Oct. 31, 1884.] 



• KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



357 



Jasper is mocdy, solitary, aud reticent. The frank Minor 

 Canon cannot at'proach him. Mr. Crisparkle cannot guess 

 whether Jasper supposes he has terrified Ro«a into silence, 

 or supposes, on the contrary, that she has imparted to any 

 one the particulars of hLs interview with her. The follow- 

 ing sentences seem to be intended to convey the precise 

 truth about the views of Rosa, Crisparkle, Neville, and 

 Helena, on the question of Jasper's guilt : — " The dreadful 

 suspicion of Jasper which Rosa was so shocked to have re- 

 ceived into her imagination, appeared to have no harbour 

 in Mr. Crisparkle's ; if it ever haunted Helena's thoughts 

 or Neville's, neither gave it one spoken word of utterance." 

 Compare this with what is said of Grewgious, noting that 

 to have said more would have been to reveal all he meant 

 to conceal : — " Mr. Grewgious took no pains to conceal his 

 implacable dislike of Jasper, yet he never referred it, how- 

 ever distantly, to such a source ; but he was a reticent as 

 well as an eccentric man ; and he made no mention of a 

 certain evening when he warmed his hands at the Gate- 

 house fire, and looked steadily down upon a certain heap 

 of torn and miry clothes upon the floor." 1 



The scene at the opium-eater's den introduces the dawn ] 

 of the day of reckoning for Jasper. He has been so long 

 away that the old woman has forgotten him. He used to 

 go there for comfort ; " When I could not bear my life I 

 came to get the relief and I got it," he says : " it was one ! 

 It w.\s one ! " He has come for relief again, and we may 

 be sure he was to come at least once more. " The Princess 

 Puffer has learned how to mix the drug so as to make him 

 talk." " I heard ye say once when I was lying where 

 you're lying," she says, " and you were making your specu- 

 lations upon me, unintelligibly. But don't ye be too sure 

 always : don't ye be too sure, beauty ! " All this enables 

 us t) anticipate her share in bringing Jasper to justice, and 

 enables us also to guess what Drood wants, to make Jasper's 

 punishmeut complete. It must be i-emembered that though 

 Edwin knows more than any one, except Mr. Grewgious, 

 about Jasper's vilianv he does not know all. In particular 

 he has still to learn whether Jasper attacked him in a 

 suddiin access of fury or whether the crime was premedi- 

 tated. He knows Jasper was lying when he pretended 

 love for " his dear Ned ; " he knows Jasper loved and loves 

 Rosa after the evil manner of his kind : but he does not 

 know that Jasper had planned murder for months and had 

 gone the journey which was so pleasant to the villain, 

 " hundreds of thousands, — what do I say ? — millions and 

 billions of times." On the question of premeditation much 

 will depend ; but we may be sure that when Edwin learns 

 with what intensity of premeditation Jasper had gloated 

 over the crime, he will be ready to inflict on the villain the 

 full horror of that punishment which lies within his power. 

 I pass over the light thrown upon the mystery itself by 

 Jasper's words when under the influence of opium ; for I 

 have already considered his wanderings in this aspect, as 

 the matters to which they relate arose. The chief impor- 

 tance of the scene lies in the light which it throws on the 

 denoueyiient. 



I am inclined to think that the place in Aldersgate- 

 street where Jasper puts up, would have turned out in the 

 sequel to be Bazzard's home. But there is no direct 

 evidence on this point. 



The opium woman's pursuit of Jasper brings her to 

 Cloisterham, and to the very gateway where Jasper enters ; 

 but she only sees " a postern staircase on one side of it, 

 and on the other side an ancient vaulted room, in which a 

 large-headed, grey-haired gentleman is writing, under the 

 strange circumstances of sitting open to the thoroughfare 

 and eyeing all who pass, as if he were toll-taker of the 

 gateway : though the way is free. ' j\Ir. Datchery's watch 



on Jasper is close, but it is no such watch as a professional 

 detective would have kept. We note in passing that his 

 " low voice " as he says " Halloa ! " when he sees her, 

 suggests that he has seen her befure. 



The burst of triumph in which she thanks him when 

 she learns Jasper's name and office and that she can see 

 and hear him in the Cathedral, does not escape the watchful 

 Mr. Datehery, anv more than it would have escaped his 

 other self Edwin Drood. He thinks something may come 

 of this and lounges after her, clasping " his hands behind 

 him, as the wont of such bufiers is," in other words, making 

 himself as much like the sauntering listless young lad she 

 had met near that self-same spot as a grey-haired man 

 could look. It is clear that in some dim unconscious way 

 she is reminded of the Eddy she had so earnestly warned 

 half a year before. His hands are presently taken from 

 behind him with a purpose. " His purposeless hands 

 rattle the loose money in the pockets of his trousers." 

 Whenever Dickens speaks of an action as purposeless, we- 

 may be sure he wishes to draw attention away from its 

 purpose. Not sufi"ering our attention to be thus withdrawn 

 we see at once what Mr. Datehery wanted. " The chink 

 of the money has an attraction for her greedy ears." 

 She asks for money for her "travellers' lodging." "You 

 know the place," he says (who had reason probably 

 to know it well himself ), " and are making directly 

 for it," and, still rattling his loose money, he asks " if she 

 has been often in Cloisterham." " Once in all my Ufe." 

 "Ay, Ay?" (These " ays " are as significant as those of 

 Mr. Grewgious, in his conversation with Mr. Crisparkle in 

 Chapter XVII. — they mean earnest attention, though 

 intended to suggest the idea of an abstracted mind.) They 

 have now reached the entrance to the monk's vineyard, 

 and the place where the former interview had taken place. 

 " An appropriate remembrance is revived in the woman's 

 mind." (These are Dickens's own words.) She stops at 

 the gate and says energetically, " By this token, though 

 you mayn't believe it, that a young gentleman gave me 

 three and sixpence as I was coughing my breath away on 

 this very grass : I asked him for three and sixpence and he 

 gave it me." " Wasn't it a little cool in you to name your 

 sum?" hints Mr. Datehery, still rattling. "Isn't it cus- 

 tomary to leave the amount open. Mightn't it have had 

 the appearance, to the young gentleman — only the appear- 

 ance — that he was rather dictated to?" If it is not 

 Edwin Drood who talks thus quaintly, the passage was not 

 written by Dickens. The old woman somehow feels that 

 it is the same person, and asks for the same sum, t«lling 

 him this time what she wants it for. He changes counte- 

 nance when he learns that it is for opium, but he does not 

 recognise the full significance of the fac. (This appears 

 presently.) He counts the money very slowly, to give her 

 opportunity to talk. I repeat the scene which follows, 

 because it is so full of significance that it cannot be too 

 often studied by those who wish to know the real plot of 

 this interesting story : — 



" It was Christmas Eve, just arter dark, the once that I was 

 here afore, when the yonng gentleman gave me the Three and 

 six." 



3Ir. Datehery stops in his counting, finds that he has counted 

 wrong, shakes his money together, and begins again. 



" And the young gentleman's name," she adds, '*was Edwin." 



Mr. Datehery drops some money, stoops to pick it up, and 

 reddens with the exertion as he asks : 

 I " How do you know the young gentleman's name ? " 



" I asked him for it, and he told it me. I only asked him the 

 two questions, What was his Chris'en name, and whether he'd a 

 sweetheart ? And he answered, Edwin, and he hadn't." 



Mr. Datehery pauses with the selected coins in his hand, rather 

 as if he were falling into a brown study of their value, and couldn't 

 bear to part with them. The woman looks at him distrustfully, and 



