“And that made you more serious about it, didn’t it, Eddy? And if I had not spoken to you, as I have, you would have spoken to me? I hope you can tell me so? I don’t like it to be all my doing, though it is so much better for us.”
“Yes, I should have spoken; I should have put everything before you; I came intending to do it. But I never could have spoken to you as you have spoken to me, Rosa.”
“Don’t say you mean so coldly or unkindly, Eddy, please, if you can help it.”
“I mean so sensibly and delicately, so wisely and affectionately.”
“That’s my dear brother!” She kissed his hand in a little rapture. “The dear girls will be dreadfully disappointed,” added Rosa, laughing, with the dewdrops glistening in her bright eyes. “They have looked forward to it so, poor pets!”
“Ah! but I fear it will be a worse disappointment to Jack,” said Edwin Drood, with a start. “I never thought of Jack!”
Her swift and intent look at him as he said the words, could no more be recalled than a flash of lightning can. But it appeared as though she would have instantly recalled it, if she could; for she looked down, confused, and breathed quickly.
“You don’t doubt its being a blow to Jack, Rosa?”
She merely replied, and that, evasively and hurriedly: Why should she? She had not thought about it. He seemed, to her, to have so little to do with it.
“My dear child! can you suppose that anyone so wrapped up in another—Mrs. Tope’s expression: not mine—as Jack is in me, could fail to be struck all of a heap by such a sudden and complete change in my life? I say sudden, because it will be sudden to him, you know.”
She nodded twice or thrice, and her lips parted as if she would have assented. But she uttered no sound, and her breathing was no slower.
“How shall I tell Jack!” said Edwin, ruminating. If he had been less occupied with the thought, he must have seen her singular emotion. “I never thought of Jack. It must be broken to him, before the town-crier knows it. I dine with the dear fellow tomorrow and next day—Christmas Eve and Christmas Day—but it would never do to spoil his feast-days. He always worries about me, and moddley-coddleys in the merest trifles. The news is sure to overset him. How on earth shall this be broken to Jack!”
“He must be told, I suppose?” said Rosa.
“My dear Rosa! who ought to be in our confidence, if not Jack?”
“My guardian promised to come down, if I should write and ask him. I am going to do so. Would you like to leave it to him?”
“A bright idea!” cried Edwin. “The other trustee. Nothing more natural. He comes down, he goes to Jack, he relates what we have agreed upon, and he states our case better than we could. He has already spoken feelingly to you, he has already spoken feelingly to me, and he’ll put the whole thing feelingly to Jack. That’s it! I am not a coward, Rosa, but to tell you a secret, I am a little afraid of Jack.”
“No, no! you are not afraid of him!” cried Rosa, turning white, and clasping her hands.
“Why, sister Rosa, sister Rosa, what do you see from the turret?” said Edwin, rallying her. “My dear girl!”
“You frightened me.”
“Most unintentionally, but I am as sorry as if I had meant to do it. Could you possibly suppose for a moment, from any loose way of speaking of mine, that I was literally afraid of the dear fond fellow? What I mean is, that he is subject to a kind of paroxysm, or fit—I saw him in it once—and I don’t know but that so great a surprise, coming upon him direct from me whom he is so wrapped up in, might bring it on perhaps. Which—and this is the secret I was going to tell you—is another reason for your guardian’s making the communication. He is so steady, precise, and exact, that he will talk Jack’s thoughts into shape, in no time: whereas with me Jack is always impulsive and hurried, and, I may say, almost womanish.”
Rosa seemed convinced. Perhaps from her own very different point of view of “Jack,” she felt comforted and protected by the interposition of Mr. Grewgious between herself and him.
And now, Edwin Drood’s right hand closed again upon the ring in its little case, and again was checked by the consideration: “It is certain, now, that I am to give it back to him; then why should I tell her of it?” That pretty sympathetic nature which could be so sorry for him in the blight of their childish hopes of happiness together, and could so quietly find itself alone in a new world to weave fresh wreaths of such flowers as it might prove to bear, the old world’s flowers being withered, would be grieved by those sorrowful jewels; and to what purpose? Why should it be? They were but a sign of broken joys and baseless projects; in their very beauty, they were (as the unlikeliest of men had said) almost a cruel satire on the loves, hopes, plans, of humanity, which are able to forecast nothing, and are so much brittle dust. Let them be. He would restore them to her guardian when he came down; he in his turn would restore them to the cabinet from which he had unwillingly taken them; and there, like old letters or old vows, or other records of old aspirations come to nothing, they would be disregarded, until, being valuable, they were sold into circulation again, to repeat their former round.
Let them be. Let them lie unspoken of, in his breast. However distinctly or indistinctly he entertained these thoughts, he arrived at the conclusion, Let them be. Among the mighty store of wonderful chains that are forever forging, day and night, in the
