by John Paulits
Title Page
THE MYSTERY OF CHARLES DICKENS
A Tale of Mesmerism and Murder
By
John Paulits
Publisher Information
First edition published in 2012
John Paulits © Copyright 2012
Digital edition converted and
Distributed in 2012 by
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The right of John Paulits to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.
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All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and not of MX Publishing.
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Dedication
To Kirk and Shirley
Prologue
Charles Dickens had been unwell for some time. Neuralgia on the left side of his face punished him with periods of utter misery. Kidney spasms, a nemesis since childhood, prostrated him on occasion. His left foot, often swollen and painful, made his daily twelve-mile walks a thing of the past. His left hand had begun to disobey his commands, and the sight in his left eye caused him concern. His public readings had caused a deterioration in his health impossible to counter, yet he bore up and continued working on The Mystery of Edwin Drood. He approached this book differently from his other books, however. For one thing, it would have only twelve monthly numbers rather than his usual twenty. In his contract for the book, he insisted on a clause detailing what monies would be returned to his publishers, Chapman and Hall, in the event he could not finish the book. He knew completing Drood involved a race against his own mortality.
June 6, 1870, a Monday. Dickens rises about seven, maintaining the rigid schedule he needs to give shape and meaning to his day. His work routine must run like clockwork or he cannot even begin his day’s writing. It is a lovely morning in Rochester, twenty-five miles southeast of London, as Dickens takes a morning tour of his Gad’s Hill home and grounds to assure himself everything is in its place. He breakfasts, then walks through the garden to the tunnel he has had constructed under the Rochester High Road. The tunnel leads to a piece of property he owns, where a Swiss chalet stands. His family calls his retreat “The Wilderness.”
The chalet is a small, two-story structure with an outside stairway given to him in 1864 as a Christmas gift (in fifty-eight boxes!) by Charles Fechter, a French-born actor and regular Sunday visitor to Gad’s Hill, and it is on the chalet’s second floor that Dickens writes in fair weather. Before settling in, though, he looks over his desk to be certain everything is in its place - the goose quill pens and his blue ink; sheets of blue-gray paper 8 ¾ inches by 7 ¼ inches; the bronze statue of two toads dueling; a small china monkey; a paper knife; a gilt leaf with a rabbit on it. These are the things his eye rests familiarly upon in moments of contemplation. His crystal carafe of water sits at his elbow. He sets to work.
Kate, his married daughter, is returning to London and, knowing her father’s distaste for farewells, originally plans to leave without seeing him. Such a cold good-bye does not feel right on this day, however. The night before, she had sat up late with her father and feels uneasy at a remark he made. In their conversation he said he hoped he would be able to finish his new book. Hoped. So, she makes her way through the garden tunnel to the chalet and climbs the staircase. Instead of his usual brief farewell, her father rises and embraces her. She leaves and Dickens returns to Edwin Drood.
Dickens follows his usual work schedule the next day, Tuesday. He writes until one then lunches in the main house. Instead of the accustomed three-hour-long walk he previously took in better days to fill up the time between his writing and dinner, he rides in a carriage to nearby Cobham Wood with his sister-in-law, Georgina Hogarth, and they take a much briefer walk.
The next day, the final day on which Dickens would ever write a word, he deviates from his schedule. He writes until one, but after lunch smokes a cigar in his study, no doubt contemplating where to take the plot of his story. Then he goes back to the chalet and writes through the afternoon until nearly five. He throws down his quill just after Datchery, a mysterious character newly introduced to the tale, learns something which pleases him to excess. Datchery marks a strange chalk tally on his door, orders a meal, and “falls to with an appetite.”
Dickens returns to the house, and though he feels ill, he writes two letters. In one letter he promises to see his correspondent, a Charles Kent, in London the next day at three - no doubt after a morning’s work. He writes, though, “If I can’t be - why, then I shan’t be.”
Only he and his sister-in-law, Georgina, dine at Gad's Hill that evening. When they come to the table, Georgina sees from his expression something is wrong. She asks whether he is ill. He says he is and has been for the past hour. He dismisses her suggestion of sending for Doctor Steele, the local doctor, saying he plans on traveling to London after dinner.
Then it happens.
Georgina watches him struggle with something sweeping over him. He speaks incoherently and indistinctly. She rises from her chair and goes to help him, saying he should lie down, but he is struggling, wavering, and he is too heavy for her.
“Yes,” he says. “On the ground.” He collapses.
Doctors are summoned, one local, Doctor Steele; one a friend, Dr. Frank Beard, who arrives from London; and one a noted physician also from London, Dr. Russell Reynolds, who arrives the next day. The prognosis of each is the same. He cannot live. Dickens lingers some twenty-four hours lying on a sofa brought into the dining room where he collapsed, his loud, heavy breathing no doubt chilling those who gather at his side hoping to see his eyes open, hoping to detect some movement, anything to indicate his return to them.
At six o’clock in the evening on the day after his collapse, Dickens’ breathing quiets. As the gathered mourners watch, a tear wells up in Dickens’ right eye and rolls gently down his cheek. He heaves a deep sigh and breathes no more.
And so history proclaims that on Thursday, June 9, 1870, England’s greatest novelist died of a cerebral hemorrhage. History is wrong. June 9, 1870 is the day on which Emile de la Rue murdered Charles Dickens.
How can I claim such a thing?
The following narrative is based primarily on two pieces of evidence I uncovered writing my own biography of Dickens. John Forster, Dickens’ best friend and first biographer, provided me with the initial inkling of this story when I went through some boxes of Forster’s original papers which, clearly, no one had inspected with any great care. The short manuscript I found told a story dictated to him by Dickens - a story which never made it into Forster’s biography. Perhaps Forster feared that including such a fantastic tale would damage his credibility. More likely, after Dickens’ death he had no way to corroborate the story's claims. At any rate, he kept it secret. The manuscript told
the story of the ghost which haunted both Augusta de la Rue and Charles Dickens.
I had no way to confirm the story either, so taking my cue from Forster, I left it out of my biography. But the shocking news in Forster’s notes ate at me - became a ghost to me also you might say. I began digging.
After a near twenty-month investigation, I managed to find a descendant of the de la Rues living in Italy - Genoa to be precise - a very old woman - a cousin, once removed, of a great-granddaughter. To make a long story short, she let me inspect her attic, home to the family records.
Beneath some moldering nineteenth century business documents, I found a diary kept by Emile de la Rue in flawless English, detailing his relationship with Charles Dickens.
De la Rue began the diary in 1844 on the day he first met Dickens in Italy and put it aside when Dickens left Italy in the late spring of 1845. The diary started up again in 1869 when de la Rue met Dickens in London at the Athenaeum Club and continued until Dickens’ death.
What Emile de la Rue wrote seemed impossible, but I knew he told the truth since not only did the diary confirm the information in Forster’s manuscript, it took the story to lengths unknown to Forster.
Everything you are going to read is based on de la Rue's diary, Forster’s suppressed notes, or my own research. It is quite a tale.
Chapter One
On Tuesday, July 20, 1869, John Forster sat at his desk. He was not a tall man though his bulk and round, jowly face gave him the illusion of being quite large. Opinionated, pugnacious, and sure of himself, Forster became the self-appointed, generally acknowledged keeper of the Dickens literary flame. He looked over his mail and saw an envelope with Charles Dickens’ handwriting. He opened it first. In part Dickens had written:
What should you think of the idea of a story beginning in this way? Two people, boy and girl, or very young, going apart from one another, pledged to be married after many years - at the end of the book. The interest to arise out of the tracing of their separate ways, and the impossibility of telling what will be done with that impending fate.
The note went on to say that Dickens expected to be in town Thursday and Friday. Thursday was “make up” day at the offices of All The Year Round, a weekly magazine Dickens edited, and Dickens always took the lead in putting the magazine together. Nothing went into the magazine without his specific approval and frequently his editorial re-writing. The note invited Forster to meet him at the Athenaeum for dinner on Thursday at six.
Forster reread the note. He thought Dickens’ intention to write another novel an encouraging sign. It had been some four years since the previous novel, a relatively unsuccessful one by Dickens’ standards. Our Mutual Friend had begun its nineteen-month run selling upwards of 35,000 monthly numbers but ended selling no more than 19,000. Though Forster reminded Dickens that 19,000 was still four times as many as Thackeray had ever sold for any book he had ever written, Dickens felt depressed. He subsequently launched himself on a killing regimen of public readings in America and England until his doctors forced him to stop, and Forster welcomed anything that would get Dickens to sit still and perhaps tend to his health.
The Athenaeum, located at 107 Pall Mall SW in London and founded in 1824, described itself as an “association of individuals known for their scientific and literary attainments, artists of eminence in any class of the fine arts and noblemen and gentlemen distinguished as liberal patrons of science, literature or the arts.” The club took itself very seriously, and Dickens loved being acknowledged as one of its most noted members.
Forster stood chatting with someone at the bottom of the twenty-three steps of the grand staircase when Dickens arrived as always in a bustle, his hat perched cockily on his head. It seemed he would let nothing - neither health nor high water - slow him down.
“John, John, how are you?” He shook Forster’s hand energetically.
“Fine, Charles. You look well.”
“I feel well. The foot is behaving itself, thank Heaven. I think I’ll walk tonight after we eat. Follow me.”
Dickens led the way up the stairs and through the hall to the coffee room. The gas-fed chandelier in the middle of the room was as yet unlit. He led Forster across the room to an empty table near a window overlooking Pall Mall, nodding at people as he went. How he loves to be seen, Forster thought.
When they were seated, Forster grinned and said, “You’ve left your yellow waistcoat back at Gad’s Hill, I hope.”
“Don’t mock me, John, or I’ll walk there right now and get it.”
Forster laughed. “I believe you would.”
“Red suits me, though, don’t you think?” Dickens patted himself on the chest.
They ordered and Dickens immediately asked, “What do you think of my idea, John?”
Forster had never been shy about giving Dickens his opinion of his ideas. Whether Dickens heeded Forster’s advice was another matter.
“I don’t see the uniqueness of it, to be honest. It echoes the Wilfer girl and Rokesmith in Friend.”
“No, no, no, John. You’re wrong. I can make it unique. I haven’t written a tale in, what, four years? I have ideas. Good ideas.”
Dickens changed the subject to his day at his Wellington Street North office. Forster knew Dickens did not want an argument from him. He wanted to be right. So
Forster listened with interest to the report of Dickens' day, interjecting questions and comments.
Suddenly, Dickens’ face went white. A stab of fear shot through Forster. Was Dickens having an attack? Dickens stared past Forster, over his shoulder. Forster turned. Two men in their sixties had newly entered the coffee room. Forster turned back to his companion.
“Do you know them?”
“One of them,” Dickens answered. “The clean-shaven one.”
Forster turned again. The man Dickens indicated had noticed him and stopped while his companion, unaware, continued on.
“He’s coming over, Charles,” Forster whispered.
The clean-shaven man dressed immaculately. No red waistcoat for him, however. He had chosen a deep and serious gray one to compliment his dark blue suit. For some reason he had not checked his stick and made of show of it as he approached Dickens’ table. Dickens rose and Forster followed suit. The man stood taller than Dickens - most men did - and with a slight backward movement of his head seemed to stare down his nose at Dickens. His wavy white hair seemed an appropriate crown for him.
“Charles,” the man said.
Dickens nodded curtly. “Emile.”
“It has been a long time.” The man spoke with a slight French accent.
“Yes, it has.”
“I presume you’ve heard about Augusta?”
“I heard she passed away a few years ago.”
Emile glanced down. “Yes.”
“It must have been a great relief to you,” Dickens said.
Forster looked at him. What the devil could Dickens mean by that he wondered?
Emile cocked his head. “I’m sorry?”
“Her passing must have been a relief from her sufferings. And yours.”
“Oh, I see. Yes, she had been ill for some time. The old malady, you know. There was no cure.”
At those words Dickens stared coldly at the man. The waiter arrived with his and Forster’s dinners.
“I see you are about to dine. I don’t wish to hold you back.”
“Nor I you,” Dickens replied. Emile had accompanied each of his sentences with a small smile. Dickens had yet to smile.
“Good evening, then.” Emile turned away and moved off to the other side of the room to rejoin his friend. Forster noticed Dickens and the man had foregone handshakes. “What in the world was that about?” Forster asked when he and Dickens resumed their seats. “Who in the world is that man?”
�
��He,” said Dickens with what seemed a misplaced intensity to Forster, “is Emile de la Rue. Kate and I met him and his wife, Augusta, twenty-five years ago in Genoa, the year we stayed in Italy.”
“Don’t I remember your writing me you did some of your hocus-pocus on the wife for some reason?”
Dickens eyes pierced Forster’s like white-hot pokers.
“Let’s eat, John.”
Forster knew Dickens would speak no more of de la Rue that night.
On Wednesday of the next week, Forster received another note from Dickens. It read in part:
...laid aside the fancy I told you of, and have a very curious and new idea for my new story. Not a communicable idea (or the interest of the book would be gone), but a very strong one, though difficult to work.
The rest of the note vacillated between Dickens’ certainty of the merits of the story and the difficulties he would encounter in bringing it to life. In a postscript Dickens asked Forster whether he would be able to come to Gad’s Hill for the weekend. He had something he wanted to discuss with him.
Forster immediately accepted Dickens’ invitation and wrote him so next day. Mulling over Dickens’ behavior at the Athenaeum and the conflicting tone of his latest note, Forster asked around the Athenaeum about the strange man, Emile de la Rue. Satisfied he had found out all he could, Forster took the train out of London to Rochester late Friday afternoon.
Dickens welcomed him to Gad’s Hill, and after dinner they sat with the Dickens women - daughters Kate, who had come down from London, and Mamie, and sister-in-law Georgina. The conversation after dinner centered around Dickens’ eldest son Charley and what a fine job he did helping out on All The Year Round since William Wills, the day-to-day editor of the magazine, took a leave to recuperate from a concussion received in a fall from a horse. The conversation then turned to Dickens’ youngest son, Henry, affectionately called “little Plorn” by the family. He had emigrated to Australia the previous September to join his brother Alfred. The family discussed his chances of succeeding as well as how much they missed him. Dickens made no mention of either de la Rue or his new story.