August 1838
Coutts and Company, The Strand
Not far from Holborn, in the Strand, is a fine-looking banking establishment known as Coutts and Company. Designed by the architect John Nash, its entrance reminds an imaginative onlooker of two pepper pots side by side. Within the grand walls, sits a row of clerks, each one behind his mahogany desk, over which money and gold change hands in the most dignified manner. Acting upon the advice of John Forster, Charles met Mr Edward Marjoribanks, a partner in the bank and opened an account there. The sum deposited was a nominal amount and so Charles was surprised to be afforded the courtesies of an old and valued client. Upon hearing that London’s well-known author had become a customer, Miss Angela Burdett-Coutts seized the chance of an introduction.
Miss Burdett-Coutts’s grandfather had had no sons and neither had her late mother. Consequently the lady had recently found herself heiress to a sizeable fortune. My husband was most impressed to find that at the age of twenty-four, she had just one great wish: to use her wealth to help the less fortunate. After their first meeting, Charles arrived home full of excitement and enthusiasm. I was sitting at my needlework when he burst into the room with the words, ‘Kate, I have just met the most marvellous woman! We really must invite her to our home.’
I felt myself prickle with resentment and stopped my sewing mid-stitch.
‘What do you mean – the most marvellous woman?’
He paced the room energetically, slapping his gloves upon his hands.
‘She’s got money, Kate, lots of it. But she has resolved to share it with the less fortunate in society. Isn’t that wonderful?’
‘I don’t see what that has got to do with us,’ I said, resuming my stitching.
Charles fell upon one knee and stilled my work with his hand.
‘But don’t you see? She has access to money that can fund my ideas for social reform.’
In his earnestness he caught his finger upon my needle and I watched with dismay as a drop of blood fell and spread into a crimson stain upon my cross-stitch.
‘Oh, Charles!’ I cried in exasperation. ‘Look what you have done now.’
A look of hurt and disappointment fell across his face.
‘Well, perhaps if you showed a little more interest in what I had to tell you, it wouldn’t have happened.’ And with an air of dejection he left the room.
It was true, I had no interest in social matters whatsoever. Of course I felt sorry for those in the workhouse, for children who had to labour under terrible conditions and for those who did not know where their next meal was coming from. But these were issues that I preferred not to dwell upon. I found it all too depressing. Yet, if I was to keep my husband’s favour then I knew I must show greater support for his interests. I put my sewing to one side and sought him out.
I found him in the sitting room, angrily prodding the hot coals with a poker.
‘Charles, I am sorry. You are right. If Miss Burdett-Coutts is as generous as you say, then, of course, you must invite her to our home and see what she can help you to accomplish.’
He did not reply, but stared at the fire with a sullen expression upon his face.
I put my hand upon his arm. ‘Charles? Please don’t be cross. I am sorry, truly I am.’
He eyed me with suspicion. ‘Are you sure, Kate? Do you really mean it?’
‘Yes, of course, my love. I will speak to Mama immediately and see if she will allow me to borrow Alice for the evening.’
Pleased at getting his own way, he forgot his sulkiness, drew me towards him and kissed my forehead.
Miss Burdett-Coutts, escorted by Mr Marjoribanks, arrived half an hour later than expected. She held out her hand and greeted me with an apology.
‘Please, will you excuse my tardiness, Mrs Dickens? I was detained at my lawyer’s office. He is handling the purchase of a property for me, a little project that I have in mind to discuss with your husband later.’
I examined her face carefully as she spoke. It was long and narrow, the features being not in the least bit beautiful, except for her eyes, which were full of kindness and shone with sincerity. She wore a deep cream-silk evening dress with short puffed sleeves and, as she moved from the hall to the dining room, I caught the light scent of jasmine and lavender.
Over dinner she and Charles engaged in animated conversation and I could see why Charles was taken with her. She was intelligent, witty and possessed an enthusiasm for life that matched his own. She nodded as she listened to his lively discourse. Earlier in the year, Charles had visited Yorkshire and been most distressed at the terrible conditions that existed in the schools there. The pupils were ill-treated, malnourished and were subjected to the most cruel punishments. Miss Burdett-Coutts was fascinated by Charles’s yearning to cover the subject in his writing.
‘What a wonderful idea, Mr Dickens, that is just what is needed – a greater awareness of such matters.’
She, in turn, quietly confided her own plans to open a hostel for fallen women. Mr Marjoribanks, who had appeared to be absorbed in conversing with John Forster about investments, turned his head quickly and, with a disapproving frown, interjected, ‘I am not sure that the partners at the bank would approve of you using your allowance to fund such a project, miss.’
But it seemed that Angela Burdett-Coutts was not a woman to be held back by the opinion of any man and she laughed good-naturedly. ‘Those elderly gentleman have quickly given up telling me how I should use my money, my dear Mr M, and I hope that you will soon tire of it too.’
I marvelled at her words and could not help but envy her a little: she did not seem to be bound at all by the conventions that governed most women, but appeared to be completely independent in both mind and action.
As the evening progressed, laughter filled the candlelit dining room. Charles dropped into his chair, exhausted from recounting a humorous sketch in which he had taken all the parts.
‘My dear boy, what a marvellous actor you are!’ Forster whooped, clapping his hands.
Mr Marjoribanks enthused with wonder, ‘You are outshone by no other, sir!’
Miss Burdett-Coutts nodded, joining in the applause and Forster raised his glass in a toast.
‘There is little chance that you will ever return to the blacking factory now, dear fellow, you can be sure of that.’
His ever-ready lips were pursed to take another swig of wine but above the rim he saw an unexplained fierceness enter into Charles’s eyes. My husband leaned across the table and fixed Forster with a glare.
‘That,’ he hissed, ‘is a part of my life that I wish never to be mentioned.’
The room fell silent. Forster cleared his throat and attempted a gay little laugh to lighten the atmosphere. ‘Come now, Dickens, no offence intended. It was the wine, you know, loosened my tongue, old chap.’
I looked from one to the other.
‘What is he talking about, Charles? When did you ever work in such an awful place?’
Charles brought down his fist upon the table, jolting the cutlery to life.
‘Never to be mentioned, I said!’
In an effort to calm the situation, I stood up and said with a nervous smile, ‘Gentlemen, whatever secrets have passed between you, let us not spoil a delightful evening. Allow me to call in the dessert.’
Forster leaned to one side and hiccupped into Marjoribank’s ear, ‘I mean, I’m his dearest friend, so what is there to be ashamed of?’
Charles pushed back his chair and roared, pointing his finger at the door, ‘Out! I want you out of this house. How dare you come here and humiliate me?’
‘But, Dickens—’ Forster began.
‘I said out, and I mean out, sir. Do I have to remove you by my own hand in order to make myself clear?’
At this Forster took exception and, holding onto the table to steady himself, he stood to his feet, swaying slightly. His unsteady grasp on the table tore at the cloth, bringing plates and cutlery crashing to the floor.
‘Have you come so far in this world, Dickens, that you cannot take a joke at your own expense?’
Charles stood up and made towards Forster in an attempt to carry out his word to remove him, but Edward Marjoribanks, fearing that blows were about to be exchanged, stood between them. ‘Gentlemen, please!’
Unable to witness any more, I ran from the room in tears: the best of friends at war and a wonderful dinner party ruined! Still, the voices grew louder until the angry words reached a climax and were abruptly silenced by a loud bang and the smashing of glass. I came from the sitting room where I had been pacing up and down in tearful agitation, and found the hallway littered with fragments of glass and a broken pane in the front door. Forster had left. Whether voluntarily or aided by my husband I did not know.
Mr Marjoribanks and Miss Burdett-Coutts hovered by the door, not at all sure what to say in the way of a farewell. A strained smile passed between the three of us.
‘I’m so very sorry….’ I apologized.
Miss Burdett-Coutts moved towards me awkwardly as if to demonstrate a gesture of condolence, but thought the better of it and, clearing her throat, dropped her hand saying, ‘Well, goodnight then, madam,’ and hastily departed with Marjoribanks at her side.
Cook came into the hallway and, upon seeing the glass, whispered, ‘I will fetch a pan and brush, madam.’
I glanced anxiously at the dining-room door.
‘Please, Cook, no. Wait until the master has gone to bed.’
Hearing the door open, Cook and I darted back into the sitting room, knowing only too well to keep out of Charles’s way when he was angry. However, he did not ascend the stairs to bed as I had expected, but instead opened the front door, snatched up his cane and went out into the foggy night without hat, scarf or coat. It was not at all unusual for him to walk in the darkness of the city, ruminating and creating his works of fiction, but tonight was different; tonight he was angry and the night was shrouded in a heavy mist, a hiding place for danger. I prayed that no one would confront him for in this mood he was certainly ready to cause injury. Where was he going? He was surely not off to finish his argument with Forster?
What fools men were. Forster might be loud and irritating, I acknowledged that, but the sincerity of his friendship with my husband could not be called into question by anyone. They had first met through a journalist friend of my father’s and had quickly found out how many interests they shared: a love of literature and the arts, a passion for political reform and an inclination towards tomfoolery. When it came to matters of business, however, Forster had a sound mind and quickly set about giving my husband valuable advice and representing him in legal concerns. From that first meeting they had become inseparable and, although at times I found Forster boorish and overbearing, I could never have wished such an awful argument to come between them.
Charles had still not returned long after midnight and I lay in bed, drifting in and out of a restless sleep, imagining him lying in a gutter somewhere, his throat slit and his pockets emptied. The click of the bedroom door startled me and I awoke. Charles had returned. I thanked God that he was safe and yet something held me back from embracing him or speaking. He undressed in the darkness and slipped into the bed next to me without a word. He turned on his side, buried his head in his pillow and to my alarm began to weep.
‘What have I done? Forster will never forgive me. Never. I have lost the dearest friend I ever had. And Miss Burdett-Coutts, she will think me completely ill-bred.’
I resisted the temptation to reach out my hand to him, knowing that he would not want me to see him this way. Despite his terrible anger, his regret was now plain to see.