IV.—Had Mr. Pickwick ever Loved?
Mr. Pickwick’s early history is obscure enough, and we know no details save that he had been “in business.” But had he ever an affair of the heart? Just as in real life, when a stray allusion will occasionally escape from a person betraying something of his past history, so once or twice a casual remark of Mr. Pickwick’s furnishes a hint. Thus Mr. Magnus, pressing him for his advice in this delicate matter of proposing, asked him had he ever done this sort of thing in his time. “You mean proposing?” said the great man. “Yes.” “Never,” said Mr. Pickwick, with great energy, and then repeated the word “Never.” His friend then assumed that he did not know how it was best to begin. “Why,” said the other, cautiously, “I may have formed some ideas on the subject,” but then added that he had “never submitted them to the test of experience.” This is distinct enough, but it does all the same hint at some affaire de cœur, else why would he “have formed some ideas upon the subject.” Of course, it may be that he was thinking of Mrs. Bardell and her cruel charges. Still, it was strange that a man should have reached to fifty, have grown round and stout, without ever offering his hand. The first picture in the book, however, helps us to speculate a little. Over his head in the
room at Dulwich hangs the portrait of an old lady in spectacles, the image of the great Samuel; his mother certainly. He evidently regarded her with deep affection, he had brought the picture to Dulwich and placed it where it should always be before his eyes. Could it not be, and is it not natural that in addition to his other amiabilities he was the best of sons—that she “ruled the roast”—that in the old Mrs. Wardle, to whom he so filially attended, he saw his mother’s image, that she was with him to the day of her death, and that while she lived, he resolved that no one else should be mistress there! After her death he found himself a confirmed old bachelor. There’s a speculation for you on the German lines.
We might go on. This self denial must have been the more meritorious as he was by nature of an affectionate, even amorous, cast. He seized every opportunity of kissing the young ladies. He would certainly have liked to have had some fair being at home whom he could thus distinguish. How good this description of the rogue—
“Mr. Pickwick kissed the young ladies—we were going to say as if they were his own daughters, only, as he might possibly have infused a little more warmth into the salutation, the comparison would not be quite appropriate.”
He never lost a chance. In the same spirit, when the blushing Arabella came to tell of her marriage, “can you forgive my imprudence?” He returned “no verbal response”—not he—“but took off his spectacles in great haste, and seizing both the young lady’s hands in his, kissed her a great many times—perhaps a greater number of times than was absolutely necessary.” Observe the artfulness of all this—the deliberation—taking off the spectacles so that they should not be in the way—seizing her hands—and then setting to work! Oh, he knew more of “this sort of thing” than he had credit for. He had never proposed—true—but he had been near it a precious sight more than he said.
Miss Witherfield is a rather mysterious personage, yet we take an interest in her and speculate on her history. She lived some twenty miles from Ipswich—no doubt at a family place of her own. She had come in to stay at the White Horse for the night and the morning. She was, no doubt, a person of property—otherwise Mr. Magnus would
not have been so eager, and he must have been a fortune hunter, for he confided to Mr. Pickwick, that he had been jilted “three or four times.” What a quaint notion by the way that of his: “I think an Inn is a good sort of place to propose to a single woman in, Mr. Pickwick. She is more likely to feel the loneliness of her situation in travelling, perhaps than she would be, at home.”
We find here some of the always amusing bits of confusion that recur in the book. Here might be a Calverley question, “When was it, and where was it, that the Pickwickians had two dinners in the one day?” Answer: At the Great White Horse on this very visit. When Mr. Nupkins retired to lunch, after his interview with Miss Witherfield, the Pickwickians sat down to their dinner “quietly,” and were in the midst of that meal, when Grummer arrived to arrest them. They were taken to Nupkins’, and there dined with him. This dinner would have brought them to five o’clock:—we are told of candles—so that it was dark—yet this was the month of May, when it would been light enough till eight o’clock. Mrs. Nupkins’ dress, on coming in from lunch, is worth noting. “A blue gauze turban and a light brown wig.”
Again, it was to Mr. Pickwick’s watch, that we owe the diverting and farcical incident of the double bedded bedroom—and indeed we have here all the licensed improbabilities of a Farce. To forget his watch on a hotel table was the last thing a staid man of business would do. How could he be made to forget it? “By winding it up,” said the author. “Winding up his watch, and laying it on the table.” This was of course in the Fob days, when the watch had to be drawn from the deep pocket; not as now when it is secured with a “guard chain.” Naturally, he might in an abstracted moment have so laid it down.
As an instance of the natural, every-day sort of tone prevailing through the book, it may be noted that it is mentioned as a matter of history, that the breakfast next day was at eleven o’clock—a late hour. But we know, though it is not pointed out, that Mr. Magnus and Mr. Pickwick had sat till morning drinking brandy and water, and that Mr. Pickwick had spent a portion of the night wandering about the Hotel. Naturally he came down late.
We are also minutely told that Mr. Magnus left the room at ten minutes past eleven. Mr. Pickwick “took a few strides to and fro,” when it became half past eleven! But this is a rather mysterious passage, for we next learn that “the small hand of the clock, following the latter part of his example, had arrived at the figure which indicates the half hour.” The “latter part,” would refer to “fro.” Perhaps it is a fresh gibe at the unlucky White Horse and its administration. The “small hand,” in any case, could not, and would not, point to the half hour, save that it had got loosened, and had jumped down, as hands will do, to seek the centre of gravity.
How natural, too, is the appearance of Jingle. With Wardles’ £120 in his pocket, he was flush of cash, and could make a new appearance—in a new district—as an officer—Captain FitzMarshall. He was “picked up,” we are told, at some neighbouring races. Sudbury and Stowmarket are not far off.
Some years ago, the late Lady Quain was staying at Ipswich and took so deep an interest in the “Great White Horse” and its traditions that she had it with all its apartments photographed on a large scale, forming a regular series. Her husband, the amiable physician whose loss we have to deplore, gave them to me. The “White Horse” was decidedly wrong in having Mr. Pickwick’s double-bedded room fitted up with brass Birmingham bedsteads. Were I the proprietor I would assuredly have the room arranged exactly as in Phiz’s picture—the two old-fashioned four-posts with the dimity curtains, the rush light and shade on the floor, the old glass on the dressing-table. To be even more realistic still there might be added Mr. Pickwick’s night-capped head peeping out, and the lean presentment of the lady herself, all, say, in wax, à la Tussaud. What a show and attraction that would be!
The author’s ingenuity was never at fault in the face of a difficulty. Mr. Pickwick was to be got to Nupkins’ in a sedan chair, a grotesque incident; but then, what to do with Tupman, also arrested? As both would not fit in an ordinary sedan, the sedan was made to fit them, and thus it was done. “It was recollected that there stood in the Inn yard an old sedan chair, which, having been originally built for a gouty gentleman with funded property, would hold Mr.
Pickwick and Mr. Tupman at least as conveniently as a modern postchaise.”
Nothing is more remarkable than the ingenious and striking fashion in which “Boz” has handled the episode of the double-bedded room and the yellow curl papers. The subject was an awkward one and required skilful management, or it might have repelled. The problem was how to make the situation amusing and yet not too realistic? It will be seen that all the appearances of a most embarrassing situation are produced, and yet really neither the lady nor Mr. Pickwick have taken off their garments. To produce this result, much elaborate machinery was requisite. The beds were arranged as if on the stage, one on each side of the door with a sort of little lane between the wall and each bed. Mr. Pickwick, we are told, actually crept into this lane, got to the end where there was a chair, and in this straight, confined situation proceeded to take off his coat and vest and to fold them up. It was thus artfully brought about that he appeared to have gone to bed, and could look out from the dimity curtains without having done so. It does not strike every one that Mr. Pickwick, under ordinary circumstances, would have taken off his “things” before the fire just as the lady did, in the free and open space, and not huddled up in a dark corner. However, as Mr. Weller says: “It wos to be, and—it wos,” or we should have had no story and no laugh.
There is a pleasant story—quite akin to Mr. Pickwick’s adventure—of what befell Thackeray when travelling in America. Going up to bed, he mistook the floor, and entered a room the very counterpart of his own. He had begun to take off his clothes, when a soft voice came from within—“Is that you, George?” In a panic, he bundled up his things, like Mr. Pickwick, and hurriedly rushed out, thinking what would be the confusion should he encounter “George” at the door. Anthony Trollope, my old, pleasant friend and sponsor at the Garrick Club, used to relate another of these hotel misadventures which, he protested, was the most “side-splitting” thing ever he heard of. A gentleman who was staying at one of the monster Paris hotels with his lady, was seized with some violent cold or pulmonary attack. She went down to try and get him a mustard plaster, which,
with much difficulty, she contrived. Returning in triumph, as Mr. Pickwick did with his recovered watch, she found that he had fallen into a gentle sleep, and was lying with his head buried in the pillows. With much softness and deftness, she quickly drew away the coverings, and, without disturbing him, managed to insinuate the plaster into its proper place. Having done her duty, she then proceeded to lie down, when the sleeping man, moving uneasily, awoke and showed his face. It was not her husband! She fled from the room. The humour of the thing—as described by Trollope—was the bewilderment of the man on discovering the damp and burning mass that had been applied to him, and the amazing disappearance of his visitant. What did it all mean? The mystery probably remained unsolved to the day of his death.
But the Great White Horse received an important cosmopolitan compliment from across the seas—at the Chicago Exhibition—when a large and complete model was prepared and set up in the building. This was an elaborate as well as important tribute to the Book which it was assumed that every one knew by heart.