Death and Mr. Pickwick (64 page)

For there was a mystery of the tittlebat which occupied Mr Pickwick's mind: they would appear in a gravel pit or newly dug ditch as if by spontaneous generation. Solving this mystery became a virtual obsession for him. Was it to do with something in the Hampstead water? His mighty speculating mind would be at work as he sat, moistening his day, in the tea garden of the Hornsey Wood tavern when the sun was out – disturbed occasionally in his composure by the unexpected blast of a sportsman aiming at a pigeon – but there he sat, brandy glass in his hand, peering with fascination into the earthenware jar which contained a tittlebat.

Now the tea garden was frequented by fishers of roach and tench, and one day an angler, sitting at the next table, said to Mr Pickwick: ‘You be careful, sir, that you don't pick up the jar by mistake for your brandy, swallow your stickleback alive, and make a little Jonah of it, with you as the whale.' He kept a straight face, until he turned to a companion and sniggered.

‘Good thing you said he should be the whale,' whispered his partner in mirth, ‘you'd need a
very
big fish to swallow him if he was Jonah.'

‘Ah,' said a third fisherman, ‘he is queer in the attic, but he is harmless.'

Mr Pickwick may have overheard the last remark, for he gave a petulant stare. ‘Tea gardens are not as respectable as they once were,' he said, loud enough for all three fishermen to take note. He stood up and carried himself and his jar and his dignity through the door leading to the inside of the tavern.

At home, undeterred by those who would scoff at tittlebatian research, Mr Pickwick sat beside a glass vessel, which resembled a demijohn for cider, and may indeed have been one. He observed the fish through the year. As the days grew longer, the male stickleback acquired a bright red patch on the throat, to go with the green-blue back and the purer blue on the belly. He would stare at the fish through the glass with his spectacled eye; and the fish would look at him with its own blue and iridescent optic. Up would go the fish's spines if he tapped the glass, which fascinated Mr Pickwick inordinately. Then he would read his correspondence with men who shared his scientific enthusiasms, including observations on the fish's zigzagging courtship dance – though Mr Pickwick confessed that such analysis left him quite embarrassed at times, particularly the manner in which the male would dart a little one way, then dart a little the other way, just to show off its throat patch. He would never dream of doing this to a lady with his waistcoated belly.

Over time he had completely immersed himself in the works of the leading authorities on the stickleback, such as Mr Arderon of Norwich, and had read with great interest the contribution to the
Philosophical Transactions
for 1747: ‘Abstract of a letter from Mr William Arderon FRS to Mr Henry Baker FRS containing some observations made on the Banstickle, or Prickelbag, alias Prickelback, and also on Fish in General'. ‘It is scarce to be conceived,' wrote the abstracted Mr Arderon, ‘what damage these little fish will do; and in proof of what I here assert, I must assure you that the banstickle before-mentioned in my glass jar did, on the 4th of May last, devour in five hours' time, 74 young dace, which were about a quarter of an inch long, and the thickness of a horse-hair.' Mr Pickwick, however, did
not
find amusing Sir John Hill's attempt at ridicule, with his paper ‘Incontestable Proofs of a Strange and Surprising Fact, Namely that Fish Will Live in Water' – which was proof of nothing but Sir John Hill's jealousy and bitterness. When Hill dubbed Arderon ‘The Immortal Author of the Dissertation on Stittlebats', it was jealousy of the purest sort, just because Mr Arderon's research had won immortality, and deservedly so. Mr Pickwick had once been heard to leap to Mr Arderon's defence: ‘Sir John Hill,' he said, late one night in a public house, with all the contempt a man could muster in his voice, to an astonished fellow standing at the bar who had shown no previous knowledge of the debate, ‘deserves the opposite of immortality, namely death in obscurity, and no researcher sitting in a tower made of ivory or any other substance will ever explore the canon of his work, small though I am sure it is.'

Sometimes, Mr Pickwick would wander along the road through Highgate village, either taking the route up Highgate Hill from the south, or up North Hill from the north, his face deep in concentration, and as the stretch of road between these hills was level, it seemed to Mr Pickwick a suitable place to stop and find refreshment. Mrs Goodman, the widow who ran the Red Lion coaching inn, would always extend a hearty welcome to Mr Pickwick, for his expenditure within her establishment was rarely small, and often she would say, ‘I'm a Goodman and you're a good man, Mr Pickwick,' and they would chuckle together. After eating and drinking at the Red Lion he might well conduct additional research in the Gate House Tavern, a little way along the road.

Increasingly, Mr Pickwick took the view that he must investigate the nature of the water in the Hampstead Ponds. Then he made an extraordinary discovery, as a result of a discussion with Mrs Goodman's nephew, a schoolboy of great intelligence and considerable bravery who had even ventured in the waters for a swim: the ponds on Hampstead Heath were not made by God, but by human beings. They were reservoirs! This led to further questions, of great urgency. Who made them? Why were they made?

It is not known whether Mr Pickwick sought the answers by an extensive search of parliamentary scrolls. Had he done so, he might well have found Act 35 of 1543 in the reign of Henry VIII, in which authorities were empowered to search, dig for and convey away water and to make ‘heades and vautes for the conveyance of the same water for every sprynge or sprynges within Hampsted-hethe'. Act 35 of 1543 was certainly needed, because the streams which fed the Fleet River had become polluted with every kind of detritus and had almost run dry, making the Fleet little more than a muddy ditch.

It is believed, nonetheless, that Mr Pickwick once uttered in speculation: ‘Is it possible that men needed a supply of fresh water?'

To Mr Pickwick, the quest to find the source of the Hampstead Ponds may well have been as great a quest as Mungo Park's for the source of the Niger. If, that is, he had heard of Mungo Park. Or indeed the Niger.

For the mind of Mr Pickwick was of no ordinary kind. Ordinary men lived through the turbulent events of the age – times of military struggle, of civil disorder, of colonial and foreign revolution, of religious revival, and of philosophical critique – and commented on their occurrence. To be candid: it was for lesser brains to know of Napoleon, St Peter's Field, the Bastille, the Declaration of Independence, John Wesley and Thomas Paine, and a common mind may consider these men and happenings of the most profound significance and weighty consequence. Yet, for Mr Pickwick, all these phenomena might just as well have never happened at all, given the impact they made upon him. Not one word of his conversation had ever been known to reflect these events.

Instead, Mr Pickwick, when walking between the various ponds of Hampstead, gradually pieced together in his mind the passage of the stream that rises in a meadow at Highgate. All his research, demonstrating how the stream became a lake in Caen Wood, and flowed on through Hampstead and Camden, culminated in his great scientific thesis,
Speculations on the Source of the Hampstead Ponds, with some Observations on the Theory of Tittlebats.

But once this work was complete, a change came over Mr Pickwick. He appeared restless. True, he still walked down to the ponds, and had been known to visit an ancient tavern or two with a jar containing a tittlebat, but one look at his face sufficed to confirm he was troubled.

It might indeed be asked: had Mr Pickwick's research made him blind, until then, to the true nature of ponds? Which is, that they are melancholy. When a man sees a pond, he sees standing water, it is not flowing mightily as a river, nor sprinkling merrily as a fountain. How can one feel joy looking into a pond's depths? The Trevi Pond would not attract visitors. To sail on a pond would not be to sail down the Nile. Did Mr Pickwick now sense this sadness? Perhaps. Even the unlimited passage of brandy to his lips in the evening failed to revive his spirits.

It was as though Mr Pickwick now sensed a pond as the word from which it derives, a pound, an enclosure, suggestive of restraint; and, as though influenced by the measure of heaviness of the same name, would there not come a time when any man would feel weighed down by care from frequent gazes into a pond's waters?

Whatever the cause, his mighty brain now questioned whether the ponds of Hampstead, and that portion of those waters contained within an earthenware jar, which in turn contained a stickleback, was all that life had to offer. He now wondered about the world beyond. What miracles and mysteries might that world disclose? Many a noble Briton had ventured forth, discovering territories and planting the flag – what would he, Pickwick, discover? What diversity of marvels might he behold, with which to enlighten the world? What acclaim might he receive simply by going on a coach?

It was a quarter past four in the morning on 13 May 1827. The sun had just risen. On the verge of the open country adjacent to Islington was Goswell Street, where Mr Pickwick awoke in his lodgings. He burst forth like another sun. His expedition was about to begin.

*   *   *

Robert Seymour opened his eyes. Much was to be worked out, but he immediately embarked on a rough drawing of Mr Pickwick before the urge to travel struck, based upon the picture he had started drawing for Barnard. Mr Pickwick was in a punt, moored in the reeds. As before, the character was depicted asleep, chin falling, unaware that his fishing line was taut. Also as before, a bottle in the boat's hull suggested that the slumber resulted from an alcoholic binge, and it was now joined by a half-eaten pie, its dish as large in circumference as Mr Pickwick himself. All Seymour had to do was call this scene ‘the Pickwick Club', and anyone wondering who or what a Pickwick was would find the answer in the dozy, fat, drunken man who was the club's founder.

Now what of Mr Pickwick's travelling companions? Who might these men be?

There was an obvious answer. A gullible man must be accompanied by humbugs, men who were
not
what they seemed. Mr Pickwick would fall for their deceptions, thereby demonstrating his gullibility from the start.

The first companion was easy. A sporting character, reflecting the interests of the Daffy Club, and the crucible of sporting exaggeration from which the Münchausen stories emerged. He would wear well-cut brand-new sporting clothes, but have no sporting skill whatsoever. Indeed, to carry out his fraud successfully, his only gesture towards hunting, shooting and fishing would be his dress. He would prefer
never
to be observed participating in sport, unless circumstances forced him to do so – for, by avoiding sport, his fraudulence could never be exposed. Of course, when the travel was under way with Mr Pickwick, circumstances would force him into sport. Sporting disasters of the kind illustrated for Carlile would naturally occur, and would duly be recorded in the reports that were sent back to the club.

The second companion soon followed. With pretentious dress as the badge of humbug, a cloak-wearing heavy-drinking poet came to mind: Thomas Campbell, whom Seymour had drawn for
The Poetical March of Humbug!
He had also drawn such a figure for McLean, and in the coloured version of the print the cloak was blue, like Campbell's. So, the second companion would wear a blue cloak, with all the mysterious profundity that such dress could convey. Like the sportsman who did no sport, the poetical character would never have penned a couplet in his life.

Seymour smirked at the poet's pretensions. A copy of
Specimens of British Poetry
would be displayed prominently on the table in front of the character at meetings of the club, he would sigh and mention Chatterton, and breathe quotes to pretty barmaids as they carried away tankards: ‘Poor being! Wherefore dost thou fly? Why seek to shun my gazing eye?'

These two men were all talk. And Mr Pickwick believed their every word.

But another companion was needed, for two was not enough to form a little corresponding society. However, feeling a little tired, Seymour put the work aside. The third companion would be created another day.

 

*

‘SUPPOSE YOU WERE PLANNING A
new publication, Scripty,' said Mr Inbelicate, ‘and you wanted to attract readers. You will surely seek some dramatic opening event.'

‘Some kind of an attention-grabber, you mean.'

‘Another consideration is that the event, whatever it is, should involve all the characters. Everyone should be part of it. Watch a movie with a team of heroes, and each will contribute to the climax, to give a sense of unity.'

‘It would be desirable, I agree.'

‘Look at the characters so far: Mr Pickwick, and his two companions, the bogus sportsman and the fraudulent poet. The one who gives the most potential for a dramatic climax is the sportsman. The things which could happen to him are full of danger – guns going off, horses bolting, rivers he could fall into. Now imagine a man like him, utterly inexperienced with firearms, having to use a gun, to fight for his life.'

‘It would be hard to beat a duel as an opener, if that is what you are saying.'

‘No, there is much more here. First, I want you to ask yourself: what sort of opponent would you choose for the sportsman in a duel, so as to increase the drama?'

‘I presume – someone who was extremely competent with firearms.'

‘So if Mr Pickwick were travelling, where could he go that would be perfect for the duel – what place could he visit which screams out:
here
you will find an opponent who's a good shot to terrify the life out of the sportsman? An opponent, moreover, whose previous experiences meant that he was quite prepared to kill.'