The Dark Clue (6 page)

Walter

VI

Letter from John Ruskin to Walter Hartright,
1st August, 185–

163
Dennmark Hill,
1st August
,185–

Dear Mr. Hartright,

Thank you for your letter of 21st July. I should have replied sooner, had I been here to receive it, but I only returned yesterday from a long absence in Italy and France.

Yes, I shall be happy to talk to you about Turner – although I am not sure how far it lies within my power (or the power of any man or woman) to light your way. I fear, however, that I shall be unable to see you this week – for, as I am sure you know, it is the inevitable consequence of travel to come back and find one's garden choked with weeds, and, if I do not set to at once, some of my tenderest plants (a book, a lecture, and a thousand shy little shoots that seem to have sprung from my words, and to want only encouragement to flourish) will surely die. Would Thursday next, at three o'clock, be convenient?

Yours very truly,

John Ruskin

VII

From the diary of Marian Halcombe, 4th August, 185-

A small cottage, with but one window on each floor, and entirely unremarkable save for a curious iron railing on the parapet, that
looked as if a balcony had decided to emigrate from its original home to the roof. On one side, a tavern; on the other a little shop, advertising ‘ales', ‘refreshments' and ‘first-class ginger-beer'; next to that, a knock-kneed gateway bearing a weatherbeaten sign – all you could read was ‘Ale anders Boat ard', so you had to fill in the ghosts of the missing ‘x' and ‘y' yourself – and leading to an untidy sprawl of spars and timbers and ropes. Facing the house, beyond the road, flowed the great river, hemmed in by a shallow embankment of rough stones, and approached by a flight of steps, which were crowded with lounging watermen smoking their pipes and waiting for custom. Further out, a desultory little army of mudlarks in ragged dress scoured the stinking mud for treasure.

‘Are you sure this is the right address?' I asked the driver.

‘Six Davis Place, Chelsea, miss?' he said, slowly, as if I were an idiot.

I got out. A knot of boys kicking a broken bottle stopped to stare at me, and two or three of the watermen stiffened and turned in my direction. They may simply have been bored, or hoping I would take a boat; but there seemed a kind of animal watchfulness in their unsmiling faces, as if, even at this time of day, a lone woman could have no rightful business here. I knew, though, that to show fear is to feed the monster that frightens us, so I paid the cabman and marched up the path without so much as a backward glance.

As I knocked on the door, however, I sensed a movement behind me, and, looking round, saw that the group of boys had followed me, and were pressing against the gate like a pack of wild dogs. Most of them instantly turned their heads to avoid my eyes, but one, a gangly beanpole of twelve or thirteen, held my gaze steadily.

‘You want to know about Puggy?' he called.

I couldn't tell whether he was mocking me or trying to be helpful; but since I have found that, if you expect the best of people, they generally strive to live up to your expectations, I smiled and said:

‘Booth. I'm looking for Mrs. Booth.'

‘She won't tell you nothing about him,' said the boy.

There was no sound from within the house, so I knocked again.

The boy called: ‘Ask Mr. Neave about him.'

The words were barely out of his mouth when I heard a man shouting: That's right, miss, I knew the Admiral!'

I turned, and saw one of the watermen (presumably Mr. Neave) crossing the road towards me. He seemed to have been drinking, for he staggered a little, and waved his arms wildly to attract my attention.

‘I took them everywhere,' he said, gesturing across the river towards Battersea. ‘You come with me, I'll show you where they went.'

I had no idea what they were talking about, but did not want to show it, for fear that it might encourage them to take some advantage of me, so I said nothing, and knocked for a third time. But I was beginning to lose heart. What if – as now seemed probable – Mrs. Booth were out, and I had to walk down the path again, and through the throng? My cab had long since disappeared from view, and there was not another in sight. To add to my disquiet, three or four more men, apparently attracted by the commotion, now spilled out of the tavern. One was a most impressive figure, a black-bearded giant in a red flannel shirt and pleated black French trousers, who elbowed his way to the front and bellowed, in what sounded like a Russian or Polish accent:

‘I tell you about the Admiral! The bottles! The ladies!'

‘You lying foreign b-!' shouted Mr. Neave. Emboldened by drink, he clenched his fists and lurched forward, scattering boys on every side, although he could barely reach his opponent's shoulder.

‘Please!' I shouted. ‘I have no interest in any Admiral!'

I hoped this would calm them, but it appeared to have no effect. The men jostled themselves into two groups, while the boys lined up against the fence, either because they wanted to watch or because they could not escape. I quickly formulated a plan: I would appeal to the beanpole's chivalrous instincts and offer him and his friends a penny apiece to escort me safely to the nearest cab stand.

I had already started back towards them when, at last, I heard the door opening behind me. I turned and saw a handsome, dark-haired, sturdily built woman of sixty or so, wearing a plain grey dress and a white apron. Her eyes stared past me towards
the crowd at the gate. Her sallow, heavy-featured face wore an expression of infinite, exasperated sadness, such as you might see on a nurse who discovers her charges, yet again, doing something they know is wrong. To my astonishment, that look alone was enough to restore order: the two opposing factions melted away without a word, and the boys, as if suddenly released from captivity, scampered at full tilt down the street.

‘Mrs. Booth?' I said.

She turned towards me. She inclined her head slightly, but did not smile.

‘I am Marian Halcombe,' I said. ‘I believe Lady Eastlake wrote to you …?'

‘Yes,' she said. There was a rural lilt to her voice, but its tone was perfectly neutral, neither friendly nor unfriendly. ‘Will you please come in, Miss Halcombe?'

The hall was so poky and dark that I could see almost nothing, and had to rely on the bobbing beacon of Mrs. Booth's apron string to guide me. But the little parlour she led me into was pleasant enough, with a lively fire burning in the grate, and a strange-looking tailless cat stretched on the rug before it. A canary chirruped in its cage in the window, and a stout grandfather clock ticked soothingly by the door, as if Time, too, had been caught and tamed, and put in a corner to add his voice to the domestic chorus.

‘Please sit down,' said Mrs. Booth, ‘while I fetch the tea.' She was immediately gone again, and a moment later I heard her clumping down into the basement. I rose, and looked about me. The room was, for the most part, quite unexceptional, and such as you might expect to find in the housekeeper's quarters of any well-run large house: neat cupboards, with white-painted panelled doors, flanked the fireplace; a cavalcade of china milkmaids, led by a Macready toby jug, marched across the mantel-shelf; and on the chimney breast above hung a water-colour of a church and some miniatures in oval frames.

It was only when I turned back towards the hall that I noticed something unusual. Two oil-paintings, stacked one behind the other and half covered by a sheet, leant against the wall between door and window. Seeing the corner of a gilt frame, and a whirl of leaden colour, I was overcome with curiosity, and immediately
bent down and lifted the cloth. The images that greeted me were so terrible, and yet so vague, that they seemed to have been conjured from a nightmare. The first showed a wild, grey-green sea stirred into an implacable fury; in the foreground, indistinct figures clung desperately to a queer, serpentine lump of wreckage which rose from the spume like a sea-monster, and, further off, a cutter sailed to their rescue. The second, behind it, was perhaps the same scene the following day: a crowd gathered on the shore, dumbstruck at the frightful proof of nature's destructive power littered all about them; while on the horizon, lit by an ulcerous, unforgiving yellow sun, a disabled ship with two masts gone was just visible through the haze. Their impact – at least on me – was almost physical, and somewhat as I imagine the effect of mesmerism to be; I lost all thought of where I was, or what I was doing there, and was still staring when Mrs. Booth re-entered.

‘Ah, yes,' she said, colouring slightly. ‘Those are his. He gave them to me.'

‘What, Mr. Turner!' I exclaimed. I must have sounded, I fear, more amazed than I should have done – partly because the only Turner I could remember seeing was the stately engraving in the hall at Brompton Grove of
London from Greenwich Park
, showing a tranquil classical landscape with a distant view of the smoke-covered city and its river, which seemed to bear no relation to these desolate scenes at all; and partly because it had never occurred to me that Mrs. Booth might have any of his pictures in her possession.

‘Yes,' she said, setting her tray down. I expected her to go on, but she busied herself instead with the tea, pouring two cups and then perching the pot at the edge of the fire basket to keep warm. Hoping to revive the subject I said:

‘That was very generous of him.'

I regretted the words even before they were out of my mouth. She coloured again, and said:

‘What, you think I didn't deserve so much kindness?'

‘No, of course not. I merely meant…' I could not, of course, say what I really meant: that few successful artists would have dealt so handsomely with a servant. To cover my confusion, I said:

‘Why do you not hang them?'

‘I had them upstairs, but I feared they might be stolen. My son is going to keep them safe for me.'

I confess I found myself wondering why she did not sell them, for they must surely be worth a great deal of money; and in doing so she could simultaneously remove the cause of her anxiety and ensure herself a comfortable old age. Perhaps she guessed what I was thinking, for she said:

‘I could not bear to part with them.'

‘They remind you of the sea?' I said.

She nodded.

‘You have naval connections, perhaps?' I said. ‘The boys outside mentioned -'

‘The Admiral?'

‘Yes.'

She nodded again, but wearily. ‘That is what they called him.'

‘Mr. Turner?' I said; for, though it seemed unlikely, we had talked of no-one else.

‘Yes,' she said. They called him Admiral Booth.' She paused, and looked coolly at my astonished face; then, as if I should have divined it for myself, went on: ‘They thought he was my husband.'

I felt quite lost, like a traveller who suddenly discovers he is without both map and compass. What could I ask that would not appear rude – the most obvious question,
Why?,
would certainly have fallen into this category – or, on the other hand, risk eliciting some new piece of startling information which would only bemuse me further? At length I said, cautiously:

‘How long did you know Mr. Turner?'

‘Twenty years,' she said. ‘He first came to me when I had a boarding-house in Margate. Then, after Mr. Booth died, he wanted a retreat by the river; so he asked me to move to Chelsea, and keep house for him here.'

‘He must have had great confidence in you,' I said.

She nodded, a proud woman briskly acknowledging her due. ‘He used to call me the handmaiden of Art.'

‘You helped him in his work, then?'

‘Oh, yes, I'd set his palette every morning, and make sure everything was ready,' She said this with a certain warmth, as if she had begun to feel easier in my presence. A second or two
later, the cat unexpectedly furthered my cause by getting up and jumping into my lap, where it stood lazily sinking its claws into my dress. For the first time since my arrival, Mrs. Booth smiled.

‘Oh, you're very honoured,' she said. ‘Jason generally only likes men. Mr. Turner, especially. He'd sit on his knee, his shoulder – even his head, sometimes.'

I laughed, and decided this would be a propitious moment to venture a little further.

‘What kind of a man was Mr. Turner?'

‘There were times', she said, ‘when I thought he was a god.'

‘A god!' I said. ‘Why, did he resemble a Greek statue?'

Mrs. Booth laughed. ‘Oh, I don't mean to look at!' she said. ‘In his work.' She waved a hand towards the two oil-paintings. ‘You or I could stand where he did, and see nothing but a rough old day, or a wintry sun. But he saw what ordinary mortal eyes can't see. He saw into the heart of things.'

I found myself thinking:
Dear Lord, I hope the heart of things doesn't look like that.
But I said:

‘Yes, they are magnificent.'

That seemed to please her. She brightened, and – as if surprised by her own candour – said:

‘Would you like to see the room where he died, Miss Halcombe?'

In truth, I should have preferred to stay where I was, and finish my tea, and ask her more questions; but I could not very well refuse, so I replied:

‘Yes, I should. Very much.'

We went up the cramped staircase, which squeaked under our weight like a procession of complaining mice, and entered a small attic at the front of the house. The feeble sun seeped through a square, deep-set dormer, casting a watery pattern of light and shadow on the neighbouring wall. The left-hand side of the room was dominated by a simple brass bed, and a single wheelback chair stood before the window. The boards were bare, and there was no other furniture save a plain cupboard, a small table set with a bowl and ewer, and an iron ladder leading to a trapdoor in the ceiling. It looked like the kind of lodging where a struggling actor or a poor travelling salesman might seek refuge from the disappointments of the day.