Death and Mr. Pickwick (102 page)

‘Mr Justice Stareleigh was a most particularly short man, and so fat, that he seemed all face and waistcoat. He rolled in, upon two little turned legs, and having bobbed gravely to the bar, who bobbed gravely to him, put his little legs underneath his table, and his little three-cornered hat upon it; and when Mr Justice Stareleigh had done this, all you could see of him was two queer little eyes, one broad pink face, and somewhere about half of a big and very comical-looking wig.'

He nudged one of his customers. ‘I know this judge.'

‘Go to Bath, Moses Pickwick!'

‘I am telling the truth.'

He lowered his squeak to a deep, but scarcely audible bass. ‘Ten years ago, I was taken to court over the loss of a trunk. There was a fat, half-deaf judge who presided over the appeal. It was
this
judge. Everything is the same. The way he made notes and then struggled to read them back in his summary, because he couldn't read his own writing – it's all here! And look at the surname. My judge was Justice Gaselee. This is Justice Stareleigh. Who told the publishers this? Someone has told them about me. Someone who wants the lost trunk remembered.'

‘Ah, get away with you, Moses Pickwick. You've laughed at
Pickwick
as much as anyone, and you're not going to stop laughing now. I've even heard you say that if you ever had a son, you'd call him Samuel Pickwick.'

‘I had already made up my mind that I would call a son Samuel before this publication ever appeared.'

‘I remember different.'

Moses Pickwick was sullen for most of the day. He looked at Samuel Pickwick's bald head, and this too seemed a comment on his own lack of hair, which was covered with a wig. From the concerned expressions on Moses Pickwick's face, from his deep sighs, and from his looks downwards, it was easy to see he was troubled by
The Pickwick Papers.

In the evening, the arrival of a coach from London brought a new batch of travellers into the Hare and Hounds. A confident young man swaggered to the bar clutching a copy of
Pickwick
. The moment Moses saw the green wrapper, he shouted: ‘I will not be humiliated like this!'

The Hare and Hounds fell silent. The new arrivals stood in perplexity. As did all but one man among the regulars. ‘It's one of you, isn't it?' said Moses, looking around the room at his regular customers and new arrivals alike. ‘One of you told the publishers!'

‘None of us is to blame, Moses,' said the man who had told him to go to Bath, and was the only person present who knew what Moses Pickwick meant. ‘What about one of your former coachmen? Who have you dismissed?'

‘No one has treated drivers better than I!'

‘Then it's a rival coaching operator, most likely. Someone you have ruined.'

‘I have competed
fairly
!'

‘Then it's someone in your family. Someone of Pickwick stock. Your own flesh and blood, Moses – not us.'

‘A Pickwick would not betray a Pickwick!' Even though he made that bold assertion, he leant against the bar afterwards, propping his chin on his knuckles, and the regulars knew he was sifting Pickwicks in his mind, weighing up all the various descendants of the original Moses Pickwick.

Eventually Moses said: ‘It is my nephew. I am sure of it. He comes here too often. He comes here all smiles. He pumps me for information about coaching. It is him. One thing in particular confirms it. He once left a book behind the bar and said, “Now don't lose it, Uncle.” I am sure that he was thinking of the trunk I lost.'

*   *   *

Within the dark, narrow cathedral of his chambers, at the end of the walls of bound statutes, and behind the leather-topped desk, the grey and pebbly eyes of Sir Stephen Gaselee were at a normal height for a seated man. Were a stuffed-to-bursting cushion, then in functional employment, to be removed, it must be said the eyes would be six inches lower – lower than the belt buckle of the amiable clerk who stood before the desk. In short, the judge was short. As he also inclined towards corpulency, his fingers – then splayed in ten directions of bulbosity upon the desk – provided an excellent clue to the bulging of the body, partly concealed under the judge's robes. That he had not bothered to remove the robes, or even his ceremonial wig, and had summoned the clerk immediately upon returning from court, was itself a proof of Judge Gaselee's troubled mind.

‘For the last ten days,' he said, when he was ready, ‘I have experienced an unwonted phenomenon. As a single occurrence, it would not be typical; to happen more than once, in a single day, would be strange; to happen again and again, throughout ten consecutive days, is a plague wholly unprecedented in my life. And – I would imagine – in the lives of most men. I have repeatedly observed people giving me sideways glances – and whispering.'

‘Whispering,' said the clerk, who shuffled awkwardly and coughed once.

‘It happened again in the corridor, on my way back here – two men were coming in my direction, neither of whom I recognised. There was immediately a whispering between them, and looks in my direction. Both men seemed amused. Can you explain this?'

The clerk rubbed his nostril. ‘A reputation in the legal profession would surely attract attention from time to time.'

‘Am I a man of
such
renown that even my street door would be a place of pilgrimage?'

The clerk coughed again.

‘On several recent evenings,' continued the judge, ‘I have seen people in the street pointing towards my house. Last night, I looked out upon two youths from my upstairs window, and they pointed up, and laughed. Why? What sense can you make of this?'

The clerk took a great interest in his shoes.

‘If you know a reason,' said the judge, ‘do not be afraid to speak.'

‘You do not read
Pickwick
, do you, sir?'

‘
Pickwick
? What is that?'

The clerk snorted. Few lines within
Pickwick
itself could match the comic absurdity of such a question.

‘
Pickwick
is – excuse me one moment, sir.' He recovered his composure. ‘
Pickwick
is a monthly publication. It is really called
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club
. But everyone calls it
Pickwick
.'

‘
Everyone
? Is this
Pickwick
well known to the public at large?'

‘Every number is greeted with such enthusiasm that it is – well –
devoured
, is the word I would use.'

‘Do you include yourself among the “everyone” who reads this publication?'

‘I do, sir.'

‘Am I to surmise that
I
am referred to in its pages?'

‘You are not mentioned. It is a work of fiction.'

‘Why tell me about it then? Are there
allusions
to me? Is that it? Does it contain statements which a reasonable man might believe to refer to myself?'

‘I would not exactly say so, sir.'

Judge Gaselee's grey eyes narrowed. ‘Is there a character with traits recognisably mine?'

The clerk coughed again. ‘I did see some traits in a character and they reminded me a little of Serjeant Arabin. You may have heard of the occasion when he said an indictment was invalid because it gave a man's middle name and so must refer to someone else.'

‘Do not seek to distract me with talk of Brother Arabin. I wish to see a copy of this
Pickwick
.'

‘That may not be altogether advisable, sir.'

‘“That may not be altogether advisable”? That is altogether more reason I should see it! Do you have a copy with you?'

‘I do, sir.'

‘Then bring it to me now.'

*   *   *

A good legal man, even one of great gravitas, will sometimes be heard to laugh. Not Sir Stephen Gaselee. Laughter was alien to his nature. His door stood ajar, and not one murmur of mirth escaped during his examination of
Pickwick
. The clerk, working in the external office, did at times hear a splutter, which filled him with a concern verging on fear. After several such splutters he was summoned, and once again he stood in front of the desk.

‘So this is how everyone sees me,' said the judge. ‘Short. Tired. Fat. Stupid. And
deaf
.'

‘I do not include myself among the everyone, sir.'

‘So everyone else
does
see me like that!'

‘I did not – I
truly
did not mean my words that way.'

The judge waved a hand to dismiss the utterance. ‘Do you know who this “Boz” might be?'

‘No one knows. Not for sure. Rumours circulate. He may not even be one man. Some people think
Pickwick
is written by a committee.'

‘I would not be surprised if these courtroom scenes are the work of some defeated litigant. Someone who bears a grudge against me for a judgement in a particular case.'

‘That is not inconceivable, sir.'

‘It is more than “not inconceivable”. The name “Pickwick” is even known to me. I remember the case of a coaching proprietor with that name. He was found negligent in losing a passenger's luggage. Judge Park was unwell and could not preside over the appeal, and so I was called. I could take action for defamation against this publication.'

‘You
could
, sir,' said the clerk. An interpretation of the tone of the clerk's reply might be: ‘But I hope you do not.'

*   *   *

The senior liveried servant with a face as long and unemotional as a cliff positioned himself two and a half inches from the edge of the rug. His shoulders formed a perfect right angle with respect to the direction of Sir Stephen Gaselee's armchair.

‘You will collect the household wages from the bank tomorrow,' said the judge, ‘but at three o'clock, as cook must depart for her mother. No later than three o'clock. And no earlier either. Everything else as normal.'

There was a brief and dignified lowering and raising of the head. He waited for the instruction to go.

‘There is one other matter,' said the judge. ‘Have you heard of a publication called
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club
?'

As the senior liveried servant had seen a man point to the Gaselee residence in Montague Place and shout ‘That's where he lives!' and as he knew that cook was taking the latest number to her ailing mother in the hope of enlivening the old lady's last days, and would delight in pointing out ‘That's the old fool I work for!' and as he was aware that every member of the household staff could talk of nothing else but
Pickwick
, and that his own stone face had cracked with helpless laughter at its contents, it may be assumed that he was indeed familiar with
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club
– yet this familiarity was not apparent in the slightest as the servant answered: ‘I have heard
of
it, sir.'

‘You do not read it yourself?'

‘I have heard that people do.'

Gaselee looked down for some time. The servant continued to stand at two and a half inches from the rug's outermost fibre. The merest movement of his chin suggested that, for once, he considered leaving without being told to do so, and that a silent bow might be appropriate, under the circumstances. Eventually, he ventured upon: ‘Will that be all, sir?'

‘All? I don't know. I was thinking of the past.' After another long interlude the judge said: ‘When I was a young man, I was a member of a club. There was one very strict rule: bachelors only. Marriage meant expulsion. Well, one day, I made a wager with one of my fellow members: a hundred to one in guineas that I would never reach the bench. We wrote it down in our notebooks, one copy for me, one copy for him – the only wager I have ever made. I lost the wager twelve years ago. But – by then my friend was long dead. I was not deterred. I sought out his executor and paid my debt in full. It was divided among sixteen relatives. I have tried to be thorough.' After another period of speechlessness, he said: ‘That will be all. Do not forget the bank tomorrow. Did I tell you at three o'clock?'

‘If you did not, you have now, sir.'

‘Indeed, indeed so.' The old judge slowly shook his head.

*   *   *

In the morning, the clerk and others at Sir Stephen Gaselee's chambers were informed of the judge's decision to retire at the end of that Hilary term. There were customary expressions of regret. Over lunch that day, the clerk said to another clerk with whom he was on friendly terms, ‘At least he said nothing about putting a stop to Boz.'

‘No,' said his friend. ‘But Boz has put a stop to
him
.'

 

*

‘WITHIN TWO YEARS,' SAID MR
Inbelicate, ‘Justice Gaselee was dead.He was buried in the vaults of the Old Foundling Chapel in Guildford Street, where a tablet at the entrance was dedicated to his memory. Yet if Sir Stephen Gaselee was embarrassed to be the original of the judge in
Pickwick
, that was not the case with Serjeant Bompas, who
revelled
in being the inspiration for the counsel for the plaintiff.'

 

*

THE SIGHT OF MR SJT
Bompas, serjeant-at-law, at work in his goathair wig in the Court of Common Pleas was unlikely to be forgotten. This tall, stout, sandy-complexioned man, approaching fifty, would rise, and the court would hear, by means of his extreme vigour, the point he wished to make – his sandiness turning red as he became excited, his nostrils filling with air, both to fuel his forcefulness and to suggest that the very oxygen he breathed was full of the scent of his own importance. The point was repeated, and repeated once more, so that even the dullest and bluntest and least sharp mind in the jury would understand. Then the penetrating eye of Bompas would run along the line of jurymen, and if he believed that even one man had not grasped the matter, it would be repeated yet again.