The Mystery of Edwin Drood - Charles Dickens (crime books to read txt) 📗

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 it 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, unreasonable, 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?’

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 return at Christmas, arrange all matters of detail with him; you will then communicate with me; and I will discharge myself (as a mere business acquaintance) 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 apparent 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 present to me, from the neighbourhood 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. ‘Thank you, my dear! The honour 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, except 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 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 curtsey, 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. Jasper before leaving Cloisterham, Mr. Grewgious went to the gatehouse, 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 service-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 Cathedral, 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 corners; 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 surmounted 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 intervals 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 the Cathedral, all became gray, murky, and sepulchral, and the cracked monotonous mutter went on like a dying 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 chancel-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 accord. 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 account of the Cathedral.

‘I merely came to tell her that it could not be considered binding, against any such reason for its dissolution 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 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?’

‘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 arrangements 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, somewhat indistinctly: ‘You mean me.’

Mr. Grewgious touched himself on the breast, and said: ‘I mean us. Therefore, let them have their little discussions 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.’

‘So, you settled with her that you would come back at Christmas?’ observed Jasper. ‘I see! Mr. Grewgious, 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 accept it. I understand that at Christmas they will complete their preparations for May, and that their marriage will be put in final train by themselves, and that nothing 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?’