Chatterton

by Peter Ackroyd

  ‘Perhaps it found him.’

  ‘I know.’ The wind stirred the tops of the trees, and he noticed how some of the pine needles had fallen from them and were suspended on the lower branches like clumps of hair.

  ‘But if the painting is a fake,’ she went on, ‘does it mean –’

  ‘The manuscripts?’ Philip had already considered this possibility, that the Chatterton documents were not what Charles believed them to be; but he had not known how to suggest this to her.

  ‘And you remember,’ she was saying, ‘how convinced he was. He was so excited about those papers.’ It seemed to her that Charles himself was being removed from the world once again, sliding towards the fire which would consume him. She could not allow this to happen – the truth he had found in his discoveries, the trust he had placed in them, must not be seen to have been false. It was necessary to protect him, even in death. ‘We have to get them back,’ she said. ‘Before any more harm is done.’

  Philip knew what harm she meant: it was best to let the manuscripts be, to leave them as they were at the time of Charles’s death and make no further effort to prove or to disprove their authenticity. Had he not always said to Philip that there is a charm and even a beauty in unfinished work – the face which is broken by the sculptor and then abandoned, the poem which is interrupted and never ended? Why should historical research not also remain incomplete, existing as a possibility and not fading into knowledge?

  ‘I should never have given them to Harriet,’ Vivien was saying. ‘But I didn’t know what I was doing. I was so shaken by Charles’s death. It was so difficult for us –’

  ‘There’s a hole here!’ Edward shouted. ‘A hole for a rabbit! It’s like Alice in Wonderland!’

  ‘Everyone thought I was bearing up. That was the phrase they used. But I wasn’t. It was just that everything seemed to be happening to somebody else. Even when I cried, it was as if someone were crying in my place.’

  ‘Don’t…’

  ‘No. I want to remember it all. I want to remember everything.’ She took his arm as she continued. ‘Even Edward was playing a part. We were both of us waiting, waiting to make the first move. But I didn’t know how –’

  ‘You should have said something to me.’

  ‘But what could I say? That nothing seemed real? That everything threatened me? You couldn’t protect me against my own fears.’

  ‘I suppose not. And I didn’t know how to help,’ he replied. ‘I thought of so many things but –’ he bent down to pick up a branch – ‘but there’s no need to worry now. I’ll get everything back from Harriet Scrope.’ He swung the branch against a tree, and the sudden impact sent a shower of rain drops down upon them.

  ‘But how can you? I gave her the painting, after all. I can’t just ask for it back. And she was so excited about the manuscripts, about having them published…’

  ‘Come on up here,’ Edward shouted. ‘There’s a stream!’

  They walked on, Philip swinging the stick savagely into the air. ‘But how do we know,’ he said, ‘that they actually belonged to Charles?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I never knew what happened in Bristol. He just came out of the house with all the papers in a carrier bag.’

  She laughed. ‘He never was very good at explanations, was he?’

  As Vivien said this, Philip realised that he and Charles had never really talked properly – not because they were ill at ease with each other but because each conversation had seemed provisional, one in a succession which would go on. There had been no sense of an ending. ‘I don’t even know,’ he said, ‘how Charles found that painting.’

  ‘Edward can tell you all about that. He went to the junk shop with him.’ But she was still intrigued by his previous remark. ‘What difference does it make, about Bristol?’

  ‘It’s very simple. What if the papers don’t belong to Charles, and what if the real owner wants them back? Harriet would have to return them. Do you see?’

  ‘And no one else would ever know?’

  ‘No one.’ He threw the branch into the air, and it seemed to disappear among the trees.

  ‘But how will you find out who does own them?’

  ‘I’ll follow the trail. I’ll go back to Bristol, and talk to the man who gave them to him. There is something wrong, I can feel it. I should have known it before –’

  ‘No, there was no reason –’

  ‘But I’ll discover the truth. I’ll find out what these manuscripts really are. And then I’ll pay a visit to Harriet Scrope.’

  Edward ran back towards them. ‘It’s like a wood in a dream, isn’t it, Mum? It’s so quiet.’ He ran off again.

  That boy,’ Philip said, laughing, ‘is going to be a poet.’

  ‘He misses his father.’ The stick fell back to the earth, having brushed against the branches of the trees, and Vivien picked it up. ‘But he doesn’t say anything.’

  ‘Oh, boys are very resilient. They learn to compensate.’ Philip had never talked so directly to her before, and he was just beginning to realise that he could talk: now that there were two people who had come to rely upon him, he was no longer deflected by nervousness or embarrassment. ‘Events which are tragedies for us –’ he hesitated for a moment – ‘are just changes for them.’

  Edward was kicking the blue football through the trees. ‘Have you noticed,’ Vivien said, ‘how difficult it is to see blue in this light?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I never noticed that.’ Suddenly he felt a great love for her, and he ran towards Edward, shouting at him to pass the ball.

  I hold that writer to be incompetent who cannot write on both sides of the question, Dan. He is not worthy of his – His hire?

  His Muse.

  Oh, now that you talk of Muses, you have me at a disadvantage. I know nothing of them.

  Daniel Hanway, compiler of miscellanies, epodist, and hack, is sitting with Chatterton in a wine-drinking booth in the Tothill Pleasure Gardens; they have come here at Hanway’s insistence, since he is eager to review the ladies of the night, but already Chatterton has embarked upon more elevated subjects. When I write in praise of the late lamented Lee, he says, it is a true relation; and, when I write damning him to the pit of Hell, it is true also. He takes up his glass of brandy and hot water. Do you know why, Dan?

  Why, Tom?

  Because this is an age of poetry, and poetry cannot lie! Here is to the Muse! He raises his glass, and spills a little brandy on his cravat.

  And you are a child of this age, are you, Tom?

  No, no child. Here, more brandy! Do I seem like a child? As the boy brings them another pot, the band of musicians in the rotunda strikes up an air; and all at once the torches are lit beside the avenues and booths. Chatterton sits back and surveys the scene. A sudden transformation, Dan, worthy of the pantomime.

  And you are the imp, I presume? Hanway is also in his cups. Look, Tom, do you see the female behind the trees there? He points towards a covered walk, with some trees at the end of it. Steady your prick, and aim at her.

  But Chatterton is dazed by the torchlight: all bright things remind him of his approaching fame, and he can feel the warmth upon his face. I am looking into the flame, and I see everything before me. He turns to his companion. Dan, Dan, tell me of the poets you have known.

  Reluctantly Hanway takes his eyes from the lady. Ah. Poets. Well, there was Tookson, a crabbed old body with a pen of vitriol. He used to frequent the Hercules tavern, do you know the one in Dean Street? He was there so often that he became known as the pillar of Hercules.

  No, not such men as he. The real poets, Dan.

  Hanway smiles at him. And who am I to say who is real and who unreal?

  But you knew Cowper. And Gray.

  Curiosities. Both of them. Gray used to drink until he fell down helpless upon the ground, and then wake up as cheerful as an infant upon his mother’s breast. But no one laughed at him. There was something about him…

  Something?
What was that? Chatterton is eager for this knowledge of the poets before him.

  Hanway fills his glass. He walked among us, you see, but his thoughts were elsewhere. But this is no news to you at all.

  No?

  Well, you are the same. No one laughs at you. Even though you are but a boy. Hanway puts down his glass, and the glare of the torchlights reveals the deep furrows in his face. There is so much ahead of you, Tom. My own day is done.

  You may outlive me yet, Dan –

  No, it is so. I have made nothing of my life, but you – you may do great things yet. He fills his glass again, and then fills Chatterton’s. Let me shake your hand, sir. Their hands join across the small oak table. See, here is one going forward and one passing away. We have met for an instant on our journey. And now I let you go. He takes away his hand, and laughs.

  Chatterton is solemn still. There is no need to talk of passing, Dan, since all life is uncertain. Did I tell you of the idiot boy I found this morning by Long Acre?

  Not yet, Tom, not yet. Hanway is preoccupied. And, now that we talk of journeys, I must make my own. He nods towards the lady in the covered walk. That little doe is waiting for me, yet I must go closer to her before I may shoot. He rises from the table, but before he leaves he turns again to Chatterton. I forgot to ask about your physic. Your kill-or-cure.

  Oh, I take it tonight. Chatterton laughs, although the thought of it makes him uneasy. I will be sure to leave a residue for your use, Dan. You may need it before the night is done.

  And I am undone. Hanway, laughing, goes on his way.

  Chatterton fills his glass again. Dan is right. No man mocks me. I am Thomas Chatterton, and there will come a time when I will astonish the world. No man knows the things I will write now. He rises unsteadily from his chair, and walks between the torches towards the entry-gate. But there are no cabs in Abingdon Street. Shanks’s pony, the old grey pony, will see me home. So he wraps his greatcoat around him and hastens through the streets of the city toward High Holborn and Brooke Street. And, as he walks, certain words come to him in the form of a song.

  My syllables, the remnants of antiquity.

  The line rises from him into the night air, and he watches it fade. Then he sings out again.

  Will come back as shadows for posterity.

  Everything is coming to a point: it is in front of him and he keeps on walking towards it as he sings.

  Let this my song bright as my vision be.

  He stumbles into an alley, and can smell the excrement around him. My feet are in the shit, but my home is elsewhere. He could walk for ever.

  As everlasting as futurity.

  And then he stops singing. On the corner of St Andrew Street and Mercy Lane, he sees a hooded figure leaning against the old stone wall there which keeps the timber from spilling onto the street. He checks his step, and walks more slowly as he hears the sounds of retching. Even in his drunkenness he crosses to the other side, but the hooded figure straightens up and turns around towards him, arms outstretched: the flies are coming out of me! The flies are coming out of me! See how they stream from my mouth and eyes. I am dumb and blind with flies. Then he retches again, and Chatterton sees the black bile flowing against the stone wall.

  On such a night as this the world may go awry, and Chatterton hurries away from the contagion. A gust of rain blows against him. The face of the idiot boy. Tomorrow by the ruined house. The single bell of St Damien rings out. It is one quarter past midnight. The twenty-fourth of August. All well.

  Chatterton reaches his house in Brooke Street. Rain. He fumbles and drops the key. Posterity. Antiquity. The words are still in his head. Finds the key. Opens the door and mounts the stairs. All well.

  The sign outside Bramble House, in Colston’s Yard just behind St Mary Redcliffe, had been changed since Philip last saw it. Now it read: ‘No Vagrants. No Tramps. No Sluts. Polite Notice.’ As he approached the house he glimpsed a face at the front-window, and before he could reach the door it was opened very wide; an elderly man in a purple track-suit stood on the threshold, his hands upon his hips. ‘She’s inside.’ He jerked his head back, to indicate one of the rooms. ‘Don’t let her smoke.’ Then he raised his voice, for the benefit of the person within: ‘It is a dirty habit, it is a smelly habit, it is a disgusting habit.’ And then, more softly, to Philip: ‘I’m Pat, of course. I hope you like a giggle. Your friend did.’ He ran upstairs, leaving Philip alone in the hallway.

  ‘Come and join me.’ From behind one door came a deep voice. ‘Unless you think I’m a hallucination in which case you’ll need a bell, book and candle. Not to mention the Jesuit priest.’ Tentatively Philip pushed open the door and there, rising to greet him, was a short, elderly man wearing a green silk smoking jacket and very narrow black trousers. He could have been no more than five feet in height, but his white hair was piled up and coiffed: it looked like a piece of wood which had been clumsily nailed to his head, but it did at least give him a resemblance of normal height. ‘So you are the one with the papers, are you? Or am I utterly mistaken and need to be taken outside and unceremoniously knocked into the middle of next week?’ Philip agreed that this would not be necessary since, indeed, he did have the Chatterton manuscripts.

  After his conversation with Vivien in the pine-forest, he had written to Joynson at the Bristol address; he had explained how the papers and the portrait had originally come into Charles’s possession and, perhaps ingenuously, had merely requested further information. Two days later he had received his own letter back, with ‘Sunday at 4’ scribbled in its margin. So he had travelled to Bristol once more, and had now arrived at the appointed time.

  ‘I haven’t actually got the papers with me.’ Philip was thoughtfully tugging at his beard as he spoke. ‘Someone is examining them.’

  ‘Is someone? That is nice to know. Now I suppose I can die in peace and be buried in an unmarked grave. Why don’t you get a spade and do it?’ His voice grew louder with each phrase but Philip noticed that, when he stopped talking, he always smiled broadly.

  ‘Someone called Harriet Scrope. The novelist?’

  ‘It’s a woman, is it?’ This seemed to amuse Joynson even more, and he shouted towards the ceiling. ‘Did you hear that?’ The sudden movement had displaced a strand of white hair, and he patted it back into place. They’re mine, you know, not hers. Or yours. Either that or I’m an impostor about to be unmasked to civilised society in the Bristol Daily News.’ He pushed his face towards Philip. ‘What do you think, is this a mask? Pull it off with your bare hands, I dare you.’

  Philip declined his kind offer. ‘I can get the papers back,’ he hastened to say. After all, this was why he had come. ‘I can get them back at once.’

  ‘I should hope so.’ Joynson took an ivory cigarette-holder out of the pocket of his smoking jacket. ‘Would you care for a fag?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  Joynson seemed disappointed. ‘Not even a little one? Little ones can be the best, you know. They can be the strongest. They can give you pause for thought and wonder what life is really all about.’

  ‘No. I don’t smoke.’

  ‘Neither do I.’ With a sigh he put away the cigarette-holder. ‘It’s a filthy habit, isn’t it?’ Then he settled back in his chair, sinking so low that for a moment Philip could only see his white hair bobbing up and down, like a handkerchief being waved in distress. They’re not genuine,’ he said, after he had struggled back into view.

  The cigarettes?’

  ‘Oh yes, I meant the cigarettes. I brought you all this way to talk about the merits of tobacco. I own a plantation in South America and I want you to have it for Christmas. No, dear, not the cigarettes. The manuscripts.’ Philip had been expecting this but, still, the confirmation of his suspicions suddenly depressed him. ‘My manuscripts,’ Joynson went on. ‘My papers. They were never meant to be shown to anyone. Or given away by a stupid old cow.’ He bellowed the last phrase at the ceiling, before politely resuming his conversation with
Philip. They’re fakes, you see. I take it you know the word? It was in Roget’s Thesaurus and in the Chambers International Dictionary when I last looked.’

  ‘But Charles had the handwriting analysed.’

  ‘She had it analysed, did she?’ This seemed to cause Joynson even more amusement, and his hair vibrated for a few moments.

  ‘No, Charles did. Not Harriet…’

  ‘Yes, I know. Your friend did.’ He gave the word the same emphasis as Pat had before. ‘I said they were fakes. I didn’t say they weren’t real.’

  Philip was becoming confused. ‘Are we talking about the same thing?’

  ‘We’re talking about the Chatterton manuscript, or am I raving mad and about to make a lunge at you and bite off your lovely snub nose? Is my hair in tufts and clumps? Tell me, I would really like to know.’ He stretched out comfortably in his chair, his feet just touching the floor.

  ‘No –’

  ‘That is good news. Now.’ Joynson sat upright again. ‘Would you like to hear a story?’ He put his hands together, as if he were about to pray. Philip, already exhausted by his interrogation, merely nodded. ‘Well then. I suppose you know the history of Thomas Chatterton’s poetry, and how he forged his medieval verses? Very clever. Very cunning. Top marks. And you must have guessed that there was a real Samuel Joynson, a bookseller, just as it says in the memoir?’ He started to slip down in the chair, and struggled upright again. ‘Otherwise why should I have the same name? I didn’t just pluck it out of the air, did I? If I did, you can lead me off to the Tower of London and behead me. I give you my full permission. You can strip me, too, and tear out my vital organs for the ravens. Fair deal?’ Philip was unsure how to respond to this, and merely contrived to look thoughtful. ‘Now, Samuel Joynson did actually print and sell Chatterton’s poetry. They worked together. They may even have been friends.’ Joynson wriggled his toes. ‘So the Chatterton manuscript is correct as far as that goes. Are you still with me, or am I chattering into the air and about to be carted off to the Sunshine Home for the Elderly and Infirm of Mind? No? You give me a second chance? Good. Now. Chatterton did die. As far as we know, he committed suicide at the age of eighteen. A mere chicken. But you know the story?’ Philip nodded. ‘It was a very famous suicide, and it made Chatterton’s name…’ He broke off suddenly. ‘Did you hear a noise?’ Philip had heard nothing. ‘I think I heard a noise.’