The Mystery of Edwin Drood (4 page)

 

  “O! IT IS so ridiculous!” says the
apparition, stopping and shrinking. “Don't, Eddy!”

 

  “Don't what, Rosa?”

 

  “Don't come any nearer, please. It IS so
absurd.”

 

  “What is absurd, Rosa?”

 

  “The whole thing is. It IS so absurd to
be an engaged orphan and it IS so absurd to have the girls and the servants
scuttling about after one, like mice in the wainscot; and it IS so absurd to be
called upon!”

 

  The apparition appears to have a thumb
in the corner of its mouth while making this complaint.

 

  “You give me an affectionate reception,
Pussy, I must say.”

 

  “Well, I will in a minute, Eddy, but I
can't just yet. How are you?” (very shortly.)

 

  “I am unable to reply that I am much the
better for seeing you, Pussy, inasmuch as I see nothing of you.”

 

  This second remonstrance brings a dark,
bright, pouting eye out from a corner of the apron; but it swiftly becomes
invisible again, as the apparition exclaims: “O good gracious! you have had
half your hair cut off!”

 

  “I should have done better to have had
my head cut off, I think,” says Edwin, rumpling the hair in question, with a
fierce glance at the looking-glass, and giving an impatient stamp. “Shall I
go?”

 

  “No; you needn't go just yet, Eddy. The
girls would all be asking questions why you went.”

 

  “Once for all, Rosa, will you uncover
that ridiculous little head of yours and give me a welcome?”

 

  The apron is pulled off the childish
head, as its wearer replies: “You're very welcome, Eddy. There! I'm sure that's
nice. Shake hands. No, I can't kiss you, because I've got an acidulated drop in
my mouth.”

 

  “Are you at all glad to see me, Pussy?”

 

  “O, yes, I'm dreadfully glad. —Go and
sit down. —Miss Twinkleton.”

 

  It is the custom of that excellent lady
when these visits occur, to appear every three minutes, either in her own
person or in that of Mrs. Tisher, and lay an offering on the shrine of
Propriety by affecting to look for some desiderated article. On the present occasion
Miss Twinkleton, gracefully gliding in and out, says in passing: “How do you
do, Mr. Drood? Very glad indeed to have the pleasure. Pray excuse me. Tweezers.
Thank you!”

 

  “I got the gloves last evening, Eddy,
and I like them very much. They are beauties.”

 

  “Well, that's something,” the affianced
replies, half grumbling. “The smallest encouragement thankfully received. And
how did you pass your birthday, Pussy?”

 

  “Delightfully! Everybody gave me a
present. And we had a feast. And we had a ball at night.”

 

  “A feast and a ball, eh? These occasions
seem to go off tolerably well without me, Pussy.”

 

  “De-lightfully!” cries Rosa, in a quite
spontaneous manner, and without the least pretence of reserve.

 

  “Hah! And what was the feast?”

 

  “Tarts, oranges, jellies, and shrimps.”

 

  “Any partners at the ball?”

 

  “We danced with one another, of course,
sir. But some of the girls made game to be their brothers. It WAS so droll!”

 

  “Did anybody make game to be—”

 

  “To be you? O dear yes!” cries Rosa,
laughing with great enjoyment. “That was the first thing done.”

 

  “I hope she did it pretty well,” says
Edwin rather doubtfully.

 

  “O, it was excellent!—I wouldn't dance
with you, you know.”

 

  Edwin scarcely seems to see the force of
this; begs to know if he may take the liberty to ask why?

 

  “Because I was so tired of you,” returns
Rosa. But she quickly adds, and pleadingly too, seeing displeasure in his face:
“Dear Eddy, you were just as tired of me, you know.”

 

  “Did I say so, Rosa?”

 

  “Say so! Do you ever say so? No, you
only showed it. O, she did it so well!” cries Rosa, in a sudden ecstasy with
her counterfeit betrothed.

 

  “It strikes me that she must be a
devilish impudent girl,” says Edwin Drood. “And so, Pussy, you have passed your
last birthday in this old house.”

 

  “Ah, yes!” Rosa clasps her hands, looks
down with a sigh, and shakes her head.

 

  “You seem to be sorry, Rosa.”

 

  “I am sorry for the poor old place.
Somehow, I feel as if it would miss me, when I am gone so far away, so young.”

 

  “Perhaps we had better stop short,
Rosa?”

 

  She looks up at him with a swift bright
look; next moment shakes her head, sighs, and looks down again.

 

  “That is to say, is it, Pussy, that we
are both resigned?”

 

  She nods her head again, and after a
short silence, quaintly bursts out with: “You know we must be married, and
married from here, Eddy, or the poor girls will be so dreadfully disappointed!”

 

  For the moment there is more of
compassion, both for her and for himself, in her affianced husband's face, than
there is of love. He checks the look, and asks: “Shall I take you out for a
walk, Rosa dear?”

 

  Rosa dear does not seem at all clear on
this point, until her face, which has been comically reflective, brightens. “O,
yes, Eddy; let us go for a walk! And I tell you what we'll do. You shall
pretend that you are engaged to somebody else, and I'll pretend that I am not
engaged to anybody, and then we shan't quarrel.”

 

  “Do you think that will prevent our
falling out, Rosa?”

 

  “I know it will. Hush! Pretend to look
out of window—Mrs. Tisher!”

 

  Through a fortuitous concourse of
accidents, the matronly Tisher heaves in sight, says, in rustling through the
room like the legendary ghost of a dowager in silken skirts: “I hope I see Mr.
Drood well; though I needn't ask, if I may judge from his complexion. I trust I
disturb no one; but there WAS a paper-knife—O, thank you, I am sure!” and disappears
with her prize.

 

  “One other thing you must do, Eddy, to
oblige me,” says Rosebud. “The moment we get into the street, you must put me
outside, and keep close to the house yourself—squeeze and graze yourself
against it.”

 

  “By all means, Rosa, if you wish it.
Might I ask why?”

 

  “O! because I don't want the girls to
see you.”

 

  “It's a fine day; but would you like me
to carry an umbrella up?”

 

  “Don't be foolish, sir. You haven't got
polished leather boots on,” pouting, with one shoulder raised.

 

  “Perhaps that might escape the notice of
the girls, even if they did see me,” remarks Edwin, looking down at his boots
with a sudden distaste for them.

 

  “Nothing escapes their notice, sir. And
then I know what would happen. Some of them would begin reflecting on me by
saying (for THEY are free) that they never will on any account engage
themselves to lovers without polished leather boots. Hark! Miss Twinkleton.
I'll ask for leave.”

 

  That discreet lady being indeed heard
without, inquiring of nobody in a blandly conversational tone as she advances:
“Eh? Indeed! Are you quite sure you saw my mother-of-pearl button-holder on the
work-table in my room?” is at once solicited for walking leave, and graciously
accords it. And soon the young couple go out of the Nuns' House, taking all
precautions against the discovery of the so vitally defective boots of Mr.
Edwin Drood: precautions, let us hope, effective for the peace of Mrs. Edwin
Drood that is to be.

 

  “Which way shall we take, Rosa?”

 

  Rosa replies: “I want to go to the
Lumps-of-Delight shop.”

 

  “To the—?”

 

  “A Turkish sweetmeat, sir. My gracious
me, don't you understand anything? Call yourself an Engineer, and not know
THAT?”

 

  “Why, how should I know it, Rosa?”

 

  “Because I am very fond of them. But O!
I forgot what we are to pretend. No, you needn't know anything about them;
never mind.”

 

  So he is gloomily borne off to the
Lumps-of-Delight shop, where Rosa makes her purchase, and, after offering some
to him (which he rather indignantly declines), begins to partake of it with
great zest: previously taking off and rolling up a pair of little pink gloves,
like rose-leaves, and occasionally putting her little pink fingers to her rosy
lips, to cleanse them from the Dust of Delight that comes off the Lumps.

 

  “Now, be a good-tempered Eddy, and
pretend. And so you are engaged?”

 

  “And so I am engaged.”

 

  “Is she nice?”

 

  “Charming.”

 

  “Tall?”

 

  “Immensely tall!” Rosa being short.

 

  “Must be gawky, I should think,” is
Rosa's quiet commentary.

 

  “I beg your pardon; not at all,”
contradiction rising in him.

 

  “What is termed a fine woman; a splendid
woman.”

 

  “Big nose, no doubt,” is the quiet
commentary again.

 

  “Not a little one, certainly,” is the
quick reply, (Rosa's being a little one.)

 

  “Long pale nose, with a red knob in the
middle. I know the sort of nose,” says Rosa, with a satisfied nod, and
tranquilly enjoying the Lumps.

 

  “You DON'T know the sort of nose, Rosa,”
with some warmth; “because it's nothing of the kind.”

 

  “Not a pale nose, Eddy?”

 

  “No.” Determined not to assent.

 

  “A red nose? O! I don't like red noses.
However; to be sure she can always powder it.”

 

  “She would scorn to powder it,” says
Edwin, becoming heated.

 

  “Would she? What a stupid thing she must
be! Is she stupid in everything?”

 

  “No; in nothing.”

 

  After a pause, in which the whimsically
wicked face has not been unobservant of him, Rosa says:

 

  “And this most sensible of creatures
likes the idea of being carried off to Egypt; does she, Eddy?”

 

  “Yes. She takes a sensible interest in
triumphs of engineering skill: especially when they are to change the whole
condition of an undeveloped country.”

 

  “Lor!” says Rosa, shrugging her
shoulders, with a little laugh of wonder.

 

  “Do you object,” Edwin inquires, with a
majestic turn of his eyes downward upon the fairy figure: “do you object, Rosa,
to her feeling that interest?”

 

  “Object? my dear Eddy! But really,
doesn't she hate boilers and things?”

 

  “I can answer for her not being so
idiotic as to hate Boilers,” he returns with angry emphasis; “though I cannot
answer for her views about Things; really not understanding what Things are
meant.”

 

  “But don't she hate Arabs, and Turks,
and Fellahs, and people?”

 

  “Certainly not.” Very firmly.

 

  “At least she MUST hate the Pyramids?
Come, Eddy?”

 

  “Why should she be such a little—tall, I
mean—goose, as to hate the Pyramids, Rosa?”

 

  “Ah! you should hear Miss Twinkleton,”
often nodding her head, and much enjoying the Lumps, “bore about them, and then
you wouldn't ask. Tiresome old burying-grounds! Isises, and Ibises, and
Cheopses, and Pharaohses; who cares about them? And then there was Belzoni, or
somebody, dragged out by the legs, half-choked with bats and dust. All the
girls say: Serve him right, and hope it hurt him, and wish he had been quite
choked.”

 

  The two youthful figures, side by side,
but not now arm-in-arm, wander discontentedly about the old Close; and each
sometimes stops and slowly imprints a deeper footstep in the fallen leaves.

 

  “Well!” says Edwin, after a lengthy
silence. “According to custom. We can't get on, Rosa.”

 

  Rosa tosses her head, and says she don't
want to get on.

 

  “That's a pretty sentiment, Rosa,
considering.”

 

  “Considering what?”

 

  “If I say what, you'll go wrong again.”

 

  “YOU'LL go wrong, you mean, Eddy. Don't
be ungenerous.”

 

  “Ungenerous! I like that!”

 

  “Then I DON'T like that, and so I tell
you plainly,” Rosa pouts.

 

  “Now, Rosa, I put it to you. Who
disparaged my profession, my destination—”

 

  “You are not going to be buried in the
Pyramids, I hope?” she interrupts, arching her delicate eyebrows. “You never
said you were. If you are, why haven't you mentioned it to me? I can't find out
your plans by instinct.”

 

  “Now, Rosa, you know very well what I
mean, my dear.”

 

  “Well then, why did you begin with your
detestable red-nosed giantesses? And she would, she would, she would, she
would, she WOULD powder it!” cries Rosa, in a little burst of comical
contradictory spleen.

 

  “Somehow or other, I never can come
right in these discussions,” says Edwin, sighing and becoming resigned.

 

  “How is it possible, sir, that you ever
can come right when you're always wrong? And as to Belzoni, I suppose he's
dead;—I'm sure I hope he is—and how can his legs or his chokes concern you?”

 

  “It is nearly time for your return,
Rosa. We have not had a very happy walk, have we?”

 

  “A happy walk? A detestably unhappy
walk, sir. If I go up-stairs the moment I get in and cry till I can't take my
dancing lesson, you are responsible, mind!”

 

  “Let us be friends, Rosa.”

 

  “Ah!” cries Rosa, shaking her head and
bursting into real tears, “I wish we COULD be friends! It's because we can't be
friends, that we try one another so. I am a young little thing, Eddy, to have
an old heartache; but I really, really have, sometimes. Don't be angry. I know
you have one yourself too often. We should both of us have done better, if What
is to be had been left What might have been. I am quite a little serious thing
now, and not teasing you. Let each of us forbear, this one time, on our own
account, and on the other's!”