Caroline Chisholm by Sarah Goldman

Author:Sarah Goldman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2017-08-10T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

Cultivating Fame

1848–54

Charlton Crescent, Islington, London, 26 February 1850

He was beginning to regret that he had come. She asked him to sit, so he perched on the edge of a tattered, ancient couch covered in dark green cushions. The whole room smelt musty, in need of airing; his nostrils twitched. Yet, there was something about Mrs Chisholm. She seemed to accept his condescension as her due, but also had her own conceit, as if by having him in her home she was conferring some honour on him, rather than the reverse. If nothing else, there was character here. He might yet harvest more from this visit than he had expected.

The old woman who had opened the door to him edged herself into the apartment. Resting her hands for a weary moment on the back of an armchair, she asked if he would take tea. Her familiarity suggested she was something more than a servant. As though reading his mind, Mrs Chisholm smiled and said, “My mother.” Then, “Mother, this is the famous author, Mr Dickens.” And turning back to him: “Mother does enjoy your stories. We await each week’s instalment of David Copperfield, and read it avidly. When we have time.”

The mother murmured something in agreement. As he strained to hear her, there was a crash from above, a splintering of broken glass, followed by a penetrating squeal. The mother gave a tired nod and shuffled from the room. “She looks after the little ones so that I can do my work,” Mrs Chisholm said. “The older boys are away at school.”

Abandoning domestic matters, she leant across her desk — an island of order and cleanliness amid the chaos — to pick up a bundle of letters tied neatly with blue ribbon, and carefully freed them from their bonds before passing them across to him. He watched her, his writer’s mind absorbing every detail. He took her likeness: she was a pretty, very diminutive, plump woman of from forty to fifty, with handsome eyes, though they had a curious habit of seeming to look a long way off.1

Now she was speaking to him, earnest, fired with her passion, her commitment to the struggling underclass of British society and its certain resurrection on the other side of the world: “These letters, you see, Mr Dickens, they tell . . . they show . . . how the merest person here can transform into a man or, indeed, a woman of worth, of substance. The British Isles are too full, but New South Wales is too empty. If the people will but emigrate, they will find good wages, good food and more than enough good land.”

She spoke, he noted, almost with a classical rhythm as one used to commanding an audience. Her words then flowed almost without stop, for more than thirty minutes. Surprised by her knowledge, he caught something of her fervour. Eventually, he asked her to pause; he wanted to consider the letters from her immigrants without distraction. Picking up

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