In Bergholt in mid-June Constable looked from his window and wrote to Maria in Worcestershire, telling her of the prospect before him. ‘I see all those sweet feilds where we have passed so many happy hours together.’ (Constable was always an ‘e before i’ person, whatever the preceding letter.) He was especially pleased that ‘the scenes of my boyish days should have witnessed by far the most affecting event of my life’, i.e. falling in love with her. He detailed his doings, such as his walks with his ‘three little mates’, the Constable dogs; one was a pug named Yorick who took an almost ridiculous pleasure in such walks. He told Maria about his neighbour John Dunthorne, who was thriving, his family growing up delightfully: ‘One of his little boys (my namesake) has been grinding colours for me all day – he is a clever little fellow and draws nicely all “of his own head”.’ Fourteen-year-old Johnny, so introduced, would become possibly John Dunthorne Senior’s greatest gift to the artist for whom he had already provided companionship, support and practical experience in painting. And Constable reverted to what for him and Maria had to be the main subject: he had paid several visits to the curates and to ‘the Doctor’ at the rectory. On one such call ‘the Doctor was unusually courteous, and shook hands with me on taking leave – am I to argue from this that I am not entirely out of the pale of salvation?’
He had meant to go up to London in July, hearing that Maria would be there. But she changed her plans. Sarah Skey’s ten-year-old son Samuel had died. Then for a whole month Maria failed to write and Constable reflected on the two hundred miles separating them. On 22 July he wrote to her to say that he had been living like a hermit, ‘though always with my pencil in my hand’ (‘pencil’ in this case meaning brush). He thought he had either got better in ‘the art of seeing Nature’ – a phrase of Sir Joshua’s – or Nature had become more generous to him in unveiling her beauties. However, any delight he got from this was affected by sadness because she wasn’t nearby.
In your society I am freed from the natural reserve of my mind – ’tis to you alone that I can impart every sensation of my heart – but I am now too apt to dwell on this melancholy side. Should I not rather think on the thousand blessings which I possess? I am hourly receiving every kindness from the best of parents – have I not health and time to pursue my darling study? – and above all I have your great love and esteem.
He went on sketching and painting in and around East Bergholt until mid-August. He now found the village dull. But his melancholy was suddenly alleviated: Maria was in town. They met several times and Constable seems to have imparted every sensation he felt for her. When they said an ardent goodbye on 25 August, she for the seaside at Bognor, he for East Bergholt, he went off with her gloves in his pocket.
This London visit left him in the dumps. On getting back to Bergholt, he was grieved to hear from Maria that she was also in low spirits. He wrote that she had so far borne with fortitude the greatest share of their sorrows; he hoped their present sufferings arose simply from the strains of again being parted. His heart was entirely and for ever hers. His love for her increased every day. He hadn’t attempted a landscape since returning to Bergholt; he wasn’t equal to it. ‘My pursuits in landscape have been disturbed, this summer, and I find myself driven into the autumn without much to show for it.’ He was going to Wivenhoe, near Colchester, for a few days to paint Mary Rebow, a portrait which gave him trouble though the Rebows liked it and he managed to get ‘a good deal of Landscape’ into the picture. Then it was on to Captain Western at Tattistone Place. All this of course pleased his parents. His mother wrote to him in late November, when he was back in London, ‘You can now so greatly excell in Portraits, that I hope it will urge you on to pursue a path, so struck out to bring you Fame and Gain.’
Landscape might be his Mistress, but Maria must have wondered occasionally if for Constable this wasn’t a good deal more than a figure of speech. Who really figured first in his affections? (Nine months later, she put it to him directly: Who had he thought most of that summer, ‘landscape or me?’) On his return to London in early November 1812 Constable, as usual, reported to Farington on what he had been up to, ‘studying Landscape and painting some portraits’.14 He and Maria were still apart, with him in Charlotte Street and her in Bognor. But she didn’t advise him to visit her in Sussex: ‘Prudence whispers you had better not come.’ The Bicknell family was again upset about the attachment. Writing to Maria on 25 October Constable had referred to a call his mother had made at Spring Gardens a month earlier when she learned that the Bicknells were expected at the rectory at Christmas, and Mr Bicknell had promised he would call on the Constables then. Constable continued, ‘But let us not flatter ourselves (even if he should call) on that account. You know perfectly well that the impression your family has towards me is not to be affected by a few outward civilities.’ We are reminded of the age difference between them – he was thirty-six, she was twenty-four – when he wrote ten days later to say to her, ‘Time however … must help us … Remember, my dear child, that our business is with ourselves, and that while you love me I shall consider every circumstance attending this unpropitious scene but as the dust on my shoes.’
Yet the circumstances piled up; the dust thickened. When she came back to town in early December Constable went round to Spring Gardens but wasn’t allowed in. Maria wrote to explain: ‘I have a cold that slightly attacks my chest.’ Her mother – who was also ill – wouldn’t let her go out. But Maria said she would try to meet him; she would be walking in St James’s Square on Friday at two o’clock. In fact, they managed to meet twice before he went to Bergholt for a family Christmas, village ‘balls and routs’, and finishing work on Captain Western, full-length in naval uniform.
When Constable returned to Charlotte Street in mid-January guilt at being out of touch with Maria drove him to frequent queries to Spring Gardens about her health. It may have dawned on him that not only her mother but several of her siblings were seriously unwell and when she talked of a cold attacking her chest, she sent ominous signals. But Mr Bicknell got to read Constable’s letters first, and he seemed more and more fed up with his daughter’s suitor. Maria wrote again to suggest that Constable attend more to his painting and less to her. She was afraid that other artists of less ability would outstrip him in the race for fame; he would then regret the neglected time, the opportunities lost, and blame her. Guilt consumed her too. ‘Believe me,’ she wrote, ‘I shall feel a more lasting pleasure in knowing that you are improving your time and exerting your talents for the ensuing Exhibition, than I should do while you were on a stolen march with me round the Park.’ (Her sister Louisa was generally brought along as a chaperone on these occasions.) Maria thought they should resolve to not see each other for a period, and she closed with an emphatic, ‘Please do not answer this’.
She had apparently got the word from her father, usually the mildest of men, that Constable wasn’t welcome. Constable was sent word of this and Maria, ever dutiful, told him they should wait – wait with quiet resignation. A merciful Providence would dispose of them. She bade him ‘farewell’.
Mrs Constable had already picked up the signs. Maria’s brother Sam had been at the rectory but hadn’t called at East Bergholt House. Constable’s mother was offended that despite the ‘virtuous & honourable love’ her son and Maria had for one another, John had been refused ‘the admittance of a gentleman to her father’s house’. Nevertheless she told him to hang on: ‘Patience is the only advice I should give & you I hope pursue.’ The two women in his life were at least agreed on what he should do.
5. Avoiding Notice (1812–15)
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN Maria and Constable was at the centre of both their lives, but other factors impinged. Maria’s health, for one thing: there were frequent signs it was shaky, though her bouts of frailness never caused Constable to slacken his wooing. Moreover, he had domestic problems of his own. In the small hours of 10 November 1812 a fire broke out at 63 Charlotte Street, where he lived above
the apartment and upholstery workshop of Richard Weight and his family; the artist and his belongings had to be evacuated. One of the first things he did next day was write to Maria in Bognor in case she had somehow heard of the fire and was worried about him. He had lost nothing; he was troubled only by the alarm, bustle and inconvenience. His Uncle David offered him a bed in Portland Place, and the dentist across the street, John Henderson, lent him a room to paint in while the Weights’ premises were repaired. A week later Constable had leisure to write again to Maria giving her more details of the minor calamity. The fire had spread fast through Weight’s workshop and the back of the house, and he had made a point of first rescuing his writing desk, ‘containing my most valuable letters’ (we can guess from whom). Half dressed, without shoes or waistcoat, he managed to calm the distraught Weights and then help neighbours move bits and pieces into the street. The fire engine took an hour to arrive and stop the flames from spreading further. While Constable was carrying a large picture belonging to Lady Heathcote down the stairs, a window blew in and showered him with glass. He took the picture over to Joseph Farington’s. On getting back, he found the Weights’ servant woman in great distress: her savings were in the garret, under her pillow. Constable ran upstairs through the smoke and rescued what she called her ‘pockets’, the purses which contained ‘all her fortune’.
Constable never had a wide circle of acquaintance but he always had several good friends. At this time he was getting to know better one who would be among the very best – John Fisher, nephew of the Bishop of Salisbury, who had been ordained as a priest in June 1812. He had written to Constable in May, unsuccessfully trying to tempt him to Salisbury again: ‘We will rise with the sun, breakfast, & then out for the rest of the day – if we tire of drawing we can read or bathe and then home at nightfall to a short dinner.’ Young Reverend Fisher wasn’t afraid to give Constable the benefit of his judgement on the artist’s paintings. Shortly after the Charlotte Street fire he thanked Constable for a painting which, gift or not, had struck one observer as gloomy. Furthermore, wrote Fisher, ‘It does not sollicit attention. And this I think is true of all your pictures & the real cause of your want of popularity.’ Fisher suggested Rubens as a painter whose works illuminated a room and hence gave a sense of cheerfulness. He thought Constable had the same fault as his pictures, being too unassertive, ‘too honest and high-minded to push himself’. However, he enjoyed the three landscapes Constable sent to Somerset House in 1813. One of them, Boys Fishing, was one of the largest works he had yet painted, and according to Robert Hunt in The Examiner (30 May 1813) was ‘silvery, sparkling, and true to the greyish-green colouring of our English summer landscapes.’ (To modern eyes it looks rather ye olde quaint, though that may be partly because it has been much overpainted and retouched.)1 Fisher, after seeing the exhibition, wrote to say that of all the exhibits, ‘I only like one better & that is a picture of pictures, the Frost of Turner. [This was Turner’s Frosty Morning.] But then you need not repine at this decision of mine; you are a great man like Buonoparte and are only beat by a frost.’ At the Academy dinner, Constable sat opposite Benjamin West and Thomas Lawrence, and next to Turner, his celebrated contemporary, whom he saw as a fellow painter seemingly for the first time. He reported to Maria, ‘I was a good deal entertained with Turner. I always expected to find him what I did – he is uncouth but has a wonderfull range of mind.’
At close quarters with celebrity and genius, Constable must have felt he was at last on the verge of real acceptance, if not popularity. His failure – despite Stothard’s backing – to get elected as an Associate in 1812 was put behind him. West said that the Council thought he had made a very great advance this year. The Stour, painted large, seemed to offer a way ahead. David Pike Watts, a governor of the British Institution and relentless booster of his nephew, gave him a ticket to the banquet opening a big BI exhibition of Reynolds’s works. At this Constable talked to Bishop Fisher and Sir George Beaumont, and he saw Mrs Siddons and Lord Byron. Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage had come out the year before to immense applause, and Constable was not immune to the almost tangible aura of fame. He wrote a few days later to Maria, as if with fellow feeling for Byron, ‘His poetry is of the most melancholy kind, but there is great ability.’
Constable had complained in late 1811 about the loneliness of his vocation and how his mind preyed on itself. Both the sunny moments and the dark periods got into his painting. Stothard, whose deafness also isolated him, was twenty-one years older but liked Constable and had a remedy for his depressions: long walks. One day in early June 1812, he set off with Stothard at 6 a.m. from central London. He wrote to Maria, ‘We breakfasted at Putney – went over Wimbledon Common – & passed three hours at least in Coomb Wood (Stothard is a butterfly catcher), where we dined by a spring – then back to Richmond by the park, and enjoyed the view – and home by the river.’ Their friendship didn’t preclude arguments about Art. Farington recorded in his diary Constable’s expression of surprise that ‘so ingenious an Artist [as Stothard] should be solely engrossed in imitating Rubens. Stothard, on the contrary, equally disapproved Constable’s choice of landscape in painting simple scenes, Mills, & c.’2
Some Academicians were beginning to see the merit of Constable’s so-called simple scenes. Farington himself approved of Boys Fishing and Henry Thomson told Constable he would get his vote for Associate membership, though Constable had little expectation of being elected. Perhaps the most pleasing thing of all, when Boys Fishing was shown at the British Institution six months after its RA appearance, a purchaser appeared who was neither a relative nor close friend: James Carpenter, bookseller in Old Bond Street, wanted the picture, though he couldn’t pay entirely in money. He offered twenty guineas and ‘Books to a certain amount beyond that Sum’. Constable accepted, and often bought books from Carpenter thereafter.3 His portrait efforts (at £15 a head) for Lady Louisa Manners, Lady Heathcote, H.G. Lewis and the Reverend George Bridgeman, among others, were bringing in cash. When Constable left London for what he called his beloved Bergholt at the end of June 1813, he was able to write proudly to Maria that for the first time in his life he did so with ‘pockets full of money. I am entirely free of debt … and I have required no assistance from my father for some time.’
Constable had addressed Maria as ‘Miss Bicknell’ in May as he tried to obey her strictures on their corresponding by at least curtailing the fondness he expressed, but she cracked first: in early June she began a letter to him, ‘My dear John’. In late August she wrote from Richmond, ‘I wish I could divest myself of feeling so like a culprit when I write to you.’ (She knew she was breaking the rules.) ‘I think of you equally if I write, or do not write …’ She read, probably to please him, James Northcote’s Memoirs of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Bart., which had just been published.4 When he got back to Charlotte Street in November, with many drawings and a tiny sketchbook crammed with ‘hasty memorandums’ of places and prospects and items he had picked up in the Stour valley – ‘plants – ferns – distances’ – he appears to have accepted that they should meet at most once a month; he was consoled, he said, by the thought that ‘our hearts are one.’ But consolation didn’t come easy. On 22 December 1813 prowling around St James’s he saw Maria and her mother in the street; Maria wasn’t looking well. The next day he wrote to her to say he had been out searching for her again all morning. Finally he was lurking by the railings across from their house when he had the mortification of seeing her and her sister Catherine go into the Bicknell residence and failed to get them to notice him. ‘You may judge how I feel when I return to my room,’ he complained. He had been half frozen, since he had been out for hours without his greatcoat. ‘I detest the sight of my wretched pictures.’
Some of his old certainties were collapsing. He had been brought up as a communicant in the Church of England: ‘Ever since I have been of age to receive the Sacrament I have never failed of receiving it on X’mas day … I really fear that my mind is not
in a fit state for so solemn an occasion.’ He had told the Gubbinses that he would spend Christmas with them in Epsom, but he seems to have stayed in London because he was worried about Maria’s health. Fortunately John Fisher came to see him just before Christmas and talked comfortingly. And Fisher’s uncle, the Bishop, continued to give support – Constable spent a pleasant day with the Bishop and his wife in early February 1814. But he declined to go to a party at his uncle David’s: since, he said, parties only increased his melancholy, ‘I am turned hermit.’
It was a winter of bitter cold. The Thames iced over, the streets were full of dirty, frozen slush, and the contents of chamberpots were frozen under beds. The snow prevented the lovers from seeing each other and the Bicknell fireside provided Maria with no cheer; both her mother and sister Louisa were ill. In mid-February, after a short thaw, Maria wrote to Constable to say she couldn’t write to him weekly (as he wanted) but would write as often as possible; she hadn’t been well. ‘This sudden change again to extreme cold has affected my chest.’ She hoped he would see ‘the impropriety of our walking together circumstanced as I am’. Constable seems to have felt suddenly that time was passing, the fates unrelenting. Was there ever going to be a way out of this? He wrote to John Dunthorne asking him to send young Johnny to Charlotte Street. ‘I think he may be usefull to stimulate me to work, by setting my palate [sic] &c. &c. – which you know is a great help and keeps one cheerfull.’ Constable’s mother didn’t think this a good idea: Johnny, now sixteen, might be ‘company, but he cannot be a companion, & that is what you want to ascend, my dear John – not descend.’ Maria the solicitor’s daughter was the way ahead, the artisan Dunthornes were not. Constable disagreed with his mother’s judgement: he wrote to Maria that Johnny ‘is not at all vulgar and [is] naturally very clever – but had he not these good qualities I should love him for his father’s sake’. Johnny came but didn’t stay long; he left with tears in his eyes, promised another visit by Constable.
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