The vivacious Mrs. Thrale, whom Macaulay describes as "one of those clever, kind-hearted, engaging, vain, pert young women who are perpetually saying or doing something that is not exactly right; but who, do or say what they may, are always agreeable," wears a hat which lends her an appearance of false solemnity. She has, though, an air of elegance which makes it easy to believe that she was the lady "for whom" the Doctor "bought silver buckles and new wigs, and by associating with whom, his external appearance was much improved".
There also was Goldsmith, with his ugly, bulging forehead, his protruding, obstinate mouth and apprehensive eyes, the eyes of a man who anticipates adverse criticism. To him the Doctor accorded a protective tenderness the more notable that, whilst recognising the genius of his protégé, Johnson could have but ill understood poor Goldy's self-consciousness and foolish little weaknesses.
The poet himself had a lively appreciation of this trait of chivalry in the Doctor. Witness his words when speaking of a ne'er-do-well of his acquaintance: "He is now become miserable," says Goldsmith, "and that insures the protection of Johnson".
Mrs. Darling was curious to know whether the Doctor had a wife, and I told her the strange story of his wooing and winning a lady twice his age—not a beauty, according to Garrick, who described her as "very fat, with a bosom of more than ordinary protuberance, with swelled cheeks, of a florid red, produced by thick painting, and increased by the liberal use of cordials; flaring and fantastic in her dress, and affected both in her speech and her general behaviour". Boswell's remark apropos of the situation is very naïve. Says "Bozzy" in his most pompous style, referring to the Doctor and his wife, "He had a high opinion of her understanding, and the impressions which her beauty, real or imaginary, had originally made upon his fancy, being continued by habit, had not been effaced, though she herself was doubtless much altered for the worse". What a touching view this gives of the learned Doctor's simplicity of heart! Mrs. Darling, on whom even such an ancient piece of gossip as this had a cheering effect, remarked that the Doctor wasn't everybody's money. For her part she wouldn't have taken him "if 'is 'air 'ad 'ung with dimonds". Not that she doubted the excellence of his character, but, well—and really, Agatha, you must forgive me if I appear vain in repeating the incident. "Give me a man," said Mrs. Darling solemnly, with an unmistakable glance of admiration in my direction—"Give me a man that keeps 'imself clean and 'olds 'imself stright, even if 'e does put a bit of glass in 'is eye and pretend 'e can see through it." Mrs. Darling, by the way, never misses an occasion for airing her disapproval of my monocle.
We climbed the winding staircase and stood in the garret where the dictionary had been written, a long, low-ceiled room with small curtained windows, one end of which was chill with the approach of dusk, whilst the other was warmed by slant beams of a red sun shining amongst the crowding chimney-pots and telephone wires. I pictured on some such afternoon Johnson's six amanuenses busy at their part in the great work, and wondered whether they knocked off at dusk.
The Doctor, in his rusty brown suit and his "little old shrivelled unpowdered wig, his black worsted stockings ill drawn up and his unbuckled shoes," would probably be busy with them. Perhaps he would be, as Boswell once found him, "covered with dust and buffeting his books," whilst Mrs. Hannah Williams in the room downstairs waited at the tea table. Presently the Doctor would go down and they would drink tea by the light of the fire. What would they talk about? Boswell describes the blind lady as "a woman of more than ordinary talents and literature," and the two might have discussed some contribution Johnson had in his mind for "The Literary Magazine"—"A Free Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil," perhaps, or his "Essay on Tea".
"I suppose no person ever enjoyed with more relish the infusion of that fragrant leaf than Johnson," says Boswell, and as Mrs. Darling shares with myself the Doctor's weakness, I proposed an adjournment to Temple Tea Rooms—if we could extricate ourselves from the maze surrounding Gough Square.
And so we left the tall, flat-fronted, eighteenth-century house as the lights were coming out in the offices all round. At the printers' windows compositors were busy setting up type, and the printing machines had no peace from their treadmill labour. But no sound issued from Number 17, and no face appeared at any one of the long narrow windows.
"Even if you 'adn't told me, sir, I should 'ave known that wos a empty house," announced Mrs. Darling, as she stared meditatively at the Queen Anne front, and the roof line against the reddening sky.
"Why?" I enquired.