Second Installment
***
Chapter 11
Two and a half years earlier: Boston, November 19, 1867
WHEN IT WAS ANNOUNCED THAT TICKETS FOR THE FIRST OF the novelist's public readings would be sold the next morning, a queue started to form at the street door of the publishing firm. James Osgood ordered Daniel Sand to carry out straw mattresses and blankets for those spending the night in the cold, windy street. Fields had interjected that if they really wanted a happy crowd, the shop boy ought to bring down beer.
By dawn the morning of the sale, the mass of people outside stretched a mile and a half along Tremont Street. Some had brought their own armchairs to sleep in.
The two partners, Fields and Osgood, were watching from a window that had been hastily barred for fear people might climb in for the tickets. They were astounded to see that not only were aristocratic gentlemen shoulder to shoulder with Irish workmen but also that several Negroes could be seen amid the throng… and that three women had taken places in the rowdy line! This last fact was considered so touching by the men waiting in the arctic cold that after a vote, the first of the women was invited to take a position at the head. In honor of the rather English theme of the gathering, tea was brought out-though some of it was mixed with the contents of small black bottles.
In the line there were also the ticket speculators who would buy up seats and resell them at a profit. They had been expected, these enterprising vultures that populated America, but not so many. One speculator, among the most aggressive about obtaining and hoarding tickets, was dressed like George Washington, complete with the wig and hat.
As the sale progressed, big bald-headed George Dolby, shuttling back and forth along the crowd, was handed a telegram. “Sent from port at Halifax,” Mr. Dolby had said after first reading it silently. “Announcing the Cuba. Dickens en route to Boston right now! The Chief will be on American soil before nightfall!” The last words were drowned by cheers.
That was hours ago. It was pitch black by now at the harbor, bitterly cold, and no sign of the Cuba yet. What a crowd! Pressmen roamed the wharves in packs, ready to describe the novelist's first steps back on American soil for the morning editions. The customs officer lent Fields the steamer Hamblin to search the bay farther out. He and Osgood were joined on the steamer by Dolby, who had come from London early along with several assistants. The Englishmen wrapped their coats tightly against the frigid air.
“Cuba in sight!” the lookout man barked.
They steamed ahead until they were alongside the larger ship. As they got close, they could see that it had become grounded by a mud bank. The party signaled for the gangway plank to be lowered between the ships. Bright rockets were bursting through the dark sky behind them in a grand display of welcome for the novelist.
The lookout, squinting, grumbled at Dolby, “That don't look like no author at all. That looks like an old gentleman pirate!”
High above them, Charles Dickens himself stood on the deck of the steamer, his flashy vest and gold watch chains illuminated in the halo of the fiery display in the sky. Lithe and standing tall, looking taller from such a height than his five feet eight inches, he peered down with arms outstretched.
The Americans on the smaller ship could not help showing surprise to see that Dickens's head was uncovered. After shouting back and forth with the crew of the Cuba, they helped Dickens across the plank into the smaller boat where he grabbed two hands at a time in his greetings.
The author seemed equally pleased and discomfited to hear about the waiting crowd at the wharf. “I see,” Dickens said, scratching at his grizzled imperial beard. “So I'm to face the public right away?”
“Your ship's accident with the mud bank, my dear Dickens, may work to our advantage,” said Fields. “We have chartered two carriages now waiting at the Long Wharf to take us directly to the hotel. As long as all eyes remain waiting for signs of the Cuba, you will arrive unnoticed and in peace at your hotel, with ample time for a light supper.”
But-as it happens when enough people are interested in a secret-the public picked up the trick. At the Parker House, the arriving party had to struggle through a waiting throng that had them cornered. “Hats off in front!” yelled the ones in the back of the crowd.
It was not until the party had been brought inside the Parker House and sat down for supper that the atmosphere began to relax. Then Dickens noticed. He did not say anything, but his plate of mongrel goose scraped against the table as he pushed it away. The waiter had left the door to the private dining room open slightly in order to allow the public a peek at the famous man.
“Branagan!” Dolby whispered urgently to the young porter he'd brought from England, who got up, crossed the room, and slammed the door. He then gave a hard stare to the offending waiter and whispered to him. The waiter nodded nervously, in apology-or perhaps fear, for this Branagan was hale and strong.
Later that evening, Dickens was slouched in the sitting room of 338 as his bathtub filled. “These people have not in the least changed in the last five and twenty years,” he was saying, falling fast into a somber attitude. “They are doing already what they were doing all those years ago, making me some object of novelty to gaze upon! Dolby, I should have kept my word.”
“When have you ever not, Chief?” asked his manager, indignant on his behalf.
“I swore to myself never to return to America again. There can only be bad things from coming here.” The last time Dickens had come, in 1842, he had planted himself in the middle of a public row by calling for American publishers to adopt international copyright law to stop the free reproduction of British books. Dickens was called greedy and mercenary and accused of coming to the country only to increase his wealth.
His manager now tried to placate the Chief by speaking in generous detail of the first ticket sale and of their great prospects. “Line two miles away from the ticccket boox!” Dolby had long ago conquered a fussy stammer, but still there always seemed a rock in the path of his speech that he had to take care not to stumble over. To master it he had formed a strange habit: he would enunciate the most mundane word with the elaborateness of a regal pronouncement. Cash, telegraphic, and ticket box sounded Shakespearean coming out of Dolby's prominent jowls.
“Look at these,” Dolby said. He removed several bundles as big as sofa cushions.
Dickens sucked in his tongue. “Surely that must be the family wash,” he said.
“Our receipts, just from the first series! Mr. Kelly and I will begin wiring the money to Coutts in London in the morning.” Dickens weighed a pile in each hand as Dolby spoke. “Remember, Chief, seven dollars to the pound.”
Dickens said, “I knew you would see to it that the ticket sales were a slap-up success, good friend. Of that I never doubt.”
“You shall have plenty of peace. See that door over there? It's a private stairs in the rear of the hotel so you needn't be among the public when you don't wish it.”
“Surely, surely. Hot and cold bath, too,” Dickens commented as he wandered again, impressed at the well-appointed rooms and the brilliant flowers left there by Annie Fields that he now ran under his nose. “Now Dolby, be sure to convert those greenbacks directly into gold. Don't ever trust American currency.”
“Never would, Chief!”
After bathing, Dickens took his seat at his desk. He removed his writing case, which held a variety of pencils and quill pens. He had a small red leather diary that he opened to a page toward the back to study it. Plucking up one of the many feathered writing instruments, he then sought out the inkwell provided by the hotel. Wetting the tip of the pen until it soaked black, he proceeded to compose a brief message. “Dolby,” Dickens said, folding the paper when he was done, “have this brought to the telegraph office, won't you? It is important.” Dolby opened the door and snapped his fingers to call for Tom Branagan.
Chapter 12
TOM BRANAGAN FELT THE MANAGER'S EYES LINGER ON HIM AP-provin
gly as he exited room 338 on his latest mission. Downstairs in the Parker's office, the telegraph operator adjusted his eyeglasses and held up the piece of paper to the lamp.
“From Mr. Dickens. ‘Safe and well, expect good letter full of hope.’ Is that all?” the operator asked, squinting as he read the cramped writing. The operator seemed disappointed to find no more sensational message to transmit from the world's most famous writer. “I suppose you came all the way from dear old England to carry scraps of blotted paper up and down the stairs.”
“Thank you for your help. Good evening,” replied Branagan evenly.
As Branagan crossed through the loud barroom and climbed back to the third floor, he was thinking about quiet conversations he had overheard between Dickens and Dolby about Nelly Ternan, the young actress who resided back in England, and whether she would also join them in America. Branagan guessed that the seemingly trifling note was a secret way of instructing Miss Ternan, though he did not know whether it meant she should come or not. But Branagan could guess at that, too.
The crowds awaiting Dickens upon their arrival suggested there would be nothing quiet about a twenty-six-year-old actress joining Dickens, the married father of eight grown children whose mother had moved away from the family estate in England ten years earlier. Branagan did not believe Dickens would want the extra scrutiny. No, nothing ever seemed to stay quiet in America, and that had been the disappointment showing in Dickens's face at supper. Through the narrow gap of that open door Charles Dickens had seen the nation as if it were one enormous curious eyeball trained on him.
Tom Branagan was one of the four subordinates in Dickens's camp brought for the tour. The assistants shared two rooms on the same floor as Dickens, whose own spacious rooms adjoined George Dolby's. Tom shared his with Henry Scott, the novelist's dresser and tailor. Henry was the only person-with the exception of Dolby-allowed in Dickens's dressing rooms before and after public readings. Henry, a melancholy man, would dress the novelist and adjust his hair into the perfect image of the younger man seen in so many photos in the windows of so many bookstores: the dashing, carefree genius whose eyes seemed to penetrate through the world around him just like the novels that made him famous.
Henry liked to consider himself in a different class than the other assistants, and when not in Dickens's company would remain reserved. Henry always referred to the Irish porter as “Tom Branagan,” never using just his first or surname. There was also Richard Kelly, a ticket agent with much bluster but a delicate constitution who was still recovering from the rough passage aboard the Cuba. George, the gas man, adjusted the lighting at each theater to Dickens's exacting requirements. Conversation with George was doomed because every time he saw a lighting configuration-such as those in the glowing marble lobby of Parker's-he would stop and mutter to himself a long list of potential improvements.
Tom, at twenty years old, was the youngest of the group. His father, who had immigrated to England from Ireland, had worked for Dolby for ten years as a driver in the town of Ross. Tom's father died after being kicked in the chest by a horse and Dolby, in a fit of compassion, agreed to engage Tom, who needed to help support his elderly mother and two unmarried sisters.
The young fellow was well built, cool, and collected, the right traits for a decent porter. Tom had no mandate as specific as seeing to Dickens's dress, light, or profits. A whistle, a snap of the fingers, a tapped foot-all were signals for Tom to do anything that was needed.
***
NOT EVERYONE APPROVED of the decision to bring Tom to America.
For each of the trusted advisers in England originally consulted in planning Dickens's trip, there had been different notions about what might go wrong in America: Charles Dickens himself had been most worried about the Fenian Brotherhood, the radical Irishmen spread throughout the United States, particularly in Boston and New York, devoted to bringing down ruin upon England. They would relish the opportunity to assault a conspicuous Englishman like himself on American soil. George Dolby, meanwhile, worried about the American speculators ruining ticket sales by buying up excessive numbers of tickets. John Forster, who considered himself Dickens's closest friend and most selfless adviser… well, Mr. Forster worried. He worried that Dickens's presence could inspire anti-English riots like the ones against the Shakespearean actor William Macready in New York. Forster also thought, generally speaking, that it was unseemly for a man as great as Dickens-and in John Forster's eyes no man was greater-to be seen going to such lengths for no grander purpose than making a profit.
Dickens had not been shy swatting aside this point. “Expenses in my life are so enormous,” he'd say, “that I feel myself drawn toward America like the Loadstone rock, as Darnay in the Tale of Two Cities is to Paris. America is the golden campaigning ground.”
Forster knit his brow and kept it knit. What profits could be made in America, land of paupers and thieves? Even if there were money to be made, the Irish would find a way to steal the money right out of the American banks. If the bank managed to somehow keep the money, the bank would surely fail, like all American banks! “Dickens should not go to America!” said Forster in a half shout. “I am opposed to the alpha and omega of the idea as an unacceptable breach of dignity and wish to hear no more about it. In tol-er-able!”
When Forster was told about the subordinates chosen to travel with the novelist, he was further appalled an Irishman was among them. What if the seemingly harmless Paddy were a Fenian himself with a secret plan to attack? Neither Dickens nor Dolby could exactly prove Forster wrong about Tom Branagan but managed to convince him that Tom was more ordinary porter than revolutionary.
Tom, for his part, found it interesting to observe that it was the members of the public who loved Dickens that caused the most concern. Tom had helped keep the onlookers away when Dickens had arrived at the Parker House; he was not surprised by their presence but by their persistence. A young woman yanked out a piece of fringe from Dickens's heavy gray and black shawl; a man excited to touch the novelist took the opportunity to pull a clump of fur from his coat. A lady energetically jumped up and down and waved a few pages of her manuscript, which she pleaded with Dickens to read. Tom looked into their faces. Did each think that Dickens would turn around and walk home with them arm in arm?
Tom knew one thing. He had never before in his life met a man to whom women would offer their seats in a public vehicle or anteroom-until he had met Charles Dickens.
On the second morning after Dickens's arrival to the Parker House there was an uproar on the third floor of the hotel where Dickens and his staff had their rooms. At first, Tom had only noticed that Henry Scott, his roommate, was leaning his head against the wall and crying.
“All right, Mr. Scott?” Tom asked, concerned.
Henry looked right at Tom, thankful to find a witness. He dropped his usual reticence and slumped into one of the plush armchairs. “Baggage handlers? Baggage smashers!”
The trunks of Dickens's clothing from the Cuba had been delivered to the hotel crushed and dented. Tom sat down on the rug and helped Henry reorganize the clothes.
“Thank you, Tom Branagan,” Henry said, embarrassed. “It's more outrageous than a man could bear when one's work is treated like this. Beastly country!”
As soon as the two men had restored sufficient order to the wardrobe, there was another disturbance from across the hall. George Dolby was braying and shouting. He stood with Dickens and the others in the hallway of the hotel passing around a copy of Harper's Weekly. Tom asked if they were all right.
“See for yourself, Branagan,” said Dolby, pronouncing his name with a most stately explosion of the tongue that conveyed a measure of censure. “All right? Certainly not!”
In the magazine was a cartoon showing in grotesque caricature the figures of Dickens and Dolby barring the door of a room labeled “Parker House” against hordes of Americans on the other side. The cowardly Mr. Dickens was crying out, “Not at home!”
“I do
n't suppose this artist was actually present here,” Tom said after a moment of deliberation. “This drawing shows Mr. Dickens hiding in his room from the onlookers, which was not the case.”
“Of course he wasn't hiding!” said Dolby, aghast.
Dickens stroked the slight iron gray streak in his beard and, punching his cheek out with his tongue as he did at uncomfortable times, looked up wearily from the cartoon. “Weren't we? Didn't I come here to do just that: hide, then sneak out from my hole long enough to collect my profit?” The novelist sighed and limped into the room on his lame right leg, an old injury reawakened by the sea travel.
THAT NIGHT TOM woke up in the small hours. His eyes danced in the darkness of the hotel room to the mantel clock.
“Did you hear that, Scott?” he whispered across the room to Henry.
Henry Scott stirred in his bed.
“A noise,” Tom explained. “Did you hear a noise?”
Henry's face was in his pillow. “Go to sleep, Tom Branagan.”
Tom had been having trouble sleeping in the Parker House-there was something about its opulence that disoriented him. Tom was not certain he had actually heard a noise-or at least not a noise different from the usual ones from the busy streets of Boston outside-but he was glad to justify his uneasy wakefulness. The clock's ticking teased him out of bed.
The Last Dickens Page 10