The Steady Running of the Hour: A Novel Read online

  On Saturday I ride the Northern Line to the British Library’s newspaper collection at Colindale. All morning I flip through tall red-bound volumes of musty newsprint, reviewing the press coverage of the expedition to make sure I haven’t missed anything. Then I wheel through the endless microfilm collection, scanning carefully through June 1924. The same material appears again and again: headlines about the expedition’s failure; vague accounts of Ashley’s death; grainy reproductions of a snapshot taken at Everest base camp; the impersonal eulogy from the king. Only one article interests me, a small column of print that appeared seven weeks after Ashley’s death.

  EVEREST VICTIM

  STORY OF A GRAND LAMA’S WARNING

  (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT)

  KALIMPONG, N. BENGAL

  The death of Mr. Walsingham during his attempt to reach the summit of Mount Everest is stated here to have been foretold by the Abbot of Rongbuk, a High Lama with the physical deformity of immensely large ears, and who is regarded throughout the country as possessing second sight.

  It is stated that he warned the porters when they left Rongbuk, near the expedition’s base camp, that should they again attempt the ascent of Mount Everest disaster would follow.

  He stated that the Spirit of the Mountain had up to that time been merciful, but should his solitude be again disturbed he would surely wreak his vengeance on the disturbers of his eternal peace.

  Whether this statement had any effect on the morale of the coolies is not known, but it is a fact that after this warning cases occurred of porters making excuses to avoid going higher on the mountain.

  I try to find more about the abbot of Rongbuk, but he doesn’t appear in any other articles. So the next day I visit the British Film Institute on the South Bank to watch the official cinematic record of the Mount Everest expedition, directed by a man named J. B. L. Noel. I sit in front of a screen and pull headphones over my ears. The film begins with an unsteady placard, white letters flickering on the scratched black negative.

  A story of adventurous explorers in a far-off land and their endeavour to reach the top of the world.

  The clouds part to reveal a boundless range of mountains, the great peak hovering above them all. Then a telephoto image of the pyramidal summit, vignetted like a view through a telescope, the plume of wind and snow streaming past.

  The film is silent, so I remove my headset. The second placard appears.

  There is nowhere here any trace of life or man. It is a glimpse into a world that knows him not. Grand, solemn, unutterably lonely, the Rongbuk Glacier of Mount Everest reveals itself.

  Pinnacles of ice appear, then the knife ridges of the mountain, the vapor pouring over windswept cornices from Nepal into Tibet. Tibetan villagers in soiled robes gawk at the camera from rough door frames. Sherpa porters walk past, freshly clad in windproof smocks and snow goggles. Finally the British, always shown from a distance: trekking in dense Sikkim jungles in short pants, swinging walking sticks; hiking in pairs on the bleak windswept Tibetan plain, among trains of laden yaks. Two climbers sit in the sun under pith helmets, their sketchbooks on their laps, squinting out portraits of villagers. A group of men take breakfast seated upon crates in the open air, behind them a dozen monks spinning prayer wheels in the wind. No one looks at the monks.

  Into the heart of the pure blue ice, rare, cold, beautiful, lonely – into a fairyland of ice.

  The glacier is pictured: a ponderous river of ice sailing down the mountainside. The party walks into a valley of ice, winding through a maze of frozen pinnacles, dwarfed by them, craning their necks to spy the summits. The British run mittened hands along crystal blue seracs, questioning their age or composition or provenance, or things even more unknowable. A climber snaps a huge icicle off a pinnacle and appropriates it for a walking stick, leaning on the glassy spire for uncertain support.

  I search each frame for Ashley, but none of the figures is shown close up, so I click a button to fast-forward the footage.

  Above the great mountain frowns upon us, angered that we should violate these pure sanctuaries that had never before suffered the foot of man.

  The porters heft incredible loads on their backs; they scramble up rope ladders and pace over icy slopes. Ascending steep faces of slabbed limestone, the British bend gasping over their ice axes, straining to breathe in the rarified air. I fast-forward again. The image of the peak returns, the streamer blowing past, the clouds closing in.

  Now could it be possible that something more than the physical had opposed us in this battle where human strength and western knowledge had broken and failed? Could it be possible we fought something beyond our knowledge?

  The screen fades to black. I rewind the film, scanning backward and then forward. Suddenly I see the climbers and I hit the play button.

  Eight men stand before the mess tent, sunburned faces with weathered half-beards, their mouths moving, their voices lost. The colonel stands at the center looking bemusedly at the camera. He is taller than the others but of equally lean build, his ice goggles perched over his hat brim. Beside him a handsome bareheaded man talks, hands stuffed in jacket pockets, leaning back to the colonel and laughing. This is Hugh Price, the celebrated mountaineer. Behind Price a slim figure stands holding a pipe, someone’s arm draped over him. I recognize the face from the newspapers. It is Ashley.

  I set the machine to loop the ten seconds of footage. I lean up to the screen.

  Ashley wears a tweed jacket with voluminous pockets, a long scarf wound around his neck. He is clean-shaven and looks younger than the other men, still boyish though his skin seems weathered from the Tibetan sun. His hand cradles the briar pipe, but he does not smoke it. He smiles faintly and looks away. He coughs. When Price speaks, Ashley’s cough turns to laughter. For a half-second Ashley’s eyes look into the camera and meet my own. The film loops again.

  I eat dinner at an Indian restaurant on Drummond Street, thinking about Ashley the whole time. There was something in the film I didn’t expect, something that seemed slightly off. I pay the bill and start back for the hotel, stopping in Euston Station to buy sleeping pills from a drugstore. As I walk out of the station I realize what had bothered me. For days I’ve been reading grueling accounts of the expedition—the altitude sickness, the weeks of terrifying blizzards, the climbers practically broken by the time they set up the higher camps. But in the film Ashley didn’t look crazy or desperate. He looked happy. He stood in front of a camera with his friends and had no idea he’d be dead in a month.

  —Or maybe he did know, I whisper.

  The next morning I start with Imogen, running Web searches at an Internet café on Oxford Street. For hours I try her name in digital catalogs and genealogy websites. I find nothing. At the website of the Swedish National Archives I learn that most of their vital records haven’t been digitized yet. For hundreds of years these records were the responsibility of the local parish clergyman, who recorded not only births and deaths but christenings, communion attendance and migrations into and out of the parish. They even kept a kind of census recording the inhabitants of a household, their ages and occupations. The Leksand church archive is held in Uppsala, an ecclesiastical and university town about fifty miles north of Stockholm. But even if I went to Sweden, there’s no guarantee I’d find anything.

  In the afternoon I visit the Tower of London, hoping that a break will help me think. The Tower is rainy and crowded with foreign tourists. I visit the armory and study the glimmering crown jewels: scepters and orbs and crowns on beds of blue French velvet, safeguarded behind thick glass, shimmering under the cross-rays of countless halogen bulbs. Standing beside a tour group, I hear an elderly American ask his guide what they are worth.

  —They’re priceless, of course, the guide answers.

  —Someone, the American protests, must have some idea of the value.

  The guide shakes his head. —They’ll never be sold. They aren’t insured, because no one will underwrite them. They can’t b
e stolen.

  The American ponders this.

  —In that case, he concludes, they’re worth nothing at all.

  Night falls as I exit onto the riverbank beside Tower Bridge. Shapes swirl in the midnight water running between the stone piers of the bridge.

  —A glimpse into a world, I whisper, that knows him not.

  I think about Imogen on the walk home. If it’s too hard to research her directly, the only way to find her is the way the lawyers did—through her sister. Because Eleanor was a painter, there’s a better chance that her letters and documents survive, some of which could mention Imogen. I make a list of art libraries and archives in London. The National Art Library in the Victoria and Albert Museum seems to have the most extensive collection.

  By 9:40 the next morning I’m standing on the museum’s steps on Exhibition Road. I snap photos of the cratered facade, pockmarked by shrapnel during the Blitz. A security guard opens the door and directs me to the library on the third floor, where I get a reader’s ticket and order my first round of books, mostly surveys of British modern art. Eleanor is mentioned only a few times in passing, but I follow the footnotes to painter’s biographies and monographs on more specialized subjects: the Camden Town Group, the Omega Workshops. I call up all these books, but again Eleanor is mentioned only as an acquaintance of the painters Charles Ginner or Mark Gertler, a participant in group exhibitions at the Adelphi Gallery or Devereux Brothers. Twice she is referenced as the daughter of the sculptor and medallist Vivian Soames. There is no mention of Eleanor after the late 1920s, which makes me wonder if she stopped painting entirely.

  I return to the reference computers to see if the library holds any of the catalogs from Eleanor’s exhibitions. Several from the Adelphi Gallery are listed, but they all date from before 1925 and Eleanor’s exhibition there was in 1927. “Devereux Brothers” gives no results at all, but in the appendix of one of my books it says that the 1929 “Sunday Club Exhibition” took place at their gallery with two of Eleanor’s paintings: Four March Hares and Odessa. I show the entry to a librarian.

  —Have you ever heard of the Devereux Brothers Gallery?

  She squints at the name and frowns.

  —Sounds familiar. I can look it up.

  The librarian types into her computer.

  —We haven’t got anything on them here. But let’s see. The Tate Archive has some material. Devereux Brothers Gallery, 158 New Bond Street. Two boxes, 1919 to 1936. Exhibition catalogs, personal letters, balance sheet, profit-and-loss accounts—

  —What time do they close?

  —At five, but normally you’d need an appointment. Let me try calling them.

  The librarian persuades the archive to give me a three o’clock appointment. I ride the Underground to Pimlico and sprint along the river on Millbank to the museum, sweating in the sunlight. The clerk at the archive has the first box waiting for me: thick black ledgers of sales and accounting records, an assortment of thin exhibition catalogs bound in colored paper, shipping bills and lists. Although the gallery is called Devereux Brothers, the correspondence is all addressed to one man named Roger Devereux. Most of the papers date from the 1920s. The inventory lists have occasional entries for Eleanor’s paintings: Night Scene (Black Dominion), Four March Hares, Kronborg Slot.

  I bring the box back to the enquiry desk and am given the second one. The label on the side says Devereux, Roger: Correspondence 1911–1927. Inside are dozens of letters still in their envelopes, all slit neatly at the top. Most of the letters are in the same small, tight longhand, addressed to Devereux by a man named Coutts who seems to have managed the daily business of the gallery. The frequency of his letters to Devereux’s address in Surrey suggests Devereux stayed away from London for weeks at a time.

  I skim the pages, keeping an eye on the clock behind me. Eleanor’s paintings are mentioned briefly in a letter about potential exhibitions in July 1919, and again in March 1921 among a list of sold works. Then I find a more puzzling note.

  23 Mar 19

  Dear Mr. Devereux,

  I received your letter of the 19th inst. and have disposed of the study as directed. M. Broginart was terribly disappointed and offered to double his price for the canvas, until at last he was made to understand the situation. He enquired about the larger picture and is keen enough to buy the painting sight unseen, though he would not tender a figure and I expressed my grave doubts. Has Mrs. Grafton advised whether that painting shall ever be put out?

  The other works in the shipment were the two portraits (The Housemistress, Dr. Lindberg) and Kronborg Slot. I received the inventory slips and prices for these works, so please confirm they are suitable for display and sale.

  Yrs Faithfully,

  Wm. Coutts

  I read the letter three times. Then I take it to the desk and ask the archivist to make a photocopy. I hand him the box of letters.

  —Could I have the first box again?

  I go back to my table and take out the inventory ledger, flipping to the pages for 1919. It lists receipt of three “Grafton” paintings on March 14: Kronborg Slot, Dr. Lindberg, and Nude Study. The last one is crossed out. I turn the page and there are two more of Eleanor’s paintings entered in July 1919: Four March Hares and The Unvanquished.

  I lean back into my chair, looking up at the ceiling and trying to keep myself from smiling. I know I should stop, because I can’t be sure about anything. But I keep smiling anyway. I look through the rest of the box, but it’s hard to concentrate now and soon the archive begins to switch off its lights.

  A warm rain is falling outside. I start off toward Victoria, stopping to call Prichard from a pay phone. His secretary tells me he’s in a meeting, but when I get back to my hotel room the red light on my phone is blinking. I pick it up.

  —Good evening, I’m calling from Twyning and Hooper. Is this Mr. Tristan Campbell?

  —Yes.

  —Please hold for James Prichard.

  Sitting on the bed, I take my notebook and the photocopies from my bag. The red digits of the alarm clock read 6:17. Prichard must be working late.

  —The prodigious Mr. Campbell. Don’t tell me you’ve another theory.

  I read Prichard the letter from Coutts and describe the ledger entries. It is a moment before he speaks.

  —Is this all you’ve found so far?

  —Yeah, but it’s important. Don’t you see—

  —Yes, yes. Prichard sighs. You believe the picture was of Imogen.

  —Exactly.

  —Which is why it was destroyed.

  —Right.

  —And why would that be necessary?

  —Because it showed her nude. Because she was pregnant. Or because it showed her in Sweden at all, right before Charlotte was born—

  —Pure conjecture, Prichard counters. Very likely Eleanor wished it destroyed because it was only a preliminary study. It sounds as though it was shipped to London by accident. Perhaps she simply didn’t like the picture.

  —But someone wanted it. Why destroy a painting that already has a buyer?

  —I can imagine any number of reasons. You don’t know the subject of the destroyed painting. You’re connecting it to this Nude Study by circumstantial evidence. What you really have is a theory, the two sisters in Sweden. You’re looking for proof of that theory and so you find it, but the theory may be skewing your research, not to mention your conclusions. For instance, you say the letter is from 1919. But when was Charlotte born?

  —In 1917, but I doubt there was much of an art market then. It makes sense that Eleanor wouldn’t have tried to ship the paintings or sell them until after the war. Especially since they were up in Sweden.

  —Possibly. But again, it’s far too much conjecture. What you need are facts.

  —I have plenty of facts—

  I flip through my notebook, speaking quickly.

  —I know they refitted the Swedish house in the winter of 1916, so that Eleanor could winter in a house that’d never been
used in winter. I know Charlotte was born there. I know Eleanor painted something there that was shipped to London in February 1919, a few months after the war ended, and whatever was in the picture bothered her so much that it had to be destroyed at the gallery instead of being stored or sent back. I know there’s a picture in the gallery ledger called Nude Study received in February 1919—

  —It’s all quite fascinating. But it’s hardly evidence.

  —It could lead me to evidence.

  —To what?

  —Birth records, for one thing. In Sweden they were all kept by the local parish, I’ve been reading about them. There ought to be an entry for Charlotte listing the names of her parents. It might say something different from the English records. The parish also kept annual registers of each household, and if the Leksand house is there, it’d say who was living there at the time. Imogen could be there. Has anyone looked at the Swedish records?

  —There’ve been vital records searches at least three times, Prichard says. They were done internally by our staff. I don’t know where they looked, but I’m told it was exhaustive. Of course, I know nothing of these parish registers. Do you intend to go to Sweden?

  —It’s a short flight over there. And it’s the best lead I have.

  Prichard sighs. —I won’t dispute that. If you must go, I’d suggest sooner rather than later. You’ll want to know as soon as you can if you’re on track. And Mr. Campbell?

  —Yeah.

  —You’re not looking for a painting. You’re looking for evidence.

  I hang up and walk downstairs. The concierge is still on duty and I ask if he can find me a cheap flight to Stockholm. He types into his computer.

  —Tomorrow seems fairly booked, but the next day there’s a Ryanair flight that’s seventy pounds.

  He grimaces. —But it leaves at six a.m. And Stansted’s so far, you’d practically have to sleep in the airport—

  —Can you do that?

  The concierge looks up at me, hesitating.

  —Some do. But I certainly wouldn’t recommend it.

  I show the concierge my credit card and walk away with a printout of my itinerary. Then I go into the business center and send an e-mail to the regional archive in Uppsala. I tell them I’m coming to their reading room on Thursday and I’d like to request materials in advance: Leksand’s birth records from 1906 to 1920 and two parish registers, 1910–1916 and 1917–1931.