by G. M. Best
I told him I’d prefer to just talk, if it was all right with him, and I ordered some more beers. He talked to me a bit about his early life before he had taken up with Fagin. He described how his father had killed his mother because she had sauced him for drinking too much. He had punched her so hard and so frequently that, after a few days of intense suffering, she had died. Fear that his young son might speak of what he had seen had led his father to throw Charley into the river in the hope that he would drown. Though rescued from that fate, the homeless child had soon been coerced into a life of crime. Once he had finished his own story, Charley listened with increasing interest as I told him about what I had uncovered. Of course my account was highly selective. I did not tell him I was Nancy’s son or that Dickens was my father, but I told him of the poisoning attempts and Noah’s account of the meeting between Nancy and Bill following the Dodger’s arrest. I asked him whether she had been right to think the Dodger was out to destroy her.
‘When you met us, Oliver, we appeared to you such a jolly crew. But think of what happened to you in the short time you were with us and then reflect what must have been our experience, living for years with that unholy sod, Fagin. We were taught all the best ways to steal and then he took pleasure in tormenting us with the constant prospect of the gallows. He found it amusing that we daily risked our lives. We were encouraged to spy on one another and made to feel it was good when he beat one of the others. It was fear more than fun that made us dance to his devil’s tune. And as you know, we were subject to constant abuse because he expected us to engage in whatever sexual acts he wished for himself or his clients. If we clung to each other it was because it was the only home we knew, however much we hated and despised it.
‘For years Fagin delighted in playing us off against one another, but when you arrived his power was definitely on the wane. The Dodger, although outwardly still subservient, was increasingly becoming his own man. Nancy, for so long his creature, was becoming openly defiant and no longer prepared to do all he asked. And Fagin felt increasingly powerless to cope with these challenges to his authority because of his fear of Bill. Even Toby Crackit felt able to increasingly be rude to him.
‘Nancy was right in thinking that one of the gang was out to get her, Oliver, but, believe me, it wasn’t the Artful Dodger. It was that foul filthy Jew. The poisonings were his first efforts to regain control over her. I was the vehicle he used. Recognizing your hold over her, he was confident that possessing you would mean he could once again control her. After the failed burglary he sent me out to where you had been captured, with instructions to find out whether you had really been shot. He told me that if I discovered you were alive I was to make sure you were not moved till he could arrange to get you again, and he gave me the means to achieve that. Rose Maylie innocently provided me with the information I wanted and I seized the moment to make her an easy target. I slipped enough poison into a glass of milk to ensure that she would be mightily ill. With the house’s attention directed on her, there was every chance we could get at you.’
I found it hard to accept that Charley could talk of such matters so calmly, almost as if he had no responsibility for his actions, and he sensed my unspoken criticism.
‘The mask I wear for my act, Oliver, is me. There is no Charley Bates, just a performer doing his tricks. Don’t look to me for any signs of regret. I have no conscience because Fagin destroyed it. I have no feelings because I could not have survived as long as I have if I had kept them. I learnt always to do what Fagin wanted and, unlike Nancy, I did not question. When I returned, I told Fagin what I had done and I believe he went out with Monks to spy out the land, but he wanted Bill put out of the way first before we did anything else. Sikes knew too much, and his frequent taunting of Fagin had not galled the Jew any the less because the wounds were hidden. He gave me something to drop into Bill’s drink, something stronger than what I’d given Rose Maylie. Unfortunately for Fagin the combination of Sikes’s constitution and Nancy’s nursing proved even more potent than the poison.
‘Bill’s illness only made matters worse because it was too obvious that Fagin had taken no steps to enable Bill to recover. When the Jew belatedly tried to act as his friend again, Bill told him to take his withered claw off his shoulder. He accused him of being a black-hearted bastard. Their partnership had never been a happy one, but it now had no basis on which to continue. All that remained was total mistrust and scarcely concealed animosity. Fagin became so desperate that he even dared approach Nancy herself and suggest that she should poison Bill, telling her he had the means close at hand. Her spirits were obviously low and the Jew dared to hope that she had tired of her brutal lover. He told her he alone was her staunch friend, whereas Bill treated her worse than his dog. He described Bill as just the hound of a day, but one who would maim and destroy anyone else whom Nancy loved. Fagin hoped thus to strike a double blow. He would eliminate Bill and his knowledge of Nancy’s crime would ensure his ascendancy over her again. Of course she refused. Hence his decision to use Bolter to follow her. He was desperate to find some evidence that he could use to blackmail her and regain control.
‘I also am pretty confident that Fagin was behind the arrest of Jack. He wanted to remove a boy who was becoming a man able to challenge him. Making sure the police discovered his whereabouts and ensuring stolen goods were on him at the time was an easy solution.’
‘But what about Mary Hogarth’s death?’ I interrupted. ‘Who was responsible for that?’
‘I don’t know. I nivver heard her name mentioned by anyone. Her death may have been due to some medical weakness rather than any outside force. Maybe it was God, if you dare believe in him, who killed her. If Dickens had not heard Nancy’s threats and seen her converse with Mary, maybe he would never have suspected any foul play.’ Bates paused, seemed to hesitate, and then, pulling me closer to him, whispered, ‘If she was poisoned, have you thought it might have been your precious Dickens who did it? Maybe Nancy told Mary Hogarth things he did not want known about his past. Maybe he feared what his sister-in-law might tell his wife? Maybe he poisoned her before she could take any action?’
‘No! That’s impossible!’ I declared. ‘Dickens was distraught by her death. I have heard him speak of it and the anguish is still there for anyone to see.’
‘I’ve heard tell he is a good actor as well as a writer,’ replied Bates, ‘but you may be right and he might be innocent.’ He smiled at my obvious support for the great writer but, even as he did so, his features were twisted by a bout of coughing that shook his entire frame. He held a foul-looking cloth that served as a handkerchief to his mouth and I noted the red marks, which indicated it was not just phlegm that was flowing from his throat. At once I understood why Bates looked so prematurely old and, beneath the extrovert show of the performer, frail. Consumption was eating away at his lungs. I grasped his hand and he registered my concern with a grateful glance.
‘You can see by my attire that I am a wealthy man, Charley,’ I said. ‘Accompany me back to London and I’ll ensure you have the best medical help. If you continue as you are, then there will be only one outcome and that is an early grave.’
‘I’ve done many bad things in my life, Oliver, but I’ve nivver had to step so low as to take charity from any man and I don’t intend to start now. Besides, believe me, the disease is too far gone for any doctor to make a difference. And, if I’m honest, I don’t regret that. I’ve had enough of being on the road. To tell the truth, I’ve had enough of life.’
Another bout of coughing racked his body. Once he had recovered and wiped away yet more traces of blood from his lips, Bates rested against the wall of the inn. He began twiddling with the buttons on his frayed coat and somehow I sensed he was debating whether to offer an alternative solution to my own problem. After a momentary hesitation, he looked up and muttered, ‘I’d like to help you, Oliver. May be it’s the last good deed I’ll ever do. You see, I may be uneducated but I am no fool and I have
seen enough crime to understand the various motives that may lie behind the actions of men and women. I can therefore suggest another set of circumstances, although you may not choose to accept it. Maybe, Oliver, there was more to Dickens’s relationship with Mary Hogarth than his wife liked. I’ve nivver met the woman but it’s amazing what any jealous woman will do, even to a beloved sister. I therefore suggest that maybe you need to speak further to Mrs Dickens about her sister’s death.’ He drew back and waited to see my response.
‘Maybe I do,’ I replied.
Little more was said between us. When I left, he remained behind to drink further and we parted friends. My last sight of his frail and sickened form was of him beginning to attract others to his table by commencing some of his card tricks. ‘Let’s be merry, lads,’ I heard him say with a bitter laugh. ‘There’s nothing in life as good as a bit of fun!’ The showman had returned but, I suspected, not for very long.
16
MRS DICKENS
I saw Mrs Dickens before I saw my father again. I did not even tell him that I was meeting her. She was not as I had expected her to be. Although her features were not beautiful, she was more attractive than some of Dickens’s comments about her had led me to think. Though rather plump and not very tall, she had the fresh-coloured complexion and large, heavy-lidded blue eyes so often admired by men. Her nose was slightly turned up, but she had a fine forehead and a small, red-lipped mouth that gave a genial, smiling expression to her countenance. I could certainly see what had attracted him to her. She had a natural kindness to her manner and this despite the fact that she was evidently agitated at meeting me in secret. In her hand she held the note I had sent her and its crumpled state bore witness to her anxiety. I hesitated over what to say and so she was the first to speak.
‘You say that we need to speak about the death of my sister before you speak to my husband. Would you like to explain yourself, Mr Twist, because to my knowledge you never met Mary and can know nothing about her tragic death?’
‘You are correct, madam, in saying I never knew her, but I have reason to believe that her death was not all that it seemed.’
Her face visibly paled but she rapidly composed herself and replied, ‘I do not know what you mean, sir, but I find your manner impertinent and I suggest that you leave.’
‘And tell your husband instead?’
‘Tell him what, sir?’
‘That you poisoned your own sister,’ I replied.
The gamble – and it was a gamble because I had no evidence whatsoever – paid off. She did not need to speak. The blood drained from her face and her guilt was all too evident. She saw the look of triumph in my eyes and sank into a chair, saying, ‘How much do you want for your silence?’
‘I am not a common blackmailer,’ I snapped. ‘Tell me the truth and I will judge whether I will speak to your husband or not.’
After a moment’s hesitation, she commenced her sorry story:
‘I was attracted to Charles the moment I first met him. At that time he was still seeking to make his name but his confidence had been deeply affected by the breaking up of a longstanding courtship with a young woman. I gathered that her parents had disapproved of Charles. They thought he was not good enough for their daughter. Given his fame and success now, they must bitterly regret that decision. When not working he was lonely and depressed and I comforted him. Our friendship grew naturally into love and my father, recognizing his prodigious talent, happily and speedily gave his consent to our marriage. We could only afford to set up home in small, three-roomed lodgings but it seemed like a paradise to me. No wife loved her husband more than I or felt more loved in return. I was overjoyed when I became pregnant with our first child, little realizing the problems that would ensue after his birth.
‘After our son was born, I suffered from some inexplicable nervous debilitation. Although physically I recovered from the birth quite quickly, I was unable to nurse my baby and so, with great reluctance, had to suffer him to be tended by a stranger. Every time I looked at my child I would burst into floods of tears. I became convinced that he would never love me because I had failed to nurse him. My husband tried hard to be sympathetic but he was hard-pressed by his own concerns at the time, having undertaken many different commissions. In the end he borrowed money so that we could move away temporarily from London to the healthier air of Kent. It made no difference to me but it meant that he had constantly to travel to and from his work in London. It is not surprising that his feelings for me began to wane. A depressed wife is no pleasure to a husband.
‘It was his need to write your story, Mr Twist, that brought us back to London, but not to our former love-nest. Charles rented a far larger house in Doughty Street, one large enough to accommodate servants to look after me. My younger sister, Mary, insisted on joining us to help me. I readily assented because Charles was working exceptionally hard and was frequently absent for hours on end. I foolishly thought that to have my sister with us would help our marriage. Little did I know that she was to prove the serpent in our already disintegrating garden of Eden. Unbeknown to me, Mary had fallen in love with Charles and was therefore deeply jealous of our love for each other.
‘It pains me to say it but Mary began to make deliberate attempts to seduce my husband away from me. She was the beauty in the family, not me, and she was prepared to flaunt her superiority in ways that I found hard to counter. I was prettier then than I am now, but that is not saying a great deal. For a long time I was unaware of what was happening, but eventually I became increasingly suspicious. When Charles was at home he spent as much time with Mary as he did with me.
‘As time passed I began to notice that he was spending more time with her than with me. I would enter the room and find the two of them deeply engrossed in talking to each other, but their conversation would then cease and Charles, although never Mary, would sometimes look guilty. Mary always managed to look and sound like an innocent angel. I had no one to confide in because I knew that no one would believe me. They would think my concerns were the imaginings of a sick and depraved mind, another expression of the nervous exhaustion that had affected me after my son’s birth.
‘Eventually I decided to wait until Charles was absent from the house and challenge Mary. I expected her to deny my allegations and accuse me of insane and unfounded jealousy. If she had, maybe I would have chosen to believe her. In a strange way that would have been less painful than having to admit that I was losing the affections of my husband.
‘However, Mary chose not to deny what was happening. On the contrary, she gloated over her achievement in making Charles love her. She told me in the greatest detail the extent to which he had confessed his undying passion for her and, although there had as yet been no physical expression of that, assured me it had not been from any lack of desire. She said she was far too clever to submit to his embraces and risk becoming a mistress of the moment, especially as she knew that part of her attraction for Charles was his mistaken view of her purity and innocence. She told me my constant state of nervous debility made me unfit to be his wife, and she made it clear to me that her sole object was so to arouse him that he would divorce me and marry her.
‘I broke down. I pleaded with her. I got down on my knees and begged her to leave my marriage alone. She simply laughed in my face. My anguish turned to anger and I railed at her that I would send her immediately back to my father. She merely taunted me with the fact Charles would never permit it and, in my heart of hearts, I knew that to be true. I threatened to kill her rather than see my husband taken, but this only reduced her to further merriment. She said the only person who would die would be me. Die of shame that I had neither the looks nor the charm to retain a husband’s affection.
‘And then she said the cruellest thing of all. She said Charles had only married me on the rebound and that he bitterly regretted his precipitate action in taking me as his wife. It hurt me more than anything else, for I feared it might be true. Even on the day o
f our marriage, I knew that part of his heart still yearned for his first love.
‘After our clash, things got worse. Outwardly Mary played the devoted sister whenever anyone else was present. When we were alone it was a different story. She gloated over me, telling me in every detail, real or imagined, what Charles was saying to her and how he sought her caresses. She said it would be only a matter of a few months at most before he gained the courage to desert me. I did ask Charles if it was not time for Mary to return home. I even dared suggest that some of the neighbours thought it unseemly for a husband to spend so much time with a beautiful seventeen-year-old girl. He refused to listen and accused me of listening to malicious gossip. I dared not challenge him with the truth of his actions for I feared that would only precipitate the crisis of his leaving me. Instead, I did the only thing Mary could not achieve. I made sure he made me pregnant again.
‘When I gave the news to Mary, she was furious. She screamed at me incessantly for the rest of the day. When I told Charles I was pregnant he was at first taken aback. However, he loved children and the thought of having a second child of his own clearly pleased him. Over the next few days he was more attentive to me than he had been for weeks. Shortly afterwards, I became very ill. I kept being sick and I feared I would lose my baby. Charles thought it was just morning sickness and at first so did I. But then one day I entered the breakfast room early and noticed that Mary was placing some powder into my morning tea. I hastily left the room before she noticed my presence, my mind awhirl with what I had seen. I realized then that Mary was secretly poisoning me either in the hope of aborting my child or of removing me altogether.
‘That evening we were due to attend the theatre and Mary went out to purchase some new gloves. I made use of the opportunity to search her room and I discovered the powder in one of her drawers. I took it, replacing it with some flour that looked not dissimilar. Believe me, Mr Twist, I was thinking more of my safety than wreaking any revenge when I took that poison. However, at the theatre Charles’s play made me furious. It concerned a marriage in which the husband had clearly become bored with his wife. Here, see for yourself.’
