Will & Tom (8 page)

Will returns to the sketch, his resolve to complete his task and leave Harewood fortified yet further; and a detail from Tom’s talk strikes him as stunningly as a pebble hurled from a sling, jogging his line by a clear half-inch.

A goose-feather mattress
.

*

Things are now urgent. Will heads out onto a dandelion-spotted meadow, his boot-steps jarring his spine as he trots down the gradient towards the boating pond. He has enough for the second long view, just barely, but the afternoon is well on the wane. There are perhaps four hours of decent daylight remaining, and two more sketches to be done, of subjects he has yet to determine. The part of the commission he was least concerned by, to which he has given no real thought, suddenly looks like it may be his undoing.

All is not lost. Yesterday, while crossing a bridge in the western part of the estate, Will heard the whisper of a waterfall. He didn’t pay it any mind at the time, but if there are rocks, or a picturesque arrangement of trees, it could serve his purpose. Another twenty minutes walking, a half-hour to judge the views, an hour on each sketch – he might yet make the evening mail coach.

Following the pond’s bank westwards brings Will to a walled garden. He goes to the nearest door, a navy blue rectangle set into the red brick, thinking to save a few minutes by cutting through. It opens easily, revealing a grid of gravel paths laid out around plots of vegetables. Will steps inside. The air is still, heavy, scented with herbs; the only sound is the soft hum of bumblebees. Almost instantly, a gardener rises from behind a line of lettuces, a man of about his age with a downy beard and a narrow, unfriendly face. Will halts, recognising the situation: trespasser meets warden. He glances back to the doorway, wondering if he should remonstrate or simply accept ejection.

Without speaking, the gardener retreats to a nearby shed, wiping a trowel on the end of his muddy apron. Will walks on, past carrot-tops and thyme bushes; and he notices other gardeners packing up and moving away as well. He looks around him in perplexity.

Tom Girtin is strolling in through the garden door. Will considers evasion, hiding amid the beds, but sees that this would be futile. He stands in place, picking at his teeth with the scraping nail, and eyes the other painter with wary annoyance. Is there to be a discussion of their earlier rupture? Is there to be contrition, an embrace, a pledge of brotherhood?

The answer is no, thankfully, on every count. Tom appears to have excised all unpleasantness from his mind; and indeed, as he draws near, his talk is not of Maiden Lane but a herd of young deer that have wandered from the woods on the southern side of the valley.

‘You should’ve sketched them,’ Will tells him. ‘Put them in a view. Just the sort of detail they like.’

Tom laughs. ‘I ain’t got the skill for that, Will. I didn’t attend the Academy schools, if you recollect.’

No, thinks Will, you were
rejected
– and immediately feels guilty. This is unjust. He knows very well what Tom can do. He says nothing.

‘Besides, I ain’t brought any blessed paper.’ Tom is looking now at the sketchbooks; his voice grows teasing. ‘I ain’t so magnificently prepared as you. D’you really need
both
books out here? Scared a maid might run off with them, are you, if they was left back at the house?’

Will ignores this. ‘I’ve two more studies to take, Tom, afore the post leaves from the village. I’ve got to get on.’

At once Tom is serious. ‘What are you thinking?’

The question – direct, practical, genuinely interested – comes from a simpler time; from expeditions made together into the countryside around London, perhaps, when Will could stand the barber’s shop no longer and Tom was truanting from the studio of Edward Dayes. Walking out to Lambeth or Putney, or the fields of Highgate, they would set themselves various artistic challenges, and deliver frank verdicts on each other’s work; then talk a little of their plans, their frustrations, their common aims. It’s been three years since they last did this. Three years at least.

‘The waterfall. Over by that bridge.’

Tom’s expression suggests approval. He offers to show Will the fastest route through the gardens. Of course – he’s familiar with this place. Will looks up at the sky, at the full tones of late afternoon, and attempts to quash his aggravation. He accepts.

Another blue door admits them to a different section of the enclosure, given over in large part to a vineyard. These voracious plants are taller than a man, their tendrils reaching out across the avenues, leaves blocking the sun to such a degree that Will has an impression of being under canvas – of proceeding through a low, yellow-green marquee, with purple grape-clusters in place of sconces and chandeliers. At first, this area appears to be similarly deserted. As they approach the end of the vine plot, however, Will glimpses white up ahead – the hard white of starched cotton. A greenhouse has been built against the far wall, seventy feet in length, its roof angled to trap as much light as possible. Before it, at a trestle table, Mrs Lamb is trimming pineapples with a clasp knife. Will slows, recalling the warmth with which she’d treated him and how welcome it had been; and also Mr Cope’s blunt warning in the servants’ hall. He decides it would be best to slip by unnoticed.

Tom lopes past, breaking cover, and bids the still-room maid a blithe good afternoon. Will stops and curses; then he trails out after Tom, scanning the greenhouse and the paths around it for the nearest blue door. Mrs Lamb turns towards them, performing a subtle swivel that lifts her chest very slightly. Her sun-browned cheeks are stippled with perspiration; her eyes lost in the shade beneath her bonnet brim. With one hand, she folds up her clasp knife and puts it into the pocket of her apron.

The conversation that follows is excruciatingly trivial: the fine weather, the subsequent heat in the greenhouses, the splendour of the park. Mrs Lamb responds to Tom’s queries with readiness and some wit. There’s a distance to her, though, a near-imperceptible detachment; Tom no doubt imagines that he’s charming yet another of Harewood’s denizens, but it’s plain to Will that it’s he who is being handled. The still-room maid seems to recognise Will’s impatience, his uncertainty, and apprehend its meaning. She looks in his direction.

‘There’s a rumour, Mr Turner, that you’re leaving us today. Can it be true, after a stay of only two nights’ duration?’

Will shifts about, feeling hot and desperately callow; his left boot sinks an inch into the gravel, briefly unbalancing him. ‘I must get on, madam.’

Tom intervenes. ‘Will is an object lesson to all painters, Mrs Lamb. He’s forever working, forever moving. Whereas I am an idle creature, liable to sit in one place until cobwebs span my back and mice have made their nests in my pockets.’

Mrs Lamb doesn’t comment on this. Instead, regarding Will evenly, she offers a farewell, voicing her sincere regret that his stay at Harewood was so short. ‘You never got that reward, neither,’ she adds, hefting the largest pineapple from the table. ‘For your kind assistance last night.’

‘No need, madam,’ says Will, ‘no need at all. And farewell to you also.’

Beset by awkwardness, he bows, tips the sun hat, almost drops the umbrella; then he’s off through a door at the far end of the greenhouse, thinking that it must surely lead from the garden. Beyond it, however, is another huge partition – vegetable plots, fruit trees and greenhouses, and four more blue doors to choose between. He’s attempting to orientate himself when Tom’s boot-steps come crunching across the stones behind him.

‘A
reward
, Will Turner? For your kind assistance
last night?
’

Will tries not to react. ‘Which way is the damn waterfall?’

‘And you played it so very coy up on the hill. Mrs Lamb ain’t an entirely prudent choice, it has to be said, but I know how these things can be.’

‘Damn your eyes, Tom, which way?’ Will says, more loudly. Then he pauses. ‘
Prudent?
’

Tom grins; he pulls open his collar and nods towards one of the doors. ‘A woman with enemies can be interesting. Out here, though, I honestly believe it’s more likely to bite you than otherwise.’

Will thinks again of Mr Cope’s warning; and of Mr Noakes, on that first afternoon, the way he’d spoken to her. ‘What the devil are you on about?’

This last door opens onto a grove of oak and beech. Tom walks out in front. ‘You must’ve seen how she is. She riles them something awful – all the senior ones, and a number of the juniors too. Too much sauce. Too much nerve. The truth of it is she’s just not fitted for a house like this. There was an ally – the housekeeper, Mrs Linley – a protector, if you like; but she took her leave in the spring. You’ve noticed that they ain’t got a replacement yet?’

Will hadn’t. ‘What of the husband?’

‘D’you really not
know?
’ asks Tom. He laughs at Will’s discomfort. ‘You can be at ease there. She was widowed, the others think, some time afore she came to Harewood.’

They emerge from the trees. In front of them is the boating pond, its surface aglow in the early evening light. Skating insects etch wide circles upon this golden film, while wild ducks dip among the reeds at its edge, their webbed feet batting the air. Away to the left is the wooden bridge that leads back to the house. Will can hear the waterfall, hidden in the undergrowth, whispering beneath the birdsong and the shifting of leaves.

‘She’s good,’ Tom continues. ‘Without equal, they’ll tell you, in the domain of preserves, pickles and suchlike. It’s the only thing that’s kept her here. But it won’t save her. A new housekeeper will be appointed before the summer’s end, and rooting the unruly Irishwoman from the still room will be close to the top of her list.’

Will frowns. ‘She’s a gypsy, ain’t she? Like them up on the moors?’

‘Irish is what I was told. Travelling stock – came over in childhood. Started off in the kitchens of Leeds.’ Tom takes out his pipe. ‘And she’ll be back in them soon enough.’

The frown deepens; then Will shakes his head, as if to be rid of a bothersome fly. None of this is his concern. He’s been at Harewood for two days only, and in a few hours he’ll be gone, off to another part of the country altogether, following his proper course. He passes the bridge, climbs down a bank thick with ivy and turns to survey the waterfall.

It is a mere trickle, fifteen feet tall at most, buried in the shadow of the bridge and the surrounding trees. Mystery and majesty are completely absent, and the picturesque also: it is
mundane
, a piece of landscape engineering, there simply to sustain the level of the pond. Will peers along the stream at the waterfall’s base and sees only a spread of mean, functional farm buildings.

‘This ain’t no use. This won’t do at all. Hell’s bells, Tom, will you look at it!’

Tom is on the bridge, chewing ruefully on the stem of his unlit pipe. ‘I thought it was prettier, I have to say. It’s been altered since last year. Reduced, I think.’

‘I can’t make a sketch here. And there’s no more time. Damn it all, I can’t—’
I can’t leave
.

‘Will,’ says Tom, ‘you must calm yourself. I understand your wish to get back to London, honest I do. What difference, though, can another day make? Your father has managed alone at Maiden Lane for the best part of the summer. He’d hate for you to squander this chance.’

Suddenly Will is suspicious. He glowers up at the bridge. Had this been a deliberate ploy, a trap to hinder him? Had Tom supported the idea of the waterfall knowing full well that it was no good – that Will would be obliged to stay another night and be delayed in his work?

There is no sign of this. Tom wears an affable grin; he’s trying to be consolatory. ‘I’ll help you. We’ll seek out a subject together, a worthy subject. Never fear, old friend.’

Will remains doubtful. The schedule’s collapse, however, has robbed him of his energy. He jams the umbrella beneath his arm and starts to scale the ivy-covered bank.

‘Very well,’ he says.

*

The hall has a welcome coolness after the dim, smothering heat of the service floor. There is a hush over this level of the house; everything is in its place and newly cleaned, yet a faint charge of last night’s riotousness lingers in the air. Will walks to the marble table, tugging at the sleeves of the Vandyck-brown suit. An invitation to dine with his patron had arrived not ten minutes after their return from the park. It could hardly be refused, but he’s in no mind for it. The day’s vicissitudes have left him spent, and damnably cross with the world. Moreover, he has a touch of sunburn on his nose and the backs of his hands; and his hair, after a second day baking beneath the sun hat, has acquired an oily immobility. Father’s philosophy is that powder alone can solve such problems. Accordingly, Will made a fresh and liberal application. The result was a further stiffening – and now a single fish-hook curl rests on his forehead, the plait jutting out over his collar like the tail of a tiny dog.

Mr Cope appears at the rear of the hall, reading a note. Will clears his throat and approaches, requesting a moment of the valet’s time. The note is folded and inserted into a waistcoat pocket; the greyhound face is pointed Will’s way. It contains no surprise at seeing him still at Harewood, and the answer to his question is given so swiftly it is as if Mr Cope had prepared it in advance. The hint of London streets Will heard the evening before has been smoothed away entirely.

‘I would suggest the castle, sir. It stands a half-mile to the north-east, beyond the village. It is in a state of some ruination, but enjoys a commanding position over Wharfedale.’

Will gives his thanks. A ruined castle on a ridge sounds promising indeed. The valet bows, gliding back to reopen the double doors through which he entered. Beau Lascelles’ voice carries into the hall, holding forth on an
objet d’art
from his collection.

‘… those at Mennecy attempted to rival them, but Sèvres remained, in the eyes of all true connoisseurs, the only workshop for such figures. See the limbs there, the freedom of arrangement. Exquisite.’