by James Wilson
‘Perhaps I might help?’ I suggested; for I could not but feel for the poor man, and yearn to cut him free from the net in which he had enmeshed himself. ‘I do have some small experience – and, indeed, am beginning to face similar problems in my Life of Turner.’
‘Lord bless you!’ said Gudgeon. ‘It’s uncommon good of you to offer; but God knows I mustn’t waste your life, as well as my own. Besides’ – here he smiled at his wife, who coloured and smiled back, as though they had some secret understanding – ‘the woman’s depending on you to restore me to sanity – if only for an instant – by taking me away from the whole sorry business.’ He laid a finger on my arm. ‘Come, we’ll go to the museum. And there, I swear, I’ll talk nothing but Turner.’
From our preparations – he insisted I put on my coat again, and borrow a muffler; and he himself donned an old redingote, and seized a shepherd’s crook – you’d have thought the ‘museum’ must be a day’s journey away, and up a mountain. It turned out, however, to be no further than the corner of the yard, squeezed into an old cattle-shed between the end of the house and a tack room and stable – from which, as Gudgeon fiddled with the latch, a brown pony with a shaggy white mane watched us, tossing its head and twitching impatiently. Inside, the room (if room it may be called) was cold and damp, smelling of wet earth and old hay, and lit only by a row of small dirty windows set high in the wall, which gave it something of the feel of a gloomy church. I could see nothing clearly, but was aware of being surrounded by indistinct shapes – which nonetheless somehow conveyed a sense of bulk and presence, for they seemed to press in upon me as palpably as a crowd of people.
Gudgeon took down a lantern from the back of the door; lit it with surprising adroitness (considering that his right hand could do no more than hold the box of matches), and then slung it on to the crook.
‘Would you be so good as to hold this?’ he said. ‘I think we shall get on better if I can point.’
I raised the staff like a bishop’s crosier, spilling light on to a broken black stone slab that leant against the wall immediately before me (so immediately, indeed, that, had I taken one step more in the darkness, I should indubitably have tripped on it). There were uneven letters scratched into the surface; and, bending down to read them, I saw:
Gaius Ter
Et sua coniunx caris
HSE
‘From a Roman cemetery near Lewes,’ said Gudgeon. ‘Gaius Tertius, I imagine. Et sua coniunx carissima.’ He ran his fingers gently along the top, and nodded, as if in approval; and I fancy he was thinking of his beloved wife – as I, most assuredly, was of mine.’ Hie Situs Est – so he died before she did, and her name was added later.’
‘I find it rather touching,’ I said.
He nodded again. ‘But Turner would have none of it. Said that a true painter could be married only to his art. An idea for which he gave, as I recall, no less an authority than Sir Joshua Reynolds,’ He smiled, and said: ‘See, I’m as good as my word! Nothing but Turner!’ – and then turned abruptly, and marched off into the void.
I followed him, bearing the lantern aloft, and watching the shadows dissolve in its yellow glow. My first thought was that I had stumbled upon the cave of some demented Aladdin; for the walls were lined with rough shelves – divided into rectangular compartments, something like the berths in a ship’s cabin – which appeared to overflow with the biggest hotch-potch of rubbish I have ever seen: broken pots; a horn knife-handle without a blade; the sole of an old shoe, dotted with rusty studs; half a black, fibrous wooden box (the other half, presumably having rotted clean away); a tray of flint chips that might have been crude arrowheads, but so frayed about the edges that they looked as if they had been nibbled into shape by a teething dog rather than formed by a human hand. Surely, I thought, this must be the product of some disease of the mind (had not the study, indeed, already afforded me a glimpse of it?) which renders its victim incapable of discarding anything, however small or useless, and hence of ever imposing any kind of pattern on his life?
But if this was madness there was certainly some method in it; for each section bore a neat handwritten label, stating a place and a date – ‘Braysted, 1845’, or (the ink here faded with age) ‘Tamberlode, 1816’.
‘Are these all finds that you made?’ I asked.
He nodded curtly, and muttered something I could not hear. I could not but feel awed by his industry (if not by his discrimination!), but he seemed to think it scarcely worthy of comment, for he continued on his way without altering his pace or turning his head, and said nothing more until he had reached the end of the room, and slapped a shelf with his hand, sending up a plume of dust.
‘Here’s Turner for you,’ he announced proudly. ‘He loved this spot.’
There were, I saw, objects from four different excavations here – the earliest dated 1811, the last 1825 – yet they all appeared to come from a single place, identified by a large sign in the centre of the wall: ‘Sturdy Down’.
‘He never said so, for he was taciturn about such matters, but I think he liked it for its layers,’ said Gudgeon.
‘Layers?’ I said, not sure if I had heard him correctly.
Gudgeon nodded. ‘Stand on the top of Sturdy Down, and within two miles – if you have eyes to see – you’ll find evidence of almost every stage in our island’s past.’ He lifted a pitted iron axe-head, and weighed it in his hand. ‘Anglo-Saxon, from some princeling’s grave.’ Before I had had time to examine it, he set it down again, and picked up a shiny fragment of orange tile, which he dropped into my palm. ‘Roman. From the hypocaust of a villa in the valley.’ As quickly again, he pointed to an intricate brooch, gracefully curved like an elongated snail’s shell. ‘Bronze Age. Buried with some priestess or chieftain’s daughter, to allow her to appear in the next world with proper dignity.’ He was jabbing his finger so rapidly now that I had barely even glimpsed one treasure before he was on to the next. ‘A stone from the mediaeval priory, most of which has been plundered to build that damned folly up there. A flint spear-point, which might have killed a mammoth.’
‘But why was Turner so fascinated?’ I asked – partly to slow him down, but partly out of genuine puzzlement – for while, in the pictures at Marlborough House, there had been abundant evidence of a taste for mythological subjects, and even more of a passion for the moods and effects of nature, I could remember none suggesting a deep interest in British history.
‘He was a man of the people,’ said Gudgeon. ‘A man of the labouring people. Many times I have seen him stop to sketch a fisherman, or a shepherd – not as a curiosity, or as some fanciful figure in a classical scene, but as a fellow-man, with the sympathy born of common experience. A great part of his purpose, indeed, was to present the mass of British men and women – those who would never enter a gallery, or have the means to buy a painting – with views of their country.’
‘But still -’ I began.
‘For he, too, you see,’ said Gudgeon, interrupting me (yet with a little nod, that seemed to say that he noted my objection, and would answer it in due course) ‘knew what it was to be poor, and footsore, and storm-lashed, and to work hard all the day long, and go to bed hungry.’ He paused, and then went on more quietly. ‘There were tears in his eyes as he stood there. Almost as if could see them, marching across the landscape – all those generations who had lived and toiled and died in that one place.’ Emotion, or the raw air, had thickened Gudgeon’s voice, and he had to clear his throat before continuing: ‘I confess I did not truly understand it myself at the time. I was too young. It’s easier for me now; for I find, as I get older, I feel closer to the people who made these things’ – here he looked about him and nodded, as if he were greeting a party of old friends – ‘and used them, and at length died, and left them behind for me to find.’ He was silent for a few seconds; and then – perhaps in an effort to master his feelings, for he seemed close to tears himself now – turned away abruptly, and seized another object from the
shelf. ‘Here’s something will interest you, Mr. Hartright.’
At first I could not identify it at all, but as he brought it into the light I saw that it was the lower jaw of some great animal, long and lined with jagged teeth like a crocodile’s. But it was so huge that – if the rest of the body were in proportion – the brute must have been at least five or six times bigger than even the largest crocodile you have seen in the Zoological Gardens; and I confess that when I took it in my hands I let out an involuntary gasp of amazement.
‘Part of an extinct dragon,’ said Gudgeon, with the practised chuckle of a man who has seen the same response many times before. ‘What I believe Owen now calls a dinosaur.’
‘Owen?’ I said.
‘William. Sir William, I should say.’ (You would have supposed from his emphasis that no man ever deserved a knight-hood less.) ‘Superintendent of the British Museum. And so, naturally, to be deferred to on every point of classification.’
He glowered round at his collection, his mouth working, like a rumbling volcano about to erupt; and I prepared myself for the long catalogue of his differences with Sir William. At length, however – perhaps again recalling his undertaking to talk of nothing but Turner – he nodded at the jawbone and said:
‘At all events, Turner and I saw it being dug out of the chalk, and he stood there, quite mesmerized for a moment, his face all aglow like a schoolboy’s; and then he started to sketch, like this’ – making wild thrusts with his hand – ‘as if his life depended on it. Later, I believe, he clothed it in flesh, and put it in one of his pictures.’
‘Yes,’ I said; for, as he spoke, the monster in The Goddess of Discord in the Garden of the Hesperides suddenly slithered before my mind’s eye, and I recognized it for this creature as surely as you may recognize a face that you have seen before only in a photograph. ‘I know it.’
‘And here’, said Gudgeon, laughing, ‘is a paintbrush, left on the down by the greatest artist of our age.’ He handed me a worn wooden handle.
‘You mean this was his?’ I said; and, when he nodded, felt a tremor pass across my skin like a crackle of lightning, for (save, perhaps, for Mr. Ruskin’s self-portrait) I had never yet held anything that Turner had held; and for a fanciful moment I imagined that his power might still reside in this slender shaft of wood, and communicate itself to me, so that I might paint as he did. Then I lifted it to the lantern-light, and saw that only one bristle remained.
Gudgeon must have noticed my amazement; for he laughed again, and said: ‘He was happy to keep working with only three hairs left, he told me, and content with two; but when he was reduced to one even he had to admit defeat.’
‘But why?’ I said, thinking with a prick of guilt how easily I will condemn a brush for the slightest fault. ‘Surely he could have afforded to replace it sooner?’
Gudgeon nodded. ‘Yes, he was already a rich man when I knew him. But he chose to live simply.’
‘Surely,’ I said, suddenly remembering some of the rumours I had heard. To call such behaviour “simple living”, when there is no occasion for it, might seem …?’
‘Yes,’ said Gudgeon, ‘I know that he was considered mean. But that is not how I should describe him. Frugal, yes. Careful – and quick to anger, undoubtedly, if he feared he was being cheated, or imposed upon. But I have seen him give five shillings to a young widow with a crying child at her breast, and tell her to buy something for it, and make sure it went to church, and learnt right from wrong.’
‘Was it bravado, then?’ I said, recalling Turner’s delight in displaying his skill on Varnishing Days.
‘In part, perhaps. He certainly took a great pride in being able to make do. And partly, too, that he feared losing his independence; for he told me once, when we had both drunk too much, that he detested above everything being subject to the whim of patrons.’ He paused; and when he went on again, it was with a doubtful tone, as if he was giving voice to some question that had just struck him, and that he had not yet resolved. ‘But there was, I think, something else, too. Something akin to a superstition.’
‘You mean,’ I said – and I don’t know why, save that it seemed, of a sudden, to fit with all those recurrent images of luxury and ruin and destruction at Marlborough House – ‘that he believed that if he was wasteful it might provoke some sort of a catastrophe?’
For some reason Gudgeon coloured slightly, as if I had confounded him; and then he nodded and said: ‘That is very astute of you, Mr. Hartright. And not just a catastrophe for himself. But for the country. Or even for the world.’ He smiled, and laid a finger impulsively on my arm. ‘I think you will do very well, sir. Very well indeed.’ And then, nodding towards the brush. ‘Keep it, please. I should like you to have it.’
‘Really?’
He nodded again.
‘I shall carry it with me always,’ I said, slipping it into my pocket. ‘As a talisman.’
It was a small enough thing, of course, and yet I could not help feeling delighted by it; for this was the first real encouragement I had received from anyone but Lady Eastlake – Mr. Ruskin’s comments, for all their ineffable condescension, having had much the same effect on my spirits as a bucket of cold water over the head. And it seemed to confirm what I had increasingly begun to feel (though still scarcely dared to hope) since seeing Turner’s paintings: that I was, at last, starting to get the measure of the man. It was, in consequence, in the highest good humour that – when Gudgeon took a watch from his pocket, and looked at it, and said: The woman’ll have dinner ready, I fancy; best not to keep her waiting; shall we go in?’ – I replied, ‘Gladly, sir,’ and followed him back into the house.
It was a hearty, old-fashioned meal, in an old-fashioned dining room with heavy beams and a huge open fire that must have consumed a whole tree in the time it took us to eat a boiled fowl, a pudding, and half a leg of mutton. Since Gudgeon could not carve, I thought his wife might ask me to do it in his stead; but she took the burden on herself, and I soon saw why: when she came to her husband’s portion, she discreetly cut it into little pieces, so he should not be humiliated either by his own incapacity to hold a knife, or by having to ask, like a child, to have it done for him on his own plate. Another man, perhaps, understandably reluctant to draw attention to his disability, might have chosen not to acknowledge this kindness; but Gudgeon touched the back of her hand, and thanked her with a smile of a great sweetness. I must have seen, as we sat together, twenty such instances of their mutual affection and regard. Let us hope, my love, when we are their ages, that we make such a picture!
When we had finished, Mrs. Gudgeon cleared away the dishes, and then left her husband and me alone with the wine. We talked a little of his family; and then, without my having to prompt him, he started to tell me more of his adventures with Turner: of how Turner loved storms – ‘the fouler the weather, the better’ – of how they took a boat once at Brighton, and a gale came up, and the sea broke over the gunwales with a sound like thunder, and all were ill, save Turner, who merely stared intently at the water, remarking its movement and colour, and muttering ‘Fine! Fine!’; of how they walked twenty or thirty miles a day, in rain, shine or deluge, and put up sometimes at the meanest inns, where Turner would be content with a piece of bread and cheese, and a glass of porter, and a table to rest his head on, if there was no bed to be had. Those were wonderful evenings for a young man,’ said Gudgeon at last, shaking his head in wonderment at the memory, ‘for there was Turner, who would show you nothing of his work, and barely say a word, during the day; but when the ale had freed his tongue would sing, and make jokes (though you could hardly understand them), and boast of his success, and how he meant to be the greatest painter in the world.’
He was silent a long while after this, and I think must have fallen asleep, for he nodded, and then jerked his head up again, and stared at me for a moment, as if he did not know who I was. And then he smiled, yet still said nothing, as if our sitting there companionably were conversation
enough. There was no sound save the plaintive stammering of distant sheep, and the whisper of the fire – which, like us, seemed to have grown sated and sleepy; for, though Gudgeon had thrown another log on when he had last filled our glasses, the flames had scarcely even charred it. The candles had burned low, and through the window I could see the first stars appearing in the sky; and I thought of those far-off days (yet not so far off, in truth) when young Gudgeon and not-yet-old Turner had sat together, just like this; and of how – in no more than one flickering iota of a second in a star’s life – Time creeps up on us all, and overtakes us. And so at length must have fallen asleep; for the next I knew was that Mrs. Gudgeon was shaking my shoulder, and laughing, and offering to light me upstairs with a lamp.
The following day I rose late, and made a leisurely breakfast in the kitchen – at that hour, thanks to the fire, the only warm room in the house. Afterwards, I sat a while with Gudgeon in his study, and we exchanged ‘Thank you’s and ‘It’s been a great pleasure’s until, at length, his wife entered, and told me that it was time to leave if I wished to be sure of the train. He came out into the yard with me – where the resourceful woman had already harnessed the trap to the brown pony, which waited, stamping its feet, as if anxious to be off. Then, sheltering in the doorway against the sharp east wind, Gudgeon unwound the cravat from his neck and stood waving it, like a scarf, in his good hand, as his wife drove me away.