Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (2240 page)

To this mention of his habits while at work when our friendship began, I have to add what will complete the relation already given, in connection with his
Sketches
, of the uneasy sense accompanying his labour that it was yielding insufficient for himself while it enriched others, which is a needful part of his story at this time. At midsummer, 1837, replying to some inquiries, and sending his agreement with Mr. Bentley for the
Miscellany
under which he was writing
Oliver
, he went on: “It is a very extraordinary fact (I forgot it on Sunday) that I have never had from him a copy of the agreement respecting the novel, which I never saw before or since I signed it at his house one morning long ago. Shall I ask him for a copy or no? I have looked at some memoranda I made at the time, and I
fear
he has my second novel on the same terms, under the same agreement. This is a bad lookout, but we must try and mend it. You will tell me you are very much surprised at my doing business in this way. So am I, for in most matters of labour and application I am punctuality itself. The truth is (though you do not need I should explain the matter to you, my dear fellow), that if I had allowed myself to be worried by these things, I could never have done as much as I have. But I much fear, in my desire to avoid present vexations, I have laid up a bitter store for the future.” The second novel, which he had promised in a complete form for a very early date, and had already selected subject and title for, was published four years later as
Barnaby Rudge;
but of the third he at present knew nothing but that he was expected to begin it, if not in the magazine, somewhere or other independently within a specified time.

The first appeal made, in taking action upon his letter, had reference to the immediate pressure of the
Barnaby
novel; but it also opened up the question of the great change of circumstances since these various agreements had been precipitately signed by him, the very different situation brought about by the extraordinary increase in the popularity of his writings, and the advantage it would be to both Mr. Bentley and himself to make more equitable adjustment of their relations. Some misunderstandings followed, but were closed by a compromise in September, 1837; by which the third novel was abandoned
on certain conditions, and
Barnaby
was undertaken to be finished by November, 1838. This involved a completion of the new story during the progress of
Oliver
, whatever might be required to follow on the close of
Pickwick;
and I doubted its wisdom. But it was accepted for the time.

He had meanwhile taken his wife abroad for a ten days’ summer holiday, accompanied by the shrewd observant young artist, Mr. Hablot Browne, whose admirable illustrations to
Pickwick
had more than supplied Mr. Seymour’s loss; and I had a letter from him on their landing at Calais on the 2d of July:

“We have arranged for a post-coach to take us to Ghent, Brussels, Antwerp, and a hundred other places, that I cannot recollect now and couldn’t spell if I did. We went this afternoon in a barouche to some gardens where the people dance, and where they were footing it most heartily, — especially the women, who in their short petticoats and light caps look uncommonly agreeable. A gentleman in a blue surtout and silken berlins accompanied us from the hotel, and acted as curator. He even waltzed with a very smart lady (just to show us, condescendingly, how it ought to be done), and waltzed elegantly, too. We rang for slippers after we came back, and it turned out that this gentleman was the Boots.”

His later sea-side holiday was passed at Broadstairs, as were those of many subsequent years, and the little watering-place has been made memorable by his pleasant sketch of it. From his letters to myself a few lines may be given of his first doings and impressions there.

Writing on the 3d of September, he reports himself just risen from an attack of illness. “I am much better, and hope to begin
Pickwick No. 18
to-morrow. You will imagine how queer I must have been when I tell you that I have been compelled for four-and-twenty mortal hours to abstain from porter or other malt liquor!!! I have done it though — really. . . . I have discovered that the landlord of the Albion has delicious hollands (but what is that to
you?
for you cannot sympathize with my feelings), and that a cobbler who lives opposite to my bedroom window is a Roman Catholic, and gives an hour and a half to his devotions every morning behind his counter. I have walked upon the sands at low-water from this place to Ramsgate, and sat upon the same at high-ditto till I have been flayed with the cold. I have seen ladies and gentlemen walking upon the earth in slippers of buff, and pickling themselves in the sea in complete suits of the same. I have seen stout gentlemen looking at nothing through powerful telescopes for hours, and, when at last they saw a cloud of smoke, fancying a steamer behind it, and going home comfortable and happy. I have found out that our next neighbour has a wife and something else under the same roof with the rest of his furniture, — the wife deaf and blind, and the something else given to drinking. And if you ever get to the end of this letter
you
will find out that I subscribe myself on paper, as on everything else (some atonement perhaps for its length and absurdity),” etc. etc.

In his next letter (from 12, High Street, Broadstairs, on the 7th) there is allusion to one of the many piracies of
Pickwick
, which had distinguished itself beyond the rest by a preface abusive of the writer plundered: “I recollect this ‘member of the Dramatic Authors’ Society’ bringing an action once against Chapman who rented the City theatre, in which it was proved that he had undertaken to write under special agreement seven melodramas for five pounds, to enable him to do which a room had been hired in a gin-shop close by. The defendant’s plea was that the plaintiff was always drunk, and had not fulfilled his contract. Well, if the
Pickwick
has been the means of putting a few shillings in the vermin-eaten pockets of so miserable a creature, and has saved him from a workhouse or a jail, let him empty out his little pot of filth and welcome. I am quite content to have been the means of relieving him. Besides, he seems to have suffered by agreements!”

His own troubles in that way were compromised for the time, as already hinted, at the close of this September month; and at the end of the month following, after finishing
Pickwick
and resuming
Oliver
, the latter having been suspended by him during the recent disputes, he made his first visit to Brighton. The opening of his letter of Friday the 3d of November is full of regrets that I had been unable to join them there: “It is a beautiful day, and we have been taking advantage of it, but the wind until to-day has been so high and the weather so stormy that Kate has been scarcely able to peep out of doors. On Wednesday it blew a perfect hurricane, breaking windows, knocking down shutters, carrying people off their legs, blowing the fires out, and causing universal consternation. The air was for some hours darkened with a shower of black hats (second-hand), which are supposed to have been blown off the heads of unwary passengers in remote parts of the town, and have been industriously picked up by the fishermen. Charles Kean was advertised for
Othello
‘for the benefit of Mrs. Sefton, having most kindly postponed for this one day his departure for London.’ I have not heard whether he got to the theatre, but I am sure nobody else did. They do
The Honeymoon
to-night, on which occasion I mean to patronize the drayma. We have a beautiful bay-windowed sitting-room here, fronting the sea, but I have seen nothing of B.’s brother who was to have shown me the lions, and my notions of the place are consequently somewhat confined: being limited to the pavilion, the chain-pier, and the sea. The last is quite enough for me, and, unless I am joined by some male companion (
do you think I shall be?
), is most probably all I shall make acquaintance with. I am glad you like
Oliver
this month: especially glad that you particularize the first chapter. I hope to do great things with Nancy. If I can only work out the idea I have formed of her, and of the female who is to contrast with her, I think I may defy Mr. —
 
— and all his works.
I have had great difficulty in keeping my hands off Fagin and the rest of them in the evenings; but, as I came down for rest, I have resisted the temptation, and steadily applied myself to the labour of being idle. Did you ever read (of course you have, though) De Foe’s
History of the Devil?
What a capital thing it is! I bought it for a couple of shillings yesterday morning, and have been quite absorbed in it ever since. We must have been jolter-headed geniuses not to have anticipated M.’s reply. My best remembrances to him. I see H. at this moment. I must be present at a rehearsal of that opera. It will be better than any comedy that was ever played. Talking of comedies, I still see No Thoroughfare staring me in the face, every time I look down that road. I have taken places for Tuesday next. We shall be at home at six o’clock, and I shall hope at least to see you that evening. I am afraid you will find this letter extremely dear at eightpence, but if the warmest assurances of friendship and attachment, and anxious lookings-forward to the pleasure of your society, be worth anything, throw them into the balance, together with a hundred good wishes and one hearty assurance that I am,” etc. etc. “Charles Dickens. No room for the flourish — I’ll finish it the next time I write to you.”

The flourish that accompanied his signature is familiar to every one. The allusion to the comedy expresses a fancy he at this time had of being able to contribute some such achievement in aid of Macready’s gallant efforts at Covent Garden to bring back to the stage its higher associations of good literature and intellectual enjoyment. It connects curiously now that unrealized hope with the exact title of the only story he ever helped himself to dramatize, and which Mr. Fechter played at the Adelphi three years before his death.

CHAPTER VII.

BETWEEN PICKWICK AND NICKLEBY.

1837-1838.

Edits
Life of Grimaldi
— His Own Opinion of it — An Objection answered — His Recollections of 1823 — Completion of
Pickwick
— A Purpose long entertained — Relations with Chapman & Hall — Payments made for
Pickwick
— Agreement for
Nicholas Nickleby
—
Oliver Twist
characterized — Reasons for Acceptance with every Class — Nightmare of an Agreement — Letter to Mr. Bentley — Proposal as to
Barnaby Rudge
— Result of it — Birth of Eldest Daughter —
Young Gentlemen and Young Couples
— First Number of
Nicholas Nickleby
— 2d of April, 1838.

Not remotely bearing on the stage, nevertheless, was the employment on which I found him busy at his return from Brighton; one result of his more satisfactory relations with Mr. Bentley having led to a promise to edit for him a life of the celebrated clown Grimaldi. The manuscript had been prepared from autobiographical notes by a Mr. Egerton Wilks, and contained one or two stories told so badly, and so well worth better telling, that the hope of enlivening their dullness at the cost of very little labour constituted a sort of attraction for him. Except the preface, he did not write a line of this biography, such modifications or additions as he made having been dictated by him to his father; whom I found often in the supreme enjoyment of the office of amanuensis. He had also a most indifferent opinion of the mass of material which in general composed it, describing it to me as “twaddle,” and his own modest estimate of the book, on its completion, may be guessed from the number of notes of admiration (no less than thirty) which accompanied his written mention to me of the sale with which it started in the first week of its publication: “Seventeen hundred
Grimaldis
have been already sold, and the demand increases daily!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

It was not to have all its own way, however. A great many critical faults were found; and one point in particular was urged against his handling such a subject, that he could never himself even have seen Grimaldi. To this last objection he was moved to reply, and had prepared a letter for the
Miscellany
, “from editor to sub-editor,” which it was thought best to suppress, but of which the opening remark may now be not unamusing: “I understand that a gentleman unknown is going about this town privately informing all ladies and gentlemen of discontented natures, that, on a comparison of dates and putting together of many little circumstances which occur to his great sagacity, he has made the profound discovery that I can never have seen Grimaldi whose life I have edited, and that the book must therefore of necessity be bad. Now, sir, although I was brought up from remote country parts in the dark ages of 1819 and 1820 to behold the splendor of Christmas pantomimes and the humour of Joe, in whose honour I am informed I clapped my hands with great precocity, and although I even saw him act in the remote times of 1823, yet as I had not then aspired to the dignity of a tail-coat, though forced by a relentless parent into my first pair of boots, I am willing, with the view of saving this honest gentleman further time and trouble, to concede that I had not arrived at man’s estate when Grimaldi left the stage, and that my recollections of his acting are, to my loss, but shadowy and imperfect. Which confession I now make publickly, and without mental qualification or reserve, to all whom it may concern. But the deduction of this pleasant gentleman that therefore the Grimaldi book must be bad, I must take leave to doubt. I don’t think that to edit a man’s biography from his own notes it is essential you should have known him, and I don’t believe that Lord Braybrooke had more than the very slightest acquaintance with Mr. Pepys, whose memoirs he edited two centuries after he died.”