Читать книгу Will & Tom - Matthew Plampin - Страница 9

First sight of the house prompts a hard exhalation. Will’s fingers play a scale on the stick balanced over his shoulder. Sunlight swells between the scattered clouds, growing immensely bright, charging the pristine parkland around him with colour. His new blue coat feels hot and heavy; he notices the dampness gathering in his armpits and the droplets of perspiration wobbling on his freshly shaved lip.

‘Come now,’ he says. ‘Onwards.’

The driveway curves past a bank of elms and more of the vast mansion inches into view. Will smells bark and the resin oozing beneath; the leathery lushness of leaves; the faint, sour tang of livestock. He tries to calm himself by inwardly mapping out a composition and blending pigments to match the golden hue of the stone. The result of this exercise, unexpectedly, is disappointment. For all its size and grandeur, Harewood House is a simple structure, little more than an even line of boxes. There would be no challenge here.

Three large carts stand before the service entrance at the building’s eastern end. Servants are streaming in and out, unloading boxes, bags and packages. Mr Lascelles’ letter instructed Will to delay his arrival until a week into August, and here is the reason: that eminently fashionable gentleman has only just returned from London, despite the season having concluded some weeks previously. Will doesn’t try to imagine why this might be. Already, from his limited experience of their patronage, he’s learned not to second-guess the whims of the rich. A few glances are thrown his way – at his new clothes, his stick and bundle, the two leather-bound books clamped under his right arm – but no one asks his business. Their chief isn’t difficult to identify. A looming, fleshy fellow, clad in impeccable butler’s black, he watches from the sidelines, issuing orders and rebukes while doing none of the real work. Will steels himself and approaches. The man eyes him impatiently as he begins the introduction he rehearsed in the stage.

‘I have here a letter from Mr Lascelles, dated fifth of July, requesting that I attend him at—’

The butler, or whatever he is, breaks away to harass a pair of footmen bearing flat crates stamped with the mark of a London auction house – telling them to be extremely careful, that their positions are at stake and so on. Will follows, talking still, a strong, sudden indignation banishing any vestige of nervousness; and he crosses the threshold of the mighty house without even noticing.

They weave down a corridor littered with luggage. Will is determined to have this man hear him out, but cannot prise his attention from those accursed crates. In an effort to push himself forwards, he stumbles against a trunk and knocks the umbrella from the end of his stick. This umbrella is a quality item, not cheap, purchased on Oxford Street especially for the northern tour, and has proved its worth many times. Will wheels about, searching for it – and the butler is gone, around a corner, through a door.

The umbrella is trapped between a stack of shoe boxes and a wickerwork hamper. Will stands over it protectively. A retrieval would involve putting down his books or his bundle, and he’s unwilling to do either; it seems all too likely that something could be mixed up in the clutter and accidentally carried off. After the still, luminous heat of the driveway, this basement has an unsettling effect. The air reeks of tallow and boot polish, and it is quite dark; the only light is admitted through the service entrance and a narrow court somewhere up ahead, broken blue-white reflections gleaming across the floor tiles. Every variety of servant hurries by, focused on specific, pressing duties, disappearing down passages and into rooms. It is like a bustling underground village, or the lower deck of a huge merchant ship.

Will is attempting to lift the umbrella free with his shoe – to work the toe into the curved cane handle – when a hand comes to rest in the crook of his elbow. He starts, turning again; the person beside him ducks to avoid being clobbered by his bundle. It is a woman, two or three inches taller than he is. She is wearing a maid’s mob-cap over a mass of black hair and carries a shallow basket piled with plants. The eastern doorway is at her back, the daylight beyond making it hard to see much of her face. Will apologises, indicating his conundrum. In one movement, she crouches, plucks up the umbrella and hangs it where her hand was two seconds before.

‘Much obliged,’ he mutters.

The maid is studying his person, the bundle, the leather-bound books. ‘You’re the draughtsman,’ she says, ‘up from London. I’ve heard them talking about you.’

Her voice has a ripe, rough edge to it, the Yorkshire inflections mingled with something Will can’t place. She’s older than he’d first thought, though how old precisely he wouldn’t like to say. Her hips are broad and arranged at a slight angle; her bosom (he can’t help noticing) is remarkably ample; her forearms, exposed by rolled-up sleeves, are sun-tanned and etched with muscle. There is no deference in her manner, such as a personal guest of Lord Harewood’s son might expect as his due – just a powerful, amiable curiosity.

‘In’t you a mite early, sir? Weren’t you supposed to be joining us at the end of the week?’

Will shakes his head. He won’t have this. ‘A letter was waiting for me in York. At the Black Horse. The dates were clear.’

The maid moves by him, further into the house, and now Will can discern the roundness of chin; her ink-black eyes with their long lashes; her wide lips and the lines at their sides. A heath gypsy, he thinks. Will has been travelling in the north for six weeks now. He’s caught the occasional glimpse of these people, camped out on the moors or at the fringes of the smaller towns. They’re commonly held to be inveterate criminals, or mystics with unnatural pagan allegiances. That one has managed to find herself a position beneath Harewood’s exalted roof seems unusual, to say the least.

‘Well then, I must be mistaken. Heavens, sir, that’d be no great novelty! Come, this way – we’ll pay a visit to Mr Noakes, our steward. He’ll straighten this out.’ She smiles, her teeth white in the murk. ‘Would you have me carry them books of yours?’

Will firms his grip, his fingertips sinking very slightly into the leather. ‘I am well.’

The gypsy maid leads him through the basement, cruising three steps ahead. Others, younger girls, hop smartly from her path; this is no drudge from the scullery. A sweet, hedgerow fragrance trails from the basket on her arm. Will looks at it more closely. Amidst the leaves and stems are clusters of tiny pale flowers and a twisted seam of purple berries.

They cross a bare, vaulted area; beyond it, along another passage, a latticed interior window provides a view of a large, formidably neat office. Two men are within, standing on either side of a desk. One, bearded and dressed for the outdoors, is plainly a gardener; the other, Will senses, is the fellow in overall charge down here, senior even to the butler figure he chased inside. Barely half the bulk of the gardener before him, he is entirely bald, the unified expanse of his scalp and forehead seeming to compress the face beneath, to squash it under the line of his brow. He is listening to his subordinate report some difficulty or other; his thin arms are crossed and his expression ill-tempered.

Will’s guide enters the office without knocking. ‘The draughtsman’s here, Mr Noakes,’ she announces, ‘the one from London. Found him out in the east corridor, I did, quite adrift.’

The gnome-like Mr Noakes glances over at Will. He is unimpressed. ‘You’re early,’ he says. ‘What’s your name?’

‘William Turner.’ Will’s limbs are tense; his blood is humming. It’s always like this with servants. They’ll do whatever they can to pin an error on an innocent outsider. Keeping steady, he sets down his bundle, unclasps the smaller sketchbook and slides the letter from inside the front cover. The Harewood crest is at the top, and Beau Lascelles’ swooping signature at the base. He walks forward to hand it over. ‘Mr Lascelles asked me to come here in the second week of August.’ He pauses. ‘The mistake ain’t mine.’

This alters the situation somewhat. A footman is summoned and dispatched upstairs to obtain clarification from the family. Mr Noakes returns the letter, rather more politely than he received it. Will calms; things will now be put on their proper course. He’ll be taken to his patron and they’ll set out their business together. The house itself may not inspire, but inspiration, in truth, is a luxury for a young artist. Harewood remains a great chance.

The office begins to feel close. A stripe of sunlight falls in through a high window, tinted with the first fiery note of dusk; running diagonally between Mr Noakes and the gardener, it ends at Will’s stockings, blazing on the white wool, making it prickle against his skin. He looks about him. A snowy tie-wig rests on a stand; a bookcase groans with ledgers; a framed engraving of the King, taken indifferently from Zoffany’s portrait, hangs upon the wall.

The gypsy maid, Mrs Lamb, is lingering close by, the scent of those pale flowers seeping through the room. ‘You must excuse us, Mr Turner,’ she says. ‘The family came back only yesterday, along with Mr Noakes here – and as you saw, most of their luggage arrived just an hour or so ago. We’re all a-shambles at present! Why, it is—’

‘Mrs Lamb, do you not have duties to see to?’ interrupts Mr Noakes. ‘If you’re lacking for work, I’m sure Monsieur Blossier would welcome your assistance in the kitchens.’

She meets his irritability with a smile, which she then directs towards the gardener. ‘As it happens, Mr Noakes, I do require a word with our Stephen.’

Several detailed questions follow, concerning Harewood’s crop of peaches. The gardener, obviously uncomfortable, keeps his replies brief. It’s plain enough that Mrs Lamb already knows the answers – her aim is to rile her superior. Will stares down fixedly at his bundle; he considers lifting it to his shoulder again, so that he’s ready to go upstairs the moment the footman reappears.

Before he can act, someone strides along the corridor outside and enters the office. Mrs Lamb looks across at the newcomer and promptly falls quiet. It is not the man who was sent up. At first, Will assumes he must be a member of the family, or a guest perhaps, so fine are his clothes. The coat, though, is a sober black, the stock a modest grey, and no jewels or gold adorn his person; the impression, taken with his short sandy hair, is more that of a professional gentleman, an engineer or architect. He is imposingly tall, dipping his head slightly as he comes through the door. His tapering face, with its straight nose and sharp chin, makes Will think of greyhounds.

Mr Noakes had been preparing to launch another rebuke at Mrs Lamb, but seeing this man he pulls himself up and makes a small, stiff bow. ‘Mr Cope,’ he says, ‘good day to you, sir. I trust all is well with Mr Lascelles. Did his first night at Harewood pass pleasantly?’

Mr Cope does not respond. He looks at each of the three servants in turn. Mr Noakes smiles thinly; the gardener quite literally backs away; Mrs Lamb meets his gaze but remains disinclined to speak.

Then Mr Cope turns to Will. His eyes are a flat hazel and rather narrow-set; their scrutiny feels inescapable. Several seconds pass. Will is clutching his sketchbooks more tightly than ever, with not a single idea what to expect; and this Mr Cope is bowing, bowing lower than anyone has bowed to him before.

‘Welcome to Harewood, Mr Turner.’ The man’s voice is even, expressionless, without accent. ‘Mr Lascelles extends his fondest greetings and most sincere regards, and hopes that your journey from York was not too onerous.’

Will nods; he mumbles something.

‘I am Mr Cope, his valet. He offers his apologies for the unfortunate circumstances of your arrival, and asks that you accompany me.’ Mr Cope’s attention returns to the servants. ‘Understand that Mr Turner is the guest of our master. We must grant him every courtesy from now on.’

Will is consumed by a violent blush. For an instant he is intensely grateful towards Mr Cope, but then he corrects himself. This is how it’s supposed to be. This is how a visiting artist should be received. He looks down at his bundle – and Mr Cope is scooping it up, umbrella and all, and making for the door. They leave the office, valet then artist, watched by the others. Mrs Lamb sighs, chuckles almost, as if tickled by a private joke.

Another sequence of corridors follows. The pace, this time, is swifter; Will feels like a child, a Covent Garden guttersnipe, scurrying behind some upright officer of the parish. He is confused, momentarily, when they pass a staircase – but decides that they must be going outside rather than upstairs. It makes sense. Mr Lascelles must be in the park, intending that they discuss potential prospects of the house in the last of the day’s light. Beau Lascelles is known to be a man of advanced tastes; perhaps it is the effects of dusk that he’ll desire in these drawings. Will’s enthusiasm for the commission begins to return.

They halt before a door on one of the longer passages. Mr Cope reaches into the pocket of his mustard-coloured waistcoat for a key. The door is unlocked and opened; beyond is a dingy bedchamber, barely more than a closet. Only when a key is held out to Will does he realise that this room is to be his.

‘Ain’t we—’ Will stops. His dismay, the abrupt dashing of his expectations, is disorientating. ‘Are we not going to Mr Lascelles? Weren’t that your purpose in fetching me?’

Mr Cope remains impassive. ‘No, Mr Turner. My instructions were to escort you to your quarters, and to inform you that dinner will be called at half-past six. Someone will come to show you upstairs.’ He leans into the room and sets down the bundle. ‘I take it, sir, that you have evening clothes?’

‘I have,’ Will answers. He’s angry now. Course I have, he nearly snaps. I know very well where I am! He scours the valet’s face for a sign of judgement or disdain. There is nothing. Years of going with Father on his rounds has acquainted Will with more or less every variety of servant. This one is from the top flight, the dearest there is, available only to men of the highest rank or the most capacious coffers. These uncanny creatures are capable of screening their characters entirely; of becoming vessels, embodiments of their master’s will. There is no more chance of a normal human response from Mr Cope than from a guardsman on parade.

Will steps through the doorway, thinking that perhaps the chamber will seem larger once he’s inside. It’s like a casket. The bed seems to have been made for a child. Will is short enough, God knows, but he wonders if he’ll even be able to lie down on it at his full extent. The single window, furthermore, is high and dull – north-facing, he reckons, and devoid of direct sunlight, lacking even the slanting beam enjoyed by Mr Noakes. Will glares at the wall, at the chalky, unpainted plaster, and is gripped by the urge to object. Surely, as a practising painter he is at least entitled to some decent light?

But something about Mr Cope prohibits complaint. Will stands, glowering silently, while the valet issues a stream of perfectly enunciated information: a plain prelude to his withdrawal.

‘Water can be obtained from the pump in the sluice room, and candles from the still room. Laundry will be collected each morning and returned the following day. Any queries should be directed towards Mr Noakes. He will be more helpful when next you speak.’

There is a second bow, less fulsome than the first, and Will is left alone in his casket chamber. Besides the bed, which nearly fills the floor, it contains just a washstand and a small wooden chair. For a minute he doesn’t move, trying hard to weigh every element and not be hasty or extreme. He’s defeated, though; he can’t understand it. Having overlooked his arrival, his host sends down a valet, a personal servant, to soothe him with flattery – only then to consign him to what must be the most wretched accommodation in the entire house. It isn’t proper lordly behaviour. It isn’t even polite.

Leave, says a voice, right away. No other painter would stand for such treatment.

The notion comes as a relief, and seems wholly excellent and right. What, honestly, is to stop him? He doesn’t need this man. There’s material enough in these two sketchbooks to fuel a decade’s worth of painting. Of this he is certain. His northern tour, with its crags and blue hills and endless, rain-swept valleys, has been no less than a revelation – the opening up of a new and brilliant territory. He’s on the cusp of something. He’s convinced of it. Beau Lascelles can go hang.

But no. He can’t do this. He mustn’t. Father’s warning, given just as he was setting out from Maiden Lane to catch that first coach, sounds unbidden in his ears. Standing at the parlour hearth, the old man recited every expulsion and exclusion Will Turner had earned over the course of his life – the opportunities missed, the would-be allies lost, through shows of temper.

You fight off your friends, boy, he said. You defy the very men who seek to help you.

Will sits down on the bed. It is hard as a bench. He sets the sketchbooks on the meagre pillow and forces himself to consider his broader circumstances. He must operate, as all of his profession must, in the art world of London: a not over-large stage upon which Beau Lascelles, with his many friends and mountains of ready gold, is assigned a significant part. The man is simply too influential to risk offending. Will scratches at his calf through his stocking. He has to be reasonable. This room isn’t so very bad. And it is a bolt-hole only. Above are the saloons of Harewood – as splendorous as man’s wealth could summon, it is claimed – and outside is Nature, basking in the full-blown glory of summer. He’ll hardly have need of it at all.

Will unwinds the white stock from around his neck. The muslin is damp, the starched collar beneath soaked with perspiration. He lays it on the bed beside him and reaches for the bundle.

He has to see this through.

*

The dark mahogany door, gigantic and glossy, swings back on silent hinges. Will slips through, crossing from carpet to stone, and discovers that he is at the rear of the entrance hall. It is laid out like a mock temple, dedicated to the transcendent wealth of the Lascelles; around him are classical reliefs and statues, a table of dove marble upon a Grecian frame and a dozen fluted columns, all steeped in an atmosphere of cool, gloomy magnificence. And overhead, dear God, overhead is a moulded ceiling of such Attic intricacy – such divisions and subdivisions, such a profusion of loops and laurels and minute, interlocking patterns – that it makes the eyeballs ache to study it. The effect is oppressive. Will looks elsewhere.

The door closes; the surly chambermaid who led him upstairs hasn’t followed him through it. He’s to find his own way from here. Six quick steps take him to a shallow niche, occupied by a bronze Minerva. The moment is approaching, advancing on him, impossible to avoid. Trembling slightly, he makes an adjustment to his plum waistcoat and catches a whiff of fresh sweat beneath his jacket. This is vexing – it’s been barely a half-hour since he performed his ablutions. He’s consoled, however, by his fine Vandyck-brown suit, the best York’s tailors could provide, which remained largely uncreased during its time in the bundle; his hair, plaited and powdered as well as Father could have done it; and his new evening shoes, little more than black leather slippers, which glisten wetly against the hall’s hexagonal flagging like the eyes of oxen.

There is laughter close by, a blast of male laughter, free and full of casual authority. Will’s head snaps up. A liveried footman is standing beside an urn on the far side of the hall. As if activated by his notice, this servant goes to a door, and holds it open. The sounds of merriment increase. Will scowls; this footman has been observing him, has recognised his reticence and is giving him a shove. He tugs again at the waistcoat and gathers his breath. What can he do now but go in?

Do not take fright, he tells himself, striding towards the very faintly smirking footman. Do not. You were invited here. This man wishes to see you – to give you patronage. You have to grow used to this, to the toadying, to the bowing and chattering and incessant smiling. It is part of painting. You have to master it.

Will enters a library. Tall white pilasters flank shelves loaded with gilded volumes; above is another of those staggering ceilings. At the other end of the room – and it is at least thirty feet in length – four gentlemen are roaming around a billiard table, engaged in a boisterous argument over some point of play. Cues are waved in the air and brandished like rapiers; insults are exchanged with jocular relish.

‘I call a two-ball carom – a two-ball carom – and no soul on God’s earth but this bounder here could possibly deny it were so!’

‘It ran wide, I tell you! That shot, you damnable villain, that shot struck my cue ball only!’

Three ladies are half-watching this overblown dispute from a suite of delicate furniture, away in the early evening shadows at the back of the library. Another is off on an armchair, closer to Will, apart from the company – on purpose, it seems. All are dressed at the height of aristocratic fashion: pastels and greys, silks and satins, festooned with frills and a glittering variety of ornaments. The ladies also hold their fans, and both sexes have been dusted liberally with hair powder.

Will Turner, born and raised on Maiden Lane, has landed among the bon ton. He experiences a new spasm of self-consciousness, a crumpling, contorting sensation in his stomach that quite paralyses him. Brown and plum! he thinks. You look like a parson, for God’s sake, next to these people – a plain little dumpling, simple and poor, brought in for general ridicule. He is relieved, though, that he opted to leave his sketchbooks downstairs. That was the correct decision. It would have cast him as a tradesman, coming to call with his samples – of no more significance than a fellow touting wallpaper or curtains.

Edward Lascelles the younger, known to his intimates as Beau, is one of the four gentlemen at the billiard table. Clad in a coat of mulberry velvet, his fleshy face is warmed by exertion and hilarity. He is trying to speak, to make a riposte; but then a new joke is broached and the laughter resumes. Will wonders what exactly he is to do. No one seems to have noticed his arrival. He glances back through the doorway, at the motionless footman out in the hall. Weren’t the servants supposed to announce you? Wasn’t that the usual form?

A figure slides from beside one of the windows and approaches the billiard table. It is Mr Cope, the valet from earlier; he touches Beau’s shoulder, just once, and has his master’s immediate attention. A few words are murmured. Beau looks over with evident satisfaction, then passes Cope his cue and starts towards this latest guest.

Will orders his thoughts. He is to talk with his patron at last. Terms can be laid down, a contract agreed. This visit can be given its proper purpose. He makes the bow he has practised: tidy and brief, one foot drawn back, an arm held momentarily across his waist.

Close sight does not inspire confidence. The heir to Harewood has a decent frame – Will’s eyes are level only with his Adam’s apple – but he’s rather plumper than Will remembers, a globular belly nestled comfortably within his well-tailored breeches. His hair, powdered to the uniform smoky tone, has been crafted into a dense cap of curls, each one carefully teased out and arranged to create an impression of graceful, manly nonchalance. Beneath are full cheeks, coloured with just a fleck of carmine, Will reckons – he knows from Father’s shop that plenty of gentlemen still use it – a protuberant chin and small, hooded eyes. His expression, his bearing, every single aspect of his person, is shot through with a sense of easy dominion, over Will and the rest of humankind: a dominion brought about and upheld by the all-conquering power of cash.

Will feels a pang of disgust. He wishes himself in his painting room, amidst its smells of damp, coal-smoke and mice, cork pellets pressed in his ears and a drawing taken from one of his Buttermere sketches clamped to the stand before him. He stares, unblinking, fighting the sensation down. It passes.

‘My dear Mr Turner,’ Beau begins, ‘how you must loathe me!’

Will’s eyebrow twitches; he opens his mouth to speak. ‘I—’

‘Such short notice, such a steep imposition, such an interruption to your plans! Yes, you must positively loathe me – but I remain, for my part, unapologetic, so very glad does it make me that you were able to join us.’

Will inclines his head. ‘A—’

‘Determining your itinerary was straightforward enough, out among the landscapists of London, along with the address of your tavern in York. I confess, though, that I was not hopeful. I had convinced myself that you would cast my letter on the fire and forget it at once.’ Beau takes Will’s left shoulder, enclosing the joint with his hand. ‘But here you are. Here you are, by Jove!’

The hand squeezes; Will wants very much to shrug it off. Beau’s last remark strikes him as profoundly disingenuous. The Lascelles fortune is such that any young artist would give a finger to win their benefaction. He stays quiet.

Beau looks to Mr Cope, who is back by his window. ‘I trust that your accommodation is adequate? I’m afraid that we are rather full at present. This house, Heaven protect her, is not so spacious as might sometimes be desired.’

Will considers this. Harewood can surely hold more than are gathered in the library. Others must be upstairs. He shifts, his new shoes squeaking, and clears his throat. ‘Perfectly,’ he replies. ‘My needs are few, sir, in truth.’

There is an unfriendly cackle from the billiard table; off in the shadows, fans flutter open to hide smiles. The cause is obvious. Will sees that he should have given more time to smoothing out his accent and rather less to buffing his buttons.

‘So, Lascelles,’ says one of the gentlemen – another well-fed specimen in a coat cut just like Beau’s but the colour of lemon curd, ‘this must be your cockney project.’

An odd word to select. Will senses an objection building inside him; again, he quells it, keeping his face as blank as he can manage. Project may imply a refashioning, as if he is somehow inadequate in his current form – but it also clearly indicates an intention to invest. Be patient, he instructs himself. Wait for the terms.

Beau is grinning, doubling the number of chins that quiver upon his collar. ‘If you were any less of a philistine, Purkiss,’ he declares, ‘you’d be aware that Mr Turner here, despite being scarcely out of boyhood, had two fine oils shown at the Academy Exhibition, and as many drawings in watercolour. He is a veritable phenomenon.’

‘Four,’ Will corrects – taking care to say forr rather than fowah, as he might in other circumstances. ‘Beg pardon, sir, but it was four drawings.’

Beau pauses for a moment, deciding how much license he will allow. ‘Of course,’ he concedes. He releases Will’s shoulder. ‘Views of Ely Cathedral, if I recall correctly, and quite divine.’

‘Salisbury,’ murmurs Will, but he is not heard; Beau has turned about and is strolling to the billiard table.

‘I found Mr Turner, would you believe, in the house of a mad-doctor – one Thomas Monro, an illustrious fellow indeed within his field. He was prominent among the party of physicians assembled to minister to our King, God save him, during His Majesty’s most recent deterioration.’

Beau’s manner had grown confidential while revealing this sensitive yet impressive detail; once it is out, though, and Monro’s cachet established beyond question, he moves briskly onwards. Discussing the royal travails is not thought patriotic.

‘The good doctor is a collector, and a devoted friend to the arts. He has a villa on Adelphi Terrace, from where he conducts a copying society – an academy, you might call it. On certain evenings, I have seen upwards of a half-dozen young draughtsmen at work in his rooms, setting down their own versions of drawings and prints from Monro’s albums. It is a fascinating undertaking for anyone interested in the visual arts in England, and several noble connoisseurs number among the doctor’s regular visitors. Viscount Malden introduced me there, in fact.’ Beau’s voice becomes mocking. ‘You know Malden, don’t you, Purkiss?’

The gentleman in the lemon-curd coat levels his cue, returning pointedly to the billiards game. His complexion, beneath whatever cosmetics have been applied to it, is pock-marked; the bulb at the end of his nose is cleaved like the cheeks of a tiny bottom. ‘No need to revive that old tale, Lascelles,’ he says, ‘in front of the ladies and all.’

This embarrassment is false. Mr Purkiss is perversely proud of whatever Beau is about to reveal. A lively back-and-forth ensues, drawing guffaws from the other two gentlemen and disapproving sighs from the ladies. Will learns that on one infamous occasion, while staying at Viscount Malden’s country seat at Cassiobury Park, Mr Purkiss embarked on a brandy-fuelled rampage across the formal gardens, under the impression that the peacocks purchased to strut thereabouts were intended to serve as game. The conclusion was predictable: iridescent feathers strewn over the lawn, the Viscount’s young children wailing at windows and a dead bird crushed in a flowerbed, buried beneath their father’s insensible guest.

Will, still standing, is forgotten completely. Mr Cope snags his eye and gestures discreetly to a chair. It is a fancy thing, all scrolls and flourishes, painted a soapy green with cushions of pink satin. Will sits as naturally as he can, flapping up the tails of his jacket. He is close to the lone lady, the one who appears to have deliberately isolated herself from the party. A sidelong glance reveals that she is younger than the rest of them – who range, by Will’s estimate, between thirty and forty years of age – being no more than twenty-five. She slouches in her chair with none of the poise affected by the other women. Her legs are crossed inside her loose fawn gown, a silken slipper dangling from her toe. There is a clear familial resemblance to Beau, the eyes heavy-lidded, the nose straight, with the same generosity of figure; it fits her better, though, Will decides – lending her a sleek, almost classical quality, akin to the larger women of Tiziano, or Peter-Paul Rubens – and she is hugely, aggressively bored. No notice whatever is granted to the artist seated beside her. Will summons his knowledge of the Lascelles family, gleaned from the portrait commissions they have made. This is surely Mary Ann, Lord Harewood’s younger daughter.

It won’t do to sit there mutely. Will knows that he has to talk; to ingratiate and flatter. He draws breath, makes an introduction and asks Miss Lascelles if her father is at home. She says that he is not, and nothing more – neatly snipping this first, somewhat feeble line of discourse and dropping them back into silence.

Will girds himself to try again. The library is growing quite dark now, but he opts nonetheless to undertake an assessment of the paintings displayed above the bookshelves and in other suitable places. These are Grecian in character, simple decorative pieces done without use of local colour or atmospheric effect; hack work, basically, and too late he realises that he must admire them, yet cannot hope to sound remotely sincere whilst doing so. He is growing tongue-tied when Miss Lascelles interrupts him.

‘You are well used to praise, aren’t you, Mr Turner? You rather expect it, I think.’

Her voice, in contrast with her careless pose, has a tart refinement, suggestive of governesses and tutors, private balls and carriages, the best of everything. Will begs her pardon.

‘Just then, when you were talking to my brother – he called you a phenomenon, for goodness sake, and you gave next to no reaction. You are accustomed to people falling at your feet. Lauding you to the heavens.’ She looks away. ‘I would worry, if I were you, that it had made me proud.’

A bristling heat blooms across Will’s face and closes around his throat; he turns a little in his chair. There are no thoughts or words within him, only a sense of having reached a boundary beyond which he cannot proceed. He feels the usual impulse to retreat, to plan and prepare, to seek the advice of more experienced men. This can’t be done, of course. He needs to meet this bizarre slur with modest good humour, a deferential quip; but the precise remark required, the sentiment he has to frame, eludes him utterly.

Someone enters the library and begins to speak over the billiard-table prattle in the assertive yet respectful tone of a senior servant. It is Mr Noakes, resplendent in livery of emerald green and gold, the tie-wig from his basement office perched atop his head, come to announce that dinner is served. The ladies rise, the gentlemen lay down their cues and an informal procession saunters off into the palatial hallway. Will lifts himself from the soap-green chair, his shirt peeling clammily from his back. He glances out at the blue shadows of the park with vague longing; then he mops his brow on his sleeve and falls in behind.

*

The dining table is oblong, with a chair at one end and four down each side. Beau claims the head with a swagger and beckons for Mr Purkiss to sit at his right hand. The others slot in around them, in seconds it seems, leaving but one place vacant. It is as far from Beau as the arrangement will allow.

Mary Ann is opposite. Her appeal, Will finds, has quite vanished; slovenly is the word that comes to mind now. The blankness that beset him in the library has also gone. He itches to tell her that he has never, never once in his life, received undeserved praise, and name some of the notable connoisseurs and newspaper critics who have singled out William Turner for special attention. But, thinking of Father, he holds his peace. It would become an eruption, for certain; and an eruption at Harewood, directed at a member of the baron’s family, would do him no favours at all.

The candles have been lit, perhaps three dozen of them – grouped along the table, set before massive, gilt-framed mirrors, positioned upon every available surface. This creates an extraordinary level of illumination, and makes the dining room disagreeably warm and airless despite its cavernous size. Beau orders the windows opened, admitting a barely perceptible breeze; and, soon afterwards, a horde of biting insects. During the entrée a papery moth hurtles in, butts against a candle and bursts into flames, prompting shrieks and exclamations as its smoking, flapping body spirals to the tablecloth. At once, a servant is on hand to dispose of it.

Will eats mechanically, scarcely registering the series of fussy, Frenchified dishes that are placed before him. Burying his puzzlement, he thinks only of the conversation he might make. Nothing comes, though: no topics, no opportunities. The company moves seamlessly from one society scandal to the next, an animated parade of disclosures, dropped names and allusions, interspersed with peals of nasty laughter. He forces a grin at a couple of Beau’s jokes, and even at one of Mr Purkiss’s – feeling a pinch of self-loathing as he does so.

Across the table, Mary Ann sets about her dinner with gusto, but otherwise manages to sustain her air of disconnection and ennui. This is not permitted for long. Her brother and his comrade begin to goad her, prodding and jibing, trying to draw her out by recounting details of nocturnal antics back in London.

‘Four o’clock in morning, was it, before the fair Miss Lascelles deigned to return to Hanover Square? And was she really quite alone?’

‘Indeed she was, dear Purkiss – and what’s more, her gown appeared to have lost a number of, ah, crucial components over the course of the evening’s revelry. Why, it was hardly sufficient to cover her person. Some slight recompense for the coachman, I suppose!’

Mary Ann merely rolls her shoulders like a sulky cat, much to her tormentors’ amusement. Then a lady’s voice bids Beau to leave her be – and reminds Mr Purkiss, none too fondly, that he is a guest at Harewood. The speaker, who has contributed little up to this point, is sitting further down the table on Will’s side. He tilts back in his chair for a surreptitious survey. Although leaner and a shade more severe, she too is plainly a Lascelles. Will gathers from the gentlemen’s apologies that this is Frances, the baron’s eldest child. Mary Ann is annoyed by her sister’s intervention; she lays a fork down noisily on her empty plate.

Will watches a spindly insect drift over the central candelabrum, lifting an inch or two in the flames’ heat, and fits together a theory. The younger daughter is in disgrace. There has been a liaison during the spring, a grave blunder on her part, and it has ended badly both for her and her family. She is at Harewood as a punishment, under Frances and Beau’s wardship, exiled so that memories of her misadventure can fade. This would account for her demeanour – and for her harsh treatment of wholly innocent house guests. Why her brother would refer to this matter before him, however, and these others to boot, and so lightly, is past Will’s comprehension; unless, like so many of his type, Beau Lascelles has simply never learned to think better of a bit of drollery.

Firmly, Frances moves them on – asking another of the gentlemen, a slim, bland-looking fellow who Will perceives is her husband, to tell the table of an encounter he’d had the previous week with the Prince of Wales. The gentleman, addressed by all as Douglas, is glad to co-operate. It was at Almack’s, he reveals – where, during a conversational hand of piquet, he informed the prince of his connection with Harewood and its family.

‘His Majesty gave a laugh, looked to his friends and declared, in that winning way of his, that the last time he’d heard the name Lascelles it was being mistakenly applied to him.’

The similarity said to exist between Beau and the prince is quite famous. Will has observed George on two occasions, waddling around the Academy Exhibition; their likeness, in his view, is one only of overfed complacency. Beau, though, grown loud with wine, cannot conceal his pleasure. The prince remembers his name, who he is! To enjoy such an association with royalty, to edge past obeisance towards proper familiarity, is the fervid dream of every aristocrat – especially those lodged on the lower rungs of the noble ladder, as the Lascelles undoubtedly are.

The company – Mary Ann excepted – attempts to be impressed by Douglas’s tale. An awkwardness persists, however; and before ten more minutes have passed, Frances gathers in her silken shawl and rises from her chair, giving the ladies their cue to depart. Her sister is away immediately, rushing around the table in a wide circle and off through a door at the back of the room. The two other women follow at a more leisurely pace, arms linked, sharing a whispered joke that Will suspects is at Mary Ann’s expense. Frances is equally unhurried, but she sweeps rather than strolls – stopping by a sideboard to murmur an order to the ever-present Mr Cope. He bends down to offer his ear, then nods once in obedient understanding.

The door closes behind her, to a collective release of breath. Costly jackets are removed, wrapped into balls and hurled aside; waistcoats are unbuttoned; sweat-sodden shirt-tails are wrenched free from breeches. Servants bring in crystal brandy decanters, large tumblers and trays of sweetmeats, folding back the tablecloth to set them upon the polished wood beneath. Intrigued, Will leans forward to scrutinise the jewel-bright confections – selecting one that is a rich raspberry red and moulded in the shape of a conical sea shell. He gives the point a cautious nibble; the soft, jellied flesh dissolves instantly, flooding his mouth with a taste of summer fruit so succulent and intense that he nearly blurts out an oath.

Beau wishes to clear the air. ‘Gentlemen,’ he says, ‘please tell me that you are far too wise to pay any mind to that saucy talk concerning my younger sister.’ He props a foot on the empty chair to his left. ‘None of what we said was of any consequence. God knows, Mary Ann has had a miserable time of it lately. I’m sure you’ll have heard the rumours – the scurrilous stories that swirl about London. It was not gallant of us to wave it before her up here as well.’

The others indicate that they understand Beau and Mr Purkiss spoke only in jest – Douglas adding that his wife was damnably prone to over-reaction where her sister was concerned. Will, for all his theorising, has heard none of these rumours about Mary Ann. Keen to learn more, he wonders how best to assure his host of his discretion.

Mr Purkiss is watching him, his pocked face heavy with contempt. ‘An appropriate moment for you to withdraw, Mr Turnbull, wouldn’t you say?’

Will looks to Beau. He is swilling brandy around in a tumbler; he makes no objection, not even to the error regarding Will’s name. A silence settles upon the dining room. These fine gentlemen will say nothing else while the painter is present. He is being dismissed.

There is a second or two’s numbness while Will fully apprehends what is happening – and then a jolt of furious, dizzying energy. Lips pursed hard, he clambers from his chair like a man dismounting a difficult horse. The plum waistcoat has gone awry and one of his stockings is coming loose from his breeches. He doesn’t attempt to adjust them. Drawing himself up, he announces that he will retire for the evening – adding, a little more pointedly than is politic, that he has much work to do. A cursory bow and he is off across the carpet, accelerating shoe-squeaks marking his progress to the door.

The music room beyond is far darker, lit by only a triple-stemmed candelabrum placed atop a pianoforte. Will slows, feeling a gummy sensation in his right palm: the remainder of the shell-shaped sweetmeat, carried with him from the table, is starting to liquefy against his skin. All appetite gone, he looks about distractedly for somewhere to dispose of it.

His mind teems with unpleasant questions. Was he asked here specifically to be mistreated? It’s beginning to feel deliberate. Has he perhaps offended Beau in some way, or connected himself inadvertently to an enemy of the Lascelles? Is this all, in short, a trick? Have they dragged him out to Harewood in order to avenge a slight received during the season, in a London drawing room or pleasure garden? Will has grown up listening to the ton talk in Father’s shop, gossiping unguardedly while they were shaved. He knows very well how they delight in their cruel games and obscure vendettas – in wreaking precisely this kind of humiliation. The only rational course for him is to leave, at first light if not that same evening. He makes for the hall door.

‘Mr Turner.’ It is Mr Cope, back at the entrance to the dining room. ‘One moment, if you please.’

Beau saunters through. He glances at his valet with mild resentment, like a man forcibly parted from his brandy and the company of his friends; but, nearing Will, he plasters on a rueful smile.

‘My apologies for Purkiss, Mr Turner. The fellow is brusque as a baboon, really he is. And I am sorry, also, if I have appeared inattentive – not the case, I assure you. It has been a trying day for everyone at Harewood. Relocation, on the scale that we must perform it, is so very taxing. The clothes alone, great Jupiter …’ He sighs, weaving drunkenly into a window alcove. ‘I have been busy these past months, furthermore, in the auction rooms – specimens of finest porcelain, you understand, cast in the workshops of poor King Louis and several of his departed courtiers. Nothing that would be of interest to you, I daresay, but it must all be unpacked under close supervision. The servants simply cannot be relied upon to—’

Will has had enough. ‘I want my terms, Mr Lascelles. Your letter let me believe that it was drawings you were after, drawings of your house. So I want my terms, sir. What views you’d have me do, and the money involved.’

Beau is blinking, amazed, as if he is entirely unused to being addressed in such a direct fashion. It is an act, deliberately unconvincing. ‘Well, of course, Mr Turner. I suppose we have not … I mean to say, I am aware that we—’

Mr Cope intervenes. ‘Mr Lascelles desires four views of the house, two close and two distant – you may select the orientation – and two other subjects of your choice, taken from the estate. For these six drawings, delivered in a complete condition to Lord Harewood’s residence on Hanover Square, he will pay you sixty guineas.’

Will pauses, then nods; it’s a solid contract, half the winter’s work right there, not to mention the valuable additions he might make to his sketchbooks in the valley and woods around the house. But things still don’t seem right. He’s being dispensed with. This is not the manner in which commissions should be made – laid out by a businesslike valet whilst his lord sways in the background.

Now, though, Beau is walking towards him with disconcerting purpose. ‘There are your terms, my solemn young sir,’ he proclaims. ‘I trust that they are to your satisfaction.’

He seizes Will’s hand, as if to seal their agreement with a shake – but instead turns it in both of his, examining it closely. Will stiffens, acutely aware of the sweetmeat still stuck to his palm. Beau makes no comment, brushing the ruby-red stub onto the carpet; then he isolates the thumb and holds it up for his valet’s inspection. Will is dragged to Beau’s side – pressed against the damp, voluminous shirt and the slippery flab beneath.

‘See here, Jim, look at that nail! A proper talon it is! Why, the damn thing must be half an inch long. The scraper, I believe they call it. Distinguishes the true watercolour man, the true artist, from the mere dabbler.’

Released abruptly, Will stumbles and almost falls to the floor. He regains his balance to find the two men contemplating him. Mr Cope is inscrutable, a towering silhouette in the bright dining room doorway; while Beau stands beside him in a boozy contrapposto, one hand on his hip, that oversized, florid face split by a sardonic grin.

‘Did I not say that our Mr Turner was the genuine article?.

*

Two days at most, thinks Will, hopping from the bottom step back onto the service floor. Two days to sketch this pile, and some bridge or lake in the vicinity, and I’ll be gone. The fat villain can rot out here with his fine French china and troublesome sister and idiot idler friends – and that unaccountable valet, that Jim, stuck barnacle-like to his master’s bloated hull. Their crude efforts to intimidate him, to humble him, won’t be successful. He vows it.

A cockney project indeed! The genuine article! Will suddenly wants to break something, to kick in that door panel, to rip the buttons from his new brown jacket and send them skittering down the corridor. But instead he stops; swallows hard; loosens his stock. He has been undervalued before. He has known every sort of maddening condescension. It is nothing to him. All that matters is work, and finally he has his terms. So, two days of diligent sketching – and then away again into the hills and woods of England, never to return. It’s not late. The studies could be started that same evening. Will is confident that he can recall enough of the house to lay in the beginnings of a close north-eastern view. He needs candles, though; he searched his bedchamber earlier and found none. The still room, Mr Cope said. Will corrects his waistcoat and stocking and sets off.

Few servants are about. Will reaches the middle of the floor, the bare vaults beneath the main hall, before he encounters anyone – a boy in an apron propped against a pillar, polishing his way through a sprawling herd of boots. This boy’s directions take him past a dining room, where footmen and maids sit at separate tables, eating quietly in close rows. Mr Noakes stands beside the plain fireplace, still in his tie-wig and livery, detailing the day’s lapses with stern, priestly disappointment. Will hurries by.

The still room is on the building’s western side, off to the right at the end of a passage, the door wedged open at the bottom with a split log. Beyond is something between a well-stocked laboratory and a back-alley curiosity shop. Sturdy shelves hold a great archive of jars, bottles and drums; bushels of dried herbs, earthenware dishes and copper jelly-moulds hang across every remaining inch of wall. It is stiflingly hot, the single high window firmly shuttered. The smells are many, mingled and layered; vinegar, cloves, baked fruit, lavender, some kind of roasted meat. A low stove supplies the only light, washing the room’s brown shadows with red and ochre, and adding a lambent edge to glass and tin. Will thinks of the Dutch paintings he has seen, at the houses of his London patrons – the cluttered huts and stables of Rembrandt or David Teniers. He walks in.

Mrs Lamb stands past the window, at a workbench invisible from the doorway. She has her back to Will, angling herself to catch the firelight, but has noticed his entrance. This, he sees, is her domain. It seems obvious now; the basket of purple berries, the interest in the gardener, the knowledge of the house’s fruit stocks. She is Harewood’s still-room maid. Her mob-cap is off and her hair unfastened, the tangled curls a vital, absolute black.

‘You’re down early, Mr Turner,’ she says, turning slightly, showing a cheekbone and a curving eyelash. ‘Supper was cleared but fifteen minutes ago. Did you not care to converse with Mr Lascelles and his friends?’

‘I’ve work to do, madam. I need rest.’

‘Such dedication.’ Will can feel the spread of her smile; she’s guessed the truth. ‘Few men would walk so willingly from Mr Lascelles’ table. He’s on familiar terms with royalty, you know. Frequently mistaken for the Prince of Wales.’

‘It was mentioned.’

Mrs Lamb faces Will now and he is struck anew by the fullness of her, her height and bearing, the span of her hips – a sheer womanly presence that dwarfs and bewilders him. She’s grinding peppercorns in a pestle and mortar, twisting her wrist with slow strength.

‘They’re ambitious,’ she says, ‘this new branch of the family. Baron in’t sufficient. Less than two years since they inherited and they already see themselves at the big palace, dining with King George. Half a dozen more mansions like this one affixed to their name.’

Will looks at the stove, at the pans bubbling gently atop it, and is unable to stop the thought of patronage entering his mind. Do good work, whispers Father’s voice, and this family will surely use you again. ‘Well,’ he says; then nothing.

‘Candles, is it?’ Mrs Lamb asks, putting down the pestle and mortar. She opens a drawer and reaches inside. ‘These was dipped only last week. Should burn decent enough.’

The candles are tallow, tapered and dirty grey. Shaped from animal fat, they smoke copiously and are prone to sputtering – and their light is poor, barely adequate for reading, let alone making a sketch. Will thinks of the candles that shone so brightly in the dining room upstairs: finest beeswax, white as milk and a clear foot long, superior even to those that he has Father buy back in Covent Garden.

‘Ain’t there nothing else?’ He hears the curtness in his voice, the flat twang of London streets; immediately abashed, he wants to apologise, to revise his query, but can’t locate the words.

Mrs Lamb, wrapping a dozen of the candles in a thin sheet of paper, appears unperturbed. ‘There’s no beeswax below stairs, sir,’ she informs him, ‘if that’s your meaning. The cost, see. Our good steward has them locked away in his office.’

Will’s incredulity overtakes his embarrassment. ‘But Lord Harewood is one of the richest men in England.’

‘Oh, Mr Turner.’ Mrs Lamb walks over and presses the packet into his hands, holding them just an inch before her bosom. ‘Don’t you know the nobility at all?’

‘But—’

‘These are a special recipe of my own. They may surprise you.’ She is near, disconcertingly so; she smells of orange peel and fresh pepper. Her expression is dryly sympathetic. You are strange, it seems to say, but I like you nonetheless.

Will tucks the packet under his arm and bids her goodnight. His smile is faint; remarkable enough, though, after the day’s myriad confusions and annoyances. It lasts almost the whole way back to the building’s eastern side – when he lights one of the candles at a wall-bracket and knows at once that Mrs Lamb’s creations are no better than any he’s encountered before. The nimbus hardly seems to cover the length of his arm as he bears it to his chamber. He sets the candle in a saucer upon his chair, sooty smoke streaming from the flame like steam from a kettle. If three or four of the wretched things were grouped together, he thinks, there might just be enough light to work by. He starts to unwrap the rest of Mrs Lamb’s packet – and sees that something is printed on the inside of the paper, a diagram of some sort. He shakes out the candles and unfolds it.

A cargo ship is shown from several different angles – profile, elevation, cross-section – each one packed with tiny forms, serried rows of supine human beings. The printing is rudimentary, yet care has been taken to render every individual body; there are so many, however, and laid so close together, that Will’s eye struggles to separate them in the low light. He recognises it, of course. These sheets were ten a penny a few years ago, nailed up by the Abolitionists in certain coffee shops or taverns. For a time they were much discussed; then, gradually, they weren’t, the attention of London shifting elsewhere. He didn’t even register their eventual disappearance from view.

Will sits slowly on his bed, staring at the image. This is trouble. The wellspring of the Lascelles’ fortune is no secret: their West Indian holdings pay for it all, from the seats in Parliament to the gold buckles on the footmen’s boots. Any material pertaining to Abolition will be contraband under their roof. If he’s discovered with such a thing in his possession, it will surely be taken as a grave affront. He’ll be dismissed. Word will get about – a reputation swiftly acquired. This crude print could well harm his standing with an entire stratum of London society. He has to rid himself of it at once.

Yet he does not move. His mind, quite involuntarily, has started to generate a picture. Chained Negro captives, children and adults alike, wallowing in gloom and filth. The dead left among the living – mothers with daughters, husbands with wives, sisters with brothers – their naked limbs entwined in lamentation. White lines of sunlight slanting in hard through cracks in the deck, tormenting the multitudes entombed below. Parched mouths gaping open in hoarse, hopeless cries.

He recoils sharply; the paper crumples in his hands. It can’t be done. The misery is too great. Too vivid. As he looks away, he notices the diagram’s heading – concise, descriptive only, yet loaded with outrage.

Stowage of the British Slave Ship ‘Brookes’ Under the Regulated Slave Trade.