Stone's Fall

Our evening routine was invariable. At around seven-thirty all four of Mrs Morrison's boys would assemble in the little dining room, dark and gloomy, lit only by spluttering gas light, and waited while the clank of pans rose to the climax that heralded the arrival of our evening feast. Conversation varied at these meals, sometimes animated, sometimes non-existent. Occasionally we would dine en grand seigneur, and dally over our tea afterwards. I could always win an audience by describing the latest murder; Brock would compete for attention with an account of a meeting with the artists he didn't really know. Mulready could clear the table by reciting some verse of an experimental hue. Only Franklin said little, for no one was really interested in the movements of the markets or the reception of a South American bond issue, even though the coupon might have been set substantially below par. He spoke a language far more foreign than criminals or artists or poets, one which few cared to learn.

Dinner that evening was a mutton chop apiece, potatoes and (a particular treat) Brussels sprouts rather than cabbage, although it was difficult to tell the difference by the time they were served. Next there was Tapioca pudding, which produced a chorus of applause from the artistic types, whose childish tastes were, perhaps, an essential part of their lives. The conversation was not animated. Brock wished to begin a discussion on whether there was going to be a war with Germany or not, and seemed to think that I, as a newspaper man, would have a special insight into the thinking of the Foreign Office on the subject.

His was not an abstract concern in the fate of nations, although as it turned out he was right to be interested. For the war was the making of him when it came. He became a war artist, and what he saw so changed the way he painted that it thrust him to the forefront of the new generation which came to prominence when it finished. The bleakness which made him unpalatable in those sunny days before the conflict started was perfectly attuned to the mood that prevailed during it, and gave him a clarity that eluded him when he lived with us in Chelsea.

No, he had come up with this project for a gigantic portrait of the crowned heads of Europe, a scheme for which he was so totally unsuited that I did not know whether to wonder at his impudence or at his lack of reality. He wished – he, John Praxiteles Brock – to summon every monarch, from Tsar Nicholas to the Kaiser, from King Edward to the Emperor of Austria, and every last kinglet of Scandinavia and the Balkans, to sit together to be painted by him. Presumably not in the dining room of 17 Paradise Walk, Chelsea.

It was a scheme so lunatic in conception that, naturally, we all encouraged him enthusiastically and he spent days doing little sketches, using photographs from newspapers in lieu of the real thing. It kept him busy and happy, and I still don't know whether there was really any grain of seriousness about it. I think not, for although he was unrealistic, he was not totally insane. But the project took on a life of its own, and everything that happened in the world would be related back to it. He became a great supporter of the French monarchists, as he did not see how he could fit a republican president into a portrait of kings. He profoundly disapproved of Russian revolutionaries, and was outraged when the King of Portugal was assassinated, thus robbing him of a subject who had been noted (until his unfortunate death) for his handsome figure.

The dream of glory swept over Brock like a wave as he contemplated his forthcoming knighthood when the project was shown at the Royal Academy. Then he came back to earth as Mulready collapsed into gales of giggles. The dinner came to its end on rather a poor note. Brock stumped off, Mulready began to feel a little guilty and Franklin watched impassively. Eventually we went upstairs to the little sitting room, kept for special occasions only. It was dark, chilly and thoroughly uncomfortable, but Franklin never allowed anyone into his room. He tossed the file from Seyd's back towards me.

'Did you read it?'

'Of course I did. An accomplished summary, but little detail.'

'So? Can you explain it all to me?'

While Brock and Mulready were all gaiety even when discussing weighty matters, Franklin was all seriousness, even in his frivolity. He had no sense of humour whatsoever; it made him a good employee and a dull, though kindly, companion. At the dinner table he kept strictly to pronouncements of fact, on which he could be highly pedantic. Was the Battle of Waterloo in June or July of 1815? Mulready did not even care what year it was in; to Franklin it became a matter of the utmost importance, and if he could not pin it down he would become restless. Sooner or later he would disappear upstairs to check, and reassure himself that the world was still capable of being reduced to numerical order.