The Detections of Dr. Sam Johnson

by Lillian de la Torre

  Dr. Johnson scowled; the ranting republican of the pottery was clearly before his eye. But Mr. Eden added his perswasions to mine, and Dr. Johnson, appealed to in the sacred name of his King, consented to sojourn in Chelsea till the dangerous week was past. For better obfuscation, ’twas given out to the gazettes that Dr. Sam: Johnson and Mr. James Boswell were gone down to Oxford upon a literary errand.

  Mr. Eden’s coach set us down in Paradise Row, Chelsea, without more delay. We found the frantick American calmly modelling the head of a Cherokee Sachem, pulling and pinching the softened wax. Her companion in the gracious panelled room was a lady, to whose charms I incontinently yielded my heart—Miss Flora Fleay, late of Drury Lane, tall, agreeably formed, with a countenance in which strong sense and caressing manners mingled. She greeted us with a suspiration of relief, Mistress Wright with a calm inclination of the head.

  Seated hand in hand by the fire, an antient pair in Quaker garb greeted us not at all.

  “Your servant, ma’am,” says nearsighted Sam: Johnson, bowing to the aged lady.

  “My old father and mother,” said Mistress Wright, pointing towards them with a hand from which trailed plain ruffles rather the worse for draggling in wax. “Don’t be ashamed of them because they look so—” the pair in question heard this extraordinary remark without moving a muscle—“they were good folks, they turned Quaker—”

  I looked at the subject of this discourse. They were wax figures.

  “They turned Quaker,” Mistress Wright was rattling on, “and imbued me with their most excellent principles. I shall call thee Samuel.”

  “As you will, Mistress Wright,” said Dr. Sam: Johnson wryly.

  “Pray call me Patience. And thee, friend Boswell, what is thy name?”

  “James.”

  “James, I desire thy better acquaintance. Don’t despise these good old folk, they did well by their children, they would never let us eat meat, and that is the reason why we were all so ingenious. Thee has heard of the ingenious Mrs. Wright from America, I suppose?”

  Dr. Sam: Johnson scowled like a thunder-cloud, as he did at every affectation of singularity; but Mistress Wright continued her discourse unabashed:

  “And as to strong spirits, I do contemn ’em, holding that nothing so operates to void phlegm and clarify the intellects as prime lemonade, in a glass of which I desire you’ll join me.”

  I thought the lady’s offer rhetorical; when to my surprise she absolutely extracted from her capacious pocket a pair of lemons, and loaf sugar in a twist, and then and there compounded for the gratified philosopher a glass of his favorite regale. Dr. Sam: Johnson assisted at the mysteries with complaisance.

  I seized the opportunity with raised eyebrow to question my agreeable hostess. She nodded encouragingly in reply:

  “Not out of my sight a moment since the General departed.”

  The secret, then, was still safe; our task to keep it so yet lay before us.

  Dinner passed without incident, save that Mistress Wright, eating vast quantities of beet-root, favoured us with a discourse in support of abstaining from meat and monarchy. Only Johnson’s desire to serve his King prevented him from denouncing the eccentrick American.

  Dinner done, we returned to modelling in the parlour. Miss Fleay did me the honour to embark upon the task of reproducing my features; features which, she said civilly, ’twas an absolute duty to transmit to posterity, being indeed, I flatter myself, though not beautiful, yet strong and characteristick.

  Mistress Wright had a mind to Dr. Johnson—“Dear creature, I must have his head”—but the Sachem was to be finished first. The hawk face was nigh completed by bed-time, but being yet to be coloured, looked something ghostly, like a Roman busto. We left it haunting the mantelpiece as we retired. With Mistress Wright went her woman, Mr. Eden’s agent, a rosy pretty-faced creature with the powerful person of a grenadier, to lie in the truckle-bed and keep the American spy under her eye till morning. Dr. Johnson carried me with him for a late stroll about the garden. On the back step sat the gardener’s boy. At the locked front gate the gardener was consoling his vigil with a short pipe of tobacco. Our charge was safely surrounded till morning.

  The morrow was Dr. Johnson’s day at the Pottery. With more misgivings than I liked he consigned his charge to me, and stumped off towards Cheyne Walk with the gardener’s boy carrying his basket behind.

  I passed the day most agreeably in sensible feminine society. Much to my contentment, General B—never appeared (and I may say that through all this adventure we never laid eyes on the rakish General). Miss Fleay devoted herself assiduously to her modelling, and the moulded wax began to take on something the semblance of James Boswell. Mistress Wright had forgotten the Sachem. She took a freak to form a candle like an effigy. She fetched a roll of wax from her apartment, where Eden’s agent was, finally, getting her sleep.

  “Foh, how that woman sleeps!” cried Mistress Wright, little dreaming that her companion had devoted the night, not to sleep, but to surveillance.

  Warming the wax by the fire, she began to pull and pinch it into the semblance of a blackamoor page. ’Twas a quaint and pretty thing, and when ’twas done at the day’s end I longed to possess it. But ’twas not for me. The wax-worker wrapped it lovingly in a roll of silk, and carried it carefully off. I followed; except when retired, the lady was my charge. I found her tendering it, a folded billet, and a coin to the odd boy.

  “Ma’am,” said I, twitching the billet from the boy’s hand, “allow me to be of service. I will myself take this billet in charge.” I scanned the superscription: “To Joshua Fennel at the Cross Keys.”

  The sharp eyes measured me; the lady shrugged:

  “’Tis no matter. The boy may carry the gift, and my message by word of mouth.”

  I gave permission with a nod.

  “Say from me,” Mistress Wright instructed the boy, “I desire my gift may give him light for his business.”

  “With permission, ma’am—” said I, and boldly unfolded the billet.

  ’Twas not sealed. Perusing it took but a moment. Mistress Wright desired that her gift might give him light for his business, and remained his true Christian friend.

  As I scanned the missive, Dr. Sam: Johnson turned in at the gate, followed by the freckle-face potter’s devil carrying the basket.

  “What’s to do here,” says he, “and whither goes the boy?”

  He indicated our messenger, now scuffing his way without hurry down Paradise Row.

  “He carries a specimen of Mistress Wright’s workmanship,” said I, “and a message from her mouth. We have thought best to retain the written billet.”

  Mistress Wright smiled serenely. Dr. Johnson, scanning the billet, bellowed like a bull.

  “Stop him!”

  It was the freckle-face potter’s lad who caught him. I was close on his heels, and had the candle out of his hand in a trice.

  Mistress Wright’s smile was not quite so serene; but with a fair grace she returned to the fire in the sitting-room. We left her under Miss Fleay’s eye, and retired with Mistress Wright’s pretty candle.

  “’Tis a shame,” said Dr. Johnson, regarding it, “and yet it must be done.”

  He shattered it. It would have cast light on the rebels’ business indeed—at its core was a rolled missive:

  “Pray acquaint Mr. Franklin at Passy that a new British thrust will be launched—”

  “This secret is not ours,” said Johnson, and to my inexpressible disappointment cast the paper into the fire.

  Mistress Patience’s demeanour matched her name. She conceded us the first trick, and sat serenely by the fire patting and pulling her Sachem into shape. We’d a fine dish of jugged hare to our dinner. As we relished it, Mistress Wright, eating roast potatoes, denounced us as no better than Society Islanders, that eat our fellow-creatures.

  “Ma’am,” says Johnson, his mouth full of hare, “you frantick republicans would upset the order and subordination of na
ture. And with Heaven’s help, I shall myself endeavour to forfend the day.”

  “Thee will fail,” said Mistress Wright cheerfully; “for ingenuity, he who is full of meat is no match for him who is nourisht with sallets; more especially when his cause is just.”

  Dr. Johnson choaked with indignation and jugged hare.

  Mistress Wright carried the Sachem’s head early to her chamber; her woman was at her heels. All retired betimes.

  I was waked from my first light sleep by a knocking at our door. ’Twas the pretty-face grenadier, in a taking.

  “Sir, she’s dead. She don’t breathe. Pray, pray, come to our chamber.”

  We struck flame to the candle, huddled on our cloathes, and ran to Mistress Wright’s bed-chamber. There was the disarrayed truckle bed, as the woman had risen from it. In the shadow of the bed-curtains a figure lay motionless.

  Johnson held the candle to the still face, the lappets of the nightcap falling on the high cheek-bones and sharpening the look of the nose. He touched the cold cheek. The head rolled sidewise—and kept on rolling. ’Twas severed from the trunk!

  “Tschah,” said Johnson, “this trick is as old as time.”

  He stripped back the cloathes and revealed the rolled bolster. The waxen Sachem’s head fell to the ground and shattered.

  “She’s slipped between your fingers, woman,” said he sternly to the distrest secret agent. “We must find her before she gets clear away.”

  “Nay, Sir, I have only nodded a moment; she cannot be far.”

  We ran down the stair. In the morning-room a light shewed. At Miss Fleay’s writing-bureau, engaged with pen and ink, sat Mistress Wright. She had been taking refreshment, for the half of a lemon was at her elbow, and her start as we rushed in precipitated to the floor a glass half full.

  “I rejoice, ma’am,” said Dr. Johnson cordially, “to see that you are safe. You have given us all a turn. Pray, ma’am, allow me to escort you to your chamber.”

  Mistress Wright hesitated; then a second time conceded defeat. She deliberately tore into strips the written paper before her, and tossed it into the fire.

  “Your most obliged, Sir,” said she statelily, and laid her large well-formed hand on my friend’s wrist.

  The next morning the forgiving Quakeress addressed herself to the design of “having Dr. Johnson’s head.” She proposed to possess herself of this desirable item by means of a life mask, the secret of which she was famed to have brought to a fine art. As upon her late lamented decease her secret died with her, I will endeavour to gratify the publick by detailing her proceedings.

  To begin, then, the sturdy philosopher was denuded of his upper garments and placed supine upon a couch. The application of hog’s lard followed, an operation which my friend only endured with much mumbling and grumbling. He redoubled his complaints when the fair artist inserted in his nostrils two stout straws to afford him breath during the remainder of the process. Now a thin grout was swiftly plastered over his countenance, stilling his mouth and sealing his eyes in the operation. Mistress Wright worked swiftly and silently. Thinly and evenly covered with grout, the face looked ghastly as a spectre; and Mistress Wright proceeded to chill my marrow the more by swathing the corpse-like jaw with such a fold of linen as is commonly used to bind the jaws of the dead in their winding-sheets. I shuddered silently.

  Dr. Johnson lay like a Stoick as succeeding layers of grout were laid on, till the mask was so thick it lost all human form.

  And three minutes after the last smear was applied, all was hard and ready to remove in two neat pieces.

  “Faugh,” said Dr. Sam: Johnson, sitting up, red in the face and glistening with hog’s lard. “’Tis too much like being buried alive; yet I rejoiced, in my prison, that my friend Boswell was by to effect my release if need arose.”

  “Sir,” said I, acknowledging the tribute, “you may rely upon my vigilance.”

  “I design to do so,” replied Johnson as Mistress Wright retired, “for today is my day at the pottery. Pray be more wary than last time.”

  Shamefacedly I promised, and pursued Mistress Wright below-stairs.

  I was privileged to see Mistress Wright test her handiwork. This she did by closely pressing into the mould a thin shell of softened wax, working it into every crevice. With a kind of handle of wax she withdrew a perfect waxen mask of my revered friend’s features.

  “Bravo!” I cried. “The likeness is speaking! Pray, could not you gratify me with a copy?”

  “Thee shall have it, James,” promised the hearty Quakeress.

  So saying, she summoned her woman to assist her, and disappeared with her into her own domain.

  That morning saw the completion of the waxen busto of James Boswell; and I do verily believe that as fair Miss Flora’s hand shaped my image in the pliable wax, so the same image was impressed upon her heart, erasing therefrom in some measure the gaudy figure of indiscreet General B—. Once I thought good to oversee the proceedings of Mistress Wright; but I found her calmly seated in her own apartment, applying the colourings of life to the waxen mask of my friend, while her woman sat stolidly by; so I returned to more congenial company.

  At dinner Johnson was not by; but shortly after, I saw his familiar figure sitting in the wing chair by the fire, holding a book so close before his eyes as to brush his very eye-lashes. Mistress Wright’s woman went to her dinner. It was with pleasure that I saw Mistress Wright take the opposing chair by the fire, with a cordial word that my friend, absorbed in his book, neglected to answer. I was free to walk in the garden with Miss Flora.

  What was my surprize, then, as we came round the house, to see Mistress Wright, unattended, slipping down the walk with a covered basket on her arm. As I followed, I was still more thunderstruck to see Dr. Sam: Johnson approaching from the direction of Cheyne Walk. He met her as she left the gate.

  “Well met, Mistress Wright. Allow me to relieve you of your burden. Whither do we carry it?”

  Her countenance changed no more than the waxen Sachem’s which it resembled.

  “To the pottery, friend Samuel.”

  He bowed and handed her with courtly mien. I was glad to make one in the expedition, having been a prisoner in the house since our vigil started.

  I shuddered as we passed Dr. Driffeld’s private mad-house, euphemistically denominated “the Academy”. We turned into Lawrence Street, passed the sign of the Cross Keys, and came to the Chelsea China Manufactory.

  The potters looked their surprise at seeing Dr. Sam: Johnson so precipitately returned; but among the mixing-rooms he had a cubicle of his own, and thither we turned our steps. The fire still burned on the hearth to give us warmth. Mistress Wright set down her basket, which Dr. Johnson officiously undertook to turn out. ’Twas filled with rumpled old gazettes.

  Dr. Johnson carefully uncovered the white unblemished wasp’s-nest shape, and set it to one side, scanning each gazette with care. Though he could detect no scribbled word, he prudently consigned all to the flames. Now for the first time I saw Mistress Wright’s Red-Indian composure broken. She snatched ineffectually at his hand; the tears started in her eyes as the flames took the gazettes, and we saw the brown spidery writing start up with the heat.

  “I thought so,” said Dr. Sam: Johnson with satisfaction. “Lemonade indeed! You have been writing with it, ma’am, not quaffing it; and I counsel you to turn your attention to good roast meat, if you expect to prevail at this game.”

  “I will do so,” said the angry rebel between her teeth, “and I will prevail.”

  I heard with satisfaction the instructions issued to the freckle-face boy for preserving the mould that should gratify me with a busto of my illustrious friend; and then we walked back towards Paradise Row in the falling twilight.

  At home a new wonder awaited me. I entered the drawing-room with my illustrious friend, in his snuff-colour suit and second-best wig; and there, in second-best brown suit and best wig, holding the book to his eyes, he sat in the wing chair
by the fire! I looked from the Johnson at my elbow to the Johnson by the fire, and realized how I had been duped by the wily rebel and her waxworks. But for my wilier friend, I had permitted to happen the catastrophe we sought to avoid!

  Sternly admonished, the waiting-woman sat up through the night, and Mistress Wright was for the nonce muzzled. On the morrow, it seemed, she took Dr. Johnson’s advice; for when Mistress Wright joined us at table for the mid-day meal, her woman whispered me that she had spent the morning dressing a roast duck!

  “So, ma’am,” I rallied the lady, “you have become converted to our way of thinking, and have drest a succulent roast duck, which no doubt we are now about to sample.”

  “No, sir,” replied she readily, though I thought she looked put about, “for nothing less than sweet charity would I require a fellow-creature to give up its life. ’Tis for a poor man, lies ill at the Cross Keys.”

  “I applaud your benevolence, ma’am,” says Johnson, “and desire to imitate it. Come, let us all go down to the Cross Keys.”

  Accordingly the duck was fetched in its basket, covered by a linen napkin.

  “Ma’am,” says Johnson, peeking and sniffing the tempting aroma, “pray tell me, how have you stuft this tender fellow-creature?”

  He probed at the filled cavity with his finger, and tasted the fragrant stuffing.

  “This is too bad of thee, Samuel!” cried charitable Mistress Wright. “Think of the poor man!”

  “He’ll not grudge me a bite,” says Johnson coolly, and pulled out a handful of dressing. Something came with it—a billet, folded small and tied with packthread. Johnson’s smile became broad.

  “Fie!” he cried. “How came this waste paper to mar such a dish!”

  He tossed it in the fire, where it spluttered and flared to nothing in an odour of burning grease. Mistress Wright turned on her heel and left the roast duck to an inevitable fate.

  There was no poor man ill at the Cross Keys, so much we learned of Eden’s agents; neither had Joshua Fennel ever been heard of. Dr. Sam: Johnson muttered to himself upon this intelligence, and resolved to go no more to the Pottery until the matter was safely concluded. It fell to my lot to carry his commissions to the potters.