Charles Dickens' memories of his childhood days in a boneshaker black-anodising factory stole into first drafts of...
Bleak House
London. Michaelmas term lately over.
Fog. A real London Particular, the colour of old brown axle grease, it swoops and wheels around that curious region lying about the Haymarket and Leicester Square. It loiters and backpedals around a certain court and a long, whitewashed passage and leans its greasy, humid shoulder against a gaunt brick building, composed of bare walls, roof-rafters and skylights, on the front of which is the painted legend George's Shooting Gallery & Velocipede Academy, Etc.
If the fog might freewheel itself silently into George's Etc., it would observe a gathering of personages engaged in several sporting and athletic pursuits. Under the flaring gas-jets which thrown fantastical shadows against the whitewashed walls, the said pursuits are themselves observed by Apprehension, by Amusement, Anxiety, Suspicion and Impassivity. The most fantastical of these shadows are not those thrown up by those of Mr George's clientele engaged in pistol-shooting or in exercise of the broadsword, but of those fallen slave to the newest wonder of the age, the latest bubble of fashion, that iron-framed, steel-ribbed, brass-bound, elbow-rattling, teeth-clattering monster, the boneshaker.
The crack of the pistols and the clashing of foils is as nothing to the growling rumble of iron-shod wheels as they grind about the open space of the gallery like so many antediluvian tumbrils. For the nonce, our bold equestrians are young Richard Carstone, Ward in Chancery to Jarndyce, and a gentleman of the name of Guppy, of Kenge and Carboy.
And what of the observers? Apprehension watches: concern burns in Mr George's bright eyes, apprehensive for the tuition of his young charges, and apprehensive for the safety of his costly iron monsters, ready in an instant to leap to steady either, to seize the brute by the head should it seem for a moment to be getting the better of its erstwhile master.
Amusement watches: it twinkles in the wary, experienced eye of Mr Phil Squod, Mr George's factotum. Mr Squod stands against that rough, strong, primitive table with its great vice upon it and its files and screws and hammers and all those necessary implements for the furbishment and fettling of the iron monsters in his care. Indeed, Mr Squod is not unlike a rusty old boneshaker himself; his face and hands are very grimy and oily. The black of his clothing shines somewhat in the gaslight. His method of locomotion is very broad and swerving, accompanied by a clattering and a jangling of various metallic velocipedic implements harboured about his person. He's never been known to stand for any length of time on his own at the centre of any open space. Anxiety watches: pensive concern sits on Miss Esther's fair countenance. For what boots it to gain proficiency in directing a boneshaker when that which is most wanted is the agitation of the bones of Chancery? Suspicion watches: Mr Bucket (of the Detectives) stands aloof, bullseye lantern at his waist; but when did suspicion wear such a smiling placid mien?
Finally, Impassivity watches: impassivity like the unruffled surface of a profoundly deep well. Mr Tulkinghorn (for it is he) stands in the shadow beside the shooting targets. Unfathomably he observes the furious pedalling of Master Rick. For Richard has engaged with the iron monster in the manner of St George, but for all his fury, the dragon has not suffered him to achieve an early or an easy victory. Soon he must tire of the affray and that other George, the burly cooper, must needs be ready to catch both youth and machine in his strong arms.
"Stick to't young 'un." It is the grimy, but amused Mr Squod who exhorts the would-be velocipedist. "Twill come werry nat'ral..." which it is to be supposed that he means Master Richard's ankles. It is the turn of the young gentleman of the name of Guppy to try his skill again. Mr Guppy, despite the blushes occasioned to come by the tender presence of Mss Esther, is an apt pupil and Mr George's supporting arm is not required in the operation. Mr Guppy is a 'good seat' and he has a steady hand. Impassivity opines to himself, and without the least ripple on the surface that it is possibly the many long hours spent by that young man swivelling on one leg of his office stool at the chambers of Messrs Kenge and Carboy which have endowed him with this precocity of equilibrium. Even the rumble of the tumbrils is sweeter beneath Mr Guppy's whirling feet.
"Bravo!" cries Mr George, and he betakes himself to the further side of the gallery to the supervision of another customer who is cutting such figures in the air with his pistol that he appears to be directing an invisible orchestra rather than engaging in target practice.
Thus it is that he is not at hand to personify Apprehension when Mr Guppy relinquishes the iron monster to Master Richard to try the exercise of his 'connecting rods' once more. Ah youth! And the impetuosity obtained when the eyes of the world are upon it, and more so when the work includes the sweet glances of the gentler sex.
Richard grasps the steering bars of the monster and applies himself manfully to the pedals. He describes such sweeping arabesques that the onlookers are obliged to withdraw somewhat. The shadows become more fantastical and the tumbrils very mighty; but alas poor Rick, the iron monster is indeed a bad master, and allowed it head, is devilish hard to check in full career. Rick's progress is over-precipitate, and upon losing his footing, the dreadful engine makes a fearful dart crab-like across the gallery. A terrible crash, and he is down! A scream, a shout of warning, and the crack of a pistol; for the conclusion has also brought down the aspiring marksman and his piece has discharged abruptly.
Confusion reigns. Mr George attends upon the fallen velocipedist, from whom there is a vast effusion of blood; Mr Squod attends upon the fallen monster for who but he can say what bendings of cranks, what twisting of rims, what sundering of spokes it may have sustained; Miss Esther has swooned away and is attended by the capable Mr Bucket... and what of Mr Tulkinghorn? Can it be that cold-hearted impassivity has fainted too? Mr Guppy is at his side and finds him cool indeed, for the fateful pistol-ball has pierced Impassivity to the heart. But what is this? Close by Mr Tulkinghorn's heart, Mr Guppy's hand encounters a paper, a paper the import of which he knows too well. In a moment he has bestowed the paper in his own bosom, in a moment he is mounted again upon a boneshaker and in a moment the whitewashed passage is re-echoing to the furious rumble of tumbrils. "George!" It is Mr bucket who commands. "George, pursue him, quick man; your best expedition, at once!"
It's a pity that Dickens, having brought the Jarndyce will to light and bumped off the sinister Mr Tulkinghorn, abandoned this episode and deprived posterity of the first bicycle chase in literature.
© David Eccles
Cycling Plus, September 1993