Neville. He comes here visiting his relation, Mr. Jasper.’
‘Is Miss Bud his relation too, sir?’
(‘Now, why should he ask that, with sudden superciliousness?’ thought Mr. Crisparkle.) Then he explained, aloud, what he knew of the little story of their betrothal.
‘O! that’s it, is it?’ said the young man. ‘I understand his air of proprietorship now!’
This was said so evidently to himself, or to anybody rather than Mr. Crisparkle, that the latter instinctively felt as if to notice it would be almost tantamount to noticing a passage in a letter which he had read by chance over the writer’s shoulder. A moment afterwards they re-entered the house.
Mr. Jasper was seated at the piano as they came into his drawing-room, and was accompanying Miss Rosebud while she sang. It was a consequence of his playing the accompaniment without notes, and of her being a heedless little creature, very apt to go wrong, that he followed her lips most attentively, with his eyes as well as hands; carefully and softly hinting the key-note from time to time. Standing with an arm drawn round her, but with a face far more intent on Mr. Jasper than on her singing, stood Helena, between whom and her brother an instantaneous recognition passed, in which Mr. Crisparkle saw, or thought he saw, the understanding that had been spoken of, flash out. Mr. Neville then took his admiring station, leaning against the piano, opposite the singer; Mr. Crisparkle sat down by the china shepherdess; Edwin Drood gallantly furled and unfurled Miss Twinkleton’s fan; and that lady passively claimed that sort of exhibitor’s proprietorship in the accomplishment on view, which Mr. Tope, the Verger, daily claimed in the Cathedral service.
The song went on. It was a sorrowful strain of parting, and the fresh young voice was very plaintive and tender. As Jasper watched the pretty lips, and ever and again hinted the one note, as though it were a low whisper from himself, the voice became less steady, until all at once the singer broke into a burst of tears, and shrieked out, with her hands over her eyes: ‘I can’t bear this! I am frightened! Take me away!’
With one swift turn of her lithe figures Helena laid the little beauty on a sofa, as if she had never caught her up. Then, on one knee beside her, and with one hand upon her rosy mouth, while with the other she appealed to all the rest, Helena said to them: ‘It’s nothing; it’s all over; don’t speak to her for one minute, and she is well!’
Jasper’s hands had, in the same instant, lifted themselves from the keys, and were now poised above them, as though he waited to resume. In that attitude he yet sat quiet: not even looking round, when all the rest had changed their places and were reassuring one another.
‘Pussy’s not used to an audience; that’s the fact,’ said Edwin Drood. ‘She got nervous, and couldn’t hold out. Besides, Jack, you are such a conscientious master, and require so much, that I believe you make her afraid of you. No wonder.’
‘No wonder,’ repeated Helena.
‘There, Jack, you hear! You would be afraid of him, under similar circumstances, wouldn’t you, Miss Landless?’
‘Not under any circumstances,’ returned Helena.
Jasper brought down his hands, looked over his shoulder, and begged to thank Miss Landless for her vindication of his character. Then he fell to dumbly playing, without striking the notes, while his little pupil was taken to an open window for air, and was otherwise petted and restored. When she was brought back, his place was empty. ‘Jack’s gone, Pussy,’ Edwin told her. ‘I am more than half afraid he didn’t like to be charged with being the Monster who had frightened you.’ But she answered never a word, and shivered, as if they had made her a little too cold.
Miss Twinkleton now opining that indeed these were late hours, Mrs. Crisparkle, for finding ourselves outside the walls of the Nuns’ House, and that we who undertook the formation of the future wives and mothers of England (the last words in a lower voice, as requiring to be communicated in confidence) were really bound (voice coming up again) to set a better example than one of rakish habits, wrappers were put in requisition, and the two young cavaliers volunteered to see the ladies home. It was soon done, and the gate of the Nuns’ House closed upon them.
The boarders had retired, and only Mrs. Tisher in solitary vigil awaited the new pupil. Her bedroom being within Rosa’s, very little introduction or explanation was necessary, before she was placed in charge of her new friend, and left for the night.
‘This is a blessed relief, my dear,’ said Helena. ‘I have been dreading all day, that I should be brought to bay at this time.’
‘There are not many of us,’ returned Rosa, ‘and we are good-natured girls; at least the others are; I can answer for them.’
‘I can answer for you,’ laughed Helena, searching the lovely little face with her dark, fiery eyes, and tenderly caressing the small figure. ‘You will be a friend to me, won’t you?’
‘I hope so. But the idea of my being a friend to you seems too absurd, though.’
‘Why?’
‘O, I am such a mite of a thing, and you are so womanly and handsome. You seem to have resolution and power enough to crush me. I shrink into nothing by the side of your presence even.’
‘I am a neglected creature, my dear, unacquainted with all accomplishments, sensitively conscious that I have everything to learn, and deeply ashamed to own my ignorance.’
‘And yet you acknowledge everything to me!’ said Rosa.
‘My pretty one, can I help it? There is a fascination in you.’
‘O! is there though?’ pouted Rosa, half in jest and half in earnest. ‘What a pity Master Eddy doesn’t feel it more!’
Of course her relations towards that young gentleman had been already imparted in Minor Canon Corner.
‘Why, surely he must love you with all his heart!’ cried Helena, with an earnestness that threatened to blaze into ferocity if he didn’t.
‘Eh? O, well, I suppose he does,’ said Rosa, pouting again; ‘I am sure I have no right to say he doesn’t. Perhaps it’s my fault. Perhaps I am not as nice to him as I ought to be. I don’t think I am. But it is so ridiculous!’
Helena’s eyes demanded what was.
‘We are,’ said Rosa, answering as if she had spoken. ‘We are such a ridiculous couple. And we are always quarrelling.’
‘Why?’
‘Because we both know we are ridiculous, my dear!’ Rosa gave that answer as if it were the most conclusive answer in the world.
Helena’s masterful look was intent upon her face for a few moments, and then she impulsively put out both her hands and said:
‘You will be my friend and help me?’
‘Indeed, my dear, I will,’ replied Rosa, in a tone of affectionate childishness that went straight and true to her heart; ‘I will be as good a friend as such a mite of a thing can be to such a noble creature as you. And be a friend to me, please; I don’t understand myself: and I want a friend who can understand me, very much indeed.’
Helena Landless kissed her, and retaining both her hands said:
‘Who is Mr. Jasper?’
Rosa
