Free The Detective and Mr. Dickens by William J. Palmer Page B

wife in her absence, but the all-male company could not help chuckling at his wit. I, however, knew that his joke was nothing but a joke. Mrs. Dickens had been in the throes of an elusive and unsettling illness for more than four months, and had been recuperating at the spa at Malvern for the last two. During all of that time Dickens had been working full time and sleeping most nights in the Household Words offices at Wellington Street.
    That night of the fourteenth, Dickens was in the Chair presiding over the annual dinner of the General Theatrical Fund. We peopled every table that had been brought in for the occasion and the tap of The London Tavern was filled to overflowing with those unfortunates who had made their pledge to the fund either too late or too usurously to assure them a good table for the festivities. I was sitting at a table with Sala and Egg and Phillip Collins, immediately behind the most prominent of the satellite tables peopled with Dickens’s oldest friends: Forster, Wills, Macready, Bulwar, Trevor Blount and Talfourd, a lawyer who lived his whole life under the illusion that he was really a literary man.
    Immediately following the serving of the wine and the first course of meat pie and French potatoes served on clam shells, Sir John Falstaff held court, to the delight of all. Dickens introduced that worthy from the Chair. Falstaff entered from a small anteroom on the right, all whiskers and belly. He wore a capacious jerkin that was part short cape and part large-buttoned doublet. Around his bulging waist was a thick leather belt from which hung a pointy dagger of the Italian mode and a heavy broad-bladed hand sword. His loose leather trousers were rolled at his boottops and large, mean-looking riding spurs were strapped to his heels. As he entered, he brandished an oversized drinking tankard.
    It was, of course, Mark Lemon, one of Dickens’s closest friends and perhaps the most enthusiastic of the collaborators and actors in Dickens’s frequent amateur theatricals. Lemon, indeed, seemed born to the part of Falstaff. He possessed the great girth, the jolly eye, the booming voice, the bristling whiskers, and the tipsy rolling gait that were all impeccable credentials for the part. Macready had even asked him to play the part professionally a few years before, when Covent Garden was getting up a Henry IV, Part One , but Lemon refused, protesting that “once an amateur always an amateur.” Covent Garden settled for Alexander Welsh, but even Macready, in private, agreed that his portrayal did not at all come up to Lemon’s.
    Upon entering, Falstaff stood in a small cleared space immediately in front of the Chair, where Dickens sat applauding happily. As befit the fat drunkard and ruffian that he was, Falstaff glared around belligerently, then took a long draught from his tankard and sat down. He arranged himself comfortably in the chair, comically adjusting his swords so that they didn’t poke his bulging stomach, took another look around, another deep draught, and began:
“For, Harry, I do not speak to thee in drink…”
    With that Lemon rolled his eyes and gazed at his huge tankard.
“And yet there is a virtuous man whom I have often noted in thy company, but I know not his name…”
    We all recognized the speech immediately, the tavern scene from Act II. What could be more appropriate for this tavern scene?
“A good portly man, i’ faith, and a corpulent…”
    “You bloated barrel of sack!” It was Macready who barked this insult from the table immediately in front of the stage.
    The whole company burst out laughing as Falstaff paused a brief moment to frown with disdain upon this groundling heckler before continuing on:
“of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage.”
    “A fat drunkard and whoremonger!” This insult came from Dickens in the Chair and suddenly the scenario was clear. Macready and Dickens were intentionally inciting the crowd as a way of involving