The Mystery of Edwin Drood
capitals, as Walnut, Gherkin, Onion, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Mixed, and
other members of that noble family. The jams, as being of a less
masculine temperament, and as wearing curlpapers, announced themselves
in feminine caligraphy, like a soft whisper, to be Raspberry,
Gooseberry, Apricot, Plum, Damson, Apple, and Peach. The scene closing
on these charmers, and the lower slide ascending, oranges were
revealed, attended by a mighty japanned sugar-box, to temper their
acerbity if unripe. Home-made biscuits waited at the Court of these
Powers, accompanied by a goodly fragment of plum-cake, and various
slender ladies’ fingers, to be dipped into sweet wine and kissed.
Lowest of all, a compact leaden-vault enshrined the sweet wine and a
stock of cordials: whence issued whispers of Seville Orange, Lemon,
Almond, and Caraway-seed. There was a crowning air upon this closet of
closets, of having been for ages hummed through by the Cathedral bell
and organ, until those venerable bees had made sublimated honey of
everything in store; and it was always observed that every dipper among
the shelves (deep, as has been noticed, and swallowing up head,
shoulders, and elbows) came forth again mellow-faced, and seeming to
have undergone a saccharine transfiguration.
The Reverend Septimus yielded himself up quite as willing a victim to a
nauseous medicinal herb-closet, also presided over by the china
shepherdess, as to this glorious cupboard. To what amazing infusions of
gentian, peppermint, gilliflower, sage, parsley, thyme, rue, rosemary,
and dandelion, did his courageous stomach submit itself! In what
wonderful wrappers, enclosing layers of dried leaves, would he swathe
his rosy and contented face, if his mother suspected him of a
toothache! What botanical blotches would he cheerfully stick upon his
cheek, or forehead, if the dear old lady convicted him of an
imperceptible pimple there! Into this herbaceous penitentiary, situated
on an upper staircase-landing: a low and narrow whitewashed cell, where
bunches of dried leaves hung from rusty hooks in the ceiling, and were
spread out upon shelves, in company with portentous bottles: would the
Reverend Septimus submissively be led, like the highly popular lamb who
has so long and unresistingly been led to the slaughter, and there
would he, unlike that lamb, bore nobody but himself. Not even doing
that much, so that the old lady were busy and pleased, he would quietly
swallow what was given him, merely taking a corrective dip of hands and
face into the great bowl of dried rose-leaves, and into the other great
bowl of dried lavender, and then would go out, as confident in the
sweetening powers of Cloisterham Weir and a wholesome mind, as Lady
Macbeth was hopeless of those of all the seas that roll.
In the present instance the good Minor Canon took his glass of
Constantia with an excellent grace, and, so supported to his mother’s
satisfaction, applied himself to the remaining duties of the day. In
their orderly and punctual progress they brought round Vesper Service
and twilight. The Cathedral being very cold, he set off for a brisk
trot after service; the trot to end in a charge at his favourite
fragment of ruin, which was to be carried by storm, without a pause for
breath.
He carried it in a masterly manner, and, not breathed even then, stood
looking down upon the river. The river at Cloisterham is sufficiently
near the sea to throw up oftentimes a quantity of seaweed. An unusual
quantity had come in with the last tide, and this, and the confusion of
the water, and the restless dipping and flapping of the noisy gulls,
and an angry light out seaward beyond the brown-sailed barges that were
turning black, foreshadowed a stormy night. In his mind he was
contrasting the wild and noisy sea with the quiet harbour of Minor
Canon Corner, when Helena and Neville Landless passed below him. He had
had the two together in his thoughts all day, and at once climbed down
to speak to them together. The footing was rough in an uncertain light
for any tread save that of a good climber; but the Minor Canon was as
good a climber as most men, and stood beside them before many good
climbers would have been half-way down.
“A wild evening, Miss Landless! Do you not find your usual walk with
your brother too exposed and cold for the time of year? Or at all
events, when the sun is down, and the weather is driving in from the
sea?”
Helena thought not. It was their favourite walk. It was very retired.
“It is very retired,” assented Mr. Crisparkle, laying hold of his
opportunity straightway, and walking on with them. “It is a place of
all others where one can speak without interruption, as I wish to do.
Mr. Neville, I believe you tell your sister everything that passes
between us?”
“Everything, sir.”
“Consequently,” said Mr. Crisparkle, “your sister is aware that I have
repeatedly urged you to make some kind of apology for that unfortunate
occurrence which befell on the night of your arrival here.” In saying
it he looked to her, and not to him; therefore it was she, and not he,
who replied:
“Yes.”
“I call it unfortunate, Miss Helena,” resumed Mr. Crisparkle,
“forasmuch as it certainly has engendered a prejudice against Neville.
There is a notion about, that he is a dangerously passionate fellow, of
an uncontrollable and furious temper: he is really avoided as such.”
“I have no doubt he is, poor fellow,” said Helena, with a look of proud
compassion at her brother, expressing a deep sense of his being
ungenerously treated. “I should be quite sure of it, from your saying
so; but what you tell me is confirmed by suppressed hints and
references that I meet with every day.”
“Now,” Mr. Crisparkle again resumed, in a tone of mild though firm
persuasion, “is not this to be regretted, and ought it not to be
amended? These are early days of Neville’s in Cloisterham, and I have
no fear of his outliving such a prejudice, and proving himself to have
been misunderstood. But how much wiser to take action at once, than to
trust to uncertain time! Besides, apart from its being politic, it is
right. For there can be no question that Neville was wrong.”
“He was provoked,” Helena submitted.
“He was the assailant,” Mr. Crisparkle submitted.
They walked on in silence, until Helena raised her eyes to the Minor
Canon’s face, and said, almost reproachfully: “O Mr. Crisparkle, would
you have Neville throw himself at young Drood’s feet, or at Mr.
Jasper’s, who maligns him every day? In your heart you cannot mean it.
From your heart you could not do it, if his case were yours.”
“I have represented to Mr. Crisparkle, Helena,” said Neville, with a
glance of deference towards his tutor, “that if I could do it from my
heart, I would. But I cannot, and I revolt from the pretence. You
forget however, that to put the case to Mr. Crisparkle as his own, is
to suppose to have done what I did.”
“I ask his pardon,” said Helena.
“You see,” remarked Mr. Crisparkle, again laying hold of his
opportunity, though with a moderate and delicate touch, “you both
instinctively acknowledge that Neville did wrong. Then why stop short,
and not otherwise acknowledge it?”
“Is there no difference,” asked Helena, with a little faltering in her
manner; “between submission to a generous spirit, and submission to a
base or trivial one?”
Before the worthy Minor Canon was quite ready with his argument in
reference to this nice distinction, Neville struck in:
“Help me to clear myself with Mr. Crisparkle, Helena. Help me to
convince him that I cannot be the first to make concessions without
mockery and falsehood. My nature must be changed before I can do so,
and it is not changed. I am sensible of inexpressible affront, and
deliberate aggravation of inexpressible affront, and I am angry. The
plain truth is, I am still as angry when I recall that night as I was
that night.”
“Neville,” hinted the Minor Canon, with a steady countenance, “you have
repeated that former action of your hands, which I so much dislike.”
“I am sorry for it, sir, but it was involuntary. I confessed that I was
still as angry.”
“And I confess,” said Mr. Crisparkle, “that I hoped for better things.”
“I am sorry to disappoint you, sir, but it would be far worse to
deceive you, and I should deceive you grossly if I pretended that you
had softened me in this respect. The time may come when your powerful
influence will do even that with the difficult pupil whose antecedents
you know; but it has not come yet. Is this so, and in spite of my
struggles against myself, Helena?”
She, whose dark eyes were watching the effect of what he said on Mr.
Crisparkle’s face, replied—to Mr. Crisparkle, not to him: “It is so.”
After a short pause, she answered the slightest look of inquiry
conceivable, in her brother’s eyes, with as slight an affirmative bend
of her own head; and he went on:
“I have never yet had the courage to say to you, sir, what in full
openness I ought to have said when you first talked with me on this
subject. It is not easy to say, and I have been withheld by a fear of
its seeming ridiculous, which is very strong upon me down to this last
moment, and might, but for my sister, prevent my being quite open with
you even now.—I admire Miss Bud, sir, so very much, that I cannot bear
her being treated with conceit or indifference; and even if I did not
feel that I had an injury against young Drood on my own account, I
should feel that I had an injury against him on hers.”
Mr. Crisparkle, in utter amazement, looked at Helena for corroboration,
and met in her expressive face full corroboration, and a plea for
advice.
“The young lady of whom you speak is, as you know, Mr. Neville, shortly
to be married,” said Mr. Crisparkle, gravely; “therefore your
admiration, if it be of that special nature which you seem to indicate,
is outrageously misplaced. Moreover, it is monstrous that you should
take upon yourself to be the young lady’s champion against her chosen
husband. Besides, you have seen them only once. The young lady has
become your sister’s friend; and I wonder that your sister, even on her
behalf, has not checked you in this irrational and culpable fancy.”
“She has tried, sir, but uselessly. Husband or no husband, that fellow
is incapable of the feeling with which I am inspired towards the
beautiful young creature whom he treats like a doll. I say he is as
incapable of it, as he is unworthy of her. I say she is sacrificed in
being bestowed upon him. I say that I love her, and despise and hate
him!” This with a face so flushed, and a gesture so violent, that his
sister crossed to his side, and caught his arm, remonstrating,
“Neville, Neville!”
Thus recalled to himself, he quickly became sensible of having lost the
guard he had set upon his passionate tendency, and covered his face
with his hand, as one repentant and wretched.
Mr. Crisparkle, watching him attentively, and at the same time
meditating how to proceed, walked on for some paces in silence. Then he
spoke:
“Mr. Neville, Mr. Neville, I am sorely grieved to see in you more
traces of a character as sullen, angry, and wild, as the night now
closing in. They are of too serious an aspect to leave me the resource
of treating the infatuation you have disclosed, as undeserving serious
consideration. I give it very serious consideration, and I speak to you
accordingly. This feud between you and young Drood must not go on. I
cannot permit it to go on any longer, knowing what I now know from you,
and you living under my roof. Whatever prejudiced and unauthorised
constructions your blind and envious wrath may put upon his character,
it is a frank, good-natured character. I know I can trust to it for
that. Now, pray observe what I am about to say. On reflection, and on