I, Hogarth

by Michael Dean

  ‘Did the clerk mention …?’

  ‘I asked him, William, as you asked me to.’

  ‘Well?’ I did not mean to speak sharply, but did. I was always sharper with Anne, although she was the one, to be honest, who was closer to my heart, as she was more like me than serious Mary.

  ‘William, things have not gone well with her.’

  ‘Oh, get on with it!’

  Mary pouted, exacerbating the jut of her chin. ‘She lost Mr da Costa’s protection, because of her other paramours …’

  ‘She had other men …’

  ‘So what happened?’ I yelled. I was consumed with the need to find Kate.

  ‘I’m telling you,’ said Mary mildly. ‘The clerk said she ended up in a brothel. He thought she was rounded up in one of Gonson’s raids. But he wasn’t sure.’

  I tut-tutted. The newspapers were full of Sir John Gonson’s attempts to clean up Covent Garden by raiding the brothels and shutting them down. Rumour had it that he was not above trying out the merchandise for himself first, so he knew exactly the nature of the evil he was opposing, which was normally the way with men of morality.

  ‘Oh Kate, Kate. Are you all right?’ I muttered, more to myself than to the ladies present. I meant the clap, more than Gonson, though naturally I could hardly have said so out loud.

  ‘May God preserve her,’ said Anne, with a sudden access of piety.

  ‘God help her,’ contributed Mary.

  The poor Sarah Young creature stopped wringing her red-raw hands, and made the sign of the cross over her proud bosom.

  I resolved to ask Mother Douglas if she knew of Kate’s fate. I did not know her second name and dared not ask Mr da Costa – even with my wits scrambled, I had that much sense left. But the Gonson raid, if that was true, narrowed down the brothels where she might have been from thousands to a handful.

  ‘Very good!’ I said, as if listening to a business report the whole time. ‘What is through there?’ I pointed to a door, knowing very well it was a store room. Upon having this confirmed by my sisters, I announced my intention of speaking to Sarah Young in this room. My sisters looked at each other but did not demur.

  ‘Come with me a moment, if you please,’ I commanded Sarah. ‘I wish to talk to you.’

  Sarah followed me to the store room, which had a key on the outside. Once the door was shut behind us, I confirmed my impression of her complete submissiveness to me by kissing her hard on the lips. She was small of stature fortunately, no taller than I was. Her eyes opened a little in surprise but she responded con brio, as they say.

  ‘That was nice, wasn’t it?’ I said roughly, when our mouths finally unlocked. This total submissiveness, when I had not paid a penny, was most promising.

  ‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,’ she said.

  ‘Good girl!’

  This time, when repeating the performance with the kisses, I allowed myself liberties with the bosom, finally desisting only to lift her skirts and the meagre petticoat beneath. My questing fingers reached their goal; I was in, indeed, up to the knuckle, when there was a knock on the door accompanied by a cry of ‘William!’

  I sighed, letting her skirts drop. The tiny cupboard now smelled like a Yarmouth bloater. Sarah was dribbling slightly, but her eyes were fixed on me in wide devotion. I intended to test this devotion further.

  ‘What is it?’ I shouted, irritably.

  ‘It’s supper time,’ came the news through the door.

  ‘Time for supper.’

  Damn!

  5

  I WAS DRESSED in my very finest: the yellow waistcoat again, a sword newly polished, buckles for my shoes. I strode along, my feet crunching and slipping on the gravel of Covent Garden’s Middle Piazza, brave and quaking, my thrust-out chest the spacious carapace for an ever-shrinking heart.

  I rolled to a halt in the middle of the Piazza, where there was a column with a sundial. Round the battered wooden picket fence, the ladies in their straw hats and blue aprons were doing a roaring trade selling flowers, fruit, vegetables, nosegays; there were even some stalls offering samplers, brass rings and suchlike gewgaws. The bustle of selling-life made me smile.

  ‘Hello, Bill!’ A leather-faced but still striking old woman with a splendid prow of a nose was calling out to me, showing gappy, yellow teeth. Gertrude, the flower-seller.

  ‘Hello to you, Gertrude!’

  An idea! I would buy flowers to present to the Thornhill household, as I introduced myself.

  ‘I am off to see a most important man, Gertrude. So I need some luck. Come, what are the flowers for luck? I’ll have some from you.’

  Gertrude pushed her straw hat back on her head. ‘You don’t need luck, Bill. Not you, you handsome charmer.’

  ‘Oy! Keep it believable, my darling!’

  Gertrude, hands on hips, roared with laughter. ‘Here’s what you need.’ She pulled at some flowers on the stall. ‘Yellow poppies bring success,’ she chanted. ‘And here’s lavender roses.’

  ‘What do they bring?’

  Gertrude’s rather lovely almond eyes opened wide. ‘Why, love at first sight, Bill. Need you ask?’

  ‘I’ll take them, Gertrude. Thank you. Both of them. Poppies and roses.’

  So I’m stood before the mansion, the fine glorious house, which I had seen myriad times yet not seen because I did not know its significance. It was the same as with every face or every street scene if you look but do not see the significance. I shifted my poppies and roses to my left hand so I may ring at the door

  It rang, ding-dong, a footman answered. I realised I had bought too many poppies and roses, making me scarcely visible through a swaying thicket of blooms.

  I cleared my throat, panicked, blurted out that I was here for John Thornhill.

  ‘He’s not at home,’ said the footman and closed the door.

  I rang at the bell again. Nothing. And again. Nothing. This day was to mark the beginning of my longed-for rise. Was it to end in ignominy, standing in vain on a great man’s threshold, half-smothered in self-imposed foliage? Never! I touched my sword in defiance. Then I rang again, hard, ding-dong, on the clapper. Ding-dong-ding-dong-ding.

  Another footman answered, shorter than the first one, not much taller than me.

  ‘Hey! What’s all that noise? Did you ring before?’

  ‘No, I’ve just got here. Sorry about the noise. The bell kept ringing.’

  ‘What …?’

  ‘I am here to see Sir James Thornhill. He is expecting me. William Hogarth.’

  I walked forwards, giving the liveried flunky no alternative but to give ground and admit me. I was IN. Setting foot in a great house for the first time, and besides this was the house of a revered artist.

  ‘Wait there …’ said the footman. I glared at him, demanding it. ‘Please.’ He said it grudgingly but he said it. Next time he would say ‘sir’, I swore it.

  But I was summoned quickly. The HOUSE. Ah, the house! I followed the footman through to a drawing room on the first floor. As we entered, a maid thankfully relieved me of my abundance of flowers and foliage, dipping a pretty curtsey and saying she would put them in water.

  My mouth was open to greet Sir James with phrases well-oiled from practice in my head. But the drawing room was empty. I took in the ceiling-length, oval window to the left, from which the light was coming, with a claw-legged table pushed against it; a patterned oriental rug on the floor before a Portland fireplace with a high picture fire screen. A fire burned merrily in the grate. Above, on the mantelpiece, were an ornate clock, a candelabrum and a painting, heavily framed, of twins against a celestial white background.

  Sir James did not leave me waiting long, entering briskly, arm outstretched. He could hardly have been less imposing: tubby to the point of blubbery, not much taller than me. His nose was a most interesting artefact: slightly bent with the middle extending down almost onto the bow of his upper lip, the framework left the nostrils no choice but to flare upwards, like a baulked horse.


  But he was dressed most elegantly in a green frock-coat with large pockets, hanging to the knee, pulled back to reveal the most beautiful long waistcoat, white satin with metal thread – ten guineas at least, or I’m a Dutchman.

  We shook hands. ‘It’s Bill, isn’t it? Bill Hogarth?’

  ‘William, sir.’

  ‘Very well, William.’

  The maid carried in the flowers I brought.

  ‘Heavens! What a lot of flowers. Thank you, William. Very good of you.’

  ‘Not at all, sir. I’m very pleased to be here!’ I blurted this out with more force than intended, at the same time registering Sir James’s burring accent, which at first I thought was northern, like my father’s, but later identified as West Country.

  ‘I was looking for John.’ Sir James adopted what I took to be a mannerist pose, showing himself to be a man of taste. His right wrist, not his hand, was placed on his hip, with the hand splayed outwards, as if preparing to receive a secret payment in coin from someone approaching from the rear.

  Thus posed, he turned unsteadily on small, block-shoed feet, still searching, as if the watched-for John may pop up behind him, in jest. As John did no such thing, Sir James completed the full 360 degrees at the same even speed until he was facing me again. ‘He’s probably forgotten you were coming,’ he said, consolingly.

  ‘No matter, sir.’ Pause. ‘I was just admiring the room.’ I was also hoping for an invitation to sit, which was not forthcoming. Sir James’s watery features rippled into a faint smile at the compliment. Silence.

  How about the offer of refreshment? A glass of beer? Some cakes? Silence. He began to turn on his axis again but then stopped. Just making himself comfortable, I supposed.

  ‘I was just admiring the painting, sir.’ I flapped at the heavily-framed oil over the mantelpiece. ‘One of your own, is it not, sir?’

  Sir James nodded thoughtfully, not disturbing the watery features this time. ‘Yes, Constellation of Gemini with Caris Minor. Twins, you see.’

  ‘Masterful, sir!’ Actually, I thought the background a bit empty, too much white. But the compliment seemed genuinely to please him.

  ‘Oh, well, thank you.’

  ‘And, um, the embroidery,’ I plunged on. I shook an arm at it; it was on the wall. Great big thing, must have been over nine feet long, but narrow. Rows of leaves in gold running down a madder background. I truly did like it; I’d never seen such luxury. ‘Very nice, um, embroidery.’

  ‘Do you like it? Yes. It’s from Patmos, I believe. Lady Mary Whatsit brought it back from those travels of hers. She’s always charging about. Brilliant woman, even if she is as ugly as sin. They say its smallpox. Face like the wall of a day-labourer’s privy. Do you know her?’

  ‘Lady Mary er …? Um. Probably not.’ Silence. ‘I do engravings, at the moment, sir. But I have aspirations to be an artist. A proper …’

  ‘Artist, eh?’ Sir James was impelled to half-turn again. For a moment I wondered if he was driven by the sun, or something. ‘So where do you stand on the issues of the day, Bill? Hmm. I mean, what styles do you favour.’

  I felt myself colouring. ‘Oh, English, sir,’ I yelled out, truthfully enough. ‘Can’t stand that foreign muck. Palladio and all, from Italy. And that William Kent, its exponent here. No, sir! Not for me. Far too ornate and curvy. It’s not our way.’

  Fortunately John had primed me about Sir James’s enmity for William Kent, the local champion, so to speak, of the Italian Palladian style. He and Sir James had had a huge falling out over some commission or other, John said.

  Sir James gave a watery smile, accompanied by another quarter rotation. For some reason I was longing to sit down. I even nodded at one of the handsome marquetry chairs with serpentine seats, although, mind you, they looked as if nobody had ever sat on them.

  ‘So you want to learn the English style, eh?’

  ‘Yes, sir! It’s my dream, sir. And I shall make it come true! I shall, sir!’

  I realised that I was clenching my fists and was squaring up to Sir James. I blushed and wondered if I should apologise.

  ‘Well, Bill. I run a painting school, you know. I run a painting school here.’

  WHAT! I WOULD KILL HIM! I WOULD … KILL HIM! THAT JOHN THORNHILL! THAT BLOODY WASTREL! I WOULD SLOW-ROAST HIM OVER A BLOODY SPIT.

  DID HE NOT THINK TO TELL ME THAT? DID HE NOT THINK IT WORTHY OF MENTION, THIS VITAL PIECE OF INTELLIGENCE THAT COULD HAVE CHANGED MY WHOLE LIFE? ‘Oh, do you really, sir? I didn’t know that. May I …? I’d be very interested to um …’

  ‘Are you thinking of enrolling?’

  ‘Very much so, sir.’ You’re my hero. No, don’t say that.

  ‘Good. Well. Can you show me something? Some work?’

  ‘Not painting, sir. But I have done some drawings.’

  ‘Good, good.’

  ‘Scenes in coffee houses and the like. Some faces …’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘And etchings on bronze, sir. Just starting. After the style of …’ I stopped, realising Callot was French.

  ‘Bring them along. Next time you come. Show me. And then we’ll get you started in the school.’

  ‘That’s wonderful! Thank you so much, sir.’

  ‘Not at all, well …’ Another rotation was beginning.

  ‘I’d better go.’

  A young girl bustled in, all petticoats and shoulders. ‘Oh, papa, I … Oh, I’m sorry. You have a guest.’ Some charming confusion. ‘I’ll come back later.’

  ‘Bill was just leaving.’

  She looked me in the eye. Grey eyes. Frank, decent and fair. Intelligent brow. Full breasts.

  ‘Oh, did you bring the flowers?’

  ‘Yes! Yes. That was me.’

  ‘They’re lovely! It was me that put them in the vase.’

  ‘Well done! I think they were placed in the vase with great taste. And no little élan.’

  She laughed. ‘Élan, eh? For flower arranging …?’

  ‘They say taste is innate, you know. I mean anyone who can arrange flowers like that …’ I stopped, horrified at myself, but Sir James did not seem to have heard, so I finished, ‘… has um taste.’

  She showed me out, I remember that. I do not remember taking my leave of the great man. I was in mid-air somewhere between my future and heaven.

  ‘Did papa not offer you refreshment?’

  ‘He did not!’

  ‘He just forgets, you know.’

  ‘He is a great painter, he is entitled to forget refreshment.’

  She laughed again. I loved it when she laughed. I loved it even more when it was me who had made her laugh. I was swelling like a balloon.

  ‘I shall offer you refreshment then.’ She was blushing. Oh, lovely!

  ‘And I shall accept.’

  ‘Tea?’

  ‘Bloody hell. I don’t think I’ve ever tried it. In for a penny, in for a pound.’

  ‘And cake? Have you tried that?’

  ‘Cake? Let me think.’ I adopted an exaggerated thinking posture in the classical manner of Socrates. She laughed again. I LOVED this! ‘Yes, I have tried cake. And … let me report to you … the experiment was a success. I liked the cake I had. I wish to eat more.’

  ‘And so you shall. So you shall.’

  ‘What is your name, please …?’ You delightful girl. No, don’t say that.

  Eyes downcast, pinking slightly. ‘Jane, sir.’ She looked up.

  ‘And how old are you, Jane?’

  A second of hesitation. ‘Fifteen. How old are you?’

  ‘Fourteen. Oh, all right. I’m twenty blah-blah.’

  ‘Twenty blah-blah?’

  ‘Correct. Until my next birthday. Then I’ll be twenty blah-blah-blah.’

  She laughed until her eyes sparkled with tears. Oh, bliss!

  ‘And you are Bill? Are you not? John’s friend?’

  ‘I am NOT! I am NOT Bill! I deny your accu … your impu … to me of the name of Bill! I, young lady, am Guil
emus Hogarth. Artist, soon to be. But you can call me William.’ Because I was soaringly happy and you had wonderful breasts and I didn’t even care, because you were you, and wonderful, and that mattered even more.

  It was everything.

  Some universes later I soared back to Gamble’s emporium, full of tea and cake and so happy I could have exploded. With what little brain I had left, I plotted how to see her again. Gamble was sprawled over a workbench. He said the South Sea scheme had gone belly-up. He had lost all his money. His establishment was to close.

  6

  W.HOGARTH, ENGRAVER. That was what it said on my shop card. And the date of the start of my business sat proudly on the card, too. 23 April. St George’s Day. When else for an English patriot such as me? So the Spitalfields boy now had his own shop, where he was the master, in his own trade. It was near the Black Bull, Long Lane, a few streets north of the place where I first blinked, then bawled and clenched my fists at the world.

  So here was my own engraver’s press, my own workbench with a plate on a leather cushion to keep it steady, my own ink slab, engraving tools, ground and dabber. My own stove, my own pans stinking of varnish, resin, oil, acid vinegar and ink. My own designs and my own engravings.

  It was a tiny room, but my room, as the sound of rumbling carts and cries of a boot boy shouting ‘Clean your honour’s shoes’ came loudly through the damask curtains from my sisters’ shop, that Anne and Mary insisted on hanging at the windows.

  But … but, but, but … Young though I was in so many ways, I was still too old to learn the craft of ‘graver. I would never do it, not with these stubby hands. Not with my mind so quick and the craft so slow. When I drew I wanted to catch the passing moment, quick, quick, quick, not scratch away laboriously like a whore with the clap, easing her itch. And unlike the whore with the clap, one wrong scratch and the whole thing was ruined. That was not me!

  There was a noise outside. I could sense that the visitor was a woman before the door moved. My heart constricted and twisted in case it was Jane. Oh, I had so begged and pleaded with her to come to me at this workshop but so far … so far …

  The door opened. It was not Jane; it was Sarah Young, the assistant from my sisters’ shop. She was enclosed in cloak and bonnet, a trickle of transparent snot running down that interesting, useless groove we all carry between nose and mouth.