The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Christmas recess was at hand. What had once, and at no remote period,
been called, even by the erudite Miss Twinkleton herself, “the half,”
but what was now called, as being more elegant, and more strictly
collegiate, “the term,” would expire to-morrow. A noticeable relaxation
of discipline had for some few days pervaded the Nuns’ House. Club
suppers had occurred in the bedrooms, and a dressed tongue had been
carved with a pair of scissors, and handed round with the curling
tongs. Portions of marmalade had likewise been distributed on a service
of plates constructed of curlpaper; and cowslip wine had been quaffed
from the small squat measuring glass in which little Rickitts (a junior
of weakly constitution) took her steel drops daily. The housemaids had
been bribed with various fragments of riband, and sundry pairs of shoes
more or less down at heel, to make no mention of crumbs in the beds;
the airiest costumes had been worn on these festive occasions; and the
daring Miss Ferdinand had even surprised the company with a sprightly
solo on the comb-and-curlpaper, until suffocated in her own pillow by
two flowing-haired executioners.
Nor were these the only tokens of dispersal. Boxes appeared in the
bedrooms (where they were capital at other times), and a surprising
amount of packing took place, out of all proportion to the amount
packed. Largess, in the form of odds and ends of cold cream and
pomatum, and also of hairpins, was freely distributed among the
attendants. On charges of inviolable secrecy, confidences were
interchanged respecting golden youth of England expected to call, “at
home,” on the first opportunity. Miss Giggles (deficient in sentiment)
did indeed profess that she, for her part, acknowledged such homage by
making faces at 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 reëstablished 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