The Edge of the Crowd. Ross Gilfillan

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СКАЧАТЬ whose teacher pierce the lens so fiercely that Touchfarthing almost trembles.

      The photographer finds this multiplicity repellent: skilled physician follows lowly apothecary as if there were no order in the world. And perhaps this is a singular occasion but no one seems to take offence at such an unnatural commingling of society. Touchfarthing whispers to the busy Rankin, ‘Dear me, where is the quality here?’

      Touchfarthing would rather maintain distance from the common man and upstart alike. This last taxonomy he most detests. Rankin has tired long ago of Touchfarthing’s declamations on these ‘self-made counter-jumpers’ who ‘dress like kings and talk like coal-heavers’, but the process is slow and while Rankin is in and out of the dark-tent changing and processing plates, there is little that Touchfarthing can do to avoid unwanted intimacy with hoi polloi and he is further dismayed to discover among his sitters a tendency towards self-publicity.

      Mr Hector Trundle, as he tolerates Touchfarthing fussing about his disarrayed neck-wear, announces that he might buy up any of the exotic exhibits he has seen displayed within ‘they great glass walls’. He might load up a caravan with power looms and steam hammers and such practical improvements; he might choose the finest satins and silks for his wife (for whom he had a handkerchief passed through the fountain of Eau de Cologne); and should he so desire, it would be within his power to buy up a whole array of novelties: the eighty-bladed pen-knife, the stiletto umbrella, the tableaux of small and expertly stuffed animals. With the possible exception of that Koh-i-Noor diamond, he might slap cash on the table and haul the whole lot back to Salford, Lancashire. In fact, he might do anything he likes except that which this minute he desires most in all the world and that is to scratch his nose.

      Jasper Munro considers the Great Exhibition ‘a damnable mess’. He sits erect, his hands folded over a silver-topped cane that he has pegged into the earth while Touchfarthing fastens a collar stud and brushes dust from his shoulders. ‘Poor classifying, that’s what it is,’ he is saying. ‘No idea of proper categorisation. I saw how it would be from the start, when the Prince announced his intentions. How can you “wed high art with mechanical skill” and avoid an unholy mess? Crystal and fine porcelain here, greasy, thumping steam engines there. It’s a fiasco.’

      But by no means all those who share their views with Touchfarthing are dissenters. Most, in fact, are evidently impressed by the varied marvels of the Exhibition or simply by the novel experience of entering a structure so vast that it can and does contain fully grown trees. The glass and steel edifice itself is the source of infinite wonder to many more. Mr Colin Caldicott, an engineer ‘from Brummagem’, informs Touchfarthing that the Crystal Palace is ‘a modern marvel’. Touchfarthing nods and prepares to duck under his cloth, but Caldicott holds his arm. ‘It’s one thousand, eight hundred and forty-eight feet in length. Four hundred and eight feet in height. An area six times that of St Paul’s Cathedral!’

      ‘I can well believe it,’ says Touchfarthing.

      Caldicott shakes his head as he reads in a flat tone from a catalogue on his lap. ‘Five hundred and fifty tons of wrought iron. Three thousand, five hundred tons of cast iron. Nine hundred thousand feet of glass. Six hundred thousand feet of wooden planking. Two hundred and two miles of sash bars. Thirty miles of guttering.’

      Touchfarthing makes a show of producing and checking the face of his silver pocket-watch but another long minute passes before the sitter folds his catalogue and allows Touchfarthing to execute his shilling commission. For the next three hours the performance is the same – a cast of changing faces, a succession of to-ings and fro-ings between the front-of-house chairs and the backstage dark-tent – and it is late afternoon before the last customer, an impatient young hussar, pockets a dried, framed and wrapped photograph and strides quickly across the Park in the direction of Gore House.

      The sun has begun to dip towards the western roofscapes; visitors on foot and on wheels are leaving the Park by every exit. Rankin is squatting by his box, funnelling chemicals into bottles. Touchfarthing is uncomfortably close. ‘I feel filthy,’ he says. ‘Like a wretched tradesman.’

      ‘That was good business we done there,’ says Rankin, jingling the purse. ‘And I’ve the one plate left, if you can find a customer.’

      ‘No, that’s enough of the mob for one day,’ says Touchfarthing. ‘That plate is saved for Art. The Exhibition by itself will make a very fine picture, I think.’

      ‘And sell like hot plum-dough,’ Rankin agrees. ‘But I suppose we’ll have to shift everything back to the Gate.’

      ‘You’ll do that, will you?’ says Touchfarthing. ‘While I calculate the longer exposure. Just take the essentials – it’s only one picture.’

      ‘And have some vagabond lift everything else? You’d best help out, that’s my belief, guv’nor,’ says Rankin and prepares to lift the camera from its tripod. He hesitates and nudges the other man. ‘Do you suppose that cove got up like an undertaker is waiting his turn?’ To Touchfarthing’s questioning glance, Rankin indicates a lean, pale-faced man dressed wholly in black. The dark and curling locks which depend from the brim of his hat are longer than fashion allows and he wears a pair of green-tinted spectacles. ‘I’ve caught him watching our goings on earlier,’ says Rankin. ‘What’s ’is lay, do you think?’

      ‘I’m sure he only wants his photograph taken, as do the world and his wife today.’

      Touchfarthing’s eyebrows interrogate the man, but he makes no move towards the chairs, only looks a little longer upon the scene before straightening a louche pose and strolling towards the trees, where he becomes a part of a crowd that surrounds the fire-eater whose loud patter and sooty explosions have drawn away the last of Touchfarthing’s trade. ‘Rum fellow,’ Touchfarthing says, frowning as he takes hold of a rope handle. There is a tinkling of glass as the two men swing the great box aboard the wagon.

      III

      By the Park gates, Rankin fits a new lens upon the camera, into which is inserted the last of the wet collodion plates. They have been ready for the past quarter hour and Rankin is impatient to quit the Park and fill his belly at Simpson’s chop-house. He observes that ‘Simpson’s is very good for their cutlets’ and that ‘their pies is full of meat with no rubbish’, hoping that Touchfarthing will perceive the wisdom of patronising a place of ‘unbeatable value’ and not squander the day’s takings at Alexis Soyer’s grand new establishment at Gore House, the wonders of which the hussar has left ringing in their ears. ‘Now that’s the sort of place we might make useful connections,’ Touchfarthing had said. ‘It’s the sort of place we might waste a lot of money,’ Rankin had replied.

      A vendor is crying his wares by the Park gates: ‘Potatoes, all ’ot!!’ and Rankin is debating with himself whether a further economy might be made by expending a couple of pennies there rather than at Simpson’s, when Touchfarthing claps his hands and exclaims, ‘There, we have it now!’ and points towards his magnificent subject. Even Rankin is forced to admit the beauty of the scene before them. Oblique sunlight lends fleeting solidity and sharply defines a thousand sash bars and gracefully curving flights of iron. The roof-lined flags of all nations which fluttered gaily in the morning breeze now hang heavy in the still evening air and nothing distracts from the audacious simplicity of Paxton’s ingenious design.

      ‘A pity about all those folk cluttering the middle ground,’ Rankin says. ‘Ain’t they got no homes?’

      ‘They won’t register on the photograph,’ says Touchfarthing. ‘Not so long as they keep moving. Now then, I shall have to lengthen the exposure in this light.’

      Touchfarthing СКАЧАТЬ