Will & Tom

by Matthew Plampin

  Realising that Will isn’t going to begin a discussion of his circumstances, Harris does it for him. ‘You’ve had a good summer, I’ve heard. A prime summer. You’ve been sporting in the lap of Xerxes, ain’t you Mr Turner, and you’ve had your pockets filled with his gold. Seven drawings, was it? Quite the haul, sir. Quite the haul.’

  Will is scowling now, vexed as ever by the transformation of his private business into public knowledge. There are any number of suspects for this leak – foremost of which is his own father, who is presently scouring the piazza with a bloody handkerchief clamped to his ear. He glances back into Maiden Lane. The striped barber’s pole can just be discerned; and beneath it, through the dark casement, some of the disorder left by Mother’s escape. He wonders how much these men have seen.

  ‘I’ve someone already, Mr Harris.’

  The frame-maker ignores him. ‘And taking commissions in oil! Heavens above, Mr Turner, you’ll be an Associate in no time. We’ve been talking it over, my pals and I, and we all agree. Next year’s elections. Your hour is nigh.’

  Two others wait at Harris’s rear, lackeys from the look of them. Both are nodding.

  ‘Aye,’ says one.

  ‘Next year,’ says the other. ‘For sure.’

  Beau Lascelles’ letter was received on the fifth day of September. Will shook it open with quivering, sweat-sticky fingers, convinced that he was about to read words like theft and proof and witness and magistrate – that he might as well just cast himself out the damn window right then and be done with it. A minute later, though, he was frowning with perplexity and fast-gathering delight. In his feathery, careless hand, Beau informed him that – on account of the hour or so he’d spent studying the sketchbooks – he would have his six watercolour drawings, consisting of four views of the house and two of the castle; and that he desired to order an additional drawing, taken from the sketches of Kirkstall Abbey, for which he would pay a further ten guineas. Remuneration would be made upon delivery of the completed works to Hanover Square: all at once, individually, or in any combination Mr Turner pleased. For whatever reason, he was pretending that the ugly scene in the stable block hadn’t occurred. Will wasn’t about to question it. The terms were improved. His finances were secure, until Christmas at least. The hirelings would be held back.

  Better was to come. A second letter arrived a fortnight later, this time from Lord Harewood himself, requesting oils of Plumpton, of which he understood Mr Turner had sketches: two canvases, and pretty large ones at that, to add to the decoration of the saloon. The fee would be thirty-two pounds, with nine shillings allowed for materials. Will showed it to Father, who seized hold of him for a bow-legged jig before the parlour fire.

  By God, boy, the barber declared, stopping to catch his breath, you must’ve charmed them nobs something proper.

  At first, it seemed a great gift. Will could now afford to forswear the likes of Dr Monro and the Sans Souci and concentrate on his Academy submissions – on works derived from the northern sketchbooks, which he’s convinced will be his finest yet. Before long, however, he recognised the Lascelles’ largesse for what it was. They were binding him with kindness. He was in their service. Toiling for their coin. His silence could be taken for granted.

  Harris has started talking up his frames. ‘I’ve this moulding in from Amsterdam – very grand it is, but complimentary also – a fine fit for Romantic matter. The pins, also, are best steel, and fish-hooked so they withstand the sharpest of knocks, such as might reasonably be sustained during the traversal of our fair city. What’s more, the gilt I employ …’

  Street women drift in, carmine over their bruises, murmuring invitations – ‘Walk with me a while, my tup? There’s a place, not far …’ – Will they know, and know he’s no good for it, but the usual persistence is shown towards Harris and his companions. Sleeves are stroked and shoulders smoothed; and one of the lackeys orders them away, cocking a fist when they hesitate.

  ‘Mr Harris,’ says Will over the curses, trying to pull free, ‘I have someone. I ain’t got time. I must be off.’

  It’s right there, in his voice: a dread of being asked why he is in such a desperate hurry, clad only in a shirt and nankeen breeches, with the buckle of his left shoe flapping loose. He looks at Harris. The fellow sees his unease, sees it plainly, and is thinking of how it might be used to his advantage.

  ‘What about drawings, then? I know you’re busy, Mr Turner, but anything you have that may be surplus to your commissions, anything that may be in need of a quick sale, would be gladly received. I have my buyers, sir. Five guineas I got last week, for our mutual friend Mr Girtin. Perhaps he’s mentioned this to you.’

  Will is halted. He shakes his head. ‘No. He ain’t.’

  They haven’t met since Harewood. Will’s bundle, left behind in the casket chamber, arrived by post at the end of August, the clothes laundered and neatly folded. Even the sun hat was included. Accompanying it was a note from Tom, expressing the hope that he’d recovered from his fall upon that slippery riverbank, and had reached home without further mishap. Will sent a reply to the effect that he had, that the knee was fully healed, and that he looked forward to returning the articles so kindly loaned in the near future. Before he could act on this intention, however, Father came across Tom’s boots lying in the downstairs corridor and gave them to a beggar.

  Harris smiles. ‘You’re aware of our association, I’m sure. Two years now, I’ve been selling for him. And interest in his drawings has never been higher. Mr Girtin is thriving. It’s most satisfying to witness. Your own patrons, the Lascelles, are helping him as well. They’ve appointed him drawing master at Hanover Square, and every day he gains new pupils from among their fashionable friends. He told me that he’s looking to leave his mother’s house at last. Lodgings on Drury Lane, apparently.’ The frame-maker’s tone drops; his fingers refresh their grip on Will’s arm. ‘I’m concerned, though. A touch. I won’t deny it. There’s a quality about him, Mr Turner, that I can’t quite comprehend. Perhaps you can assist me here. A shadow, you might call it. Cast, I’d say, during the summer just gone.’

  Will is staring into the gutter. ‘What is – How do—’ He blinks; he clears his throat. Something is coming. ‘Beg pardon?’

  The plot, as delineated by Mrs Lamb, has certainly failed. No pregnancy was announced. Prince Ernest Augustus was reported to have left the country, in pursuit of battle against the French. Early in October, the Lascelles family arrived at Hanover Square for the season, but Mary Ann was not among them. Will made some discreet enquiries; her whereabouts were unknown. Word around town puts Tom in his old haunts – back on the same circuit of artists’ taverns, theatre scenery and drawing lessons that Will is attempting to avoid. Harris’s account makes it clear that he too has been bound to the Lascelles. How he might feel about this, though, and what he might say or do, is less easy to determine.

  Harris seems to back down. ‘It ain’t important. Mostly he’s his normal self. Starting trouble. Rallying folk to some great cause or other.’ He laughs, relaxing; then abruptly returns to it. ‘There was a night, however, in the upstairs room of this very establishment behind us here – an assembly of a little tavern club we run, for men of our profession. We was making our toasts, and it was the usual sort of thing: the immortal Muse, so-and-so’s pet pug, Miss Emma at the Key. But when Mr Girtin’s turn comes, he proposes “the Lascelles family of Yorkshire” – says something like “the most generous of patrons, who only two months previous showed me the kindest and most disinterested hospitality”.’

  Will stays very still.

  ‘Such displays of gratitude to a benefactor are hardly unknown, of course, in a club like ours. But a couple of things caught our notice. First was that Mr Girtin had told us he was going west this summer, out into Devon. Second, and more striking, was the way he spoke. He wasn’t grateful at all, Mr Turner. He was angry.’

  Dear God.

  ‘We drank, at any rate, and we sat back
down. Several people asked Mr Girtin to enlarge, but he refused. Not a word more. Looked like regret from where I was placed. Like he’d give much to take back that sour toast of his.’ Harris turns to his companions. ‘What do you say, gentlemen? Ain’t that a fair description?’

  ‘Aye, Mr Harris.’

  ‘Poor devil was ready to black his own eye.’

  ‘And afore the next charging of the bumpers he was gone,’ Harris continues. ‘Thundered down the stairs. All but ran off up Bedford Street. We talked on it a while, as you’d expect, and it transpired that one of us had recently been in Lord Harewood’s employ himself. Giuseppe Forli was his name – a decorative painter from Ravenna, originally, brought into Hanover Square to do up the columns so they’d look like marble. This Signor Forli said he’d overheard a great deal from his scaffold, among the family and their callers, of your stay at the Yorkshire house over the summer, of the commission made and the results anticipated, yet none whatsoever of any by Mr Girtin. Mr Turner this, Mr Turner that – but Mr Turner only.’ The frame-maker pauses, rather pleased; his challenge has been set. ‘Odd, wouldn’t you agree? This disparity?’

  Will suppresses a shiver. More than frames or picture dealing, gossip is Jack Harris’s stock in trade. He knows when he sees a kink in the cloth – a loose stitch to pick at. Will’s thoughts, unexpectedly, are of confession. He could air the whole damn story, right this minute. The facts of his experience. The memories that swamp his mind whenever he is trying to work, or sleep, or think. This is surely a chance for release. He peers to the left. The Strand can be seen along the crooked passage of Half Moon Street: the carriages and tall carts, the haze of smoke and steam, the endless crowds through which he has yet to search.

  It can’t be taken. What revelations, exactly, would he make? Where would he break off? It’s all roped together, every deed and misdeed of that fretful, tumultuous week. To tell of Tom and Mary Ann Lascelles is to tell of Mrs Lamb, and Abolition pamphlets, and night-time escapades in the state rooms; of Selene and Endymion, stolen, snapped apart and hurled into the boating lake. Harris is no fool. He’d see that he was being given but half a tale. He’d pose questions that Will would be better off not answering. He’d worry the matter like a dog. It’d start too much. The Lascelles have Will’s measure. He can’t do it.

  ‘Tom weren’t at Harewood, Mr Harris. Just me.’

  The frame-maker draws back, his brow lifting. He releases Will’s arm. ‘Really, Mr Turner? Our friend was quite specific. “Only two months previous,” he said, teeth gritted as hard as you like, “they showed me the kindest—”’

  ‘He went to Harewood the year previous. It was the liquor, I reckon. Muddled his recollection.’

  Harris considers Will for a second; then he grins. ‘Possible,’ he admits. ‘Very possible. Mr Girtin seemed certain – but you was there, sir, wasn’t you! I hope that you should damn well know!’ He slaps Will’s shoulder. ‘You mustn’t be nervous. The night I speak of was several weeks ago now. We’ve seen him since, for business, and had him lecture us on the wickedness of the government with his usual spirit. And only yesterday Mr Samuel was saying that he’s become embroiled with a … laundress, was it?’

  ‘Dairy maid. Near Regent Street.’

  ‘No enduring injuries, then,’ the frame-maker concludes, ‘on our Mr Girtin. This, I think, can safely be attested.’

  The three men laugh and begin to discuss the particular attributes of dairy maids; so Will decides that he’ll resume the duty that propelled him from his easel, out into this unwelcoming afternoon. He excuses himself, none too loudly, and carries on down his intended path. The sounds of the Strand – tradesmen’s cries, the grinding and creaking of wheels, ten thousand voices talking at once – are funnelled up the sloping alley, enveloping Will like a rush of dirty surf; and Jack Harris, calling after him from Chandos Street, is almost drowned out.

  ‘I’d visit the pillory first, Mr Turner, if I was you. That’s where you got her last time, ain’t it?’

  *

  An hour later Will is back in his painting room. The latticed window is open despite the cold, in an effort to wring what light remains from the declining day. His oils are mixed and ready, the muddy little heaps dotted across the flat hump of the palette. Before him is a half-finished view of Buttermere, taken from a colour study in the larger sketchbook, one of the best studies of the tour. A rainstorm arches above the mountainous valley, sinking it into a rich pluvial gloom; but at its centre the sun has found a gap in the cloud, and reaches between the foothills to set a golden cradle in the mid-ground. The intention, of course, is contrast: thunderous shadow and blazing brilliance, placed side by side to Sublime effect. His time away, however, has served to underscore the picture’s shortcomings. Timid, he thinks, glowering at it. Hesitant. He has it in mind to add a rainbow, curving over the peaks, leading the eye down to the brightest point, but cannot find it within him. Thomson’s Seasons was the source of this notion, so he gives the lines another try.

  ‘The grand ethereal bow shoots up immense, and every hue unfolds …’

  It’s hopeless. The sensibility is fled. These fine words aren’t enough. Image and paint aren’t enough. They’ll never be enough. Will slumps onto his stool. He hears Father scrubbing the small courtyard outside his window, working the coarse brush as hard as he can, and Mother’s moans trailing plaintively from the parlour. His own search proved unsuccessful. Even the pillory at Charing Cross – where she has indeed been discovered on several instances, making a vigorous contribution to the punishment of the unlucky souls locked within – yielded nothing. Footsore and irritable, he returned to the shop to find both parents already there. She’d been in the yard of St Paul’s, Father told him, looking for their daughter’s grave, the location of which she could never be made to learn.

  Will sets his palette on the mantelpiece and gazes around balefully at the cramped, cluttered room: at the table piled with papers and books; the muller lolling on its stone plate, both coated in orange dust; the washing line pegged with drying drawings, running diagonally from one cobwebbed corner to another. The problem here, the cause of his restiveness, is obvious. That brief conversation with Jack Harris has brought about an unsettling change. No longer has Will simply been used and then bought off; he has colluded directly. The Lascelles’ calculations can be imagined with infuriating ease. They’ve decided, plainly, that William Turner is safe – a neutered, brainless creature, as unlikely to challenge their account, their manipulations and omissions, as the staff up at Harewood. And he has proved them right. He has lied. Obliged himself to lie again.

  Beau’s drawings hang together at one end of the washing line. The close views of the house are complete, ready to be taken over to Hanover Square. No chances have been taken. Dutch-style details of rustic life, Vernet skies, the lightest gloss of Claude: everything that could be desired. Will wasn’t going to give them the slightest reason to deny or reduce his payment. The other four are all at roughly the same stage, being worked up for a simultaneous finish early in the new year. Those of the castle are turning out especially well. He decided on the eastern view, with the ruin in the left foreground and Wharfedale off to the right – the first of the day, sketched with such exhilaration – and one of those from the north, the triangular composition, taken just before the breaking of the storm. Before he sought refuge inside. Before he found them.

  Suddenly, Will’s discontent points out a course. He pulls down the eastern view, flaps it against a board and identifies a suitable spot: a section of mossy bank, perhaps an inch long and a half-inch wide, just beneath the castle. The scraping nail, grown back to its old dimensions, is brought to bear and the paper cleared of pigment. Then he takes up the smallest of his watercolour pencils, charges it with the very darkest mix of Cologne-earth and makes his addition. Five minutes’ labour puts two tiny figures forever in the foreground of Beau Lascelles’ drawing. One sits in a sun hat and blue coat, sketching diligently into his book. The o
ther, bareheaded in a suit of burnt umber, is stretched out on the ground beside his companion, watching him work with idle interest.

  Will and Tom.

  Charing Cross

  April 1803

  ‘Stories,’ says Morland now, sitting back with the air of an expectant king. ‘We must have stories.’

  The company shifts about, arranging its recollections; glad, in truth, of this new purpose. Little Louis Francia speaks first, his usual trim precision compromised somewhat by port, telling of the severance of Tom’s apprenticeship to Edward Dayes. Jealous of his pupil’s ability, this ill-famed master used to delight in assigning him the most tedious labours imaginable. One task eventually proved too much: the colouring of five hundred prints of Coldstream Guards, of five hundred tunics and sashes and tri-cornered hats, each identical to the last. So Tom, at only seventeen years of age and with four years of indentures still remaining, decided that he would add great long beards to the soldiers instead, and devils’ tails, and tackle of the most extraordinary proportions; and leave Dayes’ house for good, plunging into the city to live off his own brush alone.

  ‘Independence,’ Francia concludes. ‘Even then, he prized it above all else.’

  Bob Porter goes next, standing grandly as if addressing a public meeting, and barks his way through a tale of an artists’ outing into Kent. An old mill was discovered beside a stream, at a picturesque degree of ruination. The painters agreed that this was their subject, to be taken in colour, with the results compared at the day’s end. An hour later, though, Tom was finished, his drawing so fine that it left the others very much inclined to abandon theirs; and when a pair of dairy maids came over to see what they were about, he made them a gift of the sheet like it was nothing at all.