SIXTEEN .sx 'Wild yet domestic' :sx Wilkie's family mysteries .sx ( 1867-1868 ) .sx In the summer of 1867 Wilkie's work was once more disrupted by the urgent problem of finding somewhere to live .sx The lease on Melcombe Place ran out at the end of July , and for a while it seemed as though he would be turned out on the street .sx At the last moment he signed a twenty-year lease with Lord Portman for a house in Gloucester Place , parallel with Baker Street and just north of Portman Square .sx Number 90 ( now 65 ) Gloucester Place was a substantial terraced house , five storeys high , with plenty of room for family , visitors and servants .sx There was a dining-room on the ground floor , and the room behind it was probably used as a family sitting-room , for Wilkie took over the L-shaped double drawing-room on the first floor as his study .sx He loved the large , airy rooms , though he still found it difficult to avoid the business and noise of daily living , and the intrusion on his working time of thoughtless visitors .sx But it was a house for a man who had arrived and intended to settle , not for one who was uncertain of his domestic arrangements .sx It was also expensive .sx However , the lease included stables in the mews behind the houses , which Wilkie sublet for pounds40 a year , a sizeable contribution to the rent of the house .sx ( He was to become extremely irascible about the difficulty of getting his tenant to pay her rent) .sx Through his solicitors , he raised a loan of pounds800 to buy the lease , knowing that on his mother's death he and Charley would inherit , in equal shares , the pounds5,000 left to her by her aunt , even though , under their father's will , the rest of their capital was still tied up .sx Twenty years later , when Wilkie was about to move out of Gloucester Place , a visitor described it as dingy and cheerless , with a cold hall and stone staircase .sx Most of his friends thought it comfortable , even luxurious .sx Certainly Wilkie and Caroline undertook thorough renovations when they moved in - though Wilkie refused to have gas lighting , which he considered unhealthy .sx His houses continued to be lit by wax candles .sx Wilkie complained as usual about the slowness of the British workman , and took refuge first with his mother , then at Woodlands , the Lehmann's country house at Highgate .sx In September he reported sceptically , " The statement now is that they will be done in a week .sx .. Never mind .sx A certain necessary place has got the most lovely new pan you ever saw .sx It's quite a luxury to look into it .sx " .sx Wilkie kept three servants at Gloucester Place .sx Though naturally over the years individuals came and went , there seem usually to have been two women and a man , or boy .sx He described them in 1882 as a man , a plump parlourmaid and a small girl .sx During the move his servants were " models of human excellence " who worked hard and never grumbled :sx he gave the women a new gown each .sx Wilkie also kept a dog .sx For many years this was his much-loved Scotch terrier Tommy , who featured in a short story , 'My Lady's Money' of 1878 , in which he acts as a detective , helping to unravel the mystery .sx When Tommy died at an advanced age Wilkie wrote to A.P. Watt , " I should not acknowledge to many people what I have suffered during his last illness and death .sx " There was usually a cat as well , and he tended to attract stray animals :sx " .sx .. A kitten who has drifted into the house .sx .. is galloping over my back and shoulder , which makes writing difficult " .sx The house was filled with books ; the panelled walls were hung with pictures .sx Wilkie and Charley divided their father's paintings between them , and Jane Ward's daughter Margaret gave him the portrait of Harriet as a young girl in a white dress , by Margaret Carpenter .sx " Still like you after all these years " , Wilkie told his mother .sx He hung the picture in his study , with a portrait of his father and a painting of Sorrento by William Collins , which hung to the left of the massive writing table which had belonged to his father .sx Charley's portrait of Wilkie as a young man and the one by Millais were also in this room , and an etching of Dickens .sx His own Academy painting , 'The Smuggler's Retreat' , went in the dining-room .sx By the end of October the house was finished , and Wilkie and Caroline gave a house-warming dinner , which was also a private farewell to Dickens , about to leave for a reading tour of America .sx It was the first of many dinner parties at Gloucester Place .sx Wilkie took a personal interest in the cooking and preparation of the meals , always preferring French food to the English habit of enormous joints of meat and solid puddings .sx His experiments were sometimes bizarre , even disastrous .sx On one occasion , he and Frank Beard descended to the kitchen to concoct a 'Don Pedro pie' , so laden with garlic that it made them both ill .sx Wilkie was said to keep a French cook ; but the cook either lived out or was hired only for special occasions , as at Harley Street .sx Probably , as Frederick Lehmann suspected , Caroline did much of the day-to-day cooking .sx Wilkie was also one of the stewards at the enormous farewell banquet for Dickens in November , held at the Freemasons' Hall .sx This was a well-orchestrated and emotional occasion .sx Dickens had wavered for months about touring America with his 'Readings' .sx He finally decided to go , as Wilkie had privately believed all along he would .sx There were 450 guests , all male , in the body of the hall , and a hundred women in the purdah of the Ladies' Gallery , joined for coffee by the men .sx Caroline , with Carrie , now nearly seventeen , seems to have been among them .sx Wilkie wrote to the organizers twice to make sure that his request for two ladies' tickets would be met .sx Dickens left him shouldering a number of responsibilities .sx " I am finishing the 3rd act of the play - conducting All the Year Round - and correcting The Moonstone for its first appearance in London and New York .sx .. my very minutes are counted " , Wilkie told Harriet at the end of November .sx The play , No Thoroughfare , was adapted from the Christmas number All the Year Round as a vehicle for Charles Fechter and his leading lady Carlotta Leclercq .sx Wilkie and Dickens had first seen Fechter when he was a successful romantic actor in Paris .sx He created the part of Armand Duval in La Dame aux Cam e lias , a play then considered too shocking to be licensed in London , and Wilkie saw him in that role .sx But Fechter had ambitions to be a classical actor .sx In 1860 he came to London , and began to play Shakespeare , in English .sx Against all expectations he made a tremendous success as Hamlet , in spite of his corpulence , his French accent and his startling blond wig .sx He was a naturalistic actor of the French school that Dickens and Wilkie much preferred to the old-fashioned English style .sx Reporting a circus performance by monkeys , Wilkie considered , " We shall seem them in Shakespeare next - and why not ?sx They can't be worse than the human actors , and they might be better .sx " .sx In his short career on the London stage - he went to America at the end of 1869 - Fechter probably did more to change the style of English acting than any other single actor at the time .sx Wilkie's account of Fechter's preparation for No Thoroughfare suggests he was a nineteenth-century forerunner of Method acting :sx " Fechter at once assumed the character of Obenreizer in private life .sx .. The play was in his hands all day and at his bedside all night .sx " His Hamlet , Dickens thought , was " by far the most coherent , consistent , and intelligible " he had ever seen .sx Another witness described the characterization as " a living human being .sx .. Instead of delivering his words as if they had been learned by heart , [he] spoke them like an ordinary individual .sx " This , though it hardly seems worth remarking on now , was a revolutionary approach at the time .sx Wilkie gave a vivid impression of Fechter's performance in his novel of 1872 , Poor Miss Finch .sx Nugent Dubourg is giving advice to Mr Finch on the reading of the scene where Hamlet first encounters the Ghost :sx " What is Shakespeare before all things ?sx True to nature ; always true to nature .sx What condition is Hamlet in when he is expecting to see the Ghost :sx He is nervous , and he feels the cold .sx Let him show it naturally ; let him speak as any other man would speak , under the circumstances .sx Look here !sx Quick and quiet - like this .sx 'The air bites shrewdly' - there Hamlet stops and shivers - pur-rer-rer !sx 'It is very cold .sx ' That's the way to read Shakespeare !sx " ( Poor Miss Finch , Vol.1 , Chap. 23 , p. 289 ) .sx Fechter and Wilkie had much in common .sx Fechter , like Wilkie , loved good food and good company , but hated formality .sx He often received guests at his house in St John's Wood in his dressing-gown and slippers .sx The diners helped themselves , dined in their shirt-sleeves , and went into the kitchen to help the cook when they felt like it .sx Dogs were welcome ; after-dinner entertainment was provided in a delightfully informal way by the guests themselves .sx But the dinners were prepared by the French cook Annette , who was , in Wilkie's expert opinion , " one of the finest artists that ever handled a saucepan " .sx She had to put up with some eccentricity in her employer and his friends .sx On one occasion they ordered a 'potato dinner' in six courses ; on another the eight courses consisted of nothing but eggs .sx But this Arcadian idyll fell apart , like everything in Fechter's life .sx The culinary artist was dismissed in disgrace :sx " she has done all sorts of dreadful things " , Wilkie told Nina Lehmann , warning her not to employ her .sx " I wish I knew of another cook to recommend - but unless you will take me , I know of nobody .sx And .sx .. my style is expensive .sx I look on meat simply as a material for sauces .sx " Fechter made friends easily , but invariably quarrelled with all of them , as he did with all his business associates .sx He was hopeless with money , borrowing from one friend to lend to another , and Wilkie was undoubtedly one of those caught up in Fechter's cycle of debt , giving rather than receiving .sx Not only did he have a fearful temper , but he was paranoid to the point of madness :sx " .sx .. when he once took offence , a lurking devil saturated his whole being with the poison of unjust suspicion and inveterate hatred " .sx Wilkie seems to have been one of the few people who remained friends with him to the end .sx As the villain Obenreizer in No Thoroughfare , Fechter was at his best .sx The story , a hectic tale of mistaken identity , jealousy and murder , worked better on the stage than in print .sx It is full of stage 'business' , more visual than verbal , with Swiss settings that drew on Dickens' and Wilkie's memories of the journey to Italy of 1853 .sx The climax in particular , a " wintry flight and pursuit across the Alps " in which the hero is pushed over a precipice by Obenreizer but rescued by the heroism of the girl who loves him , recalls the crossing of the Mer de Glace , when Egg was nearly swept away by a block of stone rolling down the mountainside .sx The play opened at the Adelphi Theatre on 26 December .sx Wilkie gave a graphic account of Fechter's first-night nerves , confirmed by others who were present .sx His stage fright was so acute that he vomited continuously .sx Wilkie suggested a few drops of laudanum to calm him .sx " Unable to speak , Fechter answered by putting out his tongue .sx The colour of it had turned , under the nervous terror that possessed him , to the metallic blackness of the tongue of a parrot .sx " His dresser hovered in the wings with a basin , but once the curtain went up it was not needed :sx the play was a success and Fechter triumphed .sx No Thoroughfare ran in London for seven months before going on tour .sx