Death and Mr. Pickwick (84 page)

‘How was I supposed to know about the arrangements between you and Boz?' said Hicks, after the artist explained the reason for his visit. ‘But what can be done now? This man's nearly finished pasting the entire batch.'

‘I do not blame you,' said Seymour.

‘Do you want to take a look at the proofs of Boz's story?'

‘He has done it
already
?'

‘We received the letterpress for the first bit of the second number with almost no break from the previous bit. He must have written it in a frenzy. So we set it up. I can give you the proofs now, if you want to see them.'

Sitting in Hicks's office, Seymour stood at the deathbed of the clown. He descended to the words: ‘He rose in bed, drew up his withered limbs, and rolled about in uncouth positions; he was acting – he was at the theatre.'

Seymour could see the story was a retelling of the tragedy of J. S. Grimaldi; and although Boz said the clown performed at a theatre on the Surrey side, for Seymour the clown's swansong-stage was Grimaldi's own, in Tottenham Street, the very theatre that was the source of all the misery with Gilbert à Beckett. He read of the clown's appearance: ‘the thick white paint with which the face was besmeared; the grotesquely ornamented head, trembling with paralysis, and the long skinny hands, rubbed with white chalk'. It was not chalk and greasepaint for Seymour – rather, it was sharp, stinging salt, massaged into the deep open wounds inflicted by à Beckett.

Then he recalled the pantomime issue of
Figaro
, in which he had depicted Wetherell as a clown. He recalled the massive demand. ‘Your greatest success, Mr Seymour!' à Beckett had said. À Beckett – a young editor who had abused him, vilified him in public, said he had no brains, said he had no ideas of his own and was a perfect dolt except in the mechanical use of a pencil. What did praise mean when à Beckett turned on him afterwards? Every compliment à Beckett ever uttered was hollow. Now, here was another young man, another young editor, turning against him as well.

And in Boz's story, gone was the suggestion of Fuseli's
Nightmare
, with its evocations of times with Joseph Severn. Instead, there was the clown's tortured mental drifting: ‘He fell back upon his pillow and moaned aloud. A short period of oblivion, and he was wandering through a tedious maze of low-arched rooms – so low, sometimes, that he must creep upon his hands and knees to make his way along.' He suddenly remembered that, at the end of the added letterpress for the first number, Dismal Jemmy had turned to Mr Pickwick's poetical companion, the one whose hallucinations should have been depicted. ‘“Are you the poet?” asked the dismal man. “I – I do a little in that way,” replied the poet, rather taken aback by the abruptness of the question. “Ah! Poetry makes life what lights and music do the stage – strip the one of its false embellishments, and the other of its illusions, and what is there real in either to live or care for.”' The poetical embellishments of Seymour had been stripped away, and here was the dismal man telling the artist to care about nothing any more. It was as though Boz was using the voice of the dismal man to
gloat
over the insertion of the story!

And then he read of the clown haunted by a wife's eyes: ‘There's something in her eyes wakes such a dreadful fear in my heart that it drives me mad.' He thought of the carnal acts he had committed with men. There was the dreadful threat of the gallows every time he went with someone. He felt the fear awakened sometimes when Jane looked at him, when she must have guessed what he had been doing. ‘All last night, her large staring eyes and pale face were close to mine; wherever I turned, they turned; and whenever I started up from my sleep she was at the bedside looking at me.'

Hicks was standing in the doorway looking at Seymour.

‘I can see you are not enjoying that,' he said. ‘Yet what could I do, but get it set up?'

‘It is not your fault. I should have been on my guard.'

‘What will you do as a picture for it, sir?'

‘
A picture
? Nothing! I already know what the pictures will be for this number. I would sooner forget this incident has happened.'

‘The thing is, Mr Seymour – the story takes up over five pages of letterpress. Right at the start of the number. It's going to seem a bit odd, don't you think, if there's not a picture? I reckon I won't be the only person to think that, either.'

‘That would mean I would have to drop one of my pictures to accommodate it.'

‘That's why I thought I'd better mention it to you. Suppose you send me your etching plates. What am I to do if someone like Mr Chapman or Mr Hall says they want one of the clown? I can see an argument happening. I'd rather avoid that. I think it might be better for you to avoid it too, sir.'

The realisation came to Seymour that he would have to produce a drawing that was entirely governed by Boz's wishes, as though he were drawing his own public humiliation at the hands of à Beckett.

 

*

THERE IS A FLOORLIT ALCOVE
of Mr Inbelicate's house where he would sit and smoke and drink, and where he asked Mary to place a vase of fresh flowers on the coffee table every day. On the wall directly opposite his chair was a strange and dark painting – so dark, except in one area, that I often thought its colours an exercise in the application of mud. It showed a wood engraver at work in his studio, at night, hunched over a long bench, his cutting illuminated by a lamp and a light-diffusing globe. The engraver was shown centrally in side view, an insubstantial element of the whole, with his features partly obscured by an eyeshade, while his hair and jacket blended into the brown background, in much the same way as his only other furnishings, a small printing press and a boiler. Yet I would sometimes catch Mr Inbelicate staring into the depths of this painting with such absorption that he would flinch if I spoke.

He once explained to me that the engraver was the renowned John Jackson, and the painter an unknown artist, though it had been attributed to the very man whose friend had sat in Seymour's parlour, on the night
Sketches by Boz
was read. “Probably he dashed it off when he was sick of painting the beard model who always threatened to shave,” said Mr Inbelicate.

Though Mr Inbelicate was evasive about the painting's provenance, I do not believe it was the original. It was perhaps the most skilful forgery Mr Inbelicate could afford to commission. But why was he so fascinated by the image?

‘It is the bench,' he said. ‘I can see the very grain of the bench where Jackson worked. It is as though I am there. I never tire of looking at it.'

For this was where Seymour's wrapper drawing for
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club
was engraved. Not by John Jackson himself, for the drawing was of no importance to him, but by his sixteen-year-old brother, Mason.

‘It was on that bench that the boy cut around the punt in which Mr Pickwick slept,' said Mr Inbelicate. ‘He was probably in a hurry to complete it, because he had purchased a coach ticket for Berwick-upon-Tweed, his birthplace. And, as a last act, he had to sign his brother's name, J. Jackson, at the foot of the drawing. It was just a job to him. Think of that – just a job.'

 

*

EDWARD CHAPMAN LOOKED AT THE
proof for the wrapper that the printer's devil had delivered from Bradbury and Evans. To Seymour's drawing had been added lines of type for the subtitle, the part number, and the name of the editor and artist.

‘You are staring at that for too long,' said Hall from the opposite desk, raising his eyes from his costings. Lack of fidgeting from his partner usually indicated a troubled state of mind.

‘I have seen some extraordinary reviews for
Sketches by Boz.
'

‘And why would that make you stare at the wrapper?'

‘One in the
Morning Post
spoke of Boz having infinite skill.'

‘
Infinite
.' He shook his head, and looked down again to the rather more trustworthy statement in front.

‘Another in the
Metropolitan Magazine
said Boz drew perfect pictures in words. I have seen several reviews now – and there is hardly a bad thing said.'

‘I wonder what the sales are like?'

‘If sales follow reviews, then I would say very strong.'

‘Well, what is your point?'

‘This is an opportunity we should not waste. William, I am beginning to feel that Boz is the man who is our asset now, not Seymour.'

‘I am listening.' To emphasise his readiness, Hall placed down his pencil in a horizontal line across the paper, as though a hurdle to prevent his own progress through the figures.

Chapman stood, came round to the other side, and sat on the edge of his desk. ‘We took Seymour on board because of his extraordinary success with
Figaro
. Then there were all the things that were said about him as an artist – that he was the “Shakespeare of Caricature” and so on. But I am thinking of what these reviews say about Boz. Then I look at this wrapper proof, which says “Edited by Boz” and “With Four Illustrations by Seymour”. And I think the “Boz” should be in larger type than “Seymour”.'

‘Is that
all
? Just do it.'

‘It's how Seymour would feel.'

Hall snorted.

‘It is not so simple, William.'

‘It is. Ask yourself – would we sell more copies if Boz's name were more prominent? Now consider the circumstances. Seymour's pictures are everywhere. He is so prolific that what does another Seymour picture mean? Not a lot. Whereas Boz – he is new, and shows every sign, from these reviews you have seen, of being a great success. There shouldn't be any question as to what you should do. If Seymour quibbles – tell him
exactly
why we did it. Ask him: “When did
you
last get reviews like that, Mr Seymour?” And if you won't say that to him, I shall.'

Edward Chapman returned to his chair and wrote in the margin of the proof the instruction that ‘Edited by Boz' should be in larger and bolder type than ‘With Four Illustrations by Seymour'.

‘Good,' said Hall. ‘Now with that out of the way, my concern is how many copies we print of the first number. Two thousand copies sold a month covers our costs. I say we should be
very
cautious at first. Just a thousand copies printed to begin with, and only four hundred of those bound into wrappers for sale. We then see what happens. Agreed?'

‘Agreed.'

*   *   *

Robert Surtees looked with distinct unease at Seymour's drawing of the Rt Hon. George Villiers, Earl of Jersey, showing a tall, slim top-hatted man, with a strong nose, and a sadness around the eyes.

‘I don't think you have quite captured the man, Mr Seymour,' he said.

‘Perhaps you have not seen him as recently as I have,' said Seymour.

‘Did you make any other sketches of him, which might be better?'

‘One was enough.'

‘If I may say – you do not seem yourself. Are you unwell?'

‘I am not.'

‘I would not wish to offend the earl in any way. It could affect the reputation of the magazine. I presume you know how highly regarded he is in sporting circles? Some consider him the most elegant rider to hounds the world has ever seen.'

‘I had an assignment to draw his features. That is what I have done.'

‘I am afraid that in my letterpress I shall have to make some mention of the lack of fidelity of the picture. I shall try to be as kind to you as possible – I can say you have caught him on an unlucky day, perhaps.'

‘Do what you want.'

‘In the interests of maintaining your
own
reputation – it would be advisable to take more care with the next picture you draw for us.'

‘What does my reputation matter in any case, for all it gets me?' He walked out of the office.

*   *   *

Boz considered Seymour's drawing of Mr Pickwick running after his spinning hat, as the wind rolled it away. Sitting at one end of the depicted carriage was a fat boy, with his head dipping forward in slumber. So were sleeping fat people an obsession of Seymour's, having already drawn Mr Pickwick asleep on the wrapper design?

The fat boy stirred memories of Chatham, however.

*   *   *

Chatham high street, summer, shortly after dawn. A grey old man in a black coat, worn thin enough to adequately ventilate him on a hot day, and which the sun shone through at that moment, bent down outside the Red Lion public house – he lifted a bottle from a gutter, and deposited it in a handcart. Chatham had a thriving trade in bottles. Here was a town for a man to make a fortune as a brewer or a wine merchant, or both. The sum total of public houses in Chatham came to more than schools and churches combined.

The man pulled the cart away – the wheel making a track through a pool of congealed blood, and a crunch upon the broken glass nearby – and proceeded down a street that was a mixture of building materials: red and yellow bricks, well-weathered boards, cracked tiles and scratched slates. The cart passed an off-duty soldier who clung on to a lamppost, and the old man deftly snatched a bottle from beside the soldier's boot.

As morning drew on, a recruiting sergeant, barking orders, marched down the high street at the head of a train of undisciplined, motley men of various weights and uneven heights – agricultural labourers in smocks, clerks in clothes worn shiny, a few reasonably dressed professional types, and a miscellany of the rough, dirty and unshaven, with hats pulled low over the eyes. They went by the Red Lion, and then a few doors along passed the Mitre public house.

Within the latter establishment, Chatham Charlie and his sister stood upon a table, on to which they had been lifted by their father. They sang a shanty, endeavouring to entertain the assembled drinkers: