The Dark Clue (45 page)

‘Indeed?' I said – as innocently, I like to think, as if the idea were entirely new to me.

He nodded. ‘He'd never part with a penny unless he had to,
or spend sixpence to save a shilling. The–' He stopped himself, reluctantly, I thought. ‘But there. You don't want to hear about the man. You want to see the pictures.'

‘No, please,' I said. ‘He is something of a hero of mine.'

He went on immediately, like a machine that needs only the smallest nudge to set it in motion again.

‘Well, the gallery in Queen Anne Street was a sight to behold. I have workmen keep their houses in better repair.' He shook his head incredulously. ‘I was passing once when it came on to rain, and I thought I'd take shelter inside; but when I got upstairs it was so wet I had to keep my umbrella up. Water coming through the broken skylights – water in puddles on the floor – water streaming down the pictures. The wall-covering – some kind of red fabric – was coming off in handfuls. There was a painting of some great classical scene – Carthage, I think it was – and when I got close I saw the sky was all cracked like breaking ice, and in some places it was peeling away altogether. Another canvas was being used as a kind of door, covering a hole in the window, through which the cats would come and go.'

‘Cats!'

‘Oh, yes, they were everywhere. The place stank of them. They belonged to the housekeeper – a hag of a woman, to give you nightmares.'

‘What, Mrs. Booth, you mean?'

‘No, Danby, her name was. Hannah Danby.' He mimed wrapping a bandage about his head. ‘Her face was so disfigured she had to keep it covered.'

It was all I could do not to laugh at such a relentless catalogue of gothic detail; but he seemed deadly serious as he went on:

‘The cats, I suppose, were the only creatures who could tolerate her company. And she rewarded them by letting them walk and sleep where they pleased, and sharpen their claws on the picture-frames, and harry visitors. While I was standing there one of them jumped without warning on my neck, making me drop my umbrella in surprise – and suddenly four or five more appeared, attracted by the noise, and began pressing themselves about my legs.'

He must at last have noticed my efforts to keep a straight face,
for he smiled in response, and said: ‘And if it wasn't the cats it'd be Turner himself, creeping out of his studio and taking you unawares.'

He chuckled, which I took as a licence finally to laugh myself; and we both guffawed, egging each other on, until we had half-forgotten the original cause of our merriment. After thirty seconds or so, however, he stopped abruptly and said:

‘But I shouldn't make fun of him. I wouldn't have lived as he did – but then I couldn't have painted as he did, either. And for all his oddities, he was a pleasure to do business with. Always absolutely straight – you'd agree a price, or a date, and he'd stick to it without fail.' He paused, and pondered a moment, and then acknowledged some new thought by raising his finger. ‘I'll tell you something else. He was the only painter I ever met who could talk intelligently about
my
world. The uses of different kinds of coal for smelting. The design of a new pump-engine. He was always fascinated by those kinds of subjects. He had an unshakeable belief in the industrial progress of our nation. As you'll see in -'

He suddenly stopped, and cocked his head. For a moment I could not imagine what had disturbed him. And then I heard it myself: a hubbub of cries and shouts and clanking metal, some way off but impossible to ignore, like the clamour of an approaching army.

Nisbet drew in his breath sharply, and jumped to his feet. ‘Excuse me,' he said, barely audibly; and started to leave at a run. But after a few steps he made a visible effort to master himself, and slowed to a walk.

‘Come on,' he said, turning to me with a grim smile. ‘Dad must be awake now anyway.'

He led me out of the hall and into a square room at the back of the house. It was plainly meant as a library; but it felt more like a small museum or gallery, for half the shelves were taken up not with books but with architectural and mechanical models, and there were pictures covering every scrap of wall. An elderly man in high boots and a plum-coloured riding coat sat before the fire, with the wide-eyed look of someone who has been startled awake.

‘What is it?' he asked Nisbet.

Nisbet shook his head brusquely, and strode to the window. The curtains had already been drawn, but he threw them open again, and looked out.

Do you recall the picture of Pandemonium in my father's copy of
Paradise Lost
? If not, find it in my study; for it will give you some idea of the scene that now confronted us. My immediate thought was that the earth itself must be on fire; for, beyond a line of bare trees at the end of the garden, I could at first see nothing but flames, and plumes of black smoke, and some heavier, yellowish vapour that curled this way and that across the ground, as if it were too lethargic to rise into the air. As my eyes grew more accustomed to the dusk, however, I could make out huge black mounds, as big as hills; and the silhouettes of tall chimneys, and engines with great wheels for winding up the coal, and clusters of sheds and cottages and stables – all strewn about as if they had been placed there with as little thought for order or beauty as pins stuck in a pin-cushion.

At the centre were three or four raging furnaces, surrounded by a tangle of tramways lined with laden trucks – which were probably carrying nothing more fearful than blocks of limestone, but might, from their appearance, have been conveying the souls of the damned to hell (an impression accentuated by the rhythmic thump of the engines, which sounded as solemn and ominous as a death march). As we watched, men seemed to be running towards them from every direction – yelling, dropping tools and buckets and gesticulating as they went – and gathering in an ever-bigger knot about something, or someone, on the ground.

I heard Nisbet mutter, under his breath, ‘Damn!'

‘Is it another accident?' said the old man. He was still in his chair, twisting his head towards us, as if he was too frightened to see the truth for himself.

‘Looks like it,' said Nisbet, flatly.

‘Oh, Eli!' said the old man, shaking his head. He looked very pale. A strand of thin white hair fell into his eyes, but he did not try to remove it.

Nisbet looked down at his hands, flexing the fingers abstractedly; and then turned to me with a brittle smile and said, with a creditable attempt at normality:

‘You'll see, Mr. Hartright, that I've not done a great deal for authors and booksellers.' He waved towards the half-empty shelves, and then to the paintings crowded between them. ‘But your fraternity has no reason to complain of me.'

Looking around, I saw that there were perhaps thirty pictures altogether – oils and watercolours, prints and drawings, in almost every conceivable size and shape and manner. The only principle linking them seemed to be their subject matter: every one of them showed a machine, or an industrial process.

‘You see my taste,' said Nisbet, trying to sound humorous. ‘It's the taste of a man with an interest in two railways and a shipping company.'

‘Eli,' said the old man, before I had time to reply. ‘Should you not go out there?'

‘I'm not going to faffle about like a woman,' said Nisbet quietly. He narrowed his eyes, and looked out of the window again. ‘There's a bridge-stocker there. There's a manager. There's Harkness. They know where to find me if I'm wanted.' He returned to me, and, touching my elbow, moved me towards a picture over the fireplace. ‘There you are. There's a Turner for you.'

It was a large marine scene: a turbulent grey sea, churned up by the wind, with an embattled steamer struggling against the storm. Everything was extraordinarily imprecise, even by Turner's standards – the waves no more than a few thick, ridged swirls laid on a brilliant white ground – the ship a fuzzy black blur, of which the most clearly defined feature was the torrent of smoke streaming from its funnel. And yet the effect was somehow so vivid that you could feel the lurch of the deck under your feet, and the sting of the spray on your face, and smell the hot sour reek of coal-smoke, and hear the wheels thrashing and the engine throbbing in your ears.

‘What do you think?' asked Nisbet.

‘It's very fine.'

‘Is that an honest opinion?'

‘Yes,' I said, somewhat taken aback by his bluntness.

‘Then you must fight the whole neighbourhood. Including my father-in-law.' He turned to the old man. ‘This is Mr. Hartright, Dad. Mr. Hartright, Sam Bligh.'

‘How d'ye do?' said the old man. His hand trembled as it took mine.

‘Mr. Hartright's an artist, Dad,' said Nisbet. He pointed towards the Turner. ‘Tell him what you think of that.'

Mr. Bligh attempted a smile. ‘It's all froth and splutter,' he said, like a child encouraged to repeat some amusing remark before visitors.

‘And you'd as soon …?' prompted Nisbet.

‘I'd as soon sit in the laundry, and watch the bubbles on the copper.'

‘There,' said Nisbet, laughing. ‘That is what I must contend with. And his daughter's no better. She thinks -'

But I never discovered what Mrs. Nisbet thought; for at that moment the man in the brown suit entered without knocking. He was out of breath; his hair was wet and tousled, his red face blotched with dirt; and there were scorch-marks on his sleeves.

‘What is it?' snapped Nisbet.

Harkness glanced covertly at me. ‘I think you should come, sir,' he said softly.

‘What
is
it?' roared Nisbet. He was white and shaking, and spat out the words so furiously that he had to wipe the spittle from his mouth with the back of his hand.

I struggled to hold my tongue; for poor Harkness had clearly been through some terrible ordeal, and Nisbet's behaviour seemed akin to the Roman tyrant's monstrous practice of killing the bearer of bad news. But Harkness himself appeared quite unmoved by it – as if, having bolted the doors and put up the shutters to protect himself against some great catastrophe, he was not now going to be intimidated by a mere show of temper.

‘Well, sir,' he said, drawing himself up and looking his employer calmly in the eye, ‘I told him what you said. And
he
said, he was a free man, and if you wouldn't have him there's others as would. And he stormed off.'

‘Is that all?' said Nisbet, his eyes lightening, like a condemned man who had suddenly glimpsed the possibility of reprieve.

Harkness shook his head. ‘There was a barrow by the filling-hole, barring his way. He couldn't see it clearly, what with the dark, and him drunk. I suppose he must have thought it was full, for he seized it with all his might, to throw it clear. But it
was empty, and gave way too easily, and the force of his own movement sent him into the furnace.'

‘Oh!' whimpered the old man, turning away, and pressing his fingers anguishedly against his brow. Nisbet's gaze did not waver; but his face paled and seemed to tighten, as if some unwelcome presence had insinuated itself beneath the skin.

‘Two of the other men pulled him out again, almost at once,' said Harkness. ‘But he's bad. Very bad.'

‘Has the doctor been called?' asked Nisbet.

‘Of course,' said Harkness. ‘But…' He dropped his eyes, finally admitting defeat.

‘And what of his wife?'

Harkness shook his head.

‘Give her five pounds, and tell her I shall see her tomorrow,' said Nisbet, shooing him towards the door. He started to follow, then stopped and turned to his father-in-law. ‘Dad, look after Mr. Hartright, will you?'

But, try as he might, poor Mr. Bligh had not the heart to play the host; and after enquiring where I had come from, and where I was going, and making two or three feeble observations about the pictures, he gave up altogether, and gravitated towards the window, where he stood with his hands clasped behind him, like an elderly Bonaparte surveying the field of Waterloo. Secretly relieved (for I did not feel much like making conversation myself), I lingered at the other end of the room, and tried to divert myself by looking at the remaining Turners. They were, undeniably, magnificent – the interior of a foundry, a dazzling contrast of dark and light; and a fiery railway train appearing through a curtain of smoke and rain – but even their drama seemed somehow flat and lifeless compared with the tragedy unfolding outside, and after a few minutes I found myself standing next to Mr. Bligh and looking out.

The commotion by the furnace seemed to have died down – the swarming throng had stabilized, and ordered itself into a long line, as dark and immobile as a wall. As we watched, it slowly parted, and four minuscule doll-figures emerged carrying what looked like an untidy heap of blankets on a gate. They moved at a regular, deliberate plod, without urgency, towards a horse and cart standing at the edge of the crowd. Clearly, the
victim was either out of danger – or, as I feared, beyond help.

I looked away, but a pitying moan from my companion made me turn back immediately. It took me a moment to make out what he had seen: a woman, running and stumbling across the rough ground, who hurled herself down before the makeshift litter, forcing the men to stop. She hugged herself – then threw her arms in the air – then rose again, and did a strange distraught dance, stamping her feet, and flinging her head from side to side. We, of course, saw this only as a kind of dumb-show, for she was too far away for us to hear the accompanying wails and sobs – which (contrary to what you might suppose) actually made matters worse; for it heightened our feelings of powerlessness and detachment, while underscoring the awful solitariness of human suffering.

But enough – I do not want to distress you, or myself. Suffice it to say that I felt I must avert my eyes, and yet knew that I must not. For a moment I was paralysed by this
impasse
; and then I suddenly saw that by
drawing
the dreadful scene before me I might somehow make it tolerable. I could not be of material aid to my fellow creatures; but it seemed to me that by bearing witness to their agony I might – in some tiny, mysterious way – share it with them, and give it meaning.