The Mystery of Edwin Drood | Page 4

with Mrs. Dean and Miss Dean.
Mr. Crisparkle, Minor Canon, fair and rosy, and perpetually pitching
himself head-foremost into all the deep running water in the
surrounding country; Mr. Crisparkle, Minor Canon, early riser, musical,
classical, cheerful, kind, good-natured, social, contented, and boy-like;
Mr. Crisparkle, Minor Canon and good man, lately 'Coach' upon the
chief Pagan high roads, but since promoted by a patron (grateful for a
well-taught son) to his present Christian beat; betakes himself to the
gatehouse, on his way home to his early tea.
'Sorry to hear from Tope that you have not been well, Jasper.'
'O, it was nothing, nothing!'
'You look a little worn.'
'Do I? O, I don't think so. What is better, I don't feel so. Tope has made
too much of it, I suspect. It's his trade to make the most of everything
appertaining to the Cathedral, you know.'
'I may tell the Dean--I call expressly from the Dean--that you are all
right again?'
The reply, with a slight smile, is: 'Certainly; with my respects and
thanks to the Dean.'
'I'm glad to hear that you expect young Drood.'
'I expect the dear fellow every moment.'

'Ah! He will do you more good than a doctor, Jasper.'
'More good than a dozen doctors. For I love him dearly, and I don't love
doctors, or doctors' stuff.'
Mr. Jasper is a dark man of some six-and-twenty, with thick, lustrous,
well-arranged black hair and whiskers. He looks older than he is, as
dark men often do. His voice is deep and good, his face and figure are
good, his manner is a little sombre. His room is a little sombre, and
may have had its influence in forming his manner. It is mostly in
shadow. Even when the sun shines brilliantly, it seldom touches the
grand piano in the recess, or the folio music-books on the stand, or the
book-shelves on the wall, or the unfinished picture of a blooming
schoolgirl hanging over the chimneypiece; her flowing brown hair tied
with a blue riband, and her beauty remarkable for a quite childish,
almost babyish, touch of saucy discontent, comically conscious of itself.
(There is not the least artistic merit in this picture, which is a mere daub;
but it is clear that the painter has made it humorously- -one might
almost say, revengefully--like the original.)
'We shall miss you, Jasper, at the "Alternate Musical Wednesdays"
to-night; but no doubt you are best at home. Good-night. God bless you!
"Tell me, shep-herds, te-e-ell me; tell me-e-e, have you seen (have you
seen, have you seen, have you seen) my-y-y Flo- o-ora-a pass this
way!"' Melodiously good Minor Canon the Reverend Septimus
Crisparkle thus delivers himself, in musical rhythm, as he withdraws
his amiable face from the doorway and conveys it down- stairs.
Sounds of recognition and greeting pass between the Reverend
Septimus and somebody else, at the stair-foot. Mr. Jasper listens, starts
from his chair, and catches a young fellow in his arms, exclaiming:
'My dear Edwin!'
'My dear Jack! So glad to see you!'
'Get off your greatcoat, bright boy, and sit down here in your own
corner. Your feet are not wet? Pull your boots off. Do pull your boots
off.'
'My dear Jack, I am as dry as a bone. Don't moddley-coddley, there's a
good fellow. I like anything better than being moddley- coddleyed.'
With the check upon him of being unsympathetically restrained in a
genial outburst of enthusiasm, Mr. Jasper stands still, and looks on
intently at the young fellow, divesting himself of his outward coat, hat,

gloves, and so forth. Once for all, a look of intentness and intensity--a
look of hungry, exacting, watchful, and yet devoted affection--is
always, now and ever afterwards, on the Jasper face whenever the
Jasper face is addressed in this direction. And whenever it is so
addressed, it is never, on this occasion or on any other, dividedly
addressed; it is always concentrated.
'Now I am right, and now I'll take my corner, Jack. Any dinner, Jack?'
Mr. Jasper opens a door at the upper end of the room, and discloses a
small inner room pleasantly lighted and prepared, wherein a comely
dame is in the act of setting dishes on table.
'What a jolly old Jack it is!' cries the young fellow, with a clap of his
hands. 'Look here, Jack; tell me; whose birthday is it?'
'Not yours, I know,' Mr. Jasper answers, pausing to consider.
'Not mine, you know? No; not mine, I know! Pussy's!'
Fixed as the look the young fellow meets, is, there is yet in it some
strange power of suddenly including the sketch over the chimneypiece.
'Pussy's, Jack! We must drink Many happy returns to her. Come, uncle;
take your dutiful and sharp-set nephew in to dinner.'
As the boy