Death and Mr. Pickwick (75 page)

The door opened. ‘William Hall, of Chapman and Hall,' said a voice.

Boz instantly covered up the papers, which indicated the state of incompleteness of the manuscript. He came forward, smiling, to shake the visitor's hand.

Hall saw before him a young man with long brown hair in luxuriance at the temples, and a healthy face in which pink inclined towards red – almost
unnaturally
healthy, and with a fearless enthusiasm in the eyes. Looking over the young man's shoulder he saw that the room was uncarpeted and, though airy and tidy, not at all inviting. A deal table had been placed to make the room appear furnished, an ambition it shared with the placement of the few chairs. The books were neatly arranged, though not all upright, which seemed to be an effort to fill the shelves.

Boz saw before him the oddly formed little man, with long arms and a prominent nose. He also saw, in his mind's eye, the circumstances in which he had often glimpsed this man: behind the counter in the bookshop in the Strand, or sometimes up a ladder, arranging stock, for Boz frequently looked in Chapman and Hall's window at lunchtime, when at the offices of the
Chronicle
.

Hall sat down. The chair creaked, as though detachment of mortise and tenon were imminent. Fred was instructed to make coffee.

Boz rubbed his thighs in an energetic motion and then said: ‘Do you know, Mr Hall, I have not merely shaken your hand – I have also shaken the hand of the very person who sold me the magazine in which my first published story appeared.'

‘Is that so?'

‘It was a December, just over two years ago, and you were putting up the shutters. I paid you two and six for a copy of the
Monthly Magazine
. I remember
your
face, Mr Hall, because it was a significant moment for me, but I do not expect you to remember
mine
.'

‘I must confess – I do not. Had there been some unfortunate aberration in the financial circumstances – if for instance you had passed over a farthing too little when you paid – then I
would
have recalled your features. Otherwise, no. Talking of stories – there are two I believe you have promised Mr Whitehead.'

‘The one called “The Tuggs's at Ramsgate” is at the point of completion. Then I shall immediately start on another piece which I think will be called “A Little Talk about Spring and the Sweeps”.'

‘Mr Whitehead said you were a punctual and reliable producer of words. I trust he is correct. If the first story is at the point of completion, then, as it is Wednesday today – you should be able to bring it to my office on Friday morning.'

‘Oh undoubtedly.'

‘Now – there is a second reason I have for visiting you today. Are you familiar with the work of Mr Seymour, the artist?'

‘I not only know of his work, he has illustrated one of my pieces. The first time that had happened to me.'

‘Oh, indeed?'

‘Though – the fact is, neither he nor his publisher had the decency to ask my permission, nor did I receive a penny in payment.'

‘I see, I see. I do hope the offence caused was not too great. Sometimes such actions are carried out with good intentions,' said Hall, who perhaps recalled his own
Chat of the Week.

‘But you must have a good reason for mentioning Mr Seymour.'

The rudiments of the scheme were explained. That there would be a new monthly publication, with four etchings in each number, and that a provider of letterpress was required.

‘Much remains to be determined,' said Hall. ‘We have not even reached agreement on the title yet. Mr Seymour favours calling it
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club
. I would prefer something more explanatory. Well, we will christen it soon.'

‘What is the Pickwick Club?'

‘It is an imaginary tavern club founded by an imaginary fellow called Samuel Pickwick.'

‘An agreeable enough name.'

‘Mr Seymour's inspiration is a club that meets not too far from here. Perhaps you know the Castle Tavern?'

‘I know it. But it has a reputation as a sporting establishment. I confess I am no great sportsman.'

‘Neither is Samuel Pickwick. And one might ask just how sporting the club in the Castle really is as well. They have named themselves after a slang expression for gin, which I myself had not heard before. They are called the Daffy Club, and according to Mr Seymour – now what was it he told Mr Chapman? I should have written it down – I think it was: “They may praise Nimrod the Mighty Hunter, but the God they truly worship is Bacchus.” Well, in this drunkards' den, there is an unusual tradition which Mr Seymour has observed at first hand. He is quite captivated by its possibilities. So is Mr Chapman. So am I. So we hope will you be.'

Hall proceeded to explain the essence of Seymour's scheme, based upon the fantastic travellers' tales told at the Castle – that Mr Pickwick would collect tales on the road, in the belief such tales were true, accompanied by several other members of the club, and that the whole party would involve themselves in various scrapes and adventures in the course of their mission.

‘Mr Seymour envisages something like a journal or a chronicle or a scrapbook of the club. This Mr Pickwick fellow, in retirement, has collected together all his papers, recording the club's exploits, and the tales he has heard, and these papers are passed to an imaginary editor. The editor would be the role played by you. You would in fact be writing the material which constitutes these papers. So you would play two roles – editor and writer. To keep up the pretence, you will not be credited as author, but rather as the editor of these papers.'

‘So if I took it on, the work would appear as “Edited by Boz”.'

‘That is so, if you wish to use the nom de plume. But whatever is included in the letterpress, it must fit within twenty-four printed pages every month, no more, no less. Then it will be sewn together with Mr Seymour's four pictures, put in a wrapper, and sold in shilling monthly numbers. Is something the matter?'

‘I was just thinking of the book peddler coming round when I was a boy, with his numbers. Always boasting to my nurse of the poems he knew by heart. If a recital went on too long, the best way of stopping him was to take one of his samples.'

*   *   *

Mary Weller was on the doorstep looking into the book peddler's bag of wares, with the boy behind her dress, in the hall.

‘Now if you want an atlas – or a Bible – even Johnson's entire dicky,' said the peddler, ‘I have them all in parts. No poems though – I can tell you those myself, gratis. I know more verses by heart than all the parts I carry around with me in all four seasons.'

To prove it, he held his hand across his chest and recited lines he announced as by Alexander Pope.
Nothing
, no conceivable resistance by the nurse on the doorstep, could prevent his leaving a number for inspection, for there was
no obligation at all
, it was
just for inspection
. He thrust forward a part of a sentimental novel.

‘If it does not make you cry for the poor girl within the pages – a girl about your age – then you have a very hard heart for a Christian female, a very hard heart. And I do not believe you have a hard heart.'

The peddler looked to one side and into the distance, somehow suggesting that he himself had been amongst those who had experienced misfortune, that, yes, he had suffered.

*   *   *

‘The type of writer we seek for this task,' said Hall, ‘is one derived, in an entirely logical fashion, from our requirements. Mr Seymour will present us with the four pictures every month. And every month the letterpress will describe the pictures, and provide the material that links them. Let me be more precise. We require printed matter to cover one and a half sheets, or twenty-four printed pages, demy octavo. There will be about five hundred words per printed page of letterpress, or twelve thousand words per published part. For that work, my partner and I wish to offer a payment of nine guineas per sheet, at the rate of one and a half sheets per month. Which is to say: we will pay you slightly over fourteen pounds per month.'

‘How many parts would there be?' said Boz, outwardly calm in his demeanour, verging on a show of indifference.

 

*

‘TO TAKE THE WORK,' SAID
Mr Inbelicate, ‘would mean Boz could afford to marry – he could live quite comfortably in London, with enough to raise children and hire servants. That was the meaning of his earnings increasing by over fourteen pounds per month. His total earnings would increase by half.'

 

*

‘WE HAVE NOT COME TO
a final decision on that,' said Hall. ‘About twenty, I would say. We aim to publish the first number on 31 March. The same day as the first number of the
Library of Fiction.
'

Perhaps mistaking Boz's calm exterior for lack of enthusiasm, Hall added: ‘If the work were to be
very
successful, Mr Chapman and I would reward success, and consider some increase in your remuneration. But all this is conditional,' said Hall, clapping his hands once, as if to indicate his own aversion to speculative thoughts, and his preference for hard facts. ‘We have yet to see your stories for Mr Whitehead.'

‘On Friday morning you shall have the first story.'

‘It is most important that it is submitted by then. We do not want a writer who waits for inspiration to strike.'

‘I have always prided myself on my punctuality. I would sooner finish ahead of time than be late.'

‘It is not only that the rigid monthly schedule is demanded by myself and Mr Chapman – it is also demanded by Mr Seymour. As you may know, he has a reputation for speed.'

‘I do not believe that Mr Seymour would have cause to complain about my performance.'

‘You must also be aware that once a part is printed, it is done. There is no going back to revise it. The writer must live with his mistakes. Or make any mistakes part of the fabric of the work.'

‘Which is what men generally do with their lives.'

‘You have not said yet whether you want to take the task on.'

‘It is true that I do have other commitments. Including my parliamentary work. I would have to consider how twelve thousand words a month can be fitted in.'

‘Well, you must give us your final answer when you bring the story on Friday. If you do take on the work, we will also require you to bring an estimate of the number of words on an average manuscript page written in your hand, and therefore a calculation of the total number of handwritten pages we may expect from you per month to complete the twelve thousand words.'

‘The estimate and calculation will be there with the story. But I wonder – perhaps you would be good enough to show something to Mr Seymour, to set the tone for our involvement.' He fetched from the bookcase a work in two volumes, which he passed to Hall. ‘It has just been published. My first work in book form.'

Hall inspected the binding and weighed a volume in his hand, and ran his finger over the spine of
Sketches by Boz
. On opening the cover, he saw writing on the flyleaf. ‘But this is a marked copy,' he said.

‘I would have preferred to give Mr Seymour a fresh one, but my publisher, Mr Macrone – my current publisher – has run into embarrassing difficulties. Supplies are so short, he has even asked me to return the copies he gave me, so that he can pass them to reviewers. So this is all I have at the moment. I was just going to send this out, but I can get another copy to replace it later.'

‘I see this is an illustrated work.'

‘Yes, by George Cruikshank. Mr Macrone had just reprinted a work of Mr Ainsworth's, and he took the bold move of including twelve pictures by Mr Cruikshank to add life. Having done that, and seen very good sales, he approached me, with a view to reprinting some short pieces of mine, with sixteen pictures.'

‘I suppose it does no harm to let Mr Seymour see this. He will probably be in the office today or tomorrow to see Mr Whitehead, so I will pass it to him then.'

*   *   *

That evening, when his parliamentary duties were done, Boz sat and wrote to his fiancée. Though the work offered by Chapman and Hall involved assuming the
fictional
identity of the editor, and to write the content which had supposedly been submitted from club records for editing, it was rather more impressive to say that he had received an offer from Chapman and Hall, ‘to write and edit a new publication they contemplate, entirely by myself'. But this was understandable, as the letter would undoubtedly be shown to his fiancée's father.

As for Seymour: Boz merely added that each number, to be published monthly, would contain four ‘woodcuts'. It was an excusable error that he did not know the medium of reproduction. But the artist remained, in his letter, as unidentified and anonymous as Boz had himself been when Seymour and Kidd used an extract without permission or payment.

 

*

‘NOW I WANT TO ASK
you a very important question, Scripty: did Boz raise
any objections at all
to the scheme of Robert Seymour when Hall paid that visit?'

We were in what he called ‘the Footnotes Room', devoted to a display of objects, once common and well known, which the passage of time had turned into mysteries. When he asked me the question, he held a bottle containing a bright yellow liquid called gamboge, which was once applied to the flaps of boots.

‘Wait!' he said, putting down the bottle. ‘I do not want you to make any assumptions about what that scheme was. I just want to know: did Boz object to the scheme in any way, and suggest an alternative? Did Boz say something like: “I do not want to do this – I cannot do this – but instead what if we did
this
?”'