The Mystery of Edwin Drood
“You are very good. The honour is mine and the self-congratulation is
mine.”
“You are pleased to say so, sir. But I do assure you that it is a
satisfaction to me to receive you in my humble home. And that is what I
would not say to everybody.” Ineffable loftiness on Mr. Sapsea’s part
accompanies these words, as leaving the sentence to be understood: “You
will not easily believe that your society can be a satisfaction to a
man like myself; nevertheless, it is.”
“I have for some time desired to know you, Mr. Sapsea.”
“And I, sir, have long known you by reputation as a man of taste. Let
me fill your glass. I will give you, sir,” says Mr. Sapsea, filling his
own:
“When the French come over,
May we meet them at Dover!”
This was a patriotic toast in Mr. Sapsea’s infancy, and he is therefore
fully convinced of its being appropriate to any subsequent era.
“You can scarcely be ignorant, Mr. Sapsea,” observes Jasper, watching
the auctioneer with a smile as the latter stretches out his legs before
the fire, “that you know the world.”
“Well, sir,” is the chuckling reply, “I think I know something of it;
something of it.”
“Your reputation for that knowledge has always interested and surprised
me, and made me wish to know you. For Cloisterham is a little place.
Cooped up in it myself, I know nothing beyond it, and feel it to be a
very little place.”
“If I have not gone to foreign countries, young man,” Mr. Sapsea
begins, and then stops:—“You will excuse me calling you young man, Mr.
Jasper? You are much my junior.”
“By all means.”
“If I have not gone to foreign countries, young man, foreign countries
have come to me. They have come to me in the way of business, and I
have improved upon my opportunities. Put it that I take an inventory,
or make a catalogue. I see a French clock. I never saw him before, in
my life, but I instantly lay my finger on him and say ‘Paris!’ I see
some cups and saucers of Chinese make, equally strangers to me
personally: I put my finger on them, then and there, and I say ‘Pekin,
Nankin, and Canton.’ It is the same with Japan, with Egypt, and with
bamboo and sandalwood from the East Indies; I put my finger on them
all. I have put my finger on the North Pole before now, and said ‘Spear
of Esquimaux make, for half a pint of pale sherry!’”
“Really? A very remarkable way, Mr. Sapsea, of acquiring a knowledge of
men and things.”
“I mention it, sir,” Mr. Sapsea rejoins, with unspeakable complacency,
“because, as I say, it don’t do to boast of what you are; but show how
you came to be it, and then you prove it.”
“Most interesting. We were to speak of the late Mrs. Sapsea.”
“We were, sir.” Mr. Sapsea fills both glasses, and takes the decanter
into safe keeping again. “Before I consult your opinion as a man of
taste on this little trifle”—holding it up—“which is _but_ a trifle,
and still has required some thought, sir, some little fever of the
brow, I ought perhaps to describe the character of the late Mrs.
Sapsea, now dead three quarters of a year.”
Mr. Jasper, in the act of yawning behind his wineglass, puts down that
screen and calls up a look of interest. It is a little impaired in its
expressiveness by his having a shut-up gape still to dispose of, with
watering eyes.
“Half a dozen years ago, or so,” Mr. Sapsea proceeds, “when I had
enlarged my mind up to—I will not say to what it now is, for that might
seem to aim at too much, but up to the pitch of wanting another mind to
be absorbed in it—I cast my eye about me for a nuptial partner.
Because, as I say, it is not good for man to be alone.”
Mr. Jasper appears to commit this original idea to memory.
“Miss Brobity at that time kept, I will not call it the rival
establishment to the establishment at the Nuns’ House opposite, but I
will call it the other parallel establishment down town. The world did
have it that she showed a passion for attending my sales, when they
took place on half holidays, or in vacation time. The world did put it
about, that she admired my style. The world did notice that as time
flowed by, my style became traceable in the dictation-exercises of Miss
Brobity’s pupils. Young man, a whisper even sprang up in obscure
malignity, that one ignorant and besotted Churl (a parent) so committed
himself as to object to it by name. But I do not believe this. For is
it likely that any human creature in his right senses would so lay
himself open to be pointed at, by what I call the finger of scorn?”
Mr. Jasper shakes his head. Not in the least likely. Mr. Sapsea, in a
grandiloquent state of absence of mind, seems to refill his visitor’s
glass, which is full already; and does really refill his own, which is
empty.
“Miss Brobity’s Being, young man, was deeply imbued with homage to
Mind. She revered Mind, when launched, or, as I say, precipitated, on
an extensive knowledge of the world. When I made my proposal, she did
me the honour to be so overshadowed with a species of Awe, as to be
able to articulate only the two words, ‘O Thou!’ meaning myself. Her
limpid blue eyes were fixed upon me, her semi-transparent hands were
clasped together, pallor overspread her aquiline features, and, though
encouraged to proceed, she never did proceed a word further. I disposed
of the parallel establishment by private contract, and we became as
nearly one as could be expected under the circumstances. But she never
could, and she never did, find a phrase satisfactory to her
perhaps-too-favourable estimate of my intellect. To the very last
(feeble action of liver), she addressed me in the same unfinished
terms.”
Mr. Jasper has closed his eyes as the auctioneer has deepened his
voice. He now abruptly opens them, and says, in unison with the
deepened voice “Ah!”—rather as if stopping himself on the extreme verge
of adding—“men!”
“I have been since,” says Mr. Sapsea, with his legs stretched out, and
solemnly enjoying himself with the wine and the fire, “what you behold
me; I have been since a solitary mourner; I have been since, as I say,
wasting my evening conversation on the desert air. I will not say that
I have reproached myself; but there have been times when I have asked
myself the question: What if her husband had been nearer on a level
with her? If she had not had to look up quite so high, what might the
stimulating action have been upon the liver?”
Mr. Jasper says, with an appearance of having fallen into dreadfully
low spirits, that he “supposes it was to be.”
“We can only suppose so, sir,” Mr. Sapsea coincides. “As I say, Man
proposes, Heaven disposes. It may or may not be putting the same
thought in another form; but that is the way I put it.”
Mr. Jasper murmurs assent.
“And now, Mr. Jasper,” resumes the auctioneer, producing his scrap of
manuscript, “Mrs. Sapsea’s monument having had full time to settle and
dry, let me take your opinion, as a man of taste, on the inscription I
have (as I before remarked, not without some little fever of the brow)
drawn out for it. Take it in your own hand. The setting out of the
lines requires to be followed with the eye, as well as the contents
with the mind.”
Mr. Jasper complying, sees and reads as follows:
ETHELINDA,
Reverential Wife of
MR. THOMAS SAPSEA,
AUCTIONEER, VALUER, ESTATE AGENT, &c.,
OF THIS CITY.
Whose Knowledge of the World,
Though somewhat extensive,
Never brought him acquainted with
A SPIRIT
More capable of
LOOKING UP TO HIM.
STRANGER, PAUSE
And ask thyself the Question,
CANST THOU DO LIKEWISE?
If Not,
WITH A BLUSH RETIRE.
Mr. Sapsea having risen and stationed himself with his back to the
fire, for the purpose of observing the effect of these lines on the
countenance of a man of taste, consequently has his face towards the
door, when his serving-maid, again appearing, announces, “Durdles is
come, sir!” He promptly draws forth and fills the third wineglass, as
being now claimed, and replies, “Show Durdles in.”
“Admirable!” quoth Mr. Jasper, handing back the paper.
“You approve, sir?”
“Impossible not to approve. Striking, characteristic, and complete.”
The auctioneer inclines his head, as one accepting his due and giving a
receipt; and invites the entering Durdles to take off that glass of
wine (handing the same), for it will warm him.
Durdles is a stonemason; chiefly in the gravestone, tomb, and monument
way, and wholly of their colour from head to foot. No man is better
known in Cloisterham. He is the chartered libertine of the place. Fame
trumpets him a wonderful workman—which, for aught that anybody knows,
he may be (as he never works); and a wonderful sot—which everybody
knows he is. With the Cathedral crypt he is better acquainted than any
living authority; it may even be than any dead one. It is said that the
intimacy of this acquaintance began in his habitually resorting to that
secret place, to lock-out the Cloisterham boy-populace, and sleep off
fumes of liquor: he having ready access to the Cathedral, as contractor
for rough repairs. Be this as it may, he does know much about it, and,
in the demolition of impedimental fragments of wall, buttress, and
pavement, has seen strange sights. He often speaks of himself in the
third person; perhaps, being a little misty as to his own identity,
when he narrates; perhaps impartially adopting the Cloisterham
nomenclature in reference to a character of acknowledged distinction.
Thus he will say, touching his strange sights: “Durdles come upon the
old chap,” in reference to a buried magnate of ancient time and high
degree, “by striking right into the coffin with his pick. The old chap
gave Durdles a look with his open eyes, as much as to say, ‘Is your
name Durdles? Why, my man, I’ve been waiting for you a devil of a
time!’ And then he turned to powder.” With a two-foot rule always in
his pocket, and a mason’s hammer all but always in his hand, Durdles
goes continually sounding and tapping all about and about the
Cathedral; and whenever he says to Tope: “Tope, here’s another old ’un
in here!” Tope announces it to the Dean as an established discovery.
In a suit of coarse flannel with horn buttons, a yellow neckerchief
with draggled ends, an old hat more russet-coloured than black, and
laced boots of the hue of his stony calling, Durdles leads a hazy,
gipsy sort of life, carrying his dinner about with him in a small
bundle, and sitting on all manner of tombstones to dine. This dinner of
Durdles’s has become quite a Cloisterham institution: not only because
of his never appearing in public without it, but because of its having
been, on certain renowned occasions, taken into custody along with
Durdles (as drunk and incapable), and exhibited before the Bench of
justices at the townhall. These occasions, however, have been few and
far apart: Durdles being as seldom drunk as sober. For the rest, he is
an old bachelor, and he lives in a little antiquated hole of a house
that was never finished: supposed to be built, so far, of stones stolen
from the city wall. To this abode there is an approach, ankle-deep in
stone chips, resembling a petrified grove of tombstones, urns,
draperies, and broken columns, in all stages of sculpture. Herein two
journeymen incessantly chip, while other two journeymen, who face each
other, incessantly saw stone; dipping as regularly in and out of their
sheltering sentry-boxes, as if they were mechanical figures
emblematical of Time and Death.
To Durdles, when he had consumed his glass of port, Mr. Sapsea intrusts
that precious effort of his Muse. Durdles unfeelingly takes out his
two-foot rule, and measures the lines calmly, alloying them with
stone-grit.
“This is for the monument, is it, Mr. Sapsea?”
“The Inscription. Yes.” Mr. Sapsea waits for its effect on a common
mind.