Death and Mr. Pickwick

  ‘Do you want this, Mr Pickwick, to remind you of those times?’ said the foreman.

  Moses breathed in deeply. ‘His antlers are dirty. Never like that in the old days.’ He stroked off a smut around the antler’s tip. ‘No, where would I put him?’ said Moses. ‘Besides, I don’t need reminding. I remember it all.’

  He patted the head of the hart, then turned, thrust his blackthorn cane forward, and walked away.

  9 November 1867. Evening.

  John Forster sat in his book-lined study beside a Corinthian-column table lamp, sipping claret. There was a satisfied look upon his features, but the light shining through the cranberry glass tinted his face unnaturally.

  Earlier that day Dickens had sailed from Liverpool, bound for America for a reading tour. A few days prior to departure he had brought round a letter, for Forster’s safekeeping. It was the letter Edward Chapman had written eighteen years before, about his mythical friend John Foster.

  ‘It has to be ready to use, in case it is needed when I am away,’ said Dickens. ‘When I think of this matter, Forster, I am sick with worry.’

  *

  ‘DICKENS HAD GOOD REASON TO be anxious,’ said Mr Inbelicate. ‘A person had emerged in public whom we have got to know a little, Scripty. Insofar as anyone could know him. I refer to Robert Seymour, the son of Robert Seymour. You see, in 1866 he had written to The Athenaeum magazine about his father.’

  ‘I hope this means we may continue with his manuscript.’

  ‘It does.’

  *

  ONCE I KNEW THAT THERE was a blatant contradiction in the account of Pickwick’s origin, as given by Dickens and Chapman, it became my obsession to discover the truth.

  In Dickens’s preface, I read his objections to the supposed Nimrod Club scheme: ‘I objected, on consideration, that although born and partly bred in the country I was no great sportsman, except in regard of all kinds of locomotion.’ Born and partly bred in the country! He was born in Portsmouth. He grew up in Rochester and Chatham. These are not the country. But that is an aside.

  If my father came up with the specific members of the Pickwick Club, as Mr Buss claimed, it is difficult to see how this club could be called the Nimrod Club. Dickens said that he rejected the sporting idea, in favour of ‘a freer range of English scenes and people’. In a club which has not only the sport of Mr Winkle, but also the poetry of Mr Snodgrass, the romantic interests of Mr Tupman, and the scientific and antiquarian interests of Mr Pickwick, there must necessarily already be a ‘freer range of English scenes and people’. If Nimrod means a sporting club, and one restricted in its interests to sport, as Dickens implies, then how can there be members with a diversity of interests? It cannot have been called the Nimrod Club. Even from a publishing point of view, it would be peculiar to name the club after the interests of one active member, the sport of Mr Winkle, ignoring the other members. By naming the club after the founder, so that it is the Pickwick Club, there is scope for diversity – the members could do all manner of things. The Pickwick Club was sensible; but the Nimrod Club made no sense to me at all. Furthermore, my mother never spoke about a Nimrod Club. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club was my father’s title, not The Notorious Notes of the Nimrod Club.

  There is another strange thing too. If Dickens had really resisted the sporting theme, why is it that so much of the early part of Pickwick relates to sport in one way or another? I look at the tale of the sagacious dog – and there is Jingle, the poacher with a gun. More shooting skills follow in the duelling scene. Then the refractory steed – horsemanship. The fight with the cabman – strongly suggestive of pugilism. The arbour scene – Tupman recovers from a sporting injury. Mr Pickwick in search of his hat brings him into contact with a farmer, which leads into the rook-shooting. After my father’s death, there is a cricket scene. In what sense could there have been an overturning of a sporting theme when there is so much sport? Once again, Dickens’s account makes no sense at all. It does make sense if my father was dictating the terms of the work.

  Dickens never resisted the sporting theme in the way he claimed. This was an argument he invented years later.

  I sometimes think Dickens wanted to turn us all into versions of Mr Pickwick, gullibly accepting his prefaces. How strange that I have found myself becoming a sceptical sort, akin to Sam Weller.

  *

  I must be plain. The search for truth has been my only concern. I will not be drawn into public debate. I am too old. Even if I were younger, I would have no relish for the fight. That is for others. My involvement with The Athenaeum magazine taught me a lesson, which I do not wish to repeat. I shall talk of that now.

  *

  It was March 1866, and I was living in a terrace on Eel Brook Common, Fulham, a place which I am led to believe was once known as Hellbrook Common, and was the site of a medieval plague pit.

  Often I would wander among the common’s lime trees as my recreation, watching youths kick a football. Once one of them kicked the ball and it knocked off my hat. Sometimes I would sit on a bench there and read a newspaper or magazine. Such was my eventful life.

  There was one Sunday morning, on the common, when I heard a father saying ‘Boo!’ to his daughter. She jumped, and it ended in giggles. It made me recall that my father had his own version of this game. He would take my sister and me aside, and then he would say: ‘Now we are travelling in a steam carriage.’ He would make a chug chug sound. ‘We are going along … and going along and … Boom!’ We would jump as he pretended the carriage had exploded, and it ended in giggles, just like the little girl’s. Sometimes my father would say: ‘Imagine we have mechanical legs.’ He would walk around the room in a stiff way, and we would mimic and follow, and his legs would go faster and faster until … ‘Boom!’ Once again, we were blown apart.

  Seeing the father and his daughter was one thing that put me in mind of my own father; but I think also there was some passing reference in The Athenaeum to his work at the time, which I read when I was sitting on the bench on the common. I do not recall all the circumstances now, but I decided to write to The Athenaeum, bringing my father’s participation in Pickwick to the public’s attention.

  The very next week, Dickens wrote to the editor. I have here his letter, clipped from the magazine’s pages:

  Sir,

  As the author of The Pickwick Papers (and one or two other books), I send you a few facts, and no comments, having reference to a letter signed ‘R. Seymour’ which on your editorial discretion you published last week.

  Mr Seymour the artist never originated, suggested, or in any way had to do with, save as illustrator of what I devised, an incident, a character (except the sporting tastes of Mr Winkle), a name, a phrase, or a word, to be found in The Pickwick Papers.

  I never saw Mr Seymour’s handwriting, I believe, in my life.

  I never even saw Mr Seymour but once in my life, and that was within eight and forty hours of his untimely death. Two persons, both still living, were present on that short occasion.

  These are, simply, lies!

  To begin with, notice how he describes the witnesses as ‘two persons’. How objective that seems. They were his wife and brother!

  I shall say, and not attempt to disguise it by talking of ‘a person’, that my mother told me that Dickens met my father on another occasion, prior to the meeting mentioned by Dickens. This was the crucial occasion when Father gave Dickens the necessary materials for the work. Drawings, books and notes were passed over to the provider of the letterpress, as one would expect. But how could I prove this happened? It would seem very natural for the two men to meet, prior to embarking on the project; it would also be very natural to exchange letters afterwards, to clarify any outstanding matters. But natural was not enough. It would be my family’s word against his. All I can say is that his assertions that he never saw my father’s handwriting, and met him only once, are not in his 1847 preface. They came much later on. When Dickens had decided to seal hi
mself off from any contact with my father.

  *

  ‘IT IS TRUE, SCRIPTY, THAT there is no absolute necessity for a letterpress writer and an artist to meet. There is the precedent of Combe and Rowlandson. They communicated solely through pictures. Yet there is a difference in the case of Dickens and Seymour. By the time I have poured us a drink, I want you to tell me what it is.’

  When he passed over the glass I said: ‘The difference is that Seymour’s pictures require some explanation.’

  ‘Say more.’

  ‘How could Dickens even know Tupman was a lover, Snodgrass was a poet, and Mr Pickwick a scientist and antiquarian? The only member of the Pickwick Club who instantly betrays his identity through his visual appearance is Winkle, by wearing a sporting outfit.’

  ‘And this problem is even more obvious in the case of the duel, Scripty. Everything points to Seymour coming up with that. How could the imbroglio of the duel be communicated solely in pictures? Now, continue.’

  ‘You have demonstrated to me that Dickens signed up for the scheme that Hall brought him, when he visited Furnival’s. If Dickens did, somehow, subsequently exert some influence on the pictures, then he would need to meet Seymour, or at the very least exchange letters with him, to get the artist’s consent to the changes, and agree to some sort of compromise.’

  ‘So,’ said Mr Inbelicate, ‘either way, the evidence indicates Dickens was lying. If he didn’t meet or communicate with Seymour, then Seymour was in charge of the project, and that was that: Dickens was simply writing up to Seymour’s pictures. If he did get some control over the project, he must have communicated with Seymour to get the consent to the changes.’

  ‘The only piece of devil’s advocacy I can contribute is that, conceivably, Seymour could have used Chapman and Hall to communicate on his behalf. Then, strictly speaking, Dickens could be telling the truth.’

  ‘But Scripty, it would be bizarre to entrust that to someone else. If you have a pet project, then surely you would be the person to discuss it? You, after all, would know the most about the project. And think of things like Weld Taylor’s drawing of the shepherd, suggesting that Dickens and Seymour were involved in long-term planning of Pickwick, or Mr Pickwick’s interest in sticklebacks echoing Richard Penn’s. Would you really entrust matters like this to someone else?’

  ‘I still need to be convinced that Seymour invented the traits of the Pickwickians.’

  ‘Let us continue through the manuscript,’ said Mr Inbelicate.

  *

  THERE WAS SOMETHING I COULD prove. Dickens’s great mistake was that he went on to say: ‘Mr Seymour died when only the first twenty-four pages of The Pickwick Papers were published; I think before the next three or four pages were completely written; I am sure before one subsequent line of the book was invented.’

  How definitive. Strange, then, that there is an unused drawing, showing the Pickwickians in the kitchen at Dingley Dell, which my mother found in the summer house after my father’s death. This picture refers to a scene on the very last page of that number. So Dickens was not telling the truth again.

  His statement wasn’t even true about the published drawings. The drawing in which Mr Winkle has difficulties with the horse relates to a scene four pages from the end of the number. As this was such an obvious refutation of his statement, and so many people had copies of Pickwick to prove it, the contradiction was presumably pointed out to him, for he wrote a short note of correction to The Athenaeum a week later, saying he had meant to say, not three or four pages, but twenty-four pages. But make that substitution and see how it undermines the force of his statement! He had been trying to pretend that my father was associated with a negligible amount of Pickwick – little more than one-twentieth. We have now wrung out an admission that it was twice that – and that is not negligible. Occurring in the early stages of the book, it was bound to exert a considerable influence on the whole. And look at all the force with which he asserts ‘I am sure before one subsequent line was invented’ – not only is he not sure, he cannot be sure, for the statement is demonstrably untrue. This is a man who says he is sure when he is clearly making things up!

  Yet Dickens had the gall to say in his prefaces that ‘intangible and incoherent assertions’ had been made to the effect that my father had some share in the invention of Pickwick!

  I wrote to The Athenaeum in protest. Here is what the magazine published in response: ‘We have received from Mr Seymour another letter, repeating the former’s opinions with respect to his father’s share in the Pickwick Papers, in answer to Mr Charles Dickens’s statement of facts. Our readers have already heard both sides of the story and there is no need to carry the controversy further in these columns.’

  So my statement consisted merely of opinions, and would not be published; Dickens, on the other hand, stated facts, and those would be allowed to stand. Thus the debate about Pickwick was summarily terminated, and the liar’s account taken as genuine.

  By temperament, I avoid people as much as I can. Why would I wish to be made a laughing stock for my supposed ‘opinions’? I knew a lost cause when I saw it. Thus I let matters drift. Now, quietly, slowly, working on my own, I have been putting my case together. The cause is not lost.

  But someone else must pursue it. I will not be drawn into public debate.

  *

  I mentioned the picture my mother found in the summer house, showing the Pickwickians in the kitchen. She put this with the other surviving pencil drawings for the first two numbers of Pickwick. One rainy day, when my sister and I were very small, we thought it a good idea if we pasted all our father’s Pickwick pictures into a little exercise book. It was a book which could fit, without too much difficulty, into the pocket of a waistcoat. We also pasted in little pictures of our own, scraps we had drawn and watercoloured.

  I kept the exercise book for many years. Occasionally I would look at it. All except for one of my father’s pictures, that of the dying clown, were finished most attractively with a sepia wash. A few years ago, I thought these sketches might as well be sold. My sister was dead, and what was the point of hanging on to these memories?

  I took the exercise book into a dealer’s shop in London. The short, chubby man in a well-cut suit frowned. He sucked in his breath in disapproval.

  ‘Oh, it is a pity they are pasted into this little book,’ he said. ‘What is it – a penny copybook? Oh dear me. And these other things, these scribbled drawings. What are they?’

  ‘My sister and I did them as children,’ I told him. ‘We put them in to try to be like our father.’

  ‘Oh – oh…’ He frowned again. ‘This sketch by your father is even torn. I do not know. There are not many pictures. And four stuck on one page. Excuse me.’ He fetched a ruler and placed it against the sides of the clown picture. ‘Only four and a half by four. Oh dear.’

  ‘Well, are they worth ten pounds?’

  ‘They might be worth five pounds.’

  ‘Well, give me five pounds and I will let you have them.’

  He gave me five pounds.

  It was about a month later that I read the newspaper account of the auction – the furious bidding for the sketches, and the unheard-of sum paid: five hundred pounds.

  I took the train to London and went to the dealer’s shop. The first words I uttered when I opened the door were: ‘Lying swindler!’

  ‘Oh – Mr Seymour – you have no right to call me such names. A price agreed is a price agreed.’

  ‘You knew exactly what they were worth.’

  ‘I knew no such thing. I bought the penny copybook in good faith. There might well have been no bidders, and the auctioneer might have ended up buying it in.’

  ‘I want their true value. I am not leaving until you give it to me!’

  ‘Men who go to auctions pay what they pay. There is no true value. In all likelihood, the bidders were afraid of losing face and so could not help themselves, and the price went higher and higher. Who can k
now how an auction room will behave? Not I.’

  I could not help myself. I broke down. At that moment, another customer entered the premises. The dealer immediately put an arm around my shoulders and said: ‘My good sir, come with me.’ He led me to an annexe at the back of the shop. He took out an envelope and put a ten-pound note inside. ‘Here,’ he said, thrusting the envelope aggressively into my hand. He led me out of the store, nodding to the other man, and shaking his head in earnest concern.

  I stood on the street and looked back into the window. The customer obviously believed that I had been the recipient of some benevolent act.

  I have already said that I do not usually visit public houses, but on this occasion I did so, and spent some of the ten pounds on an afternoon of drink. To make it worse, I heard a man laugh, slap the counter and say: ‘It’s just like in Pickwick!’

  I do not know what was ‘just like in Pickwick’. I had to leave.

  The ten-pound note was the last payment the Seymour family would receive for work on Pickwick. I put the change from the public house into my mother’s old purse, and have used it gradually, to buy a cake or some little treat now and then. There is still fourpence left.

  *

  The following words are not my first attempt. When I read the draft, I was suffocated by the flow of abstractions, unrelated to experience, and committed the pages to the fire.

  My father’s business was making abstractions visual. Like other political caricaturists, he didn’t talk about ‘injustice’ – he drew a pair of scales, weighted down to one side.

  I do not possess a fraction of my father’s talent. That did not stop my doing drawings this morning, to escape the oppression of abstraction. I shall describe the drawings, before they are thrown on the flames. Their quality is an embarrassment to the name of Seymour but they are the best I can do.

  My first drawing shows a young, flowing-haired author, meant to be Dickens, lifting, like Atlas, a complicated piece of machinery, all pistons and cogs, in which a wheel of brutal clubs rotates and hits Mr Pickwick about the head. With the addition of a few movement lines, I have shown Dickens’s knees quivering under the weight. In the second picture, I show Dickens and Mr Pickwick dismantling the machine, throwing nuts, bolts and pipes over their shoulders. The pictures are intended to illustrate two of Dickens’s assertions from his prefaces to Pickwick. In his first preface, he talks about deferring to the judgement of others to include the machinery of the club; and also he talks of how the club proved to be an embarrassment and an encumbrance and he gradually moved away from it. He says: ‘The machinery of the club, proving cumbrous in the management, was gradually abandoned as the work progressed.’ My next picture shows a white-haired bespectacled professorial type, scratching his chin, looking at scrolls of engineering blueprints, intended to represent the components of the machinery, as he asks himself, in word-balloons: ‘What is meant by the machinery of the club?’ and ‘Why was it cumbrous in the management?’