Far Above Rubies (20 page)

There are a number of sources which describe an occasion when Dickens once jumped through a sitting-room window and danced the hornpipe, before jumping back out of the window again to the surprise of the guests. I have used this as the setting for the first meeting between Charles and Catherine.

George Hogarth was a music critic and journalist for the
Morning Chronicle
, and was in time appointed as the editor for the
Evening Chronicle
. Mr John Black was the editor at the
Morning Chronicle
, and Sir John Easthope – the proprietor. Thomas Anderson, Dr Bell and Elizabeth George are entirely fictitious characters.

At this time Charles Dickens was residing with his brother, Frederick at Furnival’s Inn and although he knew Thomas Mitten he did not meet John Forster until 1836.

In the spring of 1829 Dickens met and fell in love with Maria Beadnell, but her father, the banker George Beadnell, did not favour the match and the relationship ended.

Dickens’s older sister Fanny, was an accomplished singer and her characteristics as they appear in this novel are completely fictionalized. Letitia and Harriet were Dickens’s younger sisters,
and Frederick and Augustus his younger brothers. Only Frederick and Fanny are referred to in the novel. Catherine Dickens had a sister, Helen, and a brother, who are both omitted from the novel.

Mary Hogarth was to live with Catherine and Charles after their marriage until she died in May 1837 at the age of 17.

The date of Charles Dickens’s marriage to Catherine was 2 April 1836. The ceremony took place at St Luke’s Church, Chelsea. How Dickens felt about his family’s presence at the ceremony is unknown, but it is a well-known fact that his father would ask his son for money, and that Dickens did not like his mother to dance.

A letter of agreement to write the novel
Gabriel Varden
was given to the publisher, John Macrone, by Dickens. There is uncertainty around whether Dickens remembered doing this, but when he withdrew from writing the novel he reluctantly accepted £100 for the entire copyright of both series of
Sketches by Boz
as a form of compensation to Macrone.

Dickens and Mary purchased the small table as a gift for Catherine as recorded in his diary on 6 January 1838. A party to celebrate the success of
Pickwick
was held on 31 March 1838 at Furnival’s Inn.

Mrs Rozawich and her daughter, Esther, are fictional characters.

Dickens worked on dramatizations with both Mr John Braham and Mr John Harley at the St James’s Theatre during the year 1838.

Mary Hogarth died at 48 Doughty Street in May 1837. Dickens did instruct his lawyer to change his will to indicate his wish to be buried in the same plot, but this was made impractical upon the death of Mary’s brother a short while later. Dickens insisted that Mary’s room and possessions remain untouched.

Dickens and his family spent many summers at Broadstairs in Kent.

On their second wedding anniversary, Charles and Catherine stayed at the Star and Garter Inn, Richmond, and were joined by Forster after a few days. The account of the small boy who wrote to Dickens is true.

In 1838 Dickens opened an account at Coutts and Company and was introduced to Angela Burdett-Coutts by Mr Edward Marjoribanks. The well-recorded argument between Dickens and Forster took place in 1840 in the presence of the Macreadys and Catherine. The cause of the argument is unknown but it resulted in Catherine leaving the room in tears.

In 1846 Miss Burdett-Coutts and Dickens began work on an idea to open a home for fallen women which later became known as Urania Cottage. Sir Robert Bradbury-Kent is a fictional character.

In December 1839 the Dickens family moved to Devonshire Terrace.

During the time that the Dickens family resided at Devonshire Terrace, Dickens purchased a raven whom he named ‘Grip’.

In February 1839 it came to the attention of Dickens, via his publishers Chapman and Hall, that his father – John Dickens – had applied to them for a loan. At a later date John Dickens forged bills with his son’s name on and also counterfeited his work for sale.

Early in the year of 1840, Dickens declared to his friends that he was in love with Queen Victoria. In July 1840, Dickens witnessed the hanging of Courvoiser at Newgate Prison; he was accompanied by the artist, Daniel Maclise, and his brother-
in-law
Henry Burnett. Dickens subsequently began a campaign for the abolition of public hangings.

Eleanor Picken, also known as ‘Emma’ and as Mrs Emma Christian, stayed with the Dickens family in Broadstairs. She was related to Mrs Smithson, whose characteristics I have fictionalized. The account of Dickens picking Eleanor up and dancing in the waves is recorded in her own account of the episode.

In June 1841, Catherine and Charles visited Scotland, where they stayed at the Royal Hotel, Edinburgh and visited Catherine’s former home. Catherine escaped from the runaway carriage before it ended up in the water.

In November 1841, Dickens began to have thoughts of travelling to America and asked Catherine to accompany him. The children were looked after partly by his brother Frederick and by the McCreadys. By now, Fanny Dickens was married to Mr Henry Burnett, a musician.

Charles and Catherine travelled on
The Britannia
and had great fears about whether they would arrive safely as the crossing was rough. Thomas and Consuela Swift are fictitious characters but Dickens’s fleeting infatuation with Mrs Swift is based on his feelings for Mrs Francis Colden of New York.

The route taken by Charles and Catherine Dickens is recorded in Dickens’s own journal –
American Notes
. The account at Niagara Falls is recorded by several of Dickens’s biographers.

In spring 1839, Frederick, aided by his brother, began work at the Treasury where he was employed for at least the next twenty years. Frederick Dickens married Anna Weller, sister to Christina, a pianist; the account of his affair with Christina is wholly fictitious. In the late 1850s Frederick’s marriage to Anna collapsed under financial strain and allegations of adultery.

The Dickens family travelled to Genoa in June 1844 and became friends with Emile and Augusta de la Rue. Catherine was so jealous of the relationship between Charles and Augusta that she ordered her husband to break off the friendship.

It was probably around the autumn of 1842 that Georgina Hogarth came to live with the Dickens family on a permanent basis.

Count d’Orsay and Lady Blessington lived at Gore House together until April 1849, after which they fled to France to escape their creditors. Lady Blessington died in June 1849 and Count d’Orsay in August 1852.

The Dickens’s seventh child, Sydney, was born in April 1847. In the late summer of 1847, both Catherine and Charles returned
from Paris to be near to their son, Charley, when he became ill with scarlet fever, but Catherine was not allowed to be in his company due to her pregnancy.

Fanny Dickens was taken ill and died from consumption in September 1848.

In March 1838, William and Isabella Thackeray’s baby daughter, Jane, died. After the birth of her third child in 1840, Isabella succumbed to puerperal depression and tried to drown herself in the sea in September of that year. For the following two years she was cared for professionally in England, and after that was confined to a home in Paris, where she remained until 1893. There are no recorded meetings between her and Catherine Dickens.

Peter Rozawich and his wife are fictional characters.

John and Elizabeth Dickens lived under the care of a surgeon, Dr Davey, and his wife in Russell Square. John Dickens died in March 1851 as a result of an operation for the removal of bladder stones which he endured without anaesthetic. Not many days after his father’s funeral, Dickens spent the night in the cell of a police station.

Towards the end of 1850, Dickens wrote about the death of Dora Spenlow, a character in the novel
David Copperfield
. His own daughter, Dora, died in April 1851. Forster travelled to Malvern to break the news to Catherine.

In November 1851, the Dickens family moved to Tavistock Square. In March of that year Dickens was introduced to Wilkie Collins through the artist, Augustus Egg.

In 1855, Dickens became reacquainted with Maria Beadnell who was now married to Mr Henry Winter. They had two daughters. Henry Winter was a businessman, but there is no record of his being a gambler. The character, Flora Finching, in Dickens’s novel
Little Dorrit
is said to be based on Maria Beadnell.

In 1857, Augustus Egg proposed to Georgina Hogarth. She refused him, preferring instead to stay on in the Dickens household. Dickens met the actress Ellen Ternan in August 1857 and Charles and Catherine separated in May 1858.

Catherine left Tavistock House after the separation, and moved to Gloucester Crescent where she lived with her eldest son, Charley. In July 1860, Katie Dickens married Mr Charles Collins, the younger brother of Wilkie Collins. The marriage was childless.

On 11 June 1870 Charles Dickens passed away at his home at Gad’s Hill. Much against his preferences for a quiet funeral, the service was held at Westminster Abbey. His wife, Catherine, did not attend.