Edwin Drood

“ To the expert in architecture, this vaulting in reverse must be most interesting; to the student of Edwin Drood the thought occurs that this dark and eyrie place is more suggestive of tragedy than the crypt could ever have been, and one wonders if it was not in one of these black pits, whose depths are quite secure from any casual observation, and where even Durdles never came, that Edwin Drood's body was to be concealed, after he had been strangled with the long neckcloth. ”

“ 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 Dickens 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. ”

“ The Mystery of Edwin Drood is a story, or, to speak more correctly, the half of a story, that has excited so much general interest and so many speculations as to its ultimate disclosures, that it has given rise to various imaginary theories on the part of several clever writers ”

“ This is very hard to believe. Mr. Andrew Lang himself says: ‘Fancy can suggest no reason why Edwin Drood, if he escaped from his wicked uncle, should go spying about instead of coming openly forward.’ Mr. Archer says the flaw is that the theory provides no motive whatever for Drood’s disguising himself as Datchery. Why should Drood devote himself to an elaborate scheme of revenge upon his near kinsman and friend? He would want to hush the matter up, and save Jasper from himself. Why did Drood let Neville lie under the suspicion of murder, and why was not Rosa let into the secret? ”

“ Sapsea to suggest that the river should be dragged, that its banks should be rigidly examined, that particulars of the disappearance should be sent to all outlying places and to London, and that placards and advertisements should be widely circulated imploring Edwin Drood, if for any unknown reason he had withdrawn himself from his uncle's home and society, to take pity on that loving kinsman's sore bereavement and distress, and somehow inform him that he was yet alive. ”

“ 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 p. 123body, 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. ”

“ 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?
p. 116The 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 passion 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. ”

“ Neville Landless is already enough impressed by Little Rosebud, to feel indignant that Edwin Drood (far below her) should hold his prize so lightly. Edwin Drood is already enough impressed by Helena, to feel indignant that Helena’s brother (far below her) should dispose of him so coolly, and put him out of the way so entirely.
However, the last remark had better be answered. So, says Edwin:
‘I don’t know, Mr. Neville’ (adopting that mode of address from Mr. Crisparkle) , ‘that what people are proudest of, they usually talk most about ”

“ And in accordance with the trust, the lawyer charged Drood if anything should be amiss or if anything happened between him and Rosebud, to bring back the ring.
Mr. Grewgious gave him this keepsake with such wise and friendly advice on the seriousness of marriage that all the way to Cloisterham with the ring in his pocket, Edwin Drood was very thoughtful. He asked himself whether he really loved Rosebud as a man should love his wife, whether he had not drifted into this betrothal rather as a result of their parents' wish and wills than from any deeper feeling. ”

“ The watch found at the Weir was challenged by the jeweller as one he had wound and set for Edwin Drood, at twenty minutes past two on that same afternoon; and it had run down, before being cast into the water; and it was the jeweller’s positive opinion that it had never been re-wound. This would justify the hypothesis that the watch was taken from him not long after he left Mr. Jasper’s house at midnight, in company with the last person seen with him, and that it had been thrown away after being retained some hours. Why thrown away? ”

“ I do not believe that any explanation as good can be given to account for the tale being called The Mystery of Edwin Drood, if the tale practically starts with his corpse.
If Drood is really dead one cannot help feeling the story ought to end where it does end, not by accident but by design. The murder is explained. Jasper is ready to be hanged, and every one else in a decent novel ought to be ready to be married. ”

“ 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 class. He says that Nell and Paul, Richard Carson and the other characters who die in Dickens’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. ”

“ Sometimes the stones hit him, and sometimes they miss him, but Durdles seems indifferent to either fortune. The hideous small boy, on the contrary, whenever he hits Durdles, blows a whistle of triumph through a jagged gap, convenient for the purpose, in the front of his mouth, where half his teeth are wanting; and whenever he misses him, yelps out “Mulled agin!” and tries to atone for the failure by taking a more correct and vicious aim.
“What are you doing to the man?” demands Jasper, stepping out into the moonlight from the shade. ”

“ Edwin takes his watch, puts it on, and goes out, thinking: “Dear old Jack! If I were to make an extra crease in my neckcloth, he would think it worth noticing!”
He strolls about and about, to pass the time until the dinner-hour. It somehow happens that Cloisterham seems reproachful to him to-day; has fault to find with him, as if he had not used it well; but is far more pensive with him than angry. His wonted carelessness is replaced by a wistful looking at, and dwelling upon, all the old landmarks. He will soon be far away, and may never see them again, he thinks. Poor youth! Poor youth! ”

“ But she uttered no sound, and her breathing was no slower.
"How shall I tell Jack!" said Edwin, ruminating. If he had been less occupied with the thought, he must have seen her singular emotion. "I never thought of Jack. It must be broken to him, before the town crier knows it. I dine with the dear fellow to-morrow and next day—Christmas Eve and Christmas Day—but it would never do to spoil his feast days. He always worries about me, and moddley-coddleys in the merest trifles. The news is sure to overset him. How on earth shall this be broken to Jack!"
"He must be told, I suppose?" said Rosa. ”

“ Durdles nods assent, and falls to munching some fragments from his bundle. Jasper folds his arms upon the top of the wall, and, with his chin resting on them, watches. He takes no note whatever of the Minor Canon, but watches Neville, as though his eye were at the trigger of a loaded rifle, and he had covered him, and were going to fire. A sense of destructive power is so expressed in his face, that even Durdles pauses in his munching, and looks at him, with an unmunched something in his cheek. ”

“ Then something clinks and gropes about, and he dreams that he is alone for so long a time, that the lanes of light take new directions as the moon advances in her course. From succeeding unconsciousness he passes into a dream of slow uneasiness from cold; and painfully awakes to a perception of the lanes of light—really changed, much as he had dreamed—and Jasper walking among them, beating his hands and feet.
‘Holloa!’ Durdles cries out, unmeaningly alarmed. ”

“ He takes a lantern from a hook, puts a match or two in his pocket wherewith to light it, should there be need, and they go out together, dinner-bundle and all.
Surely an accountable sort of expedition! That Durdles himself, who is always prowling among old graves and ruins, like a Ghoule—that he should be stealing forth to climb, and dive, and wander without an object, is nothing extraordinary; but that the Choir Master or any one else should hold it worth his while to be with him, and to study moonlight effects in such company, is another affair. ”

“ But this paper is concerned only with Rochester's connection with The Mystery of Edwin Drood. To students of that unfinished tale—a mystery in a double sense—Rochester is exceedingly interesting, for, under the thin disguise of "Cloisterham," it is used as the scene of its principal events with remarkable exactness of detail. The action centres about the old cathedral, itself one of the most picturesque in England, and it has always been the hope of the present writer that a careful examination of the ground might give some clue to the solution of the story which Dickens had in mind. ”

“ 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.
p. 184CHAPTER 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 title. We do not know the precise manner in which the murder was accomplished. ”

“ Edwin will correct it where it’s wrong,’ resumed Mr. Grewgious, ‘and will throw in a few touches from the life. I dare say it is wrong in many particulars, and wants many touches from the life, for I was born a Chip, and have neither soft sympathies nor soft experiences. Well! I hazard the guess that the true lover’s mind is completely permeated by the beloved object of his affections. I hazard the guess that her dear name is precious to him, cannot be heard or repeated without emotion, and is preserved sacred. ”

“ As Durdles recalls that touching something in his dream, he looks down on the pavement, and sees the key of the crypt door lying close to where he himself lay.
“I dropped you, did I?” he says, picking it up, and recalling that part of his dream. As he gathers himself up again into an upright position, or into a position as nearly upright as he ever maintains, he is again conscious of being watched by his companion.
“Well?” says Jasper, smiling, “are you quite ready? Pray don’t hurry.”
“Let me get my bundle right, Mister Jarsper, and I’m with you.” ”

“ The protagonist of Edwin Drood, it will be remembered, is John Jasper, choir-master of Cloisterham cathedral, and uncle of the fated Edwin. He is painted as a dark and sinister individual, addicted to opium and subject to fits—rather a stage villain, all in all, scarcely convincing, and by no means so fearful as Dickens tried to make him. He lived in rooms over the old gate which shut the cathedral close from the High Street of the town. "One might fancy that the tide of life was stemmed by Mr. ”

“ But, here a startling right hand is laid on Edwin’s shoulder, and Jasper stands between them. For, it would seem that he, too, has strolled round by the Nuns’ House, and has come up behind them on the shadowy side of the road.
‘Ned, Ned, Ned!’ he says; ‘we must have no more of this. I don’t like this. I have overheard high words between you two. Remember, my dear boy, you are almost in the position of host to-night. You belong, as it were, to the place, and in a manner represent it towards a stranger. Mr. Neville is a stranger, and you should respect the obligations of hospitality. ”

“ Sapsea informed the new settler of Durdles's habits, pursuits, abode, and reputation. "I suppose a curious stranger might come to see you, and your works, Mr. Hurdles, at any odd time?" said Mr. Hatchery upon that.
"Any gentleman is welcome to come and see me any evening if he brings liquor for two with him," returned Durdles, with a penny between his teeth and certain halfpence in his hands. "Or if he likes to make it twice two, he'll be doubly welcome." ”

“ Sapsea hailed, not sorry to show him a bright example of behaviour to superiors.
‘Ah, Durdles! This is the mason, sir; one of our Cloisterham worthies; everybody here knows Durdles. Mr. Datchery, Durdles a gentleman who is going to settle here.’
‘I wouldn’t do it if I was him,’ growled Durdles. ‘We’re a heavy lot.’
‘You surely don’t speak for yourself, Mr. Durdles,’ returned Mr. Datchery, ‘any more than for His Honour.’
‘Who’s His Honour?’ demanded Durdles. ”