Before Godwin could respond, there was a further knocking at the door, and John Opie and Henry Fuseli entered the room. After a start of surprise at seeing Darton, Opie came and introduced himself to Johnson.
‘Mr Opie, Mr Opie, you have still not given me your reply, and I am fearful the conversation will distract us from the question.’ Fuseli’s Swiss-Germanic accent was loud and insistent. As he intended, the murmured greetings that had started up around the room were silenced.
Opie was thoughtful for a moment. ‘If you ask me for my honest reply, I would say Joseph Turner.’
Fuseli nodded approvingly.
‘An excellent response.’
‘May we be apprised of the question?’ Amelia asked brightly. Johnson smiled at her with approval. He was long used to Fuseli’s attempts to ensure that he was the centre of attention. Creating an air of mystery through elliptical conversations was among them.
Fuseli’s glance was dismissive.
‘I was asking Mr Opie which of the artists at the Royal Academy he thinks shall achieve immortality. You are?’
‘Amelia Alderson,’ she replied firmly. ‘You say Mr Opie has given an excellent answer. Are you in agreement with him?’
The wide set eyes were opaque for a moment.
‘My own preference inclines towards Thomas Lawrence,’ he replied. ‘Mr Turner is extremely young, and unknown by most. Mr Lawrence has shown his aptitude for a wider range of styles. But in a couple of years, who can foretell? Turner may prove the greater artist, or some other young person of whom we yet know nothing.’
‘Would everyone like to take a seat?’ Johnson extended his hand towards the table. He himself took the chair nearest to the dining room door, while indicating Amelia Alderson should sit on his right, and Godwin in the place to the right of her. Darton came and sat next to Johnson on the left, while Fuseli and Opie, who had now been offered wine, took their respective places on the other side of the table.
‘I have heard of Thomas Lawrence,’ declared Johnson, ‘but not this Mr Turner. Who is he?’
‘A barber’s son,’ replied Opie. ‘Sir Joshua Reynolds accepted him into the Academy when he was only fifteen. He has very little to say for himself, and his manners can be crude, but I have always believed him to be exceptionally talented. His painting, The Rising Squall, was the first to show he might be more talented than the rest of us.’
‘It is a dreadful title,’ declared Fuseli with a loud sniff.
‘It is a description,’ said Opie firmly. ‘And the painting itself is of sheer brilliance. Everything he depicts – the hills in the background, the ship coming into dock – seem almost to be dissolving in the light. Their silhouettes are clearly to be seen, and yet somehow they are suffused with colour.’ He paused for a moment. ‘I have seen no other painter of our times come close to his use of colour, till recently.’
Fuseli looked at him sharply.
‘Which painter are you talking about?’
Opie was quiet for a moment.
‘I am not at liberty to say at this stage.’
‘How do you gauge whether or not a painting might achieve immortality?’ Godwin’s faintly acerbic tones made themselves heard across the table.
Fuseli’s responding stare was insolent. He is like a stag in the Scottish Highlands wondering whether or not to address this with his antlers, thought Johnson to himself. Even though he rejected Mary as a lover, it is still in his nature to see Godwin as an adversary.
After a short, calculated pause, Fuseli replied. ‘Mr Godwin, you are a great rationalist. One of life’s balanceurs.’ His pronunciation of this last word languorous, appropriately measured – to one who does not know him, reflected Johnson, it is not clear whether or not it is a compliment or an insult. ‘So it will obviously come as some disappointment to you that there is no precise way of measuring whether or not a painting will be immortal.’
‘I believe you underestimate me, Mr Fuseli. I appreciate that for a man like yourself precision is not always desirable. But surely you can posit some kind of criteria.’
There was a flicker of light in Amelia Alderson’s eye. Johnson caught its meaning, and they both smiled.
Fuseli’s glare was pronounced.
‘I cannot give you a list of traits to be ticked off on a list,’ he declared sardonically. ‘The Italian Ludovico Dolce described it as the “non so che” – the ineffable – that which “fills our souls with an infinite delight without our knowing whence arises the thing that pleases us”. But if I were forced to give some kind of definition, I would say it is a painting that ambushes us by presenting something in a way that we could never have imagined ourselves, yet at the same time creates a sense of something we have always known. It is both new and eternal, disconcerting and reassuring. I believe this applies to all great works – whether it is Dürer’s Knight, Death and the Devil or Leonardo’s Last Supper.’
‘Do you think London’s art critics are able to recognise it when they see it?’ asked Opie.
‘I believe most critics to be eunuchs,’ said Fuseli dismissively. ‘Anthony Pasquin, the most notorious, is well known to have started out as an artist and failed. Peter Pindar, as we know,’ he looks at Opie, ‘is a charlatan. In truth I do not know why we allow any of them to sit in judgement upon us.’
‘Yet surely you need some kind of sceptical voice,’ declared Amelia Alderson. The table went quiet. ‘And if that individual is not an accomplished artist, it means they are not in competition with you, which would surely distort their judgement,’ she continued. ‘I approve of the critics, perhaps because my father is a physician. If he sees there is something wrong with a patient, but fails to say it, there is a chance the problem will become worse and may even lead to death.’
Opie looked at her. ‘Are you saying that without critics we will die, Miss Alderson?’
‘No,’ she replied briskly. ‘But I am saying you will be susceptible to something possibly worse than death, self-indulgence.’
Johnson smiled. ‘Miss Alderson makes an excellent point.’
The rabbit stew was brought in and served without ceremony. Johnson noticed Amelia’s surprise as the guests immediately fell on their food without waiting, and felt quiet admiration at her determination to conceal it.
There was a mischievous light in Fuseli’s eyes as he looked up.
‘Do we think Benjamin West is in need of a cure for self-indulgence?’ he asked lugubriously. ‘Many months ago he showed me this Venetian manuscript that seems to be causing so much fuss now. At the time, he confided he thought it would allow him to surpass Sir Joshua Reynolds. I confided in turn that I thought he was delusional.’
‘If Benjamin West is so enthused by the document, he should have been more honest about where he found it,’ replied Opie. ‘I myself am sceptical. But since our President clearly values it so highly I am allowing Miss Provis to give a demonstration of it at my house. If the other artists are as impressed by it as he is, they will pay her and her father the sum of money that he did not. Will you come? Maybe you can shame him where so many others have failed.’
Fuseli’s hand brushed away an imaginary cobweb in the air.
‘I am too occupied with other concerns right now. I remain a sceptic. Titian’s secret was that he was taught by a genius like Giorgione and spent most of his life in Venice. The light constantly shifts there because it is endlessly reflected by the water – colour swirls and evaporates, it has a quality unmatched anywhere else in the world. That is not something you get from a manuscript.’
‘Did any artist at the Academy encounter Miss Provis before she and her father took the Venetian Secret to Benjamin West?’ said Darton.
Opie looked at him.
‘What is your interest?’
‘I have known Mr Provis over the course of many years during my time at the Chapel Royal. I have also come to know Miss Provis since she arrived at the Palace three years ago. I have much admiration for her. I am curious to discover
how she is perceived by eminent artists such as yourselves.’
Opie slapped his hand on the table. ‘Of course you know both of the Provises. You must be better acquainted with them than any of us.’
Darton caught Johnson’s eye.
‘To an extent,’ replied Darton. ‘I have seen how Miss Provis attracts the fascination of all who encounter her. I am not well acquainted with her painting, but she has an extraordinary talent for caricature that has caused much amusement among the few who are invited to see her work. I once saw her draw the Prince of Wales as Bacchus, riding an exhausted donkey with the word DEBT branded across its haunches.’ Quiet laughter went around the table. ‘Obviously such a talent is considered inappropriate for one of her sex.’
‘Not at this table,’ commented Johnson quietly.
Opie frowned and was about to respond, when Godwin’s voice rang out loudly across the table.
‘So you sing at the Chapel Royal, Mr Darton. And yet you are in attendance here at in one of London’s more left-wing circles. What kind of double life is it that you lead?’
‘Music is a pure form,’ declared Darton straightforwardly. ‘It need not express your beliefs on any level. Singing Mozart or Bach in front of the King does not commit me to being a royalist.’
Johnson cleared his throat. ‘Nor indeed does it convince anyone that you are a socialist,’ he said wryly. ‘Mr Darton,’ he declared to the table, ‘was telling me he has travelled to France since the Revolution.’
‘He has indeed,’ declared Opie. ‘Just one and a half years ago, he encountered Napoleon in Paris.’
Johnson saw Darton look down.
He did not want the table to know this, he thought.
‘It was a chance encounter, nothing of significance,’ Darton said quickly. But the whole table was watching him.
‘Was this after…?’ began Amelia.
‘No, no, no,’ replied Darton anticipating her question. ‘It was before he distinguished himself as a soldier. The man I met was not a hero at all.’ He took a sip of his wine and looked towards Opie, as if inviting him to change the conversation.
‘How did he seem, then?’ Johnson asked crisply, keen to prolong his discomfort. Darton cleared his throat.
‘Circumstances looked bad for him. He had written a poorly received novel called Clisson et Eugenie. It was clearly a roman à clef about himself and his lover.’
Fuseli’s loud laugh rang cruelly across the room. The others remained still and quiet. ‘He had been removed from the list of generals who could serve regularly,’ continued Darton, ‘because he had refused to serve in the Vendée. So he was heading towards bankruptcy and didn’t seem to have very good prospects as a soldier at all.’
Amelia gasped, and Godwin looked at him intently. His gaze was no longer condescending.
‘Many see him now as the saviour of the revolution,’ the philosopher said.
Darton nodded. ‘He has been extremely successful in Italy. They say he will capture Venice this spring.’ A frisson crossed the table. ‘Thank goodness, all his energies will be concentrated there,’ Darton continued. ‘It is unlikely that the French will attempt another invasion of Britain after the failed attack at Christmas.’
Johnson looked warily round the table. I was a fool to invite him in, he thought. Out loud he asked, ‘Was your first encounter with Napoleon also your last?’
Darton nodded. ‘It was indeed. Most inauspicious. I had to lend him ten francs. No one at that stage could have predicted his rise to being one of France’s most important generals.’
Fuseli’s eyes flash. ‘I find it rather fascinating that his novel was so terrible. Imagine if it had been good. Then France – indeed the world – might have been deprived of one of its greatest soldiers.’
After the spiky start, it proved to be a convivial evening. The altercations continued, though the full antler clash between Fuseli and Godwin never manifested itself. Amelia’s carriage arrived for her at ten, and shortly after she departed, so did Godwin, saying he needed to see how Mary was. It was at the point when Johnson and Fuseli were engaged in discussion about Edward Jenner and vaccinations that Darton caught Opie’s eye and indicated that they should leave together.
The two men walked into St Paul’s Churchyard and up the steps of the cathedral to the pillars outside the Great West Door. There were only a few carriages abroad at this time of night, rattling around like lost souls in the dark. From time to time the candles carried by link-boys dotted themselves against buildings shrouded in blackness – the silhouettes of the weary trudged behind. In front of Darton and Opie, Ludgate Hill dipped its shadowy course down towards Farringdon and over to Fleet Street.
‘You have taken affront at my conduct this evening, Josiah,’ declared Opie.
‘Not at all.’ His friend looked at him guardedly.
‘You cannot conceal it. I saw the change in your expression when I mentioned Napoleon. Why did you resent my talking of him?’
‘The fault was mine. It suited me for Johnson to believe I was an idealist who was interested enough to travel to France, but little more.’
‘It suited you? What mean you by that?’
Darton looked down.
‘As you yourself told me, Johnson is concerned that I am a spy. I wanted to assure him he had nothing to fear from me.’
‘And he does not.’ Opie’s eyes narrowed. ‘Though I noted you said you did not anticipate another invasion. That is a lie – you have mentioned the prospect to me. I could not understand why you told it.’
He stared at Darton waiting for a response. None came. The suspicion on Opie’s face grew.
‘What were you doing at the dinner?’
Darton was still silent.
‘When Mary asked me who you were, I felt able to reassure her that you spy for the left. Is this true, or have things changed for you?’
Darton took a step back.
‘This whole world is changing all the time.’
‘Cease your flippancy. Am I putting my friends in danger by talking to you of them?’ Opie grabbed him by the shoulders and started to shake him.
‘Desist, man.’ Opie found himself sprawling on his back on the black and white chequered stones. He got up, eyes blazing. Darton held up his hand.
‘I told Johnson this evening he was not in danger from me, and I told him the truth.’ He was shaking slightly. ‘Do not chastise me.’ He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. ‘Johnson is friends with Wolfe Tone.’
‘Go on,’ said Opie dangerously.
‘The first attempt to invade Britain was – as you know – laughable. But if a second attempt is made, the consequences could be much more serious – for all of us. I do not think it should happen.’
Opie was silent for a moment.
‘Are you spying for Pitt?’
‘I have betrayed nobody. I simply seek to stop further bloodshed.’
Opie shook his head.
‘So you inveigled your way into Johnson’s dinner party and tried to see what you might discover about his associates.’
The fist flew into Darton’s stomach. He doubled over, trying not to vomit.
‘Johnson suspects me as it is,’ he said, painfully straightening himself up. ‘I knew he was too clever to incriminate himself on any level.’
‘Enough with your moral equivalence, man. What would you have done if one of his guests had revealed themselves to know something about the plot to invade?’
Darton dusted himself down. Checked himself for blood. Found none.
‘No one would have been arrested,’ he replied grimly.
He could see the faint disgust in Opie’s eyes.
‘I never meant to deceive you,’ he said.
Silence.
Darton walked over to a pillar and put his hand against it. He stared down Ludgate Hill.
‘The whole world is on fire,’ he said quietly. ‘Can’t you feel it?’ He turned. ‘The whole world order is changing. Many of us thought
that if you burnt away what was bad and corrupt, then only good would be left. But oppression comes with different masks, and it is more and more difficult to recognise whether new or old is the worst. None of us truly knows of what we are capable. None of us truly knows – till we are tested by that fire – what we might sacrifice for what we call the greater good.’
Opie was quiet for a moment. He could sense the Great West Doors of the cathedral looming behind them.
‘Who else in London knows of your shift in sympathies?’ he asked quietly.
‘Apart from Pitt? One person,’ came the response.
‘Do I know this person?’
‘You do.’
‘Who is it?’
‘We talked of him at dinner. It is Thomas Provis.’
Opie frowned.
‘He has been a discreet and reliable confidant of mine for many a year.’
‘Yet you have never talked of him to me.’ Opie’s voice became wilder. ‘Why the secrecy? Is he a spy too? Is this affair involving West part of some larger conspiracy about his political sympathies?’
Darton shook his head. ‘No, no. Mr Provis is no spy. The affair is not political.’
Opie’s laugh was black, disbelieving.
‘And yet the Provises are concealing something.’
Darton was silent.
‘What is it?’
As he considered his reply, several images ran through Darton’s mind. The house where he had found Ann Jemima in Spitalfields, her distress when he had met her coming back from Cosway, Mrs Tullett’s outrage, the blood on the girl’s hand.
‘It is difficult to say at this stage,’ he replied shortly.
‘Is your friend a good father? Might Ann Jemima be trapped somehow?’
‘She is not trapped by Provis. He is a devoted father.’
‘Do you think they really inherited the manuscript?’
Darton’s eyes widened. ‘I have never asked myself that question.’ He paused for a moment. ‘But I am worried that they have both taken on more than they anticipated, and now find themselves prey to dangerous forces.’
The Optickal Illusion Page 26