It’s one of Tom’s favourites.
When they were but fourteen years of age, the two of them had been due to join a sketching party to Hampton Court, under the stewardship of Tom’s erstwhile master, Edward Dayes. A boat was hired, and the company of young artists and apprentices gathered on the wharf at Blackfriars. Will voiced a desire to sit at the prow; Dayes had this privilege marked for himself. The resulting clash, between a renowned watercolour artist and a barber’s son from Maiden Lane, was terrible to behold, and resulted in Will remaining ashore, stalking back to Covent Garden as the boat and its mirthful cargo eased out onto the river.
‘The pattern of Will’s life was set that morning,’ Tom concludes. ‘Everything since has been mere reiteration.’
Beau laughs. ‘It is fair to say, then, that Mr Turner tends towards obstinacy?’
‘He’s a brother to me, honestly; but the most ill-tempered old donkey, denied his feed-bag and left out in the rain, is a picture of good humour by comparison.’
They mount the stairs and are gone. The servants return to work as if freed from a spell. Will takes a breath; he rubs the frown lines from his brow. His capacity for astonishment or umbrage at this situation is exhausted. Tom’s words, in truth, do not anger him particularly. Donkey, mule, ox – such epithets lost their sting long ago, and are now heard with something close to pride. Let them, he thinks. Let the Lascelles make Tom Girtin their pet. It’s hardly a secret that the fellow has no diligence, no discipline and a host of other defects. Let them wait month upon month for his drawings, long after Will’s are adorning their walls, winning widespread admiration. Let them—
‘A hand, Mr Turner, if you please?’
Mrs Lamb is at Will’s shoulder, standing close and smiling wide. She has a small sack clasped to her chest and another resting between her boots.
‘London brawn, sir, is what I need. Seems I’ve overreached myself – this here load is more than I can manage.’ She leans in yet closer, her mouth inches from Will’s ear, and lowers her voice conspiratorially. ‘I can promise you a fine reward.’
Will reaches for the sack on the ground. It holds only three slim silver trays – Mrs Lamb could surely have carried it without difficulty. This request for assistance is a ruse, but Will is content to play along. He has a question of his own for the still-room maid.
‘Lead on,’ he says.
She doesn’t move. ‘You’re friendly with him, in’t you – with this other artist, Mr Girtin. I saw you from my window, just now. Out on the lawn.’
‘We’ve known each other a good while.’
Mrs Lamb catches the distinction; her mouth narrows very slightly. ‘The gentleman’s arrival this afternoon was the talk of the house. He was at Harewood last summer as well, you understand. Among the very first guests the new family admitted. Couple of the housemaids grew quite besotted with him. Our dashing young painter.’
Will has no response to this. He adjusts his hold on the leather-bound sketchbooks.
Mrs Lamb is studying him with her black, unblinking eyes. ‘You weren’t told that your friend was coming here, were you, sir?’
‘Neither was he,’ says Will quickly. ‘Neither was Tom.’
The still-room maid brushes past, the stained cuff of her dress pressing against Will’s sleeve, then tearing away with a syrupy tackiness. ‘Goodness, Mr Turner, neither was anyone! You saw the confusion yesterday, when you showed up at our door. The family expect us to manage their little surprises, whatever they might be. Just look at the unholy bother down here this evening – twelve extra guests there are, and with no notice at all. A wonder we don’t rise up against ’em.’
Swinging about, Mrs Lamb advances imperturbably into the crowded junction of corridors before the kitchens. Will follows, trying to keep in her wake and out of everyone’s way. This is impossible: when a footman strides from the western stairwell, he has to skip sideways to avoid a collision. The servant is bearing a silver wine cooler, an ornate piece with lion’s feet at its base, filled almost to the brim with fresh vomit. Mr Purkiss is named as the culprit; wearily, as if this is but the latest in a line of similar misdemeanours.
‘Life in service, eh, lad?’ says Mrs Lamb to the footman. ‘Does it match your boyhood dreams?’
‘Enough now,’ calls Mr Noakes from his stool, over the laughter. ‘Sluice room with that, Mr Jenkins.’
The passage to the still room is quieter, a rich, jammy smell thickening the air. They go inside; moulds and pans, recently used, are piled upon the dormant stove, and perhaps two dozen tallow candles burn in a range of improvised holders. A stout table has been brought in and stood in the centre of the room. Across its middle, in their hundreds, are jellied sweetmeats. This is their source. Dusted lightly with sugar, they are arranged in rainbow bands – ruby red sea shells, like the one Will sampled; stars of jade with trailing tails; azure fishes beside coral-pink piglets.
‘My contribution,’ says Mrs Lamb, ‘to this most magical of nights. A new batch, Mr Turner, made especially. Pass over the trays, would you?’
They are alone, the door standing ajar behind them. Will sets down the sack. ‘Them candles you gave me,’ he says.
‘Oh aye. How d’ye find them? Any better?’
Will unclasps the larger sketchbook and takes the Brookes print from under the front cover. The moment is not nearly as dramatic as he envisaged. Mrs Lamb looks at the page for a second only. It leaves her totally unconcerned. She starts to stack dirty bowls and utensils at the table’s edge, clearing a space by the sweetmeats.
‘Mr Turner,’ she says, ‘you must pay no mind to that. It’s speakers in the markets, sir, over at Leeds and elsewhere. The scoundrels will stuff their pamphlets into a basket without so much as a by-your-leave. I use them for scrap.’ She heaves a chopping board to the floor. ‘I’m sorry, truly, if that one upset you.’
‘It didn’t upset me, madam,’ Will lies hotly. ‘It simply … it …’ He stops, wrong-footed. ‘It was chance, then? An accident?’
The still-room maid tosses a long knife into a dish, the bone handle clattering around the rim. ‘Heavens, Mr Turner, so mistrustful! Tell me, what else could it be? Why might I have done such a thing on purpose?’
Will’s gaze strays to the bowed hull of the Brookes. ‘That I don’t know.’
‘There’s the blessed family for a start, and the minions they have hereabouts. If Noakes or Cope found a body with summat like that they’d see them whipped like they was caught poaching rabbits. Why didn’t you rid yourself of it?’
Staring now, Will is thinking of the slave ship upon the open sea, and how it would move; the dreadful compression of humanity below deck as it rolled upon a wave; the hundreds of gallons of freezing saltwater that would pour in through the hatches. ‘I don’t know that either.’
Mrs Lamb comes around the table to retrieve her sack. She slides out the silver trays and lays them in a row, upon the knotted wood. ‘There’s more,’ she says, almost casually, ‘if you want them, that is. In that drawer.’
Will is snapped back to the still room. ‘What d’you mean?’
She shrugs. ‘Just seems that you’re holding on to that one very tightly, Mr Turner. Perhaps it speaks to you. To your Christian conscience.’
Will returns the Brookes to his sketchbook, refastens the clasps and looks towards the door. Is this why she wanted him in there? Why she snagged him in the corridor? He has an instinctive wariness of causes. Painters of any ambition take care to remain independent. He knows a couple of politically minded artists back in London and it’s proving a pronounced obstacle to their rise. ‘I don’t, madam. I assure you.’
The still-room maid shrugs again and begins to transfer the sweetmeats from table to tray, plucking