Death and Mr. Pickwick (60 page)

For George Norton, it was a visitation from
those eyes
. Eyes of the most exquisite, extraordinary darkness.

Two days later, the governess received a letter. She called Caroline to her office.

‘It is impossible,' said the governess, ‘for you to accompany me to Lord Grantley's again until I have been in communication with your mother, and learnt her wishes. I have received a letter from Mr George Norton this morning. He has stated that he desires to marry you.'

Caroline was, simply, astonished. Without the pair exchanging so much as a single word, George Norton wished to be her husband. That
she
could cause
this
!

She was already infused with a great taste for reading poetry – and showed considerable literary promise herself – and even if Norton's letter were written in the dullest prose, there was at least poetry in the idea of it. It was impossible that she could love such a man, of course, but just to
think
he would send the letter!

Caroline's mother said, sternly, that her daughter, at sixteen, was too young; but there was a certain look in the mother's eye, as she disapproved, of a town house, many servants, grandchildren, and a well-appointed nursery.

Caroline herself put George Norton into the scales. Weighing heavily in his favour was that he was besotted. A marriage, not begun in love, may still become
something.
Admittedly it was his
brother
who was the lord, not George himself, but the brother might never father children. And George Norton was tall and presentable. To add further troy weight to his pan, in due course he became the Member of Parliament for Guildford. Admittedly he was a Tory, and this was avoirdupois to the detrimental side of his scales. But still – the balance tipped.

Caroline Sheridan became Caroline Norton when she was nineteen years old. The wedding was at St George's, Hanover Square, on 30 July 1827. The marital home was a little house near Birdcage Walk – and, as vulgar folk might say, it did not take long for feathers to fly.

One evening, as they sat in the parlour, they talked about politics, and Caroline said: ‘George, you are such a silly cake. An argument like that just makes me want to laugh.'

Norton stood up, grim-faced. Suddenly his hip twisted round and upwards. The toe of his boot went straight to her side – delivered with such force that she and her chair crashed to the floor. She lay howling, and he walked out of the room, telling a servant girl in the hall: ‘Your mistress may possibly require some assistance.'

There was another evening in the parlour, after the 1830 general election, when George Norton was no longer the Member for Guildford.

‘I was the more popular candidate,' he told her. ‘My opponent was
loathed!
There were droves of men sobbing, even as they cast their vote for him—' He noticed her silence. She was not even listening. She was sitting at the bureau composing a verse. He stood over her, and only then did he capture her attention. ‘You must be happy your friends are in power,' he said.

‘For you, personally, as my husband – I am sorry you have lost your seat.'

‘Why don't you write a poem about me, Caroline? Make some money from it. Put my humiliation on public display.' Before she could answer, he struck her across the cheek, and when she stood, he followed up with a punch in her stomach.

There was a third evening shortly afterwards, when they examined, with some anxiety, the ledger recording household expenditures and receipts.

‘Call on the friends your grandfather made,' he said. ‘Use them.'

‘George, I have told you many times that you could earn a living in the law – yet you always look with disdain when I mention it. But you could.'

‘You have striven all your life to escape dullness. Why give
me
that fate? Years of dull study and years of even duller practice! And a man is still regarded as a young puppy in the law even in middle age! No, your family have connections. So use them – and get me an income.'

After a pause she said: ‘When we married, I believed you were financially secure. I earn a little from my writing. But a man should earn money, if he has the ability to do so.'

‘Are you suggesting I do
not
have the ability?'

‘There is no point in continuing this discussion, George. I must get on with my verse.' She closed the ledger, and picked up her quill and paper.

‘Caroline the poetess. Writing's in her blood.'

‘Please leave me to myself. The quieter you are, the less I am distracted, and the faster I earn for us.'

‘There is a word I know you do not like to use, Caroline. That word is “fucking”.
Fucking
.' He said it directly in her ear. ‘Not a word for a poetess's pen, is it? Fucking. I don't know many poems. I do know a bit of Scripture. In the name of the fucking Father, and the fucking Son, and the fucking Holy Ghost.'

She gathered her quill and paper, and stood to leave. He stood in front of her, preventing exit.

‘I say fuck the Father, fuck the Son, fuck the Holy Ghost – fuck all three. And I wish fucking God would just slap you in the fucking face with his cock, a shit-covered cock, right after he had fucked Jesus. I am not good with words, am I, Caroline?'

He punched her in the face. He forced her to kneel.

December 1830

The zestful man, sitting in front of his superior's desk, had given a report of many accomplishments that day, corresponding to zestful miles walked along the corridors of the state for discussions with half the Civil Service and three-quarters of the legal establishment.

His superior, by contrast, had a lazy but dignified expression, and a sideways look towards the clock. The superior was Lord Melbourne, Home Secretary in His Majesty's Government. The subordinate, his private secretary.

‘There is
one
other matter,' said the private secretary. ‘You have received a letter from the wife of the former Member for Guildford, George Norton.'

‘From his wife? Not from Norton himself?'

‘That is so. She would like a meeting with you, for personal reasons. She says that you knew her late grandfather, the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan.'

A spark of interest awoke in Lord Melbourne's eyes.

*   *   *

A few days later, Caroline Norton occupied the seat previously taken by the private secretary, who had shown her in and left with a sharp sniff, which could be interpreted as jealousy. A friendly discussion ensued.

‘I will not say your grandfather drank like a fish, but he fished and he drank,' laughed Melbourne.

‘Cork and hook were his passions,' she laughed back.

‘He was a member of an angling club, was he not?'

‘The Longstock. Formerly known as the Leckford. And he was no mere member, Lord Melbourne – he drew up the club's rules.'

‘Were they restrictive?'

‘One I remember was that if a gentleman claimed to have caught a fish of immense size, but which got away, he would be fined half a guinea for every story like that he told. I think men should
always
be fined for such boasts!' She laughed as coarsely as a soldier.

*   *   *

What did Lord Melbourne see in the dark eyes of Caroline Norton? Some evocation of her distinguished grandfather? Or was it the voice, pitched masculinely low, that did it? These were the questions the private secretary asked himself as, in a soured mood, he wrote the letter which offered George Norton the position of stipendiary magistrate in the Lambeth Division of the Metropolitan Police Courts. The letter set out the terms: attendance in court three days a week, from the hours of noon until five, for which Norton would receive a salary of £1,000 a year.

The post did offer one additional benefit, although it was unwritten, and was more of a perquisite to Melbourne than to Norton, should he choose to take advantage of it.

‘The job gets Norton out of the house,' the private secretary thought. He contemplated his superior, and muttered, with a shake of the head: ‘The old dog.'

*   *   *

It was a warm afternoon in Whitehall and a weariness hung over the Home Secretary. A seasoned observer of the Melbournian demeanour could tell from the pursing of the lips, beside the window, that Melbourne had considered the attractions of his club, but decided the food was too rich for the weather; a tapping of the desk meant he was considering the advantages of Holland House, but the company there could tire him, or he tire them. The third option – by far the best – was a visit to Mrs Norton.

He rubbed Arnold's Imperial Cream pomatum into his hair, and after applying a small comb, he ran a smaller comb through his eyebrows. He dabbed cologne on his pocket handkerchief. He put on his coat and surveyed himself in the cheval glass. The clothes were a perfect fit. For a man in his fifties he was
very
presentable.

Caroline Norton had already set herself in a favoured dress, and her hair was up. She applied rouge, though her cheekbones were already among the most striking of her features. When Melbourne called, she waited five minutes, then downstairs came dress, hair, rouge, cheekbones and Mrs Norton. They shook hands, entered the parlour, and closed the door.

Their conversations on the blue upholstered sofa usually began with the current political situation. Mostly, she saw Melbourne in a relaxed state, but she had also seen his extreme agitation after the riots in Bristol, when he was barely able to keep still. ‘I was frightened to death,' he said, shaking like a guilty man facing a black-capped judge, as he spoke of the decision to send in the dragoons; but in a short while, her dark-pool eyes had soothed away his fears.

Sometimes he spoke of reform – how some said it was too slow, and some said too fast, and some that it was best not to move at all – and that he, for his part, merely wished to forget king, lords, party and government, and sit on the sofa with Caroline Norton in the afternoon.

To change the subject, she might recount an anecdote, such as about a well-endowed horse, and laugh from deep within her chest. She gave him a look that negotiated a course between extreme self-confidence and utter shamelessness, and said that it is a well-known fact that there are five unsound horses for every two sound.

‘When I was a little girl,' she said once, ‘it was thrilling to hear people recall the Duchess of Devonshire's extraordinary parties. Her beauty sent politicians
mad
.'

‘You do know,' he said lazily, ‘of her ulcerated eyeball at the end of her life, and that a leech was applied to it?'

‘I did know,' she said, giving him a half-annoyed, half-playful poke in the rib, ‘but do you have to mention it to me?'

‘Life is life, one has to accept so damn much in the long climb, and there is nothing one can do.'

It was then she began to describe how her husband beat her. She noticed the intensity of Melbourne's expression, which was not exactly of concern. She stretched out the description, repeating the details, as though she wanted to see him lean forward and nod again. He said not one word of pity. But he did ask: ‘How often has he struck you?' And he did remark: ‘You must tell me if it happens again.'

‘I shall,' she said. ‘I shall indeed. But he is not always cruel.' She told of a very reasonable discussion with her husband about the education of their children.

‘Education!' exclaimed Melbourne. ‘Once the damn nonsense is in, can you ever get it out again? People are what they are, and some people are better off in their ignorance.' He gave a very artful look. ‘I am tempted to say – e
specially
the poor.'

‘You are a wicked tease, Lord Melbourne, a bigger tease than any woman I have ever met!'

Melbourne smiled his easy-going smile.

‘Every day,' she said, ‘is April Fool's Day for you. You don't believe half of what you say – this week education is a waste of time, last week reformers should be hanged and the hemp for the rope was already growing for them. I think you will have a mighty laugh behind my back if you ever make me believe you.'

‘Why point out to a man that he is uneducated and make him unhappy with what he is?' The artful look appeared again. ‘People need a few simple rules. Elementary Christianity will do. And please make it elementary. Where is the damn fun these days? Young men are
mad
with religion. I see them with their long, dull faces – and they would make Sunday as long and as dull as themselves. No, each man has the amount of religion he can take, like a doctor's dose, and it will make him sick to take one swig more. Education is the same.'

‘I
refuse
to take your bait. But I
do
have something to show you. You politicians are not the only ones to suffer at the hands of the caricaturists.'

She fetched a volume,
The Poetical March of Humbug!
, with drawings of poets by Robert Seymour.

Seymour had depicted Caroline Norton sitting with her needlework box, darning, as though she patched together her verses. She laughed her deep laugh as she read aloud the unflattering description of herself:

Yet in her heart they say the muses dwell –

Why don't the muses then come out and tell?

 

*

AMONG THE POETS SEYMOUR RIDICULED
in
The Poetical March of Humbug!
was a well-known frequenter of the Ben Jonson, a dingy establishment down Shoe Lane, off Fleet Street, though he did not disdain any other public house of central London. Thomas Campbell was a small individual, with unruly hair which stuck up at all angles, and which, in all likelihood, formed the components of a wig. His lips were constantly in motion – when, that is, they were not involved with a glass of cheap gin and water – exchanging trifles with whomsoever stood next to him. He was instantly recognisable from any angle by his blue cloak, which almost stretched to the floorboards.