Death and Mr. Pickwick Read online

  When Glendinning had finished, he raised a hand to the old clown’s shoulder to offer comfort. The moment the hand touched, Grimaldi leapt from his chair – for suddenly Grimaldi’s limbs were as they had been, when he was a young man. Full of energy, with impossible nimbleness and speed, he virtually ran up the stairs to his wife.

  Once the message was delivered, Grimaldi fell back into a bedroom chair, and here he continued to sob. He sobbed all the energy away. He was once more a cripple, the old clown who had fallen apart and seized up. There was no hope now. The Grimaldi legacy was gone.

  *

  AFTER THE CLOWN AT BARTHOLOMEW Fair had told the audience not to believe a word, that all was gammon, there came a comic song from a plump contralto, who put her soul and considerable flesh into a rendition of ‘He Loves and He Rides Away’. The orchestra’s percussionist banged a gong, and the great Richardson himself stepped on stage, to great applause. He removed his top hat, and bowed.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said, ‘for these marks of your favour, we beg to return you our sincere thanks. Allow us to inform you that we shall keep perpetually going on, beginning again, regularly, until the end of the fair.’

  The audience, sweating from their own heat and the oil lamps within the temporary theatre, filed out, to be replaced by a new audience, already gathered, and the show indeed began again.

  ‘I do not want to go back to Vaughan’s,’ said Wonk, as he and Seymour crossed the grass. The dispersing crowds demonstrated, in every particular, a happier existence than producing patterns for calico: couples putting sweet morsels into each other’s mouths, tumblers and jugglers performing tricks, puppet booths, women with pinafores full of prizes, and more, wherever Seymour and Wonk cast their eyes.

  ‘They don’t prosecute runaway apprentices any longer,’ said Seymour. ‘We could leave tomorrow. Mrs Vaughan would probably encourage it. And Vaughan himself came to accept what I am years ago.’

  ‘But what would we do?’

  ‘I could keep us. Miniatures alone should bring in reasonable earnings.’

  ‘And what do I do while you work on your pictures?’

  ‘You can find commissions for me. You can make suggestions for what I draw and paint. You can learn how to draw and paint yourself. And when that’s not going on, we go fishing, and catch our supper.’

  ‘I am not sure, Robert. Drawing patterns is dull, but it is a future.’

  ‘You do not believe I can succeed?’

  ‘With my soul I believe you can succeed. My position is different.’

  *

  There was a triangle of countryside in Islington, defined by Upper Street, Lower Street and Hopping Lane, which corresponded exactly to the boundaries of the ancient manor of Canonbury. In the middle of this triangle, on rising ground, and visible from miles away, stood a square-sided sixteenth-century construction – Canonbury Tower, once the property of the church of St Bartholomew. Seventy feet tall, it was overgrown with ivy so thick that scarcely any brickwork appeared, and the spaces for the tower’s windows had been hacked among the leaves. Whenever the wind blew, the ivy trembled, creating the impression that the plant was sucking life from the mortar. Certainly, the ivy was well nourished – in places the trunks grew as thick as a man’s wrist. And every Sunday, when the weather was fine, families strolled in the fields nearby, as did the sick and infirm, who took their coughs and crutches to Canonbury, and breathed the far-famed Islington air.

  In the tower there lived a constantly changing group of residents, prominent among whom were drunken writers, poverty-stricken artists and miscellaneous seekers of renown, who had scraped together the rent for a room on one of its floors. It was not at all surprising that, once the decision to abandon the apprenticeship had been taken, Robert Seymour made enquiries about lodgings in Canonbury Tower.

  One afternoon, he and Wonk climbed the tower’s staircase, negotiating its white-walled flights and black balusters, passing doors with yard-long hinges. One curiosity was that every landing had a cupboard, provoking irresistible interest in Seymour. He tried every cupboard they encountered, and finding one on the second floor that was empty and unlocked, he stepped inside. He beckoned to Wonk to join him. They shut the door, and laughter and other suggestive noises might be heard. Then the door reopened, and they climbed another flight. They were passed by a man and a woman on the way down who, from their chatter, had obviously been to view London from the roof.

  ‘People will say, Wonk, that we are filled with a mania for high art – so we do our painting in a tall building. But I like that joke!’

  They climbed more stairs and stepped out on to the roof. A brick wall led from the tower to the New River where mallards swam, and anglers sat upon the banks. A large pond lay north of the building, and further away a cricket match of old men was in progress, and there was the thwack of the ball. More distant still, the herds of the Islington dairies grazed, and beyond were Hampstead, Highgate and countryside for miles. There was also the dome of St Paul’s. The Thames could be seen, here and there, as far as Gravesend.

  ‘It is the best location in London,’ said Seymour.

  ‘We merely need to keep up with the rent,’ said Wonk.

  ‘I am thinking of the wisdom of my cousin Edward. He says afflictions and miseries are better to be endured in the countryside, and I think he is right. So here, on the threshold of the countryside, we shall be happy as sand-boys, Wonk.’ From his pocket, he produced the key to the top-floor room.

  Seymour had refused to allow Wonk to visit until the room was prepared exactly as he, Seymour, wanted. Accordingly, Seymour had conducted the moving of their possessions, from clothes to fishing rods, without any involvement on Wonk’s part. Now the pair entered a wainscoted space full of light. There were chairs, tables and bookcases, a sofa and a wide bedstead; and framed engravings, vases and other items acquired from second-hand suppliers, all according to Seymour’s taste – and two easels, placed side by side.

  ‘Your easel and my easel,’ said Seymour.

  Wonk opened a diamond-paned window to let in the air.

  *

  Next morning, a Sunday, with the sun streaming in, Seymour rose early and bolted a breakfast of bread and cheddar, and then stood at his easel, naked apart from a loosely tied dressing gown. He sketched quickly in charcoal, sometimes rocking upon his feet, in the intensity of his concentration. He began with a pugilistic scene, showing the vehement faces in the crowd, shouting for the fighters. When he had done enough, he started on another ardent crowd, but this time around a battle-royal cockfight, with half a dozen roosters pecking for supremacy.

  Wonk took his time to rise, and then smoked a pipe before he approached his own easel. After a few tentative charcoal strokes, of a tree and falling leaves, he returned to the breakfast table to smoke another pipe.

  Before midday, Seymour and Wonk set out from the tower and walked along the New River, with its clear and gentle water and pleasing windings. There were also swarms of half-dressed boys to admire, brought out by the sun. The boys sat upon the railings holding willow-wand rods. Seymour and Wonk paused when they saw a line go taut, and then clapped behind a boy, as a minnow was brought glittering to the surface and deposited in a jar.

  They headed for the Sluice-House Tavern, a small wooden building on the river, famed as the public house of anglers, where the fattest roach in London were caught, along with gudgeons and barbels, and many a jack pike. Just as they arrived, a party of four old anglers drew up in a wagon, rods and equipment stashed in the vehicle, and the four were greeted by a party who came from within the tavern – friend shook hands with friend, and opinions were exchanged about the water’s prospects. There was abundant animation in their faces and gestures, as though, whatever the dreary regulation of their lives away from the river, fishing made these men come alive.

  At a stall beside the tavern entrance, was a sign which said ‘Have a go’, and below it sat a sunburnt old countrywoman selling twopenny fishin
g-lines and penny rods, along with Barcelona hazelnuts and oranges as sour as her face. Seymour and Wonk resisted her enticements, for today they would drink, not fish. Inside, they ordered ale and a steaming puff-paste pie to share – the pie was rich with the flavour of shallots, nutmeg and lemon juice, and sweet, succulent eels. ‘Eels Fresh from the New River’ said a sign above the bar. Although, as they ate, they overheard a muscular man at the next table point to the sign and remark to a tattooed companion: ‘They’re fresh, but they ain’t New River. I’ve seen the Dutchman deliver a hogshead of eels in the early hours. The miserable old woman at the door checks they are wriggling, and takes ’em in.’

  ‘I’d be surprised if the eels are still alive after a look from that woman,’ whispered Seymour. ‘No need at all to knap ’em on the head after a squint from her.’

  ‘I suggest you stop casting leers at our tattooed friend,’ whispered Wonk. ‘Have a look at cribbage-face in the corner instead to dampen your appetite. He’s a cure for wanton loins, if ever there was one.’

  Seymour cast a glance over his shoulder. There was a man with multiple scar pits all over his face. ‘One for my cousin Edward’s catalogue of deformities, for sure,’ said Seymour. But the man had noticed Seymour looking. He stood up and came to the table.

  ‘Do you look at me, boy?’

  ‘No more than any other man,’ said Seymour.

  ‘You do not need to pretend.’ He pointed aggressively at his own face. ‘Two shots in the throat. Five more around the right eye. Fifteen more all around. It’s a miracle my sight was spared. I might have had my brains blown out! All because some young hobbledehoy thought it amusing to go shooting for sparrows.’

  ‘I can but commiserate,’ said Seymour, ‘and remind you that all men have scars of one form or another, and urge you to take up hobbledehoy hunting when the season for that sport begins.’

  The man grunted at Seymour, apparently unable to think of a reply, and returned to his corner.

  Seymour whispered to Wonk: ‘Why don’t we go hobbledehoy hunting ourselves?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The Roman Encampment. Bound to be some there.’

  The area of Islington known to locals as the Roman Encampment was a hundred-foot rectangular mound surrounded by a deep ditch, providing a view of open country, ponds and scattered houses. As the Romans could have used it, this meant that they did.

  Seymour and Wonk climbed a rampart to the top, passing near an overgrown well in the ditch. They looked out and watched a youth – one of a group of several on the verge of manhood, and all carrying guns – who attempted to hit a wood pigeon in flight. There was a bang and a curse.

  ‘He aimed too long,’ said Seymour. ‘He dulled the reactions in his trigger finger.’

  ‘You sound knowledgeable.’

  ‘Common sense. I have been thinking we should get guns ourselves.’

  There were cries suddenly of ‘Brilliant shot!’ and ‘Bravo!’ as another young sportsman brought a pigeon down.

  ‘No man is more susceptible to soaping than a shooter,’ said Seymour. ‘All the misses are forgotten.’

  The two sat on the grass at the top of the mound, and Seymour drew a young man aiming a gun at a small bird sitting on a fence, saying to another young man, in a caption: ‘Out of the way, Sugarlips, I’m sure I shall hit him this time.’

  ‘Well, Sugarlips,’ he said to Wonk when the drawing was finished, ‘the herd of hobbledehoys has moved on. Shall we too?’

  They descended and wandered around Islington, before taking the footpath to Copenhagen House, enjoying the smell of hay and the sight of the smart young men strolling near the hedges, decked out in their Sunday waistcoats, with their shining hair and their equally shining boots.

  Afterwards, they sat in the tea garden of the White Conduit Inn, watching the way such men sat with those boots upon the tables.

  ‘Now he is a monstrous pretty little creature,’ said Seymour, indicating a fellow with an especial love of show, who flourished an embroidered silk handkerchief like a banner, and sipped tea. ‘I could sketch his sort for ever.’

  ‘I am still concerned about whether we will earn enough,’ said Wonk.

  ‘Do I worry about becoming gallows poor? No. I could sketch him, or someone else in this inn, for the price of a tankard of cooler, a penny bread and a penny plate of potatoes.’

  ‘The cares of this world don’t make much impression on you, do they, Robert?’

  ‘You’ve seen me miserable. You have seen me truly low.’

  ‘But not for any particular reason.’

  They moved on to the Albion, and spent half an hour watching evening cricketers. Then, at the Belvedere, they played on the bowling green – though, when Seymour lost, he protested that the liquor had affected his aim. They ordered a sixpenny plate of meat and vegetables with a view to sobering up for the next match, and they sat at a table in the fresh air as they ate. A coach passed, and, as it was so hot, all the passengers were sitting on the vehicle’s roof, leaving the inside empty.

  ‘Vere’s my insides?’ said Seymour, imitating a coachman. ‘Vere’s my insides? I’ve got to go vithout my insides.’ Wonk laughed until his own insides hurt.

  Eventually, they found their way back to Canonbury, Wonk carrying a jug of ale. They climbed the stairs with unsteady steps, and Wonk pushed Seymour into the cupboard outside their room, then stood against the door, barring exit. There came a hammering of fists from within, and laughing cries of ‘Let me out! I know you are stealing the ale!’ Wonk smiled, opened the door, and the two entered their room.

  ‘Strange things, those cupboards,’ said Wonk, after swilling directly from the jug, which he passed to Seymour, who promptly did the same. ‘Makes you think. Who else has been in these rooms in the past? And what have they stored in the cupboards?’

  ‘If cupboards could talk,’ said Seymour.

  *

  A man with an expansive forehead, large ears and receding chin took a plate of crumpets from a Canonbury cupboard, which he used as a larder, and carried them into his room. This was Oliver Goldsmith, author, then working on The Vicar of Wakefield, who judged Canonbury Tower an excellent place to escape his creditors. In the room, sitting behind the teapot, thighs apart, was the hefty figure of his friend Dr Johnson. Goldsmith impaled a crumpet on a toasting fork, and soon Johnson chewed this morsel with such vigour the veins stood out on his head, while being entirely oblivious to the melted butter he had spilt down his front.

  ‘Well, sir, this is most agreeable,’ said Johnson, ‘but crumpets and muffins never fail to remind me of my poor friend William Fitzherbert, the member for Derby. Fitzherbert loved buttered muffins but could not eat them – they disagreed with his stomach. So he resolved to shoot himself. He ate three buttered muffins for breakfast before putting a bullet in his head, knowing that he could not be troubled with indigestion.’

  ‘It would perhaps be more poetical to stab oneself with the toasting fork,’ said Goldsmith with an artful smile.

  *

  ‘Imagine a cupboard haunted by its previous users,’ said Wonk, guzzling from the jug.

  ‘And the spirits exert an influence upon the affairs of the current occupiers of the tower,’ said Seymour, taking the handle.

  *

  Washington Irving, creator of Rip Van Winkle, took a bottle of ink from the cupboard and entered the room. In Canonbury Tower, he hoped to be possessed by the very muse that had seized Goldsmith. The dark oak-panelled wainscoting, and the carved mantelpiece, induced an air of antiquity. He sat at the writing desk, and poured ink into the inkwell. He felt as snug as Robinson Crusoe when the latter had finished his bower. Irving lifted his quill. Unfortunately, a cricket match then decided to begin, which threatened to turn this Sunday into a day of unrest. Shouts from the spectators not only annoyed Irving, but evoked lines of Goldsmith that he had memorised, and loved in the past, but which now hovered in mockery:

  Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ea
se,

  Seats of my youth, when every sport could please.

  Irving rose in annoyance, and looked out at the cricketers. They were playing single-wicket. The batsman hit a drive, ran to the bowler’s stump – would he be out? To Irving’s great annoyance, no. It was a sweltering day, but his hope that the heat would soon terminate the match was not to be fulfilled. It was impossible to bowl the batsman out.

  Irving sat, quill poised again. The chair was uncomfortable. He rocked back and forth, and the wood creaked in a most irritating manner. He stood and leant against the wainscoting and looked at the chair. It was old, and leather-upholstered, and bandy-legged with claw feet, and was studded all over with brass nails. There was something extremely disconcerting about the appearance of that chair, as though designed to distract a man who was trying to write. ‘Should be a Windsor chair,’ he thought to himself, attempting to settle again. ‘Nothing more comfortable than a Windsor.’ Irving breathed in heavily and dipped his pen in the ink again.

  There was a tap at the door. It was the landlady, accompanied by a bald, exhausted-looking man with green spectacles, and a woman, presumably his wife, with piercing blue almond-shaped eyes roving beyond Irving’s shoulders.

  ‘They would like to see Goldsmith’s room,’ said the landlady, with a chesty cough, ‘if it is not too much trouble, sir.’

  ‘It is not only too much trouble, it is impossible. ‘He shut the door, and returned to his paper.

  There were gritty movements of shoes outside the door, and whispering, and another cough – he heard the landlady say: ‘That’ll be sixpence.’ The grittiness came again, and turning in his seat, Irving realised an eye had been placed to the keyhole. ‘Go away!’ he shouted to the eye.

  During the next half-hour, cheers from the cricket field, and boots going up and down the stairs, halted Irving’s progress. He heard a man’s voice on the landing say: ‘Is it true that Francis Bacon planted the mulberry tree in the tower’s garden?’