Death and Mr. Pickwick (31 page)

The Seymours watched as Van Dunder, with orders to arrest foreigners, entered a tavern, accompanied by six guards. Unfortunately, the French, Russian and German ambassadors drank within, and Van Dunder, not knowing their diplomatic status, proceeded to insult the French ambassador by calling him a rogue, and the Russian by calling him a scoundrel. Now he approached the German ambassador. Here, surely, was a foreigner to arrest.

Van Dunder: Who are you, you dirty dog? Your name, you rascal, your name!

German ambassador: Baron Von Clump, ambassador from the Emperor of Germany.

Van Dunder: I shall go out of my wits!

Officer: Why, Burgomaster, you appear to be rather puzzled.

Van Dunder: Puzzled? Don't talk to me of puzzled! 'Twould puzzle a conjuror! They set me angling for rogues, and I catch nothing but ambassadors!

No matter that the script was mediocre – Liston always won applause.

‘I think,' said Jane as she clapped, ‘he would look even fatter if you saw him in tights.'

‘I am sure you're right,' said her husband. ‘The baggy breeches do make him enormous, but in tights it would be like two great sausages for thighs.'

‘Also he needs a much shorter shirt, to show off his stomach.'

*   *   *

When they left the theatre, it was early evening, and the gaslit streets of the Haymarket teemed with rouged and powdered prostitutes, half drunk and in gaudy shawls. These women worked the cafés, gin palaces and oyster shops. The Seymours chose the almost-respectable establishment of Barn's for a coffee, and here Robert Seymour began sketching.

He conceived of the king dressed as Van Dunder, complete with conical hat and baggy breeches, but with a sceptre poking from the pocket. The talk in London was of a pet giraffe that had just been presented to His Majesty, and so Seymour drew the animal on the picture's left with a crown upon its horns.

‘Now let me add the best bit,' he said.

Seymour drew the personification of Britain, John Bull, as penniless, with his pockets hanging out. Bull's gaunt cheeks and thin frame demonstrated that a long time had passed since a decent meal. Behind Bull stood his starving wife and sons, as the family made an appeal to the king by presenting a petition. In the caption below, Bull dared to suggest that there were more important concerns for a king than caring for exotic pets. ‘If it may please Your Worship's glory,' said Bull, ‘to spare a moment from your pastimes, and read how bad times are with us, perhaps you'd have the goodness to mend 'em.' The king was as puzzled as Liston's conjuror: ‘Mend 'em indeed? It's easily said, mend 'em!!'

‘There is one more thing I need to add,' said Seymour. ‘I have decided upon a pseudonym.' He signed the picture ‘Shortshanks'.

‘I adore the drawing,' said Jane, ‘but I am not altogether sure I like that. Why Shortshanks?'

‘To suggest Cruikshank,' he said, very softly, plainly and quickly.

‘To suggest Cruikshank?' she said.

‘That's right.'

‘But why the plural, Shortshanks? Shouldn't you be Short
shank
?'

‘If I were a one-legged man, yes.'

The explanation ended there, for she had no chance of uncovering the coded game her husband played, and, for that matter,
loved
to play.

 

*

‘SHORTSHANKS, IT IS TRUE, DOES
suggest Cruikshank,' said Mr Inbelicate, leaning forward in his armchair, ‘but it also makes one think of another eminent person, King Edward I, better known as Longshanks, on account of his height. And if the king was Longshanks, then his son, who eventually became Edward II, might easily be considered, by virtue of his junior status as prince, a smaller version of the king, or Shortshanks. What do you know of these two royal shanks, short and long?'

‘The father was known as the Hammer of the Scots.'

‘And the son?'

‘He was the most famous homosexual in English history.'

‘To those who appreciated caricatures in a print-shop window, the signature “Shortshanks” would certainly suggest an upcoming artist comparing himself to the great Cruikshank. To those who used print shops for
other
purposes, the signature might just as well have said “Undo your flap”. It was not only his services as an etcher and lithographer that Seymour liked to advertise.'

 

*

‘I THINK,' SAID JANE, ‘THERE WILL
come a time when people will believe that Cruikshank is named after Shortshanks, rather than Shortshanks after Cruikshank – you will outdo him, Robert, I know you will.'

 

*

IT WAS A DRAWING.
But to describe the impression it created in a print-shop window its frame should be thrown away, and its lines treated as life.

It was a colossal mechanical steam-powered man, its body made of printing presses, its head of stacked books, its hat shaped in the architecture of the University of London. Its piston-arms swept with a giant-sized broom, brushing away mouse-sized opponents in its path: medical quacks, unreformed vicars, dishonest lawyers – these were the dust and rubbish to be cleansed by society's advance. The mechanical man's broom had a pun as its handle: the sculpted head of Henry Brougham MP, the force behind the University of London. This university was known for bringing educational opportunity to those denied it, including Catholics and Jews – but with every detail Seymour added to this picture, the terrible engine of progress became more disturbing and gigantic. He made its eyes sinister glowing gaslights.

To viewers gathered outside the Haymarket print-shop window, this Shortshanks etching announced that there was a new force among London caricaturists, one that would sweep all rivals away.

Soon afterwards came an entertaining diptych,
Night and Morning
. In the half of the picture entitled
Night
, a reveller and his mates raised their glasses, swallowing sherry and port to excess, and then in the
Morning
half, cloven-footed devils, wearing wine labels around their necks, conducted their torture – the mallet of the Sherry-devil crashed on the drinker's brow as he lay moaning in bed, while the Port-devil prodded at the abdomen with a red-hot poker. The signature to this diptych was another Seymourian game: signed by Seymour as the artist, while Shortshanks was the etcher – Seymour
del
, Shortshanks
sculpt
. This was followed in the window by
John Bull's Nightmare
, echoing the picture by Fuseli, but now turned into a commentary on the state of the nation. On a bed lay a sick and miserable John Bull, while around were the phantoms of his nightmare – notably, a bearded demon with twisted horns sitting on his chest, accompanied by a bag that bulged with ‘National Debt'.

The window that hosted these pictures belonged to the print-shop owner Thomas McLean, of whom one must say more.

There was lingering about McLean, as he stood behind the counter of his shop, an overwhelming impression of respectability. His hair receded to a respectable quantity of forehead; he peered through sober glasses; and all mannerism, deportment and dress were present in the appropriate degree. It may seem strange, therefore, that he located his print shop in one of the least respectable parts of London; it was true that he enjoyed the patronage of the very highest classes of society, but many of the women who lingered outside his shop were prostitutes, as colourful in their appearance as the prints he displayed in the windows. His motives were, apparently, twofold. First, an already respectable man will appear the founder of the very academy of respectability in such degraded circumstances; second, this thriving part of the city was likely to generate a substantial sale of humorous prints, not least to the very respectable customers of the prostitutes, who sought a moment's levity after a heavy session with a whore.

Robert Seymour approached McLean with the preliminary sketch of the first Shortshanks picture,
'Twould Puzzle a Conjuror
, minutes after it was completed. To McLean's question ‘When did you do this drawing?' the answer was ‘Just now.' The commission followed for the etching – and anything else that Shortshanks wished to supply.

After the publication of a number of pictures by Shortshanks, Thomas McLean arrived at his shop early one morning, and encountered a familiar figure waiting outside, but with a grave and determined expression, which was not at all wonted. It was George Cruikshank.

‘Good morning, sir,' said McLean, as he opened the door, and allowed several young girls with splashed pinafores to leave – they formed the team of overnight hand-colourists. ‘Do come in. If I may say – it is unusual for you to be here so early.'

‘It is.'

McLean pushed his glasses higher on his nose, although there appeared no need for the action. He gestured for Cruikshank to cross the threshold first, and the artist paced around the shop, casting a dismissive look over the prints on the wall. The artist then stood at the counter, twisting a diamond ring around his third finger.

‘Now you have my full attention,' said McLean.

‘Are you a fool? Did you think you could do this to me, and I would not make the slightest fuss?'

The angle of McLean's chin changed, and with rapidity. There was a glance, to check whether the box of Shortshanks prints under the counter protruded so as to be visible to the man on the other side. McLean assumed a look of utmost concern, with some suggestion of bewilderment.

‘This is theft!' said the artist. ‘The name of Cruikshank belongs to me and my brother. It is no one else's! A man works hard in his profession to build up his name and reputation! I am not going to see it ruined by a
copyist
.'

‘I presume you refer to the pictures by Shortshanks.'

‘I want him stopped. Without delay!'

‘No insult was intended. The artist is an admirer of yours.'

‘Who is he? Tell me, McLean, or it'll be the worse for you.'

‘His name is Robert Seymour.'

‘I should have guessed. The joke about Seymour
del
and Shortshanks
sculpt
. And – now I come to think of it – yes – there
was
a man who approached me at the gymnasium some months ago. His name was Seymour. Why did you take him on, McLean?'

‘He is the fastest artist I have ever encountered. He may well become the most prolific caricaturist in England. I can send a boy to him with a request for a picture, and he draws it while the boy waits, and it is often ready before the boy has so much as drunk a cup of tea.'

‘He will burn himself out like a garden bonfire.'

‘I think not. I asked him recently how many pictures a day he could draw, and he said it would sound like an exaggeration, and so he preferred not to tell me. Then he said that wasn't even counting the pile of first attempts he had thrown away.'

‘A speedy imitator.'

‘I will not hold him back.'

‘You can tell this Seymour to have the courage to draw under his own name. Or I
swear
it will be the worse for you.'

‘Mark this, Cruikshank. It is a good thing that it is
you
who have come to see me about this, and not your brother. If
he
had come complaining, I would have bundled him off in an instant.'

‘I have a good mind to tell him that.'

‘And I have a good mind to tell you that if Seymour drops Shortshanks you may have
more
to fear. Because I can see you
are
afraid. Today you can dismiss Seymour as an imitator. That may not always be so. You are the most acclaimed artist in London –
for now
.'

‘Insulting me will not get you off the hook, McLean.'

‘I will speak to Seymour. There will be no more Shortshanks pictures. In fact, I will
insist
that he use his own name in the future. Good day, sir.'

‘You are a fool to associate with someone like him.'

‘Good day, sir.'

After Cruikshank left, McLean sat down behind his counter and began writing a letter to Seymour. As he did so, another man in his early thirties entered the shop. Shabby in appearance, red in the face, the most noticeable aspect of the man's features was a strong nose, on which he balanced small, circular spectacles.

‘Mr McLean?'

‘I am, sir.'

‘My name is William Heath. I am an artist.'

‘Forgive me, but I am not
immediately
familiar with that name.'

‘I have been in Scotland. For several years.'

 

*

GLASGOW, OCTOBER 1825. THE LOW
ceiling, the unopened windows and the proximity of the walls in the tavern's clubroom made for the most concentrated fug of Cuban smoke that William Heath had ever encountered. The interior had become shades of golden brown and, thought Heath, it would not be surprising if the assembled whiskery membership eventually became kipper-coloured themselves and blended into the walls.

He had heard that the men gathered in the clubroom were, for the most part, officials involved with the administration and enforcement of the law, including politicians and magistrates, whose concern for budgetary responsibility perhaps attracted them to the landlord's keen tariffs for cigars and rum. Certainly the prices – together with the public's view of politicians and the legal profession – explained the nickname he had heard ascribed to this establishment: the Cheap and Nasty Club of Glasgow.

As he stood at the bar, Heath was intrigued by one man sitting quietly on his own.

The man's broad and resourceful face might well have belonged to a successful barrister or a justice of the peace, and therefore suited him to the room; his current preoccupation, however, suggested nothing of the sort, for he was examining a flower through a magnifying glass. The flower was itself an oddity – it had the exact shape of a poppy, but it was white, not red. Man and flower interested Heath enough for him to discover more.