Death and Mr. Pickwick (38 page)

‘Wilkins!' a voice from the mob shouted. ‘We know you are in there! Come out now! Come and face us!'

‘You must address them,' said Mr Pickwick. As that elicited no answer from the captain, Mr Pickwick said: ‘I don't recognise them. I don't think many of them are Bath men.'

‘They are ruffians and cut-throats and drunkards from London who think that the law is too weak to catch them outside of the capital,' said Captain Wilkins. ‘Men who love a fight.'

Mr Pickwick beckoned to the waiter who had told him about the crowd, and said words out of earshot of the captain. The waiter nodded. Mr Pickwick added: ‘And be quick.' The waiter ran towards the kitchen.

There were more shouts of ‘Come out, Wilkins!'

‘You must try to calm them down,' said Mr Pickwick to the captain, who merely looked out of the window. After a pause Mr Pickwick said: ‘It is a
crowd
, sir. It is a
large crowd
. It is a
mob
.'

Eventually the captain said: ‘I shall address them.'

Mr Pickwick led the captain to a room on the top floor. The captain opened the window. Mr Pickwick also summoned a frightened maid who was on the landing. He said words – again out of earshot of Captain Wilkins – and he mentioned the name of the boy who cleaned the White Hart statue. The words ‘And be quick' were uttered again.

Captain Wilkins leant out of the window. There was an upswell of shouts of ‘You ain't going to Bristol!' ‘We'll never let you pass!' and ‘Call off your men!'

Wilkins glanced behind towards Mr Pickwick and appeared to swallow, then turned back, straightened himself, and leant forward. ‘It is my duty as an officer, to—'

A stone flew past Wilkins which smashed a pane in the next window. He called out, ‘I have my orders!' Another stone flew, and another, one shattering the window the captain occupied, another hitting him on the shoulder. He came inside, and the next moment a hail of stones hit the front of the White Hart with every window a target.

Men of the mob charged forward from all sides, and they started tearing at the shutters and frames of the lower windows, and punching through with jackets tied around their fists. Pieces of the wood were gathered into a pile in front of the White Hart, and other men brought faggots.

Now the first men of the mob jumped through the window frames of the lowest floor, intent on looting and destruction. But Moses Pickwick was ready.

In the fires of the White Hart's kitchen, according to the order that Mr Pickwick had given to the waiter, pokers had been warmed up to red hot. Now Mr Pickwick and a group of waiters ran forward, flailing the poker tips in the faces of the rioters, the glow showing up the fear in the mob's eyes.

‘I'll brand you like a coach horse!' said Moses Pickwick, whose voice was – fortunately – in the bass register. As a rioter turned and attempted to climb out of the window, Moses Pickwick struck: he planted the tip of the poker exactly in the middle of the man's right-hand rump cheek.

‘Your wife will have to rub some balm in there tonight,' said Mr Pickwick to the screaming man, casting a look of superiority towards Captain Wilkins, as a waiter's poker burned another bottom, leaving the breeches still smoking, as the man scrambled out the window.

‘Here's absolution for your sins,' said Mr Pickwick, his poker sizzling flesh and cloth again. Then Mr Pickwick hollered at the top of his voice – it had switched to the high register – ‘The slates! Hit 'em with the slates!'

The cry ‘The slates!' was taken up by another waiter on the landing, and then by another, and another, and so the cry reached the loft and on to the roof – where the boy who cleaned the White Hart statue kicked off loose slates so they slid down and hit the street, shattering among the mob.

Moses and his staff kept the crowd at bay until special constables arrived in force. The crowd dispersed, and arrests were made. There were flashes of violence and disruption in the next few hours, but by two o'clock in the morning the city was quiet again. At that point, Moses Pickwick sat down in an armchair in the entrance hall of the White Hart. Judging from the expression on his face, this was the proudest moment of his life. The White Hart was saved.

Moses Pickwick asked Captain Wilkins to join him for another rum, but the captain excused himself, put on his helmet and left. Mr Pickwick was joined instead by a circle of waiters, maids and the boy who cleaned the statue. It was rum all around, and Mr Pickwick was cheered.

‘I thank you,' said Moses Pickwick, ‘but the cheer belongs not to me alone, but to all of us. It belongs to the White Hart itself.' He raised his glass. ‘To the White Hart!' All the waiters and all the maids and the boy who cleaned the statue and not a few guests joined in too.

 

*

‘I AM GOING TO MENTION TWO
things connecting to these events,' said Mr Inbelicate, ‘and both concern clothes.'

I learnt, first, that when the rioters at Bristol looted Mansion House, they chanced upon Sir Charles Wetherell's portmanteau. With wild delight, they distributed the contents among themselves: shirts, stockings, handkerchiefs, shoes and – no doubt to their great glee – linen.

Mr Inbelicate placed a framed picture, by Seymour, on the library table:
Fruits of Sir Charles's Wisdom at Bristol.
Burning buildings were in the background, from which men fell to their death, and the dragoons had arrived, but Seymour pushed the looting of the clothes to the foreground. One rioter wore Wetherell's robe, while swigging liquor, another his wig and tie. A third drank from a barrel of rum, using Wetherell's hat instead of a cup.

‘You will notice,' said Mr Inbelicate, ‘that this picture is from the
Looking Glass
. You see, Scripty, when Seymour returned from Richmond, there was a note from McLean, requesting an immediate meeting.'

 

*

WILLIAM HEATH SAT IN THE
Three Tuns public house in the Haymarket at midday, deep in thought, pencil at the ready. There were fewer customers than on his last visit – far fewer – because the hay and straw market, from which the area derived its name, had transferred to St Pancras. Soiled labourers, employed to lay fresh paving stones, were at the bar, but it was not enough to fire Heath's imagination: he needed a crowded public house, with a great variety of face. McLean would want to see proof of at least one idea for the
Looking Glass
that afternoon, and so far nothing of any merit had come.

As a temporary expedient, he began drawing small pictures of dragoons slashing with sabres. This led to a sketch of the Duke of Wellington.

Suddenly there was a widening of Heath's eyes, and a straightening of his posture.

Some time before, he had drawn a print for McLean showing the Duke of Wellington in full uniform, standing before McLean's shop window, enjoying the display. McLean had not only liked the picture but remarked that it showed how times had changed in the print business – in the days of Gillray, no politician would be shown in such a relaxed manner, looking at prints.

‘Pictures are not so biting now,' said McLean, ‘and I think we are the better for it.'

Heath began another sketch of Wellington, and he smiled at his own cleverness. Once again the duke stood outside McLean's shop, but this time an issue of the
Looking Glass
was in the window – which in turn showed a miniature Duke of Wellington looking at the
Looking Glass
, with additional pencil strokes suggesting the replication of the scene, at a smaller scale, to infinity. Nothing could have better expressed the idea of the
Looking Glass
.

When Heath arrived at McLean's shop, one of the overnight colourists was in attendance at the counter: a pale and undernourished girl of about fourteen, whose hair always reminded Heath of sparrow wings.

‘You are either up very late,' said Heath, ‘or in very early.'

‘I am in at the time Mr McLean wanted, sir,' she said. ‘Someone has to look after the shop. Mr McLean has business upstairs.' She looked towards a bead curtain.

‘I will keep you company for a bit, then,' said Heath.

‘As you wish, sir.'

Heath placed the drawing down and said: ‘What do you think of my Duke of Wellington?'

‘I have coloured him before.'

‘Is that all you can say?'

‘It looks like him in other pictures, so I suppose that makes it a good likeness.'

‘Oh but I met him, you know, on the battlefield. That's where I got my knowledge of his face. Not from another man's drawing, but from the flesh itself. I have been within
fifteen inches
of that fine nose.'

‘You must be proud, sir.'

There was a sound of a door opening upstairs. Heath heard a voice, which he recognised as McLean's.

‘He said to me, “Are you a Tory or a Whig?”' remarked McLean, ‘and I said, “I shake hands with all parties, and laugh at them all too.”'

Then came another voice, which Heath did not recognise: ‘I've always said to be a caricaturist one must be a Whig, and laugh at Tories, and be a Tory and laugh at Whigs.'

‘And be a radical and laugh at both,' said McLean.

‘And laugh with both at the radicals,' said the unknown other. Their shoes were on the stairs, descending.

McLean came smiling through the beads. His smile disappeared as soon as he saw William Heath. ‘Ah – Mr Heath,' said McLean. He coughed. ‘This is Mr Seymour.'

Heath watched as Seymour handed several watercoloured pages, which would serve as a pattern for brushwork, to the sparrow-headed girl. She promptly slid off her stool and went through the curtain. The uppermost page, he saw, was titled
The Looking Glass
.

‘What is going on here?' said Heath. ‘I have brought you my latest sketch.'

‘There should have been a better moment to explain this to you,' said McLean.

‘What is
he
doing bringing you
Looking Glass
drawings?' said Heath, pointing directly at Seymour's face.

‘The trouble, Mr Heath,' said McLean, ‘is your lack of regularity. I cannot be blamed if your – your habits – have resulted in this unfortunate embarrassment for you. The fact is – Mr Seymour will be taking over as the artist for the
Looking Glass
. No doubt I can still use the occasional piece from you –– what is this one?' He looked at the picture of Wellington inspecting the
Looking Glass
. ‘Oh dear, Mr Heath. Of all things you might draw.' He smiled, crookedly, and passed the picture over to Seymour.

‘I am so very sorry, Mr Heath,' said Seymour. ‘I have become an admirer of your work—'

‘Take your filthy hands off that.' Heath snatched the picture away. ‘I've heard about you, Seymour. I know what you are. He'll bring some dandy customers to your windows, McLean.'

‘That's enough, Heath!' said McLean.

‘Why don't you celebrate your new appointment in the back room of the White Lion, Seymour?' yelled Heath. ‘You'll find plenty of your sort to toast your success there.' Heath tore up his own picture, and threw the pieces at Seymour.

Seymour took the action stoically. ‘I am very sorry this has happened to you,' he said.

‘Get out, Heath!' said McLean. ‘You're drunk!'

When the eighth issue of the
Looking Glass
appeared, the front page stated that it was drawn and designed by Robert Seymour. As if to impress his own potency upon the public, Seymour's first issue boasted thirty-seven separate pictures, compared to Heath's first-issue tally of only twenty-eight.

 

*

EVERY WEEK THROUGHOUT 1830 SEYMOUR
took work into McLean's print shop, and placed it upon the counter with exactly the punctuality that McLean required. The smile of the proprietor as he examined the work signalled every satisfaction with the artist, and all the terms and conditions of their professional relationship could be expected to continue. Nonetheless, the mind of Thomas McLean was troubled.

When McLean looked out upon the streets, there were noticeably more drunkards than
ever –
men reeling past the shop, laughing at the pictures in between swallows from raised bottles. When McLean locked up in the evening and walked home, it seemed to him that the public houses made themselves up as much as the area's whores: exteriors often received a new coat of paint, illustrated signboards were refreshed, and windows were never allowed to remain dirty or cracked. These houses were also brightly lit with lamps in the windows, while beaming landlords stood on especially wide doorsteps and extended the invitation to ‘Have a nice brandy, sir?' And, as the year progressed, the landlords pattered according to the season; so it was: ‘Cool yourself down with a drink, sir?' in summer, or ‘Why not warm yourself before the fire, sir?' in late autumn. Nor was it just the public-house landlords who promoted drunkenness – private citizens too sold beer straight from their doorsteps.

And every time McLean passed a drunkard leaning against a hoarding or a lamppost, he thought of Heath.

Heath liked the bottle too much, and that was why he couldn't be relied upon. There was no sign that Seymour would go the same way – no sign
yet
. But, McLean asked himself, what if he did?

The
Looking Glass
was by now a very successful publication, and was sold on the basis of Seymour's drawings. What if, McLean asked himself, Seymour should slip into Heath's habits? Sometimes the artist mentioned going for a drink after receiving payment for drawings. If he had to dismiss Seymour, another artist might be found – but would the
Looking Glass
survive the change? Would he not lose the readership if they were loyal to Seymour's drawings?