Death and Mr. Pickwick (59 page)

In the following issue, à Beckett inserted a notice:

TO CORRESPONDENTS: Mr Seymour, our ex-artist, is much to be pitied for his extreme anguish at our having come to terms with the celebrated Robert Cruikshank for supplying the designs of the caricatures in
Figaro.
Seymour has been venting his rage in a manner as pointless as it is splenetic and we are sorry for him. He ought however to feel that, notwithstanding our friendly wish to bring him forward, which we have done in an eminent degree, we must engage first-rate ability when public patronage is bestowed so liberally, as it now is, upon this periodical. He ought therefore not to be nettled at our having obtained a superior artist. We are sorry for him and regret that a person whom we have so much advanced should have been so ungrateful.

‘I will be no part of this campaign,' said Mayhew when à Beckett read him the notice.

‘I have hardly started, Henry.'

In the next issue, another ‘TO CORRESPONDENTS' notice appeared, headed ‘Seymour's Insanity':

We have received several letters with the above fearful heading but we see no direct proof of our ex-artist being in the state alluded to. One correspondent calls our attention to Seymour's bad spelling. Now, we see no proof of insanity in Seymour's bad spelling because our worthy ex-caricaturist was always remarkable for a high disdain of the very commonplace art of orthography. We really wish people would not run him down so in their letters to us. As we exalted him so can we sufficiently debase him when we feel disposed but we think he is at present humbled sufficiently.

À Beckett waited to insert his next notice until Mayhew was away for a few days:

TO CORRESPONDENTS: It is not true that Seymour has gone out of his mind because he never had any to go out of. One correspondent wants to know how it is Seymour can't write his own name. We reply: upon the same principle that a donkey can't quote Italian poetry – ignorance, gross and beastly ignorance. We are told that in the year 1815 a subscription was raised among a few friends of civilisation and enemies of idiocy to teach Seymour to spell, but his hard and obstinate bit of brain rebounded from the process in its infancy and the result was he never got beyond words of one syllable. Poor man, now that he is deprived of our benevolent and condescending patronage we understand he is obliged to speculate on his own account in miserable caricatures which don't sell and which of course are not worth purchasing. The fact is, Seymour never had an idea of his own though he was sometimes happy in the execution. But it is a well-known fact that the ideas for the caricatures in
Figaro
were always supplied to him by the Editor, Seymour being a perfect dolt except in the mechanical use of his pencil.

As soon as Mayhew returned on the Tuesday after the last notice appeared, he confronted à Beckett.

‘I will not be tainted by association with this poison! I am at the point of resigning. No more of this, Gilbert!'

‘Before you get too sympathetic towards Seymour, Henry, you should know I received a letter from him yesterday, threatening action.'

‘I am on his side.'

‘Hear me out. A few hours later, a messenger brought a second letter, also from Seymour, with more threats, in stronger terms. The man
is
insane. I was right about him. In any case, I am finding the whole affair tedious in the extreme. So your wish will be granted – there will be no more attacks on Seymour.'

‘You give your word?'

‘You may be assured, I shall not attack Seymour again.'

‘Do you give your word?'

‘I shall not attack Seymour again.'

But in the issue of 29 November, à Beckett
did
insert a notice which stated: ‘We have received two very dirty, ill-spelt and ungrammatical epistles crammed with threats. They are now doubtless in the hands of the scavenger, having passed over the dust hole to that fittest of personages to have the charge of them.'

 

*

‘FOUR DRAWINGS,' SAID MR INBELICATE.
‘Four drawings which tell us of Seymour's feelings during his public vilification by à Beckett.'

He spread the drawings on the library table, fanned like playing cards. The first showed an editor, quill behind his ear, wearing a striped coat suggestive of a barber's shop sign. The editor is horrified to open a letter which says: ‘To the editor of the nastiest thing in London. Dear Sir, You may be damned. Put that in your paper. A
real
correspondent.'

‘One can imagine Seymour having a snigger after that riposte,' said Mr Inbelicate. ‘The next picture indicates that the attacks are getting under Seymour's skin, troubling him far more than the first picture suggests.'

‘I'm afraid I do not see that,' I said.

The picture, from
McLean's Monthly Sheet
, showed a fat man patting his stomach, his waistcoat stretched so tight that it pulled the buttons apart. There was also Scottish dialect as its title, incomprehensible to me –
The Effects of Unco Gede Living.

Mr Inbelicate explained this was a representation of a noted Scottish Member of Parliament, Lord Jeffrey, who had a reputation for strict morality, or exceptionally good living, or ‘unco gede living' in the Scots; but Seymour had interpreted ‘good living' in another sense, leading to the expansion of the man's waist. Once explained, I could obviously see the joke, but no relevance to the feud with à Beckett.

‘You will note,' said Mr Inbelicate, ‘that the picture bears Seymour's initials. It is the single instance of Seymour taking the credit for a picture in the
Monthly Sheet
after McLean forced him to work anonymously. Is it a coincidence it was drawn just as the attacks were published in
Figaro
? Seymour is
absolutely determined
to assert himself as an artist of great talent, and this very picture is a refutation of à Beckett's attacks. Note the fine details – the face, the hat, the check trousers, the skilful shading – there is nothing sketchy or dashed off. We can imagine Seymour sitting at his desk as he draws, taking the greatest of pains to prove that à Beckett was wrong. But now comes the third picture.'

It was a caricature of a terrified Gilbert à Becket, in mitre and robes, recalling the murder of Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury – but with the editor described as ‘À Beckett, Archbishop of Cant'. The assassinating sword of a knight hangs over his head and the blade is marked ‘Debts Due'. That a woodcut could be abbreviated to ‘cut' formed part of à Beckett's plea for mercy: ‘Pray don't give me any more cuts, think how many I have had and not paid you for already.'

‘It could not be called murderous rage,' said Mr Inbelicate, ‘for it is merely murder in a picture. Equally, you could not call suicide in a picture, suicide.'

The fourth drawing showed a fat man who had unsuccessfully tried to hang himself. He now sits on the ground below a tree, in front of a garden fence. His weight has snapped the rope, and the fat man looks up in resignation. Beside him is a valentine showing a heart pierced by an arrow, but with the addition of the single word, from his sweetheart, of: ‘No!' The picture was called
Better Luck Next Time
.

 

*

SEYMOUR WAS AT A CHEST
of drawers, hurling objects out.

‘In heaven's name, stop!' said his wife.

‘It's here somewhere – have you moved it?'

He found the box of melancholy pistols.

‘Jane, do not think I will not!' He pushed her away, and she tumbled to the floor. She cried out, and he turned for just an instant, but continued his search through the drawers. ‘Powder! Where have you hidden the powder? I will find it, wherever it is!' He wrenched out the entire drawer and threw it on the carpet, then knelt and in the next drawer rummaged among old clothes, discarded books, souvenirs.

‘À Beckett's too young to know what he's talking about!' she cried out. ‘You would kill yourself over
him
?'

‘It
has
to be here.' Exasperation overcame urge. He buried his face in his hands. He sobbed.

*   *   *

Over the next few days he stayed in bed, doing no work, eating soup she brought to the bedside, miserable, but calmer.

On the fourth afternoon, he heard voices outside the bedroom door – it was his wife talking to a man. The door opened.

‘It is Mr Strange to see you, Robert.'

He sat up and pushed down the bedclothes, so his chest was exposed. ‘Does
Figaro
now want to abuse me in my own home?'

Strange stood, hat in hand, at the bottom of the bed. ‘I called to apologise on behalf of
Figaro
. Your wife has just told me of your great distress.'

‘Show him the street, Jane.'

‘Please listen to him, Robert.'

‘Mr Seymour, I intend to pay all the money which you believe is owed to you.'

‘Believe! So you think I imagined it!'

‘
Is
owed to you, then. But that is not all. I want to invite you back to
Figaro.
'

‘Inconceivable.'

‘I also want to invite you to do other work for me.' He took from his pocket several proof pages of letterpress, and placed them on the bed. ‘This is an edition of a play you could illustrate, Buckstone's
Second Thoughts
. I will ensure that we get a good woodcutter like Mr Walker to work on your drawings—'

‘Who works for
Figaro
. Quite a recommendation, sir! As for the play – is it being performed at the Tottenham Street Theatre?'

‘Let me be frank.
Figaro
is selling far fewer copies. You are the artist the public wants, not Robert Cruikshank. The magazine receives letters every day complaining about the attacks upon you. À Beckett knows that he has made an error – a terrible misjudgement.'

‘So that's what he calls his bile.'

‘We can publish a statement that the attacks were made with the heaviest of irony. All can be put right.'

‘The attacks were not ironical.'

‘Then let me be completely unreserved –
Figaro
will stagger to an early death without your contributions. I implore you, Mr Seymour – come back.'

‘Robert,' said Jane, ‘it is perhaps worth giving the magazine another chance.'

After silence, in which Seymour looked all around the room – to the ceiling, to the lamp beside the bed, to his own hands – he finally said: ‘On one condition – if à Beckett is dismissed and if Henry Mayhew replaces him as editor.'

The deep-set eyes of Strange turned away, towards Jane, who gave an imploring look. Strange smoothed back his hair. ‘I accept your condition. I shall return to the office now, and inform à Beckett that his services are no longer required. You have won, Mr Seymour.'

*   *   *

On 31 January 1835, the street-sellers of
Figaro
proclaimed: ‘Seymour returns! New caricature by Seymour!'

 

*

‘THE CARICATURE,' SAID MR INBELICATE,
‘was of a bloated bishop on a sickbed. Shears were applied to his nose to remove a polyp, while his gout-ridden ankle was sawn through.'

‘Do you think Seymour saw Gilbert à Beckett as a polyp?'

‘I cannot say. But the demand was so high that the issue had to be reprinted immediately. The rumour did the rounds that government ministers attempted to smother the ridicule heaped upon them by buying up the copies.'

‘Was Lord Melbourne prime minister then?'

‘No, it was Peel, as I am sure you know, Scripty. But you are right to give me a nudge. Time we introduced that most interesting triangle of George Norton, Mrs Norton and Lord Melbourne.'

 

*

THOUGH IT WAS NOT THE
grandest estate in all Surrey, Wonersh Park was still the residence of the third Lord Grantley – thus, a desirable bachelor might be found there. If, on a summer's afternoon, an unattached young lady saw an unattached young gentleman at a party held in the estate's Elizabethan manor, and if the pair wandered outside on to the well-kept lawns, by the flowerbeds and beside the ivy trellises, they would encounter a sundial, at which pretty fingers could suggest that life was brief and to be lived; while a glittering stream nearby suggested life's meandering course, and that a stroll upon its banks was all the better for being shared.

It was the case that Miss Caroline Sheridan's school governess – a formidable, matronly woman, who would walk along the school corridors as though driven by a breeze – had a small family connection to Wonersh Park, being the sister of Lord Grantley's agent; and from time to time Caroline, and several other schoolgirls, who together formed a favourable composition within the framing of the governess's spectacles, received invitations to spend an afternoon at the estate.

At one such gathering, the entertainment was provided by an eccentric sister of Lord Grantley's, who scraped away on the violin in the drawing room. During breaks from the strings, her mannish hand flourished the bow like a cavalry sword, and she stamped up and down, following Caroline into corners, asking her what tune she would like to hear next. In contrast, there was the unobtrusiveness of Grantley's younger brother, George Norton, whose sole contribution to the party was his tallness and a ruddy complexion. That he took any interest in the gathering at all was by no means obvious; he had arrived well after everyone else, the violin did not stir his interest, and he uttered scarcely a word.

But there was one moment when a servant brought a tray of drinks on to the lawn, and Caroline Sheridan gazed in George Norton's direction, just as the sunshine caught the glass he took. It was the briefest of events – she gave him a look up and down, and then looked away to someone else.