The Mystery of Edwin Drood
uneasy, dear. I shall be sure to be somewhere.”
(It did seem likely.)
“And I shall hear of my Rosebud from Mr. Tartar?” inquired Helena.
“Yes, I suppose so; from—” Rosa looked back again in a flutter, instead
of supplying the name. “But tell me one thing before we part, dearest
Helena. Tell me—that you are sure, sure, sure, I couldn’t help it.”
“Help it, love?”
“Help making him malicious and revengeful. I couldn’t hold any terms
with him, could I?”
“You know how I love you, darling,” answered Helena, with indignation;
“but I would sooner see you dead at his wicked feet.”
“That’s a great comfort to me! And you will tell your poor brother so,
won’t you? And you will give him my remembrance and my sympathy? And
you will ask him not to hate me?”
With a mournful shake of the head, as if that would be quite a
superfluous entreaty, Helena lovingly kissed her two hands to her
friend, and her friend’s two hands were kissed to her; and then she saw
a third hand (a brown one) appear among the flowers and leaves, and
help her friend out of sight.
The refection that Mr. Tartar produced in the Admiral’s Cabin by merely
touching the spring knob of a locker and the handle of a drawer, was a
dazzling enchanted repast. Wonderful macaroons, glittering liqueurs,
magically-preserved tropical spices, and jellies of celestial tropical
fruits, displayed themselves profusely at an instant’s notice. But Mr.
Tartar could not make time stand still; and time, with his hard-hearted
fleetness, strode on so fast, that Rosa was obliged to come down from
the bean-stalk country to earth and her guardian’s chambers.
“And now, my dear,” said Mr. Grewgious, “what is to be done next? To
put the same thought in another form; what is to be done with you?”
Rosa could only look apologetically sensible of being very much in her
own way and in everybody else’s. Some passing idea of living,
fireproof, up a good many stairs in Furnival’s Inn for the rest of her
life, was the only thing in the nature of a plan that occurred to her.
“It has come into my thoughts,” said Mr. Grewgious, “that as the
respected lady, Miss Twinkleton, occasionally repairs to London in the
recess, with the view of extending her connection, and being available
for interviews with metropolitan parents, if any—whether, until we have
time in which to turn ourselves round, we might invite Miss Twinkleton
to come and stay with you for a month?”
“Stay where, sir?”
“Whether,” explained Mr. Grewgious, “we might take a furnished lodging
in town for a month, and invite Miss Twinkleton to assume the charge of
you in it for that period?”
“And afterwards?” hinted Rosa.
“And afterwards,” said Mr. Grewgious, “we should be no worse off than
we are now.”
“I think that might smooth the way,” assented Rosa.
“Then let us,” said Mr. Grewgious, rising, “go and look for a furnished
lodging. Nothing could be more acceptable to me than the sweet presence
of last evening, for all the remaining evenings of my existence; but
these are not fit surroundings for a young lady. Let us set out in
quest of adventures, and look for a furnished lodging. In the meantime,
Mr. Crisparkle here, about to return home immediately, will no doubt
kindly see Miss Twinkleton, and invite that lady to co-operate in our
plan.”
Mr. Crisparkle, willingly accepting the commission, took his departure;
Mr. Grewgious and his ward set forth on their expedition.
As Mr. Grewgious’s idea of looking at a furnished lodging was to get on
the opposite side of the street to a house with a suitable bill in the
window, and stare at it; and then work his way tortuously to the back
of the house, and stare at that; and then not go in, but make similar
trials of another house, with the same result; their progress was but
slow. At length he bethought himself of a widowed cousin, divers times
removed, of Mr. Bazzard’s, who had once solicited his influence in the
lodger world, and who lived in Southampton Street, Bloomsbury Square.
This lady’s name, stated in uncompromising capitals of considerable
size on a brass door-plate, and yet not lucidly as to sex or condition,
was BILLICKIN.
Personal faintness, and an overpowering personal candour, were the
distinguishing features of Mrs. Billickin’s organisation. She came
languishing out of her own exclusive back parlour, with the air of
having been expressly brought-to for the purpose, from an accumulation
of several swoons.
“I hope I see you well, sir,” said Mrs. Billickin, recognising her
visitor with a bend.
“Thank you, quite well. And you, ma’am?” returned Mr. Grewgious.
“I am as well,” said Mrs. Billickin, becoming aspirational with excess
of faintness, “as I hever ham.”
“My ward and an elderly lady,” said Mr. Grewgious, “wish to find a
genteel lodging for a month or so. Have you any apartments available,
ma’am?”
“Mr. Grewgious,” returned Mrs. Billickin, “I will not deceive you; far
from it. I _have_ apartments available.”
This with the air of adding: “Convey me to the stake, if you will; but
while I live, I will be candid.”
“And now, what apartments, ma’am?” asked Mr. Grewgious, cosily. To tame
a certain severity apparent on the part of Mrs. Billickin.
“There is this sitting-room—which, call it what you will, it is the
front parlour, Miss,” said Mrs. Billickin, impressing Rosa into the
conversation: “the back parlour being what I cling to and never part
with; and there is two bedrooms at the top of the ’ouse with gas laid
on. I do not tell you that your bedroom floors is firm, for firm they
are not. The gas-fitter himself allowed, that to make a firm job, he
must go right under your jistes, and it were not worth the outlay as a
yearly tenant so to do. The piping is carried above your jistes, and it
is best that it should be made known to you.”
Mr. Grewgious and Rosa exchanged looks of some dismay, though they had
not the least idea what latent horrors this carriage of the piping
might involve. Mrs. Billickin put her hand to her heart, as having
eased it of a load.
“Well! The roof is all right, no doubt,” said Mr. Grewgious, plucking
up a little.
“Mr. Grewgious,” returned Mrs. Billickin, “if I was to tell you, sir,
that to have nothink above you is to have a floor above you, I should
put a deception upon you which I will not do. No, sir. Your slates WILL
rattle loose at that elewation in windy weather, do your utmost, best
or worst! I defy you, sir, be you what you may, to keep your slates
tight, try how you can.” Here Mrs. Billickin, having been warm with Mr.
Grewgious, cooled a little, not to abuse the moral power she held over
him. “Consequent,” proceeded Mrs. Billickin, more mildly, but still
firmly in her incorruptible candour: “consequent it would be worse than
of no use for me to trapse and travel up to the top of the ’ouse with
you, and for you to say, ‘Mrs. Billickin, what stain do I notice in the
ceiling, for a stain I do consider it?’ and for me to answer, ‘I do not
understand you, sir.’ No, sir, I will not be so underhand. I _do_
understand you before you pint it out. It is the wet, sir. It do come
in, and it do not come in. You may lay dry there half your lifetime;
but the time will come, and it is best that you should know it, when a
dripping sop would be no name for you.”
Mr. Grewgious looked much disgraced by being prefigured in this pickle.
“Have you any other apartments, ma’am?” he asked.
“Mr. Grewgious,” returned Mrs. Billickin, with much solemnity, “I have.
You ask me have I, and my open and my honest answer air, I have. The
first and second floors is wacant, and sweet rooms.”
“Come, come! There’s nothing against _them_,” said Mr. Grewgious,
comforting himself.
“Mr. Grewgious,” replied Mrs. Billickin, “pardon me, there is the
stairs. Unless your mind is prepared for the stairs, it will lead to
inevitable disappointment. You cannot, Miss,” said Mrs. Billickin,
addressing Rosa reproachfully, “place a first floor, and far less a
second, on the level footing of a parlour. No, you cannot do it, Miss,
it is beyond your power, and wherefore try?”
Mrs. Billickin put it very feelingly, as if Rosa had shown a headstrong
determination to hold the untenable position.
“Can we see these rooms, ma’am?” inquired her guardian.
“Mr. Grewgious,” returned Mrs. Billickin, “you can. I will not disguise
it from you, sir; you can.”
Mrs. Billickin then sent into her back parlour for her shawl (it being
a state fiction, dating from immemorial antiquity, that she could never
go anywhere without being wrapped up), and having been enrolled by her
attendant, led the way. She made various genteel pauses on the stairs
for breath, and clutched at her heart in the drawing-room as if it had
very nearly got loose, and she had caught it in the act of taking wing.
“And the second floor?” said Mr. Grewgious, on finding the first
satisfactory.
“Mr. Grewgious,” replied Mrs. Billickin, turning upon him with
ceremony, as if the time had now come when a distinct understanding on
a difficult point must be arrived at, and a solemn confidence
established, “the second floor is over this.”
“Can we see that too, ma’am?”
“Yes, sir,” returned Mrs. Billickin, “it is open as the day.”
That also proving satisfactory, Mr. Grewgious retired into a window
with Rosa for a few words of consultation, and then asking for pen and
ink, sketched out a line or two of agreement. In the meantime Mrs.
Billickin took a seat, and delivered a kind of Index to, or Abstract
of, the general question.
“Five-and-forty shillings per week by the month certain at the time of
year,” said Mrs. Billickin, “is only reasonable to both parties. It is
not Bond Street nor yet St. James’s Palace; but it is not pretended
that it is. Neither is it attempted to be denied—for why should
it?—that the Arching leads to a mews. Mewses must exist. Respecting
attendance; two is kep’, at liberal wages. Words _has_ arisen as to
tradesmen, but dirty shoes on fresh hearth-stoning was attributable,
and no wish for a commission on your orders. Coals is either _by_ the
fire, or _per_ the scuttle.” She emphasised the prepositions as marking
a subtle but immense difference. “Dogs is not viewed with favour.
Besides litter, they gets stole, and sharing suspicions is apt to creep
in, and unpleasantness takes place.”
By this time Mr. Grewgious had his agreement-lines, and his
earnest-money, ready. “I have signed it for the ladies, ma’am,” he
said, “and you’ll have the goodness to sign it for yourself, Christian
and Surname, there, if you please.”
“Mr. Grewgious,” said Mrs. Billickin in a new burst of candour, “no,
sir! You must excuse the Christian name.”
Mr. Grewgious stared at her.
“The door-plate is used as a protection,” said Mrs. Billickin, “and
acts as such, and go from it I will not.”
Mr. Grewgious stared at Rosa.
“No, Mr. Grewgious, you must excuse me. So long as this ’ouse is known
indefinite as Billickin’s, and so long as it is a doubt with the
riff-raff where Billickin may be hidin’, near the street-door or down
the airy, and what his weight and size, so long I feel safe. But commit
myself to a solitary female statement, no, Miss! Nor would you for a
moment wish,” said Mrs. Billickin, with a strong sense of injury, “to
take that advantage of your sex, if you were not brought to it by
inconsiderate example.”
Rosa reddening as if she had made some most disgraceful attempt to
overreach the good lady, besought Mr. Grewgious to rest content with
any signature. And accordingly, in a baronial way, the sign-manual
BILLICKIN got appended to the document.
Details were then settled for taking possession on the next day but
one, when Miss Twinkleton might be reasonably expected; and Rosa went
back to Furnival’s Inn on her guardian’s arm.