Chatterton

by Peter Ackroyd

  ‘I never know what is mine any more.’

  There was only one cab waiting at the Oxford Street stand, the breath of the horse steaming visibly around the hunched figure of the driver. To Chelsea!’ Meredith shouted, as he closed the door upon his friend. The driver was sucking on a clay pipe and turned around only briefly before raising his whip. Meredith looked in at Wallis through the half-open window. ‘Of course it is all an illusion,’ he said. ‘Art is just another game.’ But Wallis was thinking once again of Mary Ellen Meredith; he stared at her husband without hearing what he said, and then the horse drew him away.

  Without company now, Meredith’s face lost its brightness and he turned back from the cab stand with a puzzled expression. He did not want to return home, not yet, and so he wandered along Oxford Street. In the gathering darkness the faces of those he passed seemed more vivid, and in all their clothes and their movements they seemed to be showing him their histories, beseeching him to understand them. The city had become one vast theatre – not the theatre of his imagination, either, but that of Astley’s or the Hippodrome, tawdry, garish, stifling, real. He tripped against a stray gas-holder, ready for the pole of the lamp to be fitted into it, and two small boys screamed out in delight. ‘Do yer mother know yer out?’ one of them called over to him, and the other took up the refrain with “Ow’s yer poor foot?’ Meredith laughed with them and, in sudden exhilaration, he look several small coins from his pocket and tossed them towards the two boys. As they scrambled for them on the pavement, he returned with lighter tread to Frith Street. He slowed down at the corner, however, and began determinedly to whistle as he approached his house.

  As soon as Mary heard him she went across to the chimney piece, carved in Grecian form, and kept her back turned to him as he entered the room. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked. But he asked her gently.

  ‘Nothing.’ Then she added, ‘I was thinking.’

  ‘What were you thinking about, my dearest?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t remember.’ She still had her back turned lo him, and in that instant he realised how little he really knew of her. Two horses passed in the street outside and with a smile she faced him. ‘I was thinking about that,’ she said. ‘I was thinking about sound.’

  It was this moment that Meredith remembered when, two weeks later, he received a letter from Henry Wallis. He read it aloud to Mary as they sat at breakfast: ‘My dear Meredith, I hope you are still game to sit to me (he is not a stylist, my dear, but shall I go on?). I ask you so soon after our conversazione because I have had a great good stroke of luck. Do you remember Peter Tranter who joined us in the Blue Posts on one convivial occasion? It was he who chucked his waistcoat into the Thames if you recall –’ Meredith looked up to see if his wife had enjoyed this aside but she merely raised her eyebrows. ‘It is the life of the male, my dear,’ he said; but not apologetically. Then he went back to the letter: ‘Well it happened that I fell into conversation with him a few nights back and quite by chance he informed me that his very particular friend, one Austin Daniel – this Daniel is a scene painter at Astleys and may not be unknown to you. It was he who used the figures of Michael Angelo for the pantomime of the Enchanted Palace, and the proprietor said they were too small. But I digress (yes, you do, dear Wallis). In any event, it transpires that this very Daniel now occupies the lodgings in which Chatterton expired. I asked Tranter to call upon him at once, to request my use of this room pro tem, to which the said Daniel has readily agreed. My dear Meredith, I trust you will understand how important this may be and, if I could be assured that you are still ready to sit to me, I believe I will be able to create a work which would be worthy of those ideals which we have discussed. I do beg of you to write to me this day, with your answer. My respects to Mrs Meredith, who I hope may be persuaded to join us at Chatterton’s fatal lodgings. Yours very truly, Henry Wallis.’

  Meredith put down the letter. ‘He signs with a flourish.’

  ‘What were those ideals which he mentions?’ Mary was about to leave the table, but she stayed for the answer.

  ‘He wants to be modern. He wants to paint a new world. Poor Wallis has his fancies, you see.’

  ‘I wish,’ Mary replied quietly, ‘that you had some.’

  Meredith climbed the staircase of a tenement in Brooke Street, Holborn, preceded by the servant girl who had opened the door to him. ‘Mind how you go, sir,’ she called out – although he was immediately behind her – ‘There’s a looseness somewhere in these boards. You could take a nasty tumble.’ Meredith laughed, and she jumped. ‘Oh sir,’ she said, ‘I didn’t know you was so close.’ With a giggle she ran on ahead, and was now briskly rapping at the door on a tiny landing at the top of the house. ‘Here’s a gentleman!’ she shouted and then, with another giggle, brushed past Meredith and ran down the stairs, tightening the strings of her cap as she did so.

  He waited for a moment and then, hearing no noise from within, gently opened the door; but he stepped back quickly when he saw Wallis’s body lying on a bed, one arm trailing down upon the floor. But the body spoke: ‘Don’t be alarmed, George. I’m rehearsing your part.’

  ‘Oh, my apologies. I had no idea this was a theatre. A private one, I trust.’

  ‘The better I impersonate you, dear George, the better I paint you.’ Wallis got up and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘Has Mrs Meredith not come with you?’ He asked this casually, as if the answer could be of very little importance to him.

  ‘No, she could not come. Her dear father called, and insisted on driving her through the park like some superannuated Phaeton.’ In fact Mary had not mentioned the sitting again after he had read out Wallis’s letter, and he presumed that it held no interest for her.

  Wallis got up quickly. ‘Now tell me how you like my garret.’ He put out an arm as if introducing him to the room – which, indeed, was so small that for a moment Meredith saw himself as an intruder in a dolls’ house. ‘You came just in time. I’ve completed my first sketches.’

  ‘So this is where the poor poet died.’ Meredith turned in a circle, his boots scraping against the worn wooden boards of the floor. ‘How does Shelley put it? Rose pale, his solemn agony had not yet faded from him? Nonsense, no doubt.’ He felt the bed with his hand and then knelt upon it to look out of the window, across the roof of Furnivals Inn and towards the blackened dome of St Paul’s. ‘Your friend’s bed is very hard,’ he said.

  Wallis was scattering small pieces of paper across the floor. ‘Austin Daniel lives downstairs. This is his servant’s room.’

  ‘That girl?’

  ‘Her name is Pig. Don’t ask me why.’ Meredith had no intention of doing so; he was watching in amusement as Wallis continued dropping bits of paper around his feet. Wallis caught his glance. ‘In Catcott’s account of Chatterton’s death,’ he went on, ‘we are told that pieces of torn manuscript were found beside the body. I’m glad that you’re amused by my poor attempts at realism.’

  ‘Call it verisimilitude.’

  ‘Call it what you will. It is the same thing.’

  ‘Well, it is the same room.’ Meredith put his elbow on the window ledge and leaned upon it, his pale face and red hair silhouetted against the winter sky. ‘From poet to Pig. But this room is no sty.’ He looked around at the chair and table placed neatly at the foot of the bed – carefully dusted and polished although, to judge by the antiquity of their style, they might have been used by Chatterton himself. The bed was of a similar age: it was unlikely that Pig knew she slept upon a bed of death, but was it possible that she had bad dreams? There was a small plant on the ledge beside him and, as he examined the way in which the thin and pliant stalk curled against the window pane, he realised that this must be her only possession.

  Wallis was dragging a battered wooden chest from beneath the bed. This is not Pig’s box,’ he said. ‘But she has given us gracious permission to use it.’ He opened the lid; there was nothing inside, but he filled it with manuscript papers before pushing it aga
inst the side of the whitewashed wall. Then he stepped back into the opposite corner, and surveyed the scene. ‘Something is missing,’ he muttered to himself.

  ‘Me?’

  Wallis had not heard the question. With quick movements he walked towards Meredith, leaned across him and opened the window. The cold November air filled the small room. Then he moved the small wooden chair a few inches, and flung his own coat upon it. He went across to the chest and put it at an angle to the wall. Then he stepped back into the corner again.

  Meredith had been watching all this activity with interest. ‘Is it becoming more real, Henry?’

  ‘When you are lying dead upon the bed. Only then will it be real.’ He examined Meredith now for the first time. ‘Could you remove your coat and boots?’

  ‘Then I will become a perfect Chatterton and surely die. Do you feel the draught from the window?’

  Wallis had sat down upon a stool, and put a wooden board across his knee. ‘Then shut it up, shut it up,’ he said, distracted. ‘I know how it was. I will be able to recall it.’ He had taken a large sheet of rough drawing paper and placed it on the board, fastening it at the top with two pegs. Throw your coat and boots to me, George. They will be out of sight.’ Meredith did so. ‘And now lie down upon the bed.’ Wallis’s manner was peremptory, but already he was absorbed in his work. ‘Now move your head towards me. So.’ He turned his own head so that he was staring down at the floor. ‘No, you look as if you are about to fall asleep. Allow yourself the luxury of death. Go on.’

  Meredith settled more deliberately onto the bed, and at once felt something digging into his back. ‘Did you ever read,’ he asked, ‘the story of the princess and the pea?’ He got up for a moment, and found a small red button lying on the sheet beneath him. He put it into his trouser pocket and then lay back again. ‘I can endure death,’ he said into the air. ‘It is the representation of death I cannot bear.’

  ‘Let your right arm trail upon the floor. Thus.’ Wallis put his own arm down and his fingers brushed against the wooden boards. ‘And clench it. Clench it as if you were holding something. I must see the motor movements in your hand.’

  Meredith followed these instructions, but he was silent only for a moment. ‘I seem to be clutching thin air, Henry. Is that some emblem of the poet’s life? Some symbol, perhaps?’

  But Wallis was now drawing the scene he had devised; he used black chalk, fastened on a port-crayon, and said nothing at all until he managed to sketch the curve of Meredith’s arm. ‘I can add the details in the studio. I just need the general effect now.’

  ‘I see. So the greatest realism is also the greatest fakery?’ Again Wallis did not reply but continued rapidly to sketch. ‘May I…’ Meredith began, but Wallis put up his chalk to stop him.

  ‘Please stay quiet for a few moments, George. I need that expression.’ He worked in silence for two or three minutes. ‘Now you may speak.’

  ‘Now I have nothing to say.’ But he was silent only for a moment. ‘Did I tell you, Henry, that I dreamed of Chatterton the other night? I was passing him on some old stairs. What does that signify?’

  ‘I believe stairs are an emblem. Was that your word? Stairs are an emblem of time.’

  ‘But why was I showing him a puppet?’ Meredith gazed up at the ceiling, noticing for the first time how decayed it was, how blackened with soot and grease, and how one dark stain had taken on the lineaments of a face. With a sudden sense of oppression he realised that this may have been the last thing Chatterton saw on earth, like the prisoner looking at the walls of his dungeon before he is led away… he closed his eyes and tried to imagine that last darkness. But he could not. He was George Meredith. He knew only the things George Meredith knew. There could be no escape for him yet.

  ‘Hold still. I need that light upon your hand.’ Wallis’s tongue protruded slightly from his lips as he worked upon this. Then with a sudden flourish he wrote something in the right-hand corner, put down his chalk and leaned back against the wall. ‘I am so pleased we came here,’ he said. ‘This is the room. This is the actual bed. This is the London light. There is no reality, George, except in visible things.’ He looked around, clearly delighted with everything he saw.

  ‘Can I move now?’ Meredith sat up, and rubbed his right shoulder. ‘I presume you have finished?’

  ‘For the moment.’

  ‘A moment! It seems like an age.’ Wallis blushed and Meredith added quickly, ‘Not that I object to it. I enjoy it. It is a delightful way to spend one’s morning. Then in a few days I will call on you your studio, you will dress me and you will make a small painting. Am I correct?’ Wallis nodded. That will be delightful, too. Then you will transfer that small picture to a larger canvas. At the end of some weeks, or even months, the painting will be complete. Delightful once more.’ Wallis had been looking curiously at the light which was falling across Meredith’s face, and now he look up a fresh sheet of drawing paper to begin sketching again. But he was smiling, as Meredith continued. ‘It will be lovely, but there is no need to talk of reality. You will have created a costume drama, a tragic scene worthy of Drury Lane. These visible things are stage props, mere machinery.’

  ‘Stop!’ Wallis held up his chalk. ‘Stop in that position! Close your eyes and think of nothing. Evacuate your mind as I draw you.’

  ‘Nothing could be easier.’

  Wallis worked on in silence and Meredith seemed to sleep, the stillness broken only by the angry buzzing of a fly which was trying vainly to escape through the closed window. But there was a sudden rap at the door and the painter, annoyed at the interruption, called out, ‘Who is it?’ After a few moments they both heard muffled sounds, as if someone were speaking confidentially to the door itself. ‘Who’s there?’ Wallis shouted out again. The door opened very slightly, and the tip of a nose emerged from behind it. Meredith sat up and laughed out loud. ‘Pig, dear Pig, do come in!’

  She entered warily. ‘Excuse me, sirs. I didn’t know if you was decent so I told her to wait.’ She jerked her head back in the general direction of the stairs.

  ‘Pig, dear Pig, are you by any chance related to Francis Bacon?’

  ‘I am a Trotter, sir. A Trotter from Hammersmith and always have bin.’ She straightened her cap slightly and stared at Meredith, as if daring him to disagree with her. ‘And all of us Trotters in service, I’m glad to say.’ Then she recalled her business with Wallis. There’s a lady downstairs wishing very graciously to come up if you would be so obliged, sir. Are you wishing that she be brought up directly or left exactly where she is?’

  ‘Did she give her name?’ he asked, and at this moment Mary Ellen Meredith walked into the room. Wallis rose suddenly from his stool, and knocked his drawing board onto the floor.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Mary said. ‘I seem to have come at an inconvenient time, as always.’

  ‘No. Not at all. No.’ Wallis and Pig were both kneeling on the floor, rivalling each other in their efforts to pick up the sketches which had slipped from the board. ‘We have quite finished.’ Wallis waved Pig away. She rose to her feet and, looking at each one of them in turn, proceeded backwards out of the room.

  Meredith lay upon the bed, his hands cupped beneath his head, and smiled at his wife. ‘Forgive me, my dear, but I cannot move. I am the dead or dying poet.’

  ‘I know. Or, rather, I know that you are posing as one.’ She turned to Wallis who had got up from the floor and was now, with bowed head, placing his sketches in order. ‘Is my husband a good model, Mr Wallis?’

  ‘Ah –’ Wallis looked at her in confusion.

  ‘I am a model poet, at least. I am pretending to be someone else.’

  ‘So this is the famous garret.’ She seemed to ignore her husband, but Wallis noticed how nervously she played with the string of amber beads at her wrist; she was twirling them around and the sunlight from the window caught them, sending flashes of colour across the small room.

  ‘And think of all the passions that heated it, my
dear. Even here on this bed.’

  ‘I thought you were dead, George.’

  ‘But dead men still tell tales.’

  ‘May I see the sketches, Mr Wallis?’ She turned hurriedly towards the painter, and he stood beside her as she looked at the work which he had completed that morning.

  ‘You see here,’ he was saying, ‘how the shadow falls. But forgive me.’

  ‘Forgive you? Forgive you for what?’ She had said this involuntarily, and played still with the amber bracelet.

  ‘I mean that you already know about such things. George is so fluent –’

  ‘No, believe me, I know nothing. George never speaks of serious things. Not to me.’ She was scrutinising the sketch of her husband lying dead upon the bed.

  As they spoke together Meredith once more adopted Chatterton’s pose and, with his head twisted in an even more uncomfortable position, whispered to his wife, ‘Why not look at the great original rather than the impressions of him?’

  ‘You always told me to rely upon first impressions, George.’

  All three of them laughed at this, no one louder than Meredith himself. ‘But am I not an object to set your soul on fire? I am, as Henry says, so real.’

  ‘You are hardly real at all.’ She spoke very softly, still examining I ho drawings.

  ‘You think me unnatural, my dear?’

  ‘I find you more natural on paper.’

  ‘My own, or the sketches here?’

  ‘Both, no doubt.’

  ‘So I am a forgery but my writing is not?’

  ‘You must ask your looking glass that question.’

  ‘But you are my looking glass.’

  ‘No. I am only your wife.’ Wallis was startled by the frankness with which they talked in front of him, but Mary turned to him again as if nothing particular had been said. ‘Tell me how you will proceed with these sketches, Mr Wallis. I like to have every detail, you know, so leave nothing out.’ She glanced briefly at her husband who, from his still recumbent position, was surveying them both with a small smile. ‘George will pretend not to listen, of course, but he will hear everything. That is his way.’