The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens (best english novels to read TXT) đ
- Author: Charles Dickens
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âWell, well,â says the Dean, with a sprightly air of breaking up the little conference, âI hope Mr. Jasperâs heart may not be too much set upon his nephew. Our affections, however laudable, in this transitory world, should never master us; we should guide them, guide them. I find I am not disagreeably reminded of my dinner, by hearing my dinner-bell. Perhaps, Mr. Crisparkle, you will, before going home, look in on Jasper?â
âCertainly, Mr. Dean. And tell him that you had the kindness to desire to know how he was?â
âAy; do so, do so. Certainly. Wished to know how he was. By all means. Wished to know how he was.â
With a pleasant air of patronage, the Dean as nearly cocks his quaint hat as a Dean in good spirits may, and directs his comely gaiters towards the ruddy dining-room of the snug old red-brick house where he is at present, âin residenceâ with Mrs. Dean and Miss Dean.
Mr. Crisparkle, Minor Canon, fair and rosy, and perpetually pitching himself head-foremost into all the deep running water in the surrounding country; Mr. Crisparkle, Minor Canon, early riser, musical, classical, cheerful, kind, good-natured, social, contented, and boy-like; Mr. Crisparkle, Minor Canon and good man, lately âCoachâ upon the chief Pagan high roads, but since promoted by a patron (grateful for a well-taught son) to his present Christian beat; betakes himself to the gatehouse, on his way home to his early tea.
âSorry to hear from Tope that you have not been well, Jasper.â
âO, it was nothing, nothing!â
âYou look a little worn.â
âDo I? O, I donât think so. What is better, I donât feel so. Tope has made too much of it, I suspect. Itâs his trade to make the most of everything appertaining to the Cathedral, you know.â
âI may tell the DeanâI call expressly from the Deanâthat you are all right again?â
The reply, with a slight smile, is: âCertainly; with my respects and thanks to the Dean.â
âIâm glad to hear that you expect young Drood.â
âI expect the dear fellow every moment.â
âAh! He will do you more good than a doctor, Jasper.â
âMore good than a dozen doctors. For I love him dearly, and I donât love doctors, or doctorsâ stuff.â
Mr. Jasper is a dark man of some six-and-twenty, with thick, lustrous, well-arranged black hair and whiskers. He looks older than he is, as dark men often do. His voice is deep and good, his face and figure are good, his manner is a little sombre. His room is a little sombre, and may have had its influence in forming his manner. It is mostly in shadow. Even when the sun shines brilliantly, it seldom touches the grand piano in the recess, or the folio music-books on the stand, or the book-shelves on the wall, or the unfinished picture of a blooming schoolgirl hanging over the chimneypiece; her flowing brown hair tied with a blue riband, and her beauty remarkable for a quite childish, almost babyish, touch of saucy discontent, comically conscious of itself. (There is not the least artistic merit in this picture, which is a mere daub; but it is clear that the painter has made it humorouslyâone might almost say, revengefullyâlike the original.)
âWe shall miss you, Jasper, at the âAlternate Musical Wednesdaysâ to-night; but no doubt you are best at home. Good-night. God bless you! âTell me, shep-herds, te-e-ell me; tell me-e-e, have you seen (have you seen, have you seen, have you seen) my-y-y Flo-o-ora-a pass this way!ââ Melodiously good Minor Canon the Reverend Septimus Crisparkle thus delivers himself, in musical rhythm, as he withdraws his amiable face from the doorway and conveys it down-stairs.
Sounds of recognition and greeting pass between the Reverend Septimus and somebody else, at the stair-foot. Mr. Jasper listens, starts from his chair, and catches a young fellow in his arms, exclaiming:
âMy dear Edwin!â
âMy dear Jack! So glad to see you!â
âGet off your greatcoat, bright boy, and sit down here in your own corner. Your feet are not wet? Pull your boots off. Do pull your boots off.â
âMy dear Jack, I am as dry as a bone. Donât moddley-coddley, thereâs a good fellow. I like anything better than being moddley-coddleyed.â
With the check upon him of being unsympathetically restrained in a genial outburst of enthusiasm, Mr. Jasper stands still, and looks on intently at the young fellow, divesting himself of his outward coat, hat, gloves, and so forth. Once for all, a look of intentness and intensityâa look of hungry, exacting, watchful, and yet devoted affectionâis always, now and ever afterwards, on the Jasper face whenever the Jasper face is addressed in this direction. And whenever it is so addressed, it is never, on this occasion or on any other, dividedly addressed; it is always concentrated.
âNow I am right, and now Iâll take my corner, Jack. Any dinner, Jack?â
Mr. Jasper opens a door at the upper end of the room, and discloses a small inner room pleasantly lighted and prepared, wherein a comely dame is in the act of setting dishes on table.
âWhat a jolly old Jack it is!â cries the young fellow, with a clap of his hands. âLook here, Jack; tell me; whose birthday is it?â
âNot yours, I know,â Mr. Jasper answers, pausing to consider.
âNot mine, you know? No; not mine, I know! Pussyâs!â
Fixed as the look the young fellow meets, is, there is yet in it some strange power of suddenly including the sketch over the chimneypiece.
âPussyâs, Jack! We must drink Many happy returns to her. Come, uncle; take your dutiful and sharp-set nephew in to dinner.â
As the boy (for he is little more) lays a hand on Jasperâs shoulder, Jasper cordially and gaily lays a hand on his shoulder, and so Marseillaise-wise they go in to dinner.
âAnd, Lord! hereâs Mrs. Tope!â cries the boy. âLovelier than ever!â
âNever you mind me, Master Edwin,â retorts the Vergerâs wife; âI can take care of myself.â
âYou canât. Youâre much too handsome. Give me a kiss because itâs Pussyâs birthday.â
âIâd Pussy you, young man, if I was Pussy, as you call her,â Mrs. Tope blushingly retorts, after being saluted. âYour uncleâs too much wrapt up in you, thatâs where it is. He makes so much of you, that itâs my opinion you think youâve only to call your Pussys by the dozen, to make âem come.â
âYou forget, Mrs. Tope,â Mr. Jasper interposes, taking his place at the table with a genial smile, âand so do you, Ned, that Uncle and Nephew are words prohibited here by common consent and express agreement. For what we are going to receive His holy name be praised!â
âDone like the Dean! Witness, Edwin Drood! Please to carve, Jack, for I canât.â
This sally ushers in the dinner. Little to the present purpose, or to any purpose, is said, while it is in course of being disposed of. At length the cloth is drawn, and a dish of walnuts and a decanter of rich-coloured sherry are placed upon the table.
âI say! Tell me, Jack,â the young fellow then flows on: âdo you really and truly feel as if the mention of our relationship divided us at all? I donât.â
âUncles as a rule, Ned, are so much older than their nephews,â is the reply, âthat I have that feeling instinctively.â
âAs a rule! Ah, may-be! But what is a difference in age of half-a-dozen years or so? And some uncles, in large families, are even younger than their nephews. By George, I wish it was the case with us!â
âWhy?â
âBecause if it was, Iâd take the lead with you, Jack, and be as wise as Begone, dull Care! that turned a young man gray, and Begone, dull Care! that turned an old man to clay.âHalloa, Jack! Donât drink.â
âWhy not?â
âAsks why not, on Pussyâs birthday, and no Happy returns proposed! Pussy, Jack, and many of âem! Happy returns, I mean.â
Laying an affectionate and laughing touch on the boyâs extended hand, as if it were at once his giddy head and his light heart, Mr. Jasper drinks the toast in silence.
âHip, hip, hip, and nine times nine, and one to finish with, and all that, understood. Hooray, hooray, hooray!âAnd now, Jack, letâs have a little talk about Pussy. Two pairs of nut-crackers? Pass me one, and take the other.â Crack. âHowâs Pussy getting on Jack?â
âWith her music? Fairly.â
âWhat a dreadfully conscientious fellow you are, Jack! But I know, Lord bless you! Inattentive, isnât she?â
âShe can learn anything, if she will.â
âIf she will! Egad, thatâs it. But if she wonât?â
Crack!âon Mr. Jasperâs part.
âHowâs she looking, Jack?â
Mr. Jasperâs concentrated face again includes the portrait as he returns: âVery like your sketch indeed.â
âI am a little proud of it,â says the young fellow, glancing up at the sketch with complacency, and then shutting one eye, and taking a corrected prospect of it over a level bridge of nut-crackers in the air: âNot badly hit off from memory. But I ought to have caught that expression pretty well, for I have seen it often enough.â
Crack!âon Edwin Droodâs part.
Crack!âon Mr. Jasperâs part.
âIn point of fact,â the former resumes, after some silent dipping among his fragments of walnut with an air of pique, âI see it whenever I go to see Pussy. If I donât find it on her face, I leave it there.âYou know I do, Miss Scornful Pert. Booh!â With a twirl of the nut-crackers at the portrait.
Crack! crack! crack. Slowly, on Mr. Jasperâs part.
Crack. Sharply on the part of Edwin Drood.
Silence on both sides.
âHave you lost your tongue, Jack?â
âHave you found yours, Ned?â
âNo, but really;âisnât it, you know, after allââ
Mr. Jasper lifts his dark eyebrows inquiringly.
âIsnât it unsatisfactory to be cut off from choice in such a matter? There, Jack! I tell you! If I could choose, I would choose Pussy from all the pretty girls in the world.â
âBut you have not got to choose.â
âThatâs what I complain of. My dead and gone father and Pussyâs dead and gone father must needs marry us together by anticipation. Why theâDevil, I was going to say, if it had been respectful to their memoryâcouldnât they leave us alone?â
âTut, tut, dear boy,â Mr. Jasper remonstrates, in a tone of gentle deprecation.
âTut, tut? Yes, Jack, itâs all very well for you. You can take it easily. Your life is not laid down to scale, and lined and dotted out for you, like a surveyorâs plan. You have no uncomfortable suspicion that you are forced upon anybody, nor has anybody an uncomfortable suspicion that she is forced upon you, or that you are forced upon her. You can choose for yourself. Life, for you, is a plum with the natural bloom on; it hasnât been over-carefully wiped off for youââ
âDonât stop, dear fellow. Go on.â
âCan I anyhow have hurt your feelings, Jack?â
âHow can you have hurt my feelings?â
âGood Heaven, Jack, you look frightfully ill! Thereâs a strange film come over your eyes.â
Mr. Jasper, with a forced smile, stretches out his right hand, as if at once to disarm apprehension and gain time to get better. After a while he says faintly:
âI have been taking opium for a painâan agonyâthat sometimes overcomes me. The effects of the medicine steal over me like a blight or a cloud, and pass. You see them in the act of passing; they will be gone directly. Look away from me. They will go all the sooner.â
With a scared face the younger man complies by casting his eyes downward at the ashes on the hearth. Not relaxing his own gaze on the fire, but rather strengthening it with a fierce, firm grip upon his elbow-chair, the elder sits for a few moments rigid, and then, with thick drops standing on his forehead, and a sharp catch of his breath, becomes as he was before. On his so subsiding in his chair, his nephew gently and assiduously tends him while he quite recovers. When Jasper is restored, he lays a tender hand upon his nephewâs shoulder, and, in a tone of voice less troubled than the purport of his wordsâindeed with something of raillery or banter in itâthus addresses him:
âThere is said to be a hidden skeleton in every house; but you thought there was none in mine, dear Ned.â
âUpon my life, Jack, I did think so. However, when I come to consider that even in Pussyâs houseâif she had oneâand in mineâif I had oneââ
âYou were going to say (but that I interrupted you in spite of myself) what a quiet life mine is. No whirl and uproar around me, no distracting commerce or calculation, no risk, no change of place, myself devoted to the art I pursue, my business my pleasure.â
âI really was going to say something of the kind, Jack;
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