The Mystery of Edwin Drood (12 page)

 

  “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 boweddown 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. Today, 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.”