That Book Your Mad Ancestor Wrote Read Online Free Page B

riverside flea markets until he found a heavy black coat and a stovepipe hat which, he hoped, combined to give his unimposing person a grim and sinister air. To add some further menace to his costume he had borrowed an imitation pistol from an acquaintance who ran a small theatre, and a sturdy knife from Stroud, who had a fetish for sharp objects and owned a collection of various blades. He felt more secure knowing that he had one real weapon, even if he had no idea how to use it. With his small drawing case clutched under his arm, the other hand shoved in the trouser pocket where he had stowed the knife, he plunged ahead.
    The cold was soon joined by a burning smell – this, too, he remembered from before – as if there were a fire nearby, but he could see no sign of smoke or flames. The sounds of Cake Street dwindled away behind him, while the darkness thickened in the streets – so small that they seemed like tunnels in a mountain of brick. In the absence of street lamps, only occasional dull lights in the tenement windows, brown with oil and dust, confirmed the presence of living beings.
    Seaming kept his eyes averted from the windows as, following the directions he had memorised, he crept along by the general faint light of the city, which streaked the cloudy March sky with a gravy of ruddy greys and left enormous enclaves of shadow unprodded.
    He began to fancy that he could hear constant movement – mostly animal scrabblings, but sometimes human footsteps. These never came from ground level, but always from somewhere above or below. He formed an impression of a world of rooftops and sewers, a world more three-dimensional than the ordinary one, where human beings had learned the insect trick of making all surfaces serve as the ground plane. To distract himself, he tried to concentrate on this aesthetically interesting aspect of his surroundings; however, as distractions went, it fell some way short of ideal.
    He wished he had a lamp, or even a candle; but his visitor had warned him that a light carried in the Ravels identified its bearer as a mucker, with no legitimate business being there – as legitimacy was esteemed by the locals – and thus fair game for any bored or idle cut-throat.
     
    She had been fair and slight, and wore a sequinned mask that covered her whole face. He felt that she must be a gentlewoman who had fallen on hard times, for she was well-spoken, and her dress, though years old in style, was of fine make and fabric.
    She had come to his studio hoping, she said, that he could help her. Showing him a cutting from a recent magazine article on local painters in which he had been featured, she had indicated a heavily underlined paragraph:
     
Alfred Seaming’s portraits could be images of saints. He perceives an urgent need for a new idealism. ‘What is the point of merely reproducing the commonplace world, with all its banality and vice? I wish to paint my sitters’ noblest qualities, which, I believe, are the qualities of their true selves.’
     
    ‘Yes,’ he said hurriedly, ‘quite so.’ While he stood passionately by the words, he was embarrassed by how pompous they looked on paper. The truth of the matter was that he delighted in painting flattering portraits, and knew he had a knack for doing so that amounted to a kind of genius, while remaining modestly unwilling to take an interest in how high or low the flag of that genius might fly on the walls of civilisation when all was reckoned. The academic art establishment had made him into something of a mascot, and encouraged him to make much of his philosophy.
    She inspected his studio thoroughly, the glittering face making a study of each and every painting. At last she said, ‘Yes. You do have a talent for idealisation. But you will also need courage. If you have it, it does not show in your work. So, Mr Seaming, are you braver than you look?’
    He was taken aback by her bluntness, though he couldn ’t deny the accuracy of her