The Optickal Illusion

by Rachel Halliburton

  Ann Jemima watches her as if in a trance for a moment, and then cries out, ‘No!’

  Mrs Tullett turns back to her.

  ‘Do not burn the book,’ declares Ann Jemima. The iron has returned to her voice.

  ‘Your books made you ill,’ Mrs Tullett continues. ‘Will you desist from this for Mr Provis’s sake?’

  Ann Jemima draws herself up to her full height. She sees the old woman making her calculations. She realises she is building a pyre of books in her head, and on top of it Mrs Tullett. She takes a deep breath to quell her anger.

  ‘Mr Provis wishes to take revenge and I am going to help him.’ Ann Jemima walks forward and extends her hand. ‘You must trust me in this. We are in too far.’

  Mrs Tullett’s cheeks mottle with disbelief. Ann Jemima realises she is exhausted by her rage.

  ‘In truth I do not believe any more I can trust you in anything,’ the older woman declares finally. ‘Why will you not stop now before you ruin him?’

  ‘Mrs Tullett – if I make this succeed then Mr Provis will be the first to profit from it. He will be a rich man. That alone will make people condemn him less harshly.’

  The seamstress takes the still extended hand, all the while shaking her head. ‘You are a clever girl. And you are battling dark forces, that I will concede. None of this is just. But you have set the stakes very high. This matter has already slipped beyond your control – and may do so even further.’

  Her hand tightens on Ann Jemima’s and she glares.

  ‘You have changed so much since you fled. It is as if you lived a whole life in that one day before you returned,’ she pauses, ‘and yet still you are no wiser.’

  Finally she relinquishes her hand.

  Ann Jemima breathes deeply for a moment. ‘I give you my word I will prove you wrong,’ she eventually says. She walks away from the seamstress and stares out of the window. Mrs Tullett waits for a moment. Sighing loudly, she picks up the book and – after a quick glance towards the fire – walks out of the apartment carrying it.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Persuading the artists of the Royal Academy

  ‘Our mind, sayth Strabo, maketh up the conceivable or intelligible things out of the sensible: for as our senses doe certifie us of the figure, colour, bignesse, smell, softnesse, and taste of an apple; so doth our mind out of these things bring together the true apprehension of an apple: so falleth it likewise out with great figures, that our sense seeth the parts of them, but our mind putteth the whole figure out of those visible parts together.’

  franciscus junius,

  The Painting of the Ancients, 1638

  When Provis wakes the morning after his meeting in the park with Ann Jemima, he realises he is both exhilarated and terrified. According to her analysis of the situation, the artists of the Royal Academy are now placed before them like pieces on a chessboard – each with a trait that will allow him to be manipulated in a certain direction. Reality will of course, he knows, show the moves of the game to be not so straightforward. The divisions between the squares will become muddy, pieces will move in a way that has not been anticipated, and the winner of the game will be ever harder to predict.

  It occurs to him that in playing others for their vanity, he perhaps has his own vanity to assuage. Till now he has been the great connoisseur, the great negotiator of deals. When Ann Jemima first came to live with him, she would sit and ask him about the paintings and different objects in his apartment, and he would recount to her the way he had acquired these and sold others like a hunter boasting of his greatest expeditions. But he has never done anything that requires the daring she has needed to put the manuscript in front of West. Now that it is generally agreed that West values the method, he has realised with a shock that Ann Jemima has perceived an opportunity that he, with his age and experience, would have missed. One of his motives in pushing for revenge is a sudden desire for her to acknowledge him as her equal in daring.

  The calling cards have been delivered, and the first move in the game decided. An artist called John Rigaud has replied that he will receive them. Rigaud has painted for royalty across Europe. When they walk into his drawing room on Jermyn Street at eleven o’clock that morning, Provis recognises that the wallpaper – which he perceives as unbearably fussy – has been created by the same Frenchman whose designs were once sought out by Marie Antoinette. If this were not automatically a sign of Rigaud’s self-regard, the resonance of his voice and the spread of his girth are. A black embroidered jacket struggles to contain him. His lips bulge prominently, like a breed of mollusc. There is a slight sheen of sweat on his waxy brow.

  Yet any temptation to regard the man satirically is quickly removed by the realisation that he is not going to be easy to convince. His glares are dyspeptic, and his voice whittled down by scepticism. Provis goes from forced calm to feeling the beating of his heart intensify till he is like a tin box in a hailstorm, battered from inside and out by his fear. He sees that Ann Jemima is slightly unnerved too, but it is at this point that he recognises the strength of the confidence she has been given by her anger with West. Coolly and repeatedly she asks the artist why West has not fully shared the results of his experiments with the Academy. Finally Provis realises Rigaud is unable to deliver an answer that interprets events in West’s favour.

  At the point of acknowledgement, Rigaud looks almost in pain. Though his frame is large and crude, his body is prey to every twitch of his thoughts, thinks Provis, as the artist’s right knee agitates itself back and forth.

  ‘It is a most shocking situation,’ he declares. ‘Miss Provis, I remember very well when I met you at Mr Cosway’s house and we discussed the method. I urged you strongly to take it to Mr West, with the view that, should he find merit in it, he would share it with the entire Academy.’

  He rises with a wince from his chair, and starts to pace back and forth.

  ‘I have thought often of our conversation since.’

  He stares at Provis and Ann Jemima, who are sitting in armchairs opposite him. Beneath his powdered wig, the sheen on his forehead intensifies.

  ‘I would have liked to have experimented with the Venetian Secret myself,’ he continues. ‘But it seemed only right and just to hand it over to Mr West, since it required someone with not just integrity but the right level of prestige.’ He blows his cheeks in and out. Provis watches him with loathing even as he draws uneasy comfort from his words.

  He remembers well Ann Jemima’s dismay at Rigaud’s initial disinterest. She had been convinced that he had urged her to talk to West because he had not the inclination to deal with the method himself. Yet Provis has noted often at King George’s court that when the powerful decide to transform opinion the first sign is their rewriting of their own memories. In this way they can appear to be the prophets of change – wise seers rather than the fools they have been, stumbling around in the dark.

  ‘I was most grateful for your encouragement at the time,’ declares Ann Jemima.

  Provis directs his smile towards the floor. Yet Rigaud nods as if she has answered correctly.

  ‘Of course I have a certain standing in courts across the world,’ he continues, ‘especially that of King Gustavus IV of Sweden.’ His mottled eyes intensify their expression. The feeling that pervades the room is his desire for their subservience. He craves it as other men crave a drink, reflects Provis, and accordingly dips his head. The muscles relax around Rigaud’s eyes. ‘In some ways,’ he continues, ‘you could say that my extensive experience abroad combined with my Italian heritage would have made me a better candidate for testing the merits of a method that came from Venice.’

  ‘That was very much what I myself had hoped for,’ said Ann Jemima. ‘I was, I confess, slightly surprised when you urged me to go to Mr West.’ She makes a sly glance here towards Provis. ‘Mr Cosway had told me there was no one at the Academy with greater authority than yourself on the Italians…’

  Oh, beautifully played, my girl. With an e
ffort Provis stops himself from saying the words out loud. Instead he declares, ‘You can see clearly the effect of Titian on your painting of Samson and Delilah. The flesh in it is exquisite.’

  Rigaud looks stunned.

  ‘You are a connoisseur?’

  ‘A mere amateur,’ Provis demures. ‘Never more humble than when in the presence of someone who creates themselves.’

  The flattery is too thick, he chides himself. He worries for a second that the scepticism in Rigaud’s eyes has returned. But he realises that the expression is one of reappraisal.

  ‘Of course you are a connoisseur,’ the artist declares. ‘If your grandfather was clever enough to identify this secret, why would his grandson not be equally clever? Was he alive when you were a boy?’

  Provis clears his throat.

  ‘He died before I was born. But my mother talked a lot of her father. The tales of his adventures when he was working for the East India Company made a great impression on me as a young boy.’

  Ann Jemima looks at him. She is concentrating sharply on what he says, and he is surprised by the growing warmth of expression in her eyes.

  ‘What twist of fate took him to Venice?’ Rigaud asks.

  ‘He was sent there around seventy years ago. Up till then his trade had taken him to India and Bengal as an importer of Indian fabric. That was the cause of his interest in colours and dyes – for which, of course, Venice was a great centre.’

  ‘It was a great centre for many things. Was he there at the same time as Casanova?’

  Provis frowns.

  ‘I believe he was,’ he replies after a moment, ‘yet Casanova would have been but a babe in arms at the time – he was not, so to speak, Casanova.’

  Rigaud is quiet for a moment – he has the wariness of a man who is aware that a shard of wit has been deployed but is not quite sure when it is going to hit. Finally he nods.

  ‘Now, I hear, he works as a librarian for Count Waldstein,’ he declares. ‘I met him many years ago in Paris. He tried to persuade our circle of his skills as an alchemist. None of us believed him, but his charm was such that we were more than happy to indulge him for an evening.’

  Though he, I suspect, struggled to tolerate you beyond an hour, thinks Provis. They are silent for a moment, as if their conversation is a clockwork toy that has finally lost momentum.

  ‘In terms of my great-grandfather’s diary,’ says Ann Jemima, interrupting the silence, ‘do the artists of the Academy challenge West to reveal the elements of the method to them in a demonstration? Or do we demonstrate the secrets of the manuscript ourselves before the Academy Annual Exhibition?’

  ‘West has not the manuscript?’

  ‘No,’ says Ann Jemima firmly. ‘He has seen it, and I have performed several demonstrations of the techniques contained within it. But currently it is in my possession.’

  ‘I see.’

  His eyes glisten, and the mollusc lips twitch.

  It is fascinating how greed can show itself in such a subtle realignment of a man’s face, thinks Provis.

  Ann Jemima leans forward slightly.

  ‘I am most gratified that you understand the full seriousness of this situation.’ She smiles demurely. ‘It is particularly important to me that this method is practised by artists of great accomplishment.’

  Provis nods. ‘It is not like one of these manuscripts one hears about offering a formula through which the foolish may find wealth quickly,’ he concurs. ‘There is no claim that any man in the street could pick it up and produce a Venus of Urbino.’

  He looks over to Ann Jemima, as if for approval. Yet she is staring at Rigaud whose responding laugh sounds like the scraping of a rusty bowl.

  ‘The beautiful Venus of Urbino,’ he says. ‘Now that is a painting where I have often admired the flesh tones. Titian was the first artist to use living women for his nudes, and you can certainly tell the difference…’ He collects himself, realising his indelicacy. ‘Forgive me.’ He looks at Ann Jemima shamefaced, a dark red suffuses his neck and ears. ‘What you say has the ring of truth. The fact that this is only suitable for the eyes of experts I think is key to asserting the verity of the method.’

  Ann Jemima stands up and extends her long slim hand towards him. He engulfs it in his grasp. ‘Mr Rigaud,’ she says crisply, ‘I applaud your acute perception of the matter. My father and I thought a lot about whom the best individual would be to approach. For wisdom and understanding of greatness it seemed that…’ she pauses for a moment, distracted by the violence of his nods, ‘seemed that you would be the obvious individual.’

  ‘I thank you for recognising that,’ he replies. ‘I will talk to my fellow artists this evening on the matter. It will be a travesty if West alone profits from it.’

  Their second visit is to Opie. From the start it has a different tenor. As their large-wheeled phaeton pulls up in front of Opie’s house on Berners’ St, the front door opens with alacrity. A footman ushers them upstairs and into a pale green double drawing room. As the artist comes forward to greet them, Provis notes with interest that though he – like Rigaud – is clearly sceptical at this stage of their visit, it is not in his nature to patronise. On the contrary he is both direct and open. Provis realises there is a faint trace of the West Country in his accent.

  While Provis is impressed by his directness, Ann Jemima is less so. How can he have such a reputation as a ladies’ man? she thinks to herself. His skin is sallow, and his face is almost ugly. There is nothing of the flirt in his manner either. To her he seems both exhausted and mildly impatient – the shadows under his eyes are so dark it looks as if he has received them in a brawl.

  The drawing room in which they meet him demonstrates – to her imagination – the same combination of aspiration and exhaustion. Spectacular glass chandeliers hang from the ceiling, but almost as spectacular is the spider’s web that trails from one chandelier to the right hand corner of the room closest to the street. One of the two carved mahogany sofas with embroidered cushions has prominent splashes of red wine on it, while the exquisite walnut side tables are all adorned by dust. The overwhelming impression is of a place that has been loved but now is not. Ghosts of forgotten laughs and half-remembered conversations hang in the air.

  She realises that Opie has caught the slight expression of shock on her face. Hastily she attempts to explain herself in a way that will disperse any awkwardness.

  ‘I was thinking about the great individuals who you must have received here,’ she says. ‘They tell me that you have painted Samuel Johnson and Edmund Burke.’

  A half smile creeps onto Opie’s face. She can see he has understood precisely the cause of her expression, but will not make her feel uncomfortable by pressing her on it.

  ‘I found Samuel Johnson more melancholic than I anticipated,’ he replies gently. ‘His intellect was in no doubt – he cross-examined me brilliantly on Euclid at one point, and the absurdity of fashions in men’s breeches at another. Yet for many hours of our sittings he would sit staring ahead muttering vehemently to himself. He told me that he feared the loneliness of night more than anything on this earth.’

  She is quiet for a moment. ‘What of Burke?’

  ‘He was eloquent, charming and infuriating. Most passionate when he talked about the damage the British Empire is reeking in India. He enjoys hearing himself speak, but if I were as articulate as he, I would no doubt be equally self-indulgent.’

  He holds out his hand as an invitation for Ann Jemima to sit down. She tries not to scrutinise the wine stains on the sofa too carefully as she takes her place at the other end from Provis. Opie himself perches on a stool. As he folds his hands in front of him, she sees the streak of livid yellow paint on the left one, and the flecks of red and blue beneath the fingernails of the right.

  ‘We are sorry even to have to raise this matter…’ she begins.

  ‘Well quite,’ he says. ‘I have to say I am deeply surprised by Mr West’s behaviour. It does not seem in
character. He has – like all of us – many faults. But untrustworthiness has never seemed to be one of them.’

  She nods.

  ‘I would have agreed with you, till recently.’

  Hearing the deadness of her voice, Provis looks at her sharply. The easy charm that he has noticed her display so often is absent now. She is struggling to understand him, he realises. She does not know how to play this move right yet.

  ‘Mr Cosway came to see me yesterday, and after his visit I took it upon myself to go and see Mr West. What was curious was the fact that in some senses he was very open. He invited me to see some of the paintings he had done using the method.’

  ‘Did you explain to him why you wanted to see those paintings?’ Provis interrupts.

  Opie contemplates him for a moment.

  ‘I do not enjoy subterfuge. But Mr Cosway told me it was imperative that I said nothing about you or your daughter.’

  His eye moves to Ann Jemima.

  ‘Did he say he did the paintings on his own?’ she asks, looking quickly at Provis.

  Her voice is still stilted.

  ‘He did,’ Opie replies shortly. ‘So I am not clear which ones he has painted and which you yourself assisted with.’

  There is an awkward silence. As Provis notes, with some amazement, Ann Jemima struggling for her next words, suddenly Opie realises her consternation and smiles sympathetically. The change in his face is extraordinary. It is as if an ache has suddenly been relieved. The shadows under the eyes are less severe, the creases round the mouth speak no longer of suffering. He can see from Ann Jemima’s expression that she would still not judge him attractive. But he sees her starting to respond to the man as a whole rather than the imperfections of his surroundings. Provis himself is struck by the dignity of the way he moves, the resonance of his voice. He answers to no one but himself, he thinks, and yet somehow survives in the top rungs of London society. A rare animal indeed.