Mr. Dickens and His Carol Page 4

  “I’ve come to inquire after the new child, of course. All fine fettle, vigor, and salubriousness, I presume?”

  “Seems to be thriving, thank you.”

  “Have you a name?”

  “No name yet.”

  “Well, at least he’s got ‘Dickens.’ That should be name enough for anyone.”

  His eldest son was in no mood. Dickens leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs, and tapped a letter opener against his thigh, waiting for the inevitable. His father sat across from him and leaned in, as if all news were good news. “Charley, as long as I’m here—”

  “Yes, let’s have it, then. I’ve only a moment.”

  “Why, a moment is all I need for a matter regarding certain contemporaneous events which require perhaps a small anticipatory pecuniary effort—”

  “Only a small one?”

  “It so happens I’ve stumbled upon an opportunity for a most expeditious domiciliary arrangement.”

  “You live over a drinking house, Father. I should think that expeditious enough.”

  “Oh, but a man seeks ever the augmentation of his particulars, and but for a small stipendiary emolument—”

  “Rent’s come due, has it?”

  “I do find myself somewhat short in the pocket.”

  Dickens dragged a checkbook from a desk drawer and skimmed a thick collection of stubs that nearly blinded all reason. Coals, £12; wages, £46; £30 each for the dairyman, doctor, and chemist; various checks for pleasures, presents, and smoking; wine, washing, new clothes all around, and various household refurbishments. And that was last month alone. Only one check remained. He dipped his pen and filled it out.

  “Somethin’ll turn up, son, and I’ll have it back to you in no time.”

  “Please, Father, you cannot continue to ask my publishers and everyone else connected with me for money.”

  “Everyone knows that I am good for it.”

  “Everyone knows that I am good for it.” Dickens slapped the desk with a loose hand and pulled a pair of scissors from the drawer. He wanted his father to stop him, tell him to put the scissors away, close the drawer, it was all a bad joke. Wished he did want to see the new child, or his own child, sitting right in front of him, or at least sense his distress. Offer him, if not money, some whiff of that undying optimism when he needed it most. A sympathetic ear, a word of wisdom, a shoulder to lean on, when he felt so unsteady himself. Some sign that the natural order of parent and child was intact. It was ridiculous to need a father at his age, when he was a father himself, now six times over. But he did. And said nothing.

  He scissored off the check with three sharp snips and held it out, barely able to meet his father’s gaze. “There you are.”

  John Dickens put his hat on his head and stood. He folded the check with his knobby fingers and deposited it in a frayed coat pocket. “Mightily Christmas-like of you, Charley.”

  “It is still November, Father,” he said, pulling at his collar. “And an August-like one at that.”

  But John Dickens patted his pocket lightly, a faraway glimmer in his milky blue eyes. “Still, son, Christmas begins—”

  “In the heart. Yes, I know.” He stood, too, trying to find something redeemable or reassuring on his father’s puffy, grizzled face. But he found nothing. It was a rare silence between two men who relied on words to secure the necessities of life.

  “This must be an end on it, Father.”

  10

  When November rounded its last corner, Christmas preparations at Devonshire Terrace were at full pelt. Festive fabrics cascaded over a settee. A decorator hung a kissing bough; a housepainter studied a wall. Mamie practiced carols at the piano while Katey turned the pages and sang. The boys scrambled up and down the stairs playing pirates. Catherine, still meant to be convalescing, instead reclined on the drawing room settee in her velvet robe and slippers, embroidering a holiday sampler while dictating to a cook.

  “… four turkeys, a goose, mince pies, filberts, and candied fruits. A Christmas pudding, of course…”

  Dickens lingered in the threshold, gripping the household ledger to his chest, marveling at how the entire house seemed to spin and whir around Catherine’s calm center. He was acquainted with her gusts of postpartum activity. Not one to cut the social scene during pregnancy, she would linger at a ten-course dinner well into her seventh month, and even once, when she should have been spending her last weeks in bed, was spotted with a friend getting out of a carriage and galloping on foot up the Strand. Once a baby was born, she’d refuse to stay in bed any longer than four days, far short of the custom. She would remove to a sofa as soon as possible to resume direction of the household affairs, and if a party was afoot, all the better for her mood. Because her mood was the thing. The halo of euphoria that surrounded each birth was often short-lived. The first week she might be happy, the second, fine, the third, not well at all, and by the fourth it was possible Catherine could be found, at odd times of the day, crying in a heap. It was not the “delicacy” of pregnancy Dickens feared for his wife, it was this. He must approach all subjects, especially money, with tenderness and tact.

  The painter poked his head around. “This the hall to be painted green, mum?”

  “Not so green as to spoil the effects of the prints.” Catherine turned and spotted her husband. “Oh, thank goodness. I need your additions to the guest list. Party invitations post tomorrow.”

  Dickens walked in and perched beside her slippered feet, the ledger on his lap.

  “Careful, dear. The chintz.”

  He rearranged himself and cleared his throat. “Catherine—”

  “Do you think one goose enough, darling? The guest list is twice as long as last year. Perhaps two would fit the bill.”

  “Is it really necessary?”

  “The goose?”

  “I was only thinking—”

  The new baby screeched in its blue-bowed bassinet. It was a high thin cry, like a needle piercing Dickens’ brain. Catherine signaled to Doreen, who swept the child up in her ample arms and took him away. Mamie hit a stretch of inharmonious keys.

  “Never mind, Mamie,” said Catherine. “Play quickly through and no one at the party will notice.” She turned back to her husband. “I’m sorry, Charles. Here I am now.”

  Dickens crossed one leg, then the other. Searched the ceiling, the floor. He had scarcely mentioned the doomed meeting with Chapman and Hall to her, a few days before over a shared lunch of Scotch broth and fresh herrings. Most of it he had said into his napkin, between fortifying gulps of red currant wine.

  “Cate. I was only thinking that if I am not to write this cursed Christmas book—”

  “Of course you shouldn’t.”

  “I’m so relieved you agree,” he said, not convinced she did at all.

  Somewhere below them a persistent hammering began. Each blow was a smack on the back of his head, a jolting buzz between his ears. Catherine must have seen it on his face.

  “Oh, ignore that, dear. Probably the new coat hooks for the children. Or maybe the wreath on the door. Which I’m having done in deep varnished red.”

  “The door?”

  “Indigo is past season. Though I am thinking imperial yellow for spring.”

  “Right. Well, that brings me to the thing, which is, Cate, I thought, regarding Christmas, we might be a bit sensible this year—”

  “Sensible?”

  “Yes, you see … I’ve been reviewing the household expenses.” He tapped the ledger with twitchy fingers.

  Finishing a row of cross-stitches, Catherine looked up, her focus now clearly on him. “Wait. Your father’s been to you for money again, is that it?”

  The mere mention of his father felt like a pebble in his shoe. Dickens could see him even now, kneading the brim of his sloppy hat, the way he sat in the leather chair upstairs pretending to rejoice at the birth of a grandson, but only for his own benefit. He wished he could love his father more, wished he could feel someth
ing besides guilt and contempt. But Catherine had touched a nerve.

  “How long he is growing into a man! Why, never once in my father’s shabbily cheerful life has he managed to make one end meet the other. Which is precisely my point.”

  “What point, dear?” Catherine put down her sampler to review the list from the cook.

  “The point that we are simply living beyond our means—”

  “You needn’t be so dramatic, Charles.”

  “Catherine, our living has no relation to our means whatsoever.”

  “Oysters, I should think, as well,” she said, handing the list back.

  His shoulders rose and fell, but Catherine was well known for not missing a beat.

  “When have we ever been sensible regarding Christmas? Think what it means to the children, our friends. And you! Who loves Christmas more than anyone. And now to throw water—”

  “It is humane to throw water when there is a fire burning out of control!”

  His vehemence stopped her, spun her state of mind like a top. Catherine pulled a silk kerchief from inside her pagoda sleeve and pressed it to her lips. She looked out the window, eyes puddling. “If only it would snow, the Christmas spirit would return to you at once.”

  Dickens stood, catching the spine of his ledger on a corner of fabric that wrapped around his forearm. He wrestled it off. “It is not snow we need, but sterling, or there shall be no Christmas at all!”

  She blotted the corners of her eyes. “You’re making me very sad, indeed.”

  “Catherine, it is the having of babies that brings your sadness on—”

  She wiped a sniffle away. “But the buying of chintzes which often cures me. And Christmastime.”

  Dickens exhaled. He was wrong to have come to her, wrong to have asked that she take on his troubles, when she was busy enough defending against her own low state. A frenzy of activity was her cure for a disordered mind, as night walking was for him. Now standing behind the settee, he put a hand on her shoulder. He couldn’t bear to deny her anything at all that might aid her restoration.

  “Then of course you’ll have them, Cate.”

  Craning her neck to look into his eyes, she seemed to find something to match the tender regret in his voice. She put her hand on top of his. Dickens found some small peace in the warmth of her touch. There was so little of it these days, with the hullabaloo in the house, the birth, the book. He missed it sorely. There was no want of affection between them, just no time. Each day’s demands and necessities, never ending, never done.

  He rubbed his forehead. “This money madness of Chapman and Hall’s has rendered me vexed and alone.”

  “You’re not alone, darling.” She patted his hand. “Why, all the world loves you and your books.”

  He didn’t want to be patted or patronized. He wanted true human feeling, and everything else was rote gesture, a reminder of the very thing that was absent.

  “Not so Chuzzlewit.”

  “Don’t worry, dear. If your public don’t appreciate it now, they will … someday.”

  “Do you mean after I’m dead?”

  She turned back to take up her embroidery hoop. “I don’t think I did mean that, but then, you wouldn’t be the first.”

  Dickens stared at the back of her head. “If they could like it a little more while I’m still alive, that would do fine.”

  But Catherine was lost to the golds and greens of her holiday floss, and he had lost the will to make a fuss. When he turned to go, the boys launched into the room with play-swords, swinging and cursing. So many other times he would have led the charge, with “ahoys” and “mateys,” black patches and snickersnees. But there was no pirate in him today. When Walter challenged a fringed lamp to a duel, Dickens’ nerves tumbled over the edge.

  “Boys!” he said, but they were too busy fencing their way over the footstool, pretending it was a ship’s plank, to hear. Katey sang louder to spite them. The baby, upstairs, continued to bawl. The hammering below pulsed in Dickens’ chest. He could feel redness rise in his face, a terrible tightness in his scalp. He rubbed the back of his head, trying to make it go away, when little Frank started pounding the piano keys.

  “Frank! Mind your sticky fingers!” His thundering voice surprised even him, and drowned out all the clamor of the house. Everything stopped: the music, the singing, the pounding, the swords. Even the baby’s distant howl ceased. They all looked at him, wide-eyed. Little Frank ran to bury his face in Catherine’s lap. Anger flashed in her eyes. Dickens opened his mouth to explain himself, but not one word came to him, neither admonition nor apology.

  With nothing to say, and more irritation than regret, he lumbered into the foyer, hesitating just long enough to consider the new expanse of pine-green with cherry-red trim that would no doubt cost him a pretty penny.

  “Hope ya like Christmas, sir,” said the painter.

  Dickens gnarled and trudged upstairs.

  *

  Fury falls away in dribs and drabs. Dickens took an early supper alone in his study, but to no effect. After a few more hours of not succeeding at writing anything, he became aware of an unusual quiet in the house, except for the sound of sweet whispers somewhere above. He tiptoed up the stairs toward the little voices, and paused outside the boys’ attic nursery. Young Charley, Walter, and Frank were bathed, hair combed. They knelt at their beds in plain muslin nightgowns and caps, hands folded in prayer, eyes shut tight.

  “Make me kind to my nurses and servants and to all beggars and poor people,” they recited in unison. “And let me never be cruel to any dumb creature…”

  Dickens leaned his head against the doorjamb. It was the prayer he’d written for his children long ago, when his firstborn was no taller than his trouser knee. It warmed the cockles of his heart to hear it.

  “But please remember the croquet set,” said young Charley.

  “And another cat, all my own,” added Walter.

  “And a bag of peppermint sticks as big as a house!” said little Frank.

  Dickens crossed his arms and set his jaw. Catherine appeared beside him, her hand in the crook of his elbow. “You see, dear?” she whispered. “What Christmas means to them?”

  “I think I’m beginning to, yes.”

  Catherine turned to face him. “Charles, you don’t owe Christmas to anyone. Not even to me. But you owe it to yourself to believe in yourself. You’ve always done what you set your mind to, what was necessary.”

  “You mean write the book?” he asked, surprised by her change of heart.

  “Only if you think it best.”

  Catherine grazed his cheek with a kiss and disappeared as quickly as she’d come, leaving him to his own dilemma. Whether she was friend or foe, in that moment, he didn’t know, nor what he owed and to whom. He admired the steady confidence of everyone around him that they would all survive. At least envied it as much as he minded. He turned back to his fresh-faced boys settling under the covers, tucked up to their chins, satisfied they had recited not only their duty to God, but God’s duty to them as well. He let go a long, frustrated sigh.

  “I think without a Christmas book, we are done for.”

  11

  Dickens was at his desk by half-past nine, with just the right quill, fresh nib, and virgin sheets of rough bluish paper, folded crisply and torn in half. His desk was the way he liked it: a vase of fresh flowers, his little gilt rabbit on a leaf next to a bronze statuette of two toads fighting a duel with swords. Everything was in apple-pie order, the house all hush-hush. He breathed in and out, as if to fill his own well, dipped his pen, and spoke as he wrote in a small, neat hand.

  “A … Christmas … Wreath.”

  He narrowed his eyes to look at the title, first this way, then that, crossed it out, and dipped again.

  “A … Christmas … Prayer,” he tried, but without success.

  “A Christmas Pudding?” He rejected this before even crossing the t.

  He waved away the morning post. Lunch was
brought on a tray, but refused.

  When Topping tapped on the doorjamb in late afternoon, Dickens sprang from his seat. “Topping! Where is my clock?”

  Topping indicated the window, briefly miming the defenestration.

  “Right. Oh, well,” Dickens said, missing his clock terribly.

  Topping produced the full day’s stack of mail. Dickens reached for his letter opener, a man eager for battle, or any distraction at all.

  “Bit thick with bills today, sir.” Topping handed them off one at a time. “The poulterer, the butcher, the baker…”

  “No candlestick maker?” Dickens huffed as he stuffed them in a drawer already brimming with debts owed.

  “And then yer charities … Destitute Sailors Asylum … Discharged Prisoners … Fishmongers … Lost Dogs … Female Missionaries to the Fallen Women of London … Invalids, Idiots, Imbeciles…”

  “Imbeciles, indeed.” He tossed the lot straight into the bin.

  “A second cousin once removed, money difficulties … Likewise a friend of a friend of yer uncle’s … Oh, and this from yer brother Fred—”

  Dickens took the letter and held it to his forehead, acting the clairvoyant. “I sense a rather lengthy dissertation on Fred’s newest scheme. Hmm. Another automatic smoking machine, perhaps?”

  “Or the cane that turned into an umbrella—”

  “Or the ventilated top hat.”

  “And the stamp-licker. I remember that one.”

  “Whatever it is, it’s a money-spinner for sure,” he said, tossing it with the others. “That is, if I’m willing to spot for it.”

  Topping wrinkled his nose, saying nothing. Dickens admired that his groom knew nook-and-cranny details of Dickens family life, but stayed sensibly out of the fray.

  “And an invitation to dine at Mr. Forster’s this evenin’.”

  “With the usuals, I presume,” said Dickens, setting it under the dueling toads. “I am in no mood for a literary bash, thank you.”

  Topping held up the last of the lot. It was an elegant envelope, pale pink and perfumed, with a Penny Red stamp. “Oh, and this, sir. From a Mrs. Winter.”