‘The Opium-Woman’ and ‘Datchery’
in
“ The Mystery of Edwin Drood ”
By
C. A. M. FENNELL, Litt.D.
LATE FELLOW OF JESUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, AUTHOR OF ‘INDO-GERMANIC SONANTS AND CONSONANTS,’ ETC., EDITOR OF ‘THE STANFORD DICTIONARY,’ PINDAR’S WORKS, ETC.
Elijah Johnson
Cambridge
Simpkin, Marshall and Co.
London
1913
Price Sixpence netPREFACE
Feeling heavily indebted to the authors of the studies mentioned in these pages, I heartily express my gratitude for their inspiring aid.
If leisure due to indisposition has enabled me by good luck to contribute a mite towards the clearer appreciation of the “masterpiece” (H. J.) of fiction on which I have ventured to comment, I am satisfied.
C. A. M. FENNELL
32, Tenison Avenue, CambridgeThe Opium-lVoman
§ i. Other explorers of that fascinating wilderness in which the missing chapters of The Mystery of Edwin Drood are hidden, seem to have felt that the opium-woman’s violent antipathy to her customer, Jasper, requires explanation ; but none, I think, of the reasons for this hatred hitherto suggested have sought any support from passages of the published portion of the story. Whether the account of her, which has prompted the publication of the following remarks, be considered plausible, possible, or untenable, it has been evolved from hints rightly or wrongly believed to have been offered by Dickens’ own language, as will appear in due course. The identification of the opium-woman, if it could be established with certainty, would still be only quite a minor point compared with the question whether Edwin Drood escapes, which has virtually been settled in the negative, as the weakness of the late Mr Andrew Lang’s reply shows, by H. J.’s examination of the arguments for the escape advanced by Mr Proctor and Mr Lang. The latest writer on the topic, Sir Robertson Nicoll1, arrives at the same conclusion as H. J. on this matter.
1 The Problem of “Edwin Drood": A Study in the Methods of Dickens. By W. Robertson Nicoll.6
The readers of The Old Curiosity Shop are permitted by the author to agree with Mr Richard Swiveller, in ascribing to ‘ The Marchioness ’ an extremely vicious parentage, yet she herself grew up “ clever and good-humoured ” and made “ a most cheerful, affectionate, and provident wife ” ; so that they cannot well demur to—as not Dickensian—my suggesti°n that one of Miss Rosa Bud’s four grandparents, after Rosa’s mother was engaged to Mr Bud, became a hard drinker and then an opium-smoker, so that she figures in The Mystery of Edwin Drood as the “ haggard woman,” “hostess” of the opium-den frequented by Jasper.
Readers of Mr Andrew Lang’s The Puzzle of Dickens Last Plot may condemn this identification at once on the ground that the opium-woman does not evince the familiarity with Cloisterham which might be expected if her daughter had married a resident of the city. For in the said Puzzle, p. i, they found—“About the middle of the nineteenth century there lived in Cloisterham...Mr Bud...,” and on PP- 59> 60 Mr Lang opines that on Christmas Eve at Cloisterham Mr Grewgious “paid a darkling visit to the tomb of his lost love, Rosa’s mother.” It is a matter for regret that my contention obliges me to show that these statements are not justified by any words of Dickens, and to be less courteous than H. J., who in ‘About Edwin Drood,’ p. 9, does not “remember that there is any such statement about the burial place of Rosa’s mother.” However in Puzzle, p. 60, we read concerning Mr Grewgious, “ Mrs Bud, his lost7
love, we have been told, was buried hard by the Sapsea monument.” The only relatives of dramatis personae whose burial places are mentioned by Dickens are Jasper’s “own brother-in-law ” and “ Mrs Sapsea” (chap. v, p. 53), so far as my searches avail. The opening words of chap. ix, “ Rosa having no relation that she knew of in the world,” suggested to me that readers were to find out later on that she had all the time a relation that she did not—for weighty reasons—know of, and possibly never was to know of. The idea that the opium-woman was the relation in question was prompted by reading afterwards that, when Edwin Drood was questioning her (chap. xiv, p. 170, Fireside Edition, to which I refer throughout these pages), “He straightens himself, recoils a step, and looks down at her in a dread amazement ; for he seems to know her.” That an entire stranger should look “like Jack that night!” (see p. 24) seems to be inadequate to cause “ a dread amazement,” which would however be appropriate to Edwin being suddenly reminded of Rosa by the haggard object beneath his gaze. But the distasteful flash of comparison is instantly brushed aside by the clearer and less fleeting resemblance of her “film ” to Jasper’s, and the second thoughts serve to distract the reader from the significance of the strong effect, which could be referred to later on as a clue or a hint of the relationship, produced on Edwin by the first thoughts which the hag’s visage conjured up. Then again the artist of the illustrations on the original cover seems to have been instructed to convey an impression that the opium-woman might8
possibly have been good-looking when younger and does not even look decidedly old.
Dickens had several opportunities for using epithets expressing old age in describing the opium-woman, but refrained. She is “ a haggard woman,” “ this woman,” “the woman ” p. 12, “the woman ” pp. 12, 13. When crouching on the ground “a woman,” “the woman ” of p. 169, seen by the light of a lamp, presents to Edwin as he approaches and stands near her “a haggard appearance ” with a “ weazen chin.” She is “the woman” twice, p. 171. At the top of p. 170 readers are offered a chance for assuming that she is old by the passage, “ having bestowed kind words on most of the children and aged people he has met, he at once bends down and speaks to this woman.” A similar chance is provided by her calling herself “ the poor old soul” (chap. xxiii, p. 272), where twice she is “ the woman ” and once on the following page; but she calls herself to herself, when not exciting compassion professionally, “a poor soul,” immediately adopted by the author as “ the poor soul ” (p. 280). Age is not apparent in Dickens’ elaborate sketch of her under the influence of malignant excitement (p. 286) beginning, “As ugly and withered as one of the fantastic carvings on the under side of the stall seats.” Considering her diathesis, ‘ withered ’ is no more evidence of longevity than ‘ bloated ’ would be; as, irrespective of age, most drunkards become either one or the other, and most druggers become emaciated.
If the grandmother was drinking “heavens hard” at the time of Rosa’s birth, it is natural that after9
the inebriate’s presumable separation from her family, she should for a few years at least have some communication with one or more of its members, and so know that she had a grand-daughter named Rosa.
This name is so common that its utterance by Jasper when unconscious would scarcely attract the opium-woman’s attention even though the opium-woman had peradventure a relative so called ; but if the grandmother of Rosa Bud heard him mutter “ Rosebud,” her curiosity might be represented as prompting her to elicit by artful hints and interrogations his determination to make away with the girl’s fiance and marry her himself. Not only does this supposition about the opium-woman’s original position account plausibly for her lively detestation of Jasper but also furnishes excuses for Dickens’ choice of the surname ‘ Bud and for the weak adaptation ‘ Rosebud.’
A hypothetical chronology of Rosa’s maternal grandmother’s life from marriage exhibits the possibility of her getting-in sixteen years’ hard drinking and five years’ opium smoking between the engagement of Rosa’s mother and the events related in the incomplete novel with which she is connected as one of the characters.
Not unreasonably assumed age for Mrs Bud’s mother	
at the date of Mrs Bud’s birth	22 years or more
» » ,i „ engagement	39 » »>
„ „ Rosa’s birth	43 >» »»
» » Edwin Drood’s disappearance *	,i ,i1
IO
The lack of refinement in the speech of “the Princess Puffer” might perhaps be sufficiently explained by several years of low life and demoralising, debilitating habits ; but it is no more necessary to assume that Dickens conceived Mrs Bud’s mother to be of gentle birth and good education than that he did not picture her as a victim of depravity.Previous Conjectures Adopted. Datchery
§ 2. I think that clearness and brevity will be attained by my mentioning at this point what views on more important matters I accept from previous conjectures before further development of the independent, if not novel, items of speculation which I have ventured to contribute.
I hold that the balance of probability appears likely to settle, were there opportunity for settling, in favour of Edwin Drood being dead, or dying and about to die, when, as I follow H. J. in believing, “Jasper dragged the body into the crypt, and...buried it in the heap of quicklime’’ (About Edwin Drood,’ p. 28). I think that this writer has demolished the contention that the body was hidden in the Sapsea monument, which was not in the crypt, but in the churchyard (chap. v, p. 53). Sir Robertson Nicoll also concludes that Edwin Drood was really murdered.
I shall give reasons, based on what I have myself noticed in Dickens’ published chapters, for agreeing with Mr Edwin Charles and others that Datchery is Bazzard ; and I infer that Bazzard has been employed for some time, as well as when Datchery visits Cloisterham, by Mr Grewgious as a private detective. This
1—612
identification and that of the opium-woman with Rosa’s maternal grandmother give each other some material support. Rosa’s guardian seems a likely person for her father to select for the business of trying to trace her grandmother, if an inebriate, and lost to her relations, with a view to relieving her if necessary and reclaiming her if possible and to preventing her annoying Rosa. Now the detective Datchery, whoever he was, if he did not know Rosa by sight already, would be likely to see her either in the Cathedral or about the city and even to have her pointed out to him as the object of a rivalry which in the opinion of many had culminated in murder. Datchery, we read, in the last chapter, when the opium-woman tells him that the medicine which does her good and which she deals in (p. 282) is “opium,” “with a sudden change of countenance gives her a sudden look ” and then shows symptoms of nervous excitement which he contrives to keep unobserved by her. He has, I infer, at once connected her opium trade and her antipathy to Jasper with the suspicions confided to him by Mr Grewgious that he suspected Jasper of taking drugs—suspicions very likely to have been formed or strengthened at their meeting on Dec. 26 (chap. xv, p. 183—chap. xvi, p. 192), and his look of interest is—I suggest—caused by the resemblance to Rosa which had amazed Edwin. Of this likeness Mr Grewgious would have told Bazzard to help the hitherto fruitless search for Rosa’s grandmother. Such a recognition joined to an important discovery likely to lead towards the solution of a mysterious case of disappearance possibly throughl3
murder was enough to agitate a tragedian whose talents had for some time been mainly devoted to dogging evasive tenants with a view to collecting rents.
Yet again, these views have the advantage of quite satisfactorily explaining why Datchery—according to the last paragraph of the fragment—“ takes his bit of chalk from its shelf; adds one thick line to the score, extending from the top of the cupboard door to the bottom; and then falls to with an appetite.”
§ 3. That Jasper actually made away with Edwin Drood has been maintained in H. J.’s ‘About Edwin Drood,’ by arguments which to me seem to be a convincing answer to those of Mr A. Lang1. Mr Lang criticised H. J.’s views on The Mystery in a newspaper article, which damages his own theory by several questionable statements. Some of these concern the figures on I he Cover. As H. J. has given cogent reasons why he “cannot feel as much confidence as Mr Lang and Mr Walters* do in this evidence” of the cover, these reasons and the above-cited conclusion should not have been passed over in the newspaper notice. However H. J. needs no advocate, so that Mr Lang’s recent utterances as to ‘The Cover,’ etc. are criticised here merely because the validity of my own contentions cannot be maintained without drawing
1 The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot, 1905. Chapman and Hall, Ltd. Mr R. A. Proctor had advocated Drood’s escape in Watched by the Dead, 1887, “to which I owe much aid” says Mr Lang, Puzzle, p. x.
2 J. Cuming Walters, Clues to Dickens's “Mystery of Edwin Drood." Chapman and Hall, and Hayward, Manchester.14
attention to weak points in the pleas of those who hold opposite views. In this rejoinder Mr Lang speaks of Jasper’s “lank black hair and ebony whiskers,” which he intends for a description of Jasper’s head in the Cathedral scene at the top of The Cover. Again, “a man with lank black hair is not a man with picturesquely waved hair.” To my eye this head on the cover sufficiently suggests Dickens’ description of Jasper (chap. ii, p. 20)—“a dark man with thick, lustrous, well-arranged black hair and whiskers,” and so—to adapt Mr Lang’s expression—“not a man with lank black hair.” Then Mr Lang describes a figure thus: “The man is looking down at the two men below him ; but his right hand is eagerly pointing upward’ and he is bounding upward, two steps at a time...His index finger points direct at Jasper in the topmost design, probably not by accident ” (see also Puzzle, pp. 79 f.). In my copy of Mr Lang’s Puzzle, in the reproduction of The Cover (facing p. 76), a straight line drawn naturally through the very roughly sketched hand and this finger passes just below Jasper and passes across Edwin Drood’s body to Rosa’s head! This figure on the stairs with outstretched hand is looking backward and downward with his body down to more than half his waistcoat bent about 6o° out of the vertical, reaching over the rail, and with his left foot close to the broad end of a step, while the toes of his right foot are at the narrow end of the next step but one above. To combine this attitude with any phase of the action “ running upstairs,” “ bounding upward two steps at a time,” is an acrobatic feat whichi5
has not yet been even attempted in the Eastern Counties of England. To correspond with the left-hand designs the two lower figures on the steps to the right hand ought to belong to a scene distinct from that in which the third figure appears. I believe that such a separation was left to the choice of readers ; and I choose it, because I recognise Durdles’ flannel coat1 on the upper figure of the lower scene and Jasper’s “pea-jacket” with his “low-crowned flat-brimmed hat” (chap. xii, p. 140) on the lower2 of the two figures in the same scene. I admit that the straighter leg of the middle figure on the stair is not clumsy enough for Durdles ; but this may be due to careless drawing, which has left the limb either nude or covered by a tight-fitting material, if the deduction from a close observation unfair on the artist be pressed. The fellow-leg seems to be in a fairly roomy casing, but both feet are left largely to the imagination, as is permissible with detail of moving objects or objects not clearly illuminated such as the legs of the upright figure in the lantern scene. I cannot with or without a magnifying glass find Mr Lang’s “ inch of white stocking above the low shoes ” {Puzzle, p. 80), any more than I can find the “ horn buttons ” (chap. iv, p. 48), or buttons of any kind mentioned by Dickens, on the coat. The figure might perhaps be that of a gentleman, though I feel it is rather more likely to be that of Durdles ; but I cannot understand such
1 Not, as in Puzzle, p. 80, “a ‘cut-away’ coat.”
2 Mr Lang recognises {Puzzle, p. 80) “ Crisparkle’s low, soft, clerical hat and a black pea-coat.”i6
over-confident dogmatism as Mr Lang’s newspaper assertion, “ I hey are both gentlemen, and all three men are climbing the stair in daylight.’’ For purposes of drawing in black on a white surface an artist who is asked to make figures more or less recognisable on a “ narrow-windowed winding stair in a Church tower” could not I think—if he would, discriminate between moonlight and daylight. He does his part, if he indicates how they would have looked if sufficiently illuminated, without expecting dogmatic statements to be based on his free or careless presentation of incidents in rough sketches. However, Jasper’s “ day-rambles ” with Durdles allow of pictorial allusion to the “ moonlight hole-and-corner exploration” in place of direct illustration, and so deprive of all force Mr Lang’s advancement of “climbing the stair in daylight” as evidence against H. J. To my eye the figure next above the Chinaman is more like the Jasper of the Cathedral scene than it is like the Crisparkle. Mr Lang identifies Mr Cuming Walters’ and H. J.’s Jasper on the sides of I he Cover with Neville Landless, thus admitting that the hair is dark, and he calls it “wavy,” Puzzle, p. 79, and “picturesquely waved” in the newspaper notice of H. J. Now it is unlikely that the hair of the Landless described by Dickens would be either waved or lustrous, whereas the hair of the heads in question, if black, must be lustrous as it is largely white in the sketches, and it is not more waved than hair described as “ thick ” and “ well-arranged ” might well be. Moreover these two heads suggest—if they hardly express ’the possible presence of whiskers17
more clearly than Mr Lang’s ‘ Mr Crisparkle ’ just above the Chinaman ; so that, as Landless seems to be generally regarded as whiskerless {Puzzle, p. 79), Mr Lang has virtually asserted that these two heads are whiskerless, while with equal temerity he has assigned whiskers to the figure in the “pea-coat.” I conclude therefore that Mr Cuming Walters and H. J. are in the right, in spite of Mr Lang’s absolutely unproved yet positive assertion—“ The Cover, therefore, cannot be interpreted on H. J.’s lines.” Compare Puzzle, p. 98, “my theory, which mainly rests on the unmistakable evidence of The Cover drawn by Collins under Dickens’s directions.”
§4. One important function of the winding stair drawings or drawing seems to be the inculcation of the idea that—no matter about Rochester Cathedral— at Cloisterham Cathedral there was a staircase with a handrail, where the stairs did not touch the outside walls of the tower, on a half-open portion of the winding ascent, over which a body, live or dead, could be flung or made to fall from a considerable height to the floor near the lowest step.
H. J.’s words “flung or pushed Drood down the staircase of the tower” (‘About Edwin Drood,’ p. 22), read after looking at ‘ the cover,’ suggested this notion to me, but on ib. pp. 27 f. we read, “As they descended the staircase of the tower, Jasper threw his scarf over Drood’s head, and, having thus silenced, blinded, and disabled him, pushed him down the steep stairs. Drood, if he was not killed, was stunned by the fall.” As to the use of the “large black scarf of closely-woveni8
silk’’(chap, xiv, p. 174), H. J. is obviously correct, but I cling to the notion that Drood went over the rail sheer to the floor, and that Jasper gazed after him with arm uplifted after getting free of the weight; because this kind of fall fits in with Jasper’s visions of “abysses.”
I believe that a hard, well-directed push down the steps of a narrow spiral stair would be extremely likely to stun a man before he stopped falling on the stair, and that if he stopped before the bottom stair, one or two kicks would easily complete the descent. Mr Lang’s version of “ H. J.’s theory of the murder " is as follows—“on Drood’s return from his stroll... Jasper drugged him, more or less, in punch or some other beverage ; induced him to come .to the top of the church tower ; threw ‘a large black scarf of closely-woven silk ’ over his head, and then flung, pushed (or kicked or punted ?) him down the winding staircase till death mercifully put an end to his sufferings.”
“ I cannot think of this mode of murdering a nephew with seriousness. Much needless and grotesque exertion is demanded" and “a great deal” of struggle “on the part of the murderer before that perspiring kinsman reached the bottom of the staircase." I do not suppose that Mr Lang was justified by anybody’s actual experience in making these statements, which are certainly much more exaggerated in one direction than H. J.’s theory of the murder may possibly be in the other, that is in over-estimating the effects of a push down a winding stair.
The writers who hold that the large scarf was usedi9
to “strangle or “throttle” Drood, would—I fancy— find a strong cord, string, or thong a more satisfactory appliance for practical strangulation. But for enveloping the head of a drugged person flung to the ground from a height it would effectually check revival from stupor or unconsciousness, and would moreover serve to prevent tell-tale stains consequent on superficial wounds or on bleeding from the orifices of the head1.
1 “ In my opinion, Jasper bonneted Drood with the scarf as they descended the staircase of the Cathedral Tower.” H. J. '‘About Edwin Drood,’ pp. 88 ff.The Crypt
§ 5. I note that in chap. xii, p. 143, Jasper and Durdles “enter, locking themselves in, descend the rugged steps and are down in the crypt,” and that no steps are visible in the centre sketch at the bottom of the cover. These steps are “very dark ” on the same page and on p. 145 Durdles “opens the door at the top of the steps with the key he had already used.” These three allusions to such a piece of detail were, I think, meant to give readers a chance of inferring that the crypt was seldom visited except by Durdles, and that Jasper might expect to escape detection until quicklime (chap. xii, p. 141) had rendered his victim unrecognisable; if—as H. J. believes (‘About Edwin Drood,’ p. 28) and I agree—he “ buried the body under a heap of quicklime.” This substance—as H. J. reasonably assumes—Jasper may have noticed in the crypt; since “Mr Edwin Harris tells me that, when Edwin Drood was written, the unpaved floor of the crypt was littered with...and building materials ” {id. p. 25). The artist had not room to do justice to the figures if he included both steps and door, and as the steps would have left very little mystery about the locality of the scene, it is natural that the artist should have had or taken leave to ignore them, so that he merely suggested a dark room, crypt or vault ”—to use the expression given by Mr A. Lang in his newspaper article.The Criminal Intellect
§ 6. Is it necessary to assume that Dickens meant Jasper for a proficient student of murder as a fine art ? He strikes me as a clumsy designer whom ability to conceal or explain excitement (unaccentuated by surprise) and auxiliary circumstances kept undetected for a time. Dickens wrote (chap. xx, p. 233), “ the criminal intellect which its professed students perpetually mis-read, because they persist in trying to reconcile it with the average intellect of average men, instead of identifying it as a horrible wonder apart.” Does this allude to the “very curious and new idea” which, as Mr Lang reports, Dickens mentioned as emerging in 1869 early in August and causing alteration of the scheme contemplated in July? It suggests that Jasper was not a bungler, for such a one is not “a horrible wonder apart,” but that the full account of Edwin’s murder, including—may be—the confession which Dickens intended Jasper to make {Puzzle, p. 49), according to Mr Forster, was framed with a view to teaching criminologists how the criminal intellect actually evolves a crime from its first inception to its subjective effect after consummation. The unique, marvellous, and horrible nature of this revelation may22
well have justified its description as “a new and curious idea.” It would be idle presumption to offer guesses at Dickens’ proposed treatment of this portion of The Mystery, but it is permissible to assume that it would have been found to be distinguished by some signal originality and impressiveness. It is possible that Mr Forster’s information, quoted in Puzzle, p. 50— that “ in the review of the murderer’s career by himself ...its temptations were to be dwelt upon as if, not he the culprit, but some other man, were the tempted ”— alluded to the project of Jasper asserting in his confession (after convincing himself on the subject) that he felt absolutely certain of Landless’ determination to kill Drood; so that by his own painless quenching of his nephew’s life, he saved him from the alternative of a painful death by violence or a miserable life as Rosa’s husband. The murderer might have been powerfully described as claiming a sort of merit for risking his own reputation and life with the motive of preventing the unhappiness of two persons and a cruel murder. His confession could easily explain why he overlooked the ring in the left inside breast-pocket of Drood s coat; e.g. because Drood persistently maintained that the use of this pocket spoiled the sit of one s coat, and so had not ever, as far as his uncle knew, used it before its reception of the fateful ring. However Mr Lang writes {Puzzle, pp. 96 f.), “If Jasper knew his business, he would, of course, rifle all of Edwin’s pockets minutely, and would remove the metallic buttons of his braces, which generally display the maker’s name, or the tailor’s.” On inquiry I find23
that tailors do not invariably make “braces ” and that these articles do not usually bear buttons; also, that metallic buttons were not used on garments connected with “braces,” which Mr Lang may have used as a decorous substitute, before the Crimean War, while buttons of bone, etc., remained in common use for several years ; so that Dickens may have never known that he could perhaps be identified by his buttons during his later years. However it is a pure assumption that Jasper was not intended to mention that he cut off Edwin’s metallic buttons.
Dickens tells us, chap. xxiii, p. 270, that when the story of Drood’s disappearance was more than six months old “Drowsy Cloisterham...was pretty equally divided in opinion whether John Jasper’s nephew had been killed by his treacherously passionate rival, or in an open struggle; or had for his own purposes spirited himself away.” It follows that the resolve of Edwin and Rosa to set aside their engagement had not been made public. But, when, three days after its dissolution, Mr Grewgious called (Dec. 26) on Jasper and enlightened him on the point, it would be likely to flash upon the murderer—as Dickens’ readers are left room to surmise—that Helena had on, or shortly before, Christmas Eve relieved her brother of all incitement to jealousy of Edwin, and that consequently Jasper’s scheme of fastening suspicion on Landless was gravely imperilled. The idea of this possible withdrawal of motive from the case against the person on whom he had planned to fasten his own guilt may have contributed to his collapse as much as or as well24
as the revelation that his crime had been prompted by motives which, before the irrevocable deed had been perpetrated, had been proved—unknown to him—to be based upon a misconception. He could not be sure that Rosa had told no one except her guardian, as appears to have been what Dickens wished his readers to believe, until Neville “was set at large.” Neville’s state of mind with respect to the meeting with Edwin at his uncle’s rooms on the evening of Dec. 24 is left doubtful by the author (chap. xvi, p. 195), “ who could say how unwillingly or in what ill-conditioned mood, his enforced pupil had gone to it ? ” Of course Jasper had no knowledge of the conversation between Helena and Neville just before “he goes up the postern stair’ (chap. xiv, pp. 165 fif.), which implies that Helena then knew nothing about the end of Drood’s engagement to Rosa1.
1 See, however, the able article in ‘The Cambridge Review,’ Nov. 21, 1912, pp. 116 ff., which offers a different explanation of Dickens rough note—“Jasper’s failure in the one great object made known by Grewgious.” I regard the “great object” to mean getting rid of both rivals at once.More about ‘Datchery ’
§7. Mr Lang calls Bazzard “a moping owl of an amateur tragedian ” (Puzzle, p. 34) and says that when “ Dickens hints that this clerk is Datchery” by Grewgious’ remark that he “is off duty here just now” (chap. xx, p. 240) we have “a mere false scent, a ruse of the author” (Puzzle, p. 35). In spite of the arguments of H. J. and Mr Walters for Helena being the detective and Mr Proctor’s and Mr Lang’s for Drood, I accept—as already intimated—Mr Edwin Charles’ and others’ identification of Datchery with Bazzard, who should not surely be called “ somnolent ” (‘About Edwin Drood,’ p. 40, note) for going to sleep after a meal of exceptional excellence and having “ done his work of consuming meat and drink in a workmanlike manner.” Against the view that he is “dull, incompetent” (ib.) may be set Dickens’ “this attendant was a mysterious being possessed of some strange power over Mr Grewgious” (chap. xi, p. 122), who “treated him with unaccountable consideration” (ib.), and told Rosa that “ it would be extremely difficult to replace Mr Bazzard (chap. xx, p. 240) and that “we get 011 very well. Indeed better than I could have expected. He goes to the extent of saying that in his employment Bazzard is “ misplaced... so misplaced that I feel constantly apologetic towards him” (ib.).26
Was Bazzard’s relation to Mr Grewgious somewhat analogous to that of Mr Grewgious to people in general—“ Mr Grewgious still had some strange capacity in him of making on the whole an agreeable impression” (chap. ix, p. 95)? Dickens shrewdly assumed that most critics and the public would attach no importance to hints respecting the competence of a person once characterised as a disappointed unsuccessful tragedian. Edwin Drood’s poor opinion of Bazzard merely reinforces the representation that his merits did not appear on the surface. Special pleading, which should not all be on one side, may point out that Bazzard’s tragedy gives a hint that he may be a moderately good actor or at least a clever impersonator. I do not think Dickens’ design was to hint this; but my view is that he intended to tell his readers eventually that Mr Grewgious engaged Bazzard, partly because he discovered that the unappreciated playwright could keep up impenetrable disguises effectively, and that consequently he would be very useful to a rent-collector as a private detective, or as a caller who would not be recognised as Mr Grewgious’ emissary. That Mr Grewgious was having Jasper watched when Bazzard was “off duty here,” is, I believe, suggested by Dickens (chap. xxi, p. 245), where Grewgious says— “ when one is in a difficulty or at a loss, one never knows in what direction a way out may open. It is a business principle of mine, in such a case, not to close up any direction, but to keep an eye on every direction that may present itself. I could relate an anecdote in point, but that it would be premature.” To me Bazzard seems to be a poseur. In Mr Grewgious’2 7
chambers he is the soured, “ misplaced ” tragedian and consequently is “a particularly angular clerk” (chap. ix, p. 102), except that, when alone with his employer, he often forgets the part in business or in little grateful attentions to his benefactor. Note, ‘“Mr Bazzard has taken care of me.’ ‘ No, I haven’t,’ said Mr Bazzard at the door” (chap. xi, p. 123). “A pale, puffy-faced, dark-haired person of thirty, with big dark eyes that wholly wanted lustre, and a dissatisfied doughy complexion that seemed to want to be sent to the baker’s ” (chap. xi, p. 122) could with a white wig pose as Datchery easily, and could be got up so as to pass for Drood, in a crypt by the light of a lantern, well enough to deceive an uncle, even if his nerves were strong and his conscience easy, though I doubt whether he did personate Drood. In the Datchery pose something of Grewgious’ apologetic courtesy dashed occasionally with keen abruptness is discernible. Posing as a buffer with an easy temper might be an agreeable change from the pose at Furnival’s Inn. Both as the son of a Norfolk farmer and as a reader of dramas Bazzard would be familiar with tavern scores.
I am not frightened into scouting the notion that Helena poses as Edwin Drood in the crypt, any more than others, by Mr Lang’s confident assertion {Puzzle, p. 87) that the device “would be childish, and the pseudo-ghost, exactly like Drood, could not be acted by the gypsy-like, fierce Helena, or by any other person in the romance.” For one reason, because the words “exactly like Drood,” which appear to be intended as an important element of Mr Lang’s assertion, do not apply to my hypothesis of the “ pseudo-ghost.”28
Everybody knows that the ghosts-of-clothes worn by a typical ghost are exactly like clothes worn by the body with which the ghost used to be associated ; but, with this exception, altered circumstances produce altered details of appearance. No respectable ghost would dream of assuming the commonplace complexion of its quondam body, nor would he deign to exhibit its features, I fancy, without some slight spiritualising attenuation. A lantern of the kind depicted by Mr Collins would be more capable of suggesting a likeness to a surprised spectator, influenced by the exact resemblance of hat and clothes to those which he had destroyed, than of betraying defects in a clever make-up, which Collins need not, if he could, distinguish from the original in his sketch.
There is a more serious objection to the theory of Mr Cuming Walters and myself as to the “pseudoghost, which H. J. avoids by suspecting “that the upright figure represents Drood, but that the Drood which it represents is a phantom of Jasper’s imagination.” On this hypothesis I feel that the lower part of the upright figure ought to be less distinct than it is in the sketch ; but this alternative view is not to be dismissed as impossible. The said objection is that the making up of a figure to represent a lively young acquaintance, who—they believe—has come to some terrible end, must have been very repulsive to all concerned in it, and seems to be all but indefensible as regards propriety and morality. But as others appear to think it defensible, who are at least as well qualified to judge as I am, it does not seem to me an insuperable difficulty. I do not therefore venture further than29
expressing an opinion that Edwin was personated either by Helena or by Bazzard. It was of paramount importance to clear Neville Landless by any means not decidedly wrong; and I suppose his friends were justified in acting as if Edwin Drood were alive, until Jasper’s guilt had been actually proved. It is possible that the opium-woman’s revelation of Jasper’s betrayal of his guilty secret prompted the Staple Inn allies to try and startle Jasper into some confirmation of her evidence before “ The chain forged ” by Edwin’s retention of the ring (chap. xiii, p. 160) had revealed its “ force to hold and drag,” that is to say before they hear that the said ring had been found in the crypt. But the choice of the crypt as the scene of the experiment may have been due to the opium-woman’s report of some disjointed utterances of Jasper’s during his last visit to her den, which Dickens was not bound to report until their full meaning had been or was on the point of being ascertained. Or, again, ‘ Deputy ’ might know more than appears of Jasper’s visits to the crypt with Durdles and suggest that he had some curious interest in it.
§ 8. A very recent contribution to the discussion of the lantern scene at the bottom of The Cover is made by the Observer reviewer (Nov. 10, 1912) of Sir Robertson Nicoll, who has adopted the view that Datchery was Helena Landless and that the figure on The Cover facing the lantern-bearer is Datchery. The critic comments—“ T he face is masculine, and so is the body ; but anyone acquainted with anatomy will see that the pose of the legs, especially at the knees is that of a woman. This is a point in Sir Robertson’s30
favour.” Surely, if the artist had intended a feminine figure to be suggested to ordinary novel-readers, he would have contrived that the sex should have been discerned before November 1912. To my eye the reader seems to be invited to compare this figure’s hat—allowing for difference of aspect—with the hat almost straight over it carried by Edwin Drood in the Cathedral. The legs of the personages sketched on The Cover all seem to me to be the least carefully drawn portions of the sketches.
H. J. (‘About Edwin Drood,’ p. 80) describes Mr Charles’ Datchery as “a Bazzard who does not ‘follow’ but leads.” Datchery is in a sense a hunter, so it is a curious coincidence that Dickens says of H. J.’s Datchery, Helena, and her brother—“something untamed about them both ; a certain air upon them of hunter and huntress ; yet withal a certain air of being the objects of the chase, rather than the followers” (chap. vi, p. 66).
But though I cannot allow that Helena is Datchery,
I believe that as a huntress of her brother’s foe she may have gone through one very trying ordeal, disguised as Edwin Drood, in the crypt, namely the scene depicted in the central lowest illustrative sketch on The Cover, and that she scared Jasper into betraying his guilt. This supposition falls in with the quotations made by H. J., i.e. from chap. vii, pp. 74, 79 (cf. pp. 254 f.), and is partly supported by Mr Lang’s words [Puzzle, pp. 50 f.), “she is quite out of keeping in her speech and manner as Datchery, and is much more1 like Drood.” It is of course easy to imagine that her
1 “Not at all like Drood in appearance” (Puzzle, p. 85).3i
friends could and would take due precaution against her being subjected to danger from Jasper’s violence or the imputation of immodest behaviour
Helena was too deeply attached to Mr Crisparkle to run the risk of meeting him, when living as a “single buffer in a hotel or lodgings and lounging about Cloisterham, even if he evinced no objection to her acting in such a manner. It seems difficult to believe that Mr Grewgious would have been party to such a questionable escapade.
It must be permissible to imagine that Dickens treated the “particularly angular” employer, Grewgious, and his “particularly angular clerk” (chap. ix, p. 102) in the same manner, namely exhibiting their eccentricity first and letting their more valuable characteristics appear gradually afterwards. Anyhow the “angularity” cannot imply “ incapacity ” in the clerk’s case without also implying it in his employer’s.
§ 9. Durdles seems to be the most likely person to find the engagement ring and something else that is not lime in the quicklime in the crypt, and he would naturally surmise some foul play; but, reflecting that he himself very likely would be suspected if he should mention his discovery, he might decide to keep the ring and say nothing. If Deputy or the opium-woman somehow see the ring, the path of connexion from the remains in the crypt to Grewgious gets cleared, Durdles being persuaded to tell in confidence all he knows, on being assured that Jasper is strongly suspected already.
Some development of this kind gives significance to Bazzard having seen the ring and witnessed its32
transfer to Drood, if, as I hold, Bazzard is Datchery. Eventually the plotters against Jasper’s peace invite him to get a key and go with them, nominally to see if any traces of Edwin can be found, but really to be tricked into betraying his secret by seeing what he takes for his victim alive again or for his phantom. So he reveals his secret to the men behind him and to Helena and her escort or else to Bazzard before he becomes violent, or tries to escape from the Cathedral, or whatnot.
Mr Sapsea signs the warrant for his arrest on the charge of murder, thus showing the significance of his previous interest in Jasper’s neck (chap. xii, p. 136) thus expressed:—“ I will take upon myself, sir,” observes Sapsea loftily, “to answer for Mr Jasper’s neck. I will tell Durdles to be careful of it. He will mind what / say. How is it at present endangered? ” Jasper’s neck with Durdles’ is the object of Deputy’s anticipation of “ the delicious treat of the discoverers being hanged by the neck on his evidence till they are dead (chap. v, p. 56).” Here we may perhaps have a hint that, as I have suggested, Deputy supplies some link or links of the chain which fastens the guilt of murder on Jasper.
CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.