Elijah’s Mermaid (51 page)

And with that excitement over and done, when our descent at last began, we leaned on the basket’s creaking sides to see all the gardens spread out like a blanket, all silhouettes and glinting lights which gilded the trees and towering pagoda, and the streets filled with horses as small as ants, and the glow of the cinders still wafting around – and perhaps there was floating pollen too because Samuel was dipping a hand in his pocket, at last pulling out his handkerchief, but only a passing tickle it was, or so he was keen to assure me, his arm very casually circling my waist, drawing me closer, into his warmth, so close that I felt the beat of his heart and smelled the sweetness of his sweat, the brush of his hair as it whipped my cheek. And that was the moment we might have kissed, but for the shout of the aeronaut who was pointing to a gathering crowd, just visible through shadows then thrown down by the looming bulk of Battersea Bridge, where a great plume of white was spraying up.

‘What is it?’ I gasped. ‘Did someone fall into the river?’
Something
was there in the water, something that looked like an upturned boat.

‘I think it must be the dolphins!’ Samuel exclaimed. ‘I saw
them mentioned in yesterday’s
Times
. There’ve been sightings in the Thames all week. But nothing as far upstream as this.’

‘Dolphins! Real dolphins!’ I started to laugh, and from our vantage point, still high, you could almost imagine two mermaids there – the quicksilver glisten, the splash of the tails, and I found myself musing upon Pearl’s birth, and the book she’d once secretly shown to me, all the wonders and marvels written down, conjured up by a pimp and a brothel madam who kept a house in Cheyne Walk, which, if you looked east, you might chance to see, if every window were not steeped in blackness with the house closed up and empty now – the house where my brother and I had been born – where Pearl had been raised – where Isabella had cared for Elijah – where Tip Thomas’s awful fate was met – where Frederick Hall spent his last hours of freedom before – before—

But to think of such things might drive you mad. So instead, I looked west, and there through a blurring mist of tears my eyes met Samuel Beresford’s.

The Opening Of The Osborne Black Museum

The Times
– September 27th 2012

This Saturday sees the long-anticipated opening of the Osborne Black Museum at ‘The House of the Mermaids’ in Cheyne Walk. The museum will display many of the artist’s later works, which until now have been in the hands of Broadmoor Hospital, the secure institution for the criminally insane where Black died in 1899, transferred there in 1874 from the Bethlem Royal Hospital, upon which site in Southwark the Imperial War Museum now stands.

The House of the Mermaids has a fascinating history, at one point being used as a Victorian brothel, during which colourful era some murals on the inner walls are widely believed to have been painted by Black in his youth. Far cruder than his later works, these paintings still vividly demonstrate the artist’s enduring obsession with mermaids. It is hoped that the murals may be conserved, though the plaster is now in a perilous state. Indeed the whole house has been subject to extensive renovation work, having been closed up for one hundred years, and now gifted to the nation by a descendant of Elijah Lamb, the illustrator and innovative photographer who once worked in Black’s Chiswick studio.

The ownership of the House of the Mermaids has long been the subject of some speculation, with the local authorities taking steps towards a compulsory purchase order with plans for demolition. It was therefore quite a coincidence when the Italian actress Isabella Di Marco, who lives and works in America, came forward with ‘proof’ of ownership. It
seems that when she inherited a family home in Italy, she discovered there a leather-bound book, along with a key to a secret compartment concealed within its covers. In that were the deeds to the House of the Mermaids, those documents claiming an ownership transferred from the name of one Mrs Amelia Hibbertson to that of simply ‘
Pearl – the child who was raised within these walls, who is my natural grandchild
’.

The papers cannot be verified and secure no legal entitlement, but Ms Di Marco’s donation to the Osborne Black Trust (an amount as yet unspecified but rumoured to be in seven figures) has persuaded the authorities that the house has historical merit and is, therefore, worth preserving.

Clearly, the link between Osborne Black’s muse, who also went by the name of Pearl, is intriguing and cannot be ignored. Yet more mysterious is the question as to how this book and certain other objects which originated in the House of the Mermaids then came to be found in Italy – in the home once owned by Elijah Lamb, Ms Di Marco’s great-great-grandfather.

The actress claims no knowledge, but her silence continues the family tradition. Despite all his fame, the glamorous Elijah Lamb could never be tempted to disclose any information regarding his private life. Indeed, he was considered to be even more reclusive than his grandfather, Augustus Lamb, the well-regarded author of Victorian fairy tales, many of which are still in print, as are the stories by Lily Lamb, Elijah’s twin sister, who remained a spinster for many years while heading up several charities such as Bloomsbury’s Utopia House, where prostitutes were sheltered and given the means by which to reform. At the age of fifty-five, she married Sir Samuel Beresford, the well-known Victorian philanthropist and founder of Beresford Books – still an independent publishing house (which has recently reissued
The Lost Children
, Lily Lamb’s book of fairy tales which has long been hailed as a classic, with a Hollywood
film currently in production, in which Miss Di Marco will play the lead).

However, what has come to light is that there was a great deal of controversy regarding the extended Lamb family when, around the mid-1870s, a notorious scandal occurred in which a long-standing family acquaintance, the publisher, Frederick Hall, was found guilty of a murder which occurred in the House of the Mermaids. Within a few years of Hall’s execution, Elijah, his wife Blanche and their two children left London to live in Italy, where they founded an artists’ community – among its members an Italian spinster whose closeness to the artist and constant presence in his house was the subject of much gossip. Indeed, it is presumed that the Lambs indulged in what might today be described as an open marriage, with Blanche also thought to be very fond of another artist in the commune, after whom her son Angel had been named.

Tantalising though such ‘tales’ may be, it has been impossible to answer all questions regarding the Lambs, particularly with regard to their links to the House of the Mermaids. But the museum will display some photographs and illustrations created during the short period when Elijah worked with Osborne Black, and every one of those images shows an ethereal-looking girl who bears an uncanny resemblance to one of the painted mermaids adorning the brothel walls. The same is said of an antique automaton which again has been generously donated by the Bethlem and Broadmoor hospitals, having been an object that Osborne Black was permitted to keep during all those years of his incarceration.

Among those other paintings on show, Tate Britain has agreed to the temporary loan of Black’s
The Libertine
, arguably his most famous work; an image so sensual that it caused an outrage when displayed at the Royal Academy. But surely of most interest will be the unveiling of
The Mermaid’s Betrayal
. Considered to be Black’s masterpiece,
it shows a mermaid reclining on a beach, her tail in a small pool of water, a haunting expression on her face as she glances back over her shoulder, her striking green eyes brimming with tears as they meet directly those of the viewer. It is a most unnerving work, and though it bears the same brooding darkness and water theme ubiquitous in all of Black’s other work, this painting is itself unique in that the mermaid is fully grown rather than in pre-pubescent form. She has the swollen belly and breasts of one in the late stages of pregnancy, and another anomaly is that whereas Black’s other models all have waving golden curls, this one has hair much darker.

Who is she? There are many who claim that the mermaid’s eyes bear a striking resemblance to those of Blanche, Elijah’s wife – as do those of every other mermaid that Osborne Black ever painted. Some photographs of Blanche (sadly all of them in monochrome) will be on exhibit alongside the canvas inviting a direct comparison. However, it must be stated that there are some letters on display in which Blanche Lamb categorically denies having ever met Osborne Black. There is also the indisputable fact that
The Mermaid’s Betrayal
was completed a good decade after Blanche and Elijah left England to live in Italy, from where she never returned.

A great many of Black’s later works were lost when his Chiswick studio flooded. (
The Libertine
was still on display on the walls of the Royal Academy.) It was also at this time that his muse was said to have disappeared, and though no confirmation has been found she was rumoured to have gone insane, committed to a private asylum from which no records have survived. However, contemporary newspaper reports allege that inmates were abused, with talk of some suspicious deaths; tragedies which have since been confirmed when, during renovation works being carried out in the gardens, a series of unmarked graves were found. Whatever the fate of Osborne’s muse, the artist’s mind was surely
affected, leading to the episode when he murdered the asylum’s superintendent. The incident was a cause célèbre and involved the victim’s walking stick being violently broken into two, upon which the poor fellow was then impaled. Somewhat gruesomely that cane was preserved and is now another museum exhibit – along with a metal file said to have been the weapon employed in the crime committed by Frederick Hall.

For those of a squeamish disposition other rooms contain pleasanter
objets d’art
which survived the flood at Dolphin House. Donated anonymously, their provenance has been verified from those photographs made by Elijah Lamb during his brief employment there. There are also some of Black’s earlier landscapes, ceramics from the Middle East, and marble statues from Italy.

Of those antique ‘treasures’ preserved in the brothel, there are some magnificent four-poster beds, two elaborately carved ship’s figureheads, and some early examples of ‘stereoscopes’ through whose three-dimensional lenses may be viewed mildly titillating scenes – with those pornographic items found now stored in the British Library. More aesthetic is the stuffed cockatoo that perches in a golden cage, and a perfectly preserved little ‘crown’ made of silk flowers and silver shells.

THE END

The Real Historical Characters Who Have Influenced Those In
Elijah’s Mermaid

The characters in
Elijah’s Mermaid
are all entirely fictional, though there is now and then some reference to real historical personages, such as the writers Charles Kingsley and Hans Christian Andersen, or the artists Millais and Rossetti, who belonged to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood – a school of painters and poets reviled by the surly Osborne Black. Even so – in my imagination – I see Osborne’s style emulating theirs, especially in the narrative sense, and the use that many artists made of photographic reference to aid precision of detail.

RICHARD DADD (1817–1886)

Richard Dadd was another Victorian artist. He is not specifically mentioned in the body of the novel, but important none the less because of his obsessional nature and subsequent violent madness, very much in the mould of Osborne Black.

When Dadd entered the Royal Academy of Art he was viewed as mild-mannered and cheerful, generally regarded as being one of his generation’s most promising talents. But following a period of travelling abroad in the Middle East as an expedition artist, something occurred to unhinge the man. He came home with manic tendencies and went on to murder his father. When captured, while trying to flee to France, several portraits of other intended victims were found among his luggage – all with streaks of red pigment slashed across their throats as if to signify the fate that Dadd next had in store for them.

The artist was initially confined in the Bethlem (or Bedlam) Hospital, thereafter being moved to Broadmoor, a secure institution for the criminally insane where he lived for many years until dying from consumption. He was cared for by forward-thinking doctors who allowed their patient to practise his art – producing intricately detailed works full of mystical creatures and fairies. Many are now held by Tate Britain and are considered masterpieces.

CHARLES KINGSLEY AND
THE WATER-BABIES

One of the very first books I read was an abridged version of
The Water-Babies
by Charles Kingsley. The tale of an orphaned chimney sweep who drowns while trying to wash himself clean and then turns into a water-baby is one that affected me greatly – though I must confess to being shocked when I recently read the unabridged version and discovered that the story I’d loved soon extended into a moral rant – which was just as Kingsley meant it to be. The Church of England minister was concerned with social inequality and used his work to ‘sermonise’, with great lists to condemn those issues of which he strongly disapproved, such as Americans (murderous crows), Jews (dishonest merchants who grow fat on the sale of false icons), blacks (fat old greasy Negroes), and Catholics (popes seen as the world’s great bogies – alongside an attack of the measles!). All of which may well explain why his book is no longer so popular.

The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby
was written between 1862 and 1863, and before being published as a book it was serialised in
MacMillan’s
magazine. It was an instant hit, but also the butt of many jokes, such as in a cartoon in
Punch
magazine where two scientists, Richard Owen and Thomas Henry Huxley, are seen peering into a bottle in which a waterbaby is trapped – an image that inspired me again to imagine Elijah and Lily Lamb dipping a jar into a stream when hoping to catch their own water-babe.