘that the person of
the ’ouse is not a box nor yet a bundle, nor a carpet-bag. No, I am ’ily
obleeged to you, Miss Twinkleton, nor yet a beggar.’
This last disclaimer had reference to Miss Twinkleton’s distractedly
pressing two-and-sixpence on her, instead of the cabman.
Thus cast off, Miss Twinkleton wildly inquired, ‘which gentleman’ was to
be paid? There being two gentlemen in that position (Miss Twinkleton
having arrived with two cabs), each gentleman on being paid held forth
his two-and-sixpence on the flat of his open hand, and, with a speechless
stare and a dropped jaw, displayed his wrong to heaven and earth.
Terrified by this alarming spectacle, Miss Twinkleton placed another
shilling in each hand; at the same time appealing to the law in flurried
accents, and recounting her luggage this time with the two gentlemen in,
who caused the total to come out complicated. Meanwhile the two
gentlemen, each looking very hard at the last shilling grumblingly, as if
it might become eighteen-pence if he kept his eyes on it, descended the
doorsteps, ascended their carriages, and drove away, leaving Miss
Twinkleton on a bonnet-box in tears.
The Billickin beheld this manifestation of weakness without sympathy, and
gave directions for ‘a young man to be got in’ to wrestle with the
luggage. When that gladiator had disappeared from the arena, peace
ensued, and the new lodgers dined.
But the Billickin had somehow come to the knowledge that Miss Twinkleton
kept a school. The leap from that knowledge to the inference that Miss
Twinkleton set herself to teach _her_ something, was easy. ‘But you
don’t do it,’ soliloquised the Billickin; ‘I am not your pupil, whatever
she,’ meaning Rosa, ‘may be, poor thing!’
Miss Twinkleton, on the other hand, having changed her dress and
recovered her spirits, was animated by a bland desire to improve the
occasion in all ways, and to be as serene a model as possible. In a
happy compromise between her two states of existence, she had already
become, with her workbasket before her, the equably vivacious companion
with a slight judicious flavouring of information, when the Billickin
announced herself.
‘I will not hide from you, ladies,’ said the B., enveloped in the shawl
of state, ‘for it is not my character to hide neither my motives nor my
actions, that I take the liberty to look in upon you to express a ’ope
that your dinner was to your liking. Though not Professed but Plain,
still her wages should be a sufficient object to her to stimilate to soar
above mere roast and biled.’
‘We dined very well indeed,’ said Rosa, ‘thank you.’
‘Accustomed,’ said Miss Twinkleton with a gracious air, which to the
jealous ears of the Billickin seemed to add ‘my good woman’—‘accustomed
to a liberal and nutritious, yet plain and salutary diet, we have found
no reason to bemoan our absence from the ancient city, and the methodical
household, in which the quiet routine of our lot has been hitherto cast.’
‘I did think it well to mention to my cook,’ observed the Billickin with
a gush of candour, ‘which I ’ope you will agree with, Miss Twinkleton,
was a right precaution, that the young lady being used to what we should
consider here but poor diet, had better be brought forward by degrees.
For, a rush from scanty feeding to generous feeding, and from what you
may call messing to what you may call method, do require a power of
constitution which is not often found in youth, particular when
undermined by boarding-school!’
It will be seen that the Billickin now openly pitted herself against Miss
Twinkleton, as one whom she had fully ascertained to be her natural
enemy.
‘Your remarks,’ returned Miss Twinkleton, from a remote moral eminence,
‘are well meant, I have no doubt; but you will permit me to observe that
they develop a mistaken view of the subject, which can only be imputed to
your extreme want of accurate information.’
‘My informiation,’ retorted the Billickin, throwing in an extra syllable
for the sake of emphasis at once polite and powerful—‘my informiation,
Miss Twinkleton, were my own experience, which I believe is usually
considered to be good guidance. But whether so or not, I was put in
youth to a very genteel boarding-school, the mistress being no less a
lady than yourself, of about your own age or it may be some years
younger, and a poorness of blood flowed from the table which has run
through my life.’
‘Very likely,’ said Miss Twinkleton, still from her distant eminence;
‘and very much to be deplored.—Rosa, my dear, how are you getting on with
your work?’
‘Miss Twinkleton,’ resumed the Billickin, in a courtly manner, ‘before
retiring on the ’int, as a lady should, I wish to ask of yourself, as a
lady, whether I am to consider that my words is doubted?’
‘I am not aware on what ground you cherish such a supposition,’ began
Miss Twinkleton, when the Billickin neatly stopped her.
‘Do not, if you please, put suppositions betwixt my lips where none such
have been imparted by myself. Your flow of words is great, Miss
Twinkleton, and no doubt is expected from you by your pupils, and no
doubt is considered worth the money. _No_ doubt, I am sure. But not
paying for flows of words, and not asking to be favoured with them here,
I wish to repeat my question.’
‘If you refer to the poverty of your circulation,’ began Miss Twinkleton,
when again the Billickin neatly stopped her.
‘I have used no such expressions.’
‘If you refer, then, to the poorness of your blood—’
‘Brought upon me,’ stipulated the Billickin, expressly, ‘at a
boarding-school—’
‘Then,’ resumed Miss Twinkleton, ‘all I can say is, that I am bound to
believe, on your asseveration, that it is very poor indeed. I cannot
forbear adding, that if that unfortunate circumstance influences your
conversation, it is much to be lamented, and it is eminently desirable
that your blood were richer.—Rosa, my dear, how are you getting on with
your work?’
‘Hem! Before retiring, Miss,’ proclaimed the Billickin to Rosa, loftily
cancelling Miss Twinkleton, ‘I should wish it to be understood between
yourself and me that my transactions in future is with you alone. I know
no elderly lady here, Miss, none older than yourself.’
‘A highly desirable arrangement, Rosa my dear,’ observed Miss Twinkleton.
‘It is not, Miss,’ said the Billickin, with a sarcastic smile, ‘that I
possess the Mill I have heard of, in which old single ladies could be
ground up young (what a gift it would be to some of us), but that I limit
myself to you totally.’
‘When I have any desire to communicate a request to the person of the
house, Rosa my dear,’ observed Miss Twinkleton with majestic
cheerfulness, ‘I will make it known to you, and you will kindly
undertake, I am sure, that it is conveyed to the proper quarter.’
‘Good-evening, Miss,’ said the Billickin, at once affectionately and
distantly. ‘Being alone in my eyes, I wish you good-evening with best
wishes, and do not find myself drove, I am truly ’appy to say, into
expressing my contempt for an indiwidual, unfortunately for yourself,
belonging to you.’
The Billickin gracefully withdrew with this parting speech, and from that
time Rosa occupied the restless position of shuttlecock between these two
battledores. Nothing could be done without a smart match being played
out. Thus, on the daily-arising question of dinner, Miss Twinkleton
would say, the three being present together:
‘Perhaps, my love, you will consult with the person of the house, whether
she can procure us a lamb’s fry; or, failing that, a roast fowl.’
On which the Billickin would retort (Rosa not having spoken a word), ‘If
you was better accustomed to butcher’s meat, Miss, you would not
entertain the idea of a lamb’s fry. Firstly, because lambs has long been
sheep, and secondly, because there is such things as killing-days, and
there is not. As to roast fowls, Miss, why you must be quite surfeited
with roast fowls, letting alone your buying, when you market for
yourself, the agedest of poultry with the scaliest of legs, quite as if
you was accustomed to picking ’em out for cheapness. Try a little
inwention, Miss. Use yourself to ’ousekeeping a bit. Come now, think of
somethink else.’
To this encouragement, offered with the indulgent toleration of a wise
and liberal expert, Miss Twinkleton would rejoin, reddening:
‘Or, my dear, you might propose to the person of the house a duck.’
‘Well, Miss!’ the Billickin would exclaim (still no word being spoken by
Rosa), ‘you do surprise me when you speak of ducks! Not to mention that
they’re getting out of season and very dear, it really strikes to my
heart to see you have a duck; for the breast, which is the only delicate
cuts in a duck, always goes in a direction which I cannot imagine where,
and your own plate comes down so miserably skin-and-bony! Try again,
Miss. Think more of yourself, and less of others. A dish of sweetbreads
now, or a bit of mutton. Something at which you can get your equal
chance.’
Occasionally the game would wax very brisk indeed, and would be kept up
with a smartness rendering such an encounter as this quite tame. But the
Billickin almost invariably made by far the higher score; and would come
in with side hits of the most unexpected and extraordinary description,
when she seemed without a chance.
All this did not improve the gritty state of things in London, or the air
that London had acquired in Rosa’s eyes of waiting for something that
never came. Tired of working, and conversing with Miss Twinkleton, she
suggested working and reading: to which Miss Twinkleton readily assented,
as an admirable reader, of tried powers. But Rosa soon made the
discovery that Miss Twinkleton didn’t read fairly. She cut the
love-scenes, interpolated passages in praise of female celibacy, and was
guilty of other glaring pious frauds. As an instance in point, take the
glowing passage: ‘Ever dearest and best adored,—said Edward, clasping the
dear head to his breast, and drawing the silken hair through his
caressing fingers, from which he suffered it to fall like golden
rain,—ever dearest and best adored, let us fly from the unsympathetic
world and the sterile coldness of the stony-hearted, to the rich warm
Paradise of Trust and Love.’ Miss Twinkleton’s fraudulent version tamely
ran thus: ‘Ever engaged to me with the consent of our parents on both
sides, and the approbation of the silver-haired rector of the
district,—said Edward, respectfully raising to his lips the taper fingers
so skilful in embroidery, tambour, crochet, and other truly feminine
arts,—let me call on thy papa ere to-morrow’s dawn has sunk into the
west, and propose a suburban establishment, lowly it may be, but within
our means, where he will be always welcome as an evening guest, and where
every arrangement shall invest economy, and constant interchange of
scholastic acquirements with the attributes of the ministering angel to
domestic bliss.’
As the days crept on and nothing happened, the neighbours began to say
that the pretty girl at Billickin’s, who looked so wistfully and so much
out of the gritty windows of the drawing-room, seemed to be losing her
spirits. The pretty girl might have lost them but for the accident of
lighting on some books of voyages and sea-adventure. As a compensation
against their romance, Miss Twinkleton, reading aloud, made the most of
all the latitudes and longitudes, bearings, winds, currents, offsets, and
other statistics (which she felt to be none the less improving because
they expressed nothing whatever to her); while Rosa, listening intently,
made the most of what was nearest to her heart. So they both did better
than before.
CHAPTER XXIII—THE DAWN AGAIN
Although Mr. Crisparkle and John Jasper met daily under the Cathedral
roof, nothing at any time passed between them having reference to Edwin
Drood, after the time, more than half a year gone by, when Jasper mutely
showed the Minor Canon the conclusion and the resolution entered in his
Diary. It is not likely that they ever met, though so often, without the
thoughts of each reverting to the subject. It is not likely that they
ever met, though so often, without a sensation on the part of each that
the other was a perplexing secret to him. Jasper as the denouncer and
pursuer of Neville Landless, and Mr. Crisparkle as his consistent
advocate and protector, must at least have stood sufficiently in
opposition to have speculated with keen interest on the steadiness and
next direction of the other’s designs. But neither ever broached the
theme.
False pretence not being in the Minor Canon’s nature, he doubtless
displayed openly that he would at any time have revived the subject, and
even desired to discuss it. The determined reticence of Jasper, however,
was not to be so approached. Impassive, moody, solitary, resolute, so
concentrated on one idea, and on its attendant fixed purpose, that he
would share it with no fellow-creature, he lived apart from human life.
Constantly exercising an Art which brought him into mechanical harmony
with others, and which could not have been pursued unless he and they had
been in the nicest mechanical relations and unison, it is curious to
consider that the spirit of the man was in moral accordance or
interchange with nothing around him. This indeed he had confided to his
lost nephew, before the occasion for his present inflexibility arose.
That he must know of Rosa’s abrupt departure, and that he must divine its
cause, was not to be doubted. Did he suppose that he had terrified her
into silence? or did he suppose that she had imparted to any one—to Mr.
Crisparkle himself, for instance—the particulars of his last interview
with her? Mr. Crisparkle could not determine this in his mind. He could
not but admit, however, as a just man, that it was not, of itself, a
crime to fall in love with Rosa, any more than it was a crime to offer to
set love above revenge.
The dreadful suspicion of Jasper, which Rosa was so shocked to have
received into her imagination, appeared to have no harbour in Mr.
Crisparkle’s. If it ever haunted Helena’s thoughts or Neville’s, neither
gave it one spoken word of utterance. Mr. Grewgious took no pains to
conceal his implacable dislike of Jasper, yet he never referred it,
however distantly, to such a source. But he was a reticent as well as an
eccentric man; and he made no mention of a certain evening when he warmed
his hands at the gatehouse fire, and looked steadily down upon a certain
heap of torn and miry clothes upon the floor.
Drowsy Cloisterham, whenever it awoke to a passing reconsideration of a
story above six months old and dismissed by the bench of magistrates, was
pretty equally divided in opinion whether John Jasper’s beloved nephew
had been killed by his treacherously passionate rival, or in an open
struggle; or had, for his own purposes, spirited himself away. It then
lifted up its head, to notice that the bereaved Jasper was still ever
devoted to discovery and revenge; and then dozed off again. This was the
condition of matters, all round, at the period to which the present
history has now attained.
The Cathedral doors have closed for the night; and the Choir-master, on a
short leave of absence for two or three services, sets his face towards
London. He travels thither by the means by which Rosa travelled, and
arrives, as Rosa arrived, on a hot, dusty evening.
His travelling baggage is easily carried in his hand, and he repairs with
it on foot, to a hybrid hotel in a little square behind Aldersgate
Street, near the General Post Office. It is hotel, boarding-house, or
lodging-house, at its visitor’s option. It announces itself, in the new
Railway Advertisers, as a novel enterprise, timidly beginning to spring
up. It bashfully, almost apologetically, gives the traveller to
understand that it does not expect him, on the good old constitutional
hotel plan, to order a pint of sweet blacking for his drinking, and throw
it away; but insinuates that he may have his boots blacked instead of his
stomach, and maybe also have bed, breakfast, attendance, and a porter up
all night, for a certain fixed charge. From these and similar premises,
many true Britons in the lowest spirits deduce that the times are
levelling times, except in the article of high roads, of which there will
shortly be not one in England.
He eats without appetite, and soon goes forth again. Eastward and still
eastward through the stale streets he takes his way, until he reaches his
destination: a miserable court, specially miserable among many such.
He ascends a broken staircase, opens a door, looks into a dark stifling
room, and says: ‘Are you alone here?’
‘Alone, deary; worse luck for me, and better for you,’ replies a croaking
voice. ‘Come in, come in, whoever you be: I can’t see you till I light a
match, yet I seem to know the sound of your speaking. I’m acquainted
with you, ain’t I?’
‘Light your match, and try.’
‘So I will, deary, so I will; but my hand that shakes, as I can’t lay it
on a match all in a moment. And I cough so, that, put my matches where I
may, I never find ’em there. They jump and start, as I cough and cough,
like live things. Are you off a voyage, deary?’
‘No.’
‘Not seafaring?’
‘No.’
‘Well, there’s land customers, and there’s water customers. I’m a mother
to both. Different from Jack Chinaman t’other side the court. He ain’t
a father to neither. It ain’t in him. And he ain’t got the true secret
of mixing, though he charges as much as me that has, and more if he can
get it. Here’s a match, and now where’s the candle? If my cough takes
me, I shall cough out twenty matches afore I gets a light.’
But she finds the candle, and lights it, before the cough comes on. It
seizes her in the moment of success, and she sits down rocking herself to
and fro, and gasping at intervals: ‘O, my lungs is awful bad! my lungs is
wore away to cabbage-nets!’ until the fit is over. During its
continuance she has had no power of sight, or any other power not
absorbed in the struggle; but as it leaves her, she begins to strain her
eyes, and as soon as she is able to articulate, she cries, staring:
‘Why, it’s you!’
‘Are you so surprised to see me?’
‘I thought I never should have seen you again, deary. I thought you was
dead, and gone to Heaven.’
‘Why?’
‘I didn’t suppose you could have kept away, alive, so long, from the poor
old soul with the real receipt for mixing it. And you are in mourning
too! Why didn’t you come and have a pipe or two of comfort? Did they
leave you money, perhaps, and so you didn’t want comfort?’
‘No.’
‘Who was they as died, deary?’
‘A relative.’
‘Died of what, lovey?’
‘Probably, Death.’
‘We are short to-night!’ cries the woman, with a propitiatory laugh.
‘Short and snappish we are! But we’re out of sorts for want of a smoke.
We’ve got the all-overs, haven’t us, deary? But this is the place to
cure ’em in; this is the place where the all-overs is smoked off.’
‘You may make ready, then,’ replies the visitor, ‘as soon as you like.’
He divests himself of his shoes, loosens his cravat, and lies across the
foot of the squalid bed, with his head resting on his left hand.
‘Now you begin to look like yourself,’ says the woman approvingly. ‘Now
I begin to know my old customer indeed! Been trying to mix for yourself
this long time, poppet?’
‘I have been taking it now and then in my own way.’
‘Never take it your own way. It ain’t good for trade, and it ain’t good
for you. Where’s my ink-bottle, and where’s my thimble, and where’s my
little spoon? He’s going to take it in a artful form now, my deary
dear!’
Entering on her process, and beginning to bubble and blow at the faint
spark enclosed in the hollow of her hands, she speaks from time to time,
in a tone of snuffling satisfaction, without leaving off. When he
speaks, he does so without looking at her, and as if his thoughts were
already roaming away by anticipation.
‘I’ve got a pretty many smokes ready for you, first and last, haven’t I,
chuckey?’
‘A good many.’
‘When you first come, you was quite new to it; warn’t ye?’
‘Yes, I was easily disposed of, then.’
‘But you got on in the world, and was able by-and-by to take your pipe
with the best of ’em, warn’t ye?’
‘Ah; and the worst.’
‘It’s just ready for you. What a sweet singer you was when you first
come! Used to drop your head, and sing yourself off like a bird! It’s
ready for you now, deary.’
He takes it from her with great care, and puts the mouthpiece to his
lips. She seats herself beside him, ready to refill the pipe.
After inhaling a few whiffs in silence, he doubtingly accosts her with:
‘Is it as potent as it used to be?’
‘What do you speak of, deary?’
‘What should I speak of, but what I have in my mouth?’
‘It’s just the same. Always the identical same.’
‘It doesn’t taste so. And it’s slower.’
‘You’ve got more used to it, you see.’
‘That may be the cause, certainly. Look here.’ He stops, becomes
dreamy, and seems to forget that he has invited her attention. She bends
over him, and speaks in his ear.
‘I’m attending to you. Says you just now, Look here. Says I now, I’m
attending to ye. We was talking just before of your being used to it.’
‘I know all that. I was only thinking. Look here. Suppose you had
something in your mind; something you were going to do.’
‘Yes, deary; something I was going to do?’
‘But had not quite determined to do.’
‘Yes, deary.’
‘Might or might not do, you understand.’
‘Yes.’ With the point of a needle she stirs the contents of the bowl.
‘Should you do it in your fancy, when you were lying here doing this?’
She nods her head. ‘Over and over again.’
‘Just like me! I did it over and over again. I have done it hundreds of
thousands of times in this room.’
‘It’s to be hoped it was pleasant to do, deary.’
‘It _was_ pleasant to do!’
He says this with a savage air, and a spring or start at her. Quite
unmoved she retouches and replenishes the contents of the bowl with her
little spatula. Seeing her intent upon the occupation, he sinks into his
former attitude.
‘It was a journey, a difficult and dangerous journey. That was the
subject in my mind. A hazardous and perilous journey, over abysses where
a slip would be destruction. Look down, look down! You see what lies at
the bottom there?’
He has darted forward to say it, and to point at the ground, as though at
some imaginary object far beneath. The woman looks at him, as his
spasmodic face approaches close to hers, and not at his pointing. She
seems to know what the influence of her perfect quietude would be; if so,
she has not miscalculated it, for he subsides again.
‘Well; I have told you I did it here hundreds of thousands of times.
What do I say? I did it millions and billions of times. I did it so
often, and through such vast expanses of time, that when it was really
done, it seemed not worth the doing, it was done so soon.’
‘That’s the journey you have been away upon,’ she quietly remarks.
He glares at her as he smokes; and then, his eyes becoming filmy,
answers: ‘That’s the journey.’
Silence ensues. His eyes are sometimes closed and sometimes open. The
woman sits beside him, very attentive to the pipe, which is all the while
at his lips.
‘I’ll warrant,’ she observes, when he has been looking fixedly at her for
some consecutive moments, with a singular appearance in his eyes of
seeming to see her a long way off, instead of so near him: ‘I’ll warrant
you made the journey in a many ways, when you made it so often?’
‘No, always in one way.’
‘Always in the same way?’
‘Ay.’
‘In the way in which it was really made at last?’
‘Ay.’
‘And always took the same pleasure in harping on it?’
‘Ay.’
For the time he appears unequal to any other reply than this lazy
monosyllabic assent. Probably to assure herself that it is not the
assent of a mere automaton, she reverses the form of her next sentence.
‘Did you never get tired of it, deary, and try to call up something else
for a change?’
He struggles into a sitting posture, and retorts upon her: ‘What do you
mean? What did I want? What did I come for?’
She gently lays him back again, and before returning him the instrument
he has dropped, revives the fire in it with her own breath; then says to
him, coaxingly:
‘Sure, sure, sure! Yes, yes, yes! Now I go along with you. You was too
quick for me. I see now. You come o’ purpose to take the journey. Why,
I might have known it, through its standing by you so.’
He answers first with a laugh, and then with a passionate setting of his
teeth: ‘Yes, I came on purpose. When I could not bear my life, I came to
get the relief, and I got it. It WAS one! It WAS one!’ This repetition
with extraordinary vehemence, and the snarl of a wolf.
She observes him very cautiously, as though mentally feeling her way to
her next remark. It is: ‘There was a fellow-traveller, deary.’
‘Ha, ha, ha!’ He breaks into a ringing laugh, or rather yell.
‘To think,’ he cries, ‘how often fellow-traveller, and yet not know it!
To think how many times he went the journey, and never saw the road!’
The woman kneels upon the floor, with her arms crossed on the coverlet of
the bed, close by him, and her chin upon them. In this crouching
attitude she watches him. The pipe is falling from his mouth. She puts
it back, and laying her hand upon his chest, moves him slightly from side
to side. Upon that he speaks, as if she had spoken.
‘Yes! I always made the journey first, before the changes of colours and
the great landscapes and glittering processions began. They couldn’t
begin till it was off my mind. I had no room till then for anything
else.’
Once more he lapses into silence. Once more she lays her hand upon his
chest, and moves him slightly to and fro, as a cat might stimulate a
half-slain mouse. Once more he speaks, as if she had spoken.
[Picture: Sleeping it off]
‘What? I told you so. When it comes to be real at last, it is so short
that it seems unreal for the first time. Hark!’
‘Yes, deary. I’m listening.’
‘Time and place are both at hand.’
He is on his feet, speaking in a whisper, and as if in the dark.
‘Time, place, and fellow-traveller,’ she suggests, adopting his tone, and
holding him softly by the arm.
‘How could the time be at hand unless the fellow-traveller was? Hush!
The journey’s made. It’s over.’
‘So soon?’
‘That’s what I said to you. So soon. Wait a little. This is a vision.
I shall sleep it off. It has been too short and easy. I must have a
better vision than this; this is the poorest of all. No struggle, no
consciousness of peril, no entreaty—and yet I never saw _that_ before.’
With a start.
‘Saw what, deary?’
‘Look at it! Look what a poor, mean, miserable thing it is! _That_ must
be real. It’s over.’
He has accompanied this incoherence with some wild unmeaning gestures;
but they trail off into the progressive inaction of stupor, and he lies a
log upon the bed.
The woman, however, is still inquisitive. With a repetition of her
cat-like action she slightly stirs his body again, and listens; stirs
again, and listens; whispers to it, and listens. Finding it past all
rousing for the time, she slowly gets upon her feet, with an air of
disappointment, and flicks the face with the back of her hand in turning
from it.
But she goes no further away from it than the chair upon the hearth. She
sits in it, with an elbow on one of its arms, and her chin upon her hand,
intent upon him. ‘I heard ye say once,’ she croaks under her breath, ‘I
heard ye say once, when I was lying where you’re lying, and you were
making your speculations upon me, “Unintelligible!” I heard you say so,
of two more than me. But don’t ye be too sure always; don’t be ye too
sure, beauty!’
Unwinking, cat-like, and intent, she presently adds: ‘Not so potent as it
once was? Ah! Perhaps not at first. You may be more right there.
Practice makes perfect. I may have learned the secret how to make ye
talk, deary.’
He talks no more, whether or no. Twitching in an ugly way from time to
time, both as to his face and limbs, he lies heavy and silent. The
wretched candle burns down; the woman takes its expiring end between her
fingers, lights another at it, crams the guttering frying morsel deep
into the candlestick, and rams it home with the new candle, as if she
were loading some ill-savoured and unseemly weapon of witchcraft; the new
candle in its turn burns down; and still he lies insensible. At length
what remains of the last candle is blown out, and daylight looks into the
room.
It has not looked very long, when he sits up, chilled and shaking, slowly
recovers consciousness of where he is, and makes himself ready to depart.
The woman receives what he pays her with a grateful, ‘Bless ye, bless ye,
deary!’ and seems, tired out, to begin making herself ready for sleep as
he leaves the room.
But seeming may be false or true. It is false in this case; for, the
moment the stairs have ceased to creak under his tread, she glides after
him, muttering emphatically: ‘I’ll not miss ye twice!’
There is no egress from the court but by its entrance. With a weird peep
from the doorway, she watches for his looking back. He does not look
back before disappearing, with a wavering step. She follows him, peeps
from the court, sees him still faltering on without looking back, and
holds him in view.
He repairs to the back of Aldersgate Street, where a door immediately
opens to his knocking. She crouches in another doorway, watching that
one, and easily comprehending that he puts up temporarily at that house.
Her patience is unexhausted by hours. For sustenance she can, and does,
buy bread within a hundred yards, and milk as it is carried past her.
He comes forth again at noon, having changed his dress, but carrying
nothing in his hand, and having nothing carried for him. He is not going
back into the country, therefore, just yet. She follows him a little
way, hesitates, instantaneously turns confidently, and goes straight into
the house he has quitted.
‘Is the gentleman from Cloisterham indoors?
‘Just gone out.’
‘Unlucky. When does the gentleman return to Cloisterham?’
‘At six this evening.’
‘Bless ye and thank ye. May the Lord prosper a business where a civil
question, even from a poor soul, is so civilly answered!’
‘I’ll not miss ye twice!’ repeats the poor soul in the street, and not so
civilly. ‘I lost ye last, where that omnibus you got into nigh your
journey’s end plied betwixt the station and the place. I wasn’t so much
as certain that you even went right on to the place. Now I know ye did.
My gentleman from Cloisterham, I’ll be there before ye, and bide your
coming. I’ve swore my oath that I’ll not miss ye twice!’
Accordingly, that same evening the poor soul stands in Cloisterham High
Street, looking at the many quaint gables of the Nuns’ House, and getting
through the time as she best can until nine o’clock; at which hour she
has reason to suppose that the arriving omnibus passengers may have some
interest for her. The friendly darkness, at that hour, renders it easy
for her to ascertain whether this be so or not; and it is so, for the
passenger not to be missed twice arrives among the rest.
‘Now let me see what becomes of you. Go on!’
An observation addressed to the air, and yet it might be addressed to the
passenger, so compliantly does he go on along the High Street until he
comes to an arched gateway, at which he unexpectedly vanishes. The poor
soul quickens her pace; is swift, and close upon him entering under the
gateway; but only sees a postern staircase on one side of it, and on the
other side an ancient vaulted room, in which a large-headed, gray-haired
gentleman is writing, under the odd circumstances of sitting open to the
thoroughfare and eyeing all who pass, as if he were toll-taker of the
gateway: though the way is free.
‘Halloa!’ he cries in a low voice, seeing her brought to a stand-still:
‘who are you looking for?’
‘There was a gentleman passed in here this minute, sir.’
‘Of course there was. What do you want with him?’
‘Where do he live, deary?’
‘Live? Up that staircase.’
‘Bless ye! Whisper. What’s his name, deary?’
‘Surname Jasper, Christian name John. Mr. John Jasper.’
‘Has he a calling, good gentleman?’
‘Calling? Yes. Sings in the choir.’
‘In the spire?’
‘Choir.’
‘What’s that?’
Mr. Datchery rises from his papers, and comes to his doorstep. ‘Do you
know what a cathedral is?’ he asks, jocosely.
The woman nods.
‘What is it?’
She looks puzzled, casting about in her mind to find a definition, when
it occurs to her that it is easier to point out the substantial object
itself, massive against the dark-blue sky and the early stars.
‘That’s the answer. Go in there at seven to-morrow morning, and you may
see Mr. John Jasper, and hear him too.’
‘Thank ye! Thank ye!’
The burst of triumph in which she thanks him does not escape the notice
of the single buffer of an easy temper living idly on his means. He
glances at her; clasps his hands behind him, as the wont of such buffers
is; and lounges along the echoing Precincts at her side.
‘Or,’ he suggests, with a backward hitch of his head, ‘you can go up at
once to Mr. Jasper’s rooms there.’
The woman eyes him with a cunning smile, and shakes her head.
‘O! you don’t want to speak to him?’
She repeats her dumb reply, and forms with her lips a soundless ‘No.’
‘You can admire him at a distance three times a day, whenever you like.
It’s a long way to come for that, though.’
The woman looks up quickly. If Mr. Datchery thinks she is to be so
induced to declare where she comes from, he is of a much easier temper
than she is. But she acquits him of such an artful thought, as he
lounges along, like the chartered bore of the city, with his uncovered
gray hair blowing about, and his purposeless hands rattling the loose
money in the pockets of his trousers.
The chink of the money has an attraction for her greedy ears. ‘Wouldn’t
you help me to pay for my traveller’s lodging, dear gentleman, and to pay
my way along? I am a poor soul, I am indeed, and troubled with a
grievous cough.’
‘You know the travellers’ lodging, I perceive, and are making directly
for it,’ is Mr. Datchery’s bland comment, still rattling his loose money.
‘Been here often, my good woman?’
‘Once in all my life.’
‘Ay, ay?’
They have arrived at the entrance to the Monks’ Vineyard. An appropriate
remembrance, presenting an exemplary model for imitation, is revived in
the woman’s mind by the sight of the place. She stops at the gate, and
says energetically:
‘By this token, though you mayn’t believe it, That a young gentleman gave
me three-and-sixpence as I was coughing my breath away on this very
grass. I asked him for three-and-sixpence, and he gave it me.’
‘Wasn’t it a little cool to name your sum?’ hints Mr. Datchery, still
rattling. ‘Isn’t it customary to leave the amount open? Mightn’t it
have had the appearance, to the young gentleman—only the appearance—that
he was rather dictated to?’
‘Look’ee here, deary,’ she replies, in a confidential and persuasive
tone, ‘I wanted the money to lay it out on a medicine as does me good,
and as I deal in. I told the young gentleman so, and he gave it me, and
I laid it out honest to the last brass farden. I want to lay out the
same sum in the same way now; and if you’ll give it me, I’ll lay it out
honest to the last brass farden again, upon my soul!’
‘What’s the medicine?’
‘I’ll be honest with you beforehand, as well as after. It’s opium.’
Mr. Datchery, with a sudden change of countenance, gives her a sudden
look.
‘It’s opium, deary. Neither more nor less. And it’s like a human
creetur so far, that you always hear what can be said against it, but
seldom what can be said in its praise.’
Mr. Datchery begins very slowly to count out the sum demanded of him.
Greedily watching his hands, she continues to hold forth on the great
example set him.
‘It was last Christmas Eve, just arter dark, the once that I was here
afore, when the young gentleman gave me the three-and-six.’ Mr. Datchery
stops in his counting, finds he has counted wrong, shakes his money
together, and begins again.
‘And the young gentleman’s name,’ she adds, ‘was Edwin.’
Mr. Datchery drops some money, stoops to pick it up, and reddens with the
exertion as he asks:
‘How do you know the young gentleman’s name?’
‘I asked him for it, and he told it me. I only asked him the two
questions, what was his Chris’en name, and whether he’d a sweetheart?
And he answered, Edwin, and he hadn’t.’
Mr. Datchery pauses with the selected coins in his hand, rather as if he
were falling into a brown study of their value, and couldn’t bear to part
with them. The woman looks at him distrustfully, and with her anger
brewing for the event of his thinking better of the gift; but he bestows
it on her as if he were abstracting his mind from the sacrifice, and with
many servile thanks she goes her way.
John Jasper’s lamp is kindled, and his lighthouse is shining when Mr.
Datchery returns alone towards it. As mariners on a dangerous voyage,
approaching an iron-bound coast, may look along the beams of the warning
light to the haven lying beyond it that may never be reached, so Mr.
Datchery’s wistful gaze is directed to this beacon, and beyond.
His object in now revisiting his lodging is merely to put on the hat
which seems so superfluous an article in his wardrobe. It is half-past
ten by the Cathedral clock when he walks out into the Precincts again; he
lingers and looks about him, as though, the enchanted hour when Mr.
Durdles may be stoned home having struck, he had some expectation of
seeing the Imp who is appointed to the mission of stoning him.
In effect, that Power of Evil is abroad. Having nothing living to stone
at the moment, he is discovered by Mr. Datchery in the unholy office of
stoning the dead, through the railings of the churchyard. The Imp finds
this a relishing and piquing pursuit; firstly, because their
resting-place is announced to be sacred; and secondly, because the tall
headstones are sufficiently like themselves, on their beat in the dark,
to justify the delicious fancy that they are hurt when hit.
Mr. Datchery hails with him: ‘Halloa, Winks!’
He acknowledges the hail with: ‘Halloa, Dick!’ Their acquaintance
seemingly having been established on a familiar footing.
‘But, I say,’ he remonstrates, ‘don’t yer go a-making my name public. I
never means to plead to no name, mind yer. When they says to me in the
Lock-up, a-going to put me down in the book, “What’s your name?” I says
to them, “Find out.” Likewise when they says, “What’s your religion?” I
says, “Find out.”’
Which, it may be observed in passing, it would be immensely difficult for
the State, however statistical, to do.
‘Asides which,’ adds the boy, ‘there ain’t no family of Winkses.’
‘I think there must be.’
‘Yer lie, there ain’t. The travellers give me the name on account of my
getting no settled sleep and being knocked up all night; whereby I gets
one eye roused open afore I’ve shut the other. That’s what Winks means.
Deputy’s the nighest name to indict me by: but yer wouldn’t catch me
pleading to that, neither.’
‘Deputy be it always, then. We two are good friends; eh, Deputy?’
‘Jolly good.’
‘I forgave you the debt you owed me when we first became acquainted, and
many of my sixpences have come your way since; eh, Deputy?’
‘Ah! And what’s more, yer ain’t no friend o’ Jarsper’s. What did he go
a-histing me off my legs for?’
‘What indeed! But never mind him now. A shilling of mine is going your
way to-night, Deputy. You have just taken in a lodger I have been
speaking to; an infirm woman with a cough.’
‘Puffer,’ assents Deputy, with a shrewd leer of recognition, and smoking
an imaginary pipe, with his head very much on one side and his eyes very
much out of their places: ‘Hopeum Puffer.’
‘What is her name?’
‘’Er Royal Highness the Princess Puffer.’
‘She has some other name than that; where does she live?’
‘Up in London. Among the Jacks.’
‘The sailors?’
‘I said so; Jacks; and Chayner men: and hother Knifers.’
‘I should like to know, through you, exactly where she lives.’
‘All right. Give us ’old.’
A shilling passes; and, in that spirit of confidence which should pervade
all business transactions between principals of honour, this piece of
business is considered done.
‘But here’s a lark!’ cries Deputy. ‘Where did yer think ‘Er Royal
Highness is a-goin’ to to-morrow morning? Blest if she ain’t a-goin’ to
the KIN-FREE-DER-EL!’ He greatly prolongs the word in his ecstasy, and
smites his leg, and doubles himself up in a fit of shrill laughter.
‘How do you know that, Deputy?’
‘Cos she told me so just now. She said she must be hup and hout o’
purpose. She ses, “Deputy, I must ’ave a early wash, and make myself as
swell as I can, for I’m a-goin’ to take a turn at the KIN-FREE-DER-EL!”’
He separates the syllables with his former zest, and, not finding his
sense of the ludicrous sufficiently relieved by stamping about on the
pavement, breaks into a slow and stately dance, perhaps supposed to be
performed by the Dean.
Mr. Datchery receives the communication with a well-satisfied though
pondering face, and breaks up the conference. Returning to his quaint
lodging, and sitting long over the supper of bread-and-cheese and salad
and ale which Mrs. Tope has left prepared for him, he still sits when his
supper is finished. At length he rises, throws open the door of a corner
cupboard, and refers to a few uncouth chalked strokes on its inner side.
‘I like,’ says Mr. Datchery, ‘the old tavern way of keeping scores.
Illegible except to the scorer. The scorer not committed, the scored
debited with what is against him. Hum; ha! A very small score this; a
very poor score!’
He sighs over the contemplation of its poverty, takes a bit of chalk from
one of the cupboard shelves, and pauses with it in his hand, uncertain
what addition to make to the account.
‘I think a moderate stroke,’ he concludes, ‘is all I am justified in
scoring up;’ so, suits the action to the word, closes the cupboard, and
goes to bed.
A brilliant morning shines on the old city. Its antiquities and ruins
are surpassingly beautiful, with a lusty ivy gleaming in the sun, and the
rich trees waving in the balmy air. Changes of glorious light from
moving boughs, songs of birds, scents from gardens, woods, and fields—or,
rather, from the one great garden of the whole cultivated island in its
yielding time—penetrate into the Cathedral, subdue its earthy odour, and
preach the Resurrection and the Life. The cold stone tombs of centuries
ago grow warm; and flecks of brightness dart into the sternest marble
corners of the building, fluttering there like wings.
Comes Mr. Tope with his large keys, and yawningly unlocks and sets open.
Come Mrs. Tope and attendant sweeping sprites. Come, in due time,
organist and bellows-boy, peeping down from the red curtains in the loft,
fearlessly flapping dust from books up at that remote elevation, and
whisking it from stops and pedals. Come sundry rooks, from various
quarters of the sky, back to the great tower; who may be presumed to
enjoy vibration, and to know that bell and organ are going to give it
them. Come a very small and straggling congregation indeed: chiefly from
Minor Canon Corner and the Precincts. Come Mr. Crisparkle, fresh and
bright; and his ministering brethren, not quite so fresh and bright.
Come the Choir in a hurry (always in a hurry, and struggling into their
nightgowns at the last moment, like children shirking bed), and comes
John Jasper leading their line. Last of all comes Mr. Datchery into a
stall, one of a choice empty collection very much at his service, and
glancing about him for Her Royal Highness the Princess Puffer.
The service is pretty well advanced before Mr. Datchery can discern Her
Royal Highness. But by that time he has made her out, in the shade. She
is behind a pillar, carefully withdrawn from the Choir-master’s view, but
regards him with the closest attention. All unconscious of her presence,
he chants and sings. She grins when he is most musically fervid,
and—yes, Mr. Datchery sees her do it!—shakes her fist at him behind the
pillar’s friendly shelter.
Mr. Datchery looks again, to convince himself. Yes, again! As ugly and
withered as one of the fantastic carvings on the under brackets of the
stall seats, as malignant as the Evil One, as hard as the big brass eagle
holding the sacred books upon his wings (and, according to the sculptor’s
representation of his ferocious attributes, not at all converted by
them), she hugs herself in her lean arms, and then shakes both fists at
the leader of the Choir.
And at that moment, outside the grated door of the Choir, having eluded
the vigilance of Mr. Tope by shifty resources in which he is an adept,
Deputy peeps, sharp-eyed, through the bars, and stares astounded from the
threatener to the threatened.
The service comes to an end, and the servitors disperse to breakfast.
Mr. Datchery accosts his last new acquaintance outside, when the Choir
(as much in a hurry to get their bedgowns off, as they were but now to
get them on) have scuffled away.
‘Well, mistress. Good morning. You have seen him?’
‘_I’ve_ seen him, deary; _I’ve_ seen him!’
‘And you know him?’
‘Know him! Better far than all the Reverend Parsons put together know
him.’
Mrs. Tope’s care has spread a very neat, clean breakfast ready for her
lodger. Before sitting down to it, he opens his corner-cupboard door;
takes his bit of chalk from its shelf; adds one thick line to the score,
extending from the top of the cupboard door to the bottom; and then falls
to with an appetite.
APPENDIX: FRAGMENT OF “THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD”
When Forster was just finishing his biography of Dickens, he found among
the leaves of one of the novelist’s other manuscripts certain loose slips
in his writing, “on paper only half the size of that used for the tale,
so cramped, interlined, and blotted as to be nearly illegible.” These
proved, upon examination, to contain a suggested chapter for _Edwin
Drood_, in which Sapsea, the auctioneer, appears as the principal figure,
surrounded by a group of characters new to the story. That chapter,
being among the last things Dickens wrote, seems to contain so much of
interest that it may be well to reprint it here.—ED.
HOW MR. SAPSEA CEASED TO BE A MEMBER OF THE EIGHT CLUB
TOLD BY HIMSELF
Wishing to take the air, I proceeded by a circuitous route to the Club,
it being our weekly night of meeting. I found that we mustered our full
strength. We were enrolled under the denomination of the Eight Club. We
were eight in number; we met at eight o’clock during eight months of the
year; we played eight games of four-handed cribbage, at eightpence the
game; our frugal supper was composed of eight rolls, eight mutton chops,
eight pork sausages, eight baked potatoes, eight marrow-bones, with eight
toasts, and eight bottles of ale. There may, or may not, be a certain
harmony of colour in the ruling idea of this (to adopt a phrase of our
lively neighbours) reunion. It was a little idea of mine.
[Picture: Facsimile of a page of the manuscript of “The Mystery of Edwin
Drood”]
A somewhat popular member of the Eight Club, was a member by the name of
Kimber. By profession, a dancing-master. A commonplace, hopeful sort of
man, wholly destitute of dignity or knowledge of the world.
As I entered the Club-room, Kimber was making the remark: “And he still
half-believes him to be very high in the Church.”
In the act of hanging up my hat on the eighth peg by the door, I caught
Kimber’s visual ray. He lowered it, and passed a remark on the next
change of the moon. I did not take particular notice of this at the
moment, because the world was often pleased to be a little shy of
ecclesiastical topics in my presence. For I felt that I was picked out
(though perhaps only through a coincidence) to a certain extent to
represent what I call our glorious constitution in Church and State. The
phrase may be objected to by cautious minds; but I own to it as mine. I
threw it off in argument some little time back. I said: “OUR GLORIOUS
CONSTITUTION in CHURCH and STATE.”
Another member of the Eight Club was Peartree; also member of the Royal
College of Surgeons. Mr. Peartree is not accountable to me for his
opinions, and I say no more of them here than that he attends the poor
gratis whenever they want him, and is not the parish doctor. Mr.
Peartree may justify it to the grasp of _his_ mind thus to do his
republican utmost to bring an appointed officer into contempt. Suffice
it that Mr. Peartree can never justify it to the grasp of _mine_.
Between Peartree and Kimber there was a sickly sort of feeble-minded
alliance. It came under my particular notice when I sold off Kimber by
auction. (Goods taken in execution.) He was a widower in a white
under-waistcoat, and slight shoes with bows, and had two daughters not
ill-looking. Indeed the reverse. Both daughters taught dancing in
scholastic establishments for Young Ladies—had done so at Mrs. Sapsea’s;
nay, Twinkleton’s—and both, in giving lessons, presented the unwomanly
spectacle of having little fiddles tucked under their chins. In spite of
which, the younger one might, if I am correctly informed—I will raise the
veil so far as to say I KNOW she might—have soared for life from this
degrading taint, but for having the class of mind allotted to what I call
the common herd, and being so incredibly devoid of veneration as to
become painfully ludicrous.
When I sold off Kimber without reserve, Peartree (as poor as he can hold
together) had several prime household lots knocked down to him. I am not
to be blinded; and of course it was as plain to me what he was going to
do with them, as it was that he was a brown hulking sort of revolutionary
subject who had been in India with the soldiers, and ought (for the sake
of society) to have his neck broke. I saw the lots shortly afterwards in
Kimber’s lodgings—through the window—and I easily made out that there had
been a sneaking pretence of lending them till better times. A man with a
smaller knowledge of the world than myself might have been led to suspect
that Kimber had held back money from his creditors, and fraudulently
bought the goods. But, besides that I knew for certain he had no money,
I knew that this would involve a species of forethought not to be made
compatible with the frivolity of a caperer, inoculating other people with
capering, for his bread.
As it was the first time I had seen either of those two since the sale, I
kept myself in what I call Abeyance. When selling him up, I had
delivered a few remarks—shall I say a little homily?—concerning Kimber,
which the world did regard as more than usually worth notice. I had come
up into my pulpit, it was said, uncommonly like—and a murmur of
recognition had repeated his (I will not name whose) title, before I
spoke. I had then gone on to say that all present would find, in the
first page of the catalogue that was lying before them, in the last
paragraph before the first lot, the following words: “Sold in pursuance
of a writ of execution issued by a creditor.” I had then proceeded to
remind my friends, that however frivolous, not to say contemptible, the
business by which a man got his goods together, still his goods were as
dear to him, and as cheap to society (if sold without reserve), as though
his pursuits had been of a character that would bear serious
contemplation. I had then divided my text (if I may be allowed so to
call it) into three heads: firstly, Sold; secondly, In pursuance of a
writ of execution; thirdly, Issued by a creditor; with a few moral
reflections on each, and winding up with, “Now to the first lot” in a
manner that was complimented when I afterwards mingled with my hearers.
So, not being certain on what terms I and Kimber stood, I was grave, I
was chilling. Kimber, however, moving to me, I moved to Kimber. (I was
the creditor who had issued the writ. Not that it matters.)
“I was alluding, Mr. Sapsea,” said Kimber, “to a stranger who entered
into conversation with me in the street as I came to the Club. He had
been speaking to you just before, it seemed, by the churchyard; and
though you had told him who you were, I could hardly persuade him that
you were not high in the Church.”
“Idiot?” said Peartree.
“Ass!” said Kimber.
“Idiot and Ass!” said the other five members.
“Idiot and Ass, gentlemen,” I remonstrated, looking around me, “are
strong expressions to apply to a young man of good appearance and
address.” My generosity was roused; I own it.
“You’ll admit that he must be a Fool,” said Peartree.
“You can’t deny that he must be a Blockhead,” said Kimber.
Their tone of disgust amounted to being offensive. Why should the young
man be so calumniated? What had he done? He had only made an innocent
and natural mistake. I controlled my generous indignation, and said so.
“Natural?” repeated Kimber. “_He’s_ a Natural!”
The remaining six members of the Eight Club laughed unanimously. It
stung me. It was a scornful laugh. My anger was roused in behalf of an
absent, friendless stranger. I rose (for I had been sitting down).
“Gentlemen,” I said with dignity, “I will not remain one of this Club
allowing opprobrium to be cast on an unoffending person in his absence.
I will not so violate what I call the sacred rites of hospitality.
Gentlemen, until you know how to behave yourselves better, I leave you.
Gentlemen, until then I withdraw, from this place of meeting, whatever
personal qualifications I may have brought into it. Gentlemen, until
then you cease to be the Eight Club, and must make the best you can of
becoming the Seven.”
I put on my hat and retired. As I went down stairs I distinctly heard
them give a suppressed cheer. Such is the power of demeanour and
knowledge of mankind. I had forced it out of them.
II
Whom should I meet in the street, within a few yards of the door of the
inn where the Club was held, but the self-same young man whoso cause I
had felt it my duty so warmly—and I will add so disinterestedly—to take
up.
“Is it Mr. Sapsea,” he said doubtfully, “or is it—”
“It is Mr. Sapsea,” I replied.
“Pardon me, Mr. Sapsea; you appear warm, sir.”
“I have been warm,” I said, “and on your account.” Having stated the
circumstances at some length (my generosity almost overpowered him), I
asked him his name.
“Mr. Sapsea,” he answered, looking down, “your penetration is so acute,
your glance into the souls of your fellow men is so penetrating, that if
I was hardly enough to deny that my name is Poker, what would it avail
me?”
I don’t know that I had quite exactly made out to a fraction that his
name _was_ Poker, but I daresay I had been pretty near doing it.
“Well, well,” said I, trying to put him at his ease by nodding my head in
a soothing way. “Your name is Poker, and there is no harm in being named
Poker.”
“Oh, Mr. Sapsea!” cried the young man, in a very well-behaved manner.
“Bless you for those words!” He then, as if ashamed of having given way
to his feelings, looked down again.
“Come Poker,” said I, “let me hear more about you. Tell me. Where are
you going to, Poker? and where do you come from?”
“Ah Mr. Sapsea!” exclaimed the young man. “Disguise from you is
impossible. You know already that I come from somewhere, and am going
somewhere else. If I was to deny it, what would it avail me?”
“Then don’t deny it,” was my remark.
“Or,” pursued Poker, in a kind of despondent rapture, “or if I was to
deny that I came to this town to see and hear you, sir, what would it
avail me? Or if I was to deny—”
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