Death and Mr. Pickwick (74 page)

‘The clown vomited, became delirious, with terrible hallucinations, and dressed himself in his stage outfit and even applied make-up. He had to be held down on his bed, until he breathed his last. Debauchery and drunkenness were blamed.'

‘Yes – excessive dissipation was said to have destroyed him. And don't you think Chatham Charlie's interest must have reached a frenzy of fascination when rumours began to circulate about the
real
cause of the clown's death? Rumours of foul play.'

‘This is what you said à Beckett heard, but I did not give it any credence.'

‘The vomiting and hallucinations would be consistent with poisoning.'

‘Who would have done it?'

‘Some people said a prostitute, and that Grimaldi had refused to pay his bill, or that he did something else to cross her. There were witnesses who said that on the night before his death, J. S. Grimaldi had taken a well-dressed lady to the theatre in Tottenham Street, and they had occupied a box on the night of a performance, and an argument began. An argument so loud it could even be heard on stage. And those weren't the only rumours of foul play.

‘There was talk of bruises which had been found on the clown's body, on his ribs, ankles and knees. What was the explanation for those? Had he mistimed a tumble? Had he fallen through a trap? Or had he been in a fight with a prostitute's pimp? Some people said a pugilist was involved, and that he was jealous of Grimaldi's association with the woman.'

‘There seem to be a lot of “some people saids” here. I'd like to see evidence.'

‘The rumours may well have been entirely groundless, pure fabrications of the mob. They were undoubtedly stoked up by the extraordinary decision to bury the clown's body before the inquest, as though there was something to hide. But think of these rumours reaching the ears of Chatham Charlie. They feed the idea of a tale he might write. He thinks of a clown, on a deathbed, experiencing hallucinations brought on by drink. A clown who imagines that his wife plans to murder him. In the inferno of his fever, the clown actually believes his faithful wife is capable of putting rat poison in his gin, or strangling him, or plunging a blade into his chest.'

‘Right between the pompoms,' I said.

‘Be serious!'

‘A dying clown should surely get some laughs,' I replied.

‘All right. But listen. The clown believes his wife will kill him by some method, because he deserves it – for all the terrible abuse and beatings he has given her in the past. Well, Chatham Charlie doesn't write the story straight away. He shelves the idea for several years. He lets it mature. But Chatham Charlie knew he would write the story of the dying clown one day. Suppose the idea returns to him at odd moments. Such as when he goes out to watch the latest entertainment of those days, a diorama show.'

 

*

HE SAT AMONG THE AUDIENCE
in a sweaty backstreet theatre. On stage came a cylinder-hatted showman dressed in black, who gestured to a small square frame with its own miniature proscenium arch. Between the arch's columns was a canvas roll bearing vividly painted pictures, which crossed from right to left as an assistant cranked a handle, so the audience saw a constant succession of changing images: a coach rolling along the road, stopping at various towns; a ship at sea, and terrible waves, and a shipwreck; scenes of the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. Another assistant added sounds: the clip-clopping of horse hooves, wind and waves, and cracks suggestive of gunfire.

As he watched the scenes roll by under the little theatrical arch, he recalled once again the death of young Grimaldi. Was it really foul play? Who would murder a clown? Clowns are noisy, they are bright, they are cheerful. Some people hate clowns, but it is hate in the way you hate a vegetable, or eggs. It must have been drunkenness and debauchery, he concludes. But thoughts of the dying clown will not leave him alone.

He left the theatre, went into the cool night, and wandered a little way. He stopped to inspect the wares of a second-hand book cart stationed under a street lamp. He inspected the spines of the various items, and chanced upon a work published in twelve numbers, held together by a well-rubbed and very frayed string, whose winding fibres suggested a skeletal ribcage.

 

*

‘IT WAS A WORK PUBLISHED
a few years after he was born,' said Mr Inbelicate. ‘A work of words and pictures by two people we have encountered before, Combe and Rowlandson – for their collaboration did not end with
Dr Syntax
. The work was called
The English Dance of Death
.'

 

*

HE UNDID THE KNOT, AND
turned to the title page, which bore a quotation from Horace:

With equal Pace, impartial Fate

Knocks at the Palace, as the Cottage Gate.

He was captivated instantly by Rowlandson's pictures of Death, in the form of a skeleton, appearing at the very moment of transition to the next world.

*   *   *

At the altar of an English church stands a fat old rake marrying a young slim bride – Death, dressed as the vicar, will claim the groom before the covers of the marriage bed are thrown back.

Then comes Death the prizefighter, his knuckles literally bare as he squares up – lying on the ground is a bloodied boxer who will not rise before the count of a thousand, let alone ten.

Next, Death the hunter on a steed of rattling bones – he chases huntsmen and their hounds over a cliff edge.

And Death as a stagecoach driver at Bath, beside the Pump Room door: men on crutches pull his coach, and the whip in his bony hand urges them on, to die faster.

He turned another page – and saw Rowlandson's picture of the death of a clown. The skeleton thrust an hourglass into the face of the wan, wasted entertainer. Under the picture were the lines:

Behold the signal of Old Time

That bids you close your pantomime!

He purchased
The English Dance of Death.
He strode along the street, under the lamps, but he remembered himself at the age of eleven, paying a visit to his uncle in Gerrard Street, Soho. The uncle had broken a thigh bone.

*   *   *

‘I am like an old woman who has tripped on her skirt,' said the uncle, screwing up his face in exasperation. He sat with the fractured leg supported by a gout stool, in his small, dark single-windowed room. ‘I shall have one limb shorter for ever. How long will it take a bone this stout to knit?'

From a chair opposite, the boy nodded politely, but glanced sideways through the open door towards another open door on the gloomy, brown landing. He could see old books, amphorae, chalices, busts and other fascinating items in the room beyond. Sometimes a silver-haired woman entered this treasure cave and emerged with an item, and took it downstairs. She was the widow of a seller of books and miscellaneous items who carried on the business in the shop below, and used the upper floor for storage and lodgers. She heard the boy enduring the invalid's moans, and when the uncle fell asleep, she beckoned with a finger and passed a book through the door. ‘This should keep you amused,' she whispered. ‘It is yours if you like.' It was an edition of
The Dance of Death
by Holbein.

 

*

‘THE DIRECT INSPIRATION FOR COMBE
and Rowlandson,' said Mr Inbelicate. ‘Probably the edition by Mors, engraved by the great Hollar.'

 

*

SHE WHISPERED: ‘I THINK YOU'LL
find the bones in the book more interesting than his.'

In a cramped bedroom, by the light of a candle, the boy stared so hard at the grinning skulls and exposed femurs that even when he shut his eyes he could still see white floating in the dark. Here were Adam and Eve expelled from Eden while Death played on the fiddle and jigged at his triumph. Scene after scene showed the skeleton's grim work: kidnapping a child from the very fireside where his parents sat; pouring wine down the drunkard's throat; breaking a waggoner's vehicle to pieces. Holbein's work proclaimed that all men must dance with
this
partner, whether emperor, king, pope, merchant, peddler or fool – all will go to the ball with Death.

 

*

‘BUT NOW, LET US ANNOUNCE
that “Chatham Charlie” is no more, for he has a new name,' said Mr Inbelicate. ‘He is Boz – for that is what he calls himself, as he pens the pieces for Whitehead.

‘If asked to explain that pseudonym, he would tell you that it was formerly a nickname used around the family home for a beloved young brother, Augustus, for whom he had a profound affection. He would carry the boy around in his arms, stroking away as though Augustus were a cat or a puppy.'

Mr Inbelicate explained that the brother was originally nicknamed Moses, supposedly after the character of Moses Primrose, in a book by that former resident of Canonbury Tower, Oliver Goldsmith, namely
The Vicar of Wakefield
. But the child, who was always sniffling, pronounced it more as ‘Boses' and this in turn became Boz.

‘But I am afraid, Scripty, I am much too suspicious of the late Chatham Charlie to take this story at face value. Try reading
The Vicar of Wakefield.
The character of Moses Primrose essentially does one thing in that book. He exchanges his father's old nag for a gross of worthless green spectacles, whose rims are encrusted with verdigris. I simply do not believe you would name a beloved baby brother after such a dull and uninteresting character. I believe there is another explanation.

‘You see, Scripty, in Kent, where Chatham Charlie grew up, the word “moses” was dialect for a young frog. Not so highfalutin and literary as saying your young brother was named after a character in
The Vicar of Wakefield
is it? But rather more likely. And, young Augustus was previously given the name of another aquatic creature – “Shrimp”. So he started off as a shrimp, and graduated to the status of a frog. It makes sense to me. So having already mentioned the frog-faced writer Hervey, let's bring in the rather froggy Boz, as he endeavours to produce the story for Whitehead.'

 

*

THE COOL CLOUDINESS OF THE
February morning had apparently seized up Boz's brain, as he sat at his table before the window. He was fatigued and uninspired by his own work.

He had begun with: ‘Once upon a time, there dwelt in a narrow street on the Surrey side of the water, within three minutes' walk of the old London Bridge, Mr Joseph Tuggs…'

The surname was right, evocative of tug meat, or bad mutton. The title was ‘The Tuggs's at Ramsgate', and that was right too. And the story itself had an excellent pedigree, being inspired by a family of characters in the book by Washington Irving, the book that he had loved in the blacking factory. Mr Lamb, in Irving's work, was a butcher who had made money, and the Lambs were ‘smitten with the high life'. They took to talking bad French and playing upon the piano and throwing a grand ball, ‘to which they neglected to invite any of their old neighbours'.

But try as he might, the pages of the Tuggs's would not come. He thought hard of the area where Joseph Tuggs had a grocer's shop before coming into money. He thought of Lant Street, and Horsemonger Lane, and the whole shabby area within a few minutes' walk of the old London Bridge. He imagined Simon, the son of Joseph Tuggs, fainting when a legal functionary with a green umbrella and a blue bag brought news to their shop that the family was suddenly in possession of twenty thousand pounds. He wrote: ‘To a casual observer, or to anyone unacquainted with the family, this fainting would have been unaccountable. To those who understood the mission of the man with the bag, and were moreover acquainted with the excitability of the nerves of Mr Simon Tuggs, it was quite comprehensible.'

He came to a stop.

He tried again.

He thought of how money would result in the wearing of gilded waistcoats, and there would be a great desire for good food, as well as visits to the theatre, and travel to the coast. Brighton would be desirable – but, the Tuggs family would ask themselves, could one rely on the safety of stagecoaches to reach there? So they took the steamer to Ramsgate.

Boz then thought of Ramsgate beach, where men typically stood with telescopes and opera-glasses, ogling bathers. Between these two locations, the old London Bridge and Ramsgate, his consciousness fluctuated, but the lines of manuscript still did not grow. He had to do
something
, because Parliament would resume the next day, and then there would be less time to write. In frustration, he put on his coat and went out for a walk.

There was a closely cropped man on the street, whom Boz had often noticed, handing out temperance tracts, caring not a jot that no one took notice. ‘Read the evidence, madam! Shipwrecks, fires, poverty – all caused by drink! Avoid the bottle! Shun the inn! And you, sir – one in two suicides! Four out of five crimes, madam! You, sir – two-thirds of all cases of insanity! All down to alcohol!'

Boz walked past, and the man's tract brushed against his upper arm as he did so. If anything made you fancy a drink, it was a campaigner like that.

*   *   *

Boz was still struggling with the story a week later. In front of him were numerous crossings-out, indicative of the way his thoughts had gone.

He had the Tuggs family settling themselves into their deckchairs to watch the spectacle of bathers of both sexes plunging into the water. Mr Tuggs was struck with astonishment, and possibly other emotions, by the sight of four young ladies bouncing into the sea in four successive splashes.

There was a knock at the door. ‘Can you get that, Fred?' said Boz.

A youth of about sixteen raised his eyebrows from a newspaper. He had a wearied expression, but there was enough of a family resemblance to indicate that he was a younger brother to Boz.