The Fraud (16 page)

Mr Hartley Pond and Philip and Joshua Reynolds and John Palmer and all the painters who ever visited talked always of the importance of
copying
; well then, now that I was teaching myself, I set myself to copy my brother’s Paintings in the night, in his empty Studio, by candlelight, with his own materials.—At first I used only charcoal - I copied the faces night after night, but it was easy, I copied the faces easily, I
had
to start to use paint, I had to begin to properly steal. I worked sparingly using
his
paints and
his
brushes and
his
boards (for it was harder to use his canvas and leave no trace): everything I always cleaned meticulously afterwards: he would never notice smeared paint on the old, discarded boards - and the disappearance of the paint? if it was noticed, I told myself, he could blame the assistants, and so quite soon working every single night as soon as the assistants left, I could easily paint exactly as my brother but was greatly dissatisfied with such work - but I did not understand what next I should be doing to learn my craft, so I kept on copying, especially trying to mix the exact colours that he had mixed.—But then one night I found myself looking at his Paintings in another way for the first time - and I saw that they were clever, but that in my heart I had not ever really liked them - I somehow, instinctively, felt they were - even the men
- too pretty
. I had never, out of loyalty, allowed myself to articulate criticism of my brother: now I said it, aloud in his Studio,
They are too pretty.

One night I thought there was somebody there in the dark, closed Studio and I felt that horrible jumping feeling in my heart; I lifted a candle so nervously the candle-flame shook, I saw it - and then I laughed aloud: Philip had acquired a Greek statue! I lifted the candle higher and saw that the statue was naked and I felt quite strange: I had never seen a naked body before, it was a man so every now and then as I was working I would throw him a glance and then I got quite used to him and then I started to converse with him sometimes as I was copying, I called him George, after the King of England.

And then one night I thought of something different I could do.

I was copying Philip’s Paintings, but because of the candlelight (for it was always dark by the time I could slip into his Studio) I realised that in reality I saw his Paintings
differently
and after some time I began to
copy
his Paintings differently: not trying to copy them as they were, but using more light and shade than he used, actually trying to paint how the light from my candle caught the faces . . . something . . . something . . . I liked these copies better but, but . . . something was hovering in my thoughts - oh how I longed to put my questions about light and shade at the dinner-table, how I bit my cheek and my lips to stop myself blurting out my words for I had quickly come a long way and I simply did not know how to proceed.

Then, one morning in an Auction room I used to pass, always staring at the Pictures for Sale, I found a small Painting by a Painter called Mr Joseph Wright of Derby - Mr Wright had his characters lit by candlelight but the candlelight was
inside his Painting
.—I felt a thrill of recognition, carved his name on my heart: Mr Joseph Wright of Derby - from that moment I understood then that there was a
different way of painting
, nothing like the way my brother the Portrait-Painter worked, and because of my own experiments with candlelight I understood, and I was elated.—I asked the Auction-man but he knew nothing of the Artist, ‘Just a young man starting is all I know,’ said the Auction-man, ‘you can have it for a guinea,’ but he may as well have asked for a hundred guineas but on the way home I found an old hopscotch square drawn in an alley and I jumped and hopped with joy round and round by myself with my housekeeper’s basket because I had found Mr Joseph Wright of Derby and now at night I would copy one of Philip’s paintings but with the light coming from
inside
the painting: I painted a candle placed on a table
inside
the painting that would catch only one side of the face, something like the way Mr Joseph Wright of Derby painted (and I remembered with glee what Mr Joshua Reynolds had said,
There is no such thing as plagirism
) and I said
look at this
,
George
to the naked statue and I even signed my first new kind of painting with a flourish, MISS GRACE MARSHALL OF LONDON - I wiped everything clean at once of course, tidied up the Studio so that it looked as if nobody had been.

Slowly I understood what it was I had discovered - the light could come from inside the painting, or it could come from outside the painting but it was as if . . . as if the light and the shadows would - could - add some mood, some
feeling
to the painting
that would otherwise not be there -
it was like a miracle because I had worked it out for myself.

 

And then:

One night one of the assistants found me there, in my brother’s Studio - the older assistant, the one with the angry look as if life had already cheated him - he caught me red-handed: there with my brother’s paints and my brother’s board - I had been so concentrated I had lost, for a moment, my cunning, and stayed too long.

‘Well
Seeengoreeena
.’ He just looked at me, expressions crossing his face one after another, ‘I thought you was a thief,’ he said, with much meaning in his tone and I could not hide, I could not pretend, I could only stand there with the brush still in my hand and then he looked at my Painting, he came closer, I could hear his breathing and I could smell him: dirt and despair, and I heard his surprised intake of breath as he looked at what I had done.

‘I see,’ was all he said. But he
knew
: I understood that he knew: that I was not playing with paints.

‘I was a Painter once,’ he said. And still he stood there too close to me, I could smell sweat and onions and beer and dirt and Turpentine - I did not move, and he did not move, there very close together by my brother’s portrait of a Duke and my own smaller, differently-lit copy - I could hear both of us, breathing, and the two candles I had placed by the easel flickered, almost went out but I saw his stained hands, his black, filthy nails.

‘He said you ain’t allowed in here,’ said the assistant. ‘He said no-one from the house,’ and then he touched my neck and I flinched and looked at him in horror, and then, he watching me all the time, I moved away quickly, washed the brushes quickly, put the colours away quickly; quickly I wiped the old boards with Turpentine, I could hear my heart beating - the assistant watched me all the while, never speaking, and then as I put the last cleaned brush back where it had been he moved quickly:
pphhht ppphhht
, he blew out both the candles, and he lunged at me in the darkness, so near, that smell so close, and he took my shoulders and then one of his hands with the black nails squeezed my breast so that I cried out and then he pulled at my petticoats and pressed against me I could feel the thing, the milliner girls said
the thing
, pressing into me and I screamed so loud that he got a fright and then I punched his head and slipped underneath his arm and ran from my brother’s Studio and into my own room where I locked my door and still I could smell onions and sweat and dirt, it was disgusting, and I heard footsteps and then Euphemia’s voice called, ‘Are you all right
Seeegnorina
? What’s happened?’ and I called back ‘Nothing, go away!’ and finally the house went quiet again and only my breathing as I leaned out of the window trying to breathe in air that was cleaner, and much later my brother returned.

And then, the very next day, the younger assistant, the one with the cheeky smile, was dismissed - he was sent from the house without warning that morning - for stealing my brother’s paints, my brother was shouting, ‘Very much of my paint has gone!’ and I heard the boy so loudly protesting his innocence, and I saw his very small bundle of belongings on his back as he left, and I saw him wipe his nose with his hand, as if he did not care for any person; he was even younger than me, he had had that bright hopeful face, and I saw that now he was frightened even though he tried to hide under an air of nonchalance, and I felt ashamed, and then I saw the face of the older assistant: he did not care about the boy, perhaps he even got the boy dismissed, and he stared at me - he remained silent as the protesting boy was shut out, stared at me coolly and I saw him sizing me up and I felt a kind of panic arising inside me - as he passed me in the big hallway he said very quietly and he was smiling,
I will see you there
,
just you and me now
, and I could smell him again and I felt physically sick - if my brother knew what I had been doing he would turn me out of the house also and all my plans finished: it was as if the assistant held me in his hands.

But what else could I do, for paints? for boards? for brushes? for a place to work?—I had no money, the older assistant would not let himself be fired - and he was expecting a reward, for his silence - I was desperate and wild and ashamed for the jaunty, dismissed boy sent out into the London morning, and I had no idea what to do and I sat at the dinner table that afternoon and my hands were like ice as I lit the candles and went for more wine and that night the man came to my room - how did he know which was my room? assistants did not come to the top, that was not their part of the house - luckily I had locked the door but he knew my brother was not in the house and he knew I was inside.

‘Open the door, my Fancy.’ The voice was low but I heard every word and wondered who else might hear - where was Euphemia? - where was the cook?

‘Open the door, open it now or I will tell your Brother.’

My voice was low also. ‘Why should I care? He will not mind.’

‘I think he will mind.’

‘I do not care!’

‘Why did you let the boy take the blame then?’

I was silent and again saw the boy who was younger than me, his small bundle and his stricken face as he was turned out into Pall Mall without references, or money.

‘Open the door!’ His voice was louder, and now he rattled at the handle.

‘I will tell my brother that you have been bothering me, he will dismiss you at once.’

‘No, he will not.’ His voice came muffled through the door. ‘He needs me, he cannot afford to lose two assistants at once when there is so much work, I will be working there every night now, he has had to give me more wages! So we will be meeting - you need me too, my Fancy.’ I could hear his heavy breathing, ‘Let us come to some Arrangement then or I will tell him who is the real Thief!’ My silence agitated him, again he rattled the door-handle. ‘
Open the door!
’ and it seemed an Eternity before he went away: perhaps he heard the servants, perhaps he got tired but he kicked the door as he left and called one more thing through the door, as if he did not care if all the servants in the house heard him.

‘I think your Fate depends on me,
Seeengoreeena
.’ And I wished I could kill him.

 

All my plans, all my ideas for teaching myself in my brother’s Studio - I who never cried wept in the night out of frustration, in the day I hurried past my brother’s Studio as if it no longer interested me - I often made Euphemia accompany me up to the top floor, I saw him waiting, still as a cat in the shadows, ready to pounce. Euphemia said to me, ‘Why do you not tell your Brother he is bothering you?’

‘Never mind!’ I said to her angrily. ‘It is not your business.’

My brother’s Studio with all the treasures it held: the paints the colours the charcoal the boards the canvases the brushes, was closed to me,
I have to find money to buy what I need and I will paint in my bed-room -
Philip still went over the accounts with me each week, protested that I had spent too much, that there were cheaper stalls, that his hospitality meant I must shop more carefully, even one penny glass of ginger beer made him tighten his lips; he counted out the money carefully as I closed his Notebook until next time.

‘It is my hard-earned money you are spending on pennies given to the mad singer,’ he said when he left me. ‘Never forget that.’

I became desperate - everything:
everything
depended on stabbing the assistant to Death (I dreamed that I did) or getting some money of my own - I would do without canvases, I would do with the oldest boards and the cheapest brushes, but I
had
to have charcoal and paint - even a black-lead pencil was sixpence.—I thought of asking help of the two people I liked the most and had known the longest, Miss Ffoulks or John Palmer - but obviously they had so little themselves, both of them, Miss Ffoulks had re-sewn her gown, and I remembered John Palmer hiding a piece of bread from our table in his pocket, and how, anyway, could I speak to them without betraying my brother? and all the time the assistant lurked, biding his time, I could smell him I could smell him in my sleep and the house seemed now to trap me and I kept thinking
I cannot stop now I have to paint I have to paint
. . .

... well then.

Well then. I was sixteen years old and had perhaps once been respectable but I knew more than might be expected - had I not haunted the docks for years? - I had lived for years on Christmas Steps where the cries in the night echoed up in to the attic room while I drew my Family from inside my heart, I had heard the laughter, and the groans, and the clink of money, and the fights; I had seen the odd shapes, jerking up and down in the shadows, I knew more than might be expected.—I worked it all out, finally, quite coldly, in my head - if I went to the assistant I could keep using my brother’s materials perhaps but every night I would have to, as usual, destroy my Work. As well as destroy my heart.

So, finally, knowing exactly what I was doing, I went where I guessed I could earn money for certain - was I not one of the wild, dishonest Wiltshire Marshalls? - what did it matter? - what did I care?