DICKENS AND HIS DAUGHTER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3718, 6 October 1906, Page 3

DICKENS AND HIS DAUGHTER.

The Little Story of their “ Good-bye.” There are few sad stories which have been told so often, and none which honest folk would have more often told, than that of the concluding episode in the life of Charles Dickens.

A certain purely speculative in- ] terest attaches to Dickens’ death ( by reason of the fact that in dying \ he left a mystery unsolved — the ( mystery of Edwin Drood 1 Many' persons have been inter- i ested in the latest contribution to ] the history of Dickens’ “ last i phase', ” which is a description by 1 his youngest daughter of her last 1 talk with her father. Mrs Kate j t’erugin, the lady in question, con- i tributes this article to a recent 1 number of the “ Pall Mall Magazine.” She discusses all the likli- ] hoods and otherwise, of her father’s ] intentions towards the “Mystery” 1 And she eulogises Doctor Foster. 1 And then, suddenly, she ceases to be a Dickens’ student, and becomes once more her father s ( younger daughter; and the ensuing < passages, of simple unambitious prose, take 011 a solemn beauty, and glow most brightly with a magic ( fire. And they are crowned with € a crowning wonder — the wonder a ot truth. J “In the evening/' says Mrs c Perugin, in describing her last visit to Gaclshill during her father's lifetime, “ we went for s a stroll in the garden, but soon returned to the house, as he was fatigued ; and then he said that he would like to sit in the dining- g room for he took so much pleasure s in the new conservatory, that had 1 been finished during his absence, 1 that he preferred to be where he t could see the flowers. £ “There was a matter of some r little importance to myself that I t wished to consult him upon. This a I told him, and he said that later in the evening, when my aunt and sister went to bed, we would talk of it together. My sister then - played and sang and her voice, which was very sweet and thrilling reached us from the drawingroom where she sat alone. My father enjoyed her music, as he always did, and was quite happy, although silent now, and looking very pale I thought. At about eleven o’clock my sister and aunt retired; the servants were dismissed, and my father and I remained seated at the table; the lamps which had been placed in the conservatory were now turned - down, but the windows that led . into it were still open. It was a very warm, quiet night and there was not a breath of air; the sweet scent of the flowers came in through , the open door, and my father and I might have been the only creatures alive in the place so still ( it was.” Mrs Perugin thus continues her description of that last talk in the warm June night: “I told him of what was on my mind, and for a long time he gave his close attention to it, helping and advising me to come to a decision. It was very late when I at last rose from my seat and said that I thought it was time for him to rest, as he looked so tired ; but he bade me stay with him for a little, as he had much to say. He was silent, however, for some minutes after this, resting his head upon his hand ; and then he began talking of his own affairs, telling me exactly how he stood in the world, and speaking among other things of ‘ Edwin Drood,’ and how he hoped that it might prove a success. Again he was silent, gazing wistfully through the darkened windows ; and then in a low voice spoke of his own life, and many things that he had scarcely ever mentioned before.” Mrs Perugin was distressed by one peculiar feature of the conversation. “What greatly troubled me,” she says, “was the manner in which he dwelt upon those years that were gone by, and never, beyond the one mention of ‘ ‘ Edwin Drood,” looked to the future. He spoke as though his life were over, and there was nothing left. And so we sat on, he talking, and I only interrupting him now and then to give him a word of sympathy and love. The early summer dawn was creeping into the conservatory before we went upstairs together, and I left him at his bedroom door. But I could not forget his words, and sleep was impossible until so late in the morning that : when I went down to breakfast he • had already gone over to the chalet ’ where he worked during the warm weather.” | The next morning Dickens said . goodbye to his “ younger daughter.” And Mrs Perugin’s description of the incident is a piece of real magic. I must quote almost all of it: , “ My father disliked partings, 5 so I merely left him my dear love, j and intended to go away without s i any farewell; but as we sat in the porch waiting for the carriage that

was to take us to the station, an uncontrolable desire to see Inm once again came upon me, and was too strong to be resisted. I told them I must go for one short moment, and hurried across to the chalet, that stood hidden by trees at the back of the shrubbery, and after mounting the little outside staircase, found my father in the upper room, which he had converted into a summer study. His head was bent low over his work, and he turned an eager and rather flushed face towards me as I entered. On ordinary occasions he would just have raised his cheek for my kiss, saying a few words, perhaps, in ‘ the little language that he had been accustomed to use when we were children ; but on this morning, when he saw me, he pushed his chair from the writingtable, opened his arms, and took me into them, I hastened back to the house, repeating to myself, ‘ I am so glad I went —I am so glad,’ though why I was so glad it would have been difficult to tell.”