The Borough Press
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018
Copyright © Matthew Plampin 2018
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Matthew Plampin asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Cover design by Dominic Forbes © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Cover illustrations © Whistler Butterfly, c.1890 (pencil on paper), Whistler, James Abbot McNeil (1834-1903) / Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, USA / Gift of Charles Lang Freer / Bridgeman Images (Whistler’s signature); Shutterstock.com (peacock).
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it, while at times based on historical figures, are the work of the author’s imagination.
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Source ISBN: 9780008163624
Ebook Edition © May 2018 ISBN: 9780008163631
Version: 2018-03-22
For Sarah
‘Maud could tell the whole story, but she will not.’
Elizabeth and Joseph Pennell,
The Life of James McNeill Whistler (1908)
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Part One: The Falling Rocket
Part Two: Arrangement in Grey and Black
Part Three: The Gold Scab
Author’s Note
About the Author
Also by Matthew Plampin
About the Publisher
October 1876
Maud woke to the sound of a piano. The room around her was dark, its heavy shutters closed. Jimmy was standing to the left, framed by a doorway. She started to speak, to ask what was happening, and he darted forward, shimmering slightly as he passed. Angling her head, she watched as he went to the end of the bed, collected together his possessions and packed them into an old leather bag. When this was done, he whipped off his smock, revealing the suit beneath; and there was that glittering again, like golden fish scales. She realised it was tiny flecks of the Dutch metal he was applying downstairs.
‘Up,’ he said.
The piano was somewhere towards the bottom of the house. It was being played much too hard, attacked almost, the music tangled and all out of time. After a short struggle with the bedclothes – which were the best cotton, far finer than theirs – Maud managed to rise onto an elbow.
‘What in heaven—?’
‘Leyland has reappeared,’ Jimmy told her, cramming the smock into his bag. ‘And he is displeased. We must absent ourselves, my girl, tout de suite.’
Maud swung her legs over the side of the bed, her toes spreading on the bare floorboards. Her shift was damp with sweat. She smelt rather ripe, an oniony sharpness mingling with the curdled whiff of nausea. Despite the warmth, a shiver prickled up the back of her neck; the shadowy room, empty save for the bed, seemed to drift like a raft on a pond.
‘It’s after three,’ said Jimmy. ‘You’ve been asleep for nearly five hours.’ He stopped to study her. ‘How are you faring?’
‘Well,’ she lied. ‘Better.’
‘Come then,’ he said, adjusting the length of lavender ribbon that served him as a necktie. ‘Haste, Maudie. Let’s be off.’
Maud dressed as quickly as she could. Stockings, petticoat and corset. One of her everyday gowns, the colour of old brick with black lacquered buttons. The fabric felt odd against her skin, stiff and coarse, and her boots were tight, as if they’d shrunk a size while she slept. She gathered in her hair, winding it into a loose, greasy bun. Jimmy waited by the open door with the bag between his feet, wiping Dutch metal from his eyeglass with a handkerchief, wincing as the piano struck a particularly jarring note. Maud eased herself from the bed and went over to him, grinning a little as she looked at that mobile, actorly face; the white forelock resting amongst the oiled black curls; the small, sardonic line etched at the corner of his mouth. His eyes were a bright, sun-bleached blue. Wide at first, they dipped until very nearly closed, like a cat’s. He smiled back at her with affectionate impatience.
‘My hat,’ she said, picking a gold flake from his moustache. ‘Think it’s downstairs.’
Jimmy slotted the eyeglass into his breast pocket, scooped his bag from the floor and took her hand. Together they started through the house. Even now, moving at speed, her head muddled by sleep and sickness, and that terrible music grinding out in the background – Beethoven was it meant to be? – the pair of them seemed to sweep across the expanse of the landing; to descend the staircase, lent majesty by that grand marble curve; to proceed into the swank hallway below. It was borrowed, of course, wholly counterfeit, but it felt good nevertheless.
They swerved right, towards the dining room. This was Jimmy’s realm, where he’d spent much of the summer. He’d been brought in to finish off the original, rather dull decorative scheme – left incomplete, Maud understood, after its designer fell ill – and had decided instead to transform it into something truly astonishing. She hadn’t been in there for a day or two, which refreshed the effect – so much so that she slowed to a halt upon the paint-spattered floorboards, her hat momentarily forgotten. It was like entering a pavilion at a great international fair.