The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Behold Mr. Tartar walking up and down Furnival’s Inn, checking himself
when he saw them coming, and advancing towards them!
“It occurred to me,” hinted Mr. Tartar, “that we might go up the river,
the weather being so delicious and the tide serving. I have a boat of
my own at the Temple Stairs.”
“I have not been up the river for this many a day,” said Mr. Grewgious,
tempted.
“I was never up the river,” added Rosa.
Within half an hour they were setting this matter right by going up the
river. The tide was running with them, the afternoon was charming. Mr.
Tartar’s boat was perfect. Mr. Tartar and Lobley (Mr. Tartar’s man)
pulled a pair of oars. Mr. Tartar had a yacht, it seemed, lying
somewhere down by Greenhithe; and Mr. Tartar’s man had charge of this
yacht, and was detached upon his present service. He was a
jolly-favoured man, with tawny hair and whiskers, and a big red face.
He was the dead image of the sun in old woodcuts, his hair and whiskers
answering for rays all around him. Resplendent in the bow of the boat,
he was a shining sight, with a man-of-war’s man’s shirt on—or off,
according to opinion—and his arms and breast tattooed all sorts of
patterns. Lobley seemed to take it easily, and so did Mr. Tartar; yet
their oars bent as they pulled, and the boat bounded under them. Mr.
Tartar talked as if he were doing nothing, to Rosa who was really doing
nothing, and to Mr. Grewgious who was doing this much that he steered
all wrong; but what did that matter, when a turn of Mr. Tartar’s
skilful wrist, or a mere grin of Mr. Lobley’s over the bow, put all to
rights! The tide bore them on in the gayest and most sparkling manner,
until they stopped to dine in some ever-lastingly-green garden, needing
no matter-of-fact identification here; and then the tide obligingly
turned—being devoted to that party alone for that day; and as they
floated idly among some osier-beds, Rosa tried what she could do in the
rowing way, and came off splendidly, being much assisted; and Mr.
Grewgious tried what he could do, and came off on his back, doubled up
with an oar under his chin, being not assisted at all. Then there was
an interval of rest under boughs (such rest!) what time Mr. Lobley
mopped, and, arranging cushions, stretchers, and the like, danced the
tight-rope the whole length of the boat like a man to whom shoes were a
superstition and stockings slavery; and then came the sweet return
among delicious odours of limes in bloom, and musical ripplings; and,
all too soon, the great black city cast its shadow on the waters, and
its dark bridges spanned them as death spans life, and the
everlastingly-green garden seemed to be left for everlasting,
unregainable and far away.
“Cannot people get through life without gritty stages, I wonder?” Rosa
thought next day, when the town was very gritty again, and everything
had a strange and an uncomfortable appearance of seeming to wait for
something that wouldn’t come. NO. She began to think, that, now the
Cloisterham school-days had glided past and gone, the gritty stages
would begin to set in at intervals and make themselves wearily known!
Yet what did Rosa expect? Did she expect Miss Twinkleton? Miss
Twinkleton duly came. Forth from her back parlour issued the Billickin
to receive Miss Twinkleton, and War was in the Billickin’s eye from
that fell moment.
Miss Twinkleton brought a quantity of luggage with her, having all
Rosa’s as well as her own. The Billickin took it ill that Miss
Twinkleton’s mind, being sorely disturbed by this luggage, failed to
take in her personal identity with that clearness of perception which
was due to its demands. Stateliness mounted her gloomy throne upon the
Billickin’s brow in consequence. And when Miss Twinkleton, in agitation
taking stock of her trunks and packages, of which she had seventeen,
particularly counted in the Billickin herself as number eleven, the B.
found it necessary to repudiate.
“Things cannot too soon be put upon the footing,” said she, with a
candour so demonstrative as to be almost obtrusive, “that the person of
the ’ouse is not a box nor yet a bundle, nor a carpet-bag. No, I am
’ily obleeged to you, Miss Twinkleton, nor yet a beggar.”
This last disclaimer had reference to Miss Twinkleton’s distractedly
pressing two-and-sixpence on her, instead of the cabman.
Thus cast off, Miss Twinkleton wildly inquired, “which gentleman” was
to be paid? There being two gentlemen in that position (Miss Twinkleton
having arrived with two cabs), each gentleman on being paid held forth
his two-and-sixpence on the flat of his open hand, and, with a
speechless stare and a dropped jaw, displayed his wrong to heaven and
earth. Terrified by this alarming spectacle, Miss Twinkleton placed
another shilling in each hand; at the same time appealing to the law in
flurried accents, and recounting her luggage this time with the two
gentlemen in, who caused the total to come out complicated. Meanwhile
the two gentlemen, each looking very hard at the last shilling
grumblingly, as if it might become eighteen-pence if he kept his eyes
on it, descended the doorsteps, ascended their carriages, and drove
away, leaving Miss Twinkleton on a bonnet-box in tears.
The Billickin beheld this manifestation of weakness without sympathy,
and gave directions for “a young man to be got in” to wrestle with the
luggage. When that gladiator had disappeared from the arena, peace
ensued, and the new lodgers dined.
But the Billickin had somehow come to the knowledge that Miss
Twinkleton kept a school. The leap from that knowledge to the inference
that Miss Twinkleton set herself to teach _her_ something, was easy.
“But you don’t do it,” soliloquised the Billickin; “I am not your
pupil, whatever she,” meaning Rosa, “may be, poor thing!”
Miss Twinkleton, on the other hand, having changed her dress and
recovered her spirits, was animated by a bland desire to improve the
occasion in all ways, and to be as serene a model as possible. In a
happy compromise between her two states of existence, she had already
become, with her workbasket before her, the equably vivacious companion
with a slight judicious flavouring of information, when the Billickin
announced herself.
“I will not hide from you, ladies,” said the B., enveloped in the shawl
of state, “for it is not my character to hide neither my motives nor my
actions, that I take the liberty to look in upon you to express a ’ope
that your dinner was to your liking. Though not Professed but Plain,
still her wages should be a sufficient object to her to stimilate to
soar above mere roast and biled.”
“We dined very well indeed,” said Rosa, “thank you.”
“Accustomed,” said Miss Twinkleton with a gracious air, which to the
jealous ears of the Billickin seemed to add “my good woman”—“accustomed
to a liberal and nutritious, yet plain and salutary diet, we have found
no reason to bemoan our absence from the ancient city, and the
methodical household, in which the quiet routine of our lot has been
hitherto cast.”
“I did think it well to mention to my cook,” observed the Billickin
with a gush of candour, “which I ’ope you will agree with, Miss
Twinkleton, was a right precaution, that the young lady being used to
what we should consider here but poor diet, had better be brought
forward by degrees. For, a rush from scanty feeding to generous
feeding, and from what you may call messing to what you may call
method, do require a power of constitution which is not often found in
youth, particular when undermined by boarding-school!”
It will be seen that the Billickin now openly pitted herself against
Miss Twinkleton, as one whom she had fully ascertained to be her
natural enemy.
“Your remarks,” returned Miss Twinkleton, from a remote moral eminence,
“are well meant, I have no doubt; but you will permit me to observe
that they develop a mistaken view of the subject, which can only be
imputed to your extreme want of accurate information.”
“My informiation,” retorted the Billickin, throwing in an extra
syllable for the sake of emphasis at once polite and powerful—“my
informiation, Miss Twinkleton, were my own experience, which I believe
is usually considered to be good guidance. But whether so or not, I was
put in youth to a very genteel boarding-school, the mistress being no
less a lady than yourself, of about your own age or it may be some
years younger, and a poorness of blood flowed from the table which has
run through my life.”
“Very likely,” said Miss Twinkleton, still from her distant eminence;
“and very much to be deplored.—Rosa, my dear, how are you getting on
with your work?”
“Miss Twinkleton,” resumed the Billickin, in a courtly manner, “before
retiring on the ’int, as a lady should, I wish to ask of yourself, as a
lady, whether I am to consider that my words is doubted?”
“I am not aware on what ground you cherish such a supposition,” began
Miss Twinkleton, when the Billickin neatly stopped her.
“Do not, if you please, put suppositions betwixt my lips where none
such have been imparted by myself. Your flow of words is great, Miss
Twinkleton, and no doubt is expected from you by your pupils, and no
doubt is considered worth the money. _No_ doubt, I am sure. But not
paying for flows of words, and not asking to be favoured with them
here, I wish to repeat my question.”
“If you refer to the poverty of your circulation,” began Miss
Twinkleton, when again the Billickin neatly stopped her.
“I have used no such expressions.”
“If you refer, then, to the poorness of your blood—”
“Brought upon me,” stipulated the Billickin, expressly, “at a
boarding-school—”
“Then,” resumed Miss Twinkleton, “all I can say is, that I am bound to
believe, on your asseveration, that it is very poor indeed. I cannot
forbear adding, that if that unfortunate circumstance influences your
conversation, it is much to be lamented, and it is eminently desirable
that your blood were richer.—Rosa, my dear, how are you getting on with
your work?”
“Hem! Before retiring, Miss,” proclaimed the Billickin to Rosa, loftily
cancelling Miss Twinkleton, “I should wish it to be understood between
yourself and me that my transactions in future is with you alone. I
know no elderly lady here, Miss, none older than yourself.”
“A highly desirable arrangement, Rosa my dear,” observed Miss
Twinkleton.
“It is not, Miss,” said the Billickin, with a sarcastic smile, “that I
possess the Mill I have heard of, in which old single ladies could be
ground up young (what a gift it would be to some of us), but that I
limit myself to you totally.”
“When I have any desire to communicate a request to the person of the
house, Rosa my dear,” observed Miss Twinkleton with majestic
cheerfulness, “I will make it known to you, and you will kindly
undertake, I am sure, that it is conveyed to the proper quarter.”
“Good-evening, Miss,” said the Billickin, at once affectionately and
distantly. “Being alone in my eyes, I wish you good-evening with best
wishes, and do not find myself drove, I am truly ’appy to say, into
expressing my contempt for an indiwidual, unfortunately for yourself,
belonging to you.”
The Billickin gracefully withdrew with this parting speech, and from
that time Rosa occupied the restless position of shuttlecock between
these two battledores. Nothing could be done without a smart match
being played out. Thus, on the daily-arising question of dinner, Miss
Twinkleton would say, the three being present together:
“Perhaps, my love, you will consult with the person of the house,
whether she can procure us a lamb’s fry; or, failing that, a roast
fowl.”
On which the Billickin would retort (Rosa not having spoken a word),
“If you was better accustomed to butcher’s meat, Miss, you would not