Death and Mr. Pickwick (6 page)

A chamberpot was raised from the floor and placed upon the table, in front of the offending member. He stood, took one mouthful, swallowed and the next instant he disgorged with a roar into the waiting receptacle. Far from showing disgust, those around the table shouted ‘Bravo!' ‘Hear hear!' and ‘A true Brilliant!' The brine-drinker punched the air in triumph, wiped his mouth, and bowed to each side of the table before resuming his seat.

In this manner, the meeting continued, with speeches that traversed the continuum from sensible to incoherent, with occasional resort to the chamberpot. At five o'clock in the morning, when the members were half dead with drink, the landlord's boy came round, and the perpetual president, a wiry actor known for his tragedies, settled the bill. The top item on the sheet of paper was the ostentatious: ‘Hire of Room – No Charge'. For with the huge bill for drink itemised underneath, the landlord was more than happy to provide free facilities – and he always made certain the clubmen were reminded of his generosity.

Rowlandson retained enough of the session in his memory to produce his drawing
The Brilliants
for the print-publisher Rudolph Ackermann as soon as he had recovered from the experience. No detail was held back, no curtain drawn discreetly over events. In a corner of the picture, two members vomited into chamberpots, and the contents of one pot overspilled like a waterfall on to a man who lay passed out on the floor. The empty bottles resulting from the toasts were shown in shining array in another corner.

Five days later, the print was up for sale in a bow window that was five minutes' walk from the Swan Tavern. As soon as it appeared, two fashionable gentlemen, both with a man-of-the-world manner, scrutinised the print and smirked at each other in evident delight; and though they both smelt of cologne, and the print suggested the ranker odours of disgust, they promptly entered the shop to purchase copies.

Undoubtedly the picture reminded the gentlemen of similar evenings they had passed themselves, for there were hundreds – indeed
thousands
– of clubs established in the upstairs rooms of taverns in and around London. In the print-shop's window were numerous other club scenes, showing drunkenness and fights, with liquid punch pouring out of cracked bowls and a flesh-and-bone punch flying as men clashed in arguments. Adjacent to Rowlandson's
The Brilliants
was Gillray's
Union Club
, with its own share of bloated-face boozers gathered around a table, or passed out in a stupor on the floor in the company of overflowing chamberpots, while chairs and candlesticks flew through the air, used as missiles in a melee between the club's members.

*   *   *

‘Let's you and me go to the Swan Tavern soon, Rowly,' said Bannister, ‘and put your pencil to work.'

‘I have not finished, John. I was frustrated by the whole business, but a peculiar turn of events happened on the Sunday morning.' He downed his ale, and signalled to the barmaid for another two. ‘Mitchell drove me and his family to a church on the edge of the moors, St Breward. I still craved to draw him – and I was half willing to take a chance on losing a patron, just to put him down on paper. Well, we took our places in the pews, and the vicar stepped up to the pulpit. His name, I had learnt from Mitchell, was the Reverend Ralph Baron. And when I saw this Reverend Baron – well, it was like a miracle, John. I saw a man who was so distinctive he made me instantly lose all desire to draw Matthew Mitchell.

‘It was because he was Mitchell's exact opposite. He was a thin, old, shrivelled-up walking corpse – so thin and so shrivelled it was as though there was not a drop of blood running in his veins. It was as if his bones
were
his flesh. He had a jutting chin, and a prominent nose, and with just a tiny amount of caricature from me, his profile would be a crescent moon. He was the solution to my dilemma. Let me show you.'

Rowlandson produced from his pocket a sketch of the vicar of St Breward standing in the pulpit. An old woman sat asleep on a pew in the foreground, as an indication of the sermon's dullness. On the left were the only members of the congregation listening like Christians.

‘Evidently these are your patron and his family,' said Bannister, pointing to this group. ‘But I agree – this vicar has something to him. If Mitchell makes fat men look thin, then this fellow makes thin men look fat.'

‘I watched in utter fascination as he gestured in the pulpit – though he delivered the least fascinating sermon you will ever hear. His voice droned on, but as I sat in the pew, my mind was flooded with thoughts of how I would use Reverend Baron. I imagined sketching him as a pedantic old schoolteacher in a classroom, who teaches his poor suffering boys religious instruction and Latin grammar.'

‘A suitably dried-out pursuit for a desiccated man.'

‘Yes, John, yes! But I couldn't just leave him in a classroom. Then I recalled one of my jaunts, and a picture I did a few years ago – a drawing of an amateur artist travelling in Wales, carrying his easel, palette and sketchbook down a steep hill, a slave to picturesque views—'

‘You showed it to me. I know where this is going, Rowly – you have a crumbling old man, with limbs like twigs, who goes in search of ruins and dead trees.'

‘Or he stops to sketch an old nag that should be meat for one of your stage-cats. I was in a virtual frenzy, John, thinking of how I could use him – he could fall backwards into a lake, because he is too distracted with the scene in front of him; or he could be fascinated by gnarled old cows, and ignores the handsome horse in another field. And he could make notes of any sights or anything at all he found interesting, but which would send anyone else to sleep. I knew I had found the perfect character to draw. I saw Ackermann about it as soon as I came back to London. He will publish the pictures. But it is on one condition: that I work with a partner.'

‘A partner?'

‘A man to supply words.'

The kitten mewed loudly and placed its paw at one of the holes. ‘He needs feeding,' said Rowlandson. ‘I must go, John. Besides, I must get to work.' He swallowed the contents of the second tankard in almost a single quaff, shook hands with his friend, stooped under the beams and lintel, and left.

It was then that the wrinkled and mainly toothless man from across the aisle re-entered the conversation. ‘I overheard you and your friend. Artist is he?'

‘He is. You probably heard his idea for a man of skin and bone. If I know my friend, and I do, he will come to me shortly to help him develop his scheme. Sometimes his imagination is as dry as his throat. But there is definitely something amusing to the idea. A dull pedant. A schoolteacher or a vicar who bores people to death. I must give it some thought.'

‘A man of skin and bone – a pedant – aye, that should work. What Englishman wouldn't laugh at a man like that?'

*   *   *

In Cell Number 2 on the uppermost floor of the King's Bench Prison for debtors, Southwark, were: a faded rug, a writing desk with a drawer handle missing, a rusted bedstead – though the sheets were spotlessly clean – and a table, on which stood a perfect porcelain tea service with gilding on the rims of the cups; but the most noteworthy object was an elderly man, sitting to one side of the teapot in a pose of great elegance.

Everything in this man's manner spoke good breeding: his finger upon his cheek; the way he sat cross-legged with his feet seeming the ornament of his legs; and the delicate arrangement of his features. Though he had shiny elbows, and shirt cuffs with straggling threads, his waistcoat bore pearl buttons, making his shabbiness appear deliberately crafted. But he was old, this William Combe – indeed he was reputed to be the oldest inhabitant of the prison. He looked towards a bookcase, where stood a fellow examining the spines of the books with evident interest. This latter man turned and revealed a kid-goatish face, to which silvery spectacles added a few years, but he was undoubtedly one of the youngest men in the prison.

‘You don't put your name on the books,' said the young man. ‘I would.'

‘Do you think I am foolish enough to announce to my creditors that I am earning an income? Come, have tea. Besides, fame was
never
dear to my heart. The prize is elusive, so why seek it?'

Just as the young man settled, and as the tea stood poured, there came a shout from the prison yard.

‘That is the very worst thing about this room,' said the old man. ‘The sunshine brings them out.' He went to the window, and glowered down upon a pack of young boys chasing each other across the prison yard.

‘You have no right to be there! Go away, or I will send for the marshal!' he shouted.

There were jeers from the boys. He returned to his place beside the teapot.

‘Sometimes they take fright,' he said. ‘They certainly should not be here. And if the world were just, neither should you be, my friend. You do not have many years on those boys, and a debtor's cell is no place for a man like you.'

‘It is no place for an old man, either. How do you bear it?'

‘Learn philosophy, my friend, and you will bear anything. If the only annoyance of being over the water are the shouts of frolicking boys, then…' He inclined his head to listen. ‘I do believe they have gone. The yard sounds empty.
Perfectly
empty. That reminds me – Laurence Sterne's blank page in
Tristram Shandy
. Would you be surprised to discover that
I
suggested that to him?'

‘You
did
?'

‘Indeed so. I do not often speak of it. I had remarked to him on the benefits of anonymity, and by mental association, the subject expanded to masks – to disguise – to oblivion – to nothingness. And then I said to him: “Do you know what would be
truly
audacious in a work of literature?” And he said to me “What?” And I said—'

The polite knock on the half-open door did not disturb Combe's composure. ‘I do believe that will be Mr Ackermann. Come in, sir, you find me at home.'

There entered a man of abundant apple-cheeked cheerfulness as well as of considerable height, dressed in a white silk shirt with a cravat, black breeches and jacket, and carrying a capacious leather bag, all items suggesting expense.

‘It is very good to meet you, Mr Combe,' he said, in an accent unmistakeably Germanic. Still, he said ‘very' not ‘werry', unlike many Londoners.

William Combe and Rudolph Ackermann clenched hands over the teapot.

‘If you would be so kind,' Combe said to the young man, ‘to allow us to resume our discussion later.' The young kid goat swallowed a mouthful of tea, shook hands hurriedly with Ackermann, and then slipped through the door and closed it.

‘Come to my window, sir,' said the old man, noticing that Ackermann was glancing around the room. ‘I am lucky enough to possess one of the finest vistas to be had in the Bench. Come, let me show you.'

Beyond the prison yard, over the wall, were the hills of Kent and Surrey. There were no boys below now, just two middle-aged prisoners, who acknowledged Combe with a wave, and he gave a slow and elegant acknowledgement in return.

‘You seem quite contented to be here, Mr Combe.'

‘One endures, Mr Ackermann, one endures. May I offer you tea? I cannot offer you wine, because I do not drink any strong liquor at all. It is the vice of prisoners and the vice of writers in particular.'

‘I am not as free of wice as you, Mr Combe, but tea will do nicely.' Here, his lapsed ‘v' made Combe hint at a smile.

As Combe poured, Ackermann cast a glance at the bookshelves that the young man had examined.

‘The top shelf are all by me,' said Combe, teapot in hand. ‘As for the rest – occasionally I consult them, but the Bible is the only book I read now. For my soul – and also for my work.'

‘A good biblical quotation is never out of place.'

‘True, but I produce sermons for priests who cannot write their own.'

‘Really? I am shocked. I had assumed priests spoke according to their own lights.'

‘How charming you should think so. But no, they put in an order for avarice, pride, forgiveness – any sin or theme they like, and I will produce a sermon on the subject in half an hour. I believe I give a country parson the confidence in the pulpit which he might take three pints of ale to achieve otherwise. Your tea, sir.'

‘Before we turn to business,' said Ackermann, settling down, ‘I have heard of your fondness for a certain item of food.' From his case, Ackermann brought out a muslin, and from that produced a small pie.

‘Gooseberry,' he said.

‘
Gooseberry
! Mr Ackermann! Oh, Mr Ackermann!' Combe took the pie and moved his elegant finger against the dish and, rather inelegantly, collected some spilled juice, and licked the surplus off, before smearing the remainder on the crust.

‘I must order a jug of custard from the cook,' said Combe. ‘I cannot thank you enough. Although I should warn you – I will not be easily swayed in business. Do not think I can be bought for a pie.'

‘It is a gift, sir. My cook makes quite excellent pies. I trust that I may have the opportunity of presenting you with more in the future, should we come to a suitable arrangement.'

‘Now regarding that arrangement – your letter to me, was, if I may say so, rather vague about what you had in mind. You mentioned a new monthly scheme.'

‘Yes, a new scheme. And new schemes require a personal presentation lest they be misjudged. I shall try to explain.' He produced from his pocket a letter. ‘This was sent to me, for inclusion in my magazine, the
Repository of Arts
. There are introductory comments, but those are not the important matter. You will see there is a poem. It is about a dying infant. Please cast your eyes upon it.'