“Oh, look, Mr. Dickens, there they are.” Nelly touched his sleeve and gestured toward a patch of daffodils fifty yards away from them across Hampstead Heath. It was February and they were out looking for signs of spring.
“Yes, right you are,” he agreed and began striding toward the flowers, set in a little dell that must have been providing shelter from the winter cold because elsewhere on their walk they had encountered only snowdrops. “I do wish,” he said as they continued, “that you would call me by my Christian name.” It had become his familiar request now, a not-altogether-happy joke between them.
“Oh, perhaps someday,” Nelly said, shaking her head with a little laugh.
“Someday soon?”
“Well, I am not sure what you mean by soon,” she answered. “And really there is no point to my agreeing to a future time when I might call you by your Christian name. At that rate I might just as well do it right away.”
“So why not do it right away then?”
“Perhaps I feel that you need something to look forward to,” she said.
“You lead me a merry chase.”
“Oh, no. I think you are the one leading.”
“Right then, a chase for daffodils,” he said, grabbing her hand and running with her the last few yards toward the dell.
“There you go, milady, I present you with spring.”
“Lovely. So thoughtful of you to have arranged it. It always is my favourite season.”
It was not the first time they had walked out together; the first time had been a few weeks previously when he had suggested to her that she might like to join him on his family’s regular Sunday walk on the heath. When she had alighted from the carriage he had sent for her, she was not altogether surprised to discover that he was the only member of his family present. They had walked all afternoon, two hours or more, and he had talked to her of the novel he was planning.
“How fares the French novel?” she asked now as they continued their way uphill beyond the daffodil dell.
“It fares very well,” he said. “Thank you so much for asking.”
“And did you decide why the doctor was imprisoned in the first place?”
“Well, it’s something to do with the aristocratic family, some secret of theirs he might expose, but I was thinking it need never be spelled out.”
“Won’t the reader want to know?” she asked.
“Yes, I suppose so, but I think some readers will realize that it’s a thing of his past and that his past is gone; he isn’t really that person any more.”
“You mean people change?”
“Yes, and also that we can’t fully know other people. We only know ourselves. He is a man who has been imprisoned. That is all we can see of him.”
“How very wise that sounds. Each of us a book closed to others.”
“Perhaps not entirely closed but hard to read. I certainly find your thoughts mysterious,” he said.
And yet he was often all too transparent to her, Nelly thought. But she replied nothing and was glad he did not pursue the topic as they were forced off the path to negotiate their way around a muddy patch.
“Let me give you my arm here,” he said. “The frost has made the ground slippery.”
“Did you hear from our friend in Drury Lane?” he asked as they started up again.
“Not yet.”
“Perhaps I might write him another little note.”
“Please don’t. I wouldn’t want him to give me a part because he felt obliged to you.”
“Of course not, my dear. I would never wish to interfere. But you will excuse me if I am convinced you will shine in a Shakespearean role if only given the opportunity your talents deserve.”
“Yes, well, let’s wait a bit to see if the manager agrees with you. And in the meantime”—at this she struck a melodramatic pose—“No, Mr. Waterspout, it was the parrot.”
He laughed. “Yes, you have a great feel for that material too. No doubt about it. I am sure you have numerous admirers at the stage door every night.”
“Oh, dozens. A queue of them all the way down Haymarket.”
“And a special one in a little red waistcoat?” Suddenly his tone was sharper, almost nasty.
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Clean-shaven young man. Red waistcoat. He was there the other night.” Mr. Dickens had collected Nelly at the Theatre Royal the week previously and taken her and Mrs. Ternan to supper.
“Oh.” She almost guffawed in recognition. “That’s only Robby Strachan.”
“And who is Robby Strachan?”
“Mary, who plays the maid, her brother.”
“Oh, yes, the little Scot. But I don’t suppose the fellow has only come to the theatre to see his sister.”
“I have no reason to believe otherwise.”
“No? Really?” He turned and studied her face for a minute and seemed to find the answer he wanted there. “Well then, that’s a relief.”
“Why so?” She taunted him now.
But he wasn’t to be teased out of his jealousy and replied sadly, “Because it allows me to hope.”
She pouted a moment at that, and then said lightly, as though there were no connection, “My mother was honoured to receive a visit from Mrs. Dickens on Tuesday.” She paused before adding, “Perhaps it is me who has to wonder if I can hope.”
“Oh my dear child. Yes. Let us both hope.”
He suggested they might keep walking as far as The Spaniards Inn and take some refreshment there before finding her a cab. She knew it would be unwise to enter a public house alone with him, but only said that she was already a little footsore and thought they should turn back. In truth, she was tired, but it was the conversation as much as the walking that she found taxing. She was previously unacquainted with the game she now found herself playing and unsure of what outcome might be expected or desired. She knew, as she laughed at a good joke, basked in a compliment or admired a new trinket, that she did not want this excitement to end, but she also found it difficult to achieve the right balance of encouragement and discretion. She had only the barest advice from her mother, who had said on the occasion of this second walk, “He can do much for you, Nelly, but make no promises as to what you might do for him.”
They were walking back downhill toward the entrance to the heath, admiring the view of the city laid out before them, when Nelly felt her companion stiffen and heard him suck in a short, tight little breath of unpleasant surprise. He said nothing and kept walking the same path without pausing; she looked ahead wondering what might have alarmed him and saw only a young man, his head bent, his gaze concentrated on the ground at his feet, walking straight toward them. As he came closer, Nelly recognized him although his head was still down; she had, after all, rehearsed with him in London and appeared on stage with him in Manchester; it was Charley Dickens, his father’s eldest son. Neither father nor son deviated from the path and now Nelly wondered, as he still did not look up, if Charley had not actually seen them but was choosing to avoid eye contact until the last possible moment. That area of the heath was open; neither party could change route without making it apparent that was what he was about and so, with an agonizing inevitability, they came up to each other. As he approached, Charley stepped off the path they were walking, a tract worn into the sandy soil of the heath, and paused to let them pass. He raised his hat as they did so, saying, “Miss Ellen. Father,” without any intonation whatsoever. His father, meanwhile, grunted slightly but said nothing, neither then nor afterwards as he and Nelly continued downhill. He chatted amiably enough as he found a cab for her, and exchanged some final pleasantries in a friendly tone as he handed her in. He gave the driver precise instructions as to the route he was to follow to Islington and paid him handsomely before stepping back and raising his hat to Nelly, waving discreetly from the cab window. The moment he was out of sight, she leant back thankfully on the hansom’s stiff, narrow seat. In a way, she thought with some bitterness, it had been a family walk after all.