Death and Mr. Pickwick

by Stephen Jarvis

  ‘Phiz?’ said Young.

  ‘As in physiognomy. I thought it went well with Boz. Boz and Phiz.’

  ‘Better than Nemo. Much better.’

  *

  The noise in the Court of Common Pleas on 22 June 1836, when the prime minister was on trial for adultery, was a thick London mud of sound, composed of the smelliest odours of rumour, the vocal appreciation of the slippery slope to downfall, the moist and titillating gossip of an eminent man with his breeches around his ankles, and coughs – liquid, unhealthy coughs. Outside the courtroom, it was a cool and showery day; inside, the heat rising from the bodies of the onlookers was itself suggestive of adulterous desire, and beads of condensation formed on the windows.

  ‘Where’s Melbourne?’ said a woman to her husband in the middle seats of the middle row of those gathered for the performance.

  ‘I don’t think he’s here,’ said her husband.

  ‘Too guilty to show his face. What about the trollop?’

  ‘I don’t know what she looks like, but there is nobody around who looks as if it might be her.’

  ‘Too ashamed.’

  Two rows in front, an unmarried woman inclined her head towards her equally spinsterish friend. ‘It’s Melbourne’s love letters that are going to be the best bit.’

  ‘He’s the father of her children, that’s what I hear,’ came the prim-mouthed reply.

  In the back row, a man said to his son: ‘It’s not only what he says to her, but what he says about the king.’

  ‘I’ve heard that in one of his letters,’ said the son, ‘he calls the king an old fool.’

  ‘What’s he saying?’ said the woman in the middle seat in the middle row, pointing towards the judge, Lord Chief Justice Tindall, who had just taken his seat, at 9.30 a.m. precisely. The judge’s lips were moving, apparently in the attempt to establish order – the long, unemotional face under the goathair wig looked intelligent, and therefore carried the presumption that the words the lips formed were reasonable, but they were lost among all the sounds of the court.

  ‘I think he’s saying the court will be adjourned unless there is quiet,’ said the woman’s husband.

  ‘He can’t do that! What’s he saying now?’

  ‘Something about impossible to go on.’

  Suddenly a mass of mouths said: ‘Shhhh…’ until there was silence and order.

  The proceedings began.

  Sir William Follett rose, in his quiet, tall manner. His argument unfolded to the jury. ‘It was a marriage of affection, gentlemen – at least, on the part of Mr Norton, I may say of the most unbounded affection.’

  There was, in Sir William’s forehead and studious eyes, a suggestion of a professor of mathematics rather than a lawyer. He had no bold gestures, no histrionic declamation, in the style of some in the law. Yet at times his phrases seemed to hang in the air, full of portent.

  ‘You will find that Lord Melbourne was a constant visitor when Mr Norton was not at home.’

  He ran his eye along all the members of the jury, but he settled upon just one or two, and addressed points of a certain kind in their direction, as though he had seen in one man’s teeth or another man’s brow a longing for a particular line of reasoning.

  ‘He visited three or four times in every week, and he was in the habit of leaving the house before Mr Norton returned.’

  At other times, his manner seemed so uninvolved with those in the court that it appeared the correctness of his argument was his sole concern.

  ‘Gentlemen, I think the evidence I am going to submit to you will satisfy your minds that very shortly after the acquaintance between Lord Melbourne and Mrs Norton commenced, a criminal intercourse occurred between them which continued for a very considerable time.’

  The one movement he made was with his right hand, and its graceful gestures came at those moments when a point was of the most crucial sort.

  ‘In all cases of this kind it rarely – indeed, I may say it never happens – that you can produce evidence of the actual commission of the offence. In such cases, you convict the parties by circumstantial evidence which will lead your minds to the inference and to the conclusion of guilt. It is a fundamental rule that it is not necessary to prove the direct fact of adultery because, if it were otherwise, there is not one case in a hundred in which the proof could be obtained.’

  The voice was smooth and never drawling – he knew his case, and his certainty made for swiftness.

  ‘What are we to say of the conduct of the defendant? Gentlemen, he seduced the affections of the wife under the pretence that he was the friend of her family, and the benefactor of her husband.’

  Soon, a lady’s maid in the witness box confirmed that when Lord Melbourne called, the blinds were always pulled down, with no ray of light to illuminate events within.

  ‘When you dressed Mrs Norton,’ enquired Follett, ‘before she went down to see Lord Melbourne, was she in the habit of taking a clean pocket handkerchief?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Did she always take a pocket handkerchief?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Did you experience any loss of pocket handkerchiefs?’

  ‘A great deal, sir.’

  Oh the delicious insinuation of the handkerchiefs’ use, oh the smiling and the nods and the knowing looks throughout the rows of the court!

  When John Fluke, a coachman and general servant formerly employed by the Nortons, took the stand to be examined by Follett, there was, in the way Fluke licked his lips, the signal: here would be another piece of choice testimony.

  Fluke stated that he had been sent by Mrs Norton to the playhouse to buy a box ticket. He had returned, carrying the ticket, and presumed that Mrs Norton would be in the drawing room at that time of day. He knocked – in the witness box, he imitated the gesture – but as there was no answer, he knocked again, to make sure. Again, no response. So he turned the handle. And then – such a scene as you might buy a box ticket for!

  ‘I saw Lord Melbourne, in a chair near the fire,’ he said. ‘His elbows were on his knees, and his hands were on his face, and he was looking at Mrs Norton. She was lying down, with her head on the hearthrug, her feet towards me. She shifted herself, so she was up on her right arm. And she looked at Lord Melbourne and Lord Melbourne looked at her. And I said I had the box ticket, and neither of them spoke. And – Mrs Norton’s clothes were up and I saw the thick-at-the-knee part of her thigh. Then I turned round, and retired from the room.’

  Under Mrs Norton’s dress the entire court went, and smiles suggested the hem would rise higher. But Sir John Campbell’s cross-examination transmuted salaciousness in an instant, when Fluke answered a single question.

  ‘How was it,’ said Campbell, ‘that you left the service of Mr and Mrs Norton?’

  ‘To tell the truth,’ said John Fluke, ‘I had a drop too much.’

  The woman and her husband in the middle seats of the middle row, the spinsters two rows in front, and the father and son in the back row, all of whose eyes had been glittering with visions of naked knees, emitted laughs, as did several others dotted around the court.

  ‘So I told Mr Norton,’ said Fluke, ‘that he must drive himself. Which is a pretty good proof that I was not very drunk.’

  The few laughs became universal.

  ‘So I was discharged,’ said Fluke, to round the matter off nicely.

  Follett then drew the court’s attention to Mrs Norton’s preparations for a prime ministerial visit: the orders of the servants to admit no one else, and not enter the parlour; Mrs Norton’s arrangement of her dress; her application of rouge; her doing-up of hair; the blinds drawn. Then, during the visit, her leaving the parlour with disarranged dress and hair. The washing of her hands. The return to the parlour, perfectly dressed once more.

  ‘He came to her bedroom when she was ill,’ said Follett. ‘Servants coming to the room found the door bolted.’ Then, singling out a member of the jury with bushy eyebrows to receive
his statement, Follett said: ‘Marks which were the consequence of intercourse between the sexes were found on her linen.’ The demon of salaciousness possessed the court once more, and there were many murmurs, and nods.

  Now Follett turned to correspondence between the defendant and Mrs Norton. ‘Only three notes have been found,’ he said. ‘These three notes relate only to Lord Melbourne’s hours of calling on Mrs Norton, nothing more; but there is something in their style which, trivial as they are, seems to lead to something like suspicion. They seem to import much more than the words convey. Here is one of them: “I will call about half-past four or five o’clock. Yours, Melbourne”.’

  There were quizzical faces all around the court, as though the sentence had been misheard. Follett added his own observations. ‘There is no regular beginning of the letters; they do not commence “My dear Mrs Norton”, or with any form which is usual with a gentleman writing to a lady. Here is another.’

  ‘Now we’ll get the meat,’ whispered the father to the son in the back row.

  Follett breathed in. He read: ‘“How are you?”’

  The first laugh broke.

  Undeterred, Follett continued with the letter: ‘“I shall not be able to call today, but probably shall tomorrow.” Surely this is not the note that would be written by a gentleman, ordinarily acquainted with a lady?’

  The courtroom faces turned to each other. Where were the proclamations of passion? Where were the lines in which Melbourne confided to Mrs Norton that the king was a fool?

  Norton then produced the third. This would surely be the letter.

  ‘The third letter runs: “There is no house today. I shall call after the levee, about four or half past. If you wish it later let me know. I shall then explain to you about going to Vauxhall. Yours, Melbourne”.’

  There was one possible response. The entire court broke down into riotous laughter. There were even smirks on the faces of the other lawyers. Follett himself scowled. He looked along the faces of the jury, but could not see one man who believed in this line of reasoning.

  Campbell thus had considerable material to play with when, late in the day, he gave his summary. ‘There is the allegation,’ he said, ‘that because Mrs Norton was in the habit of occasionally washing her hands and adjusting her dress, she must have committed adultery with Lord Melbourne. What – is it to be argued that because a lady washes her hands and arranges her dress before dinner she convicts herself of want of chastity?’ The laughs came thick and loud. He turned to the testimony of Fluke, and the exposed thigh. ‘Was this testimony credible? Was it to be supposed that the act of adultery had taken place and that when Fluke came in she should continue in that posture and make him a bow, or that she should lie like a statue without any effort to recompose her dress, for the mere purpose of allowing Mr Fluke to gratify his curiosity? The most profligate woman should not have behaved in such a manner.

  ‘Now by whom are the charges made in this case? They are made by discarded servants, by a race the most dangerous in all cases, but – particularly in a case of this sort – wholly unworthy of credit. While the servants remain in the family, all goes on well, there is no complaint, no information given by them; but years after they are dismissed from the family, they do make complaints.

  ‘What I believe, gentlemen, is this: that Mr Norton never suspected the honour of his wife and that he had no reason to do so. I must say it appears to me that Mr Norton has been made a fool of – that suspicion has been infused in his mind without any reason whatsoever. That he has been abused, I am afraid, gentlemen, for party and political purposes – for purposes which the respectable members of the party opposed to Lord Melbourne would abhor and despise.’ He sat down, and although the dignity and procedures of court ruled out hand meeting hand in applause, certainly chins met collars, and eyes met eyes, and everywhere signs and murmurs of approval manifested themselves among those in attendance.

  Lord Chief Justice Tindall delivered his summation to the jury with a mildness in his voice and an extreme studiousness in his face. ‘The guilt of the defendant is a question that turns upon the evidence, and upon the evidence alone,’ he said. ‘It is perfectly clear that there is no direct evidence of the fact of adultery; it is also perfectly clear that the law does not require direct evidence of the fact, merely evidence of such circumstances as would lead by fair and just inference to it.’

  He turned towards the matter of Mrs Norton’s exposed thigh, and whether the testimony of John Fluke was credible. ‘The witness has described the way in which Mrs Norton was lying on the rug. That was a situation of high indelicacy at least; whether it was before or after the supposed act of adultery was left entirely to conjecture. It is up to you, the jury, to determine whether you believe the witness or not. None of the other witnesses spoke of any act approaching to an act of adultery. And this witness had given an account of himself not favourable to his dealings as an honest man.’

  Hence, after hours of statements, testimony and cross-examination, the case could be reduced to whether the flesh of a woman’s thigh had been seen by a single witness entering a room, and a witness whose testimony was suspect. The elephant had shrunk to a fly and a fly could be flicked. The jury looked at each other in the box. By a code of nods, by a surname muttered in an undertone, without any conferring in private, they reached a verdict – and in seconds. The foreman stood.

  ‘My Lord, we are agreed. It is my duty to say that our verdict is for the defendant.’

  Shouts of ‘Hooray for Melbourne!’ came from every nook and corner, accompanied by great gales of applause. There were a few hisses, but these were drowned in the cheers for the prime minister, and, as the news seemingly had the power to travel through solid doors, the applause and the cheers were echoed by the crowd outside. There were cries of ‘Order! Order!’ and when quiet had been in some degree restored, the Lord Chief Justice called upon the police to bring before him any person guilty of contempt of court, because he had never heard a verdict received in such a disgraceful manner. The policemen, as they could not herd an entire courtroom of people, accordingly saw no one guilty of contempt. Finally the court began to clear, some fourteen hours after the session began.

  Among the reporters present was one from the Morning Chronicle – Boz. The muscular cramp attacking his hand after writing so many notes for so many hours had spread to his legs, and his back, and neck. Now would come a task which would send the cramp burrowing into his brain like a psychic tick: page after page of notes had to be transcribed into legible handwriting. Furthermore, it had to be done without delay, so that it would be ready for the newspaper in the morning. Yet, as he prepared to leave, he cast a look towards Campbell, who was then gathering up papers and depositing them in a satchel. What was that, as Campbell rearranged the satchel’s contents? Was it a flash of a green wrapper? Surely not. Yet for an instant it looked like a copy of Pickwick. It was a thought to be brushed aside, for the transcription was the immediate concern.

  Boz worked through the night, while his wife brewed coffee, until the task was done. Then he handed the pages to Fred for immediate dispatch to the offices of the Chronicle. ‘That’ll be about twenty-five columns’ worth,’ he said, which were the last words he uttered before his body and thoughts gave way, and he fell into bed, and stayed there – so fatigued that a whole day had to be devoted to sleep.

  At certain times upon the pillow, thoughts of Pickwick surfaced, and mingled with his dormancy. In a dream, or something akin to a dream, a door was opened in Boz’s mind, and there was Caroline Norton by the fireside, her dress raised, her thigh exposed – and that fleshy part of her body moulded itself into the belly of Mr Pickwick, upside down, her petticoat falling to become his waistcoat while her knee became his bald head – here was Mr Pickwick made from Caroline Norton’s thigh and knee and underclothes the way that Eve was made from Adam’s rib. Mr Pickwick was lasciviously immersed, feet first, buried to the waist up a woman’s dress. Some half-conscious p
art of Boz asked: what if Mr Pickwick were found in a compromising position?

  The warmth of the Norton fireside took Boz back to the badly ventilated body-heated courtroom, where sweat from his forehead dripped on to his notebook. There was Follett reading out the silly letters – Boz heard the laughter in the court: great guffaws on the benches, and huge grins, with thick, scarlet lips.

  He stirred and his mind cleared, and he was near the point of waking. As he approached full consciousness, thoughts came that the action against Melbourne was an abuse of the law, an attempt to find an innocent man guilty of sexual misconduct. If indeed Melbourne was innocent. But if Melbourne was an innocent man, then the action was a shameless attempt to ruin a man’s character. The evidence given by disloyal servants – soiled handkerchiefs and raised dresses – that was all part of the plot. But not all servants are disloyal.

  Seymour’s Sancho Panza figure came to the fore. The artist had left behind a picture of a character with a cockade in his hat. The cockade could be part of the character’s livery if he left service as a bootblack and became Mr Pickwick’s manservant. It was inappropriate dress, a cockade, and that was the point – poor, naive Mr Pickwick would choose a badge intended for servants of royalty, peers, military officers and others serving under the Crown.

  Mr Pickwick was a natural victim. Even on the wrapper, the birds had pecked at his pie as he slept in the punt. He needed a rescuer. His first rescuer was Jingle, who saved him from the cabman. A more permanent and trustworthy rescuer was wanted.

  *

  When Boz rose in the evening, still not refreshed, he knew that something must be turned out for next month’s Pickwick, and the events of the courtroom seemed capable of transfer to the green wrappers. They would have to be modified, of course. It was inconceivable that a fellow like Mr Pickwick would stand trial for adultery. But what about breach of promise? What if Mr Pickwick were to become entangled with a middle-aged woman, a widow perhaps? But how was she widowed? There was a case of 1827, which he remembered from his time as a legal clerk.