THE BEDFORD, BRIGHTON—THE ROYAL, LEAMINGTON—LONG’S HOTEL, BOND STREET—AND OTHERS
Although a good deal of Dombey and Son is enacted at Brighton, only one of its famous hotels plays any prominent part in the story, and that is the Bedford. It is first mentioned during a conversation between Major Bagstock and Mr. Dombey, when the former asks “Are you remaining here, Mr. Dombey?” “I generally come down once a week, Major,” returned that gentleman; “I stay at the Bedford.” “I shall have the honour of calling at the Bedford, sir, if you’ll permit me,” said the Major, and in fulfilment of his promise he did so.
On another occasion, “Mr. Dombey, bringing down Miss Tox and Mrs. Chick to see the children, and finding the Major again at Brighton, invited him to dinner at the Bedford, and complimented Miss Tox highly beforehand on her neighbour and acquaintance.” The Major was considered to possess an inexhaustible fund of conversation, and showed as great an appetite in that respect “as in regard of the various dainties on the table, among which he may be said to have wallowed.” After dinner, they had a long rubber of whist, before they took a late farewell of the Major, who retired to his own hotel, which, by the way, is not mentioned.
On the following day, when Mr. Dombey, Mrs. Chick and Miss Tox were sitting at breakfast, Florence came running in to announce in great excitement the unexpected arrival of Walter and Captain Cuttle, who had come to ask the favour of a loan of three hundred pounds or so of Mr. Dombey to liquidate the financial embarrassment of their old friend Sol Gills. It will be recalled how Captain Cuttle offered as security his silver watch, the ready money he possessed, his silver teaspoons, and sugar-tongs; and “piling them up into a heap that they might look as precious as possible” delivered himself of these words:
“Half a loaf’s better than no bread, and the same remark holds good with crumbs. There’s a few. Annuity of one hundred pound prannum also ready to be made over.” The simple and transparent honesty of Captain Cuttle succeeded in the task he set himself, Mr. Dombey arranging the little matter for him.
The Bedford can rightly claim the honour of having been the house where this memorable scene in the story of Captain Cuttle took place. In those days it was a prominent and fashionable hotel, and remains so to-day.
Dickens frequently stayed at Brighton and very often at the Bedford, where he wrote a good deal of The Haunted Man and portions of other stories.
The Princess’s Arms, spoken of as being “much resorted to by splendid footmen,” which was in Princess’s Place, where Miss Tox inhabited a dark little house, cannot be identified. Indeed, search for Princess’s Place in old directories of Brighton has entirely failed, and it must be assumed that no such place ever existed there.
At the time Dickens was writing Dombey and Son in 1846, the Royal Hotel at Leamington, where Mr. Dombey stayed with Major Bagstock, and where Edith Granger, who became his second wife, visited him with her mother on one occasion, did not exist, having been demolished about 1841-2 to make way for railway improvements. But he knew the hotel in its palmy and aristocratic days, for in 1838 he and his artist friend, Phiz, made a bachelor excursion in the autumn of that year into the Midlands by coach, their first halt being Leamington, and the hotel they put up at there was Copp’s Royal Hotel, which stood at the corner of Clemens Street and High Street. In writing to his wife of his arrival there, he said: “We found a roaring fire, an elegant dinner, a snug room, and capital beds all ready for us at Leamington, after a very agreeable (but very cold) ride.” From here they visited Kenilworth, Warwick, and Stratford, and the outcome of the jaunts is reflected in the story.
