An Ensuing Evil and Others

He addressed his letter to Mrs. Mary Roscarrock, care of the Rat and Raven Inn, Chatham. Then he paused a few moments for thought before beginning: My dearest wife, Polly… He paused and smiled grimly to himself. It was a good thing young Hart’s education had been lacking in that he had not realized Polly was used as a diminutive of Mary.

THE PASSING SHADOW

“And talk of Time slipping by you, as if it was an animal of

rustic sports with its tail soaped.”

-”The Passing Shadow” in Our Mutual Friend

The two men sat opposite each other, either side of a dark oak table in the dark, tiny snug of the Thameside tavern. There were no windows in the curious threecornered little room. A gas burner, jutting from the wall above the solitary table, gave a curious flickering light, reflecting reddish on the red oak paneling. The elder man was in his early fifties, small of stature, immaculately dressed and coiffured, his curly hair receding from a broad forehead. A small “goatee” beard and mustache gave him the appearance of an intellectual, perhaps a professor. The other man was younger, in his thirties, fair of skin, with wide blue eyes and auburn hair. His handsome features had an indefinable Irish quality about them, although when he spoke, his soft, wellmodulated tones were clearly those of someone educated in England.

There had been a momentary silence between them while a young girl had brought a tray into the snug on which reposed a decanter of port and two glasses. She had placed it on the table between them and left with a bobbed curtsy, for she was well aware of the identity of the older guest that now sat gazing moodily at the cutglass decanter as the gaslight caused it to flicker and flash with a thousand points of light.

“I think that you are worried, esteemed father-in-law.” The younger man broke the silence with a smile.

The elder man turned with a disapproving frown and commenced to pour the port into the glasses. “You know that I hate being addressed as father-in-law,” he reproved.

The young man shrugged. “Since I married your daughter, Kate, I have been at odds as to how to address you. Since I am called Charles and you are called Charles, it would sound like some echo in the conversation if we hailed each other with that mode of address.”

The elderly man’s eyes lightened with humor. “In that case, let us agree. I shall call you Charley, and you may address me as Charles; otherwise, we shall have to resort to the formal Mr. Collins and Mr. Dickens.”

He pushed the port across the table, and his son-in-law dutifully raised the glass. “Your health, Charles,” his son-in-law toasted solemnly.

“Yours, too, Charley. I hope your new novel sells well.”

“StraithcairnP” The young man laughed whimsically. “Alas, I will never succeed as a novelist like my brother Wilkie. He has made more out of his Woman in White than I have made out of both my novels. My art lies in illustration, as you know. I am more of an artist than writer, as was my father.”

“Although I believe that your grandfather wrote?”

“Indeed, he did, sir. But had to leave his native Ireland to come to this country in order to earn a living as a picture restorer. Being no man of business, he failed to provide for his family.”

“In that, we share a common background, Charley. That is what endears me to you. Moreover, I respect your critical opinion.”

“Which brings us neatly to my point. You are clearly worried. I suspect it is about this novel that you have been working on of late. I was wondering why you have brought me to this unfamiliar Lime-house region, away from our usual London haunts, where we might bump into friends and colleagues.”

Dickens sighed. “Unfamiliar? My godfather, old Christopher Huffman, sold oars, masts, and ships’ gear just round the corner from here in Church Row. It was in old Huffman’s house there that my father once placed me on the table and told me to sing to the assembled company-to show me off. No, Charley, this place is not so remote for me. Over twenty years ago, I used some of this very area as background”-he waved his hand to encompass the surroundings-”as description in my book Dombey and Son.”

Charles Collins was silent for a moment.

“But you are worried,” he pressed.

Dickens compressed his lips for a moment and then nodded slowly. “You are discerning, Charley. Yes. I am worried.”

“About the new book?”

Again, his father-in-law nodded.

“Care to tell me what the book is about?”

“I have a character who has been left a fortune provided that he marries a girl. I’ve called the girl Bella. Bella Wilfer. My character, I’ve called him John, has been out of England for fourteen years. Now, while the fortune is attractive, John has decided to return to London under an assumed name to assess the situation. If John doesn’t marry Bella, then a man called Boffin stands to inherit the fortune. John gets a job as Boffins secretary. John becomes the mutual friend of Boffin and the Wilfers. In fact, I have titled my draft Our Mutual Friend. The upshot is that John and Bella fall in love, and John declares his real identity and inherits the money.”

Charles Collins pulled a face. “It sounds like a romantic comedy of deceit with a happy ending.”

Dickens scowled and shook his head. “No, that’s just it. It seems to lack spontaneity. It’s become a sordid tale of deceit and money. It’s full of pessimism. I seem to hear the words of that confounded woman Mrs. Lewes- George Eliot-whatever her name really is, who said that I scarcely ever pass from the humorous and external to the emotional and tragic, without becoming as transient in my unreality as… Oh, damnation!” He cut himself short. “She’s right. It reads like a dry treatise on morals, not a story.”

“Well, I have noticed that you have been growing increasingly pessimistic with life in general,” observed his son-in-law seriously.

“The story is too dry and dusty,” went on Dickens, ignoring the observation’. “I need to insert some drama, some excitement, some mystery-”

The door of the snug suddenly burst open, and a middle-age woman stood nervously on the threshold. She was a roundfaced lady who was, in fact, the proprietess of the tavern.

“Lud!” she exclaimed in agitation. “Mr. Dickens, sir, I am all of a tremble.”

The two men rose immediately for, indeed, the lady was suiting the words to the action and stood trembling in consternation before them.

Dickens came forward and took the landlady by the arm. “Calm yourself, Miss Mary.” His voice held a reassuring quality. “Come, still your nerves with a glass of port and tell us what ails you.”

“Port, sir? Gawd, no, sir.” ‘Tis gin that I would be having if drink be needed at all. But it can wait, Mr. Dickens, sir. “ ‘Tis advice I do be needing. Advice and assistance.”

Dickens regarded her patiently. “Pray, what then puts you so out of spirits? We will do our best to help.”

“A body, sir. A body. Washed up against our very walls.”

The tavern walls were built on the rivers edge, and those dark, choppy waters of the Thames could often be heard slapping at the bricks of the precariously balanced building.

Charley Collins grimaced. “Nothing unusual in that, Miss Mary,” he pointed out, adopting his father-in-law’s manner of addressing the landlady. In fact, every drinking man along the waterfront knew the landlady of the Grapes simply as Miss Mary. “Dwelling along the waterfront here, you have surely grown used to bodies being washed up?”

It was true that the Thames threw up the dead and dying every day. Suicides were commonplace; there were gentlemen facing ruin in various forms who took a leap from a bridge as a way out and the poor unable to