The Last Dickens

“That is what matters.”

“He is much less ordinary and average than that,” Rebecca objected.

“What's your counsel?”

“What do you mean my counsel?”

“Yes, on impressing your Mr. Osgood!”

“He is not my… My counsel is that Mr. Osgood is occupied with his business affairs and not nonsense.”

“A pity!” replied her companion, disappointed by James Osgood's inverted priorities. “I would have invited you to the wedding, you know.”

During their voyage, Rebecca would often meet Osgood in the ship's library to help compose letters to Dickens's publishing representatives in London or draft other documents. Though she could not dine at his table or take part in first-class pastimes, one pleasant afternoon she was sitting out on a deck chair reading the pages of Drood, wearing a wrap to protect herself against the wind. She had been joined by some girls who were knitting. In a nearby porthole, she noticed a reflection of the parlor, where Osgood was playing chess, a game that Rebecca had taught Daniel to fill his evenings at the boardinghouse in Boston after he had stopped drinking.

At first, feeling she should not spy, she tried returning her attention to her reading but could not help herself. She became fascinated at the idea of watching her employer without him knowing. She had to remind herself that she'd remained a bit disappointed toward Osgood, and as though a sort of punishment of him, she decided she should withhold her interest. But before long, she was so enamored by the maneuvers of the game that she concocted her own silent strategies. Osgood reached a critical turn, his hand frozen above the table, and she urged him mentally to move the knight to the back left of his opponent's board.

That will do it, Mr. Osgood! she thought. She knew he would do nothing more than smile politely if he won, so as not to belittle the other player.

A moment later, after withdrawing his hand from several aborted moves, he chose the move she counseled. She clapped her hands in delight, and two of the girls peered over their knitting with shaking heads.

Even after only a few days at sea, she felt herself to be in an entirely different world from Boston. The voyage did not remove Daniel from her mind. In his absence, she realized how much of his resilience and buoyancy had passed into her own ambitions for herself. His voice had become part of her inner life in a way she could not de- scribe. The voyage made her feel temporarily at peace about his death, as though he were part of the endless expanse of sky and saltwater and warm breezes.

ONE WARM MORNING, Osgood was walking along the upper deck in a general abstraction. The winds were picking up and the ship was shakier than it had been. Nausea gradually spread to a few new people each day. The ship's doctor passed out small drafts of morphine to calm the nerves. Passengers who were not sick had grown bored of chess and cards and of talking politics over cigars. Soon, not even the dinner bell interested them; only a whale sighting could temporarily stir the general sluggishness. But not Osgood-Osgood had avoided ennui entirely.

He remained industrious, well dressed and engrossed in his coming mission. While other men were now regularly unshaven, his mustache was trim and his face clean. Osgood saw this not just as habit but necessity. His face, though composed of pleasant-enough features, was rather inconspicuous, not to say nondescript. In fact, it was not uncommon for a person who had met Osgood in one place-say, the Tremont Street office-to then, perhaps days later, meet with him in another setting-the bridge at the Public Garden-and evince not a shred of recognition. Sometimes a change of sunlight to gaslight, or a Saturday rather than a Tuesday, was known to produce the same confusion in those attempting to place a memory of the publisher's identity. This all would be made more problematic had Osgood ever changed the cut of a single hair, which the publisher did not dare to do. It might risk him waking up one morning and finding his home and position taken away from him.

Osgood had continued to study the pages of The Mystery of Edwin Drood he had brought with him. The book was different from the usual Dickens work and his most artistic endeavor since A Tale of Two Cities. It was the work of a ripe genius, restrained and taut, and would have been his masterpiece when finished, Osgood was convinced, and like any masterpiece equally beloved and misunderstood. Morbid and dark, it had a divided family of the fictionally named Cloisterham village and only a bleak hope for happiness for them. The characters were infused with such life that one could almost feel that they would step out of the pages and act out the remainder of the story without Dickens's pen to help. The looming question lurked at the end of the existing pages: Was Edwin Drood, the young hero, murdered? Or was he in hiding, waiting to return triumphantly?

Of course, there was no thinking of Drood's disappearance without thinking of Dickens's death. The two were welded together for all time now. Would learning more about one ease the sad reality of the other? This was the momentum of Osgood's thoughts as he roamed the deck when he lost his balance on a slippery board and, before he could grab the railing, fell down hard on his back.

After a moment of confusion, he realized he was being offered a hand. Or a head, to be precise-the gold head of a heavy walking cane. Osgood reached hesitantly for the ugly, fanged monster carving and started to pull himself to his feet. Osgood had seen this man, with the wide mustache and brown turban, who kept mostly to himself, grumbling occasional demands to a waiter or steward, waving this queer cane around. Osgood had heard him referred to as Herman, and thought he appeared to be Parsee, but knew nothing else of him.

“All right?” Herman asked in his gravelly voice.

Osgood lowered himself back down, feeling a pain run through his back.

“I'll send for the ship's surgeon,” Herman said, with a cold but polite tone.

By this point, a small circle of passengers from all steerages and several crew members had gathered at the spot of the fall. Rebecca saw the crowd forming and ran as fast as she could move her legs in her narrow dress. She had to squeeze through the other girls, who were making a show of their concern.

“Well, you are a goose!” said Christie. “We were here first, miss,” said another girl from their steerage, a gaudy redhead.

“Miss Sand,” Osgood called out with relief. “Very sorry for the spectacle. Will you help me?”

“Beg your pardon,” Rebecca said to the redhead and her freckled companion with more than a little pleasure as she pushed by them. The wind draped her plain black dress around her and showed in her simple form a beauty to rival any of the other more lavishly displayed and ribboned girls lined up behind her. She gave Osgood her arm. “Mr. Osgood, how very unlucky!” she said sympathetically. “Are you hurt?”

“Luck-which they say in business is dispersed at random-played no part in this fraud, my dear young lady,” came a voice from the perimeter of the circle of onlookers. It was the English businessman, Wakefield. The tea merchant was elegantly dressed in a traditional cape and checked trousers. He stopped to nod courteously to Rebecca, then continued making his way forward. “My friend Osgood, victim!”

“Mr. Wakefield, you are mistaken. The spray from the ocean has been quite rough, you see, and I slipped in a puddle,” Osgood insisted.

“No. That is what this man would like you to think.” Wakefield turned sharply at the large man who had helped Osgood to his feet.

“Beg pardon?” Herman asked the impudent accuser, his hands resting on the cord tied around his tunic and knotted in four places.

“The spray has become quite vicious, it's very true,” Wakefield explained, “which is why I was out walking instead of feeling sick in my stateroom. It was thus that I witnessed this man pouring water from a bucket into that corner. He appeared to be watching for someone to appear before doing it.”

“Do you mean he did this on purpose? Why would he do such a horrid thing?” asked Rebecca, turning to look at Herman. As she met the accused's eyes and innocent smile, a sudden, almost magnetic repulsion forced her to take a step back. The dark, malicious eyes gave her a rush of inexplicable fear and hatred.

Wakefield glanced at Rebecca. “My little woman, you are very innocent! I am embarrassed to say we have sharpers in England who would target any good-natured gentleman. I travel frequently on this and other liners and have been robbed two times myself. I believe this man is what the police call a floorer, or a tripper.”

“What?” Osgood asked.

“Never mind!” Herman's face grew bright. He stuck a toothpick in his mouth and chewed restlessly. “I know not what this bloke means by this, and I suggest he retreats.”