Death and Mr. Pickwick (93 page)

She noticed the scared look in Melbourne's eyes. This was succeeded by an expression she had never seen before. It was as if his eyes had turned inward, and could see only himself. This was Melbourne serious, with no mischief, and all the teasing stripped away.

‘I came here as quickly as I could,' she said. ‘I wanted you to hear this from me. This will not stay a secret for long.'

There was a pause before Melbourne said, with little emotion: ‘How did you find out? Has he told you himself?'

‘I was away visiting my family. George and I had quarrelled about where the children should spend Easter. I took a cab to Birdcage Walk. When I got there, a servant barred my entrance. She told me that the children had been sent away, according to George's instructions, and that I could not enter the house. That was also according to his instructions.'

She waited, perhaps expecting sympathy for her predicament; if that was her expectation, he did nothing to satisfy it.

She continued: ‘The servant was also instructed to inform me that George is going to sue you for adultery. He will seek substantial damages.'

Even if he said no words, his body and manner spoke with a decisiveness – a decisiveness he had never heretofore shown to her on any occasion. He was instantly unlinking himself from a woman who was now an embarrassment and a source of vexation, and worse.

‘George would not do it without encouragement,' she said. ‘The Tories have urged him on.'

Suddenly he said: ‘Do you think I don't see that? It is a vile conspiracy. Your husband wouldn't have the courage or the brains to do it on his own.'

There was protracted silence, which she broke when she said: ‘You have not asked how I feel. Nor mentioned how this will affect my reputation. I will be made to appear like a painted prostitute in a public court. Do you not care what this will do to me?'

Melbourne scarcely showed a reaction, and merely smoothed down his eyebrows.

She waited, hoping that any moment he would say something. When he did not, her voice did not merely break the silence, but shattered it. ‘God forgive you, Lord Melbourne – go ahead, clear your name. Clear yourself from the stigma of having loved me.'

She turned and left, and pushed past the private secretary, whom Melbourne immediately summoned. The private secretary was apprised of the facts, and recommended that Melbourne should appoint Sir John Campbell as his counsel for the defence.

*   *   *

Sir John Campbell, though a strongly built man, habitually allowed his head to droop towards one shoulder, giving the impression that his neck rested on insecure foundations. He closed his eyes, neck inclined, deep in thought behind his desk in his chambers, as Lord Melbourne explained the circumstances of George Norton's action for damages. When this was done, Melbourne said: ‘Sir John, there is no truth in these allegations. On that I give you my word of honour.'

Campbell opened his eyes, which were pale, and lacking in confidence. ‘I do believe you,' he said.

‘When I am doubted by so many, your assurance is a ray of light. I thank you.'

‘I must also tell you,' said Campbell, ‘that the case causes me more anxiety than any in which I have been called upon to act as counsel.'

‘I do understand,' said Melbourne. ‘I have considered whether, in the interests of the country, I should resign – but I have been urged that such an act would be interpreted as an admission of guilt. I informed the King that I am ready to leave office. But His Majesty smells a plot. And whatever his feelings about me and the Whigs, and however much he personally wishes me to go, he refuses to discuss a resignation.'

‘And you are convinced that Wynford is behind Norton's action?'

‘I am sure of it. Even Tories say it disgraces their party. Wellington has offered me his support.'

‘I will ask Serjeant Talfourd to assist me.'

There was a hint of panic in Melbourne's eye. ‘Let me repeat, Sir John, that there is no truth whatsoever in these allegations.'

‘I have said that I believe you.'

After the prime minister had left the room, Sir John Campbell breathed deeply and rubbed his eyes, and gave other physical indications of the anxiety he had expressed to Melbourne. Then he opened a drawer in his desk, and pulled out a slender, green-wrappered publication. His expression changed as soon as he began reading, and he chuckled and laughed heartily as though all concerns were banished from his mind.

*   *   *

Melbourne poured himself a shot glass of Woodhouse's Ethereal Essence of Ginger. He swallowed, and in the presence of his private secretary, made an un-prime ministerial sound.

‘I don't know why I take this,' said Melbourne. ‘It has no effect. My appetite is gone. My damn bowels are not working. My nose runs like a waterfall. I hardly sleep.'

‘In my own case, when I am anxious,' said the private secretary, ‘I sometimes find that it helps to take a small glass of claret.'

‘I took a sip of claret last night and it nauseated me. Claret – even one of the finest of pleasures is disgusting to me now!' Melbourne loosened his collar. ‘I know people look at me with incredulity, but I know I am innocent.' A pained expression cast an even darker mood upon his face. ‘I admit – I am concerned at the involvement of Serjeant Talfourd on Campbell's side. Mrs Norton has spoken of meeting him several times. She has encountered him at receptions – and no woman is more flirtatious. If Talfourd has witnessed the way she flirts, and he
will
have done, and if he tells Campbell – then he may cease to believe in my innocence.'

‘Flirtation is but flirtation, Lord Melbourne.'

‘Do
you
believe I am innocent? Answer me truthfully. Tell me what you think. I need to know.'

‘Yes, I believe you are innocent. But if I did not know you – if I were on the jury – I confess, Prime Minister, I have very grave concerns about the outcome of the trial.'

*   *   *

It was ten days after Buss received the letter from Chapman and Hall that his friend Harrison called.

Mrs Buss showed the visitor to the studio, but whispered in the passage: ‘He has not been in good spirits.'

Harrison found Buss sitting dishevelled, unshaven and thoroughly miserable at the table. A tankard had been placed directly over the largest acid stain. A pencil lay across an open sketchbook, though nothing but a few zigzag meanderings had been drawn.

‘I am sick at heart, Harrison,' said Buss, after describing Chapman and Hall's dismissal. ‘I have not worked since I received their letter. I cannot stop thinking what a fool I was. When I promised to do the work for Hall, for me a promise was a promise. There were times when I regretted taking on the work, when I was on the point of throwing it up – but I did not. I
kept
my promise, and devoted myself to the task.'

‘Prove Chapman and Hall wrong. Try to etch again.'

‘Never. I put the tools into a sack, threw them in that cupboard, and locked it. And it will stay locked.'

Harrison took a silver case out of his pocket and placed a card upon the table, directly in front of the artist. It was printed with Buss's design for the ball.

‘Everyone was completely charmed by the card,' said Harrison. ‘What's more, there was a publisher at the ball. He wants someone to do etchings for a book about a widow. He was as entranced by the card as everyone else. I promised him I would speak to you. And a promise is a promise.'

There was a minor grunt from Buss, as though from a man disturbed in his sleep, but no further reaction.

‘Strangely enough,' said Harrison, ‘I overheard a conversation in which the publisher mentioned this
Pickwick
scribbler.'

‘Don't even mention
Pickwick
!' Buss stood up so abruptly that Harrison dropped the silver case on to the table.

Buss ran his hands through his matted hair, in exasperation. ‘I'm sorry, Harrison. I should not snap at you like that. That was wrong of me. Please accept my apologies.'

‘I will accept no apologies until you have another go at etching.' He reached across for the pencil and wrote on the back of the card, then said, ‘This is the name and address of the publisher. It is up to you.' He stood, and touched Buss's shoulder, but did not shake hands before departing.

Several hours later, Buss found a key in a drawer. He unlocked the cupboard, took out the sack, and when he pulled the neck apart, the smell of beeswax and resin rose from within. One by one, he placed the needles, the handrest and all the other items required for etching upon the table. Some weeks passed, and the bearded man returned to Buss's studio for a session as King Lear. ‘I saw a good review of a piece of your work the other day, Mr Buss,' he said, as from an inside pocket he produced a page torn from the
Carlton Chronicle
. ‘Thought I'd bring it along, in case you missed it.'

‘Trying flattery rather than threats of the razor now?' said Buss, smiling. He took the page.

It concerned
Pickwick
. Buss pulled a face, but read on.

‘This rising artist,' said the reviewer, ‘has now indeed so nearly approached the excellence of his predecessor that the interests of the publishers and of the art can suffer but little by the unfortunate and premature termination of Seymour's career.'

‘Well, that's not too bad,' said Buss, as he continued through the item.

‘We are glad to perceive,' continued the
Chronicle
, ‘that the etchings by Mr Buss in the present number of this very spirited and clever publication are considerable improvements upon his first attempts.'

Buss worse-than-grimaced. The cursory look he had given when first passed the page had led to his missing one pertinent fact: that the review was of
Pickwick
's
fourth
number, not the third.

‘The works they are praising are by Hablot Browne, which they mistakenly believe are mine,' he said, thrusting the page back into the bearded man's chest.

Five years earlier

There were twenty men and youths at two long benches in the tolerably windowed engraving room at Findens. Each pushed the chisel known as a burin across the surface of a metal plate. A new, young curly-haired apprentice had just been brought in by a manager, and he nodded shyly to those at the benches, some of whom nodded back.

‘Well, Mr Browne,' said the amiable Mr Fennell, rubbing his hands, ‘I hope you will be happy here. You'll see the engravers all have their specialities, and we'll certainly find one for you.'

Browne saw that one short-sighted old engraver, who had the decency to return the nod, was at work on the muscles of an arm, meticulously giving it depth by a succession of close lines – the engraver himself may have looked undernourished, but the biceps on the steel was surely fashioned in the gymnasium. Another engraver, a cloth specialist, used the alternation of closely and widely dispersed lines to indicate the way a cloak hung, while yet another specialised in sky, and was just passing his plate to a specialist in trees. As Fennell led Browne around the perimeter of the benches, the newcomer saw there were specialists in picturesque ruins, weaponry and free-flowing water; but whatever their pictorial concern, all held the burin steady, turning the plate this way and that on a small leather cushion, making their hard-won furrows, building up a picture detail by painstaking detail. This was to the accompaniment of an unsettling noise best described as crinkled, as burins scraped the steel.

After a complete circuit of the benches, Browne sat beside the man at work on the arm, who proceeded to explain that a lozenge-pattern of shading should not be overused on flesh. ‘Rather too sharp at the corners, that is. It can make it look like your man is behind a garden trellis.'

‘So you make them squares then?' asked Browne.

‘Well you
can
do that, but then it starts to look like your man's a statue. It's all about thinking of what the muscles are, and putting the strokes closer together in the shades and wider apart in the lights. You'll get the hang of it. Sometimes if you make a
peck
with the graver, that does the job – like this. See? But we need to find out what you're good at. Look at Tom over there. He's our hair man. When I'm done with this, I'll pass it over to him, and you'll see how he starts off in a lazy sort of manner, to get the right flow of the hair. What sort of speciality do you think you might like?'

‘Horses.'

‘Well, Joshua in the corner is your man for horses, though Tom does the manes. But Joshua's some way off retirement yet, so there might not be an opening. We'll make you into something good, though.'

One of the youngest men at the benches was called, appropriately, Robert Young. He had not merely nodded, but smiled when Browne entered. It was the case that Young's thin and intense features usually manifested a state of great concentration above the steel – until the features would break suddenly into the smile again if he caught Browne looking, much to Browne's embarrassment. Young also suffered from a shrunken leg, with one foot decidedly smaller than the other and with an inward turn, and he walked with the aid of a stick. His disability usually made him the last to leave the office, and at the end of the day he struck up a conversation with the newcomer.

‘Why don't you ask me: “Does your stick bother you?”' remarked Young.

‘I am sorry,' said Browne, ‘if I stared.'

‘You didn't stare, I just knew you would be thinking it. The stick has its uses. I have played a game of billiards with it – and won. Some day I shall bash someone's brains out with my stick, I am sure.'

‘What brought you to Findens?' asked Browne as the pair walked into the street.

‘I proceed slowly. Patience in all things is my motto. Engraving was an obvious path. And you?'