by Andy Conway
Dickens stormed off to the window that looked out onto the street. He wanted to walk out and go hide in that hotel room, or walk a hundred miles or all the way back to London, but he was trapped. Trapped in this absurd trading post masquerading as an art gallery. Trapped in a business charade with this vile old miser. Trapped in his worst nightmare.
No, not the worst. Young Master Green reaching out for him in his dreams. Those pleading eyes. Don’t leave me here in this hell. Save me from this. Always that boy’s eyes haunting him, and waking with the guilt that he would gladly stamp on his face to escape the dirt of that place.
He would grin and do business with that vile miser so he didn’t fall back into the dirt.
A bustling behind him. He put on a fake, sickly smile and turned to Mrs Jowett and the snake she called a brother. A manservant struggled behind her carrying a pile of boxes tucked under both arms and piled right up to his chin.
“Mr... ahem, Huffam,” Mrs Jowett said. “I understand you are to attend the Harlequinade at our Theatre Royal today. There is a special young lady who has been a charitable case of mine her whole life who is largely responsible.”
The girl who’d chased him down New Street. Pretty, with dark eyes. She had said she’d written the play. “How charming,” Dickens said.
Mrs Jowett gazed out at the street, as if someone were calling her name. Charles wondered what tragedy had recently befallen her. It was the unmistakable distraction of a woman in deep shock. She squeezed Dickens’ hand, like a mourner at a funeral. He bowed and she bustled out with her manservant tottering behind, bearing the full weight of her generosity.
Swingeford seemed in an even blacker mood than before, if that was possible in one so thoroughly and utterly disagreeable, and Dickens wondered at the family matter he’d discussed with his sister. Yes, he was quite certain now: whatever it was they’d discussed, it was quite tragic.
— 15 —
TIM CRATCHIT DASHED across New Street and scuttled into Peck Lane, taking the tumble down to the Froggery, away from fancy New Street with its toffs walking up and down in their fine clothes. Fury burned in his chest and in his fists. The impotent fury of rejection. Blast Swingeford and blast the man who couldn’t be called Dickens. No, Dickens. He was Dickens. No more lies. Blast Dickens. And blast father too. Blast them all!
He shuddered against the bitter cold and shoved his black fingers into his pockets as he walked, his breath a cloud before him. It was going to snow. Sometimes you could tell, like you could taste it in the air.
He passed the old synagogue and the crooked lane that was actually called The Froggery, even though everyone called the whole neighbourhood hereabouts the same name, which was curious, as if the area had only started with that single crooked street and grown outwards till it covered a few acres.
He trudged down the hill and crossed Queen Street, looking right to spy the back of the theatre through the murk at the top there. He was going there with his pa tonight: the stupid Harlequinade for the poor children. He spat as he crossed the street and hurried on down to where Peck Lane and Pinfold Street emptied out. The bottom of the world. The bottom of the midden. And there, right at the bottom of it all, a chapel and a prison.
He stood by the door of the Connexion chapel. His mother would be in there, washing the floors and cleaning out the chamber pots for Mrs Jowett. And when she was done with that she’d trudge home to the Cratchit hovel and do the same again for all of them.
He fingered his collar and felt the frayed edge where it was torn. Slogger Pike had ripped it and his mother would sigh and patiently stitch it tonight, her poor eyes straining by the candlelight. Tomorrow would be Christmas and they would eat a turkey the size of a pigeon with some scraps of vegetables scrounged from the market and all pronounce it a feast fit for a king.
He choked and gagged on the ball of pain lodged in his throat.
Damn Swingeford and Dickens and damn his father, and damn himself too for being a Cratchit. He’d rather burn down their house than sing I Saw Three Ships again and say God bless us, every one.
Across the street, the brooding presence of the Dungeon, with the spikes above the gate and the roof tiles all hanging off, holes and rafters exposed. An old prison, long abandoned. Slogger Pike and his gang were in there. It belonged to them, until such time as the toffs bothered to come down this way and raze it to the ground.
Slogger Pike had murdered the moneylender Marley eight years ago this Christmas Eve. Everyone said so. The old money lender had his skull beaten in and no one mourned him. Not a single person. No one had told the police anything and they couldn’t pin it on Slogger Pike. They said Marley’s face had been smashed in so brutally his jaw had detached from his skull and flopped down onto his chest. A horrible sight, the housemaid had said. The story had spread all over the Froggery within an hour. And still they talked about it.
Eight years ago tonight.
As Tim Cratchit was being born. The strange coincidence of it all: Tim had taken his first breath as Marley breathed his last.
He tried to imagine the Slogger Pike he knew doing that to a man. Could he be so brutal? Or had he let the rumours spread just so people would think he’d do that to them too if he wanted?
Slogger Pike answered to no man, they said. Whereas Bob Cratchit slogged his guts out for men like Swingeford and crept around like a kicked dog all his life. In this world, one needed to be like Mr Swingeford, or like Slogger Pike. Though they were at opposite ends of society, they were the same. They took what they wanted and damn and blast and hang everyone else.
He thought he could still smell the stench of Slogger Pike’s saveloy breath. You find out what you can about that money, you hear? You tell me everything. He dug into his pocket and pulled out the shiny half farthing. He could walk right across the street and tell Slogger Pike all about the business deal. The wad of money. Pike expected it. But he didn’t have to tell him that the money was in the drawer in the hotel room. He could tell him the fat man from London had handed the money to Swingeford and it was all now locked safely away. He could tell him Swingeford had walked across the street to deposit the cash at Atwood & Spooner’s bank.
It would be the easiest lie in the world. He looked up at the roundel window of the chapel tower, high above, a crick in his neck. It would be the whitest lie too. A good lie.
His mother was inside. He could knock this door and she would hustle him inside if Mrs Jowett was away and feed him some scraps from her kitchen, fold him in her warm embrace.
He stepped into the gutter, crossed the street to the Dungeon and rapped on the great wooden door.
— 16 —
THERE WAS A SOUND RAP against the theatre’s back door and Mrs Hudson went to answer it to find it half open. The broad figure of Mr Fezzwig, the landlord of the Hen & Chickens Hotel, stood there, brandishing his cane. This was how gentlemen knocked a door, she thought, by rapping on it with their cane.
“Oh, hello, Mr Fezziwig.”
“Fezzwig, my dear. Mrs Hudson, isn’t it?”
“That’s right. Belle is engaged in preparing the stage for this afternoon’s performance.”
Mr Fezzwig held out his arms. “To whit, I am here.”
A startled moment before she realized. “Oh, you’re part of the cast?”
“A minor star of the Harlequinade for the past eight years,” he purred.
“Come in, come in.” She stepped aside for his massive frame.
Another voice called. Footsteps running. “Hilly ho!”
A gentleman in a vivid red flowery waistcoat and sleek white hair that poked out from under his top hat.
“Mr Wilber. Well met,” said Fezzwig. “Allow me to introduce Mrs Hudson. She is the long lost aunt of our dear Miss Belle.”
Mr Wilber bowed and swept his hat off his head. “An honour, madam. And what a fortunate turn of events. A long lost aunt!”
“Sadly, without a fortune to bestow,” Mrs Hudson smiled. “Alas, this is not one of Mr Charles Dicke
ns’ novels.”
The two men roared with laughter.
Another half dozen men and a few women came running up to the door. A happy band of amateur actors. Fezzwig introduced them all to her and to Fred in a blur of greetings — there was Mrs Magwitch, Master Pocket, Miss Peggotty, Mr Heep and Mr Jarndyce and few others whose names she didn’t catch. They filed inside and through to the stage area, all lit up and golden.
“Oh, I say!” Fezzwig roared. “It stirs my heart every time I see it. Such grandeur.”
Belle rushed to greet them all with delight, her careworn frown disappearing. She looked so beautiful and radiant, so happy. Mrs Hudson looked to Fred and it was there all over his face. He saw it too. He was in love with her. It was impossible not to be. Everyone here was a little bit in love with her.
Mrs Hudson walked to the edge of the stage to look out at the vast auditorium, rows of plush crimson seats, the gilded boxes that lined the upper tier, elegant filigree decoration along the columns and the cut glass chandeliers hanging from the ornate ceiling.
Was it right to intervene and deny Fred that love? Deny Belle too? Who was she to decide they shouldn’t be together? Perhaps this was why Fred had been called here. Mrs Hudson was here for Dickens, she was sure, but what was that to do with Fred Smith? Perhaps he had his own purpose and it was Belle who’d called to him through a hundred years.
And who was to say that there was any purpose to any of this? This gift, this curse, might all be just a random accident, a timeslip, a cosmic joke. A wormhole opened up and swallowed some poor victim who found themselves one of Time’s laughingstocks.
Fred came to her side and looked out at the auditorium. “It’s rather grand, isn’t it?”
“The same in your time?” she whispered.
“Not quite as grand as this. Imagine being able to live here.”
“And then imagine being cast out,” she said.
Fred frowned and looked back at Belle surrounded by her excited amateur cast. They were already going through their parts and strolling the boards, making last minute adjustments to the performance they had no doubt rehearsed already.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. Everything will be all right. I’m sure of it.”
Other voices called from the back of the auditorium. The front of house was opening.
“Mr Aldridge will be here any moment now!” Belle announced.
There was a squeal of excitement amongst the entire cast and they marched up one of the aisles and through to the front of house. Mrs Hudson and Fred followed, through a ballroom space, a bar to one side and a coffee house to the other, both of which were opening for business.
Belle threw open the doors to New Street and the cast piled out.
A coach pulled up and two people emerged. A black man dressed in the finest clothes leapt out and gave his arm to a white woman who stepped down and remained on his arm.
For an instant, Mrs Hudson thought he might be her servant, but she dismissed the thought. He was too well dressed, too sure of himself, too regal. He was the centre of attention and he knew it.
“Mr Aldridge!” Belle cried, rushing to greet him.
“Miss Ruth! I am here!” he said in a rich, American accent.
Ira Aldridge greeted Belle and the cast, but he was also greeting the street, as if he might take the entirety of New Street into his embrace, and it seemed the entire street reacted to his presence. A buzz of energy crackled about him. Everyone turned from what they were doing and rushed to greet him.
“Mr Aldridge!” ladies cried.
“It’s Ira Aldridge!” gentlemen called.
“The African Roscius!”
Ira Aldridge leapt up to the coachman’s seat and clambered effortlessly onto the roof of the coach, arms aloft on his makeshift stage. The entire street applauded, as if the curtain had just opened on his greatest performance.
A throng formed around the theatre in seconds and the street was blocked. The coaches and carts that could not get past did not mind. The drivers stood on their mounts and grinned from ear to ear. Passengers in those carriages stuck their heads out and craned to get a better view. Even the horses seemed to nod their heads and flick their manes in approval.
“Dear people of Birmingham,” he called in a deep, sonorous voice. “The African Roscius has returned to the town that forged his fame! It was fourteen years ago almost to the day that I first trod the boards right here. I gave you The Slave and Othello and you, the good people of this fine town, took me to your hearts!”
“Bravo!” came the cries.
“And today I return, to wish you all the greetings of the season!”
“Happy Christmas!” they cried.
“Good tidings!”
“But I’ve not merely come to wish you a season’s greetings, good people of Birmingham!” Ira Aldridge continued. “I have come to tread the boards once more at the Theatre Royal for the grand Christmas Harlequinade, today at four!”
The street erupted, hats were thrown into the air and it seemed that the Christmas spirit had well and truly landed on New Street with a colossal bump.
Across the street, Mrs Hudson spied two figures watching the scene: Charles Dickens and his business manager, the large chap, John Forster.
Again, she was startled that it wasn’t the Dickens she expected at all. But of course not. This was 1842, and the Dickens in her head was much later. This was the young man. He didn’t have the wiry goatee and the careworn face marked with a criss-cross of wrinkles like an old paper bag. This wasn’t the Dickens of popular imagination, the Dickens on the ten pound note — not at all — this was a young man with a smooth face, lively blue eyes and long hair, sleek and black, that flowed around his collar. He was just starting out in the world but he had already made his name, and already thought he had failed and his star had waned, his work was done. How odd that this Charles Dickens hadn’t yet written A Christmas Carol, or Great Expectations, Hard Times, A Tale of Two Cities, Bleak House, David Copperfield. All of these were yet to tumble from his mind onto the page.
She edged around the crowd as Ira Aldridge jumped from the coach and was mobbed by his adoring public. She hurried over the street, pushing through the fringe of the mob.
“Mr Dickens. How lovely to meet you.”
Forster stepped in front of her. “Now, now, madam, let’s not continue that nonsense—”
But Charles Dickens shrugged him off. “How delightful to make your acquaintance.”
“Mrs Hudson.”
Charles Dickens took her in, but he couldn’t help looking over her shoulder to the scene across the street. There was a sickly grin. It was jealousy, plain and simple.
“And you’re here to witness Mr Aldridge. How lucky for you. Such a star. Getting all the attention.”
“Yes, quite.”
“His fame burns so bright, and he will be the talk of the town tonight when he steps on stage.”
“Law, really? I’d no idea his fame extended beyond the London stage.”
Dickens’ voice was thick, as if he had a speech impediment of some kind — as if he had just finished eating cake and was yet to wash it down. And while he spoke in a formal manner, was there just a trace of cockney about it?
“Oh yes,” Mrs Hudson said. “He’s quite the star here, as you can see. Worshipped. Adored. Eclipsing all others.”
Dickens’ sickly grin became a sneer.
“You’ll be seeing the performance this afternoon, I hear?”
“Well, yes, I’m to write a review.”
“Wouldn’t it be so much better for you to come and meet with Mr Aldridge and the cast, and the very talented lady who runs the place?”
“I’m afraid that wouldn’t be seemly,” Dickens said. “A reviewer needs to maintain a degree of autonomy, you see. It wouldn’t do for a theatre critic to let it be known he was present. With my fame, that has proved far too difficult a task.”
The fat man with him sighed at this.
“Oh, nonsense!” said Mrs Hudson. “I imagine everyone would be thrilled to meet the famous author. I imagine most people don’t even know you’re here in our town. They might go as wild as they have for Mr Aldridge here. Of course, it might be that you wish to remain in obscurity?”
“No, not at all,” said Dickens. “There’s no reason at all to skulk around pretending I’m not here.”
“Charles. I mean, John,” Forster hissed. “We agreed!”
“Oh, nonsense,” Dickens said. “Come, Mrs Hudson. You must introduce me to Mr Aldridge and all your theatre friends right this minute.”
He was already crossing the street. Forster groaned in despair. Mrs Hudson gave him her best smile and hurried after the author.
— 17 —
MRS HUDSON FOLLOWED Dickens through the mob surrounding Ira Aldridge.
“Charles Dickens,” the author said as he greeted him warmly with a handshake. “How very pleased I am to meet you, Mr Aldridge.”
And it was as if he’d let off a grenade in the street. The mob, already at hysteria pitch, howled with delight.
“Dickens!”
“It’s Charles Dickens!”
“Here! In Birmingham!”
“Dear Boz!”
“My niece said it was so. She saw him at the station this morning. I didn’t believe her!”
Dickens waved to the crowd and climbed up on the coach to a roar of acclaim.
John Forster held his face in his palm.
“How wonderful it is to be here in this fine town again!” he cried. “Like Mr Aldridge, I have been here many times before. You might remember how fondly I wrote of it in The Pickwick Papers?”
“Yes!”
“Bravo!”
“Well said!”
“And may I say how wonderful it is to see that the people of this fine town still observe the season and that there is a veritable buzz of festivity about the place.”
New Street crackled with applause and then there were cries of delight as snowflakes began to drift down from the leaden sky.