Death and Mr. Pickwick (46 page)

That evening, the onion soup was greatly enjoyed by all, and the medals of the veterans were brought out for a cymbal-accompaniment to ‘God Save the King'. Shortly afterwards, the officer happened to mention the poodle that jumped on his boots and the old soldier next to him said: ‘That is peculiar. Exactly the same thing happened to me yesterday.' In all details, their stories agreed.

His curiosity aroused, the next morning the officer took up a position near the bridge. There was the poodle. He watched as it took itself down to the riverbank, where it rolled in the mud. The dog then returned to the bridge and sat for a while, apparently watching the pedestrians crossing the bridge. Suddenly the dog ran towards a man with well-polished shoes, and did exactly as before, rubbing itself all over the footwear. The unfortunate man had no other recourse but to visit the same bootblack as the officer had visited. After the shoeshine, the officer kept watch – and saw the dog approach the bootblack, to receive a titbit and a pat upon the head. Immediately afterwards, the dog returned to the bank of the Seine, and the entire process was repeated.

The officer of the 44th had seen enough. He approached the bootblack and, after much evasion, the latter confessed that he was the owner of the dog, and had taught the animal the trick in order to win more trade. The officer's anger was tempered only by consideration of the extraordinary sagacity of the dog. He still missed his old spaniel, and this poodle was clearly a wonder. So he offered the bootblack a high price, which was accepted, and the dog was duly taken by the officer on the boat to England.

For some time, the dog was tied up and kennelled in London, but when the officer was assured of the creature's loyalty, he undid the tether. For a couple of days the dog mooched around – but when the door was opened to admit a visitor, the dog bolted. After an extensive search in the nearby streets, the officer was resigned to accepting that the creature was gone.

A week later, the officer received news of the death of one of the attendees at the reunion. As the deceased had married a local woman and gone to live in Paris, the funeral would take place in that city. The officer boarded a ship and, on the day prior to the funeral, decided to take a stroll along the banks of the Seine. When he came to the bridge where he had previously encountered the poodle, he saw, to his utter astonishment, that the dog had found its way across the English Channel to Paris, and to the very same bridge – where it was reunited with its former master, and was once again employed in the muddying of shoes.

 

*

‘THAT STORY IS NOT
COMPLETELY
impossible,' I told Mr Inbelicate. ‘One does hear extraordinary tales of animals finding their former owners.'

‘It's hokum, Scripty, and it was planted on Jesse and he believed it, and he put it in his book, alongside the silly tips on fishing that Penn persuaded him to print. One of the many stories on the alleged sagacity of dogs he was taken in by, and which he published at various times in his life.'

‘I suppose it is the little seed of possibility that captures the gullible man.'

‘And perhaps he had not a speck of deceitfulness himself, and could not imagine that other men would be deceitful either. Undoubtedly, Penn spoke of Jesse when he showed Seymour the volume in which the “Maxims” appeared as an addendum – but I am getting a little ahead of myself.'

 

*

May 1833

IN THE BAY-WINDOWED UPPER ROOM
of the Grosvenor, a trout stared out at Robert Seymour from the depths of a glass case while Richard Penn sat at the club table, scrutinising the contents of a small jar of alcohol containing a fish, more recently alive, but so insignificant that no one would boast of landing it. The jar had been left with the landlord, for Penn's attention.

‘People know about my scientific interests, and they send me specimens,' said Penn, as he held the fish in tweezers towards the window, catching the light.' This is a short-spined female cottins.'

‘I have never heard of a cottins,' said Seymour.

‘That's what I call them, even if no one else does. You'll probably know it as a stickleback. Let me just dash off a note thanking this person for remembrance of my pursuits, and tell him he's found a cottins. Take a look at our club book while I do that. You must add something to the book yourself. It's an unbreakable club rule.'

Seymour turned the pages and smiled at a drawing by Edwin Landseer of a freshwater fish the size of a shark, breaking the surface of the river as the angler's rod bent like a bow under the strain of the catch. He leafed through accounts of the excitements of good sport, and the disappointments of bad, as well as jokes clever and jokes groan-provoking, and reports of the members' multifarious exploits.

A voice in the corridor broke his concentration on the club book.

‘He'll never kill that pig,' said the voice. ‘He's grown too fond of it.'

‘He says it will be slaughtered on Monday at sunrise,' said a second voice.

‘I have heard that before, Mr Sherry. But we shall see.'

The door to the club room opened. Edward Barnard entered, and was promptly introduced to Seymour. Penn explained that he had written to the artist to commission humorous illustrations for a new edition of the
Maxims
, which would be published without Jesse's anecdotes, and had extended an invitation to attend one of the club's friendly gatherings.

‘Forgive me, but I could not help overhearing about a pig,' said Seymour.

‘The pig. Yes. There is a gentleman who drinks in the Grosvenor who is attached to a pig he has reared, and he cannot bring himself to slaughter it. He says he is finally determined to do it on Monday at sunrise, but he won't.'

Seymour looked away for a moment. In his mind he saw the carcass of a pig hanging up by its heels from a cottage wall. The animal was slit open, with a bowl beneath to catch the blood.

‘I think I could make an admirable picture of that pig being slaughtered for your club book,' said Seymour.

‘Certainly the pig will make an admirable
meal
,' said Barnard, giving Penn a perturbed look for the oddness of the artist's suggestion. ‘Our butcher is a drunkard, yet he knows how to make black pudding. But it will be premature to draw the picture, because the pig won't die.'

‘Then I shall draw it, and when the pig
does
die, make a tracing and copy it into your book. I would call it
He Dies at Sunrise
.'

‘Rather more morbid than our normal contributions,' said Penn. ‘Might I make a suggestion for something else? Why don't you sketch Edward next to those flowers?' Penn gestured to a vase containing dried daisy-like blooms. ‘Go stand over there and pose, Edward.' Barnard took a position next to the vase, sniffing the dead blooms, so that his small circular glasses were just above the petals.

‘I have never seen flowers like these before,' said Seymour.

‘You are unlikely to unless you have been lagged to Australia,' said Barnard. ‘I grew them from seeds.'

‘Edward's scientific interest in horticulture is almost as great as his interest in angling,' said Penn. ‘He will happily watch plants grow, with the same enthusiasm that some men watch a cricket match.'

‘I do, because plants are much more interesting than a cricket match,' said Barnard.

‘He measures how much the stalks grow in a day,' said Penn. ‘Admit it, Edward.'

‘I do, happily.'

‘
And
Edward is a man who has had the distinction of a parrot named after him: the
Platycercus barnardi
, Barnard's Parakeet. I shall always be jealous. And, in his spare moments he runs the empire.'

‘Really, Richard.'

‘May I ask what you do in a professional capacity, Mr Barnard?' said Seymour.

‘A lot of people ask that,' said Penn, smiling, moving a fishing rod behind the vase so as to make a better composition.

‘No more than they ask the same about you, Richard. In a way, I
do
run the empire, Mr Seymour. A part of it, at least.'

‘Malta, Gibraltar, Australia and a large portion of southern Africa,' said Penn. ‘And always seeking to add to his portfolio.'

‘Mr Seymour, let me briefly explain,' said Barnard. ‘A colony needs certain things – currency, arms, roads, administrators. I provide them. But the main benefit of being Agent General is that it leaves plenty of time for fishing.'

‘Though riverbanks are not the only banks that concern him,' said Penn. ‘Edward is a man with profound financial interests in Lothbury.'

‘Richard, no more, please. Now how is this as a pose?' he said, grasping his chin, and staring as though conducting an intense study of the flowers.

Seymour saw a boy in the cottage's garden, stirring a tub of pig's blood. An old woman cut up entrails on a bench.

‘I prefer my idea,' he said.

*   *   *

In a little while, the three adjourned to a local public house, the Boot. A medium-sized jack caught that morning by Barnard was stuffed, at his request, with lemon slices, basil, thyme and parsley, wrapped in ten sheets of wet newspapers of two different political persuasions, then tied with string and placed in the hot wood-ashes of the inn's fireplace, which was kept alive even on warm days for the cooking of fish.

Seymour, Barnard and Penn chatted until the paper turned black, and the jack was ready. Just as they had finished anatomising the fish on their plates, it was appropriate that a man known for his performance in parliamentary sessions relating to the Anatomy Act on human dissection entered the Boot. He was a fellow of considerable forehead and dark penetrating eyes, as well as a nose to suit a larger man and a mouth to suit a smaller – Henry Warburton, Member of Parliament for Bridport, and enthusiastic member of the Houghton Angling Club. Warburton was greeted with great demonstrativeness, verging on sensation, by Penn and Barnard, for now the gathering of club members was truly under way.

‘Brandy, landlord!' cried Warburton as he settled down at the table. ‘These chairs are never comfortable,' he added.

‘They would be, if you had more flesh on your hips, Henry,' said Penn. He introduced Seymour to the new arrival.

‘I am familiar with your work, Mr Seymour,' said Warburton.

‘The Anatomy Act helped me to comment on the Reform Bill,' said Seymour to Barnard and Penn. ‘I drew the bill as a person being anatomised by the Tory peers, amputating the arms and legs.'

‘I remember that,' said Warburton, ‘but I remember too your work on the Burke and Hare murders. You were surely one of the first to illustrate the events.'

*   *   *

In the grimy loft, the woman was on the floor, Burke's hands upon her throat. Hare calmly observed the proceedings.

*   *   *

‘Not many would know the illustrations of
The Murderers of the Close
as my work,' said Seymour. ‘I am impressed you do.'

‘
I
shall be impressed when the landlord brings my brandy,' said Warburton.

Over the next hour, more members of the club arrived in the Boot, and all were introduced to Seymour.

‘Sir Francis Chantrey, Mr Seymour,' said Barnard. ‘His collection of rods and tackle is the envy of every fisherman in England.'

‘But I know you as a sculptor, sir,' said Seymour.

‘For us,' said Barnard, ‘Sir Francis designed the figure of the trout on Stockbridge Town Hall that acts as a weathercock. In that sense alone do we think of him as a sculptor.'

‘We are a band of brothers, Mr Seymour,' said Chantrey, ‘and you won't hear tempers raised or unkind words when one member talks to another. We are here for each other's pleasure and we always say there is no satisfaction so great as to contribute to mutual content.'

Seymour looked around the table. Though all were there for angling, it was the variety of characters that made the table a curiosity. There was the member with ringlets in his hair, and a large diamond ring, and Bouquet du Roi perfume which drifted across the table, marking him out as a London beau. There was a mild-mannered cleric who exchanged remarks on the benefits of free trade with Warburton, and a minute later closely examined a sharp hook attached to an artificial fly. There were occasional comments from all sides of the table reflecting professions and passions, on military matters, medicine, philosophy and racegoing. One landowner said he was unhappy that the game laws had been so recklessly repealed, and Warburton – upon whom the brandy had started to have a notable effect – responded: ‘In the Tonga Islands, my friend, the rats are preserved as game and nobody is allowed to kill them, except those who are descended from the gods. This is the only country and the only case I know of which has ever furnished anything like a parallel to the ridiculous English game laws. What is it that gives a man the right to shoot a hare, a pheasant or a partridge for his dinner if and only if he owns land worth a hundred pounds a year? I am glad of the change!'

The applause Warburton received was muted, and cries of ‘Drink up and shut up, Warburton!' were uttered and received with good humour.

‘In my life,' Seymour said to Chantrey, ‘I do not think I have seen such a varied gathering in one room. And so merry.'

‘I do not know of an unhappy angler,' said Barnard. ‘When the club meets, there is a playfulness which comes over all. Restraint and care vanish.'

Seymour saw Wonk sitting on the riverbank, smiling.

Last to arrive was a bald, broad, round, cheerful man with a churchwarden pipe, who was identified as Mr Dampier.

‘He's our merriest fisherman – as long as he has a pipe in his mouth,' said Barnard.

‘One puff, and who cares about the dull weight of the world?' replied Dampier.