‘Not under any circumstances,’ returned Helena.
This to my mind is the first unmistakable suggestion of what was to be developed. Here we have Jasper and Helena falling into enmity almost at the first moment of their meeting, challenging one another to battle. Helena accepts the challenge. Not under any circumstances would she be afraid of Jasper. She lives to redeem that word.
3. Dickens expressly tells us that Helena from her childhood was accustomed to disguise herself as a boy. ‘When we ran away from it (we ran away four times in six years, to be soon brought back and cruelly punished), the flight was always of her planning and leading. Each time she dressed as a boy, and showed the daring of a man.’ This is the strongest reason for the identification of Helena with Datchery. I find it difficult to suppose that any careful student of Dickens will believe that these facts about Helena’s disguise were put in without intent. It was one of those facts which Dickens intended his readers to interpret by the backward look. Those who were amazed when Datchery appeared as Helena would be referred back to the significant words which they had missed.
Helena protects her unhappy brother in London, and plans against his enemies. She surmises that ‘Neville’s movements are watched, and that the purpose of his foes is to isolate him from all friends and acquaintances, and wear out his daily life grain by grain.’ She secures the help of Mr. Tartar.
In her conference with Grewgious, Helena plans for checkmating Jasper, and inquires whether ‘it would be best to wait until any more maligning and pursuing of Neville on the part of this wretch shall disclose itself, or to try to anticipate it.’
4. Helena’s whole heart went with the effort at detection. We have seen her hatred of Jasper. In the conversation between Helena and Rosa about Drood and Jasper, Rosa betrays her horror of Jasper and his mesmeric power over her, which makes her ashamed and passionately hurt. They resume on the same strain.
Says Rosa:
‘But you said to-night that you would not be afraid of him, under any circumstances, and that gives me—who am so much afraid of him—courage to tell only you. Hold me! Stay with me! I am too frightened to be left by myself.’
The lustrous gipsy-face drooped over the clinging arms and bosom, and the wild black hair fell down protectingly over the childish form. There was a slumbering gleam of fire in the intense dark eyes, though they were then softened with compassion and admiration. Let whomsoever it most concerned look well to it!
This last sentence is another of the unmistakably prophetic sentences in Dickens. Helena was the sworn champion thenceforth of Rosa against Jasper. Helena submits herself to the fairy bride and learns from her what she knows. When Jasper is mentioned and Rosa says, ‘I could not hold any terms with him, could I?’ Helena answers with indignation, ‘You know how I love you, darling. But I would sooner see you dead at his wicked feet.’
As to the close and tender affection between Helena and Neville, and her vehement sympathy with his trial, there is no question. I quote one passage because it seems to me a most striking fact that in the proofs of Dickens the whole of it is struck out:
‘I don’t think so,’ said the Minor Canon. ‘There is duty to be done here; and there are womanly feeling, sense, and courage wanted here.’
‘I meant,’ explained Neville, ‘that the surroundings are so dull and unwomanly, and that Helena can have no suitable friend or society here.’
‘You have only to remember,’ said Mr. Crisparkle, ‘that you are here yourself, and that she has to draw you into the sunlight.’
They were silent for a little while, and then Mr. Crisparkle began anew.
‘When we first spoke together, Neville, you told me that your sister had risen out of the disadvantages of your past lives as superior to you as the tower of Cloisterham Cathedral is higher than the chimneys of Minor Canon Corner. Do you remember that?’
‘Right well!’
‘I was inclined to think it at the time an enthusiastic flight. No matter what I think it now. What I would emphasise is, that under the head of Pride your sister is a great and opportune example to you.’
‘Under all heads that are included in the composition of a fine character, she is.’
‘Say so; but take this one. . . . She can dominate it even when it is wounded through her sympathy with you. . . . Every day and hour of her life since Edwin Drood’s disappearance she has faced malignity and folly for you as only a brave nature well directed can. So it will be with her to the end . . . [pride] which knows no shrinking, and can get no mastery over her.’