The Center of the World (8 page)
11
.
AS THEY WAITED
for their coffee, Gina and Bryce talked of her upcoming visit to Mr. Ashford. She mentioned that her father’s wedding had been put off and described how her mother, forgetting that there was a time difference between New York and London, had called in the middle of the night to read her the article in
The Enquirer
describing Megan’s wild night out with the costar of her latest film. Gina managed to turn it all into an amusing story, but her mother’s toxic glee at her father’s self-induced misfortunes was difficult for her to take. Since she no longer had a place of her own in New York, she had spent the night at her mother and Julia’s apartment. There was too much wine with dinner, too many drinks before, and too much yelling. She felt dirty when she woke in the morning, but a long shower had not made her feel as clean as sitting down in Bryce’s leather armchair and seeing the beautiful Turner watercolor and Bryce’s perfectly knotted tie.
“But there is a kind of glow about you, in spite of your unfortunate family, that I have not seen before,” Bryce said once Rosaria had delivered the coffee. “London seems to agree with you.”
“I have been lucky with a lot of old letters,” she said. “How familiar are you with the painter William Collins?”
“He is uninteresting beyond his friends and his progeny,” Bryce said. “A member of the Royal Academy. A friend of Sir David Wilkie, whom he persuaded to be the godfather of his child. The child grew up to be the novelist Wilkie Collins. Small realistic interiors of the worthy poor. Insipid seascapes. Please don’t tell me you have discovered a new painting by Collins. There is a market for that sort of thing, but he makes Hassam seem like Matisse.”
Gina colored slightly but went on to explain that she had found a letter from Collins to Wilkie that was previously unknown, but which seemed relevant to Bryce’s quest.
He raised his eyebrows. “If I recall, both Collins and Wilkie were insufferably moralistic, a tendency that was fatal to Collins’s art, less so for Wilkie’s. Turner and Wilkie respected and admired each other: one of Turner’s most moving seascapes,
Peace—Burial at Sea
, commemorated Wilkie’s death off the coast of Gibraltar in, I believe, 1841.”
“You are correct, of course.” She handed Bryce a folder. “This letter was written in the fall of 1838, when Wilkie was traveling in Ireland. The first page or so deals with some small matters of business having to do with picture frames. But then
he goes on to share some Royal Academy gossip which I think you will find interesting. Start here.”
She pointed to the middle of the second page and waited patiently as Bryce read.
Our mutual friend (or, more precisely, your friend and my acquaintance) J.M.W.T. has unleashed a
Burning of the Houses of Parliament
on an unsuspecting world. I do not know what the general public will think of it, but our brother painters will be merely polite in their public utterances. In their private hearts they will feel what I now say to your private ear: it is hardly a painting so much as a force of nature and the very hand of God on canvas. He sets all rules at defiance and flings paint like one gone mad. There are the usual yellows, of course, and red and lurid orange. One can almost feel the fire’s heat coming off the surface. The painting brings back that awful night most vividly, but, and I hardly know how to say this, more in the manner of a nightmare than a recollection. It is as if, seeing it, I feel those horrors that stem from a disordered digestion intrude themselves upon my waking mind. And yet—and this is the queerest part of the whole business—while I still feel the nightmare quality, it also makes me feel (and I am almost ashamed to admit this) a kind of devilish joy. As a Christian gentleman I know this was a terrible event for our nation, and yet Turner’s painting makes me feel a savage glee in the conflagration, as if I were a heathen Hottentot dancing about a gruesome idol. It may be that this glee is
an involuntary response to the mere beauty of the thing that Turner has made. This makes Turner a dangerous man. The beauty and passion in his work trump good sense and plain morality, even in someone who has his wits about him and knows a little about how Art moves the human heart
.
But so much for the public Turner. What follows is a much more private and delicate matter. I only mention it because I know you have his trust and perhaps his ear; I have neither of these, but I do have the good name of our brotherhood and our Academy at heart. I therefore take the liberty of sharing these few words with you and you alone
.
Of Turner’s private life, aside from the fact that it is conducted on the most irregular principles, little enough is known, and the less known the better, for all of us. But many of our fellow Academicians have noted that ever since the death of his great patron Lord Egremont, Turner has grown ever more dissolute. Egremont’s son has cut him most dreadfully and he who once had the run of Petworth House is now distinctly persona non grata. Some say it is on account of that familiarity which Lord Egremont encouraged and which young Wyndham can’t abide, but others say it is on account of those goings-on a few years before good Egremont’s death, which were much whispered about in town at the time. It matters not the cause—the result is that Turner is cut off from his greatest source of advancement, and although he does not need the preferment (and I speak as one often in that need) he rails against its loss most bitterly
.
Yesterday my boy of all work came to me and said he was troubled in his conscience on account of something he had heard when I sent him over to Macrone’s to see about some engravings. When he arrived they were not yet ready and he was instructed to go to the back of the studio and assist in packing them up. My boy reported that Macrone was entertaining Turner with a bottle, even though it was but two o’clock in the afternoon, when three hours of God’s good light remained in which a man might do some work
.
They were, my boy said, quite merry. Turner spoke familiarly of Egremont and the great days at Petworth, boasting that he had done his best work there, work which the world would never see. Macrone questioned him on this point, and made some rude jests about how the best performance was always done under cover of darkness. At this Turner grew quite angry; my boy told me he feared the two might come to blows, but then, as if to settle the matter, Turner took out a note book and showed Macrone some sketches. At this Macrone (who, between ourselves, is no better than he needs to be) grew even more violent; he cried out that he had never seen anything so shameful and that “Helen be damned, but the mistress of Petworth is nothing more than a damned whore.” Turner took great offence and used words that my boy was too ashamed to repeat and I am too decent to write down. He stormed out of the studio, vowing never to see Macrone again
.
Now, my boy is a good lad. I cautioned him about telling tales out of school, but he assured me he was so troubled in
his mind that he needed to unburden himself. He was right to do so, I said, but on no account must he pass this story on. And yet I fear that grave damage may already have been done, for if it has come to me, who knows who else might hear the same or worse? The plain fact is that Turner needs to take better care of his reputation. He is, after all, the chief of our brotherhood, and if a cloud should fall on him, all of us will be equally under its shadow. Do speak to him when you return
.
Bryce read the letter twice. “You have done well, my dear, very well indeed. You are not only beautiful, but resourceful. I was not mistaken when I chose you for this task. My taste has never betrayed me yet. People are like paintings, you know, and not everyone can distinguish the good and the beautiful from the rest.”
He asked her if anyone else knew about her find. She shook her head.
“Very good. We must keep it that way. If the vultures that hover over the graduate schools caught wind of this, we might not be able to keep them away.”
They spent the next hour or so discussing the significance of the letter. They agreed that it was likely that the notebook Turner had shown Macrone was one of the documents that Ruskin had burnt. They also agreed that Gina should turn her attention to the history of Petworth House next.
“It’s a well-plowed field, but I think it might be worth your time. Poke around the edges of things; perhaps you will find
something there. But let me repeat: I am very pleased.” Bryce rose from his desk and walked her to the door of the library. He took her hand and raised it to his lips. The dry pressure lasted longer than she had expected it would.
“Good luck with Mr. Ashford. I expect to hear great things. Or at least remunerative things. It is a long flight from L.A. to London,” he said, placing his arm around her shoulder. “But you can while away the hours thinking about your next paycheck. I am sorry to see you go, but absence, as they say, makes the heart grow fonder. I look forward to your next visit.”
12
.
THERE WAS MUSIC
and agreeable conversation after dinner, but the ladies soon grew tired. Jones and some of the others went off to play billiards, while I bade them good night and went to the library. It had been a momentous day and I felt that a few solitary moments before the fire would do me good.
There is something wonderful about a great house like Petworth after dinner. It is like an immense living organism. As I sat there in my quiet nook I was aware of the sounds of human activity all around me—the faint noise of the servants preparing the upper rooms, the distant murmur of conversation, the quiet clatter of the dinner things being put away. Gradually the creature seems to come to rest as the greater part of the servants complete their duties. One still hears something occasionally, but it is like the sound a sleeper makes as he dreams.
I heard footsteps approaching. It was Turner. He had a portfolio under his arm. “Ah, there you are, you young dog. You have found the coziest spot with the nicest fire. I had been
coming to this house for five years before I had settled on this as my favorite place, and here you are after less than five days.” He pulled a chair up closer to the fire. “Always loved warmth. Cat for an ancestor, I suppose. But it is harder and harder to stay warm as I grow older. A sad business.”
I mentioned that he still had the energy of a younger man and that I had seen him go out as the sun rose.
“No, sir. You did not know me when I was younger. When I was younger I would have been waiting on the sun, not running after him like a schoolboy late for his lessons. I was so vexed with myself for my sloth today that I could hardly do the work I meant to do. It is a hard world we live in, sir, and it won’t do to lie in bed while the fight goes on about you.”
“I greatly admired the view as the sun rose this morning,” I said. “It was wonderful in the way the various shades of green appeared out of the gray. I suppose you went up there to do some sketches. I would be very much interested in seeing them.”
Turner seemed somewhat taken aback by my request and I myself was surprised by my boldness. At length he shrugged. “No harm in that, I suppose. Generally I keep my sketches to myself. Thinking in one’s small clothes, you know. Best done alone. But here, turn up the lamp.”
Turner had been sitting on top of the hill. On the first page I saw he had been looking down on the pond and at the rising sun beyond. It was evident he had been working with some sort of soft crayon or chalk. The page was a sea of color, swirling about as if the world were not yet fully formed and matter
and light were just emerging from the chaos. I recognized the lake and the hills beyond; the sun was doubled in water and sky; some trees and low shrubs were fighting to be born out of the darkness.
“It looks nothing like,” I said, “but somehow more true. I hardly know what else to say, but you have put the truth of this morning on the page.”
Turner smiled like a delighted child. “You are too kind. But I see that you speak from your heart. That is a good thing, even if your eyes are not up to the task you set yourself. There is much that is wanting here. Turn the page. You will see that I warmed to my task as I worked. Here I was still annoyed at my tardiness. It is a picture of my indolence, not of the light I saw.”
