The Center of the World (9 page)

I turned the page as instructed. The next drawing was more finished, as befitted a day that was already an hour old. The colors still swirled and the shapes were indistinct, but I could clearly recognize the contours of the pond. I could see the deer that had come down to the water’s edge to drink, and the cattle in one of the distant fields.

“That is a most beautiful drawing,” I said. “But I hope you will not think me rude if I say that I prefer the first. The world, I am sure, will admire the second more but the first feels more like the morning, if I can be allowed that. There is less likeness there, but more feeling.”

There were a few more pages of drawings, each done in a rapid and confident way. The most magical of them conjured up the view and the feeling of the morning out of only a few lines and splashes of color. It seemed like alchemy.

As I turned the last page I noticed a little drawing in one corner. It was the kind of crude sketch a naughty schoolboy might make. I thought of myself, David, when I am down on my knees before you in your glory. I wondered if Turner had allowed me to see the notebook because he was hoping to make an overture. He is not, as I have said, a handsome man, and you have no reason to fear on that account. His eyes met mine for a moment and I think he saw that I had noticed the sketch.

We were saved from any further discussion, however, by the sound of footsteps. It was Lord Egremont. Turner and I both rose to greet him, but Egremont waved us down. I moved an additional chair up close to the fire. “I knew this was Turner’s favorite spot, but I didn’t think that he would be so willing to share it.”

“Sharing had nothing to do with it,” Turner said. “The young dog is a dog of sense; he found it on his own.”

A servant entered, carrying a tray with glasses and a bottle. “I thought I might enjoy a glass before I retired,” said Lord Egremont. “I would be most gratified if you would join me. At my age it won’t do to drink alone.”

“To your health, my lord,” Turner proposed. He let the wine linger in his mouth before he swallowed it. “This is most fine, sir. I’ve never had anything like it—this must be, what is that stuff, Grant?—ambrosia, sir. The stuff of the gods, the very light in Apollo’s chalice.”

Egremont took another small sip before responding. “Glad you like it. This was laid down in the cellar half a century ago. Old Hartley, bless his soul, chose it. He was a man who knew
his business. Not two dozen bottles left. I am getting to an age where it won’t do to save them. But I have put away enough young wine so that the youngsters shall have their share of fifty-year-old port when they reach my age.”

He turned to me with a smile. “You are silent, Mr. Grant. Do you not approve of the wine?” His kindness sparked a pounding in my chest as I remembered how he had addressed me this morning in the field.

“I am speechless,” I managed to reply. “I thought I had tasted port before, but this is a different order of thing altogether. I thank you for the privilege of drinking it.”

Lord Egremont nodded with satisfaction and then spoke to Turner. “The other night you said something that I have been puzzling over ever since.”

Turner held out his glass and watched as Egremont filled it. “Indeed?”

“Yes. You said that there was more truth between a woman’s legs than between Homer’s ears. You went on to say that the truth is what matters and that I would understand. I think, Turner, I do understand—but how did you know that?”

Turner’s manner changed abruptly. He seemed to look inward and spoke to himself, as if neither Lord Egremont nor I was in the room. “Passion, sir. Sensual delight.” He took another sip of port and savored it thoughtfully. “I have devoted my life to my art. Other men may have had greater genius than I. But no man has worked harder. The hours in the studio. The days and weeks upon the road. Sleeping in the most god-awful places, sir. Risking life and limb in the Alps. Getting poisoned
by innkeepers. Nearly having my throat cut by Italian thieves. Having myself tied to the mast so that I might see the play of the gale upon the waves. All for my art, sir. I never took a wife. The obligations of home and family would have prevented me from devoting the full measure.

“But there have been times when the urgency of my sensual feelings has been such that I have risked much—money, health, position—in order to satisfy them. And when I think back on my career thus far—all the honors I have received, my early membership in the Academy, your patronage and hospitality, my lord, the esteem of my fellow artists—I doubt that much of it is as memorable to me as a night I spent in a country inn—Lord, it must have been twenty years ago—with one of the maidservants.”

Turner paused and a faint smile flickered over his face. Egremont smiled as well. The two of them seemed to have forgotten that I was there.

“Lord, yes. Before you were born, Turner, there was a lass that was the daughter of one of my tenants. She was a fine-looking girl. Clever as a whip. Lively. I had her in the house as a kitchen maid. I taught her some tricks I learned from the London whores. She was an apt pupil and took to them with a right good will. The hours I spent with her will live in my mind until I die.”

“So what became of her?” Turner asked.

“I married her off to another of my tenants. When the young man weighed her lack of virtue against the size of the dowry I provided, he took her. When on their wedding night
he found what she could do, he saw he had made a most excellent bargain. She died about eight months after the wedding, bless her soul. The brat died too, but I don’t think it was mine.

“I am eighty years old. My teeth are better than yours, Turner. I can still walk, ride, shoot. My hearing is not what it once was, but if I sit close to the harpsichord I can hear Mrs. Spencer sing well enough. She is not such a wonderful singer, but the heaving of her bosom still affords me pleasure. The will is still there, Turner, after all these years, the will is still there. But the ability to perform is quite extinguished. I have consulted with my physician about the matter. The young puppy appeared quite surprised it was still a matter of concern to me. He is good enough in his line, I suppose, but he seemed to think that a man of four score ought to put aside that sort of thing and be grateful that he is still breathing. I wonder if he will be humming that tune when he is my age.”

“I confess, my lord, that what you describe has always been my greatest fear. But I imagined the desire would simply fade away like the light at close of day.”

“No. That’s the damn pity. There are times when I look at Mrs. Spencer, when she is reading to me or when she is gracing some buffoon with that lustrous smile of hers, and I feel the heat of it quite as if I was a young buck. But then, when we are upstairs, nothing comes of it, although the burning remains. It’s damn peculiar.”

Egremont suddenly looked at me, as if he had just recollected that I was in the room. “A young fellow like you,” he said. “You have no conception of what we are talking about,
we old men who half live in the shadows. But you will, mark my words, you will.” He smiled at me quite kindly, as if our encounter that morning had never been. “Youth is a gift, young man. Do not waste it.”

“I’ve always thought of it as light, not burning,” Turner said. Turner reached for the bottle and filled his glass again as if our host was not present. The wine was potent stuff, but it did not seem to have any effect on him. I drank mine very slowly. I felt I was sailing upon deep waters and that it would not do to lose my way.

“Stands to reason you would,” Egremont replied. “But what do you mean by it?”

Turner took another sip of wine. He held his free hand out before him, like a man reaching for something in the dark, as he often did when he was trying to describe a difficult concept.

“Light. It is what makes the world. Without light: no clouds, no sky, no reflection on the water. This most excellent port? It would not be. Light is the prime force, creating all. Light drives us. Light, in all its aspects, is the motive of the world.”

We were all silent for a moment. I could hear the distant sounds of the great house settling into sleep. Turner went on, “That, you see, is what matters. Homer understood—rosy-fingered dawn and all that fuss—what was it about? A cunt, my lord, begging your pardon, a cunt. The Greek fellow wanted to fuck her and so did the Trojan fellow. We all would if we could see her, even young Grant here. And so a thousand heroes died, each death more bloody than the last. The very gods poking
about in human affairs. Zeus himself having to set things to rights. All on account of that cunt. Even Homer could only hint at it, but that is the light that makes us be.”

“As I said this afternoon, you must paint that,” Egremont said, adding as he nodded in my direction, “and make use of Grant now that he is staying with us.”

Turner snorted. “You are a man of the world. I am a respectable member of the Royal Academy. You must understand that even if I could paint such a painting, which I don’t believe I can, I would never be allowed to show it in Somerset House, nor any public place. Indeed, if the painting were true, I could never show myself in respectable society again. There are worse fates, I suppose. But understand, sir, my father was a barber. You are a man of genius and sympathetic understanding, but I think, with all due respect, that like most men of noble birth you cannot understand how damn difficult mere respectability is. Neither my father nor Grant’s, I suspect, would have dreamed of sitting in this most noble of English houses, the seat of the Percys in Shakespeare’s day, with you, my lord, one of the greatest men in England, drinking a wine that could only be purchased with half a year’s labor.”

Turner smiled and tasted the wine again. “I hesitate to think how many greasy scalps he would have had to touch for each sip. But he was a good man, my father. I owe everything to him, God rest his soul.”

I was astounded at the liberties Turner had just taken with Lord Egremont. I sensed that Egremont himself was taken
aback by the frankness of Turner’s speech, but I also saw that he relished Turner’s honesty. A man like Egremont only hears flattery, and it must be a tonic to hear plain speaking.

“I dare say you are right. There is that in my blood and breeding which makes me what I am and limits, I suppose, my perspective. But you would see things that way: being a painter you always have to trouble yourself about point of view. I don’t. I’m Lord Egremont. I see things as I see them.

“Enough of this. It is time for bed. Up we go, the three of us. I thank you both for your company and your conversation. But I repeat my point: you should paint it. Good night!”

 
IT WAS RHINEBECK’S NATURE
to hide more than he revealed. Since his marriage he had had affairs with perhaps half a dozen women; one of them he had almost loved. His wife, he knew, suspected, but they had never spoken of the matter, just as they had not spoken about her little fling with Mr. Preston in Newport. His business dealings were also conducted on the principle that only those who needed to would be told. Only fools and buffoons said more than necessary.

But of all of his secrets, none was more important to him than his Turner. He hardly knew why. It was a shocking painting, to be sure, which the world would condemn. But Rhinebeck had stood up to senators and union bullies and he knew he had nothing to fear from ignorant puritans. He was what the world calls a brave man, but he also knew that he was afraid of others, especially his wife, seeing his Turner. He feared somehow that it would give her the key to his soul; once she saw it he would be at her mercy.

It was all nonsense. He shook his head and lit a new cigar. All the preparations were complete. The ladies would arrive at any minute. He was suspicious of Lottie’s new friend, Mrs. Overstreet. He hadn’t met her, but the suddenness of her warm attachment to his wife and the fact that she worked for an art gallery gave him pause. He had heard rumors over the years of a Turner unlike all others; he himself had been asked ever so casually over brandy and cigars if he had ever heard of such a painting. He wondered if Mrs. Overstreet had heard similar rumors.

He looked at the Renoir. She annoyed him. There was a time in his life, he knew, when he would have wanted a woman like that, but now he found her unpleasantly pneumatic. She was the sort of woman who would take hours to get dressed, who would feel an obscure and heartfelt hurt as he grew impatient with her comments about the weather and her friend’s dresses. After dinner she would question the waiter gravely about the relative merits of the napoleon and the éclair. Lottie had her faults, but she was much better than that.

There was a commotion downstairs, signaling that the women had arrived. He greeted his wife with a polite kiss on the cheek. He shook hands with Mrs. Overstreet. The trip from New York had been dreadful; the hotel in Albany a disgrace; the train stopped for ever so long without a word of explanation.

“But thank goodness for Maria,” Lottie said. “She never lost her nerve; she always knew what to do. She found blankets when there were none to be had. I don’t know what I would have done without her.”