He had one friend there, a cheerful, carrotty-headed little boy called Bob Fagin, but he begged his parents to take him away and send him back to school.
One day, his father had a row with James Lamert, the owner of the blacking factory, and took his son away. The very next morning his mother went back to Mr Lamert, trying to persuade him to keep Dickens working. Perhaps she felt they needed the money.
Twenty years later, in an autobiographical fragment that was never published in his lifetime, he wrote of the pain of that realisation:
‘I never afterwards forgot, I never shall forget, I never can forget, that my mother was warm for my being sent back.’
Despite the early days Dickens was a dutiful son. He took care of his mother financially. ‘My mother was left to me when my father died. I never had anything left me but relations.’ (He describes her as being ‘got up in sables like a female Hamlet’, and when he visited her, she would ‘pluck up a spirit and asked for a pound’.)
It was different with his grandmother. She was ‘in service’. She had been the housekeeper to the Earl of Crewe: Dickens loved listening to her stories when he was a little boy. Dickens draws an affectionate portrait of her as Mrs Lirriper, the lodging housekeeper from Household Words.
Mrs Lirriper, 1863
It was early in the second year of my married life that I lost my poor Lirriper and I set up in Islington directly afterwards and afterwards came here.
Servant girls are one of your first and one of your lasting troubles, being like your teeth which begin with convulsions and never cease tormenting you from the time you cut them till they cut you, and then you don’t want to part with them which seems hard but we must succumb or buy artificial, and even where you get a will nine times out of ten you’ll get a dirty face with it and naturally lodgers do not like good society to be shown in with a smear of black across the nose or a smudgy eyebrow.
Where they pick up the black is a mystery I cannot solve, as in the case of the willingest girl that ever came into a house half-starved poor thing, a girl so willing that I called her Willing Sophy down on her knees scrubbing early and late and ever cheerful but always smiling with a black face.
And I says to Sophy, ‘Now Sophy my good girl have a regular day for your stoves and keep the width of the Airy between yourself and the blacking and do not brush your hair with the bottom of the saucepans and do not meddle with the snuffs of candles and it stands to reason that it can no longer be yet there it was and always on her nose, which turning up and being broad at the end seemed to boast of it and caused warning from a steady gentleman and excellent lodger (breakfast by the week, use of sitting-room when required) his words being, “Mrs Lirriper, I have arrived at the point of admitting that the Black is a man and a brother but only in a natural form and when it can’t be got off.”’
Well consequently I put poor Sophy on to other work and forbid her answering the door or answering a bell on any account but she was unfortunately so willing that nothing would stop her flying up the kitchen stairs whenever a bell was heard to tingle.
I put it to her: ‘Oh Sophy, Sophy, for goodness, goodness sake, where does it come from?’
To which that poor, unlucky, willing mortal bursting out crying to see me so vexed replied, ‘I took a deal of black into me ma’am when I was a small child, being much neglected and I think it must be that it works out.’
So it continuing to work out of that poor thing and not having another fault to find with her I says ‘Sophy what do you seriously think of my helping you away to New South Wales where it might not be noticed?’
Nor did I ever repent the money which was well spent, for she married the ship’s cook on the voyage (himself a Mulateer) and did well and lived happy and so far as I ever heard it was not noticed in a new state of society to her dying day.
[Music.]
When Dickens was eighteen, and working as a reporter in the Houses of Parliament, he fell wildly and passionately and explosively in love with a frivolous young woman called Maria Beadnell.
David Copperfield meeting Dora Spenlow is Charles Dickens meeting Maria Beadnell.
All was over in a moment. I had fulfilled my destiny. I was a captive and a slave. I loved Dora Spenlow to distraction!
She was more than a human to me. She was a Fairy, a Sylph, I don’t know what she was – anything that no one ever saw, and everything that everybody ever wanted.
I don’t remember who was there, except Dora. I have not the least idea what we had for dinner, besides Dora. My impression is, that I dined off Dora entirely, and sent away half-a-dozen plates untouched. I sat next to her. I talked to her. She had the most delightful little voice, the gayest little laugh, the pleasantest and most fascinating little ways, that ever led a lost youth into hopeless slavery.
But to Dickens’ despair, Maria’s parents were dead against the match. They didn’t want their daughter affianced to a young man without prospects – a debtor’s son. And Maria herself was very wicked: she led him on, and teased him, and then she spurned him – calling him a mere boy. Boy. B.O.Y.
Three letters, which he wrote, ‘scorched his brain’. He never got over it. As a matter of fact, Dickens never got over anything that happened to him.
Years later he wrote to her:
But nobody can ever know with what a sad heart I resigned you, or after what struggles and what conflict. My entire devotion to you, and the wasted tenderness of those hard years which I have ever since half loved, half dreaded to recall, made so deep an impression on me that I refer to it a habit of suppression which now belongs to me, which I know is no part of my original nature, but which makes me chary of showing my affections, even to my children, except when they are very young.
In 1855, Maria came back into his life, only she wasn’t called ‘Beadnell’ any more. She had become Mrs Henry Winter, the wife of an impoverished sawmill manager in Finsbury. Did she make a mistake!
She wrote to Charles Dickens. He was of course by now the most famous man in England. When he saw that well-remembered handwriting on the envelope, his heart flamed into a frenzy of expectation and, very naughtily, he arranged an assignation at a time when he knew his wife Catherine would not be at home.
He wrote to her:
I fancy – though you may not have thought in the old time how manfully I loved you – that you may have seen in one of my old books a faithful recollection of the passion I had for you, & may have thought that it was something to have been loved so well, and may have seen in little bits of ‘Dora’ touches of your old self sometimes and a grace here and there that may be revived in your little girls, years hence, for the bewilderment of some other young lover – though he will never be as in earnest as I and David Copperfield are.
They arranged to meet and, amazingly, this brilliant man, this genius, kept alive an image of Maria as she had been when he had last seen her nineteen years before. She tried to warn him in a letter that she had changed. Dickens replied:
When you say you are toothless, fat, old and ugly, which I don’t believe, I fly away to the house in Lombard Street and see you in a sort of raspberry-coloured dress with little, black, Van Dykes at the top, and my boyish heart pinned like a captured butterfly to every one of them.
She arrived, nineteen years older, and shattered his dreams. He could never forgive her for having grown older and he took his literary revenge when he wrote the character of Flora Finching in Little Dorrit.
Flora Finching: Little Dorrit, 1855–57
Flora, always tall, had grown to be very broad too, and short of breath; but that was not much. Flora, whom he had left a lily, had become a peony; but that was not much. Flora, who had seemed enchanting in all she said and thought, was diffuse and silly. That was much. Flora, who had been spoiled and artless long ago, was determined to be spoiled and artless now. That was a fatal blow. This is Flora!
‘I am sure I am ashamed to see Mr Clennam, I am a mere fright, I know he’ll find me fearfully changed,
I am actually an old woman, it’s shocking to be found out, it’s really shocking.
Flora Finching – Sol Eytinge, 1867
‘Oh! But with a gentleman it’s so different and really you look so amazingly well that you have no right to say anything of the kind, while, as to me, you know – oh! I am dreadful!
‘But if we talk of not having changed, look at papa, is not papa precisely what he was when you went away, isn’t it cruel and unnatural of papa to be such a reproach to his own child, if we go on in this way much longer people who don’t know us will begin to suppose that I am papa’s mama!
‘Oh, Mr Clennam, you insincerest of creatures, I perceive already that you have not lost your old way of paying compliments, your old way when you used to pretend to be so sentimentally struck you know – at least I don’t mean that, I – oh I don’t know what I mean!
‘You mustn’t think of going yet, you could never be so unkind as to think of going, Arthur – I mean Mr Arthur – or I suppose Mr Clennam would be far more proper – but I am sure I don’t know what I am saying, but I am running into nonsense again.
‘Indeed I have little doubt that you are married to some Chinese lady, being in China so long and being in business and naturally desirous to settle and extend your connection nothing was more likely than that you should propose to a Chinese lady and nothing was more natural I am sure than that the Chinese lady should accept you and think herself very well off too, I only hope she’s not a Pagodian dissenter.
‘Oh good gracious me I hope you never kept yourself a bachelor so long on my account! But of course you never did why should you, pray don’t answer, I don’t know where I’m running to, oh do tell me something about the Chinese ladies whether their eyes are really so long and narrow always putting me in mind of mother-of-pearl fish at cards, and do they really wear tails down their back and plaited too or is it only the men, and why do they stick little bells all over their bridges and temples and hats and things or don’t they really do it?
‘Then it’s all true and they really do! Good gracious Arthur! – pray excuse me – old habit – Mr Clennam far more proper.
‘Dear dear, only to think of the changes at home. Who could have ever imagined Mrs Finching when I can’t imagine it myself!
‘Finching oh yes isn’t it a dreadful name, but as Mr F. said when he proposed to me he wasn’t answerable for it and couldn’t help it could he? Excellent man, not at all like you but excellent man!
‘Romance is fled, however, as I openly said to Mr F. when he proposed to me and you will be surprised to hear that he proposed seven times once in a hackney-coach once in a boat once in a pew once on a donkey at Tunbridge Wells and the rest on his knees.
‘You must know but that I have no doubt you know already, that before I was introduced to the late Mr F. I had been engaged to Arthur Clennam – we were all in all to one another, it was the morning of life, it was bliss, it was frenzy, it was everything else of that sort in the highest degree, when rent asunder we turned to stone in which capacity Arthur went to China and I became the statue bride of the late Mr F.
‘Ask me not if I love him still or if he still loves me or what the end is to be or when, we are surrounded by watchful eyes and it may be that we are destined to pine asunder it may be never more to be reunited not a word not a breath not a look to betray us all must be secret as the tomb wonder not therefore that even if I should seem comparatively cold to Arthur or Arthur should seem comparatively cold to me we have fatal reasons it is enough if we understand them hush!’
Interval
Act Two
[Music.]
Mrs Corney and Mr Bumble: Oliver Twist, 1837–39
‘Dear me! is that Mr Bumble?’
‘At your service, ma’am,’ said Mr Bumble, who had been stopping outside to rub his shoes clean, and to shake the snow off his coat; and who now made his appearance, bearing the cocked hat in one hand and a bundle in the other. ‘Shall I shut the door, ma’am?’
The lady modestly hesitated to reply lest there should be any impropriety in holding an interview with Mr Bumble, with closed doors.
Mr Bumble taking advantage of the hesitation, and being very cold himself, shut it without permission.
‘Hard weather, Mr Bumble.’
‘Hard indeed, ma’am. Anti-parochial weather, this, ma’am. We have given away, Mrs Corney, we have given away a matter of twenty quartern loaves and a cheese and a half, this very blessed afternoon; and yet them paupers are not contented.’
‘Of course not. When would they be, Mr Bumble?’
‘That’s the way with these people, ma’am; give ’em a apron full of coals to-day, and they’ll come back for another, the day after to-morrow, as brazen as alabaster. Mrs Corney, the great principle of out-of-door relief is, to give the paupers exactly what they don’t want; and then they get tired of coming.’
‘Dear me! Well, that is a good one, too!’
Mr Bumble took up his hat and stick, as if to go.
‘You’ll have a very cold walk, Mr Bumble.’
‘It blows, ma’am, enough to cut one’s ears off.’
The matron looked from the little kettle, to the beadle, who was moving towards the door; and as the beadle coughed, preparatory to bidding her good-night, bashfully inquired whether – whether he wouldn’t take a cup of tea?
Mr Bumble instantaneously turned back his collar again; laid his hat and stick upon a chair; and drew another chair up to the table. As he slowly seated himself, he looked at the lady. Mrs Corney applied herself to the task of making his tea.
‘Sweet, Mr Bumble?’
‘Very sweet, indeed, ma’am.’
He fixed his eyes on Mrs Corney as he said this; and if ever a beadle looked tender, Mr Bumble was that beadle at that moment.
‘You have a cat, ma’am, I see and kittens too, I declare.’
‘I am so fond of them, Mr Bumble, you can’t think. They’re so happy, so frolicsome, and so cheerful, that they are quite companions for me.’
‘Very nice animals, ma’am, so very domestic.’
‘Oh, yes! And so fond of their home too, that it’s quite a pleasure, I’m sure.’
‘Mrs Corney, ma’am, I mean to say this, ma’am, that any cat, or kitten that could live with you, ma’am, and not be fond of its home, must be an ass, ma’am.’
‘Oh, Mr Bumble!’
‘It’s of no use disguising facts, ma’am,’ said Mr Bumble, slowly flourishing the teaspoon with a kind of amorous dignity which made him doubly impressive; ‘I would drown it myself with pleasure.’
‘Then you’re a cruel man and a very hard-hearted man besides.’
‘Hard-hearted, ma’am? Hard?’
Mr Bumble resigned his cup without another word; squeezed Mrs Corney’s little finger as she took it; and inflicting two open-handed slaps upon his laced waistcoat, gave a mighty sigh, and hitched his chair a very little morsel farther from the fire.
It was a round table; consequently Mr Bumble, moving his chair by little and little, soon began to diminish the distance between himself and the matron; and, continuing to travel round the outer edge of the circle, brought his chair, in time, close to that in which the matron was seated. Indeed, the two chairs touched; and when they did so, Mr Bumble stopped.
Now, if the matron had moved her chair to the right, she would have been scorched by the fire; and if to the left, she must have fallen into Mr Bumble’s arms; so being a discreet matron, and no doubt foreseeing these consequences at a glance she remained where she was, and handed Mr Bumble another cup of tea.
‘Hard-hearted, Mrs Corney? Are you hard-hearted, Mrs Corney?’
‘Dear me! What a very curious question from a single man. What can you want to know for, Mr Bumble?’
The beadle drank his tea to the last drop; finished a piece of toast; whisked the crumbs off his knees; wiped his lips; and deliberately kissed the matron.
‘Mr Bumble; Mr Bumble – I shall scream! I am a foolish, excitable, we
ak creetur.’
‘Not weak, ma’am. Are you a weak creetur, Mrs Corney?’
‘We are all weak creeturs, Mr Bumble.’
‘So we are.’
Nothing was said, on either side, for a minute or two afterwards.
‘This is a very comfortable room, ma’am. Another room, and this, ma’am, would be a complete thing.’
‘It would be too much for one.’
‘But not for two, ma’am. Eh, Mrs Corney? The Board allows you coals, don’t they Mrs Corney?’
‘And candles.’
‘Coals, candles, and a house rent-free. Oh, Mrs Corney, what an angel you are!’
The lady was not proof against this burst of feeling. She sank into Mr Bumble’s arms. And that gentleman in his agitation imprinted a passionate kiss upon her chaste nose.
‘Such parochial perfection! You know that Mr Slout is worse to-night, my fascinator?’
‘Yes.’
‘He is the master of this establishment; his death will cause a wacancy; that wacancy must be filled up.’
‘Oh Mrs Corney, what a prospect this opens! What a opportunity for a jining of hearts and housekeepings! The little word? The one little, little, little word, my blessed Corney?’
‘Ye–yes–yes!’
I love doing that – sexual greed and economic greed in the same scene.
Dickens’ most successful females always teetered on the edge of monstrosity. It’s with his grotesques, with the women that he didn’t want to take to bed, that he erupts into life. He reserved a ferocious scorn, not only for social pretence, but also for the woman beyond sexuality who still yearned for it, like Mrs Skewton, from Dombey and Son, who was definitely ‘mutton dressed as lamb’.
Dickens' Women Page 4