by Michael Dean
‘Mouth stuff?’
‘At least, I think …’
‘But you’re not sure?’
‘Not a hundred per cent. No. Sorry.’
‘Hmm. Well, she’s gone now. But I must confess I’m a bit jealous. If you did give her a child, I suggest you give me one as soon as possible. Even things up.’
‘Righty-ho.’
‘And, husband, you might also tell me where we’re going when we leave this hovel of a church.’
‘Uh … Yes. Jane?’
‘What?’
‘You are truly the most amazing, astounding woman in the world.’
‘That is correct. And don’t you ever forget it.’
‘I won’t. My God, how I love you …’ And so to Lambeth (yes, where?) by hackney, with the woman I was kissing as we were thrown about in the back, a woman now my bride, my wife, my … whatever else.
After jolting, kissing and yet more eating, for we were determined to plumb the depths of Mama Thornhill’s basket of delicacies, the hackney abruptly stopped. I had no idea where we were. After we had left the church, I gave the driver a scrap of paper with an address on it. That scrap was earlier given to me by my true friend, the one and only Pellett (Frenchy-Felix of that ilk). He said he’d got us a room and that was good enough for me.
The coachman demanded a king’s ransom for the ride, for we were further south of the good river Thames than I had been in my life: for all I knew, folk had two heads here. But I paid with aplomb before my bride, even with a shout of ‘Keep the change, my good man’ – an effect spoiled in the event by me, not giving him enough at the first attempt.
‘So where is this place, then?’ said Jane, as we stood on a street with a hugger-mugger of houses before some fields. Over her arm curved the basket with the mortal remains of Mama Thornhill’s benison, like the After in some Before and After version of Little Red Riding Hood.
I consulted the scrawl of the scrap of paper. How in God’s name did the hackney driver read that, Frenchy’s foreign loops and whorls? Perhaps he didn’t. I didn’t know where we were. This could have been York, where my harlot Moll came from, when she came to London, for all I knew. I peered down the street, as a strong wind blew off the fields, rustling Jane’s dress. Nothing. Nobody lived here. How could we live here?
Agh! A noise behind me. AND THERE HE WAS.
‘Felix, am I pleased to see you!’
‘Bill? What, have you no luggage at all?’
‘Not at the moment. We’ll send for it, or something.’
‘Mon dieu!’
‘Frenchy, meet my bride, my lovely Jane.’
Felix, you know, had a quite delightful smile which created the most interesting craters in his face on both sides. There it was! ‘Madam Hogarth. Enchanté.’ He took her hand, slobbering over it in that disgusting Gallic manner, then he looked her in the eye. ‘I knew that the person who took Bill Hogarth to marry would be either the biggest fool or the wisest woman in all Christendom. And now I see you, I know!’
Jane’s frank, brave eyes met his. ‘Well, which then? Do tell?’ It could have been her mother speaking.
Felix laughed. ‘The wisest, of course. And now let me show you to your quarters, my lord and my lady.’ Felix gave a mock courtly bow, which he was rather good at. As we followed he reeled out a monologue: ‘I have given of my best with the preparations for your arrival, but cockroaches are the very devil to shift. Moreover, one rat was so persistent with his company that I ended by ceasing all attempts to kill him, in favour of naming him and making him a companion and pet. He’s called William …’
‘Felix …!’
‘He’s teasing you, William.’ Then she whispered in my ear, ‘Where did you find him? He’s very amusing. Well made, too.’
I whispered back, ‘There, I think you might be disappointed.’
‘Why, were you?’
I shot her a sharp glance. How could she POSSIBLY … ? But her face was guileless.
The room was in the house of an army widow, a Mrs Pettifer, to whom we were briefly introduced by the unflappable and indeed incorrigible Felix. She was a worn, sad lady for whom the business of being alive, even breathing, which she did with difficulty, appeared too much.
The good courtier then left us in our rooms, departing to make arrangements for the transfer of our belongings, joining forces with the faithful Fanny-the-maid in the Thornhill household for matters affecting Jane. To my amazement, all my painting equipment, together with the unfinished Harlot series and the unfinished portrait of Jane, was already here. Felix, you marvel!
We are alone now, Jane and I.
Two rooms: rough floorboards, like in a low tavern, a bed, a table, chairs, a stove. How ordinary the list, but the rooms were transformed by their occupants, acquiring a lustre, a glow, the clearest of colours, the shapeliest curves, the brightest of outlines.
For in that room I painted like a fiend inspired and loved as if every day were my last. Only the evenings had a softer pace, reading aloud to each other by the butter-glow of an oil lamp. It was at this time I read Jonathan Richardson’s Essay on the Theory of Painting.
Or we would take all the parts in plays the faithful Felix had brought us: The Victim by Charles Johnson was one such, as performed at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. A Woman’s Revenge was another, penned by one Christopher Bullock and performed at the New Theatre. We would shout out the lines as if drunken groundlings were ready to toss us in the air, if displeased. I often looked up to see the shade of my darling papa looking down on us with his smile. Jane, understanding this, would hold my hand.
Jane made a friend of the widow Pettifer; they went to market, to the shops together. Now and again we would invite the widow to eat our meal with us in the late afternoon, when the light faded and I finished painting. I wanted to stay here forever. But Jane said we must go back, face her father. We argued, then more: quarrelled for the first time ever. It was deeply upsetting to me, less so for Jane. No, Hogarth, that is unfair and unworthy!
‘We do not have much money,’ said Jane, with quiet force. ‘And we will have none if we stay here much longer.’
‘But …’ I wanted to say that I did not wish to leave paradise, but my anger rose in me; it remained unsaid.
‘My father’s anger is spent, or mostly so.’ Jane waved a note from her mother, travelled the well-worn path from Mama Thornhill to Fanny to Felix to here. ‘Here, read it.’
‘No!’ My lip jutted like a thwarted child.
It remained jutted as we loaded our possessions onto a hired cart, helped as ever by Felix, to return to town, to my little studio. When I was not so sulking, I was roaring with anger at imagined slights from people and things. I was difficult. Difficult Hogarth. Poor Jane! Poor Felix! I record this mood with shame.
But back we went, back to my studio, to be told by street gossips that angry Sir James had indeed sent his footmen over to seek me out and chastise me. I was not afraid! I would face them! I started strutting like a bantam cock, I could feel myself do it.
‘Where are you going?’
She had her outdoor wear on, mantua and bonnet. I feared she was leaving me.
‘To see my father.’
‘No, I forbid it!’
‘Don’t be silly. I will bring him round to our view.’
‘Ridiculous! How?’
‘I will show him your paintings.’
‘Are they … am I … good enough?’
She turned at the door, all cool grey eyes and poise. ‘Oh, yes. You surpassed my father some time ago. I think he will love you for it. He is a fighter, like you, but at base a good man. Like you.’
And with that she disappeared. I shrugged and went on painting. Both the Harlot series and the portrait of Jane were close to completion. While I worked, I would forget everything, but the me that would forget everything was now composed of part me, part her. So I felt only a mild annoyance at being interrupted when she returned towing both her parents.
&n
bsp; I bowed to Sir James, who was a little stiff but returned the bow. Mama Thornhill kissed me on both cheeks, for all the world like Frenchy Felix Pellett.
‘Show papa your paintings.’ My Jane spoke like the mistress of a mansion, born to rule.
I waved at the Harlot series, then put the six paintings in order, so the plot unfolded. Sir James gave me a startled glance. He looked smaller than I remembered, and far from well. I remembered mama – Lady Thornhill, as was – telling me that he was not long for this earth.
Sir James was taking in my Harlot paintings. ‘Lovely colour,’ he murmured to himself, taking in the ivory of the harlot’s gown, as her breast peeped out over it. He was breathing deeply. Jane and her mother stood in a ‘V’ shape, the model of female discretion.
He walked to the end of the series. Only painting six was not yet quite finished: the scene of the harlot’s demise, unmourned at the age of twenty-three, with even her toddler son playing unconcernedly with a spinning top.
He shook his head, wheezing now, hauling each breath up. ‘It is not my way, this modern way, these ignoble subjects, this lack of grandeur. Of standing, even. Oh, I know it is the way of the world,’ He waved a hand as if to forestall criticism, ‘in painting now – as in the theatre, where we have Messrs Gay and Rich to thank for it. Beggar’s Opera indeed! But, William Hogarth, you have something. You have quite a lot, if truth be told. Talent to burn.’
‘You … like the paintings, sir? Even if you do not approve?’
‘Oh, I approve, all right. I approve of women, though I don’t wish to be one.’ Sir James wheezed with laughter; we all joined in, politely.
‘I have a present for you, sir.’
The portrait of Jane was finished. I picked it up by the frame – it was 35 by 27 inches – and I put it on a chair, so Sir James could see it. Jane was pictured seated, turning towards the viewer. Her gaze was steady, eyes serious. The magnificent bosom, which made me go off like a musket in my passion, was rendered discreetly, but done justice to, all the same.
‘She is holding a miniature of you, sir.’ That had been Jane’s idea.
‘So I see.’ It was working; the old man’s eyes were rheumy. He clutched my arm a moment, for support. ‘So I see.’
‘It is a tribute from us both, sir. A tribute from us both. To you.’
Jane found a chair so the old man might sit. He looked frailer by the moment, yet waved a hand. ‘Enough, William. Enough, boy. The battle is won, don’t slaughter the prisoners.’ He laughed at his own joke; once again we all joined in. And then … ‘I’ll help you all I can. That’s what you want, isn’t it?’
I took a deep breath. ‘Yes, sir. If you’d be so kind.’
‘Oh, I’ll be so kind, all right. And you and Jane need to find yourselves somewhere decent to live. Now that you are a successful society painter. Now that you have arrived. Mr William Hogarth.’
‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’
Part III
From the Harlot to the Devil
1732–58
1
‘I SHALL POSE you before the grand chimney piece,’ said Sir James, speaking without enthusiasm nor even satisfaction, but rather in the manner of a man giving orders for this or that dish at supper.
Jane and I obligingly shuffled into place, touching each other the whole time, giggling and guffawing – the giggling by no means limited to her and the guffawing by no means limited to me. I sported my finest, wearing a gaudy mulberry coloured waistcoat and toting a sword. She was a sea of pale green silk.
‘Oh Billy!’ she protested, squeaking as my arm encircled her waist, my hand contriving to encompass more silk than it should. ‘Billy, you must stand ahead of me. So.’ She adjusted me, more touching. ‘For you are my lord and master. My light, my guide, my er …’
‘Jenny, my darling, this was ever true. But you shall stand beside me. For one thing, I can see you better.’
We both collapsed into fresh paroxysms of laughter at that, which involved clasping each other round the neck. A kiss was stolen, if anything taken so willingly can be said to be stolen.
‘I shall arrange you in a moment,’ squeaked the indignant Sir James. ‘And where did all this Jenny and Billy rigmarole come from, pray?’
‘Where did it come from, Jenny?’ I said, all mock innocent, thumbs in the top of my breeches.
‘I don’t know, really, Billy.’ Thus Jenny. ‘From you, I expect. You are the originator, after all.’ She gave a theatrical sigh. ‘I merely follow meekly on behind. Giving you the occasional smack on the rump for encouragement.’
She suited the action to the word, with much squealing, slapping, mirth and horseplay, as we chased each other in circles.
‘Children! Children!’ protested Sir James, in exasperation half-feigned and half real. ‘Where is the pose? Tell me that. Where is the pose?’
‘Sorry, father,’ said Jenny, trying but failing to re-align her striking, handsome features to seriousness, while still fending off her swain’s flaps at her seat.
The tableau may have continued to re-arrange itself like this for some time, had not Lady Thornhill at that moment swept into the room, majestic in puffed clouds of pink, her intelligent eyes alert. She was trailing the glassy-eyed Thornhill son, John, in her wake. This customarily debauched figure was even paler and even more the sole denizen of his own domain than usual. He looked about to gracefully die.
The pair was followed by a scampering, yapping pug dog, who in turn was followed by a footman, running after him, trying to recapture him. The pug flailed its little legs towards me.
I delightedly scooped him up. Oh dog, dog! I love dogs!
‘Trump!’ I greeted the animal by his name. He ecstatically licked my face.
Trump had been a wedding present from Lady Judith, ostensibly to bride and groom but really solely for me. The shrewd Lady Judith knew me, as ever, better than I knew myself.
‘Because he looks so much like you,’ she had said to me. ‘I’ve always thought of you as a pug, a pugnacious little pug.’
‘And so I am, Lady Judith. So I am.’
I had held the pug pup Trump against my chest, upon his presentation, then kissed him and burst into tears.
‘You are a wonderful lady,’ I had blubbed at Lady Judith. ‘All my life I have wanted such a pet. It was never possible for us. But I played with every mangy cur who would let me, all through my boyhood. Oh, you are exquisite!’ This last was addressed to the excited animal, not to Lady Judith, even as the object of this adoration pissed on my jerkin, which worried me not a jot.
‘Let him stay!’ I so addressed the footman, who was trying to relieve me of the pug. ‘You may go.’ This, too, to the footman from the newly lordly Master Hogarth. (That is me.)
‘Judith!’ Sir James shouted his relief. One might almost have said ‘bellowed’, were the tiny frame of Sir James, with his pointy feet, not too frail for so alarming a noise.
But at any rate, hungry English infantry on the march to Blenheim were not more pleased to see their commanding Corporal John with their supper than Sir James was to see his wife. Even Billy and Jenny paused in our not exactly innocent games to become once again William Hogarth and his new bride Jane; such was the moral force of Lady Thornton.
‘Well, come on then, where do you want me? My precious time is flying. I shall pose, dear husband, but where?’
Under Lady Thornhill’s commanding presence the family came to order. In next to no time the group was posed. Thornhill himself stood next to his son. John was in the middle, with me on his other side; the three painters thus forming a shallow ‘V’ with Sir James at the apex. The two ladies were, rather daringly, at the wings, with Lady Thornhill nearer Sir James, and Jane still contriving to be shoulder to shoulder with her William, touching as much as possible. I wanted the pug at my feet, but it kept scampering off, before circling back.
‘A conversation piece, then?’ I called out gaily, while Sir James was still in pose.
Thi
s gentle tease carried a barb within it. Sir James was generally held to have had his day, to be of the old school, less and less awarded the dull respect his due, while excitement mounted for the coming men, among whom was … well, me. Not that I encouraged such an attitude, far from it. In company and in the presses I was staunch in my admiring defence of Sir James.
Sir James had at best a country-cousin relationship with humour, but he knew raillery when he heard it. Out of bottomless love for his daughter, he had allowed himself a guarded old man’s contentment at her happiness. And so he responded in kind to that halfway house between humour and the truth we know as teasing.
‘Conversation piece be damned,’ he grunted, sounding obligingly croaky and behind the fashion. ‘We shall all be painted looking at proper classical art, and showing due reverence for it, especially my son-in-law, even if I have to plaster his phiz on afterwards.’
They all laughed at that, me the loudest.
‘What classical piece shall we be looking at?’ asked John, picking up my teasing tone.
‘The group will be represented looking at A Judgement of Paris. The viewer will reflect on the choices of life made down the ages.’
‘Yes, but Paris made the wrong choice, didn’t he?’ This was John. ‘That’s the whole point of the picture. He was swayed by lust.’
That evening, at John Thornhill’s insistence, he and I went out on the town. John insisted we head for Bob Derry’s Cider Cellar as he had developed an obsession for the carnal possession of one Lucy Cooper, who he had once glimpsed from afar and who was said to be available to those paying brief court and making suitable arrangements at that place. She was in that night, as was Nell Robinson, who added to the kudos of any man with a guinea and a half and time for conversation.
After we had both enjoyed the various pleasures, I was mightily amused by two molls spitting perfect streams of gin at each other. I wanted to wager on them, but John was growing bored and insisted, as I knew he would, sooner or later, on a visit to the Rose Tavern in Russell Street, whose golden sign proclaimed the lowest pleasures in London.