“Wilkie…” began Caroline, setting her hand on my shoulder but then jerking it away as I jumped.

“It was rats,” I gasped, uncocking the pistol that was suddenly too heavy for me to hold. I tried to remember how many bullets I had fired but could not. I would count the remaining ones later. “It was only rats.”

“Wilkie…” Caroline began again.

I shook her off and went up to my bedroom to vomit into the basin and find my flask.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Caroline played her trump card on Wednesday, the twenty-ninth of April, the day before the Russia, carrying Dickens and Dolby on the last leg of their long voyage, was scheduled to drop anchor in Queenstown Harbour.

Caroline knew that I was in a good mood, although she had no idea of all the reasons why. Those reasons were clear enough to me. When Charles Dickens had sailed for America the previous November, he had been the master and I the eager apprentice; now The Moonstone in serial form was the hit of the nation, crowds at the Wellington Street offices of All the Year Round were larger with each number released, and commoner and nobility both were hanging on each new instalment to see just who had stolen the diamond and how. And I was secure in the sure and certain knowledge that even the cleverest reader among them would never be able to guess.

When Charles Dickens had sailed for America the previous November, my play No Thoroughfare—and it was, indeed, my play, after all the rewrites, revisions, and fresh ideas I had poured into it since the previous autumn—had been just a dream in early rehearsal. Now it was a bona fide hit and had already run at the Adelphi Theatre for more than one hundred and thirty sold-out evening performances. There were eager negotiations under way for a Paris production.

Finally, Mother’s death, while saddening me (and horrifying me with its insectoid aspects and uncertainty of cause) had also liberated me. Now, at the age of forty-four, I had finally and fully become a man unto myself.

So Caroline sensed that despite the incident of the servants’ stairway (after two weeks I still would not go into the kitchen or any part of the upper hallways near the heavily nailed, boarded over, and fully sealed doors), and despite frequent relapses and the continuing pain that required larger doses of laudanum and morphine just to allow me to work a few hours each day, I was in the best mood I had enjoyed for years.

Dickens had left in November thinking of himself as the Master and me as protégé; he was returning (ill and disabled, from all accounts) to find me as the popular-selling novelist, successful playwright, and fully independent man I now was. We would meet this time as equals (at the very least).

And, I was increasingly convinced, we both carried Drood’s scarabs in our skulls. That fact alone brought a grim new equality to our relationship.

CAROLINE CAME TO ME that Wednesday morning while I was in the bath. Perhaps she thought this was when I would be at my most mellow… or at least at my most pliable.

“Wilkie, my dear, I have been thinking about our earlier conversation.”

“Which conversation is that?” I asked, even though I knew full well. My spectacles had steamed over and I reached for a nearby towel and squinted while I wiped the lenses clear. Caroline became a great white-and-pink lumpy blur.

“The one about Lizzie moving into society and about the future of our own relationship under this roof,” she said, sounding very nervous indeed.

I, on the other hand, was completely calm as I set the tiny spectacles back on my nose. “Yes?”

“I have decided, Wilkie, that for our Lizzie… Carrie… to have the proper advantages in life, her mother really must be married and she part of a stable family.”

“I could not agree more,” I said. The steam from my bath rose to the ceiling and curled to all sides. Caroline’s face was flushed red with it.

“You do?” she said. “You agree?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “Please hand me that towel, my dear.”

Speechless, she handed me the towel and I proceeded to pat my rather pleasing rotundity dry.

“I did not know… all this time… I was not sure…” spluttered Caroline.

“Nonsense,” I said. “Your well-being… and Carrie’s, of course… have always been my primary concern. And you are correct. It is time for a marriage.”

“Oh, Wilkie, I…” She could not go on. Tears ran down her steam-reddened cheeks.

“I presume you are still in touch with your plumber,” I said, tossing aside the towel and pulling on my velour robe. “Mr Clow. Joseph Charles Clow?”

Caroline froze. The flush seeped out of her cheeks. “Yes?”

“And I assume that Mr Clow has proposed marriage to you by now, my dear. In fact, I presume that you were going to mention that fact to me in this very conversation.”

“Yes, but, I did not… I have not…”

I patted her arm. “There is no need for further explanation between two such old friends,” I said merrily. “It is time for marriage—for Carrie’s sake, as well as your own—and our Mr Clow has proposed it. You must accept at once.”

Caroline was pale down to her fingertips now. She took two blind steps backwards and bumped into the washbasin.

“I shall have Besse pack your clothes at once,” I went on. “Your other belongings, books and so forth, we shall send along in due course. I shall have George go fetch a cab as soon as you’re packed.”

Caroline’s mouth moved twice before a word came out. “Lizzie…”

“Carrie, of course, shall stay with me,” I said. “This has already been arranged between Carrie and myself. It is her choice and it is final. However passionate and compliant your plumber… Mr Joseph Charles Clow… may be, and however well-regarded his distiller of a father might have been, your plumber’s actual, hopeful, but sometimes struggling bourgeois existence is not appropriate for Carrie at this point in her life. As you have pointed out, Caroline, she shall soon be entering society. She has chosen to do this from this fine home, from Number Ninety Gloucester Place, secure in the company of writers, artists, composers, and great men. She shall visit you frequently, of course, but this shall remain her home. I’ve discussed this not only with Carrie but with your current mother-in-law, and they both agree.”

Caroline had lowered both hands to the basin’s counter behind her and seemed to be holding herself upright only by the force of those straight, stiffened, and quaking arms.

I did not reach out to touch her as I brushed past to step into the hall, and it seemed that Caroline could not then have lifted an arm under any circumstances.

“I believe your decision is wise, my dear,” I said softly from the doorway. “You and I shall always be friends. Should you or Mr Joseph Charles Clow ever need assistance of any sort, I will endeavour to put both of you in touch with the kind of people who may be capable of helping, if they are inclined to do so.”

Caroline continued to stare at the space where I had been standing next to the tub.

“I’ll have Besse commence your packing,” I said. “And I will send George down to the thoroughfare for a cab sooner rather than later. I don’t mind paying the driver to wait a while if necessary. It’s best to begin a journey like this in the morning, when one is fresh.”

AS I MENTIONED EARLIER, Dickens’s and Dolby’s ship, the Russia, arrived in Queenstown Harbour on the last day in April, but none of the Inimitable’s friends rushed to Liverpool to welcome them. Telegrams from Dolby had made it clear that Dickens wished “a few days of solitary acclimatisation before resuming his duties and old habits.”

I translated this as meaning that the exhausted author would not be going straight to Gad’s Hill Place, nor would he stay in London (although he passed through there by train on May 2), but rather would continue on straight into the waiting arms of Ellen Ternan in Peckham. It turned out that I was perfectly correct in this assumption. I also knew through casual comments from Wills at the Wellington Street offices that the actress and her mother had returned from Italy only two days earlier.