The Mystery of Edwin Drood (18 page)

 

  “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 case in any other society; and as
constantly seeking that. If I was to say seeking that, as a bird seeks its
nest, I should make an ass of myself, because 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 unacquainted with the habits of birds, except the birds of
Staple Inn, who seek their nests on ledges, and in gutterpipes and chimneypots,
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 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 correction), 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 sentence, that Mr. Grewgious rendered his difficulty a thousand
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. Bazzard being occasioned by slumber.

 

  “His responsibility is very great,
though,” said Mr. Grewgious at length, with his eyes on the fire.

 

  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
forefinger 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. Jasper, but for Miss Rosa's
wishing it to come straight to you, in preference. You received it?”

 

  “Quite safely, sir.”

 

  “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 allusion 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. Favour me with your
attention, half a minute.”

 

  He took a bunch of keys from his pocket,
singled out by the candlelight the key he wanted, and then, with a candle in
his hand, went to a bureau or escritoire, unlocked 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 delicately set in gold, was a ring belonging to Miss Rosa's mother. It
was removed from her dead hand, in my presence, 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 among ashes, and dust
among dust, some years! If I had any imagination (which it is needless to say I
have not), I might imagine that the lasting beauty of these stones was almost
cruel.”

 

  He closed the case again as he spoke.

 

  “This ring was given to the young lady
who was drowned so early in her beautiful and happy career, by her husband,
when they first plighted their faith to one another. It was he who removed it
from her unconscious hand, and it was he who, when his death drew very near,
placed it in mine. The trust in which I received it, was, that, you and Miss
Rosa growing to manhood and womanhood, and your betrothal prospering and coming
to maturity, I should give it to you to place upon her finger. Failing those
desired results, it was to remain in my possession.”

 

  Some trouble was in the young man's
face, and some indecision was in the action of his hand, as Mr. Grewgious,
looking steadfastly at him, gave him the ring.

 

  “Your placing it on her finger,” said
Mr. Grewgious, “will be the solemn seal upon your strict fidelity to the living
and the dead. You are going to her, to make the last irrevocable preparations
for your marriage. Take it with you.”

 

  The young man took the little case, and
placed it in his breast.

 

  “If anything should be amiss, if
anything should be even slightly wrong, between you; if you should have any
secret consciousness that you are committing yourself to this step for no
higher reason than because you have long been accustomed to look forward to it;
then,” said Mr. Grewgious, “I charge you once more, by the living and by the
dead, to bring that ring back to me!”

 

  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 something about
time and appointments. The fog was reported 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, “followed” 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—”

 

  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 become!”

 

  “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 touchwoody 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 profundity becoming
a little monotonous in spite of the vastness of the subject, he often takes an
airing in the Cathedral Close and thereabout. He likes to pass the churchyard
with a swelling air of proprietorship, and to encourage in his breast a sort of
benignant-landlord feeling, in that he has been bountiful towards that
meritorious 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 churchyard 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
discharging 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.

 

  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 gatehouse 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, favourites 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 churchyard 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 Canterbury.