The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens, Matthew Pearl Read Free Book Online

Mrs. Sapsea.”
     
  “We were, sir.” Mr. Sapsea fills both
glasses, and takes the decanter into safe keeping again. “Before I consult your
opinion as a man of taste on this little trifle”—holding it up—“which is BUT a
trifle, and still has required some thought, sir, some little fever of the
brow, I ought perhaps to describe the character of the late Mrs. Sapsea, now
dead three quarters of a year.”
     
  Mr. Jasper, in the act of yawning behind
his wineglass, puts down that screen and calls up a look of interest. It is a
little impaired in its expressiveness by his having a shut-up gape still to
dispose of, with watering eyes.
     
  “Half a dozen years ago, or so,” Mr.
Sapsea proceeds, “when I had enlarged my mind up to—I will not say to what it
now is, for that might seem to aim at too much, but up to the pitch of wanting
another mind to be absorbed in it—I cast my eye about me for a nuptial partner.
Because, as I say, it is not good for man to be alone.”
     
  Mr. Jasper appears to commit this
original idea to memory.
     
  “Miss Brobity at that time kept, I will
not call it the rival establishment to the establishment at the Nuns' House
opposite, but I will call it the other parallel establishment down town. The
world did have it that she showed a passion for attending my sales, when they
took place on half holidays, or in vacation time. The world did put it about,
that she admired my style. The world did notice that as time flowed by, my
style became traceable in the dictation-exercises of Miss Brobity's pupils.
Young man, a whisper even sprang up in obscure malignity, that one ignorant and
besotted Churl (a parent) so committed himself as to object to it by name. But
I do not believe this. For is it likely that any human creature in his right
senses would so lay himself open to be pointed at, by what I call the finger of
scorn?”
     
  Mr. Jasper shakes his head. Not in the
least likely. Mr. Sapsea, in a grandiloquent state of absence of mind, seems to
refill his visitor's glass, which is full already; and does really refill his
own, which is empty.
     
  “Miss Brobity's Being, young man, was
deeply imbued with homage to Mind. She revered Mind, when launched, or, as I
say, precipitated, on an extensive knowledge of the world. When I made my
proposal, she did me the honour to be so overshadowed with a species of Awe, as
to be able to articulate only the two words, “O Thou!” meaning myself. Her
limpid blue eyes were fixed upon me, her semitransparent hands were clasped together,
pallor overspread her aquiline features, and, though encouraged to proceed, she
never did proceed a word further. I disposed of the parallel establishment by
private contract, and we became as nearly one as could be expected under the
circumstances. But she never could, and she never did, find a phrase
satisfactory to her perhaps-too-favourable estimate of my intellect. To the
very last (feeble action of liver), she addressed me in the same unfinished
terms.”
     
  Mr. Jasper has closed his eyes as the
auctioneer has deepened his voice. He now abruptly opens them, and says, in
unison with the deepened voice “Ah!”—rather as if stopping himself on the
extreme verge of adding—“men!”
     
  “I have been since,” says Mr. Sapsea,
with his legs stretched out, and solemnly enjoying himself with the wine and
the fire, “what you behold me; I have been since a solitary mourner; I have
been since, as I say, wasting my evening conversation on the desert air. I will
not say that I have reproached myself; but there have been times when I have
asked myself the question: What if her husband had been nearer on a level with
her? If she had not had to look up quite so high, what might the stimulating
action have been upon the liver?”
     
  Mr. Jasper says, with an appearance of
having fallen into dreadfully low spirits, that he “supposes it was to be.”
     
  “We can only suppose so,