Mr. Dickens and His Carol Read online

  Failure was not in his repertoire.

  Dickens quickened his steps, counting them off in his head. He could hear himself breathe, feel his heart like a knuckle-thump in his chest. When he crossed the stinking Thames, holding his nose against the feculence that rolled up in clouds, he felt relief to leave behind the midnight world of elegant theatergoers jostling into late hansom cabs. Tonight he wanted a nether London with only poor down-and-outs to keep him company, a ragtag procession of beggars, brawlers, and drunkards whose seeming houselessness echoed some emptiness inside him.

  When the last low public house turned out its lamps and the voice of a straggling potato-man trailed away, a street-sad loneliness prevailed. The air was still and heavy, not enough to flutter even a curtain at an open window. He felt himself the only person alive, as if the magic lantern had snuffed itself out, throwing his own darkness into bright relief. He didn’t know where his bleakness came from, or why, but it followed him like a shadow through the black streets of Bermondsey and Southwark, a shroud for his own low spirits. This was the land of smoke-spewing tanners and bone-boilers, sawmills and breweries. It smelled of yeast, dung, and carcasses; ash and murk pushed on his lungs, made him strain for each breath. The night was as grim as Pluto. Dickens worried the dawn might never come.

  When it did, at last, he found himself in the comfort of Covent Garden, where the city sparked to something he recognized as life. An early constable surprised two street urchins sleeping in baskets and drove them away, shaking his stick. Growers’ boys stretched and yawned under wagons spilling over with cauliflowers and cabbages. Costermonger carts jingled across the piazza, tea-sellers set up tables against its pillars, itinerant dealers lined its sides. Everything was on offer: oysters, hot eels, and pea soup; gingerbread, cough drops, and pies; secondhand clothes, violins, and books; ginger beer, tea, and hot cocoa. The sellers nattered and called to each other, holding entire conversations in a single grunted syllable. Dickens stopped to take it all in and thought it as good as a party. The gentler light of day faded his low feeling and restored some mighty faith in the marvelousness of everything.

  And so, rekindled by the fires of the first breakfast-men and the smell of fresh coffee and toast, he remembered there was a child about to be born, and made his way, quick-footed, for home.

  4

  The coincidence of births and books in the Dickens household was by now old hat. Twelve-year-old Charley preceded publication of a three-decker Twist; Katey greeted the first monthly installment of Nickleby, Mamie followed neatly the last. The Old Curiosity Shop was elder brother to Walter, little Frank to Barnaby Rudge. But today the five Dickens children, dressed and breakfasted by half seven, sat stairsteps on the uppermost landing, bored with books and babies both.

  The mild weather was making them glum. With not a smidge of cold nor any sign of snow, Christmas seemed all but forgotten. Even the family Newfoundlands, Timberdoodle and Sniffery, and Mrs. Bouncer the Pomeranian, appeared lacking in holiday cheer. There was not a holly sprig in sight, not a whiff of plum pudding, and no talk at all of the big Christmas party, which had grown in length and girth each year of their young lives. By now they should be counting the days to their father’s abracadabra conjuring spectacular, a homespun holiday theatrical, and a riotous game of blind man’s buff. Even the traditional trip to Bumble’s Toy Shop seemed on no one’s mind but theirs.

  “We must all do our headwork to solve it,” said Katey, twirling her fat sausage curls. The charming schemer of the lot, she was dressed in plum silk to her calves, pleated, ruffled, and trimmed. Mamie, the quiet one in the pinafore, read to Walter, who rested his chin on a fist, watching Charley try to balance a marble on his shoe. Little Frank sucked on a barley candy, now and then wiping his sticky fingers on his small sailor shirt.

  “What is Christmas without Bumble’s?” Walter traded one fist for the other.

  “I suppose Mother and Father have just forgotten, that’s all. Though I should think Mr. Bumble will be sad not to see us,” said Mamie, ever thinking of the feelings of others. Little Frank began to cry.

  “Why are you crying?” asked Walter. “Crying won’t help.”

  Katey sat up tall and rapped Walter lightly on the crown of the head. “That’s it! I’ve hit upon the very thing that will save us!”

  *

  Downstairs, just returned from his night walk, Dickens stepped inside quietly, listening for some sign of new life. Hearing nothing, he closed the front door, relieved to be on the lighter side of it. If he hadn’t eradicated Chapman and Hall from his mind altogether, at least they were tucked quietly into a far corner instead of the drawing room of his own house waiting to lower the boom. Yes, they had nipped at his thoughts all the way home, but only as ambient mumbling, easily ignored. Still, he pressed his forehead against the door and gave himself a good talking-to in any case, a little lecture on the importance of putting on his most inscrutable face and not blemishing the day.

  “Oh, Father,” said Katey, swishing down the last flight of stairs. “It is another boy!”

  Dickens turned, snapping to. “A boy?”

  “But we prefer girls!” Katey fell into his arms, playing it up for sniffles and sobs. The boys rushed down behind her, crying on cue. He knew it was a conspiracy of false tears, but Dickens winked sideways to his sons and put an arm around Katey. “As do I, my Lucifer-Box. But never mind us.”

  He wanted to leap for the stairs to greet his new son, but here were his children already born, clamoring for his attention and compelling as ever. Katey was his Lucifer-Box, the pet name he’d invented in honor of her fiery petulance. Young Charley was Flaster Floby or the Snodgering Blee. Walter was Young Skull for his fine high cheekbones. Frank was Chicken Stalker, after a comic character in The Chimes. But dear Mamie was Mild Glo’ster for her quiet, reliable nature, like the cheese. She hung back now, as she often did, searching his face for some clue to his true state of mind. She was a worrier, like he was, and could sense unease in the smallest gesture. So he gave her sudden merriment, all play. Walter wanted a magic trick. Little Frank, still sucking his barley candy, tugged on a pant leg. Dickens hoisted him onto a shoulder, sticky fingers, sticky face, and all. Katey seized her chance.

  “Father, we were just thinking of poor Mr. Bumble, who must miss us so.”

  Before he could answer, Catherine’s maid, Doreen, appeared at the top of the stairs, preceded by her own heavy sigh. She was red in the face, as if her mistress’s mighty labor had been hers as well. Dickens looked up, eager for news.

  “Does she bid me come to her?”

  “This is number six, sir.” Doreen dabbed her ruddy neck with an apron hem. “She bids you stay well away.”

  But he couldn’t wait another second. He swung Frank down with a growling kiss on the cheek and started straight for the stairs. Walter yanked on Katey’s dress. She tried one more time, calling after him.

  “Oh, Father. Can you think of nothing to cheer us?”

  But he was two flights up already, and didn’t hear her plea.

  5

  Catherine Dickens, in a white satin bed gown purchased specially for this occasion, leaned against a hillock of pillows, holding the newest member of their family. Dickens paused inside the door, struck by a buttery glow in the room. His wife looked weary but happy.

  “A boy?” he whispered, tiptoeing toward them.

  Catherine nodded. Dickens kissed her forehead and sat on the edge of the bed beside her. He leaned on an elbow to pull aside a corner of blanket, enough to glimpse his newborn son, whose little chest rose sharp and quick, each breath a startling discovery of air. The baby had one tiny hand curled against his own pink-perfect cheek; the other clutched instinctively at his father’s ink-stained finger, seeking an anchor in the world.

  “Oh, my,” said Dickens, overwhelmed.

  “I do hope you’ve a name in mind.”

  “Oh, Cate. Just in this moment I’ve no confidence in my naming skills whatsoever.”<
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  “What is it, Charley?”

  Catherine was sensible to his ups and downs. She could read between the lines of his face, kept a running tally of the faintest furrows on his brow. It took some effort to mask the worry he’d walked in with. “Nothing,” he lied gently. “I am bursting with happiness.”

  Catherine looked at their son. “How clever he is to have come in time for the Christmas party.”

  “Christmas,” said Dickens. “Yes.” He had not the heart to tell her the Chuzzlewit news. Not now. Catherine depended on him; they relied on each other. There was a going forward about them, as if life should be an ever-expanding affair—more children, a bigger house, better things. Dickens himself was known to be quick with the sterling, and generous to a fault. Every charity and beggar in London thought him an easy mark. Catherine was fond of fine fabrics, fresh flowers in every room, and had more than once mentioned having spied a magnificent marzipan in the shape of a goose that might be the perfect centerpiece for the party this year.

  “Do you remember our first Christmas at Furnival’s Inn?” she asked. “When you told me to close my eyes and declare my heart’s desire?”

  Dickens did remember, in exquisite detail. How lovely his new bride was, cheeks flushed in the firelight, dark curls delighting the sides of her face, eyes sparkling with hope. His first romantic attachment to one Maria Beadnell had ended badly, but Catherine was just the remedy. The eldest daughter of an esteemed music critic, she was an unsentimental Scottish beauty whose wit and wants were a match for his own. They had begun their life together when she’d joined him at his three small rooms at Furnival’s. It was elbow-to-elbow in the early going, but they found a gladsome affection between them, a comfortable ease. Their shared memory of it was a touchstone.

  “So close them,” said Dickens. “And tell me again.”

  “All right, then.” Catherine closed her eyes. “I wish for a home.”

  “A home. Well wished, my dearest pig.”

  “For happiness.”

  “For what is a home without happiness?”

  “And children with which to share them.”

  “How many children?”

  “Neither too few nor too many, of course.”

  “Then just the right number.”

  “Just.” Catherine opened her eyes to find her husband’s gaze. “And that every Christmas will be more splendid than the last.”

  Dickens recalled those days at Furnival’s with fondness, too, how they’d lived well with less, pretending it was more. Tomorrow would make good whatever debt there was today. It had always proved true. Each Christmas had been more splendid than the last. And why shouldn’t it be so? He was Charles Dickens, after all. Catherine believed in him. Chapman and Hall thought better of the trough, perhaps, but even they would eat again.

  “Is it too much to ask for,” she asked, “even now?”

  “For Mrs. Charles Dickens? Whose husband is believed to have great prospects?” He could still recite each word he’d pledged when he waltzed her about their modest rooms at Furnival’s all those years ago, giddy with thoughts of their life to come. “Why, we shall have such dinings, such dancings, such kissings-out of old years and kissings-in of new as have never been seen in these parts before!”

  Catherine held their newborn to her cheek. “Oh, darling. I thought we had just the right number of children, but today I feel sure of it.”

  How often he and Catherine had repeated this very scene, often in quick succession, each child greeted with trumpeting joy. Children were an act of optimism—sheer belief that the future will outshine the present. How he longed for that feeling now, the heart breaking open and flooding one’s veins with love, breaching even those banks to wash the world with it, so that every worry fell away. Everything but this.

  Dickens took the swaddled child in his arms and considered his sweet-sleeping face.

  “Number six,” he sighed. “I suppose we shall need a bigger house.”

  With a heavy-lidded wink, Catherine patted his knee and settled back to rest. “Perhaps a small refurbishment will do.”

  Doreen alerted them to her presence with a gravelly cough. She flung back the curtains and threw open a window. The air hung thick; dust pooled in a shaft of light. A cobweb joined the flocked fuchsia wallpaper to a yellow damask chaise. The creamy glow of the room turned to glare. Doreen took the child in her doughy arms. “When it’s summer for winter,” she said, shaking her head, “sure enough the world’s about to go topsy-turvy.”

  Dickens stood to go, kissing his wife on the top of the head.

  “I do hope the weather improves for the party,” said Catherine, rallying long enough to suggest that if her husband had any influence in the matter of snow, he might use it now.

  “I’ll see what I can do, darling mouse.”

  Catherine reached for his hand; he let his fingers twine and linger in hers. “We are bursting with happiness, aren’t we?” she asked.

  “We are,” he said, as if willing it so. He let go and turned for the door.

  “Oh, and don’t forget Bumble’s for the children, dear. They’ve been waiting for days.”

  His hand gripped the knob like a vise. The mere mention of Bumble’s Toy Shop, their annual rite of merry excess, wrenched him back to the tight spot he was in. The bill would come due soon enough, and if Chapman and Hall were true to their word, sterling would be scant. But surely they were wrong. The new Chuzzlewit chapter would fix everything and all would be well with the world once again.

  Books had always been the thing to save them.

  6

  John Forster sat behind a carved mahogany desk pulling hard on his bushy muttonchops. Dickens liked to say that the hair on his friend’s face—in the hierarchy of whiskers, somewhere between flapwings and a chin muffler—could never quite agree to meet in the middle and make a beard. It didn’t matter. Forster was thickset, pugnacious, and pompous, but the truest friend there ever was. The son of a butcher, he had long ago decided he preferred books to beef. If there were those who believed no one should be a writer who could be anything better, John Forster believed no one who could write should do anything but. He’d risen to prominence as editor and critic, but was best known as Charles Dickens’ greatest enthusiast. He was first in line for the latest installment on Magazine Day each month, and the last to sleep. “You know him?” people in line at Mudie’s would ask. “Boz himself?”

  “Know him?” Forster was known to bellow back, “I represent him!”

  On this particular afternoon, he watched with consternation as Dickens paced back and forth in front of him like a newly caged animal.

  “Chapman and Hall have rubbed bay salt in my eyes. And on the birth of my son!”

  “A book this Christmas?”

  “Precisely.”

  “But Christmas is only weeks away. Why, it’s not humanly possible.”

  Dickens stopped briefly to consider whether it was, in fact, humanly possible. “Well, perhaps I could do. But refuse!”

  “As you must.”

  A flying rubber band stung Forster on the side of the head. It was meant to be an earnest office with only grown men in it, but here were the Dickens children in the anteroom, tending to their boredom with the amusements of rubber bands and paperweights. Forster watched Little Frank pull a linty candy from his pocket, discard a piece of gullyfluff, and stick it in his mouth.

  Dickens took Forster’s grimace as a gesture of solidarity. He stopped, awaiting some further expression of indignation to match his own.

  “Why, you cannot leave Chuzzlewit stranded in America,” said Forster.

  “My point exactly.” Dickens slumped into a slat-back chair. “And yet what is the point? My public have abandoned poor Martin, and with him, me.”

  “We must not panic.”

  Dickens inched to the edge of his seat, tapping the contract on Forster’s desk. “But what about this clause? You never mentioned any clause.”

  “I
never thought they would invoke it. It’s nothing but legal mumbo jumbo.”

  “Well, they have threatened to ‘mumbo jumbo’ me to the tune of forty pounds sterling. On a monthly basis!”

  “Preposterous! We must not succumb to this sort of blackmail.”

  Dickens swayed from pique to self-pity, like the rising and falling flames of the fat office candles. “You are my fixer, John. What do you advise?”

  Forster had been his fixer, his bulwark, bully, and protector, from the early days of Pickwick onward. When hawkers stood on street corners yelling, “Git yer Pickwick cigars, corduroys, figurines!” it was Forster who’d run down the factory middlemen and demanded his friend’s fair share. The two had been ardent allies ever since, thick against the thieves of the publishing world.

  Forster pawed the contract from his desk, eyes darting from clause to clause. Another rubber band struck his nose. He batted it away, impatient. “Besides writing the book?”

  “Yes!”

  Forster sighed and tugged on his muttonchops, appraising his friend’s pleading eyes. “Well. I suppose you could … cut down.”

  Dickens cocked his head as if hearing a language yet unknown to human ears. “Cut down?”

  “That is … cut back,” said Forster, as gingerly as he could manage.

  Dickens gazed at the ceiling, where his thoughts sometimes congealed. “Cut back,” he said, trying out the sound of it.

  7

  Christmas had been hiding in the streets all along. The Dickens children marched behind their father in obedient single file, but their eyes were bright and round as new pennies. Shopkeepers stood on ladders, decking their windows with evergreen boughs. Old men roasted chestnuts in crowded courts; the poulterer had a hand-painted sign for his goose-and-brandy club, the butcher his roast beef, the grocer his plum pudding. Never mind the warmish weather or the clatter of carts and coaches. The air smelled like it had hailed nutmeg and snowed cinnamon.