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Chapter VII
MORE CONFIDENCES THAN ONE
'I know very little of that gentleman, sir,' said Neville to the
Minor Canon as they turned back.
'You know very little of your guardian?' the Minor Canon repeated.
'Almost nothing!'
'How came he--'
'To BE my guardian? I'll tell you, sir. I suppose you know that
we come (my sister and I) from Ceylon?'
'Indeed, no.'
'I wonder at that. We lived with a stepfather there. Our mother
died there, when we were little children. We have had a wretched
existence. She made him our guardian, and he was a miserly wretch
who grudged us food to eat, and clothes to wear. At his death, he
passed us over to this man; for no better reason that I know of,
than his being a friend or connexion of his, whose name was always
in print and catching his attention.'
'That was lately, I suppose?'
'Quite lately, sir. This stepfather of ours was a cruel brute as
well as a grinding one. It is well he died when he did, or I might
have killed him.'
Mr. Crisparkle stopped short in the moonlight and looked at his
hopeful pupil in consternation.
'I surprise you, sir?' he said, with a quick change to a submissive
manner.
'You shock me; unspeakably shock me.'
The pupil hung his head for a little while, as they walked on, and
then said: 'You never saw him beat your sister. I have seen him
beat mine, more than once or twice, and I never forgot it.'
'Nothing,' said Mr. Crisparkle, 'not even a beloved and beautiful
sister's tears under dastardly ill-usage;' he became less severe,
in spite of himself, as his indignation rose; 'could justify those
horrible expressions that you used.'
'I am sorry I used them, and especially to you, sir. I beg to
recall them. But permit me to set you right on one point. You
spoke of my sister's tears. My sister would have let him tear her
to pieces, before she would have let him believe that he could make
her shed a tear.'
Mr. Crisparkle reviewed those mental notes of his, and was neither
at all surprised to hear it, nor at all disposed to question it.
'Perhaps you will think it strange, sir,'--this was said in a
hesitating voice--'that I should so soon ask you to allow me to
confide in you, and to have the kindness to hear a word or two from
me in my defence?'
'Defence?' Mr. Crisparkle repeated. 'You are not on your defence,
Mr. Neville.'
'I think I am, sir. At least I know I should be, if you were
better acquainted with my character.'
'Well, Mr. Neville,' was the rejoinder. 'What if you leave me to
find it out?'
'Since it is your pleasure, sir,' answered the young man, with a
quick change in his manner to sullen disappointment: 'since it is
your pleasure to check me in my impulse, I must submit.'
There was that in the tone of this short speech which made the
conscientious man to whom it was addressed uneasy. It hinted to
him that he might, without meaning it, turn aside a trustfulness
beneficial to a mis-shapen young mind and perhaps to his own power
of directing and improving it. They were within sight of the
lights in his windows, and he stopped.
'Let us turn back and take a turn or two up and down, Mr. Neville,
or you may not have time to finish what you wish to say to me. You
are hasty in thinking that I mean to check you. Quite the
contrary. I invite your confidence.'
'You have invited it, sir, without knowing it, ever since I came
here. I say "ever since," as if I had been here a week. The truth
is, we came here (my sister and I) to quarrel with you, and affront
you, and break away again.'
'Really?' said Mr. Crisparkle, at a dead loss for anything else to
say.
'You see, we could not know what you were beforehand, sir; could
we?'
'Clearly not,' said Mr. Crisparkle.
'And having liked no one else with whom we have ever been brought
into contact, we had made up our minds not to like you.'
'Really?' said Mr. Crisparkle again.
'But we do like you, sir, and we see an unmistakable difference
between your house and your reception of us, and anything else we
have ever known. This--and my happening to be alone with you--and
everything around us seeming so quiet and peaceful after Mr.
Honeythunder's departure--and Cloisterham being so old and grave
and beautiful, with the moon shining on it--these things inclined
me to open my heart.'
'I quite understand, Mr. Neville. And it is salutary to listen to
such influences.'
'In describing my own imperfections, sir, I must ask you not to
suppose that I am describing my sister's. She has come out of the
disadvantages of our miserable life, as much better than I am, as
that Cathedral tower is higher than those chimneys.'
Mr. Crisparkle in his own breast was not so sure of this.
'I have had, sir, from my earliest remembrance, to suppress a
deadly and bitter hatred. This has made me secret and revengeful.
I have been always tyrannically held down by the strong hand. This
has driven me, in my weakness, to the resource of being false and
mean. I have been stinted of education, liberty, money, dress, the
very necessaries of life, the commonest pleasures of childhood, the
commonest possessions of youth. This has caused me to be utterly
wanting in I don't know what emotions, or remembrances, or good
instincts--I have not even a name for the thing, you see!--that you
have had to work upon in other young men to whom you have been
accustomed.'
'This is evidently true. But this is not encouraging,' thought Mr.
Crisparkle as they turned again.
'And to finish with, sir: I have been brought up among abject and
servile dependents, of an inferior race, and I may easily have
contracted some affinity with them. Sometimes, I don't know but
that it may be a drop of what is tigerish in their blood.'
'As in the case of that remark just now,' thought Mr. Crisparkle.
'In a last word of reference to my sister, sir (we are twin
children), you ought to know, to her honour, that nothing in our
misery ever subdued her, though it often cowed me. When we ran
away from it (we ran away four times in six years, to be soon
brought back and cruelly punished), the flight was always of her
planning and leading. Each time she dressed as a boy, and showed
the daring of a man. I take it we were seven years old when we
first decamped; but I remember, when I lost the pocket-knife with
which she was to have cut her hair short, how desperately she tried
to tear it out, or bite it off. I have nothing further to say,
sir, except that I hope you will bear with me and make allowance
for me.'
'Of that, Mr. Neville, you may be sure,' returned the Minor Canon.
'I don't preach more than I can help, and I will not repay your
confidence with a sermon. But I entreat you to bear in mind, very
seriously and steadily, that if I am to do you any good, it can
only be with your own assistance; and that you can only render
that, efficiently, by seeking aid from Heaven.'
'I will try to do my part, sir.'
'And, Mr. Neville, I will try to do mine. Here is my hand on it.
May God bless our endeavours!'
They were now standing at his house-door, and a cheerful sound of
voices and laughter was heard within.
'We will take one more turn before going in,' said Mr. Crisparkle,
'for I want to ask you a question. When you said you were in a
changed mind concerning me, you spoke, not only for yourself, but
for your sister too?'
'Undoubtedly I did, sir.'
'Excuse me, Mr. Neville, but I think you have had no opportunity of
communicating with your sister, since I met you. Mr. Honeythunder
was very eloquent; but perhaps I may venture to say, without ill-
nature, that he rather monopolised the occasion. May you not have
answered for your sister without sufficient warrant?'
Neville shook his head with a proud smile.
'You don't know, sir, yet, what a complete understanding can exist
between my sister and me, though no spoken word--perhaps hardly as
much as a look--may have passed between us. She not only feels as
I have described, but she very well knows that I am taking this
opportunity of speaking to you, both for her and for myself.'
Mr. Crisparkle looked in his face, with some incredulity; but his
face expressed such absolute and firm conviction of the truth of
what he said, that Mr. Crisparkle looked at the pavement, and
mused, until they came to his door again.
'I will ask for one more turn, sir, this time,' said the young man,
with a rather heightened colour rising in his face. 'But for Mr.
Honeythunder's--I think you called it eloquence, sir?' (somewhat
slyly.)
'I--yes, I called it eloquence,' said Mr. Crisparkle.
'But for Mr. Honeythunder's eloquence, I might have had no need to
ask you what I am going to ask you. This Mr. Edwin Drood, sir: I
think that's the name?'
'Quite correct,' said Mr. Crisparkle. 'D-r-double o-d.'
'Does he--or did he--read with you, sir?'
'Never, Mr. Neville. He comes here visiting his relation, Mr.
Jasper.'
'Is Miss Bud his relation too, sir?'
('Now, why should he ask that, with sudden superciliousness?'
thought Mr. Crisparkle.) Then he explained, aloud, what he knew of
the little story of their betrothal.
'O! THAT'S it, is it?' said the young man. 'I understand his air
of proprietorship now!'
This was said so evidently to himself, or to anybody rather than
Mr. Crisparkle, that the latter instinctively felt as if to notice
it would be almost tantamount to noticing a passage in a letter
which he had read by chance over the writer's shoulder. A moment
afterwards they re-entered the house.
Mr. Jasper was seated at the piano as they came into his drawing-
room, and was accompanying Miss Rosebud while she sang. It was a
consequence of his playing the accompaniment without notes, and of
her being a heedless little creature, very apt to go wrong, that he
followed her lips most attentively, with his eyes as well as hands;
carefully and softly hinting the key-note from time to time.
Standing with an arm drawn round her, but with a face far more
intent on Mr. Jasper than on her singing, stood Helena, between
whom and her brother an instantaneous recognition passed, in which
Mr. Crisparkle saw, or thought he saw, the understanding that had
been spoken of, flash out. Mr. Neville then took his admiring
station, leaning against the piano, opposite the singer; Mr.
Crisparkle sat down by the china shepherdess; Edwin Drood gallantly
furled and unfurled Miss Twinkleton's fan; and that lady passively
claimed that sort of exhibitor's proprietorship in the
accomplishment on view, which Mr. Tope, the Verger, daily claimed
in the Cathedral service.
The song went on. It was a sorrowful strain of parting, and the
fresh young voice was very plaintive and tender. As Jasper watched
the pretty lips, and ever and again hinted the one note, as though
it were a low whisper from himself, the voice became less steady,
until all at once the singer broke into a burst of tears, and
shrieked out, with her hands over her eyes: 'I can't bear this! I
am frightened! Take me away!'
With one swift turn of her lithe figures Helena laid the little
beauty on a sofa, as if she had never caught her up. Then, on one
knee beside her, and with one hand upon her rosy mouth, while with
the other she appealed to all the rest, Helena said to them: 'It's
nothing; it's all over; don't speak to her for one minute, and she
is well!'
Jasper's hands had, in the same instant, lifted themselves from the
keys, and were now poised above them, as though he waited to
resume. In that attitude he yet sat quiet: not even looking
round, when all the rest had changed their places and were
reassuring one another.
'Pussy's not used to an audience; that's the fact,' said Edwin
Drood. 'She got nervous, and couldn't hold out. Besides, Jack,
you are such a conscientious master, and require so much, that I
believe you make her afraid of you. No wonder.'
'No wonder,' repeated Helena.
'There, Jack, you hear! You would be afraid of him, under similar
circumstances, wouldn't you, Miss Landless?'
'Not under any circumstances,' returned Helena.
Jasper brought down his hands, looked over his shoulder, and begged
to thank Miss Landless for her vindication of his character. Then
he fell to dumbly playing, without striking the notes, while his
little pupil was taken to an open window for air, and was otherwise
petted and restored. When she was brought back, his place was
empty. 'Jack's gone, Pussy,' Edwin told her. 'I am more than half
afraid he didn't like to be charged with being the Monster who had
frightened you.' But she answered never a word, and shivered, as
if they had made her a little too cold.
Miss Twinkleton now opining that indeed these were late hours, Mrs.
Crisparkle, for finding ourselves outside the walls of the Nuns'
House, and that we who undertook the formation of the future wives
and mothers of England (the last words in a lower voice, as
requiring to be communicated in confidence) were really bound
(voice coming up again) to set a better example than one of rakish
habits, wrappers were put in requisition, and the two young
cavaliers volunteered to see the ladies home. It was soon done,
and the gate of the Nuns' House closed upon them.
The boarders had retired, and only Mrs. Tisher in solitary vigil
awaited the new pupil. Her bedroom being within Rosa's, very
little introduction or explanation was necessary, before she was
placed in charge of her new friend, and left for the night.
'This is a blessed relief, my dear,' said Helena. 'I have been
dreading all day, that I should be brought to bay at this time.'
'There are not many of us,' returned Rosa, 'and we are good-natured
girls; at least the others are; I can answer for them.'
'I can answer for you,' laughed Helena, searching the lovely little
face with her dark, fiery eyes, and tenderly caressing the small
figure. 'You will be a friend to me, won't you?'
'I hope so. But the idea of my being a friend to you seems too
absurd, though.'
'Why?'
'O, I am such a mite of a thing, and you are so womanly and
handsome. You seem to have resolution and power enough to crush
me. I shrink into nothing by the side of your presence even.'
'I am a neglected creature, my dear, unacquainted with all
accomplishments, sensitively conscious that I have everything to
learn, and deeply ashamed to own my ignorance.'
'And yet you acknowledge everything to me!' said Rosa.
'My pretty one, can I help it? There is a fascination in you.'
'O! is there though?' pouted Rosa, half in jest and half in
earnest. 'What a pity Master Eddy doesn't feel it more!'
Of course her relations towards that young gentleman had been
already imparted in Minor Canon Corner.
'Why, surely he must love you with all his heart!' cried Helena,
with an earnestness that threatened to blaze into ferocity if he
didn't.
'Eh? O, well, I suppose he does,' said Rosa, pouting again; 'I am
sure I have no right to say he doesn't. Perhaps it's my fault.
Perhaps I am not as nice to him as I ought to be. I don't think I
am. But it IS so ridiculous!'
Helena's eyes demanded what was.
'WE are,' said Rosa, answering as if she had spoken. 'We are such
a ridiculous couple. And we are always quarrelling.'
'Why?'
'Because we both know we are ridiculous, my dear!' Rosa gave that
answer as if it were the most conclusive answer in the world.
Helena's masterful look was intent upon her face for a few moments,
and then she impulsively put out both her hands and said:
'You will be my friend and help me?'
'Indeed, my dear, I will,' replied Rosa, in a tone of affectionate
childishness that went straight and true to her heart; 'I will be
as good a friend as such a mite of a thing can be to such a noble
creature as you. And be a friend to me, please; I don't understand
myself: and I want a friend who can understand me, very much
indeed.'
Helena Landless kissed her, and retaining both her hands said:
'Who is Mr. Jasper?'
Rosa turned aside her head in answering: 'Eddy's uncle, and my
music-master.'
'You do not love him?'
'Ugh!' She put her hands up to her face, and shook with fear or
horror.
'You know that he loves you?'
'O, don't, don't, don't!' cried Rosa, dropping on her knees, and
clinging to her new resource. 'Don't tell me of it! He terrifies
me. He haunts my thoughts, like a dreadful ghost. I feel that I
am never safe from him. I feel as if he could pass in through the
wall when he is spoken of.' She actually did look round, as if she
dreaded to see him standing in the shadow behind her.
'Try to tell me more about it, darling.'
'Yes, I will, I will. Because you are so strong. But hold me the
while, and stay with me afterwards.'
'My child! You speak as if he had threatened you in some dark
way.'
'He has never spoken to me about--that. Never.'
'What has he done?'
'He has made a slave of me with his looks. He has forced me to
understand him, without his saying a word; and he has forced me to
keep silence, without his uttering a threat. When I play, he never
moves his eyes from my hands. When I sing, he never moves his eyes
from my lips. When he corrects me, and strikes a note, or a chord,
or plays a passage, he himself is in the sounds, whispering that he
pursues me as a lover, and commanding me to keep his secret. I
avoid his eyes, but he forces me to see them without looking at
them. Even when a glaze comes over them (which is sometimes the
case), and he seems to wander away into a frightful sort of dream
in which he threatens most, he obliges me to know it, and to know
that he is sitting close at my side, more terrible to me than
ever.'
'What is this imagined threatening, pretty one? What is
threatened?'
'I don't know. I have never even dared to think or wonder what it
is.'
'And was this all, to-night?'
'This was all; except that to-night when he watched my lips so
closely as I was singing, besides feeling terrified I felt ashamed
and passionately hurt. It was as if he kissed me, and I couldn't
bear it, but cried out. You must never breathe this to any one.
Eddy is devoted to him. But you said to-night that you would not
be afraid of him, under any circumstances, and that gives me--who
am so much afraid of him--courage to tell only you. Hold me! Stay
with me! I am too frightened to be left by myself.'
The lustrous gipsy-face drooped over the clinging arms and bosom,
and the wild black hair fell down protectingly over the childish
form. There was a slumbering gleam of fire in the intense dark
eyes, though they were then softened with compassion and
admiration. Let whomsoever it most concerned look well to it!
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