Will & Tom (12 page)

Will closes the books, stacks them by his elbow and gazes at the table. The wood is crisp, unstained; a new table in a new tavern, built at the crossroads in the middle of Harewood village. Farm hands pack the bar, released early by the storm, but the three other chairs at Will’s table remain empty. He looks up, into the room. Several heads promptly turn away.

Supper arrives: a gristly, overcooked chop and a pile of boiled beans, shaken from a pan somewhere out back. Will hasn’t eaten all day, yet he doesn’t now. Thoughts crowd his head; fear knots his guts and numbs his muscles.

Catastrophe has struck.

This isn’t a daring, misguided adventure, or an unfortunate scrape, or a regrettable lapse in judgement. This is a
catastrophe
. Tom Girtin is a child, a mere
child
in his understanding. Because he has no respect for the boundaries of rank and wealth, he believes that they do not apply to him. The woman with whom he was frolicking so unrestrainedly is a nobleman’s daughter. A nobleman’s
unmarried
daughter. Far from immaculate, of course – Will briefly recalls her arranged there on the hearth and experiences a flicker of envious desire – but the baron has thirty thousand a year, and a seat in the Lords, and ambitions to rise still further. There would be a plan in place for Mary Ann.

Will gives the chop a distracted prod with his knife. Any reprisal is bound to be severe. Stories are told among the artists and fine craftsmen of London regarding the vengeance of patrons – the dire punishments visited upon those deemed guilty of transgressions like this one. All know of Daniel Lofthouse, for instance, a master carver who returned from Sedley with his right arm badly broken, following a mysterious incident said to have involved the teenage countess; of the gilder Carr, who would neither speak of his engagement at Wedderburn Hall nor show the wound he received there, and who died penniless not long after; and most notoriously of Anthony Neville, noted architectural draughtsman and rogue, who seven years earlier had vanished, vanished
entirely
, while executing a commission at Groombridge. These estates are fiefdoms, in essence, under absolute rule. There’s no town watch out here, no magistrate or officers of the court. Only the baron’s men.

For discovery is inevitable. Will hasn’t the slightest doubt of this. Tom is unable to be secretive. It is simply not in his nature. Anyone could have come across them as Will did – anyone at all. Hadn’t he thought that the ruin was well suited to sheltering labourers from the rain? They could easily have had a damn
audience
as they panted there in that fireplace.

And the taint of it, the blame for it, would surely extend to Will. Of this he is also quite convinced. Beau Lascelles knows that his association with Tom goes back to their childhood. He’d assume that Will is an accessory, acting as a lookout perhaps; it could reasonably be claimed that he’d been standing guard that afternoon, in fact, over at the castle. Even if they were spared a beating, or a more enduring mishap somewhere in the grounds, Beau would see them both blacklisted. They would be branded, in effect: Girtin and Turner, depraved corrupters devoid of decency, not to be trusted for a second by any conscientious gentleman. All patronage would cease. They would be finished.

Will rubs a patch clear on the misted window and looks at the rainy lane outside. Villagers dash from cottage to cottage, hopping across the puddles in the rutted road; a gang of children crouch beneath a haywain; and there, before a short parade of shops, is the mail coach, its lamps lit and crimson panels gleaming. This is a difficult sight – a route out of Harewood that he can no longer use. How could he possibly take flight now and leave his fate in the unsteady hands of Tom Girtin? His course is plain: he must return to the house, locate Tom and convince him to end this affair right away. They’d depart together at dawn, on the first coach to anywhere. A proper explanation could be spun for Beau at a later date – a collaborative project maybe, inspired by Harewood, that had compelled immediate action. It would just have to be hoped that Mary Ann was fond enough of Tom, and had enough understanding of their situation, to stay silent.

Ignoring his lack of appetite, Will applies himself ill-temperedly to his supper. It is a fragile, unsatisfactory scheme, liable to all kinds of upset. Should it work, should they actually manage to escape this place, he vows to pluck that pipe from Tom’s idiot lips and stamp on it.

The chop and beans are soon gone. Will rises, takes three pennies from his waistcoat pocket and lines them up next to the tin plate. As he gathers his possessions a path opens through the busy tavern, running from his table to the front door. He stands for a second, thoroughly confounded. I am no damn
lord
, he wants to say: look at me, for God’s sake! Nothing to be mindful of here! But every face avoids his; bodies shuffle further aside, urging him on his way.

There’s no time to ponder this. Will crosses the tavern, opens his umbrella and pushes out into the rain.

*

Halfway up the drive the deluge eases to a drizzle, pattering against the umbrella and the leaves of the surrounding trees. The storm winds have subsided; the air smarts a little against the skin, as it does after a hot bath. Grey-blue mists blend together woods and pasture, horizon and sky, sinking Harewood into premature night. Will walks quickly, but he is afraid – disturbed by an unfamiliar sense of vulnerability, even of insignificance. Artistic prowess no longer seems important. Tom and himself are humble men, of neither breeding nor means, and they are trapped in the lap of one of England’s most powerful families. As usual, he shores up his courage with consideration of method, carefully mapping out the steps that must be taken to reach the necessary end.

Three problems lie before him.

First, and most imperative, is the state of things within the house. Part of Will is certain that they’ll already have been exposed; that someone else will have found Tom and Mary Ann in the castle, or noticed them leave it, and run directly to the baron’s son. He strides off the drive, circling the spot where he made his first close study two days earlier, and stops to survey the northern façade. The library windows are shining with beeswax candlelight. Will moves closer, his boots splashing through the waterlogged grass; Beau Lascelles can clearly be seen, playing at billiards with a handful of other gentlemen. As Will watches they all laugh together, most heartily – not what you’d expect had the household just been shaken by disgrace. Somewhat reassured, he cuts across the wide lawn towards the eastern entrance.

Second is the note, written that morning in Will’s best hand and propped on the ledge outside Mr Noakes’s office. It explained how pressing business had obliged his departure; how he was grateful for Mr Lascelles’ hospitality, the kind opportunity et cetera, and how he would be delivering the six watercolour drawings to Hanover Square as agreed. And yet here he is, back at Harewood House that same day. Having gained entrance – a footman recognises him and opens the service door – Will goes straight to the steward. Noakes isn’t required to supervise dinner tonight; he’s at his desk, scowling over account papers, the tie-wig on its stand. He doesn’t look up as Will enters.

‘You left us, Mr Turner.’

His tone is flat, uninterested; Will knows at once that there will be no trouble here. ‘An error, Mr Noakes. I find that I’ve more to do. Mr Lascelles will understand.’

The diminutive steward strikes something through with his quill. ‘Instruct a maid to bring you fresh bed sheets.’

The third problem, and definitely the thorniest, is that of Tom Girtin himself. Will leaves his belongings in the casket chamber and heads upstairs, hoping to find Tom’s bedroom before he comes down to dine. It’s too late for this, though; as he enters the hall, a dinner party emerges from the library, on its way to the table. Will is not fit to be seen. His hair is grease-spiked and wild, his face is unwashed and his outdoor clothes are in high odour – a mixture of sweat, tobacco smoke from the tavern and the earthy smell of the castle. He has no wish, furthermore, to talk to Beau, whose questions about his decision to stay will certainly be more probing than those of Mr Noakes; so he hides behind the bronze Minerva.

The party is discussing an entertainment, a last-minute affair being urged upon the Lascelles by their guests – two couples, well if rather loudly dressed, who may or may not have been at the riotous banquet two days earlier. Beau and Frances are arm-in-arm, their animosity forgotten; or suspended, perhaps, for the sake of polite company.

‘Maxwell, you hound,’ Beau declares, ‘our intention was a
quiet interlude
. How can you be so cruel as to tempt my sisters with your talk of the cotillion?’

This meets with a genteel laugh. ‘My dear Mr Lascelles,’ someone says, ‘ladies of such distinction should always heed the call of Terpsichore.’

Will peers past the Minerva’s elbow. Mary Ann, her privileges apparently restored, is clad in a gown of pale rose. Paired with her brother-in-law, she is behaving tonight, her bearing almost demure as she moves across the polished stone. Despite everything, Will’s admiration is revived. A living Juno, he thinks, gliding among the antique bronzes; then she lifts her chin and he detects a faint gloss of irony, as if she considers all of this a rather sorry charade.

Tom is at the rear of the company, walking alone, dressed in his cheap evening suit. Mary Ann turns to him; loosening her hold on Douglas, she goes out almost to her arm’s length, laying her fingers against Tom’s shoulder as she shares an observation. They smile together for a few seconds, virtually purring with delight at their secret attachment. Will shifts behind the statue; he presses the scraping nail hard against his lower lip. The indiscretion is dumbfounding. Anyone who so much as glances their way will surely realise what is afoot.

No one does. The party leaves the hall, proceeding to dinner. Will watches the door close behind them. What can he do now but wait for the evening to end and Tom to retire? Withdrawing to the casket chamber, he drops to his knees, pulls his blue coat over his head and bellows against the mattress until he is quite breathless.

Afterwards, slumped on the floor, he feels a fresh, stinging slap of disbelief. How the
devil
can he be caught up in this? He should have left the instant he discovered that Tom Girtin was at Harewood. What kind of a painter
is
this fellow? Why isn’t he working upstairs, where Will might be able to get to him? Why is he among the Lascelles yet again – these people he affects to despise? Why is he risking his livelihood, his prospects, even his
safety
, to fornicate with one of them? Will thinks of Father, whose opinion of Tom has always been qualified.
Talent there, to be sure,
he’d say,
but I wouldn’t trust that jackanapes to heat the curling tongs
. The old man would disapprove strongly of the course Will has chosen. He’d have had his son on that mail coach – or reporting Tom to Beau himself. Tom’s fate wouldn’t concern him, not if there was a chance for Will’s acquittal; he has a pitiless streak, does Father, and an innate regard for the authority of lords and gentlemen. Will wonders for a second how that conversation might begin.
Beg pardon, Mr Lascelles, but while I was out by the castle today I happened upon a most disturbing sight
…

Here his imagination fails. It can’t be done. He can’t feed another man to the dogs, a man he knows well, in order to win his own freedom. A thread runs between him and Tom, gossamer thin yet irksomely resilient, the result of a shared trajectory that has put them in many of the same places, and burdened them with many of the same concerns. It resists easy definition – he’s unable to think of it as friendship or fellow feeling, and recoils from the idea that it might be some form of respect – but it’s there. This cannot, in good conscience, be denied.

And in any case, going to Beau would save neither Will’s career nor his reputation. For all his wrong-headed opinions, Tom is widely liked. At least half the artists in London would abjure Will as a louse and a coward should he bring about Tom’s trampling by the Lascelles. Backs would turn at tavern tables. Studio doors would be shut and bolted. The Academy would become unassailable. The upper levels of art, his life’s one goal, would be raised forever beyond his grasp.

Will fights off his twisted coat and throws it into a corner. He is not a louse. He is not a coward. There is hope still. He sits against the bed and waits.

*

Two chambermaids stand at the pinnacle of the central service staircase, on the upper floor where the family and their guests are accommodated. One holds an armful of linen and the other a silver tray, upon which a beeswax candle burns in a dainty ceramic holder. They are engaged in whispered discussion of a recent household drama: a David and Goliath clash in which Goliath had apparently prevailed.

‘Square in the eye, that bitch socked our Gem. She got a scratch in herself, a good ’un, but the bruise’s bad enough to keep her in’t scullery for a week at least.’

‘It’s a blessed mystery to me how the wicked old doxy still has her place.’

‘Aye, well, Lord Harewood will be certain to see to it when he gets up here. There’s to be changes, my love, and not to the bloomin’ wallpaper neither.’

Lord Harewood
.

Will, tucked in the shadows below, attempts stoicism. This is an unwelcome development – the further curdling of a circumstance already pretty well soured. These maids are being maddeningly vague: from their talk, the baron could be arriving the very next morning, or at any time afterwards. With him will come order and stern patriarchal sense. He’ll perceive immediately what is eluding his two eldest children. Tom will be doomed, and Will Turner along with him. Lord Harewood will grind them both to powder, and then cast it across his boating pond in great angry handfuls. They have to act. They have to run.

The two chambermaids have moved on to the new housekeeper that the baron is said to be bringing with him, running through rumours heard from contacts at Hanover Square and sharing grim predictions concerning the regimen she will impose. Will considers ascending, cutting between them, perhaps even asking directions to Mr Girtin’s room. What could be thought untoward about two brother artists conversing a little before bed? But he stays where he is. The encounter might be mentioned in the servants’ hall; then someone would tell Mr Noakes, who in turn would inform Mr Cope; who would file it away, producing it later as evidence in a case against them.