Death and Mr. Pickwick (114 page)

‘In the census records, once they began in 1841, there are two records of a John Foster of Richmond, one aged forty, and one aged sixty. Unfortunately the Richmond where these John Fosters lived was Richmond in Yorkshire, not Surrey. There was one John Foster of Richmond, Surrey in that census – but alas, he was born in 1816, much too young to be the original of Mr Pickwick. In the 1851 census, there are actually
three
John Fosters living in Richmond, Surrey – but all are too young, including one who was just a toddler.

‘Going the other way in time, to 1813, twenty-three years before
Pickwick,
there is a mention of a John Foster among the alleged creditors in a Kew debtor's schedule, where Mr Foster is described as a brewer of Richmond, Surrey. Alas, not only is there no record of Mr Foster being resident in Richmond during the next twenty-three years, but also brewing records for Richmond mention no one at all called John Foster. And, as records of brewers called John Foster and John Forster
do
exist for other towns, the obvious inference is that one of these men supplied a batch of beer to the Kew debtor, probably via a Richmond public house. So I am afraid that we are left with no candidates at all for Chapman's friend.

‘Now you, Scripty, might say this proves nothing. John Foster could have died before the 1841 census. And, it is true, in the days before the census, many, many people must have slipped through the net, and left no mark at all upon the world.

‘But I am going to ask you this question, Scripty: would the man who was
the original of Mr Pickwick
have left no mark? In 1836, Mr Pickwick became the most famous man in the country – on his way to becoming the most famous man in the world – a man whose physical appearance was better known than that of the prime minister himself. I find it almost
inconceivable
that no one would have made a note of a man in Richmond who looked exactly like Mr Pickwick, and was said to be his inspiration. If the original of Mr Pickwick existed in Richmond, people would have gone on trips to the town to see him walking about the streets!

‘Indeed, there
were
men who, by coincidence, resembled Mr Pickwick – and they, as you would expect, have had their resemblance to the great man recorded. One was a headmaster – Robert Booth Rawes.'

 

*

LIME TREES AND FLOURISHING SHRUBS
stood in front of the Rawes Academy in Bromley, Kent, but inside, in an upstairs bedroom, you would find the bald, fat bespectacled Mr Rawes, too ill to supervise his boys that day, which was increasingly the case, as he paid the price for a diet of claret, liver pâté and lobsters. His foot lay upon a gout rest, while his hands – equal in agony to his toes – were splayed and spasming upon his ample thighs. Severely bilious, his head hung poised over a chamber pot, and there were further unceasing pains proceeding from the pit of his stomach. He moaned to his chambermaid, when she knocked, that he was married to his belly, but this wife was a harridan, a shrew, and the kindest thing would be for her to become his widow, and put him out of his misery.

 

*

‘ROBERT BOOTH RAWES'S PHYSICAL RESEMBLANCE
to Mr Pickwick,' said Mr Inbelicate, ‘led many to believe that he was the inspiration for the character. He died in 1841. And he was not the only Mr Pickwick lookalike.' He turned to another page of the flip chart. ‘In the early 1840s, should you go to the tea importers Foord, Smith and Co. of Monument Yard, London Bridge, you would see chests of tea, at a price of four shillings and eightpence a pound, composed of souchong and peckho, promoted as ‘The Best Black Tea Ever Sent to England'. It was called Pickwick Mixture – taking its name from a tea-taster in Macao, because of his resemblance to Mr Pickwick, both physically and mentally.

‘And supposed originals for other
Pickwick
characters were
always
being found.' The page turned again. ‘Here, for instance – Alexander Snodgrass, a Scotsman who settled in Bath and became landlord of the Caledonian Tavern. He was regarded by some as the original of
Pickwick
's Mr Snodgrass, not only because of his name, but because he composed songs, and on Burns night, shortly after a guest had recited ‘To a Louse', he would pipe up with a verse of his own.'

On the chart was written:

A day among all others in the year

We meet to celebrate a poet dear

Do make it convenient if you can

To spend an hour or two wi' Burns the man.

‘Yet, in all the years since
Pickwick
was first published,' said Mr Inbelicate, ‘no one has ever found a single mention of John Foster.

‘And consider this: Chapman has the ladies of Richmond protesting about John Foster's dress. It implies there is something odd about Foster's appearance. This is another problem. A huge problem, Scripty. Because it is an anachronism. In 1849, when Chapman explained about John Foster, tights and gaiters would certainly have been weird apparel. They had passed into history. But in the period immediately before
Pickwick
appeared, older men still wore tights and gaiters. They were
going
out of fashion, that is true, and would not be worn by a young man, but there would be nothing strange at all about a man of Mr Pickwick's age wearing tights and gaiters.

‘And do you know something else, Scripty? It seems that Chapman was determined to keep up this tale of John Foster even after his death. In the 1880s, a
Pickwick
enthusiast called Percy Fitzgerald wrote to Chapman's daughter. Let me show you how she replied.' He turned the page of the flip chart.

There was an old family friend living at Richmond, named John Foster, not Forster, who was quite a character, especially in his personal appearance; it occurred to my father to introduce him to Dickens who had just commenced the
Pickwick Papers
. Accordingly, they were invited to meet one another at dinner, and, from this copy, Dickens turned out
Pickwick
. I have given these anecdotes as we remember hearing them spoken about in our home.

‘So she claimed that her father actually invited Dickens to dinner to meet John Foster! Strange then that Dickens doesn't mention this at all – and only refers to the man that
Chapman
used to see!

‘And note how she says Foster's personal appearance made him quite a character. But, as I have explained, a middle-aged man wearing tights and gaiters would not have been that odd. It would be rather like my saying to you, Scripty: “Do you know, there's a friend of mine who actually wears trousers.” It would be even sillier if I named the friend. “There's a friend of mine, man by the name of John Foster, who wears trousers. I must introduce you to him, so you can take a look.” Nor would baldness, fatness or spectacles make him an oddity.

‘The more you think about it, the more the anomalies mount up. Even the idea of Chapman describing this John Foster to Seymour has something strange about it. Don't you think it's peculiar to ask an artist to create a likeness without seeing his subject, but from just a verbal description? Robert Seymour must be the only portraitist in history expected to create likenesses from words. And what is more, it is not just a single pose that he would need to capture for use in the work – a man may look completely different in profile, or three-quarter face, or full face. Was Seymour supposed to capture all these likenesses without actually seeing the man they are supposed to resemble?

‘Scripty, even Chapman's fundamental justification for supposedly getting Seymour to switch to a fat man is dubious. Chapman said that fat men had been associated with humour since Falstaff. Well, true, Falstaff was a fat man – but someone who knew graphic traditions like Seymour would have instantly said: “No, thin men can be associated with humour too.” Just think of Dr Syntax. Fat men were often associated not with humour at all, but with gluttony and wealth. Think of all the excesses of the Prince Regent.

‘Nothing adds up here, Scripty. I think all this points to one conclusion. Why don't you say it?'

He turned the flip chart one final time, to reveal a single statement, which I read aloud: ‘John Foster did not exist.'

On Mr Inbelicate's face, there was an expression of grand triumph.

After a polite interval of silence, to allow Mr Inbelicate to enjoy the moment, I ventured to say: ‘May we continue with Seymour's son's manuscript?'

‘No,' he said. ‘Not yet. I wish us to go to 1857, to consider the influence of
Pickwick
on the student population of Cambridge University.'

 

*

IN THE CAMBRIDGE OF THOSE
days, sour-faced evangelical men patrolled the alleys between the colleges, in dress darker than normal black, as dark as the covers of the Bibles they carried. To such as these, amusement was sin: the brightly lit door of a theatre was a passage to the realm of the Devil, while rich food, a high-spirited dance, or an inoffensive joke were short cuts to damnation.

The response from the undergraduates was the consumption of alcohol – in vatloads.

There was not a college without its own brewer. Breakfast was beer; bacon and eggs was a mere side dish. All other meals followed a similar pattern.

Even young men pursuing theological studies joined in the liquid repudiation of the evangelicals. It was not surprising that, in these conditions,
The Pickwick Papers
became a guide to life.

*   *   *

‘Nothing we study is as important as
Pickwick
,' said a pie-eyed young man one evening, when sitting in the wainscoted circumstances of Christ's College Junior Common Room. He raised a tankard of well-matured Audit Ale to his lips.

‘An achievement unmatched,' said an acne-suffering other, showing in his own tankard a preference for the Strong Ale, which was not so mature, but as strong as its name.

‘Now you may say
Pickwick
is merely the comic adventures of a fat man,' said the first. ‘But I tell you –
The Pickwick Papers
is the highest single achievement of the human mind.'

They collapsed in uncontrollable laughter.

‘At times I believe it, though,' he added.

‘So do I. Sometimes I
know
it is.'

‘I suppose you heard about Skeat and Besant?'

‘Tell me.'

‘Someone the other day mentioned a kitten. Skeat leapt into Sam Weller's tale of kittens being made into pies, and Besant, squinting through his glasses in the way he does, accused him of being not quite right in quoting a line. So Skeat bet Besant a pint that the quote was absolutely correct and he said someone should get a copy of
Pickwick
to confirm it.' The Audit was swallowed, as a way of punctuating the tale. ‘Well, Skeat was proved right, much to Besant's embarrassment.'

‘Good.'

‘But Skeat then made a second bet. He challenged Besant to choose any passage of
Pickwick
– any passage whatsoever – and recite it from memory. Then Skeat said he would recite the same passage, and whoever gave the recital with the most mistakes would buy the other man a drink. So Besant took the challenge, and after wheezing a bit—'

‘I can't stand it when he does that. That and his bad skin. Worse than mine.'

‘Anyway, Besant chose Sam's first scene in the book. “That's an easy choice,” said Skeat, looking at Besant with utter contempt. They tossed a coin to decide who should start. Besant recited first, Skeat left the room, and in the recital Besant made a few errors. Then Skeat came back, stood up, got on a chair, and word for word he got the speech right. Skeat received a round of applause, and said: “That will be two pints you owe me, Besant.” He drank them down, one after the other, still standing on the chair.'

‘Well,' sniggered his companion, ‘people are used to looking down on Besant.'

*   *   *

In this
Pickwick
-fuelled atmosphere, there was no greater enthusiast for the book than a junior fellow of the college called Calverley.

Everyone wanted to know Calverley. Everyone wanted to be seen with Calverley. No face was more confident than his – all that brown curls and bold nose and prominent cheeks could do to make a man resemble a lion was at work in the Calverley appearance. Though he was rather shorter than the average student, if his shirt were undone, or sleeve rolled up, there would be an unmatched display of muscularity. He possessed, as well, a ferocious aura of good cheer – talking to Calverley, it was said, corresponded to standing in a hearty inn with abundant laughter in the background. The wainscoting of a common room dissolved whenever Calverley was present.

Harrow School kindled Calverley's enthusiasm for
Pickwick
; especially one teacher who knew the trial scene by heart, and if a pupil gave this teacher the slightest opportunity, the knowledge would emerge in class. Thus, if a boy stalled when asked a question, the teacher would say, in the manner of the cross-examination of that scene: ‘I'll repeat the question for you a dozen times, if you require it, sir.' While a boy who had forgotten the subject matter of the previous lesson would be told that he had a short memory and the whole class informed: ‘We shall find means to refresh it before we have quite done with him, I dare say.' Given a chance, the teacher would reel off entire paragraphs from
Bardell
v.
Pickwick
– and on one occasion, when the teacher had taken Calverley's class to chapel and all were waiting for the service to begin, the teacher stood to one side of the pulpit, and it was apparent that in his mind the pulpit had become the trial's witness box, for he assumed a particular pose of superiority associated with his courtroom renditions, the habit being so deeply engrained.