by James Wilson
I was somewhat chastened by this reflection (for if I have had nothing else to boast of, have I not always prided myself on my good sense?); but then it struck me that I could turn my newfound weakness to my advantage, by making light of it.
So was there a prisoner in chains there, Walter? Did you find Old Dad, still locked up after fifty years, and raving piteously about varnish?
I turned cautiously towards him, rehearsing the words in my head. He was still engrossed in his notebook, adding a line here, or a scribbled word there, whenever the motion of the cab allowed. Something in his posture, the obstinate set of his neck and shoulder, told me, beyond doubt, that he would not be amused, and I should fail again.
I was suddenly overcome with tiredness – sleep seemed to ambush me, whether I would or not, pressing me to my seat, and turning my eyelids to lead. No dreams of horrors – no dreams of anything, so far as I can recall; and I was woken again after only a few minutes – for we had gone but a mile or so, and were still a little way from home – by a sharp slapping sound. The cause, I soon discovered, was Walter’s notebook, which had slipped from his lap on to the floor. I was surprised, for an instant, that he did not bend forward to retrieve it; then I saw that he, too, had fallen asleep, and I picked it up myself.
We are brought up to believe that letters and diaries are sacrosanct, and that it is the blackest dishonour to violate their secrets – but what of a notebook? Surely (I told myself) that is something else entirely – a mere collection of facts, as neutral as a column of figures, which cannot be held to belong to any person in particular. It was only as I lifted the first page that I suddenly imagined what I should feel if the situation were reversed, and I found Walter making free with my notebook without my permission.
I stopped myself, but not before I had glimpsed one of his sketches. It was not the gloomy interior I had expected, but an outside view of the garden front. There were the two little single-storey wings, with their stucco walls and trim slate roofs; there in the centre Turner’s studio, where Miss Fletcher and I must have been talking even while Walter had drawn this (indeed, I could just make out two ghostly little crescents in the window, which might have been our heads).
But below it was another window, which I had not seen before: a lunette, protected by an iron grille, half hidden by a tangle of bushes. Beyond it must lie the basement.
It reminded me of something – something unexpected, though for a moment I could not say what it was. The curved top; the glass (at least in Walter’s drawing) so shadowed that it looked like an empty socket – why did they seem familiar?
And then, with the force of a physical shock, it struck me: the half-buried arches in The Bay of Baiae.
Later still
He is back. I cannot imagine where he has been – I do not wish to imagine – but he is back. Thank God.
The sound of the door woke me. I had somehow persuaded myself that I had finished, and fallen asleep at my desk.
I have just re-read what I wrote. I had not finished. I had not described our homecoming.
As we descended at last from the cab, I missed my footing. Walter caught me, but not before I had twisted my ankle. The pain must have shown on my face, because, as I hobbled towards the door on Walter’s arm, the driver said:
‘Your missus all right, sir?’
So kindly meant. And yet those words laid bare my heart so mercilessly that even my poor self-deluded eyes could not fail to see it.
Oh God, I am so miserable.
XXIV
From the journal of Walter Hartright, 6th October, 185-
Am I mistaken? Could I be mistaken?
There is something about a photographic studio that makes you doubt the evidence of your own senses. There is the painted backdrop, telling you that you’re in the library of a country house or a garden strewn with statues; there are the clamps, half hidden by a curtain, that fix the subject in a pose of apparent naturalness for long minutes together.
But surely it is childish superstition to distrust a man simply because he lives by creating illusions?
Considered rationally, is there any reason why Mayall might have lied?
I cannot think of one. He appears a plain, unaffected, businesslike sort of man. Being American, he has no connections here. If he is now the most successful photographer in London (that was, I am sure, Sir William Butteridge I saw emerging from his studio), he has become so entirely through his own efforts, and the excellence of his work. It is true that he suddenly seemed more obliging when I mentioned Lady Eastlake’s name, but that, I am sure, is because she has taken such an intelligent interest in his profession.
So what exactly did he say?
‘Turner came to my atelier several times in ‘forty-seven, ‘forty-eight and ‘forty-nine. There was something rather mysterious about our early meetings. In one of them he led me to believe he was a Chancery Court Judge, and he did nothing to dispel this impression, later on.’
Led me to believe. Odd, but not inconceivable that it was simply a misunderstanding of some kind. Turner was, after all, an old man (he must have been what? – seventy-two? – when they met?) – perhaps his weak eyesight prevented him seeing the puzzlement on May all’s face, or he mis-heard a question.
And yet…
‘He came to see me again and again – so often, indeed, that my people used to think of him as “our Mr. Turner”. And every time he had some new notion about light. One day, I remember, he sat with me three hours, talking about its curious effects on films of prepared silver. The whole subject seemed to fascinate him. He asked whether I’d ever repeated Mrs. Somerville’s experiment of magnetizing a needle in the rays of the spectrum, and said he would like to see the spectral image copied.’
Not the conversation of a man with failing faculties. Nor, indeed, you would imagine, of a Master in Chancery. Surely Mayall must have been curious enough to question him further? ‘If I may say so, sir, you know more about optics than any judge I ever met…?’
That would have been the moment for Turner to disabuse him, if it had been an honest mistake. But he did nothing to dispel this impression, later on.
It is true, of course, that Turner made no attempt to conceal his name – but then there was little chance it would betray him: there must be thousands of Turners in London.
What, then, of the pictures?
‘At first he was very keen on trying the effects of light let in on the figure from a high position, and he sat for the studies himself. Later, I took several daguerreotype portraits of him. In one, he was reading – a favourable position for him, because his eyes were weak and bloodshot. There was a lady who accompanied him [presumably Mrs. Booth] and I recall that he gave one of these pictures to her.’
But none of the portraits was full-face; and when I asked May-all if he still had any of them (for, apart from the early self-portrait Ruskin showed me, I have still seen no image of Turner, and can form no mental conception of him in his later years) he replied:
‘Alas, no. I did set aside one curious portrait of him in profile, which of course I immediately looked up when I found out who my mysterious visitor really was. But unfortunately one of my assistants had effaced it [did Mayall hold my eyes a little too fixedly here, as people do when they lie?] without my permission.’
And how had he found out who his ‘mysterious visitor really was’?
‘Oh, I met him at the soirée of the Royal Society, in – I think – the spring of 1849. He greeted me very cordially, and immediately fell into his old topic of the spectrum. Then someone came up and asked if I knew Mr. Turner, and when I told him I did, my informant said, rather significantly: “Yes, but do you know that he is the Turner?”
‘I was rather surprised, I must confess. I ventured to suggest that I might be able to help him, by carrying out some experiments for him on his ideas about the treatment of light and shade, and we parted on the understanding that he would call on me. But he never did call on me, and I never saw hi
m again.’
Perhaps I am mistaken, then. If Turner’s intention had really been to deceive Mayall, then surely he would not have acknowledged him at the soiree.
And yet and yet and yet…
We are still left with this:
- During his visits to the studio Turner pretended to be a judge.
- He allowed himself to be photographed, but avoided poses in which he could easily be recognized.
- Once Mayall knew his identity he never called on him again, despite having undertaken to do so.
Geniuses are not like other men.
But is not this all of a piece with Sandycombe Lodge?
You are an artist – you worship the sun – you know that no man since the beginning of time has caught its moods and effects with such fidelity and power.
You build a house so full of light that any visitor must say: This is a temple to the sun.
But what if Farrant is right? What if this is only the face you care to show the world, and there is another, concealed behind an almost invisible door?
As I stood in that basement, and stared out through the cavern-mouth window with its fearful iron bars, was there not but one thought that overwhelmed me: This house was designed by a man with a secret?
Farrant may be lying, of course. I must remember that. A letter so at odds with everything else I’ve learned may simply be the product of a diseased and envious mind. If that’s all it is – which, let me not forget, was certainly my assumption when I first read it – then all this speculation is mere fancy, and I have evidence of nothing more sinister than eccentricity.
But if he is telling the truth …
There is no help for it. I must go and see him.
A mere five hours has passed since I last closed this book – but what a five hours! In that time I have changed my coat for another – changed my name for another – gone from the Reform Club to a low tavern, and from there to the Marston Rooms in Piccadilly (a place that even a week ago I could not have conceived of entering), where I sit now, next to a woman and a late theatre-goer at the neighbouring table who laugh drunkenly at each other’s remarks as – I presume – they negotiate terms. (Small wonder that London is so full of vice, when a man seeking rest and refreshment late at night is forced to resort to an establishment such as this.)
And what to make of it all? I cannot tell – too many impressions, and speculations, and novel experiences. I must try simply to set it all down, and trust that some pattern will emerge.
The notion that Farrant was the key to resolving all my doubts had struck me with such force, and filled me with such nervous agitation, that my only thought as I set out was: Find him! It was only after I had gone half a mile, and the raw fog had cooled my excitement, that I realized how precipitate I was being. Suppose I did find him – what then? My object was to discover why he had written to me, and whether his charges against Turner were true; but a man who had lied to me on paper could as easily do so in person. Try as I might, moreover, I could think of no way to phrase the question (my best effort was: ‘A story so extraordinary is hard to credit, Mr. Farrant’) that would not imply I did not believe him, and so risk antagonizing him – which I was particularly anxious to avoid, since he might well be of further service to me.
But some impulse that would not be denied drove me on. I knew that if I abandoned the quest now, and returned home without the truth – or, at least, the satisfaction of knowing I had done everything in my power to get it – I should find no rest there. I had no choice but to keep going, and trust to fate and to my own wits to guide me.
This resolution seemed to clear my mind, and I immediately saw that I must consider my situation with the cool strategy of a general on the eve of battle – survey the landscape, assess the strengths and weaknesses of my forces, and order their disposition accordingly. What was at once apparent was that a direct attack would fail: if Farrant knew – or even suspected – who I was, or my motive for talking to him, I was lost. My only hope, then, was to approach him at a tangent, finding – if I could – some pretext to engage him in conversation and nudging him towards the subject of Turner. If he repeated the same story then, to a man who – so far as he knew – had no interest in the matter save natural curiosity, and no power to influence the views of others, then there must be a strong presumption that it was true. And if he was lying, I might detect it in his manner – for a liar often betrays himself with tell-tale gestures of unease, either revealing his dishonesty by weak smiles and fidgets, or trying to conceal it by too great a display of frankness.
My first aim must be to appear as inconspicuous as possible, so that I might enter his street, and, if necessary, station myself for some time before his house, in order to observe his habits, without drawing attention to myself. And here, at once, I encountered a difficulty: for a man dressed for business in the West End and an evening at the Reform Club cannot hope to escape notice in the back-alleys of Farringdon. I had other clothes at home, of course, but they were too formal, or too rural, or too bright – none of them suggested that sad air of straitened respectability that alone, I felt, could make me invisible.
I wrestled with this conundrum for twenty minutes or more, all the while continuing at a fast pace – for if I faltered, I knew I should be lost. I must be like the Pilgrim, confident that if my faith was great enough – but only then – every obstacle could be overcome.
And so, indeed, it turned out. As I approached Covent Garden, it suddenly struck me that Hand Court was no more than a quarter of a mile away, and that I might go by it with only the smallest deviation from my way. To see Turner’s birthplace once again; to view it, this time, with the eyes of knowledge and experience rather than of ignorance – surely this might deepen my understanding of the man, and help me better to evaluate what I learned from Farrant?
Or so I argued to myself at the time; but now I wonder if I was not prompted by something else: a memory so apparently inconsequential that it could not make itself known at once, but must adopt another form entirely, until the moment when I should be able to recognize it. That moment came when I turned into Maiden Lane – and saw, of a sudden, in an illuminated shop front, three red balls on a blue ground. There! – Eureka! – the answer to my problem! The place was kept, of course, by the mother of my young guide on my last visit, and there was always the chance that she might remember me – but what if she did? She would hardly refuse to do business with me on that account; and if she questioned me directly I would simply deny I had ever been there before. Tonight I must become another man altogether; and it would be a useful test of my powers as an actor to see if I might carry off the transformation now.
As is often the case in such establishments, there were two entrances: one facing the street, and the other through a little court to the side, where those who yet retain some pride may slink in (so they hope) unobserved, and surrender their remaining treasures in the seclusion of a private booth. This second door was locked, presumably because it was thought that only the most desperate would need to avail themselves of a pawnbroker so late in the evening. Even though no-one who knew me as Walter Hartright could possibly have seen me, I confess that I hesitated a moment, and went through the pitiful charade of looking in the window, and pretending that I was contemplating buying the stuffed pheasant in a glass case, or one of the cheap rings and brooches neatly laid out like geological specimens on a card, before I finally summoned the courage to go inside.
The only gas-jet was at the front of the shop, where it could cast its light into the street, and act as a beacon to the poor souls seeking its bitter succour. The rest of the interior was lit by two oil-lamps, whose soft glow gave an unfamiliar romance to the pyramids of depressingly mundane objects – a clockwork spit, watches and snuff-boxes, cups and dishes and vases – clothing them in tantalizing shadows, and creating the illusion that somewhere among them you might stumble upon something rare and wonderful. Behind the counter were shelves lined with ticketed bundle
s, and another door, its presence marked only by an irregular rim of light, which must lead – I deduced from the murmur of voices beyond it – into domestic quarters.
An automatic bell announced my presence, and all at once the voices stopped, and the door at the back opened, and a figure appeared. Not the woman, but – I knew it instantly, from the slender form of the silhouette, and its rapid childish movements – the girl herself. She stopped and stared when she saw me, but whether because she recognized me (the brightness of the gas-lamp was behind me, and must have made my face indistinct) or merely because she was surprised to see such a well-dressed man in the shop at such an hour, I could not say.
‘Good evening,’ she said after a moment, with a tentative smile.
I removed my coat. ‘I should like to leave this,’ I said (and was surprised to hear that, without conscious thought, I had dropped once again into the voice I had last used at Petworth). ‘And take another in its place.’
She seemed puzzled, and glanced uncertainly behind her.
‘Come on, girl,’ I said. ‘It’s worth a pound, at least. You can allow me five bob for it; and must have something I could take, doesn’t matter how old, older the better, for a shilling or two?’
Perhaps she wondered if I had stolen it (a thought that must occur to a pawnbroker ten times a day); for she ran her gaze over my tie and waistcoat and boots, as if to see whether they were all of a piece with the coat. At length, evidently satisfied, she said:
‘What is it, then? Trouble with the ‘orses?’
‘That’s it,’ I said, simultaneously grateful that she had supplied me with a story, and angry with myself for not having had the foresight to invent my own. ‘But my luck’ll change tomorrow. Meantime, a man needs money to drink.’
‘Yes,’ she said; and then, turning her large brown eyes directly upon mine, and with a knowingness that seemed to penetrate me like a blade of ice: ‘And for somethin’ else, I shouldn’t wonder.’