The Final Recollections of Charles Dickens (12 page)

Ellsworth listened as Lenora recounted her losses.

“I wish to ask you,” he said when she was done. “You said that your husband questioned Wingate's integrity. You have every reason to do so now. What were the reasons for Mr. Pearce's suspicions?”

Lenora shook her head.

“I do not know. I can only tell you that Owen was troubled by several things that he learned. He considered bringing Wingate's conduct to the attention of the authorities but decided to terminate the partnership and leave the rest alone.”

“Do you have any papers that relate to what we have discussed?”

“No.”

Ellsworth put his pencil back into its sheath and returned it with the notebook to his coat pocket.

“You have been shamefully treated,” he told her. “I would ask in a positive way that you not be unmindful that you are blessed with good health. As for Wingate, he will not be rid of me so easily as he has been of others. I promise you that.”

“He has the heart of a serpent,” Lenora responded with anger in her voice. “If I had a dagger and he was within my reach, I would place it in his false mean heart.”

“Don't be doing that, ma'am.”

“And then I would put him in a sack with a hundred venomous snakes and throw the filth in the river.”

Ellsworth was silent as we began our ride back to London.

“Nothing bears so many stains of blood as gold,” he said at last. “It is sad to contemplate what a man may do within the law and beyond it.”

He paused before continuing his thoughts.

“There is also the death of James Frost. We do not know that Wingate was responsible for both murders. Of course, we do not know that the earth will last another hundred years. But it is highly probable that it will.”

He took his notebook from his coat pocket and began studying the notes he had made.

“We have two murders . . . a vicious assault that disfigured a woman . . . the likelihood of forged documents . . . These are serious charges. And I believe that some, if not all of them, are true. What leads a man to deeds like this? Greed? Hatred? Anger?”

During the time that Ellsworth had taken notes in Lenora Pearce's home, I was not idle in the matter, having brought my stenographic book. Now, sitting in the coach with the inspector, I read aloud portions of his conversation with Lenora.

“That can be useful,” he said thoughtfully. “I will remember that you have this skill.”

It was dark by the time we arrived in London.

“Feel free to further investigate Geoffrey Wingate's present financial company but nothing more,” Ellsworth instructed. “If you find anything of importance, communicate it directly to me. Not to Bartholomew Dawes.”

I nodded in understanding.

“I was not a believer in the old police,” Ellsworth said, removing all doubt as to the meaning of his admonition. “Many of them were of questionable ability and character. Constable Dawes is left over from the previous way of doing things. I fear that he is not a moral man.”

We said good night on the street where our day's journey had begun.

“There are times when life is sloppier than one expects to find it,” Ellsworth said in parting. “We have come upon unsettling circumstances. Only God knows how this will end.”

CHAPTER 7

On Monday, the fourteenth of March, three days after Benjamin Ellsworth and I visited Lenora Pearce, another sketch by Boz appeared in
The Evening Chronicle
. It was not about Geoffrey Wingate. Rather, I wrote about a shopkeeper and the more mundane aspects of life in London.

Late in the afternoon, I was in my lodging. Myriad thoughts were swirling through my mind. The first installment of
The Pickwick Papers
was scheduled for publication at the end of the month. I could not separate my thinking from Florence Spriggs, James Frost, and Owen Pearce. In nineteen days, Catherine Hogarth would become my bride. The emotions that she was engendering in me compared unfavourably with those expressed in Shakespeare's sonnets. And I was having visions. Fragments of novels that, with the grace of God, I would write some day were dancing in my brain. Street urchins, kings and queens, beautiful women, evil dwarfs.

A rapping on the door intruded upon my thoughts. I opened it and stood opposite one of Geoffrey Wingate's servants.

“Mr. Charles Dickens?”

“I am Dickens.”

“Mr. Wingate asked that I bring this letter to you and wait for your reply.”

He handed me an envelope. The letter inside had an embellishment at the top not unlike a family coat of arms and was written in a strong, slanted hand:

Dear Mr. Dickens,

I trust this note finds you well.

Mrs. Wingate and I were planning to attend the ballet on Thursday evening of this week. Unfortunately, I find that I have a pressing business engagement that must take precedence.

Amanda tells me that she enjoyed your company when you dined at our home and suggested that I ask whether you would be so kind as to accompany her to the ballet in my absence. Please advise my coachman of your availability. If you are able to attend, he will be at your service on Thursday evening.

Very truly yours,

Geoffrey Wingate

I knew at once that I would go.

It was not because I was a reporter for
The Evening Chronicle
with a professional interest in Geoffrey Wingate. Nor was it because I was engaged in the pursuit of justice on behalf of people who had been horribly wronged. I wanted to see Amanda Wingate again.

I wrote a note of acceptance and gave it to the coachman. He told me the time at which he would
come for me on Thursday. I waited through the next three days with anticipation, and on the evening of the ballet, rode in the carriage to Geoffrey Wingate's home with excitement and a bit of apprehension.

A servant met me at the door. Amanda came into view before I entered. She had a proud and willful demeanor that was inseparable from her beauty. Diamonds, bright and sparkling, hung round her neck. Her coat concealed the attire that lay beneath, but I knew by now that she had a love of display and was fond of silk and satin. She knew she was beautiful. How could she not? It was impossible for a woman to have more beauty.

We got in the carriage. Young men were lighting lamps in the street as we passed by.

“You are beginning to be famous,” Amanda said at the start of our conversation. “I have never known a man who had his words published before. And you have passion for the poor. I admire that.”

We talked of the need to treat people with respect regardless of their class. That the same qualities, good and bad, that are in the finest of lords are also found in England's least fortunate citizens.

When I think now of that night, it comes back to me as if in a dream. We ride past people who are closing their shops and returning to their homes from their daily work. Amanda looks more beautiful than I have seen her before. She is a treasure fit for a king. I know that she is to be looked at and on no account to be touched. But when we arrive at the Theatre Royal at Covent Garden, she steps from the carriage and puts her arm through mine.

A strange sensation sweeps through me. We enter the hall. Amanda removes her coat. She is dressed in lavender-coloured silk fashioned in a way that accentuates her charms and ensures that she will receive maximum admiration.

I walk with her down the aisle. She carries herself with grace, moving through the crowd as though she has been lifted onto a pedestal to be seen. All eyes are attracted as though there is a magnetic field about her. Elegant gentlemen and richly dressed ladies praise her beauty in whispers as we pass. She is enchanting and out of reach of ordinary mortals. Yet I am walking with her.

I have been to the ballet many times since then, but never free of that night. There was music and a great stage with people dancing upon it. Graceful figures twirled round and round in airy motion, spreading like expanding circles in water. It was a magical evening. I was immensely happy.

The theatre was well filled. At the end of the performance, the people poured cheerfully out. As we returned to the Wingate home in the carriage, I wished that the road could be stretched out to a hundred times its natural length.

“How did you and Geoffrey meet?” I asked.

“At a dinner party. I was nineteen at the time. We married a year later.”

I decided to probe a bit.

“Has his business changed since then?”

“I know that Geoffrey is a brilliant man of business, but I have no understanding of that world.”

I asked where she had been born and the circumstances of her earlier life. She deflected the questions
skillfully, as though it was a game she had played before. Finally, she said simply, “My way has been through paths that you will never tread. It would be of little interest to you, Mr. Dickens.”

“But it is.”

“Then it is none of your concern. No further inquiries are necessary.”

We returned to more harmonious conversation. I looked up at a star in the sky that was brighter than any of the others. Amanda's waist was made for an arm such as mine. Her face would be in my dreams.

The carriage arrived at Amanda's home. I escorted her to the door. And my heart sank.

I had not seen it earlier in the evening. Now I did and knew immediately what it was. A brooch fashioned in the shape of a rose was pinned to Amanda's coat. Red enamel on gold with a diamond in the center. Tiny pearls rimmed the edge of each petal.

“A lovely piece of jewelry,” I said.

“I'm glad you like it. Geoffrey gave it to me on the night that he proposed marriage.”

She wished me a good night and held out her hand with a dignified air. I kissed it.

“Your acquaintance is of great pleasure to me, Mr. Dickens. My coachman is at your service to take you home.”

My mind was filled with conflicting thoughts as the carriage made its way through the streets of London to my quarters. I knew that I should have one set of feelings, yet I felt another.

I had no way of knowing the extent to which Amanda was aware of her husband's conduct. Certainly, she did
not know of the brooch's provenance. She could not know, I told myself.

The carriage arrived at Furnival's Inn. I took uneasy notice of the shadows that protruded onto the street. Other men in Geoffrey Wingate's orbit had been struck down at night by a bullet in the head.

Once I was in my rooms, the fear passed, and I thought again of Amanda. She was temptation beyond reach. And yet . . .

I knew it was wrong. I knew that I should not allow it to happen. I whispered to myself that I must not think of such a thing. But I was falling in love with Amanda Wingate.

CHAPTER 8