“What choice do we have? That is all he left.”
“The man just died-all is in disarray and grief in England, I am sure. We need to discover everything we can about how Dickens intended to finish the book. If we can reveal exclusively in our edition alone how it was meant to conclude, we shall defeat all the stealthy literary pirates.”
“How shall we do it, Mr. Fields?” asked Osgood, increasingly excited.
“Courage. I shall go to London and use my knowledge of its literary circles to investigate what was in Dickens's mind. Perhaps he even wrote more before his death that he did not have the chance to hand over to his publisher-it may be sitting in some locked drawer while his family is crying out their eyes and putting on mourning clothes. I must go about coolly until I find at least a hint of what he intended. Yes, yes. Take it quietly, tell no one outside these walls our plan.”
“Our plan,” Osgood echoed.
“Yes. I will find the end to Dickens's mystery!”
ON THAT DAY in June, Osgood went from quietly mourning the death of Charles Dickens to plunging neck and heels into spinning out their practical plans. He asked Rebecca to cable John Forster, Dickens's executor, with an important message: Urgent. Send on all there is of Drood to Boston at once. They had the first three installments and needed to receive the fourth, fifth, and that sixth installment that the news papers had reported he'd been finishing when he died. Osgood ordered the printer to begin setting the existing copy of The Mystery of Edwin Drood immediately from the advance sheets they already had. In this way they'd be ready to add in whatever could be gleaned of the end and go to press immediately.
Osgood busied himself over the next week helping draw up details for Fields's trip to London. The senior partner would leave as soon as he'd settled some pressing affairs of the firm.
Not long after Dickens's death, Officer Carlton had delivered the shocking news about Daniel. Osgood had sent him to the docks to retrieve those three latest installments sent from England in response to Osgood's cable. It was yet another test to prevent emotion from becoming paralyzing.
Daniel Sand's senseless accident caused Osgood to feel a sadness of heart more intimate and stranger than that brought on by Dickens's death. The loss of Dickens was shared by millions around the world as though a personal blow to every home and hearth. Stores were closed the day of the news, flags flown low. But poor Daniel? Who would mourn? Osgood, certainly, and naturally Daniel's sister, Rebecca, Osgood's bookkeeper. Otherwise, it was an invisible death. How much more real this seemed, in a way, than Dickens's apotheosis.
When Daniel died, Osgood expected Rebecca to stop coming to work for a period. But she did not. She was as stoic as ever in her black crepe and muslin, and she did not miss one workday.
The police had left it to Osgood to inform Rebecca about Daniel. As he told her, she began to tidy her surroundings, as if too busy, with no time to listen. Her teeth clenched as a struggle brewed behind her steady face. Wide eyes closed, her thin mouth cracked, and soon the battle was lost as she fell back into her chair, head in hands.
“Are there relatives I may send for?” Osgood had asked. “Your parents?”
She shook her head and accepted a handkerchief. “No one. Did Daniel suffer greatly?”
Osgood paused. He had not told her about the police suspicions of opium use, about the telltale puncture marks on Daniel's arm. He decided at that moment not to tell her. His sympathy for Rebecca was too strong, the details of Daniel's death too painful to utter. It would be a blessing for them both to hide it from her.
“I do not think he did,” Osgood said gently.
She looked up with red-rimmed eyes. “Would you tell me one thing more, please, Mr. Osgood? Where was he coming from?” she asked, and gave him her full attention.
“From the harbor, we believe, as it happened in Dock Square. He was to pick up some papers at the docks before… before the accident.”
Her lips pursed and her eyes filled before he could say more. Though he would not have judged any kind of reaction on her part, he admired how Rebecca had neither attempted to put her grief on display nor to hide it. Without thinking, he had taken her hand and held it in his. It was a touch of competence and comfort. It had been the first time he had touched his bookkeeper-any physical contact between men and women being against firm rules. He held her hand just until she had seemed calmer, then let go.
After a week passed and she had continued to come to work without any time off, Osgood invited her into his office, the door left open for decorum's sake. “You know it would be seen as acceptable if you'd take time to grieve for Daniel.”
“I will stop wearing mourning dress to the offices if I am a distraction, Mr. Osgood,” she said. “But I will not leave, if you please.”
“Upon my soul, Rebecca-do not always wear such a brave face,” said Osgood.
“I do not want to disappoint you or Mr. Fields by staying away, Mr. Osgood.”
Osgood knew Rebecca's work meant much more to her than many girls. Some who applied for positions with eager pronouncements counted the days on their desk registers until they could find a man to marry, though since the war women far outnumbered men in the city and the search for suitors could be protracted. He also knew Rebecca was concerned that she show no weakness to Fields, even under the circumstances. The idea of young working women in the office was one thing for the liberal-minded senior partner. Divorced women was another.
“I shall respect your wishes,” Osgood had said, upon which she returned to the tasks waiting at her desk.
The end of Rebecca's marriage had first brought her from the country to the city, with her younger brother accompanying her as both her ward and guardian. Osgood had needed two and a half days to persuade Fields how impressive and prepared she had been in their first meeting, though Osgood would never mention that private campaigning to Rebecca after she was hired. He did not see her divorce as a liability nor did he wish to suggest anyone would. “You say we need employees here willing to fight,” Osgood had told Fields at the time, “and Miss Sand has had to endure the meanest treatment imaginable for a young woman.”
Osgood thought about Daniel's mission that day at the harbor. He was to meet the ship from London, where a messenger would hand him-and only him-the advance sheets for the fourth, fifth, and sixth installments of The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Fields, Osgood & Co. was publishing the only authorized American edition of the serial novel in one of its periodicals, Every Saturday. Readers would find the new parts of Drood there first, set from the “advance sheets furnished us by the author.” This fact they proudly announced in each issue, as well as the fact that their publication was the only one for which Charles Dickens received any compensation. Other American magazines-including Harper's-could obviously make no such claims; nor would theirs appear until several weeks later.
For this reason, because of this competition, Daniel Sand's missions to the harbor had been kept quiet. Sending a young clerk would be far less conspicuous than sending a well-known partner like Osgood. Pirates from other publishing houses would loiter at the piers to try to intercept popular manuscripts coming from England before they were claimed by the authorized publisher. This breed of fiend called themselves Bookaneers and had vulgar names: Kitten, Molasses, Esquire, Baby. They sold their services to publishers in New York and Philadelphia or local Boston firms, and Osgood himself had been approached by some of them over the years, though he'd adamantly refused to engage in such techniques.