The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Part I, Chapters I-V [pp. E1-E8]

S UPPLE-AENT-APPLETONVS' JO UR-ATL.
"Delightfully! Everybody gave me a
present. And we had a feast. And we had
a ball at night."
"A feast and a ball, eh? These occasions
seem to go off tolerably well without me,
Pussy."
"De-lightfully!" cries Rosa, in a quite
spontaneous manner, and without the least
pretence of reserve.
" Hah! And what was the feast? "
" Tarts, oranges, jellies, and shrimps."
" Any partners at the ball? "
"We danced with one another, of course,
sir. But some of the girls made game to be
their brothers. It was so droll!"
"Did anybody make game to be —"
"To be you? 0 dear, yes!" cries Rosa,
laughing with great enjoyment. "That was
the first thing done."
"I hope she did it pretty well," says Ed win, rather doubtfully.
" Oh! It was excellent! —I wouldn't
dance with you, you know."
Edwin scarcely seems to see the force of
this; begs to know if he may take the liberty
to ask why?
"Because I was so tired of you," returns
Rosa. But she quickly adds, and plead ingly, too, seeing displeasure on his face:
"Dear Eddy, you were just as tired of me,
you know."
"Did I say so, Rosa? "
"Say so! Do you ever say so? No, you
only showed it. Oh, she did it so well!"
cries Rosa, in a sudden ecstasy %ith her coun terfeit betrothed.
"It strikes me that she must be a devilish
impudent girl," says Edwin Drood. "And
so, Pussy you have passed your last birthday
il this old house."
"Ahli, yes!" Rosa clasps her hands
looks down with a sigh, and shakes her head.
"You seem to be sorry, Rosa? "
"I am sorry forthe poor old place. Somehow, I feel as if it would miss me, when I
am gone so far away, so young."
"Perhaps we had better stop short, Rosa?"
She looks up at him with a swift, bright
look; next moment shakes her head, sighs,
and looks down again.
"That is to say, is it, Pussy, that we are
both resigned? "
She nods her head again, and after a
short silence, quaintly bursts out with, " You
know we must be married and married from
here, Eddy, or the poor girls will be so dreadfully disappointed!"
For the moment there is more of compassion, both for her and for himself, in her affianced husband's face, than there is of love.
He checks the look, and asks, "Shall I take
you out for a walk, Rosa dear? "
Rosa dear does not seem at all clear on
this point, until her face which has been
comically reflective, brightens. "Oh, yes,
Eddy; let us go for a walk! And I tell you
what we'll do. You shall pretend that you
are engaged to somebody else, and I'll pretend that I am not engaged to anybody, and
then we shan't quarrel."
"Do you think that will prevent our falling out, Rosa?."
"I know it will. Hush! Pretend to look
out of window-Mrs. Tisher!"
Through a fortuitous concourse of accidents, the matronly Tisher heaves in sight,
says, in rustling through the room like the
legendary ghost of a dowager in silken skirts,
"I hope I see Mr. Drood well; though I
needn't ask, if I may judge from his complexion? I trust I disturb no one; but there
sas a paper-knife-oh, thank you, I am
sure!" and disappears with her prize.
" One other thing you must do, Eddy, to
oblige me," says Rosebud. "The moment
we get into the street, you must put me outside, and keep close to the house yourself
— squeeze and graze yourself against it."
'"By all A[eans, Rosa, if you wish it.
Might ~ ask why?."
"' 0h, because I don't want the girls to see
you."
"It's a fine day; but would you like me
to carry an umbrella up.?"
"Don't be foolish, sir. You haven't got
polished-leather boots on," pouting, with one
shoulder raised.
"Perhaps that might escape the notice of
the girls, even if they did see me," remarks
Edwin, looking down at his boots with a sudden distaste for them.
"Nothing escapes their notice, sir. And
then I know what would happen. Some of
them would begin reflecting on me by saying
(for thcy are free) that they never will on any
account engage themselves to lovers without
polished-leather boots. Hark! Miss Twin kleton. I'll ask for leave."
That discreet lady being indeed heard
without, inquiring'of nobody in a blandly conversational tone as she advances, "Eh?
Indeed! Are you quite sure you saw my
mother-of-pearl button-holder on the work table in my room?" is at once solicited for
walking - leave, and graciously accords it.
And soon the young couple go out of the
Nuns' House, taking all precautions against
the discovery of the so vitally-defectiveboots
of Mr. Edwin Drood-precautions, let us
hope, effective for the peace of Mrs. Edwin
Drood that is to be.
" Which way shall we take, Rosa?"
Rosa replies, "' I want to go to the Lumps of-Delight shop."
"To the-"
"A Turkish sweetmeat, sir. My gra cious me! don't you understand any thing?
Call yourself an Engineer, and not know
that?"
" Why, how should I know it, Rosa? "
"Because I am very fond of them. But
oh! I forgot what we are to pretend. No,
you needn't know any thing about them;
never mind."
So he is gloomily borne off to the Lumps of-Delight shop, where Rosa makes her pur chase, and, after offering some to him (which
he rather indignantly declines), begins to
partake of it with great zest, previously taking off and rolling up a pair of little pink
gloves, like rose-leaves, and occasionally putting her little pink fingers to her rosy lips, to
cleanse them from the Dust of Delight that
comes off the Lumps.
"Now, be a good-tempered Eddy, and pretend. And so you are engaged. "
"And so I am engaged.
"Is she nice? "
"Charming."
"Tall? "
"Immensely tall!" (Rosa being short.)
"Must be gawky, I should think," is
Rosa's quiet commentary.
"I beg your pardon; not at all," contradiction rising in him. "What is termed a
fine woman, a splendid woman."
" Big nose, no doubt," is the quiet commnentary again
"Not a little one, certainly," is the quick
reply. (Rosa's being a little one.)
"Long pale nose, with a red nob in the
middle. 1 know the sort of nose," says
Rosa, with a satisfied nod, and tranquilly enjoying the Lumps.
" You don't know the sort of nose, Rosa,"
with some warmth; " because it's nothing
of the kind."
"Not a pale nose, Eddy? "
"No." Determined not to assent.
"A red nose? Oh! I don't like red noses.
However, to be sure, she can always powder
it."
"She would scorn to powder it," says
Edwin, becoming heated.
"Would she? What a stupid thing she
must be! Is she stupid in every thing?."
" No. In nothing."
After a pause, in which the whimsically
wicked face has not been unobservant of
him, Roosa says:
And this most sensible of creatures likes
the idea of being carried off to Egypt; does
she, Eddy?~"
"Yes. She takes a sensible interest in
triumphs of engineering skill especially
when they are to change the whole condition
of an undeveloped country."
"L Lor!" says Rosa, shrugging her shoulders with a little laugh of wonder.
"Do you object," Edwin inquires, with a
majestic turn of his eyes downward upon
the fairy figure-" do you object, Rosa, to her
feeling that interest?"
"Object? My dear Eddy! But really.
Doesn't she hate boilers and things?"
" I can answer for her not being so idiotic
as to hate Boilers," he returns, with angry
emphasis; "though I cannot answer for her
views about things, really not understanding
what Things are meant.
"But don't she hate Arabs, and Turks,
and Fellahs, and people?"
"Certainly not," very firmly.
"At least she must hate the Pyramids?
Come Eddy?
" Why should she be such a little-tall I
mean - goose, as to hate the Pyramids,
Rosa? "
" Ah! you should hear Miss Twinkleton," often nodding her head, and much
enjoying the Lumps, " bore about them
and then you wouldn't ask. Tiresome old
burying-grounds! Isises, and Ibises, and Cheopses, and Pharaohses; who cares about
them?. And then there was Belzoni or some
body, dragged out by the legs, half-choked
with bats and dust. All the grls say serve
him right, and hope it hurt him, and wish he
had been quite choked."
~The two youthful figures, side by side,
but not now arm in arm, wander discontentedly about the old Close; and each sometimes stops and slowly imprints a deeper
footstep in the fallen leaves.
" Well!" says Edwin, after a lengthy silence. " According to custom. We can't
get on, Rosa."
Rosa tosses her head, and says she don't
want to get on.
"That's a pretty sentiment, Rosa, consid ering."
'F Considering What? "
" If I say what, you'll go wrong again."
'" You'll go wrong, you mean, Eddy.
Don't be ungenerous."
" Ungenerous! I like that!"
"Then I don't like that, and so I tell you
plainly," Rosa pouts.
"Now, Rosa, I put it to you. Who disparaged my profession, my destination-"
" You are not going to be buried in the
Pyramids, I hope?" she interrupts, arching
her delicate eyebrows. " You never said you
were. If you are why haven't you mentioned it to me? can't find out your plans
by instinct."
"Now, Rosa, you know very well what I
mean, my dear."
"Well, then, why did you begin with
your detestable red-nosed giantesses? And
she would, she would, she would, she would,
she WOULD powder it!" cries Rosa, in a little
burst of comical contradictory spleen.
"Somehow or other, I never can come
right in these discusions," says Edwin, sighing and becoming resigned.
* "How is it possible, sir, that you ever can
come right when you're always wrong? And
as to Belzoni, I suppose he's dead-i'm sure
I hope he is-and how can his legs, or his
chokes, concern you? "
" It is nearly time for your return, Rosa.
We have not had a very happy walk, have
we?"
"A happy walk? A detestably unhappy
walk, sir. If I go up-stairs the moment I get
in and cry till I can't take my dancing-lesson, you are responsible, mind! "
"Let us be friends, Rosa."
"Ah! " cries Rosa, shaking her head and
bursting into real tears. "I wish we could
be friends! It's because we can't be friends,
that we try one another so. I am a young
little thing, Eddy, to have an old heartache;
but I really, really have, sometimes. Don't
be angry. I know you have one yourself, too
often. We should both of us have done better, if What is to be had been left, What
might have been. I am quite a serious little
thing now, and not teasing you. Let each of
us forbear, this one time, on our own account,
and on the other's!"
Disarmed by this glimpse of a woman's
nature in the spoilt child, though for an instant disposed to resent it as seeming to involve the enforced infliction of himself upon
her, Edwin Drood stands watching her as
she childishly cries and sobs, with both
hands to the handkerchief at her eyes, and
then-she becoming more composed, and indeed beginning inner young inconstancy to
laugh at herself for having been so movedleads her to a seat hardbyunderthe elm-trees.
"One clear word of understanding, Pussy
dear. I am not clever out of my own linenow I come to think of it, I don't know that I
am particularly clever in it-but I want to
do right. There is not-there may be-I
really don't see my way to what I want to
say, but I must say it before we part-there
is not any other young-"
"O no, Eddy! It's generous of you to
ask me; but no, no, no!"'
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