‘And here he was, sleeping peacefully, perhaps only a few feet above my head. I was excited by his proximity and yet recognised that I had no better chance of conversing properly with him than had one of the stokers. This seemed terribly unfair: because of my close study of his books I felt that some strange bond existed between us that he would acknowledge warmly were I only to broach the subject.
‘I might mention here that I had not only read everything he had produced, but, coveting his colossal success almost as much as I admired his genius, had already begun something of my own, in emulation. I had perhaps four chapters written, with which I was immoderately pleased. They were about me now and I became consumed with the notion of encountering Dickens and showing him the leaves and giving him the satisfaction of knowing that it was he that had stirred my dormant talent. But the next day saw a livelier sea and anyone without his full complement of sea legs betook himself to his bed and stayed there, Mr and Mrs Charles Dickens among them.
‘My own crossing to England had been a smooth one and the experience had persuaded me that constitutionally, I was a good sailor. This delusion sustained me for the first days of the return voyage and I was irked that I had never a sighting of his inimitable person. I expected to see him scribbling at a saloon table, at any moment. Conditions worsened on the third day and no one had any thoughts of anything but their own well-being while we were tossed from one giant wave to the next, for the idle amusement of the elements.
‘The passengers kept to their cabins but we attendants worked on, our nausea made subservient to the terrifying temper of the chief steward, though few of our charges welcomed our attentions, preferring to keep to their cabins and survive on diets of brandy and water and hard biscuit. And yet there was sufficient opportunity for accident and catastrophe. A steward blinded a passenger with spilt lobster sauce and, descending a companionway, another, delivering to table a huge round of red beef (optimistically, in my opinion), fell hard and broke his foot. Following behind, I received a deep cut to my eye.
‘Inanimate objects achieved lives of their own in this floating revolution. Cups and saucers performed acrobatics. Crockery smashed with almost rhythmic regularity. Objects on one table were found a moment later on the next. A gross of porter bottles broke free and could be heard rolling about the deck like drunken revellers, needlessly providing another hazard for those foolhardy enough to attempt a promenade from stem to stern. Seeming to sense that normal bounds of propriety had been cast asunder or might be suspended without impropriety for the duration of this hellish crossing, humankind behaved with as much irregularity as anything else aboard this crazy vessel. Of the passengers, one perceived that his worldly wealth would be useless to him in the next and proceeded to lose everything at vingt-et-un. A supposedly poor clerk was of a similar opinion and kept us busy fetching bottles of champagne. Among the crew, the cook salvaged some sea-damaged whisky and was discovered drunk by the captain who ordered him hosed sober and sent upon the next four watches without his coat. Worse for me was that the pastry chef succumbed entirely and I, though protesting I was no better than he, was ordered by the captain to take his place in a tiny cabin on deck. Propped between two barrels I was made to roll out dough and prepare sweet fancies, the sight of every one of which magnified my anguish and caused my stomach to revolt in paroxysms of agony. As a result I cared not a jot then that I was unable to see Dickens who had found his feet and was reported entertaining fellow passengers with a borrowed accordion.
‘But worse was in store. On the tenth day out from Liverpool, we were caught in a terrific storm that threatened to blow down the smoke-stack and offer us a fiery alternative to the watery end we expected at any minute. When it subsided sufficiently to make a walk along deck less than a method of certain suicide, we found that a lifeboat had been smashed to fragments and that the wooden paddle-housings were likewise destroyed, so that now water was scooped up and thrown on the decks, or over anyone condemned by duty to brave the elements.
‘At last, when calm returned and I could face my cakes with an equanimity unimaginable the day before, my thoughts turned again to our illustrious passenger and I pondered the problem of how I might meet with Dickens. The initial excitement passed, it came to me that encountering him now might actually harm my cause. How seriously could he take the babblings of a steward about some unlikely book? I was cast low for a full day but was then inspired by what appeared as a brilliant idea: once arrived in America, this hero of the people would surely be in need of an aide, a secretary perhaps, for the duration of his stay. It was impossible that he should deal personally with the deluge of correspondence that would inevitably follow in the wake of such an august event. I decided upon approaching him on land, in the guise of a free citizen of the United States.
‘The difficulty would lie in securing an introduction to the great man. I turned over innumerable schemes that I thought might achieve this end but rejected them all and was in low spirits during our brief stop at Halifax. My optimism was fully restored when we finally berthed at the busy port of Boston. No sooner had the painter been tossed upon the quay and the planks let down than the ship was boarded by piratical members of the Eastern press, some local dignitaries and by a certain luminary whose face I was startled to recognise. This was the artist, Francis Alexander, in whose employ my brother George now was and whom I had espied as he left his house, the morning I had paid a visit to his pupil, before taking ship for England.
‘The commotion on the forward deck was immense. Reporters were swarming like so many bees, the crew were tying off gangplanks and crowds on the quay were cheering anyone who made use of them. In this confusion, I was able to approach quite close to the bearskin-coated young writer and hear him receive Alexander’s introductions and note that Dickens had agreed to sit for his portrait during his stay in Boston.
‘I hugged myself in joy. To further my design now, I had only to make my way to Alexander’s studio and confide my plans to George and then to take up my position as secretary to Charles Dickens. And then, when Dickens realised what a protégé he had, what a world might be mine!’
‘And did it work out?’ I asked, forgetting my role as secretary yet knowing something of Elijah’s more recent history I felt I could answer this myself.
Before he could form his answer, I heard a commotion upon the stairs and then the door flew open and Merriweather burst in, with Silas Amory on his heels.
‘Is that you, Merriweather?’ said Elijah, angered by the unprecedented interruption. ‘You had better have good reason for this.’
‘Damn right I have, you old fool,’ Merriweather cried. ‘We’ve been robbed. Somebody cleared out the safe!’
I looked at Merriweather, his face crimson with emotion, his small black eyes fixed on me like the sights of twin rifles. Amory regarded us both, coolly and dispassionately and then Merriweather too, with equal impartiality.
‘Does something go forth here, is something afoot, gentlemen?’ he breathed, with the sibilance of snakes. Elijah rocked in his chair and continued to stare at a vacancy somewhere between us all.
I
ELIJAH BROKE A moment’s silence.
‘So you have been robbed of a few days’ takings. What of it? I don’t suppose it amounted to much,’ he said.
‘I’m smashed, you fool,’ said Merriweather. ‘And by heaven if you had anything to do with this, I’ll break you too.’
‘Keep a tongue, Merriweather. Everyone gets robbed sooner or later, one way or another.’
I had seen Merriweather out of sorts before, enraged and in a drunken fury more often than I would ever want to remember but this was something