Death and Mr. Pickwick (34 page)

‘It is a very good trick to get people in motion in a funny picture,' he said. ‘If a person is running away from a landowner or a mad bull, he loses every ounce of dignity. But, I am back to scientific drawings tomorrow.'

‘I thought you had just done a batch of those.'

‘It's not for Knight and Lacey. It's for an acquaintance of theirs. They probably owe him money. He wondered if they could recommend an artist for pictures of steam engines. I'll meet him tomorrow.'

‘Where do you have to go?'

‘Holborn. Furnival's Inn.'

*   *   *

Furnival's – a building in which the law's functionaries traditionally resided; and, thought Seymour, judging from the low-browed idlers with raised collars, sideways looks and hands shoved suspiciously in pockets who leant around the tunnel at the entrance, the law was needed within.

He emerged from the archway to a grass plot laid out in a perfect circle, with a statue of the Inn's founder as its centre. The lawn's protection from the divot-creating powers of clerks' shoes was a perimeter of low white posts, connected with chains. He climbed a steep, gloomy but eminently respectable staircase.

The door was opened by a man in his early forties, who combined in his appearance unsmiling lips, staring eyes, shabby clothes and uncombed hair.

‘Mr Meikelham?' said Seymour.

‘I would be pleased if you would call me Stuart, Robert Stuart,' said the man in a Scottish accent. ‘Meikelham puts me in a different mood completely. But come in. Shut the door if you please. A man can't think in a draught.'

The walls of the apartment were bare, except for a picture with ‘Naples' engraved on the frame. There were balls of crushed paper all around, and pieces of furniture which looked sturdily made, but with no French polish. Seymour caught a glimpse of a woman through a few inches of open door.

‘A sunny day, but a bit cold,' said Seymour, as he sat upon a pine chair near the window, for the light.

‘A day when men will get drunk to keep themselves warm. They do not need so much liquor in a place like
that.
' Stuart pointed to the picture of Naples. ‘But we are not here to talk about the weather. I hope you have no objection to my coming straight to the point. What have you been told about my needs?'

‘I understand you are producing a work called
Anecdotes of the Steam Engine.
I know nothing else.'

‘Then I must tell you – I am a vain man. Do not look at my clothes. That is not true vanity. True vanity is wanting to be the one and only, to do something which no one has attempted before. Are you vain?'

‘As I am an artist, I am.'

‘Good. We understand each other. Here is my vanity. I am not a pioneer in steam, but no one has written a detailed history of steam-operated machinery – I intend to be the first. That is my motive for this work. Were I writing as Meikelham, I would seek universal popularity. Robert Stuart is different. But I hope that the public will at least greet Robert Stuart's efforts with indulgence. I believe it would help if the work were enlivened with pictures of men working the engines. And there lies a problem. Men who work such machines would be covered in dirt. It would suggest the machines are unpleasant. I am not a tidy man, but I know what others like. So you will have to draw the men as clean. Is something wrong?'

‘No – it's just that I have another idea.'

‘You are a fast thinker if you have.'

‘What if I were to draw the operatives as cherubs?'

‘
Cherubs
?'

‘Cherubs could not possibly be dirty. Cherubs would suggest the machines are a heavenly delight.'

‘Are you taking this work seriously, Mr Seymour?'

Seymour took out his sketchbook. ‘Could you describe some of the machines in your book?'

Stuart looked at Seymour for signs of facetiousness; if he saw any – and certainly there was a twinkle in Seymour's eye, and a crafty licking of the lips – he decided to act on the assumption that the artist was indeed serious. ‘I can do better than describe.' From the floor, Stuart picked up a technical drawing of a Newcomen steam cock. This, and other designs involving pistons and boilers, were placed on a low, plain wooden table in front of Seymour, who proceeded to sketch the machinery and then added rudimentary cherubs. Stuart pulled his chair alongside to watch Seymour as he drew – but he remained quiet, and had apparently acquiesced completely in the plan, with no objection, until on one naked cherub Seymour drew in the genitals.

‘I am not
quite
sure about that addition,' said Stuart.

‘I am. But the figures are
too
bare. And too similar. There needs to be more to interest the viewer. I think I know what to do.'

Seymour sketched a cherub leaning lazily against a circular brick furnace while reading a newspaper. It was not merely the pose, nor even the newspaper prop, which caught the eye. He drew the cherub as bald, and added circular spectacles. ‘Now
that
,' he said, ‘will do it.'

 

*

MR INBELICATE'S ENTHUSIASM WAS UNBOUNDED
when he showed me the bald, bespectacled cherub. ‘There he is! His first appearance in the world! The drawing is simple and crude, but he is there, Scripty, he is there!'

 

*

‘I WANT TO GO FURTHER,' SAID
Seymour. ‘We are admitting the whimsicality of cherubs – but I am thinking of the whimsicality of steam itself. What steam
might
do in the future.'

Cherub after cherub came from Seymour's pencil in the next two hours. Each cherub operated a fantastic machine from the artist's imagination. He drew a bread-cutting machine, and a cherub who carried away a sliced loaf on a platter; then a shaving machine, with cherubs' beards lopped by steam-operated razors; then a mechanically operated execution machine – a blindfolded cherub lay on the chopping block, the axe poised with a piston on its haft, as a cherub vicar read the last rites; then a gravedigging machine, with a mechanically operated spade – unemployed sexton-cherubs sat on another grave, playing cards and smoking churchwardens. In a final picture, the bespectacled cherub stood against a tree reading Izaak Walton, while a steam-operated rod and line caught him a fish.

To all these pictures, Robert Stuart made scarcely a murmur of resistance. Perhaps the unceasing productivity of Seymour reminded him of all that might be achieved by the power of steam.

 

*

‘HAVE YOU SEEN THE SECOND
movie in the
Alien
franchise?' said Mr Inbelicate as he returned from a storeroom with two framed pictures under his arm.

It was an extraordinary question for a man of his specialised interests, so extraordinary that I was quite taken aback, and my astonishment must have shown from the other side of the library table. I confirmed that I had seen
Aliens
, and added that I wished that the third, and especially the fourth, in the franchise had not been made.

‘I am not concerned with those, nor the first,' he said. ‘Just the second, and then just the scene with the powered mechanical exoskeleton. Have you seen
The Wrong Trousers
?'

I was astonished again. ‘The Aardman animation? Yes, very amusing.'

‘The techno-trousers in the story – you remember those?'

‘The robotic legs.'

‘Yes, and I could show you designs for something similar invented by a Russian in the late nineteenth century, to assist the wearer with running and jumping. But where did the idea of mechanically aiding a human being's capacities come from? When did it enter the world? Perhaps it was here.' He laid down the two pictures, both of them Seymours, both called
Locomotion
, for me to inspect.

 

*

‘I CONFESS I HAVE NEVER SEEN
the likes of such pictures before –
anywhere
,' said Thomas McLean as he looked at the two
Locomotion
scenes which Robert Seymour had placed on the counter.

A plump and bespectacled scholarly figure, eyes stuck in a book, walked with the aid of steam-powered mechanical boots; in the other picture, a mad-looking man, with beard and top hat, also had steam-powered footwear. Surrounding both mechanised walkers were visions of transportation by applications of steam – but in the first picture, the transport was smooth and pleasant, epitomised by ladies travelling in a giant wheeled kettle, while in the second, locomotion had turned to disaster: a spherical steam-powered flying machine, with one webbed wing broken away, was about to fall, carriages toppled over cliffs and produced thick, suffocating charcoal clouds, and on the horizon a steamboat sank. Even the steam-powered walking of this picture was troublesome, with the fire going out in the mad-looking man's boots.

‘I have more in this line,' said Seymour. He now showed McLean further illustrations of the murderous potential of new technology. A steam coach full of passengers was blasted apart as its boiler exploded – a lady's head, still wearing her hat, was blown off her shoulders, while her body remained inside the coach; a fat woman was erupted into a pond with a splash to match the size of her body; a dragoon officer was hurled into the air, his legs scissoring in an extraordinary straddle; while another helpless passenger was draped across the bracket of a lamppost.

‘Before I show you my next, let me show you a picture by Cruikshank,' said Seymour. ‘This is his rather
restrained
interpretation of the theme.' Seymour showed a picture of a steam carriage driving along the road, and an astonished horse who commented: ‘Dash my wig if that isn't the rummiest go I ever saw!' ‘And,' said Seymour, ‘if that is all that Cruikshank can offer, besides complaining about my name…'

He placed a picture of his own on top of Cruikshank's. This was
Unexpected Arrival by Steam
, which showed the explosion of a locomotive – the force hurled a fat lady through a drawing-room window, to land right in the middle of a refined tea party.

‘And with that explosion,' said Seymour, ‘I blow up Cruikshank.'

McLean placed the
Locomotion
pictures in the window without delay. Within minutes, a small crowd had gathered.

*   *   *

After Seymour left the print shop, he bought a coffee from a street vendor, and watched handsome young men examine his pictures. He could, if he wanted, introduce himself; but he looked at his pocket watch. He had promised his wife he would be home soon. His only pleasure that evening, therefore, would be a drink in a public house.

As he stood at the bar, Seymour watched two dustmen, both wearing their fantail hats, reading newspapers. They took pride in their appearance, like many dustmen; both wore coloured waistcoats, and one stroked a gold watch chain. To be seen reading newspapers was all part of their display, and Seymour listened with some amusement to their conversation.

‘Does
The Times
say anything about
The Chronicle
today?' said the first dustman. ‘I've got
The Chronicle
's latest on
The Times
.'

The other turned the pages of the newspaper to find an editorial comment. ‘Vell, it says
The Chronicle
is a disgraceful print, which feeds on falsehood and tells lies so much that in its case “increase of appetite had grown by vot it fed on”.'

‘Not bad.'

‘So vot does
The Chronicle
say about
The Times
?'

‘That its imbecile ravings “resemble those unfortunate wretches whose degraded prostitution is fast approaching neglect and disgust”.'

‘They have done better.'

Seymour's amused grin was noted by a side-whiskered man at the bar, who had also been observing the dustmen.

‘The way of the world, and it doesn't bode well,' said the man, with a particular movement of abhorrence, as though shuffling into his own clothing. ‘The “March of Intellect”, people call it, when the likes of dustmen read. I don't call it that. I call it trouble.'

‘It is surely not a bad thing,' said Seymour. ‘Though it can be a little unsettling. But it has its funny side.'

‘You are misled, sir, if that is your opinion. What did a member of the House of Lords say? Something like “The March of Intellect is a tune to which one day a hundred thousand tall fellows with clubs and pikes will march against Whitehall.” No man ever said anything wiser.'

Seymour finished his drink, and entered the busy street. He had walked but a little way when he saw a sign outside a small theatre, which announced: ‘Grand Exhibition of the Effects of Inhaling Nitrous Oxide, the Exhilarating Laughing Gas'. It was irresistible. He paid the entrance fee.

There were scenes such as he had never witnessed before. Two men on stage danced together, laughing all the time. Another posed like a boxer, punching the air and guffawing at his misses. Another attempted to make a political speech, but broke down as he did so.

A man on stage in a top hat invited people to come up from the audience to inhale from a nozzle attached to an inflated leather bladder. ‘You, sir,' he said, pointing to Seymour, ‘you look like you need cheering up. Come and give it a go.'

Seymour held up a hand to decline, but there were shouts from the audience of: ‘Go on, you sour chops!' As these did not cease he went on stage, to a round of applause, and placed the nozzle to his lips. He felt a numbness at the back of his throat, which then moved into the rest of his head. He felt a light-headed dizziness. He laughed, in spite of himself, a laughter based upon nothing yet overwhelming, stamping him with stylised cherry-blossom pink lips, a laugh that made others laugh.

*   *   *

It was late when he returned to the house. Jane asked where he had been. ‘Out,' he said.