Last Nocturne

by M. J. Trow

  ‘Whistler,’ Batchelor grunted. ‘What do you make of him, man-to-man, I mean?’

  ‘I’m biased,’ Grand said. ‘He flunked West Point – and not even George Custer did that.’

  ‘What happened?’ Batchelor asked.

  ‘They took him in because his daddy taught drawing there. They called him Curly, ’cos of his silly hair – the son, that is, not the father.’

  ‘Still got it,’ Batchelor remembered.

  ‘Indeed. Didn’t know one end of a rifle from another, but bucked authority every chance he got. Got more demerits than Ulysses S. Grant. In the end, Robert E. Lee kicked him out.’

  ‘Because he was a pain in the arse?’

  ‘Specifically because he wrote that silicon was a gas in a Chemistry exam. Actually, it was because he was a pain in the ass, but Lee was too much of a gentleman to say so.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘Went to Paris, like they all do. Joined the Bohemian set and discovered women and booze. He’d already discovered the noxious weed. Artistically – and I’d be the first to admit, James, that I’m out of my depth here – the guy goes for what he calls tonal harmony. Hence, the Nocturnes; his night paintings are like concertos. Black, apparently, is the new black. And it’s not only Ruskin who can’t stand him. Ask any of his models. He makes them sit – or rather, stand – for hours. His little white girl passed out with exhaustion. He only let his study in grey sit down with her feet up because she was his mother.’

  ‘Why have we taken him on, again?’ Batchelor asked.

  Grand rubbed his fingers together.

  ‘Oh, yes, I forgot.’

  ‘Your turn,’ Grand said. ‘Tell me about Ruskin. Apart from the pubic hair bit – I haven’t quite got over that yet.’

  ‘He’s pushing sixty now,’ Batchelor said. ‘His father was a failed businessman, his mother an Evangelical Christian.’

  ‘Fatal combination, I should think,’ Grand said.

  ‘I’m trying to see him through Whistler’s eyes,’ Batchelor said. ‘A lot of people see him as an Old Testament prophet …’

  ‘… hmm, the hair and the beard.’

  ‘And, of course, the blue eyes,’ Batchelor threw in. ‘When did you last see an English painting that didn’t have a biblical figure with blue eyes?’

  ‘Point taken.’

  ‘When he went up to Oxford, his mama and papa went with him.’

  ‘Of course they did,’ Grand nodded.

  ‘As a very young man, bearing in mind his insult to Whistler, he spent time and money defending J.M.W. Turner. From what I know of that bloke, he was worse than Whistler, painting-wise.’

  ‘It’s in the eye of the beholder, I guess,’ Grand shrugged.

  ‘Ruskin lost God, then found him again. He moves in pretty well-known circles – artists and academics all love him, but I’m not quite sure why. I think where Whistler has the edge is that his nemesis is just a threat deranged. First went mad in Matlock … er … seven years ago.’

  Grand had been there once. ‘Not much else to do in Matlock, is there?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t really like either of these two, Matthew, if I’m honest. Best they stand in a field somewhere and take pot shots, as opposed to paint pots, at each other.’

  ‘Ruskin would win,’ Grand said, downing his drink. ‘Whistler’s eyes are awful – hence the Nocturne – and he’d probably be holding the pistol the wrong way round anyway, if his West Point record is anything to go by!’

  SIX

  After the debacle with the unread papers of the previous morning, Grand and Batchelor spent longer even than usual poring over every inch of newsprint that London could produce over breakfast. Maisie was kept especially busy with filling up the coffee pot, often with tea, but, search and scour as they might, there was nothing of even tangential interest to be found. London University was threatening to offer degrees to women and there were all sorts of objections to putting up the Cleopatra obelisk on the Embankment. But that was all rather by the by. Finally, they came up for air and Grand stood up and stretched, going over to the window and looking out on a perfect spring morning. He peered this way and that up their quiet road and tutted.

  Batchelor had just had a good idea for the Great British Novel and was jotting it down, so didn’t respond.

  Grand tutted again, but louder.

  Batchelor concluded his train of thought and looked up. ‘What is it, Matthew?’ he asked, patiently. He didn’t know if he would ever have children, but if he did, then he would have had plenty of practice.

  ‘This street. It used to be really quiet. But now, some mornings, it’s like Piccadilly Circus out there.’

  ‘Really?’ Batchelor went to the other window and looked out. He turned back into the room. ‘Unless my counting skills are considerably worse than I thought, there’s only one person out there,’ he said.

  ‘Exactly,’ Grand whined. ‘At one time, the only people you ever saw were people coming here, but now, there’s all kinds of traffic.’

  ‘One man.’

  ‘Yes, for now, I grant you. One man today, hordes tomorrow. And,’ Grand peered round the curtains again, ‘he is very big.’

  Batchelor took another look. ‘He’s tallish, yes. But he has every right to be out there, surely? You seem a little grumpy today, Matthew – is it anything I can help with?’

  ‘No. Yes. No. Oh, I don’t know. We need to get back to the Grosvenor gallery, don’t we, get a second opinion on that painting of Whistler’s. I also need to take Lady Caroline out for lunch. It’s been days since I wined or dined her, or anything else come to that, and Lady Caroline needs a lot of …’ Grand left a gap but Batchelor wasn’t playing that game. ‘Anyhow, it’s going to be a difficult day to manage.’

  ‘It’s easy,’ Batchelor said, scooping up some marmalade on the last piece of toast and sitting back down. ‘You don’t even need Martin to work this one out. We go to the office, get Martin to come with us to the gallery. You can take Caroline to lunch, we’ll meet you there afterwards. How’s that?’

  ‘Sounds simple.’ Grand sat down as well. ‘But isn’t Martin off with his friend for lunch?’

  ‘Still no problem. We give Martin a time to finish lunch, and then we still all meet.’

  ‘Is that done?’ Grand might be a colonial, but he wasn’t an animal. ‘Giving a man a specific time to have had his lunch by?’

  ‘He does work for us, Matthew,’ Batchelor pointed out. ‘We can tell him to do whatever we like.’

  ‘I suppose so … we don’t tell Miss Wolstenholme, though.’

  ‘That’s because she brings an apple, a ham sandwich and a flask of cold tea every mortal day. It’s hardly Simpson’s, is it?’

  ‘I suppose so … well, let’s leave it at that, then. We’ll have lunch in our various places – actually, we are lunching at Simpson’s, apparently; Lady Caroline wants to discuss bridesmaid numbers for some reason – and then meet at the Grosvenor.’ Nodding to himself, Grand went up to dress for the day. Batchelor was left feeling a little confused. He had no idea men had bridesmaids, not even at society weddings.

  If anything, the brass plate outside the offices of Grand and Batchelor, enquiry agents, was even more shiny and sparkling than it had been the day before. The two men walked into the office with trepidation; neither was quite sure that Martin knew when to call it a day. But everything was as before, with the addition of Miss Wolstenholme, sitting at her pristine desk, typing a letter, under Martin’s instruction.

  ‘No, no, no, Miss Wolstenholme,’ Martin was saying in the tones of one at the end of his tether. ‘You never cross your hands when typing. That’s why the keys keep locking together. Look, watch me.’ He leaned over her from behind, hitching his cuffs back and making her almost pass out with unknown bliss. ‘You go like this and like this. See? See how much better that feels. Try it.’ He stepped back and saw Grand and Batchelor for the first time. ‘I’m sorry, sirs,’ he said. ‘I didn’t hear you come
in.’

  Miss Wolstenholme turned in her chair but seemed to have temporarily lost the power of speech.

  ‘Don’t let us interrupt,’ Batchelor said. ‘We’re just popping in to plan the rest of the day, if that’s convenient.’ If there was any irony intended, no one spotted it. ‘Essentially and long story short, we need to revisit the Grosvenor gallery this afternoon and we thought that it would be helpful if you could meet us there after your lunch, Alexander.’

  Miss Wolstenholme turned back to her typing. This was clearly not a conversation in which she needed to join.

  ‘Do you know the Grosvenor at all?’ Grand asked their assistant.

  ‘Know it?’ a voice came from the doorway, ‘we adore it, don’t we, Gan? Especially that simply wonderful Whistler in the second gallery!’

  Everyone turned. Martin sprang forward and towed his friend into the room. The man was much taller than he was and, if anything, he made Martin look even more handsome than usual. He was at least six two, having to duck his head to be sure not to hit it on the doorframe. His shoulders, though tending to slope, were wide, and his flowing coat only increased the impression of bulk. His curly hair was giving his bowler hat a challenge as to how it was to stay on his head. His sleepy eyes ranged over the people in the room and Grand was reminded of nothing so much as a James Whistler, grown large by some mad alchemy. Martin shook his arm as if to bring him to everyone’s attention.

  ‘Mr Grand, Mr Batchelor, Miss Wolstenholme, allow me to introduce my friend from university, soon to be down from Oxford and hoping to make his home in London, Mr Oscar Wilde.’

  Wilde stood there, looking at his feet. He shrugged a shoulder. It seemed his outburst about the Grosvenor gallery was caused by natural excitement – in fact, he appeared to be quite shy and retiring, difficult for one of his build as he would never be able to hide in a crowd.

  Grand, Batchelor and Miss Wolstenholme all nodded and muttered their hellos and then everything went silent.

  ‘Well,’ cried Martin, into the void. ‘Time for lunch, I think. Where do you have in mind, Oscar?’

  ‘I thought … well, I thought Simpson’s, Gan, if that suits you?’

  ‘Simpson’s sounds splendid,’ Martin agreed. ‘Would you care to join us, Mr Grand, Mr Batchelor?’ Polite to the last, he invited Miss Wolstenholme with a glance and a raised eyebrow, but she gestured to her ham sandwich and her apple and no one was embarrassed.

  Batchelor looked at Grand, who nodded. Why not all eat at Simpson’s? Grand had a private room booked anyway, far too small for five. It would be more convenient than anything, in fact, if only they could ditch Wilde somewhere along the way, always assuming he was let in in the first place; surely, Simpson’s wasn’t ready for anyone in a check suit that loud.

  The Grosvenor gallery, except on exhibition days, rarely had five people through the doors at once. Lady Caroline Wentworth of course was a regular, as was her gentleman friend – disappointingly close-fisted for an American. Two of the others Saunders had seen before, usually talking in loud and pretentious voices to each other in front of some of the more impenetrable canvases. The other one, he hadn’t seen before. He looked worryingly like a newspaperman and the gallery preferred to know when anyone from Fleet Street was within its walls. However, Lady Caroline Wentworth was a hard card to trump, so Saunders wandered back to the front desk to stack brochures and straighten piles of price labels, against the day. He kept an ear cocked for any shouting though – last time, Lady Caroline had had some kind of turn and had to be helped to a cab. Perhaps that enormous geezer … Saunders corrected himself, it had been ages since he made a slip like that, even in the privacy of his own head … gentleman, was her minder.

  Caroline clung to Grand’s arm for several reasons. One was that she was already finding Oscar Wilde rather trying company. His strange mixture of intense shyness and wild enthusiasms were hard to keep up with and his views on art bordered on the bizarre. He ought to choose uglier friends, was another thought that she couldn’t dismiss. Alexander Martin was stupidly good-looking, more so than any of the supposedly beautiful boys in any of the more esoteric paintings in the gallery. Next to him, Wilde looked like something which belonged in a zoo. At least, Lady Caroline thought she had heard him introduced as Alexander. But Wilde kept calling him Gan. This was one thing she could check and make it sound as if she was making light conversation, which was something very lacking in their little group.

  ‘Mr Wilde,’ she trilled, looking round at him past Grand’s protecting chest. ‘I can’t help noticing that you call Mr Martin “Gan” and I wonder what it is short for. The only name I can think of is Ganymede, but that can’t be right, surely?’ She gave one of her best cascading laughs, copied from the Jersey Lily herself.

  Wilde shuffled his feet and mumbled, but Martin took up the tale. ‘It is indeed short for Ganymede, Lady Caroline, and you may be the only person to have ever guessed it. It was my nickname at Oxford.’

  ‘Why?’ Grand asked, bluntly. Classical mythology was never given much time in the Grand household when he was a child, and he had had no real need for it since.

  Caroline laid a gentle hand on his arm. ‘Why, Matthew,’ she said, in the voice that promised there would be trouble when she got him home, ‘I would imagine it is because Ganymede is so beautiful.’

  Grand and Batchelor looked at her blankly, and Batchelor even went so far as to raise a shoulder and grunt.

  ‘He was cup-bearer to the gods?’ she said, a query creeping into her voice. ‘Mount Olympus. Zeus. Aphrodite.’ They remained blank. She sighed. ‘Well, I imagine it is because Mr Martin is unusually good-looking, and if you say you hadn’t noticed, I really will fell you with my parasol, Matthew Grand.’ Without turning her head, she added, ‘And you too, James, so there’s no need to look so smug.’

  Alexander Martin laughed and gave her a bow. ‘Thank you, Lady Caroline,’ he said. ‘It certainly is refreshing to have someone guess the origin. And to precis the story so well.’

  ‘There’s far more, of course,’ Wilde began, with a strange look at Martin. Batchelor, ever the watcher of men and picker-up of unconsidered expressions, noted it with interest but let the subject change by itself. It was quite a sudden change of subject, as these things go, because the air was suddenly rent by a scream from Lady Caroline which would strip paint.

  All eyes turned to her and Saunders came dashing in at the gallop, followed by the doorman. He had known that first time that the woman was as drunk as a lord and was pleased to be proved right. He had smelled the liquor as he had opened the door.

  She was standing at bay, holding onto Grand’s arm still and bracing her back against the wall, making a picture of a rather gloomy dead-looking animal by Landseer go all wonky and threaten to fall off its hook. Saunders didn’t know whether to save it or her, because he could tell one of them was going to hit the deck, any minute now.

  Grand’s eyes were wide, as would be any man’s who had had one of Lady Caroline’s best screams an inch from his ear. ‘Whatever is it?’ he asked, rather loudly as he was temporarily deaf and a little disoriented.

  His answer was another scream, but more muted. She let go of his arm and pointed to the door at the end of the gallery, which framed a man in a brown coat made of light material and obviously made for a much larger person. He was holding a broom and was caught like a badger at bay, head down and eyes wide.

  ‘It’s him!’ she squealed. ‘It’s the artist from the other time. The one with the paints. And the dead woman. It’s him.’ She looked round wildly. ‘Don’t you see, you idiots? It’s him. Look!’ Her finger was trembling and her parasol, clenched under her other arm, was poking holes into Landseer’s best heather-clad hillside. Saunders was of two minds. He was pleased that Landseer was far too dead to mind. But also concerned that he would have to have it mended by someone without his skills with mist-wreathed ling. But for now, he just needed to move that idiot caretaker. If he had told him once, he h
ad told him twenty times, not to enter the gallery in opening hours. The man really would have to go. And of course, Sir Coutts Lindsay would have to be informed.

  By now, Lady Caroline was sliding down the wall to land in a muddle of silk and lace on the floor. Grand and Batchelor hauled her up into a sitting position and Grand put her head between her knees; as a fiancé, it was just barely allowable. Wilde looked towards the caretaker being ushered out of the room.

  ‘Shame it wasn’t the ghost,’ he remarked, suddenly. ‘That would have been something.’

  Caroline, coming to, heard the word and fainted once again.

  In a flurry of running, shouting, cold compresses and hansom cabs, the gallery was finally at peace again.

  Saunders turned to the doorman. ‘If any of that lot – and I mean any – try to come in here again, call the police.’

  ‘But, Mr Saunders, sir … Lady Caroline …’

  ‘Especially Lady Caroline. Overwrought once is one thing. Twice is just being a gin-soaked trollop and I won’t put up with it. I shudder to think what Mr Lindsay will make of it all.’

  The doorman was a little more worried about Mrs Lindsay, the definite power behind the throne. She had once caught him a nasty one upside the head because he didn’t bow quite low enough to a visiting minor royal, so having one of the aristocracy carried out raving not once but twice was not going to be music to her ears. ‘And what about old Joe, sir? He caused it, after all.’

  Saunders thought for a moment. ‘No, let’s leave Joe out of it. He’s cheap and generally all right at keeping the place clean. Who else would you get to look after a building like he does for breakfast and dinner and ten pounds paid on New Year’s Day? Let’s leave it. I’m sure he won’t do that again. Did you see his face? He was as scared as she was. Ghost, indeed? Bloody students. Need horsewhipping.’ He remembered the damage to the painting in the gallery. ‘Shoot the bolt a minute and help me move this Landseer. Bloody thing weighs a ton.’ They strolled through into the gallery and he looked again at the damage.