THE HALF-TOLD TALE AND THE METHOD OF TELLING

Charles Dickens died June 9th, 1870. On April 1st of that year he had issued the first number of "The Mystery of Edwin Drood." It was to be completed in twelve monthly parts. Only three had been published when death over- took him; another three were in manuscript, and subsequently published; but there was not, with the exception of a rough draft of a discarded chapter, one more line or note to be found^ The author had carried his secret to the grave, with just one-half the work completed.

Forster, the biographer, mentions that the last instalment was two pages short. ''The last page of 'Edwin Drood,' " he says, " was written in the Chalet [the Swiss Chalet presented to him by Fechter] in the afternoon of his last day of consciousness. He had worked unusually late in order to finish the chapter. It has very much the character, in its excessive care of correction and interlineation, of all his later manuscripts."

The purpose of "Edwin Drood" was not literary in the purest sense. Dickens had achieved all that was possible to him in that respect. As a maker of plots of the truly dramatic order he had only distinguished himself on a few occasions. Both during his lifetime and since his death he incurred the criticism of deficiency in that respect. But he had become possessed with the idea that he could frame a plot entirely novel, original, and baffling. The elucidation was to be his own secret, and a surprise to the reader. He prided himself on having hit upon something "very new and curious," "not a communicable idea . . . very strong, though difficult to work." The interest also was "steadily to work up" from the first. It becomes a most interesting problem whether Dickens was equal to his self-assigned task. Most of the critics say he was not, or, by offering a poor solution to his story, show that they had little faith in his ability and no conviction of the truth of his assertion.

"One defect forced upon our attention," wrote George Gissing, "is characteristic of Dickens: his inability to make skilful revelation of circumstances which, for the purpose of the story, he has kept long concealed. This skill never came to him. . . . There can be no doubt that the revealing of the mystery of 'Edwin Drood' would have betrayed the old inability." Mr. Marzials and Mr. Lang are of the same opinion. But the fact is overlooked that it was exactly this task that Dickens had set himself to overcome the old difficulty, and to prove he was equal to doing that which he had so frequently been told he could not accomplish. We must judge him on new lines, give him credit for new intentions, when we come to "Edwin Drood." And even Mr. Gissing, the adverse critic, admitted in defiance of his previous contention that "Edwin Drood" would "probably have been his best-constructed book : as far as it goes, the story hangs well together, showing a care in the contrivance of detail which is more than commonly justified by the result." Seldom has a serious critic within a few pages expressed such diverse opinions. There are others, however, who hold "Edwin Drood" lightly or in contempt, and declare that the mystery is no mystery at all. It is so easy to say this when the first guess is made and that guess a wrong one. The fact that the mystery has been "solved" a dozen times in a dozen different ways, that there is divergence of opinion as to the whole scheme of the work, that Richard Proctor believed the story would end "pleasantly," and that others are equally convinced it would close in blackest tragedy surely all this indicates that the mystery was a very real one after all.

In reality, though the facts are seldom recognised, there are two leading mysteries, and one other, almost as confusing in its possibilities, which is subsidiary.

The first mystery, partly solved by Dickens himself, is the fate of Edwin Drood. Was he murdered? If so, how and by whom, and where was his body hidden? If not, how did he escape, what became of him, and did he reappear?

The second mystery is: Who was Mr. Datchery, the "stranger who appeared in Cloisterham" after Drood's disappearance?

The third mystery is: Who was the old opium woman, called the Princess Puffer, and why did she pursue John Jasper?

The two first mysteries are bound up in each other. The third has no direct connection with the fate of Edwin Drood, and must be treated as a detached episode.

Dickens had sufficiently progressed with his work to enable the first problem, embodying his leading idea, to be solved almost conclusively on the evidence he had supplied. There are so many clues to John Jasper's design and actions that insuperable difficulties no longer present themselves to impede our arriving at a definite conclusion. Yet there is far from unanimity as to what the conclusion should be. Jasper failed and Drood escaped, argue one side. Jasper succeeded and Drood was slain, argue the other. If this difference arises on the mystery which was more than half explained, how much greater must the conflict of opinion be on the remaining mysteries which are left entirely open to conjecture!

Had Dickens lived to complete his project there is little doubt that the first mystery would have proved to be relatively the most important. Owing to the manner in which the work was left, the minor problems in the undeveloped portions those problems only just presented in outline become far more baffling. In other words, the creator of the plot had said enough to dissipate obscurity on the main theme, but he had advanced so little in the subsidiary portion as to leave the interpretation entirely open to individual judgment. We can deduce the fate of Edwin Drood with almost mathematical certainty from the clues supplied. When we try to learn by what agency the truth was to be revealed, and what person or persons were to play the part of Nemesis, we only handle the most delicate threads, any of which may snap in a moment.

Dickens, who was working enthusiastically to the last under the belief that his purpose had succeeded, and that the secret had not been discovered, made it no small part of his ingenious design to lead readers to believe that the discovery was easy. His crowning triumph would have been to confound that mass of superficial solvers who have since arisen. "Edwin Drood" is in more than one way the most deceptive book that Dickens ever wrote. It abounds in pitfalls and in "blinds." It seems to yield up most of its secrets at the first perusal. But the experience of those who have read it oftenest is that the seemingly obvious explanations must be suspected or ignored. We have to pierce deep to get to the core. The subtlety with which Dickens lures his readers confidently on to false ground is one of the most important successes to be placed to his credit. "Edwin Drood" is perhaps the profoundest and most complex problem presented in this class of literature. Dickens displayed consummate science in the precision with which he arranged every detail, and weighted with significance the minutest facts. How well he threw the hunters off the trail can best be understood by examining the contradictory results of the most expert attempts to solve the mystery.

It may at once be stated that neither from data left by Dickens, nor from memoranda discovered, has any sequel been justified. "Nothing had been written," John Forster said, "of the main parts of the design excepting what is found in the published numbers; there was no hint or preparation for the sequel in any notes of chapters in advance. . . . The evidence of matured designs never to be accomplished, intentions planned never to be executed, roads of thought marked out never to be traversed, goals shining in the distance never to be reached, was wanting here. It was all a blank." Forster proceeded, a few pages further on, to show that it was not all a blank, and that an early draft of a Sapsea scene "How Mr. Sapsea ceased to be a member of the Eight Club," had been discovered. This chapter has at least one bearing upon the denouement. To this must be added the fact that Dickens's publishers have always repudiated any conclusion of a formal character, and have refused to commission the writing of one more word which would suggest that the unfinished work could be completed in the author's vein. By an act of effrontery an American volume bore on its title-page the names of Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens the younger, but the actual authorship was afterwards acknowledged. In the same year that "Edwin Drood" was begun and prematurely ended, Orpheus C. Kerr published in New York "The Cloven Foot: being an adaptation of the English novel, ' The Mystery of Edwin Drood ' to American scenes, characters, customs, and nomenclature." This was followed up by the same author with "The Mystery of Mr. E. Drood" in the Piccadilly Annual, of December, 1870. Far more important was "John Jasper's Secret" (Philadelphia, 1871), a volume almost of the same size as the original work, and an attempt to supply the missing half. Two years later an extraordinary and fantastic work appeared, also of American production, from "the spirit, pen of Charles Dickens," and was boldly announced as "Part II." of "Edwin Drood." In 1878 a Manchester lady, writing under the pen-name of Gillan Vase, published in three volumes "A Great Mystery Solved" being a sequel to "The Mystery of Edwin Drood." The actual value and the literary merits of these volumes were discussed by the critics, who, on the whole, were unfavourable and even scornful. The interest of the various sequels is purely of a negative character so far as our present purpose is concerned, inasmuch as none of them suggests any such solution as is offered in these pages. Doubtless the most serious contribution was Proctor's "Watched by the Dead" series of articles (in answer to the Cornhill Magazine of February, 1864) which originally appeared in Knowledge, and a summary of which was reprinted in his "Leisure Readings" in 1882, under the pen-name of "Thomas Foster." His theory was that Jasper's scheme failed, and that Drood re-appeared as Dick Datchery. He offered many ingenious suggestions, but left important points untouched or unresolved. His conclusion was particularly weak, and a number of his dogmatic assertions will not stand examination. He entirely misunderstood the meeting of Datchery with the opium woman, and all that the conversation and the actions imply; he did not properly account for the record of the chalk marks; and he was absolutely mistaken in declaring that "everyone of the dramatis personce, except Drood himself, can be shown to be for one reason or another out of the question" that is, so far as the "Datchery assumption" is concerned. But no conclusion can be held to be good and justified which departs from Dickens's own lines. We must take it that the author's case has been duly presented, and from that presentation we must elicit the answer to the enigma.

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