CHAPTER XXIII.

THE DAWN AGAIN

Although Mr. Crisparkle and John Jasper met daily under the Cathedral

roof, nothing at any time passed between them having reference to Edwin

Drood, after the time, more than half a year gone by, when Jasper

mutely showed the Minor Canon the conclusion and the resolution entered

in his Diary. It is not likely that they ever met, though so often,

without the thoughts of each reverting to the subject. It is not likely

that they ever met, though so often, without a sensation on the part of

each that the other was a perplexing secret to him. Jasper as the

denouncer and pursuer of Neville Landless, and Mr. Crisparkle as his

consistent advocate and protector, must at least have stood

sufficiently in opposition to have speculated with keen interest on the

steadiness and next direction of the other’s designs. But neither ever

broached the theme.

False pretence not being in the Minor Canon’s nature, he doubtless

displayed openly that he would at any time have revived the subject,

and even desired to discuss it. The determined reticence of Jasper,

however, was not to be so approached. Impassive, moody, solitary,

resolute, so concentrated on one idea, and on its attendant fixed

purpose, that he would share it with no fellow-creature, he lived apart

from human life. Constantly exercising an Art which brought him into

mechanical harmony with others, and which could not have been pursued

unless he and they had been in the nicest mechanical relations and

unison, it is curious to consider that the spirit of the man was in

moral accordance or interchange with nothing around him. This indeed he

had confided to his lost nephew, before the occasion for his present

inflexibility arose.

That he must know of Rosa’s abrupt departure, and that he must divine

its cause, was not to be doubted. Did he suppose that he had terrified

her into silence? or did he suppose that she had imparted to any one—to

Mr. Crisparkle himself, for instance—the particulars of his last

interview with her? Mr. Crisparkle could not determine this in his

mind. He could not but admit, however, as a just man, that it was not,

of itself, a crime to fall in love with Rosa, any more than it was a

crime to offer to set love above revenge.

The dreadful suspicion of Jasper, which Rosa was so shocked to have

received into her imagination, appeared to have no harbour in Mr.

Crisparkle’s. If it ever haunted Helena’s thoughts or Neville’s,

neither gave it one spoken word of utterance. Mr. Grewgious took no

pains to conceal his implacable dislike of Jasper, yet he never

referred it, however distantly, to such a source. But he was a reticent

as well as an eccentric man; and he made no mention of a certain

evening when he warmed his hands at the gatehouse fire, and looked

steadily down upon a certain heap of torn and miry clothes upon the

floor.

Drowsy Cloisterham, whenever it awoke to a passing reconsideration of a

story above six months old and dismissed by the bench of magistrates,

was pretty equally divided in opinion whether John Jasper’s beloved

nephew had been killed by his treacherously passionate rival, or in an

open struggle; or had, for his own purposes, spirited himself away. It

then lifted up its head, to notice that the bereaved Jasper was still

ever devoted to discovery and revenge; and then dozed off again. This

was the condition of matters, all round, at the period to which the

present history has now attained.

The Cathedral doors have closed for the night; and the Choir-master, on

a short leave of absence for two or three services, sets his face

towards London. He travels thither by the means by which Rosa

travelled, and arrives, as Rosa arrived, on a hot, dusty evening.

His travelling baggage is easily carried in his hand, and he repairs

with it on foot, to a hybrid hotel in a little square behind Aldersgate

Street, near the General Post Office. It is hotel, boarding-house, or

lodging-house, at its visitor’s option. It announces itself, in the new

Railway Advertisers, as a novel enterprise, timidly beginning to spring

up. It bashfully, almost apologetically, gives the traveller to

understand that it does not expect him, on the good old constitutional

hotel plan, to order a pint of sweet blacking for his drinking, and

throw it away; but insinuates that he may have his boots blacked

instead of his stomach, and maybe also have bed, breakfast, attendance,

and a porter up all night, for a certain fixed charge. From these and

similar premises, many true Britons in the lowest spirits deduce that

the times are levelling times, except in the article of high roads, of

which there will shortly be not one in England.

He eats without appetite, and soon goes forth again. Eastward and still

eastward through the stale streets he takes his way, until he reaches

his destination: a miserable court, specially miserable among many

such.

He ascends a broken staircase, opens a door, looks into a dark stifling

room, and says: “Are you alone here?”

“Alone, deary; worse luck for me, and better for you,” replies a

croaking voice. “Come in, come in, whoever you be: I can’t see you till

I light a match, yet I seem to know the sound of your speaking. I’m

acquainted with you, ain’t I?”

“Light your match, and try.”

“So I will, deary, so I will; but my hand that shakes, as I can’t lay

it on a match all in a moment. And I cough so, that, put my matches

where I may, I never find ’em there. They jump and start, as I cough

and cough, like live things. Are you off a voyage, deary?”

“No.”

“Not seafaring?”

“No.”

“Well, there’s land customers, and there’s water customers. I’m a

mother to both. Different from Jack Chinaman t’other side the court. He

ain’t a father to neither. It ain’t in him. And he ain’t got the true

secret of mixing, though he charges as much as me that has, and more if

he can get it. Here’s a match, and now where’s the candle? If my cough

takes me, I shall cough out twenty matches afore I gets a light.”

But she finds the candle, and lights it, before the cough comes on. It

seizes her in the moment of success, and she sits down rocking herself

to and fro, and gasping at intervals: “O, my lungs is awful bad! my

lungs is wore away to cabbage-nets!” until the fit is over. During its

continuance she has had no power of sight, or any other power not

absorbed in the struggle; but as it leaves her, she begins to strain

her eyes, and as soon as she is able to articulate, she cries, staring:

“Why, it’s you!”

“Are you so surprised to see me?”

“I thought I never should have seen you again, deary. I thought you was

dead, and gone to Heaven.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t suppose you could have kept away, alive, so long, from the

poor old soul with the real receipt for mixing it. And you are in

mourning too! Why didn’t you come and have a pipe or two of comfort?

Did they leave you money, perhaps, and so you didn’t want comfort?”

“No.”

“Who was they as died, deary?”

“A relative.”

“Died of what, lovey?”

“Probably, Death.”

“We are short to-night!” cries the woman, with a propitiatory laugh.

“Short and snappish we are! But we’re out of sorts for want of a smoke.

We’ve got the all-overs, haven’t us, deary? But this is the place to

cure ’em in; this is the place where the all-overs is smoked off.”

“You may make ready, then,” replies the visitor, “as soon as you like.”

He divests himself of his shoes, loosens his cravat, and lies across

the foot of the squalid bed, with his head resting on his left hand.

“Now you begin to look like yourself,” says the woman approvingly. “Now

I begin to know my old customer indeed! Been trying to mix for yourself

this long time, poppet?”

“I have been taking it now and then in my own way.”

“Never take it your own way. It ain’t good for trade, and it ain’t good

for you. Where’s my ink-bottle, and where’s my thimble, and where’s my

little spoon? He’s going to take it in a artful form now, my deary

dear!”

Entering on her process, and beginning to bubble and blow at the faint

spark enclosed in the hollow of her hands, she speaks from time to

time, in a tone of snuffling satisfaction, without leaving off. When he

speaks, he does so without looking at her, and as if his thoughts were

already roaming away by anticipation.

“I’ve got a pretty many smokes ready for you, first and last, haven’t

I, chuckey?”

“A good many.”

“When you first come, you was quite new to it; warn’t ye?”

“Yes, I was easily disposed of, then.”

“But you got on in the world, and was able by-and-by to take your pipe

with the best of ’em, warn’t ye?”

“Ah; and the worst.”

“It’s just ready for you. What a sweet singer you was when you first

come! Used to drop your head, and sing yourself off like a bird! It’s

ready for you now, deary.”

He takes it from her with great care, and puts the mouthpiece to his

lips. She seats herself beside him, ready to refill the pipe.

After inhaling a few whiffs in silence, he doubtingly accosts her with:

“Is it as potent as it used to be?”

“What do you speak of, deary?”

“What should I speak of, but what I have in my mouth?”

“It’s just the same. Always the identical same.”

“It doesn’t taste so. And it’s slower.”

“You’ve got more used to it, you see.”

“That may be the cause, certainly. Look here.” He stops, becomes

dreamy, and seems to forget that he has invited her attention. She

bends over him, and speaks in his ear.

“I’m attending to you. Says you just now, Look here. Says I now, I’m

attending to ye. We was talking just before of your being used to it.”

“I know all that. I was only thinking. Look here. Suppose you had

something in your mind; something you were going to do.”

“Yes, deary; something I was going to do?”

“But had not quite determined to do.”

“Yes, deary.”

“Might or might not do, you understand.”

“Yes.” With the point of a needle she stirs the contents of the bowl.

“Should you do it in your fancy, when you were lying here doing this?”

She nods her head. “Over and over again.”

“Just like me! I did it over and over again. I have done it hundreds of

thousands of times in this room.”

“It’s to be hoped it was pleasant to do, deary.”

“It _was_ pleasant to do!”

He says this with a savage air, and a spring or start at her. Quite

unmoved she retouches and replenishes the contents of the bowl with her

little spatula. Seeing her intent upon the occupation, he sinks into

his former attitude.

“It was a journey, a difficult and dangerous journey. That was the

subject in my mind. A hazardous and perilous journey, over abysses

where a slip would be destruction. Look down, look down! You see what

lies at the bottom there?”

He has darted forward to say it, and to point at the ground, as though

at some imaginary object far beneath. The woman looks at him, as his

spasmodic face approaches close to hers, and not at his pointing. She

seems to know what the influence of her perfect quietude would be; if

so, she has not miscalculated it, for he subsides again.

“Well; I have told you I did it here hundreds of thousands of times.

What do I say? I did it millions and billions of times. I did it so

often, and through such vast expanses of time, that when it was really

done, it seemed not worth the doing, it was done so soon.”

“That’s the journey you have been away upon,” she quietly remarks.

He glares at her as he smokes; and then, his eyes becoming filmy,

answers: “That’s the journey.”

Silence ensues. His eyes are sometimes closed and sometimes open. The

woman sits beside him, very attentive to the pipe, which is all the

while at his lips.

“I’ll warrant,” she observes, when he has been looking fixedly at her

for some consecutive moments, with a singular appearance in his eyes of

seeming to see her a long way off, instead of so near him: “I’ll

warrant you made the journey in a many ways, when you made it so

often?”

“No, always in one way.”

“Always in the same way?”

“Ay.”

“In the way in which it was really made at last?”

“Ay.”

“And always took the same pleasure in harping on it?”

“Ay.”

For the time he appears unequal to any other reply than this lazy

monosyllabic assent. Probably to assure herself that it is not the

assent of a mere automaton, she reverses the form of her next sentence.

“Did you never get tired of it, deary, and try to call up something

else for a change?”

He struggles into a sitting posture, and retorts upon her: “What do you

mean? What did I want? What did I come for?”

She gently lays him back again, and before returning him the instrument

he has dropped, revives the fire in it with her own breath; then says

to him, coaxingly:

“Sure, sure, sure! Yes, yes, yes! Now I go along with you. You was too

quick for me. I see now. You come o’ purpose to take the journey. Why,

I might have known it, through its standing by you so.”

He answers first with a laugh, and then with a passionate setting of

his teeth: “Yes, I came on purpose. When I could not bear my life, I

came to get the relief, and I got it. It WAS one! It WAS one!” This

repetition with extraordinary vehemence, and the snarl of a wolf.

She observes him very cautiously, as though mentally feeling her way to

her next remark. It is: “There was a fellow-traveller, deary.”

“Ha, ha, ha!” He breaks into a ringing laugh, or rather yell.

“To think,” he cries, “how often fellow-traveller, and yet not know it!

To think how many times he went the journey, and never saw the road!”

The woman kneels upon the floor, with her arms crossed on the coverlet

of the bed, close by him, and her chin upon them. In this crouching

attitude she watches him. The pipe is falling from his mouth. She puts

it back, and laying her hand upon his chest, moves him slightly from

side to side. Upon that he speaks, as if she had spoken.

“Yes! I always made the journey first, before the changes of colours

and the great landscapes and glittering processions began. They

couldn’t begin till it was off my mind. I had no room till then for

anything else.”

Once more he lapses into silence. Once more she lays her hand upon his

chest, and moves him slightly to and fro, as a cat might stimulate a

half-slain mouse. Once more he speaks, as if she had spoken.

[Illustration: Sleeping it off]

“What? I told you so. When it comes to be real at last, it is so short

that it seems unreal for the first time. Hark!”

“Yes, deary. I’m listening.”

“Time and place are both at hand.”

He is on his feet, speaking in a whisper, and as if in the dark.

“Time, place, and fellow-traveller,” she suggests, adopting his tone,

and holding him softly by the arm.

“How could the time be at hand unless the fellow-traveller was? Hush!

The journey’s made. It’s over.”

“So soon?”

“That’s what I said to you. So soon. Wait a little. This is a vision. I

shall sleep it off. It has been too short and easy. I must have a

better vision than this; this is the poorest of all. No struggle, no

consciousness of peril, no entreaty—and yet I never saw _that_ before.”

With a start.

“Saw what, deary?”

“Look at it! Look what a poor, mean, miserable thing it is! _That_ must

be real. It’s over.”

He has accompanied this incoherence with some wild unmeaning gestures;

but they trail off into the progressive inaction of stupor, and he lies

a log upon the bed.

The woman, however, is still inquisitive. With a repetition of her

cat-like action she slightly stirs his body again, and listens; stirs

again, and listens; whispers to it, and listens. Finding it past all

rousing for the time, she slowly gets upon her feet, with an air of

disappointment, and flicks the face with the back of her hand in

turning from it.

But she goes no further away from it than the chair upon the hearth.

She sits in it, with an elbow on one of its arms, and her chin upon her

hand, intent upon him. “I heard ye say once,” she croaks under her

breath, “I heard ye say once, when I was lying where you’re lying, and

you were making your speculations upon me, ‘Unintelligible!’ I heard

you say so, of two more than me. But don’t ye be too sure always; don’t

be ye too sure, beauty!”

Unwinking, cat-like, and intent, she presently adds: “Not so potent as

it once was? Ah! Perhaps not at first. You may be more right there.

Practice makes perfect. I may have learned the secret how to make ye

talk, deary.”

He talks no more, whether or no. Twitching in an ugly way from time to

time, both as to his face and limbs, he lies heavy and silent. The

wretched candle burns down; the woman takes its expiring end between

her fingers, lights another at it, crams the guttering frying morsel

deep into the candlestick, and rams it home with the new candle, as if

she were loading some ill-savoured and unseemly weapon of witchcraft;

the new candle in its turn burns down; and still he lies insensible. At

length what remains of the last candle is blown out, and daylight looks

into the room.

It has not looked very long, when he sits up, chilled and shaking,

slowly recovers consciousness of where he is, and makes himself ready

to depart. The woman receives what he pays her with a grateful, “Bless

ye, bless ye, deary!” and seems, tired out, to begin making herself

ready for sleep as he leaves the room.

But seeming may be false or true. It is false in this case; for, the

moment the stairs have ceased to creak under his tread, she glides

after him, muttering emphatically: “I’ll not miss ye twice!”

There is no egress from the court but by its entrance. With a weird

peep from the doorway, she watches for his looking back. He does not

look back before disappearing, with a wavering step. She follows him,

peeps from the court, sees him still faltering on without looking back,

and holds him in view.

He repairs to the back of Aldersgate Street, where a door immediately

opens to his knocking. She crouches in another doorway, watching that

one, and easily comprehending that he puts up temporarily at that

house. Her patience is unexhausted by hours. For sustenance she can,

and does, buy bread within a hundred yards, and milk as it is carried

past her.

He comes forth again at noon, having changed his dress, but carrying

nothing in his hand, and having nothing carried for him. He is not

going back into the country, therefore, just yet. She follows him a

little way, hesitates, instantaneously turns confidently, and goes

straight into the house he has quitted.

“Is the gentleman from Cloisterham indoors?

“Just gone out.”

“Unlucky. When does the gentleman return to Cloisterham?”

“At six this evening.”

“Bless ye and thank ye. May the Lord prosper a business where a civil

question, even from a poor soul, is so civilly answered!”

“I’ll not miss ye twice!” repeats the poor soul in the street, and not

so civilly. “I lost ye last, where that omnibus you got into nigh your

journey’s end plied betwixt the station and the place. I wasn’t so much

as certain that you even went right on to the place. Now I know ye did.

My gentleman from Cloisterham, I’ll be there before ye, and bide your

coming. I’ve swore my oath that I’ll not miss ye twice!”

Accordingly, that same evening the poor soul stands in Cloisterham High

Street, looking at the many quaint gables of the Nuns’ House, and

getting through the time as she best can until nine o’clock; at which

hour she has reason to suppose that the arriving omnibus passengers may

have some interest for her. The friendly darkness, at that hour,

renders it easy for her to ascertain whether this be so or not; and it

is so, for the passenger not to be missed twice arrives among the rest.

“Now let me see what becomes of you. Go on!”

An observation addressed to the air, and yet it might be addressed to

the passenger, so compliantly does he go on along the High Street until

he comes to an arched gateway, at which he unexpectedly vanishes. The

poor soul quickens her pace; is swift, and close upon him entering

under the gateway; but only sees a postern staircase on one side of it,

and on the other side an ancient vaulted room, in which a large-headed,

gray-haired gentleman is writing, under the odd circumstances of

sitting open to the thoroughfare and eyeing all who pass, as if he were

toll-taker of the gateway: though the way is free.

“Halloa!” he cries in a low voice, seeing her brought to a stand-still:

“who are you looking for?”

“There was a gentleman passed in here this minute, sir.”

“Of course there was. What do you want with him?”

“Where do he live, deary?”

“Live? Up that staircase.”

“Bless ye! Whisper. What’s his name, deary?”

“Surname Jasper, Christian name John. Mr. John Jasper.”

“Has he a calling, good gentleman?”

“Calling? Yes. Sings in the choir.”

“In the spire?”

“Choir.”

“What’s that?”

Mr. Datchery rises from his papers, and comes to his doorstep. “Do you

know what a cathedral is?” he asks, jocosely.

The woman nods.

“What is it?”

She looks puzzled, casting about in her mind to find a definition, when

it occurs to her that it is easier to point out the substantial object

itself, massive against the dark-blue sky and the early stars.

“That’s the answer. Go in there at seven to-morrow morning, and you may

see Mr. John Jasper, and hear him too.”

“Thank ye! Thank ye!”

The burst of triumph in which she thanks him does not escape the notice

of the single buffer of an easy temper living idly on his means. He

glances at her; clasps his hands behind him, as the wont of such

buffers is; and lounges along the echoing Precincts at her side.

“Or,” he suggests, with a backward hitch of his head, “you can go up at

once to Mr. Jasper’s rooms there.”

The woman eyes him with a cunning smile, and shakes her head.

“O! you don’t want to speak to him?”

She repeats her dumb reply, and forms with her lips a soundless “No.”

“You can admire him at a distance three times a day, whenever you like.

It’s a long way to come for that, though.”

The woman looks up quickly. If Mr. Datchery thinks she is to be so

induced to declare where she comes from, he is of a much easier temper

than she is. But she acquits him of such an artful thought, as he

lounges along, like the chartered bore of the city, with his uncovered

gray hair blowing about, and his purposeless hands rattling the loose

money in the pockets of his trousers.

The chink of the money has an attraction for her greedy ears. “Wouldn’t

you help me to pay for my traveller’s lodging, dear gentleman, and to

pay my way along? I am a poor soul, I am indeed, and troubled with a

grievous cough.”

“You know the travellers’ lodging, I perceive, and are making directly

for it,” is Mr. Datchery’s bland comment, still rattling his loose

money. “Been here often, my good woman?”

“Once in all my life.”

“Ay, ay?”

They have arrived at the entrance to the Monks’ Vineyard. An

appropriate remembrance, presenting an exemplary model for imitation,

is revived in the woman’s mind by the sight of the place. She stops at

the gate, and says energetically:

“By this token, though you mayn’t believe it, That a young gentleman

gave me three-and-sixpence as I was coughing my breath away on this

very grass. I asked him for three-and-sixpence, and he gave it me.”

“Wasn’t it a little cool to name your sum?” hints Mr. Datchery, still

rattling. “Isn’t it customary to leave the amount open? Mightn’t it

have had the appearance, to the young gentleman—only the

appearance—that he was rather dictated to?”

“Look’ee here, deary,” she replies, in a confidential and persuasive

tone, “I wanted the money to lay it out on a medicine as does me good,

and as I deal in. I told the young gentleman so, and he gave it me, and

I laid it out honest to the last brass farden. I want to lay out the

same sum in the same way now; and if you’ll give it me, I’ll lay it out

honest to the last brass farden again, upon my soul!”

“What’s the medicine?”

“I’ll be honest with you beforehand, as well as after. It’s opium.”

Mr. Datchery, with a sudden change of countenance, gives her a sudden

look.

“It’s opium, deary. Neither more nor less. And it’s like a human

creetur so far, that you always hear what can be said against it, but

seldom what can be said in its praise.”

Mr. Datchery begins very slowly to count out the sum demanded of him.

Greedily watching his hands, she continues to hold forth on the great

example set him.

“It was last Christmas Eve, just arter dark, the once that I was here

afore, when the young gentleman gave me the three-and-six.” Mr.

Datchery stops in his counting, finds he has counted wrong, shakes his

money together, and begins again.

“And the young gentleman’s name,” she adds, “was Edwin.”

Mr. Datchery drops some money, stoops to pick it up, and reddens with

the exertion as he asks:

“How do you know the young gentleman’s name?”

“I asked him for it, and he told it me. I only asked him the two

questions, what was his Chris’en name, and whether he’d a sweetheart?

And he answered, Edwin, and he hadn’t.”

Mr. Datchery pauses with the selected coins in his hand, rather as if

he were falling into a brown study of their value, and couldn’t bear to

part with them. The woman looks at him distrustfully, and with her

anger brewing for the event of his thinking better of the gift; but he

bestows it on her as if he were abstracting his mind from the

sacrifice, and with many servile thanks she goes her way.

John Jasper’s lamp is kindled, and his lighthouse is shining when Mr.

Datchery returns alone towards it. As mariners on a dangerous voyage,

approaching an iron-bound coast, may look along the beams of the

warning light to the haven lying beyond it that may never be reached,

so Mr. Datchery’s wistful gaze is directed to this beacon, and beyond.

His object in now revisiting his lodging is merely to put on the hat

which seems so superfluous an article in his wardrobe. It is half-past

ten by the Cathedral clock when he walks out into the Precincts again;

he lingers and looks about him, as though, the enchanted hour when Mr.

Durdles may be stoned home having struck, he had some expectation of

seeing the Imp who is appointed to the mission of stoning him.

In effect, that Power of Evil is abroad. Having nothing living to stone

at the moment, he is discovered by Mr. Datchery in the unholy office of

stoning the dead, through the railings of the churchyard. The Imp finds

this a relishing and piquing pursuit; firstly, because their

resting-place is announced to be sacred; and secondly, because the tall

headstones are sufficiently like themselves, on their beat in the dark,

to justify the delicious fancy that they are hurt when hit.

Mr. Datchery hails with him: “Halloa, Winks!”

He acknowledges the hail with: “Halloa, Dick!” Their acquaintance

seemingly having been established on a familiar footing.

“But, I say,” he remonstrates, “don’t yer go a-making my name public. I

never means to plead to no name, mind yer. When they says to me in the

Lock-up, a-going to put me down in the book, ‘What’s your name?’ I says

to them, ‘Find out.’ Likewise when they says, ‘What’s your religion?’ I

says, ‘Find out.’”

Which, it may be observed in passing, it would be immensely difficult

for the State, however statistical, to do.

“Asides which,” adds the boy, “there ain’t no family of Winkses.”

“I think there must be.”

“Yer lie, there ain’t. The travellers give me the name on account of my

getting no settled sleep and being knocked up all night; whereby I gets

one eye roused open afore I’ve shut the other. That’s what Winks means.

Deputy’s the nighest name to indict me by: but yer wouldn’t catch me

pleading to that, neither.”

“Deputy be it always, then. We two are good friends; eh, Deputy?”

“Jolly good.”

“I forgave you the debt you owed me when we first became acquainted,

and many of my sixpences have come your way since; eh, Deputy?”

“Ah! And what’s more, yer ain’t no friend o’ Jarsper’s. What did he go

a-histing me off my legs for?”

“What indeed! But never mind him now. A shilling of mine is going your

way to-night, Deputy. You have just taken in a lodger I have been

speaking to; an infirm woman with a cough.”

“Puffer,” assents Deputy, with a shrewd leer of recognition, and

smoking an imaginary pipe, with his head very much on one side and his

eyes very much out of their places: “Hopeum Puffer.”

“What is her name?”

“’Er Royal Highness the Princess Puffer.”

“She has some other name than that; where does she live?”

“Up in London. Among the Jacks.”

“The sailors?”

“I said so; Jacks; and Chayner men: and hother Knifers.”

“I should like to know, through you, exactly where she lives.”

“All right. Give us ’old.”

A shilling passes; and, in that spirit of confidence which should

pervade all business transactions between principals of honour, this

piece of business is considered done.

“But here’s a lark!” cries Deputy. “Where did yer think ’Er Royal

Highness is a-goin’ to to-morrow morning? Blest if she ain’t a-goin’ to

the KIN-FREE-DER-EL!” He greatly prolongs the word in his ecstasy, and

smites his leg, and doubles himself up in a fit of shrill laughter.

“How do you know that, Deputy?”

“Cos she told me so just now. She said she must be hup and hout o’

purpose. She ses, ‘Deputy, I must ’ave a early wash, and make myself as

swell as I can, for I’m a-goin’ to take a turn at the

KIN-FREE-DER-EL!’” He separates the syllables with his former zest,

and, not finding his sense of the ludicrous sufficiently relieved by

stamping about on the pavement, breaks into a slow and stately dance,

perhaps supposed to be performed by the Dean.

Mr. Datchery receives the communication with a well-satisfied though

pondering face, and breaks up the conference. Returning to his quaint

lodging, and sitting long over the supper of bread-and-cheese and salad

and ale which Mrs. Tope has left prepared for him, he still sits when

his supper is finished. At length he rises, throws open the door of a

corner cupboard, and refers to a few uncouth chalked strokes on its

inner side.

“I like,” says Mr. Datchery, “the old tavern way of keeping scores.

Illegible except to the scorer. The scorer not committed, the scored

debited with what is against him. Hum; ha! A very small score this; a

very poor score!”

He sighs over the contemplation of its poverty, takes a bit of chalk

from one of the cupboard shelves, and pauses with it in his hand,

uncertain what addition to make to the account.

“I think a moderate stroke,” he concludes, “is all I am justified in

scoring up;” so, suits the action to the word, closes the cupboard, and

goes to bed.

A brilliant morning shines on the old city. Its antiquities and ruins

are surpassingly beautiful, with a lusty ivy gleaming in the sun, and

the rich trees waving in the balmy air. Changes of glorious light from

moving boughs, songs of birds, scents from gardens, woods, and

fields—or, rather, from the one great garden of the whole cultivated

island in its yielding time—penetrate into the Cathedral, subdue its

earthy odour, and preach the Resurrection and the Life. The cold stone

tombs of centuries ago grow warm; and flecks of brightness dart into

the sternest marble corners of the building, fluttering there like

wings.

Comes Mr. Tope with his large keys, and yawningly unlocks and sets

open. Come Mrs. Tope and attendant sweeping sprites. Come, in due time,

organist and bellows-boy, peeping down from the red curtains in the

loft, fearlessly flapping dust from books up at that remote elevation,

and whisking it from stops and pedals. Come sundry rooks, from various

quarters of the sky, back to the great tower; who may be presumed to

enjoy vibration, and to know that bell and organ are going to give it

them. Come a very small and straggling congregation indeed: chiefly

from Minor Canon Corner and the Precincts. Come Mr. Crisparkle, fresh

and bright; and his ministering brethren, not quite so fresh and

bright. Come the Choir in a hurry (always in a hurry, and struggling

into their nightgowns at the last moment, like children shirking bed),

and comes John Jasper leading their line. Last of all comes Mr.

Datchery into a stall, one of a choice empty collection very much at

his service, and glancing about him for Her Royal Highness the Princess

Puffer.

The service is pretty well advanced before Mr. Datchery can discern Her

Royal Highness. But by that time he has made her out, in the shade. She

is behind a pillar, carefully withdrawn from the Choir-master’s view,

but regards him with the closest attention. All unconscious of her

presence, he chants and sings. She grins when he is most musically

fervid, and—yes, Mr. Datchery sees her do it!—shakes her fist at him

behind the pillar’s friendly shelter.

Mr. Datchery looks again, to convince himself. Yes, again! As ugly and

withered as one of the fantastic carvings on the under brackets of the

stall seats, as malignant as the Evil One, as hard as the big brass

eagle holding the sacred books upon his wings (and, according to the

sculptor’s representation of his ferocious attributes, not at all

converted by them), she hugs herself in her lean arms, and then shakes

both fists at the leader of the Choir.

And at that moment, outside the grated door of the Choir, having eluded

the vigilance of Mr. Tope by shifty resources in which he is an adept,

Deputy peeps, sharp-eyed, through the bars, and stares astounded from

the threatener to the threatened.

The service comes to an end, and the servitors disperse to breakfast.

Mr. Datchery accosts his last new acquaintance outside, when the Choir

(as much in a hurry to get their bedgowns off, as they were but now to

get them on) have scuffled away.

“Well, mistress. Good morning. You have seen him?”

“_I’ve_ seen him, deary; _I’ve_ seen him!”

“And you know him?”

“Know him! Better far than all the Reverend Parsons put together know

him.”

Mrs. Tope’s care has spread a very neat, clean breakfast ready for her

lodger. Before sitting down to it, he opens his corner-cupboard door;

takes his bit of chalk from its shelf; adds one thick line to the

score, extending from the top of the cupboard door to the bottom; and

then falls to with an appetite.

APPENDIX: FRAGMENT OF ‘THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD’

When Forster was just finishing his biography of Dickens, he found

among the leaves of one of the novelist’s other manuscripts certain

loose slips in his writing, ‘on paper only half the size of that used

for the tale, so cramped, interlined, and blotted as to be nearly

illegible.’ These proved, upon examination, to contain a suggested

chapter for _Edwin Drood_, in which Sapsea, the auctioneer, appears as

the principal figure, surrounded by a group of characters new to the

story. That chapter, being among the last things Dickens wrote, seems

to contain so much of interest that it may be well to reprint it

here.—ED.

HOW MR. SAPSEA CEASED TO BE A MEMBER OF THE EIGHT CLUB

TOLD BY HIMSELF

Wishing to take the air, I proceeded by a circuitous route to the Club,

it being our weekly night of meeting. I found that we mustered our full

strength. We were enrolled under the denomination of the Eight Club. We

were eight in number; we met at eight o’clock during eight months of

the year; we played eight games of four-handed cribbage, at eightpence

the game; our frugal supper was composed of eight rolls, eight mutton

chops, eight pork sausages, eight baked potatoes, eight marrow-bones,

with eight toasts, and eight bottles of ale. There may, or may not, be

a certain harmony of colour in the ruling idea of this (to adopt a

phrase of our lively neighbours) reunion. It was a little idea of mine.

[Illustration: Facsimile of a page of the manuscript of “The Mystery of

Edwin Drood”]

A somewhat popular member of the Eight Club, was a member by the name

of Kimber. By profession, a dancing-master. A commonplace, hopeful sort

of man, wholly destitute of dignity or knowledge of the world.

As I entered the Club-room, Kimber was making the remark: ‘And he still

half-believes him to be very high in the Church.’

In the act of hanging up my hat on the eighth peg by the door, I caught

Kimber’s visual ray. He lowered it, and passed a remark on the next

change of the moon. I did not take particular notice of this at the

moment, because the world was often pleased to be a little shy of

ecclesiastical topics in my presence. For I felt that I was picked out

(though perhaps only through a coincidence) to a certain extent to

represent what I call our glorious constitution in Church and State.

The phrase may be objected to by cautious minds; but I own to it as

mine. I threw it off in argument some little time back. I said: ‘OUR

GLORIOUS CONSTITUTION in CHURCH and STATE.’

Another member of the Eight Club was Peartree; also member of the Royal

College of Surgeons. Mr. Peartree is not accountable to me for his

opinions, and I say no more of them here than that he attends the poor

gratis whenever they want him, and is not the parish doctor. Mr.

Peartree may justify it to the grasp of _his_ mind thus to do his

republican utmost to bring an appointed officer into contempt. Suffice

it that Mr. Peartree can never justify it to the grasp of _mine_.

Between Peartree and Kimber there was a sickly sort of feeble-minded

alliance. It came under my particular notice when I sold off Kimber by

auction. (Goods taken in execution.) He was a widower in a white

under-waistcoat, and slight shoes with bows, and had two daughters not

ill-looking. Indeed the reverse. Both daughters taught dancing in

scholastic establishments for Young Ladies—had done so at Mrs.

Sapsea’s; nay, Twinkleton’s—and both, in giving lessons, presented the

unwomanly spectacle of having little fiddles tucked under their chins.

In spite of which, the younger one might, if I am correctly informed—I

will raise the veil so far as to say I KNOW she might—have soared for

life from this degrading taint, but for having the class of mind

allotted to what I call the common herd, and being so incredibly devoid

of veneration as to become painfully ludicrous.

When I sold off Kimber without reserve, Peartree (as poor as he can

hold together) had several prime household lots knocked down to him. I

am not to be blinded; and of course it was as plain to me what he was

going to do with them, as it was that he was a brown hulking sort of

revolutionary subject who had been in India with the soldiers, and

ought (for the sake of society) to have his neck broke. I saw the lots

shortly afterwards in Kimber’s lodgings—through the window—and I easily

made out that there had been a sneaking pretence of lending them till

better times. A man with a smaller knowledge of the world than myself

might have been led to suspect that Kimber had held back money from his

creditors, and fraudulently bought the goods. But, besides that I knew

for certain he had no money, I knew that this would involve a species

of forethought not to be made compatible with the frivolity of a

caperer, inoculating other people with capering, for his bread.

As it was the first time I had seen either of those two since the sale,

I kept myself in what I call Abeyance. When selling him up, I had

delivered a few remarks—shall I say a little homily?—concerning Kimber,

which the world did regard as more than usually worth notice. I had

come up into my pulpit, it was said, uncommonly like—and a murmur of

recognition had repeated his (I will not name whose) title, before I

spoke. I had then gone on to say that all present would find, in the

first page of the catalogue that was lying before them, in the last

paragraph before the first lot, the following words: ‘Sold in pursuance

of a writ of execution issued by a creditor.’ I had then proceeded to

remind my friends, that however frivolous, not to say contemptible, the

business by which a man got his goods together, still his goods were as

dear to him, and as cheap to society (if sold without reserve), as

though his pursuits had been of a character that would bear serious

contemplation. I had then divided my text (if I may be allowed so to

call it) into three heads: firstly, Sold; secondly, In pursuance of a

writ of execution; thirdly, Issued by a creditor; with a few moral

reflections on each, and winding up with, ‘Now to the first lot’ in a

manner that was complimented when I afterwards mingled with my hearers.

So, not being certain on what terms I and Kimber stood, I was grave, I

was chilling. Kimber, however, moving to me, I moved to Kimber. (I was

the creditor who had issued the writ. Not that it matters.)

‘I was alluding, Mr. Sapsea,’ said Kimber, ‘to a stranger who entered

into conversation with me in the street as I came to the Club. He had

been speaking to you just before, it seemed, by the churchyard; and

though you had told him who you were, I could hardly persuade him that

you were not high in the Church.’

‘Idiot?’ said Peartree.

‘Ass!’ said Kimber.

‘Idiot and Ass!’ said the other five members.

‘Idiot and Ass, gentlemen,’ I remonstrated, looking around me, ‘are

strong expressions to apply to a young man of good appearance and

address.’ My generosity was roused; I own it.

‘You’ll admit that he must be a Fool,’ said Peartree.

‘You can’t deny that he must be a Blockhead,’ said Kimber.

Their tone of disgust amounted to being offensive. Why should the young

man be so calumniated? What had he done? He had only made an innocent

and natural mistake. I controlled my generous indignation, and said so.

‘Natural?’ repeated Kimber. ‘_He’s_ a Natural!’

The remaining six members of the Eight Club laughed unanimously. It

stung me. It was a scornful laugh. My anger was roused in behalf of an

absent, friendless stranger. I rose (for I had been sitting down).

‘Gentlemen,’ I said with dignity, ‘I will not remain one of this Club

allowing opprobrium to be cast on an unoffending person in his absence.

I will not so violate what I call the sacred rites of hospitality.

Gentlemen, until you know how to behave yourselves better, I leave you.

Gentlemen, until then I withdraw, from this place of meeting, whatever

personal qualifications I may have brought into it. Gentlemen, until

then you cease to be the Eight Club, and must make the best you can of

becoming the Seven.’

I put on my hat and retired. As I went down stairs I distinctly heard

them give a suppressed cheer. Such is the power of demeanour and

knowledge of mankind. I had forced it out of them.

II

Whom should I meet in the street, within a few yards of the door of the

inn where the Club was held, but the self-same young man whose cause I

had felt it my duty so warmly—and I will add so disinterestedly—to take

up.

‘Is it Mr. Sapsea,’ he said doubtfully, ‘or is it—’

‘It is Mr. Sapsea,’ I replied.

‘Pardon me, Mr. Sapsea; you appear warm, sir.’

‘I have been warm,’ I said, ‘and on your account.’ Having stated the

circumstances at some length (my generosity almost overpowered him), I

asked him his name.

‘Mr. Sapsea,’ he answered, looking down, ‘your penetration is so acute,

your glance into the souls of your fellow men is so penetrating, that

if I was hardly enough to deny that my name is Poker, what would it

avail me?’

I don’t know that I had quite exactly made out to a fraction that his

name _was_ Poker, but I daresay I had been pretty near doing it.

‘Well, well,’ said I, trying to put him at his ease by nodding my head

in a soothing way. ‘Your name is Poker, and there is no harm in being

named Poker.’

‘Oh, Mr. Sapsea!’ cried the young man, in a very well-behaved manner.

‘Bless you for those words!’ He then, as if ashamed of having given way

to his feelings, looked down again.

‘Come Poker,’ said I, ‘let me hear more about you. Tell me. Where are

you going to, Poker? and where do you come from?’

‘Ah Mr. Sapsea!’ exclaimed the young man. ‘Disguise from you is

impossible. You know already that I come from somewhere, and am going

somewhere else. If I was to deny it, what would it avail me?’

‘Then don’t deny it,’ was my remark.

‘Or,’ pursued Poker, in a kind of despondent rapture, ‘or if I was to

deny that I came to this town to see and hear you, sir, what would it

avail me? Or if I was to deny—’