The Mystery of Edwin Drood (61 page)

 

  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 tomorrow 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.