BIRDS IN THE BUSH
Rosa, having no relation that she knew of in the world, had, from the
seventh year of her age, known no home but the Nuns’ House, and no
mother but Miss Twinkleton. Her remembrance of her own mother was of a
pretty little creature like herself (not much older than herself it
seemed to her), who had been brought home in her father’s arms,
drowned. The fatal accident had happened at a party of pleasure. Every
fold and colour in the pretty summer dress, and even the long wet hair,
with scattered petals of ruined flowers still clinging to it, as the
dead young figure, in its sad, sad beauty lay upon the bed, were fixed
indelibly in Rosa’s recollection. So were the wild despair and the
subsequent bowed-down grief of her poor young father, who died
broken-hearted on the first anniversary of that hard day.
The betrothal of Rosa grew out of the soothing of his year of mental
distress by his fast friend and old college companion, Drood: who
likewise had been left a widower in his youth. But he, too, went the
silent road into which all earthly pilgrimages merge, some sooner, and
some later; and thus the young couple had come to be as they were.
The atmosphere of pity surrounding the little orphan girl when she
first came to Cloisterham, had never cleared away. It had taken
brighter hues as she grew older, happier, prettier; now it had been
golden, now roseate, and now azure; but it had always adorned her with
some soft light of its own. The general desire to console and caress
her, had caused her to be treated in the beginning as a child much
younger than her years; the same desire had caused her to be still
petted when she was a child no longer. Who should be her favourite, who
should anticipate this or that small present, or do her this or that
small service; who should take her home for the holidays; who should
write to her the oftenest when they were separated, and whom she would
most rejoice to see again when they were reunited; even these gentle
rivalries were not without their slight dashes of bitterness in the
Nuns’ House. Well for the poor Nuns in their day, if they hid no harder
strife under their veils and rosaries!
Thus Rosa had grown to be an amiable, giddy, wilful, winning little
creature; spoilt, in the sense of counting upon kindness from all
around her; but not in the sense of repaying it with indifference.
Possessing an exhaustless well of affection in her nature, its
sparkling waters had freshened and brightened the Nuns’ House for
years, and yet its depths had never yet been moved: what might betide
when that came to pass; what developing changes might fall upon the
heedless head, and light heart, then; remained to be seen.
By what means the news that there had been a quarrel between the two
young men overnight, involving even some kind of onslaught by Mr.
Neville upon Edwin Drood, got into Miss Twinkleton’s establishment
before breakfast, it is impossible to say. Whether it was brought in by
the birds of the air, or came blowing in with the very air itself, when
the casement windows were set open; whether the baker brought it
kneaded into the bread, or the milkman delivered it as part of the
adulteration of his milk; or the housemaids, beating the dust out of
their mats against the gateposts, received it in exchange deposited on
the mats by the town atmosphere; certain it is that the news permeated
every gable of the old building before Miss Twinkleton was down, and
that Miss Twinkleton herself received it through Mrs. Tisher, while yet
in the act of dressing; or (as she might have expressed the phrase to a
parent or guardian of a mythological turn) of sacrificing to the
Graces.
Miss Landless’s brother had thrown a bottle at Mr. Edwin Drood.
Miss Landless’s brother had thrown a knife at Mr. Edwin Drood.
A knife became suggestive of a fork; and Miss Landless’s brother had
thrown a fork at Mr. Edwin Drood.
As in the governing precedence of Peter Piper, alleged to have picked
the peck of pickled pepper, it was held physically desirable to have
evidence of the existence of the peck of pickled pepper which Peter
Piper was alleged to have picked; so, in this case, it was held
psychologically important to know why Miss Landless’s brother threw a
bottle, knife, or fork—or bottle, knife, _and_ fork—for the cook had
been given to understand it was all three—at Mr. Edwin Drood?
Well, then. Miss Landless’s brother had said he admired Miss Bud. Mr.
Edwin Drood had said to Miss Landless’s brother that he had no business
to admire Miss Bud. Miss Landless’s brother had then “up’d” (this was
the cook’s exact information) with the bottle, knife, fork, and
decanter (the decanter now coolly flying at everybody’s head, without
the least introduction), and thrown them all at Mr. Edwin Drood.
Poor little Rosa put a forefinger into each of her ears when these
rumours began to circulate, and retired into a corner, beseeching not
to be told any more; but Miss Landless, begging permission of Miss
Twinkleton to go and speak with her brother, and pretty plainly showing
that she would take it if it were not given, struck out the more
definite course of going to Mr. Crisparkle’s for accurate intelligence.
When she came back (being first closeted with Miss Twinkleton, in order
that anything objectionable in her tidings might be retained by that
discreet filter), she imparted to Rosa only, what had taken place;
dwelling with a flushed cheek on the provocation her brother had
received, but almost limiting it to that last gross affront as crowning
“some other words between them,” and, out of consideration for her new
friend, passing lightly over the fact that the other words had
originated in her lover’s taking things in general so very easily. To
Rosa direct, she brought a petition from her brother that she would
forgive him; and, having delivered it with sisterly earnestness, made
an end of the subject.
It was reserved for Miss Twinkleton to tone down the public mind of the
Nuns’ House. That lady, therefore, entering in a stately manner what
plebeians might have called the school-room, but what, in the patrician
language of the head of the Nuns’ House, was euphuistically, not to say
round-aboutedly, denominated “the apartment allotted to study,” and
saying with a forensic air, “Ladies!” all rose. Mrs. Tisher at the same
time grouped herself behind her chief, as representing Queen
Elizabeth’s first historical female friend at Tilbury fort. Miss
Twinkleton then proceeded to remark that Rumour, Ladies, had been
represented by the bard of Avon—needless were it to mention the
immortal SHAKESPEARE, also called the Swan of his native river, not
improbably with some reference to the ancient superstition that that
bird of graceful plumage (Miss Jennings will please stand upright) sang
sweetly on the approach of death, for which we have no ornithological
authority,—Rumour, Ladies, had been represented by that bard—hem!—
“who drew
The celebrated Jew,”
as painted full of tongues. Rumour in Cloisterham (Miss Ferdinand will
honour me with her attention) was no exception to the great limner’s
portrait of Rumour elsewhere. A slight _fracas_ between two young
gentlemen occurring last night within a hundred miles of these peaceful
walls (Miss Ferdinand, being apparently incorrigible, will have the
kindness to write out this evening, in the original language, the first
four fables of our vivacious neighbour, Monsieur La Fontaine) had been
very grossly exaggerated by Rumour’s voice. In the first alarm and
anxiety arising from our sympathy with a sweet young friend, not wholly
to be dissociated from one of the gladiators in the bloodless arena in
question (the impropriety of Miss Reynolds’s appearing to stab herself
in the hand with a pin, is far too obvious, and too glaringly
unladylike, to be pointed out), we descended from our maiden elevation
to discuss this uncongenial and this unfit theme. Responsible inquiries
having assured us that it was but one of those “airy nothings” pointed
at by the Poet (whose name and date of birth Miss Giggles will supply
within half an hour), we would now discard the subject, and concentrate
our minds upon the grateful labours of the day.
But the subject so survived all day, nevertheless, that Miss Ferdinand
got into new trouble by surreptitiously clapping on a paper moustache
at dinner-time, and going through the motions of aiming a water-bottle
at Miss Giggles, who drew a table-spoon in defence.
Now, Rosa thought of this unlucky quarrel a great deal, and thought of
it with an uncomfortable feeling that she was involved in it, as cause,
or consequence, or what not, through being in a false position
altogether as to her marriage engagement. Never free from such
uneasiness when she was with her affianced husband, it was not likely
that she would be free from it when they were apart. To-day, too, she
was cast in upon herself, and deprived of the relief of talking freely
with her new friend, because the quarrel had been with Helena’s
brother, and Helena undisguisedly avoided the subject as a delicate and
difficult one to herself. At this critical time, of all times, Rosa’s
guardian was announced as having come to see her.
Mr. Grewgious had been well selected for his trust, as a man of
incorruptible integrity, but certainly for no other appropriate quality
discernible on the surface. He was an arid, sandy man, who, if he had
been put into a grinding-mill, looked as if he would have ground
immediately into high-dried snuff. He had a scanty flat crop of hair,
in colour and consistency like some very mangy yellow fur tippet; it
was so unlike hair, that it must have been a wig, but for the
stupendous improbability of anybody’s voluntarily sporting such a head.
The little play of feature that his face presented, was cut deep into
it, in a few hard curves that made it more like work; and he had
certain notches in his forehead, which looked as though Nature had been
about to touch them into sensibility or refinement, when she had
impatiently thrown away the chisel, and said: “I really cannot be
worried to finish off this man; let him go as he is.”
With too great length of throat at his upper end, and too much
ankle-bone and heel at his lower; with an awkward and hesitating
manner; with a shambling walk; and with what is called a near
sight—which perhaps prevented his observing how much white cotton
stocking he displayed to the public eye, in contrast with his black
suit—Mr. Grewgious still had some strange capacity in him of making on
the whole an agreeable impression.
Mr. Grewgious was discovered by his ward, much discomfited by being in
Miss Twinkleton’s company in Miss Twinkleton’s own sacred room. Dim
forebodings of being examined in something, and not coming well out of
it, seemed to oppress the poor gentleman when found in these
circumstances.
“My dear, how do you do? I am glad to see you. My dear, how much
improved you are. Permit me to hand you a chair, my dear.”
Miss Twinkleton rose at her little writing-table, saying, with general
sweetness, as to the polite Universe: “Will you permit me to retire?”
“By no means, madam, on my account. I beg that you will not move.”
“I must entreat permission to _move_,” returned Miss Twinkleton,
repeating the word with a charming grace; “but I will not withdraw,
since you are so obliging. If I wheel my desk to this corner window,
shall I be in the way?”
“Madam! In the way!”
“You are very kind.—Rosa, my dear, you will be under no restraint, I am
sure.”
Here Mr. Grewgious, left by the fire with Rosa, said again: “My dear,
how do you do? I am glad to see you, my dear.” And having waited for
her to sit down, sat down himself.
“My visits,” said Mr. Grewgious, “are, like those of the angels—not
that I compare myself to an angel.”
“No, sir,” said Rosa.
“Not by any means,” assented Mr. Grewgious. “I merely refer to my
visits, which are few and far between. The angels are, we know very
well, up-stairs.”
Miss Twinkleton looked round with a kind of stiff stare.
“I refer, my dear,” said Mr. Grewgious, laying his hand on Rosa’s, as
the possibility thrilled through his frame of his otherwise seeming to
take the awful liberty of calling Miss Twinkleton my dear; “I refer to
the other young ladies.”
Miss Twinkleton resumed her writing.
Mr. Grewgious, with a sense of not having managed his opening point
quite as neatly as he might have desired, smoothed his head from back
to front as if he had just dived, and were pressing the water out—this
smoothing action, however superfluous, was habitual with him—and took a
pocket-book from his coat-pocket, and a stump of black-lead pencil from
his waistcoat-pocket.
“I made,” he said, turning the leaves: “I made a guiding memorandum or
so—as I usually do, for I have no conversational powers whatever—to
which I will, with your permission, my dear, refer. ‘Well and happy.’
Truly. You are well and happy, my dear? You look so.”
“Yes, indeed, sir,” answered Rosa.
“For which,” said Mr. Grewgious, with a bend of his head towards the
corner window, “our warmest acknowledgments are due, and I am sure are
rendered, to the maternal kindness and the constant care and
consideration of the lady whom I have now the honour to see before me.”
This point, again, made but a lame departure from Mr. Grewgious, and
never got to its destination; for, Miss Twinkleton, feeling that the
courtesies required her to be by this time quite outside the
conversation, was biting the end of her pen, and looking upward, as
waiting for the descent of an idea from any member of the Celestial
Nine who might have one to spare.
Mr. Grewgious smoothed his smooth head again, and then made another
reference to his pocket-book; lining out “well and happy,” as disposed
of.
“‘Pounds, shillings, and pence,’ is my next note. A dry subject for a
young lady, but an important subject too. Life is pounds, shillings,
and pence. Death is—” A sudden recollection of the death of her two
parents seemed to stop him, and he said in a softer tone, and evidently
inserting the negative as an after-thought: “Death is _not_ pounds,
shillings, and pence.”
His voice was as hard and dry as himself, and Fancy might have ground
it straight, like himself, into high-dried snuff. And yet, through the
very limited means of expression that he possessed, he seemed to
express kindness. If Nature had but finished him off, kindness might
have been recognisable in his face at this moment. But if the notches
in his forehead wouldn’t fuse together, and if his face would work and
couldn’t play, what could he do, poor man!
“‘Pounds, shillings, and pence.’ You find your allowance always
sufficient for your wants, my dear?”
Rosa wanted for nothing, and therefore it was ample.
“And you are not in debt?”
Rosa laughed at the idea of being in debt. It seemed, to her
inexperience, a comical vagary of the imagination. Mr. Grewgious
stretched his near sight to be sure that this was her view of the case.
“Ah!” he said, as comment, with a furtive glance towards Miss
Twinkleton, and lining out pounds, shillings, and pence: “I spoke of
having got among the angels! So I did!”
Rosa felt what his next memorandum would prove to be, and was blushing
and folding a crease in her dress with one embarrassed hand, long
before he found it.
“‘Marriage.’ Hem!” Mr. Grewgious carried his smoothing hand down over
his eyes and nose, and even chin, before drawing his chair a little
nearer, and speaking a little more confidentially: “I now touch, my
dear, upon the point that is the direct cause of my troubling you with
the present visit. Otherwise, being a particularly Angular man, I
should not have intruded here. I am the last man to intrude into a
sphere for which I am so entirely unfitted. I feel, on these premises,
as if I was a bear—with the cramp—in a youthful Cotillon.”
His ungainliness gave him enough of the air of his simile to set Rosa
off laughing heartily.
“It strikes you in the same light,” said Mr. Grewgious, with perfect
calmness. “Just so. To return to my memorandum. Mr. Edwin has been to
and fro here, as was arranged. You have mentioned that, in your
quarterly letters to me. And you like him, and he likes you.”
“I _like_ him very much, sir,” rejoined Rosa.
“So I said, my dear,” returned her guardian, for whose ear the timid
emphasis was much too fine. “Good. And you correspond.”
“We write to one another,” said Rosa, pouting, as she recalled their
epistolary differences.
“Such is the meaning that I attach to the word ‘correspond’ in this
application, my dear,” said Mr. Grewgious. “Good. All goes well, time
works on, and at this next Christmas-time it will become necessary, as
a matter of form, to give the exemplary lady in the corner window, to
whom we are so much indebted, business notice of your departure in the
ensuing half-year. Your relations with her are far more than business
relations, no doubt; but a residue of business remains in them, and
business is business ever. I am a particularly Angular man,” proceeded
Mr. Grewgious, as if it suddenly occurred to him to mention it, “and I
am not used to give anything away. If, for these two reasons, some
competent Proxy would give _you_ away, I should take it very kindly.”
Rosa intimated, with her eyes on the ground, that she thought a
substitute might be found, if required.
“Surely, surely,” said Mr. Grewgious. “For instance, the gentleman who
teaches Dancing here—he would know how to do it with graceful
propriety. He would advance and retire in a manner satisfactory to the
feelings of the officiating clergyman, and of yourself, and the
bridegroom, and all parties concerned. I am—I am a particularly Angular
man,” said Mr. Grewgious, as if he had made up his mind to screw it out
at last: “and should only blunder.”
Rosa sat still and silent. Perhaps her mind had not got quite so far as
the ceremony yet, but was lagging on the way there.
“Memorandum, ‘Will.’ Now, my dear,” said Mr. Grewgious, referring to
his notes, disposing of “Marriage” with his pencil, and taking a paper
from his pocket; “although I have before possessed you with the
contents of your father’s will, I think it right at this time to leave
a certified copy of it in your hands. And although Mr. Edwin is also
aware of its contents, I think it right at this time likewise to place
a certified copy of it in Mr. Jasper’s hand—”
“Not in his own!” asked Rosa, looking up quickly. “Cannot the copy go
to Eddy himself?”
“Why, yes, my dear, if you particularly wish it; but I spoke of Mr.
Jasper as being his trustee.”
“I do particularly wish it, if you please,” said Rosa, hurriedly and
earnestly; “I don’t like Mr. Jasper to come between us, in any way.”
“It is natural, I suppose,” said Mr. Grewgious, “that your young
husband should be all in all. Yes. You observe that I say, I suppose.
The fact is, I am a particularly Unnatural man, and I don’t know from
my own knowledge.”
Rosa looked at him with some wonder.
“I mean,” he explained, “that young ways were never my ways. I was the
only offspring of parents far advanced in life, and I half believe I
was born advanced in life myself. No personality is intended towards
the name you will so soon change, when I remark that while the general
growth of people seem to have come into existence, buds, I seem to have
come into existence a chip. I was a chip—and a very dry one—when I
first became aware of myself. Respecting the other certified copy, your
wish shall be complied with. Respecting your inheritance, I think you
know all. It is an annuity of two hundred and fifty pounds. The savings
upon that annuity, and some other items to your credit, all duly
carried to account, with vouchers, will place you in possession of a
lump-sum of money, rather exceeding Seventeen Hundred Pounds. I am
empowered to advance the cost of your preparations for your marriage
out of that fund. All is told.”
“Will you please tell me,” said Rosa, taking the paper with a prettily
knitted brow, but not opening it: “whether I am right in what I am
going to say? I can understand what you tell me, so very much better
than what I read in law-writings. My poor papa and Eddy’s father made
their agreement together, as very dear and firm and fast friends, in
order that we, too, might be very dear and firm and fast friends after
them?”
“Just so.”
“For the lasting good of both of us, and the lasting happiness of both
of us?”
“Just so.”
“That we might be to one another even much more than they had been to
one another?”
“Just so.”
“It was not bound upon Eddy, and it was not bound upon me, by any
forfeit, in case—”
“Don’t be agitated, my dear. In the case that it brings tears into your
affectionate eyes even to picture to yourself—in the case of your not
marrying one another—no, no forfeiture on either side. You would then
have been my ward until you were of age. No worse would have befallen
you. Bad enough perhaps!”
“And Eddy?”
“He would have come into his partnership derived from his father, and
into its arrears to his credit (if any), on attaining his majority,
just as now.”
Rosa, with her perplexed face and knitted brow, bit the corner of her
attested copy, as she sat with her head on one side, looking
abstractedly on the floor, and smoothing it with her foot.
“In short,” said Mr. Grewgious, “this betrothal is a wish, a sentiment,
a friendly project, tenderly expressed on both sides. That it was
strongly felt, and that there was a lively hope that it would prosper,
there can be no doubt. When you were both children, you began to be
accustomed to it, and it _has_ prospered. But circumstances alter
cases; and I made this visit to-day, partly, indeed principally, to
discharge myself of the duty of telling you, my dear, that two young
people can only be betrothed in marriage (except as a matter of
convenience, and therefore mockery and misery) of their own free will,
their own attachment, and their own assurance (it may or it may not
prove a mistaken one, but we must take our chance of that), that they
are suited to each other, and will make each other happy. Is it to be
supposed, for example, that if either of your fathers were living now,
and had any mistrust on that subject, his mind would not be changed by
the change of circumstances involved in the change of your years?
Untenable, unreasonable, inconclusive, and preposterous!”
Mr. Grewgious said all this, as if he were reading it aloud; or, still
more, as if he were repeating a lesson. So expressionless of any
approach to spontaneity were his face and manner.
“I have now, my dear,” he added, blurring out “Will” with his pencil,
“discharged myself of what is doubtless a formal duty in this case, but
still a duty in such a case. Memorandum, ‘Wishes.’ My dear, is there
any wish of yours that I can further?”
Rosa shook her head, with an almost plaintive air of hesitation in want
of help.
“Is there any instruction that I can take from you with reference to
your affairs?”
“I—I should like to settle them with Eddy first, if you please,” said
Rosa, plaiting the crease in her dress.
“Surely, surely,” returned Mr. Grewgious. “You two should be of one
mind in all things. Is the young gentleman expected shortly?”
“He has gone away only this morning. He will be back at Christmas.”
“Nothing could happen better. You will, on his return at Christmas,
arrange all matters of detail with him; you will then communicate with
me; and I will discharge myself (as a mere business acquaintance) of my
business responsibilities towards the accomplished lady in the corner
window. They will accrue at that season.” Blurring pencil once again.
“Memorandum, ‘Leave.’ Yes. I will now, my dear, take my leave.”
“Could I,” said Rosa, rising, as he jerked out of his chair in his
ungainly way: “could I ask you, most kindly to come to me at Christmas,
if I had anything particular to say to you?”
“Why, certainly, certainly,” he rejoined; apparently—if such a word can
be used of one who had no apparent lights or shadows about
him—complimented by the question. “As a particularly Angular man, I do
not fit smoothly into the social circle, and consequently I have no
other engagement at Christmas-time than to partake, on the
twenty-fifth, of a boiled turkey and celery sauce with a—with a
particularly Angular clerk I have the good fortune to possess, whose
father, being a Norfolk farmer, sends him up (the turkey up), as a
present to me, from the neighbourhood of Norwich. I should be quite
proud of your wishing to see me, my dear. As a professional Receiver of
rents, so very few people _do_ wish to see me, that the novelty would
be bracing.”
For his ready acquiescence, the grateful Rosa put her hands upon his
shoulders, stood on tiptoe, and instantly kissed him.
“Lord bless me!” cried Mr. Grewgious. “Thank you, my dear! The honour
is almost equal to the pleasure. Miss Twinkleton, madam, I have had a
most satisfactory conversation with my ward, and I will now release you
from the incumbrance of my presence.”
“Nay, sir,” rejoined Miss Twinkleton, rising with a gracious
condescension: “say not incumbrance. Not so, by any means. I cannot
permit you to say so.”
“Thank you, madam. I have read in the newspapers,” said Mr. Grewgious,
stammering a little, “that when a distinguished visitor (not that I am
one: far from it) goes to a school (not that this is one: far from it),
he asks for a holiday, or some sort of grace. It being now the
afternoon in the—College—of which you are the eminent head, the young
ladies might gain nothing, except in name, by having the rest of the
day allowed them. But if there is any young lady at all under a cloud,
might I solicit—”
“Ah, Mr. Grewgious, Mr. Grewgious!” cried Miss Twinkleton, with a
chastely-rallying forefinger. “O you gentlemen, you gentlemen! Fie for
shame, that you are so hard upon us poor maligned disciplinarians of
our sex, for your sakes! But as Miss Ferdinand is at present weighed
down by an incubus”—Miss Twinkleton might have said a pen-and-ink-ubus
of writing out Monsieur La Fontaine—“go to her, Rosa my dear, and tell
her the penalty is remitted, in deference to the intercession of your
guardian, Mr. Grewgious.”
Miss Twinkleton here achieved a curtsey, suggestive of marvels
happening to her respected legs, and which she came out of nobly, three
yards behind her starting-point.
As he held it incumbent upon him to call on Mr. Jasper before leaving
Cloisterham, Mr. Grewgious went to the gatehouse, and climbed its
postern stair. But Mr. Jasper’s door being closed, and presenting on a
slip of paper the word “Cathedral,” the fact of its being service-time
was borne into the mind of Mr. Grewgious. So he descended the stair
again, and, crossing the Close, paused at the great western
folding-door of the Cathedral, which stood open on the fine and bright,
though short-lived, afternoon, for the airing of the place.
“Dear me,” said Mr. Grewgious, peeping in, “it’s like looking down the
throat of Old Time.”
Old Time heaved a mouldy sigh from tomb and arch and vault; and gloomy
shadows began to deepen in corners; and damps began to rise from green
patches of stone; and jewels, cast upon the pavement of the nave from
stained glass by the declining sun, began to perish. Within the
grill-gate of the chancel, up the steps surmounted loomingly by the
fast-darkening organ, white robes could be dimly seen, and one feeble
voice, rising and falling in a cracked, monotonous mutter, could at
intervals be faintly heard. In the free outer air, the river, the green
pastures, and the brown arable lands, the teeming hills and dales, were
reddened by the sunset: while the distant little windows in windmills
and farm homesteads, shone, patches of bright beaten gold. In the
Cathedral, all became gray, murky, and sepulchral, and the cracked
monotonous mutter went on like a dying voice, until the organ and the
choir burst forth, and drowned it in a sea of music. Then, the sea
fell, and the dying voice made another feeble effort, and then the sea
rose high, and beat its life out, and lashed the roof, and surged among
the arches, and pierced the heights of the great tower; and then the
sea was dry, and all was still.
Mr. Grewgious had by that time walked to the chancel-steps, where he
met the living waters coming out.
“Nothing is the matter?” Thus Jasper accosted him, rather quickly. “You
have not been sent for?”
“Not at all, not at all. I came down of my own accord. I have been to
my pretty ward’s, and am now homeward bound again.”
“You found her thriving?”
“Blooming indeed. Most blooming. I merely came to tell her, seriously,
what a betrothal by deceased parents is.”
“And what is it—according to your judgment?”
Mr. Grewgious noticed the whiteness of the lips that asked the
question, and put it down to the chilling account of the Cathedral.
“I merely came to tell her that it could not be considered binding,
against any such reason for its dissolution as a want of affection, or
want of disposition to carry it into effect, on the side of either
party.”
“May I ask, had you any especial reason for telling her that?”
Mr. Grewgious answered somewhat sharply: “The especial reason of doing
my duty, sir. Simply that.” Then he added: “Come, Mr. Jasper; I know
your affection for your nephew, and that you are quick to feel on his
behalf. I assure you that this implies not the least doubt of, or
disrespect to, your nephew.”
“You could not,” returned Jasper, with a friendly pressure of his arm,
as they walked on side by side, “speak more handsomely.”
Mr. Grewgious pulled off his hat to smooth his head, and, having
smoothed it, nodded it contentedly, and put his hat on again.
“I will wager,” said Jasper, smiling—his lips were still so white that
he was conscious of it, and bit and moistened them while speaking: “I
will wager that she hinted no wish to be released from Ned.”
“And you will win your wager, if you do,” retorted Mr. Grewgious. “We
should allow some margin for little maidenly delicacies in a young
motherless creature, under such circumstances, I suppose; it is not in
my line; what do you think?”
“There can be no doubt of it.”
“I am glad you say so. Because,” proceeded Mr. Grewgious, who had all
this time very knowingly felt his way round to action on his
remembrance of what she had said of Jasper himself: “because she seems
to have some little delicate instinct that all preliminary arrangements
had best be made between Mr. Edwin Drood and herself, don’t you see?
She don’t want us, don’t you know?”
Jasper touched himself on the breast, and said, somewhat indistinctly:
“You mean me.”
Mr. Grewgious touched himself on the breast, and said: “I mean us.
Therefore, let them have their little discussions and councils
together, when Mr. Edwin Drood comes back here at Christmas; and then
you and I will step in, and put the final touches to the business.”
“So, you settled with her that you would come back at Christmas?”
observed Jasper. “I see! Mr. Grewgious, as you quite fairly said just
now, there is such an exceptional attachment between my nephew and me,
that I am more sensitive for the dear, fortunate, happy, happy fellow
than for myself. But it is only right that the young lady should be
considered, as you have pointed out, and that I should accept my cue
from you. I accept it. I understand that at Christmas they will
complete their preparations for May, and that their marriage will be
put in final train by themselves, and that nothing will remain for us
but to put ourselves in train also, and have everything ready for our
formal release from our trusts, on Edwin’s birthday.”
“That is my understanding,” assented Mr. Grewgious, as they shook hands
to part. “God bless them both!”
“God save them both!” cried Jasper.
“I said, bless them,” remarked the former, looking back over his
shoulder.
“I said, save them,” returned the latter. “Is there any difference?”