The Mystery of Edwin Drood (79 page)

 

  “Halloa!” he cries in a low voice,
seeing her brought to a standstill: “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 agoin” 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-andcheese 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 Choirmaster'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.