The Final Recollections of Charles Dickens (14 page)

Wingate looked now as though the ground beneath him was sliding away.

“I will be here again soon,” the inspector pledged. “It is a beautiful case, and I expect to supply what little is left to complete it within a few days. You shall be taken into custody on a warrant shortly.” Ellsworth rose from his chair. “Our meeting is over, sir.”

“London is large,” Wingate said weakly. “We can easily find different ways. Please, show me which way is yours. I will take another and make it worth your while.”

“I assure you, Mr. Wingate, whatever road you take, our paths will cross again. You have lost the game, and you will pay for your sins.”

I followed Ellsworth's lead to the door. Then, from behind, I heard Wingate's voice, possessed of more firmness than a moment before.

“Mr. Dickens. I have tried to befriend you. But our lives lie in very different directions now.”

I did not answer. I knew that Ellsworth preferred it that way.

“I had a dream about you last night, Mr. Dickens. It was quite unpleasant. I thrust an ice pick into your heart.”

The inspector turned to face him. “Rest assured, Mr. Wingate,” he said with calm in his voice, “others in positions of power know what Mr. Dickens and I know.
If harm were to befall either one of us, it would do you no good. It would simply add to the ledger against you.”

Ellsworth sat silent in the carriage as we rode away from Wingate's home. He seemed to be pondering the day's events, and I thought it unwise to distract him.

Finally, he spoke.

“If Wingate could kill us with a wish, we would not live long.”

I am certain that I looked unsettled by those words.

“I am not unmindful of your safety,” the inspector added. “Do not leave your home tonight. Tomorrow morning, a constable will be assigned to accompany you whenever you are away from your quarters. He will be at your residence each day at the hour you specify and will escort you home when your work is done.”

Ellsworth paused to gather his thoughts.

“Wingate was not penitent in the least this afternoon. There is no more contrition or remorse in him now than there was when the evil deeds were done. Every man and woman should have their rights and their punishment according to justice while they are still here on this earth. I hope that is achieved here.”

“You have witnesses now.”

Ellsworth shook his head.

“There was a great amount of a bluff in what I said. We have little that would hold against him in a court of law. There is no proof of forgery and no witness to the murder of Owen Pearce. But Wingate does not know
that. And he is desperate. Only a desperate man or a fool would talk the way he did today. And he is not a fool.”

Then Ellsworth did something that I had never seen him do before. He smiled.

“Truth is a sublime and grand thing,” he said. “Though like other sublime and grand things, such as a thunderstorm, one is not always glad to see it. I believe he is crumbling. Let us see if it leads him to error.”

CHAPTER 9

My recollection turns a corner now to a day in my life like no other. If it had occurred yesterday, I could not remember the details more clearly. Every moment is firmly impressed upon my memory, as if it had been carved in stone and set before my eyes since birth. It is a secret that I have held inviolate for four and thirty years.

On Tuesday, the twenty-ninth day of March, the morning after Benjamin Ellsworth conducted his interview with Geoffrey Wingate, a police constable named Clarence Evans met me at my lodging. He stayed with me throughout the day as I travelled through London and brought me home safely that night. I told him that there would be no need for his services on Wednesday. The first installment of
The Pickwick Papers
was to be published on Thursday. I would be at home all day on Wednesday, working to complete the second installment.

Wednesday morning was of a kind that is common in early spring when the year is fickle and changeable in its youth. The sun shone hot, and the wind blew cold. It was spring in the light and winter in the shade.

I awoke early and began to write. Geoffrey Wingate was very much on my mind, but I pushed the thought of him aside as best I could to concentrate on my work. Catherine and I were to be married on Saturday. I felt an uneasiness with regard to the impending nuptials.

I finished the second installment in the late afternoon and read through what I had written, moving sentences, changing a word here and there. Samuel Pickwick and Alfred Jingle were coming alive. Then I heard tapping at my door.

A knock, louder.

I went to the door.

“Who is there?”

“Amanda Wingate.”

It is in the character of young men that, when the prize is sufficient, caution with regard to mortality is some times cast aside.

I opened the door. Amanda Wingate stood before me. Her attire was drab and plain. A black coat and gray dress without much shape to it. Her skirt extended to within inches of the floor. She held a large cloth bag in her hand.

“I have come to share a bottle of wine with you, Mr. Dickens. As a mark of our friendship.”

Her eyes promised that she intended no harm. I chose to believe them.

“You surprise me, Mrs. Wingate. And more so because you are here alone.”

“I am a grown woman, Mr. Dickens. I go when and where I please.”

She stepped into my rooms and removed her bonnet. Her hair was tied atop her head in a bun.

“It is spring,” she said cheerfully. “The trees are budding.”

I do not recall precisely what I offered in response. Perhaps that summer was likely to follow.

Amanda handed me a green glass bottle.

“Have you glasses for wine? I brought a corkscrew on the chance that you do not have one.”

I took two glasses from the cupboard and set them on the table. Amanda handed the corkscrew to me. I opened the bottle and filled each glass with wine. We sat opposite each other.

Poison . . . The thought was inevitable.

“You are not drinking, Mr. Dickens. Is the wine not to your liking?”

“I find it sad to drink alone.”

Amanda raised her glass to her lips and swallowed all that was in it. A trickle of red coursed down her chin. She wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her dress and gestured for me to pour more.

I refilled her glass.

She looked around the room. “I like it that you have books, Mr. Dickens. I read books.”

“What have you read?”

“
Waverley, Gulliver's Travels, The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders
.”

The light of the late afternoon sun was dancing on the wall. I did not know why she had come. I knew only that she was there.

“Do you think ‘Amanda' is a pretty name, Mr. Dickens?”

“I like it.”

“It is of Latin origin and means ‘worthy of love.'”

I would play the game no more.

“Have you come to see me about Geoffrey?”

“Geoffrey does not know that I am here.”

“But your appearance is connected to events of this week, is it not?”

“I know that Geoffrey has been agitated. Perhaps you can tell me why.”

“His integrity and conduct have been called into question.”

“I choose not to believe that about him.”

“You are extremely lenient in your appraisal.”

“I know what it is like to be the object of uncharitable suspicions. And he is my husband.”

“Do you fear him?”

“Of course not.”

“You should.”

Her eyes flashed angrily.

“I will not hear of such things.”

“Do you fear what you might hear?”

“Talk of Geoffrey is not why I came.”

“Why did you come?”

Her eyes changed.

“I wanted to see you.”

There were no words within me to respond.

Amanda reached above her head and pulled the ribbon from her hair. Her long brown tresses fell loose round her shoulders.

“Do you think me a wicked woman?”

“My mind is at a loss for thoughts at the moment.”

“It is in my nature.”

There are moral ambiguities in life. I was not thinking of them.

Amanda reached again, this time behind her shoulders, and unfastened the buttons that held her dress together. The customary petticoats were not beneath it. What little she now wore was striking for its colour. It was the fashion of the time for cloth that touched the most private parts of a woman's body to be white in keeping with the purity of the wearer. Amanda's most intimate undergarments were black and fashioned to accentuate rather than conceal.

She stood now virtually naked before me. I could have looked at her forever.

“This must be known only to us,” she said.

She took my hand and pressed it against her broad white bosom. I had no more chance of resisting her than of standing on the shore of the ocean and pushing back the tide. Whether our lips came together next on her movement or mine matters little. It happened. Then she drew back, just a bit.

“Have you experience?”

“This is the first time,” I confessed. “I am young for my age in matters of this nature.”

“I prefer it that way. We are both clean. Come to the bed with me. We haven't much time.”

She led me by the hand to my bedroom and passed her fingers along my cheek. They trembled for just a moment before their touch became a caress. She was
a hundred times more beautiful unclothed than I had imagined anyone could be. I have never seen a woman as beautiful as she was that night.

“Do I please you, Mr. Dickens?”

It is happening now. Amanda is at arm's length. The length of an arm is not much. And she is not holding it out straight but bending it a little. There is a smile on her face. She is coming closer. Her hair covers my face like an angel's wing. The room and walls grow dim. I am in a misty, unsettled state. The rest is like a dream. She is passion. She is fire. She is the essence of desire, more than human to me. She is everything that I can ever want. She understands my every need. The heavens open up and rain pleasure down upon me. It is too late to part us. There is a torrent of ecstasy. I am swallowed up in an abyss of love. Then, exhaustion.

If I had left the world in that moment, it would have been on happier terms than I have known before or since in my life.

Amanda lay beside me, her hair disheveled, her bosom heaving. I kissed her cheek. Her eyes were dim with moisture that might have been taken for tears. She rested her head upon my chest as though she had known me from the cradle. Then she spoke.

“I must go now,” she said.

“Please, stay longer.”

“I cannot.”

Amanda rose from the bed. The room was dark. I lit a candle. She began putting on her clothes. A contented laugh escaped her lips, childlike with a touch of wickedness.