The Puzzle of Dickenss Last Plot | Page 4

has thus a new, keen, and omnipresent enemy. As he walks with Durdles that worthy explains (in reply to a question by Jasper), that, by tapping a wall, even if over six feet thick, with his hammer, he can detect the nature of the contents of the vault, "solid in hollow, and inside solid, hollow again. Old 'un crumbled away in stone coffin, in vault." He can also discover the presence of "rubbish left in that same six foot space by Durdles's men." Thus, if a foreign body were introduced into the Sapsea vault, Durdles could detect its presence by tapping the outside wall. As Jasper's purpose clearly is to introduce a foreign body--that of Edwin who stands between him and Rosa--into Mrs. Sapsea's vault, this "gift" of Durdles is, for Jasper, an uncomfortable discovery. He goes home, watches Edwin asleep, and smokes opium.
THE LANDLESSES
Two new characters are now introduced, Neville and Helena Landless, {1} twins, orphans, of Cingalese extraction, probably Eurasian; very dark, the girl "almost of the gipsy type;" both are "fierce of look." The young man is to read with Canon Crisparkle and live with him; the girl goes to the same school as Rosa. The education of both has been utterly neglected; instruction has been denied to them. Neville explains the cause of their fierceness to Crisparkle. In Ceylon they were bullied by a cruel stepfather and several times ran away: the girl was the leader, always "dressed as a boy, and showing the daring of a man." Edwin Drood's air of supercilious ownership of Rosa Bud (indicated as a fault of youth and circumstance, not of heart and character), irritates Neville Landless, who falls in love with Rosa at first sight. As Rosa sings, at Crisparkle's, while Jasper plays the piano, Jasper's fixed stare produces an hysterical fit in the girl, who is soothed by Helena Landless. Helena shows her aversion to Jasper, who, as even Edwin now sees, frightens Rosa. "You would be afraid of him, under similar circumstances, wouldn't you, Miss Landless?" asks Edwin. "Not under any circumstances," answers Helena, and Jasper "thanks Miss Landless for this vindication of his character."
The girls go back to their school, where Rosa explains to Helena her horror of Jasper's silent love-making: "I feel that I am never safe from him . . . a glaze comes over his eyes and he seems to wander away into a frightful sort of dream in which he threatens most," as already quoted. Helena thus, and she alone, except Rosa, understands Jasper thoroughly. She becomes Rosa's protectress. "Let whomsoever it most concerned look well to it."
Thus Jasper has a new observer and enemy, in addition to the omnipresent street boy, Deputy, and the detective old hag of the opium den.
Leaving the Canon's house, Neville and Edwin quarrel violently over Rosa, in the open air; they are followed by Jasper, and taken to his house to be reconciled over glasses of mulled wine. Jasper drugs the wine, and thus provokes a violent scene; next day he tells Crisparkle that Neville is "murderous." "There is something of the tiger in his dark blood." He spreads the story of the fracas in the town.
Grewgious, Rosa's guardian, now comes down on business; the girl fails to explain to him the unsatisfactory relations between her and Edwin: Grewgious is to return to her "at Christmas," if she sends for him, and she does send. Grewgious, "an angular man," all duty and sentiment (he had loved Rosa's mother), has an interview with Edwin's trustee, Jasper, for whom he has no enthusiasm, but whom he does not in any way suspect. They part on good terms, to meet at Christmas. Crisparkle, with whom Helena has fallen suddenly in love, arranges with Jasper that Edwin and Landless shall meet and be reconciled, as both are willing to be, at a dinner in Jasper's rooms, on Christmas Eve. Jasper, when Crisparkle proposes this, denotes by his manner "some close internal calculation." We see that he is reckoning how the dinner suits his plan of campaign, and "close calculation" may refer, as in Mr. Proctor's theory, to the period of the moon: on Christmas Eve there will be no moonshine at midnight. Jasper, having worked out this problem, accepts Crisparkle's proposal, and his assurances about Neville, and shows Crisparkle a diary in which he has entered his fears that Edwin's life is in danger from Neville. Edwin (who is not in Cloisterham at this moment) accepts, by letter, the invitation to meet Neville at Jasper's on Christmas Eve.
Meanwhile Edwin visits Grewgious in his London chambers; is lectured on his laggard and supercilious behaviour as a lover, and receives the engagement ring of the late Mrs. Bud, Rosa's mother, which is very dear to Grewgious--in the presence of Bazzard, Grewgious's clerk,