The Problem of 'Edwin Drood' Part 13

II. d.i.c.kENS'S OWN NOTE

In the Memoranda made by d.i.c.kens for chapter xii., and printed on page 63, we read that Jasper 'lays the ground for the manner of the murder, to come out at last. Night picture of the Cathedral.' Mr. Lang himself admits, 'It seems almost undeniable that, when d.i.c.kens wrote this note, he meant Jasper to succeed in murdering Edwin.' {113}

III. THE ADMITTED TESTIMONY OF THE BOOK

The proof that Edwin Drood was murdered is to my mind mainly to be found in the pages of the story. One would have to print a large part of it in order to convey the impressive and unmistakable force of the whole, but perhaps it is better to read it as d.i.c.kens wrote it. For he himself advances nothing to modify or mitigate the conclusion that, as the result of a carefully designed plot, Edwin Drood was foully murdered by his uncle. Happily it is not necessary to spend much s.p.a.ce on this. I believe that Dr. Jackson is fully justified in his statement that all who have written on the subject acknowledge that Jasper tried to murder his nephew, and believed himself to have succeeded. We all see that Jasper had either strangled Edwin with a black scarf and committed his body to a heap of quicklime that lay about convenient, or thought that he had done so. 'We all see that the crime is to be proved by a gold ring of rubies and diamonds which Edwin has concealed about his person, though Jasper does not know it.' Mr. Proctor writes:

It is clear that d.i.c.kens has intended to convey the impression that Edwin Drood is murdered, his body and clothes consumed, Jasper having first taken his watch and chain and s.h.i.+rt-pin, which cannot have been thrown into the river till the night of Christmas Day, since the watch, wound up at twenty minutes past two on Christmas Eve, had run down when found in the river.

Having arrived at this point we may proceed.

Is it conceivable that Jasper, believing himself to have succeeded in murdering his nephew, could have failed? Jasper is meant by d.i.c.kens to be a man wholly without conscience and heart. Such characters are not numerous in d.i.c.kens's books, but we have evidence that he knew them and had pondered over them. I may quote his words in _Hunted Down_:

There is no greater mistake than to suppose that a man who is a calculating criminal, is, in any phase of his guilt otherwise than true to himself, and perfectly consistent with his whole character.

Such a man commits murder, and murder is the natural culmination of his course; such a man has to outface murder, and will do it with hardihood and effrontery. It is a sort of fas.h.i.+on to express surprise that any notorious criminal, having such crime upon his conscience, can so brave it out. Do you think that if he had it on his conscience at all, or had a conscience to have it upon, he would ever have committed the crime? Perfectly consistent with himself, as I believe all such monsters to be, this Slinkton recovered himself, and showed a defiance that was sufficiently cold and quiet. He was white, he was haggard, he was changed; but only as a sharper who had played for a great stake and had been outwitted and had lost the game.

In _Household Words_ for 14th June 1856, d.i.c.kens has an article on 'The Demeanour of Murderers.' He is referring to William Bousfield, 'the greatest villain that ever stood in the Old Bailey dock.' Bousfield's demeanour was considered exceedingly remarkable because of his composure under trial. On this d.i.c.kens says:

Can any one, reflecting on the matter for five minutes, suppose it possible-we do not say probable, but possible-that in the breast of this poisoner there were surviving, in the days of his trial, any lingering traces of sensibility, or any wrecked fragment of the quality which we call sentiment. Can the profoundest or the simplest man alive believe that in such a heart there could have been left, by that time, any touch of pity?

The murder of Edwin Drood had been so long premeditated that Jasper had done it hundreds and thousands of times in the opium den. The motive was his fierce and wolfish pa.s.sion for Rosa. He loathed his poor nephew as the chief obstacle to his wishes, and planned out in every detail a murder which would utterly remove him from the sight of men.

Jasper, then, was an unredeemed villain, but he was anything than a fool.

He drugged Drood; he strangled him; he put his body in quicklime; he had time to rob the victim of his jewellery; he maintained a threatening and defiant att.i.tude. He was not afraid that Drood would return to convict him of an attempt to murder. He had done his business. I think it worth while to point out that in d.i.c.kens's view Jasper's malevolence must have been raised to the highest point of fury on the night of the murder. For the murder was committed on a night of the wildest tempest. Trees were almost torn out of the earth, chimneys toppled into the streets, the hands of the cathedral clock were torn off, the lead from the roof was stripped away and blown into the close, and stones were displaced on the summit of the great tower. In _Barnaby Rudge_ (chapter ii.) d.i.c.kens says:

There are times when the elements being in unusual commotion, those who are bent on daring enterprises, or agitated by great thoughts, whether of good or evil, feel a mysterious sympathy with the tumult of nature, and are roused into corresponding violence. In the midst of thunder, lightning, and storm, many tremendous deeds have been committed; men, self-possessed before, have given a sudden loose to pa.s.sions they could no longer control. The demons of wrath and despair have striven to emulate those who ride the whirlwind and direct the storm; and man, lashed into madness with the roaring winds and boiling waters, has become for the time as wild and merciless as the elements themselves.

IV. THE RING

As we have seen, d.i.c.kens's method is to make every hint significant, and, as a rule, not too significant. The reader at the time may fail to perceive why a particular point is mentioned, but it is not mentioned carelessly or without design. The backward glance from the end is to interpret all. Besides this there are hints in the novels to which he calls special attention, and which he thereby binds himself to redeem.

Conspicuous among these in _Edwin Drood_ is the sentence about the jewelled ring and betrothal over which Edwin Drood's right hand closed as it rested in its little case. He would not let Rosa's heart be grieved by those sorrowful jewels. He would restore them to the cabinet from which he had unwillingly taken them, and keep silence. He would let them be. He would let them lie unspoken of in his breast. But d.i.c.kens says: 'Among the mighty store of wonderful chains that are for ever forging, day and night, in the vast ironworks of time and circ.u.mstance, there was one chain forged in the moment of that small conclusion, riveted to the foundations of heaven and earth, and gifted with invincible force to hold and drag.' No answer to our question, no solution of the problem can be satisfactory which fails to a.s.sign its due weight to this sentence. In Proctor's first attempt at the solution of _The Mystery of Edwin Drood_ contained in _Leisure Readings_, we find the following amazingly inept words: 'From the stress laid on this point, and the clear words in which its a.s.sociation with the mystery is spoken of, we may safely infer, I think, that it is intended partly to mislead the reader.'

Later on, Proctor, seeing the insufficiency of this, propounded another theory. This was that the attempt on Drood and his rescue were known almost immediately to Mr. Grewgious, who took possession of the ring; that when the fact that such a ring had been in Drood's pocket came to Jasper's knowledge he at once in a state of panic rushed to the vault to recover it from among the quicklime; that Drood, divining this intention, concealed himself in the vault and confronted Jasper the moment he opened the door. This theory is partly approved of by Mr. William Archer. {119} But d.i.c.kens's point is plainly that the ring was the only jewellery possessed by Drood about which Jasper knew nothing. It is the finding of the ring in the tomb that is to bring the guilt of the murder home.

As for the numerous a.s.sumptions made by Proctor, it can only be said that they have no foundation in the facts. There is no reason to believe that the attempt on Drood and his rescue were known almost immediately to Mr.

Grewgious. There is no evidence that Grewgious took possession of the ring. There is no evidence that Jasper came to know that such had been in Drood's pocket. All these theories are not only without foundation, but, I think, also in plain contradiction to the whole tenor of the story.

If Drood was half dead how did he get away? According to Mr. Proctor's ingenious theory he was rescued from the bed of quicklime by Durdles. He was rescued with the skin burnt off his face, and his eyebrows gone, so that he could afterwards disguise himself as Datchery. If this is so, the quicklime must have behaved itself in a singularly obliging and accommodating manner. But, as a matter of fact, there is no evidence whatever for the theory, and the whole drift of the story makes against it. The difficulties are admitted even by those who incline to support Proctor's view and to maintain that Edwin is not dead.

Mr. Lang admits that Proctor's theory of the murder is thin, and that 'all this set of conjectures is crude to the last degree.' I am content to leave it at that. Mr. Lang has conjectures of his own. He conjectures that Mr. Grewgious visited the tomb of his lost love, Rosa's mother, and consecrated to her 'a night of memories and sighs.' He says: 'Mrs. Bud, his lost love, we have been told, was buried hard by the Sapsea monument.' This is not told by d.i.c.kens. It is better to stick by the narrative.

Supposing that Edwin was not dead, what was the meaning of the long silence? Why did he allow Neville to rest under a cloud of suspicion, and exposed to great peril? Why did he allow Jasper's persecution of Rosa? Why did he allow Helena Landless, whom he had begun more or less to love, to suffer with the rest? Are we to suppose that he came back disguised to fix the guilt on his uncle? Can we believe that he did not know that his uncle had tried to murder him? If not, are we to believe that he suspected his uncle and was not sure, and came down to try to surprise his uncle's secret and to punish him? He could only have punished him at most for an attempt at murder. Even that might have been hard to bring home, supposing he himself was not clear as to the facts.

'Fancy can suggest no reason,' writes Mr. Lang, 'why Edwin Drood, if he escaped from his wicked uncle, should go spying about instead of coming openly forward. No plausible, unfantastic reason could be invented.'

Dr. M. R. James, one of the few who still think that Edwin might not have been murdered, says in his last writing on the subject: 'I freely confess that the view that Edwin is dead solves many difficulties. A wholly satisfactory theory of the manner of his escape has never been devised; his failure to clear Neville from suspicion is hard to explain.' Mr.

Lang, in what has unhappily proved his last article on the subject, in _Blackwood_ for May 1911, explains that while he believed in 1905 that Jasper failed in his attempt to murder, 'now I have no theory as to how the novel would have been built up.'

V.

Those who more or less strongly still believe that d.i.c.kens meant to spare Edwin rest their case mainly on a subjective impression. Says Dr. James: 'On the other hand, whether the result would be a piece of "bad art" or not, I do think it is more in d.i.c.kens's manner to spare Edwin than to kill him. The subjective impression that he is not doomed is too strong for me to dismiss.' {122} It is difficult to argue against a subjective impression. The fact remains that Edwin Drood becomes superfluous. He has effected no lodgment in any human heart. Mr. Walters says that Drood is little more than a name-label attached to a body, a man who never excites sympathy, and whose fate causes no emotion. Proctor, who believes that Edwin Drood survived, admits that he lived unpaired. 'Rosa was to give her hand to Tartar, Helena Landless to Crisparkle, while Edwin and Mr. Grewgious were to look on approvingly, though Edwin a little sadly.'

Mr. Lang in the Gads.h.i.+ll edition of d.i.c.kens wrote: 'Edwin and Neville are quarrelsome cubs, not come to discretion, and the fatuity of Edwin, though not exaggerated much, makes him extremely unsympathetic.' But in his book on the subject Mr. Lang changes his view and writes: 'On re-reading the novel I find that d.i.c.kens makes Drood as sympathetic as he can.' Thus impressions alter. Gillan Vase, in her continuation of the story would make us believe that on Edwin's reappearance Rosa transferred her heart from Tartar to her old lover! But taking the story as it stands, we see that the sorrow for his death is not deep, and that no heart is broken by his disappearance. Rosa is consoled, and more than consoled. Helena grieves for her brother, and flings a s.h.i.+eld over Rosa.

Neville and Edwin have never been good friends. Grewgious has cheerfully acquiesced in, if he has not instigated, the breaking of the engagement between Rosa and Edwin. The appropriate explanation is: 'Poor youth!

Poor youth!' That is all.

It has been suggested that there is a parallel between _No Thoroughfare_ and _Edwin Drood_. According to Proctor it is suggested clearly in _No Thoroughfare_ that Vendale has been murdered beyond all seeming hope.

Proctor's real argument seems to be that Vendale is not marked for death, and does not die, and that Edwin Drood belongs to the same cla.s.s. He says that Nell and Paul, Richard Carson and the other characters who die in d.i.c.kens's stories are marked for death from the beginning, but that there is not one note of death in all that Edwin does or says. I believe that this is entirely contrary to the facts. There are some who like Edwin, but none who love him. He is hated by his uncle, and hated perhaps by Neville.

In _No Thoroughfare_, a story written by Wilkie Collins and d.i.c.kens in 1867 as a Christmas Number, we have the story of a man supposed dead coming to life again. It may be noted that the only portions of this story furnished exclusively by d.i.c.kens were the overture and the third act. Collins contributed to the first and fourth act, and wrote the whole of the second. Vendale, a wine-merchant, is in love with a Swiss girl, Marguerite. She returns his affection, but her guardian Obenreizer is bitterly opposed. He consents, however, to the marriage if Vendale can double his income and make it 3000 a year. Vendale discovers that a forgery has been committed, through which 500 are missing. He is asked by the Swiss firm with which he deals to send a trustworthy messenger to investigate the fraud and discover its perpetrator. Vendale resolves to go himself, and tells Obenreizer. Obenreizer is the culprit, though Vendale does not suspect it, and the two go to Switzerland together.

Obenreizer keeps planning a murder, and contrives to give Vendale an opium draught. He drugs him again, and in the course of a perilous mountain journey Vendale is roused to the knowledge that Obenreizer had set upon him, and that they were struggling desperately in the snow.

Vendale rolls himself over into a gulf. But help is near. Marguerite's fears have been excited, and she has followed her lover on the journey.

She engages a rescue expedition, and they find the lost man insensible.

He is delirious and quite unconscious where he is. Then he seems to sink in the deadly cold, and his heart no longer beats. 'She broke from them all, and sank over him on his litter with both her living hands upon the heart that stood still.' But by and by, when the crisis of the exposure comes, 'supported on Marguerite's arm-his sunburnt colour gone, his right arm bandaged and slung over his breast-Vendale stood before the murderer a man risen from the dead.' I cannot see that this is a great surprise.

Vendale was not marked for death. I think the unsophisticated reader, knowing how he is loved and how he is waited for, and how unconsciousness may pa.s.s into consciousness, would fully expect him to live. When he comes to life, he is supported on Marguerite's arm. There was no arm on which Edwin Drood could lean. d.i.c.kens can provide for his old bachelors like Newman Noggs, but he had no provision for Edwin.

THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE DISAPPEARANCE THEORY

_From the Wrapper_.-I am convinced after a careful perusal of nearly all that has been written on the subject that the real strength of the disappearance theory is to be found in the bottom picture of the wrapper.

When Madame Perugini published the article from which I have quoted, Mr.

Lang in a letter to the _Times_ {127} rested his whole case on the cover design. He said:

The chief difficulty in accepting the fact has always been that, in designs on the covers, by Mr. C. A. Collins, first husband of Mrs.

Perugini, we see a young man, who is undeniably Edwin Drood, confronting Jasper in a dark vault, in the full light of a lantern held up by Jasper. Mrs. Perugini says that this figure may be regarded as 'the ghost of Edwin as seen by Jasper in his half-dazed and drugged condition,' or Helena Landless 'dressed as Datchery.'

The figure is not dressed as Datchery, nor was Miss Landless fair like Drood, but very dark. As for the ghost, he is as substantial as Jasper, and it is most improbable that d.i.c.kens would have a mere hallucination designed in such a substantial fas.h.i.+on, 'ma.s.sive and concrete,' as Pip said of Mr. Wopsle's rendering of the part of Hamlet.

Mr. Lang in his final _Blackwood_ paper repeats the a.s.sertion with unhesitating confidence. He goes so far as to say:

Last, d.i.c.kens had instructed his son-in-law, Charles Collins (brother of Wilkie Collins), to design a pictorial cover of the numbers, in which Jasper, entering a dark vault with a lantern, finds a substantial shadow-casting Drood 'in his habit as he lived,'-soft conical hat and all,-confronting him.

As to this we note:

1. That Collins received no such instructions.

2. That neither Collins nor Luke Fildes nor any of the d.i.c.kens family read the ill.u.s.tration in that sense. They all supposed Edwin to be dead.

3. We also note that, in spite of Mr. Lang's confident a.s.sertions, there is no unanimity as to the meaning of the design. It may be Drood; it may be, as I think it is, Datchery; it may be Neville Landless, as Mr. Hugh Thomson has suggested. But no one is ent.i.tled to dogmatise on the subject.

4. As I have already pointed out, in the great majority of the wrappers the designs are vague and general, and cannot be verified in the narrative.