‘As he drank, and lost himself in a stupor, he believed he saw skulls stacked upon shelves, like the catacombs of Paris. When the wind blew outside, and it was bitterly cold within, he imagined he saw the skulls’ teeth chattering, and he heard them too. One night he saw the earl himself huddled in a corner, grinning like a horrible gargoyle in ermine. On warmer nights, the sailor played games with himself, to pass the time, such as looking at the walls and trying to guess how many widths of his big toe, or his little toe, would correspond to the length of a coffin. He would even compete over the accuracy of guesses, in his stupor, with long-dead seafarers – the cabin boy who had fallen overboard, the quartermaster who had died in a scuffle – and sometimes they would win the game, and sometimes he would.
‘“The food here is better than on board ship,” he would say aloud. His spectral companions would say: “Aye! And the grog flows like the sea!”
‘Some moonlit nights, he wandered into the earl’s grounds, and stared into the pond. Terrible, enticing thoughts entered his mind, and he could barely restrain himself from walking into the water, like a fallen woman. Moths may have their flames, but the water is the way for a human being!
‘Other times, he would scare the deer into flight, or run across the meadows under the stars, and clamber up the lime trees.
‘There was a narrow road through the woods called The Avenue and though on a summer’s day this would be a pleasant stroll, at night it changed to its opposite, and induced in the sailor’s mind horrible fears. But he pressed on to the village of Shorne, and would sit in its secluded churchyard, and stroll under its trees and walk among the graves. In the daytime, in summer, it would have been pretty and peaceful and the wild flowers growing nearby would form natural posies for the gravestones. But the sailor’s mind was troubled; and in the barren winter he would look at the inscriptions of departed mothers and children, and he would approach the graves in the snow at night and talk to the occupants.
‘On other nights, he would visit the ancient standing stones of the area, like those at the foot of Blue Bell Hill. He would talk to the stones, and touch them. Was it here that Vortigern was laid to rest? Whenever he touched the stones, he heard the murmurs of ancient tongues.
‘With such diversions and amusements nearly two years passed.
‘Then one night, just when the delivery cart came, the sailor burst forth, raving mad, his hair reaching to his shoulders, his fingernails grown like claws, with which he slashed the air, his beard indeed like a hedge. The delivery man and his boy overpowered the sailor, though with great difficulty, for he had a madman’s strength. But somehow they trussed him up in the ropes used for securing barrels of grog, and carted him off to the earl. I was summoned.
‘I sat with the sailor at his bedside as he told me of his time in the mausoleum. He spoke of the visions he had seen, and the voices he had heard. Often, he was barely coherent.
‘Then one day he developed a fever, and he rose up in his bed, and started calling to Neptune and his mermaids. He even called upon all the denizens of the sea, from the deadliest shark to the kindliest porpoise. Sometimes he would raise a fist to his eye, as though holding a telescope. He would make movements with his hands, as though he were pulling on a rope to raise a sail. This continued for hours. Suddenly, he emitted a terrible ear-splitting howl – I tried to calm him, but I had to cover my ears, it was unbearable. He called out to Davy Jones. Then he collapsed back on the pillow, dead!
‘He was buried in Shorne churchyard. I was the sole mourner.’
*
Mr Pickwick was about to offer some pronouncement on this narrative, but just as he opened his mouth, Dismal Jemmy said: ‘I must catch my coach, sir. I cannot delay another minute!’ Seizing a brown-paper parcel, he left without hesitation.
*
It was shortly afterwards that Dismal Jemmy walked to the rear of a coaching inn. Checking in all directions to see that he was not observed, he entered the stables, uttered calming words to a horse, and undid the string on his parcel.
He took out a mirror, flannels, a towel and a bottle of fluid. There was also a mulberry suit, similar in fashion to the uniforms worn by liveried porters in some of the more respectable London streets, notably Doughty Street. He applied fluid to his face, and wiped off make-up. When that operation was done, he put on the mulberry suit and left the stable, dressed as that wily servant – none other than Job Trotter.
His master, Mr Jingle, was already in the coaching inn’s waiting room, and they had a good laugh together about catching Mr Pickwick out, once again.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stephen Jarvis was born in Essex, England. Following graduate studies at Oxford University, he quickly tired of his office job and began doing unusual things on weekends and writing about them for The Daily Telegraph. These activities included learning the flying trapeze, walking on red-hot coals, getting hypnotized to revisit past lives, and entering the British Snuff-Taking Championship. Death and Mr. Pickwick is his first novel. He lives in Berkshire, England. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Address to Readers
Epigraphs
The fire’s rays alone …
1797. It was a cold spring Somerset day …
Mr Inbelicate drew my attention …
I offer no opinion on what turned Gillray’s mind.
Mr Inbelicate once said to me …
Mr Inbelicate had collected numerous curious items …
Robert Seymour looked towards the empty pews …
I remember Mr Inbelicate taking hold of that papier-mâché snuffbox …
In the back room of the shop …
There is a red and black ringbinder in Mr Inbelicate’s library …
17 August 1801. Joseph Grimaldi was not always the clown on stage.
After the clown at Bartholomew Fair …
Then Seymour said to Wonk …
‘I love the word “higgledy-piggledy”,’ said Mr Inbelicate.
I remember one day a messenger boy arrived at Canonbury.
‘Let us leave Canonbury, Scripty, as Wonk and Seymour themselves did.’
A boy with patched breeches …
I have noted already the sensation of Dr Syntax …
When St Martin’s struck twelve …
The thrice-chiming of Pickwick, Pickwick and Pickwick …
The January of 1694 …
It was a great annoyance to Mr Inbelicate …
‘You do know, Robert,’ said Holmes …
It was a hot June evening in 1710 …
‘Schmid,’ said Edward Holmes …
The withered tree of the Viennese Freischütz …
‘How serious he was is a matter of consideration…’
On a chair in the corner of the room …
‘The ending of Robert Seymour’s desire for high art…’
The gymnasium at Pentonville …
As I told Mr Inbelicate …
John Liston was born for comic roles.
‘Shortshanks, it is true, does suggest Cruikshank…’
‘I think,’ said Jane, ‘there will come a time…’
It was a drawing.
Glasgow, October 1825.
Heath had just shown Thomas McLean his picture …
A mention of Ackermann …
‘Your teeth aren’t crooked, and they’re tolerably white…’
Mr Inbelicate’s enthusiasm was unbounded …
‘I want to go further,’ said Seym
our.
‘Have you seen the second movie in the Alien franchise?’
‘I confess I have never seen the likes of such pictures before…’
In a desk drawer in Moses Pickwick’s office …
‘I am going to mention two things…’
William Heath sat in the Three Tuns public house …
Every week throughout 1830 Seymour took work …
‘McLean may have called it his sheet…’
‘That looks like a burn to me,’ said the new matron …
The fast and varied pencil of Robert Seymour …
One bright morning, when Seymour made his way to the Figaro office …
‘Do you remember the first meal we had together, Scripty?’
Before seeing Egan, Seymour went for a drink …
‘Strange word, “Cockney”,’ said Mr. Inbelicate.
Over ten years had passed since the publication of Life in London.
‘Intriguing phenomenon, the Daffy Club…’
Where the London to Salisbury road crosses …
‘The earliest written record of the Houghton Angling Club’ …
One rainy day, Richard Penn and Edward Barnard trudged …
‘It was the case,’ said Mr Inbelicate.
An old officer of the 44th Regiment …
‘That story is not completely impossible,’ I told Mr Inbelicate.
May 1833. In the bay-windowed upper room of the Grosvenor …
There was a quill, poised to write.
‘Where did he get the money to start it?’
One day in the office, Mr Shury stood …
‘The question of Nimrod’s employment…’
Robert Surtees’s brother Anthony has travelled extensively …
‘I am amused by the Jorrocks pieces in the New,’ said Seymour.
‘It has been so long since we mentioned that boy in Chatham…’
Holy Week, a mild evening.
As the first of his fishing pictures for Penn …
‘But,’ said Mr Inbelicate …
The Surrey Theatre …
‘So we have the origin of his pattern of speech…’
There was an odour of vinegar …
In the 1660s, in the alley where the modern tavern now stands …
The admirer of Maria had become a newspaper reporter.
‘So we have him travelling all over the country by coach…’
A pandemonium of handbells on the street …
‘Mr Seymour, you are a mole in the politicians’ gardens…’
‘Four drawings,’ said Mr Inbelicate.
Seymour was at a chest of drawers …
‘The caricature,’ said Mr Inbelicate, ‘was of a bloated bishop on a sickbed.’
Though it was not the grandest estate in all Surrey …
Among the poets Seymour ridiculed …
‘You will remember that Beckett called our artist…’
No publisher’s office in London had a look …
Leading up one wall of this house’s staircase …
I turn back through the pages I have already written …
‘Suppose you were planning a new publication, Scripty…’
There was more than one coach a day to Chatham and Rochester …
‘You are assuming quite an “if”,’ I said.
Goswell Street, at night, 12 May 1827.
‘The first notebook in the world was probably…’
‘It is inconceivable that a man like Melbourne…’
‘The life and literary career of Charles Whitehead…’
Two good friends were out walking under the elms …
Extract from an essay by Mr Inbelicate …
‘If we make it more political than most annuals…’
‘Take the case of Pierce Egan,’ said Mr Inbelicate.
‘Why do publishers not take full advantage…’
‘Or take the case of Sir Walter Scott…’
‘You will find me sympathetic,’ said Chapman.
One morning, as I was buttoning my shirt …
He sat among the audience in a sweaty backstreet theatre.
‘It was a work published a few years after he was born…’
He undid the knot, and turned to the title page …
‘The direct inspiration for Combe and Rowlandson…’
She whispered, ‘I think you’ll find the bones…’
‘But now, let us announce that “Chatham Charlie” is no more…’
The cool cloudiness of the February morning …
‘To take the work,’ said Mr Inbelicate …
‘We have not come to a final decision on that,’ said Hall.
‘Now I want to ask you a very important question, Scripty…’
Late in the afternoon, Seymour returned to Islington …
‘Now,’ said Mr Inbelicate.
The earlier history of Ely Stott …
‘You can’t stop there!’
He walked over the bridge at Putney.
It is appropriate to mention here a foible of Mr Inbelicate’s.
Charles Whitehead had asked Seymour to produce two pictures …
It was a cold, clear Thursday afternoon, 18 February 1836 …
There is a floorlit alcove of Mr Inbelicate’s house …
Edward Chapman looked at the proof …
‘The first number cannot be said to have been greeted…’
‘Did it ever strike you,’ said the dismal man …
‘A letter is usually read, for the first time, as a whole…’
When Seymour returned from a meeting with McLean …
‘Have you ever been informed of a suicide, Scripty?’
Edward Chapman pushed an inch-high pile …
‘Adam came from dust…’
Boz had already, for a play, invented a one-eyed boots …
‘Within two years,’ said Mr Inbelicate …
The sight of Mr SJT Bompas, serjeant-at-law …
‘She died in the middle of the afternoon…’
The public came to the bookshops with their shillings …
‘What Forster suggested can only be guessed at…’
Thousands of pounds of sonorous bronze …
‘It is my belief,’ said Mr Inbelicate …
During the rebuilding at Numbers 1 and 2 Lombard Street …
When Thomas Kelly published his novels in numbers …
The preface done …
After we had discussed the possible significance of the tale of the baron …
The Account of Weld Taylor, Lithographer …
‘If it was a drawing of the shepherd…’
On a visit to Doughty Street, John Forster …
‘So Seymour’s scheme was presented…’
In September 1847, when Dickens came to compose a preface …
‘What an intriguing document the 1847 preface is…’
He walked past the print shops near Westminster Hall …
‘I don’t believe a word about his vision being disrupted…’
As Dickens continued to work upon the preface …
I was about to ask Mr Inbelicate whether he had investigated the records …
The Life of Robert Seymour, Son of Robert Seymour …
Mr Inbelicate interrupted when he saw I had reached this point …
I wondered whether Dickens could have instructed my father …
‘March 1836 was very wet across England and Wales…’
I could see one way only of resolving the paradox …
Mr Inbelicate, who had been following my progress …
Lime trees and flourishing shrubs stood …
‘Robert Booth Rawes’s physical resemblance to Mr Pickwick…’
In the Cambridge of those days …
‘So,’ I said. ‘Seymour’s son.’
In the place of keys, cabinets, cleanliness and commands …
‘We must not forget that there was another man…’
It was early May in 1854 …
‘It may have occurred to Charles Whitehead…’
Give this country time, and literary men will be in demand …
One morning, Charles Whitehead did not come down to breakfast.
November 1867. As the round-shouldered old fellow …
‘Dickens had good reason to be anxious,’ said Mr Inbelicate.
Once I knew that there was a blatant contradiction …
‘It is true, Scripty, that there is no absolute necessity…’
There was something I could prove.
‘We can actually dig a little deeper…’
As I continue turning out the trunk …
He could hold his breath no more …
Friday morning.
‘It is my fear, Forster…’
The clock had stood for many years in the Universal Coach Office …
1873. ‘You will be surprised, Harrison,’ said Buss …
‘But what of Pickwick’s third illustrator?’
It was a rainy April evening …
As Mr Inbelicate’s health declined …
I met the man, whom I shall call Mr N, twice.
I closed the manuscript, and handed it back to Mr Inbelicate.
My long life has been dominated by one author …
‘Even fifty years is not the longest Pickwickian quest…’
When I had finished reading Mr Inbelicate’s narrative …
At the end of the parade of shops …
It is the lie of novels to pretend that life has a plot.
A Note About the Author
Copyright
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
18 West 18th Street, New York 10011
Copyright © 2015 by Wordaholic Ltd.
All rights reserved
Originally published in 2015 by Jonathan Cape, Great Britain
Published in the United States by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
First American edition, 2015
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint lines from “Not Dark Yet”
by Bob Dylan, copyright © 1997 by Special Rider Music.
eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jarvis, Stephen, 1958–
Death and Mr. Pickwick: a novel / Stephen Jarvis. — First American edition.
Death and Mr. Pickwick Page 99