The Mystery of Edwin Drood
“Do you stay here long, Mr. Drood?” says Neville.
“Not this time,” is the careless answer. “I leave for London again,
to-morrow. But I shall be here, off and on, until next Midsummer; then
I shall take my leave of Cloisterham, and England too; for many a long
day, I expect.”
“Are you going abroad?”
“Going to wake up Egypt a little,” is the condescending answer.
“Are you reading?”
“Reading?” repeats Edwin Drood, with a touch of contempt. “No. Doing,
working, engineering. My small patrimony was left a part of the capital
of the Firm I am with, by my father, a former partner; and I am a
charge upon the Firm until I come of age; and then I step into my
modest share in the concern. Jack—you met him at dinner—is, until then,
my guardian and trustee.”
“I heard from Mr. Crisparkle of your other good fortune.”
“What do you mean by my other good fortune?”
Neville has made his remark in a watchfully advancing, and yet furtive
and shy manner, very expressive of that peculiar air already noticed,
of being at once hunter and hunted. Edwin has made his retort with an
abruptness not at all polite. They stop and interchange a rather heated
look.
“I hope,” says Neville, “there is no offence, Mr. Drood, in my
innocently referring to your betrothal?”
“By George!” cries Edwin, leading on again at a somewhat quicker pace;
“everybody in this chattering old Cloisterham refers to it. I wonder no
public-house has been set up, with my portrait for the sign of The
Betrothed’s Head. Or Pussy’s portrait. One or the other.”
“I am not accountable for Mr. Crisparkle’s mentioning the matter to me,
quite openly,” Neville begins.
“No; that’s true; you are not,” Edwin Drood assents.
“But,” resumes Neville, “I am accountable for mentioning it to you. And
I did so, on the supposition that you could not fail to be highly proud
of it.”
Now, there are these two curious touches of human nature working the
secret springs of this dialogue. Neville Landless is already enough
impressed by Little Rosebud, to feel indignant that Edwin Drood (far
below her) should hold his prize so lightly. Edwin Drood is already
enough impressed by Helena, to feel indignant that Helena’s brother
(far below her) should dispose of him so coolly, and put him out of the
way so entirely.
However, the last remark had better be answered. So, says Edwin:
“I don’t know, Mr. Neville” (adopting that mode of address from Mr.
Crisparkle), “that what people are proudest of, they usually talk most
about; I don’t know either, that what they are proudest of, they most
like other people to talk about. But I live a busy life, and I speak
under correction by you readers, who ought to know everything, and I
daresay do.”
By this time they had both become savage; Mr. Neville out in the open;
Edwin Drood under the transparent cover of a popular tune, and a stop
now and then to pretend to admire picturesque effects in the moonlight
before him.
“It does not seem to me very civil in you,” remarks Neville, at length,
“to reflect upon a stranger who comes here, not having had your
advantages, to try to make up for lost time. But, to be sure, I was not
brought up in ‘busy life,’ and my ideas of civility were formed among
Heathens.”
“Perhaps, the best civility, whatever kind of people we are brought up
among,” retorts Edwin Drood, “is to mind our own business. If you will
set me that example, I promise to follow it.”
“Do you know that you take a great deal too much upon yourself?” is the
angry rejoinder, “and that in the part of the world I come from, you
would be called to account for it?”
“By whom, for instance?” asks Edwin Drood, coming to a halt, and
surveying the other with a look of disdain.
But, here a startling right hand is laid on Edwin’s shoulder, and
Jasper stands between them. For, it would seem that he, too, has
strolled round by the Nuns’ House, and has come up behind them on the
shadowy side of the road.
“Ned, Ned, Ned!” he says; “we must have no more of this. I don’t like
this. I have overheard high words between you two. Remember, my dear
boy, you are almost in the position of host to-night. You belong, as it
were, to the place, and in a manner represent it towards a stranger.
Mr. Neville is a stranger, and you should respect the obligations of
hospitality. And, Mr. Neville,” laying his left hand on the inner
shoulder of that young gentleman, and thus walking on between them,
hand to shoulder on either side: “you will pardon me; but I appeal to
you to govern your temper too. Now, what is amiss? But why ask! Let
there be nothing amiss, and the question is superfluous. We are all
three on a good understanding, are we not?”
After a silent struggle between the two young men who shall speak last,
Edwin Drood strikes in with: “So far as I am concerned, Jack, there is
no anger in me.”
“Nor in me,” says Neville Landless, though not so freely; or perhaps so
carelessly. “But if Mr. Drood knew all that lies behind me, far away
from here, he might know better how it is that sharp-edged words have
sharp edges to wound me.”
“Perhaps,” says Jasper, in a soothing manner, “we had better not
qualify our good understanding. We had better not say anything having
the appearance of a remonstrance or condition; it might not seem
generous. Frankly and freely, you see there is no anger in Ned. Frankly
and freely, there is no anger in you, Mr. Neville?”
“None at all, Mr. Jasper.” Still, not quite so frankly or so freely;
or, be it said once again, not quite so carelessly perhaps.
“All over then! Now, my bachelor gatehouse is a few yards from here,
and the heater is on the fire, and the wine and glasses are on the
table, and it is not a stone’s throw from Minor Canon Corner. Ned, you
are up and away to-morrow. We will carry Mr. Neville in with us, to
take a stirrup-cup.”
“With all my heart, Jack.”
“And with all mine, Mr. Jasper.” Neville feels it impossible to say
less, but would rather not go. He has an impression upon him that he
has lost hold of his temper; feels that Edwin Drood’s coolness, so far
from being infectious, makes him red-hot.
Mr. Jasper, still walking in the centre, hand to shoulder on either
side, beautifully turns the Refrain of a drinking song, and they all go
up to his rooms. There, the first object visible, when he adds the
light of a lamp to that of the fire, is the portrait over the
chimneypiece. It is not an object calculated to improve the
understanding between the two young men, as rather awkwardly reviving
the subject of their difference. Accordingly, they both glance at it
consciously, but say nothing. Jasper, however (who would appear from
his conduct to have gained but an imperfect clue to the cause of their
late high words), directly calls attention to it.
“You recognise that picture, Mr. Neville?” shading the lamp to throw
the light upon it.
“I recognise it, but it is far from flattering the original.”
“O, you are hard upon it! It was done by Ned, who made me a present of
it.”
“I am sorry for that, Mr. Drood.” Neville apologises, with a real
intention to apologise; “if I had known I was in the artist’s
presence—”
“O, a joke, sir, a mere joke,” Edwin cuts in, with a provoking yawn. “A
little humouring of Pussy’s points! I’m going to paint her gravely, one
of these days, if she’s good.”
The air of leisurely patronage and indifference with which this is
said, as the speaker throws himself back in a chair and clasps his
hands at the back of his head, as a rest for it, is very exasperating
to the excitable and excited Neville. Jasper looks observantly from the
one to the other, slightly smiles, and turns his back to mix a jug of
mulled wine at the fire. It seems to require much mixing and
compounding.
“I suppose, Mr. Neville,” says Edwin, quick to resent the indignant
protest against himself in the face of young Landless, which is fully
as visible as the portrait, or the fire, or the lamp: “I suppose that
if you painted the picture of your lady love—”
“I can’t paint,” is the hasty interruption.
“That’s your misfortune, and not your fault. You would if you could.
But if you could, I suppose you would make her (no matter what she was
in reality), Juno, Minerva, Diana, and Venus, all in one. Eh?”
“I have no lady love, and I can’t say.”
“If I were to try my hand,” says Edwin, with a boyish boastfulness
getting up in him, “on a portrait of Miss Landless—in earnest, mind
you; in earnest—you should see what I could do!”
“My sister’s consent to sit for it being first got, I suppose? As it
never will be got, I am afraid I shall never see what you can do. I
must bear the loss.”
Jasper turns round from the fire, fills a large goblet glass for
Neville, fills a large goblet glass for Edwin, and hands each his own;
then fills for himself, saying:
“Come, Mr. Neville, we are to drink to my nephew, Ned. As it is his
foot that is in the stirrup—metaphorically—our stirrup-cup is to be
devoted to him. Ned, my dearest fellow, my love!”
Jasper sets the example of nearly emptying his glass, and Neville
follows it. Edwin Drood says, “Thank you both very much,” and follows
the double example.
“Look at him,” cries Jasper, stretching out his hand admiringly and
tenderly, though rallyingly too. “See where he lounges so easily, Mr.
Neville! The world is all before him where to choose. A life of
stirring work and interest, a life of change and excitement, a life of
domestic ease and love! Look at him!”
Edwin Drood’s face has become quickly and remarkably flushed with the
wine; so has the face of Neville Landless. Edwin still sits thrown back
in his chair, making that rest of clasped hands for his head.
“See how little he heeds it all!” Jasper proceeds in a bantering vein.
“It is hardly worth his while to pluck the golden fruit that hangs ripe
on the tree for him. And yet consider the contrast, Mr. Neville. You
and I have no prospect of stirring work and interest, or of change and
excitement, or of domestic ease and love. You and I have no prospect
(unless you are more fortunate than I am, which may easily be), but the
tedious unchanging round of this dull place.”
“Upon my soul, Jack,” says Edwin, complacently, “I feel quite
apologetic for having my way smoothed as you describe. But you know
what I know, Jack, and it may not be so very easy as it seems, after
all. May it, Pussy?” To the portrait, with a snap of his thumb and
finger. “We have got to hit it off yet; haven’t we, Pussy? You know
what I mean, Jack.”
His speech has become thick and indistinct. Jasper, quiet and
self-possessed, looks to Neville, as expecting his answer or comment.
When Neville speaks, _his_ speech is also thick and indistinct.
“It might have been better for Mr. Drood to have known some hardships,”
he says, defiantly.
“Pray,” retorts Edwin, turning merely his eyes in that direction, “pray
why might it have been better for Mr. Drood to have known some
hardships?”
“Ay,” Jasper assents, with an air of interest; “let us know why?”
“Because they might have made him more sensible,” says Neville, “of
good fortune that is not by any means necessarily the result of his own
merits.”
Mr. Jasper quickly looks to his nephew for his rejoinder.
“Have _you_ known hardships, may I ask?” says Edwin Drood, sitting
upright.
Mr. Jasper quickly looks to the other for his retort.
“I have.”
“And what have they made you sensible of?”
Mr. Jasper’s play of eyes between the two holds good throughout the
dialogue, to the end.
“I have told you once before to-night.”
“You have done nothing of the sort.”
“I tell you I have. That you take a great deal too much upon yourself.”
“You added something else to that, if I remember?”
“Yes, I did say something else.”