The Dark Clue (27 page)

The barmaid, a thin, dark-haired girl of eighteen or so, came to take my order. I wondered whether to offer them something, but decided it would seem too forward.

‘Put a drop of something in it, Kate, to warm him up!' Red-tie called, as she was leaving. ‘Else he'll take and die of a chill!'

She turned and shouted something over her shoulder, but it was lost in a sudden spasm of laughter which spread through the room, and ended with Red-tie himself.

‘I'll be honest,' I said, ‘I was hoping to get a position there myself; for Paul's a good boy, and I thought they might be happy enough to take another from the same stable, so to speak. But -'

Farrant raised his hand, and craned towards me. ‘A position as what, Mr.…?'

‘Jenkinson,' I said. ‘Oh, you know, an upper servant. I was the under-butler in my last place' – I paused here, for effect, and lowered my voice – ‘but the old man died before I could get a character from him.' I laughed – or rather Jenkinson did, for I could barely recognize the sly, cynical, man-to-man sneer that issued from my lips as my own. Red-tie chuckled too; but we were quickly shamed into silence by Farrant, who refused to ingratiate himself by joining in (surely the fellowship of facile heartlessness is the largest gentlemen's club in the world, and resisting its blandishments must have required some courage), and continued to regard me with the same unsmiling expression.

‘But turns out Colonel Wyndham – that's the master now – only wants people that have come with them from their old house.' I winked at Red-tie. ‘His wife's an Evangelical, you see, and very particular about the servants' morals.'

The girl brought my porter; and I winked at her, too, for good measure.

‘Your health, gents.'

Farrant gravely raised his glass, but did not drink.

‘I'd have done well enough there in the old days,' I said. ‘If what Paul says is to be believed. Place was full of people, painters and poets and what-have-you, and Lord knows how many women – not a corner or a cubby-hole didn't have a Royal Academician in it, or one of his lordship's bastards.' I shook my head, conveying – I hoped – my deep regret at having missed such colourful goings-on.

‘You're talking of the Third Earl's time?' said Farrant.

‘Yes,' I said – making, I think, a fair show of surprise. ‘Why? Were you acquainted with him?'

‘I knew his name,' said Farrant. ‘Everyone knew his name then, leastways in my line of business.'

‘Indeed?' I was on the point of going on:
Are you an artist, then?
when I thought better of it. My ‘guesses' must not appear too accurate, and I must not seem too eager to ingratiate myself. I glanced at Red-tie; and then, with a waggish little smile, and in a manner bordering on the insolent, said:

‘And what business is that, Mr. …?'

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Red-tie's lips twitch. Farrant still looked at me impassively, but I noticed the broken veins on his pale cheeks starting to colour.

‘Farrant,' he said. ‘I'm an engraver.'

‘Ah,' I said, with an air of indifference. I took a deep draught of my beer, and grinned at Red-tie. ‘That fortifies you, Mr. …'

‘Hargreaves,' said Red-tie, laughing.

‘Better than a warming pan.' I barely heeded the critical voice in my own head saying
That sounds foolish – warming pans don't fortify
; I was too busy trying to think of a way to direct the conversation back to Petworth, and then to artists, and then to -

‘Did they say anything of Turner?' Farrant asked suddenly.

I could scarcely believe my good luck. ‘Turner?' I said.

‘The landscape painter,' said Farrant, looking not at me but at Hargreaves, with a meaning expression that seemed to say:
See, I know what I am about.

‘Yes, as it happens,' I said, laughing. ‘Though I don't know how much of it to believe.'

Farrant leaned forward. ‘Why, what did they tell you?'

‘Oh,' I said, ‘that he was a strange, secretive little devil, who locked himself in the library, and would admit no-one save the Earl.'

Farrant nodded. ‘Is that all?'

‘He had a housemaid for a . . . friend – you know the kind of friend I mean, Mr. Hargreaves? – and gave her a little picture to remember him by. That part's true at least, I think, for her daughter showed it to me – the poor girl's soft on Paul, I fancy, and thought no doubt she'd impress his uncle.'

Hargreaves guffawed lewdly.

‘And I'll tell you, the funny thing – what do you think it was?'

Hargreaves shrugged, and looked away; while Farrant was so
intent on hearing the end of my story that he could not bear any distraction from it, and shook his head impatiently.

‘What you or I'd have done is leave her with a sentimental miniature, wouldn't we, Mr. Hargreaves? Or a peaceful country scene? But not Turner – he had to give her a blood-red sunset, and a rising storm. “Here you are, darling. Something to remind you of me.”'

Hargreaves began to laugh again, but Farrant cut him short.

‘That does not surprise me,' he said. His voice was quiet but tremulous, and he clenched his fists like a man struggling to keep some great passion in check. ‘Nothing of what you say surprises me – save that he gave her anything at all.'

‘Why?' I said. ‘Did you know him, then?'

‘Well enough,' he muttered. ‘Well enough.'

I said nothing, waiting for him to go on; but after a few moments he shook his head and said:

‘Anyway, it is no matter.'

‘No,' I said; and then – thinking it was at last safe to do so – ‘I should like to hear.'

He shook his head again. ‘What good's tittle-tattle? I tell you what I know, and you tell the next man, with a bit added here, and another there, to season it; and he does the same in his turn, and soon there's a hundred different stories, and no-one believes any of them. I want people to have the truth, here, in front of them, black and white. And they will, soon enough.'

His face was so grave, and his voice so urgent, that it was impossible, in that instant, to believe he had lied to me.

‘What,' I said, ‘are you writing a book?'

‘No,' he said darkly. ‘But there are others interested in Turner.'

My skin prickled, as it does at the onset of a fever. Was
others
just a rhetorical flourish, or did he mean
more than one
? If he had found out about me, of course (which was clearly the case, although I did not know how), was it not reasonable enough to suppose that he also knew something of Thornbury, and had perhaps communicated with him? But what if there was a third – or even a fourth – biographer, of whom I had never heard at all?

‘Really?' I said, as casually as I could. ‘Who?'

He took a leisurely sip from his glass and then set it down again, wiping the suds from his mouth. ‘You will forgive me, sir,'
he said with a sigh, avoiding my gaze, ‘but I barely know you; and this is a delicate matter.' And I could not help noticing – dear God! how complex are our emotions, and how contradictory! – that while his shoulders were bowed under the weight of some great burden, yet his eyes shone with the consciousness of the power he enjoyed at that moment.

‘The truth is,' said Hargreaves, with a wheedling smile, watching Farrant closely all the time, ‘there's a value now, to stories about Turner. There's a gentleman as pays good money for them. What Mr. Farrant's saying is, you want him to tell you, you'll have to put your hand in your pocket -'

‘No!' roared Farrant, so loudly that the room suddenly fell quiet, and every face turned towards us. ‘I don't care anything about that. I want the facts straight, number one; and number two, no-one knows about them till they're published. That's the first rule of war: don't give your secrets to the enemy.'

‘Who are the enemy?' I said.

Farrant didn't reply at once, but instead stared thoughtfully before him. At length he turned abruptly to me and said: ‘Turner had powerful friends.'

‘Indeed -' I began; but Farrant was already preparing to leave, pulling his coat about him and searching for his stick. ‘Oh, please,' I said, touching his arm. ‘Don't go. Let me buy you a drink.'

He knocked my hand away and shook his head emphatically. ‘I shall wish you good night.'

My palms felt dry and empty – I longed to clasp them round his rough sleeve, and drag him back to his chair – but I knew nothing would be gained by it. If he was not angry with me yet (and it seemed to have been Hargreaves, rather than I, that had provoked him), he soon would be if I persisted in trying to detain him. All I could do, during the unconscionable time it took him to get ready, was to stare at the fire, and exchange sheepish grins with Hargreaves. At last, he fastened the final button on his coat, and without another word, began his stately progress towards the door.

‘You can buy
me
a drink,' said Hargreaves, when Farrant was out of earshot. ‘And I'll tell you what I know.'

‘About the gentleman?'

His face took on the surly, puzzled look of a slow-witted man who suspects he is being mocked. ‘What gentleman?'

‘The gentleman who pays good money for stories about Turner.'

‘Oh!' He clearly hadn't expected this; and he frowned as he wrestled with the troubling question of why I should want to know. Fearing that I had gone too far, and given too much away, I said hastily:

‘I was thinking of my nephew. He could spin him a tale or two.'

‘Ah, I see!' He smiled and nodded, and for a moment I thought he was going to tell me, for he gave me a crafty sidelong glance that seemed to say,
I get your meaning now; you're a man of the world like me,
which I interpreted as a prelude to doing business. But then he suddenly looked away and said: ‘I won't deceive you – I know no more than Jack Farrant told me, and that's little enough.'

‘His name?'

Hargreaves shook his head.

I cursed inwardly. Could it have been Thornbury? That was the likeliest explanation, but it failed to explain Farrant's letter to me. An author might naturally give a useful informant money; but he would scarcely pay him to send his story to a rival. Perhaps there
was
someone else . . .? Or perhaps Farrant had merely heard about me from Davenant or George Jones (for did not his letter mention both their names?) and had written to me on his own account, for his own reasons? I should gladly have given fifty pounds for the answer, though I knew better than to say so. Something of my feelings must have shown, however, for, before I had time to speak, he went on eagerly:

‘But I'll tell you something else – a sight tastier – about Turner.'

I forced an indifferent smile on to my face, and said laconically: ‘As good as the housemaid?'

‘Oh, better!'

‘Very well.'

He shook his head, and wagged a finger at me. ‘Drink!'

I summoned the barmaid. The question of what he should order at my expense seemed to exercise Hargreaves terribly, and he agonized over it for some seconds before finally saying:

‘A pot of porter, if you please, and a tot of brandy' – here he
leered comically at me – ‘just to keep it company on the way down,' And then, as if he feared I should cavil at this extravagance, and withdraw my offer, he laid his grimy fingers on my cuff, and said: ‘It's worth it, Mr. Jenkinson. You'll see.'

And so, indeed, it proved; for this, as near as I can remember it, is what he told me – his face thrust forward, his eyes gazing up into mine with the anxious look of a dog that expects another biscuit if its master likes its trick, and a kick if he does not:

‘I'm a waterman by trade; I was a hog-grubber once, but, what with the new bridges, there's no living to be made on that stretch of the river now; so the last fifteen year or more I mostly been plying Wapping. And that's where I saw him – oh, must've been a dozen times, at least.

‘He was a rum one – you knew that the minute you laid eyes on him – not much taller'n a child, with a big hat, and a long coat. You couldn't see his face clear, for he'd wrap a scarf around it, to keep the cold out o' doors, as he'd say, and besides, it was dark more often than not; but I remember his big Jew's nose, and his eyes looking at you like a ferret, and his grey hair sticking out under his hat – for he was already an old fellow by this time.

‘He liked me, he said, on account I'd been a sailor; and usually he'd ask for me special, to go to Rotherhithe. It was always the same: I'd take him across of a Saturday night, and bring him back again Monday morning. General, he wouldn't say much, just sit staring over the side of the boat, as if he was looking for something in the water; and once . .. once or twice I saw him take out a notebook, and scribble in it.

‘I didn't know who he was – he never told me a name – but I wouldn't have guessed it was “Turner”, for one time, as we was putting in at Rotherhithe, an old seaman who'd had a bit to drink come up to him and says: “Back again, Mr. J.? Lord, give the girls a chance!” Might have been “Jay”, I suppose, but it didn't sound like that – too quick, if you know what I mean. So perhaps he went by “Jones”, or “Johnson”.

‘But then one time, he's going ashore at Wapping, and another gentleman steps down to take the boat, and sees him, and says: “Why, Turner!”; but he just shakes his head and marches off without a word. When the other gent's settled himself, he says: “You know who that was? Turner,
the
Turner! J. M. W.? R.A.? I'd heard
stories about his adventures, of course, but I never believed them before now.”

‘So I says, “What stories, sir?” And he says: “Why, that he'll finish painting on a Saturday night, and put a five-pound note in his pocket, and go and wallow in some low sailor's house by the river till Monday morning!”