The Mystery of Edwin Drood (10 page)

 

  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
sharpedged words have sharp edges to wound me.”