Ambiguous writing may conceal the depth and nature of Jasper's relationship with the nephew, but about the Cathedral and the music there is nothing at all equivocal: 

'I hate it. The cramped monotony of my existence grinds me away by the grain. How does our service sound to you?' 'Beautiful! Quite celestial.' 'It often sounds to me quite devilish. I am so weary of it. The echoes of my own voice among. the arches seem to mock me with my daily drudging round. No wretched monk who droned his life away in that gloomy place, before me, can have been more tired of it than I am. He could take for relief-and did take-to carving demons out of the stalls and seats and desks. What shall I do? Must I take to carving them out of my heart?' (Ch. II, p. 11) 

   This outburst follows immediately upon Jasper's recovering control of himself after the dinner with Edwin in Chapter II. It is one of the very few glimpses we are given into his mind. There seems no reason to doubt that here for once he is speaking as he feels, and the shock to readers of 1870 who held any reverence for forms of Christian worship must have been considerable. Already identified as the traveller from the London opium den, he is now seen on his own confession as standing before the high altar offering false worship, hating the office he holds and hearing the devil in sounds made to the glory of God. The immediate question in the minds of such readers must have been, Why does he continue to hold the office? 
   The payment a choirmaster of the mid-nineteenth century would receive for his services would be a pittance. If such a 

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musician were in reasonably comfortable circumstances (as Jasper appears to be), the bulk of his income would come from his teaching and other activities, or from private means. It seems likely (from evidence quoted below) that the financial inducement offered by a cathedral would be quite inadequate to hold a gifted musician and teacher to a post he intensely disliked. But Jasper is 26 at the time of this speech, and the phrases 'weary of it' and 'tired of it' must surely indicate that Dickens sees him as having served the Cathedral for some years. If, as I have proposed above, he was to have joined it as a young chorister, the author would have known that his life in comparison to that of his nephew would have been neither easy nor well paid, and its prospects as manhood approached would have been even bleaker. The payment and treatment of musical staff (particularly lay musical staff) in English cathedrals in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was not generous. Edwin is not precise as to the exact position Jasper occupies in the Cathedral hierarchy:  '...Lay Precentor, or Lay Clerk, or whatever you call it', he says; but Dickens would have a reasonably accurate knowledge of Jasper's social, musical and clerical standing; Lay Precentor he may have been, but not Precentor, nor Minor-Canon, nor organist (he is seen on more than one occasion in, or arriving at, his place in the choir at a time when the organist must be already in position). Lay-Clerks and choristers come next in declining order, and if he is only Lay-Clerk his position is a comparatively humble one; his dwelling reflects it admirably, being on the edge or fringe of the Cathedral close. The Dean calls him, with some patronage, 'our worthy choir-master'. 
   But did Dickens know this? That he was familiar with, and interested in, ecclesiastical finance in at least one of its aspects is made clear in the articles in Household Words on 'The Doom of English Wills' (1) (from September 1850). On this occasion he is dealing with Registrars' salaries: 

Mr. Wallace was soon taught that seven thousand pounds per annum is, after all, but a poor pittance for the Registrar of a simple bishoprick, when calculated by the ecclesiastical rule of three; for the registry of cathedral number two, produces to its fortunate patentees, twenty thousand per 

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annum; about ten thousand a year for the Registrar who does nothing, and the like amount for his Deputy who helps him. 

   Registrars, at least, were doing very nicely; and readers of Trollope would know about the temporalities of the church through Archdeacon Grantly: 

The church was beautiful to him because one man by interest might have a thousand a year, while another man equally good, but without interest, could only have a hundred. And he liked the men who had the interest a great deal better than the men who had it not. (The Last Chronicle of Barset, Ch. 83) 

But none of the good things were reserved for lay musicians: 

Right through the nineteenth century correspondence in the British musical press is found complaining of the parsimony of the wealthy cathedral chapters in their dealings with those responsible for the musical parts of the service. As late as the end of the century we find many definite instances adduced of cathedrals where canons received £700 to £1,OOO per annum for three months' attendance at the two daily services, with one sermon per week during this period (still drawing their stipends from their own parishes and with the power to retain both positions indefinitely after they had grown too infirm to perform any duty) whilst choirmen, in attendance at the two services throughout the whole year, received £50-£80 with dismissal at three months' notice on a breakdown of health or a loss of voice (and no pension). 'In some instances,' writes, in 1885, a precentor who has held office in three cathedrals, 'the stipend of one canon is equal to the aggregate salaries of all the Lay Clerks, and it is frequently four or five times that of a Minor-Canon or Organist, and this in opposition to the provision of the ancient statutes and of any modern sense of justice.' There is no doubt that at this period, to hold office as a member of the musical staff of a cathedral must have called for an effort in spiritual gymnastics in order to retain one' s own Christianity-and in the charity that suffereth aIl things and is kind, to believe in that of one's ecclesiastical superiors.² 

   Whether Dickens's Lay Clerk was to make such an effort in spiritual gymnastics is not known; if he did, it failed. He 

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kept his position in the Cathedral, but not his Christianity. I do not claim that Dickens was in possession of all the above information in detail, nor have I adduced the evidence in order to suggest poverty for Jasper, of which there is no hint in the text; indeed, the impression created, particularly at the Gate House dinner, with Mrs. Tope in attendance, is one of comfort and fairly easy circumstances. His gift of teaching and his 'connexion' could well have brought him a more than adequate income; which makes the question, Why does he continue to serve the Cathedral?, still more difficult to answer, if his author had any idea of the usual social position and circumstances of cathedral musicians. And of Dickens's interest in cathedrals in general, and in Rochester and Canterbury Cathedrals in particular, there is no doubt. He was also, partly through his sister Fanny, who in her young days had been a student at the Royal Academy of Music, and partly through other friendships, very familiar with the leading professional musicians of his day. He would know exactly where Jasper stood on the professional, social and financial ladder. But he had hinted to his readers five years earlier, in the Postscript to Our Mutual Friend 'that an artist (of whatever denomination) may perhaps be trusted to know what he is about, if they will concede him a little patience'; and he must have had strong reasons for putting Jasper where he was. He would be as well aware of the ill-rewarded work of cathedral musicians as he was of the social and financial circumstances of Bradley Headstone the school-master, for whom two guineas was a considerable sum. No such comparative poverty is suggested for Jasper, and Dickens as an intelligent writer (to say the least) would realize that an adequate motive for Jasper's continued presence in the Cathedral was essential to the credibility of the novel. But besides mere financial reward, other considerations combine to make the choice of cathedral musician as a career a strange one indeed for a young man of 26. Dickens's interest in educational opportunity must surely have informed him of a choirboy' s scanty chances of getting any, except in music. The article quoted above contains a reminiscence of Sir John Goss, organist of St. Paul's and composer of the best known tune to 'Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven'; speaking of

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his days as chorister at the Chapel Royal, he says: 

'We had a writing master from half past twelve to two on Wednesdays and Saturdays, if my memory does not deceive me, and no other instruction in reading, writing and arithmetic and a little English Grammar than we could get out of the time.' (This would be from 1811 to about 1815). Miss Hackett, (3) about the same date, was pleading for an arrangement whereby the boys of St. Paul's should have at least an hour's general schooling per day. There were then eight boys; they received only £40 a year amongst them, with no board and lodging, and the service hours prevented their parents sending them to school. (My italics) 

   In choosing to write about a Cathedral town and to lay part of his action in a Cathedral Close, Dickens lays upon himself the obligation to be ecclesiastically convincing to some extent and to bear comparison in the matter of knowledgeability with Trollope, whose hugely popular series featuring the clergy of Barsetshire had only recently ended with The Last Chronicle of Barset in 1867. Of course he knows Rochester thoroughly, and of course Cloisterham is Rochester; but if he creates a choir master for the Cathedral, that choirmaster must have the sort of background and history which would have led to his becoming a choirmaster in the first place. Dickens must at some stage of the conception have made himself reasonably familiar with the social and financial standing of such a man. If, as I have indicated earlier, Jasper's character portrait was to be completed by a backward look at his past, that past must have contained some good reasons for his adoption of cathedral music as a career and some better reasons for his continuing to hold his office long after manhood was reached and hatred of it had been acknowledged, and in the face, moreover, of physical as well as emotional discomfort and inconvenience. There is evidence to show that Dickens knew just how delightful the life of a chorister could be: 

There may be flaws [in this picture of a cathedral] if it be examined too closely. It may not be improved by the contemplation of the shivering choristers on a winter morning, huddling on their gowns as they drowsily go to scamper through their work; by the drawling voice, without a heart, that drearily pursues the dun routine; by the avaricious

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functionary who lays aside the silver mace to take the silver pieces, and who races through the show as if he were the hero of a sporting wager. (4) 

   He knew that the choirboy in his stall was hardly better off than Mrs. Pardiggle's five sons in the body of the church:

 'They attend mattins with me (very prettily done), at half-past six o'clock in the morning all the year round, including of course the depth of winter,' said Mrs. Pardiggle rapidly. ... (Bleak House, Ch. VIII) 

   But however much the small Pardiggles might hate their enforced attendance, they were of middle-class parents and therefore well protected against the winter's chill. The choir-boy's surplice, though 'pretty', is not a garment designed for keeping out the cold. And that Dickens knows the discomfort of a stone-cold cathedral on a winter's morning is made quite clear by Durdles and Jasper: 

'. ..Mr. Jasper knows what Durdles means. You get among them tombs afore it's well light on a winter morning, and keep on, as the Catechism says, a-walking in the same all the days of your life, and you'll know what Durdles means.' 
'It is a bitter cold place,' Mr. Jasper assents, with an antipathetic shiver.
'And if it's bitter cold for you, up in the chancel, with a lot of live breath smoking out about you, what the bitterness is to Durdles, down in the crypt among the earthy damps there, and the dead breath of the old 'uns,' returns that individual, 'Durdles leaves you to judge. ...' (Ch. IV, p. 30) 

   Perhaps under such conditions the joy of making music might suffer some diminution. Jasper's natural talent has not led him into pleasant places or an easeful life; the Cathedral demands spartan physical endurance and his almost daily presence. A short visit to London can only be made with 'leave of absence for two or three services' (Ch. XXIII); and it is perhaps not stretching the imagination too much to assume that he (and his author) are aware that he is carrying out the duties of Precentor ('chief singer') because no clergyman can be found (however expensively educated) with the necessary ability for the work, or who feels it worth his while to under- 

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take it. His monetary reward is far less than that of the Dean, who offers him such condescending and jocular patronage: 

'You are evidently going to write a book about us, Mr. Jasper,' quoth the Dean; 'to write a book about us. Well! We are very ancient, and we ought to make a good book. We are not so richly endowed in possessions as in age; but perhaps you will put that in your book, among other things, and call attention to our wrongs.' (Ch. XII, p. 100)

   Mr. Jasper may have his own wrongs more in mind, perhaps. They may parallel those of Neville Landless: 'I have been stinted of education, liberty, money, dress ...the commonest pleasures of childhood ...' (Ch. VII).* They may parallel those of the author, one of whose bitter resentments in adult life was the neglect of his education by his parents. If Dickens was looking to create a young man employed in some way by the church and suppressing at the same time a grudge against it amounting to hatred, a cathedral choir-master would undoubtedly suit his purpose. It is hard to believe that a boy or youth of moderately well-off parents or guardians could have chosen, and maintained, the career of chorister voluntarily, from the sheer love of music. Parental pressure, religious enthusiasm, overrated abilities, all or any of these might have played a part in inducing such a boy to join a cathedral choir in the first place. But that he should stay there fostering hatred needs stronger motivation. Obviously the necessity of earning his living would operate forcibly in the earlier years. Dickens has indicated in the text that there was only just enough to provide for the Drood son, and therefore not enough to provide equally well for the Jasper brother. Later, as his talent as a musician and success as a 

* It is possible that one of Dickens's aims was to show a comparison or parallel between Landless and Jasper: from similar starting-points in childhood, one was to take the path of good, the other that of evil. If the early background I have sketched in for Jasper in this and the previous chapter is anywhere near to the truth, its parallels to that of Landless are obvious. His Egyptian connection matches Landless's Singhalese, both are of a jealous temperament, each has the same rival (young Drood) and each has had in youth a dearly loved sister. It is also possible that each was to be shown as fighting a battle against his worser self-Landless to win, Jasper to lose - but at the cost of life in both cases. But as this is nearer to conjecture than deduction I have not included it in the main argument. 

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teacher became known and acknowledged, he would carve for himself the 'niche' described by Edwin: 

 ...Your enjoying the reputation of having done such wonders with the choir; your choosing your society , and holding such an independent position in this queer old place; your gift of teaching ...and your connexion. (Ch. II, p. 11) 

   The sexual complication in the shape of Rosa has of course played its part in keeping him at Cloisterham, if not in the Cathedral. Jasper himself gives a reason for staying which might at first be thought to be superficial: ' ...I must subdue myself to my vocation. ...it's too late to find another now' (Ch. II). But assuming that Dickens had rather more than a slight idea of the kind of educational and social background a young choirmaster on the staff of a cathedral would have, Jasper might be telling the simple truth. It would be hard indeed to know in what line of life he could face the world if not as a musician. If he made the discovery, say at about 13 or so (the time possibly of his sister's early death) that cathedral music and cathedral worship were both unsatisfactory in themselves and unsatisfying to him, and faced the question of an alternative career, it would have been a difficult one to answer. He would appear to be throwing away his only talent, and in sheer perversity adding to the problems of his bereaved brother-in-law. The Drood firm has nothing to spare; Edwin describes himself as a charge upon it until he comes of age, and his share, when he does, as 'modest'. Jasper accepts the situation; but it does not lessen his increasing dislike of the Cathedral, and points up still further the difference between his own lot and that of the favoured Edwin. Later still, I am going to suggest, hatred of the Cathedral - by now become an obsession - mingled inextricably with a part-acknowledged hatred of his nephew, might lead him to a half-mad desire of revenge on both, and hold him in his daily round of torment in the hope of its ultimate gratification. A complex motive, and of some interest, one might think (pace Dr. Leavis) to a novelist.

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NOTES 

1. Charles Dickens (with W. H. Wills), 'The Doom of English Wills' in Household Words, 28 September 1850. Quoted in The Uncollected Writings of Charles Dickens, ed. Harry Stone (Allen Lane: The Penguin Press, 1969), Vol. I. 
2. 'Cathedra! Music' in Oxford Companion to Music, ed. P. A. Scholes (Oxford University Press, 1938). 
3. Maria Hackett (1783-1874), 'the choirboys' friend', used her wealth to agitate throughout the nineteenth century for better conditions for choristers. 
4. Charles Dickens (with W. H. Wills), 'The Doom of English Wills' in Household Words, 28 September 1850.

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