Dickens and his family left England for Italy in July, 1844, remaining abroad for a period of twelve months. In November, however, he made a quick journey to London, in order to test the effect of a reading aloud of his just completed Christmas book, “The Chimes,” before a few friends assembled for that purpose at Forster’s residence, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, which, as readers of “Bleak House” may remember, is introduced into that story as Mr. Tulkinghorn’s Chambers. The pleasurable interlude over, the novelist returned to Genoa, there remaining until June, 1845, when, homesick and eager to renew the “happy old walks and old talks” with his friends in the “dear old home,” he gladly settled down again in Devonshire Terrace. But only eleven months elapsed before he departed for Switzerland, where he rented a little villa called Rosemont at Lausanne; here he embarked upon a new story, “Dombey and Son,” and wrote “The Battle of Life.” His stay on the Continent was unexpectedly curtailed by the illness from scarlet fever of his eldest son Charles, then at King’s College school in London, whereupon, at the end of February, 1847, the novelist and his wife hastily made their way to the bedside of their sick boy, taking up their abode at the Victoria Hotel, Euston Square,[35] the Devonshire Terrace home being still occupied by Sir James Duke. The little invalid was under the care of his grandmother, Mrs. Hogarth, in Albany Street, Regent’s Park, and Dickens secured temporary quarters near at hand, in Chester Place, where he remained until June, and where a fifth son was born, christened Sydney Smith Haldemand.
1 DEVONSHIRE TERRACE. ([Page 58].)
The residence of Dickens, 1839-1851. Some of his finest books were written here.
Writing to Mrs. Hogarth from Chester Place (the number is not recorded), he said: “This house is very cheerful on the drawing-room floor and above, looking into the park on one side and Albany Street on the other.”
Early in 1848 Devonshire Terrace was quitted by Sir James Duke, and Dickens returned to London from Brighton (where he had been spending two or three weeks) joyfully to enter into possession once more of his own home, taking with him for completion an important chapter of “Dombey and Son.” The lease of this house expired in 1851, the last book written there being “David Copperfield,” at the publication of which his reputation attained its highest level. He now realized that, for a family consisting of six sons and two daughters (of whom the eldest, Charles Culliford Boz, was but fourteen years of age), this residence did not offer sufficient accommodation, and therefore he decided with keen regret not to renew the lease.[36] Indeed, from the beginning of the year he had been negotiating for a more commodious domicile, Tavistock House, in Tavistock Square, then, and for some years previously, the residence of his cherished artist friend, Frank Stone, A.R.A., father of Mr. Marcus Stone, the Royal Academician. An opportunity arising for the immediate purchase of the lease of Tavistock House, Dickens felt convinced it was prudent that he should buy it, for, as he observed in a letter to Frank Stone, it seemed very unlikely that he would obtain “the same comforts for the rising generation elsewhere for the same money,” and gave him carte-blanche to make the necessary arrangements for acquiring the lease at a price not exceeding £1,500. “I don’t make any apologies,” he added, “for thrusting this honour upon you, knowing what a thorough-going old pump you are.” After securing the property, the summer months were spent by the novelist at Broadstairs, where a “dim vision” suddenly confronted him in connection with the impending change of residence. “Supposing,” he wrote considerately to Stone, “you should find, on looking forward, a probability of your being houseless at Michaelmas, what do you say to using Devonshire Terrace as a temporary encampment? It will not be in its usual order, but we would take care that there should be as much useful furniture of all sorts there as to render it unnecessary for you to move a stick. If you should think this a convenience, then I should propose to you to pile your furniture in the middle of the rooms at Tavistock House, and go out to Devonshire Terrace two or three weeks before Michaelmas, to enable my workmen to commence their operations. This might be to our mutual convenience, and therefore I suggest it. Certainly, the sooner I can begin on Tavistock House the better, and possibly your going into Devonshire Terrace might relieve you from a difficulty that would otherwise be perplexing. I make this suggestion (I need not say to you) solely on the chance of its being useful to both of us. If it were merely convenient to me, you know I shouldn’t dream of it. Such an arrangement, while it would cost you nothing, would perhaps enable you to get your new house into order comfortably, and do exactly the same thing for me.”[37] The exchange was accordingly made, so enabling Dickens to effect certain structural improvements in Tavistock House before returning from Broadstairs to take possession in November. These alterations and reparations, which were apparently on a somewhat extensive scale, were carried out under the superintendence of his brother-in-law, Henry Austin, an architect and sanitary engineer, to whom Dickens (harassed by delays in the work) wrote despairingly as follows:
9 OSNABURGH TERRACE. ([Page 62].)
Occupied by Dickens in the summer of 1844.
“Broadstairs, “Sunday, September 7, 1851.
“My dear Henry,
“I am in that state of mind which you may (once) have seen described in the newspapers as ‘bordering on distraction,’ the house given up to me, the fine weather going on (soon to break, I dare say), the printing season oozing away, my new book (‘Bleak House’) waiting to be born, and
“No Workmen on the Premises,
along of my not hearing from you!! I have torn all my hair off, and constantly beat my unoffending family. Wild notions have occurred to me of sending in my own plumber to do the drains. Then I remember that you have probably written to propose your man, and restrain my audacious hand. Then Stone presents himself, with a most exasperatingly mysterious visage, and says that a rat has appeared in the kitchen, and it’s his opinion (Stone’s, not the rat’s) that the drains want ‘compo-ing’; for the use of which explicit language I could fell him without remorse. In my horrible desire to ‘compo’ everything, the very postman becomes my enemy, because he brings no letter from you; and, in short, I don’t see what’s to become of me unless I hear from you to-morrow, which I have not the least expectation of doing.
“Going over the house again, I have materially altered the plans, abandoned conservatory and front balcony, decided to make Stone’s painting-room the drawing-room (it is nearly 6 inches higher than the room below), to carry the entrance passage right through the house to a back door leading to the garden, and to reduce the once intended drawing-room—now schoolroom—to a manageable size, making a door of communication between the new drawing-room and the study. Curtains and carpets, on a scale of awful splendour and magnitude, are already in preparation, and still—still—
“No Workmen on the Premises.
“To pursue this theme is madness. Where are you? When are you coming home? Where is the man who is to do the work? Does he know that an army of artificers must be turned in at once, and the whole thing finished out of hand?
“O rescue me from my present condition. Come up to the scratch, I entreat and implore you!
“I send this to Lætitia (Mrs. Austin) to forward,
“Being, as you well know why,
Completely floored by N.W.,[38] I
Sleep!
I hope you may be able to read this. My state of mind does not admit of coherence.
“Ever affectionately, “Charles Dickens.
“P.S.—No Workmen on the Premises!
“Ha! ha! ha! (I am laughing demoniacally.)”[39]
Other letters followed, testifying to the highly nervous condition and impatience of the writer, who in certain of these characteristic missives, said:
“I am perpetually wandering (in fancy) up and down the house (Tavistock House) and tumbling over the workmen; when I feel that they are gone to dinner, I become low; when I look forward to their total abstinence on Sundays, I am wretched. The gravy at dinner has a taste of glue in it. I smell paint in the sea. Phantom lime attends me all the day long. I dream that I am a carpenter, and can’t partition off the hall. I frequently dance (with a distinguished company) in the dressing-room, and fall in the kitchen for want of a pillar.... I dream, also, of the workmen every night. They make faces at me, and won’t do anything.... Oh! if this were to last long; the distractions of the new book, the whirling of the story through one’s mind, escorted by workmen, the imbecility, the wild necessity of beginning to write, the not being able to do so, the—O! I should go——O!”[40]