Death and Mr. Pickwick (111 page)

I remember, over forty years ago, when I heard that Rochester Bridge was to be demolished, I was reminded –
of course –
of the scene in
Pickwick
in which Dismal Jemmy stood on that bridge, contemplating drowning, like a seduced and abandoned woman. The scene would have been among the pages of
Pickwick
letterpress read by my father. I had to see the bridge before it was gone.

I stayed in Rochester on the day prior to the demolition, and wandered for miles down the river, taking in the low, irregular and picturesque cliffs, and then, after a difficult night, I was up before breakfast. It was January, and, though cold, a reasonable enough day for the time of year. I joined the crowd which had gathered to watch.

Before us, the bridge – nine arches over the Medway, wading from bank to bank since the fourteenth century, supposedly one of the strongest bridges in England outside of London.

I watched the seaweed on those arches trembling in the breeze, like a row of eccentric men knowing they were condemned. The bridge, I realised, was a provocation to melancholy.

There was also the ruin of Rochester Castle, which loomed above us all, its walls quivering with ivy, as though in sympathy with the seaweed.

As I waited, I took in the fields and windmills beyond the bridge, in the distance, on the opposite bank. No doubt my father would have thought of Don Quixote. He would also have thought of Dr Syntax, and his quest for pleasing scenes.

The Royal Engineers placed their charges. The order was given. We held our hands over our ears.

Great flocks of black birds – whether ravens, crows, jackdaws or rooks I do not know – flew up from the castle at the first explosion. More explosions followed, one for each arch, and with the birds in flight, and the crumbling of stone, I could barely control myself, and I sobbed. I was not the only one. Some locals who had known the bridge all their lives were tearful, although applause, and laughter, were louder.

I waited at the river's edge until the water was calm, and it reflected the January sky once again.

The stone bridge was, in due course, replaced by iron, which spanned the river in just three arches. I went to visit it a few years ago. It was discoloured by smoke from the chimneys of the cement factory nearby and a stiff breeze blew smoke past while I stood and looked into the water. I recalled Dismal Jemmy again. It is a strange method to die, drowning. The way in which it does not deliver a death blow, but takes those who have never learned to cope with water.

*   *   *

On my second visit to Rochester, many years later, I went for a walk of several miles into Cobham. The reason was this: I had read an account of Dickens's life, written by his daughter, in which she said that, once, she was out driving with her father on the road from Rochester to Cobham when he told her that they were at the precise spot where Mr Pickwick dropped his whip. When I examined the text of
Pickwick
, I was struck by one extraordinary thing: there was nothing in it which could possibly identify the precise spot. The description given of the area was practically non-existent, and the only detail which could be a marker – a reference to a wooden bridge against which the Pickwickians crashed their vehicle – was surely an invention of Dickens's, for a look on a map revealed that there were no rivers in this area, and therefore no need for a bridge.

Then it struck me: it could only be my father's picture which enabled the identification of a precise spot. His drawing, showing the scene in which Mr Pickwick dropped his whip, must have represented
a real place
. This surely meant that my father had gone to Cobham, in order to make his sketch. Not even my mother mentioned this to me. Perhaps she did not know herself.

So, on a little private quest, of no interest to anyone but me, but rather comforting for that reason, I walked to Cobham in search of the precise spot, to see the place my father's eyes saw.

I may have found it, but I couldn't be at all certain. You must understand that over sixty years had passed since the drawing was made, and the picture's trees and hedges would have changed, even if I was in the right area. I stood against a sweet chestnut, beside a track, in a strangely contemplative mood.

I asked myself: why would my father go out to Cobham to make the sketch? In
Pickwick
, the incident in the drawing occurs on the way to the
imaginary
village of Dingley Dell. There was therefore no need for locational accuracy. Moreover, the details in the picture were of trees, foliage and a rough track – he wouldn't need to observe those details
in situ
, he could easily invent them. Why then would he visit the location to make an accurate drawing?

I knew that he had visited the Bull in Rochester to make another
Pickwick
illustration, because his depiction of the staircase proved that. His drawing showed the actual staircase in the Bull – I had been to the Bull on my first visit to Rochester, and confirmed this myself. It was not at all surprising that he had gone to the Bull, because an accurate drawing was definitely needed for that scene – the Bull was the background to all the events in the letterpress leading up to the duel.

It occurred to me that if my father went to Cobham as well, he must have done so on the same trip as when he went to the Bull – it would be ridiculous to make a separate trip, all the way from London to Cobham and back, a round trip of about sixty miles, just to sketch foliage and trees when his imagination could do the work at home, at no cost and with no exertion. Then I recalled that Dickens claimed my father drew his pictures from the proofs of the letterpress. The trouble is that the scene en route to Dingley Dell occurred in the
second
number of
Pickwick
, and would correspond to a different set of proofs from those that mentioned the Bull, in the first number. So that would in turn suggest that my father
did
make a separate trip to Cobham.

So I was left with a paradox. If my father accurately depicted Cobham, he must have made a separate trip there. But this trip would be ridiculous.

 

*

MR INBELICATE INTERRUPTED WHEN HE
saw I had reached this point, and said that the evidence from Dickens's correspondence indicated that he probably finished the first number in the first week of March 1836, and the second number during the last week of March.

‘I mention this because you, being the devil's advocate you are, Scripty, will wonder whether Seymour could possibly have had both sets of proofs at the same time, and so drawn both scenes on a single trip. The evidence says no. The receipt for Chapman and Hall's payment, for the first two numbers, was dated 29 March 1836,' he said. ‘This suggests that the proofs for the second number would have been available in early April. That means Seymour could not possibly have had the proofs for the second number at the same time as the proofs for the first number. The first number was already published – on 31 March. So the conjecture that Seymour was in possession of both sets of proofs cannot be true.'

 

*

I WONDERED WHETHER DICKENS COULD HAVE
instructed my father to make the drawing in Cobham, at the time of the first number, while my father was in Rochester to sketch the Bull. But this would be silly. Why would Dickens require accurate drawings of the track to an imaginary place, and drawings moreover just of leaves and trees, which my father could produce at any time? Furthermore, Dickens had abandoned the need for accuracy, because he had crashed the Pickwickians' vehicle against a non-existent bridge. It was very mysterious.

I then wondered: did my father perhaps wander off into the country, on a whim, when he was at the Bull, and just happened to depict Cobham, and the sketch was later used in
Pickwick
? I knew my father did go for walks, sketching as he went, because one look at
Sketches by Seymour
shows evidence of real locations he visited, as well as other locations, which give every indication of being real because of the attention to architectural detail, even if they cannot be identified with certainty. But the time of year would not have made the experience a pleasant one. Wandering off to do sketching on a whim would be something you might do in the warm months. I myself was in Cobham in the summer. But my father would have been in the area in March, to tie in with Dickens's writing of the letterpress.

 

*

‘MARCH 1836 WAS VERY WET
across England and Wales,' said Mr Inbelicate. ‘A track like the one going to Cobham wasn't a well-made road. In a wet March, it may well not even have been accessible. It could have been like a walk in a bog. Would Seymour really go off on a whim to sketch in weather like this? Besides, if he had produced this picture as a whim, why would he then slavishly copy the trees and hedges into another picture, when he could simply invent them?'

 

*

I COULD SEE ONE WAY ONLY
of resolving the paradox: that my father
did
do the two pictures in one trip – but that this was
before his involvement with Dickens
. He perhaps did the drawings in the summer of 1835, when a stroll from Rochester to Cobham would have been very pleasant indeed.

This was an extraordinary moment of realisation. It accorded entirely with what my mother said – that Dickens was writing up to my father's drawings.

It is the reverse of what Dickens himself claimed.

It crossed my mind too that if my father did the drawing in Cobham, he perhaps originated the previous one where Mr Pickwick chased his hat. There had to be a good reason for Mr Pickwick to drive the chaise towards Cobham. If Mr Pickwick received an invitation to visit someone, out in the country, that would do it. And the hat had brought him into contact with a farmer, who might well have issued such an invitation. Bringing a person into contact with someone through an item of clothing, namely a hat, seemed exactly the sort of thing an artist would do, concerned, as he would be, with a person's appearance.

I have not done anything with this before. I may be blamed for not acting earlier, but no one stands in my shoes. No one in the world has my relationship with
Pickwick.

*   *   *

I cannot escape
The Pickwick Papers
, and I never shall. It is ludicrous and embarrassing to tell you this, but even in the most private of bodily functions,
Pickwick
is not far away. I suffer from constipation. So I go to the chemist to buy Beecham's pills – and there, amongst the lotions and powders, I see an advertising poster:
Mr Pickwick's Immortal Discovery
– in which Mr Pickwick is crouched before a standing stone with the inscription:

+

BEECH

AM

S PILLS

Pickwick never
goes away.
Pickwick
is the most powerful advertising tool in the world.

I walk down the street and images of Mr Pickwick, Weller and the rest are everywhere. Even when I started work in the goods department at the railway, a
Pickwick
-incident occurred. There was an ancient clerk who was about to retire, and the office came to a halt when he was presented with a cheque, and he made a retirement speech. It was an innocent rambling address, and rather dull; but he spoke of how, when he was a boy, the railways had killed the coaches and that a local coachman turned to running a coal wharf, naming these premises after the coach he used to drive, with a painted sign which announced ‘Commodore Coal Wharf'. The ancient clerk reminded everyone that this was the very Commodore coach which appeared in
Pickwick
, and that some believed the coachman to be the original of Sam Weller's father.

If I read the newspaper, there is often a
Pickwick
allusion, or a
Pickwick
analogy. In fact, I don't even need to
read
the paper – I merely
see Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper
on sale, proclaiming itself as the first British paper to sell a million copies. And how did this happen? Because Lloyd built upon his great success at publishing an imitation of
Pickwick
. He built his publishing empire
upon the foundations of my father's work
!

*   *   *

Most books are, simply, books. Not
Pickwick
. It is as though it is always a seed, and something will grow from it: whether an article, an extended analysis, an engraving, an amateur-dramatic production, or just a journey to a public house. No character man has created – not even figures of mythical status – I say no character has
ever
established such a hold upon the affections of a nation as Mr Pickwick. Everyone instantly recognises him. Even if a person has never sat down to read
The Pickwick Papers
, they will still recognise Mr Pickwick, the man my father created.

It all began with Father's picture
Mr Pickwick Addresses the Club
, which I have heard described as ‘The
Mona Lisa
of book illustrations'. Yet our family never made a penny from
Pickwick
's success. We were reduced to poverty.

*   *   *

I have lodged at a house in Hackington Terrace, in Canterbury, for more than two years. There is a landlady, a little woman, Mrs Shadick – I have never learnt whether her name is spelt with a single'd' or double'd', and I do not care to know. She is half my age, about thirty-five I imagine, a widow. I know her son and daughter despise me. Here am I, old as I am, living in this single room. I am what they never want their lives to be.

I have not told her whose son I am. She tries to find out about me. People do. I tell them nothing. But the other day I had left some copies of
Figaro in London
on the side, which I was going to try to sell. She saw them. She looked at the top one showing a picture of Lord Melbourne and Wellington fighting with cudgels. Then she saw a name among the explanatory letterpress.