There is no doubt that if Datchery was Helena, one of her chief difficulties must have been with her hands.
Miss Stirling Graeme, the author of Mystifications, had a marvellous power of disguising herself. ‘There was nothing extraordinary about her,’ says Dr. John Brown, ‘but let her put on the old lady; it was as if a warlock spell had passed over her; not merely her look, but her nature was changed: her spirit had passed into the character she represented; and jest, quick retort, whimsical fancy, the wildest nonsense flowed from her lips, with a freedom and truth to nature which appeared to be impossible in her own personality.’
Sir Walter Scott in his Journal for 7th March 1828 tells us that when she returned to her party in the character of an old Scottish lady she deceived every one. ‘The prosing account she gave of her son, the antiquary, who found an auld wig in a slate quarry, was extremely ludicrous, and she puzzled the Professor of Agriculture with a merciless account of the succession of crops in the parks around her old mansion-house. No person to whom the secret was not entrusted had the least guess of an impostor, except one shrewd young lady present, who observed the hand narrowly, and saw it was plumper than the age of the lady seemed to warrant.’
In the Daily Mail of 4th April 1912 there is an account of two girls who lived together, passing as husband and wife. The man with whom they lodged said: ‘The husband’s hands were so small and soft that both my wife and myself were suspicious.’
I ask the attention of readers to the manner in which Dickens refers to Datchery’s hands. I do not lay too much stress on these indications, but they deserve consideration.
1. We read in chapter xviii. about Datchery in the coffee-room of the Crozier, ‘as he stood with his back to the empty fireplace waiting for his fried sole, veal cutlet, and pint of sherry.’ (‘Empty’ was an afterthought on Dickens’s part.) Here we have Datchery keeping his hands out of view.
2. A little after, Datchery asks the waiter to take his hat down for a moment from the peg. If he had stretched out his own hand it might have been noticed.
3. Later in the same chapter, when Datchery meets Jasper and the Mayor, he does not shake hands with them. ‘“I beg pardon,” said Mr. Datchery, making a leg with his hat under his arm.’ Originally this was written ‘hat in hand.’ If he carried his hat under his arm, one hand would be buried in the hat.
4. Afterwards we read of Datchery following Jasper and the Mayor, ‘with his hat under his arm, and his shock of white hair streaming in the evening breeze.’
5. When Datchery is talking to the opium woman, ‘he lounges along, like the chartered bore of the city, with his uncovered grey hair blowing about, and his purposeless hands rattling the loose money in the pockets of his trousers.’ His hands are thus out of sight. Immediately after we find him ‘still rattling his loose money,’ and again, ‘still rattling.’