The Detective and Mr. Dickens

by William J Palmer

  Immediately following the serving of the wine and the first course of meat pie and French potatoes served on clam shells, Sir John Falstaff held court, to the delight of all. Dickens introduced that worthy from the Chair. Falstaff entered from a small anteroom on the right, all whiskers and belly. He wore a capacious jerkin that was part short cape and part large-buttoned doublet. Around his bulging waist was a thick leather belt from which hung a pointy dagger of the Italian mode and a heavy broad-bladed hand sword. His loose leather trousers were rolled at his boottops and large, mean-looking riding spurs were strapped to his heels. As he entered, he brandished an oversized drinking tankard.

  It was, of course, Mark Lemon, one of Dickens’s closest friends and perhaps the most enthusiastic of the collaborators and actors in Dickens’s frequent amateur theatricals. Lemon, indeed, seemed born to the part of Falstaff. He possessed the great girth, the jolly eye, the booming voice, the bristling whiskers, and the tipsy rolling gait that were all impeccable credentials for the part. Macready had even asked him to play the part professionally a few years before, when Covent Garden was getting up a Henry IV, Part One, but Lemon refused, protesting that “once an amateur always an amateur.” Covent Garden settled for Alexander Welsh, but even Macready, in private, agreed that his portrayal did not at all come up to Lemon’s.

  Upon entering, Falstaff stood in a small cleared space immediately in front of the Chair, where Dickens sat applauding happily. As befit the fat drunkard and ruffian that he was, Falstaff glared around belligerently, then took a long draught from his tankard and sat down. He arranged himself comfortably in the chair, comically adjusting his swords so that they didn’t poke his bulging stomach, took another look around, another deep draught, and began:

  “For, Harry, I do not speak to thee in drink…”

  With that Lemon rolled his eyes and gazed at his huge tankard.

  “And yet there is a virtuous man whom I have often noted in thy company, but I know not his name…”

  We all recognized the speech immediately, the tavern scene from Act II. What could be more appropriate for this tavern scene?

  “A good portly man, i’ faith, and a corpulent…”

  “You bloated barrel of sack!” It was Macready who barked this insult from the table immediately in front of the stage.

  The whole company burst out laughing as Falstaff paused a brief moment to frown with disdain upon this groundling heckler before continuing on:

  “of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage.”

  “A fat drunkard and whoremonger!” This insult came from Dickens in the Chair and suddenly the scenario was clear. Macready and Dickens were intentionally inciting the crowd as a way of involving them in this small exercise in theatre. We were expected to be part of the cast.

  Falstaff paid no attention but rode straight on with his argument:

  “and, as I think, his age some fifty, or, by’r Lady, inclining to threescore; and now I remember me, his name is Falstaff.”

  “Falstaff, you big-bellied varlet!” came a laughing taunt from the midst of the mob in the tap. I recognized Garis the actor’s voice.

  “You fat bag of wind!” Another tapster gleefully took up the game.

  Falstaff went on, undaunted:

  “If that man should be lewdly given, he deceiveth me; for, Harry, I see virtue in his looks.”

  “Virtue in his drunken red nose!”

  “Virtue in his bouncing belly!”

  The insults flew fast and furious. Falstaff, ignoring their jibes, his booming voice rising above the crowd, continued to flatter himself shamelessly:

  “If then the tree may be known by the fruit, as the fruit by the tree, then, peremptorily I speak of it, there is virtue in that Falstaff. Him keep with, the rest banish.”

  “You obese bucket of beer!” High spirits flowed as freely as the wine, and I found myself shouting insults right along with the others. We tried to outdo each other in the alliterative quality of our catcalls.

  “You jiggling jerkin of flesh!”

  “You farting fricassee of mutton merde!”

  “You mountainous mound of meat!”

  The insults only spurred Falstaff forward faster and more fiercely on his flight of fatuous self-flattery:

  “No, my good lord: banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins; but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff…”

  “Fat Jack Falstaff!”

  “…valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant being as he is old Jack Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry’s company, banish not him thy Harry’s company. Banish plump Jack, and banish all the world!”

  With a flourish of his crushed hat and a clinking of his spurs, Falstaff swept off the stage to a deafening round of applause and cheers.

  Everyone was entertained by Lemon’s Falstaff and merriment buzzed through the dining room and the tap as the second course, a hearty roast in natural brown gravy, was served with cooked carrots. As we ate and drank, anticipation built for Dickens’s speech.

  The coffee was being served by the tavern’s scullery maids. In mere moments, the glass would be tapped for silence, the introduction would be made, and Dickens would rise to speak. I was lighting my cigar in anticipation, when an unusual flurry of activity at the table immediately in front caught my attention.

  First, the Serjeant-At-Arms, a large actor named George Ford, whom I had seen in supporting roles at both Covent Garden and Drury Lane, approached Forster, whispered in his ear and escorted him from his table.

  My eyes followed as they repaired to the rear of the tavern near the door. Forster quickly entered into deep conversation with a young man who appeared out of breath and rather red in the face. Almost immediately, Forster became very agitated and actually reached out, grabbed the young man by the shoulders, and shook him. The young man replied by shaking his head violently up and down, signifying affirmation of whatever had so greatly agitated Forster. Without another word, Forster turned and hurried back to his table.

  Sitting down, Forster immediately leaned close, first to Macready and then to Lemon, who, after uncostuming himself, had joined the party of Dickens’s oldest friends, and spoke excitedly in a lowered voice.

  “Good Lord!” I overheard Lemon exclaim in shock. Macready controlled his reaction better, but his eyes went wide.

  At the very moment that I was leaning forward to eavesdrop on that trio so deep in mysterious conversation, Dickens was introduced. He arose at the center of the double-winged head table, smiled out at the gathering and raised his glass to toast the General Theatrical Fund. His smile set in motion a wave of applause, which drowned out all other sounds. Forster, Macready, and Lemon were startled, looked furtively around and then at each other. There was panic and indecision in their faces.

  Dickens began with an acknowledgement of the usefulness of the Theatrical Fund. I must admit that I didn’t really hear his opening words due to my curious observation of the agitation at the table directly in front of me. I was convinced that something quite unusual was up.

  Dickens’s booming voice exerted its control over the room. Forster sank back in his chair as if defeated. With the palms of his hands held up to the other two, he gestured for them to wait.

  “Although the General Theatrical Fund, unlike some similar public institutions, is represented by no fabric of stone, or brick, or glass—like that wonderful achievement of my ingenious friend Mr. Paxton, of which the great demerit, as we learn from the best authorities, is, that it ought to have fallen down before it was quite built, and would by no means consent to do it.”

  Great peels of laughter accompanied this comment with everyone joining in except Forster and Lemon and Macready who each looked as if they were in the midst of choking.

  “Although, I say, the General Theatrical Fund is represented by no great architectural edifice, it is nevertheless as plain a fact, rests upon as solid a foundation, and carries as erect a front as any building in
the world.”

  Thus Dickens began his speech, but, much to my own surprise, I wasn’t paying full attention. He was the best after-dinner speaker I had ever heard, yet this night I was distracted. Forster was so nervous that his hand shook as he lit his cigar. Macready sat scowling, his bushy eyebrows stretched taut. Lemon’s eyes darted everywhere, with a delicate nervousness unbefitting of Good Jack Falstaff.

  Dickens had gotten up steam and his speech was speeding along its track with clear direction and the full exercise of his whimsical powers of description:

  “It is a society which says to the actor, you may do the light business, or the heavy business, or the comic business, or the serious business, or the eccentric business; you may be the captain who courts the young lady; you may be the Baron who gives the fete, and who sits on the sofa under the canopy, with the Baroness, to behold the fete; or you may be the peasant who swells the drinking chorus at the fete, and who may usually be observed to turn his glass upside-down immediately before drinking the Baron’s health; or, to come to the actresses, she may be the Fairy, residing forever in a revolving star; or you may even be a Witch in Macbeth, bearing a striking resemblance to Malcolm or Donalbain of the previous scenes with his wig of the hind-side before.”

  It was one of his usual lively performances, yet it left me standing at the station. Finally, his voice began to rise as it always did when he drew near to finishing with his usual flourish:

  “…the actor sometimes comes from scenes of affliction and misfortune—even from death itself—to play his part before us; all men must do that violence to their feelings, in passing on to the fulfillment of their duties in the great strife and fight of life.”

  When he heard Dickens utter those words, Forster turned white, and looked at Macready as if he had just seen the ghost of Banquo sit down at the table.

  With a final toast to the Fund, Dickens smiled over the whole room, gave a small courteous bow and sat down. The applause was thunderous, and lasted long minutes. My eyes never left Forster’s face. His eyes were riveted upon Dickens in the Chair. Finally, the room restored itself to the normality of smoking and drinking. It was then that Forster and Lemon moved quickly from their seats to the Organizer’s table. Forster bent across and spoke briefly to Dickens. For a long moment, a paralysis seemed to lock that midsection of the head table in its grip.

  Then, with a sudden though quite unsteady movement, Dickens was up and clearly taking flight. When he reached the end of the table, Forster and Lemon immediately flanked him. As they crossed the crowded room, they resembled two bailiffs escorting a prisoner into custody. All the excitement and animation which had enlivened Dickens’s face as he spoke to the assembly had drained from his countenance. His lips had gone white and a sickly grey cast had descended over his face. People at the tables rose to shake Dickens’s hand and compliment him on his speech as he passed through the crowd, but Forster shoved them violently away.

  I could no longer contain my curiosity or my concern for my friend. I rushed to Dickens’s side as Forster and Lemon guided him between tables toward the door.

  “What is it? Charles, what is it?” Though unintended, my voice had clearly caught the urgency of the scene.

  Forster glared at me.

  “Bad news. Bad news indeed,” Lemon said, recognizing me.

  Charles could barely speak. He was badly shaken, seemed near fainting. He was not the vigorous, willful strider of the night streets with whom I was accustomed to keeping company. “It’s, it’s Dora, Wilkie. Oh God!” he stammered, a look of utter despair crippling his countenance.

  Forster and Lemon, each with a hand on one of his elbows, continued to pilot him toward the door.

  With a look of panic flooding his countenance, Dickens swivelled his head backwards even as he was moving away from me: “Wilkie, please follow us. We will need you tonight. Devonshire Terrace.” It was a plea in the voice of a man who has been washed overboard and is crying out in the night for someone to throw him a rope.

  With that, Forster and Lemon rushed him through the door and into a waiting carriage. I was left standing befuddled in the street before the tavern door. Two or three of the Grub Streeters were still loitering in attendance. They had, of course, recognized Dickens when he came out. Now, they looked to me for some explanation. I hailed a passing hansom and escaped.

  Upon arriving at the house in Devonshire Terrace, I found out what had happened. The words are hard to write even at a safe distance from the reality of the event. The child, Dickens’s youngest, was dead.

  Great sadness had replaced violence in Forster’s face. His voice cracked. I never liked the man, but that night I realized what a true friend of Dickens he was. He grieved the death of Dickens’s child as if the child had been his own. He felt his closest friend’s pain as if he were suffering it himself.

  It seems that all had thought little Dora Annie brilliantly recovered from a brain congestion and the chicken pox. When Dickens and Forster had left the house, she had been smiling and happy. No more than an hour later, the child’s illness mysteriously returned, convulsions set in, and, before the doctor could be summoned, she was dead.*

  We sat in uneasy silence in a small downstairs parlor for perhaps fifteen minutes before Dickens reappeared. His face was ashen, but he was steady on his feet. He summoned Forster from the room and they held private consultation. I learned later that Mrs. Dickens was the subject of their discussion. Dickens had designated Forster for the delicate assignment of bringing Kate Dickens back from the spa at Malvern. He wrote a letter to his wife which Forster was to hand-deliver. It did not reveal the terrible truth of the child’s death but, nevertheless, prepared the poor mother, herself in quite delicate health, for the receiving of the cold reality upon her arrival. Forster departed immediately in a new carriage with fresh horses which had been summoned by the servants. Dickens, Lemon and I met in the foyer to see Forster off. We started to follow him out to the carriage, but he quickly motioned us back.

  “Stay inside,” he ordered through clenched teeth. “The sharks are beginning to gather.”

  A small crowd of reporters were already milling in the street before the house and more were arriving in hansom cabs each minute. At least ten or twelve were loitering around the front gate looking expectantly up at the house as if getting ready to storm it. Dickens looked at these sensation mongers, but who they were and the reason for their presence did not seem to register in his rational thoughts.

  “Charlie, Charlie, why don’t you get some sleep? Kate won’t be here until morning.” It was Lemon coaxing him as he stood in a paralyzed daze at the bottom of the stairway in the foyer.

  “I must be with little Dora. I must stay with her. She is so alone on her journey. I must keep the vigil. She is so alone.” Dickens spoke the words in a slow, drugged voice as if he wasn’t really there.

  “Yes, of course. We’ll stay with her, Charlie, that’s the thing,” Lemon consoled him.

  Our eyes met. “I’ll take care of things down here,” I whispered, as Lemon, with his arm around Charles’s shoulder, led Dickens up the stairs.

  When they had disappeared into the upper reaches of the house, I turned to my task. Half of Grub Street, it seemed, was clamoring at the gate. The unruly mob of reporters, knowing that Dickens had been called from the Chair of the General Theatrical Fund Dinner on some emergency, was understandably restless. They were beginning to raise a din which was disturbing the neighborhood, and which would disturb Dickens in his mourning if not dealt with quickly. I took a few moments to assemble my thoughts and steel myself to the task, then marched out to face them.

  As I looked down from the front steps at the crowd of them, I remembered Inspector Field striding fearlessly into the midst of that mob of cutthroats in that Rats’ Castle. That image decided me against standing safely on the steps behind the closed gate to address them. Instead, I walked right down, opened the gate, closed it tight behind me, and strode into their very midst. It
was the first time that the press had ever clamored for my opinion as they did for Dickens’s every time he appeared in public. I must admit I relished being the center of their attention even though they hadn’t the slightest idea who I was.

  “I am Wilkie Collins,” the reporters, to my exhilaration, all bent to scribble my name, “a colleague of Mister Dickens.” I paused, trying to compose what I was next going to say.

  “Well Guv, get on wi’ it. Wha’ ’as ’appened?” one of the more impatient of the Grub Street veterans badgered me.

  “A family tragedy,” I blurted out. “Mister Dickens’s youngest child, Dora Annie, died this evening. She suffered a relapse of an ongoing sickness which resulted in convulsions and caused her death.”

  I stopped for breath as the madding crowd closed in tight. Questions rained down. “Mister Dickens is himself a member of the press,” I pleaded, “all pertinent information will be made available to you.” The crowd of reporters had grown to some twenty or thirty. “You must not cause a disturbance here in the street,” I cautioned them. “All information will be made available to you,” I assured them as I made a temporary escape back into the house.

  I made three different forays out to converse with those insensitive vultures camped in the street. New arrivals arrived, those who had been there from the beginning hung on, and hired messengers came and went with the frequency of foreign armies in Belgium. Indeed, as the sole answerer of all their questions, I felt quite the celebrity. The night raced by for me. It passed much more slowly, however, for Charles and Mark Lemon.

  Twice I looked in on them, carrying a tray of hot coffee. The small dead body, dressed all in white, lay on its back on what I thought was a rather large bed for such a small child. The two men kept the vigil, one on each side of the bed. The first time that I entered, Dickens sat slumped in silence, his head resting against the velvet side of his high-backed chair, his empty eyes staring in disbelief at the motionless white corpse before him. Lemon sat warily across from him, tilted forward on the edge of his hard wooden seat. No longer did he resemble jolly Jack Falstaff. Now he watched Dickens carefully as if trying to anticipate his every movement, thought, need. They were a dejected Robinson Crusoe and his attentive man Friday cast totally adrift, trying to stay afloat. The second time I entered, Dickens was up and pacing. He was speaking rapidly in a low hoarse whisper. As I poured the coffee, I listened to his distraught ramblings. I don’t think he even realized that I was in the room.