CHAPTER XV--IMPEACHED
Neville Landless had started so early and walked at so good a pace, thatwhen the church-bells began to ring in Cloisterham for morning service,he was eight miles away. As he wanted his breakfast by that time, havingset forth on a crust of bread, he stopped at the next roadside tavern torefresh.
Visitors in want of breakfast--unless they were horses or cattle, forwhich class of guests there was preparation enough in the way ofwater-trough and hay--were so unusual at the sign of The Tilted Wagon,that it took a long time to get the wagon into the track of tea and toastand bacon. Neville in the interval, sitting in a sanded parlour,wondering in how long a time after he had gone, the sneezy fire of dampfagots would begin to make somebody else warm.
Indeed, The Tilted Wagon, as a cool establishment on the top of a hill,where the ground before the door was puddled with damp hoofs and troddenstraw; where a scolding landlady slapped a moist baby (with one red sockon and one wanting), in the bar; where the cheese was cast aground upon ashelf, in company with a mouldy tablecloth and a green-handled knife, ina sort of cast-iron canoe; where the pale-faced bread shed tears of crumbover its shipwreck in another canoe; where the family linen, half washedand half dried, led a public life of lying about; where everything todrink was drunk out of mugs, and everything else was suggestive of arhyme to mugs; The Tilted Wagon, all these things considered, hardly keptits painted promise of providing good entertainment for Man and Beast.However, Man, in the present case, was not critical, but took whatentertainment he could get, and went on again after a longer rest than heneeded.
He stopped at some quarter of a mile from the house, hesitating whetherto pursue the road, or to follow a cart track between two high hedgerows,which led across the slope of a breezy heath, and evidently struck intothe road again by-and-by. He decided in favour of this latter track, andpursued it with some toil; the rise being steep, and the way worn intodeep ruts.
He was labouring along, when he became aware of some other pedestriansbehind him. As they were coming up at a faster pace than his, he stoodaside, against one of the high banks, to let them pass. But their mannerwas very curious. Only four of them passed. Other four slackened speed,and loitered as intending to follow him when he should go on. Theremainder of the party (half-a-dozen perhaps) turned, and went back at agreat rate.
He looked at the four behind him, and he looked at the four before him.They all returned his look. He resumed his way. The four in advancewent on, constantly looking back; the four in the rear came closing up.
When they all ranged out from the narrow track upon the open slope of theheath, and this order was maintained, let him diverge as he would toeither side, there was no longer room to doubt that he was beset by thesefellows. He stopped, as a last test; and they all stopped.
'Why do you attend upon me in this way?' he asked the whole body. 'Areyou a pack of thieves?'
'Don't answer him,' said one of the number; he did not see which.'Better be quiet.'
'Better be quiet?' repeated Neville. 'Who said so?'
Nobody replied.
'It's good advice, whichever of you skulkers gave it,' he went onangrily. 'I will not submit to be penned in between four men there, andfour men there. I wish to pass, and I mean to pass, those four infront.'
They were all standing still; himself included.
'If eight men, or four men, or two men, set upon one,' he proceeded,growing more enraged, 'the one has no chance but to set his mark uponsome of them. And, by the Lord, I'll do it, if I am interrupted anyfarther!'
Shouldering his heavy stick, and quickening his pace, he shot on to passthe four ahead. The largest and strongest man of the number changedswiftly to the side on which he came up, and dexterously closed with himand went down with him; but not before the heavy stick had descendedsmartly.
'Let him be!' said this man in a suppressed voice, as they struggledtogether on the grass. 'Fair play! His is the build of a girl to mine,and he's got a weight strapped to his back besides. Let him alone. I'llmanage him.'
After a little rolling about, in a close scuffle which caused the facesof both to be besmeared with blood, the man took his knee from Neville'schest, and rose, saying: 'There! Now take him arm-in-arm, any two ofyou!'
It was immediately done.
'As to our being a pack of thieves, Mr. Landless,' said the man, as hespat out some blood, and wiped more from his face; 'you know better thanthat at midday. We wouldn't have touched you if you hadn't forced us.We're going to take you round to the high road, anyhow, and you'll findhelp enough against thieves there, if you want it.--Wipe his face,somebody; see how it's a-trickling down him!'
When his face was cleansed, Neville recognised in the speaker, Joe,driver of the Cloisterham omnibus, whom he had seen but once, and that onthe day of his arrival.
'And what I recommend you for the present, is, don't talk, Mr. Landless.You'll find a friend waiting for you, at the high road--gone ahead by theother way when we split into two parties--and you had much better saynothing till you come up with him. Bring that stick along, somebodyelse, and let's be moving!'
Utterly bewildered, Neville stared around him and said not a word.Walking between his two conductors, who held his arms in theirs, he wenton, as in a dream, until they came again into the high road, and into themidst of a little group of people. The men who had turned back wereamong the group; and its central figures were Mr. Jasper and Mr.Crisparkle. Neville's conductors took him up to the Minor Canon, andthere released him, as an act of deference to that gentleman.
'What is all this, sir? What is the matter? I feel as if I had lost mysenses!' cried Neville, the group closing in around him.
'Where is my nephew?' asked Mr. Jasper, wildly.
'Where is your nephew?' repeated Neville, 'Why do you ask me?'
'I ask you,' retorted Jasper, 'because you were the last person in hiscompany, and he is not to be found.'
'Not to be found!' cried Neville, aghast.
'Stay, stay,' said Mr. Crisparkle. 'Permit me, Jasper. Mr. Neville, youare confounded; collect your thoughts; it is of great importance that youshould collect your thoughts; attend to me.'
'I will try, sir, but I seem mad.'
'You left Mr. Jasper last night with Edwin Drood?'
'Yes.'
'At what hour?'
'Was it at twelve o'clock?' asked Neville, with his hand to his confusedhead, and appealing to Jasper.
'Quite right,' said Mr. Crisparkle; 'the hour Mr. Jasper has alreadynamed to me. You went down to the river together?'
'Undoubtedly. To see the action of the wind there.'
'What followed? How long did you stay there?'
'About ten minutes; I should say not more. We then walked together toyour house, and he took leave of me at the door.'
'Did he say that he was going down to the river again?'
'No. He said that he was going straight back.'
The bystanders looked at one another, and at Mr. Crisparkle. To whom Mr.Jasper, who had been intensely watching Neville, said, in a low,distinct, suspicious voice: 'What are those stains upon his dress?'
All eyes were turned towards the blood upon his clothes.
'And here are the same stains upon this stick!' said Jasper, taking itfrom the hand of the man who held it. 'I know the stick to be his, andhe carried it last night. What does this mean?'
'In the name of God, say what it means, Neville!' urged Mr. Crisparkle.
'That man and I,' said Neville, pointing out his late adversary, 'had astruggle for the stick just now, and you may see the same marks on him,sir. What was I to suppose, when I found myself molested by eightpeople? Could I dream of the true reason when they would give me none atall?'
They admitted that they had thought it discreet to be silent, and thatthe struggle had taken place. And yet the very men who had seen itlooked darkly at the smears which the bright cold air had already dried.
'We must return, Neville
,' said Mr. Crisparkle; 'of course you will beglad to come back to clear yourself?'
'Of course, sir.'
'Mr. Landless will walk at my side,' the Minor Canon continued, lookingaround him. 'Come, Neville!'
They set forth on the walk back; and the others, with one exception,straggled after them at various distances. Jasper walked on the otherside of Neville, and never quitted that position. He was silent, whileMr. Crisparkle more than once repeated his former questions, and whileNeville repeated his former answers; also, while they both hazarded someexplanatory conjectures. He was obstinately silent, because Mr.Crisparkle's manner directly appealed to him to take some part in thediscussion, and no appeal would move his fixed face. When they drew nearto the city, and it was suggested by the Minor Canon that they might dowell in calling on the Mayor at once, he assented with a stern nod; buthe spake no word until they stood in Mr. Sapsea's parlour.
Mr. Sapsea being informed by Mr. Crisparkle of the circumstances underwhich they desired to make a voluntary statement before him, Mr. Jasperbroke silence by declaring that he placed his whole reliance, humanlyspeaking, on Mr. Sapsea's penetration. There was no conceivable reasonwhy his nephew should have suddenly absconded, unless Mr. Sapsea couldsuggest one, and then he would defer. There was no intelligiblelikelihood of his having returned to the river, and been accidentallydrowned in the dark, unless it should appear likely to Mr. Sapsea, andthen again he would defer. He washed his hands as clean as he could ofall horrible suspicions, unless it should appear to Mr. Sapsea that somesuch were inseparable from his last companion before his disappearance(not on good terms with previously), and then, once more, he would defer.His own state of mind, he being distracted with doubts, and labouringunder dismal apprehensions, was not to be safely trusted; but Mr.Sapsea's was.
Mr. Sapsea expressed his opinion that the case had a dark look; in short(and here his eyes rested full on Neville's countenance), an Un-Englishcomplexion. Having made this grand point, he wandered into a denser hazeand maze of nonsense than even a mayor might have been expected todisport himself in, and came out of it with the brilliant discovery thatto take the life of a fellow-creature was to take something that didn'tbelong to you. He wavered whether or no he should at once issue hiswarrant for the committal of Neville Landless to jail, undercircumstances of grave suspicion; and he might have gone so far as to doit but for the indignant protest of the Minor Canon: who undertook forthe young man's remaining in his own house, and being produced by his ownhands, whenever demanded. Mr. Jasper then understood Mr. Sapsea tosuggest that the river should be dragged, that its banks should berigidly examined, that particulars of the disappearance should be sent toall outlying places and to London, and that placards and advertisementsshould be widely circulated imploring Edwin Drood, if for any unknownreason he had withdrawn himself from his uncle's home and society, totake pity on that loving kinsman's sore bereavement and distress, andsomehow inform him that he was yet alive. Mr. Sapsea was perfectlyunderstood, for this was exactly his meaning (though he had said nothingabout it); and measures were taken towards all these ends immediately.
It would be difficult to determine which was the more oppressed withhorror and amazement: Neville Landless, or John Jasper. But thatJasper's position forced him to be active, while Neville's forced him tobe passive, there would have been nothing to choose between them. Eachwas bowed down and broken.
With the earliest light of the next morning, men were at work upon theriver, and other men--most of whom volunteered for the service--wereexamining the banks. All the livelong day the search went on; upon theriver, with barge and pole, and drag and net; upon the muddy and rushyshore, with jack-boots, hatchet, spade, rope, dogs, and all imaginableappliances. Even at night, the river was specked with lanterns, andlurid with fires; far-off creeks, into which the tide washed as itchanged, had their knots of watchers, listening to the lapping of thestream, and looking out for any burden it might bear; remote shinglycauseways near the sea, and lonely points off which there was a race ofwater, had their unwonted flaring cressets and rough-coated figures whenthe next day dawned; but no trace of Edwin Drood revisited the light ofthe sun.
All that day, again, the search went on. Now, in barge and boat; and nowashore among the osiers, or tramping amidst mud and stakes and jaggedstones in low-lying places, where solitary watermarks and signals ofstrange shapes showed like spectres, John Jasper worked and toiled. Butto no purpose; for still no trace of Edwin Drood revisited the light ofthe sun.
Setting his watches for that night again, so that vigilant eyes should bekept on every change of tide, he went home exhausted. Unkempt anddisordered, bedaubed with mud that had dried upon him, and with much ofhis clothing torn to rags, he had but just dropped into his easy-chair,when Mr. Grewgious stood before him.
'This is strange news,' said Mr. Grewgious.
'Strange and fearful news.'
Jasper had merely lifted up his heavy eyes to say it, and now droppedthem again as he drooped, worn out, over one side of his easy-chair.
Mr. Grewgious smoothed his head and face, and stood looking at the fire.
'How is your ward?' asked Jasper, after a time, in a faint, fatiguedvoice.
'Poor little thing! You may imagine her condition.'
'Have you seen his sister?' inquired Jasper, as before.
'Whose?'
The curtness of the counter-question, and the cool, slow manner in which,as he put it, Mr. Grewgious moved his eyes from the fire to hiscompanion's face, might at any other time have been exasperating. In hisdepression and exhaustion, Jasper merely opened his eyes to say: 'Thesuspected young man's.'
'Do you suspect him?' asked Mr. Grewgious.
'I don't know what to think. I cannot make up my mind.'
'Nor I,' said Mr. Grewgious. 'But as you spoke of him as the suspectedyoung man, I thought you _had_ made up your mind.--I have just left MissLandless.'
[Picture: Mr. Grewgious has his suspicions]
'What is her state?'
'Defiance of all suspicion, and unbounded faith in her brother.'
'Poor thing!'
'However,' pursued Mr. Grewgious, 'it is not of her that I came to speak.It is of my ward. I have a communication to make that will surprise you.At least, it has surprised me.'
Jasper, with a groaning sigh, turned wearily in his chair.
'Shall I put it off till to-morrow?' said Mr. Grewgious. 'Mind, I warnyou, that I think it will surprise you!'
More attention and concentration came into John Jasper's eyes as theycaught sight of Mr. Grewgious smoothing his head again, and again lookingat the fire; but now, with a compressed and determined mouth.
'What is it?' demanded Jasper, becoming upright in his chair.
'To be sure,' said Mr. Grewgious, provokingly slowly and internally, ashe kept his eyes on the fire: 'I might have known it sooner; she gave methe opening; but I am such an exceedingly Angular man, that it neveroccurred to me; I took all for granted.'
'What is it?' demanded Jasper once more.
Mr. Grewgious, alternately opening and shutting the palms of his hands ashe warmed them at the fire, and looking fixedly at him sideways, andnever changing either his action or his look in all that followed, wenton to reply.
'This young couple, the lost youth and Miss Rosa, my ward, though so longbetrothed, and so long recognising their betrothal, and so near beingmarried--'
Mr. Grewgious saw a staring white face, and two quivering white lips, inthe easy-chair, and saw two muddy hands gripping its sides. But for thehands, he might have thought he had never seen the face.
'--This young couple came gradually to the discovery (made on both sidespretty equally, I think), that they would be happier and better, both intheir present and their future lives, as affectionate friends, or sayrather as brother and sister, than as husband and wife.'
Mr. Grewgious saw a lead-coloured face in the easy-chair, and on itssurface dreadful starting drops or bubbles,
as if of steel.
'This young couple formed at length the healthy resolution ofinterchanging their discoveries, openly, sensibly, and tenderly. Theymet for that purpose. After some innocent and generous talk, they agreedto dissolve their existing, and their intended, relations, for ever andever.'
Mr. Grewgious saw a ghastly figure rise, open-mouthed, from theeasy-chair, and lift its outspread hands towards its head.
'One of this young couple, and that one your nephew, fearful, however,that in the tenderness of your affection for him you would be bitterlydisappointed by so wide a departure from his projected life, forbore totell you the secret, for a few days, and left it to be disclosed by me,when I should come down to speak to you, and he would be gone. I speakto you, and he is gone.'
Mr. Grewgious saw the ghastly figure throw back its head, clutch its hairwith its hands, and turn with a writhing action from him.
'I have now said all I have to say: except that this young couple parted,firmly, though not without tears and sorrow, on the evening when you lastsaw them together.'
Mr. Grewgious heard a terrible shriek, and saw no ghastly figure, sittingor standing; saw nothing but a heap of torn and miry clothes upon thefloor.
Not changing his action even then, he opened and shut the palms of hishands as he warmed them, and looked down at it.