‘I saw no alteration,’ she protested, though indeed she had.
‘He has burnt all her letters,’ Mrs Desmoulins told her. ‘He took them out into the side yard and hacked down the branches of the poplar tree to feed the fire.’
‘It is perhaps advisable’, said Miss Burney, ‘to consume memories.’
‘The poplar came as a sapling from Streatham Park,’ cried Mrs Desmoulins. ‘These past ten years he has tended it like a father his son.’
Miss Burney pushed past her and made her escape. As she trotted down the steps and into the Court, she could not help smiling, for Mr Boswell had told her that Mrs Desmoulins had long been in love with Mr Johnson; she found it comical that an old woman, plain of features and red of complexion, should harbour such a misplaced passion. But then, was it not a conceit common to another member of her household?
She did not see Johnson again for several months. When he next received her he boasted he was now much recovered in health. He said Dr Heberden’s bleeding of him had given relief, and the prescribed doses of opium he daily took now enabled him to move about as formerly. Only two nights ago he had gone to his Club with Mr Boswell and walked home without distress. She said she was delighted at finding him so well, though it seemed to her that his asthma was worse and his dropsy advanced.
‘I will not capitulate,’ he cried, and next instant brought up the name of Mrs Thrale, demanding to know what news there was of her. She told him she had been informed by Queeney that her mother and the Italian were at present in Milan. ‘She writes to Queeney,’ she said, ‘but Miss Thrale does not reply to her letters and scarce bothers to read them.’
‘Poor Sweeting,’ he murmured. ‘She has lost her mother.’
‘They were not close—’
‘On the contrary,’ he said, ‘they were too close,’ and added, ‘A strange thought strikes me – we shall receive no letters in the grave.’
‘Mr Boswell’, she said, ‘once told me that upon asking if any man had the same conviction of the truth of an afterlife as he had of common affairs, you replied, “No, Sir …”’
‘I do not recall the statement,’ he replied, ‘but perceive the sense of it. If you mean am I serene at the thought of what awaits, the answer must be “No”, for being rational I regard salvation as conditional. As I can never be sure I have complied with the conditions, I remain afraid of death.’
‘Why, Sir,’ she was foolish enough to protest, ‘you who love God have surely nothing to fear,’ at which, thumping his stick against the floor, he shouted, ‘Madam, it is the fear of God that keeps me alive.’
When she had gone he sat for an hour or more staring into the flames. Presently, Mrs Desmoulins stood outside his door complaining that Frank Barber had given the cat the supper cheese. ‘It will do the dear creature more good than either of us,’ he bellowed, ‘for both of us have trouble with our bellies.’
He got up and going to his desk took out a sheaf of papers. After no more than a cursory examination he flung them on to the fire. A page fell to the hearth; he was about to thrust it back into the coals when he glimpsed Queeney’s handwriting –
Southwark
November 24th, 1772
Sir,
Mamma knows I would have written sooner, but she said you would be troubled no more with my stuff – I left Susan and Sophy well yesterday but poor Grandmamma was bad. Socrates is dead and old Puss like to die. Papa is well and has bought a new horse. Mamma is well too, if cross. I am very much obliged to you for the honour of your letter.
Your most humble servant,
Queen Hester
He wept, and strove to analyse the cause. Age, he reasoned, weakened the emotions owing to a realisation that the light was fading and nought but darkness lay ahead. Suffering, which fell to one’s lot in the course of nature, by chance or by fate, did not, ceteris paribus, seem so painful when imposed by the arbitrary will of strangers; it was the wounds inflicted by those closest to one that drew blood. In the curling of the burning papers he saw the face of Mrs Thrale and, seizing the poker, stamped her image into the everlasting flames.
To Miss Laetitia Hawkins,
2 Sion Row,
Twickenham
January 5th, 1811
Dear Miss Hawkins,
Your accusation that I told Miss Burney that your papa stole Dr Johnson’s journal and watch is unfounded. Nor can I be accused of spreading rumours concerning my mother’s relationship with Dr Johnson, for their closeness during my childhood was the cause of much unhappiness. An excluded child has no wish to provide proof of a bond greater than that which is supposed to exist between mother and daughter. I can only believe that Miss Burney, her latest fiction not attaining the approbation afforded to Evelina, has resorted to a regrettable wish for fresh notoriety. It could not have been she who, on plumping up the Doctor’s pillows and asking if it would do, received the reply, ‘It will do … all that a pillow can do,’ for I have a letter from her giving an account of a visit she made to Bolt Court on December 8th, in which so many people were already gathered in his chamber that he sent word down he was too tired to see more. Nor was your father present that final night, nor Sir Joshua or Mr Langton, the last two being his dearest friends. The account of his end, which you ascribe to Miss Burney, is erroneous. The seizing of a lancet, and the cutting of his leg to release excess fluid, was committed in the presence of Francis Barber, who sent for Dr Cruikshank to sew up the wound.
When death came the Doctor was alone save for Francis and Mrs Desmoulins. His stertorous breathing having stopped, they went to his side and observed he had gone.
I have no recollection of a padlock and key which you say my Mamma employed to confine Dr Johnson in his room when the madness came upon him. I regret I shall not be answering any further letters. It is not only the dead who need to be left in peace. I pray you, do not write more.
Yours,
H. M. Keith
1784
EPILOGUE
Twenty-four coaches followed the funeral carriage to Westminster Abbey. It being a Monday and the streets crowded, several officials of the abbey went ahead to clear the way. Snow fell, but gently, as though to draw a veil across the heavens.
Sir Joshua Reynolds was chief mourner, followed by Francis Barber; the exalted importance afforded to the latter caused Sir John Hawkins considerable irritation.
The burial service was conducted by Dr Taylor of Ashbourne at one o’clock in the south close. Edmund Burke and Mr Langton were among those who bore the lead coffin. James Boswell was not present.
Dr Taylor lost strength of voice on two occasions, upon which he dabbed at his eyes with the cuff of his gown. He had drunk heavily the night before and was conscious that his own end could not be long delayed.
A hole had been dug close by the remains of David Garrick. The coffin lowered into the damp darkness, a flagstone was set in place inscribed with the words:
Samuel Johnson, L. L. D.
Obiit XIII die Decembris
Anno Domini MDCCLXXXIV
Ætatis suæ LXXV
The expenses for the funeral amounted to forty-four pounds six shillings and seven pence, excluding the sum of thirteen shillings and fourpence paid separately to the bellringers.
Mrs Desmoulins sat alone in Bolt Court, roasting chestnuts in the fire.
A Biography of Dame Beryl Bainbridge
Dame Beryl Bainbridge is regarded as one of the greatest and most prolific British novelists of her generation. Consistently praised by critics, she was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize five times, won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the W. H. Smith Literary Award, and twice won the Whitbread Award for Novel of the Year.
Bainbridge was born in Liverpool in 1932 to Richard Bainbridge and Winifred, née Baines. Her father acquired a respectable income as a salesman but went bankrupt as a result of the 1929 stock market crash. Later in life, she reflected on her turbulent childhood through her writing as a cathartic release. She o
ften said she wrote to make sense of her own childhood.
Despite financial pressures, the Bainbridges sent their children to fee-paying schools. Beryl attended the Merchant Taylors’ girls’ school, and had lessons in German, elocution, music, and tap-dancing. At the age of fourteen, she was expelled, cited as a “corrupting moral influence” after her mother found a dirty limerick among her school things. She then attended the Cone-Ripman School at Tring, Hertfordshire, but left at age sixteen, never earning any formal educational degrees.
She went on to work as an assistant stage manager at the Playhouse Theatre in Liverpool, which would become the basis for one of her Booker-nominated novels, An Awfully Big Adventure, a disturbing story about a teenage girl working on a production of Peter Pan. She successfully worked as an actress both before and after her time at the playhouse. As a child, she acted in BBC Radio’s Children’s Hour, and before the birth of her first child, she appeared on the soap opera Coronation Street on Granada Television.
While at the playhouse, Bainbridge met Austin Davies, an artist and set painter. They married in 1954 and had two children together, Aaron and Jojo. They divorced in 1959, and she then moved to London. There, she began a relationship with the writer Alan Sharp, with whom she had a daughter, Rudi. Sharp left Bainbridge at the time of Rudi’s birth.
In 1957, she submitted her novel, Harriet Said, then titled The Summer of the Tsar, to several publishers. They all rejected the manuscript, citing its controversial content—the story of two cruel and murderous teenage girls. She then published two other novels, A Weekend with Claude and Another Part of the Wood. Her real success, however, came when she befriended Anna Haycraft, an editor, writer, and the wife of Colin Haycraft, owner of the Gerald Duckworth publishing house. This friendship marked a major turning point in her writing career. Anna loved Harriet Said, and Gerald Duckworth published it in 1972 to critical acclaim, establishing Bainbridge as a fresh voice on the British literary scene.
After the success of Harriet Said, the Haycrafts put Bainbridge on retainer and found her a clerical job within the company. During her time working for the Haycrafts, Bainbridge wrote several novels, all positively received by critics, some of which were adapted into films—An Awfully Big Adventure, Sweet William, and The Dressmaker.
Bainbridge’s earlier novels were often influenced by her past. The characters from The Dressmaker were based on her aunts, and A Quiet Life drew from her relationship as teenager with a German prisoner of war. Her 1974 novel, The Bottle Factory Outing, was inspired by her real experience working part-time in a bottle-labeling factory.
In 1978, Bainbridge felt she had exhausted her own life as a source of material and turned to history for inspiration, beginning a new era in her career. She discovered a diary entry of Adolf Hitler’s sister-in-law and based her first historical novel, Young Adolf, on Hitler’s supposed vacation to Great Britain. She wrote other books in this genre—Watson’s Apology, Every Man for Himself, The Birthday Boys, Master Georgie, and According to Queeney. At the time of her death, she was writing The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress, about a young woman visiting the United States during Bobby Kennedy’s assassination, which was published posthumously.
In addition to her work as a novelist, Bainbridge was also a journalist, frequently contributing to the Evening Standard, and she was the regular theater critic at the Oldie.
Over the course of her career, Bainbridge became a literary celebrity, and was named a Dame of the British Empire in 2000. She remained in the same home on Albert Street in Camden until her death in 2010.
Beryl Bainbridge with her mother Winifred in Formby, Liverpool, circa 1938.
Bainbridge with her husband at the time, Austin Davies, on their wedding day in Liverpool, England, 1954.
Bainbridge with her friend Washington Harold in California, 1962.
Bainbridge at her home in Albert Street with Davies and their two daughters, Jojo and Rudi in 1969.
Bainbridge in the back garden of her home in Camden Town in the 1980s.
Bainbridge speaking at a literary event in the early 1980s.
Bainbridge in a bath chair while spending time with her daughter and grandchildren outside her home in NW1, circa 1988.
Bainbridge in her home in NW1, smoking next to a mannequin of Neville Chamberlain, circa 1992.
Bainbridge in her home at NW1, circa 1992.
Bainbridge with Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace, where Bainbridge was damed, in 2001.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2001 by Beryl Bainbridge
Cover design by Drew Padrutt
ISBN: 978-1-5040-3997-0
This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
180 Maiden Lane
New York, NY 10038
www.openroadmedia.com
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According to Queeney Page 21
