He opened some books as he said it, and was soon immersed in their interleaved and annotated pa.s.sages; while Mr. Crisparkle sat beside him, expounding, correcting, and advising. The Minor Canon"s Cathedral duties made these visits of his difficult to accomplish, and only to be compa.s.sed at intervals of many weeks. But they were as serviceable as they were precious to Neville Landless.
When they had got through such studies as they had in hand, they stood leaning on the window-sill, and looking down upon the patch of garden. "Next week," said Mr. Crisparkle, "you will cease to be alone, and will have a devoted companion."
"And yet," returned Neville, "this seems an uncongenial place to bring my sister to."
"I don"t think so," said the Minor Canon. "There is duty to be done here; and there are womanly feeling, sense, and courage wanted here."
"I meant," explained Neville, "that the surroundings are so dull and unwomanly, and that Helena can have no suitable friend or society here."
"You have only to remember," said Mr. Crisparkle, "that you are here yourself, and that she has to draw you into the sunlight."
They were silent for a little while, and then Mr. Crisparkle began anew.
"When we first spoke together, Neville, you told me that your sister had risen out of the disadvantages of your past lives as superior to you as the tower of Cloisterham Cathedral is higher than the chimneys of Minor Canon Corner. Do you remember that?"
"Right well!"
"I was inclined to think it at the time an enthusiastic flight. No matter what I think it now. What I would emphasise is, that under the head of Pride your sister is a great and opportune example to you."
"Under all heads that are included in the composition of a fine character, she is."
"Say so; but take this one. Your sister has learnt how to govern what is proud in her nature. She can dominate it even when it is wounded through her sympathy with you. No doubt she has suffered deeply in those same streets where you suffered deeply. No doubt her life is darkened by the cloud that darkens yours. But bending her pride into a grand composure that is not haughty or aggressive, but is a sustained confidence in you and in the truth, she has won her way through those streets until she pa.s.ses along them as high in the general respect as any one who treads them. Every day and hour of her life since Edwin Drood"s disappearance, she has faced malignity and folly-for you-as only a brave nature well directed can. So it will be with her to the end. Another and weaker kind of pride might sink broken-hearted, but never such a pride as hers: which knows no shrinking, and can get no mastery over her."
The pale cheek beside him flushed under the comparison, and the hint implied in it.
"I will do all I can to imitate her," said Neville.
"Do so, and be a truly brave man, as she is a truly brave woman," answered Mr. Crisparkle stoutly. "It is growing dark. Will you go my way with me, when it is quite dark? Mind! it is not I who wait for darkness."
Neville replied, that he would accompany him directly. But Mr. Crisparkle said he had a moment"s call to make on Mr. Grewgious as an act of courtesy, and would run across to that gentleman"s chambers, and rejoin Neville on his own doorstep, if he would come down there to meet him.
Mr. Grewgious, bolt upright as usual, sat taking his wine in the dusk at his open window; his winegla.s.s and decanter on the round table at his elbow; himself and his legs on the window-seat; only one hinge in his whole body, like a bootjack.
"How do you do, reverend sir?" said Mr. Grewgious, with abundant offers of hospitality, which were as cordially declined as made. "And how is your charge getting on over the way in the set that I had the pleasure of recommending to you as vacant and eligible?"
Mr. Crisparkle replied suitably.
"I am glad you approve of them," said Mr. Grewgious, "because I entertain a sort of fancy for having him under my eye."
As Mr. Grewgious had to turn his eye up considerably before he could see the chambers, the phrase was to be taken figuratively and not literally.
"And how did you leave Mr. Jasper, reverend sir?" said Mr. Grewgious.
Mr. Crisparkle had left him pretty well.
"And where did you leave Mr. Jasper, reverend sir?" Mr. Crisparkle had left him at Cloisterham.
"And when did you leave Mr. Jasper, reverend sir?" That morning.
"Umps!" said Mr. Grewgious. "He didn"t say he was coming, perhaps?"
"Coming where?"
"Anywhere, for instance?" said Mr. Grewgious.
"No."
"Because here he is," said Mr. Grewgious, who had asked all these questions, with his preoccupied glance directed out at window. "And he don"t look agreeable, does he?"
Mr. Crisparkle was craning towards the window, when Mr. Grewgious added:
"If you will kindly step round here behind me, in the gloom of the room, and will cast your eye at the second-floor landing window in yonder house, I think you will hardly fail to see a slinking individual in whom I recognise our local friend."
"You are right!" cried Mr. Crisparkle.
"Umps!" said Mr. Grewgious. Then he added, turning his face so abruptly that his head nearly came into collision with Mr. Crisparkle"s: "what should you say that our local friend was up to?"
The last pa.s.sage he had been shown in the Diary returned on Mr. Crisparkle"s mind with the force of a strong recoil, and he asked Mr. Grewgious if he thought it possible that Neville was to be hara.s.sed by the keeping of a watch upon him?
"A watch?" repeated Mr. Grewgious musingly. "Ay!"
"Which would not only of itself haunt and torture his life," said Mr. Crisparkle warmly, "but would expose him to the torment of a perpetually reviving suspicion, whatever he might do, or wherever he might go."
"Ay!" said Mr. Grewgious musingly still. "Do I see him waiting for you?"
"No doubt you do."
"Then would you have the goodness to excuse my getting up to see you out, and to go out to join him, and to go the way that you were going, and to take no notice of our local friend?" said Mr. Grewgious. "I entertain a sort of fancy for having him under my eye to-night, do you know?"
Mr. Crisparkle, with a significant need complied; and rejoining Neville, went away with him. They dined together, and parted at the yet unfinished and undeveloped railway station: Mr. Crisparkle to get home; Neville to walk the streets, cross the bridges, make a wide round of the city in the friendly darkness, and tire himself out.
It was midnight when he returned from his solitary expedition and climbed his staircase. The night was hot, and the windows of the staircase were all wide open. Coming to the top, it gave him a pa.s.sing chill of surprise (there being no rooms but his up there) to find a stranger sitting on the window-sill, more after the manner of a venturesome glazier than an amateur ordinarily careful of his neck; in fact, so much more outside the window than inside, as to suggest the thought that he must have come up by the water-spout instead of the stairs.
The stranger said nothing until Neville put his key in his door; then, seeming to make sure of his ident.i.ty from the action, he spoke:
"I beg your pardon," he said, coming from the window with a frank and smiling air, and a prepossessing address; "the beans."
Neville was quite at a loss.
"Runners," said the visitor. "Scarlet. Next door at the back."
"O," returned Neville. "And the mignonette and wall-flower?"
"The same," said the visitor.
"Pray walk in."
"Thank you."