The Dark Clue (2 page)

‘Marian,' she said. ‘You must have winged feet.' Her voice was soft but clear, and I thought I detected a trace of a Scotch accent. She turned to the footman. ‘Thank you, Stokes. If anyone else should call, I am not at home.' She touched Marian's hand and smiled sidelong at me. ‘Did you have to rope him, and drag him to a cab, to make him come?'

Marian laughed. ‘Lady Eastlake, this is my brother – well, my
half
-brother-in-law – Walter Hartright.'

‘Half
in-law,' said Lady Eastlake, laughing. ‘How very complicated. I'm delighted to see you, Mr. Hartright. How do you do?' As we shook hands, she glanced about her, as if suddenly dissatisfied with where she was. ‘I think we'll be more comfortable in my
boudoir'
– she gave the word an ironic inflection which made Marian laugh – ‘if you will forgive the clutter.'

She walked to the back of the room and threw open a pair of folding doors. Beyond them lay a light, pleasant, informal parlour, with a tall window overlooking the garden. The immediate
impression was more that of an Oxford don's study than of a lady's sitting room. A range of bookcases, some crammed with books, others with what appeared simply to be stacks of papers, ran along the walls. In the corner was a bureau, the lid wedged half open by a cascade of notes and letters; on each side of the fireplace stood a large cabinet containing rocks, shells, pieces of broken pottery and half an Etruscan head; while in the centre (strangest of all) was a large mahogany table, entirely covered with more photographs than I have ever seen together in one place in my life. Despite myself, I could not stop my eyes straying across them in search of a unifying theme or a familiar image. In the first I failed, for the subjects seemed as various as life itself – portraits, a country cottage, a great mill veiled by the smoke from its own black chimney – but in the second I was successful, for there, between a haystack and a blurred carthorse, I quickly recognized a picture of Lady Eastlake herself.

She must have been watching me, for as I stooped to look at it more closely she said sharply:

‘Well, Mr. Hartright, what do you think?'

‘It is a fair likeness,' I said, equivocally; for I feared that, like so many people, she might resent the camera's merciless exposure of every blot and blemish, and feel it did her beauty less than justice.

‘I mean', she said, ‘about photography.'

‘Well…,' I began. I did not know how to go on, for, truth to tell, it is not something to which I have given much thought at all; but I did not wish to cause offence, either by seeming too cool, or by too warmly offering an opinion that might differ from her own. She spared me by continuing:

‘Do you practise yourself?'

‘No,' I replied. ‘I still prefer pencil and brush.'

‘And why is that, Mr. Hartright?'

This inquisition was so far from what I had expected that I was forced to consider for a moment. At length I said:

‘Because it seems to me that photography can merely record facts.'

She gave me not an instant's respite. ‘Whereas your pencil…?'

‘Whereas a pencil should, I hope – in the right hands – be able to hint at the truth. Which is not perhaps the same thing.'

She fixed me with an inscrutable stare, from which I could not judge whether she thought me mad, dull, or fascinatingly original. Then she opened the bureau gingerly, to prevent the overflowing papers from spilling on to the floor, and took out a small notebook and pencil. ‘Do you mind if I make a note of that?' she said, already writing. ‘I am doing an article.'

‘So,' said Marian, with a teasing familiarity, which again took me by surprise, ‘prepare to see your words in the next issue of the
Quarterly Review.'

Lady Eastlake laughed. ‘Not unacknowledged,' she said. ‘Whatever else I am, I am not a pickpocket. Besides, what makes you suppose I should want to claim Mr. Hartright's thoughts as my own?'

She put the notebook away and sat in an armchair by the fireplace, gesturing Marian to the seat next to her. She sighed, shut her eyes and sank back, in a dumbshow of tiredness. I wondered if this were some further comment on what I had said, and, despite myself, felt the heat rising to my cheeks.

‘Forgive me,' said Lady Eastlake. ‘I've just had to endure a duty call from Mrs. Madison. Did you see her as you came in?'

‘There was a lady leaving,' said Marian.

‘She can only have been here for a quarter of an hour, but it felt like three days. My stock of conversation on children's clothes is soon exhausted, I'm afraid. I did try venturing on to the weather, but even that turned out too mettlesome for her.'

Stokes entered, carrying a tea tray. He set it down on a low table by Lady Eastlake's chair. She watched warily, her head cocked, until he was out of sight again; then she went on, more quietly:

‘She's one of those women who believe that a member of her own sex should have no views on anything. And certainly
never
read a book. In which, I must say, she sets a splendid example.'

Marian laughed. Lady Eastlake started to pour the tea, then put the pot down and touched Marian's arm. ‘That's why I so enjoy your sister's company, Mr. Hartright. Someone to keep pace with me. She always has something fresh and interesting to say, no matter where my runaway mind has led me.'

‘I know how deeply she values
your
friendship, Lady East-lake,' I said. ‘I'm afraid that in our house she must often feel the want of an intellectual companion.'

‘Oh, that's not true, Walter!' burst in Marian.

‘It is not what she tells me,' said Lady Eastlake. ‘You write, do you not, Mr. Hartright?'

I had just handed Marian a cup and was leaning down to take one myself. Lady Eastlake's face was barely two feet from my own, and I felt the full power of her steady gaze. Again, it was impossible to avoid the sense that I was being interrogated – although to what purpose I could not begin to imagine.

‘I have written a book,' I replied. ‘But it is no more than the history of a conspiracy against my wife, which my own experience qualified me to narrate. Perhaps it would be truer to call me a chronicler than a writer.'

Lady Eastlake nodded.

‘Or even an editor,' I went on. ‘For, wherever possible, I told the story through the words of those who were closest to the events described, and thus best able to give a true account of them. Including Marian, whose journal was an invaluable source of information.'

I glanced at Marian. I had expected her to gainsay me:
What nonsense, Walter: you are far too modest
. Instead, she was watching me intently, her dark complexion flushed with excitement. As I turned back to Lady Eastlake, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, the table laden with photographs.

‘You could say', I continued, ‘that I aspire to art in my painting. Whereas …'

‘Whereas in writing,' said Lady Eastlake, ‘you are a camera, perhaps?'

‘Exactly,' I said. I was taken aback, both by her acuity and by her rudeness in interrupting me. I looked again at Marian: she was smiling at Lady Eastlake, as if to say:
There, I told you so.
The idea that there might be some secret understanding between them, of which I was the unwitting object, unsettled me.

‘May I ask', I said (with, I own, a certain iciness), ‘if this is tending towards some end?'

Lady Eastlake did not answer at once. She exchanged another furtive glance with Marian, then took a handkerchief from her sleeve and carefully smoothed it on her lap. At length she cleared her throat and said:

‘Mr. Hartright, would you mind closing the doors?'

I did so. She went on:

‘I would not, of course, expect you to keep anything from your wife; but I must begin by asking that you do not mention this conversation to anyone else.'

I felt I could not accept this condition without knowing more, but was hard put to find a delicate way of saying so. She must have seen what was in my mind; for she said:

‘Och, you needn't worry about your honour, Mr. Hartright. I'm not going to confess to a murder, or the theft of a child. Besides, your sister's presence in this room should give you assurance enough.'

I felt the justice of this, and nodded. She continued:

‘My only concern is to protect my husband. His position – which God knows he never sought – is difficult enough already, and the last thing I want to do is stir up a hornets' nest around his poor head.'

‘Very well,' I said.

‘Thank you.' She looked warily towards the door, and when she spoke it was in little more than a whisper. ‘Do you by any chance know a man called Thornbury?'

‘No,' I replied. ‘Who is he?'

‘A journalist,' she said. ‘And, I fear, an utter scoundrel.'

‘That is not surprising,' I said. ‘A cynic might say that, to be the one, it is almost a requirement to be the other.'

Lady Eastlake laughed. ‘I have not myself met him,' she said, ‘but, so far as I have been able to learn from my friends, he is intent – for no other reason than to sell the wretched book he is writing – on slandering a poor, misunderstood body who can no longer defend himself. And the result, I'm afraid, will be a serious injury, not only to the memory of one man, but to England herself, and to English art. For his subject was – in my view, and the view of many others – the foremost genius of our age.'

And it was then, with the force of a sprung trap, that the image of Queen Anne Street re-entered my mind, and, in the same instant, I knew why it was familiar. For a moment I was a boy of eight again, and sitting in a cab next to my poor father; the winter cold turned our breath to steam, and I huddled close to him, for in his thick coat he was an island of warmth and safety. As we jolted past a tall house with dirty windows and a
heavy front door, he laid his gloved hand on mine and pointed out of the window. ‘Look, Walter,' he said. ‘That is 47 Queen Anne Street. Where the foremost genius of our age lives.'

And now, in the space of six hours, I had walked down the same street and heard the same phrase again for the first time in thirty years. Without stopping to consider, I said to Lady East-lake: ‘Do you mean Turner?'

It was her turn to be astonished. She stared at me, her mouth half open, then looked at Marian. ‘Have you …?'

Marian was equally perplexed. ‘No,' she said. ‘I said nothing. Walter, how did you …?'

I confess I was tempted to confound them further by pretending to some mysterious knowledge, but I merely said: ‘Oh, it was just a guess.' And then, to forestall more questions (for both of them still looked puzzled), I went on: ‘So is Mr. Thornbury writing Turner's biography?'

‘That is what he claims.'

‘But if you have never met him,' I said, ‘how do you know it is defamatory?'

‘I have been following his progress, Mr. Hartright – with, I have to say, a sinking heart. A few of those closest to Turner have, wisely, refused to speak to him at all. Of the rest, he appears to have given most credence to a gang of malicious gossips, most of whom scarcely knew the man. And they, as is the way with these things, have in turn referred him to more of their own kind.'

I must own that my first thought was the old adage:
There's no smoke without fire.
Perhaps she saw my scepticism, for she went on:

‘No man as eminent as Turner could avoid making enemies among those less successful or less gifted than himself – particularly a man with such a thoroughgoing disdain of flattery and convention. You've probably heard all manner of stories about him yourself.'

Her raised eyebrow seemed to demand an answer, but I said nothing, for – beyond a few hoary old anecdotes about his meanness, and his garbled speech, that are common currency at the Academy – in reality I was shamefully ignorant about him. She waited a moment, and then continued:

‘He was, it cannot be denied, an odd, perverse, eccentric little creature, but he was not a monster, and he deserves better than to be commemorated by tittle-tattle.' She leaned confidentially towards me. ‘I came to know him well in his last years. Indeed' – here her voice grew unsteady, and her eyes glittered with tears – ‘I am told that as he lay dying he called my name. Which I cannot but feel as a charge upon me. To try to protect his memory.' She hastily dried her eyes, then clenched her handkerchief into a ball. ‘Mr. Hartright, what I am asking .. . what I am suggesting … is that you might yourself consider undertaking to write a
Life of J. M. W. Turner.'

For perhaps three seconds I was, literally, speechless with astonishment. A thousand questions crowded into my head, and then flew off again before I could find words to express them. I was conscious of Marian's gaze upon me – watchful, anxious, almost pleading – and the sense that
her
hopes and happiness were, in some way I could not yet fathom, bound up with my reply, only confused me further. Perhaps Lady Eastlake mistook my perplexity for calculation, for she said:

‘I have spoken to a publisher I know, and am assured that there would be a ready market for such a book …'

‘That is not my concern. I –'

‘And I'm sure I speak for all of Turner's friends when I say we should be happy to underwrite it…' She broke off, suddenly noting that I was following another train of thought. ‘What?' she said. ‘You think there must be others better placed?'

I nodded. ‘What about yourself, for instance?'

‘As I explained, my connection to Sir Charles . . . Besides, there are many doors closed to a woman that a man may pass through easily and freely.'

‘I cannot believe –' I began.

‘What you must understand, Mr. Hartright, is that poor Turner died a recluse,' said Lady Eastlake. ‘Most of those who knew him well are long dead. Of those who are still alive, Mr. Ruskin would seem to be the natural choice, but he' – here she smiled slightly – ‘is too Olympian to contemplate it. My situation you already know. And as for my husband – well, it's entirely out of the question, I'm afraid.'