In Kilrush Dr Lever quickly made the acquaintance of a group of companionable men—hard readers and good talkers,—and almost every evening they met at the house of one or the other, or at the cholera hospital. These men were to Clare as the guests at Portumna Castle were to Galway. They knew the country and the people intimately, and they were able to impart their impressions in vivid and interesting guise. To the visitor from Dublin was disclosed another treasury of anecdote and a mine of material for character sketches: and he did not fail to avail himself of the golden opportunity.
Lever remained in Kilrush for about four months and then he returned to Dublin, leaving behind him in Clare many good friends, and bearing with him many pleasant and many ghastly memories.* He could not settle himself down to wait patiently for a city practice, and seeing an advertisement in a newspaper for a doctor to take charge of a dispensary at Portstewart, near Coleraine, he applied for the post and obtained it. In addition to the dispensary he was appointed to the charge of the hospital in Coleraine, and the Derry Board of Health invited him to look after their cholera hospital. He had a wide district to supervise, and, in addition to his cholera practice,* he obtained a good deal of private practice. He was able to report in January 1833, to his friend Spencer, that money was coming in so fast that he was in no need of help from his father.
* To give some idea of the awful havoc which the cholera
created in Clare, it may be stated that one of Lever’s
associates, Dr Hogan, claimed to have treated 6000 cases.—
E. D.
It seems opportune to refer here to a circumstance which had a most marked influence on the greater part of Lever’s life—his attachment to Miss Kate Baker. He had fallen in love with her while he was a schoolboy, and his devotion to his wife—the most beautiful of all his characteristics—was unsullied to the day of his death. Miss Baker was the daughter of Mr W. M. Baker, who was Master of the Royal Hibernian Marine School,* situated on Sir John Rogerson’s Quay. The Bakers moved from Dublin to the County Meath about 1830, Mr Baker being appointed to the charge of the Endowed School at Navan. Young Dr Lever was often to be found boating on the river Boyne with his sweetheart after his return from Canada. The doctor’s father was anxious that his brilliant son should make a good match—that is to say that, like Mickey Free, he should “marry a wife with a fortune”; but much as Charles desired to please his father, he resolved that nothing should induce him to abandon the girl of his heart. His father’s objection to Miss Baker was solely because of her dowerless condition. Charles endeavoured fruitlessly to enlist his mother’s sympathies: Mrs Lever’s faith in her husband’s wisdom was not to be shaken. Finding that he could make no impression upon his parents, the young man married Miss Baker privately.
* Mr Baker is described previously as “Deputy-Treasurer to
the Navy and Greenwich Hospital.”
Oddly enough—and as a corollary to the absence of any official birth-record,—no accurate document recording the date of the marriage ceremony could be found when Lever’s biographer, Dr Fitzpatrick, instituted a search. After long and wearisome investigations he discovered in Navan the Registry Book which chronicles the marriage of “Dr Lever.” The entry is undated, and there is no mention of the bride’s name. The Rector of Navan was of opinion that the ceremony had been performed by a Mr Morton (who was a cousin of the Marchioness of Headfort), but he could throw no further light upon the nebulous entry: he offered a conjecture that the marriage was celebrated between the month of August 1832 and the month of August 1833. There is something delightfully Leverian about this. Despite the imperfectness of the record, Lever’s choice was a singularly happy one. Amongst the many things which stand to Mrs Lever’s credit are, that at an early stage of her married life she induced her husband to abandon the use of snuff, and she also cured him of another of the bad habits of his student days—indulgence in opium.
The probable date of Lever’s marriage is September 1832. During this month he obtained leave of absence in order “to complete some important private engagements,” and in all probability the most important of these engagements was his wedding. It is certain that the Portstewart dispensary doctor was a married man in January 1833. Early in that month he speaks (in a letter to Spencer) of his “household” attending a ball in Derry; and in the following May he writes: “I have two of Kate’s sisters here, which makes it more agreeable than usual chez nous.”
Early in this year Dr Lever sustained a sad blow: his mother expired suddenly in Dublin. Her death prostrated James Lever, now in his seventieth year. He could not bear to remain in the house where his wife had died, and he retired to the residence of his eldest son at Tullamore.
He never rallied from the shock, and at the end of March 1833 he died in Tullamore. This event finally broke up the Lever establishment in Dublin.
James Lever left all his possessions to his two sons: at the time it was computed that his estate would realise a sufficient sum to bring to each of them about £250 a-year, but it is doubtful if it produced this; and it is certain that Charles realised his share at an early stage of his literary career.