The Mystery of Edwin Drood
little secret drawer, and took from it an ordinary ring-case made for a
single ring. With this in his hand, he returned to his chair. As he
held it up for the young man to see, his hand trembled.
“Mr. Edwin, this rose of diamonds and rubies delicately set in gold,
was a ring belonging to Miss Rosa’s mother. It was removed from her
dead hand, in my presence, with such distracted grief as I hope it may
never be my lot to contemplate again. Hard man as I am, I am not hard
enough for that. See how bright these stones shine!” opening the case.
“And yet the eyes that were so much brighter, and that so often looked
upon them with a light and a proud heart, have been ashes among ashes,
and dust among dust, some years! If I had any imagination (which it is
needless to say I have not), I might imagine that the lasting beauty of
these stones was almost cruel.”
He closed the case again as he spoke.
“This ring was given to the young lady who was drowned so early in her
beautiful and happy career, by her husband, when they first plighted
their faith to one another. It was he who removed it from her
unconscious hand, and it was he who, when his death drew very near,
placed it in mine. The trust in which I received it, was, that, you and
Miss Rosa growing to manhood and womanhood, and your betrothal
prospering and coming to maturity, I should give it to you to place
upon her finger. Failing those desired results, it was to remain in my
possession.”
Some trouble was in the young man’s face, and some indecision was in
the action of his hand, as Mr. Grewgious, looking steadfastly at him,
gave him the ring.
“Your placing it on her finger,” said Mr. Grewgious, “will be the
solemn seal upon your strict fidelity to the living and the dead. You
are going to her, to make the last irrevocable preparations for your
marriage. Take it with you.”
The young man took the little case, and placed it in his breast.
“If anything should be amiss, if anything should be even slightly
wrong, between you; if you should have any secret consciousness that
you are committing yourself to this step for no higher reason than
because you have long been accustomed to look forward to it; then,”
said Mr. Grewgious, “I charge you once more, by the living and by the
dead, to bring that ring back to me!”
Here Bazzard awoke himself by his own snoring; and, as is usual in such
cases, sat apoplectically staring at vacancy, as defying vacancy to
accuse him of having been asleep.
“Bazzard!” said Mr. Grewgious, harder than ever.
“I follow you, sir,” said Bazzard, “and I have been following you.”
“In discharge of a trust, I have handed Mr. Edwin Drood a ring of
diamonds and rubies. You see?”
Edwin reproduced the little case, and opened it; and Bazzard looked
into it.
“I follow you both, sir,” returned Bazzard, “and I witness the
transaction.”
Evidently anxious to get away and be alone, Edwin Drood now resumed his
outer clothing, muttering something about time and appointments. The
fog was reported no clearer (by the flying waiter, who alighted from a
speculative flight in the coffee interest), but he went out into it;
and Bazzard, after his manner, “followed” him.
Mr. Grewgious, left alone, walked softly and slowly to and fro, for an
hour and more. He was restless to-night, and seemed dispirited.
“I hope I have done right,” he said. “The appeal to him seemed
necessary. It was hard to lose the ring, and yet it must have gone from
me very soon.”
He closed the empty little drawer with a sigh, and shut and locked the
escritoire, and came back to the solitary fireside.
“Her ring,” he went on. “Will it come back to me? My mind hangs about
her ring very uneasily to-night. But that is explainable. I have had it
so long, and I have prized it so much! I wonder—”
He was in a wondering mood as well as a restless; for, though he
checked himself at that point, and took another walk, he resumed his
wondering when he sat down again.
“I wonder (for the ten-thousandth time, and what a weak fool I, for
what can it signify now!) whether he confided the charge of their
orphan child to me, because he knew—Good God, how like her mother she
has become!”
“I wonder whether he ever so much as suspected that some one doted on
her, at a hopeless, speechless distance, when he struck in and won her.
I wonder whether it ever crept into his mind who that unfortunate some
one was!”
“I wonder whether I shall sleep to-night! At all events, I will shut
out the world with the bedclothes, and try.”
Mr. Grewgious crossed the staircase to his raw and foggy bedroom, and
was soon ready for bed. Dimly catching sight of his face in the misty
looking-glass, he held his candle to it for a moment.
“A likely some one, _you_, to come into anybody’s thoughts in such an
aspect!” he exclaimed. “There! there! there! Get to bed, poor man, and
cease to jabber!”
With that, he extinguished his light, pulled up the bedclothes around
him, and with another sigh shut out the world. And yet there are such
unexplored romantic nooks in the unlikeliest men, that even old
tinderous and touchwoody P. J. T. Possibly Jabbered Thus, at some odd
times, in or about seventeen-forty-seven.
CHAPTER XII.
A NIGHT WITH DURDLES
When Mr. Sapsea has nothing better to do, towards evening, and finds
the contemplation of his own profundity becoming a little monotonous in
spite of the vastness of the subject, he often takes an airing in the
Cathedral Close and thereabout. He likes to pass the churchyard with a
swelling air of proprietorship, and to encourage in his breast a sort
of benignant-landlord feeling, in that he has been bountiful towards
that meritorious tenant, Mrs. Sapsea, and has publicly given her a
prize. He likes to see a stray face or two looking in through the
railings, and perhaps reading his inscription. Should he meet a
stranger coming from the churchyard with a quick step, he is morally
convinced that the stranger is “with a blush retiring,” as monumentally
directed.
Mr. Sapsea’s importance has received enhancement, for he has become
Mayor of Cloisterham. Without mayors, and many of them, it cannot be
disputed that the whole framework of society—Mr. Sapsea is confident
that he invented that forcible figure—would fall to pieces. Mayors have
been knighted for “going up” with addresses: explosive machines
intrepidly discharging shot and shell into the English Grammar. Mr.
Sapsea may “go up” with an address. Rise, Sir Thomas Sapsea! Of such is
the salt of the earth.
Mr. Sapsea has improved the acquaintance of Mr. Jasper, since their
first meeting to partake of port, epitaph, backgammon, beef, and salad.
Mr. Sapsea has been received at the gatehouse with kindred hospitality;
and on that occasion Mr. Jasper seated himself at the piano, and sang
to him, tickling his ears—figuratively—long enough to present a
considerable area for tickling. What Mr. Sapsea likes in that young man
is, that he is always ready to profit by the wisdom of his elders, and
that he is sound, sir, at the core. In proof of which, he sang to Mr.
Sapsea that evening, no kickshaw ditties, favourites with national
enemies, but gave him the genuine George the Third home-brewed;
exhorting him (as “my brave boys”) to reduce to a smashed condition all
other islands but this island, and all continents, peninsulas,
isthmuses, promontories, and other geographical forms of land soever,
besides sweeping the seas in all directions. In short, he rendered it
pretty clear that Providence made a distinct mistake in originating so
small a nation of hearts of oak, and so many other verminous peoples.
Mr. Sapsea, walking slowly this moist evening near the churchyard with
his hands behind him, on the look-out for a blushing and retiring
stranger, turns a corner, and comes instead into the goodly presence of
the Dean, conversing with the Verger and Mr. Jasper. Mr. Sapsea makes
his obeisance, and is instantly stricken far more ecclesiastical than
any Archbishop of York or Canterbury.
“You are evidently going to write a book about us, Mr. Jasper,” quoth
the Dean; “to write a book about us. Well! We are very ancient, and we
ought to make a good book. We are not so richly endowed in possessions
as in age; but perhaps you will put _that_ in your book, among other
things, and call attention to our wrongs.”
Mr. Tope, as in duty bound, is greatly entertained by this.
“I really have no intention at all, sir,” replies Jasper, “of turning
author or archæologist. It is but a whim of mine. And even for my whim,
Mr. Sapsea here is more accountable than I am.”
“How so, Mr. Mayor?” says the Dean, with a nod of good-natured
recognition of his Fetch. “How is that, Mr. Mayor?”
“I am not aware,” Mr. Sapsea remarks, looking about him for
information, “to what the Very Reverend the Dean does me the honour of
referring.” And then falls to studying his original in minute points of
detail.
“Durdles,” Mr. Tope hints.
“Ay!” the Dean echoes; “Durdles, Durdles!”
“The truth is, sir,” explains Jasper, “that my curiosity in the man was
first really stimulated by Mr. Sapsea. Mr. Sapsea’s knowledge of
mankind and power of drawing out whatever is recluse or odd around him,
first led to my bestowing a second thought upon the man: though of
course I had met him constantly about. You would not be surprised by
this, Mr. Dean, if you had seen Mr. Sapsea deal with him in his own
parlour, as I did.”
“O!” cries Sapsea, picking up the ball thrown to him with ineffable
complacency and pomposity; “yes, yes. The Very Reverend the Dean refers
to that? Yes. I happened to bring Durdles and Mr. Jasper together. I
regard Durdles as a Character.”
“A character, Mr. Sapsea, that with a few skilful touches you turn
inside out,” says Jasper.
“Nay, not quite that,” returns the lumbering auctioneer. “I may have a
little influence over him, perhaps; and a little insight into his
character, perhaps. The Very Reverend the Dean will please to bear in
mind that I have seen the world.” Here Mr. Sapsea gets a little behind
the Dean, to inspect his coat-buttons.
“Well!” says the Dean, looking about him to see what has become of his
copyist: “I hope, Mr. Mayor, you will use your study and knowledge of
Durdles to the good purpose of exhorting him not to break our worthy
and respected Choir-Master’s neck; we cannot afford it; his head and
voice are much too valuable to us.”
Mr. Tope is again highly entertained, and, having fallen into
respectful convulsions of laughter, subsides into a deferential murmur,
importing that surely any gentleman would deem it a pleasure and an
honour to have his neck broken, in return for such a compliment from
such a source.
“I will take it upon myself, sir,” observes Sapsea loftily, “to answer
for Mr. Jasper’s neck. I will tell Durdles to be careful of it. He will
mind what _I_ say. How is it at present endangered?” he inquires,
looking about him with magnificent patronage.
“Only by my making a moonlight expedition with Durdles among the tombs,
vaults, towers, and ruins,” returns Jasper. “You remember suggesting,
when you brought us together, that, as a lover of the picturesque, it
might be worth my while?”
“I remember!” replies the auctioneer. And the solemn idiot really
believes that he does remember.
“Profiting by your hint,” pursues Jasper, “I have had some day-rambles
with the extraordinary old fellow, and we are to make a moonlight
hole-and-corner exploration to-night.”
“And here he is,” says the Dean.
Durdles with his dinner-bundle in his hand, is indeed beheld slouching
towards them. Slouching nearer, and perceiving the Dean, he pulls off
his hat, and is slouching away with it under his arm, when Mr. Sapsea
stops him.