Death and Mr. Pickwick (109 page)

Summer, 1849

‘From the look on your face, the wedding did not go well,' said Jane when Edward came indoors, as she watched him hang up his jacket in the hall. He had been earning a small fee, playing the church organ.

‘The wedding went smoothly.'

‘What, then?'

He unbuckled his music satchel and took out a book.

‘What is that, Edward?'

‘An edition of
Pickwick.
It was published a couple of years ago.'

She flicked her head to one side. ‘There is no reason to bring that home.'

‘I think there is,' he said, gravely.

They entered the music room, and Holmes stood by the piano, while his sister sat on the stool. ‘There was a guest I knew at the wedding,' said Holmes, ‘whom I haven't seen for years. I used to teach his son piano. At the reception, he approached me and said that he had read about Robert the other day in
Pickwick.
'

‘The death notice that was inserted?'

‘That's what I thought he meant at first. It soon became clear that Robert was mentioned in the preface to a recent edition. I was curious. So on the way home, I stopped at a bookseller and inspected the preface. I bought a copy, because I think you should read it.'

Jane Seymour hesitated, but took the book and put on her glasses.

‘I should warn you,' said Holmes, ‘that there are no pictures – except for a frontispiece. And that is not by Robert.'

She turned to that picture. It showed Mrs Bardell fainting in Mr Pickwick's arms, with Mr Pickwick in profile, an angle at which he seemed unfamiliar and, although bald, younger than expected. In the foreground a chair had been overturned, which could not fail to remind the viewer of Mr Pickwick standing on a chair addressing his club, and at the same time suggested that Seymour's Mr Pickwick had been dethroned, to be replaced by someone else's interpretation of the character. Jane screwed up her face.

‘Do you see the artist's name?' said Holmes. ‘It is Charlie Leslie.'

‘Charlie Leslie?'

‘You remember – that friend of Joseph's. The one he went to the theatre with. You remember – the night Joseph was almost crushed.'

‘Without Robert's pictures, this book is
crushed
– or rather,
mutilated
.'

Then she read Dickens's words in the preface:

In the course of the last dozen years, I have seen various accounts of the origin of these
Pickwick Papers
; which have, at all events, possessed – for me – the charm of perfect novelty. As I may infer, from the occasional appearance of such histories, that my readers have an interest in the matter, I will relate how they came into existence.

Holmes watched his sister's expression change. There were sharp jerks of her neck backwards as she reached certain passages.

‘This is
wrong
,' she said. ‘There was no Nimrod Club. It was the Pickwick Club, right from the start. So how
can
there have been a change from Nimrod to Pickwick? And how can it
possibly
be true that the illustrations arose from the words? Robert had the drawings for the first two numbers ready four or five months before he was introduced to Dickens. I saw the drawings myself.'

‘That is what I thought.'

‘I shall write to Dickens. This cannot stand uncorrected.'

*   *   *

‘This is all going to come out, Forster,' said Dickens, striding around the room with a violence. ‘What will this do to me? You were the one who said I shouldn't help her with that play. I should have done.'

‘You gave her five pounds.'

‘Five pounds!
Five pounds
for her children's education! All people need do is point out the minuscule fraction five pounds is of the earnings I received from
Pickwick
! If this gets out—'

‘Calm yourself,' said Forster, casting an eye over Mrs Seymour's letter again. ‘The ambiguities of the preface are our first defence. But we need
more
defence. We do not concede. What is more – it is morally right we do not.
Pickwick
is
your
achievement. Not Seymour's. Write a letter to Chapman immediately and ask him whether he is as surprised as you are by Mrs Seymour's letter.'

‘But it
cannot
be a surprise. You have seen the preface. I have said that there have been all sorts of stories about Seymour circulating, and the preface is my reply.'

‘Still say it. You need to be as innocent as possible. So innocent that the very
suggestion
from Mrs Seymour comes as a shock. Ask Chapman whether there is any truth in Mrs Seymour's letter. He will take the hint and tell you there is none. But in case he
doesn't
take the hint, I shall go to see him. In the meantime, let me give some thought to what our response should be.'

*   *   *

That night, Forster sat alone in his study, his thoughts aided by a glass of claret and a cigar.

He was thirty-seven. But he recalled when he was seventeen. There was a university friend, an Irishman, of great charm, eight years older than himself, James Emerson Tennent. Forster remembered the warm Irish smile and the enthusiastic handshake, when they introduced themselves in the rows of the lecture theatre at University College, London.

‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Foster,' he said –
Foster,
not Forster. This was a common mistake; but the error persisted with this friend, who for a while even wrote letters beginning ‘Dear Foster'.

He remembered the Irishman coming to see him at Penton Place, Pentonville, where he lodged. He recalled his friend drawing on a cigar while shelling an oyster, and over a glass of claret his friend would talk about Greek wine and then Greece itself – but he would still say ‘Foster', though he had been corrected on several occasions.

‘Now, Foster,' he said, ‘you and I must go to Greece together one day. I am always amused by the faith the Greeks put in amulets and other superstitions. They may no longer believe in oracles and incantations and spells and shamanic practices, but they hang up dirty rags in honour of their saints to cure a cold. When we go to Greece, Foster, I shall show you.'

Forster smiled at the thought of his friend taking along the alter ego, John Foster, while he, John Forster, stayed behind.

This mingled with the necessity for action regarding Mrs Seymour's letter.

He thought too of Dickens's novel
Martin Chuzzlewit
, in which the character of Mrs Gamp, to add credence to her stories, spoke about her friend Mrs Harris – until she was told: ‘I don't believe Mrs Harris exists at all.'

An idea came.

Forster was tickled by his own cleverness. He sat down and wrote to Edward Chapman, inviting the publisher to supper.

*   *   *

Three days later, in a similar atmosphere of wine, lamplight and cigars, Chapman sat opposite Forster in the study.

‘May I ask you something?' said Forster. ‘If I say “Mr Pickwick” to you, what image does it create in your mind?'

‘It can create only one image.'

‘Well, tell me.'

‘A fat man, in tights and gaiters, bald, with glasses.'

‘What if Mr Pickwick were a thin man?'

‘But he isn't.'

‘Suppose he were.'

‘The thought is impossible. I would even say – it is abhorrent.'

‘I want you to entertain the possibility.'

‘The entire
Pickwick Papers
would be different. All the eating and drinking and conviviality wouldn't occur with a thin man. You would expect him to dine on dry crusts and cold water. You wouldn't want to be in his company. Where would the fun be?'

‘Let me press you further. What if Mr Pickwick, as well as being thin, did not wear tights and gaiters, and lacked glasses and bald head as well?'

‘This is heaping absurdity upon absurdity, Forster. It wouldn't
be
Mr Pickwick. It may be someone
called
Mr Pickwick, but it wouldn't be
our
Mr Pickwick.'

‘And let me press you even further – what if he were not called Pickwick?'

‘Then there would be nothing in common with Mr Pickwick at all.'

‘So if someone created this thin character – he could not in any sense be the creator of our Mr Pickwick?'

‘Of course not. Oh.' Realisation dawned. Chapman smiled. ‘Oh, you scoundrel, Forster. I think I see where you are going with this.'

‘If Seymour drew a thin character, who looked nothing like Mr Pickwick – and if the character were then altered, with the fatness and all the other characteristics the world knows being suggested by someone else – it would kill his widow's claims once and for all.'

‘But it would be our word against hers.'

‘Not if we support our words. Tell me, Chapman – where are you from, originally?'

‘Born and bred in Richmond, Surrey.'

‘Let us suppose you made Seymour draw a character according to your specifications. Suppose you asked Seymour to throw away his thin man – and instead, base his drawing of Mr Pickwick on your description of a fat friend of yours, someone you knew in Richmond. I even have in mind a name for your imaginary friend. It has always been a minor annoyance that I am often called “John Foster”. I have been trying all my life to get my own name spelt correctly. And I am highly amused at the thought of bringing this John Foster to life. So – suppose John Foster of Richmond was the original of Mr Pickwick.'

‘My feeling is that if we did it – we would be found out.'

‘We would not. As publisher, your word would be accepted as true. And consider – thirteen years have passed since
Pickwick
first appeared. With every passing day, populations move, people die. It would be hard to check the story, and harder still as more years passed. Who would have the means or the time to check records? And no one can say with certainty that he does not exist. We do not even have to say that he comes from Richmond yet. We don't have to give his name either, unless pressed.'

‘It
might
work.'

‘It
would
work.'

 

*

I WAS ABOUT TO ASK MR
Inbelicate whether he had investigated the records for Richmond, when he remarked: ‘Just because Robert Seymour is dead does not mean Robert Seymour is dead.'

With an extraordinary mischief in his eye, he opened a cupboard, and took out a brown paper parcel, which he placed into my hands. It bore a stamp from the reign of Edward VII, and an addressee, whose name I did not recognise. Inside was a manuscript, whose title was a revelation. I read, and could not stop myself reading.

 

*

The Life of Robert Seymour, Son of Robert Seymour

I USUALLY TELL PEOPLE MY NAME
is R. Seymour, not Robert Seymour. Too many know my father was
Pickwick
's first artist – and I would prefer no questions.

I am the last member of our family.

I was born in 1830. My sister Jane, the year before. About the time of my birth, my father was commissioned to illustrate a reprint of an old play,
The Famous Chronicle of King Edward the First
, and it was, according to my mother, a great joke that Shortshanks was illustrating Longshanks. So, in the crib I was sometimes called Tinyshanks.

I have memories of my mother attempting to sell my father's drawings in a shop in Catherine Street, off the Strand, but it was not successful. This was after his death. I remember she published the sketches again and again, in the hope of raising a few pennies, using different colour papers to give them some novelty – green, blue, yellow, red, white. Unfortunately, the plates themselves were wearing out, and the drawings became weaker with every reprinting.

I know that my mother and my uncle Edward told my father that he didn't charge enough for his drawings, but he produced so many he was not bothered at all. He had lost a little money in Spanish bonds, I know that, but the financial position of our family was sound, until
Pickwick
destroyed our security. We did not recover.

Mother died in 1869. Uncle Edward is gone too.

I have never married, and neither did my sister. She died in 1881. She might have been a successful singer, for her voice was remarkable. Up to her death, she was employed at the Central Telegraph. Like our mother, she supplemented her slender income by selling pictures drawn by our father, the remainder of the old stocks, printed on differently coloured paper. She was braver than I.

*   *   *

My father sinned against God. His life was not his to take away. And we, his family, were punished on this earth for his sin. People shuddered when they knew who we were. Many times, when I was young, I heard whispers, identifying me by my father.

*   *   *

I have not progressed far in life. For a while I was an egg merchant, in Squirrel's Heath, Romford. Sometimes a misshapen egg would pass before me, and later I discovered that this was the origin of the word ‘cockney':
coken ey
– Middle English – cock's egg. I think I am a bit of a cock's egg myself. Such is my connection to my father's world of cockney sportsmen.

Since the eggs, I have occupied various clerical posts. I have worked for the last few years at the South Eastern and Chatham Railway at Canterbury, in the goods department. There is a foreman, there are clerks, and there is me – the supernumerary clerk. If someone retires or gets married he is presented with a cheque or other memento. I will not get one. They do not want to know me and I do not want to know them, but I am meticulous in my work. They will find nothing to complain about. All I can aspire to now are reasonable lodgings. I have my one room.