Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0057/00572.txt

Text File | 1993-07-27 | 16KB | 370 lines

$Unique_ID{bob00572}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Mystery Of Edwin Drood, The
Chapter XXIII - Part II}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Dickens, Charles}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{datchery
name
deputy
come
gentleman
like
way
comes
choir
last}
$Date{}
$Log{}
Title:       Mystery Of Edwin Drood, The
Author:      Dickens, Charles

Chapter XXIII - Part II

     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
standstill: '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 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.

     'Oh,' 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 change 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 after 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 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 him with: '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." Likeways 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' Jasper'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 scorer
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 Choirmaster'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.

     * * * * * * * *