The Last Dickens

by Matthew Pearl

  “Hope you haven't any swarrys you're missing being here tonight, Miss Sand.”

  “Oh!” Rebecca jumped. “Why, Mr. Midges. I'm sorry. I didn't know anyone was down here so late.”

  Midges, sweating profusely, was sitting on the floor attacking a ledger. His head uncovered, his thinning hair stuck straight up as though he had seen a ghost. “Late! Not for me, why, this firm would crumble into ruins if I weren't here half my life. I wish I weren't here in some nasty cellar, love. But these subscriber lists must be just so, and they've been a mess since we've been short a clerk.”

  At the thoughtless reference to Daniel's death, Rebecca looked away. “Good evening, Mr. Midges.”

  “Wait! Don't!” Midges stammered awkwardly, then piped out his arbitrary whistle to put her at ease. “I'm deeply sorry about what happened to your poor brother, upon my word. It's thunderously sad. I had a baby brother die right in my lap when I was four. Just stopped breathing, and I never stop thinking of that moment.”

  “I'm sorry about your brother, Mr. Midges-and I appreciate your saying so. Now I must finish my work for Mr. Osgood.”

  “Yes, yes, you are very industrious,” Midges mumbled with meek embarrassment, as though rejected the last dance at the soiree in favor of Osgood. “If I may say one more thing. I am especially sorry, being a man who respects a moral character, to hear of the terrible way Danny died. I had always thought highly of him.”

  A fearful look crept over Rebecca's face, making it clear she didn't understand.

  Midges went on, a spasm of pleasure in his words, “Why, I heard Mr. Osgood speaking about the opium with Mr. Fields as they sat together in the dining room. Well, it's downright sad, I say! He seemed such a forthright boy. Now, if I had a sister, love, and she were pretty and sensible as you, for instance…”

  Rebecca lifted the bottom of her skirts and hurried up the stairs, away from Midges, as quickly as possible.

  “Good evening, Miss Sand!” Midges called out after her with a heartbroken, confused stare. “Plucky, manlike creature!” he marveled to himself.

  REBECCA WENT UPSTAIRS, her hands clenched in fists on her desk. She felt a great weight resting on her chest, and a tear fell down her red cheek. These were not tears of sadness; these were tears of anger, frustration, rage. These tears were difficult: they didn't want to come out and they didn't want to stay in. Hardly conscious of what she was doing, she found the handkerchief Osgood had given her when telling her the news, and looked at the pretty design of the JRO monogram. In his personal letters, he'd sign an informal “James” but would add “(R. Osgood).” The rest of the world would see him genial and prepared for anything, but she had appreciated the fact that she saw him in his moments of consternation-he would always sit with one or sometimes both hands on the back of his neck, as if to support the weight of the thoughts in his head. In the evenings when back home, she would sometimes think of him as James instead of Mr. Osgood. That he would say such things about her brother was devastating-and within earshot of everyone! She'd been a fool to believe him their advocate.

  She waited for a horsecar that would take her close to Oxford Street, which would be a fast passage, but in the swirl of her emotions Rebecca could not stand the crowd of other homebound workers. The walk home seemed to be both instantaneous and cruelly tedious.

  Back in her room at the second-class boardinghouse, the stillness and quiet after the hurry of her journey home felt suffocating. Were these blank walls all that was left of her life? No family, no Daniel, no husband, and now not even the trust she had always imagined she had earned specially from Mr. Osgood, a man she had admired more than anyone in Boston for giving her an honest and respectful vocation. The anger had burned up her tears and she was left with panic. Without knowing why, the orderliness of her tiny quarters newly befuddled her, and she pulled out her chest from under her bed and began to reorganize her belongings.

  It crossed her mind not to go to the piers in the morning and, furthermore, not to ever return to the firm or Boston. If she chose, she would never see Mr. Osgood again. But this room, old Mrs. Lepsin and her family of sorrowful boarders, this could not be what remained of Rebecca Sand; this could not be what remained of her Boston; this minuscule life must have existed in some other universe. She needed the voyage held out to her. And she knew the one thing she needed right now, more than anything, was an explanation from Osgood's own lips.

  Chapter 9

  A BOARD THE OCEAN LINER TO ENGLAND, OSGOOD HANDED OUT books liberally in the grand saloon, instantly counting a dozen gentlemen and half that number of ladies whose names and tastes he knew by way of this introduction. This transatlantic ship, the Samaria, was an ideal place for Osgood's natural sociability. Away from normal occupations in the world, the passengers-at least in fine weather-were inclined to be polite, courteous, and open. Nothing could brighten up a publisher and an oldest sibling like James R. Osgood more than helping a shipful of people be happy. He was not the type of man to crack jokes, but he was usually the first to laugh at them. When he did tell jokes, he would remind himself not to later- for too often there would be someone to take what he meant in jest very soberly.

  The men of commerce in the first steerage, with an eye toward a bargain despite their long purses, lined up to receive Osgood's gifts. The young publisher's most sociable traveling companion was an English tea merchant, Mr. Marcus Wakefield. Like Osgood, he was young given his significant achievements as a businessman-though the lines in Wakefield's face suggested one hardened beyond his years.

  “What is this I see?” Wakefield asked after introducing himself. He was handsome and well groomed with an easy, self-confident, almost jaunty air when he spoke. He stepped closer to Osgood's case of books. “I've been in this ship's library many times, and I declare you have the better selection, sir.”

  “Mr. Wakefield, pray take one to begin the journey.”

  “Upon my word!”

  “I am a publisher, you see. Partner of Fields, Osgood, and Company.”

  “It is a trade of which I am entirely uneducated, although I could tell you every spice that makes up the strongest tea in twelve countries and whether the new season's tea is pekoe, congou, or imperial. Forgive the liberty of my question, but how can you give away the merchandise you own instead of selling it? I'd like to shake hands with the man who can succeed like that!”

  “We do not own books. Only an author can own a book. It is the honorable position of the publisher to find people to buy stock in it. I like to say, Mr. Wakefield, that one good book will whet a reader's appetite enough that he shall take up ten more in the next year.”

  “It is more than kind.”

  “Besides, at customs in Liverpool they must look through every book carried off the ship for reprints of English books, so those could be confiscated. I say, Mr. Wakefield, that if I do not dispense with these as planned, I will be held up there for hours while they are examined.”

  “I shall be a willing thief, then, if you insist, but I will pay you back ten times on our passage in friendship-and in pekoe.”

  IT WAS NOT UNTIL the second morning, when the reality of being trapped at sea away from home and friends floated down upon each passenger, that Osgood questioned Rebecca Sand. Though she always tended to keep her own counsel, she had been unusually distant toward her employer since boarding. At first, Osgood had thought she only wished to ensure a professional demeanor in this new setting, surrounded by strangers, some of whom would disapprove of young women traveling for business.

  “Miss Sand,” Osgood said as he met her on deck. “I hope you have escaped feeling seasick.”

  “I have been so fortunate, Mr. Osgood,” she answered curtly.

  Osgood knew he would need to be more direct. “I cannot help but observe a change in your demeanor since we have left Boston. Set me right if I am mistaken.”

  “You are not, sir,” she replied steadily. “You are not.”

  “Is this change toward me in partic
ular?”

  “It is,” she agreed.

  Osgood, perceiving a steeper hill to climb in their terse catechism than he'd thought, found two deck chairs across from each other and asked if she would say more. Rebecca folded her gloves over her lap and then calmly explained what she'd heard from Midges in the office cellar.

  “Midges, that ogre!” Osgood cried, his hand curling into a fist against the arm of his deck chair. He stood up and kicked an imaginary miniature Midges overboard with his boot. “How unthinking and cruel. I should have taken better care that he did not overhear my private conversations with Mr. Fields. I am very sorry about all of this.”

  Osgood told her how the police officer, Carlton, and the coroner had concluded Daniel had become an opium eater. This time he did not spare any of the details. “I did not believe it,” he said. “Then they showed me marks on his arm, Miss Sand, that they say were from a ‘hypodermic’ kit to inject opium into his veins.”

  Rebecca thought about all of this, staring out onto the water, then shook her head. “We shared our rooms. If Daniel was an opium eater, I would have recognized even the smallest sign, God knows that. When my husband returned from Danville after the war, he required phials of morphine or Indian hemp on hand at all times. He carried around a look of blankness, an emptiness that would not let him work or sleep or eat. He wanted nobody around him and no visitors except those he found in his solitude in our books and in dreams. He had survived the battlefields, but his soul was shattered by the evils of what his doctor called soldiers’ disease. Daniel had been bent on his own form of intemperance when we moved to Boston, and when I first heard of the accident I had to wonder whether he had renewed his habits of gin. No, I would have noticed the marks. I would have seen it in his face. There would have been no doubt, Mr. Osgood, I would have, and immediate action would have been taken.”

  Osgood said sympathetically, “I couldn't fathom it either.”

  “You couldn't fathom the police being right, or you couldn't fathom why Daniel would fail your trust?” Rebecca asked.

  Osgood turned and met her glare. An intense bloom had risen on her soft cheeks and her eyes narrowed. Osgood, chastened, nodded in surrender. “You are right to be angry about my not telling you all this. You are angry? I wish you to speak freely of this.”

  “I cannot believe you'd hide the details of the police report from me-whether or not they are correct. If I am to take care of myself like a man does and be dependent on no man, then I expect not to be treated like a helpless vessel. You deprived me of the chance to defend his name! I am grateful for my position, and my livelihood depends upon it, so I ought never demand much in my circumstances, I know. But I believe I deserve your respect.”

  “You have that. I assure you,” said Osgood.

  REBECCA RESIDED IN the drabbest class of cabins on the ship. No electric bells to call the stewards, no ornate chandeliers, painted panels, and domed ceilings like in the higher steerage filled with superior society. Rebecca used the time she spent in her small stateroom to read. Unlike most of the other girls she knew in Boston, she did not read for sensation but to understand her own life in a more direct way and to learn more about the publishing trade. Aboard the liner, she had brought a rather technical book on the history of sea travel.

  She had also brought one of Daniel's bottled ship models. To think that it was her sailing across the ocean and not her brother who'd yearned for such a voyage. If there were an immortal part of Daniel, surely it was her companion here.

  At night, she would sometimes stand outside by the rail and quietly watch the sea and stars and the horizon where they met.

  “There is such romance to a sea voyage!” a young female traveler exclaimed one morning when she observed Rebecca in this attitude. Christie, a green-eyed girl covered head to toe in freckles, shared the compartment with Rebecca. “Don't you think, miss?”

  “Romance,” repeated Rebecca, shaking her head. “I don't know.”

  The freckled girl insisted on the point. “You're a goose, aren't you, miss? How could you not think so? Say you haven't noticed the number of handsome gentlemen on this ship! I do not wish to be a nurse living alongside lazy Irish housemaids for long, you know.”

  “Do you not enjoy your charges, Miss Christie?”

  “Those little devils! It is well enough, for I tell them there is a black man who swallows up little children who do not listen to their nurses. Oh, but those Irish girls-the Sallys and Marys and Bridgets- they just stir up the children's spirits again.”

  “Unfortunate,” said Rebecca.

  “I shall not weep for long for them when I find a husband. This ship is full of such possibility! Think of the bachelors, businessmen and club men, and the young men with rich fathers, and the possibilities of love from one of them. I suppose one might even try slipping off the side into the waves to wait to be rescued.”

  “Yes,” Rebecca said quietly. Her raven black hair had been loosened by the breeze and fell pleasantly over her face. “One might also drown,” she said wryly.

  “Oh, or being shipwrecked, just the two of you!” came the oblivious response. Christie chatted on, “You're spoken of as one of the four prettiest maidens aboard. Mind, that's in spite of a too-high brow and the fact that you haven't a bit of style to speak of with your mourning clothes, which make you look so pale and strong-willed. Why not put a flower in your belt sometimes as a starter for any lover's casual flirtation? And you always have a book at your hip like some kind of tomboy. What of that charming young man you're traveling with? There are plenty of women who have designs on him, if you are too selective for his hand.”

  “I am here to work,” said Rebecca, looking away so the girl would not see her cheeks coloring, her body betraying her when she most needed it to submit. “I should like very much to prove myself capable of working as a self-supporting individual. That is all I seek from Mr. Osgood.”

  “He dresses nicely and keeps his temper.”

  “Well, yes, he does.”

  “That is what matters.”

  “He is much less ordinary and average than that,” Rebecca objected.

  “What's your counsel?”

  “What do you mean my counsel?”

  “Yes, on impressing your Mr. Osgood!”

  “He is not my… My counsel is that Mr. Osgood is occupied with his business affairs and not nonsense.”

  “A pity!” replied her companion, disappointed by James Osgood's inverted priorities. “I would have invited you to the wedding, you know.”

  During their voyage, Rebecca would often meet Osgood in the ship's library to help compose letters to Dickens's publishing representatives in London or draft other documents. Though she could not dine at his table or take part in first-class pastimes, one pleasant afternoon she was sitting out on a deck chair reading the pages of Drood, wearing a wrap to protect herself against the wind. She had been joined by some girls who were knitting. In a nearby porthole, she noticed a reflection of the parlor, where Osgood was playing chess, a game that Rebecca had taught Daniel to fill his evenings at the boardinghouse in Boston after he had stopped drinking.

  At first, feeling she should not spy, she tried returning her attention to her reading but could not help herself. She became fascinated at the idea of watching her employer without him knowing. She had to remind herself that she'd remained a bit disappointed toward Osgood, and as though a sort of punishment of him, she decided she should withhold her interest. But before long, she was so enamored by the maneuvers of the game that she concocted her own silent strategies. Osgood reached a critical turn, his hand frozen above the table, and she urged him mentally to move the knight to the back left of his opponent's board.

  That will do it, Mr. Osgood! she thought. She knew he would do nothing more than smile politely if he won, so as not to belittle the other player.

  A moment later, after withdrawing his hand from several aborted moves, he chose the move she counseled. She clapped her hands in
delight, and two of the girls peered over their knitting with shaking heads.

  Even after only a few days at sea, she felt herself to be in an entirely different world from Boston. The voyage did not remove Daniel from her mind. In his absence, she realized how much of his resilience and buoyancy had passed into her own ambitions for herself. His voice had become part of her inner life in a way she could not de-scribe. The voyage made her feel temporarily at peace about his death, as though he were part of the endless expanse of sky and saltwater and warm breezes.

  ONE WARM MORNING, Osgood was walking along the upper deck in a general abstraction. The winds were picking up and the ship was shakier than it had been. Nausea gradually spread to a few new people each day. The ship's doctor passed out small drafts of morphine to calm the nerves. Passengers who were not sick had grown bored of chess and cards and of talking politics over cigars. Soon, not even the dinner bell interested them; only a whale sighting could temporarily stir the general sluggishness. But not Osgood-Osgood had avoided ennui entirely.

  He remained industrious, well dressed and engrossed in his coming mission. While other men were now regularly unshaven, his mustache was trim and his face clean. Osgood saw this not just as habit but necessity. His face, though composed of pleasant-enough features, was rather inconspicuous, not to say nondescript. In fact, it was not uncommon for a person who had met Osgood in one place-say, the Tremont Street office-to then, perhaps days later, meet with him in another setting-the bridge at the Public Garden-and evince not a shred of recognition. Sometimes a change of sunlight to gaslight, or a Saturday rather than a Tuesday, was known to produce the same confusion in those attempting to place a memory of the publisher's identity. This all would be made more problematic had Osgood ever changed the cut of a single hair, which the publisher did not dare to do. It might risk him waking up one morning and finding his home and position taken away from him.