The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot [4]
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, a gloomy writer of an amateur unacted tragedy. Edwin is to return the ring to Grewgious, if he and Rosa decide not to marry. The ring is in a case, and Edwin places it "in his breast." We must understand, in the breast-pocket of his coat: no other interpretation will pass muster. "Her ring - will it come back to me?" reflects the mournful Grewgious.
THE UNACCOUNTABLE EXPEDITION
Jasper now tells Sapsea, and the Dean, that he is to make "a moonlight expedition with Durdles among the tombs, vaults, towers, and ruins to- night." The impossible Durdles has the keys necessary for this, "surely an unaccountable expedition," Dickens keeps remarking. The moon seems to rise on this night at about 7.30 p.m. Jasper takes a big case-bottle of liquor - drugged, of course and goes to the den of Durdles. In the yard of this inspector of monuments he is bidden to beware of a mound of quicklime near the yard gate. "With a little handy stirring, quick enough to eat your bones," says Durdles. There is some considerable distance between this "mound" of quicklime and the crypt, of which Durdles has the key, but the intervening space is quite empty of human presence, as the citizens are unwilling to meet ghosts.
In the crypt Durdles drinks a good deal of the drugged liquor. "They are to ascend the great Tower," - and why they do that is part of the Mystery, though not an insoluble part. Before they climb, Durdles tells Jasper that he was drunk and asleep in the crypt, last Christmas Eve, and was wakened by "the ghost of one terrific shriek, followed by the ghost of the howl of a dog, a long dismal, woeful howl, such as a dog gives when a person's dead." Durdles has made inquiries and, as no one else heard the shriek and the howl, he calls these sounds "ghosts."
They are obviously meant to be understood as supranormal premonitory sounds; of the nature of second sight, or rather of second hearing. Forster gives examples of Dickens's tendency to believe in such premonitions: Dickens had himself a curious premonitory dream. He considerably overdid the premonitory business in his otherwise excellent story, THE SIGNALMAN, or so it seems to a student of these things. The shriek and howl heard by Durdles are to be repeated, we see, in real life, later, on a Christmas Eve. The question is - when? More probably NOT on the Christmas Eve just imminent, when Edwin is to vanish, but, on the Christmas Eve following, when Jasper
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, a gloomy writer of an amateur unacted tragedy. Edwin is to return the ring to Grewgious, if he and Rosa decide not to marry. The ring is in a case, and Edwin places it "in his breast." We must understand, in the breast-pocket of his coat: no other interpretation will pass muster. "Her ring - will it come back to me?" reflects the mournful Grewgious.
THE UNACCOUNTABLE EXPEDITION
Jasper now tells Sapsea, and the Dean, that he is to make "a moonlight expedition with Durdles among the tombs, vaults, towers, and ruins to- night." The impossible Durdles has the keys necessary for this, "surely an unaccountable expedition," Dickens keeps remarking. The moon seems to rise on this night at about 7.30 p.m. Jasper takes a big case-bottle of liquor - drugged, of course and goes to the den of Durdles. In the yard of this inspector of monuments he is bidden to beware of a mound of quicklime near the yard gate. "With a little handy stirring, quick enough to eat your bones," says Durdles. There is some considerable distance between this "mound" of quicklime and the crypt, of which Durdles has the key, but the intervening space is quite empty of human presence, as the citizens are unwilling to meet ghosts.
In the crypt Durdles drinks a good deal of the drugged liquor. "They are to ascend the great Tower," - and why they do that is part of the Mystery, though not an insoluble part. Before they climb, Durdles tells Jasper that he was drunk and asleep in the crypt, last Christmas Eve, and was wakened by "the ghost of one terrific shriek, followed by the ghost of the howl of a dog, a long dismal, woeful howl, such as a dog gives when a person's dead." Durdles has made inquiries and, as no one else heard the shriek and the howl, he calls these sounds "ghosts."
They are obviously meant to be understood as supranormal premonitory sounds; of the nature of second sight, or rather of second hearing. Forster gives examples of Dickens's tendency to believe in such premonitions: Dickens had himself a curious premonitory dream. He considerably overdid the premonitory business in his otherwise excellent story, THE SIGNALMAN, or so it seems to a student of these things. The shriek and howl heard by Durdles are to be repeated, we see, in real life, later, on a Christmas Eve. The question is - when? More probably NOT on the Christmas Eve just imminent, when Edwin is to vanish, but, on the Christmas Eve following, when Jasper