The Dark Clue

by James Wilson

  ‘And you must wonder’, she went on, ‘why you troubled to come here at all, if that was all you were going to get for your pains?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, surprised at her perspicacity (though it shames me to admit it – for she was an intelligent woman, and why should an innkeeper know less of disappointment than we do?).

  She bent towards her husband, and whispered something in his ear. He gave a startled grimace, and then, almost immediately – with such practised rapidity that you could only suppose this was not the first time he had been taken aback by one of his wife’s suggestions, and subsequently forced to accede to it – nodded, and muttered something I could not hear.

  ‘Mr. Hartright,’ she said, facing me again. ‘Are you game for an adventure?’

  ‘I hope so,’ I said. ‘When some good may come of it.’

  ‘Why, then,’ she said, leaning closer, and dropping her voice. ‘Whitaker’s nephew, Paul, is a footman up at the house. And a good boy, who’d do anything to oblige us.’

  ‘That’s because he hopes to follow us here one day,’ said Whitaker. ‘And is consequently more eager to please his uncle than his master.’ He nodded at his wineglass, and gave a knowing little smile that seemed to say: I may be under my wife’s thumb, but don’t imagine I’m a sentimental fool.

  ‘Oh!’ said Mrs. Whitaker, mock-chidingly, tapping him playfully. She turned back to me. ‘We’ll get word to him that you want to see Turner’s studio, and arrange for him to meet you in the cowyard.’ The wine had heightened her colour and brightened her eyes, and given her voice a kind of reckless animation.

  ‘But surely’, I said, ‘it would be dangerous for him. If he was found out -’

  She shook her head. ‘We’ll say you’re a relative, visiting from London.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said her husband, with a grim little laugh. ‘From the gentry side of the family. Come to pass a pleasant evening in the servants’ hall.’

  ‘Ssh!’ said Mrs. Whitaker. She pulled back her head, and squinted at me appraisingly, like an archer taking aim. ‘In one of your hats, my dear, and one of your coats, he’ll look well enough.’ She stared a moment longer; and then, evidently satisfied, nodded. ‘Well, sir, what do you say?’

  I still don’t know exactly why – did I truly think I should learn something of value, or was I simply attracted by the chance to outwit the man who had humiliated me? – but I did not hesitate.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  And so it was, an hour-and-a-half later, that I set out for my second appearance at Petworth House, wearing a curly-brimmed bowler hat, and an old muffler, and a heavy worsted coat that was too tight at the shoulders, and too baggy at the waist, and left six inches of wrist showing below the cuffs. Had you been in Petworth that night, and seen me walking towards you along one of those narrow little streets, you would not, I am certain, have known me for your husband, but thought me a different sort of man altogether, and crossed the road to avoid me.

  The cowyard gate, it transpired, was on the London road, a little away from the centre of the town – which was just as well, for I had to wait there twenty minutes or more, and had I been in view of the porter’s lodge, or of curious passers-by, I might have been challenged, and asked to explain what I was doing. As it was, though I managed to keep myself out of sight, I could not feel entirely easy, for I was tormented by the thought, which had not struck me before, that the Whitakers’ nephew might be the footman who had admitted me that morning. It did not seem likely, for they had spoken of him as a boy; but I could not feel entirely convinced until I saw a tall young man in a blue cape hurrying out of the blackness towards me. It was, of course, quite dark now, and he kept his head lowered; but I caught a glimpse of a fresh-faced complexion, and almost-white golden hair, that told me, beyond doubt, that I had never seen him before in my life.

  He glanced up and down the street, and then said, in a quiet voice:

  ‘Good evening, sir. I’m Paul Whitaker. I’m sorry you was kept so long.’

  ‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘It’s good of you to help me.’

  ‘I should have been here punctual,’ he said. ‘Only Mrs. Smith said to see her; and I couldn’t say no, her being the housekeeper.’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘It was only a small matter,’ he said – just in case, doubtless, I should imagine he had stolen the plate, or murdered the under-butler.

  He conducted me quickly across a dank, gloomy courtyard stinking of dung and wet straw, and then, through an archway, into a second, as different from the first as light from day – for it was full of the noise and smells of the kitchen, and paved with light from its windows. His policy (which I could only applaud, for I should have done the same myself) was to tread softly, and to keep as far as possible to the shadows, in order to avoid drawing unnecessary attention to himself – yet not to appear so surreptitious as to suggest, if anyone did stop him, any consciousness of wrongdoing.

  Looking round sharply, to see if we were observed, he opened a door to the side of the kitchens, and led me into a broad, well-lit passage – which, save for the dingy yellow paintwork, and the pervasive fumes of pickles and jams and boiled cabbage, was not unlike that by which I had entered the house earlier in the day. An old man with no teeth and a moth-eaten white beard, who was just coming out as we went in, stopped dead when he saw us, and watched open-mouthed as we passed. I feared that he suspected something amiss, and would instantly report us when we had gone; but as soon as we were out of earshot, young Whitaker whispered:

  ‘Don’t mind him, he’s only an old man, and won’t say anything; and no-one will believe him if he does, for he’s half mad.’

  At that moment, however, he clearly sensed a greater danger; for he took my elbow, and pushed me ahead of him, just as a door to our right opened, and a surge of laughter and conversation and the heavy, drowsy scent of wine spilled into the corridor. I had time only to glimpse a stout man in a black coat, and the gracefully tapering legs of an old-fashioned mahogany sideboard, before we had turned a corner, and were descending a flight of stone steps.

  ‘Upper servants’ dining room,’ muttered Whitaker. ‘Best avoided if we can.’

  We were now in a long, low underground tunnel, with a curved ceiling and worn flags on the floor. It was lined with pipes, and lit by gas-lamps, although there were little niches set at regular intervals in the clammy walls where, presumably, lanterns had once stood. To the right, about halfway along, was a brick arch, barred by an iron gate, which seemed to lead into the void. Whitaker jabbed his thumb towards it.

  ‘The well,’ he said; and then, as if divulging this titbit had reminded him of my ignorance, and made him feel he should explain more: ‘This is the way into the main house.’

  When we finally emerged, we did not continue straight ahead, but turned into a small courtyard, like one of the older and pokier quads at an Oxford college, which – from the crude construction of the surrounding walls, and the shape and alignment of the plain square windows – was clearly of an earlier date than the rest of the mansion. To my surprise, however, I felt no change in the air, such as you normally experience when you go outside; and when I looked up, instead of the stars I expected to find there, I saw a pattern of rough roof beams, and, beyond them, a blackness more profound than even the darkest sky. And in an instant I realized that this sprawling monster must have been built about an entire other house, which still stood within its walls, invisible to the outside world – like the ghostly leg-bone that, according to anatomists, lies trapped beneath the skin of a seal.

  ‘Turner’s studio’s up there,’ said Whitaker, nodding to a dark upper window. He opened a narrow door, and, reaching into the gloom, brought out a lantern – further evidence of his intelligence and forethought, for he must have placed it there earlier, to avoid rousing suspicion – and quickly lit it. Then, lifting it high, he led me stealthily up an old spiral stone staircase, so rank with the stench of dust and mildew that it seemed
to cling to the roof of my mouth like grease – and, indeed, the taste of it lingers there still, even as I write. And I was suddenly, forcefully, reminded of another place – although it was so unexpected that it hovered for a few seconds at the edge of my mind, like a powerful but half-forgotten image from a dream, before I could put a name to it: Hand Court.

  ‘Just a moment, sir,’ whispered Whitaker, when we reached the top. He appeared far more nervous now, and peered out gingerly, to ensure that the coast was clear. And when he did at length stride on to the landing, beckoning me to follow, he moved so fast that my next distinct memory is of being in a large dark space, and of Whitaker closing the door and then leaning against it, half panting and half laughing softly with relief.

  ‘Pardon me, sir, if I don’t light the gas-lamps,’ he said, when he had got his breath back, ‘but I fear we might be seen.’

  It might not have been strictly true to say that the room had been shut up for the winter, but it certainly had an unused air about it. The atmosphere was chilly and damp, and the only evidence of a fire was the fusty smell of long-dead coals. In the centre of the end wall was a huge arched window, unshuttered and uncurtained, and against its weak grey light I could see the silhouettes of a sofa and two or three chairs, and the outline of a convoluted statue – rising from its pedestal in the form of an enormous ragged cone, like a drunken witches’ hat – which seemed to show some mythic mortal combat between man and man or man and beast. It was difficult to make out much else – for Whitaker’s lantern, swinging in his hand, illuminated no more than a few square feet of carpet – but as my eyes grew more accustomed to the dimness I noticed that the walls were lined with bookshelves, and realized that this must be another library. (How many books can Colonel Wyndham own, in heaven’s name?! How many of them has he read?) There was no evidence of it ever having been used as a studio – no obvious connection with painting at all, in fact, save for a few pictures hung over the fireplace.

  And yet, for all that, I could not help but feel Turner’s presence strongly – so strongly, indeed, that for a fleeting moment I almost fancied I saw his shadowy little figure standing before an easel in the window, a brush clenched between his teeth, another in his hand, a gleam of furious pleasure in his eye. It may be that I really am starting to know him, or perhaps I was merely following the train of thought that had begun on the staircase, but I seemed, in an instant, to understand why he was easy here: it was a kind of ideal Maiden Lane, giving him, on a far grander scale, and with unimaginably greater comfort, the same relation between society and seclusion that he would have known when painting in his bedroom as a boy. The great door that so effectively protected him from the prying eyes of the world could, quite as easily, re-admit him to its company; for beyond this private island stretched a giant warren, teeming with servants and children and fellow-artists, all presided over by his kindly patron – just as, years before, Hand Court, too, must have teemed with familiar faces.

  Conceive, my love, my feelings when, in the midst of these ruminations, without warning, I heard, not a dozen yards away, the stifled giggling of a girl. I defy any man, however brave – unless he be a turnip, with no imagination whatever – to deny that he, like me, would have gasped, and felt his scalp tighten with fear, and the sweat break out on his back.

  ‘Nancy!’ said Whitaker. He sounded almost as startled as I was, and his lantern shook visibly, slopping splashes of yellow light on the floor and walls. In its palsied glow I saw the girl rear up behind the sofa, patting the dust from her print skirt. She was still laughing, but it was the uncertain laughter of one who hopes to escape censure by making light of what she has done.

  ‘I thought you wasn’t here yet!’ said Whitaker.

  ‘I waited ten minutes on the stairs,’ she replied, in a wronged tone. ‘But when you didn’t come and didn’t come, I thought I’d bestest hide in here.’

  He clearly felt he could not reproach her further; but could not keep his anger at being taken by surprise, and made to seem frightened, from his voice. ‘Well,’ he snapped. ‘Have you got it?’

  ‘Course,’ she said, starting round the sofa towards us. She was walking with small, awkward steps, and as she came into the light I could see why: she was clutching something beneath her apron.

  ‘Nancy,’ said Whitaker, more gently. ‘This is my cousin from London. Mr.… Mr.…’

  I was, I must confess, momentarily at a loss; for if – as seemed apparent – Nancy was a fellow-conspirator, why should he not introduce me as myself? Almost in the same instant, however, I guessed the answer: he was (again with admirable prudence) trying to protect both her and us. If we were discovered, she would be less likely to betray us, and would herself appear less culpable, if she was ignorant of my true identity, but really thought that she was merely helping to entertain a visiting relative of Whitaker’s.

  ‘Jenkinson,’ I said – and, had you heard me, I’m sure you would have said: There’s a man born in Covent Garden, who went on to better things.

  ‘How do you do, Mr. Jenkinson?’ She was young – only fifteen or sixteen – with a strong, fine-featured face and an almost gypsy-brown complexion; and there was a kind of modest attentiveness in the way she took my hand that made me think she was anxious to win my good opinion, perhaps as a suitable wife for my supposed cousin.

  ‘Let’s see it, then,’ said Whitaker.

  Nancy crouched down, slipped an old oilskin pouch from behind her apron and laid it in the pool of lamplight on the floor. ‘He gave this to my ma,’ she said, drawing out a flat package covered in tissue-paper, and starting to unwrap it.

  ‘Turner?’ I said.

  I don’t know whether she replied or not, for at that moment I saw, beneath her fingers, the first patch of that familiar burning orange-red, and then a dark strip of foreground, and then a brilliant button of sun, furious as a raw wound, leaking its radiance into a sky ribbed with cloud.

  ‘Here,’ she said.

  It was, I saw, as I took it, a little watercolour of the park, which might perhaps have served as a sketch for a larger oil. The brushwork was so rough and indistinct – sometimes an object would be suggested by no more than a line, or a single speck of paint – that it was difficult to make out anything clearly, but I was able to identify the Grecian temple; and a herd of deer (no more than a cluster of dots, really) roaming across the hillside; and something that looked like an empty chair in the bottom left-hand corner, on what must be the terrace in front of the house.

  ‘Did your mother know him well?’ I said.

  ‘She saw him often enough, I believe,’ said Nancy. ‘She was a housemaid here, like me.’

  ‘And why’d he give it to her?’ I said, with a leer that made me cringe inwardly.

  ‘I don’t know, Mr. Jenkinson,’ she said. ‘She never said. Why do you suppose?’ She looked me straight in the eye, and gave a little smile, but I noticed she was blushing.

  I felt I could not ask more without seeming to act out of character; so I chuckled, and gave her the picture back, and said – with the air of a man whose limited curiosity has been satisfied – ‘That’s very interesting, gel. Thank you.’

  This encounter, you may think, afforded me little enough; and yet it gave my visit to Petworth some point and purpose, which it would have otherwise lacked, and left me feeling – whether rightly or wrongly, I still cannot tell – that I had learnt something of value about Turner, and gained an insight into his character.

  I should, indeed, have come away quite satisfied, had it not been for an incident on the way back, when – just as we had emerged once more from the tunnel into the service wing, and I was starting to breathe more easily – I saw, coming towards me, with a tray laden with glasses and a decanter for the house, the man in all the world I most, at that moment, dreaded meeting: the footman who had taken me to Colonel Wyndham that morning. There was no point in turning around, or pulling up my collar to hide my face, for he was already watching me, with a little frown
of puzzlement, and would have undoubtedly seen any hesitation or evasion on my part as a confirmation of guilt. My only hope, I realized, was to make him doubt the evidence of his own eyes; and when he slowed his pace, therefore, and made to waylay us, I stopped, and gave him a frank smile, and said:

  ‘Who’s this, Paul?’

  ‘Mr. Bond,’ said Whitaker. ‘Mr. Bond, Mr. Jenkinson. My cousin from London.’

  ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Bond,’ I said. I did not offer my hand, for he could not take it; but bobbed my head respectfully. ‘Paul’s a good boy, and writes often, and never fails to say what a help you are to him, in learning his duties.’

  Bond made no response, save to look deep into my eyes, and then at Whitaker, and then back again. At length he said:

  ‘And where do you put up, Mr. Jenkinson?’

  Before I could reply, Whitaker – anxious, no doubt, to show that he had not flouted the rules by inviting me to stay at the house – said:

  ‘At the Angel, Mr. Bond.’

  Bond said nothing more, and, after a moment, nodded and moved on. As he turned into the tunnel, however, he looked back at me with a cool gaze that plainly said he was not convinced; and I knew that he might tell the housekeeper what he had seen; and that she might tell Colonel Wyndham; and that the colonel might send to the Angel to make enquiries after me. I resolved, therefore, that to avoid the risk of embarrassment for my kind hosts, and of disgrace – or perhaps even dismissal – for their nephew, I must quit Petworth within the hour.

  And so it was that I thanked Paul Whitaker at the cowyard gate, and gave him a sovereign for his pains, and five shillings for Nancy, and made my way back to the hotel, and ordered a fly to drive me to Horsham, where I supposed (correctly, as it turned out) that I should be able to take an early train to London. Mr. and Mrs. Whitaker implored me to stay, saying they were sure no harm would come to them or to Paul; but I would not be swayed. Then they refused payment for my room, since I should not have slept in it; but I insisted, and at length they relented, and we parted with many professions of thanks and good will on both sides.