The Fraud (28 page)

‘Why are you crying?’ I said it without thinking, glad that the Guardian had not seen me, I could slip back in a moment to my cell and the black man probably did not hear me in the noise, but then he turned for a moment towards me.

That look, in the shadows and the filth and the screaming.

His terrible look seemed to tell me that there were not words to tell how he, from some other different Land with some other different Life was somehow chained inside the house of the mad, in London.—And something inside me instead of turning away went towards him, and in a silence inside the raucous noise all around us I thought I heard the wafting and whispering of perhaps his story as Miss Ffoulks had so often told: the sun on a Foreign place of singing and laughter, the holds of the sailing ships crushed with black bodies, the sea and the night and the betrayals.—And then he turned the weeping face away from me, such a
black
man among all the white ones, and weeping with no sound in all the noise and wildness and I wanted to move, go away from more pain. And I did not. I put out my one hand with its weals and its filth, and the Strait-Waistcoat rattled as I put my hand into his completely black manacled one, his hand felt cold and clammy like Death.

I had learned something after all.

I had watched and studied the faces of people for so long, and I had learned that eyes were not always cold, that there were good people, and I had learned from Miss Ffoulks about humanity in the World, a Fraternity she called it, and because of James Burke my humanity was informed by love, and in that way at least the terrible pain of the old black man weeping so silently in all the chaos was to be noticed and I wanted to turn away and I did not.

I had no knowledge or understanding how to help him, some instinct made me stay sitting close and I stroked his black arm with my one hand, stroking it over and over, and all the time in that hell-place the rattling flapping haunting sound of my torn Strait-Waistcoat as I stroked him: another human being with no other idea of help, or love, than this - but the tears ran on down his face unheeded and I thought, his suffering is so much it is as if he is dead but he is not dead, for he weeps still - I understood very well that he did not even know that I was there but still something made me go on stroking his arm:
his pain is from another world that I do not know and have not suffered and
- it was like some blinding white light instead of all the colours -
in the world that I know
,
whatever has happened to me
,
I am one of the lucky ones
. For a long, long time, sometimes scratching at the bites that so tormented me as dark night enveloped that place through the long windows, I sat in the noise and the filth with the man from Africa and stroked his arm, my arm got tired but I kept on stroking his, just to be another person there, he never acknowledged me, or knew me, and at last as that odd, breathing, night half-silence came in Bedlam I stumbled up and went away in my Strait-Waistcoat and as I stumbled in the darkness I sounded like bones, rattling. I never saw him again.

That night the Colours stopped flashing in my head. That night I dreamed of my love, of James Burke, and I understood then what I had done when I went to Meard-street,
that was the cost
- I understood that my fierce, wild desire to paint had cost me very many things.—And I remembered again what I thought one day in my brother’s house, watching the somehow closed-off face of the sociable Joshua Reynolds:
perhaps
,
to succeed
,
great Artists must lose some other part of themselves.
There was a huge price to be paid for my choice, but I had paid it - that would be my private pain
but I was nevertheless one of the lucky ones
, my pain was not the same as the haunted murderers or the ranting street-women who thought they were duchesses or the black man who had lost his hope, and I lay awake in my private , padded room and heard the confused calling out of dreams and the sad sounds of lost humanity in the Bedlam night and then from somewhere in the distance a broken cry of such loss,
where are you Rosie?
and I understood that James had gone from me for what I had chosen to do, but before he had gone he had made me know the truth: I
had
found a way to paint over the long years, and I was an Artist.

 

From that night I began to get better.

I asked the Doctors if a message might be sent to my brother.

Philip kept saying he wanted to send me to one of the small private hospitals for the mad that had recently opened, ‘Until you are recovered,’ he said, ‘I know you are missing the children,’ he said, but I assured him I was recovered already and asked him - begged him - to let me come back to the house in Pall Mall, and as I begged I forced,
forced
myself not to tear at the tormenting red lumps all over me. The Director shrugged indifferently: it was up to Philip of course.—And as they looked me over, the quiet and gentle and acquiescing woman who no longer screamed, I understood again: once again everything,
everything
in my life depended on the word of my brother.

‘
Per favore
, Filipo,’ I made myself say.
Please
.

Although Philip and Angelica needed me in the house, just as long ago in Bristol we had needed Aunt Joy, they were at first anxious about having me back in Pall Mall (they watched me nervously, looking for the first sign of portrait-slashing or coffee-throwing) but my calmness, my efficiency, and I believe my general good humour, won them over at last.—I washed and washed my body - the terrible tormenting red weals went away at last, the last remnant of the nightmare - and all the time I held on to my mantra:
I am one of the lucky ones
, and soon I was lighting the candles in the dining-room as the afternoons drew down, and although I saw shadows again sometimes in this comfortable, hospitable room, I remembered the desolate look of utter despair and the death of hope and understood again:
I am one of the lucky ones
, and Angelica hugged me to her, the most beautiful woman in London, and I smiled at her and held her tightly.

And when, finally, weeks later, in the privacy of my sewing-room , my Studio, I was able to look at last into a mirror and stare at my face, I saw that I had changed. Something older, but something knowledgeable. There was an expression, a wry look that seemed to say:
I made a decision and it has caused me much pain
,
that is my Secret
,
but let us see what will happen for I have seen real pain now; that pain is about the death of the Heart and the death of Hope and my Heart is still kicking and fighting inside of me and I have Hope
,
I am not beaten
,
I am one of the lucky ones
.

Once more I walked every day, with my basket, I walked slowly and carefully about my city, along my London streets; I watched people differently: I knew even more about faces now, what they could hold, what they told. The madwoman - if indeed she was mad and I thought now she was not - sang near St Martin’s Lane:

At first I could not paint: that was not possible for me yet, and in truth I had nothing in the world to paint with, I had spent all the money James had paid me on wonderful hog hair brushes and new canvases and paints and I had burned everything. I had nothing at all left of my Artist’s secret life, only the painting of the Lilies on the wall. And the small green Daisy.

My sewing-room actually became my sewing-room and I worked quietly at a brightly-coloured quilt, all my pain and distress I put into my quilt, but bright colours, not dark - I found bright colours in the most unlikely places, gay pieces of stuff from old gowns and shawls, all the small pieces sewn together with small, small stitches, all the colours, all the shapes.—I had never seen such a thing as I was making, I just made it up, and whereas my painting had been shadows and light, my quilt was very bright, all the colours of the world I put there, to be gay and bright and into the quilt I put away all my pain.

One cold, sunny day I walked in St James’s Park, right down to the less fashionable part, Rosamund’s Pond, where it was said that sad Ladies killed themselves: I would not kill myself now, but I understood.—Slowly I turned back from the pond and just as I was coming into the lighter, brighter part of the park I heard a voice behind me.

‘Well, well, Grace.’

I turned quickly. My heart jumped and clattered.

‘It is you, ain’t it? Are you going to kill yerself?’

‘Hello, Poppy.’

Poppy regarded me. ‘Still got yer same old basket then? You never became a famous Painter after all then!’

And I stared at her - she was well-dressed and looked prosperous , she was wearing an elegant gown and a cloak and there were dark spots painted onto her face (to hide the pox it was always said: those dark, fashionable patches), something, a kind of strength about her, and at last I found my voice. ‘What happened to you, Poppy? I came back, but you were gone.’

‘Not so easy on your own, is it?’

The cold sun shone down on to the green grass. ‘I have never forgot your kindness to me, Poppy, I looked for you but - oh, truly, I’ve often thought of you; why are you walking here, in the Park?’

‘Why are you? It’s a free country.’

‘Of course, I only meant -’

‘Sometimes I need fresh air.’

‘Tell me what happened to you, Poppy. I am so glad to see you, I’ve wondered and wondered about you, truly.’

Poppy laughed, the same old laugh, but out of a different, older face.

‘Why do you talk funny?’ she said.

I shrugged. It was too hard to explain.

‘Me, I run me own business,’ she said. ‘I got lucky, I met a man - it’s what you should’ve done, look at you, all dowdy still, we could’ve set ourselves up, you and me, we had a bit of Class, Ah - but you weren’t really one of us, was yer? I seen you a few times but I always made sure you didn’t see me, you were always with the gentry.’

‘
Where
?’

‘Oh - at the Theatre. I got to go to the Theatre and the Opera too, you know! In the end.’

‘I’m glad then.’

She peered right into my face. ‘You’re pale ain’t yer?’ She was silent for a moment, looking at me, and then she said, ‘You know what, Grace? Don’t mind me sayin’ but we’ve both got older, we can say things. You’ve had a funny life too, haven’t you, pretending you’re someone you ain’t, always worrying about your Pictures - and in the end I’ve probably been as happy as you have, or more even. You don’t exactly look radiant to me.’

And suddenly I laughed, she had made me laugh, a real laugh, like I used to long ago. ‘You probably have been happier, Poppy, it’s true what you say! But - I could never stop wanting to be a Painter - and - I am a Painter now.’

‘Well, when you’re Rich and Famous as well, I live by the church in Hanover Square. That’s where I run me Classy Business from, right next door to the Church.’ I must have looked startled: she laughed again, the Poppy laugh. ‘You still don’t really know the world, do you Grace?’ And with a slight wave of a gloved hand she turned and walked away from me towards Piccadilly, one of the elegant Ladies in the Park.

 

I tried at first to ignore it but I began to dream faces - the faces of my Family that had become so dim came back to me as they had in Bedlam, and then I began to wonder again: do people ever actually paint Dreams? do people ever paint Pain? or Desire? or the wild throw of the dice? or Love? or Madness?—I pondered as I had when I was mad whether it would be possible to paint these things. —But I had nothing to paint with, to paint upon - so, silently,
I began yet once again
: I accrued small sums of the housekeeping money as I used to, to buy paint and brushes, and silently in the night I began the stealing again, the old things, the discarded things, bits of broken board, bits of torn canvas; sometimes I found wonderful things that my brother had no use for or had forgotten: an old beautiful jug with no handle to place my brushes, a large piece of board.

But this time it was quite different. The difference this time was: I
knew
I could do it.

The first, small, Portrait I painted very slowly, just a little part every day: that painting was of Poppy - she had an odd and interesting face, aged, but still energetic somehow and alive, and this time, this time she looked mostly like Poppy and I did not scrape this small painting off, to re-use the board, but placed it on the wall, I would give it to her one day.

Then I began painting again in earnest, the shadows and the light and the truth and my understanding - and at last,
at last
I painted our Family, all the rackety Wiltshire Marshalls at last, all the faces that had come back to me so clearly: first I painted Tobias, who looked like Claudio (I hoped that Tobias was still sailing the seas and I painted a red Pirate’s scarf holding back his hair and a gay smile and I suddenly smiled too - I clearly saw Tobias sitting at the dining-table in Pall Mall, relieving Sir Joshua Reynolds of his watch); I painted my Father, looking at his cards; and I painted Philip as he had looked long ago when I had loved him, all the charm and the warmth; surreptitiously I observed him over the dinner table, found what was there still of the good things and I
longed
to show him what I had done, to share our days that had gone.

Finally I tried to paint the black man.—Mr Hogarth had painted black men: often small, knowing figures, who commented it seemed on the foolishness of the world; Sir Joshua Reynolds and Mr Gainsborough had both painted black men as Gentlemen: noble, dignified, in clothes of London fashion; I remembered again the ridicule of the black men in white wigs in Bristol. Sir Joshua had even painted a noble savage from the South Sea Islands, a hero dressed in white. I painted the old man at Bedlam differently, I painted him because I wanted him to be known, and because I had learned something.—I painted very slowly, remembering his desolated face, I did not paint tears, that seemed wrong, too easy. I painted pain.