The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0057/00570.txt

Text File | 1992-08-07 | 18KB | 352 lines

$Unique_ID{bob00570}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Mystery Of Edwin Drood, The
Chapter XXII - Part II}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Dickens, Charles}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{miss
twinkleton
billickin
rosa
grewgious
yourself
am
dear
lady
seemed
see
pictures
see
figures
}
$Date{}
$Log{See Up The River*0057001.scf
}
Title:       Mystery Of Edwin Drood, The
Author:      Dickens, Charles

Chapter XXII - Part II

     By this time Mr. Grewgious had his agreement-lines, and his earnest-
money, ready.  'I have signed it for the ladies, ma'am,' he said, 'and
you'll have the goodness to sign it for yourself, Christian and Surname,
there, if you please.'

     'Mr. Grewgious,' said Mrs. Billickin in a new burst of candour, 'no,
sir!  You must excuse the Christian name.'

     Mr. Grewgious stared at her.

     'The door-plate is used as a protection,' said Mrs. Billickin, 'and
acts as such, and go from it I will not.'

     Mr. Grewgious stared at Rosa.

     'No, Mr. Grewgious, you must excuse me.  So long as this 'ouse is
known indefinite as Billickin's, and so long as it is a doubt with the
riff-raff where Billickin may be hidin', near the street-door or down the
airy, and what his weight and size, so long I feel safe.  But commit
myself to a solitary female statement, no, Miss!  Nor would you for a
moment wish,' said Mrs. Billickin, with a strong sense of injury, 'to take
that advantage of your sex, if you were not brought to it by inconsiderate
example.'

     Rosa reddening as if she had made some most disgraceful attempt to
overreach the good lady, besought Mr. Grewgious to rest content with any
signature.  And accordingly, in a baronial way, the sign-manual Billickin
got appended to the document.

     Details were then settled for taking possession on the next day but
one, when Miss Twinkleton might be reasonably expected; and Rosa went back
to Furnival's Inn on her guardian's arm.

     Behold Mr. Tartar walking up and down Furnival's Inn, checking
himself when he saw them coming, and advancing towards them!

     'It occurred to me,' hinted Mr. Tartar, 'that we might go up the
river, the weather being so delicious and the tide serving.  I have a boat
of my own at the Temple stairs.'

     'I have not been up the river for this many a day,' said Mr.
Grewgious, tempted.

     'I was never up the river,' added Rosa.

     Within half an hour they were setting this matter right by going up
the river.  The tide was running with them, the afternoon was charming.
Mr. Tartar's boat was perfect.  Mr. Tartar and Lobley (Mr. Tartar's man)
pulled a pair of oars.  Mr. Tartar had a yacht, it seemed, lying somewhere
down by Greenhithe; and Mr. Tartar's man had charge of this yacht, and was
detached upon his present service.  He was a jolly-favoured man, with
tawny hair and whiskers, and a big red face.  He was the dead image of the
sun in old woodcuts, his hair and whiskers answering for rays all around
him.  Resplendent in the bow of the boat, he was a shining sight, with a
man-of-war's man's shirt on - or off, according to opinion - and his arms
and breast tattooed all sorts of patterns.  Lobley seemed to take it
easily, and so did Mr. Tartar; yet their oars bent as they pulled and the
boat bounded under them.  Mr. Tartar talked as if he were doing nothing,
to Rosa who was really doing nothing, and to Mr. Grewgious who was doing
this much that he steered all wrong; but what did that matter, when a turn
of Mr. Tartar's skilful wrist, or a mere grin of Mr. Lobley's over the
bow, put all to rights!  The tide bore them on in the gayest and most
sparkling manner, until they stopped to dine in some everlastingly-green
garden, needing no matter-of-fact identification here; and then the tide
obligingly turned - being devoted to that party alone for that day; and as
they floated idly among some osier-beds, Rosa tried what she could do in
the rowing way, and came off splendidly, being much assisted; and Mr.
Grewgious tried what he could do, and came off on his back, doubled up
with an oar under his chin, being not assisted at all.  Then there was an
interval of rest under boughs (such rest!) what time Mr. Lobley mopped,
and, arranging cushions, stretchers, and the like, danced the tight-rope
the whole length of the boat like a man to whom shoes were a superstition
and stockings slavery; and then came the sweet return among delicious
odours of limes in bloom, and musical ripplings; and, all too soon, the
great black city cast its shadow on the waters, and its dark bridges
spanned them as death spans life, and the everlasting-green garden seemed
to be left for everlasting, unregainable and far away.

[See Up The River: The tide was running with them, the afternoon was charming]

     'Cannot people get through life without gritty stages, I wonder?'
Rosa thought next day, when the town was very gritty again, and everything
had a strange and an uncomfortable appearance of seeming to wait for
something that wouldn't come.  No. She began to think, that, now the
Cloisterham schooldays had glided past and gone, the gritty stages would
begin to set in at intervals and make themselves wearily known!

     Yet what did Rosa expect?  Did she expect Miss Twinkleton?  Miss
Twinkleton duly came.  Forth from her back parlour issued the Billickin to
receive Miss Twinkleton, and War was in the Billickin's eye from that fell
moment.

     Miss Twinkleton brought a quantity of luggage with her, having all
Rosa's as well as her own.  The Billickin took it ill that Miss
Twinkleton's mind, being sorely disturbed by this luggage, failed to take
in her personal identity with that clearness of perception which was due
to its demands.  Stateliness mounted her gloomy throne upon the
Billickin's brow in consequence.  And when Miss Twinkleton, in agitation
taking stock of her trunks and packages, of which she had seventeen,
particularly counted in the Billickin herself as number eleven, the B.
found it necessary to repudiate.

     'Things cannot too soon be put upon the footing,' said she, with a
candour so demonstrative as to be almost obstrusive, 'that the person of
the 'ouse is not a box nor yet a bundle, nor a carpet-bag.  No, I am 'ily
obleeged to you, Miss Twinkleton, nor yet a beggar.'

     This last disclaimer had reference to Miss Twinkleton's distractedly
pressing two-and-sixpence on her, instead of the cabman.

     Thus cast off, Miss Twinkleton wildly inquired, 'which gentleman' was
to be paid?  There being two gentlemen in that position (Miss Twinkleton
having arrived with two cabs), each gentleman on being paid held forth his
two-and-sixpence on the flat of his open hand, and, with a speechless
stare and a dropped jaw, displayed his wrong to heaven and earth.
Terrified by this alarming spectacle, Miss Twinkleton placed another
shilling in each hand; at the same time appealing to the law in flurried
accents, and recounting her luggage this time with the two gentlemen in,
who caused the total to come out complicated.  Meanwhile the two
gentlemen, each looking very hard at the last shilling grumblingly, as if
it might become eighteenpence if he kept his eyes on it, descended the
doorsteps, ascended their carriages, and drove away, leaving Miss
Twinkleton on a bonnet-box in tears.

     The Billickin beheld this manifestation of weakness without sympathy,
and gave directions for 'a young man to be got in' to wrestle with the
luggage.  When that gladiator had disappeared from the arena, peace
ensued, and the new lodgers dined.

     But the Billickin had somehow come to the knowledge that Miss
Twinkleton kept a school.  The leap from that knowledge to the inference
that Miss Twinkleton set herself to teach her something, was easy.  'But
you don't do it,' soliloquised the Billickin; 'I am not your pupil,
whatever she,' meaning Rosa, 'may be, poor thing!'

     Miss Twinkleton, on the other hand, having changed her dress and
recovered her spirits, was animated by a bland desire to improve the
occasion in all ways, and to be as serene