Copyright

The Borough Press

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London SE1 9GF

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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

Copyright © Matthew Plampin 2015

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

Cover images © Lee Lauren Matt LML Productions/Archangel Images (male figure on left and foreground grass); Richard Jenkins photography (male figure on right); Michael Hatfield/Alamy (background building).

Matthew Plampin asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it, while at times based on historical figures, are the work of the author’s imagination.

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Source ISBN: 9780007560868

Ebook Edition © March 2015 ISBN: 9780007413935

Version: 2016-02-17

Dedication

For KP, who made me think of golden aeroplanes

‘The enquiry in England is not whether a man has talents and genius, but whether he is passive and polite and a virtuous ass, and obedient to noblemen’s opinions in art and science. If he is, he is a good man: if not, he must be starved.’

WILLIAM BLAKE

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Historical Note

Harewood, West Yorkshire: August 1797

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Monday

Covent Garden: November 1797

Charing Cross: April 1803

Author’s Note

About the Author

Also by Matthew Plampin

About the Publisher

Historical Note

In this period, watercolour paintings were commonly referred to as ‘drawings’, and watercolour brushes as ‘pencils’; this was partly to distinguish them from paintings in oil, which was considered the far superior medium. Artists who aspired to join the Royal Academy (the professional body that dominated British art until well into the nineteenth century) would often begin their careers exhibiting works in watercolour, proceeding to oil as their skills and reputations developed. When depicting landscape, the conventional approach was to make detailed open-air sketches in lead or graphite, before painting the actual watercolour in the studio. Simple colour studies were sometimes taken on the spot, but they tended to be crude, partial views, created for reference only. To depart from this method was highly unusual.

Harewood, West Yorkshire

Tuesday

First sight of the house prompts a hard exhalation. Will’s fingers play a scale on the stick balanced over his shoulder. Sunlight swells between the scattered clouds, growing immensely bright, charging the pristine parkland around him with colour. His new blue coat feels hot and heavy; he notices the dampness gathering in his armpits and the droplets of perspiration wobbling on his freshly shaved lip.

‘Come now,’ he says. ‘Onwards.’

The driveway curves past a bank of elms and more of the vast mansion inches into view. Will smells bark and the resin oozing beneath; the leathery lushness of leaves; the faint, sour tang of livestock. He tries to calm himself by inwardly mapping out a composition and blending pigments to match the golden hue of the stone. The result of this exercise, unexpectedly, is disappointment. For all its size and grandeur, Harewood House is a simple structure, little more than an even line of boxes. There would be no challenge here.

Three large carts stand before the service entrance at the building’s eastern end. Servants are streaming in and out, unloading boxes, bags and packages. Mr Lascelles’ letter instructed Will to delay his arrival until a week into August, and here is the reason: that eminently fashionable gentleman has only just returned from London, despite the season having concluded some weeks previously. Will doesn’t try to imagine why this might be. Already, from his limited experience of their patronage, he’s learned not to second-guess the whims of the rich. A few glances are thrown his way – at his new clothes, his stick and bundle, the two leather-bound books clamped under his right arm – but no one asks his business. Their chief isn’t difficult to identify. A looming, fleshy fellow, clad in impeccable butler’s black, he watches from the sidelines, issuing orders and rebukes while doing none of the real work. Will steels himself and approaches. The man eyes him impatiently as he begins the introduction he rehearsed in the stage.

‘I have here a letter from Mr Lascelles, dated fifth of July, requesting that I attend him at—’

The butler, or whatever he is, breaks away to harass a pair of footmen bearing flat crates stamped with the mark of a London auction house – telling them to be extremely careful, that their positions are at stake and so on. Will follows, talking still, a strong, sudden indignation banishing any vestige of nervousness; and he crosses the threshold of the mighty house without even noticing.

They weave down a corridor littered with luggage. Will is determined to have this man hear him out, but cannot prise his attention from those accursed crates. In an effort to push himself forwards, he stumbles against a trunk and knocks the umbrella from the end of his stick. This umbrella is a quality item, not cheap, purchased on Oxford Street especially for the northern tour, and has proved its worth many times. Will wheels about, searching for it – and the butler is gone, around a corner, through a door.

The umbrella is trapped between a stack of shoe boxes and a wickerwork hamper. Will stands over it protectively. A retrieval would involve putting down his books or his bundle, and he’s unwilling to do either; it seems all too likely that something could be mixed up in the clutter and accidentally carried off. After the still, luminous heat of the driveway, this basement has an unsettling effect. The air reeks of tallow and boot polish, and it is quite dark; the only light is admitted through the service entrance and a narrow court somewhere up ahead, broken blue-white reflections gleaming across the floor tiles. Every variety of servant hurries by, focused on specific, pressing duties, disappearing down passages and into rooms. It is like a bustling underground village, or the lower deck of a huge merchant ship.

Will is attempting to lift the umbrella free with his shoe – to work the toe into the curved cane handle – when a hand comes to rest in the crook of his elbow. He starts, turning again; the person beside him ducks to avoid being clobbered by his bundle. It is a woman, two or three inches taller than he is. She is wearing a maid’s mob-cap over a mass of black hair and carries a shallow basket piled with plants. The eastern doorway is at her back, the daylight beyond making it hard to see much of her face. Will apologises, indicating his conundrum. In one movement, she crouches, plucks up the umbrella and hangs it where her hand was two seconds before.

‘Much obliged,’ he mutters.

The maid is studying his person, the bundle, the leather-bound books. ‘You’re the draughtsman,’ she says, ‘up from London. I’ve heard them talking about you.’

Her voice has a ripe, rough edge to it, the Yorkshire inflections mingled with something Will can’t place. She’s older than he’d first thought, though how old precisely he wouldn’t like to say. Her hips are broad and arranged at a slight angle; her bosom (he can’t help noticing) is remarkably ample; her forearms, exposed by rolled-up sleeves, are sun-tanned and etched with muscle. There is no deference in her manner, such as a personal guest of Lord Harewood’s son might expect as his due – just a powerful, amiable curiosity.

‘In’t you a mite early, sir? Weren’t you supposed to be joining us at the end of the week?’

Will shakes his head. He won’t have this. ‘A letter was waiting for me in York. At the Black Horse. The dates were clear.’

The maid moves by him, further into the house, and now Will can discern the roundness of chin; her ink-black eyes with their long lashes; her wide lips and the lines at their sides. A heath gypsy, he thinks. Will has been travelling in the north for six weeks now. He’s caught the occasional glimpse of these people, camped out on the moors or at the fringes of the smaller towns. They’re commonly held to be inveterate criminals, or mystics with unnatural pagan allegiances. That one has managed to find herself a position beneath Harewood’s exalted roof seems unusual, to say the least.

‘Well then, I must be mistaken. Heavens, sir, that’d be no great novelty! Come, this way – we’ll pay a visit to Mr Noakes, our steward. He’ll straighten this out.’ She smiles, her teeth white in the murk. ‘Would you have me carry them books of yours?’

Will firms his grip, his fingertips sinking very slightly into the leather. ‘I am well.’

The gypsy maid leads him through the basement, cruising three steps ahead. Others, younger girls, hop smartly from her path; this is no drudge from the scullery. A sweet, hedgerow fragrance trails from the basket on her arm. Will looks at it more closely. Amidst the leaves and stems are clusters of tiny pale flowers and a twisted seam of purple berries.

They cross a bare, vaulted area; beyond it, along another passage, a latticed interior window provides a view of a large, formidably neat office. Two men are within, standing on either side of a desk. One, bearded and dressed for the outdoors, is plainly a gardener; the other, Will senses, is the fellow in overall charge down here, senior even to the butler figure he chased inside. Barely half the bulk of the gardener before him, he is entirely bald, the unified expanse of his scalp and forehead seeming to compress the face beneath, to squash it under the line of his brow. He is listening to his subordinate report some difficulty or other; his thin arms are crossed and his expression ill-tempered.

Will’s guide enters the office without knocking. ‘The draughtsman’s here, Mr Noakes,’ she announces, ‘the one from London. Found him out in the east corridor, I did, quite adrift.’

The gnome-like Mr Noakes glances over at Will. He is unimpressed. ‘You’re early,’ he says. ‘What’s your name?’

‘William Turner.’ Will’s limbs are tense; his blood is humming. It’s always like this with servants. They’ll do whatever they can to pin an error on an innocent outsider. Keeping steady, he sets down his bundle, unclasps the smaller sketchbook and slides the letter from inside the front cover. The Harewood crest is at the top, and Beau Lascelles’ swooping signature at the base. He walks forward to hand it over. ‘Mr Lascelles asked me to come here in the second week of August.’ He pauses. ‘The mistake ain’t mine.’

This alters the situation somewhat. A footman is summoned and dispatched upstairs to obtain clarification from the family. Mr Noakes returns the letter, rather more politely than he received it. Will calms; things will now be put on their proper course. He’ll be taken to his patron and they’ll set out their business together. The house itself may not inspire, but inspiration, in truth, is a luxury for a young artist. Harewood remains a great chance.

The office begins to feel close. A stripe of sunlight falls in through a high window, tinted with the first fiery note of dusk; running diagonally between Mr Noakes and the gardener, it ends at Will’s stockings, blazing on the white wool, making it prickle against his skin. He looks about him. A snowy tie-wig rests on a stand; a bookcase groans with ledgers; a framed engraving of the King, taken indifferently from Zoffany’s portrait, hangs upon the wall.

The gypsy maid, Mrs Lamb, is lingering close by, the scent of those pale flowers seeping through the room. ‘You must excuse us, Mr Turner,’ she says. ‘The family came back only yesterday, along with Mr Noakes here – and as you saw, most of their luggage arrived just an hour or so ago. We’re all a-shambles at present! Why, it is—’

‘Mrs Lamb, do you not have duties to see to?’ interrupts Mr Noakes. ‘If you’re lacking for work, I’m sure Monsieur Blossier would welcome your assistance in the kitchens.’

She meets his irritability with a smile, which she then directs towards the gardener. ‘As it happens, Mr Noakes, I do require a word with our Stephen.’

Several detailed questions follow, concerning Harewood’s crop of peaches. The gardener, obviously uncomfortable, keeps his replies brief. It’s plain enough that Mrs Lamb already knows the answers – her aim is to rile her superior. Will stares down fixedly at his bundle; he considers lifting it to his shoulder again, so that he’s ready to go upstairs the moment the footman reappears.

Before he can act, someone strides along the corridor outside and enters the office. Mrs Lamb looks across at the newcomer and promptly falls quiet. It is not the man who was sent up. At first, Will assumes he must be a member of the family, or a guest perhaps, so fine are his clothes. The coat, though, is a sober black, the stock a modest grey, and no jewels or gold adorn his person; the impression, taken with his short sandy hair, is more that of a professional gentleman, an engineer or architect. He is imposingly tall, dipping his head slightly as he comes through the door. His tapering face, with its straight nose and sharp chin, makes Will think of greyhounds.

Mr Noakes had been preparing to launch another rebuke at Mrs Lamb, but seeing this man he pulls himself up and makes a small, stiff bow. ‘Mr Cope,’ he says, ‘good day to you, sir. I trust all is well with Mr Lascelles. Did his first night at Harewood pass pleasantly?’

Mr Cope does not respond. He looks at each of the three servants in turn. Mr Noakes smiles thinly; the gardener quite literally backs away; Mrs Lamb meets his gaze but remains disinclined to speak.

Then Mr Cope turns to Will. His eyes are a flat hazel and rather narrow-set; their scrutiny feels inescapable. Several seconds pass. Will is clutching his sketchbooks more tightly than ever, with not a single idea what to expect; and this Mr Cope is bowing, bowing lower than anyone has bowed to him before.

‘Welcome to Harewood, Mr Turner.’ The man’s voice is even, expressionless, without accent. ‘Mr Lascelles extends his fondest greetings and most sincere regards, and hopes that your journey from York was not too onerous.’

Will nods; he mumbles something.

‘I am Mr Cope, his valet. He offers his apologies for the unfortunate circumstances of your arrival, and asks that you accompany me.’ Mr Cope’s attention returns to the servants. ‘Understand that Mr Turner is the guest of our master. We must grant him every courtesy from now on.’

Will is consumed by a violent blush. For an instant he is intensely grateful towards Mr Cope, but then he corrects himself. This is how it’s supposed to be. This is how a visiting artist should be received. He looks down at his bundle – and Mr Cope is scooping it up, umbrella and all, and making for the door. They leave the office, valet then artist, watched by the others. Mrs Lamb sighs, chuckles almost, as if tickled by a private joke.

Another sequence of corridors follows. The pace, this time, is swifter; Will feels like a child, a Covent Garden guttersnipe, scurrying behind some upright officer of the parish. He is confused, momentarily, when they pass a staircase – but decides that they must be going outside rather than upstairs. It makes sense. Mr Lascelles must be in the park, intending that they discuss potential prospects of the house in the last of the day’s light. Beau Lascelles is known to be a man of advanced tastes; perhaps it is the effects of dusk that he’ll desire in these drawings. Will’s enthusiasm for the commission begins to return.

They halt before a door on one of the longer passages. Mr Cope reaches into the pocket of his mustard-coloured waistcoat for a key. The door is unlocked and opened; beyond is a dingy bedchamber, barely more than a closet. Only when a key is held out to Will does he realise that this room is to be his.

‘Ain’t we—’ Will stops. His dismay, the abrupt dashing of his expectations, is disorientating. ‘Are we not going to Mr Lascelles? Weren’t that your purpose in fetching me?’

Mr Cope remains impassive. ‘No, Mr Turner. My instructions were to escort you to your quarters, and to inform you that dinner will be called at half-past six. Someone will come to show you upstairs.’ He leans into the room and sets down the bundle. ‘I take it, sir, that you have evening clothes?’

‘I have,’ Will answers. He’s angry now. Course I have, he nearly snaps. I know very well where I am! He scours the valet’s face for a sign of judgement or disdain. There is nothing. Years of going with Father on his rounds has acquainted Will with more or less every variety of servant. This one is from the top flight, the dearest there is, available only to men of the highest rank or the most capacious coffers. These uncanny creatures are capable of screening their characters entirely; of becoming vessels, embodiments of their master’s will. There is no more chance of a normal human response from Mr Cope than from a guardsman on parade.

Will steps through the doorway, thinking that perhaps the chamber will seem larger once he’s inside. It’s like a casket. The bed seems to have been made for a child. Will is short enough, God knows, but he wonders if he’ll even be able to lie down on it at his full extent. The single window, furthermore, is high and dull – north-facing, he reckons, and devoid of direct sunlight, lacking even the slanting beam enjoyed by Mr Noakes. Will glares at the wall, at the chalky, unpainted plaster, and is gripped by the urge to object. Surely, as a practising painter he is at least entitled to some decent light?

But something about Mr Cope prohibits complaint. Will stands, glowering silently, while the valet issues a stream of perfectly enunciated information: a plain prelude to his withdrawal.

‘Water can be obtained from the pump in the sluice room, and candles from the still room. Laundry will be collected each morning and returned the following day. Any queries should be directed towards Mr Noakes. He will be more helpful when next you speak.’

There is a second bow, less fulsome than the first, and Will is left alone in his casket chamber. Besides the bed, which nearly fills the floor, it contains just a washstand and a small wooden chair. For a minute he doesn’t move, trying hard to weigh every element and not be hasty or extreme. He’s defeated, though; he can’t understand it. Having overlooked his arrival, his host sends down a valet, a personal servant, to soothe him with flattery – only then to consign him to what must be the most wretched accommodation in the entire house. It isn’t proper lordly behaviour. It isn’t even polite.

Leave, says a voice, right away. No other painter would stand for such treatment.

The notion comes as a relief, and seems wholly excellent and right. What, honestly, is to stop him? He doesn’t need this man. There’s material enough in these two sketchbooks to fuel a decade’s worth of painting. Of this he is certain. His northern tour, with its crags and blue hills and endless, rain-swept valleys, has been no less than a revelation – the opening up of a new and brilliant territory. He’s on the cusp of something. He’s convinced of it. Beau Lascelles can go hang.

But no. He can’t do this. He mustn’t. Father’s warning, given just as he was setting out from Maiden Lane to catch that first coach, sounds unbidden in his ears. Standing at the parlour hearth, the old man recited every expulsion and exclusion Will Turner had earned over the course of his life – the opportunities missed, the would-be allies lost, through shows of temper.

You fight off your friends, boy, he said. You defy the very men who seek to help you.

Will sits down on the bed. It is hard as a bench. He sets the sketchbooks on the meagre pillow and forces himself to consider his broader circumstances. He must operate, as all of his profession must, in the art world of London: a not over-large stage upon which Beau Lascelles, with his many friends and mountains of ready gold, is assigned a significant part. The man is simply too influential to risk offending. Will scratches at his calf through his stocking. He has to be reasonable. This room isn’t so very bad. And it is a bolt-hole only. Above are the saloons of Harewood – as splendorous as man’s wealth could summon, it is claimed – and outside is Nature, basking in the full-blown glory of summer. He’ll hardly have need of it at all.

Will unwinds the white stock from around his neck. The muslin is damp, the starched collar beneath soaked with perspiration. He lays it on the bed beside him and reaches for the bundle.

He has to see this through.

*

The dark mahogany door, gigantic and glossy, swings back on silent hinges. Will slips through, crossing from carpet to stone, and discovers that he is at the rear of the entrance hall. It is laid out like a mock temple, dedicated to the transcendent wealth of the Lascelles; around him are classical reliefs and statues, a table of dove marble upon a Grecian frame and a dozen fluted columns, all steeped in an atmosphere of cool, gloomy magnificence. And overhead, dear God, overhead is a moulded ceiling of such Attic intricacy – such divisions and subdivisions, such a profusion of loops and laurels and minute, interlocking patterns – that it makes the eyeballs ache to study it. The effect is oppressive. Will looks elsewhere.

The door closes; the surly chambermaid who led him upstairs hasn’t followed him through it. He’s to find his own way from here. Six quick steps take him to a shallow niche, occupied by a bronze Minerva. The moment is approaching, advancing on him, impossible to avoid. Trembling slightly, he makes an adjustment to his plum waistcoat and catches a whiff of fresh sweat beneath his jacket. This is vexing – it’s been barely a half-hour since he performed his ablutions. He’s consoled, however, by his fine Vandyck-brown suit, the best York’s tailors could provide, which remained largely uncreased during its time in the bundle; his hair, plaited and powdered as well as Father could have done it; and his new evening shoes, little more than black leather slippers, which glisten wetly against the hall’s hexagonal flagging like the eyes of oxen.

There is laughter close by, a blast of male laughter, free and full of casual authority. Will’s head snaps up. A liveried footman is standing beside an urn on the far side of the hall. As if activated by his notice, this servant goes to a door, and holds it open. The sounds of merriment increase. Will scowls; this footman has been observing him, has recognised his reticence and is giving him a shove. He tugs again at the waistcoat and gathers his breath. What can he do now but go in?

Do not take fright, he tells himself, striding towards the very faintly smirking footman. Do not. You were invited here. This man wishes to see you – to give you patronage. You have to grow used to this, to the toadying, to the bowing and chattering and incessant smiling. It is part of painting. You have to master it.

Will enters a library. Tall white pilasters flank shelves loaded with gilded volumes; above is another of those staggering ceilings. At the other end of the room – and it is at least thirty feet in length – four gentlemen are roaming around a billiard table, engaged in a boisterous argument over some point of play. Cues are waved in the air and brandished like rapiers; insults are exchanged with jocular relish.

‘I call a two-ball carom – a two-ball carom – and no soul on God’s earth but this bounder here could possibly deny it were so!’

‘It ran wide, I tell you! That shot, you damnable villain, that shot struck my cue ball only!’

Three ladies are half-watching this overblown dispute from a suite of delicate furniture, away in the early evening shadows at the back of the library. Another is off on an armchair, closer to Will, apart from the company – on purpose, it seems. All are dressed at the height of aristocratic fashion: pastels and greys, silks and satins, festooned with frills and a glittering variety of ornaments. The ladies also hold their fans, and both sexes have been dusted liberally with hair powder.

Will Turner, born and raised on Maiden Lane, has landed among the bon ton. He experiences a new spasm of self-consciousness, a crumpling, contorting sensation in his stomach that quite paralyses him. Brown and plum! he thinks. You look like a parson, for God’s sake, next to these people – a plain little dumpling, simple and poor, brought in for general ridicule. He is relieved, though, that he opted to leave his sketchbooks downstairs. That was the correct decision. It would have cast him as a tradesman, coming to call with his samples – of no more significance than a fellow touting wallpaper or curtains.

Edward Lascelles the younger, known to his intimates as Beau, is one of the four gentlemen at the billiard table. Clad in a coat of mulberry velvet, his fleshy face is warmed by exertion and hilarity. He is trying to speak, to make a riposte; but then a new joke is broached and the laughter resumes. Will wonders what exactly he is to do. No one seems to have noticed his arrival. He glances back through the doorway, at the motionless footman out in the hall. Weren’t the servants supposed to announce you? Wasn’t that the usual form?

A figure slides from beside one of the windows and approaches the billiard table. It is Mr Cope, the valet from earlier; he touches Beau’s shoulder, just once, and has his master’s immediate attention. A few words are murmured. Beau looks over with evident satisfaction, then passes Cope his cue and starts towards this latest guest.

Will orders his thoughts. He is to talk with his patron at last. Terms can be laid down, a contract agreed. This visit can be given its proper purpose. He makes the bow he has practised: tidy and brief, one foot drawn back, an arm held momentarily across his waist.

Close sight does not inspire confidence. The heir to Harewood has a decent frame – Will’s eyes are level only with his Adam’s apple – but he’s rather plumper than Will remembers, a globular belly nestled comfortably within his well-tailored breeches. His hair, powdered to the uniform smoky tone, has been crafted into a dense cap of curls, each one carefully teased out and arranged to create an impression of graceful, manly nonchalance. Beneath are full cheeks, coloured with just a fleck of carmine, Will reckons – he knows from Father’s shop that plenty of gentlemen still use it – a protuberant chin and small, hooded eyes. His expression, his bearing, every single aspect of his person, is shot through with a sense of easy dominion, over Will and the rest of humankind: a dominion brought about and upheld by the all-conquering power of cash.

Will feels a pang of disgust. He wishes himself in his painting room, amidst its smells of damp, coal-smoke and mice, cork pellets pressed in his ears and a drawing taken from one of his Buttermere sketches clamped to the stand before him. He stares, unblinking, fighting the sensation down. It passes.

‘My dear Mr Turner,’ Beau begins, ‘how you must loathe me!’

Will’s eyebrow twitches; he opens his mouth to speak. ‘I—’

‘Such short notice, such a steep imposition, such an interruption to your plans! Yes, you must positively loathe me – but I remain, for my part, unapologetic, so very glad does it make me that you were able to join us.’

Will inclines his head. ‘A—’

‘Determining your itinerary was straightforward enough, out among the landscapists of London, along with the address of your tavern in York. I confess, though, that I was not hopeful. I had convinced myself that you would cast my letter on the fire and forget it at once.’ Beau takes Will’s left shoulder, enclosing the joint with his hand. ‘But here you are. Here you are, by Jove!’

The hand squeezes; Will wants very much to shrug it off. Beau’s last remark strikes him as profoundly disingenuous. The Lascelles fortune is such that any young artist would give a finger to win their benefaction. He stays quiet.

Beau looks to Mr Cope, who is back by his window. ‘I trust that your accommodation is adequate? I’m afraid that we are rather full at present. This house, Heaven protect her, is not so spacious as might sometimes be desired.’

Will considers this. Harewood can surely hold more than are gathered in the library. Others must be upstairs. He shifts, his new shoes squeaking, and clears his throat. ‘Perfectly,’ he replies. ‘My needs are few, sir, in truth.’

There is an unfriendly cackle from the billiard table; off in the shadows, fans flutter open to hide smiles. The cause is obvious. Will sees that he should have given more time to smoothing out his accent and rather less to buffing his buttons.

‘So, Lascelles,’ says one of the gentlemen – another well-fed specimen in a coat cut just like Beau’s but the colour of lemon curd, ‘this must be your cockney project.’

An odd word to select. Will senses an objection building inside him; again, he quells it, keeping his face as blank as he can manage. Project may imply a refashioning, as if he is somehow inadequate in his current form – but it also clearly indicates an intention to invest. Be patient, he instructs himself. Wait for the terms.

Beau is grinning, doubling the number of chins that quiver upon his collar. ‘If you were any less of a philistine, Purkiss,’ he declares, ‘you’d be aware that Mr Turner here, despite being scarcely out of boyhood, had two fine oils shown at the Academy Exhibition, and as many drawings in watercolour. He is a veritable phenomenon.’

‘Four,’ Will corrects – taking care to say forr rather than fowah, as he might in other circumstances. ‘Beg pardon, sir, but it was four drawings.’

Beau pauses for a moment, deciding how much license he will allow. ‘Of course,’ he concedes. He releases Will’s shoulder. ‘Views of Ely Cathedral, if I recall correctly, and quite divine.’

‘Salisbury,’ murmurs Will, but he is not heard; Beau has turned about and is strolling to the billiard table.

‘I found Mr Turner, would you believe, in the house of a mad-doctor – one Thomas Monro, an illustrious fellow indeed within his field. He was prominent among the party of physicians assembled to minister to our King, God save him, during His Majesty’s most recent deterioration.’

Beau’s manner had grown confidential while revealing this sensitive yet impressive detail; once it is out, though, and Monro’s cachet established beyond question, he moves briskly onwards. Discussing the royal travails is not thought patriotic.

‘The good doctor is a collector, and a devoted friend to the arts. He has a villa on Adelphi Terrace, from where he conducts a copying society – an academy, you might call it. On certain evenings, I have seen upwards of a half-dozen young draughtsmen at work in his rooms, setting down their own versions of drawings and prints from Monro’s albums. It is a fascinating undertaking for anyone interested in the visual arts in England, and several noble connoisseurs number among the doctor’s regular visitors. Viscount Malden introduced me there, in fact.’ Beau’s voice becomes mocking. ‘You know Malden, don’t you, Purkiss?’

The gentleman in the lemon-curd coat levels his cue, returning pointedly to the billiards game. His complexion, beneath whatever cosmetics have been applied to it, is pock-marked; the bulb at the end of his nose is cleaved like the cheeks of a tiny bottom. ‘No need to revive that old tale, Lascelles,’ he says, ‘in front of the ladies and all.’

This embarrassment is false. Mr Purkiss is perversely proud of whatever Beau is about to reveal. A lively back-and-forth ensues, drawing guffaws from the other two gentlemen and disapproving sighs from the ladies. Will learns that on one infamous occasion, while staying at Viscount Malden’s country seat at Cassiobury Park, Mr Purkiss embarked on a brandy-fuelled rampage across the formal gardens, under the impression that the peacocks purchased to strut thereabouts were intended to serve as game. The conclusion was predictable: iridescent feathers strewn over the lawn, the Viscount’s young children wailing at windows and a dead bird crushed in a flowerbed, buried beneath their father’s insensible guest.

Will, still standing, is forgotten completely. Mr Cope snags his eye and gestures discreetly to a chair. It is a fancy thing, all scrolls and flourishes, painted a soapy green with cushions of pink satin. Will sits as naturally as he can, flapping up the tails of his jacket. He is close to the lone lady, the one who appears to have deliberately isolated herself from the party. A sidelong glance reveals that she is younger than the rest of them – who range, by Will’s estimate, between thirty and forty years of age – being no more than twenty-five. She slouches in her chair with none of the poise affected by the other women. Her legs are crossed inside her loose fawn gown, a silken slipper dangling from her toe. There is a clear familial resemblance to Beau, the eyes heavy-lidded, the nose straight, with the same generosity of figure; it fits her better, though, Will decides – lending her a sleek, almost classical quality, akin to the larger women of Tiziano, or Peter-Paul Rubens – and she is hugely, aggressively bored. No notice whatever is granted to the artist seated beside her. Will summons his knowledge of the Lascelles family, gleaned from the portrait commissions they have made. This is surely Mary Ann, Lord Harewood’s younger daughter.

It won’t do to sit there mutely. Will knows that he has to talk; to ingratiate and flatter. He draws breath, makes an introduction and asks Miss Lascelles if her father is at home. She says that he is not, and nothing more – neatly snipping this first, somewhat feeble line of discourse and dropping them back into silence.

Will girds himself to try again. The library is growing quite dark now, but he opts nonetheless to undertake an assessment of the paintings displayed above the bookshelves and in other suitable places. These are Grecian in character, simple decorative pieces done without use of local colour or atmospheric effect; hack work, basically, and too late he realises that he must admire them, yet cannot hope to sound remotely sincere whilst doing so. He is growing tongue-tied when Miss Lascelles interrupts him.

‘You are well used to praise, aren’t you, Mr Turner? You rather expect it, I think.’

Her voice, in contrast with her careless pose, has a tart refinement, suggestive of governesses and tutors, private balls and carriages, the best of everything. Will begs her pardon.

‘Just then, when you were talking to my brother – he called you a phenomenon, for goodness sake, and you gave next to no reaction. You are accustomed to people falling at your feet. Lauding you to the heavens.’ She looks away. ‘I would worry, if I were you, that it had made me proud.’

A bristling heat blooms across Will’s face and closes around his throat; he turns a little in his chair. There are no thoughts or words within him, only a sense of having reached a boundary beyond which he cannot proceed. He feels the usual impulse to retreat, to plan and prepare, to seek the advice of more experienced men. This can’t be done, of course. He needs to meet this bizarre slur with modest good humour, a deferential quip; but the precise remark required, the sentiment he has to frame, eludes him utterly.

Someone enters the library and begins to speak over the billiard-table prattle in the assertive yet respectful tone of a senior servant. It is Mr Noakes, resplendent in livery of emerald green and gold, the tie-wig from his basement office perched atop his head, come to announce that dinner is served. The ladies rise, the gentlemen lay down their cues and an informal procession saunters off into the palatial hallway. Will lifts himself from the soap-green chair, his shirt peeling clammily from his back. He glances out at the blue shadows of the park with vague longing; then he mops his brow on his sleeve and falls in behind.

*

The dining table is oblong, with a chair at one end and four down each side. Beau claims the head with a swagger and beckons for Mr Purkiss to sit at his right hand. The others slot in around them, in seconds it seems, leaving but one place vacant. It is as far from Beau as the arrangement will allow.

Mary Ann is opposite. Her appeal, Will finds, has quite vanished; slovenly is the word that comes to mind now. The blankness that beset him in the library has also gone. He itches to tell her that he has never, never once in his life, received undeserved praise, and name some of the notable connoisseurs and newspaper critics who have singled out William Turner for special attention. But, thinking of Father, he holds his peace. It would become an eruption, for certain; and an eruption at Harewood, directed at a member of the baron’s family, would do him no favours at all.

The candles have been lit, perhaps three dozen of them – grouped along the table, set before massive, gilt-framed mirrors, positioned upon every available surface. This creates an extraordinary level of illumination, and makes the dining room disagreeably warm and airless despite its cavernous size. Beau orders the windows opened, admitting a barely perceptible breeze; and, soon afterwards, a horde of biting insects. During the entrée a papery moth hurtles in, butts against a candle and bursts into flames, prompting shrieks and exclamations as its smoking, flapping body spirals to the tablecloth. At once, a servant is on hand to dispose of it.

Will eats mechanically, scarcely registering the series of fussy, Frenchified dishes that are placed before him. Burying his puzzlement, he thinks only of the conversation he might make. Nothing comes, though: no topics, no opportunities. The company moves seamlessly from one society scandal to the next, an animated parade of disclosures, dropped names and allusions, interspersed with peals of nasty laughter. He forces a grin at a couple of Beau’s jokes, and even at one of Mr Purkiss’s – feeling a pinch of self-loathing as he does so.

Across the table, Mary Ann sets about her dinner with gusto, but otherwise manages to sustain her air of disconnection and ennui. This is not permitted for long. Her brother and his comrade begin to goad her, prodding and jibing, trying to draw her out by recounting details of nocturnal antics back in London.

‘Four o’clock in morning, was it, before the fair Miss Lascelles deigned to return to Hanover Square? And was she really quite alone?’

‘Indeed she was, dear Purkiss – and what’s more, her gown appeared to have lost a number of, ah, crucial components over the course of the evening’s revelry. Why, it was hardly sufficient to cover her person. Some slight recompense for the coachman, I suppose!’

Mary Ann merely rolls her shoulders like a sulky cat, much to her tormentors’ amusement. Then a lady’s voice bids Beau to leave her be – and reminds Mr Purkiss, none too fondly, that he is a guest at Harewood. The speaker, who has contributed little up to this point, is sitting further down the table on Will’s side. He tilts back in his chair for a surreptitious survey. Although leaner and a shade more severe, she too is plainly a Lascelles. Will gathers from the gentlemen’s apologies that this is Frances, the baron’s eldest child. Mary Ann is annoyed by her sister’s intervention; she lays a fork down noisily on her empty plate.

Will watches a spindly insect drift over the central candelabrum, lifting an inch or two in the flames’ heat, and fits together a theory. The younger daughter is in disgrace. There has been a liaison during the spring, a grave blunder on her part, and it has ended badly both for her and her family. She is at Harewood as a punishment, under Frances and Beau’s wardship, exiled so that memories of her misadventure can fade. This would account for her demeanour – and for her harsh treatment of wholly innocent house guests. Why her brother would refer to this matter before him, however, and these others to boot, and so lightly, is past Will’s comprehension; unless, like so many of his type, Beau Lascelles has simply never learned to think better of a bit of drollery.

Firmly, Frances moves them on – asking another of the gentlemen, a slim, bland-looking fellow who Will perceives is her husband, to tell the table of an encounter he’d had the previous week with the Prince of Wales. The gentleman, addressed by all as Douglas, is glad to co-operate. It was at Almack’s, he reveals – where, during a conversational hand of piquet, he informed the prince of his connection with Harewood and its family.

‘His Majesty gave a laugh, looked to his friends and declared, in that winning way of his, that the last time he’d heard the name Lascelles it was being mistakenly applied to him.’

The similarity said to exist between Beau and the prince is quite famous. Will has observed George on two occasions, waddling around the Academy Exhibition; their likeness, in his view, is one only of overfed complacency. Beau, though, grown loud with wine, cannot conceal his pleasure. The prince remembers his name, who he is! To enjoy such an association with royalty, to edge past obeisance towards proper familiarity, is the fervid dream of every aristocrat – especially those lodged on the lower rungs of the noble ladder, as the Lascelles undoubtedly are.

The company – Mary Ann excepted – attempts to be impressed by Douglas’s tale. An awkwardness persists, however; and before ten more minutes have passed, Frances gathers in her silken shawl and rises from her chair, giving the ladies their cue to depart. Her sister is away immediately, rushing around the table in a wide circle and off through a door at the back of the room. The two other women follow at a more leisurely pace, arms linked, sharing a whispered joke that Will suspects is at Mary Ann’s expense. Frances is equally unhurried, but she sweeps rather than strolls – stopping by a sideboard to murmur an order to the ever-present Mr Cope. He bends down to offer his ear, then nods once in obedient understanding.

The door closes behind her, to a collective release of breath. Costly jackets are removed, wrapped into balls and hurled aside; waistcoats are unbuttoned; sweat-sodden shirt-tails are wrenched free from breeches. Servants bring in crystal brandy decanters, large tumblers and trays of sweetmeats, folding back the tablecloth to set them upon the polished wood beneath. Intrigued, Will leans forward to scrutinise the jewel-bright confections – selecting one that is a rich raspberry red and moulded in the shape of a conical sea shell. He gives the point a cautious nibble; the soft, jellied flesh dissolves instantly, flooding his mouth with a taste of summer fruit so succulent and intense that he nearly blurts out an oath.

Beau wishes to clear the air. ‘Gentlemen,’ he says, ‘please tell me that you are far too wise to pay any mind to that saucy talk concerning my younger sister.’ He props a foot on the empty chair to his left. ‘None of what we said was of any consequence. God knows, Mary Ann has had a miserable time of it lately. I’m sure you’ll have heard the rumours – the scurrilous stories that swirl about London. It was not gallant of us to wave it before her up here as well.’

The others indicate that they understand Beau and Mr Purkiss spoke only in jest – Douglas adding that his wife was damnably prone to over-reaction where her sister was concerned. Will, for all his theorising, has heard none of these rumours about Mary Ann. Keen to learn more, he wonders how best to assure his host of his discretion.

Mr Purkiss is watching him, his pocked face heavy with contempt. ‘An appropriate moment for you to withdraw, Mr Turnbull, wouldn’t you say?’

Will looks to Beau. He is swilling brandy around in a tumbler; he makes no objection, not even to the error regarding Will’s name. A silence settles upon the dining room. These fine gentlemen will say nothing else while the painter is present. He is being dismissed.

There is a second or two’s numbness while Will fully apprehends what is happening – and then a jolt of furious, dizzying energy. Lips pursed hard, he clambers from his chair like a man dismounting a difficult horse. The plum waistcoat has gone awry and one of his stockings is coming loose from his breeches. He doesn’t attempt to adjust them. Drawing himself up, he announces that he will retire for the evening – adding, a little more pointedly than is politic, that he has much work to do. A cursory bow and he is off across the carpet, accelerating shoe-squeaks marking his progress to the door.

The music room beyond is far darker, lit by only a triple-stemmed candelabrum placed atop a pianoforte. Will slows, feeling a gummy sensation in his right palm: the remainder of the shell-shaped sweetmeat, carried with him from the table, is starting to liquefy against his skin. All appetite gone, he looks about distractedly for somewhere to dispose of it.

His mind teems with unpleasant questions. Was he asked here specifically to be mistreated? It’s beginning to feel deliberate. Has he perhaps offended Beau in some way, or connected himself inadvertently to an enemy of the Lascelles? Is this all, in short, a trick? Have they dragged him out to Harewood in order to avenge a slight received during the season, in a London drawing room or pleasure garden? Will has grown up listening to the ton talk in Father’s shop, gossiping unguardedly while they were shaved. He knows very well how they delight in their cruel games and obscure vendettas – in wreaking precisely this kind of humiliation. The only rational course for him is to leave, at first light if not that same evening. He makes for the hall door.

‘Mr Turner.’ It is Mr Cope, back at the entrance to the dining room. ‘One moment, if you please.’

Beau saunters through. He glances at his valet with mild resentment, like a man forcibly parted from his brandy and the company of his friends; but, nearing Will, he plasters on a rueful smile.

‘My apologies for Purkiss, Mr Turner. The fellow is brusque as a baboon, really he is. And I am sorry, also, if I have appeared inattentive – not the case, I assure you. It has been a trying day for everyone at Harewood. Relocation, on the scale that we must perform it, is so very taxing. The clothes alone, great Jupiter …’ He sighs, weaving drunkenly into a window alcove. ‘I have been busy these past months, furthermore, in the auction rooms – specimens of finest porcelain, you understand, cast in the workshops of poor King Louis and several of his departed courtiers. Nothing that would be of interest to you, I daresay, but it must all be unpacked under close supervision. The servants simply cannot be relied upon to—’

Will has had enough. ‘I want my terms, Mr Lascelles. Your letter let me believe that it was drawings you were after, drawings of your house. So I want my terms, sir. What views you’d have me do, and the money involved.’

Beau is blinking, amazed, as if he is entirely unused to being addressed in such a direct fashion. It is an act, deliberately unconvincing. ‘Well, of course, Mr Turner. I suppose we have not … I mean to say, I am aware that we—’

Mr Cope intervenes. ‘Mr Lascelles desires four views of the house, two close and two distant – you may select the orientation – and two other subjects of your choice, taken from the estate. For these six drawings, delivered in a complete condition to Lord Harewood’s residence on Hanover Square, he will pay you sixty guineas.’

Will pauses, then nods; it’s a solid contract, half the winter’s work right there, not to mention the valuable additions he might make to his sketchbooks in the valley and woods around the house. But things still don’t seem right. He’s being dispensed with. This is not the manner in which commissions should be made – laid out by a businesslike valet whilst his lord sways in the background.

Now, though, Beau is walking towards him with disconcerting purpose. ‘There are your terms, my solemn young sir,’ he proclaims. ‘I trust that they are to your satisfaction.’

He seizes Will’s hand, as if to seal their agreement with a shake – but instead turns it in both of his, examining it closely. Will stiffens, acutely aware of the sweetmeat still stuck to his palm. Beau makes no comment, brushing the ruby-red stub onto the carpet; then he isolates the thumb and holds it up for his valet’s inspection. Will is dragged to Beau’s side – pressed against the damp, voluminous shirt and the slippery flab beneath.

‘See here, Jim, look at that nail! A proper talon it is! Why, the damn thing must be half an inch long. The scraper, I believe they call it. Distinguishes the true watercolour man, the true artist, from the mere dabbler.’

Released abruptly, Will stumbles and almost falls to the floor. He regains his balance to find the two men contemplating him. Mr Cope is inscrutable, a towering silhouette in the bright dining room doorway; while Beau stands beside him in a boozy contrapposto, one hand on his hip, that oversized, florid face split by a sardonic grin.

‘Did I not say that our Mr Turner was the genuine article?.

*

Two days at most, thinks Will, hopping from the bottom step back onto the service floor. Two days to sketch this pile, and some bridge or lake in the vicinity, and I’ll be gone. The fat villain can rot out here with his fine French china and troublesome sister and idiot idler friends – and that unaccountable valet, that Jim, stuck barnacle-like to his master’s bloated hull. Their crude efforts to intimidate him, to humble him, won’t be successful. He vows it.

A cockney project indeed! The genuine article! Will suddenly wants to break something, to kick in that door panel, to rip the buttons from his new brown jacket and send them skittering down the corridor. But instead he stops; swallows hard; loosens his stock. He has been undervalued before. He has known every sort of maddening condescension. It is nothing to him. All that matters is work, and finally he has his terms. So, two days of diligent sketching – and then away again into the hills and woods of England, never to return. It’s not late. The studies could be started that same evening. Will is confident that he can recall enough of the house to lay in the beginnings of a close north-eastern view. He needs candles, though; he searched his bedchamber earlier and found none. The still room, Mr Cope said. Will corrects his waistcoat and stocking and sets off.

Few servants are about. Will reaches the middle of the floor, the bare vaults beneath the main hall, before he encounters anyone – a boy in an apron propped against a pillar, polishing his way through a sprawling herd of boots. This boy’s directions take him past a dining room, where footmen and maids sit at separate tables, eating quietly in close rows. Mr Noakes stands beside the plain fireplace, still in his tie-wig and livery, detailing the day’s lapses with stern, priestly disappointment. Will hurries by.

The still room is on the building’s western side, off to the right at the end of a passage, the door wedged open at the bottom with a split log. Beyond is something between a well-stocked laboratory and a back-alley curiosity shop. Sturdy shelves hold a great archive of jars, bottles and drums; bushels of dried herbs, earthenware dishes and copper jelly-moulds hang across every remaining inch of wall. It is stiflingly hot, the single high window firmly shuttered. The smells are many, mingled and layered; vinegar, cloves, baked fruit, lavender, some kind of roasted meat. A low stove supplies the only light, washing the room’s brown shadows with red and ochre, and adding a lambent edge to glass and tin. Will thinks of the Dutch paintings he has seen, at the houses of his London patrons – the cluttered huts and stables of Rembrandt or David Teniers. He walks in.

Mrs Lamb stands past the window, at a workbench invisible from the doorway. She has her back to Will, angling herself to catch the firelight, but has noticed his entrance. This, he sees, is her domain. It seems obvious now; the basket of purple berries, the interest in the gardener, the knowledge of the house’s fruit stocks. She is Harewood’s still-room maid. Her mob-cap is off and her hair unfastened, the tangled curls a vital, absolute black.

‘You’re down early, Mr Turner,’ she says, turning slightly, showing a cheekbone and a curving eyelash. ‘Supper was cleared but fifteen minutes ago. Did you not care to converse with Mr Lascelles and his friends?’

‘I’ve work to do, madam. I need rest.’

‘Such dedication.’ Will can feel the spread of her smile; she’s guessed the truth. ‘Few men would walk so willingly from Mr Lascelles’ table. He’s on familiar terms with royalty, you know. Frequently mistaken for the Prince of Wales.’

‘It was mentioned.’

Mrs Lamb faces Will now and he is struck anew by the fullness of her, her height and bearing, the span of her hips – a sheer womanly presence that dwarfs and bewilders him. She’s grinding peppercorns in a pestle and mortar, twisting her wrist with slow strength.

‘They’re ambitious,’ she says, ‘this new branch of the family. Baron in’t sufficient. Less than two years since they inherited and they already see themselves at the big palace, dining with King George. Half a dozen more mansions like this one affixed to their name.’

Will looks at the stove, at the pans bubbling gently atop it, and is unable to stop the thought of patronage entering his mind. Do good work, whispers Father’s voice, and this family will surely use you again. ‘Well,’ he says; then nothing.

‘Candles, is it?’ Mrs Lamb asks, putting down the pestle and mortar. She opens a drawer and reaches inside. ‘These was dipped only last week. Should burn decent enough.’

The candles are tallow, tapered and dirty grey. Shaped from animal fat, they smoke copiously and are prone to sputtering – and their light is poor, barely adequate for reading, let alone making a sketch. Will thinks of the candles that shone so brightly in the dining room upstairs: finest beeswax, white as milk and a clear foot long, superior even to those that he has Father buy back in Covent Garden.

‘Ain’t there nothing else?’ He hears the curtness in his voice, the flat twang of London streets; immediately abashed, he wants to apologise, to revise his query, but can’t locate the words.

Mrs Lamb, wrapping a dozen of the candles in a thin sheet of paper, appears unperturbed. ‘There’s no beeswax below stairs, sir,’ she informs him, ‘if that’s your meaning. The cost, see. Our good steward has them locked away in his office.’

Will’s incredulity overtakes his embarrassment. ‘But Lord Harewood is one of the richest men in England.’

‘Oh, Mr Turner.’ Mrs Lamb walks over and presses the packet into his hands, holding them just an inch before her bosom. ‘Don’t you know the nobility at all?’

‘But—’

‘These are a special recipe of my own. They may surprise you.’ She is near, disconcertingly so; she smells of orange peel and fresh pepper. Her expression is dryly sympathetic. You are strange, it seems to say, but I like you nonetheless.

Will tucks the packet under his arm and bids her goodnight. His smile is faint; remarkable enough, though, after the day’s myriad confusions and annoyances. It lasts almost the whole way back to the building’s eastern side – when he lights one of the candles at a wall-bracket and knows at once that Mrs Lamb’s creations are no better than any he’s encountered before. The nimbus hardly seems to cover the length of his arm as he bears it to his chamber. He sets the candle in a saucer upon his chair, sooty smoke streaming from the flame like steam from a kettle. If three or four of the wretched things were grouped together, he thinks, there might just be enough light to work by. He starts to unwrap the rest of Mrs Lamb’s packet – and sees that something is printed on the inside of the paper, a diagram of some sort. He shakes out the candles and unfolds it.

A cargo ship is shown from several different angles – profile, elevation, cross-section – each one packed with tiny forms, serried rows of supine human beings. The printing is rudimentary, yet care has been taken to render every individual body; there are so many, however, and laid so close together, that Will’s eye struggles to separate them in the low light. He recognises it, of course. These sheets were ten a penny a few years ago, nailed up by the Abolitionists in certain coffee shops or taverns. For a time they were much discussed; then, gradually, they weren’t, the attention of London shifting elsewhere. He didn’t even register their eventual disappearance from view.

Will sits slowly on his bed, staring at the image. This is trouble. The wellspring of the Lascelles’ fortune is no secret: their West Indian holdings pay for it all, from the seats in Parliament to the gold buckles on the footmen’s boots. Any material pertaining to Abolition will be contraband under their roof. If he’s discovered with such a thing in his possession, it will surely be taken as a grave affront. He’ll be dismissed. Word will get about – a reputation swiftly acquired. This crude print could well harm his standing with an entire stratum of London society. He has to rid himself of it at once.

Yet he does not move. His mind, quite involuntarily, has started to generate a picture. Chained Negro captives, children and adults alike, wallowing in gloom and filth. The dead left among the living – mothers with daughters, husbands with wives, sisters with brothers – their naked limbs entwined in lamentation. White lines of sunlight slanting in hard through cracks in the deck, tormenting the multitudes entombed below. Parched mouths gaping open in hoarse, hopeless cries.

He recoils sharply; the paper crumples in his hands. It can’t be done. The misery is too great. Too vivid. As he looks away, he notices the diagram’s heading – concise, descriptive only, yet loaded with outrage.

Stowage of the British Slave Ship ‘Brookes’ Under the Regulated Slave Trade.

Wednesday

Climbing from the valley at twilight, Will arrives in a large flower garden. Up ahead, past tiered beds dark with blooms, is the house. The state floor is a raft of light, its brilliance deepening the surrounding dusk. Throughout the day, he has watched the fine carriages snake through the park, their panels flashing in the sun; the teams of gardeners rolling lawns and scrubbing stonework; the gathering of provisions from the farms and hothouses of the estate. A dinner is being thrown, and on a grander figure than that of the previous evening. The sounds of revelry grow clearer as he ascends – cheers and laughter, the chime of glass. Will carries on his way, pushing aside the fronds of a weeping ash. He wants none of it. Nothing useful could come of his attendance, not now. He is calm, steadied by labour and the practise of his art. Why disturb this by squeezing back into that Vandyck-brown suit?

To his undeniable satisfaction, Will is on schedule. Under his arm are the leather-bound sketchbooks, and inside the larger, on loose leafs, are the close views: the north-east in the morning, the south-west in the afternoon. These are the more difficult, calling for passages of detailed draughtsmanship. He’s confident that the remaining four, the distant views and the two other subjects, can all be completed tomorrow. The sixty guineas are within reach.

Will turns to take in the shallow valley. The sun has all but retreated, the sloping pasture and scattered woodlands fading through a range of misty pinks and greys. It feels very easy, this place, after the rugged sites of his northern tour. The landscape of Harewood has been barbered, smoothed out and rearranged, each element positioned merely to please the eye; a tune composed to soothe rather than to stir. The evening sky, at least, provides a constant – Sublimely pure, immeasurably vast, forever beyond the designs of man. Will gazes upwards and the darkening world around him seems to contract, to sink beneath his feet. A pulse of exhilaration beats through his chest and stomach, tingling along his limbs. He sets himself the usual test of colouring it – deciding on a deep indigo, luminously clear, blended through a mix of gamboge and Indian red; with perhaps a touch of the Venetian, stronger, along the western horizon.

A toast is proposed at the house. The party has assembled within the first-floor portico that adorns the mansion’s southern front, and throughout the long saloon behind it. Every male arm is thrust aloft; the name of King George repeated in an enthusiastic shout. Scowling now, Will leaves the flower garden and cuts across a corner of lawn, making for the western service door. Something to eat, he thinks, a brief survey of the day’s work, and then to bed.

‘Hoi, Will! I say, Will Turner!’

Will freezes, instinctively, as if this might somehow undo his detection. He knows this voice – yet he cannot know it. This is not Covent Garden. This is about as far from Covent Garden as you can get. His chin twitches an inch to the right. A lean, long-legged man, simply dressed, is clambering over the balustrade of the portico, between its columns. It appears, momentarily, like a vignette from a revolution: a looter or arsonist dangling from a grand house. He’s escaping, though, abandoning ship – and those on board are encouraging him, applauding and whistling, even extending their hands to assist his descent.

Ignoring them, the man drops to a crouch on the grass below. His coat is plain, cheap, of a colour Will can’t determine; his hair is close-cropped and unpowdered. He springs up and starts across the lawn. He wears a smile – not a smirk or an aristocratic simper but a broad, open smile of friendship. As he draws close, Will transfers the sketchbooks to his left side, flinching in anticipation. The handshake is firm, heartfelt; after only a couple of seconds it becomes a brotherly embrace. Will, the shorter by four or five inches, doesn’t bother to resist.

‘Tom,’ he mumbles, his lips pressed against a lapel.

Released, clapped on the arm, Will staggers back. He sees the party watching them, a sneering gallery up on the state floor, and his first thought is one of relief. Tom Girtin is at Harewood. Here is an ally – a fellow Londoner, and a painter, and a commoner besides – someone to stand with him against these people. Tom is looking him over in the candlelight that falls from the house, quite oblivious to the scrutiny that accompanies it. His chuckle catches in his throat, bringing on a quick, hard cough.

‘This is wonderful,’ he croaks. ‘Wonderful. I hadn’t the least idea. I’ve been here since two o’clock – but Beau mentioned it just now, for the first time, casual as you please. “And there”, he says, “is dear Mr Turner, tramping up the hill.” I swear I almost spat out my wine. You didn’t know, did you? That I was coming here?’

‘I did not,’ Will replies – noting the Beau.

‘Well, it was a rather last-minute arrangement. I was asked to Hanover Square a week or so ago, to discuss some drawing lessons – and then, from nowhere, Beau proposed I hop into his carriage and ride up the north road with him and his sisters.’

Will bites his cheek. It’s one thing to use a patron’s nickname when he is out of earshot; common enough among artists, a harmless bit of impertinence. Private drawing lessons, though, and an invitation to share a carriage all the way from London, with ladies on board – this is preference. ‘Why didn’t you?’

‘Business with Moore,’ says Tom, his head lowering. ‘A regrettable matter. I was running late with a couple of the old dog’s Lindisfarne drawings. You know the ones. I’d already had the money, there was talk of bailiffs … it had to be attended to. Four days’ delay, then I took the stage.’ His eyes, now, are on the sketchbooks. ‘How about yourself? Did Beau send someone into the hills of Cumbria to hunt you down?’

‘York,’ Will answers. ‘A letter at the Black Horse.’

Tom’s ready smile returns. The inn was his recommendation; he lodged there during his own tour of the north the year before. He repeats the name fondly and launches into a string of reminiscences – the crust on the mutton pie, pots sunk around the fire, the pretty wrists of a certain kitchen maid – as if the place is an outpost of Paradise brought down to northern England. This does not match Will’s experience. He kept to himself, found the food and drink to be adequate only and considered his bill a good deal too large.

‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ he interrupts. ‘You told Lascelles where I’d be.’

Tom stares in surprise. ‘I ain’t – I mean, I’d never—’ He stops. ‘I suppose it might’ve been mentioned. But he never let on that he was thinking of inviting you here as well.’

‘You sure about that, Tom? Was there really no clue?’

Tom’s reply is cut short by the appearance of their host, emerging majestically through the western service door.

‘Hail, my artists! My youthful genii – votaries of Zeuxis, disciples of Saint Luke!’

Beau Lascelles seems large, larger even than he did the previous day. His stock and waistcoat are an immaculate white and a champagne flute glints in his hand. Tom adopts a mystified pose, his arms open. Beau laughs as he strolls over.

‘I owe you an apology, Tom,’ he says, ‘and you as well, Mr Turner. You are the unwitting victims of a scheme of mine – a most cherished scheme, conceived in a flash at Somerset House. A spontaneous encounter, I thought. The two radiant stars of Dr Monro’s academy, brought together at Harewood in high summer. Left to roam freely across these glorious parklands, sharing their observations.’ He arrives before them, drains his glass and holds it out for a footman. ‘How can such partnership fail to inspire you both to ever greater feats?’

Tom is nodding, smiling still. It’s a splendid idea, he declares, and an excellent opportunity, most generously bestowed. Will manages something similar, but his mind bubbles with disquiet. Like him, Tom is a regular presence at Monro’s – dependent, to a reasonable degree, on the doctor’s modest stipends and the oyster suppers served at the end of the evening’s labour; and he recalls now that it was at Tom’s desk that Beau tended to linger during his rather self-important, disruptive visits to Adelphi Terrace. This other artist is not a companion or a brother-in-arms, as he imagined a minute earlier. He is a rival. There can be no partnership here, nor is there intended to be. Quite deliberately, Beau Lascelles has arranged a contest.

Will is not so vain or naive as to doubt Tom Girtin’s ability. He has been studying the fellow’s productions – with which Tom had always been careless, showing them to any who ask – since their boyhood. Will, however, has advanced further along the painter’s path. This is indisputable. He has been exhibiting at the Royal Academy for longer, and in greater numbers. The press have begun to notice his paintings in admiring terms. A number of the senior Academicians know his name. He has worked hard to bring all of this about.

But Will does not delude himself. He knows how he appears, and he knows how the rich think. Any comparison between them, between their persons and bearing, must be unfavourable for him. There’s the height, of course, and breadth of shoulder. He’s the conspicuous loser on both counts. They share a certain largeness of nose, but Tom’s is set in a face better favoured in every other regard. The jaw is nicely rounded, not pulled out to a point; the eyes are clear and direct, lacking Will’s beady squint, so often taken for guile; the mouth suggests manly perseverance but is also quick to grin, in contrast to Will’s habitual sour pout. Tom Girtin, in a word, is handsome. No one, not even Father, would make that claim for Will.

Beau and Tom are talking on, some breezy conjecture about how the house might be improved by a door and steps in the southern front, to offer access to the lawns from the state floor. Tom’s accent, although never as strong as Will’s, has grown yet milder, attuning to his circumstances. This is done unconsciously, without calculation; he’d surely be taken aback he was made aware of it. An intimacy exists here, Will sees, well beyond that normally found between a patron and an artist. It is obvious, too, that Tom has been to Harewood before, despite Beau’s father having owned the estate for little more than a year. Will has never heard him mention this. He looks off into the shadowy valley and decides that he will head inside.

‘A fruitful day, Mr Turner?’ Beau enquires suddenly, with the artificial cheer of one attempting to remedy neglect. He glances at Tom; they have guessed Will’s intention. ‘The weather has certainly been fine.’

‘Very, sir,’ Will replies. ‘Very fruitful. I believe that I’ll be gone from here by this time tomorrow. I’ll have all that I require.’

Their reaction is gratifying. Tom is wide-eyed with dismay; Beau takes a half step backwards, letting out a sigh of lordly disappointment.

‘My dear Mr Turner,’ he murmurs, ‘there is no call whatever for that. Perhaps you misunderstand this experiment of mine. Collaboration, my young friend, of the intellect at least.’ Beau warms to his theme. ‘Two kindred art-spirits drawing strength and vision from one another, like Raffaelo Sanzio and Michelangelo, Nicolas Poussin and Claude, Murillo and … and that other Spaniard, what was his name?’

‘Velazquez?’ Tom ventures; Beau snaps his fingers in approval.

You mean to pit us against each other for your entertainment, Will thinks, and by God, you’ve already picked your favourite. ‘I have my terms, Mr Lascelles,’ he says, ‘which you were so kind as to give me. When the six sketches are done I shan’t burden your household any longer.’

Beau waves this away, but he recognises the determination on Will’s face. There is a pause; his smile becomes strained. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I can hardly force you to stay, Mr Turner. I am no gaoler. This house of mine is no damned gaol.’

‘Come now, Will,’ says Tom amiably, ‘can’t you be convinced to remain with us a while longer? How many hundred times, back in London, did we wish for a chance like this?’

Will addresses Beau. ‘I am fatigued, sir, after my labours, and hungry too. I must ask your permission to retire.’

Beau gives it offhandedly, amusedly, with a faint nostril-flare of disdain; and as he speaks, his attention shifts to his dinner guests, who are still watching and chattering in the bright windows behind the portico. Will bows, then turns towards the service door. Tom Girtin stands in his way. He has hardened a little, affronted by Will’s intransigence, and seems to consider holding the smaller man in place to hear another appeal. Past experience, however, has taught him to know better, and he steps aside.

‘Be sure to wait for me in the morning,’ he says. ‘We’ll have one good day out here together, Will Turner.’

*

The service floor is on high alert. Maids and footmen hurry along the corridors; orders and queries are shouted through the haze of tallow smoke. There is a crisis, Will soon learns – too many guests for the dining room. Nobody can agree whether this is due to faulty information from the family as to how many were invited, or late, unsanctioned additions, hidden in the larger carriages, but the talk is of relocating the dinner to the gallery. This would involve retrieving the banqueting table from a store-room, assembling it upstairs and then setting it for twenty-eight, all in a matter of minutes – an undertaking viewed with a mixture of panic and black resolve. Mr Noakes stands at a corner, up on a stool; clad in livery, the tie-wig in his hand, he dabs his shining pate with a handkerchief as he yells for the groom of chamber.

Will edges by unremarked. His goal is the kitchen, and the supper he hopes will be available within. He succeeds in reaching the doorway. Servants stream constantly in and out. Past them, he glimpses billowing steam clouds, a surface covered with gold-leafed plates, a spout of orange flame. There is a searing hiss, like fat sliding across a hot pan; someone, the chef presumably, curses loudly in French. Will moves on, further into the house. If he enters that kitchen now and asks to be fed he’ll be lucky not to have a spoon thrown at him. Better to sit in the servants’ hall until the weight of their duties has eased.

Suddenly the servants come to a stop, stepping against the walls, bowing their heads and dropping cramped curtseys. Beau walks through, unmindful of all, on his way to rejoin the festivities on the state floor; Tom Girtin is beside him, finishing a story. Will slips down a corridor, out of sight. He recognises this tale immediately. 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 up three or four of the miniature piglets at a time; and then she changes the subject so deftly and completely that it’s as if their discussion of the Brookes hadn’t occurred.

‘In’t it strange, though,’ she says, ‘that the family should be choosing to put on such a large entertainment as this one upstairs. Word down here is that Mr Lascelles and his sisters – one of his sisters, anyhow – should rightfully be hiding themselves away.’

Will, still a little flustered and contemplating his exit, wasn’t listening. ‘Beg pardon?’

‘And there’s the death.’ Mrs Lamb adjusts a couple of the piglets. ‘Some might say that it’s difficult to mourn an infant only a day old, already buried down in Huntingdonshire, and with a twin still living. But their brother Henry would be unimpressed, I reckon, and injured perhaps, to see all this jollity at Harewood barely two months later.’

This Will hears. Henry Lascelles is the second son, the politician. Will was unaware that he’d suffered such a loss. Small children die easily, though, and babies especially; it is not, in his experience, regarded as grounds for any prolonged seclusion. ‘What was the first thing? The sisters?’

Mrs Lamb, starting on the fishes, is happy to tell him. ‘They say that our Miss Lascelles found herself in a spot of trouble down in London. Quite compromised, she was. The poor dear had to be whisked off post-haste, back to Harewood.’

Just as Will deduced. He sees Mary Ann flouncing from the dining room upstairs, her footfalls rattling the glassware; Beau’s show of contrition once she was gone. ‘What happened?’

‘D’ye really not know, Mr Turner? D’ye not read the London papers? The Intelligencer and suchlike?’

Gutter rags were always heaped around Father’s shop, pored over by the clientele, every veiled reference and pseudonym debated at length. Will, concerned only with art reviews, never looks at them. ‘I confess that I don’t.’

The first silver tray is covered, loaded with confectionary. Mrs Lamb switches to the stars, continuing her revelations with steely levity. ‘You’ll be unaware, then, that Miss Lascelles’ mishaps are followed closely in their pages. All the available details. They find their way up here eventually. And those on the staff who wintered at Hanover Square saw plenty of it for themselves.’ She taps a clot of sugar from a star’s tail. ‘There was an affair, Mr Turner, and a wild one at that, and then there was a jilting. Our young miss was knocked off some gentleman’s boots like a lump of dung.’

‘Who was he?’

‘No one can discover. A mysterious nobleman so very rich that the prospect of the Lascelles’ millions leaves him unmoved, and with enough sway on Grub Street to keep his name the subject of guesswork only.’ Mrs Lamb straightens up for a few seconds, wiping a palm on her apron. ‘It’s a grand humiliation for her, to be sure. For the lot of them. Yet here they are inviting dozens to dine and drink in their home, and artists, two artists no less, to sketch in its grounds.’ She begins to fill the final tray. ‘It don’t fit.’

‘Perhaps they think it best to act as if unaffected.’

Again, her expression is doubtful; and then, noticing something behind him, it grows distinctly frosty. Will turns to find Mr Cope standing in the doorway. An uncomfortable pressure creeps up behind Will’s ears. It is impossible to say how much the valet might have heard. He curses himself for indulging in such careless gossip.

‘Mr Turner is a painter, Mrs Lamb,’ says Mr Cope, calm and unforgiving. ‘He is the guest of your master. He is not at Harewood for you to collar whenever you need an errand boy.’

The still-room maid’s smile is terrifying, a parody of graciousness. ‘Why, and a very good evening to you too, Mr Cope! The young gentleman has only been helping me for a minute. Besides which, might I point out that it is dark? What painting could he be doing now?’

Will’s eyes go back to the valet.

‘Mr Turner is here at the invitation of Lord Harewood’s son.’ Mr Cope speaks more slowly, as if for an idiot. ‘He has specific tasks assigned to him and little time in which to perform them. You are not to distract him with duties that belong properly to domestic servants. Do you follow?’

The false smile drops away. Mrs Lamb shifts back from the table and plants a fist against her hip. ‘It were common courtesy, that’s all. I had a heavy burden and Mr Turner was good enough to offer me assistance. Few of your precious domestic servants would do the same.’

Mr Cope will not argue. He extends a long arm into the corridor. ‘Mr Turner.’

The valet’s manner, taking compliance utterly for granted, reminds Will of the music room, and the slighting way in which his terms were conveyed. He isn’t about to refuse, though, or chance a bold remark – not with the Brookes inside his larger sketchbook. In fact, he finds it easy to imagine that Mr Cope might be drawn to the print somehow; that he might sniff it out and run barking to his master. The best course is to go with him, peel away as soon as he can, pleading tiredness, and then burn the thing back in the casket chamber. He bids Mrs Lamb good evening, but gets no response. She is bent over her table, making a great fuss of laying out the red sea shells on their tray, and ignoring everything else.

‘Be careful, Mrs Lamb,’ says the valet, once Will is through the door. ‘Their tolerance is nearly at an end.’

The service floor has emptied. Many of the servants are upstairs, Will supposes, setting the banqueting table in the gallery. Valet and painter walk side by side. After a dozen yards or so Mr Cope says that he understands Will is not joining the company in the saloon; would he care for some supper in the servants’ hall instead? Will’s belly emits a joyful growl. He replies that he would, and despite his apprehension he is thankful, once again, for the valet’s effectiveness.

They separate, Mr Cope heading for the kitchens. Only when seated on a bench in the servants’ hall, the sketchbooks safely beside him, does Will properly consider what has happened. It is easy enough to work out how the fellow knew where he was – Mr Noakes must have told him when he went upstairs to marshal the dinner party. Why, though, had Mr Cope come at all? Why had he been so set on removing Will from the still room? What kind of a damn valet is this?

Mr Cope appears with a plate of food and a tin tankard. The few servants loitering in the hall disperse immediately. Will’s meal is set upon the table, roast pork and potatoes and a pint of treacle-coloured ale, along with a plain knife and fork. He bolts it, more or less. This has become a ritual of his tour: the sating of his hunger after a productive day outdoors, shutting out the world to go face down in the trough. The food itself is almost unimportant – fortunately, given some of the tavern fare he has endured – but this is good, really good, the meat tender and the ale smooth. He’s halfway through before he realises that Mr Cope is still there, at his shoulder, peering at him coolly like a stone saint up on a cathedral. Seeing that he has Will’s attention, the valet begins to speak; his voice is different, quieter, with the trace of a London accent.

‘Mrs Lamb isn’t your friend.’

Will lays down his fork. ‘Never thought she was, Mr Cope.’

‘It’s a game she plays. You must see this. She’s trying to get you on her side.’

Will thinks of the Brookes print, hidden not six inches from his thigh; Mrs Lamb’s rather flimsy explanation of how it came to be in his possession; her offer of more. ‘Beg pardon?’

The ghost of a smile crosses Mr Cope’s face. ‘Some advice, Mr Turner. Resist it.’

And with that he’s gone, departing the servants’ hall for the nearest staircase. Will looks blankly at the strands of pork still upon his plate. Ale gurgles inside him; he smothers a belch against his sleeve. Then he rocks forward on the bench, shovels in the remainder of the meal and scrambles to his feet. He’s at the casket chamber in less than two minutes, hunched over a tallow candle, feeding the Brookes print into the flame. The paper is dry and membrane-thin; it flares yellow, curling to a blackened wisp that floats up from his fingers, vanishing into the shadows overhead. Will slumps back on the bed. He is filled, more than anything, with a sense of monumental unfairness. Making drawings of an aristocratic estate is a simple enough proposition. It has been going on for centuries, and mostly without incident. Yet when he attempts it, bringing with him all of his assiduousness and ability, he is plunged into a dark farce – a mess of unwelcome complications. It truly defies belief.

Will rests a hand on his sketchbooks; a steadying breath becomes a yawn. He has to sleep. He has to keep to his schedule.

He has to get away from this place.

Thursday

It is well past noon when Tom appears. Will is sat against a fin of mossy rock; he lifts his porte-crayone from the paper and watches the other painter approach. Tom wears a faded travelling coat the colour of builder’s clay, long riding trousers rather than breeches and a pair of scuffed boots. He is bare-headed and carries nothing: no umbrella, sketchbook or drawing board. That easy stride of his, that expression somehow light-hearted yet unyielding, causes Will to remember the last time he’d seen him in London, several weeks before the opening of the Academy Exhibition. There had been a pack of them, installed in a tavern after a day painting scenery at the Sans Souci. Full of punch and lively defiance, Tom had climbed atop a chair, set on defying the gagging acts by reciting a passage from one of his radicals. ‘My own mind is my church!’ he’d cried, swatting at Georgie Samuel as he tried to pull him back down. An unthinking grin curls the corner of Will’s mouth.

Tom flops beside the rock. He gives Will’s thigh a good-natured pat before stretching himself out, crossing his legs at the ankle and covering his eyes with his arm. Will says nothing. He’s back in his sketch, the first of the long views, tracing a knotted thicket and the small farm building half hidden within. After a few minutes he realises that Tom has fallen asleep.

An hour or so goes by. Will completes his view and places it in the larger sketchbook. He sits for a while, chewing on a piece of bread given to him by the kitchen maids. It has been a dull day thus far, overcast, the sky flat and featureless. Now, though, a single coin of sunlight falls onto the sloping lawn that runs from Harewood’s southern front to the boating pond in the middle of the valley. It expands, grows stronger, tinting the grass with shimmering yellow; and the clouds begin to ease apart, revealing pure blue above.

Tom stirs, sitting up, fumbling with his tail-pocket. Instead of a roll of paper, however, or a porte-crayone of his own, he takes out a pipe and tinderbox.

‘You didn’t wait,’ he says.

‘Couldn’t.’ Will swallows some bread. ‘Work to do.’

‘Suppose you did retire early. Why, it was barely dark.’

‘And I’ll wager you was up till it was close to light again.’

This is no wager. Will was woken in the early dawn by singing and ragged, drunken laughter, issuing from the flower garden, among which Tom’s voice was plainly heard. He’d clamped his pillow over his head and made an unsuccessful attempt to swear himself back to sleep.

‘Man must live, Will. Seize what he can.’

‘That’s living, is it, Tom? Prancing about with the Lascelles and their crowd?’

Tom grins. ‘It does have its shortcomings,’ he admits. ‘These noble gentlemen are testing at times. Remove the carriages and the costly clothes and there’s nearly always a dolt beneath.’

‘Does your chum Beau number among the dolts, I wonder?’

Untroubled by Will’s irritability, Tom opens the tinderbox and prepares the charcloth. ‘You know full well what that was, Will, as you must do it yourself.’ He fits his fingers in the D-shaped firesteel and strikes it against the flint. The sound is piercing, fractured; Will winces to hear it. ‘God knows, they’re easy enough to please. All a fellow really has to do is laugh at their damn jokes. It was Nelson last night. “Albion’s foes will discover that although now armless, he remains far from harmless.” From their mirth you’d think it was the sharpest line ever uttered.’ Tom strikes the flint again. ‘You heard of this, off on your tour?’

The news had arrived on Will’s last day in York: a furious battle against the Spanish at Tenerife, a decisive defeat, England’s great hero so gravely wounded. Patrons had wept openly in the snug bar of the Black Horse. Will’s thoughts, as always, were of painting. It would surely make for a fine narrative subject, a scene both affecting and rousing – the enormous frigates; the perfect disc of the moon; the injured Admiral refusing all aid as he marched himself to the surgeon. But he doesn’t want to discuss this now.

‘What terms did he give you?’

At the third strike a minute spark flits from the flint and smoulders on a fold in the charcloth. Tom is ready with a taper, which he then pokes into the pipe’s bowl, sucking on the stem as he does so. ‘For my chest,’ he murmurs, sucking again. ‘Monro’s recommendation. Damn nuisance, to tell the truth.’

Will repeats his question.

The tobacco catches, and for a minute Tom’s coughing prevents all speech. Will finishes off the bread; he watches the sun spread through the valley, casting a sheet of blazing white across the pond.

‘None as such,’ Tom says at last, dabbing at his eyes with his coat cuff. ‘Beau’s idea simply seems to be that I live in the household. Spend my days out here in the park.’ Sitting next to Will, his back against the rock, Tom tries the pipe again. This time is easier; he puffs twice, then exhales a coil of smoke. ‘But I have to say, Will, it’s a damn strange place to be. All of it is fake, from these woods here to the very hills they are rooted upon. It ain’t nature as I know her, that’s for sure.’ He leans forward, gesturing with his pipe. ‘And the house. Look at it. There’s a hundred exactly like it elsewhere in England, damn near identical in all but size. There’s no art in its construction. No history in its stones. It speaks of nothing but money.’

‘You’re happy enough to stay here,’ Will observes, not mentioning his own similar thoughts. ‘And not for the first time neither.’

Tom smokes in contemplation. ‘Naturally I’m happy,’ he says. ‘London is hellish at present. The war goes badly still. Soldiers are everywhere. Friends of liberty, of any species of liberty, must be constantly on their guard. They’ll throw you in Newgate merely for speaking out of turn – and they’ll keep you in there, without charge, for as long as they damn well please. That villain Pitt wants us cowed, Will, and it’s working. Why, it feels sometimes as if every decent person has fled the city.’

This picture is exaggerated. Tom has always been the sort who relishes a drama, preferably with himself playing a central part. Will pushes his sun hat to the back of his head. He waits for the other painter to continue.

‘Up here, though, all that noise goes quiet. A man can rest. Order his thoughts.’ Tom becomes confiding. ‘And there’s other advantages. This I learned well last year. Beneath the baron’s roof, and toiling in the baron’s farms, are many young women – and every last one of them, Will, is bored senseless.’ He draws on his pipe. ‘I mean, think of their lives. Their labours. How bleak and unending it must be. It don’t take much, at any rate, to win their favour. Most of them will clutch at a chance for diversion with all they’ve got.’

Will smiles in dour amazement. Beside him is a raging radical prepared to bed down with arch-Tory aristocrats; a notable young artist content to travel two hundred miles and make no art; an urbane London professional eager to chase after Yorkshire chambermaids. ‘You’re adaptable, Tom Girtin,’ he says. ‘That I’ll allow.’

Tom chuckles. ‘Surely you can savour some of what’s on offer here. Especially after the travellers’ inns. What a moment it is, for one resigned to lice-ridden straw, to lie upon a goose-feather mattress! And dear God, the peace. No need for your cork pellets at Harewood, or a bolt on your door. Or a call for the watch.’

Will’s smile disappears. This is his tour no longer. This is Maiden Lane. ‘Beg pardon?’

For a short while Tom does not respond; realising his error, he fiddles with the pipe, tamping its bowl with a corner of the firesteel. ‘It must be difficult,’ he says. ‘That’s all I meant, Will. I heard about the fight, the last one, over on Southampton Street. How she broke that barrow boy’s jaw. It’s a damn miracle, frankly, that you’re still able to work as you do.’

And then Will sees it. Tom Girtin is attempting to unnerve him, to throw off his concentration and disrupt his schedule, and thus give himself a chance to catch up. Will has managed to bar this business from his mind for the better part of six weeks – as Father had ordered him to do, in the plainest language – and he rears from it like a horse before a fire. Without speaking, without even looking Tom’s way, he gathers his gear, gets up and walks west.

But now it’s there, eclipsing everything, the memory louder and brighter than life. Mother at the height of her frenzy, spitting at Father and Will as they edge closer, trying to grab hold of her. The howl of the victim, blood spotting fast between the broken bottles. The feel of her pressed to his chest, so bony and fierce, kicking backwards at his shins as Father addresses the crowd, promising grand sums if only the incident can be kept from the magistrate.

This is no use. This will accomplish nothing. Don’t you grant her a single thought, Father had said. The work must come first. Will passes through a screen of slender trees, swinging at some tangled bracken with his umbrella. He rubs his brow on his sleeve, then breathes deeply and wipes the matter away. He gulps; he blinks. It’s gone.

Beyond the trees is a long expanse of pasture, distant sheep drifting over its lower reaches like flecks of foam. Will strides uphill, towards an old tree-stump. The valley lies open before him, bruised by the shadows of clouds. A south-western prospect would have been best, but straight south will do. Time is growing short. He sits and prepares his materials; then he squints at the house, pulls the sun hat forward and slips gratefully into the blankness of work.

Not ten minutes have passed when a whistle makes him look up. A shepherd is moving the sheep off, funnelling them through a gate – and there, perhaps forty yards to the right, is Tom Girtin, propped against a dry-stone wall. A warm breeze sways the trees; the clouds roll back and brilliant sunlight surges across the pasture, breaking over them both, reducing Tom’s face to no more than a pale blot atop his coat.

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

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