Kingdom Swann: The Story of a Photographer

by Gibson, Miles

  ‘Nonsense!’ said Swann.

  ‘You wait,’ said Alice. ‘We’re out to sink the German fleet!’

  ‘How do you know?’ said Ethel.

  ‘It’s general knowledge,’ said Alice. ‘We’ve built the biggest dreadnoughts in the history of the world. Armour-plated battleships so fast that they can’t be hit and so strong that they can’t be sunk. I was reading about them yesterday.’

  ‘All the more reason for the Kaiser to keep his fleet at home,’ said Swann, wiping the egg from his beard.

  ‘I don’t understand you,’ said Alice. ‘Why build battleships if you can’t use ’em? It’s a waste of money. It doesn’t make sense.’ She set the pail upon the table and wiped the hair from her eyes. She looked big and strong and confident. She had a little paper Union Jack pinned to her apron pocket.

  The next day, to no one’s surprise, Great Britain declared war on Germany. London and Berlin erupted with scenes of jubilation. Ten thousand gathered before Buckingham Palace to throw their hats in the air for the King. The streets echoed to the pipes and drums. Volunteers stormed recruiting offices. The troop trains stood waiting at Waterloo Station.

  ‘Isn’t it fun!’ laughed Ethel. ‘It’s just like the Coronation.’

  ‘And don’t they look lovely in uniform,’ sighed Alice, brushing a tear from her eye.

  Swann could find no peace in the house. In the warmth of an August afternoon he went strolling as far as Westminster. The cavalry were camped in St James’s Park. There were soldiers marching on the lawns and horses grazing the flower beds. It looked so much like a Mountjoy dream that the old man stopped, for a minute, to stare. And there, in the shade of a tree, he saw a group of Piccadilly suffragettes. They wore bonnets sewn with paper flowers and cheerful summer frocks. They were laughing and calling to the crowd. Whenever a young man came within range they ran forward and thrust a pamphlet into his hand. This pamphlet, boldly printed in red and blue, illustrated with a demon Kaiser and still smelling sweetly of the printer’s ink, pleaded with men to ‘Leave Home & Fight!’

  39

  ‘Suffragettes? Good luck to them, sir,’ said Mrs Beeton over afternoon tea. ‘It’s more work for the pleasure houses. If there were no suffragettes in the world God would have to invent ’em. The more women out there throwing bombs and talking politics the better for business.’ She smiled and brushed biscuit crumbs from her skirt.

  ‘And why do they seem so anxious for war?’ demanded Swann. ‘They’re marching through town like recruiting sergeants.’

  ‘I’m surprised you ask such a question! A war suits their purposes to perfection. There’s nothing like it for making money or fanning the flames of revolution.’

  ‘Revolution, is it?’ said Swann.

  Mrs Beeton poured him more tea from a large, ornate, silver pot. It was clear that she thought of herself as a fully emancipated woman. She was wealthy, independent and industrious. She was also very proud of her girls and looked after them, encouraging them to save their money to provide for the comforts required in old age. They could read and write and conduct a spirited conversation with anyone from a king to a coster. They studied the bible and some of them sang in the church on Sundays. They were kept in the very pink of health and constantly examined, for pleasure, by the best of the London surgeons. They wanted for nothing and their only fear was of persecution by the militant suffragettes. Mrs Beeton had a poor opinion of the suffragettes.

  ‘I hear them banging the drum for social justice,’ she said. ‘It’s not justice they want, Mr Swann. They want power. And because it’s the men that hold the power they call those men wicked and corrupt. But it’s the power that corrupts and makes ’em so wicked. And when women finally grasp the power there will be not a ha’pence of difference.’

  ‘I don’t like it,’ said Swann. ‘Women dressed as men.’

  ‘Pay ’em no heed,’ said Mrs Beeton, hoping to soothe him. ‘I’ve known men who like to dress as women.’

  ‘What?’ roared Swann.

  ‘It’s true, sir! Full-grown men in silk stockings and little chemises, prancing around with their pokers out.’

  ‘Sodomites!’ gasped Swann.

  ‘Dear me, I don’t believe they betrayed such inclinations in this house, Mr Swann, or I’m sure I would have noticed it,’ she said, prodding her hair. ‘In matters of hygiene I’m most particular.’

  ‘What other sort of man would take to wearing petticoats?’ demanded Swann.

  ‘Important men. Influential men. All of them born to the ruling classes. If they weren’t in such positions of power they’d be scrubbing floors in the madhouse,’ she declared and paused to nibble a sugared biscuit. ‘Women in trousers. Men in skirts. There’s nothing to choose between them.’

  The world is changing too fast, thought Swann. There’s nothing can be trusted. He had celebrated the women of a golden age, undraped and untroubled, in puris naturalibus. And many of these fleeting nudes with their high breasts and fatted calves were already gone from the world, withered like summer roses, transmigrated into grey-skinned matrons, whiskers sprouting from their chins and the light gone from their eyes.

  He had cheated death a thousand times, stolen women’s reflections in a miracle of mirrors and fixed them for all eternity, in praise of beauty, for the pleasure of man and the greater glory of God. The enduring songs of love! O, pubis magnificat! He had made these women immortal. Each brief blush of beauty had made its small, indelible impression. A simple testament of joy to set against the terrors of life.

  He should never have sold the collection. Fashions change. Nothing was constant. Photographs spoil. Glass plates were broken. How long would it take before most of his work could be counted as lost or destroyed? He must have been mad! Why had Marsh persuaded him? Who were those wretched Haymarket men? He resolved to visit their warehouse to satisfy himself that his work was properly stored and secured.

  ‘Retrieve your pictures at any cost!’ said the admirable Mrs Beeton. ‘How could you bear to part with them? You’ve a duty to leave them for the nation.’

  ‘The nation doesn’t want them,’ grieved Swann.

  ‘It makes no difference. The nation don’t know what it wants. I’ve half a mind to purchase the plates myself.’

  ‘You flatter me, ma’am, and I thank you for it,’ said Swann.

  ‘Flatter you?’ said Mrs Beeton, snapping her biscuit. ‘Flatter you, my arse! I’ve an eye for a work of art, Mr Swann. You can’t sell me a wooden nutmeg. One day your pictures will be historical. They’re important. They’re unique. I guarantee, we’ll not see the likes of them again. I should have been proud to have taken charge of them. It wounds me to think that you never allowed me such an opportunity.’

  ‘By God, you shall have them!’ he cried, stamping his foot and making the tea cup jump from its saucer. ‘They couldn’t find a better home. I’ll go there and fetch ’em myself.’

  But he was too late.

  40

  Late on a Friday afternoon the police raided the Haymarket office of Godiva Imperial and arrested Clarence Clark. He had been accused of keeping children for the purpose of prostitution. Although he was innocent of the charge, he broke beneath their interrogation and confessed to a dozen other crimes. One: he was guilty of offering for sale a range of indecent clockwork novelties designed to corrupt public morals. Two: he was responsible for the manufacture of a notorious aphrodisiac called Casanova drops which, when introduced to a victim’s food, poisoned the stomach and irritated the bowels. Three: he also pleaded guilty to selling a dangerous preparation made from a mixture of camphor and mustard and known as Old Stallion embrocation. Four: he had ordered, from somewhere in Germany, a range of giant dildoes and leather bondage equipment. Five: he had sold rubber masks and stockings and items of waterproof underwear. Six: he had offered a quantity of X-ray spectacles that he claimed could render women naked through the thickest protective garments. Seven: he had lied about these spectacles. Eight: he had offer
ed bad translations of forbidden continental novels. Nine: he had written most of these novels himself under several different names. Ten: he had published the ancient Egyptian method of hypnotising reluctant women, satisfaction guaranteed. Eleven: he had printed a monthly directory of London’s most comfortable brothels. Twelve: he had organised the sale of an unknown number of pornographic photographs and drawings.

  In a back room at Vine Street police station Clarence Clark wept and begged for mercy. He pleaded insanity. He asked them to think of his crippled mother. He offered them a substantial reward to forget their investigations. The police were not impressed.

  Once they knew the nature of the publishing business they wasted no time in breaking into the warehouse. The building was stuffed, from floor to ceiling, with bundles of photographs, prints and novels. They had never seen such a wicked hoard of human degradation. The bonfires burned for a week. Swann’s master collection was destroyed, along with a shipment of loathsome French postcards, several thousand lewd woodblock prints recently shipped from Japan and a set of pornographic etchings by Pablo Picasso of Paris.

  41

  ‘You can take some more snaps, Mr Swann,’ said Ethel.

  ‘I’ll show you my bum,’ said Alice.

  Kingdom Swann lay in bed with his beard combed over his nightgown. He didn’t move nor make a sound. His face was a mask of despair. He refused all food and drank only from Mountjoy’s poisoned bottle. After three or four days with no improvement Cromwell Marsh was summoned from his offices at Cricklewood.

  ‘I don’t like the look of him, sir,’ said Alice, as she hurried him up the stairs.

  ‘Have you called the doctor?’

  ‘He won’t let no doctor tamper with him,’ puffed Alice. ‘He won’t even let Ethel change the sheets on his bed. We tried to bath him on Sunday night but he kicked and struggled and put up such a terrible fight we couldn’t hold him and let him go back to bed half-washed and used the hot water ourselves since we didn’t want it wasted.’

  ‘Are you feeding him?’ said Marsh, who had brought along a bowl of calf’s foot jelly, wrapped in a muslin cloth.

  ‘We can’t make him eat a morsel,’ said Alice. ‘He’s taken out his teeth.’

  When they entered the room they found Swann in his dressing gown, standing, staring, through an open window.

  Marsh glanced at him apprehensively, sat down in a chair, placed the bowl of jelly at his feet and perched his hat on his knees. For some time the two men shared the room in silence. A draught from the window shook the lace curtains. Beside the bed a little clock began to chime.

  ‘There are women out there running riot,’ murmured Kingdom Swann, ‘slashing pictures of famous men.’ He turned from the window and glowered at Marsh. ‘And now there are men breaking doors down with hammers and making bonfires of women. And all around them the world at war, the whole damn world going up in flames!’ He was shrieking, his face full of thunder and his red eyes rolling. ‘I should never have lived so long! Never! Never! God should have spared me from this!’ He hobbled up and down the room, wringing his hands and blowing savagely through his whiskers.

  ‘There’s nothing to be done,’ said Marsh miserably, torturing his hat. ‘It’s a terrible misfortune but there’s nothing to be done …’ He knew the whole, sad story but had hoped that the news might be kept from Swann. It was enough to break the old man’s heart.

  ‘They threw my life on the fire!’ roared Swann. ‘And you tell me there’s nothing to be done!’

  ‘What have you lost?’ argued Cromwell Marsh. ‘Plates we’ve printed a thousand times. It makes no difference to your reputation. Your work is everywhere. Why, there’s most likely a Kingdom Swann nude in every artistic household in England. I shouldn’t be surprised if your photographs was admired in the distant outposts of Empire!’

  ‘Scattered and gone,’ moaned Swann. ‘Blown to the wind. That’s the truth of it.’

  ‘But you must have your own collection,’ said Marsh. ‘A few of your personal favourites …’

  ‘I don’t have a collection,’ wept Swann.

  ‘You kept nothing?’ said Marsh, surprised. He had hoarded every picture of Alice the studio had published and even secretly printed from plates that Swann had ordered to be destroyed because of some fault in the composition. He owned more views of Alice Hancock than any man alive and never grew tired of studying them. He especially prized the snaps of Alice caught unprepared, bending with her eyes half-closed and her drawers pulled open between her knees. The chance exposure, the stolen glance, had always excited him more than any formal arrangement. He kept his pictures of Alice in a box at the back of the wardrobe. He called it his private collection.

  ‘Why should I collect my own work?’ said Swann bitterly. ‘God forbid, but I trusted you to take care of all that!’

  ‘I didn’t know …’ said Marsh. ‘I thought I’d done you proud. The man had an excellent reputation.’

  ‘You ruined me!’ barked Swann.

  Marsh punched his hat and looked forlorn. He’d been wrong about Clarence Clark. The man was a fraud and a scoundrel. They were lucky to have escaped his fate: in a bid to save his own skin he might well have had them all arrested. Marsh shuddered. ‘We could write to all the old customers and explain your unhappy circumstance,’ he suggested. ‘Some of them early pictures is worth a pretty penny. We’ll buy ’em back.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’ll buy ’em back!’ shouted Marsh. ‘Certainly. Give it twelve months and you’ll find we’ve recovered the whole collection.’

  ‘I’m a hundred years old!’ raved Swann. ‘Why can’t I make you understand? I can’t wait twelve months. I can’t wait twelve weeks. I might drop dead this afternoon!’

  Marsh couldn’t argue with him. The old man looked ready to burst his nose. He stared miserably around the room. The silence settled. He couldn’t find any more words of comfort. He wondered if he should mention the bowl of calf’s foot jelly. He decided against it and pushed it deeper under the chair with a gentle sweep of his foot.

  And then, in a moment of desperation, he remembered Lord Hugo Prattle. The private museum at Prattle House contained the largest surviving hoard of Kingdom Swann’s work in the country. The collection had lately been neglected since, unknown to the great photographer, Marsh had introduced his lordship to the pleasures of moving picture shows. Prattle had spared no expense to fit out his bedroom with all the necessary equipment and now spent his days in bed, watching naked chorus girls flitter like ghosts on the walls. This new novelty consumed all his time and energy and the library gathered dust. He would telephone his lordship and ask him to open the library for Swann.

  42

  When Prattle heard the story he wrote, at once, to Kingdom Swann and begged him to make haste for Dorset. The photographer would be his permanent guest, a suite of rooms would be made available and the entire collection of books, prints, paintings and photographs put at his disposal. It would be Lord Hugo Prattle’s privilege to have the great artist as guardian of the library.

  ‘Imagine it!’ said Cromwell Marsh, when he read the letter aloud to his master. ‘You’ve been given the keys to the Prattle library. He wants to put you in charge of the greatest collection of nudes in Europe. What do you think of that!’ He lit a small cigar and beamed down at the ancient photographer, who was laid out in bed with his head propped up by a pillow. He was feeling very pleased with himself. He was waiting for Swann’s congratulations.

  ‘I think it’s a scandal,’ grumbled Swann. ‘Making me go out and beg for the pleasure of viewing my work. At my age the artist should be at home, sitting beside a blazing fire, surrounded by the loving attention of women and children and big-bellied dogs. He shouldn’t be sent out into the cold and driven hundreds of miles from his hearth whenever he wants to look at his pictures.’ He closed his eyes and pretended to fall asleep.

  ‘It’s no distance,’ protested Marsh. ‘And I never before heard you mention dogs.�
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  ‘It’s a long expedition to undertake at my time of life,’ murmured Swann. ‘Travel shakes up the bones and puts a fearful strain on the stomach. Anything could happen. My heart gives out or my bladder bursts and they’d find me dead on arrival …’ He raised his hand, very weakly, and wagged it at Marsh as if he were waving goodbye to the world.

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Marsh. ‘You’ll enjoy it. An excursion will do you a power of good and these days the railways are excellent.’

  ‘I never much cared for Dorset,’ sighed Swann. ‘It’s nothing but beasts and wilderness and all the roads are made of mud.’

  ‘You’ll be living in a palace,’ said Marsh, snapping his fingers against the letter. ‘Prattle was never a man to deprive himself of the comforts. Properly appointed rooms. Big, healthy country girls acting as maids. Six meals a day and nothing to do with your time but sleep in the sun and grow fat.’

  ‘Rich food,’ yawned Swann. ‘Rich food never agreed with me.’ He closed his eyes again and settled his head in the pillow.

  Cromwell Marsh lost his patience. He jumped up and walked to the window, snorting ribbons of smoke through his nose. What was wrong with the silly old bugger? Why was he proving so difficult? ‘You can’t decline such an honour!’ he said, chewing impatiently on his cigar. ‘It’s quite unthinkable. Why, it would be like refusing a knighthood!’

  Swann was quickly persuaded, although he wouldn’t admit it to Marsh. If he wanted to see his work again he would have to accept Prattle’s invitation. The thought of the library excited him and restored him to the land of the living. He came off Mountjoy’s bottle and let Alice give him a bath. He found his teeth and sank them into a hot beef pudding.

  When the time came he left the house near Golden Square in the care of Ethel and Alice. He had given them the property, although they didn’t know it yet, and made them secure with generous pensions. He settled the greater part of his fortune on the five Spooner children to provide them with proper educations, gave old Mrs Spooner a beer allowance and deposited a small sum for the upkeep of his wife’s grave at Highgate cemetery. He was furtive about these arrangements and discussed them with no one beyond the solicitor’s office. He hoped to return to London at some time in the future but at his age, and in his poor health, he would not undertake the journey without his affairs in good order.