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HARVARD
COLLEGE LIBRARY
Ꭱ
Derra
Ꮮ
ᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧ
éᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧ
The Gift of
Frederick W. Damon
1953
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1871.





WORKS
CHARLES DICKENS.
HOUSEHOLD EDITION.
ILLUSTRATED FROM DRAWINGS BY F. 0. C. DARLEY
AND JOHN GILBERT.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY HURD AND HOUGHTON.
Cambridge: Riverside Press,
1871.


ALL that was left in manuscript of Edwin DROOD
is contained in this volume. Its last entire page had
not been written two hours when the event occurred
which one very touching passage in it (grave and sad
but also cheerful and reassuring) might seem almost to
have anticipated. The only notes in reference to the
story that have since been found concern that portion
of it exclusively, which is treated in the earlier part.
Beyond the clews therein afforded to its conduct or
catastrophe, nothing whatever remains; and it is be-
lieved that what the author would himself have most
desired is done, in placing before the reader, without
further note or suggestion, the fragment of The
MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
August 12th, 1870.





CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
THE DAWN
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
1
CHAPTER II.
A DEAN, AND A CHAPTER ALSO
.
.
.
.
.
.
6
CHAPTER III.
THE NUNS' HOUSE
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. 21
CHAPTER IV.
MR. SAPSEA
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
37
CHAPTER V.
MR. DURDLES AND FRIEND.
CHAPTER VI.
PHILANTHROPY IN MINOR CANON CORNER
.
.
.
.
59
CHAPTER VII.
MORE CONFIDENCES THAN ONE
73


CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VIII.
PAGE
DAGGERS DRAWN
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
PAGB
86
.
CHAPTER IX.
. . . .
BIRDS IN THE Bush
.
.
.
.
. 99
CHAPTER X.
. . . .
SMOOTHING THE WAY
.
.
.
.
119
CHAPTER XI.
A PICTURE AND A RING
. 138
CHAPTER XII.
A Night with DURDLES
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
157
CHAPTER XIII.
BOTH AT THEIR BEST .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. 176
CHAPTER XIV.
WHEN SHALL THESE THREE MEET AGAIN? .
.
.
.
191
CHAPTER XV.
. . . .
IMPEACHED
.
.
.
.
.
. 210
CHAPTER XVI.
. . . .
DEVOTED
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
222
CHAPTER XVII.
PHILANTHROPY, PROFESSIONAL AND UNPROFESSIONAL
236
CHAPTER XVIII.
A SETTLER IN CLOISTERHAM
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
256
CHAPTER XIX.
SHADOW ON THE SUN-DIAL
.
.
.
.
.
.
. 268





THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.





THE MYSTERY
OF
EDWIN DROOD.
CHAPTER 1.
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 scimiters flash in the sunlight, and thrice
ten thousand dancing-girls strew flowers. Then follow
white elephants, caparisoned in countless gorgeous colors,
and infinite in number and attendants. Still, the ca-
thedral 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?


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 hag-
gard 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, con-
centrates its red spark of light, it serves in the diin
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 com-
plains. “ 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 according, deary,
won't ye?"


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 3
She blows at the pipe as she speaks, and, occasionally
bubbling at it, inhales much of its contents.
“O me, 0 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 color, 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.
“ What visions can she have ?” the waking man
muses, as he turns her face towards him, and stands look-
ing down at it. « Visions of many butchers' shops, and
public-houses, and much credit? Of an increase of hid-
eous customers, and this horrible bedstead set upright
again, and this horrible court swept clean? What can


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
comment of the watcher, made with some reassured nol
ding of his head, and a gloomy smile. He then layo
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 be-
neath 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 arc
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 scut-
tled 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; convey-
ing to mere men the fancy that it is of some occult im-
portance 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 com-
ing out, resist them, and cast them forth again with their


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
feet; this done, one of the two locks the door with a
goodly key, and the other fits away with a folio music-
book.
5 Mr. Jasper was that, Tope?”
“ Yes, Mr. Dean.” .
“ He has stayed late.”
“ Yes, Mr. Dean. I have stayed for him, your Rev-
erence. 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 correc-
tion, 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 accus-
tomed 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. Cris-
parkle 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 gate-house
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," replies 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 .


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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. Cris-
parkle 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 ?”
“ Aye; 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 hiniself head-foremost into all the
deep running water in the surrounding country; Mr.
Crisparkle, Minor Canon, early riser, musical, classical,
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 gate-house, 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 appertain-
ing to the Cathedral, you know.”
4.


10
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
"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 whisker.
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 bloom-
ing school-girl hanging over the chimney-piece ; her flow-
ing brown hair tied with a blue ribbon, 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
11
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 great-coat, 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 outer 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.


12
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“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 chimney-piece.
“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 gayly 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, tak-
ing his place at 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!”


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
13
“ 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-colored 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 instinct-
ively.”
“ As a rule ? Ah, maybe! 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 ?”


14
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“ 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-cracker 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 15
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 medi-
cine 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.”


16
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
With a scared face, the younger man complies, by
casting his eyes downward at the ashes on the hearth.
Not relaxing his own gaze at 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 assidu-
ously 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 cal-
culation, no risk, no change of place, myself devoted to
the art I pursue, my business my pleasure."
6 I really was going to say something of the kind,
Jack ; but you see, you, speaking of yourself, almost nec-
essarily 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
17
being taught, says there never was such a Master as
you are !) and your connection.”
“ 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 Jas-
per'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


18
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 pro-
ceeds:
“ You know now, don't you, that even a poor monot-
onous chorister and grinder of inusic — in his niche —
may be troubled with some stray sort of ambition, as-
piration, 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 head-piece 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.”


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
Mr. Jasper's steadiness of face and figure became so
marvelous 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 suffer-
ing, 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,” orce more apos-
trophizing the portrait, “I'll burn your comic likeness
and paint your music-master another.”


20
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
Mr. Jasper, with his hand to his chin, and with an ex-
pression of musing benevolence on his face, has atten-
tively watched every animated look and gesture attend-
ing the delivery of these words. He remains in that
attitude after they are spoken, as if in a kind of fascina-
tion 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 church-yard ? ”
“ 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 great-coat 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 catheral 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 flavor
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 ab-
besses, 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


22
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROUD.
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 sun-blinds 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 achieve-
ment, 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 disap-
pointing yards with pumps in them and no thorough-
fare — exception made of the cathedral Close and a
paved Quaker settlement, in color and general confor-
mation very like a Quakeress's bonnet, up in a shady
corner.
In a word, a city of another and a by-gone 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 dis-
mal books. The most abundant and the most agreeable
evidences of progressing life in Cloisterham are the evi-
dences of vegetable life in its many gardens; even its


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
23
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 inclosing its old court-yard, is a resplen-
dent 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
eyeglass 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, tell-
ing 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 consti-
tute 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


24
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 spright-
lier Miss Twinkleton than the young ladies have ever
seen. Every night, at the same hour, does Miss Twinkle-
ton resume the topics of the previous night, comprehend-
ing 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 state
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 hair-dresser.
The pet pupil of the Nuns' House is Miss Rosa Bud,
of course called Rosebud; wonderfully pretty, wonder-
fully childish, wonderfully whimsical. An awkward in-
terest (awkward because romantic) attaches to Miss


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 un-
happy lot of that doomed little victim. But with no
better effect — possibly some unfelt touch of foolish Mr.
Porters has undermined the endeavor — than to evoke
from the young ladies a unanimous bed-chamber 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 ex-
pected, or takes place, every young lady who can, under
any pretense, look out of window, looks out of window :
while every young lady who is “ practicing,” practices
out of time; and the French class becomes so demoralized
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 gate-house, the bell is rung with the usual
fluttering results.
66 Mr. Edwin Drood to see Miss Rosa.”
This is the announcement of the parlor-maid in chief.
Miss Twinkleton, with an exemplary air of melancholy
on her, turns to the sacrifice, and says: “ You may go


26
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
down, my dear.” Miss Bud goes down, followed by all
eyes.
Mr. Edwin Drood is waiting in Miss Twinkleton's
own parlor: a dainty room, with nothing more directly ·
scholastic in it than a terrestrial and a celestial globe.
These expressive machines imply (to parents and guard-
ians) 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 knowl.
edge 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 parlor.
“O! It is so ridiculous !” says the apparition, stop-
ping 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.)


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“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 pout-
ing 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 offer-
ing 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 pass-
ing: “ 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


THE MYSTERY OF EEWIN DROOD.
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 pretense of reserve.
“ Ha! 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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.”
6. 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 re-
signed ?”
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 sha'n'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 ma-
tronly Tisher heaves in sight, says, in rustling through


30
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 reflect-
ing 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, inquir-
ing 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
31
the so, he is s Rosa make he rather
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.”
6 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 any-
thing about them; never mind.”
So, he is gloomily borne off to the Lumps-of-Delight
shop, where Rosa makes her purchase, and, after offer-
ing some to him (which he rather indignantly declines),
begins to partake of it with great zest: previously tak-
ing off and rolling up a pair of little pink gloves, like
rose-leaves, and occasionally putting her little pink fin-
gers 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.”


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“ 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. 1
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, becom-
ing 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 nod-
ding 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. “Ac-
cording 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 un-
generous."
“ Ungenerous ! I like that!”
“Then I don't like that, and so I tell you plainly,"
Rosa pouts.
VOL. I.
3


34
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“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 sup-
pose 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 be-
cause we can't be friends, that we try one another so.
I am a young little thing, Eddy, to have an old heart-
ache; 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 serious


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
35
little 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 child-
ishly 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.
“ 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 lis-
ten to it; let us get away !”


36
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 school-
girl 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 chap-
lain. Mr. Sapsea is very proud of this, and of his voice,
and of his style. He has even (in selling landed prop-
erty) 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 proposi-
tion is carried by a large local majority, even including
non-believers in his wisdom, that he is a credit to Clois-
terham. He possesses the great qualities of being por-
tentous 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 dis-
course. Much nearer sixty years of age than fifty, with


38
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 modernized 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 fin-
ger, 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 manu-
script, 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 wine-glasses in a tray on the
table. His serving-maid entering, and announcing “Mr.


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
39
Jasper is come, sir,” Mr. Sapsea waves “ Admit him,"
and draws two wine-glasses from the rank, as being
claimed.
“ Glad to see you, sir. I congratulate myself on hav-
ing the honor of receiving you here for the first time.”
Mr. Sapsea does the honors of his house in this wise.
“You are very good. The honor 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 hum-
ble home. And that is what I would not say to every-
body.” Ineffable loftiness on Mr. Sapsea's part accom-
panies these words, as leaving the sentence to be under-
stood : “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. Sap-
sea."
" 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:
66. 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 appropri-
ate to any subsequent era.
“ You can scarcely be ignorant, Mr. Sapsea,” observes
Jasper, watching the auctioneer with a smile as the lat-
ter 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


40
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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
my 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 sandal-wood
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 unspeak-
able 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
41
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 wine-
glass, puts down that screen and calls up a look of inter-
est. 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 es-
tablishment 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 trace-
able in the dictation-exercises of Miss Brobity's pupils.
Young man, a whisper even sprang up in obscure malig-
nity, 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 crea-
ture in his right senses would so lay himself open to be
pointed at, by what I call the finger of scorn ?”


42 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 im-
bued 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 honor to be so overshadowed with a spe-
cies 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 pro-
ceed a word further. I disposed of the parallel estab-
lishment, 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 satis-
factory to her perhaps-too-favorable estimate of my in-
tellect. 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
jince 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
43
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, pro-
ducing his scrap of manuscript, “Mrs. Sapsea's monu-
ment 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


44
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 wine-glass, 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 Dur-
dles to take off that glass of wine (handing the same),
for it will warm him.
Durdles is a stone-mason; chiefly in the gravestone,
tomb, and monument way, and wholly of their color 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 the 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 impedi-
mental fragments of wall, buttress, and pavement, has
seen strange sights. He often speaks of himself in the


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
45
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, touch-
ing 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 sound-
ing 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-
colored than black, and laced boots of the hue of his
stony calling, Durdles leads a hazy, gypsy 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 Town Hall. These
occasions, however, have been few and far apart: Dur-
dles 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,


46 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
so far, of stones stolen from the city wall. To this abode
there is an approach, ankle-deep in stone chips, resem-
bling a petrified grove of tomb-stones, urns, draperies, and
broken columns, in all stages of sculpture. Herein, two
journeymen incessantly chip, while other two journey-
men, 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 has 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 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."


48
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“ 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 some-
times” -
“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 offense. 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
49
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 installment 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 inclosing 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 be
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 him-
self 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?”


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“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 abed 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" -


52
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“ 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 sar-
cophagus within the railing, white and cold in the moon-
light. “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, stand-
ing on what might represent the cake of soap. “ Former
pastry-cook and muffin-maker, much respected ;” intro-
ducing grave-stone. “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 soddenness, 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 him-
self about again, and as unexpectedly forgetting his of-


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
53
fense 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 ob-
ject. I put that enlightened object before him, and now
he can turn his honest half-penny 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' Two-
penny, 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 of one, taking
open order, and invading the silence of the hour and
place by stoning every wall, post, pillar, and other in-
animate object, by the deserted way.


54
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
on your pareventh pillare under
own the rider the part, I mean
“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."
6 There's a old ’un under the seventh pillar on the
left as you go down the broken steps of the little under-
ground 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 endeavor 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 clew to the question,
whether he receives this as a compliment or as quite
the reverse, Durdles gruffly answers : “ Yours is an-
other.”
“ Well! Inasmuch as my lot is cast in the same old
earthly, chilly, never-changing place, Yes. But there
is much more mystery and interest in your connec-
tion 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 MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
55
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 accu-
racy with which you would seem to find out where peo-
ple are buried. What is the matter? That bundle is
in your way; let me hold it."
Durdles has stopped and backed a little (Deputy, at-
tentive 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 suppos-
ing 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,


56
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
suspec which delicio
as suspecting that Treasure may be about to be dis-
covered, which may somehow lead to his own enrich-
ment, 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 walls 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 knowl-
edge through grubbing deep for it, and having it up by
the roots when it don't want to come. Halloa 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
half penny, and appearing by this mystic word to ex-
press 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 Travel-
lers’ Twopenny:- a house all warped and distorted,


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
57
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 road-side in
the course of the day), that they can never be persuaded
or threatened into departure, without violently possess -
ing themselves of some wooden forget-me-not, and bear-
ing 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 two-
penny 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 St. 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.


58
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD..
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 gate-
house, 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 care-
fully, 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, husbing his footsteps, he passes to his
own room, lights his pipe, and delivers himself to the
Spectres it invokes at midnight.
pipe in. b. Then his piponight.


CHAPTER VI.
PHILANTHROPY IN MINOR CANON CORNER.
The Reverend Septimus Crisparkle (Septimus, be-
cause six little brother Crisparkles before him went out,
one by one, as they were born, like six weak little rush-
lights, 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 straight-
ness, 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
Rev. 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."


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
61
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 some-
times harmful there, and behold they were all gone out
of Minor Canon Corner, and so much the better. Per-
haps 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 — produc-
tive 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 color by
time, strong-rooted ivy, latticed windows, paneled 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


62
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 circum-
stance, and so dutifully bent on her deriving the utmost
possible gratification from it, that he had invented the
pretense 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.
“6 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 per-


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
63
spicuously 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.
66 We have,'' the old lady read on with a little extra
emphasis, “6 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 mis-
creant'” —
“ 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 Philanthro-
pists are always denouncing somebody. And it is an-
other most extraordinary thing that they are always so
violently flush of miscreants !”
6. Denouncing a public miscreant !!” - the old lady
resumed, “6 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 ed-
ucation, 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," re-
marked 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.”


64
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“ • 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 estab-
lishment 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 honor 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."
6 Than himself ?”
“ Than anybody."
“ Ha !” said Septimus. And finished his breakfast
as if the flavor 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 chimney-piece, 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 rematching 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 bumptious-
ness. 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 dis-
interested 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 particularize eight.”
“ The exact size of the table and the room, my dear”
VOL. I.


66
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 Twin-
kleton 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 dispatched to the Philanthropist for the de-
parture 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,
marvelous to consider, it has to 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 Constitu-
tion, whether or no; but even that had already so un-
settled 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
labeled at the corner : “ Beware of the Dog."
To this ignominious avenue of approach, Mr. Cris-
parkle 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 Clois-


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
67
terham 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, com-
pressing 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 hostler. “ 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 penal-
ties — 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.
6 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 favor, with-
out 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
80 am I. I don't want no brothers.”
“ But you must have them,” replied the passenger,


68
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 suc-
cumbed of late under the pressure of my public labors,
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
eye-glass by its ribbon, as if he were roasting it; but
not otherwise using it. “Ha! I expected to see you
older, sir."
“I hope you will,” was the good-humored reply.,
66 Eh? ” demanded Mr. Honeythunder.
“ Only a poor little joke. Not worth repeating."
“ Joke? Aye; I never see a joke,” Mr. Honeythun-
der 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 color; she, of almost the gypsy
type; something untamed about them both ; a certain air


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
69
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 cap-
tives brought from some wild tropical dominion. Mr.
Honeythunder walked in the middle of the road, shoul-
dering the natives out of his way, and loudly developing
a scheme he had, for making a raid on all the unem-
ployed 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 philan-
thropy 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. Hon-
eythunder expanded into an inflammatory Wen in Minor
Canon Corner. Though it was not literally true, as
was facetiously charged against him by public unbeliev-
ers, that he called aloud to his fellow-creatures : “ Curse
your souls and bodies, come here and be blessed !”


70
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 offense, -
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 elimi-
nating 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 sub-
scription, get your card of membership and your ribbon
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 con-
iempt, not unmixed with utter detestation and loathing
abhorrence,” — in short, the baseness of all those who do


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
71
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
parlor-maid) to the verge of distraction by passing plates
and dishes on, over his own head. Nobody could talk to
any body, 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 im-
personating 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 flavor or solidity, and very little resistance.
But the gush of philanthropy that burst forth when


72
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 great-coat, and shoved
him out into the moonlight, as if he were a fugitive
traitor with whom they sympathized, and a troop of
horse were at the back door. Mr. Crisparkle and his
new charge, who took him to the omnibus, were so fer-
vent 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 step-father 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 connection of his, whose name
was always in print and catching his attention.”
“ That was lately, I suppose ?”
“Quite lately, sir. This step-father of ours was a
cruel brute as well as a grinding one. It was 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.


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
75
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 mean-
ing it, turn aside a trustfulness beneficial to a misshapen
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 before-
hand, 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 unmistak-
able 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 every-
thing 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.”


76
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“ 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 encourag-
ing,” 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 honor, that


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
77
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 cru-
elly 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 endeavors !”
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


78
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
perhaps I may venture to say, without ill-nature, that he
rather monopolized 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 under-
standing 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 tak-
ing this opportunity of speaking to you, both for her and
for myself.”
Mr. Crisparkle looked in his face, with some incredu-
lity; but his face expressed such absolute and firm con-
viction 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 color 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-
0-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 super-
ziliousness !” thought Mr. Crisparkle.) Then he ex-


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
79
plained, aloud, what he knew of the little story of their
betrothal.
“O! That's it, is it ?” said the young man. “I un-
derstand 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 after-
wards they reëntered 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-notes
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 understand-
ing that had been spoken of, flash out. Mr. Neville then
took his admiring station, leaning against the piano, op-
posite the singer; Mr. Crisparkle sat down by the china
shepherdess; Edwin Drood gallantly furled and un-
furled Miss Twinkleton's fan; and that lady passively
claimed that sort of exhibitor's proprietorship in the ac-
complishment on view, which Mr. Tope, the Verger,
daily claimed in the cathedral service.
The song went on. It was a sorrowful strain of part-
ing, and the fresh young voice was very plaintive and
tender. As Jasper watched the pretty lips, and ever


80
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
and again hinted the one note, as though it were a low
whisper from himself, the voice became less steady, un-
til 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 figure, Helena laid
the little beauty on a sofa, as if she had never cauglit
her up. Then, on one knee beside her, and with one
hand upon her rosy mouth, while with the other she ap-
pealed to all the rest, Helena said to them: “ It's noth-
ing; 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 them-
selves 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 shoul-
der, and begged to thank Miss Landless for her vindica-
tion 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 pet-
ted and restored. When she was brought back, his


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
81
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 under-
took the formation of the future wives and mo: hers 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 explana-
tion 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 tend-
erly 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.”


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DRỌOD.
6 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 fascina-
tion 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, pout-
ing 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 ridic-
ulous!”
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
quarreling.”
“ 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.


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
83
Helena's masterful look was intent upon her face for
a few moments, and then she impulsively put out both
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 ; for 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 be-
hind 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.”


84
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“He has never spoken to me about — that. Never.”
6 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 utter-
ing 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 some-
times 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 then 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 all this to-night ?”
“ This was all ; except that to-night when he watched
my lips so closely as I was singing, besides feeling terri-
fied 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 fright-
ened to be left by myself.”
The lustrous gypsy face drooped over the clinging


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
85
arms and bosom, and the wild black hair fell down pro-
tectingly over the childish form. There was a slumber-
ing 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 court-yard 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 conde-
scending 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.”


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 87
“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 advanc-
ing, 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 abrupt-
ness not at all polite. They stop and interchange a
rather heated look.
“I hope,” says Neville, “ there is no offense, 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 mention-
ing the matter to me, quite openly,” Neville begins.
“ No; that's true; you are not,” Edwin Drood as-
sents.
“ But,” resumes Neville, “ I am accountable for men-
tioning 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. Ne-
ville 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:


88
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“ 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 dare say do."
By this time they have both become savage; Mr.
Neville out in the open; Edwin Drood under the trans-
parent 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 exam-
ple, 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 dis-
dain.
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.


90
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
o
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 drink-
ing-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 chimney-piece.
It is not an object calculated to improve the understand-
ing 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 clew to the cause of their
late high words), directly calls attention to it.
“ You recognize that picture, Mr. Neville?” shading
the lamp to throw the light upon it.
“I recognize it, but it is far from flattering the origi-
nal.”
“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 apologizes,
with a real intention to apologize ; " if I had known I
was in the artist's presence” –
“O, a joke, sir, a mere joke,” Edwin cuts in, with a


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
91
provoking yawn. “ A little humoring 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,


92
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
Ned. As it is his foot that is in the stirrup — meta
phorically — 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 remark-
ably flushed by 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 fortu-
nate 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.”
His speech has become thick and indistinct. Jasper,


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
93
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 ?”.
“ Aye,” 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 rejoin-
der.
“ Have you known hardships, may I ask ? ” says Ed-
win 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 contempt-
uous laugh. “A long way off, I believe? Yes ; I see!
That part of the world is at a safe distance.”


94. THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“ Say here, then,” rejoins the other, rising in a fury
“Say anywhere! Your vanity is intolerable, your con-
'ceit 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 Ne-
ville 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
95
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 un-
der 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 prac-
ticing his favorite 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.”


96
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“ I am afraid I am not, sir, though I can satisfy you at
another time that I have had very little indeed to drink,
and that it overcame me in the strangest and most sud-
den 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 quarreled, 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
clinched right hand. Unclinch it, if you please.”
“ He goaded me, sir,” pursues the young man, in-
stantly 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 clinched that hand again," is Mr. Cris-
parkle's quiet commentary.
“I beg your pardon, sir.”
“ You know your room, for I showed it to 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 skillfully as a Police Expert, and with an


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD
97
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, and 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. Cris-
parkle. “ 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 inter-
.


98
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
fere. 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,
80 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
color 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
1oad 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


100
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 favor-
ite, 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, willful,
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 exhaust-
less 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 over-night, 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


104
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 defense.
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 un-
easiness 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 im-
mediately into high dried snuff. He had a scanty flat
crop of hair, in color 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 improb-
ability 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 impa-


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
105
tiently thrown away the chisel, and said: “I really can.
not 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 per-
haps 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, say-
ing, 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.”


106 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 de-
sired, 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.


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
107
“For which," said Mr. Grewgious, with a bend of his
head towards the corner window, “our warmest ac-
knowledgments are due, and I am sure are rendered,
to the maternal kindness and the constant care and con-
sideration of the lady whom I have now the honor 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 wait-
ing 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 recognizable 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 al-
towance always sufficient for your wants, my dear ? ”


108
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 imagina-
tion. 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 Twinkle-
ton, 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 speak-
ing 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 have not intruded
here. I am the last man to intrude into a sphere for
which I am so entirely unfitted. I feel, on these prem-
ises, as if I was a bear — with the cramp — in a youth-
ful 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. Grew-
gious, 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
109
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 "cor-
respond’ in this application, my dear,” said Mr. Grew-
gious. “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 cor-
ner 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 oc-
curred to him to mention it, and I am not used to give
anything away. If, for these two reasons, some compe-
tent 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 in-
stance, 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.


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
111
an annuity of two hundred and fifty pounds. The sav-
ings 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 empow-
ered 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 have 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 an-
other — 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.”


112
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 smooth-
ing 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 circum-
stances 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 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, un-
reasonable, 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 ? "


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
113
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 re-
turn at Christmas, arrange all matters of detail with
him ; you will then communicate with me; and I will
discharge myself (as a mere business acquittance) 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 ap-
parent 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


114
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
present to me, from the neighborhood 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. 5 Thank
you, my dear! The honor 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, ex-
cept 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
115
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 courtesy, 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. Jas-
per before leaving Cloisterham, Mr. Grewgious went to
the gate-house, 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 ser-
vice-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 Cathe-
dral, 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 cor-
ners ; 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 sur-
mounted 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 in-
tervals 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


116
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
the Cathedral, all became gray, murky, and sepulchral,
and the cracked monotonous mutter went on like a dy-
ing 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 chan-
cel-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 ac-
cord. 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 ac-.
count of the Cathedral.
“I merely came to tell her that it could not be con-
sidered binding, against any such reason for its dissolu-
tion 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
117
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?”
66 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 arrange-
ments 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, some-
what indistinctly : “ You mean me.”
Mr. Grewgious touched himself on the breast, and
said: “I mean us. Therefore, let them have their little
liscussions 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."


118
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“So, you settled with her that you would come back
at Christmas ? ” observed Jasper. “ I see! Mr. Grew-
gious, 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 ac-
cept it. I understand that at Christmas they will com-
plete their preparations for May, and that their marriage
will be put in final train by themselves, and that noth-
ing 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 man-
ner even against accumulated observation on the part of
the other sex. But it has not been quite so often re-
marked 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 prej-
udice, in respect of its determination not to be corrected.
Nay, the very possibility of contradiction or disproof,
however remote, communicates to this feminine judg-
ment from the first, in nine cases 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.


120
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“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, evi-
dently 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 ?”
6 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 dis-
cuss, 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 ? "
6 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 com-
ing up to me next day, after service, in the Nave itself,
with his gown still on, and expressing his hope that I


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
121
had not been greatly alarmed or had my rest violently
broken, I believe I might never have heard of that dis-
graceful 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 gen-
tlemanly ashes at what had taken place in his rooms
overnight.”
“ If I had kept it from you, Ma, you may be sure it
would bave 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. Cris-
parkle, 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 undenia-


122
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
ble that Mr. Neville is exceedingly industrious and at-
tentive, 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 humor-
ous 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 rev-
erie, 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 col-
lege 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 sun-
set, having climbed his favorite outlook, a beetling frag-
ment 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 conscious-
ness had stolen upon him that in teaching one, he was


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
123
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 ap-
proached 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 con-
tents of the closet, and a musical air of intending to com-
bine all its harmonies in one delicious fugue. No com-
mon 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 perpen-
dicular 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 perserved tamarinds and ginger.
Every benevolent inhabitant of this retreat had his


124
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
name inscribed upon his stomach. The pickles, in a
uniform of rich brown doubled-breasted buttoned coat,
and yellow or sombre drab continuations, announced
their portly forms, in printed capitals, as Walnut, Gher-
kin, Onion, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Mixed, and other
members of that noble family. The jams, as being of a
less masculine temperament, and as wearing curl-papers,
announced themselves in feminine calligraphy, 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 Car-
away-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 gen-
tian, peppermint, gillyflower, sage, parsley, thyme, rue,


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
125
rosemary, and dandelion, did his courageous stomach
submit itself! In what wonderful wrappers inclosing
layers of dried leaves, would he swathe his rosy and con-
tented 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 herba-
ceous penitentiary, situated on an upper staircase land-
ing,- 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 portent-
ous 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 sup-
ported to his mother's satisfaction, applied himself to the
remaining duties of the day. In their orderly and punc-
tual 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 favorite 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


126
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 sea-
ward 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
harbor of Minor Canon Corner, when Helena and Ne-
ville 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 favorite 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. Ne-
ville, 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 be-
fell on the night of your arrival here.”


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
127
In saying it he looked to her, and not to him ; there-
fore 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 uncontrolla ·
ble 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 confirined 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 reproach-
fully: “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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
129
“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
she said on Mr. Crisparkle's face, replied — to Mr. Cris-
parkle : 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


130 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 be-
half, has not checked you in this irrational and culpable
fancy.”
“She has tried sir, but uselessly. Husband or no hus-
band, that fellow is incapable of the feelings 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, Ne-
ville !"
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 re-
pentant 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 seri-
ous 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,


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
131
and you living under my roof. Whatever prejudiced
and unauthorized 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 re-
flection, 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 honor of a Christian gentleman that the quarrel
is forever 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 what-
soever upon it than endeavoring (and that most ear-
nestly) 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 ca-
prices have their rise and fall among the young and ar-
dent every hour; I will leave you undisturbed in the


132
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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
nie 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 know such a guide!”
“ Follow your guide now, Neville,” murmured Helena,
6 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 treach-
ery 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 conceiva-
ble. Miss Helena, you and your brother are twin chil-
dren. You came into this world with the same disposi-
tions, and you passed your younger days together sur-


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
133
rounded 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.
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 ef-
fect, and what must somehow be done. “I shall prob-
ably 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 ca-
thedral establishment inclined him to the latter course,
and the well-timed sight of the lighted gate-house de-
cided 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


134
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
couch in a delirious state between sleeping and wak-
ing 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 favor and service of interposing with
your nephew. (I have already interposed with Mr. Ne-
ville), 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 in-
fluence 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.


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
135
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 cal-
culation.
“ I know that you are not prepossessed in Mr. Neville's
favor,” 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 demeanor 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 com-
pleteness of his success, acknowledged it in the hand-
somest 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 un-
eventful 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 :


136.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
"• Past Midnight. — After what I have just now seen, I have a mor-
bid 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 d-struction of its
object, appall me. So profound is the impression, that twice since
have I 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 :
-666Ned up and away. Light-hearted and unsuspicious as ever. He
laughed when I cautioned him, and said he was as good a man as Ne-
ville 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 re-
lapsed 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 humors.”
“ Such an antidote, I hope,” returned Mr. Crisparkle,
“ as will induce you before long to consign the black
humors 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 de-
votion 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. Cris-


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
. 137
parkle," 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, and I 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 re-
spect 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 by-gone to be a by-gone, and
all to be right again.
“ Look here, dear old boy. Ask Mr. Landless to din-
ner 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 les-
son.”
“ You expect Mr. Neville, then ? " said Mr. Crispar-
kle.
“I count upon his coming,” said Mr. Jasper.


140
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 deput-
ing 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 cor-
respondence, 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 gayly, 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 an 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 shin-
ing 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 bot-


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
141
tom 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 be-
come broad business day once more, with P. J. T., date
seventeen-forty-seven.
As Mr. Grewgious sat and wrote by his fire that after-
noon, 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. Grew-
gious. 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. Grew-
gious, nevertheless, treated him with unaccountable con-
sideration.
“ 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.
6 What of him ? "
“ Has called,” said Bazzard.
6 You might have shown him in.”
“I am doing it,” said Bazzard.
The visitor came in accordingly.


142
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“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 wrap-
pers. 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 jyself without observing it,” said Mr. Grewgious.
v be seated in my chair. No. I beg! Coming
ouiui 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 great-coat 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 in-
terrupting 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 out-
side ; 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 gypsy 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 in-
spired with a bright thought, — “ I'll ask Bazzard. He
mightn't like it else. Bazzard !”


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
143
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 lay-
ing the cloth. For dinner we'll have a tureen of the
hottest and strongest soup available, and we'll hav 'rew?
best made-dish that can be recommended, and we'll muve
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 em-
ploying 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


144
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
and stood himself with his back to the other corner of
the fire, and his shoulder-blades against the chimney-
piece, and collected his skirts for easy conversation.
"I take it, without having the gift of prophecy, that
you have done me the favor 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 at-
tention.”
“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 arch-
ness 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. Grew-
gious, rearranging his skirts ; "and that was what I
referred to, when I said I could tell you you are ex-
pected.”
“ Indeed, sir! Yes ; I knew that Pussy was looking
out for me.”
“Do you keep a cat down there ? ” asked Mr. Grew-
gious.
Edwin colored a little, as he explained : “ I call Rosa
Pussy.”
the remotest de into scarcely supporffect of his a
referred arranging him down yond and rubbiekvisitor, amit


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
145
“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 un-
qualified assent and a qualified dissent, that his visitor
was much disconcerted.
“ Did PRosa ”— Edwin began, by way of recover-
ing 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 Land-
lesses ? 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 Baz-
zard.”
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 every-
thing on his shoulders, laid the cloth with amazing ra-
pidity and dexterity; while the immovable waiter, who
had brought nothing, found fault with him. The flying
ing on his shoulde. While the immovable
The Alying


146
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 for-
gotten 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 re-
past, by which time the flying waiter was severely
blown, the immovable waiter gathered up the table-
cloth under his arm with a grand air, and having sternly
(not to say with indignation) looked on at the flying
waiter while he set clean glasses round, directed a vale-
dictory glance towards Mr. Grewgious, conveying:
“ Let it be clearly understood between us that the re-
ward 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 repre-
senting My Lords of the Circumlocutional 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 sur-
passing Doctor Kitchener's. To bid, with a shiver, the


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
147
unfortunate flying waiter shut the door before he had
opened it, was a condiment of a profounder flavor 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 preced-
ing 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-colored, 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 help-
ing rioters to force their gates), and danced out gayly.
If P. J. T. in seventeen-forty-seven, or in any other
year of his period, drank such wines — then, for a cer-
tainty, 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 luxuriously
sank into it after very brief remonstrance, Mr. Grew-
gious, 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.


148 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“ 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 workman-
like 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 imagina-
tively, 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
149
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-exam-
ination 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 distin-
guishing 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 in-
sensibility, almost a breach of good faith, to flaunt else-
where."


150
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
It was wonderful to see Mr. Grewgious sitting bolt
upright, with his hands on his knees, continuously chop-
ping 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 ease in any other society; and as con-
stantly seeking that. If I was to say seeking that, as a
bird seeks its nest, I should make an ass of myself, be-
cause 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 un-.
acquainted with the habits of birds, except the birds of
Staple Inn, who seek their nests on ledges, and in gutter-
pipes and chimney-pots, 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 MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
151
“ 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 cor-
rection) 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 sen-
tence, that Mr. Grewgious rendered his difficulty a thou-
sand 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. Baz-
zard being occasioned by slumber.
“ His responsibility is very great though,” said Mr.
Grewgious, at length, with his eyes on the fire.


152
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 fore-
finger 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. Jas-
per, but for Miss Rosa's wishing it to come straight to
you, in preference. You received it ? ”
“ Quite safely, sir.”


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
153
“ 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 allu-
sion 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. Favor 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, un-
locked 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 deli-
cately set in gold, was a ring belonging to Miss Rosa's
mother. It was removed from her dead hand, in my pres-
ence, 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
155
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 some-
thing about time and appointments. The fog was re-
ported 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, “ fol-
lowed ” 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” –


156
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 be-
come!
“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
touch-woody 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 pro-
fundity becoming a little monotonous in spite of the vast-
ness of the subject, he often takes an airing in the Ca-
thedral Close and thereabout. He likes to pass the
church-yard with a swelling air of proprietorship, and to
encourage in his breast a sort of benignant-landlord feel-
ing, in that he has been bountiful towards that meritori-
ous 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 church-yard
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 discharg-
ing 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.


158
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 gate-house 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,
favorites 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 church-yard 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 Canter-
hury.
“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 posses-
sions as in age ; but perhaps you will put that in your


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 159
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 honor of referring.” And then falls
to studying his original in minute points of detail.
“ Durdles,” Mr. Tope hints.
“ Aye!” the Dean echoes ; “ Durdles, Durdles !”
“ The truth is, sir,” explains Jasper, “ that my curios-
ity in the man was first really stimulated by Mr. Sapsea.
Mr. Sapsea's knowledge of mankind, and power of draw-
ing 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 parlor, 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 to-
gether. I regard Durdles as a Character.”
“A character, Mr. Sapsea, that with a few skillful
touches you turn inside out,” says Jasper.
“Nay, not quite that,” returns the lumbering auc-


160
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
tioneer. “I may have a little influence over him, per-
haps; 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 but-
tons.
“ Well!” says the Dean, looking about him to see
what has become of his coypist : “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 couvulsions of laughter, subsides
into a deferential murmur, importing that surely any
gentleman would deem it a pleasure and an honor 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 Dur-
dles 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,


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
161
and we are to make a moonlight hole-and-corner explo-
ration 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 slouch-
ing 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.”
“ You are out of temper,” says Sapsea again ; redden-
ing, but again winking to the company.
“I own to it,” returns Durdles ; “I don't like liber-
ties."
Mr. Sapsea winks a third wink to the company, as
11


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
who should say : “I think you will agree with me that
I have settled his business ;” and stalks out of the con-
troversy.
Durdles then gives the Dean a good evening, and add-
ing, 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 in-
comprehensible compromises with inexorable facts ; he,
and his hat, and his boots, and his clothes, never show-
ing 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
stoood aghast at the idea of abolishing — the Dean with-
draws 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-brim-
med 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 Durdless unfinished house, or hole in the
city wall, and seeing a light within it, he softly picks his


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
163
course among the grave-stones, 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 shel-
tering sentry-boxes, about to slash away at cutting out
the grave-stones 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 at 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
spirits 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-


164
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
Master or any one else should hold it worth his while to
be with him, and to study moonlight effects in such com-
pany, 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?”
“ Aye!” 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
80 short, stand behind it.
.“ Those two are only sauntering," Jasper whispers ;
" they will go out into the moonlight soon. Let us keep


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
165
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 some-
thing 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 dis-
tinguished 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 favorable 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 frag-
ment 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 con-
fused again ; they halting for a little while, and some ear-
nest action on the part of Neville succeeding. When they
move once more, Mr. Crisparkle is seen to look up at the


166
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
sky, and to point before him. They then slowly dis-
appear; 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 some-
thing 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 indiges-
tion.
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 be-
tween 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 church-yard, 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 be-
tween 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 ;


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 167
also, in the widely diffused, and almost as widely unac-
acknowledged, reflection : “If the dead do, under any
circumstances, become visible to the living, these are
such likely surroundings for the purpose that I, the liv-
ing, 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 ex-
panse of moonlight in their view is utterly deserted.
One might fancy that the tide of life was stemmed by
Mr. Jasper's own gate house. 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 light-house.
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 win-
dows, bare of glass, the broken frames for which cast
patterns on the ground. The heavy pillars which sup-
port the roof engender masses of black shade, but be-
tween 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 earthened 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


168
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 odor 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 pur-
pose.”
“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 chrono-
logically. “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."
6 What sounds ?”
6 Cries.”
“ What cries do you mean? Chairs to mend ?”
“ No. I mean screeches. Now, I'll tell you, Mister
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,


170
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 fel-
low-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 lan-
tern, 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 moonlit nave; and
where Durdles, waving his lantern, shows 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 be-
hind 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
171
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 ! Jas-
per (always moving softly with no visible reason) con-
templates the scene, and especially that stillest part of
it which the Cathedral overshadows. But he contem-
plates 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 calen-
ture 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
• 173
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
again into an upright position, or into a position as
nearly upright as he ever maintains, he is again con-
scious 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 some-
thing stiffer than either of us supposed. And I also
have suspicions,” Jasper adds, taking it from the pave-
ment and turning it bottom upward, “ 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 re-
locks 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 ?”


CHAPTER XIII.
BOTH AT THEIR BEST.
Miss TWINKLETON's establishment was about to un-
dergo 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 mar-
malade had likewise been distributed on a service of
plates constructed of curl paper; 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 ribbon, 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-curl paper, until suffo-
cated in her own pillow by two flowing-haired execu-
tioners.
Nor were these the only tokens of dispersal. Boxes


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
177
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.
Largesse, in the form of odds and ends of cold cream
and pomatum, and also of hair-pins, 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 op-
portunity. 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 ex-
pressly made a point of honor that nobody should go to
sleep, and that Ghosts should be encouraged by all pos-
sible 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, sup-
ported by Mrs. Tisher, held a Drawing-Room in her own
apartment (the globes already covered with brown hol-
land), where glasses of white wine, and plates of cut
pound-cake were discovered on the table. Miss Twin-
kleton 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 Twin-
kleton was annually going to add “bosoms,” but annually
stopped on the brink of that expression, and substituted
“ hearts.” Hearts; our hearts. Hem! Again a re-
volving 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
12


178
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 an-
other good-by, and happiness, until we meet 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 su-
perfluous 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 connection 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
179
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 hes-
itations, 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 (uncon-
scious 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 va-
rious silvery voices, “ Good-by, Rosebud, Darling !” and
the effigy of Mr. Sapsea's father over the opposite door-
way, seemed to say to mankind : “ Gentlemen, favor 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 Clois-
terham was itself again.


180
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 com-
position 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 con-
sidered them before, and began to be less sure of him-
self 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 gate-house 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 al-
ready 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.


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
181
“My dear Eddy,” said Rosa, when they had turned
out of the High Street, and had got among the quiet
walks in the neighborhood 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 un-
kind 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 quar-
reling, 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 coura-
geous. 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 honor bound to con-
fess freely that it does not originate with you.”
“ No, nor with you, dear,” she returned, with pathetic
earnestness. “ It has 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.


182
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“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 re-
ward in a softening light that seemed to shine on their
position. The relations between them did not look will-
ful, or capricious, or a failure, in such a light; they be-
came elevated into something more self-denying, honor-
able, 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
183
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 in-
duction : “ 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 pre-
sented to himself so clearly, in a glass of her holding
up. He had always patronized her, in his superiority to
her share of woman's wit. Was that but another in-
stance 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


184
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 0, 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 every-
thing 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 affec-
tionately.”
“ That's my dear brother!” She kissed his hand in
a little rapture. “ The dear girls will be dreadfully dis-
- appointed,” added Rosa, laughing, with the dew-drops


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN 185
WIN DROODDROOD.
.
glistening in her bright eyes. “They have looked for-
ward 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 re-
called it, if she could; for she looked down, confused,
and breathed quickly.
: “ You don't doubt it's 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.


186
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“ 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.
6 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 mo-
ment, 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.”


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
187
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 hu-
manity, 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 valua-
ble, 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
forever forging, day and night, in the vast iron-works
of time and circumstance, there was one chain forged in


188
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
the moment of that small conclusion, riveted to the foun-
dations 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 depart-
ure 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 Twin-
kleton 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 under-
standing 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 be-
hind them, and the old city lay red before them, as their
walk drew to a close. The moaning water cast its sea-
weed 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 fitting 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 ? "
66 Yes.”


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
189
“ We know we have done right, Rosa ?”
6. 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-by!”
“ God bless you, dear! Good-by!”
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 gate-house into the street;
once there, she asked :
“ Has he followed us? You can look without seem-
ing 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 disap-
pointed !”


192
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
gallantry and dissipation is abroad ; evinced in an im-
mense bunch of mistletoe hanging in the green-grocer's
shop doorway, and a poor little Twelfth Cake, culminat-
ing in the figure of a Harlequin — such a very poor
little Twelfth Cake, that one would rather call it a
Twenty Fourth Cake, or a Forty Eighth Cake — to be
raffled for at the pastry-cook’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 hand-
maidens flutter occasionally in the windows of the latter.
It is noticed, by the by, 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 Twin-
kleton's young ladies.
Three are to meet at the gate-house tonight. 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
193
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 unde-
stroyed, 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 him-
self into pedestrian form. “ You don't rest upon it; you
merely balance with it.”
13


194
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
"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-by: 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 cross-
ing the threshold ; for he is on his parole not to put him-
self 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 coun-
try.
"I am not going to tread upon forbidden ground,
Helena," says Neville, when they have walked some dis-
tance, 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 un-
happy myself, but I am conscious of unsettling and in-
terfering with other people. How do I know that, but


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
195
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 un-
favorable 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 miser-
able 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 in-
clined to think it rather a moody scheme, and one that
might do a brooding mind harm. But we took a moon-
light walk, last Monday night, to talk it over at leisure,
and I represented the case to him as it really is. I


196
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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. Further,
I really do feel hopeful of bracing exercise and whole-
some 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 orig-
inally, out of her own mind, think well of it, as a
healthy project, denoting a sincere endeavor, 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
197
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.
6. Yes. But I don't like it.”
There may be a moment's awkwardness, she cheer-
ingly 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 be-
yond 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


198
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
him along the street. Twice, he passes the gate-house,
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 accept-
ing his lot in life as an inheritance of course, he had
studied the right way to its appreciation and enhance-
ment. 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 sur-
face 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 neighborhood.
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.


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
199
Finding that his watch has stopped, he turns into the
jeweler's shop, to have it wound and set. The jeweler
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 jeweler
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 re-
sponsible 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 jewelry but his
watch and chain, which were his father's; and his shirt-
pin.
“ That I was aware of,” is the jeweler'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
jewelry his gentleman relative ever wore; namely, his
watch and chain, and his shirt-pin. Still (the jeweler
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, think-
ing: “ Dear old Jack! If I were to make an extra
crease in my neckcloth, he would think it worth notic-
ing!”


200
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 re-
placed 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 cathe-
dral 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
by-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.
66 Are you blind ?”
“ No, deary."
“ Are you lost, homeless, faint ? What is the matter,


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
201
that you stay here in the cold so long, without mov-
ing?”
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 straitens 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 rend-
ing 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 some-
thing." .
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.


202
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“ Bless ye? Harkee, 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 color
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 her-
self 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
203
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 coin-
· cidence, and not as anything better worth remember-
ing.
Still, it holds to him, as many things much better
worth remembering never did. He has another mile or
80, 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 gate-house.
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 shop-
keepers, 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 gate-house to-day, and make up their
difference. Mr. Sapsea is by no means friendly toward
the inflammable young spark. He says that his com-
plexion 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.


204
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 melodi-
ous 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 dif-
ficult music a little too quickly ; to-day, his time is per- .
fect.
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! Delight-
ful! 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 mas-
terly 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.”


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
205
“ No, really? That's well observed; for I have.”
“ Then stick to it, my good fellow,” says Mr. Cris-
parkle, clapping him on the shoulder with friendly en-
couragement, “ 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 humors.”
Mr. Crisparkle's face falls, and he shakes his head
deploringly.
“I said, you know, that I should make you an anti-
dote to those black humors ; 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.”
ino


206
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“ 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 your-
self. 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,” says 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 gate-house.
“ Bad manners in a host ! ” says Jasper. “My com-
pany will be there before me! What will you bet that
I don't find my company embracing ?”.
“I will bet — or I would, if I ever did bet,” returns
Mr. Crisparkle, “that your company will have a gay
entertainer this evening.”


· THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 207
Jasper nods, and laughs Good Night!
He retraces his steps to the cathedral door, and turns
down past it to the gate-house. 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. Ar-
riving thus, under the arched entrance of his dwelling,
he pauses for an instant in the shelter to pull off that
great black scarf, and hang 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. Soft-
ened sounds and hum of traffic pass it and flow on ir-
regularly 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 un-
usually 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.
No such power of wind has blown for many a winter-


208
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
night. Chimneys topple in the streets, and people hold
to posts and corners, and to one another, to keep them-
selves 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 neces-
sary 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. Cris-
parkle, at an open window :
“ Where is my nephew ?”
“ He has not been here. Is he not with you?”


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 209
“ 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.


212
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 further!”
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 man-
age 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!”


THE 'MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
213
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 inore
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, any-
how, 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 recognized 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.
6 Where is my nephew ?” asked Mr. Jasper, wildly.
“ Where is your nephew ?” repeated Neville. “Why
do you ask me?"


214
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DŘOOD.
“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.”
6 You left Mr. Jasper's last night, with Edwin Drood ? "
6 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 in-
tensely watching Neville, said, in a low distinct sus-
picious voice : “ What are those stains upon his dress ?”
All eyes were turned toward 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?”


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
215
“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, Ne-
ville!”
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. Cris-
parkle 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 dis-
cussion, 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 parlor.
Mr. Sapsea being informed by Mr. Crisparkle of the
.


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 217
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 circu-
lated 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 be-
reavement 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 Land-
less, 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-boot, 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
219
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
inind.”
“ 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.”
“ 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. Grew-
gious. “ Mind! I warn you, that I think it will sur-
prise 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 open-
ing ; 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.


THE MYSTERY.
F EDWIN DROO
Be happier and affectionate hand and wife.".
220 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD
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 recog-
nizing 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 discov-
ery (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-colored face in the easy-
chair, and on its surface dreadful starting drops or bub-
bles, as if of steel.
“This young couple formed at length the healthy res-
olution of interchanging their discoveries, openly, sensi-
bly, and tenderly. They met for that purpose. After
some innocent and generous talk, they agreed to dis-
solve 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 223
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. Com-
bined with the hurry in his mode of doing it, was an
evident indifference to the taste of what he took, suggest-
ing 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 mean time sat upright,
with no expression in his face, and a hard kind of im-
perturbably polite protest all over him: as though he
would have said, in reply to some invitation to dis-
course: “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


224
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
me so, and shorten my pain — is there not, or is there,
hope that, finding himself in this new position, and be-
coming sensitively alive to the awkward burden of ex-
planation, 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, pon-
dering.
“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 imperti-
nent, have taken themselves away, and been long un-
heard 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.


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
225
“ And even as to me," continued Jasper, still pursuing
the new track, with ardor, and, as he did so, brighten-
ing 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, over-
powering 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 disap-
peared 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 dis-
appeared 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 unfor-
tunate pupil. But he, too, did really attach great import-
15


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
227
Minor Cava dealinga sup-
in spite of its having been, before this mysterious occur-
rence 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 sup-
pressed, so far, the two points of a second strong out-
break 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 posi-
tion), Mr. Crisparkle bore his testimony to Mr. Jasper's
strict sense of justice, and, expressing his absolute con-
fidence 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 in-
censed against Mr. Jasper's nephew, by the circumstance
of his romantically supposing himself to be enamored


228
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
2
of the same young lady. The sanguine reaction mani.
fest 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 mem-
orable 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 de-
rived 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 fa-
miliar 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
229
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 ad-
dress ?
No sense reported anything unusual there. He lis-
tened 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 close 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 morn-
ing.
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 dis-
cernible 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


232
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
that same afternoon; and it had run down before being
cast into the water; and it was the jeweler'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 mid-
night, 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 im-
possible, 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 rec-
ognizable 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 seem-
ingly 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 reconcili-
atory nature of the appointed meeting between the two
young men, very little could be made of that, in young
Landless's favor; for, it distinctly appeared that the
meeting originated, not with him, but with Mr. Cris-
parkle, and that it had been urged on by Mr. Crisparkle ;
and who could say how unwillingly, or in what ill-condi-
tioned 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 im-


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
233
probable 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 labored night and day. But
nothing more was found. No discovery being made,
which proved the lost man to be dead, it at length be-
came 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.”


234 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“ It is very lamentable, sir,” Mr. Crisparkle repre-
sented.
“ 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, when-
ever 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?


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
235
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 re-
sumed 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 jew-
elry 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 dis-
covery. I now swear, and record the oath on this page, That I never-
more will discuss this mystery with any human creature, until I hold
the clew 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 de-
struction."


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 237
Mr. Crisparkle recognized (in a suit of black) the coun-
terpart of a deceased benefactor of his species, an emi
nent public character, once known to fame as Frosty-
faced Fogo, who in days of yore superintended the for-
mation of the magic circle with the ropes and stakes.
There were only three conditions of resemblance want-
ing between these Professors and those. Firstly, the
Philanthropists were in very bad training: much too
fleshy, and presenting, both in face and figure, a super-
abundance of what is known to Pugilistic Experts as
Suet Pudding. Secondly, the Philanthropists had not
the good temper of the Pugilists, and used worse lan-
guage. 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 dis-
traction ; 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. Hon-
eythunder'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."


238
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
Mr. Crisparkle seated himself.
Mr. Honeythunder, having signed the remaining few
score of a few thousand circulars, calling upon a corre-
sponding number of families without means to come
forward, stump up instantly, and be Philanthropists, or
go to the Devil, another shabby stipendiary Philanthro-
pist (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. Hon-
eythunder, as if that made the matter infinitely worse,
and he could have easily borne the loss of an old one :


240
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
lemnity and senting. - E-e
ho veleased from a
“ And they also say, you shall bear no false witness,"
observed Mr. Crisparkle.
“ Enough !” bellowed Mr. Honeythunder, with a so-
lemnity 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. “ Better employed !” with an-
other 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.”
“Aye, indeed, sir !” retorted Mr. Honeythunder, shak-
ing 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
241
ance, and the ta mind and possession
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 under-
standing of Mr. Neville's mind and heart at the time of
this occurrence; and that, without in the least coloring
or concealing what was to be deplored in him and re-
quired 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 con-
sideration 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 com-
pensate 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 school-boy who had stood in the breezy
playing-fields keeping a wicket. He was simply and
stanchly 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 noth-
ing 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 an-
other! 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,
16


242
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
sir, you are not a disinterested witness, we must bear in
mind.”
“ How am I an interested one ? ” inquired Mr. Cris-
parkle, 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. Crispar-
kle 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 'ein 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 ma-
noeuvres 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 re-
specting them. They are detestable.”
“ They don't suit you, I dare say, sir.”
“ They are,” repeated Mr. Crisparkle, without notic-
ing the interruption, “ detestable. They violate equally
the justice that should belong to Christians, and the re-
straints 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
243
point, what is your platform resource ? .. Instantly to
turn upon me, charging that I have no sense of the enor-
mity of the crime itself, but am its aider and abettor!
So, another time — taking me as representing your op-
ponent in other cases — you set up a platform credulity :
a moved and seconded and carried unanimously profes-
sion 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 be-
lieve nothing; that because I will not bow down to a
false god of your making, I deny the true God! An-
other 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 rev-
eling in the horrors of a battle-field like a fiend incarnate!
Another time, in another of your undiscriminating plat-
form 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 plat-
form 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 attrib-
uting the lowest and basest motives with the utmost
recklessness (let me call your attention to a recent in-
stance in yourself for which you should blush), and ·
quoting figures which you know to be as willfully one-
sided as a statement of any complicated account that
should be all Creditor side and no Debtor, or all Debtor


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
247
hat need I have advised. 14, and
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 shoul-
der 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 adverse or per-
verse, or the reverse.”
“ Well for me that I have enough with economy to
live upon,” sighed Neville, half wearily and half cheerily,
6 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 im-
mersed 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.


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
249
thy 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 gen-
eral 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 compar-
ison 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 dark-
ness.”
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 wine-glass 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.


250
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“How do you do, reverend sir ? ” said Mr. Grew-
gious, 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 pleas-
ure of recommending to you as vacant and eligible ?”
Mr. Crisparkle replied suitably.
“I am glad you approve of them,” said Mr. Grew-
gious, “because I entertain a sort of fancy for having
him under my eye.”
As Mr. Grewgious had to turn his eye up considera-
bly, 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-


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 251
floor landing window, in yonder house, I think you will
hardly fail to see a slinking individual in whom I recog-
nize 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 re-
turned 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 keep-
ing of a watch upon him?
“A watch,” repeated Mr. Grewgious, musingly.
“ Aye!”
“ Which would not only of itself haunt and torture
his life," said Mr. Crisparkle, warmly, “but would ex-
pose him to the torment of a perpetually reviving sus-
picion, whatever he might do, or wherever he might
assage friend was up file's; “ what nearly came
go ? "
“ Aye!” 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 firiend?” 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 nod, complied, and,
rejoining Neville, went away with him. They dined to-
gether, and parted at the yet unfinished and undeveloped
railway station : Mr. Crisparkle to get home; Neville to


252
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 ad-
dress ; “ the beans.”
1 Neville was quite at a loss.
6 Runners," said the visitor. “ Scarlet. Next door
at the back.”
“O!” returned Neville. “ And the mignonette and
wall-flower ? "
6. 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 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
253
hat, and the glimpses of white throat below the necker-
chief, 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
boat-hook 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 apologize for looking in so
late. But having noticed (excuse me) that you gener-
ally 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 appear-
ance."
“ 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 commis-
sion.”


254
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“ 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 op-
portunity 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 look-
ing 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 Ne-
ville, confused, “which has stood me in the stead of
illness.”


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
257
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 particu-
lar you might be. But a architectural lodging !” That
seemed to trouble the waiter's head, and he shook it.
“ Anything Cathedraly now," Mr. Datchery sug-
gested.
“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 lodg-
ings 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 Crosier be-
ing a hotel of a most retiring disposition, and the wait-
er's directions being fatally precise, he soon became be-
17


258
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
wildered, and went boggling about and about the cathe-
dral 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 benev-
olent 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 Tope-
seses, when Topeseses is t'other side the Kinfreederal,
and over the crossings, and round ever so many corners ?
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.


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
259
“ Lookie yonder. You see that there winder and
door ? "
“ That's Tope's ?”
6 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 agoin no nearer ’lm, I tell yer.”
* Why not?”
“'Cos I ain't a going 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 tother
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.


260
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 attend-
ance on that gentleman), was of very modest propor-
tions, 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 describa-
ble 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. Datch-
ery, however, was more appreciative. He found that if
he sat with the main door open he would enjoy the pas-
sing 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 Pre-
cincts by a door opening outward, to the surprise and in-
convenience of a limited public of pedestrians in a nar-
row 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, pos-
session to be had next evening on condition that refer-
ence was permitted him to Mr. Jasper as occupying the
gate-house, of which, on the other side of the gateway


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
261
the Verger's hole in the wall was an appanage or sub-
sidiary 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,
Mrs. 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 re-
maining span of life, 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.


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 263
for me," said Mr. Datchery, with an ingenuous 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 recognizant of his merits and position.
“But I crave pardon,” said Mr. Datchery. “His
Honor 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 Crosier.”
“ 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 Honor the Mayor,” said Mr. Datchery, “ is
more than kind and gracious.”
As Mr. Datchery, when he had made his acknowl-
edgments 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 stream-
ing in the evening breeze.
“Might I ask His Honor," said Mr. Datchery,
“ whether that gentleman we have just left is the gentle-
man of whom I have heard in the neighborhood as being
much afflicted by the loss of a nephew, and concentrat-
ing his life on avenging the loss ? ”
“ That is the gentleman. John Jasper, sir.”
“ Would His Honor allow me to inquire whether
there are strong suspicions of any one ?”
“ More than suspicions, sir," returned Mr. Sapsea
's all but certainties.”


264
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“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 Honor," 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!” mur-
mured 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 Honor's would ex-
press 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 expecta-
tion of finding another hat upon it.
“ Pray be covered, sir,” entreated Mr. Sapsea ; magnifi-
cently implying: “I shall not mind it, I assure you.”
undernomentary of. Sapsea


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
265
“ His Honor 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 work-
men had made mistakes in his absence. The Cathedral
disposed of, he led the way by the church-yard, 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 de-
scend 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 re-
serve 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 behavior 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.”


266
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“ You surely don't speak for yourself, Mr. Durdles,"
returned Mr. Datchery, “any more than for His
Honor.”
“ Who's His Honor ? ” demanded Durdles.
“ His Honor 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 Honor him when I
am. Until which, and when, and where :-
4 Mister Sapsea is bis name;
England is his nation;
Cloisterbam 's his dwelling-place;
Aukshneer 's his occupation.'"
Here, Deputy (preceded by a flying oyster-shell) ap-
peared upon the scene, and requested to have the sum
of threepence instantly “chucked ” to him by Mr. Dur-
dles, 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."


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
267
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 chimney-piece at the Crosier, 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 dis-
tantly wind among them. The Cloisterham gardens
blush with ripening fruit. Time was when travel-stained
pilgrims rode in clattering parties through the city's wel-
come shades ; time is when wayfarers, leading a gypsy
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 pub-
lic pumps there is much cooling of bare feet, together
with much bubbling and gurgling of drinking with hand


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
269
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 Cathe-
dral 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 disad-
vantage, he could have done no better. Perhaps he has
chosen it. Helena Landless is gone, Mrs. Tisher is ab-
sent 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 !"
cries 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.
6 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 gar-
den. She shudders at the thought of being shut up
with him in the house; but many of its windows com-
mand 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
271
“I did love him!” cries 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 lit-
tle 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 re-
solved 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 gloat-
ing 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.


272
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“ 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 273
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, 1
loved you madly."
If anything could make his words more hideous to her
than they are in themselves, it would be the contrast be-
tween 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 admira-
tion :
“ 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
18


274
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD,
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 favored 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 offense in
my eyes. The same Mr. Crisparkle knows under my
hand that I have devoted myself to the murderer's dis-
covery and destruction, be he whom he might, and that
I determined to discuss the mystery with no one until I
should hold the clew 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.”


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
275
“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 dis-
covered 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, turn-
ing paler, “ that I favor Mr. Landless, or that Mr. Land-
less 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 win-
dows (faces occasionally come and go there) to be of
the airest and playfulest : “I am unconsciously giving
offense by questioning again. I will simply make state-
ments, therefore, and not put questions. You do care
for your bosom friend's good name, and you do care for


276
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 idolize 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 favor, 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 offense against my adoration
of you. Spurn it!”
With a similar action.
“ There are my labors in the cause of a just ven-
geance 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


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 ir-
reparable 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 imagina-
tion, the more alarming her responsibility appeared : see-
ing 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


280
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
know of the criminal intellect, which its own professed
students perpetually misread, because they persist in try-
ing 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,


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
283
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 watch-
man, 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 cor-
ner.
Rosa drew nearer to him in the twilight of the room.
He saw her, and he said in an under-tone: “ 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?”


286
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“ what a new sensation for a poor old Angular bachelor,
to be sure !”
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, dec-
orates 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 his 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 ways 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 per-
plexed expression.


288
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
of resuming the block and begging the executioner to
proceed to extremities, - meaning,” said Mr. Grew-
gious, 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 offense 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. Grew-
gious. “Let's talk. Mr. Bazzard's father, being a
Norfolk farmer, would have furiously laid about him
with a flail, a pitchfork, and every agricultural imple-
ment 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), im-
parted 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 be-
tween him and a fate so perfectly unsuited to his forma-
tion. In that way Mr. Bazzard became my clerk, and
he feels it very much.”
“I am glad he is grateful,” said Rosa.


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
289
“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 meditat-
ing, “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 compli-
mentary 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. Grew-
gious, “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 gratifica-
tion of his own tendency to be social and communica-
19


CHAPTER XXI.
A RECOGNITION.
NOTHING occurred in the night to flutter the tired
dove, and the dove arose refreshed. With Mr. Grew-
gious, 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 ex-
plained 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 com-
ing 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 cog-


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
293
itation 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 authorized to present her-
self— 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, retreat-
ing 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 cau-
tion, “ 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 gentle-
man come in,” said Mr. Crisparkle.
The gentleman came in ; apologized, with a frank but
modest grace, for not finding Mr. Crisparkle alone ;
turned to Mr. Crisparkle, and smilingly asked the un-
expected question : “ Who am I?”
“You are the gentleman I saw smoking under the
rees in Staple Inn a few minutes ago."


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
295
Hot inconvenie you didn't talked to make
“ Hem! Permit me, sir, to have the honor," said Mr.
Grewgious, advancing with extended hand, “ for an honor
I truly esteem it. I am proud to make your acquaint-
ance. 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 an-
nounced, after taking a jog-trot or two across the room,
so unexpected and unaccountable that they had 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 neighbor
in the top set on the other side of the party-wall ? ” com-
ing 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.”


296
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“ 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.”
6 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 cen-
tre, 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 pru-
dent to hold open communication under present circum-
stances, and on the part of the fair member of the pres-
ent 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 him-
self, 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 threat-
ened. Am I agreed with generally in the views I
take?”
“ I entirely coincide with them,” said Mr. Crisparkle,
who had been very attentive.


298
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“ 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 resi-
dence 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 be-
ing 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 fit-
ting 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.
downe Tras o crisppe been


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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, accord-
ing 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 could 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 have
the anchor up, look alive there, men, and get all sail
upon her!
Mr. Tartar, doing the honors 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 cor-
dial and an earnest man by nature, and withal is per-
fectly fresh and genuine, it may be doubted whether ho
is ever seen to greater advantage than at such a time.


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
305
Alection, “ 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 color, 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 Gar-
den and the Cabin, Rosa dipped in with her message,
20


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
307
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 reflection that Mr. Tartar produced in the Ad-
miral's Cabin by merely touching the spring knob of a
locker and the handle of a drawer, was a dazzling en-
chanted repast. Wonderful macaroons, glittering li-
queurs, 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 feetness,
strode on so fast, that Rosa was obliged to come down
from the beanstalk 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, fire-proof, 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, occasion-
ally repairs to London in the recess, with the view of
extending her connection, and being available for inter-
views with metropolitan parents, if any — whether, until
we have time in which to turn ourselves round, we


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
309
.
lodger world, and who lived in Southampton Street,
Bloomsbury Square. This lady's name, stated in un-
compromising 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
candor, were the distinguishing features of Mrs. Bil-
lickin's organization. She came languishing out of her
own exclusive back parlor, with the air of having been
expressly brought-to for the purpose, from an accumula-
tion of several swoons.
“I hope I see you well, sir," said Mrs. Billickin, rec-
ognizing her visitor with a bend.
“ Thank you, quite well. And you, ma'am ? " returned
Mr. Grewgious.
“ I am as well,” said Mrs. Billickin, becoming aspira-
tional 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 avail-
able.”
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, cozily. 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 parlor, Miss,” said Mrs. Billickin, im-
pressing Rosa into the conversation : “ the back parlor
being what I cling to and never part with ; and there is
two bedrooms at the top of the 'ouse with gas laid on.


314
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“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 de-
tached upon his present service. He was a jolly favored
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 round 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, accord-
ing 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 skillful 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 everlastingly 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
315
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 deli-
cious odors 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.
“ 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 in-
tervals and make themselves wearily known !
Yet what did Rosa expect ? Did she expect Miss
Twinkleton ? Miss Twinkleton duly came. Forth from
her back parlor 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 Bil-
lickin 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


316
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 candor 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 ar-
rived 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, dis-
played his wrong to heaven and earth. Terrified by
this alarming spectacle, Miss Twinkleton placed an-
other shilling in each hand; at the same time appealing
to the law in flurried accents, and recounting her lug-
gage 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 eighteenpence if he
kept his eyes on it, descended the doorsteps, ascended
their carriages, and drove away, leaving Miss Twinkle-
ton 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.


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
317
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,” soliloquized 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 com-
promise between her two states of existence, she had
already become, with her work-basket before her, the
equably vivacious companion with a slight judicious
flavoring of information, when the Billickin announced
herself.
“ I will not hide from you, ladies," said the B, en-
veloped 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
equally become her two stessible. In ,
you.”
“ Accustomed,” said Miss Twinkleton, with a gracious
air which to the jealous ears of the Billickin seemed to
add my “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 rou-
tine of our lot has been hitherto cast.”
"I did think it well to mention to my cook," observed


318
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
the Billickin with a gush of candor, “which I'ope you
will agree with, Miss Twinkleton, was a right precau-
tion, that the young lady being used to what we should
consider here but poor diet, had better be brought for-
ward 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 de-
velop 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 con-
sidered 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 poor-
ness 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
319
wish to ask of yourself as a lady, whether .I am to con-
sider 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
favored with them here, I wish to repeat my question.”
“ If you refer to the poverty of your circulation,” be-
gan 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, ex-
pressly, “ 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 conversa-
tion, it is much to be lamented, and it is eminently de-
sirable that your blood were richer. Rosa, my dear,
how are you getting on with your work ? ”
“ Hem! Before retiring, Miss," proclaimed the Bil-
lickin to Rosa, loftily canceling 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 your-
self.”
“A highly desirable arrangement, Rosa, my dear,"
observed Miss Twinkleton.


320
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
" 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 af-
fectionately 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
iny contempt for any individual, unfortunately for your-
self, 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 din-
ner, 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 kill-
ing-days, and there is not. As to roast fowls, Miss, why
you must be quite surfeited with roast fowls, letting alone


322
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
kleton 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 caress-
ing 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, respect-
fully raising to his lips the taper fingers so skillful 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 establish-
ment, 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 neigh-
bors 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 Twin-
kleton, reading aloud, made the most of all the latitudes


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
323
and longitudes, bearings, winds, currents, offsets, and
other statistics (which she felt to be none the less improve
ing 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 bearing 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 Land-
less, and Mr. Crisparkle as his consistent advocate and
protector, must at least have stood sufficiently in opposi-
tion, to have speculated with keen interest on the steadi-
ness and next direction of the other's designs. But
neither ever broached the theme.
False pretense 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
325
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 noth-
ing 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 harbor 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 gate-house 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 șix months old and dis-
missed by the bench of magistrates, was pretty equally
divided in opinion whether John Jasper's beloved nephew


326
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
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 lit-
tle 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 apologet-
ically, 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 leveling 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 miser-
able court, specially miserable among many such.


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
329
“ Never take it your own way. It ain't good for
trade, and it ain't good for you. Where's my inkbottle,
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 inclosed in the hollow of her
hands, she speaks from time to time, in a tone of snuf-
fling 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?".
“ Aye. 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."


330
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“ 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 am 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 inight not do, you understand.”
“ Yes.” With the point of a needle she stirs the con-
tents 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 de-


332
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
somethiou neverof her nesent of a
“ Aye.”
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 pas-
sionate 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 repe-
tition 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


336
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
“ Is the gentleman from Cloisterham in-doors ?”
“ 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 secs a
postern staircase on one side of it, and on the other


338
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN. DROOD.
“ 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 un-
covered 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
travellers' 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 com-
ment, still rattling his loose money. “ Been here often,
my good woman?”


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
339
“ Once in all my life.”
“ Aye, aye?”
They have arrived at the entrance to the Monks' Vine-
yard. An appropriate remembrance, presenting an ex-
emplary 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 ap-
pearance, to the young gentleman — only the appear.
ance — that he was rather dictated to ?”.
“ Looke'e 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 is
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."


340
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
Mr. Datchery begins very slowly to count out the suin
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 warn-
ing 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.


342
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
name on account of my getting no settled sleep and be-
ing 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' Jars-
pers. What did he go a histing me off my legs for?”
“ What indeed! But never mind him now. A shil-
ling 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 rec-
ognition, and smoking an imaginary pipe, with his head
very much on one side and his eyes very much out of
their places : “ Hopeum Puffer.”
6 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


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 343
which should pervade all business transactions between
principals of honor, 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 morn-
ing? Elest 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 a pondering face, and breaks up the con-
ference. 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
—


THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
345
like children shirking bed), and comes John Jasper lead-
ing 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. Datch-
ery 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 acquaint-
ance outside, when the Choir (as much in a hurry to
get their bed-gowns off, as they were but now to get them
on) have scuffled away.

















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