The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens, Matthew Pearl Page A

Neville,” laying his left hand on the inner shoulder of
that young gentleman, and thus walking on between them, hand to shoulder on
either side: “you will pardon me; but I appeal to you to govern your temper
too. Now, what is amiss? But why ask! Let there be nothing amiss, and the
question is superfluous. We are all three on a good understanding, are we not?”
     
  After a silent struggle between the two
young men who shall speak last, Edwin Drood strikes in with: “So far as I am
concerned, Jack, there is no anger in me.”
     
  “Nor in me,” says Neville Landless,
though not so freely; or perhaps so carelessly. “But if Mr. Drood knew all that
lies behind me, far away from here, he might know better how it is that
sharpedged words have sharp edges to wound me.”
     
  “Perhaps,” says Jasper, in a soothing
manner, “we had better not qualify our good understanding. We had better not
say anything having the appearance of a remonstrance or condition; it might not
seem generous. Frankly and freely, you see there is no anger in Ned. Frankly
and freely, there is no anger in you, Mr. Neville?”
     
  “None at all, Mr. Jasper.” Still, not
quite so frankly or so freely; or, be it said once again, not quite so
carelessly perhaps.
     
  “All over then! Now, my bachelor
gatehouse is a few yards from here, and the heater is on the fire, and the wine
and glasses are on the table, and it is not a stone's throw from Minor Canon
Corner. Ned, you are up and away to-morrow. We will carry Mr. Neville in with
us, to take a stirrup-cup.”
     
  “With all my heart, Jack.”
     
  “And with all mine, Mr. Jasper.” Neville
feels it impossible to say less, but would rather not go. He has an impression
upon him that he has lost hold of his temper; feels that Edwin Drood's
coolness, so far from being infectious, makes him red-hot.
     
  Mr. Jasper, still walking in the centre,
hand to shoulder on either side, beautifully turns the Refrain of a drinking
song, and they all go up to his rooms. There, the first object visible, when he
adds the light of a lamp to that of the fire, is the portrait over the
chimneypicce. It is not an object calculated to improve the understanding
between the two young men, as rather awkwardly reviving the subject of their
difference. Accordingly, they both glance at it consciously, but say nothing.
Jasper, however (who would appear from his conduct to have gained but an
imperfect clue to the cause of their late high words), directly calls attention
to it.
     
  “You recognise that picture, Mr.
Neville?” shading the lamp to throw the light upon it.
     
  “I recognise it, but it is far from
flattering the original.”
     
  “O, you are hard upon it! It was done by
Ned, who made me a present of it.”
     
  “I am sorry for that, Mr. Drood.” Neville
apologises, with a real intention to apologise; “if I had known I was in the
artist's presence—”
     
  “O, a joke, sir, a mere joke,” Edwin
cuts in, with a provoking yawn. “A little humouring of Pussy's points! I'm
going to paint her gravely, one of these days, if she's good.”
     
  The air of leisurely patronage and
indifference with which this is said, as the speaker throws himself back in a
chair and clasps his hands at the back of his head, as a rest for it, is very
exasperating to the excitable and excited Neville. Jasper looks observantly
from the one to the other, slightly smiles, and turns his back to mix a jug of
mulled wine at the fire. It seems to require much mixing and compounding.
     
  “I suppose, Mr. Neville,” says Edwin,
quick to resent the indignant protest against himself in the face of young
Landless, which is fully as visible as the portrait, or the fire, or the lamp:
“I suppose that if you painted the picture of your lady love—”
     
  “I can't paint,” is the hasty
interruption.
     
  “That's your misfortune, and not your
fault. You would if you could. But if