Bell Harry Read online

  Dickens was agreeable. It would have been a lot easier to take the train from Rochester, but he was happy to organise an expedition by carriage, if that was what the Fields wanted. The road was good between Rochester and Canterbury and his guests would enjoy the scenery. They could have lunch on the way.

  The Americans left London on 2 June 1869. They caught the afternoon train from Charing Cross and arrived at Higham station, just beyond Gravesend, at about three o’clock. From there, it was just a short carriage drive to Dickens’s country house at Gad’s Hill.

  The great man was waiting for them on the footpath outside. He was all smiles as he welcomed them. Dickens was fond of them both, but Annie in particular. She was intelligent and personable, the kind of woman he liked. Annie was very fond of him too.

  Dickens showed them the Swiss chalet in the grounds, where he often worked in the summer months, and then took them for a walk around the garden. His daughters joined them later for tea outside. They sat at a table on the lawn as Dickens told his guests about Gad’s Hill.

  ‘I first saw the house when I was a boy. My father pointed it out from the road and told me I could own a house like this one day, if I worked hard enough.’

  ‘And now here you are,’ said Annie.

  ‘Here I am. I’ve certainly worked hard enough for it.’

  They sat in the garden until it was time to dress for dinner. Later, Dickens took the Americans to his study and pointed out the dummy books on the shelves. The books had titles of his own invention: Socrates on Wedlock, a History of a Short Chancery Suit in 21 volumes, and a reminder of his time as a Parliamentary reporter, Hansard’s Guide to Refreshing Sleep. The seven-volume Wisdom of our Ancestors covered ignorance, superstition, the block, the stake, the rack, dirt and disease.

  Over the next four days, Dickens showed his guests around Rochester and other nearby places, where so many of his novels had been set. They visited Rochester Castle, on the banks of the Medway, and climbed to the top of the battlements to enjoy the view over the river. They saw the place now advertising itself as ‘Mr Pickwick’s Bull Inn’ and had a picnic lunch among the gravestones in the churchyard at Cooling. Annie found the graveyard every bit as gloomy as Dickens had depicted it in Great Expectations.

  But it was Canterbury that she and her husband really wanted to see. Canterbury was the city of David Copperfield, Dickens’ favourite book. He had put a lot of himself into the main character and was staunchly proud of the result.

  ‘We’re so looking forward to it,’ Annie told him. ‘We want to see all the places that David Copperfield saw, that you described so well in the book.’

  ‘We shall go on Monday,’ Dickens promised her. ‘I’ve ordered two carriages. They’ll be here at nine a.m. We’ll take a party and make a day of it.’

  He was as good as his word. Two carriages appeared at the appointed hour, each with a pair of postilions in top hats and scarlet coats. Dickens had invited his lawyer, Frederic Ouvry, to join the party. They all climbed in and set off for Canterbury.

  It was a lovely summer’s day. The recent weather had been dreadful, so the bright sky was more than welcome as they headed along the road. They changed horses at Faversham, then found a nice place in the woods beyond for a picnic lunch. It was afternoon by the time the cavalcade rolled into Canterbury at last.

  ‘This is so exciting,’ Annie told Dickens, as Bell Harry came into view. ‘I feel as if David Copperfield is walking along beside us.’

  ‘He’s sitting right opposite you in the carriage, Mrs Fields. I can assure you of that.’

  The cavalcade caused a stir in Canterbury’s narrow streets. Scarlet-coated postilions were an increasingly rare sight in the age of the railway train. Everyone stopped to stare as England’s greatest living writer and his guests were conveyed in state towards the cathedral. They got out near the Christ Church gate and went in at once.

  The sun was so hot that the shade of the cathedral offered a refreshing change. Evensong was about to start, so Dickens and the others decided to attend the service in the choir. Annie wasn’t impressed by the lacklustre ceremony, but Ouvry joined in the responses with gusto. Dickens was amused at the lawyer’s enthusiasm.

  ‘The man doesn’t believe in heaven or hell,’ he whispered to Annie. ‘Fancy Ouvry joining in the responses louder than anyone!’

  They went to look at the Black Prince’s tomb after the service was over. Then they spent some time at the Martyrdom before going out into the cloisters through the same door that Thomas Becket had used. From there they made their way to the Dark Entry and emerged at length onto the Green Court, on the north side of the cathedral.

  ‘It’s lovely.’ Annie turned to admire Bell Harry. ‘It’s one of the loveliest places I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘That’s why I sent David Copperfield to school here.’

  ‘You did, didn’t you? Dr Strong’s school in the precincts.’

  ‘“A grave building in a courtyard, with a learned air about it that seemed very well suited to the stray rooks and jackdaws who came down from the cathedral towers to walk with a clerkly bearing on the grass-plot.”’ Dickens quoted himself with feeling. ‘It was the sort of school I would have liked to have gone to myself.’

  ‘And was it based on the King’s School, where Christopher Marlowe went?’ Ouvry pointed to the school buildings across the court.

  ‘Not really. People think it was because that’s the only school in the precincts. I had to write a letter denying that Dr Strong was based on the headmaster of the time.’

  ‘But the buildings are the same, and the descriptions. It seems like the same school.’

  ‘Perhaps it does a bit.’ Dickens winked. ‘I just didn’t want the headmaster suing me for libel, that’s all.’

  They admired the Norman staircase before leaving the precincts through the Mint Yard. Dickens pointed out a rather mean-looking house as they walked back up Palace Street.

  ‘That’s where Cushman lodged for a while,’ he told the Americans. ‘The man who chartered the Mayflower.’

  ‘The Pilgrim Father?’

  ‘That’s the one. He was from Canterbury originally.’

  Annie Fields was intrigued to hear it. She studied the house with interest. Robert Cushman’s descendant Charlotte Cushman was a friend of hers in Boston.

  ‘Eighth generation, if I remember rightly,’ she told Dickens. ‘Charlotte is an actress. She played Lady Macbeth in front of Abraham Lincoln.’

  ‘Did she? Well, this is where her family started out.’

  They continued up the street until they came to Guildhall Street.

  ‘That’s the Theatre Royal.’ Dickens pointed the building out as they passed. ‘I did a reading of David Copperfield there years ago.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘When the book first came out. I got a very good reception from the audience. It was like the touch of a beautiful instrument, seeing them react to the story.’

  They had completed the circle and were standing in front of the Christ Church gate again. The empty niche above their heads had contained a statue of Christ before Roundhead troops shot it to pieces during the Civil War.

  ‘I put this gate in the book,’ Dickens told his guests. ‘“The battered gateway, once stuck with statues, long thrown down.” It’s in David Copperfield somewhere.’

  ‘You put a lot of Canterbury into the book.’

  ‘I did.’ Dickens spoke wryly. ‘The Copperfield sights have become big business here now. I’m plagued all the time by people claiming that this house or that house is where Uriah Heep lived, or Mr Micawber. They don’t seem to understand that the book is just a work of fiction.’

  ‘You could forgive them, though.’

  ‘They even say that I was living in Canterbury when I wrote the book.’

  ‘I take it you weren’t,’ said Annie.

  ‘No. I wrote it at home, in my study. But I have stayed at the Sun once or twice.’ Dickens indicated the hotel over his should
er. ‘I’ll give them that much.’

  They strolled along Burgate Street until they came to the city walls. St Augustine’s Abbey lay ahead of them, across the road. The others followed as Dickens led the way to the gate.

  ‘This is where St Augustine was buried,’ he told them ‘The man who reintroduced Christianity to Britain.’

  ‘Can we go in?’

  ‘There’s nothing to see any more. It became a royal palace after it was an abbey, and then a private house. It’s a missionary college now.’

  ‘Missionary?’

  ‘For the empire. There aren’t enough priests in the colonies. St Augustine’s trains them up and sends them out to the far corners of the earth. There are priests from St Augustine’s all over the world, wherever the British flag flies. They’re a part of our civilizing mission.’

  It was beginning to get dark as they turned back towards the cathedral. They had seen the best of Canterbury. They decided to leave the rest for another day and go home while it was still light.

  The postilions were glad to be on the move again. The coachmen whipped up the horses as soon as everyone was seated. The procession set off immediately down the High Street. They left Canterbury through the West Gate and took the road to Rochester and Gad’s Hill. Before long, Dickens and his guests were sitting back happily as day turned to night and the horses clip-clopped towards home.

  Annie Fields was as happy as anyone. She had had a lovely day out. They were almost back at Gad’s Hill before she remembered that they hadn’t seen Mr Wickfield’s house in Canterbury, where David Copperfield had first set eyes on both Uriah Heep and Agnes, his future wife.

  ‘I believe there is such a place,’ she told Dickens. ‘A very old house bulging out over the road? Lattice windows and beams with carved heads? Isn’t that how you described it?’

  ‘There are lots of houses like that in Canterbury. Any one of them could have been Wickfield’s in the book.’

  Gad’s Hill was lit up for their return. The servants came out with lights to welcome them home. The travellers went straight up to their rooms to dress for dinner. It wasn’t until they were sitting down for the meal that Dickens was more forthcoming with Annie.

  ‘I showed you all the best bits of Canterbury while we were there,’ he assured her. ‘I knew exactly what you wanted to see. I made sure that you saw it all. Believe me, Mrs Fields, you didn’t miss anything important.’

  ‘I believe you, Mr Dickens. Of course I do. Mr Fields and I had a wonderful time in Canterbury.’

  Later, when they were getting ready for bed, Annie discussed the great author with her husband.

  ‘He’s a sad man,’ she told him. ‘For all his money and success, and his kindness, he’s not a happy person. You can see it in his eyes.’

  ‘Yes, you can,’ Fields agreed. ‘He’s never been a happy man. Not for as long as I’ve known him.’

  ‘I guess it’s because of his childhood. Too much of Mr Micawber and Mr Murdstone. All he really wanted was a father who took proper care of him and sent him to school.’

  Fields nodded. ‘But he did well by us today. We got shown around the Canterbury of David Copperfield by the man who wrote the book.’ Fields kissed his wife goodnight. ‘Summer vacations don’t come any better than that.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The Skeleton in the Crypt

  On a cold January morning in 1888, two cathedral workmen were digging up the floor of the crypt when one of them hit something solid with his pickaxe. It appeared to be made of stone and lay just below the surface of the earth, not more than three inches deep.

  The workmen investigated. Before long, they had uncovered a long stone trough carved out of a single piece of Portland oolite. They removed the lid carefully and looked inside. The trough contained a pile of bones at one end, gathered around a human skull with an enormous gash in it near the top of the head.

  ‘Fetch Mr Austin,’ one of the men told the other urgently. ‘He’ll have to see this.’

  Austin was the cathedral surveyor. He came at once. He shared the workmen’s astonishment at what they had found.

  ‘It must have been somebody very important,’ he told them, as he stared at the bones. ‘Thomas Becket was buried only a few feet from here. Whoever it was wouldn’t have been buried in the crypt if he wasn’t very important.’

  ‘An archbishop?’

  ‘A saint? I don’t know. Somebody. We’ll have to find out, if we can.’

  Austin lived at the other end of the cathedral, in part of the Archbishop’s palace. Under his direction, the bones and skull were removed from the trough and placed in a large box. They were taken to his house and laid out on wooden boards in a spare room. Then they were covered with a cloth and kept under lock and key until someone with the necessary expertise could be called to examine them.

  Mr Pugin Thornton, a local surgeon, came round two days later. He had the anatomical knowledge to arrange the bones in the right order until an almost complete human skeleton lay on the boards in front of them.

  ‘A few bones are missing,’ he told Austin. ‘Probably got lost somewhere along the way. The body wasn’t buried as a skeleton. It was buried as a pile of bones grouped around the skull. The bones had obviously been removed from somewhere else first and then reburied in the crypt.’

  ‘What kind of person was it?’

  ‘A man. Middle-aged.’ Thornton was positive in his identification. ‘I’d say between 45 and 55 years old.’

  ‘How tall?’

  ‘At least six foot. Probably six foot two. The bones are very old, so he must have been a big person for his time.’

  Thornton pointed to the skull. ‘From a phrenological point of view, the skull is very interesting too. It probably belonged to a highly intelligent, highly perceptive man with lots of energy and organisational ability, but not someone to be trusted.’

  ‘You can tell all that just by looking at the skull?’

  ‘You can if you believe in phrenology.’

  ‘What about the gash?’ Austin indicated a gap in the skull, five or six inches long, above the left temple. ‘How did that happen?’

  ‘Hard to say. Could have been a sword cut. Somebody swiping at the top of the man’s head with a heavy weapon.’

  ‘A sword cut?’

  ‘Could have been. Or maybe something else. It would certainly have killed him, whatever it was.’

  A dentist confirmed Thornton’s estimate of the skeleton’s age at death. After examining the five remaining teeth, he put the man’s age at about fifty or so. The skull definitely belonged to a middle-aged man.

  ‘The question is who?’ said Austin. ‘A tall man of about fifty, killed with a blow to the head. Obviously an important person, to have been buried in the cathedral crypt. His grave lay immediately below Thomas Becket’s shrine upstairs.’

  Everyone in the precincts could think of an important churchman answering Austin’s description. Famously tall, St Thomas Becket had just turned fifty-two when the four knights ambushed him at the entrance to the crypt in 1170 and killed him with sword cuts to the head. But Becket wasn’t buried in the crypt.

  Agnes Holland, a canon’s daughter, had a theory about that. She had been one of the first to see the skeleton when it was dug up. She had noticed at once that a few of its bones were missing.

  ‘Am I right in thinking that some of Becket’s bones were removed from his coffin when it was exhumed from the crypt?’ she asked Austin.

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘In 1220, when the saint’s body was exhumed and taken to his new shrine upstairs. Weren’t a few bones removed by the Archbishop before he was reinterred?’

  ‘Good Lord.’ It hadn’t occurred to Austin. ‘Yes, I believe they were, now that you mention it. Archbishop Langton kept a few bones back to give to other churches as relics.’

  ‘Which might explain why this skeleton isn’t complete.’

  ‘Yes, it might. But only if these bones are Becket�
��s. Not otherwise.’

  It was an intriguing theory, yet not supported by the evidence. Austin pointed out the obvious flaw to Miss Holland.

  ‘Becket’s bones were burned in 1538,’ he told her. ‘Henry VIII’s men set fire to them when they destroyed the shrine.’

  ‘Not necessarily. Somebody’s bones were burned, but they might not have been Becket’s. Maybe the monks scooped up the real bones in a tearing hurry and reburied them in the crypt. They didn’t have time to lay the bones out properly, so they just shoved them into the trough any old how before they were spotted.’

  ‘In an untidy pile?’

  ‘Exactly. The monks were in too much of a hurry to do anything else.’

  That was certainly an explanation. Whether it was the right one remained to be seen. There was another flaw in Miss Holland’s argument. It was drawn to her attention by a clerical scholar who had come down from London to see the skeleton for himself.

  ‘The top of the skull is intact,’ he told her. ‘That means it can’t be Becket’s. The crown of his skull was sliced off by one of the knights when he was murdered. All the contemporary accounts agree on that.’

  ‘What about the huge gash in the skull, in just the right place? Perhaps the contemporary accounts got it wrong.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Miss Holland. The Latin accounts are unanimous that Becket’s corona was cut off with a sword.’

  ‘What caused the gash, then?’

  ‘I have no idea. Perhaps the workman with his pickaxe.’

  The scholar from London spoke with magisterial authority. Agnes Holland was temporarily disconcerted but rallied swiftly. She returned next morning with the fruits of her overnight research.

  ‘You can’t slice the top off a skull with one blow from a sword. It isn’t like a pineapple. And the Latin word corona means all sorts of things besides the crown of a skull.’

  ‘What are you getting at?’

  ‘Becket scholars took the word to mean that the crown of his head was severed by a sword, but it could just as easily have been his tonsure. That was often how the word was used in medieval times. It might just have been a tuft of his scalp that was cut off.’