276 



• KNOWLEDGE • 



[Oct. 3, 1884. 



DICKENS'S STORY LEFT HALF TOLD. 



A QUASI SCIENTIFIC INCJUIET INTO 



THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DEOOD. 



By Thomas Foster. 



{Contimied from page 258.) 



TO return to the conversation between Grewgious and 

 Jasper. 



Jasper asks, " What is Miss Landless's state 1" To this, 

 Grewgious replies at once, " Defiance of all suspicion and 

 unbounder] faith in her brother." And, when Jasper pre- 

 tends to pity her, Grewgious turns, as if in disgust with 

 Jasper, from the subject. " It is not of her that I came 

 to speak," he says. " It is of my ward." And he pro- 

 ceeds to tell Jasper of the dissolution of the engagement 

 between Edwin and Rosa. Now, here I notice a singular 

 thing. Every reader knows why Jasper is overwhelmed 

 by this intelligence. Jasper learns that he has murdered 

 Drood uselessly, and, murderous villain though he is, he 

 is horrified. But no one seems to notice that Grewgious 

 has no special reason, unless he is certain that Jasper 

 believes himself to be the murderer of Drood, for supposing 

 that Jasper will be startled by the news he brings. Yet 

 he does suppose so. He says, " Mind ! I warn you that I 

 think it will surprise you," which, from Mr. Grewgious, 

 means a good deal. Again, it is " with a compressed aud 

 lU termined mouth " (which, from Diekens, means a good 

 deal), with provoking slowness and internalnes?, with fixed 

 look on Jasper, never changing either his look or action 

 in all that followed, that Grewgious tells Jasper what, 

 unless Grewgious knew of Jasper's assault on Drooil, 

 would seem to him a matter of very little moment at such 

 a tiiue, — savouring of triviality in the presence of the pre- 

 sumed fact that Drood was dead. 



That no one should notice the strangeness of this expec- 

 tation on Mr. Grewgious's part seems to me even more 

 singular than the circumstance, which nevertheless is to 

 me very singular, that few seem to be struck by the 

 strangely brutal behaviour of Mr. Grewgious — or rather 

 by what would be its strange brutality if he were not 

 certain that Jasper was a murderous hypocrite. It is to 

 be observed that Blr. Grewgious's intense dislike to Jasper, 

 shown in this interview aud afterwards, has sprung into 

 existence full-grown. There is no trace of it in the earlier 

 and only other meeting between the two. On the contrary, 

 in that meeting, after answering rather sharply a remark of 

 Jasper's which had seemed unnecessaiy, Mr. Grewgious 

 says, all earnestly and sincerely, " Come, Mr. Jasper, I 

 know your affection for your nephew, and that you are 

 quick to feel on his behalf." "You could not speak more 

 haudsomely," Jasper says; on which Mr. Grewgious nods 

 his head coutentedly. 'The rest of that interview is 

 friendly and pleasant ; and we note especially that Mr. 

 Grewgious shakes hands with Jasper at its close, as he 

 says of Drood and Rosa, " God bless them both ! " But in 

 the interview on Deo. 27, just after Jasper has had so 

 terrible a blow in the loss of the nephew whom Grewgious 

 supposed him to love so much, Mr. Grewgious, so far from 

 sympathising with him, treats him as the "brigand and 

 wild beast" he afterwards calls him. He tells him news 

 which — somehow — he knows will horrify him, and as 

 Jasper sinks under the blow he looks on unpitying. He 

 tells him how Edwin and Rosa grew to the idea that 

 they should rather he as brother and sister than as 

 husband and wife ; desciibes how they met for the 

 purpose of interchanging their discoveries ; notes how 

 " one of the couple, and that one your nephew," showed 



such consideration for Jasper as to be enabled to inflict on 

 him the shock of hearing of the parting : and as item after 

 item is slowly brought before him the villain reels and 

 staggers under the successive blows. Then finally he is 

 struck to the earth by hearing that the parting he had wit- 

 nessed (Grewgious must have learned this after Edwin's 

 disappearance) was final — so far as their ill-advised rela- 

 tion was concerned. As Jasper falls with a terrible shriek 

 in a ghastly heap upon the floor, Grewgious shows no pity 

 — " not changing his action even then, he opens and shuts 

 his hands as he warms them, and looks do'wn at it." 



Is it possible to explain this except on the assumption 

 that Grewgious knows Jasper to be the murderous hypocrite 

 he is ? Without hesitation, I say, it is not. Nor can he 

 possibly have known this except from Edwin Drood 

 himself. 



Now note that when Jasper comes to he finds Grewgious 

 watching him, as calmly as before. " A man," Grewgious 

 remarks, " cannot have his rest broken, and his mind 

 cruelly tormented, and his body overtaxed by fatigue, 

 without being thoroughly worn out." " I fear I have 

 alarmed you," says Jasper. " Not at all, I thank yon." 

 " You are too considerate." " Not at all, I thank you." 

 (Words full of meaning here.) Mrs. Tope gets wine and 

 food ready, and invites Mr. Grewgious to wait till Jasper 

 has taken it. He replies, "with a snort which might mean 

 yes, or no, or anything, or nothing, and which Mrs. Tope 

 would have found highly mystifying, but that her attention 

 was divided by the service of the table," but which the 

 average reader, whose attention is very readily divided, 

 finds not mystifying at all, but simply passes without con- 

 sidering it as worth noticing. Then Jasper asks Grewgious 

 to eat with him. " I couldn't get a morsel down my 

 throat, I thank you," answers Grewgious. He will not 

 eat at the same table with Jasper, whose hand but a few 

 days before he had been willing to take. He sits " with a 

 hard kind of imperturbably polite protest all over him." 

 This again is full of meaning. He is all hardness, and 

 shows no trace even of sorrow, still less of sympathy. 



After his meal, and a few minutes' meditation, Jasper 

 begins to see that a part of his plot will fail, unless he can 

 bring new evidence against Neville. He tests the matter 

 by submitting to Grewgious the idea that Edwin may have 

 been moved by hLs changed position to go away from 

 Cloisterham. Nor does Grewgious reject the idea. He 

 purposely assents to it, waiting to see what the villain aims 

 at. This soon becomes clear. Crisparkle enters, and 

 Jasper suggests the same idea to him, with an air of fair- 

 ness which thoroughly deludes the simple and kindly- 

 hearted clergyman. Crisparkle immediately opens his 

 heart, and tells Jasper what was doubtless no news to him, 

 but what — once made public — must tell heavily against 

 Neville. He describes the hopeless love entertained by 

 Landless for Rosa. Jasper turns paler as this love is 

 spoken of, but we feel that he had known of it before. He 

 repeats that he will cling to the new hope ; and that if no 

 trace of Edwin is found, he will cherish the idea that 

 Edwin '■ might have absconded of his own wild will." 



And now follows a passage which, like many of the most 

 significant passages in the story, has been very little 

 noticed, if noticed at all : — 



" It fell out '■ — whenever Dickens begins thus we know 

 something important is coming (as 1 could show by a 

 hundred instances) — " it fell out that Mr. Crisparkle, going 

 away from this conference very uneasy in his mind .... 

 took a memorable night walk." Observe, a memorable 

 walk — though nothing seems to happen, except that strange 

 thoughts come into his mind. "A familiar passage in his 

 reading, about 'airy tongues that syllable men's names,' 



