The Dark Clue (41 page)

XLII

Extract of a letter from Richard O'Donnell to
Lady Meesden, 4th September, 1829

Jollet is a good man – cannot do much for me, but makes me as comfortable as he can, tho' he knows he won't be paid for it in this world.

You know your time is near when patterns start to complete themselves before your eyes. Today I had a fancy to see the sea
again, and Mme. Sylvestre's son pushed me in my chair to the harbour. Some English passengers arriving – one seemed familiar – a little red-faced fellow in a long coat and scarf, pressing forward with some other purpose in his gait than mere pleasure. I thought for a wild moment he must be a dun, sent here to persecute me before it was too late. And then I knew him.

‘Turner,' I said.

He did not recognize me, or pretended not to, but hurried on his way.

It must be thirty years to the day since I last wrote to you of Turner.

It is a hard thing to die. When you hear I am gone, wait a little while, and I shall come to you again.

XLIII

From the journal of Marian Halcombe, November 185-

Wednesday

Have just finished reviewing my discoveries, and find myself less disheartened than I'd feared. A distinct feeling that I've made progress. But
what,
exactly?

To begin with – confirmation of what I already knew:

- Turner's mother
did
die mad, as both Amelia Bennett and Sir Charles told me. And I have a date for it: April 1804.

- Turner
was
vilified by Sir George Beaumont and other connoisseurs – Haste's diaries and O'Donnell's play (Turner/Over-turner, Boomer/Beaumont) bear each other out on this point.

- He was – or at least was perceived as being – tight-fisted. ('Cold-cut, you make out the bill.' And Sir Charles's account of his ‘begrudging a few pounds' to have his will properly drawn.)

- He did move about a great deal, and disliked people recognizing him, or knowing where he was, when he did so – a peculiarity attested to not only by Sir Charles, but also now by Meesden and O'Donnell.

Such corroborations are encouraging – they point to a modest foundation of fact on which I can build.

And what else?

I feel (to my own great surprise) that in a small, haphazard way I am starting to
know
him. Where before all was obscure, I now see unexpected glimmers of light.

Take, for instance, his elusiveness. Since it is mentioned in the earliest letters we have, the roots of it must presumably lie in his very early life – about which I still know almost nothing (beyond the fact that he was a scene-painter), and have little prospect of learning more. And yet might not part of the reason also be the knowledge that (as the letters to Lady Meesden make clear) he was regarded as a laughing-stock, and knew that whenever he appeared in public
as himself he
might be derided for his dress, or his tradesman's manner, or his inability to express his thoughts?

As time went on, moreover, he must have become increasingly aware that these eccentricities were adversely affecting not merely his social relations, but also his professional prospects. Why, for example, was Charles Eastlake (who, though a dear man, is not a quarter the artist) knighted, and elected President of the Royal Academy, while Turner received no formal recognition at all? It can only be because gentlemanliness, rather than talent, is the key to preferment.

All of which, surely, would be enough to breed habits of secrecy and concealment in
any
man – particularly one so painfully sensitive and shy?

His supposed meanness, too, seems more understandable when you know something of the world in which he worked. To be an artist in the first years of the century – as evidenced by the example of poor Haste, which Turner must have had constantly in his mind – was a perilous undertaking, in which your name and your fortune might at any moment be destroyed at the whim of a powerful connoisseur. Only by making yourself independent could you hope to defy a man such as Sir George Beaumont, and so continue following the dictates of your own genius – and the cost of that independence must be to practise the utmost economy, and allow no indulgence either to yourself or others.

It is undeniably satisfying to be able to ascribe comprehensible
motives to behaviour that had previously seemed unaccountable, or even mad. But I must not be too pleased with myself – there is still much I do not even begin to understand.

And what of the
pictures?

Thursday

An exhilarating day – but its fruits so tantalizing and insubstantial I scarce dare write them down, for fear they turn out chimeras, and evaporate before my eyes.

I had intended copying out what I have gathered so far and sending it to Walter (for after my recent adventures I can no longer content myself with being merely a scribe, but have begun to seek Turner on my account; and to part with my notebooks now would be the equivalent of a detective throwing away his evidence); but I was diverted from my plans by two letters. The first was from Haste's son, reminding me that I have now had his father's diaries for more than ten days, and demanding to know – with a kind of frozen rage that cut me like an icicle – when he might have the honour to expect them back again. In truth, I had not exactly forgotten our agreement; but had somehow persuaded myself, in the excitement over Lady Meesden's papers, that I need not adhere to its exact terms, and that a delay of a day or two would not be fatal. It pained me to realize what I should have known all along – that by this thoughtlessness I had only justified his suspicions, and left him feeling more embittered and besieged than ever; and I resolved that after luncheon I should call on him in person, and try to make amends.

The second letter was from Mrs. Kingsett:

My dear Miss Halcombe,

I found this today on my mother's writing table, and thought it might be of interest to you.

Yours very truly,

Lydia Kingsett

My first response was not so much curiosity as relief – for although there was no mention of what happened on Monday, yet the mere fact that she had written at all suggested that her husband had not yet entirely succeeded in breaking her spirit, and that she was not (as I had feared) aggrieved at me for being
so stubborn, and so unwittingly adding to her difficulties. Her note, indeed, seemed a kind of salve to Mr. Haste's anger, from which I was still smarting; and I re-read it two or three times before finally unfolding the sheet she had enclosed, to see what it was:

I Oliver Buildings, Hammersmith,
15 th September; 185–

Dearest Kitty,

Pie and pheasant both arrived in excellent health – and we did not neglect to pledge
yours,
you may be sure, as we despatched them! How good you are to me! I do not believe you have once forgotten my birthday in more than sixty years. It seems little short of a miracle that you still remember your Romeo after so long.

I often think fondly of our days together in Drury Lane and Dublin. I won't say they were the happiest of my life, for – thank God – most of my days have been happy; but I'll swear I never knew a handsomer woman than you were then, or a truer friend.

May God bless you always,

James Padmore

I was, for a moment, frankly puzzled as to why Mrs. Kingsett had sent this to me (I must have been particularly slow-witted this morning, though I like to think I have made up for it since!); and it was only when I reached the words ‘Drury Lane' on the second reading that it struck me. A great wave seemed suddenly to break over me, tumbling me this way and that, leaving me feeling excited and giddy and sick all at once. Here, at last, was what I had given up all hope of finding: someone who had known the world of Turner's youth. But in the two short months since his letter had been written, sickness and death had already cheated me of its recipient. Might not the writer now also be dead, or at least too ill to speak to me?

Without delay, I scribbled a short note to Mr. Padmore, saying I intend to call on him tomorrow; and an even shorter one to Mrs. Kingsett, to thank her for her help. Then I asked Davidson to take them to the post, and myself set out for Cawley Street with Haste's diaries.

It is strange now to look back, and reflect on my thoughts in the cab. They revolved entirely around Mr. Haste: whether or not he would be at home; whether – if he was – I could expect a civil
interview, or must prepare myself for abuse and recrimination; and whether, in the latter case, I should respond by abjectly apologizing (which might mollify him, but might equally only enrage him further; for the sorrier I seemed, the more reason I should be giving him for supposing he had been deeply wronged), or alternatively by adopting an air of mild surprise that he should make so great a fuss about so small a matter.

In the event – how pitiful our belief that we can foresee the future, and our attempts to prepare for it! – Mr. Haste's behaviour proved of almost no consequence to me whatever, and the most important outcome of my visit had nothing to do with him at all.

He was, indeed, at home, and (perhaps in anticipation of my return) had even made the small concession of greasing the knocker, so that I was able to rouse him without having to press-gang a passer-by into helping me. I heard him clattering down the stairs, and then charging through the hall so furiously that I feared he must be in a very paroxysm of rage, and unable to defer even for a moment the opportunity of venting it. If he was, however, it was plain that I was not its object; for he started, as if he were surprised to see me, and then immediately glanced up and down the street, clearly looking for someone else. And not, I fancy, the bailiffs this time – for his expression was not surly and defiant, as it had been before, but rather eager and impatient.

‘I am sorry I could not come sooner,' I said. ‘It took me longer than I'd expected to finish. There was so much of interest, and your father wrote so well.'

If I had hoped this explanation would please him, I was disappointed; for he merely nodded and grunted, mechanically reaching out his hands for the books even as his eyes continued to search the street. His fingers, I saw, were stained with ink, and there were two or three little blots on his shirt.

‘I hope you will accept another ten shillings, by way of compensation,' I said.

He nodded again, and extended his palm, still gazing past me.

It was as I rummaged in my reticule that something at the corner of my vision caught my attention. It was nothing more than a triangle of split and splintered floorboard, dully illuminated by the afternoon light; but it suddenly rekindled a powerful
and unexpected memory. This was the bare hallway of my dream; and for a brief vivid moment I again saw it not as the way to Haste's attic but as the entrance to a mica-spangled subterranean grotto where, I knew, I should find the secret of Turner's paintings.

‘What is below here?' I asked, handing him a half-sovereign.

‘Hm?'

‘A basement? A cellar?'

He nodded distractedly.

I gazed down into the cramped area. The windows were grey and opaque with dirt, and one of the panes was broken, and had been roughly reinforced with a board. A tangle of almost leafless ivy spread up the walls, insinuating itself so aggressively into every gap and fissure that the bricks were starting to buckle and crack, and you could already half-see them as the ruin that they were destined to become in fifty or a hundred or two hundred years.

I was conscious of rapid footsteps behind me, and then a breathless voice calling ‘I'm sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.' I turned and saw a plump man, as bald as Haste himself, hurrying towards us, clutching a carpet-bag filled to overflowing with papers. Haste admitted him, and then closed the door without another word to me, or a glance in my direction.

But I did not feel affronted – I was too elated for that. For I suddenly thought I had understood what it was that had been nagging me about
The Bay of Baiae.

I had instructed the cabman to wait, thinking I might need to make to a quick escape; and now I told him to take me as fast as possible to Marlborough House. It was a nightmare journey – I could not remember what time the exhibition closed, and feared I should arrive too late to see the picture today; yet every time we seemed to break free of the traffic and pick up speed, we shook to a standstill again after only a few moments, and remained there for what felt like an ever-longer eternity. As we approached Trafalgar Square, the tangle of omnibuses and carriages and horses became so knotted and impenetrable that I decided it would be quicker to walk; and, having paid my fare, I got out and set off into the
mêlée.

I was in luck. Fighting the great tide of humanity one moment, being swept along by a counter-current the next, I found myself in less than ten minutes at the end of Pall Mall. The gallery was still open, the painting where I remembered it. And when – after a good deal of gentle shouldering and ‘excuse me'ing – I had breached the wall of people before it and could see it plain, I knew in an instant that I had been right.

It was so obvious, indeed, that I marvelled that I had not grasped it before.
The Bay of Baiae
is not one picture, but two. On my first visit here, I had been struck by how out of place the figures of Apollo and the Sibyl had seemed – as if they had been transposed from another scene altogether; and seeing them again now, I realized that that is exactly what had happened. For Turner portrays
them
at the start of their story, when the Sibyl, still young and beautiful, has been granted her wish, and is sifting the grains of sand in her hand, and counting the years of life she is to have; but the landscape, with its half-hidden serpent, and broken columns, and skull-like arches, shows the inevitable end: the destruction and decay to which she must eventually come.

A letter from Walter when I got home. Why has he not heard from me? I cannot write to him now.