The Dark Clue

by James Wilson

  Among the most incendiary of them, it appears, is your friend Turner, who plots against the royalists like a veritable Robespierre, and cannot contain his rage and loathing whenever he meets them. Are you certain we should invite him to the wedding? He may end by fomenting the tenants against us, and forming a committee, and turning the church into a People’s Court, and declaring our bodies independent of our heads.

  XXXV

  Extract of a letter from Lord Meesden to Lady Meesden,

  2nd February, 1809

  Turner, it seems, has again excused himself from carrying out his duties as Professor of Perspective. No woman that I know would let a man off so lightly, who still showed such reluctance to enter the conjugal bed, more than a year after the ceremony; but the Academy has not even hinted at lawyers and doctors and divorce, but merely smiled demurely, and said it will be well enough for him to start next year.

  XXXVI

  Extract of a letter from Lord Meesden to Lady Meesden,

  22nd January, 1810

  Still the trembling bride awaits. Turner protests he has a headache, and cannot begin his lectures for a further year.

  XXXVII

  Extract of a letter from Lord Meesden to Lady Meesden,

  1st February, 1811

  Must end, & get Perkins to preen me for tonight – but before I do, a piece of droll intelligence: The marriage is consummated at last! – Turner has made his first public appearance in the character of Professor of Perspective! – & Larkin (whom I met at the B/s) tells me it is quite the most amusing thing in London – quantities of comic business with papers, illustrative drawings &c. – sentences starting confidently in one direction, & then taking another, & so by degrees finding themselves in a dead end, by which time both the audience & Turner have long since lost any idea what they may mean, save that it plainly has nothing to do with perspective. There isn’t a farce or a comedy comes close, says Larkin – the Academy could sell tickets at a guinea apiece, & would be turning people away.

  XXXVIII

  Extract of a letter from the Hon. Miss Lydia Bolt to

  Lady Meesden, 1st September, 1827

  Speaking of which, dearest Mama, Mr. Turner is here, and not at all as I had supposed him to be – not brusque or withdrawn, but charming in a shy, birdish, kind of a way, and with an interesting observation to make on almost any subject, from Childe Harold to the reflection of light from wet feathers. He found me in the garden, trying to sketch the sea and Portsmouth beyond. I was, I own, embarrassed that he of all people should see it, but he was very kind, and took great pains to help me, without a single word of discouragement or criticism.

  He, by the by, painted one of our conversazziones. Imagine a scene by Watteau, blurred by the rain before it is dry, and you have it.

  XXXIX

  Extract of a letter from Cynthia [Lady?] Abbott to

  Lady Meesden, 13th April, 1813

  I wish you had been with us last night – we dined at the Nuthampsteads’ – the dinner indifferent enough, but great hilarity – young Mr. Smiley, qui veut devenir artiste, as he says, entertained us hugely with his imitation of Turner giving a lecture at the Academy. His napkin became Turner’s notes, which he proceeded to ‘lose’, and discover at last under my chair – one of the footmen was transformed into Turner’s assistant (to whom, apparently, he invariably delivers his oration, rather than to the audience) – and his words, when they were audible, had Turner’s jumbled sense and execrable pronunciation to perfection. I cannot remember everything he said, but an orange, I recall, was a ‘spearide form’ – the (semi-circular) arch on the window a ‘semi-ellipsis’ – and the ‘young gen’lmen’ of the Academy were ‘hex’orted to raise the hart of landscape to the poetical ‘eights of ‘istory painting, for the glory of Britain hand ‘er Hempire’. There was a deal more in the same vein, but I missed much of it, alas, de trop rire.

  XL

  Extract from Act II, scene ii of The Man of Taste, a privately

  performed farce by Richard O’Donnell [1810?]

  [Tom Wilde sees Lucy Luckwell at the theatre, and falls in love with her. He follows her to the country house of her guardian, the connoisseur LORD DABBLE , where he gains admission by presenting himself as an artist, and offering to paint Lucy’s portrait. Instead of being left alone with her as he had hoped, however, he is constantly interrupted by a stream of painters and connoisseurs offering advice.]

  Enter SPEED.

  SPEED: No, no, no, no, no.

  TOM: Why, what’s amiss now?

  SPEED: It’s too small.

  LUCY: Oh, no, Mr. Speed, surely not!

  SPEED: And can you not dress her as Boadicea, or Britannia? Portraits aren’t worth a fig, unless you dignify ‘em, as Sir Ocular said. History, now, that’s the thing. Wait. I’ll fetch a crown, and a ladder.

  Goes off.

  TOM: Dear Miss Luckwell!

  LUCY: Dear Mr. Wilde!

  TOM: Dear Lucy!

  Takes her hand.

  LUCY: Oh! oh! oh!

  TOM: I have, I fear, a confession to make.

  LUCY: Oh, pray, don’t be fearful! I shall be happy, dear, dear Mr. Wilde, to receive any confidence you may care to repose in me.

  TOM: Why, then, I am not really -

  Enter OVER-TURNER and COLD-CUT. They stand stock-still, staring at the picture.

  TOM: Well?

  COLD-CUT: (looking at Over-Turner) Um um um um um. OVER-TURNER: It wants yeller.

  COLD-CUT: Indeed, yellow would improve it mightily.

  OVER-TURNER: An’ a burnin’ sun.

  COLD-CUT: A sun! Of course!

  OVER-TURNER: An’ a sea-monster.

  COLD-CUT: The very thing I was about to propose.

  OVER-TURNER: Where’s your colours?

  Tom hands him his palette.

  OVER-TURNER: Cold-cut, you make out the bill. Now then.

  He starts mixing paints furiously with his brush. Enter SIR GILES BOOMER and MR. MEASURE.

  SIR GILES: No! No! No! No! No!

  TOM: What’s the matter now?

  SIR GILES: Ho! Stop! Seduction!

  TOM: (aside) What, am I discovered?

  SIR GILES: Mr. Wilde, you must not allow yourself to be led into unnatural error!

  TOM: Error it may be, Sir Giles, but nothing connected with Miss Luckwell could be considered unnatural.

  SIR GILES: Let me see. Where’s my Claude-glass, Measure?

  Measure hands him a Claude-glass. Sir Giles examines the picture through it, slowly walking backwards.

  OVER-TURNER: Claude? ‘E does misappre’end, as Sir Ocular ‘ad it, taste may usurp genius, all is bespoke, nothing allowed, when that which ‘eretofore is ‘eld up as perfection.

  SIR GILES: Your picture is fine, Mr. Wilde, very fine – I would only say it could be browner, especially in the skin and teeth, for Nature, you know, is exceedingly brown, as the Old Masters taught us, though a common eye may miss it. But all in all I should say – only avoid the excesses of Over-Turnerism, and you will be the great hope of the British School!

  TOM: But as I was just trying to explain to Miss Luckwell -

  SPEED: (off) I thought I was the great hope of the British School!

  Enter SPEED, carrying a ladder, with which he inadvertently hits Sir Giles, knocking him to the ground.

  SIR GILES: That was last year.

  XLI

  Extract of a letter from Richard O’Donnell to Kitty Driver,

  4th September, 1799

  William Turner is also here. Do you know him? He certainly knows you – has seen you in everything, and is evidently a great admirer of yours, but won’t come out and say so directly. I hope I have no cause for jealousy – it would be displeasing indeed for a man to know he had been usurped by a dwarf. The last I knew of him, he was painting scenes at the Pantheon in ‘92, but now it seems he is quite the coming artist, and has been engaged by Mr. Beckford to make watercolour drawings of the estate.

  And why, you are do
ubtless wondering, am I at Fonthill? Because Mr. Beckford stands in pressing need of monks; and finding himself unable to procure the real thing (to which his avowed atheism, and his enthusiasm for catamites, have proved an obstacle), has turned to a popish Irish theatre manager to coin some counterfeits. Every morning, I assemble the ‘lads’, as Mr. Beckford calls them, in a vast unfinished hall, and drill them in chanting and singing and processing until I can no longer keep my temper with them – which happens often enough, for they are the least apt pupils you ever saw, having been selected more with an eye to their fawn-like looks than to their thespian ability.

  And what does he want with monks? you say (nay, you whisper it, you trollop; I hear you as I write) – why, he wants them to fill his house, which when it is finished is to be the greatest gothick palace in the world – 350 feet long, and with a tower taller than the spire of Salisbury Cathedral. He plans une grande ouverture next year – though what he will do for guests I cannot conceive, for he is so notorious for keeping butterflies that no respectable member of society will set foot here – and work continues day and night to get it ready. Last evening, after dinner, I looked from my window, and thought I had never seen a more ridiculous scene: the labourers scuttling back and forth by flickering torchlight; Beckford, dressed as an abbot, prowling among them, with poor Wyatt, the architect, hovering in attendance like a nervous novice; and Turner behind, shrinking into the shadows as if they were his natural home, then darting out again like a little elf, drawing so quickly that his hand was but a blur. I should have laughed out loud, had I not recalled that this monument to folly is being erected on the poor scarred backs of those wretched Negroes in the Indies, from whom all Beckford’s fortune comes.

  XLII

  Extract of a letter from Richard O’Donnell to

  Lady Meesden, 4th September, 1829

  Jollet is a good man – cannot do much for me, but makes me as comfortable as he can, tho’ he knows he won’t be paid for it in this world.

  You know your time is near when patterns start to complete themselves before your eyes. Today I had a fancy to see the sea again, and Mme. Sylvestre’s son pushed me in my chair to the harbour. Some English passengers arriving – one seemed familiar – a little red-faced fellow in a long coat and scarf, pressing forward with some other purpose in his gait than mere pleasure. I thought for a wild moment he must be a dun, sent here to persecute me before it was too late. And then I knew him.

  ‘Turner,’ I said.

  He did not recognize me, or pretended not to, but hurried on his way.

  It must be thirty years to the day since I last wrote to you of Turner.

  It is a hard thing to die. When you hear I am gone, wait a little while, and I shall come to you again.

  XLIII

  From the journal of Marian Halcombe, November 185-

  Wednesday

  Have just finished reviewing my discoveries, and find myself less disheartened than I’d feared. A distinct feeling that I’ve made progress. But what, exactly?

  To begin with – confirmation of what I already knew:

  - Turner’s mother did die mad, as both Amelia Bennett and Sir Charles told me. And I have a date for it: April 1804.

  - Turner was vilified by Sir George Beaumont and other connoisseurs – Haste’s diaries and O’Donnell’s play (Turner/Over-turner, Boomer/Beaumont) bear each other out on this point.

  - He was – or at least was perceived as being – tight-fisted. (’Cold-cut, you make out the bill.’ And Sir Charles’s account of his ‘begrudging a few pounds’ to have his will properly drawn.)

  - He did move about a great deal, and disliked people recognizing him, or knowing where he was, when he did so – a peculiarity attested to not only by Sir Charles, but also now by Meesden and O’Donnell.

  Such corroborations are encouraging – they point to a modest foundation of fact on which I can build.

  And what else?

  I feel (to my own great surprise) that in a small, haphazard way I am starting to know him. Where before all was obscure, I now see unexpected glimmers of light.

  Take, for instance, his elusiveness. Since it is mentioned in the earliest letters we have, the roots of it must presumably lie in his very early life – about which I still know almost nothing (beyond the fact that he was a scene-painter), and have little prospect of learning more. And yet might not part of the reason also be the knowledge that (as the letters to Lady Meesden make clear) he was regarded as a laughing-stock, and knew that whenever he appeared in public as himself he might be derided for his dress, or his tradesman’s manner, or his inability to express his thoughts?

  As time went on, moreover, he must have become increasingly aware that these eccentricities were adversely affecting not merely his social relations, but also his professional prospects. Why, for example, was Charles Eastlake (who, though a dear man, is not a quarter the artist) knighted, and elected President of the Royal Academy, while Turner received no formal recognition at all? It can only be because gentlemanliness, rather than talent, is the key to preferment.

  All of which, surely, would be enough to breed habits of secrecy and concealment in any man – particularly one so painfully sensitive and shy?

  His supposed meanness, too, seems more understandable when you know something of the world in which he worked. To be an artist in the first years of the century – as evidenced by the example of poor Haste, which Turner must have had constantly in his mind – was a perilous undertaking, in which your name and your fortune might at any moment be destroyed at the whim of a powerful connoisseur. Only by making yourself independent could you hope to defy a man such as Sir George Beaumont, and so continue following the dictates of your own genius – and the cost of that independence must be to practise the utmost economy, and allow no indulgence either to yourself or others.

  It is undeniably satisfying to be able to ascribe comprehensible motives to behaviour that had previously seemed unaccountable, or even mad. But I must not be too pleased with myself – there is still much I do not even begin to understand.

  And what of the pictures?

  Thursday

  An exhilarating day – but its fruits so tantalizing and insubstantial I scarce dare write them down, for fear they turn out chimeras, and evaporate before my eyes.

  I had intended copying out what I have gathered so far and sending it to Walter (for after my recent adventures I can no longer content myself with being merely a scribe, but have begun to seek Turner on my account; and to part with my notebooks now would be the equivalent of a detective throwing away his evidence); but I was diverted from my plans by two letters. The first was from Haste’s son, reminding me that I have now had his father’s diaries for more than ten days, and demanding to know – with a kind of frozen rage that cut me like an icicle – when he might have the honour to expect them back again. In truth, I had not exactly forgotten our agreement; but had somehow persuaded myself, in the excitement over Lady Meesden’s papers, that I need not adhere to its exact terms, and that a delay of a day or two would not be fatal. It pained me to realize what I should have known all along – that by this thoughtlessness I had only justified his suspicions, and left him feeling more embittered and besieged than ever; and I resolved that after luncheon I should call on him in person, and try to make amends.

  The second letter was from Mrs. Kingsett:

  My dear Miss Halcombe,

  I found this today on my mother’s writing table, and thought it might be of interest to you.

  Yours very truly,

  Lydia Kingsett

  My first response was not so much curiosity as relief – for although there was no mention of what happened on Monday, yet the mere fact that she had written at all suggested that her husband had not yet entirely succeeded in breaking her spirit, and that she was not (as I had feared) aggrieved at me for being so stubborn, and so unwittingly adding to her difficulties. Her note, indeed, seemed a kind of salve to Mr. Haste’s anger, fro
m which I was still smarting; and I re-read it two or three times before finally unfolding the sheet she had enclosed, to see what it was:

  I Oliver Buildings, Hammersmith,

  15 th September; 185–

  Dearest Kitty,

  Pie and pheasant both arrived in excellent health – and we did not neglect to pledge yours, you may be sure, as we despatched them! How good you are to me! I do not believe you have once forgotten my birthday in more than sixty years. It seems little short of a miracle that you still remember your Romeo after so long.

  I often think fondly of our days together in Drury Lane and Dublin. I won’t say they were the happiest of my life, for – thank God – most of my days have been happy; but I’ll swear I never knew a handsomer woman than you were then, or a truer friend.

  May God bless you always,

  James Padmore

  I was, for a moment, frankly puzzled as to why Mrs. Kingsett had sent this to me (I must have been particularly slow-witted this morning, though I like to think I have made up for it since!); and it was only when I reached the words ‘Drury Lane’ on the second reading that it struck me. A great wave seemed suddenly to break over me, tumbling me this way and that, leaving me feeling excited and giddy and sick all at once. Here, at last, was what I had given up all hope of finding: someone who had known the world of Turner’s youth. But in the two short months since his letter had been written, sickness and death had already cheated me of its recipient. Might not the writer now also be dead, or at least too ill to speak to me?

  Without delay, I scribbled a short note to Mr. Padmore, saying I intend to call on him tomorrow; and an even shorter one to Mrs. Kingsett, to thank her for her help. Then I asked Davidson to take them to the post, and myself set out for Cawley Street with Haste’s diaries.

  It is strange now to look back, and reflect on my thoughts in the cab. They revolved entirely around Mr. Haste: whether or not he would be at home; whether – if he was – I could expect a civil interview, or must prepare myself for abuse and recrimination; and whether, in the latter case, I should respond by abjectly apologizing (which might mollify him, but might equally only enrage him further; for the sorrier I seemed, the more reason I should be giving him for supposing he had been deeply wronged), or alternatively by adopting an air of mild surprise that he should make so great a fuss about so small a matter.