The Sister Read online

  ‘‘Of course,’’ he added, doing one of his famous volte-faces, ‘‘the English are superior in terms of culture – if you ‘go in’ for that sort of thing.’’

  My brother’s views on ‘national characteristics’ tended to be very crude. But I was growing tired so I said, ‘‘I will put you right some day, Willy, when I have the energy.’’ He took his cue, gave me another of his bear-hugs, fussed with his hat and scarf which my new nurse Wardy had handed him, and made for the door. There he turned. ‘‘It will soon be All Hallows Eve,’’ my thoughtful brother reminded me, ‘‘when the divide between this world and the next will be at its thinnest … so take care , Alice.’’ And with that he was gone. I would not see him again for another five years.

  Twenty-three

  ‘‘Has he gone, then?’’

  ‘‘He has,’’ said Henry: ‘‘I saw him onto the Liverpool train this morning. His only necessity, it appeared, was getting home to Alice and the surviving infants. One felt something pursuing him, some nameless – he paused – dread.’’ He’d taken aim with the portentous word as if flinging a pebble into a lake. ‘Plop’, I heard it go.

  ‘‘How very familiar,’’ I said.

  ‘‘Familiar …?’’

  ‘‘I was thinking of Father, that time … we were children. …’’

  ‘‘In Florence?’’

  There we were: Mother, Father, Aunt Kate, William, Henry, Wilky, Rob and me … a narrow back street with dusty shops and women in black going in and out regarding us suspiciously. Above us, a criss-cross of laundry waving like pennants, the houses tilting towards one another. ‘‘It’s like being at the bottom of a canyon,’’ says William. ‘‘Or inside a mouth,’’ say I. Henry has just directed our attention towards an elegant courtyard with a fountain in the middle when Father, with no warning whatsoever, throws his free arm over his eyes and collapses like a wet sack. He’s seen one of his green devils in the shop window or perhaps the chattering birds have descended thinking it already nighttime.

  ‘‘But, Father, it’s only a pig’s head!’’ I cry. William is looking rather wild himself. Mother grips Father’s hands while Aunt Kate guides him towards a bench and urges water, which she has begged, through his livid lips. The two younger boys and I huddle together while Henry backs off to get a better view of the scene, or perhaps dissociate himself from it.

  When Father is calmer we press him to go on with our Tour. But it is not to be. Forgive me my children I have passed thro’ an agony of desolation – swaying like one who has just been saved from drowning – and I fear I must return home. So of course we must ‘up sticks’ and follow even though we have only been abroad a mere 36 hours and were meant to be gone a fortnight and have only just begun to recover from the ocean crossing.

  And so our composite memory, Henry’s and mine, that product of a single mind, that inexpressibly intimate journey back in time, is over; yet it will stay with us, binding us closer than ever. But then Henry goes and spoils it all by saying mildly, ‘‘But, Alice, surely it was William who cried, ‘But, Father, it is only a pig’s head!’ ’’ Which leads me to conclude the product of a single mind is an illusion and I am an idiot. However close we may come in our thoughts, Henry and I, we are not – I am forced to admit – literally of one mind. We carry about our own imaginings and are further separated by sex and time. There will always be a divide. Besides, I am not balding, nor do I wear my whiskers barbered to a rakish point.

  ‘‘So you think,’’ Henry pursued, ‘‘that William suffers from the same ‘condition’ as Father?’’

  ‘‘What I believe,’’ I told him, ‘‘is that Father, the delicious infant, could not submit to the thraldom of his own whim, nor admit to being prey to the demon homesickness.’’

  ‘‘And William?’’

  ‘‘Oh, William just can’t stick to a thing for the sake of sticking.’’

  Henry allowed himself to be amused; then he blinked gravely, as if his eyelids were taking a bow. William, he believed, suffered from agora-phobia or fear of the market-place, the need to escape … dash home. ‘‘And yet,’’ he went on, ‘‘the summons … an equal fear of enclosure, of being smothered … overwhelmed …’’

  Did he think of himself? I wondered. Had he suffered such a panic while abroad sending him scurrying home to his safe servanted London nest? No, I thought, Henry would not allow himself to be pushed; but he could be pulled. His writing would await him … I must not lose the thread … Only that ‘siren’, I decided, could persuade him to curtail one of his Continental gallivants. As to a ‘nameless dread’ – if there had been such – it would remain, perforce, unnamed.

  But we must speak of other things:

  ‘‘I gather you’ve been holding something of a salon,’’ said Henry cautiously. His intention was clear, it was time to ‘behave’ ourselves, to revert to gossip and chit-chat.

  It was true I had been visited that Fall by Americans and Britons, Henry’s friends as well as my own: variously faithful, flighty, deafening and dripping with resinous virtue.

  ‘‘A few virtuous maidens have come to nibble at me,’’ I offered.

  ‘‘And what are their views of you?’’

  ‘‘Oh, one that I am so like you, and the other than I am so original.’’

  ‘‘Thus cancelling each other out,’’ supplied my brother.

  ‘‘Just so,’’ I said. I went on to describe a visit from a Mrs Mason: ‘‘An American like a raw turnip to one’s mental palate. Oh, and then a Sir Frederick, if you please, with a handkerchief the size of a tent who kept shooting forth volleys of honks into it.’’

  Henry sat back, relieved to be out of ‘dangerous territory’. ‘‘I have had a report about you,’’ he related, ‘‘from Fanny Kemble: ‘Your sister is an American lady,’ says she, ‘a very different thing from an English lady, I assure you’.’’

  ‘‘But what is the right kind of lady, Henry?’’

  ‘‘Oh, American, she assured me.’’

  I did not believe it for a minute. That night I asked my new nurse, Miss Ward – Wardy as I’d beegun calling her – if she thought Katharine and I were different from English ladies in any way. ‘‘Entirely different, Miss!’’ she exclaimed unhesitatingly. I waited, hoping to hear something of substance, preferably ‘scandalous’. I was sick of all the prunes and prisms, had had enough evasions of a lifetime. But when questioned on the nature of the difference, all she could reply was, ‘‘Not so ‘aughty, Miss.’’

  That night I was restless and could not sleep.

  I had not written anything in a long while, but during that long night I half-composed a tale which I called simply ‘Brothers’.

  Brother 1 is the younger. He is rather heavy in body but not in mind. There is a dancing light in his eyes. He is the observer, the recorder of complicated motives; fastidious without being fussy. To the world he displays a cool, mild ‘social’ self. Yet he has great insight into its ways. There is a softness, a sympathy, about him, for its strangenesses and complexities. He will not be pinned down, most especially on the subject of, to speak crudely, love.

  Yet despite this reticence, he is sure of himself, of his own destiny. He is like a fisherman, allowing the world to flow by him while losing nothing of significance, or of himself. People say he and his sister look alike, think alike, are alike. Wrong. The Brother is a great writer; his sister is just The Sister.

  The older brother, Brother 2, is more ‘difficult’. A tortured soul, both ponderous and fussy. A hypochondriac, he must express every fluctuation of feeling, every symptom. He is interested, unaccountably, in spiritualism and clairvoyance. He has visited Mme Blavatsky. His sister fondly describes him as an interfering busybody and a know-it-all; indeed, he is frequently annoyed by those who do not behave as he thinks fit. He is prone to advise facilely: ‘‘Keep a stiff upper lip and snap your fingers.’’ Yet he himself can seem ‘nervy’. During a recent visit to his sister his hands appeared to tremble as if a buz
zing insect was inside him drawing him to her; yet to allow it to have its way would be dangerous: the insect would sting and she would be damaged – so he must pull back.

  Like his father before him he is not without demons, but he conquers them largely through physical exertion: swimming in cold lakes, tramping up and down great bear- and glacier-infested mountains. He has an ‘angelic’ wife who, he believes, has saved him from himself. He is a dutiful family man, tho’ he tends to disappear whenever said wife is nearing her delivery time. When they are old enough, he will teach his children right from wrong, good from bad.

  Brother 1, now a successful author, sends Brother 2 a copy of his first novel, about some Europeans, which Brother 2 pronounces ‘thin’.

  Brother 2 sends Brother 1 a draft of his ‘Principles of Psychology’ which Brother 1 praises in the vaguest, coolest of terms. Brother 2 suspects he hasn’t actually read it; at most he may have skimmed it at five in the morning.

  Brother 1, in order to please Brother 2, writes another, more complicated, story about a young woman confronting her destiny. It also takes place in Europe. He sends it to his brother with a letter saying, ‘I think you’ll find this one fatter.’

  Brother 2 writes back impatiently, ‘‘For goodness sake, why must you always write about Europe – why not write about America for a change’?

  The reader realizes that the brothers will never, ever, please one another. The sister is frustrated with them both for ‘playing upon the surface’.

  Twenty-four

  Henry held the umbrella over our heads with one hand while waving down a hansom with the other: a manoeuvre, it seemed to me, of infinite grace and accomplishment.

  Henry had proposed the expedition. Was I up to it? I was, I’d assured him. A little rain could not hurt.

  I am going out … I am going out with Henry.

  Soon we were safely inside the cab but idling due to heavy traffic. As Henry observed, it might have been faster to walk. ‘‘But wetter,’’ I pointed out. Henry, unusually impatient, thought it a wonder the horses did not fall to their knees in boredom. But I demurred, thinking how the well perceive not the tiny flowerets of restricted vision, full of perfume and color. ‘‘O,’’ I gushed in the way of one who’d never laid eyes on a city before: ‘‘house! … bridge! … gate! … tower!’’

  Framed in the cab’s window was a woman dressed like a fashion plate … there a child being hoiked by one arm … Even when it made me cringe, still it was life. Henry, I thought, may have a passion for actors prancing about on a stage, but give me this naturalistic show ‘playing’ all around me any time, complete with rain smashing on our roof and enclosing us in its streaming, glittery curtain.

  We were creeping along when Henry announced the completion of his latest novel. ‘‘That’s splendid, Henry.’’ I was busy admiring the shops: shoemakers, watchmakers, tailors, wax-chandlers, tobacconists, umbrella-makers, cutlers, linen-drapers, pianoforte-makers, hatmakers, wig-makers, shirtmakers, mapmakers, lozenge manufacturers, booksellers …

  Tap-tap, drummed Henry on his hat. I lay my gloved hand upon his arm. ‘‘And are you pleased with it, dear?’’ An impossible question, as I knew. He spread his fingers. There had been during the writing some pleasure and much agony and now … uncertainty. He admitted it had cost him much; besides, he was not sure, after all, of the ‘territory’. But perhaps this time it would be a success; though he was of course used to being mauled by the critics and would not care. Oh, but as I well knew, he would care, he would care enormously, even if he hid his head among Fenimore’s skirts or escaped to the Splugen or. … For what my brother secretly desired – let him deny it forever – was to write the kind of book that people would rush to buy and read: a potboiler; a novel that would above all make him famous.

  ‘‘I am sure it will do well, Henry,’’ I said rather inanely. What more could I say? The critics are right, your work is bloodless, over-refined and constipated?

  But we’d reached Trafalgar Square. If we craned our necks we could just make out a bit of the National Gallery.

  ‘‘The grotesque cupola itself,’’ he pointed, ‘‘how it sits up and speaks to one,’’ said my brother.

  ‘‘Does it really, Henry?’’ Surely people had been committed to institutions for less. ‘‘And what does it say?’’

  But we’d arrived. ‘‘Shall we go in?’’ he suggested. I took his arm, as he explained about the new wing with its seven exhibition rooms. ‘‘One will do for me, Henry.’’ I squeezed his arm. ‘‘Do let me know if you are tiring,’’ he said. I inclined my head so that it made contact with his shoulder, allowing myself a daydream in which the woman behind the reception desk observes us, thinking My, what a handsome couple. Shame.

  Suddenly he shook himself free, as if needing to repudiate such a public demonstration of affection, and went striding through the vestibule into a gallery where a fresh exhibition was being hung, numerous paintings leaning this way and that against the baseboards, on through a grand archway with marble pillars and into the very space he’d called from the outside’grotesque’. He stopped dead with me right behind him as if we’d been playing Grandmother’s Footsteps. Grotesque? I felt like spinning. A rainbowed light played upon us; rain sloshed on glass; we were the only people there. A triumph, it felt.

  Henry was bent on drawing my attention to a Raising of Lazarus, but I did not take to it. ‘‘It makes me feel as if I were trapped in a crowded lift,’’ I told him scuttling off to find something with more life in it. Two rooms away was a painting of a trio of women in white dresses on some kind of vessel. I went towards it as to a garden of fragrant white blossom. Henry soon caught me up.

  Three stylish young women lean on the deckrail of a ship: the ship all angles, awry and tilting, the women all swaying swirls and frills. Before them stands a row of empty chairs, behind them the weirdly curving glass of their cabins. The dresses of the two front women are trained and flounced. The main one leans heavily on the ironwork railing fanning herself, or shielding herself from the view, or perhaps the sun. The next one leans far back so that her shape is outlined against the dark dress of the third, less prominent figure. The scene beyond the ship seems to be a chaos of docked ship masts, only in the mist they seem more like a forest of trees after a devastating fire as they lean this way and that, rather like the paintings we’d seen scattered round the floor of the gallery we’d passed through. I peered at the title:

  ‘‘ ‘The Death of the HMS Calcutta’. What do you make of it, Henry?’’

  He cleared his throat. I sensed his disapproval but waited to hear the form it would take. It came in a whispered drawl. He found it vulgar and banal. Any longer with the ladies’ stylish backs would be intolerably wearisome.

  ‘‘Oh, come, Henry.’’ I reminded him of Daisy Miller’s dress – ‘white muslin with a hundred frills and flounces and knots of pale-colored ribbons’.

  ‘‘Ah, my clever sister,’’ said he; ‘‘however, my argument is not with the dress but the hard finish of Tissot’s painting. It is all fixed … the figures like mannequins drained of life.’’

  I was not convinced. Stuff the high aestheticism, I thought, he fears contamination from any hint of effeminacy, of the effete.

  ‘‘You do not agree?’’

  I did not. I found it alive with movement and possibility, the young women seeming to sway this way and that. ‘‘You can imagine the music … feel the heat beneath the flounces, Henry, the women’s sensuality.’’

  He stepped back to observe me as if I were one of the statues on exhibition.

  I said: ‘‘Do you suspect I am not aware of such things, Henry?’’

  He did not reply. My brother, I reflected, who was all for treating the ‘private’ areas of life in his fictions (though always with discretion and the subtlest of touches), seemed distressed by my blatant ‘impropriety’.

  ‘‘But Henry,’’ I argued, ‘‘is not their attire and demeanor the whole point of the pain
ting – given the devastation around them – turning their costumes into shrouds and they into a trio of ghouls in frilly frocks?’’

  Of course I was right, he allowed; yet he seemed unwilling to engage in any further discussion involving the ‘wider’ implications of the painting. He had had enough. But what had happened? We’d begun innocently enough speaking of gowns, but the subject had somehow begun to billow out around us, dangerous, charged with significance. The ‘seen’ from which we may or may not guess the ‘unseen’. Whereupon I remembered something Henry had written about dress as the most personal shell of all – which one strips away at one’s peril.

  ‘‘Henry,’’ I brought him to a stop right there in the middle of the grand echoing vestibule, ‘‘have we suffered a’’ – I searched for the word – ‘‘desamor?’’

  He blinked, then turned and, striding towards the exit, abandoned me. Then, as if remembering everything – my dependence, his responsibility to me, his own place – he turned back and drew me along. But something, everything had changed; we had changed. Our pleasant outing had become a trial for him and a source of distress for me. Was I in danger of losing him? ‘‘I didn’t mean … ,’’ I began … ‘‘I’m sorry, Henry.’’ I was beginning to feel faint; an intermittent nerve pain had begun shooting down from my knees into my ankles so that my progress was now halting and awkward. I regained Henry’s arm but it was as rigid as a chair’s, while he muttered something about the ‘unspeakable significance’ of dress.

  Back in my rooms I lay half-crumpled on my daybed while Henry hovered close by. At some point he roused himself: