Chapter XXX: Letter III

Brown was at this time preparing to work on his specimen of fresco, for the Westminster Hall competition; he was also engaged upon his cartoon of _The Spirit of Justice_ for the same competition, and upon a water-colour reproducing the composition of that cartoon. The other cartoons, which he had been removing from Westminster Hall, were proper to the competition of the preceding year--namely, _William the Conqueror gazing on the body of Harold_, and _Adam and Eve after the Fall_.

All three cartoons remained in his possession up to his death in 1893, and were sold shortly afterwards to public institutions. In connexion with these cartoons, Brown names “Pickham.” I do not know who Pickham may have been, and suspect that he meant Pickford (the carrier), for he was always celebrated for mauling surnames. “The wax sketch” must have been an encaustic painting from the Harold subject, exhibited along with it in Westminster Hall. Mrs. Lucy was the wife of Mr. Charles Lucy, the painter, in whose house Brown then occupied a studio. Mr. Lucy is now almost forgotten, but was at one time an artist of some prominence, popular from the engravings after two of his large works--_Cromwell at the Deathbed of his daughter Mrs. Claypole_, and _Nelson in the Cabin of the Victory_.

35 Arlington Street, Camden Town.
6 May 1845.

My blessed Wife,

... I have got my fresco-ground prepared at last, and brought
home. My sand and lime is all mixed, and I am only waiting
for tracing-paper to begin my fresco. In the mean time I have
finished off the top part of the Cartoon, ready to paint from it.
I have also finished the Knight and the Lawyer and the Widow, and
have begun the Father of the Knight. I am getting on, and _so is
the time_,--I hardly know which the faster.

I had to go to the Westminster Hall, [and] roll-up my Cartoons,
as they were clearing the Hall for next exhibition. It took me
a day’s work nearly; but they are now safely packed up, thank
goodness, and hid away by Pickham, as I did not know where to
have them brought to....

I have just been writing to Manchester about sending _Parisina_
there, and the wax sketch....

I will tell you an amusing anecdote. Mrs. Warton, the Model, came
to sit to Mr. Lucy the other morning; she came while I was gone
to breakfast. She is rather a pretty girl. When I was there,
Mr. Lucy left the room a moment, when the girl asked me if Mrs.
Lucy was jealous of her husband. I said I did not think so--but
why?--“Why,” says the woman, “while I was waiting for Mr. Lucy
here this morning, Mrs. Lucy came into the room, and pretended to
look for a book. And says she, ‘Are you come here to sit for Mr.
Lucy?’ Says I, ‘I don’t know, I’m sure, which of the gentlemen
I’m wanted [for],--I believe it is for Mr. Lucy,’ says I. So says
she, ‘Are you going to sit undressed to him?’ And I answered her,
‘I’m sure I don’t know if he wants me to.’ ‘Well,’ says she, ‘I’m
sure I can’t think how ever a woman can be so nasty undelicant as
to take off all her things before a man; it’s a filthy disgusting
thing to do, and I can’t think how they can get any woman to
do [it]. _I_ wouldn’t’, says she--‘No, that I wouldn’t.’”--Mrs.
Warton answered her not a word to increase her choler; “so with
that she flounced out of the room, with her face as red as a
turkey-cock’s.”

Mrs. Warton would have it that she was on the tiles, peeping
down through the skylight; because it rattled with the wind,
and Mr. Lucy looked up once now and then, and told her it was
the wind. But nevertheless the story is sure to go unimpaired
all over London, as Mrs. Warton, being pretty, seemed to derive
satisfaction from the idea of Mrs. Lucy’s being jealous....

Your affectionate _dear_ Husband,
FORD M. BROWN.