The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Page 2

  CHAPTER II--A DEAN, AND A CHAPTER ALSO

  Whosoever has observed that sedate and clerical bird, the rook, mayperhaps have noticed that when he wings his way homeward towardsnightfall, in a sedate and clerical company, two rooks will suddenlydetach themselves from the rest, will retrace their flight for somedistance, and will there poise and linger; conveying to mere men thefancy that it is of some occult importance to the body politic, that thisartful 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 ofrook-like aspect dispersing, two of these latter retrace their steps, andwalk together in the echoing Close.

  Not only is the day waning, but the year. The low sun is fiery and yetcold behind the monastery ruin, and the Virginia creeper on the Cathedralwall has showered half its deep-red leaves down on the pavement. Therehas been rain this afternoon, and a wintry shudder goes among the littlepools on the cracked, uneven flag-stones, and through the giant elm-treesas they shed a gust of tears. Their fallen leaves lie strewn thicklyabout. Some of these leaves, in a timid rush, seek sanctuary within thelow arched Cathedral door; but two men coming out resist them, and castthem forth again with their feet; this done, one of the two locks thedoor with a goodly key, and the other flits away with a folio music-book.

  'Mr. Jasper was that, Tope?'

  'Yes, Mr. Dean.'

  'He has stayed late.'

  'Yes, Mr. Dean. I have stayed for him, your Reverence. He has been tooka little poorly.'

  'Say "taken," Tope--to the Dean,' the younger rook interposes in a lowtone with this touch of correction, as who should say: 'You may offer badgrammar to the laity, or the humbler clergy, not to the Dean.'

  Mr. Tope, Chief Verger and Showman, and accustomed to be high withexcursion parties, declines with a silent loftiness to perceive that anysuggestion has been tendered to him.

  'And when and how has Mr. Jasper been taken--for, as Mr. Crisparkle hasremarked, it is better to say taken--taken--' repeats the Dean; 'when andhow 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. Crisparkle interposes withthe same touch as before. 'Not English--to the Dean.'

  'Breathed to that extent,' the Dean (not unflattered by this indirecthomage) condescendingly remarks, 'would be preferable.'

  'Mr. Jasper's breathing was so remarkably short'--thus discreetly doesMr. Tope work his way round the sunken rock--'when he came in, that itdistressed him mightily to get his notes out: which was perhaps the causeof his having a kind of fit on him after a little. His memory grewDAZED.' Mr. Tope, with his eyes on the Reverend Mr. Crisparkle, shootsthis word out, as defying him to improve upon it: 'and a dimness andgiddiness crept over him as strange as ever I saw: though he didn't seemto mind it particularly, himself. However, a little time and a littlewater brought him out of his DAZE.' Mr. Tope repeats the word and itsemphasis, with the air of saying: 'As I _have_ made a success, I'll makeit 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 seehe's having his fire kindled up, for it's chilly after the wet, and theCathedral had both a damp feel and a damp touch this afternoon, and hewas very shivery.'

  They all three look towards an old stone gatehouse crossing the Close,with an arched thoroughfare passing beneath it. Through its latticedwindow, a fire shines out upon the fast-darkening scene, involving inshadow the pendent masses of ivy and creeper covering the building'sfront. As the deep Cathedral-bell strikes the hour, a ripple of windgoes through these at their distance, like a ripple of the solemn soundthat hums through tomb and tower, broken niche and defaced statue, in thepile close at hand.

  'Is Mr. Jasper's nephew with him?' the Dean asks.

  'No, sir,' replied the Verger, 'but expected. There's his own solitaryshadow betwixt his two windows--the one looking this way, and the onelooking down into the High Street--drawing his own curtains now.'

  'Well, well,' says the Dean, with a sprightly air of breaking up thelittle conference, 'I hope Mr. Jasper's heart may not be too much setupon his nephew. Our affections, however laudable, in this transitoryworld, should never master us; we should guide them, guide them. I findI am not disagreeably reminded of my dinner, by hearing my dinner-bell.Perhaps, Mr. Crisparkle, you will, before going home, look in on Jasper?'

  'Certainly, Mr. Dean. And tell him that you had the kindness to desireto know how he was?'

  'Ay; 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 hatas a Dean in good spirits may, and directs his comely gaiters towards theruddy 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 pitchinghimself head-foremost into all the deep running water in the surroundingcountry; Mr. Crisparkle, Minor Canon, early riser, musical, classical,cheerful, kind, good-natured, social, contented, and boy-like; Mr.Crisparkle, Minor Canon and good man, lately 'Coach' upon the chief Paganhigh roads, but since promoted by a patron (grateful for a well-taughtson) to his present Christian beat; betakes himself to the gatehouse, onhis 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 hasmade too much of it, I suspect. It's his trade to make the most ofeverything appertaining to the Cathedral, you know.'

  'I may tell the Dean--I call expressly from the Dean--that you are allright again?'

  The reply, with a slight smile, is: 'Certainly; with my respects andthanks 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 lovedoctors, or doctors' stuff.'

  Mr. Jasper is a dark man of some six-and-twenty, with thick, lustrous,well-arranged black hair and whiskers. He looks older than he is, asdark men often do. His voice is deep and good, his face and figure aregood, his manner is a little sombre. His room is a little sombre, andmay have had its influence in forming his manner. It is mostly inshadow. Even when the sun shines brilliantly, it seldom touches thegrand piano in the recess, or the folio music-books on the stand, or thebook-shelves on the wall, or the unfinished picture of a bloomingschoolgirl hanging over the chimneypiece; her flowing brown hair tiedwith a blue riband, 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 meredaub; but it is clear that the painter has made it humorously--one mightalmost 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 youseen, have you seen, have you seen) my-y-y Flo-o-ora-a pass this way!"'Melodiously good Minor Canon the Reverend Septimus Crisparkle thusdelivers himself, in musical rhythm, as he withdraws his amiable facefrom the doorway and conveys it down-stairs.

  Sounds of recognition and greeting pass between the Reverend Septimus andsomebody else, at the stair-foot. Mr. Jasper listens, starts from hischair, and catches a young fellow in his arms, exclaiming:

  'My dear Edwin!'

  'My dear Jack! So glad to see you!'

  'Get off your greatcoat, bright boy, and sit down here in yo
ur owncorner. Your feet are not wet? Pull your boots off. Do pull your bootsoff.'

  'My dear Jack, I am as dry as a bone. Don't moddley-coddley, there's agood fellow. I like anything better than being moddley-coddleyed.'

  With the check upon him of being unsympathetically restrained in a genialoutburst of enthusiasm, Mr. Jasper stands still, and looks on intently atthe young fellow, divesting himself of his outward coat, hat, gloves, andso forth. Once for all, a look of intentness and intensity--a look ofhungry, exacting, watchful, and yet devoted affection--is always, now andever afterwards, on the Jasper face whenever the Jasper face is addressedin this direction. And whenever it is so addressed, it is never, on thisoccasion 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 asmall inner room pleasantly lighted and prepared, wherein a comely dameis in the act of setting dishes on table.

  'What a jolly old Jack it is!' cries the young fellow, with a clap of hishands. '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 somestrange power of suddenly including the sketch over the chimneypiece.

  '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 gaily lays a hand on _his_ shoulder, and soMarseillaise-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 takecare of myself.'

  'You can't. You're much too handsome. Give me a kiss because it'sPussy's birthday.'

  'I'd Pussy you, young man, if I was Pussy, as you call her,' Mrs. Topeblushingly retorts, after being saluted. 'Your uncle's too much wrapt upin you, that's where it is. He makes so much of you, that it's myopinion you think you've only to call your Pussys by the dozen, to make'em come.'

  'You forget, Mrs. Tope,' Mr. Jasper interposes, taking his place at thetable with a genial smile, 'and so do you, Ned, that Uncle and Nephew arewords prohibited here by common consent and express agreement. For whatwe are going to receive His holy name be praised!'

  'Done like the Dean! Witness, Edwin Drood! Please to carve, Jack, for Ican't.'

  This sally ushers in the dinner. Little to the present purpose, or toany purpose, is said, while it is in course of being disposed of. Atlength the cloth is drawn, and a dish of walnuts and a decanter ofrich-coloured sherry are placed upon the table.

  'I say! Tell me, Jack,' the young fellow then flows on: 'do you reallyand 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 thereply, 'that I have that feeling instinctively.'

  'As a rule! Ah, may-be! But what is a difference in age of half-a-dozenyears or so? And some uncles, in large families, are even younger thantheir 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 asBegone, 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, asif it were at once his giddy head and his light heart, Mr. Jasper drinksthe toast in silence.

  'Hip, hip, hip, and nine times nine, and one to finish with, and allthat, understood. Hooray, hooray, hooray!--And now, Jack, let's have alittle talk about Pussy. Two pairs of nut-crackers? Pass me one, andtake the other.' Crack. 'How's Pussy getting on Jack?'

  '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 thesketch with complacency, and then shutting one eye, and taking acorrected prospect of it over a level bridge of nut-crackers in the air:'Not badly hit off from memory. But I ought to have caught thatexpression 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 amonghis fragments of walnut with an air of pique, 'I see it whenever I go tosee Pussy. If I don't find it on her face, I leave it there.--You know Ido, Miss Scornful Pert. Booh!' With a twirl of the nut-crackers at theportrait.

  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 choose, I would choose Pussy fromall 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 andgone father must needs marry us together by anticipation. Whythe--Devil, I was going to say, if it had been respectful to theirmemory--couldn't they leave us alone?'

  'Tut, tut, dear boy,' Mr. Jasper remonstrates, in a tone of gentledeprecation.

  'Tut, tut? Yes, Jack, it's all very well for _you_. _You_ can take iteasily. _Your_ life is not laid down to scale, and lined and dotted outfor you, like a surveyor's plan. _You_ have no uncomfortable suspicionthat you are forced upon anybody, nor has anybody an uncomfortablesuspicion 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 thenatural 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 filmcome over your eyes.'

  Mr. Jasper, with a forced smile, stretches out his right hand, as if atonce to disarm apprehension and gain time to get better. After a whilehe says faintly:

  'I have been taking opium for a pain--an agony--that sometimes overcomesme. The effects of the medicine steal over me like a blight or a cloud,and pass. You see them in the act of passing; they will be gonedirectly. Look away from me. They will go all the sooner.'

  With a scared face the younger man complies by casting his eyes downwardat the ashes on the hearth. Not relaxing his own gaze on the fire, butrather strengthening it with a fierce, firm grip upon his elbow-chair,the elder sits for a few moments rigid, and then, with thick dropsstanding on his forehead, and a sharp catch of his breath, becomes as hewas before. On his so subsiding in his chair, his nephew gently andassiduously 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 voiceless troubled than the purport of his words--indeed with something ofraillery or banter in it--thus addresses him:

  'There is said to be a hidden skeleton in every house; but you thoughtthere was none in
mine, dear Ned.'

  'Upon my life, Jack, I did think so. However, when I come to considerthat 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 distractingcommerce or calculation, no risk, no change of place, myself devoted tothe art I pursue, my business my pleasure.'

  'I really was going to say something of the kind, Jack; but you see, you,speaking of yourself, almost necessarily leave out much that I shouldhave put in. For instance: I should have put in the foreground yourbeing so much respected as Lay Precentor, or Lay Clerk, or whatever youcall it, of this Cathedral; your enjoying the reputation of having donesuch wonders with the choir; your choosing your society, and holding suchan independent position in this queer old place; your gift of teaching(why, even Pussy, who don't like being taught, says there never was sucha Master as you are!), and your connexion.'

  '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 thegrain. How does our service sound to you?'

  'Beautiful! Quite celestial!'

  'It often sounds to me quite devilish. I am so weary of it. The echoesof my own voice among the arches seem to mock me with my daily drudginground. 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 forrelief (and did take) to carving demons out of the stalls and seats anddesks. 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,' EdwinDrood returns, astonished, bending forward in his chair to lay asympathetic hand on Jasper's knee, and looking at him with an anxiousface.

  'I know you thought so. They all think so.'

  'Well, I suppose they do,' says Edwin, meditating aloud. 'Pussy thinksso.'

  '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 madefor your vocation.'

  The younger man glances at the portrait. The elder sees it in him.

  'Anyhow, my dear Ned,' Jasper resumes, as he shakes his head with a gravecheerfulness, 'I must subdue myself to my vocation: which is much thesame thing outwardly. It's too late to find another now. This is aconfidence 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 youlove 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 thenephew's hands, the uncle thus proceeds:

  'You know now, don't you, that even a poor monotonous chorister andgrinder of music--in his niche--may be troubled with some stray sort ofambition, aspiration, restlessness, dissatisfaction, what shall we callit?'

  'Yes, dear Jack.'

  'And you will remember?'

  'My dear Jack, I only ask you, am I likely to forget what you have saidwith so much feeling?'

  'Take it as a warning, then.'

  In the act of having his hands released, and of moving a step back, Edwinpauses 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 thatmy headpiece is none of the best. But I needn't say I am young; andperhaps I shall not grow worse as I grow older. At all events, I hope Ihave something impressible within me, which feels--deeply feels--thedisinterestedness of your painfully laying your inner self bare, as awarning to me.'

  Mr. Jasper's steadiness of face and figure becomes so marvellous that hisbreathing seems to have stopped.

  'I couldn't fail to notice, Jack, that it cost you a great effort, andthat you were very much moved, and very unlike your usual self. Ofcourse I knew that you were extremely fond of me, but I really was notprepared for your, as I may say, sacrificing yourself to me in that way.'

  Mr. Jasper, becoming a breathing man again without the smallest stage oftransition 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 muchin earnest. I have no doubt that that unhealthy state of mind which youhave so powerfully described is attended with some real suffering, and ishard to bear. But let me reassure you, Jack, as to the chances of itsovercoming me. I don't think I am in the way of it. In some few monthsless than another year, you know, I shall carry Pussy off from school asMrs. Edwin Drood. I shall then go engineering into the East, and Pussywith me. And although we have our little tiffs now, arising out of acertain unavoidable flatness that attends our love-making, owing to itsend being all settled beforehand, still I have no doubt of our getting oncapitally then, when it's done and can't be helped. In short, Jack, togo back to the old song I was freely quoting at dinner (and who knows oldsongs better than you?), my wife shall dance, and I will sing, so merrilypass the day. Of Pussy's being beautiful there cannot be a doubt;--andwhen you are good besides, Little Miss Impudence,' once moreapostrophising the portrait, 'I'll burn your comic likeness, and paintyour music-master another.'

  Mr. Jasper, with his hand to his chin, and with an expression of musingbenevolence on his face, has attentively watched every animated look andgesture attending the delivery of these words. He remains in thatattitude after they, are spoken, as if in a kind of fascination attendanton 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 indanger, I don't like your putting yourself in that position.'

  'Shall we go and walk in the churchyard?'

  'By all means. You won't mind my slipping out of it for half a moment tothe Nuns' House, and leaving a parcel there? Only gloves for Pussy; asmany pairs of gloves as she is years old to-day. Rather poetical, Jack?'

  Mr. Jasper, still in the same attitude, murmurs: '"Nothing half so sweetin life," Ned!'

  'Here's the parcel in my greatcoat-pocket. They must be presentedto-night, or the poetry is gone. It's against regulations for me to callat night, but not to leave a packet. I am ready, Jack!'

  Mr. Jasper dissolves his attitude, and they go out together.