Ceylon connection in Dickens' unfinished tale

Richard Boyle looks at a curious Ceylon connection in Dickens' last work The Mystery of Edwin Drood

In recent weeks I have outlined John Capper's contribution to journalism in the latter part of 18th Century Ceylon, and told of how he wrote articles on subjects relating to the island for Charles Dickens' periodical Household Words, which was published between 1850 and 1859. I don't know how well-acquainted Capper became with Dickens during his years in England in the 1850s, but I do know there is a curious Ceylon connection in Dickens' last and regrettably unfinished work, "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" (1870).

Charles John Huffam Dickens was born in 1812, just two years before Capper. Dickens' father, a poorly paid Navy Pay Office clerk, faced increasing financial difficulties in bringing up his family. As a boy, Dickens had to go to work in a shoe-blacking factory, and eventually his father was imprisoned for debt. Nevertheless, Dickens became a Solicitor's clerk, and by 1834 a newspaper reporter for the Morning Chronicle. He began to write stories and produce plays. In 1836 he left the Morning Chronicle and accepted the editorship of a new monthly, Bentley's Miscellany. Remember that John Capper was co-editor of a trade journal in London at this time, so it is possible he met Dickens before sailing for Ceylon in 1837.

Coincidentally,1837 was also the year that Dickens' first novel, The Pickwick Papers, was published. From that time until his death in 1870, Dickens wrote over a dozen major works that are today still widely read and regularly adapted for cinema and television. Indeed, over 75 feature films have been made based on Dickens' books. Oliver Twist (1837), Nicholas Nickleby (1839), The Old Curiosity Shop (1841), A Christmas Carol (1843), David Copperfield (1850), A Tale of Two Cities (1859) and Great Expectations (1861) are just some of his better-known works.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood, like many of Dickens' books, was to be published in monthly parts, in this instance 12. Dickens began writing it in 1869 at a friend's house overlooking London's Hyde Park. It appears that the novel gave Dickens more trouble than any of his former works. His thoughts did not flow so freely as before. He revised and corrected his work continually, sometimes entirely remodelling his sentences.

This hesitancy and restructuring may have been partly due to the fact that Dickens was striving to create a story outside his normal purview. As the American poet, Henry Longfellow, observed: "The story to me, in the opening chapters, is not quite like the Dickens of say David Copperfield. The old manner of using odd and out-of-the-way names was still followed, but the style of narrative is distinctly different - though the power and charm remain".

Dickens' health had been poor since the early 1860s and his situation was not improved when he was involved in a train accident in 1865. A series of public readings by him had to be cancelled on doctor's orders in April 1869 (just months before he started work on Edwin Drood) because he showed symptoms of having had a stroke. Was this urge to experiment a conscious decision on his part, based on the reality that he was a sick man unlikely to live for many more years?

The story - as far as it goes - certainly promised to be the most intriguing that Dickens had devised. It opens enigmatically in an East London opium den, where an unidentified man wakes up from his drugged state to discover that he is in the company of "a Chinaman, a Lascar and a haggard woman," the last being the proprietress of the establishment. Shrugging off his stupor, the man hurries to the town of Cloisterham, where he enters the Cathedral and joins the choir at service.

We are then introduced to the main characters of the story. There is the respectable Mr. Crisparkle, who is the minor Canon of the Cathedral, and John Jasper, the choirmaster, who of late has been behaving oddly, almost certainly due to the contents of the peculiar-looking pipe he smokes in secret. Then there is Edwin Drood, Jasper's young nephew, who is betrothed to Rosa Budd.

Mr. Crisparkle is informed by his friend, Mr. Honeythunder, the philanthropist, that he is bringing his wards, the twins Neville and Helena Landless, to Cloisterham to remedy their defective education, received overseas. A dinner party is arranged to welcome the twins, and among the guests are Jasper, Drood and Rosa Budd. As Neville and Crisparkle walk home after accompanying Honeythunder to the bus stop, Neville reveals that his sister and he were born and brought up in Ceylon. It is of interest that such a plot element was used some 40 years later by Bella Woolf in her children's books, The Twins in Ceylon (1909) and More about the Twins in Ceylon (1911).

"We lived with a stepfather in Ceylon," Neville explains. "Our mother died there, when we were little children. We have had a wretched existence. She made him our guardian, and he was a miserly wretch who grudged us food to eat, and clothes to wear. At his death, he passed us over to this man," (Honeythunder).

During the conversation, we learn that as children, Neville and Helena ran away from their stepfather in Ceylon, but were brought back home on every occasion and cruelly punished. These thwarted escapes were always planned and led by Helena. "Each time she dressed as a boy, and showed the daring of a man,'' Neville declares, and continues by relating how she tried to tear out her hair when he lost the penknife with which she was to cut it short. Later that evening Drood and Neville quarrel over Rosa Budd. To sort things out, Jasper asks them to join him for a nightcap. He gives them spiked mulled wine which rapidly intoxicates Neville and Drood. Soon they are quarrelling once again. Drood taunts Neville by reminding him of a remark he had made earlier: "In the part of the world I come from, you would be called to account for it," Neville had referred to the way Drood's behaviour would be viewed in Ceylon.

"Only there?" cries Drood, with a contemptuous laugh. "A long way off, I believe?" Drood then goes on to insinuate that Neville is a coward. "Yes; I see! That part of the world is at a safe distance". Neville angrily retorts by calling his adversary a "common boaster." Drood, equally furious, but more collected, replies by delivering a stinging, racist rebuke: "How should you know? You may know a black common fellow, or a black common boaster, when you see him (and no doubt you have a large acquaintance that way); but you are no judge of white men!"

"This insulting allusion to his dark skin infuriates Neville to that violent degree, that he flings the dregs of his wine at Edwin Drood," Dickens informed his readers, "and is in the act of flinging the goblet after it, when his arm is caught in the nick of time by Jasper."

On Christmas Eve, a peace-making dinner party is arranged.

Earlier in the day, Neville announces he is going on a walking expedition the next morning. While Drood strolls around Cloisterham he runs into a woman who turns out to be the proprietress of the opium den described in the opening chapter. She tells him she has come to Cloisterham "looking for a needle in a haystack." She asks his name and comments that he should be thankful it isn't Ned, because he's a "threatened man" at present. Curiously, 'Ned' is Jasper's pet name for his nephew.

There is a great storm that night and the next morning, Drood is found to be missing. It is discovered that Neville and Drood had taken a walk down to the river to observe the storm. Neville is confronted during his walking expedition but insists that he had said goodbye to Drood on their return. Although Neville is the main suspect, he is not arrested due to Crisparkle's intervention. The river is dragged for Drood's body, but nothing is found.

It is six months since Drood's disappearance. Neville has moved out of Cloisterham due to hostility towards him, and a stranger called Datchery moves in to lodgings near the Cathedral. Jasper reveals to Rosa that he is madly in love with her and threatens to make public the "net of evidence" he has "wound around" Neville unless she marries him. Jasper then travels to London and goes to the opium den. He takes a pipe from the proprietress, who engages him in conversation. He talks of how he has done something evil in his mind "over and over again in this room."

When Jasper leaves, the proprietress follows him back to Cloisterham but loses him near his rooms. The mysterious Datchery sees her and tells her about Jasper. He also informs her that Jasper will be at the Cathedral service the next day. When he returns to his lodgings, he adds a mark to a chalked score. At the service, Datchery spies the woman, hidden behind a pillar, shaking her fist at Jasper. Datchery returns home and "adds one thick line to the score, extending from the top of the cupboard door to the bottom."

And here the novel ends

(Part two next week)

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