The Shadow on the Sun-dial

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter nineteen of the Mystery of Edwin Drude. This is
a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information not a volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
Recording by Allen Chant. The Mystery of Edwin Drude, the

(00:22):
Unfinished novel by Charles Dickens, Chapter nineteen, Shadow on the Sundial.
Again Miss Twinkleton has delivered her valedictory address, with the
accompaniments of white wine and pound cake. And again the
young ladies have departed to their several homes. Helena Landlis

(00:44):
has left the nun's house to attend her brother's fortunes,
and pretty Rosa is alone. Cloisterham is so bright and
sunny in these summer days that the cathedral and the
monastery ruin show as if their strong walls were transparrent.
A soft glow seems to shine from within them, rather
than upon them from without. Such is their mellowness. As

(01:08):
they look forth on the hot corn fields and the
smoking roads that distantly wind among them, the cloister and
gardens blush with ripening fruit. Time was when travel stained
pilgrims rode in clattering parties through the city's welcome shades.
Time is when wayfarers, leading a gipsy life between haymaking

(01:30):
time and harvest, and looking as if they were just
made of the dust of the earth, so very dusty
are they lounge about on cool door steps, trying to
mend their unmendible shoes or giving them to the city
kennels as a hopeless job, and seeking others in the
bundles that they carry along with their yet unused sickles

(01:51):
swathed in bands of straw. At all the more public pumps,
there is much cooling of bare feet, together with much
bubbling and go gurgling of drinking with hand to spout
on the part of these bedouins. The cloister and police,
meanwhile looking askant from their beats with suspicion and manifest impatience,

(02:12):
that the intruders should depart from within the civic bounds
and once more fry themselves on the simmering high roads
on the afternoon of such a day when the last
cathedral service is done, and when that side of the
high street on which the nun's house stands is in
grateful shade, save where its quaint old garden opens to

(02:35):
the west between the boughs of trees. A servant informs
Rosa to her terror, that mister Jasper desires to see her.
If he had chosen his time for finding her at
a disadvantage, he could have done no better. Perhaps he
has chosen it. Helena Landless is gone, missus Tisher is

(02:58):
absent on leave. Miss Twinkleton, in her amateur state of existence,
has contributed herself and a veal pie to a picnic.
Oh why, why, why did you say I was at home?
Cried Rosa helplessly. The maid replies that mister Jasper never

(03:18):
asked the question, that he said he knew she was
at home, and begged she might be told that he
asked to see her. What shall I do? What shall
I do? Thinks Rosa, clasping her hands. Possessed by a
kind of desperation, she adds in the next breath that
she will come to mister Jasper in the garden. She

(03:41):
shudders at the thought of being shut up with him
in the house, But many of its windows command the garden,
and she can be seen as well as heard there,
and can shriek in the free air and run away.
Such is the wild idea that flutters through her mind.
She has never seen him since the fatal night, except

(04:03):
when she was questioned before the mayor, and then he
was present in gloomy watchfulness, as representing his lost neview
and burning to avenge him, she hangs her garden hat
on her arm and goes out. The moment she sees
him from the porch, leaning on the sun dial, the
old horrible feeling of being compelled by him asserts its

(04:27):
hold upon her. She feels that she would even then
go back, but that he draws her feet towards him.
She cannot resist, and sits down with her head bent
on the garden seat beside the sun dial. She cannot
look up at him for abhorrence, but she has perceived
that he is dressed in deep mourning. So is she.

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It was not so at first, but the loss has
long been given up and mourned for as dead. He
would begin by touching her hand. She feels the intention
and draws her hand back. His eyes are then fixed
upon her. She knows, though her own see nothing but
the grass I have been waiting. He begins for some

(05:16):
time to be summoned back to my duty near you.
After several times forming her lips, which she knows he
is closely watching, into the shape of some other hesitating reply,
and then into none. She answers duty, sir, the duty

(05:37):
of teaching you, serving you as your faithful music master.
I have left off that study, and not left off,
I think discontinued. I was told by your guardian that
you discontinued it under the shock that we have all
felt so acutely. When will you resume? Never, sir, Never.

(06:02):
You could have done no more if you had loved
my dear boy. I did love him, cried Rosa, with
a flash of anger. Yes, but not quite, not quite
in the right way, shall I say, not in the
intended and expected way, much as my dear boy was

(06:23):
unhappily too self conscious and self satisfied. I draw no
parallel between him and you in that respect. To love
as he should have loved, or as any one in
his place would have loved must have loved. She sits
in the same still attitude, but shrinking a little more. Then,

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to be told that you discontinued your study with me
was to be politely told that you abandoned it altogether,
he suggested, Yes, says Rose, with sudden spirit, the politeness
was my guardian's, not mine. I told him that I
was resolved to leave off, and that I was determined

(07:10):
to stand by my resolution. And you still are I
still am, sir, and I beg not to be questioned
any more about it. At all events, I will not
answer any more. I have that in my power. She
is so conscious of his looking at her with a
gloating admiration, of the touch of anger on her, and

(07:32):
the fire and animation it brings with it, that even
as her spirit rises, it falls again, and she struggles
with a sense of shame, of front and fear, much
as she did that night at the piano. I will
not question you any more, since you object to it
so much, I will confess I do not wish to

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hear you, sir, cries Rosa. Rising. This time he does
touch her with his outstretched hand. In shrinking from it,
she shrinks into her seat again. We must sometimes act
in opposition to our wishes, he tells her in a
low voice. You must do so now, or do more

(08:16):
harm to others than you can ever set right. What
harm presently? Presently you question me, you see, and surely
that's not fair when you forbid me to question you. Nevertheless,
I will answer the question presently, dearest rose A charming Rosa,

(08:39):
She starts up again. This time he does not touch her,
but his face looks so wicked and menacing as he
stands leaning against the sun dial, setting as it were,
his black mark upon the very face of day, that
her flight is arrested by horror. As she looks at him,
I do not forget how many wis windows command of you,

(09:01):
of us, he says, glancing towards them. I will not
touch you again. I will come no nearer to you
than I am. Sit down, and there will be no
mighty wonder in your music. Masters leaning idly against a
pedestal and speaking with you, remembering all that has happened

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and our shares in it. Sit down, my beloved. She
would have gone once more was all but gone, and
once more, his face darkly threatening what would follow if
she went, has stopped her, looking at him with the
expression of the instant frozen on her face, she sits

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down on the seat again. Rosa, Even when my dear
boy was affianced to you, I loved you madly, even
when I thought his happiness in having you for his
wife was certain I loved you madly, even when I
strove to make him more ardently devoted to you. I

(10:09):
loved you madly even when he gave me the picture
of your lovely face, so carelessly traduced by him, which
I fained to hang always in my sight for his sake,
but worshiped in torment for years. I loved you madly
in the distasteful work of the day, in the wakeful

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misery of the night, girded by sordid realities, or wandering
through paradises and hells of visions into which I rushed,
carrying your image in my arms, I loved you madly.
If anything could make his words more hideous to her
than they are in themselves, it would be the contrast

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between the violence of his look and delivery and the
composure of his assumed atyade. I endured it all in silence.
So long as you were his, or so long as
I supposed you to be his. I hid my secret loyally.
Did I not? This lies so gross, while the mere

(11:17):
words in which it is told are so true, is
more than Rosa can endure. She answers with kindling indignation.
You were as false throughout sir, as you are now,
You were false to him daily and hourly. You know
that you made my life unhappy by your pursuit of me.

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You know that you made me afraid to open his
generous eyes, and that you forced me, for his own trusting, good,
good sake, to keep the truth from him that you
were a bad, bad man. His preservation of his easy attitude,
rendering his working features and his convulsive hands absolutely diabolical.

(12:02):
He returns with a fierce extreme of admiration. How beautiful
you are. You are more beautiful in anger than in repose.
I don't ask you for your love. Give me yourself
and your hatred. Give me yourself and that pretty rage,
Give me yourself and that enchanting scorn. It will be

(12:24):
enough for me. Impatient, tears rise to the eyes of
the trembling little beauty, and her face flames. But as
she again rises to leave him in indignation and seek
protection within the house, he stretches out his hand towards
the porch, as though he invited her to enter it.

(12:45):
I told you, you, rare charmer, you sweet witch, that
you must stay and hear me, or do more harm
than can ever be undone. You asked me, what harm stay?
And I will tell you go and I will do
it again. Rosa quails before his threatening face, though innocent

(13:09):
of its meaning, and she remains. Her panting breathing comes
and goes, as if it would choke her, but with
a repressive hand upon her bosom, she remains. I have
made my confession that my love is mad. It is
so mad that had the ties between me and my

(13:30):
dear lost boy been one silken thread less strong, I
might have swept him even from your side when you
favored him. A film comes over the eyes. She raises
for an instant, as though he had turned her faint.
Even him, He repeats, yes, even him, Rosa, you see me,

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and you hear me. Judge for yourself whether any other
admirer shall love you and live? Whose life is in
my hand? What do you mean, sir? I mean to
show you how mad my love is. It was hawked
through the late inquiries by mister Chris Sparkle that young

(14:16):
Landless had confessed to him that he was a rival
of my lost boy. That is an inexpiable offense in
my eyes. The same mister Chrisparkle knows under my hand
that I have devoted myself to the murderer's discovery and destruction,

(14:37):
be he whom he might, and that I determined to
discuss the mystery with no one until I should hold
the clue in which to entangle the murderer. As in
a net, I have slowly worked patiently to wind and
winded round him, and it is slowly winding as I speak.

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Your believe, if you believe in the criminality of mister Landless,
is not mister Chris Sparkle's belief, and he is a
good man. Rosa retorts, My belief is my own, and
I reserve it worshiped of my soul. Circumstances may accumulate
so strongly even against an innocent man that directed, sharpened

(15:26):
and pointed, they may slay him. One wanting link discovered
by perseverance against a guilty man proves his guilt, however,
slight its evidence before and he dies. Young Landless stands
in deadly peril either way. If you really suppose Rosa

(15:50):
pleads with him, turning paler that I favor mister Landis,
or that mister Landless has ever in any way addressed
himself to me, you are wrong. He puts that from
him with a slighting action of his hand and a
curled lip. I was going to show you how madly
I love you, more madly now than ever, for I

(16:13):
am willing to renounce the second object that has arisen
in my life, to divide it with you, and henceforth
to have no object in existence. But you, only, Miss Landless,
has become your bosom friend. You care for her peace

(16:34):
of mind. I love her dearly. You care for her
good name, I have said, sir, I love her dearly.
I am unconsciously, he observes, with a smile, as he
folds his hands upon the sun dial and leans his
chin upon them, so that his talk would seem from

(16:57):
the windows. Faces occasionally come and go there to be
of the airiest and playfullest. I am unconsciously giving offense
by questioning again. I will simply make statements therefore, and
not put questions. You do care for your bosom friend's
good name, and you do care for her peace of mind,

(17:21):
then remove the shadow of the gallows from her, dear one.
You dare propose to me to darling, I dare propose
to you. Stop there, if it be bad to idolize you.
I am the worst of men. If it be good,
I am the best. My love for you is above

(17:44):
all other love, and my truth to you is above
all other truth. Let me have hope and favor, for
I am a forsworn man for your sake. Rosa puts
her hands to her temples, and, pushing back her hair,
looks wildly and abhorrently at him, as though she were

(18:05):
trying to piece together what it is his deep purpose
to present to her only in fragments. Reckon up nothing
at this moment, Angel, but the sacrifices that I lay
at those dear feet, which I could fall down among
the violest ashes and kiss and put upon my head

(18:26):
as a poor savage might. There is my fidelity to
my dear boy after death. Tread upon it with an
action of his hands, as though he cast down something precious.
There is the inexpiable offence against my adoration of you.

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Spurn it with a similar action. There are my labors
in the cause of a just vengeance for six toiling months.
Crush them with another repetition of the action. There is
my past and my present wasted life. There is the
desolation of my heart and my soul. There is my peace.

(19:12):
There is my despair, stamp them into the dust, so
that you take me, were it even mortally hating me.
The frightful vehemence of the man, now reaching its full height,
so additionally terrifies her as to break the spell that
has held her to the spot. She swiftly moves towards

(19:33):
the porch, but in an instant he is at her
side and speaking in her ear rosa, I am self
repressed again. I am walking calmly beside you to the house.
I shall wait for some encouragement, and hope I shall
not strike too soon. Give me a sign that you

(19:57):
attend to me. She slightly and constrainedly moves her hand.
Not a word of this to any one, or it
will bring down the blow as certainly as night follows day.
Another sign that you attend to me, She moves her
hand once more. I love you, Love you, love you.

(20:23):
If you were to cast me off now, but you
will not, you would never be rid of me. No
one should come between us. I would pursue you to
the death. The handmaid coming out to open the gate
for him, He quietly pulls off his hat as a
parting salute, and goes away with no greater show of

(20:46):
agitation than is visible in the effigy of mister Sapse's
father opposite. Rosa faints in going upstairs, and is carefully
carried to her room and laid down on her bed.
A thunder storm is coming on, the maids say, and
the hot and stifling air has overset the pretty deer.

(21:09):
No wonder they have felt their own knees all of
a tremble all day long. End of Chapter nineteen, read
by all Enchant of Tunbridge in Kent, England, during the
summer of two thousand and eight,