The Mystery of Charles Dickens

by John Paulits

  The next day, however, at the conclusion of lunch, Dickens said, "John, come with me to the chalet. I want to have a talk with you.”

  Something about the change in Dickens’ tone sent a tremor through Forster.

  “Certainly, Charles,” and he followed Dickens out into the garden and the riot of blooming geraniums - Dickens favorite flower and standard buttonhole when he stood upon a stage to read - through the tunnel and into the chalet.

  Chapter Two

  Dickens pointed to one of the two red sofas facing each other on the first floor of the chalet. Forster sat and watched Dickens circle the room, opening windows. Along with the sofas the first floor was furnished with two chairs, a bookcase, two wall mirrors and a long table against the wall holding some potted geraniums. A large, purple, oval rug covered most of the floor.

  Dickens approached Forster carrying a cigar box.

  “Cigar, John? I’d offer you a drink. You may need one soon, but it’s rather early in the day.”

  “Cigar is fine.” Forster never turned down one of Dickens’ Havanas, his standard cigar since his return from Italy twenty-five years before.

  Dickens replaced the box in the bookcase and returned to sit across from Forster. Both men took a few moments to attend to the lighting of their cigars. A long, low table sat between the two sofas, and on it were two glass ashtrays and a lone pot of geraniums.

  “Business first, John,” Dickens began. “As I wrote you, I’ve changed my mind about the topic of my new story.” He pulled strongly on his cigar, leaned his head back, and blew the smoke straight up. “I’m planning only twelve monthly parts...”

  “Twelve! Why not the usual twenty?”

  “John, let’s be truthful. You know I haven’t been well, and I want very much to complete this story. The day we dined was the last healthy day I’ve had. This past weekend I could barely move because of my accursed foot. I’ve half a mind to lop it off and be content with hobbling about pain-free. Sometimes when I look at signs on the street, I can only make out the right-hand side. The blood I lose...but you know all of this. Let’s not go over it again.” Forster knew of Dickens severe case of piles. “And my will is made.”

  Dickens had previously told Forster about his will, which he’d completed two months earlier.

  "If I can't finish this book, John, I want it in the contract with Chapman and Hall that you will arbitrate the amount of money to be returned to them. They're giving me seventy-five hundred pounds.”

  “Charles, what are you saying? Of course you’ll complete the book.”

  Dickens nodded absent-mindedly. “My new idea came to me when I saw that villain de la Rue.”

  “I thought as much. I’ve asked about him around the club.”

  “And?”

  "Seems he's newly in London and has taken up with Lord Allsgood. They met in Europe and de la Rue is here at his invitation. Allsgood has leased him one of his homes, The Kensington House. I think he means to stay in England.”

  “The man is a...a...scoundrel, John!” Brought up on and a life-long fan of the melodramatic theatre of his day, Dickens, in his momentary passion, could think of no term so damning as the one he used. “I know him, John. I know what he is and I know what he’s done, and I am going to reveal it to everyone by means of my book. I will expose his crime for all of England, for all the world, to see.”

  “Charles, be calm.” Forster rose, touched Dickens on the shoulder, paced a moment behind the sofa, and sat again. “You haven’t seen the man in years. You’re overwrought. What could he possibly...?”

  “What could he possibly? I’ve asked you here today because I want to tell you a story I’ve never shared with a soul, not even Ellen.” Ellen was Ellen Ternan, a young actress with whom Dickens had been close for many years since he had separated from his wife. “I will tell you what he did and then see whether you can tell me he should not be exposed.”

  With his right hand Forster gestured for Dickens to begin.

  “It began twenty-five years ago. Our first prolonged trip to the continent...”

  Charles Dickens, thirty-two years old in 1844, decided to leave England. It had been a trying year. He and his wife Catherine produced babies - expensive babies - at an alarming rate. His father continually contracted debts Dickens always paid off for him. He had brothers and sisters dependent on him. Money cascaded from him like a waterfall. A Christmas Carol, although a popular book, had been expensive to produce - Dickens insisted on color illustrations - and, although selling well this past Christmas, did not make the profit Dickens anticipated. His latest book, The Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, had been less than a success, and when it did not justify the advance given him by Chapman and Hall, Edward Hall inadvisably reminded Dickens of a penalty clause in their contract covering such an eventuality. Dickens became livid, insulted, and vengeful. In debt to Chapman and Hall for his unmet advance on Chuzzlewit, he worked out an agreement with Bradbury and Evans to be his new publishers. He took a large advance from them; paid off Chapman and Hall; rented out his Devonshire Terrace home to a widow; bought an immense old stage coach for forty-five pounds; and packed the family off to Italy, which had a far more reasonable cost of living than England. With a second Christmas book he planned to write, along with a travel book on his experiences in Italy, Dickens intended to come back home a solvent man.

  The enormous coach could fit twelve, the size of his traveling band, and came complete with some extraordinary contrivances - a multitude of storage compartments and a reading lamp chief among them. It required the services of four horses and, to control them, a postilion, who wore a pair of immense, spurred jack-boots and who had a propensity to cry, “En route - Hi!” whenever the carriage began to roll. The travelers consisted of Dickens, his wife Catherine, his seventeen-year-old sister-in-law Georgina, Catherine's maid Anne Brown, two other domestic servants, and the five children; Charley, Mary, Kate, Walter and baby Frank, known in the family as Chickenstalker. Charley, the eldest, was seven. The family dog Timber Doodle also went along.

  The twelfth member of the group was Louis Roche, a portly man and native of Avignon, who had the title “courier.” His responsibilities encompassed writing ahead to secure rooms for the Dickens entourage, negotiating their bills and, in general, smoothing the way. A glorified tour guide to start, in time he became a man Dickens could not do without. One of Roche’s more delicate jobs involved scheduling stops at inns or even along the countryside so the members of the entourage could answer calls of nature shouted out when necessity demanded.

  Roche led the merry travelers through Boulogne, Paris, Lyons, Avignon, Marseilles, and finally to Genoa, a destination Dickens chose after talking to his more well-traveled acquaintances.

  Angus Fletcher, a short, overweight sculptor who had made a bust of Dickens and with whom Dickens had traveled through the highlands of Scotland, now lived in Genoa, and Dickens turned to Fletcher when he needed to find a residence. Dickens did not like the idea of taking a place sight unseen for an entire year, so he instructed Fletcher to lease a place for the summer in Albaro, a suburb two miles outside of Genoa, highly recommended by his well-traveled friends, with an additional nine-month extension available at Dickens’ option. This caution would prove a wise move on Dickens’ part.

  Dickens was aghast at his first sight of Genoa. The crowded streets were grimy and reeked from unaccountable filth. The houses were dirty and randomly tumbled one atop another. The passages and byways of the city were more squalid and close than anything he ever encountered in London. The place smacked of nothing but dirt, discomfort, and decay. Outdoor vendors everywhere hawked lemons, oranges and even ice water. Nowhere did Dickens see the sunshine, brightness, and Italian glory he had expected.

  The coach continued the two miles out of Genoa to the suburb of Albaro. His villa lay in a sequestered spot approached by lanes s
o very narrow the coach had to be measured before attempting a passage. The postilion fortunately managed to keep the traverse through these passages more successful and dignified than that of an old woman Dickens heard of whose coach wedged itself so tightly into one of the lanes the poor woman had to submit to the indignity of being hauled through one of the coach’s little front windows like a traveling bag.

  Finally, the coach stopped in front of a rank, dull, weedy courtyard, and Dickens learned that this miserable looking spot, the Villa di Bella Vista, or more popularly Villa Bagnerella after Bagnerella, the nearby butcher and proprietor, would be his home.

  This place, too, filled Dickens with forlorn surprise, being as it seemed a citadel to ruin and neglect, and he felt immense relief knowing he had to spend no more than the three summer months in what he came to call the “pink jail.” The garden was a shambles, the house itself cold and uninviting. The staircase leading to the grand sala on the second floor was cracked and the furniture ponderous, immovable, and uncomfortable. Though commodious, the house seemed as grim and bare a place as Dickens had ever seen or conceived of despite the beautiful vista it provided, overlooking as it did the Bay of Genoa.

  Then they discovered the fleas. So many, in fact, poor Timber Doodle had to be shaved down to the skin to reduce his torment. In addition, swarms of mosquitoes kept the family in despair. Flies buzzed everywhere. Dozens of scrawny cats prowled the grounds keeping the rats, thankfully, at bay. Lizards and scorpions basked in the sun and frogs gave gravel-throated concerts nightly.

  The family settled in, though, and continued the Italian lessons they began in England while Dickens awaited the arrival of his writing gear - the desk knickknacks he needed before him as much as he needed pen, ink, and paper. While he waited, Dickens set out to find more suitable accommodations to move into as soon as his three months in Villa Bagnerello were up. Fletcher suggested Dickens speak with the same man he had spoken with when looking for a house in Albaro for Dickens - a Swiss banker by the name of Emile de la Rue.

  Chapter Three

  The family soon fell into a domestic routine. Barefoot townspeople appeared at the kitchen door every morning to sell fresh fruits and vegetables to the cook. The family ate breakfast at nine-thirty; dinner at four; bedtime around eleven. Charley, age seven, loved to take his brother Walter, age three, into the garden to watch the lizards scramble up the walls. Dickens added a piano to the house’s limited amenities, hoping to expand the activities available for his children. He adamantly insisted, though, the family would not spend a day more than necessary in decrepit Villa Bagnerella, so Fletcher and he went to see Emile de la Rue some two weeks into his stay just before eleven o’clock in the morning.

  Fletcher and Dickens negotiated the narrow pathways between the unkempt, overgrown villas of Albaro in a smaller carriage - riding a concession to Fletcher’s girth - and entered the city.

  “How are you getting on?” Fletcher asked.

  "The sooner my mind is resolved on a new place to live, my getting on will be much improved,” Dickens answered. Dickens saw the downcast look on Fletcher’s face.

  “No, no. Don’t misunderstand me, Angus. You performed marvelously and did just what I asked. The villa has a great many things to recommend it - the rampant grapevines; the aroma of the orange and lemon trees; the rose petals strewn everywhere; and the sight of the bay. Did you know there’s a path leading out through the garden and right down to the bay? And do you know the sea is actually visible from eleven different windows in the villa? The water is so blue! Why, I feel as if I could take a handful of that amazing blue, stare into it and have a great blue blank made of my intellect.”

  Fletcher smiled. “Not quite the thing for a novelist.”

  Dickens laughed. "There's only some editing and a Christmas book I need get done.” Dickens laughed again. “I should have taken you into the kitchen when you arrived today. It's a grand show hearing the village vegetable sellers making offers in Genoese and waving their arms about as if they're planning to stab anyone nearby and my servants answering loudly in English as if they think the sellers deaf rather than Italian.”

  Both men laughed at the image.

  When they neared the city, Dickens pointed to the sky with his right hand. "Look, Angus. Not an atom of smoke anywhere. Imagine breathing nothing but clean pure air for an entire year. I don't know whether my constitution will be up to it."

  They soon entered the city’s narrow streets, and Dickens looked around in silence at the poverty and the cracked buildings with peeling walls.

  “How could they ever allow the city to deteriorate like this, Angus?”

  Fletcher gave a shrug. “Politics. Lack of politics, leadership, guidance.”

  Dickens gazed in amazement at two naked children, a boy and a girl who looked about seven years old, playing with an old chair pulled from some vacated apartment. Watching the two children with an odd look of interest lay a gaunt, gray dog sprawled in a splash of shade. An old woman nearby, toothless and quite one of the ugliest creatures Dickens had ever seen - a hag straight from the brewing cauldrons of Macbeth, he later told his wife - shook her fist at him, and disappeared up an alley strewn with filth and garbage from the surrounding houses.

  Dickens looked at Fletcher, who merely shrugged.

  “Does every country have conditions like this?” Dickens asked, not expecting an answer. “I thought it might only be London. Good lord, Angus, look at them.”

  Three blind beggars were lolling in the shade taking turns crying out for alms. As Dickens and Fletcher drove by, a strong looking man without legs on a little go-cart joined the beggars. Dickens stared a moment and began to laugh. Fletcher looked at him in puzzlement.

  "The legless man," Dickens pointed, shaking his head in mirth. "He looks as if he has sunk into the ground up to his middle, or has come part way up a flight of cellar steps to speak to somebody."

  "Really, Charles," Fletcher chided.

  Dickens wiped his eye and shook his head. "Sorry, Angus. Can't help it. It's the way my mind works. Oh," Dickens said, shaking and composing himself. "At any rate, how did you meet this de la Rue?”

  “Through his wife. She’s English. Augusta Spencer was her name. Someone introduced me to her in London some years ago, and we happened upon each other again here. They entertain, the de la Rues, and knowing I live here, she offered an invitation. Dropping your name and our Scottish adventures into the conversation didn't hurt, either.”

  Dickens rolled his eyes. “And him? What do you know about him?”

  Fletcher took a breath. Dickens had been the same way on their tour of Scotland. Question after question. Wanting to know everything about everything.

  “From a very rich family. Banking, you know. I heard he was quite the roué in his younger days. He’s, I believe, thirty-seven, thirty-eight now. Wife’s some ten years younger. Quite lovely. You’ll like her.”

  They had reached the Via de Campe and turned right. Suddenly, the air filled with the jangling of church bells.

  “I never saw a city so in love with its bells,” Dickens remarked with some asperity. He detested unnecessary noise, especially when working. “When I begin my story, I’m going to have to pause for five minutes every hour to compose myself after these dingling eruptions.”

  “We are in a city of churches, Charles,” Fletcher explained.

  “I know. I know.”

  The offices of the de la Rue banking interests were in a building mid-block. Fletcher led Dickens into the building and smiled at Dickens’ amazement at seeing a bakery operating on the ground floor even though he had already commented to Dickens that Genoa was a city of noble residences crammed with miscellaneous occupants. The two men climbed the stairs to the second floor. Fletcher led the way into a large office lined with bookcases and wooden desks full of file drawers.

  "Mons
ieur de la Rue is expecting us," Fletcher said in Italian to a young man seated at a small desk near the open window.

  The young man rose and entered another door. In a moment he returned and told Dickens and Fletcher to go in.

  A tall, handsome man neatly dressed in a trim gray suit, gray waistcoat, and white shirt sat behind an enormous desk. He smoothed his black hair, rose, and smiled.

  “Ah, Angus.”

  “Emile, this is Charles Dickens. Charles, Emile de la Rue.”

  De la Rue circled his desk and extended his hand toward Dickens.

  In French-accented English he welcomed his famous visitor. "Mr. Dickens, this is indeed an honor. Your name is known throughout all of Italy.”

  Dickens accepted the compliment with a smile and shook de la Rue’s hand. “Thank you. You’re very kind.”

  “Sit, please.”

  De la Rue motioned his guests to two starkly upright red leather chairs. He pulled a third over and completed the circle.

  “I understand from Angus you are looking for new accommodations.”

  "Yes, Villa Bagnerello is quite lovely, but I don't believe it will be suitable for the colder weather.”

  “It is a shame you did not take the Doria Palace I first suggested to Angus. It is a magnificent home and only six miles from Genoa. I could have gotten it for you for forty pounds a year.”

  "That is my fault," Dickens explained, silently aggravated at the one-hundred-sixty-pounds-a year rate he paid for his current villa. "Angus followed my directions exactly. Friends in England told me Albaro was a beautiful spot. And it is. However, as I said, I’d prefer another place when colder weather sets in.”

  De la Rue smiled. “Yes, yes. I understand. I have many friends here in Genoa, and I will ask among them for you. I’m certain I can find something that will accommodate you. You have quite a large family group, I believe.”