The Last Dickens

by Matthew Pearl

  When Dr. Steele came back to complete his examination, the darkness of the room hid the hot tears in Rebecca's eyes.

  IT HAD NOT ONLY been Osgood's physical but his legal standing that had been in jeopardy the balmy morning of the attack. When he had first partially recovered his senses, he had found himself carried out of the sewer tunnels by two toshers, the sewer hunters, to a police station house. He could not explain to the constables how he had come to be there.

  Moreover, Osgood's state at the time-his now-tattered and wet clothing, his slurred speech and senses, and the harsh smell of burned narcotics and rubbish-subjected him to reproach by the officials as if he were another bothersome tosher. When he described what had happened, other constables were dispatched and the dead bodies of a Lascar sailor and a Bengalee known as Booboo by local residents were found in the squalid rooms described by Osgood.

  “That is not good for us,” the station sergeant said to Osgood. “Not good for you, sir. Your story is not complete.”

  “Because I know not what has happened to me, sir!” Osgood protested.

  “Then who would?” the sergeant demanded.

  Only the arrival of a respected London man of business, Marcus Wakefield, had saved him from being charged as a public nuisance. Mr. Wakefield had been alerted about the presence of an unknown American brought to the station house because Osgood had had Wakefield's calling card on his suit when he was found.

  “You know this poor soul, sir?” the sergeant asked skeptically. “Or perhaps he stole your card from your possession.”

  Osgood was stretched out on a bench, mangled with pain and delirium.

  Wakefield slammed his fist against the table. “This is outrageous! Release him straightaway, gentlemen. I crossed the ocean with him- his name is Osgood, James Osgood. He is no vagrant at all but a respected publisher from Boston who preferred a cabin on the sunny side of a steamship. You have a gentleman in your custody. It was my understanding he was to be residing in the country near Rochester conducting his business.”

  The sergeant looked Osgood up and down. “I have never met a publisher that would choose to dress and, shall I mention, stink like that, sir! We shall have to write a report.”

  “Write your report, then let him free.”

  Wakefield used his influence to expedite Osgood's liberty and then sent a message to Rebecca summoning her to Higham station, where Wakefield met her with Osgood so the injured man could be transported back to the Falstaff Inn to recover. When they met at the station, Wakefield asked to speak with Rebecca alone.

  “May I walk with you, my dear?” said Wakefield.

  Rebecca held out her arm for their visitor as they walked through the station.

  “My dear, I would continue with you to the Falstaff but I am afraid I must return to London at once on business,” he said apologetically.

  “You have been very kind to bring him all the way back to Kent, Mr. Wakefield,” she replied.

  He shrugged. “I confess that although I am horribly alarmed by Mr. Osgood's surprising state and these circumstances, I take solace in the pleasure I feel to be in your company again,” he said. “And are you well, my dear?”

  “As well as I can be, thank you, Mr. Wakefield,” Rebecca said politely. “I only wish I had not permitted Mr. Osgood to go to such a place with that awful Mr. Datchery.”

  “I am afraid the tender woman, though she must try, cannot prevent the less cautious sex from our imprudent pursuits, Miss Sand,” said Wakefield, smiling. “Mr. Osgood, it seems, has discovered, too late for his health, that all of London is not a picnic. Women's instincts are often right. Mr. Osgood had sent me a note about some matter with a plaster statue at Christie's auction house that he suspected had gone missing. I inquired about it with an associate-apparently this statue your employer was interested in was dropped by a careless workman at the auction house and, embarrassed, they did not want to reveal it. I hope you insist on him suspending these wild activities in such dark corners, whatever they may have been.”

  Rebecca shook her head. “I do not know that anyone in the whole world could sway him now. Perhaps not even Mr. Fields.”

  Wakefield sighed worriedly but with a note of admiration. “He is a man of inner resources, I can see that, and confess it is like looking in a mirror. I did not know being a publisher carried with it such adventures! I suggest you keep a most watchful eye on him from now on, my dear Miss Sand. I have friends up and down the city. Send for me at the slightest worry. As a businessman, I fear I know too well that whatever flame of ambition fires Mr. Osgood's heart, it will not soon be extinguished unless his goal is attained.”

  “Our united thanks,” she said tentatively, as the interview seemed to be at its end.

  Wakefield took Rebecca's hand and slowly pressed his lips against it. “I hope that is not too bold, my dear,” he said. “You are truly the pink of perfection, a rare type of woman not found enough among the conceited peacocks of London. Mr. Osgood is fortunate for your loyalty.”

  Taken by a peculiar sensation of vulnerability and freedom, she found herself at a loss for words.

  “Mr. Osgood told me about your having been married before,” Wakefield went on in a gentle tone. “But the laws are different in England. You need not give a thought to that ever again, if you wished.”

  “Mr. Osgood told you of my being divorced?” Rebecca asked in surprise.

  “Yes, when we were on board the Samaria,” he said. Sensing her confusion, he added, “He wished merely to protect you, Miss Sand. I believe he could see my instant and sincere affection for you and wanted to prevent any impropriety. Is my interest in your life so surprising, my dear, as the expression on your face makes it appear?”

  The bells of the carriage readying to drive the patient to the Falstaff Inn jingled.

  “I must go help him, Mr. Wakefield,” Rebecca said.

  EACH DAY THE publisher awoke from his sleep with a little more physical stamina and more pronounced mental restlessness. The fractures in his ribs, though still painful, were healing at pace. Dr. Steele had given urgent orders to Osgood to keep his torso in bandages and restrict heavy breathing or exertion at risk to causing grave permanent injury to his lungs. One morning, as he cleared Osgood's breakfast, the landlord of the inn placed a fresh vase of flowers on the washstand.

  “That is kind of you, Sir Falstaff,” said Rebecca, who sat by Osgood's side and bathed his forehead.

  “Many apologies if I interject trivial business upon the patient's health,” the landlord said with a tentative air. “I am afraid I require your signature on some papers, Mr. Osgood, to extend your stay beyond our original arrangement, owing to the circumstances.”

  “Of course,” Osgood said.

  As Osgood was examining the bill of charges, which he rested on top of a pillow, he paused. Above the landlord's stationery was Sir John Falstaff's given name, William Stocker Trood. Trood: Osgood mouthed the word to himself.

  “Anything wrong, my dear Mr. Osgood?” asked the landlord.

  “I was only noting your surname's resemblance to the title of Mr. Dickens's last book.”

  “Ah! Poor Mr. Dickens, how he is missed around here, I cannot say! I have to confess, Mr. Osgood, that this”-here the landlord stopped and pulled at his old-fashioned baggy coat and neck cloth- “I mean these costumes and my trying to be like the fat knight, Falstaff. This is because of him.”

  “Because of Dickens?”

  He nodded. “For many years people have come to Rochester from all over the world in order to get a glimpse of Mr. Dickens's home and perhaps even of the man himself! Americans would come round and leave their card hoping to be invited into Gadshill, in the meantime coming for bread and wine at our fireside. At other times, the Dickens family would have too many guests and they would use us for additional lodging. The location of our little place has meant that we could always command decent fees for our beds and meals. Now that he is gone and the family leaving, well, I have had
to think of other ways to attract sightseers. As my sister says, God protect us if we must rest our small claims on my Falstaff impersonation! ‘The better part of valor is discretion, in the which better part I have saved my life.’ I tried to memorize some lines, but you will notice I have nothing of the theater about me.”

  After finishing with their business, the Falstaff landlord bowed and began to exit.

  “Mr. Osgood? What is it? What's the matter?” Rebecca asked when she saw the color drain from his face all at once.

  “His son, his son died…” Osgood murmured before trailing off.

  “What?” Rebecca asked, confused and worried about his state of mind. “Whose son?”

  Flashes of all the connections between the small town of Rochester and Dickens's books raced through Osgood's mind. Dickens had taken names, characters, and stories from the country life outside his study window. The novels of Rudge and Dorrit had intimations of their stories in the byways of Rochester, what about the story of poor Drood? Osgood spoke more to himself than Rebecca. “He became sad at seeing the opium poppy on the table downstairs and said opium had to do with his son's death… but I never thought of…”

  Suddenly, the publisher jumped down from the bed, knees wobbling as his legs strove for balance. With one arm wrapped around himself, he struggled to drag his beaten body into the hallway.

  “Mr. Trood! Your son!”

  The landlord's face went snowy white, his self-appointed role of the jolly host vanishing again. “Perhaps we have had enough conversation today,” he said sharply. He saw Osgood was waiting for more. He looked up and down the stairs. “I cannot talk of it here. Are you well enough to come into town, Mr. Osgood? If you walk with me, I'll promise you a story.”

  Osgood insisted. “Your son, sir, what was your son's name?”

  The landlord took in a gulp of air to regain his voice. “It was Edward. Edward Trood,” he said. “He would have been around your age, had he never disappeared.”

  Chapter 28

  EDWARD TROOD'S FINAL DISAPPEARANCE BEFORE HIS MURDER did not arouse much concern because it was not the first time.

  Edward had had a difficult early life. He was always small for his age and was born with a clubbed right foot. The other boys of the village showed no mercy in their torments. Then the stealing began. Small amounts of change at first, extra food from the cupboards, articles of clothing. Some of it, as far as his parents could determine, were offerings by the boy to his peers on threat of violent retribution. But sometimes they would find a missing object-a family candlestick, for instance-buried in the garden, as though in the crippled boy's gnawing imagination it would sprout and grow.

  It was worse than all of this. Worse because the boy was by all outward appearances quite good. In the presence of strangers, even most times in the presence of his family, Eddie was polite, keen to keep his manners and his dress orderly. He was genuinely kind and amiable when in good spirits.

  When William and his wife asked for counsel about their son from the town minister, they would be greeted by benevolent laughter. Edward? What trouble could be fancied in little, complying, polite, well-mannered Eddie Trood? The parents tried to force themselves into the same attitude. Our Eddie? Boyish mischief, that's all that plagued him. There would be long periods of quiet when Edward, a good scholar according to his teachers (some said exceptional), behaved at home and in his school and managed to avoid trouble from his tormentors.

  Then he'd steal again-this time from the small hotel where William and his wife both worked doing cooking and housekeeping. Edward forced open the ancient landlord's locked drawer and removed a purse containing several pounds. And-the true horror-Edward had committed the theft in plain sight of his mother! He brushed right by her as though he didn't know her from a housemaid.

  That evening, Eddie had appeared back at home with a sullen but guiltless demeanor.

  “My poor wife could hardly utter a word,” William Trood said, taking in a very deep breath like a dying man as he retold the story. Os-good and Rebecca sat next to him on the pew of the empty but sublime Rochester Cathedral, which was filled with ancient light and atmosphere, where the landlord had insisted they go to speak. He had refused to say another word at the Falstaff, as though there were too many ghosts there eavesdropping. Here, the story could be told under God's protection.

  “I said to him, ‘Edward, my son. Eddie. You have not done what your mother thought you did, you would not, would you?’ And he looked right at me, he looked into my eyes, Mr. Osgood, like this…”

  It was another minute before Trood could finish his line of thought, saying Edward had admitted to the deed.

  “I didn't see no harm in it,” added Edward. Then Edward's eyes filled up and he fell to the floor weeping and kicking. The tears had held William in check momentarily.

  But William Trood knew he had no choice. He banished the fifteen-year-old from their house and from his family.

  William's wife became utterly fragile with depression and soon dropped into the grave. She had been ill for years, but still William blamed her final turn on the dark influence of their son. William's spinster sister Elizabeth moved in with him to help him manage the Falstaff. Hearing of her nephew's actions, the very first thing Elizabeth said was, “Like Nathan!”

  That was the last she said of it. Elizabeth forbade any mention of Nathan Trood under the roof of the Falstaff Inn.

  NATHAN TROOD WAS William's older brother. Nathan, in his formative years, had displayed all the mischief of his future nephew, Eddie, without any of the sympathetic and sad aspects, without the excuse of being a cripple. Sullen, lazy, mocking, nasty: that was Nathan Trood from the time he was old enough to speak, and old enough to speak meant old enough to lie. William's father, who had taken his family from Scotland to Kent, used to say Nathan was a mere nasty shadow of a real boy, a coarse creature with a bright red nose from too much crying that could not be stopped even when he was dosed with the strongest powders. Edward had only met his uncle Nathan once while a boy. Nathan, who lived in London ever since he had run away as a youth, had appeared-without invitation-at Edward's sixth birthday celebration, a simple gathering with some townsfolk and two specially made puddings.

  That very moment: Nathan flashing his rotted, yellow teeth while pinching the boy's cheeks and rustling his hair. That was the moment William blamed, deep down in his soul, for turning Eddie forever-as though some magic dust laced with death had passed from the man's breath into the child's heart. The long-estranged Nathan, by all accounts, had transformed into an even more nefarious man than he had been a boy. It was said he frequently visited dimly lit rooms in the darkest corners of London filled with opium smokers who hailed from China and other heathen lands. He consorted with scoundrels, prostitutes, smugglers, thieves, and derelicts-and in them he found his income and his avenues of pleasure.

  After mourning his wife's death and his son's betrayals, William had tried his best to forget banished Edward. But how to forget a man's only son? The task was impossible; attempting it was itself too painful and left William feeling clouded by sentiment and self-recrimination. All Rochester whispered about the lost cripple. William knew it. Kentish townspeople shared stories of other people's failures like they were singing carols house-to-house at Christmastime. Then William, through the whispers, heard something new: Edward, after his banishment from home, had sought sanctuary with Nathan, who had happily taken in the errant nephew he had not seen for almost ten years. Nathan's revenge on a family that never accepted him had come to pass.

  In time Nathan was said to have treated Edward as though he were his own son. He brought him to meet his friends and associates. The physical suffering caused by Edward's clubbed foot was soothed by the opium-eating habit taught by Nathan.

  Not to say the relationship between uncle and nephew was purely harmonious. Edward (William would hear much later, when it was all done) actually behaved on the whole quite well with his uncle, forgoing any tendencies
of rebellion he had cultivated in Rochester- perhaps because he knew consequences would be severe with Nathan. Yet Nathan's generous instincts toward his nephew only appeared in bursts, to be regularly replaced by scowls, threats, and demeaning insults. There were persistent rumors of a young lady in London that had set Edward's heart aflame, and Nathan's ire having been provoked by the younger man's prospects at happiness. Whatever caused the breach between the two, Edward soon disappeared. After much searching by a number of his new friends, it was discovered that he had gone abroad without telling a soul. It was said that in the course of these adventures, like so many other English boys his age, he sailed through Hong Kong and other exotic ports. When he returned to London eight months later he was welcomed home by his uncle.

  Still, the young sailor and his uncle descended into a dangerous routine of perpetual indolence and indulgence in opium. Nathan seemed by his gaunt appearance and alternately drowsy and combustible manner to have become decidedly more dissatisfied in the last year. Even his wretched neighbors wanted nothing to do with Nathan. Then, Edward disappeared again.

  “Who would think anything of it, less than a year after the last time he left voluntarily to go out to sea?” William asked. “I was told later that no one in their dingy quarter had any concerns. Not even his uncle Nathan. Especially not his uncle Nathan.”

  In fact, new whispers had started (for they also exist in London, only with a harsher undertone than in Rochester). It was said that Nathan and Edward had an ugly row about an opium enterprise that involved friends of Nathan's. These whispers told that Nathan had murdered Edward, or had paid some other men to have Edward killed, and that with the aid of his villainous compatriots they disposed of the young man's body where it could never be found. Whatever had happened this time, the fact was Edward never came back.