by James Wilson
‘I have written a book,’ I replied. ‘But it is no more than the history of a conspiracy against my wife, which my own experience qualified me to narrate. Perhaps it would be truer to call me a chronicler than a writer.’
Lady Eastlake nodded.
‘Or even an editor,’ I went on. ‘For, wherever possible, I told the story through the words of those who were closest to the events described, and thus best able to give a true account of them. Including Marian, whose journal was an invaluable source of information.’
I glanced at Marian. I had expected her to gainsay me: What nonsense, Walter: you are far too modest. Instead, she was watching me intently, her dark complexion flushed with excitement. As I turned back to Lady Eastlake, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, the table laden with photographs.
‘You could say’, I continued, ‘that I aspire to art in my painting. Whereas …’
‘Whereas in writing,’ said Lady Eastlake, ‘you are a camera, perhaps?’
‘Exactly,’ I said. I was taken aback, both by her acuity and by her rudeness in interrupting me. I looked again at Marian: she was smiling at Lady Eastlake, as if to say: There, I told you so. The idea that there might be some secret understanding between them, of which I was the unwitting object, unsettled me.
‘May I ask’, I said (with, I own, a certain iciness), ‘if this is tending towards some end?’
Lady Eastlake did not answer at once. She exchanged another furtive glance with Marian, then took a handkerchief from her sleeve and carefully smoothed it on her lap. At length she cleared her throat and said:
‘Mr. Hartright, would you mind closing the doors?’
I did so. She went on:
‘I would not, of course, expect you to keep anything from your wife; but I must begin by asking that you do not mention this conversation to anyone else.’
I felt I could not accept this condition without knowing more, but was hard put to find a delicate way of saying so. She must have seen what was in my mind; for she said:
‘Och, you needn’t worry about your honour, Mr. Hartright. I’m not going to confess to a murder, or the theft of a child. Besides, your sister’s presence in this room should give you assurance enough.’
I felt the justice of this, and nodded. She continued:
‘My only concern is to protect my husband. His position – which God knows he never sought – is difficult enough already, and the last thing I want to do is stir up a hornets’ nest around his poor head.’
‘Very well,’ I said.
‘Thank you.’ She looked warily towards the door, and when she spoke it was in little more than a whisper. ‘Do you by any chance know a man called Thornbury?’
‘No,’ I replied. ‘Who is he?’
‘A journalist,’ she said. ‘And, I fear, an utter scoundrel.’
‘That is not surprising,’ I said. ‘A cynic might say that, to be the one, it is almost a requirement to be the other.’
Lady Eastlake laughed. ‘I have not myself met him,’ she said, ‘but, so far as I have been able to learn from my friends, he is intent – for no other reason than to sell the wretched book he is writing – on slandering a poor, misunderstood body who can no longer defend himself. And the result, I’m afraid, will be a serious injury, not only to the memory of one man, but to England herself, and to English art. For his subject was – in my view, and the view of many others – the foremost genius of our age.’
And it was then, with the force of a sprung trap, that the image of Queen Anne Street re-entered my mind, and, in the same instant, I knew why it was familiar. For a moment I was a boy of eight again, and sitting in a cab next to my poor father; the winter cold turned our breath to steam, and I huddled close to him, for in his thick coat he was an island of warmth and safety. As we jolted past a tall house with dirty windows and a heavy front door, he laid his gloved hand on mine and pointed out of the window. ‘Look, Walter,’ he said. ‘That is 47 Queen Anne Street. Where the foremost genius of our age lives.’
And now, in the space of six hours, I had walked down the same street and heard the same phrase again for the first time in thirty years. Without stopping to consider, I said to Lady East-lake: ‘Do you mean Turner?’
It was her turn to be astonished. She stared at me, her mouth half open, then looked at Marian. ‘Have you …?’
Marian was equally perplexed. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I said nothing. Walter, how did you …?’
I confess I was tempted to confound them further by pretending to some mysterious knowledge, but I merely said: ‘Oh, it was just a guess.’ And then, to forestall more questions (for both of them still looked puzzled), I went on: ‘So is Mr. Thornbury writing Turner’s biography?’
‘That is what he claims.’
‘But if you have never met him,’ I said, ‘how do you know it is defamatory?’
‘I have been following his progress, Mr. Hartright – with, I have to say, a sinking heart. A few of those closest to Turner have, wisely, refused to speak to him at all. Of the rest, he appears to have given most credence to a gang of malicious gossips, most of whom scarcely knew the man. And they, as is the way with these things, have in turn referred him to more of their own kind.’
I must own that my first thought was the old adage: There’s no smoke without fire. Perhaps she saw my scepticism, for she went on:
‘No man as eminent as Turner could avoid making enemies among those less successful or less gifted than himself – particularly a man with such a thoroughgoing disdain of flattery and convention. You’ve probably heard all manner of stories about him yourself.’
Her raised eyebrow seemed to demand an answer, but I said nothing, for – beyond a few hoary old anecdotes about his meanness, and his garbled speech, that are common currency at the Academy – in reality I was shamefully ignorant about him. She waited a moment, and then continued:
‘He was, it cannot be denied, an odd, perverse, eccentric little creature, but he was not a monster, and he deserves better than to be commemorated by tittle-tattle.’ She leaned confidentially towards me. ‘I came to know him well in his last years. Indeed’ – here her voice grew unsteady, and her eyes glittered with tears – ‘I am told that as he lay dying he called my name. Which I cannot but feel as a charge upon me. To try to protect his memory.’ She hastily dried her eyes, then clenched her handkerchief into a ball. ‘Mr. Hartright, what I am asking .. . what I am suggesting … is that you might yourself consider undertaking to write a Life of J. M. W. Turner.’
For perhaps three seconds I was, literally, speechless with astonishment. A thousand questions crowded into my head, and then flew off again before I could find words to express them. I was conscious of Marian’s gaze upon me – watchful, anxious, almost pleading – and the sense that her hopes and happiness were, in some way I could not yet fathom, bound up with my reply, only confused me further. Perhaps Lady Eastlake mistook my perplexity for calculation, for she said:
‘I have spoken to a publisher I know, and am assured that there would be a ready market for such a book …’
‘That is not my concern. I –’
‘And I’m sure I speak for all of Turner’s friends when I say we should be happy to underwrite it…’ She broke off, suddenly noting that I was following another train of thought. ‘What?’ she said. ‘You think there must be others better placed?’
I nodded. ‘What about yourself, for instance?’
‘As I explained, my connection to Sir Charles . . . Besides, there are many doors closed to a woman that a man may pass through easily and freely.’
‘I cannot believe –’ I began.
‘What you must understand, Mr. Hartright, is that poor Turner died a recluse,’ said Lady Eastlake. ‘Most of those who knew him well are long dead. Of those who are still alive, Mr. Ruskin would seem to be the natural choice, but he’ – here she smiled slightly – ‘is too Olympian to contemplate it. My situation you already know. And as for my husband – well, it’s entire
ly out of the question, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh, I can quite see that,’ I said. ‘But –’
She appeared not to have heard me.
‘Both Mrs. Booth, Turner’s housekeeper, and his friend George Jones are good-hearted people, but…’ She paused, and shook her head. ‘Well, frankly, neither of them is equal to it. And Mr. Jones, I believe, in any case now spends most of his time dressing up as the Duke of Wellington. At best, they might both furnish you with useful memoirs.’
She paused, and again I found myself at a loss for words. It was Marian who broke the silence:
‘There is no-one else, Walter. If you won’t do it, Thornbury will carry the day unopposed.’
‘And do not underestimate yourself, Mr. Hartright,’ said Lady Eastlake. ‘Unlike Thornbury, you are an artist, who will understand the painter in Turner . . .’
I cried – I could not stop myself – ‘You cannot compare -!’
‘He may have been a general, and you – forgive me – only a colonel,’ replied Lady Eastlake. ‘But all artists belong to the same regiment, and fight the same battles, and crave the same victory. And then’, she went on, before I could protest further, ‘you are also, by your own admission, a chronicler, who knows how to gather and evaluate and compile the accounts of different witnesses.’
‘And a crusader, who has already proven his determination to right a great wrong,’ said Marian.
Lady Eastlake nodded. ‘Who could be more ideal?’
They were quiet then, leaving me to ponder what they had said. I tried, again, to impose some order on my own jangled thoughts, but they all – save one, which rang through my head with the clarity of a bell – remained in turmoil. At length Marian said:
‘This is all so unexpected for poor Walter that I think we must allow him some time to consider his response.’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Lady Eastlake.
And so we left it. No more mention of the idea was made, and, after exchanging the usual pleasantries for a few minutes, Marian and I rose to go. Only as Stokes ushered us from the room did Lady Eastlake say:
‘I may expect to hear from you soon, I hope, Mr. Hartright?’
*
We barely spoke on the way home. I was still trying to marshal my own thoughts, which were all of you and the children, and of how our lives would change if I accepted Lady Eastlake’s strange proposal; but I was constantly deflected by waves of wild emotion – dread, and a kind of dizzy exhilaration, in about equal measure – which I could not trace confidently to their source, but which seemed to gush unbidden from some hidden spring in my mind.
Marian, for her part, was uncharacteristically constrained. I thought little of it at the time, beyond merely remarking the fact; but now I think she must have taken my silence to mean that I was angry; for when we were back in our own drawing room, and had shut the door, she laid a hand lightly on my arm and said:
‘I do hope, Walter, that you don’t think I did wrong.’
‘What,’ I said, ‘to invite me to Lady Eastlake’s?’
‘Not that,’ she said. ‘But to invite you without telling you the reason. She insisted that you should know nothing until she had met you, and could decide for herself whether you would be suitable. But when I saw you sitting there, so bewildered, it made me feel a traitor. Or, rather, made me feel that you would think me a traitor.’
Poor Marian! ‘I was taken aback, I must own,’ I said. ‘But I never suspected you of treachery, or doubted that you had my best interests at heart.’
‘I’m glad.’ She was silent for a moment, looking down at her bag and toying with the string. Then, as if she had decided at last to say something that had long been on her mind, she burst out: ‘May we talk frankly, Walter?’
‘Nothing I have ever known could prevent you talking frankly, once you were set on it,’ I said. ‘And I’m quite certain that it lies beyond my power to stop you.’
She laughed, and her voice had regained some of its old gaiety as she replied: ‘I said “we”, not “I”.’
‘Very well,’ I said.
We sat together on the sofa. It was dusk, but neither of us suggested lighting the gas. Perhaps we both felt that it would be easier to open our hearts if our faces, at least, were veiled by the deepening gloom. At length she said:
‘Many years ago I told you that we should always be friends, Walter, did I not?’
‘Yes,’ I said, taking her hand. ‘And so we shall.’
‘I hope so,’ she said. ‘At any rate, that is the spirit in which I now speak. You may think me impertinent; but please believe that I am prompted only by sisterly love for you and Laura.’
‘Of course I believe it,’ I said. ‘I’ve never been surer of anything in my life.’ And nor had I; but, notwithstanding, I waited with trepidation to hear what she would say next. A whole army of butterflies seemed to have taken up residence in my stomach, and my legs were so leaden that, if Davidson had rushed in at that moment shouting ‘Fire! Fire!’, I doubt whether they would have carried me to the door.
‘Thank you,’ said Marian. She breathed deeply, then went on: ‘You know that, living as close together as we do, we cannot help noticing the smallest changes in each other’s moods?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘recently I think I have noticed such a change in you. You have become restless, and distracted. You paint and draw less than you did. And, while you are still as loving a husband and father and brother as ever, I sometimes think it is with a greater effort than previously. As if … as if you have to bring yourself back from some other place in order to be with us.’
‘It’s difficult for me to paint here,’ I said, ‘until the studio is finished. And I have, as you know, been very taken up with planning it, and overseeing the work.’
‘The want of a studio never stopped you painting before,’ she said. ‘And you may, I think, safely leave building it to the workmen. They do not require you to go out twenty times a day and tell them their job.’
I remembered where she had found me that afternoon, and was glad the darkness hid my blushes.
‘No,’ she went on, ‘we must look for a deeper cause. And I think I know what it is.’
I need not burden you
I wish I could spare you what she said next; for it must inevitably hurt you, and make you think worse of me. But it is the truth, and you must know it – else you will cease to know me.
‘Dear Walter,’ she said, in a quieter, tenderer voice. ‘You are the victim of your own sensitive nature. No-one else, knowing all the circumstances, could possibly accuse you of having benefited improperly from marrying Laura, and sharing the fortune which eventually became hers. Yet that, if I am right, is the charge with which you torment yourself. You know that your conduct has always been beyond reproach, and that you have brought her more happiness than she ever knew in her life. And yet, and yet, and yet.. . You still harbour the faint suspicion that you have somehow become a pensioner, and it is an agony to you.’
I opened my mouth to speak; but, in truth, I could not find the strength to deny it. In a moment, she had cast a light into some dark corner of my being and found a canker to which, until now, I had been unable to give a name.
‘Worse still,’ she continued, ‘you feel a certain vacancy at the centre of your life. You have everything that, in the eyes of the world, should make a man happy: a gentle and loving wife, two beautiful children, a fine estate, and the regard of your brother artists. Yet something is lacking: a cause capable of stirring your soul, and carrying you beyond the concerns of family and home.’
I nodded, and I think she must have seen me; for I felt her hand tightening on mine. ‘It is nothing to be ashamed of,’ she said. ‘It is just that, like all noble natures, you know that family and home themselves are meaningless, unless they stand in relation to some greater purpose.’
Outside, a wagon squealed and rumbled across the cobbles. I clutched at the sound gratefully, and
wrapped it about me like a cloak; for my eyes were full of tears.
‘For months,’ said Marian, ‘I have been looking for some way to relieve you. And that is why my heart leapt when Lady East-lake told me of her anguish over Turner’s life, for here at last, it seemed, was a great purpose you were perfectly fitted to fulfil.’ She paused, and then went on: ‘You know, I hope, that I will gladly help you, as I did once before, when fate enlisted us in the same struggle. Dear Walter, please say you will do it!’
Once, many years ago – do you remember? – I called Marian our good angel; and so she is, for like an angel she seems to know what is best and truest in us better than we know it ourselves.
For some moments I could not speak; and when I did, all I could say was: Thank you.’
And so, my love, tomorrow I shall write to Lady Eastlake, telling her that, on certain conditions, I accept. And the upshot (if she agrees) is that you will have to get to know me in yet another character. Drawing master, detective, husband, clerk of works – and now, of all things, biographer!
It is late here, and cold. I shall go to bed, and hold to myself the pillow that still bears the smell of your skin and hair.
Good night,
Walter
II
Memorandum of a letter from Walter Hartright to
Lady Eastlake, 19th July, 185-
1. Thank you for your invitation; great pleasure finally to meet you.
2. After consideration, delighted to accept your proposal that I should write a Life of J. M. W. Turner.
3. Must, however, make one stipulation: respect your feelings towards Turner, but neither they, nor wish to thwart Thornbury, can be my guide. Shall do no more, and no less, than try to discover truth (which in biography must, I think, be same as facts!). Go where trail leads me, without fear or favour. Cannot promise, therefore, to paint portrait you wish.
4. Hope you will forgive bluntness, but important to be clear at outset in order to avoid misunderstanding later.
III