The Exhibitionists

By Russell James

On the night Parliament burnt down, a child was conceived out of wedlock, a baby was abandoned, and another thrown into the Thames.
The year is 1834 and J.M.W. Turner is sketching Parliament in flames. Unnoticed, a hackney cab drives past, heading for a dark alley in London, home to a notorious baby farmer – where the passenger abandons an innocent baby girl. She will end up on the Victorian stage. At the mercy of men she’ll trust nobody.
Another child is conceived that same night but will never know that the man she loves as a father is not her real parent. She gives up her dreams for him, abandoning the talent she inherited from her artist father – to the disappointment of Dante Gabriel Rossetti who had admired her work when she exhibited at the Royal Academy.
Also that night a newborn baby is thrown into the Thames by his forsaken mother, leaving a mystery for those who find his little basket floating down the river, a mystery he will try to solve years later as a journalist.
The lives of the three children interweave with those of famous people of the era including Turner, Millais, Holman Hunt and the self-styled greatest historical artist of the time, Benjamin Haydon. Not to mention the intriguing He-Sing who cons the establishment enough to let him meet Queen Victoria at the Great Exhibition of 1851, the year in which the Pre-Raphaelites make their name.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Russell James
• Release date: Jun 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463180617

Russell James

Russell James grew up on Long Island, New York and graduated from Cornell University and the University of Central Florida. After flying helicopters with the U.S. Army, he has had multiple horror and paranormal thrillers published. His wife reads his work and says "There is something seriously wrong with you."

Book preview

THE EXHIBITIONISTS

THE EXHIBITIONISTS

by

Russell James

For more about the author check his website at

http://russelljamesbooks.wordpress.com/

First published in Britain in 2012 by G-Press Fiction

Republished with minor changes in 2019 by Prospero Books

© Russell James 2019

The right of Russell James to be identified as the author of the work has been asserted by him Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

All rights reserved.

Full-length novels by this author include:

Underground

Daylight

Payback

Slaughter Music

Count me Out

Oh No, Not My Baby

Painting in the Dark

Pick Any Title

No One Gets Hurt

The Maud Allan Affair

The Annex

Requiem for a Daughter

Rafael’s Gold

Exit 39

The Newly Discovered Diaries of Doctor Kristal

Stories I Can’t Tell

Mother Naked

After She Drowned

The Captain’s Ward

For Fiona Shoop,

A splendid editor

You never know, and you never will know that once you were that close.

October 1834

THE GREAT FIRE

On the night Parliament burnt down, a child was conceived out of wedlock, a baby was abandoned, and another thrown into the Thames. The fire slipped from a basement stove, stuffed with paperwork. By four o’clock in the afternoon the smoke was obvious, but no one raised an alarm and, because the Houses were locked at five, it was not until after seven that there came twelve horse-drawn tenders from the Fire Engine Establishment. Half an hour later a body of policemen and soldiers arrived to block crowds from the blaze.

It was an October evening. The sun had disappeared, murky night was settling in and, as fire ripped through the rickety buildings, the river appeared ablaze. Flames leapt into the sky. Above the orange heat swirled billows of choking smoke. Sparks and flying cinders flickered in the air. Half of London turned out to see and, from tight-packed warrens north and south, watchers jostled on the river banks. A few shops closed early but most stayed open for the unexpected trade.

Never, it seemed, had so many boatmen been on the water. Never had it been so hard to engage a cab – and never easier to buy a drink. Tap-rooms and ale houses flung wide their doors. Lemonade and saloop sellers pitched their wares beside hot eel and baked potato merchants. Buskers were ignored, and the blind bible reader of Essex Stairs shouted prophesies into a stiff unheeding breeze.

But what of the children, you ask? Have patience. First we must meet:a

THE PAINTER OF FIRE AND LIGHT

He had forced his way onto Westminster Bridge. An impossible viewpoint, thick with people, thick with smoke – but the best place to absorb the glory of the blaze. Blaze, he thought, raze to the ground: he’d make a poem to go with the picture. Bumped from every side, he held his sketch-block against his stomach and huddled to scratch impressions. Drawings. Words. Effects of smoke.

His eyes watered.

Not too many sketches, Turner decided. Just the basic shapes of anything he might forget later. The air was acrid but he breathed it down, and when the sky had darkened he pushed his way off the bridge onto the Surrey side and walked through the crowds, turning frequently to look back and jot things down.

Impressionistic outlines. Fireworks, he wrote: meteor, ochre, soot, umber on yellow. Slowly he worked his way towards the next bridge, Waterloo. Only by using his elbows could he push onto the bridge itself. But he was a Londoner, short and stocky, a battering ram for a head, and he pushed and squeezed his way over to the Westminster side, where he forced his way to the parapet and stared again. Resting his block against the stone he made a sketch of water and reflected flames. Reflections from burning buildings and burning torches in the crowd.

Tens of thousands thronged the banks. Most had come to watch but, amongst them, Turner could see street traders, ballad makers, pickpockets, reporters, and God knows how many artists, he thought. In every hundred people there’d be one with chalk or charcoal, scraping away, scratching paper in black and white. They’d add colour later – he would anyway. His palette of fire.

Despite his fame, Turner stood unrecognized in the crowd, and on his drawing-block, had one glanced, were words and doodles, broken shapes. Later, when he got back to his studio, he’d discard most of these sheets: first thoughts, reminders, intangible as smoke. For hours to come this fiery night, he and other artists all over town would work on their drafts, recreating blazing buildings and gleaming water: the Palace of Westminster, in skeletal form. He blocked out an outline. Barely glancing at what he drew, he gazed into the fire and let its heat pulse through his arm.

As flames consumed the building, as light changed, he scribbled on. Drafts and aide-memoirs. Another light he had not captured. The throbbing fire. A blaze greater than any sunset. Flames leapt above the water and danced among boats and bobbing barges. Smoke and water. Darkness repelled by light.

But the children. What of them?

A CHILD ABANDONED

She was nearly six months old, and on this momentous night she snuggled in the rough comfort of a blanket, flitting from wakefulness to sleep and back again as the hansom jolted through the streets – a rocky ride that night, because the driver had to tug his horse aside to force his way through the throng. The child snuffled, squirmed and whimpered. Her damp face was scratched from where she’d pressed one cheek against the blanket and the other against the man’s stiff jacket. Within the closed cab the man heard the noise of the crowd like a rushing river, as if the Thames itself had burst its banks. Splashes of shouts and laughter. When the cab jolted, he knew the crowd outside had rocked it. But he kept the curtain closed.

The cab moved no faster than at a stroll. When, rarely, he peered outside he saw other carriages stuck among sightseers. If anyone looked back at him he closed the curtain. He heard the driver crack his whip. ‘Get out of the road,’ the driver called, and although his horse was heavy and shod with iron they took no notice. When the jolting worsened the passenger glanced out again, and saw that the cab and crowd were crammed together on one of the bridges – Waterloo, he realized, and when he looked to the west and saw the blaze he wondered, could that be Parliament? Was Westminster Bridge on fire? The cab didn’t move. He didn’t know whether it had stopped to let the jarvey watch the fire or whether the man couldn’t force his way through the jabbering crowd. He rapped on the roof to attract attention.

‘Fantastic sight, sir. Never seen the like.’

‘Yes, yes. We can’t wait all bloody evening.’

‘It’s the ’ouse of Parliament, sir. In another hour it’ll all ’ave gone.’

‘Drive on.’

‘Look at that, sir. You’ll remember this night the rest of your life.’

‘I said drive on.’

*

The cab stopped at the entrance to a narrow street in Southwark, and the driver, seated above and wrapped against the chill, lifted the hatch. ‘This is as far as I go. Too narrow. Can’t turn down there.’

The passenger gathered up his tiny bundle and pulled the shawl tighter to make the baby feel more secure. It looked dark outside, so dark he couldn’t be certain where he was. When he opened the door the baby let out a thin high wail. It must be hungry, he supposed, or frightened of this cold autumnal world. He’d dosed the child with Godfrey’s Cordial but thought the opium might be wearing off.

He clambered out, keeping the bundled child pulled to his chest and holding a travelling bag in his other hand. ‘Wait here,’ he said abruptly.

‘I’ll ’ave the money now, sir.’

‘I’ve got me ’ands full, can’t you see?’ He had the manner of a gentleman, but his accent let him down. ‘I’ll come back and pay you in just a moment.’

‘No, sir. People disappear and I don’t catch sight of ’em again. Put the baby on the seat while you find your money.’

‘For God’s sake...’

‘I won’t wait here.’

The night was dark. The street was darker. The narrow lane off was darker still. The cabbie placed the tip of his whip on the passenger’s shoulder – just a touch; he didn’t strike, but he let it lie there. ‘You’ll pay me now.’

Cursing beneath his breath, the man leant into the cab and eased the bundle onto the leather cushion. He heard a whimper. Placing his travelling bag at his feet he fumbled in his pocket for change. ‘Two and sixpence,’ the cabbie said.

‘Get off. One and six should do it.’

‘This time of night? Those crowds? You’re lucky I only charge you two and six.’

Once again the driver touched him with the whip. The man felt it against his neck. ‘Don’t expect a tip.’

‘That little kiddie should be in bed.’

He proffered two shillings and a few brown coins. ‘Toss you for it? Double or quits?’

‘Half a crown, I said.’

‘I’m bringing it to its grandma.’ He didn’t know why he said that; he didn’t owe the jarvey an explanation.

‘It’s grandma?’ The driver counted the coins. ‘Don’t you know if it’s a boy or girl?’

‘I’m not the father. I’m helping a friend.’

‘Oh, yeah? And I suppose the grandma lives down there?’

But the man had tired of him. He picked up his bag and, as he entered the tiny alley, he heard the driver say, ‘Mrs Cutherbertson’s is the last house on the right.’

‘How d’you know–’

The carriage began to move. ‘It’s always Mrs Cuthbertson,’ the cabbie called. ‘When it’s a kiddie this time of night.’

*

Let him walk, thought Mrs Cuthbertson. If he thinks he’ll find a cab round here this time of night he is mightily mistaken. He can walk to Blackfriars Bridge. Sharp, he thinks himself, a flash type. Burns, he calls himself, a likely name. On the night of a great conflagration he says his name is Burns. There’s a smell of smoke in the air, the smell of burning, the smell of brimstone.

After she’d seen him leave the alley she stood a few moments on her worn front doorstep to be sure he had gone. But why on earth would he come back? She doubted he ever would. Her eyes were accustomed now to the blackness, even though the alleyway was so dark the man had had to feel his way out, one hand stretched to the wall, as he made for the half-light of the street. The light had beckoned to him as he stumbled from a land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness. Job 10:22. Mrs Cuthbertson loved that passage. She loved her Bible, and Job appealed to her especially. Job was good. For he breaketh me with a tempest, and multiplieth my wounds without cause – another favourite. 9:17.

Well, that sharp fellow was full of swank, she mused as she peered out from her doorway. Thought he could palm his baby off and get out of paying for it. Thought he could cast off responsibility – but the Lord knows and watches all. She chuckled as she eased the hood of the blanket aside and squinted at the baby. Too dark to see. But quiet, at least. Must have been well dosed. He was the type who would have dosed his baby. Thought he knew his way in the world. Tried to get away with offering just one month’s money – she had asked for six. He’d said he’d pay regular and she’d said she always asked for six, sometimes more. Six was doing him a favour, she’d said. Two months, he’d said. Six, she countered. He’d said he’d toss her for it, and she chuckled at the cheek of him: at such a time, giving up a baby. Of course, he’d told her it wasn’t his, but half the men who came here said they were doing it for a friend.

She stepped inside and closed the door. Shifting the baby to one arm she slid two bolts across, but doing so caused the child to snuffle. Upstairs, one of the older ones was grizzling, but it was nothing serious. She’d heard worse. But that man, that flash one, she thought, would have tossed a coin with her for the baby. He’d have tossed a coin for anything; he was a gambler, she knew the type. She was against gamblers. Sinners to be condemned.

She picked up her candle and, as she carried her new charge down to the basement kitchen, she chuckled again at his trying to toss her for the fee. She didn’t know why it made her chuckle, for she wasn’t the chuckling type. Gambling men were scum – though he had been handsome. It didn’t affect her: she didn’t respond to handsome men. Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain. Proverbs somewhere. But the gambling man had had his way with her, all the same: he’d beaten her down from six months to four. Four months. A compromise, he’d called it. Split the difference. And she’d agreed to it, more fool her. Though the child might not live another four months.

In the chilly basement the only light came from the stub of candle in her hand. She set it down on the kitchen table. Mrs Cuthbertson often said she could find her way around the whole house blindfolded, but in order to see the child – to see anything beyond the kitchen table – she needed more light, so she lit a second candle. Two, one either end, made the kitchen table look like an altar. She placed the baby in between. Between the candles the little bundle could have been an object of veneration. Beyond the pool of light on the table the kitchen disappeared into darkness. From the shadow around the dresser came a rustling – but it wasn’t a rat, she knew, because it was followed by a cough from that scrawny boy, half Chinese. Feeble, and often coughing. He’d not last long, perhaps not even long enough to move upstairs. The kindest thing would be to speed him on God’s way. Why not? His soul was clean, and there’d be a space for him in Heaven, even if he was a Lascar. Half Lascar. Heathen probably. Jeremiah said: Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive. Oh, well.

There were six little ones alive upstairs, in two rooms. Four with mattresses on the floor, and two in boxes. Better to be in a box on a bedroom floor than in a pine box underground. Two girls shared a mattress, while the oldest, along with the only boy who’d survived, had mattresses of their own. Funny how girls survived; you’d think they wouldn’t. But people brought more girls. She didn’t mind: girls were industrious. Mrs Cuthbertson took one of the candles and went across to the dresser. The Chinese baby, she noticed, had his eyes open and was watching the candle. He had stuffed his fist into his mouth and was coughing again. Several little coughs. They didn’t seem to bother him, so she wouldn’t dose him again. He was so small.

Beside the dresser was the box she wanted, a small wooden crate, big enough for the new baby. It had some rags inside, so the girl would be snug as a bug there – snug as the bugs already in it. She brought the crate across and put it underneath the table. First she’d check the baby for blemishes, disease and injury. She unpeeled its shawl. Fine stuff, she thought – that’ll fetch half a sovereign. And nicely dressed. And her dad was a man who’d argued about the fee! She should never have let him get away with it. She’d sell the shawl and all of these nice clothes – once she had washed them, because Heaven knows when the little mite had last been cleaned.

Taking the clothes off woke the child. Yes, thought Mrs Cuthbertson: you’ll be sorry to lose those fine clothes. But be grateful, child. And it was a child; she must be – what? – full six months old. She had six months of well-fed flesh on her. That made a change. And she was a girl, as he had said. Whether he’d ever come back with more money was another matter. He might. You couldn’t tell. He’d told her he wanted the girl kept alive – but would he pay for it? Perhaps. Not that it was up to him; it was up to God now. God and Mrs Cuthbertson. But with the flesh on this one, she should survive the next few weeks.

Her name was Mary, the man had said. Mary? Mary Magdalene, more like. We could call her Madeleine perhaps, like Magdalene. Or Magda, short for Magdalene. Or Maddy? That meant Madeleine. Because her mother must have been a fallen woman if she could afford those fancy clothes.

And what of the other children?

A CHILD LEFT FOR DROWNED

By midnight the Westminster fire was little more than a glow of embers beside the river, and an oily smell. Invisible in the darkness came soot, slow-falling. Flakes fell on Waterloo Bridge, beneath which a tearful woman pulled a dirty basket from her shawl. Inside it, something stirred. Something that coughed and tried to cry. She whispered, and placed her fingers on its lips. The baby sucked and found no sustenance. It cried again – a shorter, louder cry – and she looked about in case someone might hear. She could hear people on the bridge above. But no one else was beneath the arches.

Crowds had been drawn to every bridge and to every viewpoint along the Thames to catch a glimpse of the awful fire. The Houses of Parliament. Destroyed. There had been nothing like it since the Gordon riots. People would talk about it for decades to come. This night would etch itself into their memories. They wouldn’t forget.

Those other people.

In the cold damp breeze the baby grizzled. This time, when she placed her hand across his lips, he spurned her fingers and, when he turned his face, he showed his birthmark. Poor thing, she thought. If he lives, that birthmark might fade away. Perhaps. His cries were growing louder, and she had to silence him or someone would hear. She shook the basket gently but it made the child cry louder. She pushed her fingers inside his mouth, and for a moment that seemed to work. He wriggled. His mouth was wet. He was innocent and unwanted. His little head felt so fragile she could have crushed it like an egg. She felt his soft lips suck her fingers, and something wet splashed on her hand – but it was only a splash from her own tears. She was weeping, and had not realized. She wept, the baby wept – the little mite hadn’t asked to be born; he’d harmed nobody. Why did such accidents happen?

In the dark beneath the bridge she could barely see his face. She could barely see her own hand. She leant closer to peer at him – a face like any baby’s, she supposed, except for his birthmark – and she could have sworn he looked back into her eyes. A newborn baby couldn’t focus, people said, yet surely he’d looked right back at her. He stared as she did, as if they both wanted to absorb every detail of the other’s face before they parted.

She shuddered. He’d not remember. She stifled a gulp, then threw the basket far out onto the cold black river. She saw it bounce once, and quiver on the surface. Then, quickly, very quickly, it floated away on the rapid tide. It didn’t sink – it wouldn’t surely? No. Please God, not yet.

*

Hour after hour, crowds had lingered to watch the burning Parliament. But they’d gone home now, most of them. One or two, strolling on the bridge, glanced at the glow left from the fire, but why should they pay to look at what they could see from either bank? An occasional carriage passed by: people returning from the theatre, rich people coming home from dinner – or going to dinner. She had no idea how rich people lived. Did they care about the pennies they paid to cross the bridge? Did they think of pennies at all? She didn’t know.

At least she wouldn’t be penniless when she died, for having paid the toll to go on the bridge she had a penny ha’penny left. She could have bought a loaf of bread with that, or a cup of cow’s milk for the baby. A penny ha’penny. She stood at the balustrade and stared up-river, the breeze behind her, trying not to think about her baby. Had the basket floated or had it sunk?

She glanced about her. The lack of people made the breeze feel chillier. She might catch a cold, she thought – but she’d catch no more colds. Never again would she wake up to... Never again would she wake up. Never. Nothing would happen to her, ever again.

She reached in her pocket for the penny ha’penny. Two brown coins, which felt like jewels in the darkness of her hand. They were worth nothing now; she might as well throw them into the river and make a wish! For what? There was nothing left to wish for – except perhaps: God rest and receive my soul. She didn’t need a penny ha’penny for that – unless God, like the toll-keeper, demanded a fee. In one jerky movement she threw the coins into the darkness and listened, but she heard no splash. No tiny splash no one would hear. She felt quite calm as she looked round. No one was watching. No one was near. No pedestrians, no carriages. No witnesses. She’d have liked a witness – but a witness might have felt duty bound to interfere. No witnesses, then. No interference. No one to tell her what to do.

She breathed in, exhaled, then took another deep, deep breath. From her canvas bag she pulled a banner made from an old sheet on which she had written in red ink. Red like blood. Indelible, she hoped. MAN’S LUST FORCED ME TO THIS. She wrapped the banner across her breast, tied it awkwardly, and adjusted the knot to make sure the words would remain visible. She climbed across the parapet and clung there, leaning out for a moment from the rough stone edge. Below ran cold dark water. Around her face she felt the breeze. When she looked behind she saw an approaching horse-drawn cab. Could they see her? As the cab drew level she stared up at the driver – but he didn’t notice her in the dark as he went by. Did it matter? Yes. She should not die unwitnessed.

She heard footsteps. Peering along the balustrade she saw two men walking side by side. Two men. Yes, let them see. She would have preferred a woman, but women seldom came onto Waterloo Bridge at night. These men would have to do.

She waited till they were close. They couldn’t stop her – the balustrade was in the way. She let go with one hand and waited till they were only paces away before, with a cry of defiance, she leapt from the bridge, out into the air, to the river below.

The men barely paused. ‘What was that?’ asked one. ‘Did you hear a cry?’

‘A gull, I think.’

‘Or someone?’ They looked about them. ‘No one’s here.’

‘I see the fire’s still smouldering.’

‘An extraordinary night.’

Had they peered down onto the river they might have discerned a smear of unfurling cloth: a home-made banner. The woman’s body was out of sight, and it would be several minutes before it rose again to the surface.

We must not forget the third child...

OUT OF WEDLOCK

To be precise, the child was not conceived until the fire subsided. By then the Fire Engine Establishment had subdued the blaze and houses nearby had been saved. But the huge fire smouldered on. Flying embers blew across the river. Soot flakes fell in Dulwich. Some drifted west to Richmond, others floated east to Bow. Some settled on the roof and gardens of Buckingham Palace, but the Fire Chief was not alarmed: Parliament might be lost, but not the Palace. No chance of that. This would not be a Great Fire of London. It had been contained.

People started wandering home, chattering as they walked. The fire still glowed, smoke persisted, but in that dingy bedroom no light seeped through the heavy curtains. The room’s only illumination came from a crooked candle in a saucer beside the bed, and it threw lumpy shadows on the walls. The lodging house was poor, if not as poor as some, for Lambeth maintained a shabby respectability. The present young tenant appeared respectable, but he had smuggled his girl inside. They had needed little subterfuge, because the fire had tempted his landlady outside to watch. ‘So snuggle up,’ said Cosmo.

Emma gazed at him in the candlelight. She had come to his room nervously but, knowing they would soon be parted, she’d felt she had to come. She was right to come. On Vauxhall Bridge they had watched the fire – everyone in London had watched the fire – but Cosmo had pulled her away and had dragged her through the crowd, most of whom were going the other way, and had brought her here. To his darkened room.

Now that her eyes had grown accustomed, she lay in his bed and watched the walls fluttering in the candlelight. She remembered the fire. She remembered its heat. They had heat and light and each other, and the gentle dark, in which she lay beside him, thinking.

The loss of her virginity had hurt less than she had feared. A moment’s pain but oh, the excitement when flesh met flesh. How she had yearned for him. She had known his kisses but until tonight they had never lain together. Carefully she’d prepared her nightwear – scented and newly pressed – and she hadn’t worn them! Well, she had for a moment, the briefest moment, but when Cosmo had slipped between the sheets he had ruffled the nightgown up and had tugged it over her head. Her under-vest had stuck beneath her chin and she’d laughed out loud. He’d laughed as well. She had felt his nakedness and he’d pressed against her and she’d felt his rough young flesh – and gasped. He had throbbed against her belly, and had seized her fingers and dragged her hand down and whispered, ‘Hold me.’

Now she lay in the dark and stared at a ceiling she couldn’t see. Had she enjoyed it? She couldn’t really say she had, though she’d never tell him that. He’d said she might not like it much the first time, but it would get better later, in good time. Well, she thought, he had enjoyed it anyway, and she’d enjoyed lying with him, and touching, and whispering words of love, and making promises which they both knew they must break.

A SUITABLE MONUMENT

At Westminster the blaze subsided, and the view across the river was of a smouldering frame. Turner had packed away his sketches and ambled home, leaving other artists to peer at their drawings in dwindling light. One of them, Benjamin Robert Haydon, critic, author and scourge of the Royal Academy, walked among the crowds along the south bank of the Thames, preliminary sketches put away, musing to himself on how his finished work would look. There would definitely be a finished work. This was too momentous a day to be ignored and he, the country’s leading historical painter, would record the tragedy for posterity. For this glorious blazing tragedy the occasion required – nay, demanded – a monumental masterpiece. The canvas should be – what? – six foot by four. No, too small: twelve foot by ten. His works, his real works, not the stuff he turned out on commission, were celebrations of noble subjects – masterful, on a scale suitable for their subject. Could an artist confine Christ to a sheet of quarto?

He asked the question aloud and attracted glances, which he ignored. He had painted Christ twice, in intervals alongside a Lazarus. His Raising of Lazarus had been twenty foot long, and he’d built a frame for it that weighed six hundred pounds! He laughed aloud. That was the spirit, by Jove, and he had that spirit still. Critics loved that painting. Crowds loved it but – he glanced across the river and shook his head – it had taken six years to paint and eventually had sold for a miserable three hundred and fifty pounds. Six years work! A work of genius. Haydon had no doubt he was a genius – recognized as such, there’s the irony, but not supported. Not patronised.

He was leaving the bridge now – Vauxhall, thick with people gawping at the glow from Westminster. The cold air reeked of smoke. Haydon paused for a moment to look along the river but for an artist the prospect was unworthy, so he left the bridge and struck out from the riverside. Cooler now. ’Twas chill October.

People have no idea, he thought, of the cost of procuring two hundred and fifty square feet of canvas, the cost of stretching it and, above all, the cost of housing the thing in a studio large enough. One of my canvases can be larger than a merchant’s dining room. A canvas twenty foot by twelve, laid on the floor, takes space enough to erect a house – a house large enough to accommodate folk who’ll gawp at my work when it’s exhibited; gawpers who’ll pay pennies to be amazed, gawpers who spend dull unrealized lives in pointless occupations: shop assistants, clerks and manufacturers. How often in their lives can they feast their eyes on a work of genius? And when they stand transfixed before a masterpiece do they give a thought to the difficulties of working on such a scale? No. Can they imagine housing it; can they envisage the years of loving labour from dawn to bedtime to cover all those square feet with immaculately rendered oil paint? Do they think to ask how the nation’s greatest living historical painter supports himself and his family through years of unpaid execution? Not for a moment. They’ll pay pennies to see an exhibition – do they think an artist can live on that? Not for a moment. Where are the public benefactors? Where is the grateful nation?

‘Where?’ he shouted.

People glanced at him. He didn’t notice. Was it the will of the British people that Benjamin Robert Haydon should die in debt?

It was an artist’s duty, his sacred duty, to capture history, to re-present it for future generations and ensure that the great moments of British history became part of the nation’s heritage. Why else did art exist? For decoration? As ephemera? Nay. Those entrusted with artistic talent should not squander God’s great gift – they should not surrender in the face of poverty or the interference of dullards or the jealousy of other artists or the vain self-glorifying edicts of the Royal Academy. Nothing should deflect an artist from his path. People might scoff – some people, the blind, the wilfully obtuse – but the time would come when he, like Raphael and Michaelangelo, would be recognized.

Even his wife, dear Mary, supportive and understanding as she was, asked whether it was necessary to paint such enormous canvases? Haydon groaned. How else were great subjects to be reproduced? Should biblical stories as momentous as Our Lord’s Entry to Jerusalem, Pharaoh Dismissing Moses or the Trials of Samson not be memorialised on epic scale? When carpers complained that his canvases were too large they showed the smallness of their spirit. A serious subject demanded serious treatment. His works were public works, not intended for a merchant’s dining room. They demanded to be displayed somewhere commodious, with room to house them. For little houses the occupants bought little works. But to see his work they had to leave their cramped abodes, abandon their humdrum lives, and by seeing his work be transformed.

As he approached his own house Haydon saw a sliver of light at an upstairs window. Candlelight through the curtains of the children’s bedroom. He stopped in the empty street and peered up. A light, when the children should be asleep. No parent ever feels easy when their child is sick. Haydon had seen three of his die already. Little Fanny first – three years ago next month – two and a half years old, weak from birth and conceived, in his opinion, too soon after her mother’s previous confinement. Was that his fault?

Guilt flickered through him as he stood peering up at the bedroom. Conceived too soon, born into penury – his fault! It was all his fault. Poor Fanny. Teased by her older brother for so often being ill, the poor child had never spoken, not a syllable. She’d never walked. Haydon sighed. God had not fashioned her for this hard world. Alfred had died next. Seventeen months ago. Seven years old. Alfred, his favourite boy. Alfred had shown a passion for art and Haydon would sometimes let him stay in the studio and the boy would sit on the floor and contemplate a blanket, a rug, or anything soaked in colour. Yet he too had faded. The day after Fanny was buried, Haydon remembered, he had begun a family portrait, starting as always by sketching each of their darling heads. And even then – dear God, even then – he could see that Alfred was dying. Alfred dozed while his father drew his head and wept. As it turned out, the child lived a further year and a half, but he and Mary always knew the boy would die. Alfred’s last words had been, ‘I should like to see Papa.’

Before entering the house Haydon pulled his coat tightly about him. It was cold. He mustn’t think of Alfred, not tonight. But how could he not remember? Only last April he had lost another son, young Harry. Three and a half. Fell on his head while playing. Harry had lingered several days but, although he seemed sensible at times, he had become increasingly bewildered. On the Sunday he’d screamed piteously all night, and on Monday morning he’d lain in wakeful peace, dreaming, it seemed, with eyes wide open. Dreaming of another world. The doctor had come, and he’d asked for sherry, as tonic for the boy. Haydon had run out to get some and – curse the sherry! – he had not been there when Harry died. A slight convulsion, Mary told him later, and the boy was gone. Six months ago. Six short months. In the cold London street Haydon stared at the upstairs window and wondered why the candle was alight. He took several deep breaths before he went inside.

SAVED!

The Thames was dark now, black and slimy. Its flowing water no longer reflected the mighty subdued fire, though from the Parliament timbers came a glow against which it was possible to spy the silhouettes of men raking and scraping. The drama was over. London had gone to bed.

But not the night workers: the police, the watch, the late night cabs and carriages and, out on the river, the sprinkling of silent watermen. Some looked for flotsam, barely legitimate; others lurked beside barges and unguarded hulks. Close to the banks, as these men knew, were Thames Police officers, their duty boats masked in shadow and their shore-based offices warm and cramped.

Jack Wilde, a lean man of thirty-five, had been a waterman for years. He had also been a docker, a dredger, a heaver – a man of many parts, known by rather than to the river police. A man known to the police was known for a reason, he would have a record, even if he’d never actually been charged or successfully convicted; a man known by them had only ‘come to their attention’, and though his business was not necessarily unlawful, he should be watched. It was not unknown for such a man to approach the police unasked. He might have business to transact: a reward to bid for or information to sell, although Jack Wilde never told tales. When, in the early hours of this morning, he’d turned up at the station house in the arches below the bridge, both sides knew that there’d be money in it. He would want a fee.

‘You found someone?’ asked Constable Kyle.

Wilde nodded. He and Kyle lived within quarter of a mile of each other, and he remembered a different Kyle from the man who sat at the small oak table. This Kyle, in his stiff blue uniform and reinforced hat, had until three years ago worn similar clothes to Jack’s; he had drunk in the same public houses, known the same people, drifted in and out of the same hardscrabble jobs. Wilde didn’t blame him for giving it up to become a Peeler; a man had to live. Now he would talk to the man, he would take a drink from him, but he wouldn’t trust Kyle as he had before.

‘Body, is it?’ Kyle asked. ‘This’ll be your second fee in a month. You’re getting an eye for it.’

‘What’s a kid worth?’

‘Same as an adult, Jack. Not a suicide then?’

Wilde was warming himself at the brazier. ‘Not suicide. Not even dead. So I don’t suppose there’ll be a coroner’s fee?’

‘What’s it doing on the water, this time of night?’ Kyle pushed himself up from his chair. ‘Better bring it in. Is it boy or girl?’

‘Baby. I dunno if it’s–’

‘Baby in the water? Bring it in, man, it’ll freeze to death. The kettle’s on. A hot water bottle will warm it up. But hurry!’

‘Don’t panic. It’s warm as toast. Wrapped in a basket. I saw it floatin’ and I–’

‘Floating? Bring it in!’

‘No hurry.’ Wilde went back to the cold outside.

‘No hurry?’ Bob Kyle pushed a big kettle to the centre of the brazier hob. By the time Jack returned, Bob was filling two stone hot water bottles. At first glance, Jack Wilde was right. Inside the cane basket