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CHAPTER VIII - DAGGERS DRAWN
The two young men, having seen the damsels, their charges, enter
the courtyard of the Nuns' House, and finding themselves coldly
stared at by the brazen door-plate, as if the battered old beau
with the glass in his eye were insolent, look at one another, look
along the perspective of the moonlit street, and slowly walk away
together.
'Do you stay here long, Mr. Drood?' says Neville.
'Not this time,' is the careless answer. 'I leave for London
again, to-morrow. But I shall be here, off and on, until next
Midsummer; then I shall take my leave of Cloisterham, and England
too; for many a long day, I expect.'
'Are you going abroad?'
'Going to wake up Egypt a little,' is the condescending answer.
'Are you reading?'
'Reading?' repeats Edwin Drood, with a touch of contempt. 'No.
Doing, working, engineering. My small patrimony was left a part of
the capital of the Firm I am with, by my father, a former partner;
and I am a charge upon the Firm until I come of age; and then I
step into my modest share in the concern. Jack--you met him at
dinner--is, until then, my guardian and trustee.'
'I heard from Mr. Crisparkle of your other good fortune.'
'What do you mean by my other good fortune?'
Neville has made his remark in a watchfully advancing, and yet
furtive and shy manner, very expressive of that peculiar air
already noticed, of being at once hunter and hunted. Edwin has
made his retort with an abruptness not at all polite. They stop
and interchange a rather heated look.
'I hope,' says Neville, 'there is no offence, Mr. Drood, in my
innocently referring to your betrothal?'
'By George!' cries Edwin, leading on again at a somewhat quicker
pace; 'everybody in this chattering old Cloisterham refers to it I
wonder no public-house has been set up, with my portrait for the
sign of The Betrothed's Head. Or Pussy's portrait. One or the
other.'
'I am not accountable for Mr. Crisparkle's mentioning the matter to
me, quite openly,' Neville begins.
'No; that's true; you are not,' Edwin Drood assents.
'But,' resumes Neville, 'I am accountable for mentioning it to you.
And I did so, on the supposition that you could not fail to be
highly proud of it.'
Now, there are these two curious touches of human nature working
the secret springs of this dialogue. Neville Landless is already
enough impressed by Little Rosebud, to feel indignant that Edwin
Drood (far below her) should hold his prize so lightly. Edwin
Drood is already enough impressed by Helena, to feel indignant that
Helena's brother (far below her) should dispose of him so coolly,
and put him out of the way so entirely.
However, the last remark had better be answered. So, says Edwin:
'I don't know, Mr. Neville' (adopting that mode of address from Mr.
Crisparkle), 'that what people are proudest of, they usually talk
most about; I don't know either, that what they are proudest of,
they most like other people to talk about. But I live a busy life,
and I speak under correction by you readers, who ought to know
everything, and I daresay do.'
By this time they had both become savage; Mr. Neville out in the
open; Edwin Drood under the transparent cover of a popular tune,
and a stop now and then to pretend to admire picturesque effects in
the moonlight before him.
'It does not seem to me very civil in you,' remarks Neville, at
length, 'to reflect upon a stranger who comes here, not having had
your advantages, to try to make up for lost time. But, to be sure,
I was not brought up in "busy life," and my ideas of civility were
formed among Heathens.'
'Perhaps, the best civility, whatever kind of people we are brought
up among,' retorts Edwin Drood, 'is to mind our own business. If
you will set me that example, I promise to follow it.'
'Do you know that you take a great deal too much upon yourself?' is
the angry rejoinder, 'and that in the part of the world I come
from, you would be called to account for it?'
'By whom, for instance?' asks Edwin Drood, coming to a halt, and
surveying the other with a look of disdain.
But, here a startling right hand is laid on Edwin's shoulder, and
Jasper stands between them. For, it would seem that he, too, has
strolled round by the Nuns' House, and has come up behind them on
the shadowy side of the road.
'Ned, Ned, Ned!' he says; 'we must have no more of this. I don't
like this. I have overheard high words between you two. Remember,
my dear boy, you are almost in the position of host to-night. You
belong, as it were, to the place, and in a manner represent it
towards a stranger. Mr. Neville is a stranger, and you should
respect the obligations of hospitality. And, Mr. Neville,' laying
his left hand on the inner shoulder of that young gentleman, and
thus walking on between them, hand to shoulder on either side:
'you will pardon me; but I appeal to you to govern your temper too.
Now, what is amiss? But why ask! Let there be nothing amiss, and
the question is superfluous. We are all three on a good
understanding, are we not?'
After a silent struggle between the two young men who shall speak
last, Edwin Drood strikes in with: 'So far as I am concerned,
Jack, there is no anger in me.'
'Nor in me,' says Neville Landless, though not so freely; or
perhaps so carelessly. 'But if Mr. Drood knew all that lies behind
me, far away from here, he might know better how it is that sharp-
edged words have sharp edges to wound me.'
'Perhaps,' says Jasper, in a soothing manner, 'we had better not
qualify our good understanding. We had better not say anything
having the appearance of a remonstrance or condition; it might not
seem generous. Frankly and freely, you see there is no anger in
Ned. Frankly and freely, there is no anger in you, Mr. Neville?'
'None at all, Mr. Jasper.' Still, not quite so frankly or so
freely; or, be it said once again, not quite so carelessly perhaps.
'All over then! Now, my bachelor gatehouse is a few yards from
here, and the heater is on the fire, and the wine and glasses are
on the table, and it is not a stone's throw from Minor Canon
Corner. Ned, you are up and away to-morrow. We will carry Mr.
Neville in with us, to take a stirrup-cup.'
'With all my heart, Jack.'
'And with all mine, Mr. Jasper.' Neville feels it impossible to
say less, but would rather not go. He has an impression upon him
that he has lost hold of his temper; feels that Edwin Drood's
coolness, so far from being infectious, makes him red-hot.
Mr. Jasper, still walking in the centre, hand to shoulder on either
side, beautifully turns the Refrain of a drinking song, and they
all go up to his rooms. There, the first object visible, when he
adds the light of a lamp to that of the fire, is the portrait over
the chimneypicce. It is not an object calculated to improve the
understanding between the two young men, as rather awkwardly
reviving the subject of their difference. Accordingly, they both
glance at it consciously, but say nothing. Jasper, however (who
would appear from his conduct to have gained but an imperfect clue
to the cause of their late high words), directly calls attention to
it.
'You recognise that picture, Mr. Neville?' shading the lamp to
throw the light upon it.
'I recognise it, but it is far from flattering the original.'
'O, you are hard upon it! It was done by Ned, who made me a
present of it.'
'I am sorry for that, Mr. Drood.' Neville apologises, with a real
intention to apologise; 'if I had known I was in the artist's
presence--'
'O, a joke, sir, a mere joke,' Edwin cuts in, with a provoking
yawn. 'A little humouring of Pussy's points! I'm going to paint
her gravely, one of these days, if she's good.'
The air of leisurely patronage and indifference with which this is
said, as the speaker throws himself back in a chair and clasps his
hands at the back of his head, as a rest for it, is very
exasperating to the excitable and excited Neville. Jasper looks
observantly from the one to the other, slightly smiles, and turns
his back to mix a jug of mulled wine at the fire. It seems to
require much mixing and compounding.
'I suppose, Mr. Neville,' says Edwin, quick to resent the indignant
protest against himself in the face of young Landless, which is
fully as visible as the portrait, or the fire, or the lamp: 'I
suppose that if you painted the picture of your lady love--'
'I can't paint,' is the hasty interruption.
'That's your misfortune, and not your fault. You would if you
could. But if you could, I suppose you would make her (no matter
what she was in reality), Juno, Minerva, Diana, and Venus, all in
one. Eh?'
'I have no lady love, and I can't say.'
'If I were to try my hand,' says Edwin, with a boyish boastfulness
getting up in him, 'on a portrait of Miss Landless--in earnest,
mind you; in earnest--you should see what I could do!'
'My sister's consent to sit for it being first got, I suppose? As
it never will be got, I am afraid I shall never see what you can
do. I must bear the loss.'
Jasper turns round from the fire, fills a large goblet glass for
Neville, fills a large goblet glass for Edwin, and hands each his
own; then fills for himself, saying:
'Come, Mr. Neville, we are to drink to my nephew, Ned. As it is
his foot that is in the stirrup--metaphorically--our stirrup-cup is
to be devoted to him. Ned, my dearest fellow, my love!'
Jasper sets the example of nearly emptying his glass, and Neville
follows it. Edwin Drood says, 'Thank you both very much,' and
follows the double example.
'Look at him,' cries Jasper, stretching out his hand admiringly and
tenderly, though rallyingly too. 'See where he lounges so easily,
Mr. Neville! The world is all before him where to choose. A life
of stirring work and interest, a life of change and excitement, a
life of domestic ease and love! Look at him!'
Edwin Drood's face has become quickly and remarkably flushed with
the wine; so has the face of Neville Landless. Edwin still sits
thrown back in his chair, making that rest of clasped hands for his
head.
'See how little he heeds it all!' Jasper proceeds in a bantering
vein. 'It is hardly worth his while to pluck the golden fruit that
hangs ripe on the tree for him. And yet consider the contrast, Mr.
Neville. You and I have no prospect of stirring work and interest,
or of change and excitement, or of domestic ease and love. You and
I have no prospect (unless you are more fortunate than I am, which
may easily be), but the tedious unchanging round of this dull
place.'
'Upon my soul, Jack,' says Edwin, complacently, 'I feel quite
apologetic for having my way smoothed as you describe. But you
know what I know, Jack, and it may not be so very easy as it seems,
after all. May it, Pussy?' To the portrait, with a snap of his
thumb and finger. 'We have got to hit it off yet; haven't we,
Pussy? You know what I mean, Jack.'
His speech has become thick and indistinct. Jasper, quiet and
self-possessed, looks to Neville, as expecting his answer or
comment. When Neville speaks, HIS speech is also thick and
indistinct.
'It might have been better for Mr. Drood to have known some
hardships,' he says, defiantly.
'Pray,' retorts Edwin, turning merely his eyes in that direction,
'pray why might it have been better for Mr. Drood to have known
some hardships?'
'Ay,' Jasper assents, with an air of interest; 'let us know why?'
'Because they might have made him more sensible,' says Neville, 'of
good fortune that is not by any means necessarily the result of his
own merits.'
Mr. Jasper quickly looks to his nephew for his rejoinder.
'Have YOU known hardships, may I ask?' says Edwin Drood, sitting
upright.
Mr. Jasper quickly looks to the other for his retort.
'I have.'
'And what have they made you sensible of?'
Mr. Jasper's play of eyes between the two holds good throughout the
dialogue, to the end.
'I have told you once before to-night.'
'You have done nothing of the sort.'
'I tell you I have. That you take a great deal too much upon
yourself.'
'You added something else to that, if I remember?'
'Yes, I did say something else.'
'Say it again.'
'I said that in the part of the world I come from, you would be
called to account for it.'
'Only there?' cries Edwin Drood, with a contemptuous laugh. 'A
long way off, I believe? Yes; I see! That part of the world is at
a safe distance.'
'Say here, then,' rejoins the other, rising in a fury. 'Say
anywhere! Your vanity is intolerable, your conceit is beyond
endurance; you talk as if you were some rare and precious prize,
instead of a common boaster. You are a common fellow, and a common
boaster.'
'Pooh, pooh,' says Edwin Drood, equally furious, but more
collected; 'how should you know? You may know a black common
fellow, or a black common boaster, when you see him (and no doubt
you have a large acquaintance that way); but you are no judge of
white men.'
This insulting allusion to his dark skin infuriates Neville to that
violent degree, that he flings the dregs of his wine at Edwin
Drood, and is in the act of flinging the goblet after it, when his
arm is caught in the nick of time by Jasper.
'Ned, my dear fellow!' he cries in a loud voice; 'I entreat you, I
command you, to be still!' There has been a rush of all the three,
and a clattering of glasses and overturning of chairs. 'Mr.
Neville, for shame! Give this glass to me. Open your hand, sir.
I WILL have it!'
But Neville throws him off, and pauses for an instant, in a raging
passion, with the goblet yet in his uplifted hand. Then, he dashes
it down under the grate, with such force that the broken splinters
fly out again in a shower; and he leaves the house.
When he first emerges into the night air, nothing around him is
still or steady; nothing around him shows like what it is; he only
knows that he stands with a bare head in the midst of a blood-red
whirl, waiting to be struggled with, and to struggle to the death.
But, nothing happening, and the moon looking down upon him as if he
were dead after a fit of wrath, he holds his steam-hammer beating
head and heart, and staggers away. Then, he becomes half-conscious
of having heard himself bolted and barred out, like a dangerous
animal; and thinks what shall he do?
Some wildly passionate ideas of the river dissolve under the spell
of the moonlight on the Cathedral and the graves, and the
remembrance of his sister, and the thought of what he owes to the
good man who has but that very day won his confidence and given him
his pledge. He repairs to Minor Canon Corner, and knocks softly at
the door.
It is Mr. Crisparkle's custom to sit up last of the early
household, very softly touching his piano and practising his
favourite parts in concerted vocal music. The south wind that goes
where it lists, by way of Minor Canon Corner on a still night, is
not more subdued than Mr. Crisparkle at such times, regardful of
the slumbers of the china shepherdess.
His knock is immediately answered by Mr. Crisparkle himself. When
he opens the door, candle in hand, his cheerful face falls, and
disappointed amazement is in it.
'Mr. Neville! In this disorder! Where have you been?'
'I have been to Mr. Jasper's, sir. With his nephew.'
'Come in.'
The Minor Canon props him by the elbow with a strong hand (in a
strictly scientific manner, worthy of his morning trainings), and
turns him into his own little book-room, and shuts the door.'
'I have begun ill, sir. I have begun dreadfully ill.'
'Too true. You are not sober, Mr. Neville.'
'I am afraid I am not, sir, though I can satisfy you at another
time that I have had a very little indeed to drink, and that it
overcame me in the strangest and most sudden manner.'
'Mr. Neville, Mr. Neville,' says the Minor Canon, shaking his head
with a sorrowful smile; 'I have heard that said before.'
'I think--my mind is much confused, but I think--it is equally true
of Mr. Jasper's nephew, sir.'
'Very likely,' is the dry rejoinder.
'We quarrelled, sir. He insulted me most grossly. He had heated
that tigerish blood I told you of to-day, before then.'
'Mr. Neville,' rejoins the Minor Canon, mildly, but firmly: 'I
request you not to speak to me with that clenched right hand.
Unclench it, if you please.'
'He goaded me, sir,' pursues the young man, instantly obeying,
'beyond my power of endurance. I cannot say whether or no he meant
it at first, but he did it. He certainly meant it at last. In
short, sir,' with an irrepressible outburst, 'in the passion into
which he lashed me, I would have cut him down if I could, and I
tried to do it.'
'You have clenched that hand again,' is Mr. Crisparkle's quiet
commentary.
'I beg your pardon, sir.'
'You know your room, for I showed it you before dinner; but I will
accompany you to it once more. Your arm, if you please. Softly,
for the house is all a-bed.'
Scooping his hand into the same scientific elbow-rest as before,
and backing it up with the inert strength of his arm, as skilfully
as a Police Expert, and with an apparent repose quite unattainable
by novices, Mr. Crisparkle conducts his pupil to the pleasant and
orderly old room prepared for him. Arrived there, the young man
throws himself into a chair, and, flinging his arms upon his
reading-table, rests his head upon them with an air of wretched
self-reproach.
The gentle Minor Canon has had it in his thoughts to leave the
room, without a word. But looking round at the door, and seeing
this dejected figure, he turns back to it, touches it with a mild
hand, says 'Good night!' A sob is his only acknowledgment. He
might have had many a worse; perhaps, could have had few better.
Another soft knock at the outer door attracts his attention as he
goes down-stairs. He opens it to Mr. Jasper, holding in his hand
the pupil's hat.
'We have had an awful scene with him,' says Jasper, in a low voice.
'Has it been so bad as that?'
'Murderous!'
Mr. Crisparkle remonstrates: 'No, no, no. Do not use such strong
words.'
'He might have laid my dear boy dead at my feet. It is no fault of
his, that he did not. But that I was, through the mercy of God,
swift and strong with him, he would have cut him down on my
hearth.'
The phrase smites home. 'Ah!' thinks Mr. Crisparkle, 'his own
words!'
'Seeing what I have seen to-night, and hearing what I have heard,'
adds Jasper, with great earnestness, 'I shall never know peace of
mind when there is danger of those two coming together, with no one
else to interfere. It was horrible. There is something of the
tiger in his dark blood.'
'Ah!' thinks Mr. Crisparkle, 'so he said!'
'You, my dear sir,' pursues Jasper, taking his hand, 'even you,
have accepted a dangerous charge.'
'You need have no fear for me, Jasper,' returns Mr. Crisparkle,
with a quiet smile. 'I have none for myself.'
'I have none for myself,' returns Jasper, with an emphasis on the
last pronoun, 'because I am not, nor am I in the way of being, the
object of his hostility. But you may be, and my dear boy has been.
Good night!'
Mr. Crisparkle goes in, with the hat that has so easily, so almost
imperceptibly, acquired the right to be hung up in his hall; hangs
it up; and goes thoughtfully to bed.
Content of CHAPTER VIII - DAGGERS DRAWN [Charles Dickens' novel: The Mystery of Edwin Drood]
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