Christmas Eve comes, the day of the dinner of three, Jasper, Landless,
and Edwin. The chapter describing this fateful day (xiv.) is headed,
_When shall these Three meet again_? and Mr. Proctor argues that Dickens
intends that _they shall_ meet again. The intention, and the hint, are
much in Dickens’s manner. Landless means to start, next day, very early,
on a solitary walking tour, and buys an exorbitantly heavy stick. We
casually hear that Jasper knows Edwin to possess no jewellery, except a
watch and chain and a scarf-pin. As Edwin moons about, he finds the old
opium hag, come down from London, “seeking a needle in a bottle of hay,”
she says—that is, hunting vainly for Jasper.
Please remark that Jasper has run up to town, on December 23, and has
saturated his system with a debauch of opium on the very eve of the day
when he clearly means to kill Edwin. This was a most injudicious
indulgence, in the circumstances. A maiden murder needs nerve! We know
that “fiddlestrings was weakness to express the state of” Jasper’s
“nerves” on the day after the night of opium with which the story opens.
On December 24, Jasper returned home, the hag at his heels. The old
woman, when met by Edwin, has a curious film over her eyes; “he seems to
know her.” “Great heaven,” he thinks, next moment. “Like Jack that
night!” This refers to a kind of fit of Jasper’s, after dinner, on the
first evening of the story. Edwin has then seen Jack Jasper in one of
his “filmy” seizures. The woman prays Edwin for three shillings and
sixpence, to buy opium. He gives her the money; she asks his Christian
name. “Edwin.” Is “Eddy” a sweetheart’s form of that? He says that he
has no sweetheart. He is told to be thankful that his name is not Ned.
Now, Jasper alone calls Edwin “Ned.” “‘Ned’ is a threatened name, a
dangerous name,” says the hag, who has heard Jasper threaten “Ned” in his
opium dreams.
Edwin determines to tell this adventure to Jasper, _but not on this
night_: to-morrow will do. Now, _did_ he tell the story to Jasper that
night, in the presence of Landless, at dinner? If so, Helena Landless
might later learn the fact from Neville. If she knew it, she would later
tell Mr. Grewgious.
The three men meet and dine. There is a fearful storm. “Stones are
displaced upon the summit of the great tower.” Next morning, early,
Jasper yells to Crisparkle, who is looking out of his window in Minor
Canon Row, that Edwin has disappeared. Neville has already set out on
his walking tour.