Читать книгу Will & Tom - Matthew Plampin - Страница 10

Climbing from the valley at twilight, Will arrives in a large flower garden. Up ahead, past tiered beds dark with blooms, is the house. The state floor is a raft of light, its brilliance deepening the surrounding dusk. Throughout the day, he has watched the fine carriages snake through the park, their panels flashing in the sun; the teams of gardeners rolling lawns and scrubbing stonework; the gathering of provisions from the farms and hothouses of the estate. A dinner is being thrown, and on a grander figure than that of the previous evening. The sounds of revelry grow clearer as he ascends – cheers and laughter, the chime of glass. Will carries on his way, pushing aside the fronds of a weeping ash. He wants none of it. Nothing useful could come of his attendance, not now. He is calm, steadied by labour and the practise of his art. Why disturb this by squeezing back into that Vandyck-brown suit?

To his undeniable satisfaction, Will is on schedule. Under his arm are the leather-bound sketchbooks, and inside the larger, on loose leafs, are the close views: the north-east in the morning, the south-west in the afternoon. These are the more difficult, calling for passages of detailed draughtsmanship. He’s confident that the remaining four, the distant views and the two other subjects, can all be completed tomorrow. The sixty guineas are within reach.

Will turns to take in the shallow valley. The sun has all but retreated, the sloping pasture and scattered woodlands fading through a range of misty pinks and greys. It feels very easy, this place, after the rugged sites of his northern tour. The landscape of Harewood has been barbered, smoothed out and rearranged, each element positioned merely to please the eye; a tune composed to soothe rather than to stir. The evening sky, at least, provides a constant – Sublimely pure, immeasurably vast, forever beyond the designs of man. Will gazes upwards and the darkening world around him seems to contract, to sink beneath his feet. A pulse of exhilaration beats through his chest and stomach, tingling along his limbs. He sets himself the usual test of colouring it – deciding on a deep indigo, luminously clear, blended through a mix of gamboge and Indian red; with perhaps a touch of the Venetian, stronger, along the western horizon.

A toast is proposed at the house. The party has assembled within the first-floor portico that adorns the mansion’s southern front, and throughout the long saloon behind it. Every male arm is thrust aloft; the name of King George repeated in an enthusiastic shout. Scowling now, Will leaves the flower garden and cuts across a corner of lawn, making for the western service door. Something to eat, he thinks, a brief survey of the day’s work, and then to bed.

‘Hoi, Will! I say, Will Turner!’

Will freezes, instinctively, as if this might somehow undo his detection. He knows this voice – yet he cannot know it. This is not Covent Garden. This is about as far from Covent Garden as you can get. His chin twitches an inch to the right. A lean, long-legged man, simply dressed, is clambering over the balustrade of the portico, between its columns. It appears, momentarily, like a vignette from a revolution: a looter or arsonist dangling from a grand house. He’s escaping, though, abandoning ship – and those on board are encouraging him, applauding and whistling, even extending their hands to assist his descent.

Ignoring them, the man drops to a crouch on the grass below. His coat is plain, cheap, of a colour Will can’t determine; his hair is close-cropped and unpowdered. He springs up and starts across the lawn. He wears a smile – not a smirk or an aristocratic simper but a broad, open smile of friendship. As he draws close, Will transfers the sketchbooks to his left side, flinching in anticipation. The handshake is firm, heartfelt; after only a couple of seconds it becomes a brotherly embrace. Will, the shorter by four or five inches, doesn’t bother to resist.

‘Tom,’ he mumbles, his lips pressed against a lapel.

Released, clapped on the arm, Will staggers back. He sees the party watching them, a sneering gallery up on the state floor, and his first thought is one of relief. Tom Girtin is at Harewood. Here is an ally – a fellow Londoner, and a painter, and a commoner besides – someone to stand with him against these people. Tom is looking him over in the candlelight that falls from the house, quite oblivious to the scrutiny that accompanies it. His chuckle catches in his throat, bringing on a quick, hard cough.

‘This is wonderful,’ he croaks. ‘Wonderful. I hadn’t the least idea. I’ve been here since two o’clock – but Beau mentioned it just now, for the first time, casual as you please. “And there”, he says, “is dear Mr Turner, tramping up the hill.” I swear I almost spat out my wine. You didn’t know, did you? That I was coming here?’

‘I did not,’ Will replies – noting the Beau.

‘Well, it was a rather last-minute arrangement. I was asked to Hanover Square a week or so ago, to discuss some drawing lessons – and then, from nowhere, Beau proposed I hop into his carriage and ride up the north road with him and his sisters.’

Will bites his cheek. It’s one thing to use a patron’s nickname when he is out of earshot; common enough among artists, a harmless bit of impertinence. Private drawing lessons, though, and an invitation to share a carriage all the way from London, with ladies on board – this is preference. ‘Why didn’t you?’

‘Business with Moore,’ says Tom, his head lowering. ‘A regrettable matter. I was running late with a couple of the old dog’s Lindisfarne drawings. You know the ones. I’d already had the money, there was talk of bailiffs … it had to be attended to. Four days’ delay, then I took the stage.’ His eyes, now, are on the sketchbooks. ‘How about yourself? Did Beau send someone into the hills of Cumbria to hunt you down?’

‘York,’ Will answers. ‘A letter at the Black Horse.’

Tom’s ready smile returns. The inn was his recommendation; he lodged there during his own tour of the north the year before. He repeats the name fondly and launches into a string of reminiscences – the crust on the mutton pie, pots sunk around the fire, the pretty wrists of a certain kitchen maid – as if the place is an outpost of Paradise brought down to northern England. This does not match Will’s experience. He kept to himself, found the food and drink to be adequate only and considered his bill a good deal too large.

‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ he interrupts. ‘You told Lascelles where I’d be.’

Tom stares in surprise. ‘I ain’t – I mean, I’d never—’ He stops. ‘I suppose it might’ve been mentioned. But he never let on that he was thinking of inviting you here as well.’

‘You sure about that, Tom? Was there really no clue?’

Tom’s reply is cut short by the appearance of their host, emerging majestically through the western service door.

‘Hail, my artists! My youthful genii – votaries of Zeuxis, disciples of Saint Luke!’

Beau Lascelles seems large, larger even than he did the previous day. His stock and waistcoat are an immaculate white and a champagne flute glints in his hand. Tom adopts a mystified pose, his arms open. Beau laughs as he strolls over.

‘I owe you an apology, Tom,’ he says, ‘and you as well, Mr Turner. You are the unwitting victims of a scheme of mine – a most cherished scheme, conceived in a flash at Somerset House. A spontaneous encounter, I thought. The two radiant stars of Dr Monro’s academy, brought together at Harewood in high summer. Left to roam freely across these glorious parklands, sharing their observations.’ He arrives before them, drains his glass and holds it out for a footman. ‘How can such partnership fail to inspire you both to ever greater feats?’

Tom is nodding, smiling still. It’s a splendid idea, he declares, and an excellent opportunity, most generously bestowed. Will manages something similar, but his mind bubbles with disquiet. Like him, Tom is a regular presence at Monro’s – dependent, to a reasonable degree, on the doctor’s modest stipends and the oyster suppers served at the end of the evening’s labour; and he recalls now that it was at Tom’s desk that Beau tended to linger during his rather self-important, disruptive visits to Adelphi Terrace. This other artist is not a companion or a brother-in-arms, as he imagined a minute earlier. He is a rival. There can be no partnership here, nor is there intended to be. Quite deliberately, Beau Lascelles has arranged a contest.

Will is not so vain or naive as to doubt Tom Girtin’s ability. He has been studying the fellow’s productions – with which Tom had always been careless, showing them to any who ask – since their boyhood. Will, however, has advanced further along the painter’s path. This is indisputable. He has been exhibiting at the Royal Academy for longer, and in greater numbers. The press have begun to notice his paintings in admiring terms. A number of the senior Academicians know his name. He has worked hard to bring all of this about.

But Will does not delude himself. He knows how he appears, and he knows how the rich think. Any comparison between them, between their persons and bearing, must be unfavourable for him. There’s the height, of course, and breadth of shoulder. He’s the conspicuous loser on both counts. They share a certain largeness of nose, but Tom’s is set in a face better favoured in every other regard. The jaw is nicely rounded, not pulled out to a point; the eyes are clear and direct, lacking Will’s beady squint, so often taken for guile; the mouth suggests manly perseverance but is also quick to grin, in contrast to Will’s habitual sour pout. Tom Girtin, in a word, is handsome. No one, not even Father, would make that claim for Will.

Beau and Tom are talking on, some breezy conjecture about how the house might be improved by a door and steps in the southern front, to offer access to the lawns from the state floor. Tom’s accent, although never as strong as Will’s, has grown yet milder, attuning to his circumstances. This is done unconsciously, without calculation; he’d surely be taken aback he was made aware of it. An intimacy exists here, Will sees, well beyond that normally found between a patron and an artist. It is obvious, too, that Tom has been to Harewood before, despite Beau’s father having owned the estate for little more than a year. Will has never heard him mention this. He looks off into the shadowy valley and decides that he will head inside.

‘A fruitful day, Mr Turner?’ Beau enquires suddenly, with the artificial cheer of one attempting to remedy neglect. He glances at Tom; they have guessed Will’s intention. ‘The weather has certainly been fine.’

‘Very, sir,’ Will replies. ‘Very fruitful. I believe that I’ll be gone from here by this time tomorrow. I’ll have all that I require.’

Their reaction is gratifying. Tom is wide-eyed with dismay; Beau takes a half step backwards, letting out a sigh of lordly disappointment.

‘My dear Mr Turner,’ he murmurs, ‘there is no call whatever for that. Perhaps you misunderstand this experiment of mine. Collaboration, my young friend, of the intellect at least.’ Beau warms to his theme. ‘Two kindred art-spirits drawing strength and vision from one another, like Raffaelo Sanzio and Michelangelo, Nicolas Poussin and Claude, Murillo and … and that other Spaniard, what was his name?’

‘Velazquez?’ Tom ventures; Beau snaps his fingers in approval.

You mean to pit us against each other for your entertainment, Will thinks, and by God, you’ve already picked your favourite. ‘I have my terms, Mr Lascelles,’ he says, ‘which you were so kind as to give me. When the six sketches are done I shan’t burden your household any longer.’

Beau waves this away, but he recognises the determination on Will’s face. There is a pause; his smile becomes strained. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I can hardly force you to stay, Mr Turner. I am no gaoler. This house of mine is no damned gaol.’

‘Come now, Will,’ says Tom amiably, ‘can’t you be convinced to remain with us a while longer? How many hundred times, back in London, did we wish for a chance like this?’

Will addresses Beau. ‘I am fatigued, sir, after my labours, and hungry too. I must ask your permission to retire.’

Beau gives it offhandedly, amusedly, with a faint nostril-flare of disdain; and as he speaks, his attention shifts to his dinner guests, who are still watching and chattering in the bright windows behind the portico. Will bows, then turns towards the service door. Tom Girtin stands in his way. He has hardened a little, affronted by Will’s intransigence, and seems to consider holding the smaller man in place to hear another appeal. Past experience, however, has taught him to know better, and he steps aside.

‘Be sure to wait for me in the morning,’ he says. ‘We’ll have one good day out here together, Will Turner.’

*

The service floor is on high alert. Maids and footmen hurry along the corridors; orders and queries are shouted through the haze of tallow smoke. There is a crisis, Will soon learns – too many guests for the dining room. Nobody can agree whether this is due to faulty information from the family as to how many were invited, or late, unsanctioned additions, hidden in the larger carriages, but the talk is of relocating the dinner to the gallery. This would involve retrieving the banqueting table from a store-room, assembling it upstairs and then setting it for twenty-eight, all in a matter of minutes – an undertaking viewed with a mixture of panic and black resolve. Mr Noakes stands at a corner, up on a stool; clad in livery, the tie-wig in his hand, he dabs his shining pate with a handkerchief as he yells for the groom of chamber.

Will edges by unremarked. His goal is the kitchen, and the supper he hopes will be available within. He succeeds in reaching the doorway. Servants stream constantly in and out. Past them, he glimpses billowing steam clouds, a surface covered with gold-leafed plates, a spout of orange flame. There is a searing hiss, like fat sliding across a hot pan; someone, the chef presumably, curses loudly in French. Will moves on, further into the house. If he enters that kitchen now and asks to be fed he’ll be lucky not to have a spoon thrown at him. Better to sit in the servants’ hall until the weight of their duties has eased.

Suddenly the servants come to a stop, stepping against the walls, bowing their heads and dropping cramped curtseys. Beau walks through, unmindful of all, on his way to rejoin the festivities on the state floor; Tom Girtin is beside him, finishing a story. Will slips down a corridor, out of sight. He recognises this tale immediately. It’s one of Tom’s favourites.

When they were but fourteen years of age, the two of them had been due to join a sketching party to Hampton Court, under the stewardship of Tom’s erstwhile master, Edward Dayes. A boat was hired, and the company of young artists and apprentices gathered on the wharf at Blackfriars. Will voiced a desire to sit at the prow; Dayes had this privilege marked for himself. The resulting clash, between a renowned watercolour artist and a barber’s son from Maiden Lane, was terrible to behold, and resulted in Will remaining ashore, stalking back to Covent Garden as the boat and its mirthful cargo eased out onto the river.

‘The pattern of Will’s life was set that morning,’ Tom concludes. ‘Everything since has been mere reiteration.’

Beau laughs. ‘It is fair to say, then, that Mr Turner tends towards obstinacy?’

‘He’s a brother to me, honestly; but the most ill-tempered old donkey, denied his feed-bag and left out in the rain, is a picture of good humour by comparison.’

They mount the stairs and are gone. The servants return to work as if freed from a spell. Will takes a breath; he rubs the frown lines from his brow. His capacity for astonishment or umbrage at this situation is exhausted. Tom’s words, in truth, do not anger him particularly. Donkey, mule, ox – such epithets lost their sting long ago, and are now heard with something close to pride. Let them, he thinks. Let the Lascelles make Tom Girtin their pet. It’s hardly a secret that the fellow has no diligence, no discipline and a host of other defects. Let them wait month upon month for his drawings, long after Will’s are adorning their walls, winning widespread admiration. Let them—

‘A hand, Mr Turner, if you please?’

Mrs Lamb is at Will’s shoulder, standing close and smiling wide. She has a small sack clasped to her chest and another resting between her boots.

‘London brawn, sir, is what I need. Seems I’ve overreached myself – this here load is more than I can manage.’ She leans in yet closer, her mouth inches from Will’s ear, and lowers her voice conspiratorially. ‘I can promise you a fine reward.’

Will reaches for the sack on the ground. It holds only three slim silver trays – Mrs Lamb could surely have carried it without difficulty. This request for assistance is a ruse, but Will is content to play along. He has a question of his own for the still-room maid.

‘Lead on,’ he says.

She doesn’t move. ‘You’re friendly with him, in’t you – with this other artist, Mr Girtin. I saw you from my window, just now. Out on the lawn.’

‘We’ve known each other a good while.’

Mrs Lamb catches the distinction; her mouth narrows very slightly. ‘The gentleman’s arrival this afternoon was the talk of the house. He was at Harewood last summer as well, you understand. Among the very first guests the new family admitted. Couple of the housemaids grew quite besotted with him. Our dashing young painter.’

Will has no response to this. He adjusts his hold on the leather-bound sketchbooks.

Mrs Lamb is studying him with her black, unblinking eyes. ‘You weren’t told that your friend was coming here, were you, sir?’

‘Neither was he,’ says Will quickly. ‘Neither was Tom.’

The still-room maid brushes past, the stained cuff of her dress pressing against Will’s sleeve, then tearing away with a syrupy tackiness. ‘Goodness, Mr Turner, neither was anyone! You saw the confusion yesterday, when you showed up at our door. The family expect us to manage their little surprises, whatever they might be. Just look at the unholy bother down here this evening – twelve extra guests there are, and with no notice at all. A wonder we don’t rise up against ’em.’

Swinging about, Mrs Lamb advances imperturbably into the crowded junction of corridors before the kitchens. Will follows, trying to keep in her wake and out of everyone’s way. This is impossible: when a footman strides from the western stairwell, he has to skip sideways to avoid a collision. The servant is bearing a silver wine cooler, an ornate piece with lion’s feet at its base, filled almost to the brim with fresh vomit. Mr Purkiss is named as the culprit; wearily, as if this is but the latest in a line of similar misdemeanours.

‘Life in service, eh, lad?’ says Mrs Lamb to the footman. ‘Does it match your boyhood dreams?’

‘Enough now,’ calls Mr Noakes from his stool, over the laughter. ‘Sluice room with that, Mr Jenkins.’

The passage to the still room is quieter, a rich, jammy smell thickening the air. They go inside; moulds and pans, recently used, are piled upon the dormant stove, and perhaps two dozen tallow candles burn in a range of improvised holders. A stout table has been brought in and stood in the centre of the room. Across its middle, in their hundreds, are jellied sweetmeats. This is their source. Dusted lightly with sugar, they are arranged in rainbow bands – ruby red sea shells, like the one Will sampled; stars of jade with trailing tails; azure fishes beside coral-pink piglets.

‘My contribution,’ says Mrs Lamb, ‘to this most magical of nights. A new batch, Mr Turner, made especially. Pass over the trays, would you?’

They are alone, the door standing ajar behind them. Will sets down the sack. ‘Them candles you gave me,’ he says.

‘Oh aye. How d’ye find them? Any better?’

Will unclasps the larger sketchbook and takes the Brookes print from under the front cover. The moment is not nearly as dramatic as he envisaged. Mrs Lamb looks at the page for a second only. It leaves her totally unconcerned. She starts to stack dirty bowls and utensils at the table’s edge, clearing a space by the sweetmeats.

‘Mr Turner,’ she says, ‘you must pay no mind to that. It’s speakers in the markets, sir, over at Leeds and elsewhere. The scoundrels will stuff their pamphlets into a basket without so much as a by-your-leave. I use them for scrap.’ She heaves a chopping board to the floor. ‘I’m sorry, truly, if that one upset you.’

‘It didn’t upset me, madam,’ Will lies hotly. ‘It simply … it …’ He stops, wrong-footed. ‘It was chance, then? An accident?’

The still-room maid tosses a long knife into a dish, the bone handle clattering around the rim. ‘Heavens, Mr Turner, so mistrustful! Tell me, what else could it be? Why might I have done such a thing on purpose?’

Will’s gaze strays to the bowed hull of the Brookes. ‘That I don’t know.’

‘There’s the blessed family for a start, and the minions they have hereabouts. If Noakes or Cope found a body with summat like that they’d see them whipped like they was caught poaching rabbits. Why didn’t you rid yourself of it?’

Staring now, Will is thinking of the slave ship upon the open sea, and how it would move; the dreadful compression of humanity below deck as it rolled upon a wave; the hundreds of gallons of freezing saltwater that would pour in through the hatches. ‘I don’t know that either.’

Mrs Lamb comes around the table to retrieve her sack. She slides out the silver trays and lays them in a row, upon the knotted wood. ‘There’s more,’ she says, almost casually, ‘if you want them, that is. In that drawer.’

Will is snapped back to the still room. ‘What d’you mean?’

She shrugs. ‘Just seems that you’re holding on to that one very tightly, Mr Turner. Perhaps it speaks to you. To your Christian conscience.’

Will returns the Brookes to his sketchbook, refastens the clasps and looks towards the door. Is this why she wanted him in there? Why she snagged him in the corridor? He has an instinctive wariness of causes. Painters of any ambition take care to remain independent. He knows a couple of politically minded artists back in London and it’s proving a pronounced obstacle to their rise. ‘I don’t, madam. I assure you.’

The still-room maid shrugs again and begins to transfer the sweetmeats from table to tray, plucking up three or four of the miniature piglets at a time; and then she changes the subject so deftly and completely that it’s as if their discussion of the Brookes hadn’t occurred.

‘In’t it strange, though,’ she says, ‘that the family should be choosing to put on such a large entertainment as this one upstairs. Word down here is that Mr Lascelles and his sisters – one of his sisters, anyhow – should rightfully be hiding themselves away.’

Will, still a little flustered and contemplating his exit, wasn’t listening. ‘Beg pardon?’

‘And there’s the death.’ Mrs Lamb adjusts a couple of the piglets. ‘Some might say that it’s difficult to mourn an infant only a day old, already buried down in Huntingdonshire, and with a twin still living. But their brother Henry would be unimpressed, I reckon, and injured perhaps, to see all this jollity at Harewood barely two months later.’

This Will hears. Henry Lascelles is the second son, the politician. Will was unaware that he’d suffered such a loss. Small children die easily, though, and babies especially; it is not, in his experience, regarded as grounds for any prolonged seclusion. ‘What was the first thing? The sisters?’

Mrs Lamb, starting on the fishes, is happy to tell him. ‘They say that our Miss Lascelles found herself in a spot of trouble down in London. Quite compromised, she was. The poor dear had to be whisked off post-haste, back to Harewood.’

Just as Will deduced. He sees Mary Ann flouncing from the dining room upstairs, her footfalls rattling the glassware; Beau’s show of contrition once she was gone. ‘What happened?’

‘D’ye really not know, Mr Turner? D’ye not read the London papers? The Intelligencer and suchlike?’

Gutter rags were always heaped around Father’s shop, pored over by the clientele, every veiled reference and pseudonym debated at length. Will, concerned only with art reviews, never looks at them. ‘I confess that I don’t.’

The first silver tray is covered, loaded with confectionary. Mrs Lamb switches to the stars, continuing her revelations with steely levity. ‘You’ll be unaware, then, that Miss Lascelles’ mishaps are followed closely in their pages. All the available details. They find their way up here eventually. And those on the staff who wintered at Hanover Square saw plenty of it for themselves.’ She taps a clot of sugar from a star’s tail. ‘There was an affair, Mr Turner, and a wild one at that, and then there was a jilting. Our young miss was knocked off some gentleman’s boots like a lump of dung.’

‘Who was he?’

‘No one can discover. A mysterious nobleman so very rich that the prospect of the Lascelles’ millions leaves him unmoved, and with enough sway on Grub Street to keep his name the subject of guesswork only.’ Mrs Lamb straightens up for a few seconds, wiping a palm on her apron. ‘It’s a grand humiliation for her, to be sure. For the lot of them. Yet here they are inviting dozens to dine and drink in their home, and artists, two artists no less, to sketch in its grounds.’ She begins to fill the final tray. ‘It don’t fit.’

‘Perhaps they think it best to act as if unaffected.’

Again, her expression is doubtful; and then, noticing something behind him, it grows distinctly frosty. Will turns to find Mr Cope standing in the doorway. An uncomfortable pressure creeps up behind Will’s ears. It is impossible to say how much the valet might have heard. He curses himself for indulging in such careless gossip.

‘Mr Turner is a painter, Mrs Lamb,’ says Mr Cope, calm and unforgiving. ‘He is the guest of your master. He is not at Harewood for you to collar whenever you need an errand boy.’

The still-room maid’s smile is terrifying, a parody of graciousness. ‘Why, and a very good evening to you too, Mr Cope! The young gentleman has only been helping me for a minute. Besides which, might I point out that it is dark? What painting could he be doing now?’

Will’s eyes go back to the valet.

‘Mr Turner is here at the invitation of Lord Harewood’s son.’ Mr Cope speaks more slowly, as if for an idiot. ‘He has specific tasks assigned to him and little time in which to perform them. You are not to distract him with duties that belong properly to domestic servants. Do you follow?’

The false smile drops away. Mrs Lamb shifts back from the table and plants a fist against her hip. ‘It were common courtesy, that’s all. I had a heavy burden and Mr Turner was good enough to offer me assistance. Few of your precious domestic servants would do the same.’

Mr Cope will not argue. He extends a long arm into the corridor. ‘Mr Turner.’

The valet’s manner, taking compliance utterly for granted, reminds Will of the music room, and the slighting way in which his terms were conveyed. He isn’t about to refuse, though, or chance a bold remark – not with the Brookes inside his larger sketchbook. In fact, he finds it easy to imagine that Mr Cope might be drawn to the print somehow; that he might sniff it out and run barking to his master. The best course is to go with him, peel away as soon as he can, pleading tiredness, and then burn the thing back in the casket chamber. He bids Mrs Lamb good evening, but gets no response. She is bent over her table, making a great fuss of laying out the red sea shells on their tray, and ignoring everything else.

‘Be careful, Mrs Lamb,’ says the valet, once Will is through the door. ‘Their tolerance is nearly at an end.’

The service floor has emptied. Many of the servants are upstairs, Will supposes, setting the banqueting table in the gallery. Valet and painter walk side by side. After a dozen yards or so Mr Cope says that he understands Will is not joining the company in the saloon; would he care for some supper in the servants’ hall instead? Will’s belly emits a joyful growl. He replies that he would, and despite his apprehension he is thankful, once again, for the valet’s effectiveness.

They separate, Mr Cope heading for the kitchens. Only when seated on a bench in the servants’ hall, the sketchbooks safely beside him, does Will properly consider what has happened. It is easy enough to work out how the fellow knew where he was – Mr Noakes must have told him when he went upstairs to marshal the dinner party. Why, though, had Mr Cope come at all? Why had he been so set on removing Will from the still room? What kind of a damn valet is this?

Mr Cope appears with a plate of food and a tin tankard. The few servants loitering in the hall disperse immediately. Will’s meal is set upon the table, roast pork and potatoes and a pint of treacle-coloured ale, along with a plain knife and fork. He bolts it, more or less. This has become a ritual of his tour: the sating of his hunger after a productive day outdoors, shutting out the world to go face down in the trough. The food itself is almost unimportant – fortunately, given some of the tavern fare he has endured – but this is good, really good, the meat tender and the ale smooth. He’s halfway through before he realises that Mr Cope is still there, at his shoulder, peering at him coolly like a stone saint up on a cathedral. Seeing that he has Will’s attention, the valet begins to speak; his voice is different, quieter, with the trace of a London accent.

‘Mrs Lamb isn’t your friend.’

Will lays down his fork. ‘Never thought she was, Mr Cope.’

‘It’s a game she plays. You must see this. She’s trying to get you on her side.’

Will thinks of the Brookes print, hidden not six inches from his thigh; Mrs Lamb’s rather flimsy explanation of how it came to be in his possession; her offer of more. ‘Beg pardon?’

The ghost of a smile crosses Mr Cope’s face. ‘Some advice, Mr Turner. Resist it.’

And with that he’s gone, departing the servants’ hall for the nearest staircase. Will looks blankly at the strands of pork still upon his plate. Ale gurgles inside him; he smothers a belch against his sleeve. Then he rocks forward on the bench, shovels in the remainder of the meal and scrambles to his feet. He’s at the casket chamber in less than two minutes, hunched over a tallow candle, feeding the Brookes print into the flame. The paper is dry and membrane-thin; it flares yellow, curling to a blackened wisp that floats up from his fingers, vanishing into the shadows overhead. Will slumps back on the bed. He is filled, more than anything, with a sense of monumental unfairness. Making drawings of an aristocratic estate is a simple enough proposition. It has been going on for centuries, and mostly without incident. Yet when he attempts it, bringing with him all of his assiduousness and ability, he is plunged into a dark farce – a mess of unwelcome complications. It truly defies belief.

Will rests a hand on his sketchbooks; a steadying breath becomes a yawn. He has to sleep. He has to keep to his schedule.

He has to get away from this place.