Kingdom Swann: The Story of a Photographer

by Gibson, Miles

  ‘Sixpence!’ seethed the husband. ‘She’s worth more than that, being a Negro and them so scarce.’

  Sarah looked sullen, took up her chemise and stowed away her breasts. Kingdom Swann looked bilious.

  ‘And don’t forget the family grief,’ continued the husband, beginning to warm to his theme. ‘Think of the mischief it does to a man. How does he live with the shame of it? How does he manage to sleep at night, knowing that pictures of his wife without drawers is keeping company with thousands of strangers? How much do you pay him? That’s what we have to consider here. How does he fit into the scheme?’

  ‘We haven’t taken any pictures,’ said Swann, trying to plug his leaking nose. He collapsed into a chair and fumbled for a handkerchief. His drooping moustache was dripping blood.

  ‘I’m not surprised!’ roared the husband. ‘A very dubious profession. A very dangerous business, purloining a wife on her way to church for the purposes of a dirty picture.’

  ‘You’ll find no mischief in it,’ said Marsh. ‘We keep a most scrupulous premises.’

  ‘Mischief?’ gasped the husband. ‘I’d rather she was out for a knobbing than here for your dirty pictures. A knobbing is over before you know it and no harm done to the family but the shame of a dirty photograph can follow a husband into his grave. Mischief? It’s a matter for the police, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  They were caught. There was nothing they could do but accept the terms he offered them. It cost them a full ten guineas before he agreed to take his wife home.

  9

  Cromwell Marsh was never trapped by the police, despite the vigilance of their agents. They raided photographic saloons from Hampstead to Holborn, destroyed pictures and imprisoned dealers but, in his opinion, such establishments invited trouble with their bold displays set out to catch the eye of the lewdster. Their windows were dressed with all manner of titillation so that none but the blind could fail to guess the true nature of their daily business.

  There was nothing about the Swann premises to arouse suspicion. The window itself, tastefully furnished, contained a solitary Windsor & Newton easel bearing a print in an ebonised frame. Sometimes it was the scowl of a grocer that addressed the street and sometimes the scowl of a fishmonger’s wife, always chosen from a small selection Marsh had saved for such purposes.

  Nothing stronger than portraits of famous actresses might be purchased over the counter. A Kingdom Swann nude could only be obtained through the pages of the catalogue which was strictly limited to a list of grateful and wealthy subscribers. Discretion was everything. There were spies everywhere and the Indecent Advertisement Act of ’89 had long since made it an offence to send doubtful material through the post.

  Several times zealous members of the Society for the Suppression of Vice had entered the shop and endeavoured by fair means and foul to trick Cromwell Marsh into showing them something indecent.

  They were middle-aged men with fat necks and confident manners. They generally began by expressing an interest in actresses and, having been presented with the entire stock of some five hundred portraits, and having found nothing there to outrage them, proceeded to make whispered enquiries into artists’ models, female gymnasts or poses plastiques. At this point the zealous member would let it be known that he carried a large sum of money, should there be studies available.

  ‘Artists’ models, sir?’ Marsh replied, cautiously, to one such enquiry from a small man in a green tweed suit and a military moustache.

  ‘Artistic beauties in repose,’ breathed the agent.

  ‘They don’t come more artistic than the stars of the London stage, sir,’ Marsh assured him.

  But the zealous member could not be persuaded. ‘I’m in the mood for something a trifle exotic, if you grasp my meaning,’ he whispered, pulling his ear and winking at Marsh.

  Cromwell Marsh glanced furtively around him. He wiped the counter with the palms of his hands, as if he were planning to vault clean across it, run to the door and escape.

  ‘Stimulating views of women expressing their loveliness,’ continued the agent in a hoarse whisper. ‘I’m looking for something slightly different. Something more exotic.’

  Cromwell Marsh relaxed and smiled. ‘I can see you’re a connoisseur,’ he murmured confidentially. ‘A man of unusual refinement and taste.’ He paused. Dramatically. And then he pulled forth a set of photographs of a very old woman dressed in feathers and buckskins. A blanket covered her shoulders and the buckskins trailed to the floor.

  ‘What’s this?’ demanded the agent, screwing up his eyes as he puzzled over the portraits. He couldn’t make any sense of them. He began turning them over in his hands.

  ‘The epitome of pagan beauty,’ declared Marsh. ‘Passing Cloud, the last Red Indian Princess, late of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show as seen by the Princess Mary of Wales in the sawdust ring at Earls Court. What d’you say to that, sir!’ He stuck his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets and pushed out his chest triumphantly.

  ‘I’ve plenty of money, if that’s the problem,’ growled the agent, throwing the photographs on to the counter. He was disappointed. He had thought he was going to make an arrest.

  ‘I don’t believe I’ve quite fathomed you, sir.’

  ‘I’ve no time for this nonsense!’ the agent hissed impatiently. ‘I believe we’re both men of the world and I’ve a stomach for something stronger!’ And he leaned his weight against the counter, very agitated at the thought of confronting loathsome sights.

  ‘I’m afraid you’ve lost me, sir,’ said Marsh, doing his best to look hurt and perplexed.

  The agent grew frustrated. The man must be an idiot! ‘Women exposing themselves!’ he growled. ‘Young women exposing their motherhoods!’ He made a fist with one hand and used it to saw the air into logs.

  ‘Motherhoods!’ gasped Marsh. He was trembling now and the blood had drained from his face. ‘Do I believe my ears? Women exposing their motherhoods! I’ve never heard of such a disgrace and I’m a married man, sir, and blessed with children too. My wife was delivered of eight of them, three dead and five surviving and yet, I’m proud to say, as God is my witness, I’ve never seen over and above her knees!’

  This was not so far from the truth since Cromwell Marsh had long since failed to be stirred by the sight of the frankly nude. When the fruit was peeled he found all the flavour lay with the peelings. For this reason he liked his wife to dress for bed like any other woman might dress for a night at the music hall. Warm wrappers delighted him, hot corsets excited him and the rustle of many petticoats drove the poor man to distraction. The more she wore the better he liked it.

  ‘Don’t play the innocent with me, dammit!’ shouted the agent, very much embarrassed. ‘I’ve never met a photographer yet who don’t stoop to some depravity!’

  ‘I think you’ve been given the wrong address,’ returned Marsh, snorting and slapping the counter.

  ‘It makes no difference – you’re all the same!’ raved the agent. ‘Approaching fresh and attractive young women, seducing them with all manner of talk, luring them back to your filthy cellars, forcing them to smoke opium until they show you their motherhoods. The world is plagued with your kind of vermin. It makes my skin crawl to think of what you do to ’em. Unless you’re stopped there won’t be a decent young woman in London who can feel secure beneath her skirt!’

  ‘I don’t like your attitude, sir!’ thundered Marsh. ‘I hope I shan’t be obliged to run out and fetch the police!’ And he threw such a fit of temper, such a fury of righteous indignation, that the zealous member fled to the street, fully convinced he had made a mistake.

  No one outwitted Cromwell Marsh. His greatest adversary over the years proved to be Kingdom Swann himself, who refused to keep his light modestly under a bushel. The old man could find nothing indecent in their work and discussed it with anyone who would listen. It was, perhaps, this frank and open attitude, the obvious pride he took in his art, that persuaded others of his good intentions; alt
hough he was well protected, no doubt, by the power and influence of his many distinguished subscribers.

  10

  ‘I must be nearly eighty years old,’ grieved Swann. He sounded amazed, as if it had happened overnight. He held out his hands and stared at the shrivelled fingers.

  ‘Fletcher-Whitby lived to be ninety,’ said Cromwell Marsh, to comfort him.

  ‘He was never attacked with a hammer,’ sniffed Swann. His nose, which had split like a ripe fig, had taken a long time to knit. When the wound had finally healed, his nose had resumed its original shape but adopted different colours. It was yellow during the summer months with a touch of brass at the nostrils. Whenever the weather turned cold the nose turned a luminous shade of blue.

  ‘There’s some men your age would feel proud to be attacked by a jealous husband,’ said Marsh, smoking a Turkish cigarette.

  They were sitting in Hyde Park, watching the nursemaids on parade. It was a warm and peaceful afternoon with just enough of a summer breeze to rattle the canopy of trees. Domestics came strolling, arm in arm with soldiers, down to the Serpentine. A woman was walking a pair of poodles. Somewhere a brass band was playing.

  ‘Jealous husbands?’ said Swann. ‘At my age it’s ridiculous.’ He sat on the bench in topcoat and gloves, with a newspaper spread on his knees like a rug.

  ‘You’re as fit as a flea,’ said Marsh. ‘I shouldn’t wonder if you’ve strength left yet to father a child.’

  ‘There’s enough misery in the world,’ grumbled Swann, poking the paper. ‘Unemployment. Women on bicycles. Russians attacking British steamers. There’s enough misery in the world without adding babies to the confusion.’

  ‘A great artist like yourself has a duty to pass down his genius,’ said Marsh. A shame that Swann had been left without children.

  ‘There’s no guarantee that a son will follow his father,’ said Swann, ‘and besides, there’s always the possibility of finding yourself with a daughter.’

  ‘True,’ sighed Marsh. ‘That’s very true and all the more reason, in my opinion, for having a larger family. The more of ’em you plant, so to speak, the greater the chance of finding you’ve passed on some small part of your genius.’

  ‘Too late,’ said Swann. ‘The world has finished with genius.’ He yawned and closed his eyes to signal the end of the argument.

  Cromwell Marsh settled down to watch the nursemaids’ parade. The breeze tugged their hats and pulled out the hems of their long, black skirts. Now and then the sun caught a shoe or glanced on a fatted calf. Marsh sat quietly counting them.

  The peace was broken by shouts of alarm and the heavy honking of horns. Beyond the park a motorist had driven his machine into the wheels of an old haywagon. The horses bellowed and kicked in their traces, the wagon capsized in a storm of dust.

  ‘Look at all that commotion!’ growled Swann. ‘They shouldn’t let those machines on the road!’

  ‘Motor cars is the future,’ said Marsh as he strained to peer at the accident through the avenue of trees. He had been to the Motor Transport Show. He knew a thing or two about motors. At the Crystal Palace he’d seen family carriages lofty as galleons and narrow road-racers like armoured cigars. He’d seen stately Coventry Daimlers and rugged French Panhards. But Marsh had fallen in love with steam. Steam was speed. Fifty, sixty, seventy-five miles an hour. It was a Gardner-Serpollet steamer that had reached such a speed at the flying-start kilometre race in Nice. Seventy-five miles an hour! There was nothing to touch it.

  ‘Dangerous,’ said Swann. ‘The wind alone is enough to knock out your eyes.’

  Cromwell Marsh agreed. ‘That’s why they have to wear those goggles,’ he said, sucking on his cigarette. How it must feel to sit in the saddle, with the boiler boiling and the road running beneath your feet at seventy breathtaking miles an hour! Imagine!

  ‘But what would happen,’ said Kingdom Swann, ‘in the likely event of a small collision?’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘Well, suppose, for the sake of argument, that you’re whipping along at seventy miles an hour and you meet a flint or a cinder coming at you from the wrong direction. What happens?’

  Cromwell Marsh shook his head.

  ‘At such a speed that speck of stone would drill through human bone as neat as a hole in a button,’ said Swann with considerable satisfaction. ‘It would go through your face like a rifle bullet.’

  Marsh chewed on his cigarette and stared thoughtfully through the trees. The wagon had been dragged to the side of the road. The traffic was moving again.

  ‘I can’t understand the fatal attraction,’ said Swann, smoothing the newspaper over his knees.

  ‘It’s the speed of the road,’ shrugged Marsh. ‘The power of the machine.’

  ‘Speed!’ said Swann. ‘Where’s the advantaage in all this speed?’

  ‘It’s obvious,’ said Marsh, crushing the cigarette under his boot. But he didn’t bother to explain.

  ‘What’s wrong with the horse? At least you can talk to a horse,’ continued Swann. ‘The next thing you know we’ll have a mechnical army.’

  ‘They already tried to organise some fancy corps of motor car volunteers,’ said Marsh.

  ‘They should have used ’em to chase the Boers.’

  ‘That would have taught the buggers a lesson!’ said Marsh and he chortled as he imagined it.

  A small boy in a very dirty sailor suit came wandering out of the bushes. He wore a wooden sword in his belt and trailed a tin trumpet on a length of string. As he passed the two men he stopped to stare at Kingdom Swann’s nose and give it a blast from the trumpet.

  ‘I’m too old to be bothered by boys!’ roared Swann. His eyes blazed and his beard began to bristle. He exploded through he newspaper and smacked the boy’s head. The boy was so shocked that he fell on his sword and ran away screaming into the bushes.

  ‘Did you see his face!’ laughed Cromwell Marsh. ‘The little bugger nearly pissed his pants! It’s a shame you never had children.’

  Swann sat back and stared at the sky. So much noise and commotion! He was tired. Dear God, he was almost dead. It was time to retire from the world.

  But the world in the shape of Lord Hugo Prattle came knocking again at the door. When the Russian Baltic Squadron, hunting Japanese torpedo boats, settled instead for Great British trawlers, war fever swept the country. Newspapers printed daily accounts of the growing Russian threat. Novelty merchants sold paper lanterns, horsehair pigtails, mikado masks and strings of tiny, Japanese flags. Nothing could satisfy the public demand for news and views of brave Japan. Within a week of the Dogger Bank Outrage, Prattle had sent his request for studies of Japanese geisha girls. Forbidden Views Through a Bamboo Curtain. One dozen. All different.

  Swann was reluctant but Prattle was stubborn and larded the old man with so much praise that he found it hard to refuse.

  ‘It’s all very comic,’ he complained to Marsh, ‘but where do we find this little woman? And what’s to be done if she tells her husband? I thought we might have learned our lesson. You can’t trust the work to amateurs.’

  ‘She doesn’t have to be a Japanese,’ said Marsh. ‘We can make her look like a Japanese. That’s the art of it. That’s what they do in the music halls. Think of the girls at the Coliseum.’

  ‘The Coliseum?’ said Swann, looking most perplexed. ‘They’ve got Bonita and her Cuban Midgets at the Coliseum. But that doesn’t mean they’ll want to pose nude.’

  ‘Midgets?’ barked Marsh impatiently. ‘We don’t want no trouble with midgets. Forget the Coliseum. Think of Gilbert and Sullivan. The Mikado. Yum-Yum and Nanki-Poo.’

  Swann smiled. He was beginning to understand. ‘The Mikado! That’s more like it. Why, it must be twenty years ago. The Savoy. I took the late Mrs Swann.’

  ‘Illusions,’ said Marsh with a wave of his hand. ‘Simple stage illusions. Find me some screens and a bowl of paper chrysanthemums – I’ll build you a house in Yokohama. The geisha played by
Ethel Spooner.’

  ‘Ethel?’

  ‘Gloria Spooner’s sister Ethel.’

  ‘She’s built like a Suffolk punch!’ hooted Swann. ‘I’d like to see Gloria playing a geisha.’

  ‘She’s big,’ said Marsh, ‘and that’s a fact. I can’t deny that God built Gloria generous. But Ethel is small and as dainty as a sparrow. You’d never suppose they was sisters. The difference is remarkable.’

  ‘I suppose we could paint her to look like a geisha,’ said Swann rather doubtfully. Chalk on her face. Hair full of chopsticks. He pulled on his beard and considered the problem. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, at last. ‘The pictures we took would be counterfeits.’

  ‘No more than your Biblical Beauties,’ said Marsh sharply. ‘Art is chiefly composed of conceits.’

  So they sent for little Ethel Spooner and contrived to picture Prattle’s dream. Ethel was bright and full of suggestions. She had worked with several photographers and felt comfortable with the camera. She’d been selling views of her bum since the time she was twelve years old. She didn’t much care for Marsh but she liked the look of Kingdom Swann. He was large, untidy and affable, like a Wombwell Menagerie bear. She wasn’t in the least alarmed by the colour of his nose.

  They went to great pains to change her country of origin. They dressed her hair with combs and tassels, made a rosebud of her mouth and powdered her eyebrows white. They taught her to tie a kimono and flirt with a paper fan. It took them a week to catch the effect but the finished pictures were beautiful.

  Prattle was delighted, of course, and gave his consent to publish the set for their catalogue. Marsh lost no time in printing them and to Swann’s surprise they proved the most popular cards of the year. He retired the faithful Winchester and bought a Fallowfield’s Saloon Universal in polished walnut on a patent ball-roller stand. He bought Marsh a new set of ivory teeth and Ethel a vulture-quill hat.

  11