The Optickal Illusion Page 11

  Provis nodded angrily at her final words, but though they contained the ring of truth, still he did not believe them. One evening, as Ann Jemima and Provis played cards in front of the fire, a knock came at the door. There, to their surprise, was a man dressed as if he intended not merely to survive the winter cold, but to do battle with it. His figure was shrouded in a cape, his head was covered with a beaver hat, and a scarf was wrapped so tightly around his face it seemed to mummify it.

  The layers were finally removed to reveal the person of Mr Cosway. Provis felt the usual hatred. Yet on this occasion it was accompanied by mild excitement. He knew the artist could only be coming here at this time of night to reveal something of importance.

  ‘What do you know, what have you heard?’ he asked. All Cosway could do in response was shake his head.

  ‘Bring me brandy,’ he begged, as he stood, teeth chattering. Then, as he was rushed to the chair closest to the fire, he added ‘Pour some for yourselves as well. I bring very grave tidings.’

  They all stood round him frowning as he took his first sip of the drink. At this encounter, Provis noted, Cosway chose to look at all of them equally rather than just at Ann Jemima. Tonight he was not in the mood for flirtation.

  ‘What have you discovered?’ said Ann Jemima after a few seconds.

  The pallor of her face, the terrible flatness of her voice.

  ‘I have advised you wrongly,’ Cosway replied. ‘It seems that Mr West has been playing games with you all this while.’

  ‘What kind of games?’ asked Provis uncomfortably.

  Cosway took a deep breath.

  ‘He has taken a friend of mine into confidence at the Royal Academy, and has shown him the painting he has recently done with Ann Jemima.’ He paused. ‘When my friend told me of this, I of course talked of you, but he was not aware who you were. I am sorry to say this, Miss Provis. But Mr West is claiming that he painted it alone.’

  For a second it felt to Provis as if everyone in the room has stopped breathing.

  ‘The Venus and Cupid?’ Ann Jemima finally asked. ‘You are sure?’

  He nodded gravely. ‘The very same.’

  Her face was stupefied. ‘On his own? How does that profit him? Why can he not acknowledge my…’

  She shook her head, unable to say anything further.

  ‘And is he talking about the technique used to create the picture?’ asked Provis gruffly.

  ‘He is not merely talking about the technique,’ replied Cosway. He looked directly at Ann Jemima. ‘In an unguarded moment he has said it completely reinvents the way we look at colour.’ She gasped. ‘He is not ready yet to share it with other members of the Academy, he claims. But there is no doubt that he intends to use it to prepare all his pictures for next year’s Royal Academy Exhibition.’

  ‘Then he is convinced…’ Again Ann Jemima’s words trailed off. She swallowed. ‘And yet he mentioned nothing of me,’ she turned to Provis, ‘or Mr Provis?’

  ‘My informant told me that when he asked him where he had got the technique from, he was most evasive. If you were being charitable, it means he does not want the other artist to track down its source quite yet. But the time that has elapsed since he last saw you,’ he nods towards Ann Jemima, ‘and his assertion that no one helped him with the very painting you both prepared together. These things are of concern in terms of his intention to make a payment.’

  Ann Jemima was about to speak, when a low growl came from Provis’s direction, and her open mouth, instead of releasing words, emitted a shriek.

  ‘This is an outrage,’ he roared. ‘All the time we have taken…’

  In the blurred room in front of him, his daughter’s white face came into focus.

  ‘He has betrayed me! Has betrayed us!’ Her eyes as agitated as lightning-lit seas, the tears plummeting down her cheeks.

  She ran over to Provis, and he put his arms around her.

  ‘He has no intention of giving us any money. This is theft. He is telling lies, lies to everybody to take all the credit himself.’

  The heat was building in Provis’s head. This news both mocked and justified all the pain of the last year.

  He looked over to Cosway. The artist was leaning over from his chair to pick up the brandy glass he had dropped in shock at Provis’s roar. ‘You have known Benjamin West longer than we,’ Provis said. ‘Were you aware of this dishonesty in his nature?’

  ‘I feel I owe you my apologies,’ replied Cosway. He looked with concern at Ann Jemima who was now standing back and wiping her eyes angrily. ‘In truth, I have never known him dishonest before. It was my folly to make excuses for him where he deserved none. If I had not, you would have been on the trail sooner.’

  ‘Can the situation not be remedied?’ Ann Jemima asked.

  Provis glared into the fire.

  ‘There is, indeed, a happy element to this in that he is telling a confidante that he believes the method is extraordinary,’ Cosway replied. Both he and Provis stared at Ann Jemima intently for a moment. ‘Almost as extraordinary as the woman who brought it to him…’ Cosway continued softly.

  ‘… But that means that there is at least one witness to the fact that he owes us money,’ interrupted Ann Jemima, unwilling to take the flattery.

  Provis glowered. ‘Surely we can challenge him?’

  ‘Indeed, he has had no one challenge him yet,’ Ann Jemima replied. She turned to Cosway. ‘What if we threaten to bring embarrassment upon him if he does not give us the payment? Might that change his attitude towards what he owes us?’

  The small spark of cheer that she had tried to ignite was snuffed out at the tone of Cosway’s voice. ‘It would be a dangerous strategy, and one I would not advise,’ he replied sombrely. Provis walked over and poured him some more brandy. ‘I will do what I can to help you. But remember this in all your actions. Despite the disagreements between them in recent years, Benjamin West remains close to the King. He has decided – as we hoped – that this is a most important discovery, but at the same time he has decided that he has the prestige to preside over it and you have not.’

  ‘In my eyes that is straightforward theft,’ muttered Provis.

  ‘Theft, yes, but it is not straightforward – and Mr West is clever enough to play that to his advantage. We cannot understand at this stage what subtleties he has used to justify this action to himself, or to others. If someone should tell the King that you are expressing displeasure, and persuade him your accusations are unfair on any level,’ he continued, ‘it will take but a second for the King to choose between you and West.’

  ‘But there are witnesses,’ Ann Jemima replied. People like you. Surely if you say what you know, West will have to confess.’

  Richard Cosway paused. ‘I wish it were so. But go about this the wrong way, and it will rebound badly. After all, West has his entire reputation to lose if your story is proved to be true. Yet he has calculated that he poses an even greater threat to you, and indeed to anyone who supports you.’

  ‘In what way?’ Ann Jemima asked.

  ‘I have no desire to be saying this,’ Cosway replied. ‘At the moment you have a roof over your heads and a salary on which to live. A thousand people would fight for the same life as you have. Believe me, I wish you well in this. You are good people, and if you play this properly, you may well have something to gain. But be mindful,’ he continued, gesturing around him, ‘you also have much to lose. More than you have lost already.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  Joseph Johnson delivers a warning

  ‘I do not wish them [women] to have power

  over men; but over themselves.’

  mary wollstonecraft,

  A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 1792

  London sleeps. Yet though the jabber of voices is stilled, and the dark dissolves the distinction between one house and another, there’s still a sense of the constant ferment that makes a city. Hundreds of thousands lie in their beds, but their ideas, dreams and
motivations swirl and mutate in the encompassing blackness, colliding blearily as they head towards the light. Some of these ideas will burst the moment day breaks, others will go on – for better or worse – to subtly alter the chemical composition of the city.

  While the residents of King George’s court anxiously survey the shifting scents and tastes of the social brew that surrounds them, two miles away the publishers of St Paul’s Churchyard see it as their job to keep it constantly simmering. These are the men who decide daily which writers will stir the city to argument, and which will entertain it. One of these publishers is Joseph Johnson, who on this cold night – not for the first time in recent months – finds himself unable to sleep. He is more haunted than ever by the fears he expressed to Fuseli at their meeting in the tavern. Noises from the pavement outside have broken his dreams and he has woken with a start, worried that finally Pitt’s spies have configured a motive for arresting him.

  He still carries scars from being in the witness box for the treason trials three years ago. More than thirty men had been arrested – many in the middle of the night – on suspicion of conspiring against King and government. It was the latest of William Pitt’s bids to paralyse the political groups agitating for change. For Johnson, it was the first time he had felt that danger was just a breath away – slinking beneath his every waking thought, holding him rigid as he slept. The government had passed a measure saying that anyone they chose to arrest could be held for months first in the Tower of London and then in Newgate Prison without being charged. None of them knew if they would ever be released. Many of his friends had spent months in the dark, clad in irons and subject to the kicks and jeers of prison guards. All faced the prospect – if they went on to be convicted – of being hanged, drawn and quartered.

  ‘Pitt the scrawny wants the radical movement for breakfast, yet we shall give him nothing but stomach pains,’ Johnson’s nephew had declared angrily. Of the three men who were eventually charged with high treason, two were regular guests at his house. Though Johnson was only asked to appear as a witness, he can still remember the cold fear that surged through his heart when he received the summons. In court, as the barrister prowled before him, the two things foremost in his mind were his desperation not to betray his friends and his determination not to lose his business. He had never met the lawyer, but he felt the force of his loathing for the man sting the air as he gave his answers. As it was, his appearance proved a masterpiece of evasiveness. Afterwards a friend of his had overheard the lawyer in a tavern cursing that Johnson must be the only man who could run a successful publishing house and yet know less about it than a penguin from the Sandwich Islands.

  The scuffling in the alley outside grows louder. Despite his fears he looks out of the window. Below a stray dog wrestles haplessly with a pile of rubbish – as he holds his oil lamp out of the window he can see the tension in its spine as it pulls till it finally extracts a rabbit carcass. He grips the windowsill tight for a moment, then laughs wearily to himself and returns to bed. Around him the darkness feels hard, unyielding. He feels its mockery as in vain he closes his eyes, bidding the onset of sleep. St Paul’s cathedral clock tolls every quarter hour like a hammer on his brain. At five thirty in the morning, finally he rises, deciding he will do some work before he makes the visit that has been preoccupying him for days.

  The shadows loom and recede as he goes downstairs and places his oil lamp on the desk. Before him is the latest edition of The Monthly Magazine, and an article on the philosopher from Konigsberg, Immanuel Kant, that he must edit by the end of the week. He begins with enthusiasm, but though he has no recollection of falling asleep, at one moment St Paul’s is chiming a quarter to seven, the next it is nine thirty. His vertebrae have the stiff slightly aggrieved feel that results from spending time vertical that could have been spent horizontal. Beside him is a cup of tea whose temperature indicates it was brought to his desk some time ago.

  He stirs himself and goes to the window. People are moving along the streets warily, as if caught under the gaze of a large unforgiving eye, sceptically scrutinising their fragile hopes for the days ahead. He calls out a ragged thank you for the tea to his housekeeper, before informing her that he is now ready for breakfast. Then he goes back upstairs to dress himself.

  An hour later he finally emerges from the front door of his business, clasping a large book. The Hackney coach drivers waiting in the Churchyard are shouting obscenities back and forth to each other, while their mangy horses chafe at lice and drink from the gutter. A driver leaps down from his seat and holds the door open. Johnson can smell the mustiness of his cloak as he climbs into the carriage. The book is so weighty he tilts heavily to one side as he gets in, but just when it seems inevitable he will fall he lands the tome on the seat and with a grimace settles himself next to it.

  As the horse passes the cathedral, he reflects, not for the first time, on the irony that a Dissenting man such as he – dedicated to scepticism and rationality – should work so close to a building representing the monarchy and faith. Rather like a disease, he reflects, institutionalised religion comes with its own set of symptoms, whether it’s the crow-black flocks of clergy hurrying up and down the cathedral’s main steps, or the lost souls in the Churchyard seeking anything from soup to spiritual redemption. Some are more notable than others. A pock-marked man now trudging to the top of Ludgate Hill is possessed by the belief that he is the Virgin Mary. His ragged blue headdress and halo are worn above traditional gentleman’s garb. Johnson knows him to visit the area regularly. Unlike the masqueraders who throng to balls in their costumes at Christmas time, there is no self-consciousness about his attire. Sometimes he sits and wails on the cathedral steps. But more often he interrupts the course of passers by, admonishing them for their sins till they either push him aside or give him a penny to buy pie and ale.

  Now the horse picks up its pace as it heads out of the City and towards the village of Islington. From the dark huddled houses along the route he can see faces peering out from windows that are often dirty and broken. Many of his friends flock to Islington for the weekend, but in truth Johnson thinks the pleasures of the village overrated. He appreciates the fresh milk and cheese that come from its dairy farms, but he doesn’t understand the desire of so many educated Londoners to go, as he says, ‘to make communion with its cows’. His own destination is a house just short of the village, at a residential street close to the Euston Road. It is the point where the city starts to flirt with the countryside – allowing patches of open land to appear as cautiously as if the natural state of the world were urban, and these flashes of frozen grass and trees the first signs of a revolution that might eventually overcome the stone and brick.

  ‘You are in danger of dying from the weight of that book’, the woman says as she opens the door to him. ‘Put it down and take your coat off.’ Her voice is low and severe, but her eyes burn lightly with amusement. ‘Though it would be a fitting epitaph for a bookseller – crushed under the weight of his latest talent,’ she continues. ‘I hope the writer is a good one.’

  Johnson deposits the book with relief on the table in the hall and darts her a glance. He takes in the pensive, slightly flushed face, the soft brown wispy hair, the dark, stern eyes.

  ‘It is the book you have been asking for recently?’ he says.

  ‘The anti-slavery work? Stedman’s expedition to Surinam?’

  He dips his head. ‘Illustrated by your old collaborator William Blake.’

  Swiftly she opens the book’s cover and turns to the first illustration. ‘It is more than a year since I saw Blake last. How is he?’

  ‘Still mad as a glow-worm,’ declares Johnson with a quick smile. ‘Yet he has done fine work here. What he has done is quite different from his more hallucinatory works. His images are most simple yet they provoke to the extreme. When you study them, they show quite clearly the humanity of the black man and the inhumanity of the white.’

  She frowns as she flicks
through the book.

  ‘Yet they are very clean images, considering what they depict. Whippings, hanging…’ She peers closer, then looks up in horror at Johnson, ‘by the ribs, all manner of other torture.’

  ‘It is the most powerful book for the abolitionist movement I have seen.’

  ‘It would be more powerful yet if Blake had been allowed to illustrate it in his own style.’

  ‘Mary Wollstonecraft, you were never a woman to accept compromise.’ The amusement in his eyes has a sheen of exasperation. ‘I think it is a tonic for Will Wilberforce. Many do not want to abolish the slave trade because they still make a huge profit from it. This book means they cannot hide from the consequences any longer.’

  The woman regards him for a moment, then leads him through to her dark green parlour. It is a small room, rendered yet smaller by the precarious architecture of piled up books interspersed with the corpses of toy soldiers. A fire spits sparks up into the chimney. On either side of it are two elegantly-carved India-back chairs, while in the middle of the room is a drop-leaf table, slightly past its prime. She indicates to Johnson to sit to the right of the fireplace, while she takes the chair on the left.

  As he sits he looks at her searchingly.

  ‘We have a long history of being direct with each other, Mary.’