The Mystery of Edwin Drood
“We write to one another,” said Rosa, pouting, as she recalled their
epistolary differences.
“Such is the meaning that I attach to the word ‘correspond’ in this
application, my dear,” said Mr. Grewgious. “Good. All goes well, time
works on, and at this next Christmas-time it will become necessary, as
a matter of form, to give the exemplary lady in the corner window, to
whom we are so much indebted, business notice of your departure in the
ensuing half-year. Your relations with her are far more than business
relations, no doubt; but a residue of business remains in them, and
business is business ever. I am a particularly Angular man,” proceeded
Mr. Grewgious, as if it suddenly occurred to him to mention it, “and I
am not used to give anything away. If, for these two reasons, some
competent Proxy would give _you_ away, I should take it very kindly.”
Rosa intimated, with her eyes on the ground, that she thought a
substitute might be found, if required.
“Surely, surely,” said Mr. Grewgious. “For instance, the gentleman who
teaches Dancing here—he would know how to do it with graceful
propriety. He would advance and retire in a manner satisfactory to the
feelings of the officiating clergyman, and of yourself, and the
bridegroom, and all parties concerned. I am—I am a particularly Angular
man,” said Mr. Grewgious, as if he had made up his mind to screw it out
at last: “and should only blunder.”
Rosa sat still and silent. Perhaps her mind had not got quite so far as
the ceremony yet, but was lagging on the way there.
“Memorandum, ‘Will.’ Now, my dear,” said Mr. Grewgious, referring to
his notes, disposing of “Marriage” with his pencil, and taking a paper
from his pocket; “although I have before possessed you with the
contents of your father’s will, I think it right at this time to leave
a certified copy of it in your hands. And although Mr. Edwin is also
aware of its contents, I think it right at this time likewise to place
a certified copy of it in Mr. Jasper’s hand—”
“Not in his own!” asked Rosa, looking up quickly. “Cannot the copy go
to Eddy himself?”
“Why, yes, my dear, if you particularly wish it; but I spoke of Mr.
Jasper as being his trustee.”
“I do particularly wish it, if you please,” said Rosa, hurriedly and
earnestly; “I don’t like Mr. Jasper to come between us, in any way.”
“It is natural, I suppose,” said Mr. Grewgious, “that your young
husband should be all in all. Yes. You observe that I say, I suppose.
The fact is, I am a particularly Unnatural man, and I don’t know from
my own knowledge.”
Rosa looked at him with some wonder.
“I mean,” he explained, “that young ways were never my ways. I was the
only offspring of parents far advanced in life, and I half believe I
was born advanced in life myself. No personality is intended towards
the name you will so soon change, when I remark that while the general
growth of people seem to have come into existence, buds, I seem to have
come into existence a chip. I was a chip—and a very dry one—when I
first became aware of myself. Respecting the other certified copy, your
wish shall be complied with. Respecting your inheritance, I think you
know all. It is an annuity of two hundred and fifty pounds. The savings
upon that annuity, and some other items to your credit, all duly
carried to account, with vouchers, will place you in possession of a
lump-sum of money, rather exceeding Seventeen Hundred Pounds. I am
empowered to advance the cost of your preparations for your marriage
out of that fund. All is told.”
“Will you please tell me,” said Rosa, taking the paper with a prettily
knitted brow, but not opening it: “whether I am right in what I am
going to say? I can understand what you tell me, so very much better
than what I read in law-writings. My poor papa and Eddy’s father made
their agreement together, as very dear and firm and fast friends, in
order that we, too, might be very dear and firm and fast friends after
them?”
“Just so.”
“For the lasting good of both of us, and the lasting happiness of both
of us?”
“Just so.”
“That we might be to one another even much more than they had been to
one another?”
“Just so.”
“It was not bound upon Eddy, and it was not bound upon me, by any
forfeit, in case—”
“Don’t be agitated, my dear. In the case that it brings tears into your
affectionate eyes even to picture to yourself—in the case of your not
marrying one another—no, no forfeiture on either side. You would then
have been my ward until you were of age. No worse would have befallen
you. Bad enough perhaps!”
“And Eddy?”
“He would have come into his partnership derived from his father, and
into its arrears to his credit (if any), on attaining his majority,
just as now.”
Rosa, with her perplexed face and knitted brow, bit the corner of her
attested copy, as she sat with her head on one side, looking
abstractedly on the floor, and smoothing it with her foot.
“In short,” said Mr. Grewgious, “this betrothal is a wish, a sentiment,
a friendly project, tenderly expressed on both sides. That it was
strongly felt, and that there was a lively hope that it would prosper,
there can be no doubt. When you were both children, you began to be
accustomed to it, and it _has_ prospered. But circumstances alter
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