The cases were tedious, and included the matter of a stolen cow, then an attempted extortion of a European traveler by a Bengalee. At two o'clock, the cutcherry emptied and the magistrate invited the police superintendent to his home for tiffin in the English style. First, however, he insisted on bringing the visitor on a full tour of the village. They began at the schoolhouse, called the Anglo-Vernacular Academy, where the master was leading a circle of potbellied pupils, covered only with threadbare sheets of muslin, in chants of the English alphabet. One of the students was unsuccessfully trying to stammer out the letter R. Frank grew pale watching this and indicated to his guide that he was ready to go.
After leaving the schoolhouse, the two officials walked across a new bridge and then visited several drains that had been installed along the streets under the magistrate's guidance. Wherever they walked, the magistrate boasted of the absence of beggars.
Back in the magistrate's bungalow at last, tiffin was ready. Wine was poured by the servants as quickly as the officials could drink.
“So your department is still hunting our escaped thief,” the magistrate commented.
“We believe he may be in the mountains-I have two of my men searching for him even now.”
“You know, Mr. Dickens, that my own villagers wish for the thief's arrest every bit as much as the white police. As you saw in the cutcherry, when a cow is stolen, it is my countrymen who suffer.”
“This is no cow,” Frank said, raising one eyebrow. “This is opium, baboo. The inspector generals shall be around about it if it is not resolved.”
“Yes, yes, the opium-important!” He raised his glass in tribute. “Let us drink to those who are paid to grow it to sell to China but also to those natives weak enough to ingest it before it is sold abroad. Young Bengal is still but a child growing too large for its first proper garments. Until my people understand to accept a life like the English, they benefit from a dulled sense of reality, a sluggish frame of mind, if I may say. No one desires another revolt, Superintendent.”
After further conversation, Frank removed his watch chain.
“Ah, one moment more, Superintendent,” said the magistrate at his visitor's restlessness. “You see?”
The magistrate was looking up at a row of books over the policeman's head. It was an expensive collection of Charles Dickens's novels.
“Illustrated editions. I am as much an admirer of your father's books as any of your own countrymen, I can assure you. I was deeply saddened to imagine his chair empty upon hearing the tidings. When will you travel back to England to pay respects?”
“You know as well as I the amount of work at the police department. I shall take a holiday month in England when things are quieter. Perhaps next year.”
The magistrate, for the first time, regarded his guest as a foreigner. “I suppose some of the English fashion is rather too cool for us Bengalees to make out,” he murmured.
Frank put the glass down, glancing up with a defensive pout emboldened by the wine. “Do you know what my father said when I told him I wished to go abroad, baboo? I had asked him to supply only a horse, a rifle, and fifteen pounds. My father laughed and then assured me that I would be robbed of the fifteen pounds, be thrown from my horse, and shoot my own head off with the rifle.” Frank paused, then added, “Bengal, in time, has become my home, and I have earned respect for my work among the Europeans and natives alike, respect never offered in England.”
“You have siblings, sir?”
“Five brothers and two sisters, yes.”
“I have seven sons and daughters myself, Mr. Dickens, and I fear fathers sometimes wish too much for their children,” the magistrate replied solicitously. “Especially, I would fancy, for you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Go to that looking glass over my dresser, Mr. Dickens! The resemblance about the eyes and mouth to your father is remarkable. Every time he saw you, he surely saw himself.”
“My f-f-father,” Frank stopped. He began again, this time mastering his emotion, “My father never saw himself in me. Though the groundlings fancy him to have been the most tolerant of men, they did not ever have occasion to come under his lash. Having the world at your feet for thirty years gives you the idea that your nature is perfect. He told us that his name was our best capital and to remember that.”
The discussion was interrupted by a sudden commotion outside the bungalow. The men hurried outside and found an Indian man struggling against the hold of several of the native policemen.
“What is happening here?” demanded Frank.
“Superintendent Dickens! This is the missing opium dacoit!” cried out one of the dark-skinned policemen. After some questioning, it was revealed that it was indeed the thief who had eluded Turner and Mason in the jungle. He had been hiding in a mud cellar several villages away in the jungle. When a compatriot had seen Frank walking through the streets, he'd run through the woods to warn the thief the police were near. The compatriot had been followed and the thief had been apprehended as he attempted to sneak away.
Frank ordered the native policemen to secure the prisoner and place him in a cart to be brought to the station house.
“You see, Superintendent, that even now, in our intellectual infancy, my countrymen would not mock justice,” the magistrate said with a face-devouring grin. “I look forward to hearing his case before my cutcherry.”
Frank, after he watered his thirsty horse, climbed into his saddle and lowered his gaze at the baboo.
“Our tour through the footpaths, the bridges, the school… You wanted me to be seen by everyone in the village to be certain someone would alert the thief so that he would be captured. And in order to delay my exit until your plan was executed, you introduced the topic of my father.”
His host retained his wide smile. “We have our mutually desired result.”
“That teaches me, baboo, that the people in your jurisdiction fear the British, but they do not fear you. What does that mean for your promise to keep order? Remember that though you may be a native of this soil, you are a representative of Her Majesty the Queen.”
“I never forget it, Superintendent,” the magistrate replied, salaaming.
“Officers, mount up with your prisoner!” Frank now spoke loudly enough for the surrounding speculators of the village to hear. “Baboo, you may be assured of my deepest gratitude-I suggest you inform any family and friends of this scoundrel that assisting a villain, even if one's own blood, shall not be looked upon kindly by the British authority. This will be their warning.”
Chapter 8
Boston, the next morning, 1870
“IMAGINE IT,” FIELDS SAID, SHAKING HIS BEARD INTO A WILD mess. “Taking up the newspaper this morning with my coffee, I read that this pettifogger lawyer with whom you consulted-Sylvanus Bendall-is dead on the street. His throat is cut ear to ear, his head hanging by a thread! The police are dizzy about it. The public who had our corrupt detective department abolished are calling for them reconvened. The mayor is blaming the railroad tracks for bringing strangers into the city!”
It was early in the morning and Fields was pacing the plush rug of his office, throwing his hands up as he spoke. It was as if he were pointing to the various illustrated portraits and photographs on the walls of the firm's past and present. These were the artists who had brought literature to the masses, who had changed minds about politics and prejudices, who had rebuilt bridges between England and America all through the pages of their novels and poems.
Osgood was sitting quietly in one chair beside another recently vacated by Officer Carlton.
“Bendall was not telling me the whole truth about Daniel Sand's death, Mr. Fields,” replied Osgood, after waiting to see if Fields would say more.
Fields stared at Osgood as though he had never seen him before in his life. “So you think that is why Bendall was killed?” he asked sarcastically. “I very much doubt the reason had to do with Daniel Sand, a seventeen-year-old lad, an
ordinary clerk.”
Osgood did not want to overstep the limits of his position. In the requirement of their trade to be decisive, the younger man knew about himself that he could sometimes be too quick to accept an idea heartily before fully understanding it, and other times might disagree too readily. But he could not shake his opinion.
“Bendall was there when Daniel died. The advance sheets of the installments Daniel was to pick up, which we were to use to publish in serial, disappeared, although the driver believed he had seen him holding a bundle.”
“We already know young Sand was in a flight of opium, Osgood. He could have dropped the bundle into a gutter without even knowing it. As for Bendall, a man's throat can be sliced open for nothing more than a watch chain and one gold button! Even in this,” Fields paused theatrically, “the seventieth year of the nineteenth century!”
“What about the fact that Dickens writes of opium users in the very first pages of Drood, and that is how the police say Daniel died. Is it a coincidence?”
“How could it not be? Daniel was an opium eater, and so are many more every day. That is why Dickens turned to write of it in the first place, surely, because of the many who have lost themselves in the clouds of such drugs, here and in England! Dickens has always been conscious of social ills from his earliest novels. Do you think the omnibus driver wanted to stop Daniel from his charge? Hang Daniel Sand-he is not your concern anymore. Nobody expects anything more from you.”
“I know. And yet something is-”
“Osgood, pray consider…”
Osgood would not yield. “Something is not right about all this, Mr. Fields. The police explanation from the first seemed wanting. I trusted Daniel Sand as I would my own son!”
Fields frowned. “In our calling, our authors are our children, Osgood, and it is our duty and our only duty to protect them. Do you not think I could have imagined having my own children, if Annie were more disposed to it? But what time would I have, and what would be sacrificed?”
Osgood changed his tactic. “If I can devote a little of my time to make inquiries. For his sister Rebecca's sake, if for nothing else.”
“Think about it, Osgood! What if you had been with Sylvanus Bendall when this happened? You could have been left for the dogs and vultures, your head could be in the police station today, too, with that lobster-eyed coroner poking his fingers through your brain. Indulge me: what is the name of this place?”
Osgood assumed a contrite posture. He knew what Fields meant by the question, and even the eyes of the lofty portrait gallery seemed to wait for an answer. From the left, the face of Mr. Longfellow, their first truly national poet, patient and good in his remote gaze. From the right, the eyes of Emerson's strict ministerial countenance, with a hint of a smile in the pupils, knowing and demanding better from the world just like his famed essays. Straight ahead, the glare of manly Tennyson, holding in it private, dreamy confessions of epic verse. Above the standing desk, the eyes looking down from the sad Hawthorne's fantastically intellectual head.
Osgood answered Fields's question dutifully, “Fields, Osgood and Company.”
Fields lit a cigar and convulsively puffed out circles of smoke. “Now look around, my dear Osgood. Stop for a minute and look. We could lose all of this. Everything you see, everything Bill Ticknor and I built up, and that you, my dear old friend, you will be called on to command if our house can but survive this period.”
“You are right,” said Osgood.
“An unfortunate mystery, the human spirit. Why Daniel Sand chose the path he did, we cannot know; why he would leave his poor sister alone. But you must leave him behind. Remember that there are two things in this life that are never worth crying about: what can be cured and what cannot be cured.”
Then Fields paused, before saying, “I know precisely how you shall engage again in what's before you. You will sail for London to address the Dickens problem.”
Osgood was taken by surprise. “But who will take charge of things here if we are both away?”
Fields removed a packet from his desk and handed it to his junior partner while shaking his head. “Not we. I am to stay right where you see me. As for any appointments you have here, I shall entertain them for you.”
“You have been preparing for your trip, Mr. Fields! Gathering letters of introduction, sending word of your arrival…”
“You can use them in my stead, and besides, your honest face is your letter of introduction! To be perfectly candid, Annie has not wanted me to go ever since she heard of it. She wants me the rest of the summer to stay weekends in Manchester-by-the-sea-says it will be wholesome for me. Besides, you know what a dead-gone sailor I am. My last trip to England I won the favor of being the sickest on board-even worse than the cows. Come, no arguing. Remember what our dear Hawthorne used to say: America is a country to boast of, and to get out of!’
Perhaps The Mystery of Edwin Drood had exerted a wild influence over him, making him see spectres of ill doings where there were none. There was no mystery about poor Daniel Sand, no connection between that terrible accident-which all men and women risked stepping out into the busy Boston streets-and the vicious murder of Sylvanus Bendall! There was only sadness and loss in real life, not given boundaries and significance by serial installments.
A CASUAL VISITOR TO Boston could be forgiven for thinking that everyone in the so-called Hub of the Universe spent that afternoon hurriedly preparing for James Osgood's journey across the ocean. There was an avalanche of arrangements to be made by him and on his behalf both for the home front and for his travels. To see Osgood himself hurrying from destination to destination all a-fluster would have shocked those who knew the ever-composed publisher.
In the exclusive neighborhood of Beacon Hill, inside his three-story brick house at 71 Pinckney purchased with his earnings from the Dickens tour, Osgood gave detailed instructions to his help for the maintenance of his quiet abode and its second master, Mr. Puss, his rather self-satisfied and snobby orange and white longhair cat. Mr. Puss, who was usually content to lie among Osgood's books in the carpeted library, was almost startled out of his normal trance by the rush of the servants polishing boots and preparing suits for the publisher's luggage.
Osgood went to the Fieldses around the corner on Charles Street to procure Annie Fields's list of hotels and friends in London. Fields himself arrived home from the office as Annie finished copying out this list for the junior partner at her table.
“Here you are, dear Ripley,” said Annie to Osgood, handing him a slip of her stationery.
“Oh, good, Osgood, are you coming back to the office when this beautiful lady is through with you?” Fields asked. He crossed the light-filled parlor and leaned in to kiss his smiling young wife on the cheek.
“Indeed, my dear Fields,” Osgood said. “I will walk back with you. I honestly don't know how I will finish all that I must do if I am to sail tomorrow.”
“I find whichever of my tasks must be finished are finished, Mr. Osgood,” said Annie. “Won't you have some assistance in England?”
“I suppose I will not,” Osgood said.
“How about Mr. Midges? He wields a reliable pencil,” Fields suggested. “On second thought, the magazines might crumble to the ground without his arithmetic behind them.”
Osgood, cringing inwardly, agreed the magazines’ very survival really required Midges's staying in Boston.
“A bookkeeper, then,” Annie proposed. “Why, you mustn't send Mr. Osgood on such a chore without proper resources, Jamie,” she scolded her husband.
“A bookkeeper!” Fields said, puffing out his chest as though to protect any innocent parties from the idea. “How shall it look to all the world for our respectable Osgood here to be crossing the sea with a perfectly unmarried or, for that matter, married young woman?”
“It shall look perfectly modern,” Annie replied airily.
“What about Miss Sand?” Osgood heard himself saying.
“Miss Sand
?” Fields repeated slowly, stopping to see if there was anything unspoken in Osgood's expression. He found nothing, so he continued. “She is rather an enigma. Is she not unmarried as well?”
“It's a fine idea,” said Annie, the words bestowing a queenly benediction on the junior partner.
“Why, how is it any different?” asked Fields, though merely for sport, as an argument with Annie was already lost when she had made up her mind.
“If I understand correctly, my dear,” said Annie, “the terms of Miss Sand's divorce set out that she can have no romantic relationship. She is neither married nor unmarried. Why, to take her has as chaste an appearance to the world as to take Mr. Midges.”
“She makes a mite more handsome travel companion than Midges, certainly,” concluded Fields with an ambivalent agreement. “Very well, I shall have my girl see about securing Miss Sand's passage in the third steerage straightaway.”
Osgood smiled and thanked Annie for the suggestion. He was more pleased with the surprise decision than he would have expected. For one thing, he wouldn't be all alone in the undertaking. He would have someone along who was both pleasant company and supremely competent. And if Osgood needed an escape from Daniel's death, certainly Rebecca of all people needed it more.
“HOW DOES IT SOUND?” Osgood asked Rebecca after explaining the idea when he had returned to the office and found her hauling a bundle of contracts to Mr. Clark in the financial department.
“I'm honored you would entrust me with this responsibility. I'll see to the rest of the preparations tonight,” she said.
It was hours later, and already several hours since Osgood had gone home for the night, before Rebecca found herself smiling at the amazing chance to travel, to contribute, and to preserve her future in Boston by helping Osgood's quest. She knew she could make a difference, even if it were just a small one. The publishing offices were almost completely empty, but Rebecca still remained in the office, energetically gathering stacks of papers and documents for their trip. She hurried down into the cellar, where rows of metal bins were arranged with periodicals and records, the different lanes of bins having been named for authors, like Holmes Hole. She was so excited, she began a little dance through Longfellow Avenue.
The Last Dickens Page 7