The Sister Read online

  Henry rarely eats at home.

  The room was full of Henry in dramatic mode: the olive-green paint playing against the blood-reds; the giant fern in its brass pot – did it tickle my neck as I ate? – that somehow contrived to appear delicate and predatory at the same time. It is like a stage set, I thought. And there was the table, a long pool in moonlight (I preferred the curtains un-drawn), lustrous with his secrets, faithfully awaiting his return. I traced a grain in the wood, black swirled with red.

  ‘‘Rosewood,’’ explained Smith serving the soup: ‘‘an exotic from the tropics, I believe.’’ He waved a hand, as if to indicate some foreign country out there. He himself, he added, had never been out of London. Was he to be congratulated for that? I put my serviette to my lips. When I thought he’d gone I lowered my nose to the mirrored surface, and sniffed. ‘‘Is there an odor, Miss?’’ My neck snapped back. ‘‘Sorry … I thought you’d gone … I thought … rosewood … a scent …?’’ I could not go on. I wished for Katharine. Smith’s expression read: oh the woman is queer allright.

  You could not blame him. The master was away, and here was I behaving more like a child sneaking sniffs. Not respectful. Only the other day the Mrs had discovered me dangerously close to the primrose yellow walls of the drawing-room, close enough to lick (but surely she would never do such a thing?); and then fingering the tapestry in the hall, running a hand over the painted clockface, picking up the figure of the discus thrower, the master’s favorite.

  ‘‘It’s all so …’’ Henry, I was thinking, but I made do with: ‘‘Not what I’m used to, you see.’’ ‘‘Indeed,’’ said Smith, ‘‘the master has excellent taste in all things.’’

  Does that include servants, Smith?

  I wandered about surveying the cool, clean lines of the drawing-room through the doorway and the way vertical lines of the tall-backed chairs echoed those of the mirrors and pictures, and the grandfather clock and the walking sticks in their sleeve. Yet – I reminded myself – consider the rosewood table, the porcelain bowl filled with rose petals, the Turkey carpets, the stained glass, the hand-painted umbrella stand, and Italian lampshades. An interesting mish-mash, I decided, of fine, expensive things. But tasteful, always tasteful.

  Katharine? are you there? what do you say to it?

  ‘‘Insufferable … suffocating.’’ She marches about scowling: ‘‘Like living in a museum.’’

  As I thought. Katharine. I see her standing before the long window peering into the darkness beyond the gaslight’s reflection towards the Gardens. And what does she see there but an admirable nobleman’s park (more perfection, more protection); and to either side of us, row upon row of well-fed English, and Americans – they stay at The Thistle, a popular place with them, according to Henry. And Henry? Oh, she pronounces, he has surrounded himself with objects that exude a warmth which he himself lacks. But you will not like to hear that, Alice, will you? What can I say? I see Henry during boxing practice flinching from William’s stabbing thrusts. He was good at bobbing and ducking even then; so he does not need me to defend him. And yet. As I point out: it does not become someone with her privilege in life to ‘knock’ another’s indulgences. Oh, but – she protests – her Manchester house may be big and rambling but its ‘things’ are quite utilitarian.

  If she were here, I think, I could go on arguing Henry’s side. But however long I search behind this stand or that clock or that mirror – she is not.

  Below me The Smiths, having retired for the evening, hear a door slam upstairs and wonder which door it is. The Mrs is of the opinion that her husband should go and check, but he declines.

  ‘‘His own sister, he trusts her.’’

  ‘‘More fool him.’’

  Almost at once I have trouble breathing: something in the atmosphere – I’d lit one of the paraffin lamps – perhaps his reservoir pen – why has he left it behind? I wondered, did it leak? This place, the meticulous order, his ‘luxuries’, have everything yet nothing to do with Henry. Ghost objects. Yet they allow him to be. He requires their order: It is order out of which he must tease his complicated structures. Like this terrace, I think, these de Vere Gardens: ornate, pillared, balustraded; and the rows and rows of people within parading about, eating, sleeping, living, dying; as well as those that came before and before that – a palimpsest of possibilities. The furnishings, the ‘warm’ things, it was all critical for the production of his novels and stories. Everything had to have its rightful place or else the form would not hold – he would not hold. It is not coldness, I long to tell Katharine, but a fine terror. Over there, for instance, behind the screen … is it a hand-basin? I peer round it to a low bookcase; on the top shelf, something long and rectangular covered with a turkey rug. I must not look, he would not like it. But I do look and there it is, there they are, all lined up in a touching order: Roderick Hudson, The Lady, The European, The American, The Bostonians; finally, The Princess Cassimissima.

  I drop the rug, terrified; of what? Surely Henry would not mind me observing his ‘body’ of work in its draped ‘coffin’? But as I slip round the screen, I hear his voice, In Strindberg’s plays, you know, the screen becomes a symbol for death and dying. Then a further strangeness, a vibration beneath the rug, as if the very words are stirring from their resting place – no, they will not die – as they knot round one another, chasing their own tails, until all the spaces are filled with Henry’s living words. And when I look up, there he is, Henry James the author sitting in the corner chair, arms propped high like some religious personage, barely visible in the flickering, dim light, observing me, one leg crossed over the other, hands folded; watching to see what I will do. It cannot be, I tell myself, he is in Florence with Connie allowing himself to fall back upon her charity, assuming it is infinite. But Henry, I want to cry out, charitable is not the right word for what she feels for you. But he does not hear me. He is ‘relaxing’ after completing ‘The Princess’. And why should he not? Another novel: page after page after page. A kind of miracle. Yet his study is as tidy and arranged as all the other rooms, though sparser. I reach towards one of the desk drawers. It would probably be locked; but what if it is not? There would be his letters: early ones from our mother and father, Aunt Kate, poor cousin Minny (but did he love her enough?); his friends, his … Fenimore. I take hold of the top knob … then withdraw my hand. I feel Henry watching me the way a child knows God is. His journals would be in there, all his secrets. No. I rise and blow out the light before looking back. In the darkness, there’s Henry, his forehead thickly highlighted in pale shiny oils, a painting of himself.

  *

  Later it came to me in a dream: a premonition of the disastrous thing that would almost certainly occur during Henry’s stay at Bellosguardo.

  My brother is holed up in Connie’s apartment in the Villa Brichieri-Colombi, a rambling 14-room pile. She herself is correctly tucked up two or three minutes further along the steep road in the massive Villa Castellani. A heavy, convent-like grille offers a glimpse of its thick walls and noble quattrocento court, from which she commands a splendid view of the mountain terrain – and Henry of course. As for Henry himself, he enjoys a panaroma of Florentine domes and towers, with Fiesole and the Apennines beyond; on the Arno side, the soft valley in its green dress; and across the western end, the Carrara hills. But, alas, the season – this is summer – is freakishly wet and cold. He sits down to write a letter to his sister:

  ‘Dear Alice … Constanza, my amiable and distinguished padrona has laid in a store of firewood and I have built myself roaring fires. I had planned to rest but have begun once again to drive the pen at a steady but furious pace.’

  He occupies a drawing-room and bedroom on the ground floor. He believes himself ‘safe’ from unnecessary intrusion. Connie he sees every day or two; indeed, often dines with her. But not tonight. Tonight he has been dining among some of the most artistic and delightful Florentine company – and now it is late and he is tired.

 
Costanza meanwhile is rather sleepless. Her windows are ajar … moonlight shines through … the garden wafts its heady, suggestive scents (jasmine, stephanoides, honeysuckle, gardenia). Her eyelids are heavy but she cannot sleep. She re-plays the day’s conversation with Henry and is mostly pleased as he told her he thought she had done a brave thing in settling herself in the somewhat mouldy Tuscan mansion. She would profit from it a la longue as she would get quiet, sunny, spacious hours for work and have Florence in the hollow of her hand. She thanked him for his encouragement.

  Yet she is left feeling dissatisfied; why? Something, she admits to herself, is missing between them. The word ‘intimacy’ occurs. We are not yet old, she dares to think, Henry and I. It is not too late for us. For years she has been sending him veiled and less veiled hints – but Henry, she realizes, will never act. Therefore, she thinks – concludes – decides: I must. Her heart does what timorous, terrified hearts do. So be it. To act, she thinks, irrevocably, prodigiously. Henry’s words. Does Henry not champion greatness? she asks herself. Yes, he does. Therefore, she argues, surely he must allow himself, under cover of darkness, to surrender – respond even – to greatness. For what she feels – she is convinced of it – is great; and so (as she rises, dresses, closes the five minute gap between them) he must feel it too.

  He does not. He lies – horribly aware of her footsteps approaching – rigid as a cathedral beam. Oh no, do not … his wish, almost a prayer, is fierce … she must not be hurt … but on she comes inexorably, appallingly closer. She is about to enact his worst nightmare, his Albtraum … His eyes are shut so tightly they fling out tears. But on she comes … the doorknob turns. No! he longs to bellow out; but he is frozen … silent. In his worst dream – nightmare – a dark wicked alb straddles his pale, draped body as he lies prone upon his bed – or is it a coffin? He is in a sleep paralysis and can do nothing to stop her leaning closer … closer …

  ‘‘Henry?’’ Her voice is soft, warm, inviting; her form a phantasm …

  Connie. She is dear to him … literary friend … companion … mother … confidant … but domage he cannot help her. He manages to whisper a strangled-sounding apology into the darkness. After an eternity – oh, it has all become a dreadful cliche! – he is aware of her crawling away hugging the stone-cold truth to her breast.

  It is a scene I would do anything to erase. But I pray I am no sybil because if I am … I doubt that she would survive it.

  But Henry must sleep, there is work to do.

  In the morning he tells her, ‘‘However one loses one’s way in the dark, it is best not to speak of it the following day – and it will soon be forgotten.’’

  But he is wrong of course. She may not speak of it but she will never, ever forget it.

  Thirty-seven

  A knock on the bedroom door. I sit up arranging Henry’s quilt carefully around me. The room itself, I observe, is quite austere, masculine, with its plain panelling and wash-stand and chair. I sense everything has been cleaned, yet I detect his French ink and cologne, his cigars. Him.

  ‘‘Special delivery parcel for you, Miss.’’

  I could not think where I was, and to whom the voice belonged, but I soon recollected: Henry is away and I am staying in his apartment; Wardy is gone and I have inherited The Smiths. Then I recalled my dream in which Connie creeps phanton-like into Henry’s bedroom, and cringed: such melodramatic mush!

  ‘‘Do come in, Smith.’’ The door opened and in he came, clearing his throat.

  ‘‘Don’t tease me with it, Smith, bring it here.’’

  ‘‘Very good, Miss.’’ He stood beside the bed. ‘‘I did not wish to interrupt your breakfast, Miss. Mr James – your brother, I mean to say – does not like to be distracted from his morning egg and toast.’’

  I pictured Henry decapitating his egg with one clean, masterful stroke. But Smith, I realized, was wary of me because he did not know my habits and that unsettled him. He must get things right, must be the perfect servant to the perfect master. Or even mistress.

  ‘‘I am quite happy,’’ I informed him, ‘‘to do two things at once. In this one respect only,’’ I added, ‘‘I am perhaps more gifted than my brother.’’

  The breakfast parcel contained two copies of Henry’s new novel. ‘The Princess’ had already been published as a serial in three parts, but I’d chosen to wait for the complete edition, and here it was. A compliment slip fluttered to the floor with a note in Henry’s crabbed handwriting:

  ‘My dear Alice – Feel assured that anything you may read here, that may initially strike a note of unpleasant self-recognition (in a superficial way), you will not, upon reflection, take as a personal affront. I believe you understand better than anyone the process of ‘making up’ characters. They are never, in a word, real.

  Yours, Henry.’

  The book weighed in my arms. I opened the front cover, peeled away the onionskin leaf, brought the title page close and sniffed the ink: Henry James. The Princess Cassimmissima. Published by Macmillan. I read the list of other books written by the author, followed by the small print telling where the book was made and that it had been set in Monotype Times. Then came the usual disclaimer. At last, when it could not be put off any longer, I turned to chapter one and began to read, and did not stop until I had finished with it, or it with me.

  I closed the book and waited. The story was familiar yet not familiar; mine yet not mine. Henry had used my idea as une donnee to paint a rather sprawling, seething, magnificently tragic picture; not to mention a cast of ‘heroic’ characters, all of whom pace about gesticulating and theorizing, and are inclined to ‘act’. Except for one. Who is allowed to speak but does not, cannot, act. Her name is Rosy Muniment, the sister of Paul, the ‘ring-leader’ of the anarchists. She is a bed-ridden invalid. She is perhaps the most radical of them all.

  ‘You musn’t mind her being in bed – she’s always in bed,’ her brother went on. ‘She’s in bed just the same as a little trout is in the water.’

  I felt myself going round and round the same as a little trout, and then stuck up there like a kitten on a shelf, and felt sick to retching. There had been other references in Henry’s stories to odd, limited women, but nothing like this – there was no other word for it – monster. I re-read Henry’s ‘disclaimer’, repeated the phrase ‘You are not Rosy Muniment’. But the denial would not hold.

  Rosy Muniment, the cheerful little creature dolled up like a monkey in a pink dressing gown

  Rosy Muniment, the ‘strange bedizened little invalid’

  Rosy Muniment, that ‘strange sick creature (… too unnatural)’

  Rosy Muniment, that ‘shrunken countenance’

  Rosy Muniment: as if she were some ridiculous, if precocious homunculus.

  How could you, Henry?

  I forced myself to read on, ignoring Rosy and concentrating on the other characters. Rosy was, after all, the least significant in the entire book: ‘a useless little mess’, as she calls herself. But I could not ignore her, as I could not ignore myself. The more I tried the more me she became, so miserable and yet so lively … laughing till her bed creaked again.

  I reached for a small mirror I’d found in the bedside drawer. The image reflected was neat and tidy, almost mask-like, the eyes a flat grey with pinpoints of howling black. ‘‘What a curiosity you are!’’ I told my reflection with quaint self-possession, ‘‘a fascinating freak of nature!’’ Whereupon it responded, ‘I am a hard, bright creature polished, as it were, by pain.’ I returned the smile (hard, bright, polished), marvelling at my own stoicism. There, I thought: you have become her; it is useless to deny it. Yet I must not, or else … what? I might not survive. And my own brother would have been my murderer.

  My thoughts were getting out of control. I flung the little mirror back in the drawer. I will get out of bed, I thought, swinging my legs to the side. But Henry’s bed was miles off the floor. I wished Wardy was with me and not the smarmy Mrs Smith. No, I would dress myse
lf and go for a walk in The Gardens. I would take myself to a coffee house and read the papers (had the Contagious Diseases Act been repealed yet?). I would … but the floor still seemed a long way down, and my legs unreliable. Besides, said a voice in my head (hard, bright, polished): you do not have to leave your bed to know what is going on.

  Paul Muniment: ‘It’s very wonderful: she can describe things she has never seen. And they are just like the reality.’

  Rosy Muniment: ‘There’s nothing I’ve never seen … That’s the advantage of lying here in such a manner. I see everything in the world.

  I sank back in bed mooing like an unmilked cow, marveling that The Smiths did not come running. But there was no one. Somehow I would have to get my legs back beneath quilt and blankets. Why did Henry have so many? The top one, the one I’d sniffed, had already slipped to the floor in the tussle. But it was a relief, the mess I had made of the bedclothes. Rosy’s bed – it was important to distinguish – was never less than perfect; she is never less than perfect. She does not walk or sleep or cry or regret or long for anything or feel like howling like a hyena or … That is what is wrong with her, I thought: she is not human. A mind trapped in a husk of body.

  Just like Rosy.

  No: she is not me; I am not she.

  Yes.

  Rosy the know-it-all. Rosy, from her bed-throne, tells the little group of friends all about London: the crowd on the steamer, the drunken persons they will encounter, the view from Greenwich Hill, the history of Hampton Court. She has never been to these places or seen these things yet somehow she divines them. Is that what I do?