The Mystery of Edwin Drood Read Free Page B

on the hearth. Not relaxing
his own gaze on the fire, but rather strengthening it with a fierce, firm grip
upon his elbow-chair, the elder sits for a few moments rigid, and then, with
thick drops standing on his forehead, and a sharp catch of his breath, becomes
as he was before. On his so subsiding in his chair, his nephew gently and assiduously
tends him while he quite recovers. When Jasper is restored, he lays a tender
hand upon his nephew's shoulder, and, in a tone of voice less troubled than the
purport of his words—indeed with something of raillery or banter in it—thus
addresses him:
     
  “There is said to be a hidden skeleton
in every house; but you thought there was none in mine, dear Ned.”
     
  “Upon my life, Jack, I did think so.
However, when I come to consider that even in Pussy's house—if she had one—and
in mine—if I had one—”
     
  “You were going to say (but that I interrupted
you in spite of myself) what a quiet life mine is. No whirl and uproar around
me, no distracting commerce or calculation, no risk, no change of place, myself
devoted to the art I pursue, my business my pleasure.”
     
  “I really was going to say something of
the kind, Jack; but you see, you, speaking of yourself, almost necessarily
leave out much that I should have put in. For instance: I should have put in
the foreground your being so much respected as Lay Precentor, or Lay Clerk, or
whatever you call it, of this Cathedral; your enjoying the reputation of having
done such wonders with the choir; your choosing your society, and holding such
an independent position in this queer old place; your gift of teaching (why,
even Pussy, who don't like being taught, says there never was such a Master as
you are!), and your connexion.”
     
  “Yes; I saw what you were tending to. I
hate it.”
     
  “Hate it, Jack?” (Much bewildered.)
     
  “I hate it. The cramped monotony of my
existence grinds me away by the grain. How does our service sound to you?”
     
  “Beautiful! Quite celestial!”
     
  “It often sounds to me quite devilish. I
am so weary of it. The echoes of my own voice among the arches seem to mock me
with my daily drudging round. No wretched monk who droned his life away in that
gloomy place, before me, can have been more tired of it than I am. He could
take for relief (and did take) to carving demons out of the stalls and seats
and desks. What shall I do? Must I take to carving them out of my heart?”
     
   
     
  “I thought you had so exactly found your
niche in life, Jack,” Edwin Drood returns, astonished, bending forward in his
chair to lay a sympathetic hand on Jasper's knee, and looking at him with an
anxious face.
     
  “I know you thought so. They all think
so.”
     
  “Well, I suppose they do,” says Edwin, meditating
aloud. “Pussy thinks so.”
     
  “When did she tell you that?”
     
  “The last time I was here. You remember
when. Three months ago.”
     
  “How did she phrase it?”
     
  “O, she only said that she had become
your pupil, and that you were made for your vocation.”
     
  The younger man glances at the portrait.
The elder sees it in him.
     
  “Anyhow, my dear Ned,” Jasper resumes,
as he shakes his head with a grave cheerfulness, “I must subdue myself to my
vocation: which is much the same thing outwardly. It's too late to find another
now. This is a confidence between us.”
     
  “It shall be sacredly preserved, Jack.”
     
  “I have reposed it in you, because—”
     
  “I feel it, I assure you. Because we are
fast friends, and because you love and trust me, as I love and trust you. Both
hands, Jack.”
     
  As each stands looking into the other's
eyes, and as the uncle holds the nephew's hands, the uncle thus proceeds:
     
  “You know now, don't you, that even a
poor monotonous chorister and grinder of music—in his niche—may be troubled
with some stray sort of ambition,