Death and Mr. Pickwick (106 page)

There was one other change announced by that title page.

No longer were the papers merely ‘Edited by Boz'.

Under the title, it said: ‘by Charles Dickens'.

*   *   *

Four days after the last number finished its run, ‘
The Pickwick Papers
by Charles Dickens' was stamped in gilt letters on the spine of a new, grey-black, clothbound, all-in-one-volume edition issued by Chapman and Hall. Thousands of copies of this volume appeared in bookshop windows with extraordinary rapidity – a full ten days ahead of its advertised appearance – as though the pride of bestowing the dignity of a novel upon
Pickwick
had made the steam presses work all the faster.

*   *   *

The lace-edged invitation cards had gathered an elite group of gentlemen to a private room in the Prince of Wales Hotel on Saturday evening on 18 November 1837.

Seated around the table were various men who had played a role in connection with
Pickwick
: Chapman, Hall, Jerdan, Browne, Talfourd, Forster, Hicks, Bradbury, Evans – and Dickens himself.

The first to speak was Hicks.

‘Now Mr Dickens's manuscript was often a challenge.' (Laughter and cheers around the table.) ‘The writing was small with some very strange names: never at B&E had we seen a Tollinglower before, nor a Mudberry, let alone a Smauker. As for the spellings – well, Mr Dickens, they owed
rayther
more to the way words are spoken on the streets of London than to the approved authorities!' (More laughter.) ‘But we loved setting it, sir. It was a challenge we rose to. In the compship, every man was keen to get a take of
Pickwick.
It was a privilege to see the glorious phrases of Sam Weller before anyone else in the world! And I may say, Mr Dickens, that looking at the latest issue of
this
' – he pulled from his inside pocket a copy of the
New Sporting Magazine
– ‘it seems that others are keen to emulate your success. Now just let me read you something: “A clever young chap, formerly boots at a family hotel in Bridge Street, has offered to supply us with ‘sayings and similes' at half a crown a hundred. He describes himself as a cousin of Sam Weller and says that he can make a considerable allowance to the ‘trade' who will take a quantity.” But I say: there is only one Sam Weller. And I say to everyone here – as Mr Pickwick said to his followers – “Let us celebrate this happy meeting with a convivial glass.”' The proposal was received with loud and universal approbation.

There followed speeches from the various participants, who usually found a quotation from
Pickwick
to flavour the proceedings. Then Edward Chapman rose and presented Dickens with a set of silver apostle spoons, with Pickwickian characters on the handles instead of biblical ones; rum was immediately poured into the spoon bowls, and those assembled gladly sipped liquor administered by Sam Weller, Mr Jingle, Job Trotter, the fat boy and others from the pantheon of
The Pickwick Papers.

Then Dickens rose. His inclination was to climb on to his seat, in imitation of Mr Pickwick when the latter addressed the club, but Forster's tight hold on a sleeve proved persuasive and Dickens stayed with his feet on the floor. After thanking the various speakers, and responding to quips they had made, he came to his peroration.

‘I confess, I
am
proud of
Pickwick
. The way it has made its way in the world is extraordinary. And it is my hope – it is my firm belief – that
Pickwick
will survive long into the future, long after I am gone. During the course of its publication, as you all know, gentlemen, I laid down my notebook for recording parliamentary speeches. Now I have laid down Mr Pickwick's notebook too. I have written one hundred slips of paper a month, on average, to produce the letterpress. And I declare to you now that if each of a month's slips were a year in my life – I say, if I were to live one hundred years – and if I were to write three novels in each, I should never be so proud of
any
of them as I am of
Pickwick.'
(Calls of ‘Hear, hear.') ‘Gentlemen, I thank you all.'

Finally, Talfourd stood to propose
the
toast of the evening. A bell was rung and in came the head waiter, pushing a trolley on which was a cake of many tiers. At the cake's top stood a miniature fat figure in sculpted marzipan, in the very pose that Dickens had wanted to strike, one hand gesticulating in the air, the other under his coat-tails.

Talfourd raised his glass: ‘To the gweat Mr Pickwick!'

The middle of April, 1838

A torpor hung over Dickens – induced by mulled wine, the bodily aches of a cold, and carriage-driving, all of the day before – which defeated every attempt at writing until the middle of the afternoon. Even when he settled, progress was slow.

A coach had overturned in his new novel in numbers, and the passengers sought shelter in an inn. In his mind, it was the Wheatsheaf at Long Bennington. He conceived of the passengers telling a couple of stories to pass the time, akin to the stories he had inserted in
Pickwick
.

He looked at the date on the newspaper. It was two years ago, almost to the very day, that he invited Seymour to a glass of grog.

He saw the dead man in Furnival's with his glass of cold-without. The dead man with
deady
.

Swigging grog. Grog swig.
Grogzwig
!

Soon afterwards, he wrote the title of a story: ‘Baron Koeldwethout of Grogzwig'.

He began: ‘The Baron Von Koeldwethout, of Grogzwig in Germany, was as likely a young baron as you would wish to see…'

He told of how the baron, beset by an overbearing wife, and debt, had decided to put an end to himself. He resolved to put a knife to his throat as soon as he finished a last bottle of wine and a pipe.

As the baron drained his glass, he saw that he was not alone.

‘On the opposite side of the fire, there sat with folded arms a wrinkled hideous figure, with deeply sunk and bloodshot eyes, and an immensely long cadaverous face, shadowed by jagged and matted locks of coarse black hair.' The apparition's tunic buttons were coffin handles, his short dusty cloak the remnant of a pall.

‘I am the Genius of Despair and Suicide,' said the apparition, who threw his cloak aside to reveal a stake – a stake, as is commonly hammered into the heart of the self-murderer, when denied a Christian burial and interred at a crossroads – a stake which protruded from the centre of his body. The apparition pulled the stake out with a jerk, ‘and laid it on the table as composedly as if it had been his walking stick'.

After talking to the apparition, the baron's spirits revived. He realised that, although the world may be dreary, the world of the apparition may not be any better.

‘You have not the appearance of being particularly comfortable,' said the baron. ‘I'll brood over miseries no longer, but put a good face on the matter.'

The apparition then lifted the stake, thrust it violently into his body, and with an unsettling howl, disappeared.

Dickens felt satisfied. He concluded with the comment: ‘My advice to all men is that if ever they become hipped and melancholy from similar causes (as very many men do), they look at both sides of the question, applying a magnifying glass to the best one, and if they still feel tempted to retire without leave, that they smoke a large pipe and drink a full bottle first, and profit by the laudable example of the Baron of Grogzwig.'

With that, the number was complete.

 

*

AFTER WE HAD DISCUSSED THE
possible significance of the tale of the baron, Mr Inbelicate said: ‘There was something else which happened in 1838.'

He passed over another of his missiles in paper form.

 

*

The Account of Weld Taylor, Lithographer (extracted from an unpublished autobiography)

IT WAS IN 1838 THAT
I went to visit Dickens in Doughty Street. I had met him before, when I was present at the sketching of his portrait by Samuel Laurence. That drawing was in chalk, on light buff paper, capturing his genius in the flash of the eyes and the sensitiveness of his mouth, and it was my intention to publish it as a lithograph, for which I was quite certain there would be a great demand from the public.

Dickens thought the proposal an excellent one, because at the time his face was not well known to the public. I believed the lithograph would be improved if it carried the facsimile signature of ‘Boz'. Thus, I called upon him simply for the purpose of collecting his pseudonymous autograph. While there, we chatted in his drawing room, which was pleasantly pink, and there was a marble fireplace, and the mood was very jovial, and I brought up the subject of Robert Seymour.

I knew Seymour a little, for we both obtained our proofs at Englemann's printers in Newman Street and one day I suggested I might draw the artist's portrait. Seymour agreed, he sat, and I have to say I gave him a suggestion of a smile – but it was about the only time I ever saw it. To me, he seemed one of the most melancholy men I have met, and you would never think that someone of his nature could create such humour. Whether he was melancholy with others, I cannot say, but he was with me. As I was in Doughty Street in connection with Dickens's portrait, it seemed natural to mention in conversation a similar business I had had with Seymour.

‘Seymour,' said Dickens. ‘I did not know him, really. But an artist of talent. I greatly admired his work.'

‘He certainly seemed to capture the spirit of
Pickwick
,' I said. ‘I prefer his work to Browne's. Even after Seymour died, I thought that when Browne drew Mr Pickwick in a wheelbarrow, there was something of Seymour's there.'

‘Did you?'

Suddenly, Dickens rose. After a little while he returned with a couple of Seymour's drawings. ‘You may have them,' he said.

I was highly delighted, as one of them showed the shepherd from
Pickwick
– there he was, sipping his pineapple rum, reeking of hypocrisy. It was only after I had left Doughty Street that I suddenly realised it could not have been the shepherd, because he appeared much later in the story, long after Seymour died. This was most curious.

I remember showing the drawing to a friend, and I said, ‘It must be the shepherd,' and then I also said: ‘Yet how can it be him, when Seymour was dead?'

I wish I had asked Dickens to explain the paradox, but I suspect that I would have received an equivocal answer. For something else peculiar occurred, which left another mystery.

Suddenly Dickens said: ‘Seymour and his wife were out in the streets, about a week before his death and he took her inside a milliner's shop. He enquired about mourning caps. So the assistant brought out one made of tulle. “Very fine fabric,” said Seymour. “Why don't you try it on, my dear?” She proceeded to do so.'

I was astonished. ‘The family told you this?'

Dickens made a noise – I am not certain whether it signified agreement or not.

‘Did you learn this at Seymour's funeral?' I said.

‘I did not go.'

‘You would have expected the family to keep quiet about such a thing. To show premeditation of the act would have had the most
dire
consequences. The family would have lost all rights to inherit.'

Dickens moved the conversation on, by referring to the lithograph which was the purpose of my visit, and no more was said about Seymour.

 

*

‘IF IT WAS A DRAWING
of the shepherd,' I said, ‘it is strong evidence that Seymour and Dickens were involved in long-term planning. It would be evidence that Seymour had some knowledge of
Pickwick
's contents, extending into the numbers published after his death.'

‘Now let us consider a third event of 1838,' said Mr Inbelicate.

 

*

ON A VISIT TO DOUGHTY
Street, John Forster brought from a portmanteau two magazines for October 1838,
Franklin's Miscellany
and
The
Edinburgh Review
, and placed them on a coffee table.

‘There are items in these which bother me,' he said. ‘Have you read them yet?'

‘I have not,' said Dickens.

‘The first concerns Seymour.'

‘Does it?' He stroked his hand across his hair.

‘There is a technicality which they have got wrong – they refer to the
three
numbers of
Pickwick
that Seymour was involved with, rather than two. That is a minor matter. The substance is the thing. This is what it says: “Many of our readers are not aware that Seymour first furnished the idea of
The Pickwick Papers
; Mr Dickens wrote the first three numbers to his plates, and but for the artist's death they would have travelled their jocund road together. We are but doing justice to his memory when we admit this, for he was a man of great observation, much affected to the ludicrous, and full of original anecdote with a good display of caustic wit.”'

Dickens fidgeted with his cuffs: ‘I can guess why they said three. Seymour's influence did not entirely end at his death.'

‘You should have told me that before. It adds point to the other piece. Though it is not about Seymour as such – well, let me read it. Let me say that it is full of praise for you. “We think him a very original writer – well entitled to his popularity – and not likely to lose it – and the truest and most spirited delineator of English life, amongst the middle and lower classes, since the days of Smollett and Fielding. He has remarkable powers of observation and great skill in communicating what he has observed. We would compare him with Hogarth. What Hogarth was in painting, such very nearly Dickens is in prose fiction.”'