The Final Recollections of Charles Dickens

by Thomas Hauser

  “You have witnesses now.”

  Ellsworth shook his head.

  “There was a great amount of a bluff in what I said. We have little that would hold against him in a court of law. There is no proof of forgery and no witness to the murder of Owen Pearce. But Wingate does not know that. And he is desperate. Only a desperate man or a fool would talk the way he did today. And he is not a fool.”

  Then Ellsworth did something that I had never seen him do before. He smiled.

  “Truth is a sublime and grand thing,” he said. “Though like other sublime and grand things, such as a thunderstorm, one is not always glad to see it. I believe he is crumbling. Let us see if it leads him to error.”

  CHAPTER 9

  My recollection turns a corner now to a day in my life like no other. If it had occurred yesterday, I could not remember the details more clearly. Every moment is firmly impressed upon my memory, as if it had been carved in stone and set before my eyes since birth. It is a secret that I have held inviolate for four and thirty years.

  On Tuesday, the twenty-ninth day of March, the morning after Benjamin Ellsworth conducted his interview with Geoffrey Wingate, a police constable named Clarence Evans met me at my lodging. He stayed with me throughout the day as I travelled through London and brought me home safely that night. I told him that there would be no need for his services on Wednesday. The first installment of The Pickwick Papers was to be published on Thursday. I would be at home all day on Wednesday, working to complete the second installment.

  Wednesday morning was of a kind that is common in early spring when the year is fickle and changeable in its youth. The sun shone hot, and the wind blew cold. It was spring in the light and winter in the shade.

  I awoke early and began to write. Geoffrey Wingate was very much on my mind, but I pushed the thought of him aside as best I could to concentrate on my work. Catherine and I were to be married on Saturday. I felt an uneasiness with regard to the impending nuptials.

  I finished the second installment in the late afternoon and read through what I had written, moving sentences, changing a word here and there. Samuel Pickwick and Alfred Jingle were coming alive. Then I heard tapping at my door.

  A knock, louder.

  I went to the door.

  “Who is there?”

  “Amanda Wingate.”

  It is in the character of young men that, when the prize is sufficient, caution with regard to mortality is some times cast aside.

  I opened the door. Amanda Wingate stood before me. Her attire was drab and plain. A black coat and gray dress without much shape to it. Her skirt extended to within inches of the floor. She held a large cloth bag in her hand.

  “I have come to share a bottle of wine with you, Mr. Dickens. As a mark of our friendship.”

  Her eyes promised that she intended no harm. I chose to believe them.

  “You surprise me, Mrs. Wingate. And more so because you are here alone.”

  “I am a grown woman, Mr. Dickens. I go when and where I please.”

  She stepped into my rooms and removed her bonnet. Her hair was tied atop her head in a bun.

  “It is spring,” she said cheerfully. “The trees are budding.”

  I do not recall precisely what I offered in response. Perhaps that summer was likely to follow.

  Amanda handed me a green glass bottle.

  “Have you glasses for wine? I brought a corkscrew on the chance that you do not have one.”

  I took two glasses from the cupboard and set them on the table. Amanda handed the corkscrew to me. I opened the bottle and filled each glass with wine. We sat opposite each other.

  Poison . . . The thought was inevitable.

  “You are not drinking, Mr. Dickens. Is the wine not to your liking?”

  “I find it sad to drink alone.”

  Amanda raised her glass to her lips and swallowed all that was in it. A trickle of red coursed down her chin. She wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her dress and gestured for me to pour more.

  I refilled her glass.

  She looked around the room. “I like it that you have books, Mr. Dickens. I read books.”

  “What have you read?”

  “Waverley, Gulliver’s Travels, The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders.”

  The light of the late afternoon sun was dancing on the wall. I did not know why she had come. I knew only that she was there.

  “Do you think ‘Amanda’ is a pretty name, Mr. Dickens?”

  “I like it.”

  “It is of Latin origin and means ‘worthy of love.’”

  I would play the game no more.

  “Have you come to see me about Geoffrey?”

  “Geoffrey does not know that I am here.”

  “But your appearance is connected to events of this week, is it not?”

  “I know that Geoffrey has been agitated. Perhaps you can tell me why.”

  “His integrity and conduct have been called into question.”

  “I choose not to believe that about him.”

  “You are extremely lenient in your appraisal.”

  “I know what it is like to be the object of uncharitable suspicions. And he is my husband.”

  “Do you fear him?”

  “Of course not.”

  “You should.”

  Her eyes flashed angrily.

  “I will not hear of such things.”

  “Do you fear what you might hear?”

  “Talk of Geoffrey is not why I came.”

  “Why did you come?”

  Her eyes changed.

  “I wanted to see you.”

  There were no words within me to respond.

  Amanda reached above her head and pulled the ribbon from her hair. Her long brown tresses fell loose round her shoulders.

  “Do you think me a wicked woman?”

  “My mind is at a loss for thoughts at the moment.”

  “It is in my nature.”

  There are moral ambiguities in life. I was not thinking of them.

  Amanda reached again, this time behind her shoulders, and unfastened the buttons that held her dress together. The customary petticoats were not beneath it. What little she now wore was striking for its colour. It was the fashion of the time for cloth that touched the most private parts of a woman’s body to be white in keeping with the purity of the wearer. Amanda’s most intimate undergarments were black and fashioned to accentuate rather than conceal.

  She stood now virtually naked before me. I could have looked at her forever.

  “This must be known only to us,” she said.

  She took my hand and pressed it against her broad white bosom. I had no more chance of resisting her than of standing on the shore of the ocean and pushing back the tide. Whether our lips came together next on her movement or mine matters little. It happened. Then she drew back, just a bit.

  “Have you experience?”

  “This is the first time,” I confessed. “I am young for my age in matters of this nature.”

  “I prefer it that way. We are both clean. Come to the bed with me. We haven’t much time.”

  She led me by the hand to my bedroom and passed her fingers along my cheek. They trembled for just a moment before their touch became a caress. She was a hundred times more beautiful unclothed than I had imagined anyone could be. I have never seen a woman as beautiful as she was that night.

  “Do I please you, Mr. Dickens?”

  It is happening now. Amanda is at arm’s length. The length of an arm is not much. And she is not holding it out straight but bending it a little. There is a smile on her face. She is coming closer. Her hair covers my face like an angel’s wing. The room and walls grow dim. I am in a misty, unsettled state. The rest is like a dream. She is passion. She is fire. She is the essence of desire, more than human to me. She is everything that I can ever want. She understands my every need. The heavens open up and rain pleasure down upon me. It is too late to part us. There is a torrent of ecst
asy. I am swallowed up in an abyss of love. Then, exhaustion.

  If I had left the world in that moment, it would have been on happier terms than I have known before or since in my life.

  Amanda lay beside me, her hair disheveled, her bosom heaving. I kissed her cheek. Her eyes were dim with moisture that might have been taken for tears. She rested her head upon my chest as though she had known me from the cradle. Then she spoke.

  “I must go now,” she said.

  “Please, stay longer.”

  “I cannot.”

  Amanda rose from the bed. The room was dark. I lit a candle. She began putting on her clothes. A contented laugh escaped her lips, childlike with a touch of wickedness.

  A sentiment was growing powerfully within me, ever more difficult to suppress.

  “Must you be with Geoffrey?”

  I thought the question but did not ask it. There was nothing to be gained by that line of inquiry.

  “You are thinking something,” Amanda said. “I see it in your face.”

  I nodded.

  “A penny for your thoughts.”

  “I was thinking that perhaps I expect more of you than you expect of yourself.”

  Her eyes flashed angrily, as I had seen before when I ventured too far.

  “Don’t talk nonsense.”

  “It is intended as a compliment.”

  “Then keep your compliments to yourself. You have no idea what I expect of myself, and you have no right to judge me. You are not a stupid man, Mr. Dickens. You have an idea of what I once did. But you have no idea of what my life was like when I was young, or what I am today.”

  “Perhaps I know more than you think.”

  “Not at all. You are a clever man, but you are quite young in knowledge of human nature. Let me tell you of the world I grew up in since you are so curious about it all.

  “There was a child called Amanda, born into poverty and neglect. A child who had done no wrong but to come into the world alive. She knew no father. She did not know where she had been born. She first became aware of herself at the age of four, living on the streets of London. She had a mother who did not care for her. She had no schooling. She was taught nothing of religion. Nobody kept watch over her to protect her. Nobody! The only care she knew was to be beaten and abused. She did not lose her innocence. She never had any.

  “You have seen children, Mr. Dickens. Half-naked shivering figures that gaze with hungry eyes at the loaves of bread in shop windows. The thin sheet of glass that their pale faces press against is a wall of iron to them. I was one of those children.

  “I had a brother who disappeared on the streets one day when he was seven. He was never seen or heard from again. My brother! Gone forever. That is the world I come from.

  “When I was young, I was skin and bones. As womanhood came upon me and my body changed, my mother made a property of me. I was groomed for trade and sold to men who took me for their pleasure. I became pregnant. My mother brought me to a doctor of sorts, and they killed the baby before it could grow in my womb. The procedure changed what is inside me. I can never be with child again. Do you know how old I was then, Mr. Dickens? I was twelve. Make no judgment of me.

  “I brought good looks out of childhood. Virtue as you think of it was a luxury that I could not afford. What came next comes to many women. I took advantage of the opportunities that my appearance afforded me. I suffered myself to be sold as ignominiously as any beast with a halter round its neck. I was offered and accepted, put up and appraised, until my soul sickened. Every grace that was a resource to me was paraded and vended to enhance my value. Somehow, I came through it all without disease. I resolved that I would be well cared for and looked after. I became educated.

  “I am a woman now, honoured by society. There is talk, I am sure, among the wives when I am not there. But I treat people of all classes with dignity and respect, as they now treat me. Perhaps you think I would have been better served had I taken up maid’s work or sewn clothes or scrubbed streets to earn my roll of bread from day to day. I think not. Let all who would save my soul ask themselves where they were when I was an innocent, helpless little wretch. Let them understand that there is twenty times more wickedness and wrong among the rich than on the streets where I once lived. Why should I be penitent, and those born to wealth go free?”

  Having spoken those words, Amanda lapsed into silence. Her face, which had been agitated, softened.

  “I am done,” she said. “I have said enough. Let us not talk of honourable living. Perhaps, in some small way, your childhood was like mine. We need not make a show of our history. It was over long ago.”

  Her beauty, fierce and defiant moments before, was now gentle in spirit.

  I could no longer suppress the question.

  “Do you love Geoffrey?”

  “There was a time when I thought I did.”

  “Does he love you?”

  “He has been good to me in his way.”

  “You could have chosen a more honourable man.”

  “Don’t talk to me of honour, Mr. Dickens. I dined with the woman who you are planning to marry. The daughter of your employer. A step up in society from where you began. That consideration, I am sure, was not lost on you when you proposed marriage. Or is it chance that you are not engaged to a woman who began her life on the streets?”

  The words I spoke next came without thought.

  “I would leave her for you.”

  “Don’t talk rubbish. Leave her for me. I am a married woman, thank you, with no interest in leaving my husband. And you have no intention of deviating from the path that you have chosen for yourself. You are an ambitious man. I see that in you. You are as driven in your way as Geoffrey is in his. I do not think that scandal would suit you.”

  The candle was burning low. Amanda was now fully dressed and looked as proper as when she had arrived, save for a smudge of wine on her sleeve.

  “I know what I am,” she said. “I know the rules of society. Some times I abide by them. Some times I do not. I know the difference between right and wrong. I have done both in my life. As for the life I lead, I must lead it.”

  “Why did you do this tonight?”

  “Because I wanted to, Mr. Dickens. What other reason could there be? I chose to be with you this evening as I chose to go with you to the ballet. The difference is that, tonight, Geoffrey does not know that I am here. I trust you agree that it would be unwise to tell him.”

  “I do.”

  “Then we are of the same mind. One keeps a secret better than two. You must keep this one with me.”

  “The secret is yours, not mine. I promise that I will respect it.”

  “Then there is only one thing more that I would ask of you.”

  Amanda reached into the bag that she had brought with her and drew out a book bound in dark green cloth. I recognised it immediately. Volume I from the first series of Sketches by Boz.

  “Would you be so kind as to inscribe this for me?”

  I carried the book to my desk and opened it to the title page. Amanda was smiling, but it seemed a smile that could easily turn to tears. I reached for my pen and wrote:

  For Amanda Wingate,

  a woman of uncommon beauty and grace.

  My fondest good wishes,

  Charles Dickens

  “Thank you, Mr. Dickens. I will treasure this always.”

  “It is my pleasure.”

  “We are parting now. I shall not see you again.”

  My heart, which minutes before had been soaring, sank suddenly like a stone.

  “But surely—”

  “Never again. It must be that way.” Her voice softened. “But let us part as friends.”

  She extended her hand. I put it to my lips and kissed it.

  “It is dark out,” I pled. “Let me accompany you home.”

  “There is no need for that. I will be safe. I know my way about the streets.”

  The hours after Amanda’s departure wer
e tumultuous in my mind. I did not realise then that she would be forever fixed in my consciousness. I did know that my life had changed. I also knew that I had hoped from the beginning that what had just transpired would come to pass. But I had never for a moment thought that it would happen. I felt no guilt or shame at having betrayed Catherine. There was a modicum of fear for my personal safety, but I sensed that Amanda would protect me.

  On my bed, I found a handkerchief. Silk with two violets embroidered into the cloth. I wondered if Amanda had left it by design. I vowed to keep it forever.

  That night, I dreamed of her, as I often would in the years to come.

  The first installment of The Pickwick Papers was published the following morning. Clarence Evans met me at my rooms and escorted me throughout the day. Amanda was dominant in my thoughts. My fantasies ran wild. Geoffrey Wingate would be prosecuted and sent to the gallows. Amanda would be disgraced in the eyes of some. No matter. She understood my cause. She was born of it. Would that I could read the book of her heart. I knew little of it other than I longed for it to be mine.

  On Friday morning, Clarence Evans returned to my quarters. Forty hours had passed since Amanda and I had parted.

  “Inspector Ellsworth wishes to see you at the Wingate residence,” Evans told me. “He would like you to transcribe the statements of witnesses as he speaks with them.”

  The constable was without further knowledge to answer my questions. Had Wingate crumbled and confessed guilt? Had Amanda known more than she acknowledged to me and resolved to tell all? The carriage ride to the Wingate home seemed to last forever. My heart was pounding.

  Several more constables were in the parlour with the servant staff when I arrived. I was led to Wingate’s office. Ellsworth looked up from behind the desk and addressed me as I entered.

  “They are gone.”

  It took a moment for me to grasp the meaning of those simple words.

  “Last night, under cover of dark, they fled,” the inspector said.