Will & Tom. Matthew Plampin
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