Death and Mr. Pickwick (68 page)

*   *   *

Again, Robert Seymour closed his eyes.

He considered the thickset fingers of Mr Pickwick wrapped around the stock of a whip, while the rotund posterior of Mr Pickwick occupied the driving seat of a chaise. Needless to say, both whip and seat were strangers to Mr Pickwick's person. Just as circumstances would contrive to make the sportsman risk his life in a duel, so circumstances would make of Mr Pickwick a reluctant driver. The poet and the ageing Lothario would be the chaise's passengers, while the sportsman would ride a horse, alongside – and be as competent in the saddle as he was with a firearm.

*   *   *

Mr Pickwick's ideas on the correct use of a whip derived partly from memories of the chastisement of schoolboys, and partly from public houses' sporting prints, in which a zealous jockey crossed a finishing line in first place. He knew nothing of the subtle turn of a wrist and the moderated jerk of an elbow that would communicate his intentions to the horse. Yet, off he drove from the Bull at Rochester, taking the road to Cobham.

It was a pleasant enough day, and when they were a little distance out in the country, Mr Pickwick gazed at a small sunlit pond they passed with a slight look of regret, perhaps considering the unexamined tittlebats swimming within its bounds; but, as if to assert that such researches were in his past, the whip delivered a smart blow to the horse's rump – with the immediate effect of alarming the animal, which leapt forward. This in turn scared Mr Pickwick, who instantly dropped the whip on the road. Pulling on the reins, and bringing the chaise to a halt, he called out to the sportsman to dismount and pick up the whip, if the latter would be so kind.

The sportsman, with some anxiety on his face, did manage to dismount. Once on his feet, the horse loomed above – and the horse, as though sensing that here was a fellow worthy of a tease, tugged the reins taut. The sportsman immediately tugged back, which did exert
some
pressure on the top of the horse's head, but none on the tender regions of mouth and jaw. The result was that the horse did not mind in the slightest – it was not in any sense under its former rider's control. This state of affairs being perfectly satisfactory to the horse, he avoided every attempt of the two-legged beast to reassert authority. Man and horse traced all points of the compass, and back again.

After an exasperating few minutes of watching these proceedings from the halted chaise, Mr Pickwick's brain determined a course of action: he would descend from the driver's seat and pick up the whip himself. Upon completing this exercise, Mr Pickwick approached the sportsman – who was still struggling at one end of the taut reins – with the objective of assisting his fellow Pickwickian.

To the noble creature at the other end of the reins, the sight of a hefty man coming ever closer, whip in hand, must have suggested other considerations; because, stronger than before, the horse pulled back and took the sportsman with him. Mr Pickwick, not perceiving the connection between the instrument in his hand and the motions of the horse, advanced further. It was now that the sight of the whip and the oncoming fat man so agitated the steed that the sportsman – who, quite reasonably, wished to retain his arms in their sockets – was forced to relinquish his grip.

The horse trotted off down the road, with every indication that it would find its way back to the stables.

Unfortunately for the two other Pickwickians sitting in the chaise, some spirit of playfulness – if not outright rebellion – awoke in the bosom of the horse connected to the vehicle. Apparently realising that there was no driver, the horse bolted, dragging the carriage behind it, and putting the two passengers in fear of their lives.

The fat Lothario did manage to jump out before the horse attained top speed – his fall being cushioned by a nettled verge – while the poet made a similar escape a little further down, into a privet hedge.

The horse galloped on, faster still with his load considerably lightened, until the chaise's wheel crashed into a tree. The wheel came off, and only this brought the horse to a halt. It whinnied, and from the positions of the Pickwickians strewn at various points along the road, it sounded suspiciously like a laugh.

*   *   *

Robert Seymour's eyes were already open.

It was the next day and he was walking into the country, not only because the morning was invigorating, but because he wished to find a location for the scene of the refractory steed pulling the sportsman by the reins as Mr Pickwick approached with the whip.

He found the perfect spot, about four miles from the Bull, on the back roads near Cobham. There was a gap between trees which pleasantly framed a drawing of chaise, horses and Pickwickians. When this sketch was made, he walked further down the road and drew the runaway vehicle, with the poet about to jump, his cloak billowing up with the wind.

When this second sketch was done to his satisfaction, he strolled for some time along the winding roads of the area, stopping at an inn beside elms to refresh himself, before proceeding down a road of extreme narrowness. He passed a pond by some woods, and then ascended a hill towards a Tudor farmhouse, with barns and oast houses, where there was a fine view of the surrounding lands. He did not want to walk much further. He went down, then climbed the knoll to the church, which was covered in more ivy than any church he had ever seen. He ascended a stile and entered the churchyard. There were old elms here as well. He leant against one for a while, contemplating the tombstones. Then he took the steep path downwards into a village.

He would, if he felt up to it, walk a couple more miles, for he sought a location for a cricketing scene, but he would need further refreshment at a public house before the long walk back.

*   *   *

When back in Islington, consideration turned to finding a public house where the Pickwick Club could hold meetings. His progress was delayed, because Jane now expressed a desire to move to a better part of Islington, to a larger house, with a more attractive garden, and much of his time was taken up with the inspection of accommodation. On his first evening free, he ventured out to the City, to Cheapside. He walked along Huggin Lane, past warehouses and an army of small shops whose signboards hung out like flags, and could almost touch the shop opposite. A heavy downpour began. Taking shelter under an awning, he noticed a bill in a shop window which advertised an event in nearby Cateaton Street: ‘A Popular Lecture on Astronomy,' at the Assembly Room, where ‘brilliant transparencies and ingenious mechanisms would demonstrate the relative positions of the earth and the sun'. Cateaton Street had already occurred to him as a possible location for the Pickwick Club – he knew of a warehouse in that street called Warburton's, and he naturally wondered whether it was connected to the distinguished Houghtonian of that name. Even if not, it was an amusing coincidence. He was also near Lothbury, where Edward Barnard had financial interests. This area felt right; the commercial activity of Huggin Lane seemed a fitting background for men who aspired to be sportsmen, and the wealthier banking district suggested men who had the time, and the means, to travel. If he alluded to Cateaton Street and Lothbury, it would also amuse Barnard and possibly Warburton, should they ever see the published work. He intended to weave in similar allusions to the Daffy Club.

The cobbles of Huggin Lane were by now submerged under fast-flowing rainwater. Seeking the shelter of a public house, Seymour headed for the Goldsmith's Arms, at the corner Huggin Lane shared with Gutter Lane.

When he could push his way to the bar, through the warm and crowded taproom, he requested brandy. Before the landlord could serve his drink, an energetic man with a dripping hat interrupted and said: ‘Room ready, Mr Graham?'

‘When have I ever let the club down?'

‘Wine ready?'

‘Two dozen bottles, special, from my shop. I'm disappointing my regulars to supply you and your friends!' He passed the man a key.

As he drank in front of an etched window, Seymour watched a group of men traipse upstairs. They could easily be members of the Pickwick Club.

He began sketching the club meeting, with a dozen or so members gathered around a table in the upstairs room.

He knew that, in the times of Rowlandson and Gillray, he would have depicted a scene of unbridled licence and debauchery – men climbing on the table, disrobed females, guzzling until the members cast up their accounts. Those times were gone. The table he drew for the Pickwick Club was clean, tidy and respectable. There were no women present. All members remained seated – apart from Mr Pickwick, who as the main character, had to catch and engage the eye instantly. Seymour drew him standing on a Windsor chair, elevated above the other members, declaiming with one hand above his head – and the other hand engaged in lifting his coat-tails. The sign of the sod. That Wonk and others who moved in such circles – Seymour smiled – would attach additional significance to a hand under the coat-tails, and would have knowing grins as a result, was half the fun.

Seymour realised that, shortly after Mr Pickwick began his travels in 1827, new, stronger laws were enacted against sodomy – not only was the act itself classed as an infamous crime, potentially punishable by death, as before, but also attempts at solicitation and persuasion were criminalised as well. Yet here was a man who was wiggling his hand under his coat-tails! Mr Pickwick's naivety about how his notebook might be interpreted by the cabman – and the punch on the nose that resulted – was nothing compared to the scrapes that a hand under the coat-tails could land him in!

Yet Seymour pondered: Mr Pickwick might be naive about how his behaviour could be interpreted, because he knew nothing of the world, but still he might have
yearnings.
These the Sancho Panza character might satisfy, when that character was introduced. But all in good time.

He drew Mr Pickwick and his travelling companions grouped together on the right-hand side of the table, to indicate their companionship, and that they formed a club within a club, the Corresponding Society, about to depart on a mission. So there was Mr Pickwick in his tights and gaiters, the poet in the cloak, the lover dressed as Beau Brummell, and the sportsman dressed in the finest garb that a fowling-piece carrier could wear. As the pencil moved around the table, Seymour drew the rest of the members in a somewhat sketchy, nondescript style, partly down to perspective, partly down to the effects of lighting, and partly down to their relative unimportance, for they would merely receive the papers that the Corresponding Society submitted.

But there was the left-hand foreground of the table to fill, and it needed to be occupied by something or someone of great interest – it couldn't just be a member drawn in the sketchy manner, for it was close to the viewer. If the chandelier were placed directly over the right-hand side, with Mr Pickwick and his companions illuminated beneath, the left-hand side
could
then be dim, and nondescript, and that would solve it; but it would be unnatural to illuminate just the right-hand side of a table. The table should be centrally placed, directly under the chandelier.

So in the left-hand foreground he drew an enemy of Mr Pickwick. The conflict between the two would add interest to the scene. He remembered the man from the Aldgate branch of the Daffy Club. Mr Pickwick's enemy could be from Aldgate! The Daffyonians would be amused by that. There would be an argument at the table – precisely what the argument would concern, he would think about later. For now, he drew a man with an exasperated expression, obviously unhappy with Mr Pickwick's speech from the chair.

He added sporting paraphernalia, such as would be seen at the Daffy Club, too – a fisherman's creel, a rod, a gun. On the wall he sketched a mounted stag's head and various sporting pictures. There was also a portrait of Mr Pickwick, as the club's founder. At the feet of the enemy from Aldgate he drew an unpleasant-looking sporting bulldog. A triangular spittoon on the floor was the last detail, pointing like an arrowhead towards the most important element in the picture, the bald and bespectacled Mr Pickwick.

He would work on a finished version of the drawing another time, but for now he was satisfied. This would be the opening scene,
Mr Pickwick Addresses the Club.

*   *   *

The next morning, over breakfast, Seymour opened a letter from a publisher seeking his services, William Spooner of Regent Street. Two years before, having received a similar letter, Seymour had gone to Spooner's shop and glanced around the walls showing woodcuts of pirates, Italian bandits and adventures in China. When the artist took out the picture that he had drawn in Richmond of the cats' picnic, Spooner practically purred himself.

‘Cats have a special way of looking at you, don't you think, Mr Seymour?' said the tall Mr Spooner, who had a stiff and freshly stamped quality to his features and clothes, especially when he put on his spectacles, but now was loose and smiling as he expressed his admiration of the cats, and he took off his glasses and leant against the counter to converse.

‘A way of looking
into
you,' said Seymour. ‘Unnerving at times.'

‘I not only want to publish this – I must have more pictures of cats from you,' said Spooner.

So Seymour produced
Angling – Capital Sport
, of a feline fishing party in a moored punt, though certainly not by Putney Bridge, for these cats, unlike Mr Pickwick, were experts with rod and line. One cat, quite the gentleman in a top hat, stood at the stern, a netful of fish hanging over the side as testimony to his skill; while another cat, in spectacles, had just successfully hooked – his rod bending under the strain as a furred assistant brought the catch aboard with the aid of a landing net.

The current letter from Spooner suggested a meeting to discuss a new scheme that the publisher envisaged: an exploration, in pictures and words, of the beauties of English customs and traditions, spread over several volumes, and published at appropriate times of year.