Death and Mr. Pickwick (21 page)

There was another annoyance. He had never entirely lost his religious impulse, and in spare moments, rather than talk to me, he would read theological works, notably those of Paley. He would come out with pompous statements after closing a book, normally sitting up in bed. Once I remember he announced: ‘I
see
with the instrument of God, Wonk. So I
paint
with the instrument of God. Our own eyes are finer than the finest lenses ground in London.' What could I say to that, except nothing, and be as quiet as he was when he was in one of his foul moods.

Then there was also the time when he had just put down Paley's
Moral Philosophy
on the table beside the bed, and the following exchange occurred:

Him: Paley was an angler. He said angling was cheerful solitude, and that angling had given him some of his happiest hours.

Me: I would be happier fishing than spending time reading his works.

Him: There is a rule he proposes. ‘In every question of conduct, where one side is doubtful, and one side safe, we are bound to take the safe side.' So, suppose two courses – one you know is morally acceptable, and the other morally doubtful. You should take the acceptable.

Me: Are you talking about us?

Him: No, as a general rule.

Me: It would be safe and acceptable to marry Jane.

Him: (After a pause) That is true.

Me: But the law has to
see
. Behind closed doors we
are
safe. As long as we are discreet, the world will tolerate us. No crime is committed if we are not seen, even a crime punishable by death.

Him: It might still be considered
doubtful
that we should be in Canonbury together.

Me: Very well, Robert, apply the rule! Live by it. Be the philosopher's pupil and marry Jane. But how easy will it be? Throw Paley away if you will be
you
, Robert. (Pause) I can see what will happen in the future. You will choose respectability with Jane over me.

Him:
You
might choose respectability.

Me: (Pause) Why don't you explain to her about us?

Him: I am astonished you even suggest it! She is innocent. She wouldn't believe it possible.

Me: Then how much worse the shock if suddenly she were to find out. Suppose one day she were to come here, unannounced, and find us. Would that not be worse? (Pause) If you were to broach the subject with her, you could begin with your cousin Edward's obsession with deformity. You have said that would be how
he
would see us.

Him: We are not deformed.

Me: Then tell her the truth about the print shops – that certain sorts of men congregate at their windows, that you are weak, and were persuaded – and make her feel sorry for you. Even suggest that you need her help to overcome it. Yes,
that
will do it! I want you to tell her, Robert. You
will
tell her.

Him: She will be repulsed.

Me: If she is repulsed – that is that. But I believe you can make her accept. I believe that there can be an accommodation, which is the best for all of us.

*   *   *

Eventually, after more argument, he got out of bed, and wrote a letter to Jane that night, under my guidance, suggesting another round of Holloway cheesecakes, sandwiches and jugs of milk.

Some days later, they leant against the fence around the pasture where Samuel Rhodes's herd of cows grazed. The important part of their conversation, the most full of emotion, as he told me afterwards, apparently went along the following lines. I might add that he never spoke to me in such an elevated way.

Her: There is something very wrong with me, if this is what you seek.

Him: I know that admitting … my weakness … may make me contemptible to you. Yet feeling your contempt – feeling the misery of being despised by you – that is a misery I would endure rather than make you feel that there is anything wrong with you. You are not to blame for the way I am.

Her: I do not know what to say.

Him: I ask you to forgive me. Your forgiveness will – if it is possible – endear you still more to me. It is as if I am possessed by some sickness, some melancholy – by some disagreeable demon – something which makes me commit follies. What is this but want of health in mind and body? It may be that God will grant me health and spirits. But if I were deprived of you, life would be a curse.

Her: And what would my life be, knowing this about you?

Him: I beg you to have patience with me. Can you forgive me? If you cannot – if I feel that I am sunk entirely beneath your regard – then I can do nothing but submit to despondency. But tell me that you do not hate me. Say ‘Robert you do not disgust me' – and I will bend the words around my heart to shield me from despair. But shun me, and I will still love you, I must ever love you, and to whatever or to wherever my life may lead, you will still always be in my heart.

Her: You must struggle, with all your will. The weakness – or the sickness – or the demons you say you have must be fought.

Him: Forgive me.

Her: I do forgive you.

*   *   *

At that moment, I lost Robert.

He and I continued for a while, but the accommodation I had thought possible was illusory. I remember an argument we had a few nights later, after I had again spoken of the possibility of my leaving Canonbury and returning to Vaughan's.

Me: How often do you ask about
my
concerns? I might have
some
interest beyond you and your pictures. Oh – and your theology, let's not forget that.

Him: Do you know what's wrong with you, Wonk?

Me:
You
are going to tell
me
what is wrong with
me
? I will not listen. I cannot continue like this.

Him: You have no one else. You will stay.

Me: You're wrong, there
is
someone else.

Him: Who? Tell me who?

Me:
Me.

*   *   *

A few days later, another conversation went thus:

Me: I have been to see Vaughan. He is agreeable to my returning. Robert, look at me.

Him: I must give notice that I shall leave Canonbury. Working elsewhere may help me to finish the Tasso.

Me: It will not end here. We will still see each other. ‘John Barleycorn'. ‘Pity the Sorrows'. We will still get together sometimes, and sing them.

Him: Indeed.

Me: The Tasso
will
be a success.

Him: I wish you success – in pattern-drawing.

*   *   *

We did see each other from time to time. There was never a complete break. He sought me out when he could not find anyone at the print-shop windows. I did not mind. Whatever his flaws, I had met no one like him. I followed the progress of his life and career, even if he cared little about mine. If he showed me a drawing, I would still see the little flourish of his hands.

 

*

‘LET US LEAVE CANONBURY, SCRIPTY,
as Wonk and Seymour themselves did. Instead, let us travel to another part of Islington, in the summer of 1820. And I shall want to talk a little more about nightwatchmen.'

 

*

A BOY WITH PATCHED BREECHES, LOPSIDED
hair and a sniff entered the Old Red Lion public house, where he looked here and there among the numerous drinkers gathered for the evening within. Making his decisive sniff, he approached a smartly dressed man in a blue coat, whose swallow tails hung down behind a stool at the end of the bar. The man also possessed a large leonine head, strong brow, and two thick groves of whiskers overhanging a laugh. Such a man would have attracted attention in any company, and with his buffed-up basket-buttons he was fit for a huntsman's ball.

‘Mr Cruikshank?' asked the boy.

The man gazed through the tobacco smoke, which was almost the colour of his eyes.

‘No
Mr
, please. Just Cruikshank.'

The boy passed over a note.

Cruikshank read the lines casually, and asked the landlord for a pen and ink. He wrote underneath the message: ‘Soon'. He added his signature, an up-and-down flowing of blue, beginning curly as his hair, and terminating in a ‘k' so bold it was a signature to a signature. He passed the note back to the boy, then turned his attention to his tankard, which he drained with immediate effect. He wiped his whiskers, and called for another round.

‘May prick nor purse never fail you!' he said as his toast to his chums on both sides. He was there for a long session.

*   *   *

George Cruikshank had the physical constitution to wake early next morning and, throwing on a dressing gown, went downstairs, where his maid had already laid the table. She placed before him the usual breakfast cure: stewed cabbage and a handful of almonds – Cato's recommendation, after a bout with Bacchus.

After eating, he dressed, finishing off with a smoking jacket, and sat in an armchair beside the unlit hearth. For fire, he lit his churchwarden. To watch this man smoking his pipe could suggest an idle morning ahead – but the vast imagination of George Cruikshank was already at work, forging images in his brain with as much energy and heat as a row of factories. As the pipe glowed, what visions did he see? Perhaps the King of England in crown and stockings, or a bald politician kissing the royal hand with just a hint of a crafty grin as the lips pulled away, and then those same lips dining at a banquet with the great men of the realm, before the whole scene becomes turmoil and disaster as a figure from a fairytale, a brutal giant with a club the size of a hundred-year oak, smashes the table, and a mischievous elf in pointed shoes hops across the wreckage, laughing at all the chaos.

When ready, he left the chair and moved to the work desk. He opened the drawer to access his pencils, and there was a glimpse of an old label on the wood stating ‘The property of James Gillray', though it was partially obscured by a penknife. He sat sketching outlines – limbs in action, expressive faces, women's dresses, chairs and sideboards, patterns on carpets, candlesticks, vases, porcelain – all rubbed nearby with pencil lead, to suggest shadow. Then came a new picture, of a building from the crowded heart of the city. A succession of other drawings emerged, with rare pauses to relight the pipe, for a solid five hours, until the clock struck three. Then the maid admitted his brother Robert, a thinner, hook-nosed version of George.

‘Time for Egan,' said the brother.

George Cruikshank went to a looking glass, flicked his locks, and the pair ventured forth.

*   *   *

Both Cruikshanks duly appeared at the Bond Street rooms of Mr Jackson, the former boxing champion of England, where two pugilists, one with a lumbering-bear stance, and the other a nimble footworker, exchanged sweaty blows in a practice session. Watching from the side, and taking occasional notes, was a man with a cockscomb of reddish-brown hair, and thick, arched eyebrows stuck in a position of fascination with the fight. This was Pierce Egan, sporting journalist. He winked briefly at the pair who entered, but did not join them until the pugilists had sat down on their stools, and then only after Egan had spoken to the nimble-footed fighter, lifting the towel upon the man's head, to say a few words concerning a forthcoming article.

After Egan had put his notebook away and shaken hands with the Cruikshanks, the three went downstairs, pausing briefly in the street, at the entrance to Jackson's rooms, while Egan adjusted his jacket.

‘So where to tonight, lads?' said Egan.

As chance – or eavesdropping – would have it, at the very moment Egan asked, the trio were approached by a white-stubbled individual in a greasy coat and a battered hat. In his hand was a wad of advertising bills, and at his feet a muzzled dog, a brown and white bull terrier.

‘Now you three like a good match, I'll bet. And this boy,' he said, looking down at his dog, ‘has never come close to losing.' He thrust a bill into Egan's hand. ‘This'll be a night for you.'

Heading the bill was the statement: ‘Two 50 lb Dogs will Commence the Entertainment at the Westminster Pit.'

‘He's one of the fifty-pounders,' said the man. ‘Worth a bet. He could beat dogs twice his size.'

‘Game, is he?' said Egan.

‘You love your warm bath afterwards, don't you, boy?' he said, tilting his head with great affection towards the dog. ‘And you love your bowl of beef tea with a large drop of bingo in it, don't you? I mustn't ever forget his drop of liquor. He growls at me until I've added it. He's sharp as his teeth.'

*   *   *

At half-past six that evening, Egan and the Cruikshanks paid their two shillings at the door. They entered the miniature Colosseum that was the Westminster dog pit.

Around the sawdust ring, and in the tier of the gallery above, was a miscellany of faces – and for every unshaven nasty-looking cove with bloodshot bloodlust in his eyes there were ten up for the sheer fun. Several dustmen had removed their fantail hats because of the heat and they fanned themselves; one rang his bell, shouting: ‘Bring out the dogs!' There were jolly stagecoachmen, and men with brick dust in their hair; and in the gallery, extremely well-dressed gentlemen, one of whom was recognisable, from the pictures in print-shop windows, as a Member of Parliament.

The master of ceremonies, who filled his voluminous red jacket and silk shirt to capacity, and even a bit more at the collar, stepped on to the sawdust and brought out from his pocket the tiniest bull terrier imaginable, which he held in his hand. The puppy yapped at the crowd.

‘Here we are, a savage beast! But give this puppy a year or two! Now – let us bring out the contenders!'

To great applause, two owners entered the sawdust, clutching taut short chains to teeth, barks and snarls. The first dog was the one seen by Egan and the Cruikshanks in Bond Street. The owner had smartened himself up for the show, by a shave, by the omission of his hat, and by a clean blue waistcoat. The other dog, a white bull terrier with a pinkish snout, was restrained by a bald, thin man dressed entirely in sombre black. Unlike the opposition, he did not yield a wave to the spectators, let alone a smile, but exhibited a demeanour of complete detachment.