The Problem of 'Edwin Drood' Part 18

For these reasons we conclude that Helena and no other is Datchery. I have taken no account of the theory that Datchery is an unknown person.

An unknown person could not possess the necessary qualities of heart.

CHAPTER VIII-HOW WAS 'EDWIN DROOD' TO END?

How _Edwin Drood_ was to end is a problem which can only be solved to a certain extent. We find we are left in the middle, and as much mystery remains as fully justifies the t.i.tle. We do not know the precise manner in which the murder was accomplished. In particular, we are left ignorant as to the way in which the crime is to be brought home to the victim. We cannot define the relations of the opium woman to Drood and Jasper and the Landlesses. We do not know the history of Jasper's early years. We can do no more than speculate, and the speculations must be confined within strict limits. The first question is, whether d.i.c.kens himself knew how he was going to extricate and complete his narrative.

Scott has left us the astonis.h.i.+ng statement {184} that 'I have generally written to the middle of one of these novels without having the least idea how it was to end.' Mr. Skene, a true friend of Sir Walter Scott, tells us {185} that when Scott described to him the scheme which he had formed for _Anne of Geierstein_, he suggested to him that he might with advantage connect the history of Rene, king of Provence, in which subject Skene had special means of helping him. Scott accepted the suggestion, 'and the whole _denouement_ of the story of _Anne of Geierstein_ was changed, and the Provence part woven into it, in the form in which it ultimately came forth.'

Was d.i.c.kens in the same case when death interrupted him in his work?

Was this an 'apoplectic' novel?

Scott speaks frankly of _Count Robert of Paris_ and _Castle Dangerous_ being his 'apoplectic books.' Does _Edwin Drood_ bear the same relation to the body of d.i.c.kens's work as _Count Robert of Paris_ and _Castle Dangerous_ bear to the Waverley Novels? Mr. Lang, whose views on this subject varied much, in one of his later writings takes the view that d.i.c.kens was deeply embarra.s.sed. He says: 'It is melancholy to think of this great and terribly overtasked genius tormented by fears that were only too real.' He finds the story wandering on, living from hand to mouth, full of absurdities. He thinks that d.i.c.kens was very capable of changing his original purpose, and saving the life of Edwin.

There is no doubt that d.i.c.kens was puzzled about the order of his chapters. Forster tells us that d.i.c.kens 'became a little nervous about the course of the tale from a fear that he might have plunged too soon into the incidents leading on to the catastrophe such as the Datchery a.s.sumption (a misgiving he had certainly expressed to his sister-in-law).' I have already expressed agreement with Dr. Jackson in his plan for renumbering the chapters. Unless this plan is adopted there is chronological confusion. Also there is no doubt that d.i.c.kens had been working under terrific strain. But the testimony of those who knew him best is that his faculties were never brighter and stronger than they were in his last months.

The same impression is left upon me by his unfinished novel. Those who dislike d.i.c.kens's later manner may easily find faults. They may say that Honeythunder is grotesque rather than amusing. They may say that Jasper's courts.h.i.+p of Rosa is melodramatic and wolfish. I confess to being perpetually puzzled by the account of Neville's capture on the morning after the murder. Why was he pursued in that manner? All that was known against him was that he had been with Edwin on the previous night. He is only eight miles away from Cloisterham, and stopping at a roadside tavern to refresh. He starts again on his journey, and becomes aware of other pedestrians behind him coming up at a faster pace than his. He stands aside to let them pa.s.s, but only four pa.s.s. Other four slackened speed, and loitered as if intending to follow him when he should go on. The remainder of the party (half a dozen, perhaps) turn and go back at a great rate. Among those who go back is Mr. Crisparkle.

n.o.body speaks, but they all look at him. Four walk in advance and four in the rear. Thus he is beset, and stops as a last test, and they all stop. He asks:

'Why do you attend upon me in this way? . . . Are you a pack of thieves?'

'Don't answer him,' said one of the number. . . . 'Better be quiet.

'I will not submit to be penned in,' says Neville; 'I mean to pa.s.s those four in front.'

They all stand still, and he shoulders his heavy stick and quickens his pace. The largest and strongest man of the number dexterously closes with him and goes down with him, but not before the heavy stick has descended smartly. Naturally Neville is utterly bewildered. Two of them hold his arms and lead him back into a group whose central figures are Jasper and Crisparkle. Why on earth did not Crisparkle speak to him at the beginning, and tell him what had happened? All this is somnambulistic.

There seems to be a slight slip in chapter ii.

Jasper's room at the Gatehouse is described. It has an unfinished picture of a blooming schoolgirl hanging over the chimneypiece. At the upper end of the room Mr. Jasper opens a door and discloses a small inner room pleasantly lighted and prepared for supper.

'Fixed as the look the young fellow meets is, there is yet in it some strange power of suddenly including the sketch over the chimneypiece.'

They dine in the inner room. The cloth is drawn, and a dish of walnuts and a decanter of rich coloured sherry are placed upon the table.

'How's she looking, Jack?'

Mr. Jasper's concentrated face again includes the portrait as he returns: 'Very like your sketch indeed.'

'I am a little proud of it,' says the young fellow, glancing up at the sketch with complacency, and then shutting one eye, and taking a corrected prospect of it over a level bridge of nut-crackers in the air.

d.i.c.kens seems to have forgotten that the sketch is in the other room.

It seems to me that these are slips, but I do not find any other readers have taken the same view. With these exceptions, the story seems to be one of d.i.c.kens's best books. Its grasp of local colour and detail is as strong as ever it was. There is much of his old humour in the Mayor, in Miss Twinkleton's Girls' School, in Billickin, in Durdles and his attendant imp. Also the story is constructed with the greatest care and ingenuity. Any one who carefully goes over the ma.n.u.script and the proofs will see that d.i.c.kens had a plan in his mind that he half revealed and half concealed, that his phrases and details are chosen with the nicest care, and that he meant to reward those who at the end could take a 'backward look' by the delight they would experience in seeing how everything had been scrupulously planned and artistically conducted to a climax. We cannot do justice to the book in its present state. But d.i.c.kens's royal genius was at its full, and would have vindicated itself.

He had set himself deliberately to carrying out a plot far more exact than he had ever attempted, and the end was in view from the beginning.

This is not to say that the reason of every incident and every description was disclosed from the first. I have previously discussed Edgar Allan Poe's reading of _Barnaby Rudge_, and shown that his perception, keen as it was, yielded him less than he thought. I have shown how d.i.c.kens prepared the plan for _Little Dorrit_ from the start of his book. It may be traced now, but without the 'backward glance' it would not have been easy to trace it.

We may also say with some confidence that no new characters of importance would have been introduced to us in the second half. In the chapter 'Half Way with d.i.c.kens' I have shown that this is the case with five of his princ.i.p.al books. The conclusion is not stringent, for d.i.c.kens was free to change his method. But it may be said to be highly probable; if it is true we are left to conjecture the part that the various characters would have played in the winding up of the tale.

The book was to end with the capture and conviction of Jasper. I have already written of the part played and to be played by Grewgious.

Another hunter of Jasper was Durdles. The task a.s.signed to Durdles among the hunters is fairly clear. Sooner or later, by tapping round the Sapsea monument he is to discover the presence of 'a wheen banes,' or at least of some unsuspected 'rubbish.' He had put the inscription on the monument before Christmas, and had no doubt satisfied himself then that all was safe. 'When Durdles puts a touch or a finish upon his work, no matter where, inside or outside, Durdles likes to look at his work all round, and see that his work is a-doing him credit.'

Having made his inspection when the epitaph was put on, Durdles would have no further curiosity about the tomb until, in the following summer, he took Mr. Datchery on a rambling expedition as he had taken Jasper.

His peculiar gift, like that of the bloodhound, is to aid in tracking down the quarry.

Deputy has also his part to play. From the first Jasper hates and fears Deputy, and there are signs near the close of _Edwin Drood_ that this strange boy, who has some characteristics in common with d.i.c.kie Sludge, of _Kenilworth_, is to form a close alliance with Datchery. The ugliest side of Jasper's character displays itself in his treatment of the 'young imp employed by Durdles.' The chanting of the line, 'Widdy Widdy Wake-c.o.c.k warning,' has for him a note of menace. With the fury of a devil he leaps upon the boy when he emerges from the crypt with Durdles, and hears a sharp whistle rending the silence. 'I will shed the blood of that impish wretch!' he cries; 'I know I shall do it.' Durdles has to appeal to him not to hurt the boy. 'He followed us to-night, when we first came here,' says Jasper. 'He has been prowling near us ever since.'

Deputy denies both accusations. 'I'd only just come out for my 'elth when I see you two a-coming out of the Kinfreederal.'

What has Deputy actually seen? He may have testimony to give of the most vital consequence, but even if he has seen nothing of Jasper's movements while Durdles lies asleep, or of his approach to the Sapsea monument, he will tell Mr. Datchery of that furious onslaught when Jasper clutched his throat and threatened to kill him. He will prove a very useful ally of the hunters.

It seems quite inconceivable that either Durdles or Deputy could have known the whole secret and kept it. Neither of them was capable of keeping a secret long. But they might have suspicions, and they might and would know circ.u.mstances which when rightly interpreted led to the inevitable conclusion.

I cannot but think that the chief part in the coming narrative was to be played by the opium woman. The novel from the very first page has a touch of the East. In Wilkie Collins's _The Moonstone_ the Indians did their part, and then vanished from the scene. But in _Edwin Drood_ we have the Landlesses from Ceylon with a touch of dark blood, or at least of the Eastern spirit. Mr. Lang is in excess of the facts when he calls them Eurasians, and d.i.c.kens hesitates in ascribing black blood to them.

They are more probably gypsies. We have also the connection of Edwin Drood with the East. There is more than a suggestion of dark blood in John Jasper. Above all, we have the opium woman. What was the connection between John Jasper and the opium woman? What was John Jasper's history before he came to Cloisterham?

We do not know, but conjectures have been hazarded. Mr. c.u.ming Walters thinks that the opium woman's hatred of Jasper may be due to the fact that Jasper has wronged a child of the woman's. He also conjectures that Jasper may be the son of the opium woman. Dr. Jackson conjectures that Jasper seduces a young girl who had treated the old woman kindly, that he neglected this girl for Rosa, that the girl committed suicide, and that the old woman devoted herself to the pursuit of the betrayer. All this is mere speculation. We have really no means of judging whether the speculation is true or not. It does seem that the woman's peculiar hatred of Jasper must have an origin and a grave cause. Miss Stoddart suggests that the opium woman was not wholly degraded, and that she is horrified by Jasper's continually repeated threatenings while under the influence of opium; that her sympathies have been wakened for that hapless Ned who bears a threatened name, and she resolves to do her best to serve him. With an honest purpose she makes her way before Christmas to Cloisterham. She loses sight of Jasper, but actually meets Edwin Drood. The kind act of that young stranger causes her to unload her conscience, and she bids him be thankful that his name is not Ned. At her second visit in the summer she knows from Jasper's confessions under her own roof that the long premeditated crime has actually taken place, and her object in visiting Cloisterham is to gather evidence that may serve the ends of justice. This sunken creature has a task a.s.signed to her, and she fulfils it.

I am not sure that d.i.c.kens means to throw any redeeming light on the character of the opium woman. She has been wronged; she is seeking vengeance, and at last, she finds it. How this comes to pa.s.s d.i.c.kens meant to tell us, but he meant, no doubt, to surprise us in the telling.

My own belief is that d.i.c.kens intended to surprise his readers by telling them of some unsuspected blood relations.h.i.+p between his characters.

Surprises of this kind are given in his novels. No reader of _Oliver Twist_ could have guessed from the first part Oliver's relations.h.i.+p to Monks and the Maylies. Who would have supposed from the first half of _Nicholas Nickleby_ that Smike was the son of Ralph?

'That, boy,' repeated Ralph, looking vacantly at him.

'Whom I saw stretched dead and cold upon his bed, and who is now in his grave-'

'Who is now in his grave,' echoed Ralph, like one who talks in his sleep.

The man raised his eyes, and clasped his hands solemnly together:

'-Was your only son, so help me G.o.d in heaven!'

In the midst of a dead silence Ralph sat down, pressing his two hands upon his temples. He removed them after a minute, and never was there seen, part of a living man undisfigured by any wound, such a ghastly face as he then disclosed.

Again, who would have supposed from the early part of _Great Expectations_ that Estella was the daughter of Abel Magwitch? {196}

In _Barnaby Rudge_, Maypole Hugh turns out to be an illegitimate son of Sir John Chester. In _The Old Curiosity Shop_, 'The Stranger' is found to be the brother of the Grandfather. In _Bleak House_, Esther Summerson is revealed as a daughter of Lady Dedlock. In _Our Mutual Friend_, John Rokesmith turns out to be John Harmon.

That the action of opium had a part to play in the revelation can hardly be doubted. The whole book is drenched in opium. In _The Moonstone_ the problem is who stole the jewels. It is solved by opium. The jewels are stolen by a man under the influence of opium surrept.i.tiously administered. He is quite unconscious of what he has done, and remains unconscious. Afterwards he is discovered by a fresh administration of opium. When the opium has completely done its work the man repeats his deed, and the experiment is conclusive.

I do not think that any one reading right on would name the perpetrator of the theft, and yet when we take a backward glance we find an account of a dinner-party about the seventieth page which gives the clue. I doubt whether any one on first reading it would see in it anything that mattered, and yet it contains everything that matters. The height of art in work like this is to conceal art. You may be able at an early stage to introduce facts which contain the ultimate solution of your problem, and yet appear important enough to be stated for their own sake. The solution of the problem, or rather the materials of the solution, should be given, and yet the reader should be unable to detect the full significance of the preliminary statement till the complete clearing arrives. At the same time the book will not be satisfactory if details are superfluous, if they do nothing to carry one on to the dissipation of the mystery.