The Mystery of Edwin Drood (21 page)

  Deputy, with another sharp whistle, at
once expressing his relief, and his commencement of a milder stoning of Mr.
Durdles, begins stoning that respectable gentleman home, as if he were a
reluctant ox. Mr. Jasper goes to his gatehouse, brooding. And thus, as
everything comes to an end, the unaccountable expedition comes to an end—for
the time.

 

   

 

   

 

  CHAPTER XIII—BOTH AT THEIR BEST

 

   

 

  MISS TWINKLETON'S establishment was
about to undergo 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
marmalade had likewise been distributed on a service of plates constructed of
curlpaper; 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 riband,
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-curlpaper, until suffocated in her own pillow by two
flowing-haired executioners.

 

  Nor were these the only tokens of
dispersal. Boxes 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. Largess, in the form of odds and ends of cold cream and
pomatum, and also of hairpins, 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 opportunity. 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 expressly made a point of honour that nobody should go to sleep, and
that Ghosts should be encouraged by all possible 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, supported by Mrs.
Tisher, held a drawing-room in her own apartment (the globes already covered
with brown Holland), where glasses of white-wine and plates of cut pound-cake
were discovered on the table. Miss Twinkleton 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 Twinkleton was annually going to add
“bosoms,” but annually stopped on the brink of that expression, and substituted
“hearts.” Hearts; our hearts. Hem! Again a revolving 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 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 another
good-bye, and happiness, until we met 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 superfluous 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 connexion 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 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 hesitations, 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 reestablished 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 (unconscious 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 various silvery voices, “Good-bye, Rosebud darling!” and the effigy
of Mr. Sapsea's father over the opposite doorway seemed to say to mankind:
“Gentlemen, favour 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 Cloisterham was itself again.

 

  If Rosebud in her bower now waited Edwin
Drood's coming with an uneasy heart, Edwin for his part was uneasy too. With
far less force of purpose in his composition than the childish beauty, crowned
by acclamation fairy queen of Miss Twinkleton's establishment, he had a
conscience, and Mr. Grewgious had pricked it. That gentleman's steady convictions
of what was right and what was wrong in such a case as his, were neither to be
frowned aside nor laughed aside. They would not be moved. But for the dinner in
Staple Inn, and but for the ring he carried in the breast pocket of his coat,
he would have drifted into their wedding-day without another pause for real
thought, loosely trusting that all would go well, left alone. But that serious
putting him on his truth to the living and the dead had brought him to a check.
He must either give the ring to Rosa, or he must take it back. Once put into
this narrowed way of action, it was curious that he began to consider Rosa's
claims upon him more unselfishly than he had ever considered them before, and
began to be less sure of himself than he had ever been in all his easy-going
days.

 

  “I will be guided by what she says, and
by how we get on,” was his decision, walking from the gatehouse to the Nuns'
House. “Whatever comes of it, I will bear his words in mind, and try to be true
to the living and the dead.”

 

  Rosa was dressed for walking. She
expected him. It was a bright, frosty day, and Miss Twinkleton had already
graciously sanctioned fresh air. Thus they got out together before it became
necessary for either Miss Twinkleton, or the deputy high-priest Mrs. Tisher, to
lay even so much as one of those usual offerings on the shrine of Propriety.

 

  “My dear Eddy,” said Rosa, when they had
turned out of the High Street, and had got among the quiet walks in the
neighbourhood of the Cathedral and the river: “I want to say something very
serious to you. I have been thinking about it for a long, long time.”

 

  “I want to be serious with you too, Rosa
dear. I mean to be serious and earnest.”

 

  “Thank you, Eddy. And you will not think
me unkind because I begin, will you? You will not think I speak for myself
only, because I speak first? That would not be generous, would it? And I know
you are generous!”

 

  He said, “I hope I am not ungenerous to
you, Rosa.” He called her Pussy no more. Never again.

 

  “And there is no fear,” pursued Rosa,
“of our quarrelling, is there? Because, Eddy,” clasping her hand on his arm,
“we have so much reason to be very lenient to each other!”

 

  “We will be, Rosa.”

 

  “That's a dear good boy! Eddy, let us be
courageous. Let us change to brother and sister from this day forth.”

 

  “Never be husband and wife?”

 

  “Never!”

 

  Neither spoke again for a little while.
But after that pause he said, with some effort:

 

  “Of course I know that this has been in
both our minds, Rosa, and of course I am in honour bound to confess freely that
it does not originate with you.”

 

  “No, nor with you, dear,” she returned,
with pathetic earnestness. “That sprung up between us. You are not truly happy
in our engagement; I am not truly happy in it. O, I am so sorry, so sorry!” And
there she broke into tears.

 

  “I am deeply sorry too, Rosa. Deeply
sorry for you.”

 

  “And I for you, poor boy! And I for
you!”

 

  This pure young feeling, this gentle and
forbearing feeling of each towards the other, brought with it its reward in a
softening light that seemed to shine on their position. The relations between
them did not look wilful, or capricious, or a failure, in such a light; they
became elevated into something more self-denying, honourable, affectionate, and
true.

 

  “If we knew yesterday,” said Rosa, as
she dried her eyes, “and we did know yesterday, and on many, many yesterdays,
that we were far from right together in those relations which were not of our
own choosing, what better could we do to-day than change them? It is natural
that we should be sorry, and you see how sorry we both are; but how much better
to be sorry now than then!”

 

  “When, Rosa?”

 

  “When it would be too late. And then we
should be angry, besides.”

 

  Another silence fell upon them.

 

  “And you know,” said Rosa innocently,
“you couldn't like me then; and you can always like me now, for I shall not be
a drag upon you, or a worry to you. And I can always like you now, and your
sister will not tease or trifle with you. I often did when I was not your
sister, and I beg your pardon for it.”

 

  “Don't let us come to that, Rosa; or I
shall want more pardoning than I like to think of.”

 

  “No, indeed, Eddy; you are too hard, my
generous boy, upon yourself. Let us sit down, brother, on these ruins, and let
me tell you how it was with us. I think I know, for I have considered about it
very much since you were here last time. You liked me, didn't you? You thought
I was a nice little thing?”

 

  “Everybody thinks that, Rosa.”

 

  “Do they?” She knitted her brow musingly
for a moment, and then flashed out with the bright little induction: “Well, but
say they do. Surely it was not enough that you should think of me only as other
people did; now, was it?”

 

  The point was not to be got over. It was
not enough.

 

  “And that is just what I mean; that is
just how it was with us,” said Rosa. “You liked me very well, and you had grown
used to me, and had grown used to the idea of our being married. You accepted
the situation as an inevitable kind of thing, didn't you? It was to be, you
thought, and why discuss or dispute it?”

 

  It was new and strange to him to have
himself presented to himself so clearly, in a glass of her holding up. He had
always patronised her, in his superiority to her share of woman's wit. Was that
but another instance of something radically amiss in the terms on which they
had been gliding towards a life-long bondage?

 

  “All this that I say of you is true of
me as well, Eddy. Unless it was, I might not be bold enough to say it. Only,
the difference between us was, that by little and little there crept into my
mind a habit of thinking about it, instead of dismissing it. My life is not so
busy as yours, you see, and I have not so many things to think of. So I thought
about it very much, and I cried about it very much too (though that was not
your fault, poor boy); when all at once my guardian came down, to prepare for
my leaving the Nuns' House. I tried to hint to him that I was not quite settled
in my mind, but I hesitated and failed, and he didn't understand me. But he is
a good, good man. And he put before me so kindly, and yet so strongly, how
seriously we ought to consider, in our circumstances, that I resolved to speak
to you the next moment we were alone and grave. And if I seemed to come to it
easily just now, because I came to it all at once, don't think it was so
really, Eddy, for O, it was very, very hard, and O, I am very, very sorry!”