The Dark Clue

by James Wilson

  In the event – how pitiful our belief that we can foresee the future, and our attempts to prepare for it! – Mr. Haste’s behaviour proved of almost no consequence to me whatever, and the most important outcome of my visit had nothing to do with him at all.

  He was, indeed, at home, and (perhaps in anticipation of my return) had even made the small concession of greasing the knocker, so that I was able to rouse him without having to press-gang a passer-by into helping me. I heard him clattering down the stairs, and then charging through the hall so furiously that I feared he must be in a very paroxysm of rage, and unable to defer even for a moment the opportunity of venting it. If he was, however, it was plain that I was not its object; for he started, as if he were surprised to see me, and then immediately glanced up and down the street, clearly looking for someone else. And not, I fancy, the bailiffs this time – for his expression was not surly and defiant, as it had been before, but rather eager and impatient.

  ‘I am sorry I could not come sooner,’ I said. ‘It took me longer than I’d expected to finish. There was so much of interest, and your father wrote so well.’

  If I had hoped this explanation would please him, I was disappointed; for he merely nodded and grunted, mechanically reaching out his hands for the books even as his eyes continued to search the street. His fingers, I saw, were stained with ink, and there were two or three little blots on his shirt.

  ‘I hope you will accept another ten shillings, by way of compensation,’ I said.

  He nodded again, and extended his palm, still gazing past me.

  It was as I rummaged in my reticule that something at the corner of my vision caught my attention. It was nothing more than a triangle of split and splintered floorboard, dully illuminated by the afternoon light; but it suddenly rekindled a powerful and unexpected memory. This was the bare hallway of my dream; and for a brief vivid moment I again saw it not as the way to Haste’s attic but as the entrance to a mica-spangled subterranean grotto where, I knew, I should find the secret of Turner’s paintings.

  ‘What is below here?’ I asked, handing him a half-sovereign.

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘A basement? A cellar?’

  He nodded distractedly.

  I gazed down into the cramped area. The windows were grey and opaque with dirt, and one of the panes was broken, and had been roughly reinforced with a board. A tangle of almost leafless ivy spread up the walls, insinuating itself so aggressively into every gap and fissure that the bricks were starting to buckle and crack, and you could already half-see them as the ruin that they were destined to become in fifty or a hundred or two hundred years.

  I was conscious of rapid footsteps behind me, and then a breathless voice calling ‘I’m sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.’ I turned and saw a plump man, as bald as Haste himself, hurrying towards us, clutching a carpet-bag filled to overflowing with papers. Haste admitted him, and then closed the door without another word to me, or a glance in my direction.

  But I did not feel affronted – I was too elated for that. For I suddenly thought I had understood what it was that had been nagging me about The Bay of Baiae.

  I had instructed the cabman to wait, thinking I might need to make to a quick escape; and now I told him to take me as fast as possible to Marlborough House. It was a nightmare journey – I could not remember what time the exhibition closed, and feared I should arrive too late to see the picture today; yet every time we seemed to break free of the traffic and pick up speed, we shook to a standstill again after only a few moments, and remained there for what felt like an ever-longer eternity. As we approached Trafalgar Square, the tangle of omnibuses and carriages and horses became so knotted and impenetrable that I decided it would be quicker to walk; and, having paid my fare, I got out and set off into the mêlée.

  I was in luck. Fighting the great tide of humanity one moment, being swept along by a counter-current the next, I found myself in less than ten minutes at the end of Pall Mall. The gallery was still open, the painting where I remembered it. And when – after a good deal of gentle shouldering and ‘excuse me’ing – I had breached the wall of people before it and could see it plain, I knew in an instant that I had been right.

  It was so obvious, indeed, that I marvelled that I had not grasped it before. The Bay of Baiae is not one picture, but two. On my first visit here, I had been struck by how out of place the figures of Apollo and the Sibyl had seemed – as if they had been transposed from another scene altogether; and seeing them again now, I realized that that is exactly what had happened. For Turner portrays them at the start of their story, when the Sibyl, still young and beautiful, has been granted her wish, and is sifting the grains of sand in her hand, and counting the years of life she is to have; but the landscape, with its half-hidden serpent, and broken columns, and skull-like arches, shows the inevitable end: the destruction and decay to which she must eventually come.

  A letter from Walter when I got home. Why has he not heard from me? I cannot write to him now.

  Friday

  No matter it is late. I am like a general, who, flushed with success, feels he must press on to final victory before his fortune changes.

  First: Mr. Padmore. Thank God! – he is still alive, and well, and in possession of his wits – or, at least, he was until three hours ago. And more than that – has told me more than I could have possibly hoped.

  From the name, I had imagined Oliver Buildings to be a dingy, stinking tenement; but in fact it turns out to be a group of single-storey alms-houses, built in red brick in the gothic style, and arranged around three sides of a grassy square, with a wrought-iron gate and a railed fence on the fourth.

  My heart was beating so hard as I knocked at number I that I could feel it in my throat, and feared I should have difficulty in speaking normally; but there was something so soothing and reassuring about the answering ‘Come in!’ that I at once began to relax. It was, I know, irrational: there was no guarantee that the speaker was Mr. Padmore, for if he had died, another resident might have been given his place; and yet from those two words I felt certain that it was him, and that we were destined to be friends.

  I entered, and found myself in a neat room, running the whole depth of the little house, that seemed to serve as parlour, kitchen and library all at once. The fire was a kind of open range, with a small oven to one side of it, and a deep grate so crammed with glowing coals that the atmosphere was as oppressive as a hothouse. To the left of it was a bookcase, and to the right a dresser lined with stout red-and-gilt china that glowed prettily in the light from the back window. A slender-legged table covered in a clean white cloth stood in the centre of the room. It was spread with cups and a sugar-bowl and a pile of papers – among which I recognized my letter. Around it was an odd assortment of oak and walnut chairs. In one of them – a heavy, old-fashioned piece with brawny arms and splayed feet, that looked as if it had been designed to accommodate the greedy squire from a Fielding novel – sat a very old man so thin that he occupied barely half the seat. He had clearly been expecting me, for he immediately said:

  ‘Miss Halcombe?’

  He tried to get up, but having pulled himself to a half-sitting position he could go no further. He looked so uncomfortable, with his head poked forward and his hands clutching the scrolled ends of the chair arms, that I immediately begged him to sit down again; and he at once subsided with a grateful smile.

  ‘The spirit is willing,’ he said. ‘But the joints now – they’re the sticking-point.’ He held out his hand. ‘How’d you do?’

  ‘How do you do?’ His fingers were as light and fleshless as a bird’s claw, as if nature, resolved to waste nothing on a body so close to the grave, had reduced everything to its barest function.

  ‘I am very glad to see you,’ he said. He pulled a clean red handkerchief from his pocket and held it towards me. ‘Would you be so good as to place this in the window by the door?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, trying to sound as if this were the mo
st natural thing in the world, and exactly what I should have expected. But he must have seen my perplexity; for as I took it he said:

  ‘It is our billet for tea.’

  I hung it on the casement latch, where it drooped unimpressively like a limp flag; but the effect seemed to satisfy him, for he nodded and said:

  ‘Thank you. Will you sit down?’

  I took a chair next to him, and at once nearly cried out; for now that I saw him steadily I realized that he was not merely old – he was unimaginably, impossibly ancient. I should have noticed it before, save for the trouble which – presumably in my honour – he had taken with his appearance. His well-cut, brass-buttoned blue coat suggested a much younger man, until you saw how his body had shrunk away from it, leaving great empty folds about his chest and shoulders. His sparse hair, as fine and lustrous as spun silver, had been skilfully trained across the top of his head to disguise the freckled scalp beneath. Most striking of all were the discreet dabs of rouge on his cheeks, which I confess I found quite shocking – until I saw the sweetness in his eyes, and realized that what had prompted him to adorn himself in this way was not vanity, but a gracious desire to look as agreeable as possible within his limited means. (A cynic might argue that the two motives are the same; but the object of vanity, surely, is to inspire admiration? – while his, plainly, was merely to give pleasure to a guest.)

  I was prepared for a long preamble of pleasantries and idle reminiscences, such as is generally necessary with old people who live alone; but, as if to confirm my good opinion of him, he at once said:

  ‘My memory’s well enough, ma’am, at least for the old days; but I tire easy now, I fear – very easy. So don’t stand on ceremony – just ask what you will.’ He laughed. ‘Else by the time we get to the meat, you’ll find I’m asleep.’

  ‘Very well, then. I was wondering if you could tell me about Covent Garden? When you were a young man?’

  ‘Covent Garden – oh, well, now! Just imagine – a boy no more than eighteen – seen nothing of the world but Hampshire and Margate – suddenly whisked to London, and taken to the greatest theatre in the land, and given the entree of the house. All the great names of the day. Charles Bannister. Mrs. Gibbs.’ He shook his head, still marvelling at his good fortune. ‘I was giddy, Miss Halcombe. The smell of it! Even now – mix me a bit of sawdust and a bit of paint, and the fumes of a lamp or two – not gas, mind, it must be the old oil, warm and smoky – and I can’t quell a flutter down here.’ He pointed to his stomach, and chuckled.

  I hadn’t, of course, meant the theatre, but rather the area in which it stood; but I felt I could not say so now without seeming rude.

  ‘Did you live nearby?’ I asked.

  ‘I was with my brother at first, in Holborn. But then I had rooms of my own, in Maiden Lane.’

  ‘Indeed?’ I said, trying to keep the excitement from my voice. ‘And who did you have for neighbours?’

  ‘Well, now.’ His eyes narrowed with the effort of recollection. ‘Downstairs we had a German musician, what was his name? – Herr, Herr … I forget – and a man who made flutes, and Potter the bone-doctor, and – Schussel, that was it, Herr Schussel, lived with an Irish woman, she wasn’t his wife, Mrs. Malone …’

  ‘And what of the rest of the street?’ I said.

  ‘Oh, we were a pretty mixed company, taken all in all. Actors and actresses; a plasterer; a poet; an architect; two or three tavern-keepers; a coach-maker; shopkeepers; fair .. . fair’ – he hesitated, and the rouge on his cheeks was reinforced by a tinge of natural colour – ‘fair Cyprians, if you take my meaning?’

  ‘Women of … ?’

  He nodded. ‘There was a deal of those.’

  ‘And do you recall any of the shops?’

  He took a deep breath, and then let out an unsteady sigh.

  ‘Miss Halcombe,’ he said, lightening his words with an indulgent smile. ‘I feel I am being made to play “Twenty Questions”, and cannot guess the thought in your mind. I pray you, for your own sake – be plain with me.’

  And I was. For the first few seconds I hesitated and stumbled; but I soon heard myself talking about Turner and Walter and my own research with an ease and directness that startled me – for I had not spoken so freely to anyone since the day of our visit to Sandycombe Lodge, and could not conceive why I suddenly felt able to be candid with him. And I still cannot account for it now, save that I was drawn on by the interest and sympathy in his face – and perhaps by the knowledge that a crippled old man in a Hammersmith alms-house would be unlikely to betray me.

  I had just finished when a short, thickset woman suddenly entered without knocking. She wore a grey dress and a crimped bonnet, and carried a white apron, which she started to tie about her waist even as she leant against the door to close it.

  ‘Betty,’ said Mr. Padmore fondly. He looked at me, and pointed to the handkerchief in the window. ‘Whenever we hoist the signal, Betty takes pity on us. Betty’ – turning back to her – ‘this is Miss Halcombe. Miss Halcombe, Mrs. Chambers.’

  ‘How do you do?’ she said briskly, extending her hand. She was about seventy, with a heart-shaped face that might once have been very striking, but now looked weatherbeaten and neglected – as if, once her beauty had started to fade, she no longer thought it worth the trouble of tending. There was no trace either of insolence or deference in her manner, from which I deduced that she was not a servant; and yet if she had been a member of Mr. Pad-more’s family, surely that is how he would have introduced her?

  ‘I live over there,’ she said, as if by way of explanation, pointing out of the window.

  ‘Ah.’

  She must have seen my puzzlement; for she went on:

  ‘With the women.’ She took a kettle from the hearth, and filled it from an enamelled water-jug. ‘You learn to care for one another in a company.’

  ‘A company?’ I said.

  She nodded, and set the kettle to boil on the fire.

  ‘Do you mean, then, that everyone here is an actor or an actress?’ I said, half-laughing with surprise, and with an odd kind of delight at the idea.

  ’Was,’ she said. ‘We are all decayed.’ She began to laugh, and after a moment Mr. Padmore joined in.

  ‘Or so the Theatrical Benevolent Society tell us,’ she said, reaching down a tea caddy from the mantelpiece.

  Mr. Padmore seemed so absorbed in watching her preparations that I feared I had lost him; but, just as I was about to try to nudge him back to our conversation, he said:

  ‘No, I have not forgotten.’ He closed his eyes, and collected his thoughts in silence for a few moments. Then he looked at me again and said:

  ‘You are in luck; for I remember the barber’s shop quite distinctly.’

  I gave a little yelp of triumph – I could not help it – which surprised even myself, and startled Mrs. Chambers so much that she almost dropped the teapot; but Mr. Padmore merely smiled and nodded.

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ he went on. ‘Several of the older men went to Turner, or engaged Turner to come to them; and I thought I could do worse than go there myself. So I took my wigs to him, until I noticed the young whips were no longer wearing them; and then I grew my hair, and took that to him instead.’ He shook his head. ‘I wish I had the power of painting myself, Miss Halcombe, so I could show it to you. There was a long low window on the street, full of grinning dummies in bob and cauliflower wigs; but you couldn’t go in that way – you entered by a side-door in the court – the name’s gone, I fear …’

  ‘Hand Court?’

  ‘Yes, that was it.’ He shut his eyes again, and began tracing an invisible plan with his hand. ‘A narrow hall – stairs up and down – the shop in a dark little room to the left. Rows of blue bottles against the wall – a table here, with towels, and razors, and a bowl – a spiral machine there, for frizzing, I suppose – and all about powder-puffs, and crimping-irons, and braiding-pins, and leather rolls for making curls, and heaven knows what. And the smell. Scor
ched hair. Soap. Pomade.’ His nostrils twitched, trying to recapture some long-lost fragrance. ‘And powder. Yes.’ He opened his eyes suddenly. ‘Do you know the smell of wig-powder, Miss Halcombe?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Not unpleasant. Sneezy. And there always seemed to be the most tremendous noise, at least when I was there. As much inside as out. Water boiling. Tongs clacking.’ He laughed. ’Tongues clacking. Oh, yes, a deal of tongues.’

  ‘Was Mr. Turner very garrulous, then?’

  He inclined his head, and scratched the lobe of his ear, as if it might stimulate thought or memory. After a moment he said:

  ‘Do you know, I can’t recall? But someone must have been; for there was always talk. Or so it seems, at any rate, when I think back to it now.’ He smiled wonderingly, like a traveller who has paused in his journey to look behind him, and is amazed to see how far he has come. ‘We did not want for subjects – the colonists in America, the sans-culottes in France. Or for men of consequence to discuss ‘em.’ He leaned a little towards me, as if confiding a secret. ‘I once saw a portly-looking gentleman coming out, with the whitest wig I ever set eyes on; and Mr. Barrington, who was with me, said he was the Prince of Wales’ private chaplain.’

  ‘Really?’ I said; for it is hard to imagine so exalted a person today going to a dingy establishment in Maiden Lane (or at least one where he does not fear to be recognized) and being obliged to rub shoulders there with impoverished actors and tradesmen.

  Mr. Padmore nodded solemnly. ‘And Dr. Monro, who was the King’s -’