Читать книгу The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot - Lang Andrew, May Kendall - Страница 5

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.