by John Paulits
De la Rue’s behavior lit a vengeful fire inside Dickens. He immediately decided he would not spend another night under this accursed roof, but before he left he would confront Emile de la Rue.
Chapter Twelve
After Dickens sufficiently digested what he had heard and plotted his coming behavior, he awoke Augusta de la Rue.
Her eyes fluttered open, clear, blue, and lovely as always.
"How do you feel?" Dickens asked, his voice calm, his emotions now under control.
She smiled. "I feel fine, Charles. Fine."
"We've made wonderful progress since Christmas."
"All because of you." She moved her hand to Dickens' arm. "Thank you."
Dickens averted his eyes and stood. "I'll be going back to the Peschiere shortly."
"You're not staying with us tonight?"
Dickens shook his head. "I’d planned to but I have things I must do before we leave tomorrow. And Kate would like me home."
"Ah." Augusta looked away momentarily.
"I'll gather my things, but I do want to speak with Emile before I leave. I want him to know I appreciate what he's done."
"Of course."
Dickens went to his bedroom and packed the few things he had brought with him from the Peschiere.
Emile de la Rue returned home moments before the call to lunch, forcing Dickens to dine with Monsieur and Madame de la Rue. The conversation revolved around Dickens' imminent departure and common memories the three had established over the past year. The nearer lunch came to an end - the nearer the time for him to confront de la Rue - the greater rose Dickens’ righteous anger within him. Finally, the servant cleared the dishes.
Emile complimented his wife. "You look wonderful, darling. The day is beautiful. Why don't we walk down to the water after seeing Charles home?"
"I'd like to speak with you, Emile. Alone," Dickens interrupted.
"I’ll walk by myself a while." Augusta rose and touched her husband's shoulder. "Meet me outside the church when you finish. Half-an-hour?"
De la Rue walked his wife to the apartment door and saw her out.
"Now, what is it Charles?"
Dickens remained standing and fixed his eyes on de la Rue, who settled comfortably in a chair. He crossed his legs and threw an arm leisurely across the back of the chair.
"I told you - and you know from your wife herself - that a phantom haunts her dreams. This phantom is the cause of all her ill health."
De la Rue listened attentively.
"I've discovered the source of those dreams and the identity of this phantom."
"Go on." De la Rue uncrossed his legs, resettled himself in the chair, and crossed his legs again.
Dickens' eyes bored fearlessly into Emile's. "The disappearance of this young man, Rodney Dowd, was no accident."
"What do you mean?" Except for his eyes narrowing, Emile did not move.
"Augusta saw the ruby and diamond ring in your possession, Emile. You dropped it momentarily on the floor beneath the dresser in her brother's room, where you stayed. Surely you recall. It isn't likely you'd forget such a thing. Your wife saw it lying there on the evening of the...murder."
De la Rue's lips tightened and he crossed his arms over his chest.
"She saw the ring in your room and deep within her she knows the only way the ring could have come into your possession was if you'd taken it from the young man himself, which you did when, in some manner known only to you, you made away with him."
"Why would I want...?"
"Emile! Don't insult me and degrade yourself even more in my eyes than you have already. You knew the young man planned to propose to Augusta. You overheard the conversation the night before between Augusta and her brother. The two young men never argued. You were afraid she would accept the young man. Because of your love for her..." Dickens voice dripped sarcasm. "...because of your love for her, I say, you wanted to be certain he never had that chance. You wanted to be certain you were her only suitor."
De la Rue rose from his chair and walked toward a table against the wall. He opened a drawer.
Dickens tensed.
De la Rue extracted a cigar. He walked calmly back to his chair and fussed with his cigar before lighting it.
Dickens' detestation of the man bubbled over.
"Having seen the ring, Augusta knew what you had done but did nothing about it, and because she did nothing you went unpunished. The punishment for your act, Emile, has fallen on her. Her brother has been lost to her, and she is now burdened with this terrible affliction, which I hope to God I have been able to cure. She protected you - heaven knows why - and she has been suffering the consequences of her decision for all of these long years."
De la Rue blew a mouthful of smoke in Dickens' direction.
"I don't believe you," he said, looking straight at Dickens. "My wife has never intimated any knowledge remotely like what you have described."
"Your wife cannot allow herself to acknowledge such an act on your part. She cannot have such an understanding be a part of her daily consciousness. I fear it would kill her if she were forced to acknowledge it. If I were to tell her now what I know to be true, she would deny it out of sheer necessity - her necessity to survive, but the understanding is within her. It causes her dreams. It is embodied in this phantom. The phantom is you, Emile. You." Dickens’ voice rose. "You haunt your wife's dreams, terrorizing her, ravaging her mind and her health. You. You." Dickens pointed at de la Rue, his right hand shaking with fury, his righteous and unshakable moral certainty meeting head-on with De la Rue's arrogant and unshakable certainty that nothing could weaken his wife's attachment to him.
De la Rue drew in another mouthful of smoke and held it, gazing scornfully at Dickens the while. He exhaled and said, "Your possessing such knowledge leaves you where, Charles? Augusta has been a true and faithful wife all these years. We love each other. We enjoy each other. And she is - except for her occasional attacks - a happy woman. We do not have a marriage like some - full of suspicion...and boredom."
Dickens knew Emile referred to him and Kate and restrained himself from leaping on the man.
"Except for her occasional attacks?" Dickens shot back angrily. "You have caused these attacks. You are the source of these attacks. Do not sit there and act as if your wife's attacks are but a small price to pay to possess the likes of you! You talk as if you were some rare and precious prize. What you have done is to destroy the woman's peace of mind, her health, and her stability."
"I have gained a beautiful, charming, loyal woman. How many of us can say the same?"
Dickens took a step forward but de la Rue merely smiled.
"Charles, Augusta is waiting. Let's meet her. We will walk you home, and then you and I will never have to see one another again."
Dickens started for the door, his mind full of curses aching to explode into de la Rue's ears. He spun about. "You, sir, are a despicable, degraded monster. A murderer without the morality of a common dog. No animal in its most predatory moment would behave in a like manner to you. I want you to live the rest of your life with my opinion of you ringing in your ears. You are filth, Emile. Filth. Something any respectable man would wipe from his boots. Stay here. I will go and say good-bye to your wife and tell her you will be along directly. We will never see one another again because I refuse to let my eyes rest upon the sight of you.” Dickens spun back toward the door. He took a few steps, paused, and slowly turned back to de la Rue.
"Someday, somehow, Emile, I will find a way to reveal your crime to the world. I promise you this. One day the world will know you for the despicable murderer you are. As the Almighty is my witness, I promise you this." He turned away and left the room.
He bolted down the stairs to the street and strode off in the direction of the church. Augusta
de la Rue paced patiently in the bright sunshine before the church when Dickens arrived. She smiled a greeting. "Where is Emile?"
Dickens responded with as cheery a greeting as he could muster. "He will be along directly. I didn't want to wait. I must be getting back home. But, Augusta, I want to wish you well and farewell. If ever you need a friend, a councilor, you may depend on me. Write. Let me know how you are. I hope and pray you will be well."
"I know I will be, Charles. And, again, all thanks to you."
They clasped hands a moment, and Dickens walked off toward the Peschiere.
Dickens and his family were back in London in his Devonshire Terrace home in early July 1845. Over the next few years Dickens received occasional letters, penned by Emile de la Rue but written clearly at his wife's urging. She was well; her attacks infrequent; her gratitude eternal. Gradually, though, the letters dropped off and finally ceased altogether, and Dickens had no further contact with the de la Rues until the evening in the Athenaeum Club when Emile de la Rue had boldly approached Dickens' table.
Dickens rose and stared from a window for a brief spell. He turned to Forster and said, "And so what do you think, John? Madame de la Rue showed dreadful judgment in that one moment, but she was a girl then of barely eighteen. What a shock it must have been. How confusing and overwhelming for her. The time for action, for her speaking out, passed quickly, and soon it was too late. She was engaged to the man.
"But it is he, John, he who is the villain in all of this. A murderer. The cause of his wife's every distress." Dickens threw himself back into his chair and vaulted onward not giving Forster time to respond.
"I will have him now, John. I had no way to touch him back in Genoa out of consideration for his wife; the truth, I know, would have killed her. And what proof could I offer? No legal authority anywhere would have accepted the seemingly mad dreams of a woman as evidence of a murder ten years in the past, but what she dreamed was the truth, John; truth she buried as deep as human heart can bury anything. But Augusta is gone. She can be hurt no longer, so there is nothing to stop me any longer from unmasking the man she married. I have an obligation to do so."
"What are you planning?" Forster said, knowing it had something to do with the story Dickens had proposed.
"I will exact vengeance through my story. I will put his crime into my story. I will taunt him with details only he will recognize. He will know the end of his great game is coming and will be unable to stop it. I will make him suffer as he made her suffer."
"Charles, it is hardly good for your health to get so worked up."
"My health be damned," Dickens growled. "I will taunt him in my story and in the final episode I will state it right out - just as Hamlet does before Claudius."
The smile on Dickens' face - a smile that burned rather than beamed - chilled Forster.
"This murder was done in the fashion of a murder committed in Rome in 1834, and the name of the murderer is Emile de la Rue!"
The two men sat in silence for a moment.
"Let's return to the house, John. There is plenty of time before dinner for a drink, and I think I would like one."
Forster, unable to form a suitable response and knowing any response other than total agreement with Dickens would be ignored anyway, agreed. It was long past time for a drink.
Chapter Thirteen
March 3, 1870. Despite his failing health Charles Dickens remained as busy as ever. He submitted himself to the weekly grind of editing All The Year Round even as he composed the fourth number of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, whose first number would not be published until March 31, as well as undertaking a series of twelve public readings from his works. A year earlier Dickens' doctors, Frank Beard and Thomas Watson, had forbidden the continuation of a tour of readings, convinced the struggle to summon the energy he expended during these readings was literally killing him. Dickens had no choice but to comply with their demand, but a few months later, much improved and feeling guilty for Chappell and Company's - the tour sponsor - financial loss when the readings were canceled, he petitioned his doctors to allow him a final series of farewell readings. They agreed, albeit with a number of demands: he must wait until the new year began and read no more than a dozen times, and all the readings must take place in London at Saint James Hall with Dr. Beard in attendance. Dickens did not mind the prescription against railway travel, which had become a terror and torment to him since nearly losing his life in the horrific Staplehurst train derailment in 1865. The car he rode in was the first car not to go plunging down a deadly embankment. They finally settled on two readings per week in the second half of January and one per week on Tuesdays in February and March.
Dickens had closed Gad's Hill in early 1870 and, along with daughter Mamie and sister-in-law Georgina, taken lodgings in London at 5 Hyde Park Place through May to eliminate the need for any travel whatsoever. Now only two readings remained, March 8 and March 15, and he discussed these final appearances with John Forster as the two men walked down Oxford Street.
"You should give up that one selection, Charles," Forster advised. "You know you must."
"It's my best piece of material. You know it is," Dickens mimicked with a smile.
"Best piece or not, Sikes killing Nancy on stage... you know what you're like after that reading."
The two men were silent. They both knew what Dickens was like after any of his readings, especially the one he had drawn from The Adventures of Oliver Twist. He would lie prostrate on his dressing room sofa, his pulse racing as high as 125, Dr. Beard at his side ministering to him, Charley his son, Ellen his mistress, his daughters Mamie and Kate hovering near, full of concern.
"There are only two left before I disappear from the stage forever. But, John, there's nothing in the world equal to seeing the house rise at you, one sea of delighted faces, one hurrah of applause! I will miss my creations. I will miss it all," he said softly.
“Beard has told Charley he won’t be responsible if you simply drop down dead during a performance."
Dickens chuckled. "I don't think it likely, John. Next Tuesday I will read from Twist one last time. My final readings will be the Carol and the trial from Pickwick."
Although Forster counted arguing as one of his greatest talents, he knew better than to argue with Dickens.
Dickens pointed. "Look. There's Iron-headed Polly." Iron-headed Polly was one of London's ubiquitous costermongers. Penny pork pies were Polly's specialty. Polly had come by her name when another costermonger tried to commandeer her corner at Oxford and Baker Streets and a battle ensued. The enemy had whacked Polly across the head with an iron pot to little effect. Polly then snatched the pot from the man's hand and delivered him a sound thrashing with it. Disputes over the proprietorship of the corner ceased forevermore.
"Two today, Polly," said Dickens. "Business is going well for you, I hope."
"Very 'ard livin' on what I has live on, Mr. D." She wrapped two pies and handed them to Dickens, who would take them to his office. She grinned. "But's allus good to sells to you, Mr. D." She knew Dickens would no more leave her with a mere two pence than he would steal the pies from her.
Dickens took a shilling from his pocket and handed it to the ragged woman.
"You make the best pies in London, Polly."
The woman cackled and stuffed the shilling deep down somewhere in her clothing.
"Where's your little Joey?" Dickens asked.
“Tobaccy hunt.” Polly’s young son, Joey - some eight years old - searched the streets of London for discarded cigar butts. He collected them, salvaged as much usable tobacco as he could, and sold the tobacco to the poor.
"For Joey." Dickens handed the woman a wad of newspaper which contained a week's collection of cigar butts Dickens had saved along with another shilling.
Iron-headed Polly cackled again and nodded vigorously.
"Allus good to sells to you, Mr. D."
Dickens and Forster crossed Baker Street.
Dickens turned to Forster. “We part here. I’ll see you at Blanchard’s tonight, of course, for Ellen's birthday dinner."
"I'll be there," Forster promised. He watched Dickens settle the collar of his great coat about his neck and turn down Baker Street toward the All The Year Round offices.
Forster walked on to Bond Street and turned right toward Pall Mall and the Athenaeum to lunch with Mark Lemon, the editor of Punch, but Dickens preyed on his mind. Four weeks from this very day the first number of Drood would be in the bookstores. Dickens had read the first three numbers to him and a few select others, in Forster's home. No one but he, of course, understood the references to Dickens' time in Genoa and his tremendous and awful discovery there, but stroke by stroke Dickens filled his book's canvas with images of that time. Forster recognized many of them but doubtless there were others to be understood by de la Rue only.
Forster had tried to talk Dickens out of his mad scheme, but Dickens had rarely been talked out of anything he had set his mind to, and he had set his mind irreversibly on exposing Emile de la Rue.
A good crowd filled the coffee room at the Athenaeum. Mark Lemon, a rotund and bearded image of Sir John Falstaff, whom in fact he had played in one of Dickens' numerous theatrical endeavors, waited for Forster at a table. Also seated at the table were Lord Allsgood and Emile de la Rue.
The eyes of Forster and de la Rue found each other immediately, and immediately the loathing Dickens felt for de la Rue filled Forster. Smugness and arrogance exuded from the impeccably dressed man. In his mind Forster could again hear Dickens' voice rise in anger when he repeated what he had said to de la Rue at their last encounter in Italy those twenty-five years earlier. "Do not sit there and act as if your wife's attacks are but a small price to pay to possess the likes of you! You talk as if you were some rare and precious prize." Rare and precious prize, indeed, Forster thought. The eyes of the two men refused to disengage. Forster, his pugnacious jaw jutting out as the memory of Dickens' anger swelled his own, approached the table as the other three men rose.