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

influences.”
     
  “In describing my own imperfections,
sir, I must ask you not to suppose that I am describing my sister's. She has
come out of the disadvantages of our miserable life, as much better than I am,
as that Cathedral tower is higher than those chimneys.”
     
  Mr. Crisparkle in his own breast was not
so sure of this.
     
  “I have had, sir, from my earliest
remembrance, to suppress a deadly and bitter hatred. This has made me secret
and revengeful. I have been always tyrannically held down by the strong hand.
This has driven me, in my weakness, to the resource of being false and mean. I
have been stinted of education, liberty, money, dress, the very necessaries of
life, the commonest pleasures of childhood, the commonest possessions of youth.
This has caused me to be utterly wanting in I don't know what emotions, or remembrances,
or good instincts—I have not even a name for the thing, you see!—that you have
had to work upon in other young men to whom you have been accustomed.”
     
  “This is evidently true. But this is not
encouraging,” thought Mr. Crisparkle as they turned again.
     
  “And to finish with, sir: I have been
brought up among abject and servile dependents, of an inferior race, and I may
easily have contracted some affinity with them. Sometimes, I don't know but
that it may be a drop of what is tigerish in their blood.”
     
  “As in the case of that remark just
now,” thought Mr. Crisparkle.
     
  “In a last word of reference to my
sister, sir (we are twin children), you ought to know, to her honour, that
nothing in our misery ever subdued her, though it often cowed me. When we ran
away from it (we ran away four times in six years, to be soon brought back and
cruelly punished), the flight was always of her planning and leading. Each time
she dressed as a boy, and showed the daring of a man. I take it we were seven
years old when we first decamped; but I remember, when I lost the pocket-knife
with which she was to have cut her hair short, how desperately she tried to
tear it out, or bite it off. I have nothing further to say, sir, except that I
hope you will bear with me and make allowance for me.”
     
  “Of that, Mr. Neville, you may be sure,”
returned the Minor Canon. “I don't preach more than I can help, and I will not
repay your confidence with a sermon. But I entreat you to bear in mind, very
seriously and steadily, that if I am to do you any good, it can only be with
your own assistance; and that you can only render that, efficiently, by seeking
aid from Heaven.”
     
  “I will try to do my part, sir.”
     
  “And, Mr. Neville, I will try to do
mine. Here is my hand on it. May God bless our endeavours!”
     
  They were now standing at his
house-door, and a cheerful sound of voices and laughter was heard within.
     
  “We will take one more turn before going
in,” said Mr. Crisparkle, “for I want to ask you a question. When you said you
were in a changed mind concerning me, you spoke, not only for yourself, but for
your sister too?”
     
  “Undoubtedly I did, sir.”
     
  “Excuse me, Mr. Neville, but I think you
have had no opportunity of communicating with your sister, since I met you. Mr.
Honeythunder was very eloquent; but perhaps I may venture to say, without
illnature, that he rather monopolised the occasion. May you not have answered
for your sister without sufficient warrant?”
     
  Neville shook his head with a proud
smile.
     
  “You don't know, sir, yet, what a
complete understanding can exist between my sister and me, though no spoken
word—perhaps hardly as much as a look—may have passed between us. She not only
feels as I have described, but she very well knows that I am taking this
opportunity of speaking to you, both for her and for myself.”
     
  Mr. Crisparkle looked in his face, with
some incredulity; but his face expressed such absolute and firm conviction of
the truth of what he