THE MYSTERY OF MR. E. DROOD
AN ADAPTATION.
BY ORPHEUS C. KERR.
CHAPTER IX.
BALKS IN A BRUSH.
FLORA, having no relations in the world that she knew of, had, ever since her seventh new bonnet, known no other home than Macassar Female College, in the Alms-House, and regarded Miss CAROWTHERS as her mother-in-lore. Her memory of her own mother was of a lady-like person who had swiftly waisted away in the effort to be always taken for her own daughter, and was, one day, brought down-stairs, by her husband, in two pieces, from tight lacing. The sad separation (taking place just before a party of pleasure), had driven FLORA'S father into a frenzy of grief for his better halves; which was augmented to brain fever by Mr. SCHENCK, who, having given a Boreal policy to deceased, felt it his duty to talk gloomily about wives who sometimes died apart after receiving unmerited cuts from their husbands, and to suggest a compromise of ten per cent, upon the amount of the policy, as a much more cheerful settlement than a coroner's inquest. FLORA'S betrothal had grown out of the soothing of Mr. POTTS'S last year of mental disorder by Mr. DROOD, an old partner in the grocery business, who, too, was a widower from his wife's use of arsenic and lead for her complexion. The two bereaved friends, after comparing tears and looking mournfully at each other's tongues, had talked themselves to death over the fluctuations in sugar; willing their respective children to marry in future for the sake of keeping up the controversy.
From the FLOWERPOT'S first arrival at the Alms-House, her new things, engagement to be married, and stock of chocolate caramels, had won the deepest affections of her teachers and schoolmates; and, on the morning after the sectional dispute between EDWIN and MONTGOMERY, when one of the young ladies had heard of it as a profound secret, no pains were spared by the whole tender-hearted school to make her believe that neither of the young men was entirely given up yet by the consulting physicians. It was whispered, indeed, that a knife or two might have passed, and two or three guns been exchanged; but she was not to be at all worried, for persons had been known to get well with the tops of their heads off.
At an early hour, however, Miss PENDRAGON had paid a visit to her brother, in Gospeler's Gulch; and, coming back with the intelligence, that, while he had been stabbed to the heart, it was chiefly by cruel insinuations and an umbrella, was enabled to assure Miss CAROWTHERS, in confidence, that nothing eligible for publication in the New York Sun had really occurred. Thus, when the legal conqueror of Breachy Mr. BLODGETT entered that principal recitation-room of the Macassar, formally known as the Cackleorium, she had no difficulty in explaining away the panic.
She said that "Unfounded Rumor, Ladies, is, we all know, a descriptive phrase applied by the Associated Press to all important foreign news procured a week or two in advance of its own similar European advices, by the Press Association[A]. We perceive then, Ladies, (Miss JENKINS will be good enough to stop scratching her nose while I am talking,) that Unfounded Rumor sometimes means--hem!--
'The Associated Press
In bitter distress.'
In Bumsteadville, however, it has a signification more like what we should give it in relation to a statement that Senator SUMNER had delivered a Latin quotation without a speech selected for it. In this sense, Ladies, (Miss PARKINSON can scarcely be aware of how much cotton stocking can be seen when she lolls so,) the Unfounded Rumor concerning two gentlemen of different political views in this county was not correct. (Miss BABCOCK will learn four chapters in Chronicles by heart to-night, for making her handkerchief into a baby,) as proper inquiries have assured us that no more blood was shed than if the parties to the strife had been a Canadian and a Fenian. We will, therefore, drop the subject, and enter at once upon the flowery path of the first lesson in algebra."
This explanation destroyed all the interest of a majority of the young ladies, who had anticipated a horridly delightful duel, at least; but FLORA was slightly hysterical about it, even late in the afternoon, when it was announced that her guardian had come to see her.
Mr. DIBBLE, of Gowanus, had been selected for his trust on account of his pre-eminent goodness, which, as seems to be invariably the case, was associated with an absence of personal beauty trenching upon the scarecrow. Possibly an excess of strong and disproportionate carving in nose, mouth and chin, accompanied by weak eyes and unexpectedness of forehead, may tend to make the Evil One but languid in his desire for the capture of its human exemplar. This may help account for the otherwise rather curious coincidence of frightful physiognomy and preternatural goodness in this world of sinful beauties[B]. Under such a theory, Mr. DIBBLE'S easy means of frightening the Arch-Tempter into immediate flight, and keeping himself free from all possible incitement to be anything but good, were a face, head and neck shaped not unlike an old-fashioned water-pitcher, and a form suggestive of an obese lobster balancing on an upright horse-shoe. His nose was too high up; his mouth and chin bulged too tremendously; his neck inside a whole mainsail of shirt-collar was too much fluted, and his eyes were as much too small and oyster-like as his ears were too large and horny.
Mr. DIBBLE found his ward in Miss CAROWTHER'S own private room, from which even the government mails were generally excluded; and, after saluting both ladies, and politely desiring the elder to remain present, in order to be sure that his conversation was strictly moral, the monstrous old gentleman pulled a memorandum book from his pocket and addressed himself to FLORA.
"I am a square man myself, dear kissling," he said, with much double chin in his manner, "and like to do everything on the square. I am now 'interviewing' you, and shall make notes of your answers, though not necessarily for publication. First: is your health satisfactory?"
Miss POTTS admitted that, excepting occasional attacks of insatiable longing for True Sympathy, chiefly produced by over-eating of pickles and slate-pencils to avert excessive plumpness, she could generally take pie twice without experiencing a subsequent reactionary tendency to piety and gloomy presentiments.
"Second: is your allowance of pin-money sufficient to keep you in cold cream, Berlin wool, and other necessaries of life?"
The FLOWERPOT confessed that she had now and then wished herself able to buy a church and a velvet dressing-gown, (lined with cherry,) for a young clergyman with the consumption and side-whiskers; but, under common circumstances, her allowance was enough to procure all absolutely requisite Edging without running her into debt, and still leave sufficient to buy materials for any reasonable altar-cloth.
"And now, my dear," said Mr. DIBBLE, evidently glad that all the more important and serious part of the interview was over, "we come to the subject of your marriage. Mr. EDWIN has seen you here, occasionally, I suppose, and you may possibly like him well enough to accept him as a husband, if not as a friend!"
"He's such a perfectly absurd creature that I can't help liking him," returned FLORA, gravely; "but I am not certain that my utterly ridiculous deeper woman's love is entirely satisfied with the shape of his nose."
"That'll be mostly hidden by his whiskers, when they grow," observed her guardian.
"I hope they'll be bushy, with a frizzle at the ends and a bald place for his chin," said the young girl, reflectively; then suddenly asked: "If we shouldn't be married, would either of us have to pay anything?"
"I should say not," answered Mr. DIBBLE, "unless you sued him for breach." (Here Miss CAROWTHERS was heard to murmur "BLODGETT," and hastily took an anti-nervous pill.) "I should say that your respective parents wished you to marry only in case you should see no other persons whose noses you liked better. As on this coming Christmas you will be within a few months of your marriage, I have brought your father's will with me, with the intention of depositing it in the hands of Mr. EDWIN'S trustee, Mr. BUMSTEAD--"
"Oh, leave it with EDDY, if you'll please to be so ridiculously kind," interrupted FLORA. "Mr. BUMSTEAD would certainly insist upon it that there were two wills, instead of one: and that would be so absurd."
"Well, well," assented Mr. DIBBLE, rising to go, "I'm a perfectly square man, even when I'm looking round, and will do as you wish. As a slight memento of my really charming visit here, might I humbly petition yonder lady to remit any little penalty that may happen to be in force just now against any lovely student of the College for eating preserves in bed, or writing notes to the Italian music teacher, who is already married, or anything of that kind?"
"FLORA," said Miss CAROWTHERS, graciously, "you may tell Miss BABCOCK, that, in consequence of your guardian's request, she will be excused from studying her Bible as a punishment."
After due acknowledgment of this favor, the good Mr. DIBBLE made his farewell bow, and went forth to the turnpike. Following that high road, he presently found himself near the side-door of the Ritualistic Church of Saint Cow's, and, while curiously watching the minor canons who were carrying in some fireworks to be used in the next day's service, was confronted by Mr. BUMSTEAD just coming out.
"Let me see you home," said Mr. BUMSTEAD, hastily holding out an arm. "I'll tell the family it's only vertigo."
"Why, nothing is the matter with me," pleaded Mr. DIBBLE. "I've only been having a talk with my ward."
"I'll bet cloves for two that she didn't say she preferred me to NED," insinuated Mr. BUMSTEAD, breathing audibly through his nose.
"Then you'll not lose," was the answer; "for she did not tell me whom she preferred to the one she wishes to marry. They never do; and sometimes it is only discovered in Indiana. You and I surrender our respective guardianships on Christmas, Mr. BUMSTEAD; until when good-bye; and be early marriage their lot!"
"Be early Divorce their lot!" said BUMSTEAD, thrusting his book of organ-music so far under his coat-flap that it stuck out at the back like a curvature of the spine.
"I said marriage," cried Mr. DIBBLE, looking back.
"I said Divorce," retorted Mr. BUMSTEAD, thoughtfully eating a clove, "Don't one generally involve the other?"
[Footnote A: Oh, see here now, this is really too bad! The manner in which the great American Adapter is all the time making totally unexpected and vicious passes at the finest old cherished institutions of the age is simply frightful. PUNCHINELLO should prevent it?--Well, PUNCHINELLO did remonstrate at an early stage of the Adaptation; and the result was, that all the finest feelings of his nature were outraged by an ensuing Chapter, in which was introduced a pauper burial-ground swarming with deceased proprietors of American Punches!--EDS. PUNCHINELLO.]
[Footnote B: The whole idea is nothing less than atrocious; and, in our judgment, the Adapter's actual purpose in putting it forth is to make his own superlative goodness seem proved by a logical conclusion.--EDS. PUNCHINELLO.]
CHAPTER X.
OILING THE WHEELS.
No husband who has ever properly studied his mother-in-law can fail to be aware that woman's perception of heartless villainy and evidences of intoxication in man is often of that curiously fine order of vision which rather exceeds the best efforts of ordinary microscopes, and subjects the average human mind to considerable astonishment. The perfect ease with which she can detect murderous proclivities, Mormon instincts, and addiction to maddening liquors, in a daughter's husband--who, to the most searching inspection of everybody else, appears the watery, hen-pecked, and generally intimidated young man of his age--is one of those common illustrations of the infallible acuteness of feminine judgment which are doing more and more, every day, to establish the positive necessity of woman's superior insight, and natural dispassionate fairness of mind, for the future wisest exercise of the elective franchise and most just administration of the highest judicial office. It may be said that the mother-in-law is the highest development of the supernaturally perceptive and positive woman, since she usually has superior opportunities to study man in all the stages from marriage to madness; but with her whole sex, particularly after certain sour turns in life, inheres an alertness of observation as to the incredible viciousness of masculine character, which nothing less than a bit of flattery or a happily equivocal reflection upon some rival sister can either divert or mislead for a moment.
"Now don't you really think, OLDY," said Gospeler SIMPSON to his mother, as he sat watching her fabrication of an immense stocking for the poor, "that Hopeless Inebriate and Midnight Assassin are a rather too severe characterization of my pupil, Mr. MONTGOMERY PENDRAGON?"
"No, I do not, OCTAVE," replied the excellent old nut-cracker of a lady, who was making the charity stocking as nearly in the shape of a hatchet as possible. "When a young man of rebel sentiments spends all his nights in drinking lemon teas, and trying to spoil other young men's clothes in throwing such teas at them, and is only to be put down by umbrellas, and comes to his homes with cloves in his clenched fists, and has headaches on the following days, he's on his way either to political office or the gallows."
"But he hasn't done so at all with s's to it," exclaimed the Reverend OCTAVIUS, exasperated by so many plurals. "He did it but once, and then he was strongly provoked. EDWIN mentioned the sharpness of his sister's nose to him, and reflected casually upon the late well-known Southern Confederacy."
"Don't tell me!" reasoned the fine old lady, holding up the stocking by its handle to see how much longer it must be to reach the wearer's waist. "I'm afraid you're a copperhead, OCTAVE."
"How you do cackle, OLDY!" said her son, who was very proud of her when she kept still. "You can't see anything good in MONTGOMERY, because, after the first seven or eight breakfasts with us, he said he was afraid that so many fishballs would make his head swim."
"My child," returned the old lady, thrusting an arm so far into the charity stocking that she seemed to have the wrong kind of blue worsted limb growing from one of her shoulders, "I have judged this dissipated young man exactly as though he were my own son-in-law, and know that he possesses an incendiary disposition. After the fireworks at Saint Cow's Church, on Saint VITUS'S Day, that devoted Ritualistic Christian, Mr. BUMSTEAD, came up to me in the porch, with his eyes nearly closed, on account of the solemnity of the occasion, and began feeling around my neck with both his hands. When I asked him to explain, he said that he wanted to see whether my throat was cut yet, as he had heard that we kept a Southern murderer at home. He was still very pale at what had taken place in his room over night, when he finally said 'Good-day, ladies,' to me.
"MONTGOMERY is certainly attached to me, at any rate," murmured the Gospeler, reflectively, "and has made no attempt upon my life."
"That's because his sister restrains him," asserted the mother, with a fond look. "I overheard her telling him, when she was at dinner here one day, that you might be taken for a Southerner, if you only wore dress-coat all the time and were heavily mortgaged. Withdraw her influence, and the desperate young man would tar and feather us all in our beds some night."
Falling silent after this unanswerable proof of Mr. PENDRAGON'S guilt, Mr. SIMPSON mused upon as much of the dear old nutcracker as was not hidden by the vast charity stocking. In her ruffled cap, false front, and spectacles, she was so exactly the figure one might picture Mr. JOHN STUART MILL to be, after reading his latest literary knitting on the Revolting Injustice of Masculine Society, that the Gospeler of Saint Cow's could not help feeling how perfectly useless it was to expect her to think herself capable of error.
As, whenever the Reverend OCTAVIUS gave indication of a capacity for speechless thoughtfulness, his benignant mother at once concluded that he needed an anti-bilious pill, she now made all haste to the cupboard to procure that imitation-vegetable and a glass of water. It was the neatest, best-stored Ritualistic cupboard in Bumsteadville. Above it hung a portrait of the Pope, from which the grand old Apostolic son of an infallible dogma looked knowingly down, as though with the contents of that cupboard he could get-up such a schema as would be palatable to the most skeptical Bishop in all the Oecumenical Council, and of which be might justly say: Whosoever dare think that he ever tasted a better schema, or ever dreamed in his deepest consciousness that a better could be made, let him be anathema maranatha! A most rakish looking wooden button, noiselessly stealthly and sly, gave entrance to this treasury of dainties; and then what a rare array of disintegrated meals intoxicated the vision! There was the Athlete of the Dairy, commonly called Fresh Butter, in his gay yellow jacket, looking wore to the knife. There was turgid old Brown Sugar, who had evidently heard the advice, go to the ant, thou sluggard! and, and mistaking the last word for Sugared, was going as deliberately as possible. There was the vivacious Cheese, in the hour of its mite, clad in deep, creamy, golden hue, with delicate traceries of mould, like fairy cobwebs. The Smoked Beef, and Doughnuts, as being more sober and unemotional features of the pageant, appeared on either side the remains of a Cold Chicken, as rendering pathetic tribute to hoary age; while sturdy, reliable Hash and Fishballs reposed right and left in their mottled and rich brown coats, with a kind of complacent consciousness of having been created according to Mrs. GLASS'S standard dictum, First catch your Hair.
Gospeler SIMPSON, by natural law, alternated from this wonderful cupboard, very regularly, to another, or sister cupboard, also presided over by the good old maternal nut-cracker, wherein the energetic pill lived in its little pasteboard house next door to the crystal palace of smooth, insinuating castor oil; and passionate fiery essence of peppermint grew hot with indignation at the proximity of plebeian rhubarb and squills. In the present case he quietly took his anti-bilious globule: which, besides being a step in the direction of removing a pimple from his chin, was also intended as a kind of medical preparation for his coming services in the Ritualistic Church, where, at a certain part of the ceremonies, he was to stand on his head before the Banner of St. Alban and balance Roman candles on his uplifted feet. When the day had nearly passed, and the Vesper hour for those services arrived, he performed them with all the less rush of blood to the head for being thus prepared; yet there was still a slight sensation of congestion, and, to get rid of this, when he stepped forth from Saint Cow's in the twilight, it was to take an evening stroll along the shore of Bumsteadville pond.
(To be Continued.)