The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Comes Mr. Tope with his large keys, and yawningly unlocks and sets
open. Come Mrs. Tope and attendant sweeping sprites. Come, in due time,
organist and bellows-boy, peeping down from the red curtains in the
loft, fearlessly flapping dust from books up at that remote elevation,
and whisking it from stops and pedals. Come sundry rooks, from various
quarters of the sky, back to the great tower; who may be presumed to
enjoy vibration, and to know that bell and organ are going to give it
them. Come a very small and straggling congregation indeed: chiefly
from Minor Canon Corner and the Precincts. Come Mr. Crisparkle, fresh
and bright; and his ministering brethren, not quite so fresh and
bright. Come the Choir in a hurry (always in a hurry, and struggling
into their nightgowns at the last moment, like children shirking bed),
and comes John Jasper leading their line. Last of all comes Mr.
Datchery into a stall, one of a choice empty collection very much at
his service, and glancing about him for Her Royal Highness the Princess
Puffer.
The service is pretty well advanced before Mr. Datchery can discern Her
Royal Highness. But by that time he has made her out, in the shade. She
is behind a pillar, carefully withdrawn from the Choir-master’s view,
but regards him with the closest attention. All unconscious of her
presence, he chants and sings. She grins when he is most musically
fervid, and—yes, Mr. Datchery sees her do it!—shakes her fist at him
behind the pillar’s friendly shelter.
Mr. Datchery looks again, to convince himself. Yes, again! As ugly and
withered as one of the fantastic carvings on the under brackets of the
stall seats, as malignant as the Evil One, as hard as the big brass
eagle holding the sacred books upon his wings (and, according to the
sculptor’s representation of his ferocious attributes, not at all
converted by them), she hugs herself in her lean arms, and then shakes
both fists at the leader of the Choir.
And at that moment, outside the grated door of the Choir, having eluded
the vigilance of Mr. Tope by shifty resources in which he is an adept,
Deputy peeps, sharp-eyed, through the bars, and stares astounded from
the threatener to the threatened.
The service comes to an end, and the servitors disperse to breakfast.
Mr. Datchery accosts his last new acquaintance outside, when the Choir
(as much in a hurry to get their bedgowns off, as they were but now to
get them on) have scuffled away.
“Well, mistress. Good morning. You have seen him?”
“_I’ve_ seen him, deary; _I’ve_ seen him!”
“And you know him?”
“Know him! Better far than all the Reverend Parsons put together know
him.”
Mrs. Tope’s care has spread a very neat, clean breakfast ready for her
lodger. Before sitting down to it, he opens his corner-cupboard door;
takes his bit of chalk from its shelf; adds one thick line to the
score, extending from the top of the cupboard door to the bottom; and
then falls to with an appetite.
APPENDIX: FRAGMENT OF ‘THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD’
When Forster was just finishing his biography of Dickens, he found
among the leaves of one of the novelist’s other manuscripts certain
loose slips in his writing, ‘on paper only half the size of that used
for the tale, so cramped, interlined, and blotted as to be nearly
illegible.’ These proved, upon examination, to contain a suggested
chapter for _Edwin Drood_, in which Sapsea, the auctioneer, appears as
the principal figure, surrounded by a group of characters new to the
story. That chapter, being among the last things Dickens wrote, seems
to contain so much of interest that it may be well to reprint it
here.—ED.
HOW MR. SAPSEA CEASED TO BE A MEMBER OF THE EIGHT CLUB
TOLD BY HIMSELF
Wishing to take the air, I proceeded by a circuitous route to the Club,
it being our weekly night of meeting. I found that we mustered our full
strength. We were enrolled under the denomination of the Eight Club. We
were eight in number; we met at eight o’clock during eight months of
the year; we played eight games of four-handed cribbage, at eightpence
the game; our frugal supper was composed of eight rolls, eight mutton
chops, eight pork sausages, eight baked potatoes, eight marrow-bones,
with eight toasts, and eight bottles of ale. There may, or may not, be
a certain harmony of colour in the ruling idea of this (to adopt a
phrase of our lively neighbours) reunion. It was a little idea of mine.
A somewhat popular member of the Eight Club, was a member by the name
of Kimber. By profession, a dancing-master. A commonplace, hopeful sort
of man, wholly destitute of dignity or knowledge of the world.
As I entered the Club-room, Kimber was making the remark: ‘And he still
half-believes him to be very high in the Church.’
In the act of hanging up my hat on the eighth peg by the door, I caught
Kimber’s visual ray. He lowered it, and passed a remark on the next
change of the moon. I did not take particular notice of this at the
moment, because the world was often pleased to be a little shy of
ecclesiastical topics in my presence. For I felt that I was picked out
(though perhaps only through a coincidence) to a certain extent to
represent what I call our glorious constitution in Church and State.
The phrase may be objected to by cautious minds; but I own to it as
mine. I threw it off in argument some little time back. I said: ‘OUR
GLORIOUS CONSTITUTION in CHURCH and STATE.’
Another member of the Eight Club was Peartree; also member of the Royal
College of Surgeons. Mr. Peartree is not accountable to me for his
opinions, and I say no more of them here than that he attends the poor
gratis whenever they want him, and is not the parish doctor. Mr.
Peartree may justify it to the grasp of _his_ mind thus to do his
republican utmost to bring an appointed officer into contempt. Suffice
it that Mr. Peartree can never justify it to the grasp of _mine_.
Between Peartree and Kimber there was a sickly sort of feeble-minded
alliance. It came under my particular notice when I sold off Kimber by
auction. (Goods taken in execution.) He was a widower in a white
under-waistcoat, and slight shoes with bows, and had two daughters not
ill-looking. Indeed the reverse. Both daughters taught dancing in
scholastic establishments for Young Ladies—had done so at Mrs.
Sapsea’s; nay, Twinkleton’s—and both, in giving lessons, presented the
unwomanly spectacle of having little fiddles tucked under their chins.
In spite of which, the younger one might, if I am correctly informed—I
will raise the veil so far as to say I KNOW she might—have soared for
life from this degrading taint, but for having the class of mind
allotted to what I call the common herd, and being so incredibly devoid
of veneration as to become painfully ludicrous.
When I sold off Kimber without reserve, Peartree (as poor as he can
hold together) had several prime household lots knocked down to him. I
am not to be blinded; and of course it was as plain to me what he was
going to do with them, as it was that he was a brown hulking sort of
revolutionary subject who had been in India with the soldiers, and
ought (for the sake of society) to have his neck broke. I saw the lots
shortly afterwards in Kimber’s lodgings—through the window—and I easily
made out that there had been a sneaking pretence of lending them till
better times. A man with a smaller knowledge of the world than myself
might have been led to suspect that Kimber had held back money from his
creditors, and fraudulently bought the goods. But, besides that I knew
for certain he had no money, I knew that this would involve a species
of forethought not to be made compatible with the frivolity of a
caperer, inoculating other people with capering, for his bread.
As it was the first time I had seen either of those two since the sale,
I kept myself in what I call Abeyance. When selling him up, I had
delivered a few remarks—shall I say a little homily?—concerning Kimber,
which the world did regard as more than usually worth notice. I had
come up into my pulpit, it was said, uncommonly like—and a murmur of
recognition had repeated his (I will not name whose) title, before I
spoke. I had then gone on to say that all present would find, in the
first page of the catalogue that was lying before them, in the last
paragraph before the first lot, the following words: ‘Sold in pursuance
of a writ of execution issued by a creditor.’ I had then proceeded to
remind my friends, that however frivolous, not to say contemptible, the
business by which a man got his goods together, still his goods were as
dear to him, and as cheap to society (if sold without reserve), as
though his pursuits had been of a character that would bear serious
contemplation. I had then divided my text (if I may be allowed so to
call it) into three heads: firstly, Sold; secondly, In pursuance of a
writ of execution; thirdly, Issued by a creditor; with a few moral
reflections on each, and winding up with, ‘Now to the first lot’ in a
manner that was complimented when I afterwards mingled with my hearers.
So, not being certain on what terms I and Kimber stood, I was grave, I
was chilling. Kimber, however, moving to me, I moved to Kimber. (I was
the creditor who had issued the writ. Not that it matters.)
‘I was alluding, Mr. Sapsea,’ said Kimber, ‘to a stranger who entered
into conversation with me in the street as I came to the Club. He had
been speaking to you just before, it seemed, by the churchyard; and
though you had told him who you were, I could hardly persuade him that
you were not high in the Church.’
‘Idiot?’ said Peartree.
‘Ass!’ said Kimber.
‘Idiot and Ass!’ said the other five members.
‘Idiot and Ass, gentlemen,’ I remonstrated, looking around me, ‘are
strong expressions to apply to a young man of good appearance and
address.’ My generosity was roused; I own it.
‘You’ll admit that he must be a Fool,’ said Peartree.
‘You can’t deny that he must be a Blockhead,’ said Kimber.
Their tone of disgust amounted to being offensive. Why should the young
man be so calumniated? What had he done? He had only made an innocent
and natural mistake. I controlled my generous indignation, and said so.
‘Natural?’ repeated Kimber. ‘_He’s_ a Natural!’
The remaining six members of the Eight Club laughed unanimously. It
stung me. It was a scornful laugh. My anger was roused in behalf of an
absent, friendless stranger. I rose (for I had been sitting down).
‘Gentlemen,’ I said with dignity, ‘I will not remain one of this Club
allowing opprobrium to be cast on an unoffending person in his absence.
I will not so violate what I call the sacred rites of hospitality.
Gentlemen, until you know how to behave yourselves better, I leave you.
Gentlemen, until then I withdraw, from this place of meeting, whatever
personal qualifications I may have brought into it. Gentlemen, until
then you cease to be the Eight Club, and must make the best you can of
becoming the Seven.’
I put on my hat and retired. As I went down stairs I distinctly heard
them give a suppressed cheer. Such is the power of demeanour and
knowledge of mankind. I had forced it out of them.
II
Whom should I meet in the street, within a few yards of the door of the
inn where the Club was held, but the self-same young man whose cause I
had felt it my duty so warmly—and I will add so disinterestedly—to take
up.
‘Is it Mr. Sapsea,’ he said doubtfully, ‘or is it—’
‘It is Mr. Sapsea,’ I replied.
‘Pardon me, Mr. Sapsea; you appear warm, sir.’
‘I have been warm,’ I said, ‘and on your account.’ Having stated the
circumstances at some length (my generosity almost overpowered him), I
asked him his name.