Matthew Pearl - The Last Dickens

“Yes, I see it! You are. You are. You are ready for it!” the man sputtered out, when one of the Gadshill servants burst in.

“Come on now.” The mustachioed servant removed the invader by the ear like a misbehaving child. “Come on, old fellow. That's enough of that beastly behavior. They are at some important work. Very sorry, sir, miss. I'll see to it he won't bother you again.”

LATER THAT AFTERNOON, Osgood took the one-hour train into London while Rebecca continued their research. Using the map from his guidebook, he reached the offices of Chapman & Hall, Dickens's English publisher. The day of their arrival, Osgood had sent a messenger with his card and a note asking for an interview but had yet to receive a reply. Osgood did not have the luxury of waiting if their stay in England was to succeed in time.

But there would be more waiting at the busy Piccadilly offices of the publishing firm. Today was Magazine Day, when every publisher, printer, binder, and bookseller in London scrambled to release the latest journals and periodicals to readers. In the case of Chapman & Hall, this meant the latest serial installment of The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Messenger boys stuffed their sacks with pale green-covered pamphlets of the installment to deliver all across the city and to the country towns to book stands and stalls, shouting instructions at each other. On the first of the next month, the next Magazine Day, the final installment in the London publisher's hands would be printed and sold to the hungry public-and the pirates back in America would have all they needed.

Osgood, as he watched the mayhem of clerks and messengers, noticed that the mere mention of the name Mr. Chapman, the head partner, caused bowed heads and darting eyes among the man's employees. He had been kept sitting in the anteroom for an hour when broad-shouldered Chapman appeared in a sporty outfit.

“Terribly sorry, old boy,” he said after Osgood presented himself. “Must run to the country to go shooting with some capital people-terrific bores, really, but capital-will you call another time?”

Osgood gave one more long look at Chapman's office and staff before starting back, with a rising feeling of futility, to Rochester. Taking a buggy from Higham station, Osgood found reliable Rebecca still hard at work in the Gadshill chalet.

After another two hours, the men from Christie's auction firm came in to finally break up the quiet of the chalet. The workers snatched up the Oriental statue and the other salable effects inside Dickens's sanctum. The men were accompanied dutifully by Aunt Georgy, who gave them instructions.

Georgy shook her head in dignified frustration as they did their work. “I suppose it is impossible to try to pretend things haven't changed forever. How empty the world feels now!”

“Where will you go once you sell Gadshill, Aunt Georgy?” Rebecca asked.

“Mamie and I must look for a small house in London, though my mind frets at the long, bitter winters in the city.”

“I believe you and Mr. Dickens will always be part of this land, no matter what,” Osgood said. “No matter where you go.”

Georgy looked hard at Osgood. “I must confess that my role as executrix is new for me-not in managing the children's careers, for that has been my life's devotion. But in reading documents and contracts.”

“I can imagine the strain,” Osgood replied.

“I've learned too quickly it is rare to meet a man of business who can wear an honest face. Forgive me, but I wonder if I might trouble you while you stay in Rochester. Would you consider looking over Mr. Dickens's will if I left a copy with the Falstaff?”

“It would be my honor and pleasure,” Osgood said, standing up and bowing, “to repay your kindness.”

“Thank you. It will put me at ease to have an hour of time to ask someone questions-someone other than Mr. Forster, to be perfectly candid. I feel, for one thing, such an infant around him! As if I had no power of free will of my own when he is near.”

They became quiet when a heavy tread ascended the stairs. Then came the burly form of Forster, who yelled after the departing auction men to remember the value of what they had in their unworthy hands.

“Superfluous creatures,” Forster concluded, turning to the desk, where his eyes landed on the stack of blue sheets. He rubbed his hands together. “Ah, there it is! All of the manuscripts of Mr. Dickens's books, you see, Mr. Osgood, were left by order of his will to be given into my care.”

Forster, with two careful, trembling hands, grasped both sides of the manuscript of Drood and picked it up. His reverence was touching, if excessive.

“This is the last of them in the house, I think?” Forster asked Aunt Georgy.

“It is the last of his manuscripts here,” Georgy said, sighing. “The last anywhere.”

With the manuscript safely lodged in his case, Forster's eye now darted across the desk to a particular quill pen. It was a long goose's feather, white and wavy, the nib stained in dried blue ink.

“That's it, isn't it?” he asked.

Georgy nodded.

Rebecca asked what it was.

“That is the pen with which he wrote The Mystery of Edwin Drood , Miss Sand,” answered Georgy. “Charles liked to use a single pen for a single book-there was a purity about it that way. He did not want the pen's spirit mixed up in trifling bills and sundry checks. With this, he finished the novel's sixth installment, just before coming into the house.”

Osgood asked if he could see the pen. He picked it up and turned it over in his hand, then gripped it as if on its own it might finish the final six parts of Drood.

“Shall I,” Forster began, licking his plump cracked lips, “keep it at my office?”

Georgy cleared her throat pointedly.

“Just for now,” Forster clarified, clearing his own throat as an answer to her gesture. “Until you decide what you shall do with it, Miss Hogarth. Then you may-well, you may throw the thing into the Thames if you wish!”

“Keep it for now,” Georgy agreed, at which point Forster eagerly plucked the Drood pen from Osgood's hand, deposited it into his case, and fled down the stairs without bidding any farewells.

IN THE MORNING, OSGOOD AND REBECCA HAD PLANNED TO SEP-arate, Osgood to try again at Chapman & Hall in London and Rebecca to continue the labors at Gadshill. At the last moment, Osgood called Rebecca back to the Falstaff's wagon. He looked at her with a curious air. “I think you ought to come to London with me this morning, Miss Sand. If Mr. Chapman does concede to see me, I should like you to take down notes.”

Rebecca hesitated. “This shall be my first time in London!” she exclaimed, then held in her excitement with her typically neutral air. “I shall get my pencil case.”

“Good thing,” Osgood said. “Your eyes could use a respite from reading over Mr. Dickens's papers, I'm certain.”

After arriving at the Charing Cross station in the Strand, Osgood and Rebecca, in the shadows of theaters and shops, walked through the astounding number of street performers and merchant booths on every corner, which made Boston seem quiet by comparison. Rebecca's eyes danced at all the sights. The shouting peddlers held up repaired shoes, tools, fruit, puppies, birds-anything that could be offered for a few shillings. The variety of accents and dialects made every English peddler's vocal promotions seem yet another different language to the American ear.

“Do you notice something strange about the peddlers?” Osgood asked Rebecca.

“The sheer noise they create,” she replied. “It is quite an astonishing thing.”