by James Wilson
I formed the words – I opened my lips – I closed them again. I could not speak without condemning Walter, as well as myself; and that I had no right to do. Or so, at least, I told myself then; but now, as I write, it seems to me that my dominant feeling at the time was fear - fear, I suppose, that I should become an object of pity. Dear God! how tenacious is pride, and what forms it takes to deceive us!
‘It is easier for me,’ I said. ‘I am only his amanuensis. I merely have to gather facts for him, without reflecting on their significance. He
‘Oh, what nonsense!’ she said, laughing. ‘I don’t believe it for a moment!’
‘No – indeed – that is why I am here,’ I said (and was surprised to hear the animation suddenly returning to my own voice). ‘Inevitably, most of Walter’s informants remember Turner from his middle and later years. He now has the difficult task of reviewing everything they told him, and forming it into a coherent picture. I, meanwhile, am to stay in London, and learn what I can of Turner’s early life and career.’
Her eyes narrowed disconcertingly. ‘Personally, I should have thought that would have been harder.’
‘Only in a practical sense,’ I said. ‘Everyone who knew Turner then is presumably dead. All I am looking for is any scraps of evidence – memoirs, letters, private papers – that may have survived, and could yield a useful insight or detail. The only art will be in knowing where to search, and getting permission to examine them. The actual business of reading them, and noting down anything of interest – that’s something any competent clerk could do.’
She was not convinced. She stared at me steadily, her lips set in a kind of sceptical half-smile that seemed to say: Very good. Now tell me the truth. I held her gaze, however, and at length she relented.
‘I am not the person to help you, then,’ she said, ringing the bell. ‘You should talk to my husband. He knew Turner and his circle, socially and professionally, for more than forty years.’
I could not help wondering why, in that case, she had not introduced us to him before; but the next moment she gave me the answer.
‘I hate to trouble him, when he is so heavy-laden.’ She shook her head. ‘So many responsibilities – and they seem to grow more every day. He was at the palace this morning – dines with Lansdowne tonight – and tomorrow, I believe, goes to the House of Lords.’ She suddenly seemed to lose her accustomed self-confidence, and turned to me with an almost pleading expression. ‘He is not a young man, Marian, and I confess I fear dreadfully for his health. But what can I do?’
I was spared the necessity of replying; for at that instant the footman arrived, and Lady Eastlake, immediately recovering the habit of command, said:
‘Ah, Stokes. Would you ask Sir Charles if he can spare the time to join us for a few minutes?’ She was silent and thoughtful for a moment after he left; then – hoping, I fancy, that by convincing me she would convince herself – she said:
‘But perhaps it will do him good, don’t you think? To lay down the burdens of office for a moment?’
And certainly, from the alacrity with which Sir Charles appeared, and the affability of his manner as he greeted us, and shook my hand, you would suppose that she was right – or, at least, that he thought so, for he managed to convey the impression that he had but been waiting for our invitation to release him from the drudgery of duty, as a prisoner may wait for the precious few minutes in the day when he is allowed outside and can feel the sun on his face. At first I assumed that Elizabeth Eastlake – with that superior understanding that sometimes seems to exist between husband and wife – had simply judged the right moment to interrupt him; but I soon came to see that the explanation lay not in her character, but in his. He is, I think, one of the most charming men (in a quiet, melancholy, English way) that I have ever met. Not, certainly, the most handsome – his eyes are too deep-set, and his mouth too wide, for that; and yet his whole face seems to glow with such intelligence and sympathy and gentle humour as to make mere physical perfection seem shallow and commonplace next to it. It is easy to see why he has risen to such eminence, and is so much in demand; for when you are in his presence he contrives to make you feel – be you the Prince Consort, or a Royal Academician, or merely his wife’s spinster protégée – that at that moment he would sooner be with you than with anyone else on earth.
‘We are depending on you, my dear,’ said his wife, as he seated himself opposite me, ‘to help us save Turner.’
‘Indeed?’ he said softly, looking at me with an amused smile.
‘At the moment, as you know, he is languishing in the clutches of the wretched Thornbury.’
‘Poor Thornbury,’ said Sir Charles, in an undertone.
His wife did not appear to hear him. ‘Miss Halcombe’s brother’, she went on, ‘has valiantly undertaken to rescue him, by writing a biography of his own.’
‘Ah.’ He still smiled; but – seasoned diplomat though he is – could not conceal a twitch of surprise.
Heavens! I thought. Has she not told him even that?
To my astonishment, Lady Eastlake suddenly blushed and started to laugh softly, like a naughty child guiltily acknowledging her misdemeanour. Sir Charles caught her eye, and gave a rueful little laugh in reply – though what the cause might have been, I could not possibly imagine.
‘It must, I am sure, be difficult for him,’ he murmured, turning back to me. ‘I feel for any man who takes on Turner’s Life. Even Thornbury.’
‘Sir Charles is too tender-hearted,’ said Lady Eastlake. ‘He’d plead for the life of a rat. Thornbury is a scoundrel – and a scarcely competent one, at that. He deserves to be publicly flogged and transported.’
Sir Charles smiled and shook his head.
‘A criminal colony would be just the place for an author of his sort,’ said Lady Eastlake. ‘With so much sensational material to hand, he’d barely have to trouble his powers of invention at all.’
‘Turner is not an easy subject,’ Sir Charles remonstrated good-humouredly. ‘I know nothing of your brother, I’m sorry to say, Miss Halcombe, save what Elizabeth tells me’ – oh, dear! poor Walter would be mortified! – ‘but I’m sure he is admirably qualified. Does not he, nonetheless, occasionally find himself confounded by all the mysteries and contradictions?’
I recalled Walter’s strange journey over the past few months – the moments of elation and despair, of boyish enthusiasm and silent incomprehension; and, anxious though I was that they should think well of him, and retain confidence in his abilities, I could only reply:
‘Yes.’
‘I sometimes think,’ said Sir Charles, ‘that Turner left a deliberate legacy of confusion.’
‘That is, you must admit, a partial view,’ said Lady Eastlake. There was a hard edge to her voice that surprised me – and perhaps it surprised her too, for she leant impulsively towards him and said more gently: ‘Though, of course, entirely understandable in the circumstances.’
What circumstances? I hoped Sir Charles, realizing that I could not very well ask, might take pity on me, and explain; but he merely smiled wearily and shook his head.
‘He always loved riddles and enigmas, my dear,’ he said. ‘Think of his pictures. They’re full of puns and arcane references.’
‘What You Will,’ said Lady Eastlake, dryly.
Sir Charles nodded and laughed. (It is only now, as I write this, that I see why. How slow and blind I have been!) ‘Are you familiar with the painting, Miss Halcombe?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘It’s a scene from Twelfth Night. Sir Toby Belch – Sir Andrew Aguecheek – Olivia and her attendants – trickery and concealment in the garden. The play had recently been illustrated by Stothard -’
‘She won’t know Stothard, my dear,’ said Lady Eastlake.
‘No, indeed. An older member of the Academy.
Known for his stone deafness. And for being an enthusiastic follower of Watteau.’
He paused, and smiled at me expecta
ntly. Clearly there must be some significance in what he had said, but try as I might I could not find it. At length Lady Eastlake came to my aid by prompting me:
‘What is the alternative title of Twelfth Night?’
‘What You Will.’
She nodded at me encouragingly.
’Watteau?’ I said, utterly bemused.’ Watteau You Will?’
They both laughed.
‘The whole picture,’ said Sir Charles, ‘is a humorous allusion to Stothard. And, at the same time, Turner’s own oblique act of homage to Stothard’s master.’
I felt – as one sometimes does in dreams – as if, without warning, I had been led into a world governed by a different system of logic: a world of odd, tantalizing blind alleys and half-echoes, where a piece of string may have three ends, and none of them can ever be securely tied together. It was, undeniably, startling and disconcerting; yet exhilarating, too, for all at once it seemed to offer a possible key to understanding (if only in the most topsy-turvy way) some of the pictures and motives that had so baffled me since I had seen them at Marlborough House. Perhaps, indeed – it struck me – Sir Charles might even be able to explain The Bay of Baiae, and why it was so troubling. A month ago I should have asked him directly, without a second thought; but now I found I had not the courage to do so. Was he not, after all (I argued to myself) both Director of the National Gallery and President of the Royal Academy; and would I not be putting myself at an even greater disadvantage with him, and risking the good opinion of his wife – who had done me the honour of treating me as a friend, and as an intellectual equal – if they saw the depth of my ignorance and perplexity? There is nothing like losing your own self-respect to make you fear forfeiting the regard of others!
‘Many artists do much the same, if not quite so convolutedly,’ said Lady Eastlake. ‘Rembrandt. Titian.’
‘But it wasn’t just his art,’ said Sir Charles. ‘You could see the same tendencies at work in his life. When he dined with us, during his last years, did he not go to extraordinary lengths to keep from us where he was living?’
‘That is scarcely surprising,’ said Lady Eastlake, ‘when his circumstances there were so unrelievedly squalid.’
Sir Charles shook his head. ‘He was always the same. Ask him at the outset of a tour where he intended to go, and like as not you’d get an evasive answer, or a downright lie.’ He suddenly smiled, and laid a hand on his wife’s arm. ‘You won’t remember this – you were still astonishing the burghers of Norwich – but in ‘twenty-five or ‘six he went to the continent, and while he was away there was a terrible powder explosion near Ostend. His poor father was convinced Turner must have been killed, for he’d said that was where he was going. There was even a report to that effect – in, as I recall, the Hull Advertiser, for some impenetrable reason. But when Turner came back, it turned out he’d gone another way altogether.’
Lady Eastlake laughed. ‘You may ascribe that’, she said, ‘to mere perversity of character.’
A wild, barely conceivable notion, composed as much of images – the fish-jaw rocks of Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus, the rock-dragon of The Goddess of Discord – started to form in my head. I thought it would drift away before I could grasp it; but at that moment Stokes entered with the tea tray, giving me a moment to reflect. As he withdrew, and Lady Eastlake began to pour, I was startled to hear myself say:
‘No – I think I see – his life was a kind of pun. Isn’t that what you mean, Sir Charles?’
He nodded, but it was no more than a gesture of courtesy – he clearly had no idea what I was talking about. And, indeed, I had little enough myself as I went on:
‘The essence of a pun, surely, is that one word, one sound, has two meanings – or more than two?’
‘In that case, Turner’s life was the very reverse of it,’ said Lady Eastlake, laughing. ‘One meaning and two words: Turner and Booth.’
‘No, but . . . no, but . . .’ I began, feeling my cheeks burning again, and inwardly cursing myself for having spoken.
‘No, I think that’s a very interesting point, Miss Halcombe,’ said Sir Charles gently. ‘All those contradictions contained with the same being. It is like a kind of pun. Would you care for some tea?’
‘Thank you.’
I silently God-blessed him for his gallantry in rescuing me; but I couldn’t help feeling disappointed (and not a little humiliated) that I had been so obviously in need of rescue. Had my observation really been so nonsensical? For all that I was embarrassed, I did not think so – and I still do not think so now, looking back.
’Perverse’, said Sir Charles, turning to his wife, ‘seems altogether too small a term for Turner. There have been times, recently, when I’ve found myself remembering that his mother was mad.’
Perhaps she was moved by the weariness in his face, and the sad sincerity of his voice; for instead of laughing, and saying he exaggerated (as I expected), she only looked at him in silence, her eyes wide and solemn – and lustrous, it seemed to me, with tears.
‘Is it not mad, Miss Halcombe, to leave your entire fortune to charity, and your pictures to the nation – and yet to begrudge paying a few pounds to a competent lawyer to draw up your will, so that it ends up in Chancery?’
‘No,’ said Lady Eastlake, before I could speak. ‘It is merely a poor kind of joke. Not hugely amusing, I grant you – and even less so, I know, when you’re caught in the unenviable position of trying to interpret his wishes to a literal-minded judge. But a joke, nonetheless.’
Her husband made to speak, but – clearly determined to take charge of the conversation – she went on:
‘I am very conscious, my dear, that we are keeping you from your work. Miss Halcombe needs to know where she may find information about Turner’s early career.’
Was I imagining it, or had the talk of madness – indeed, our whole discussion about Turner’s character – made her uneasy? It was, surely, exactly the kind of subject that would normally have engaged her interest, and spurred her to heights of brilliant speculation; and yet she had shied away from it as fearfully as one of those dull, unintellectual women she loves to mock.
‘Well, I first met him’, said Sir Charles, ‘when I was still little more than a boy, but for many years afterwards I lived in Rome, and saw him only infrequently. We did spend a few months together in ‘twenty-eight and ‘nine, when he was visiting Italy – he shared my studio, and subsequently put on an exhibition of his works at the Quattro Fontane.’ He laughed. ‘The foreign artists, and the critics, had never seen anything like them – not just the yellowness of the pictures themselves, but how they were shown; for to save the cost of framing he nailed a length of rope round each one, and painted it ochre.’
‘Turner was already past fifty by then,’ said Lady Eastlake. ‘Scarcely early.’
I thought perhaps Sir Charles had taken offence; for he did not reply at once, but stared at his long pale hands, as if he were trying to imagine how to paint them. At length, however, he looked up at his wife and said:
‘What became of Haste’s family?’
’Haste?’
‘He kept a journal, I believe.’
‘Not one, I’m sure, that gives a very flattering portrait of the art world.’
Sir Charles shrugged. ‘Well, as to that, my dear, I think we must trust Miss Halcombe and her brother to form their own judgement. At all events, nothing else occurs to me at the moment. They’re all dead – Farington, Girtin, West – all of them.’ His voice trailed off, and he shook his head, as if the completeness of death’s victory had ground him into despairing silence.
‘And how might I find Mr. Haste’s relatives?’ I said quickly – for Lady Eastlake’s face was set into a petulant frown, from which I could only assume she still disapproved, and might yet try to deter me.
‘Well. .. well… Wasn’t his poor son -?’ muttered Sir Charles, half to himself.
‘Poor!’ snorted his wife.
As if to forestall an
argument, Sir Charles suddenly got up. ‘I shall make enquiries, and let you know.’ He bowed to me, extended a languid hand to his wife, who reached out and touched the ends of his fingers; and then, murmuring how delightful it had been to meet me at last, left to return to his work.
And that is how we left matters.
After I came home I had another thought of my own. It was prompted, trivially enough, by no more than a flickering gas-jet in the hall, which sent grotesque shadows over the print of London from Greenwich Park, so putting me in mind of the original in Marlborough House, and then – by a natural progression – of my conversation there with Lady Meesden. She, surely, I thought, would be able to tell me more of Turner’s early years; and I sat down there and then and wrote to her daughter, explaining my situation, and asking if I might call.
There. Two strings to my bow. Perhaps I shall not fare badly as a detective after all.
Friday
No post this morning.
After luncheon sat down and tried again to write to Walter. Still could not do it. I feel like a river which suddenly finds itself barred by a dam, and, no matter how hard it batters and rages, cannot break through. Perhaps I will do better when I have something definite to report.
At least, though, I have begun to feel calmer. It is a small, quiet blessing – but a blessing nonetheless – to know that I may walk easily about the house, without the dread of coming upon him unexpectedly, and feeling that awful jolt against my breast, and trying to force my thick dry tongue into making some light remark. Indeed, if I am honest, it is a relief to know that I shall come upon no-one else at all. Perhaps. (Strange that I should catch myself writing that! Are the Davidsons ‘no-one’? No – they are good kind people, and as sincerely fond of me, I believe, as I am of them; yet the invisible barrier that separates their world from mine is too strong to be breached. Whatever their private thoughts, they would never say or do anything that put me at risk of revealing my true emotions, or demand anything more from me than my instructions for dinner.) Perhaps the solitary life – if that is to be my fate – may have something to commend it after all.