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

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