by Iain Pears
Shall I tell you how I am so sure? Because you are here. Because I wrote Duncan a letter with that phrase in it—“many have drowned in his displeasure”—and you came, after nearly four years of forgetting that I existed.
I was surprised by the whole business, I must admit. Trumpeting the bohemian ethic in a literary journal is one thing, taking part in it yourself is quite another. I always assumed yours was a paper amorality, designed to titillate the salons but not so much that it reduced your standing. Even so, many a man has survived worse scandal with their reputation enhanced. Or was it an aesthetic matter? Was it, perhaps, that you didn’t mind the world knowing you had accidentally sired a little reproduction of yourself, but recoiled at the idea of who the mother was? Did you shudder at the idea of the sniggers that might go around if it became known that you were conducting a squalid little bedsit affair with a woman of such epic vulgarity?
With Jacky, of all people? A man such as yourself should bed only the crème de la crème, no? The greatest poetesses, the daughters of earls, playwrights or artists. Or at least someone with five hundred a year of her own. Not the artistic equivalent of a flower girl. Such people are all very well for artists. Expected, even. But for a critic? Dear me, no! And to commit the solecism of getting the woman pregnant? Oh, the fun of it!
So unlikely that my incredulous laughter was instrumental in persuading your wife that her unease was merest fantasy. You owe me much. The first I heard of any of it came from her, and she was so bothered at her suspicions and jealousy she came to me specifically, and risked humiliation to raise the subject. She wrote, asking to see me over a matter of some importance. I was bemused and agreed, not least because I wished to find out what it was all about. She had always rather disapproved of me; I was not her sort of person at all. She had not forgotten my visit to Hampshire to paint your portrait, and did not forgive bad behaviour. The very idea that she might need me I found somewhat exciting.
She arrived exactly on time—she was as punctual as you were late. Curiously, I had little experience with dealing with lady visitors; the only women who ever came to my studio were either models or clients. I did not know what to do with her, and all the inadequacies of my upbringing burst forth. I felt as though I should offer her tea or something, and the realisation that even after all these years I could still be made uncomfortable by a woman like her brought out all my natural rudeness.
I think she very nearly left without explaining why she’d come, but she was desperate. Eventually my discomfort exhausted itself and I asked her what she wanted, although I imagine I added something to the effect that if she could be quick then I would be able to get back to my work. No-one could say I wheedled my way into her confidence; quite the contrary.
“It is about William,” she began. “Have you heard any stories about him?”
“Many,” I replied. “He is one of those people who generates stories; it is part of the way he has become influential.”
Her distress was by now so obvious even I could not bring myself to continue her torment. She was beginning to look absurd, and that was unfair for someone so naturally sure of herself. Quite old-fashioned, she is; I had never realised it before. Something of a survival of the last century, tightly bound into her clothes, straight-backed and unbending. No-one would want to paint her now, I think; she does not have a modern air. Millais, perhaps, might have done her justice, and conveyed that plush velvet and window-closed soul of hers. I felt myself beginning to lose interest, so told her to sit down and explain a little more clearly what she wanted. It was not what I said, you understand, but the way that I said it that made all the difference. She only needed the barest hint of sympathy to let loose all her woes and become a different person entirely.
“I have been worried for the last few months. You no doubt think me a silly woman, with foolish ideas. But William has always been the best of husbands. . . .”
“Indeed he has. I have often wondered how he manages it. I know I never could. But then, he is married to you, and that is a powerful incentive to good behaviour.”
She blushed. “I know that men are not like women,” she began, “and I know that being faithful does not come easily to them. . . .”
“Oh. I see.” Her look of steely self-control as she brought herself to this point was far better explanation than anything she had said.
“Have you noticed anything, or heard anything? I know you would not think it proper to say, but if you knew the agonies I have suffered in the last few months, you would pity me.”
I had a choice here, you see. My response could take two forms; I could exploit the situation, feed her fears, offer her false sympathy and reap the rewards. For they were on offer, you know. That most virtuous of women could easily have fallen into my arms then with only the slightest encouragement. Millais’s women were often fallen, or about to fall. What a glorious triumph it would have been! And rather a pleasurable one, I imagine. I was always intrigued by that combination of icy control and the occasional flash of the eye, the way the façade sometimes failed to hide a hint of hunger. But, alas, you were my friend.
I sprang to your defence. I had seen nothing and heard less. Which was true, I had seen progressively less of you over the years; we were moving ever more definitely in different circles. Had you been having a grand affair, no doubt I would have noticed. But Jacky was not the sort of person you took to the opera, or entertained to lavish dinners. A squalid little encounter once a week in a Bermondsey boarding house could easily pass unnoticed, although when we were closer I would have caught even that. Only a wife might notice something amiss, and then not enough to form any solid conclusions. So I told her that any changes she noticed should be put down to your preoccupation with this great exhibition you were planning. She had to understand how all-consuming such a thing could be. “It is a terrible thing to say of a man, but faced with a choice between Cleopatra and a painting of Cleopatra, William would take the canvas.” She should not worry, I told her, firmly but gently. All would be well and her foolish fears would be soon forgotten.
She left soon after, giving me a look of such gratitude I half regretted my altruism. I bathed in the warm glow of my virtue for some time afterwards. But as she stood by the door, she turned, and her face hardened. “I am glad of what you said. It is the one thing I would never have forgiven in him.” And, by God, she meant it. The calm way she said it frightened even me, and I had nothing to do with it. I never realised quite how proud, quite how conventional she was. You must have known all too well, and knew what her reaction was likely to be. How would it be, William, to have to earn your own living for once? To give up the house, the works of art, the weekends at country houses, the balls? To have to become one of those hand-to-mouth bohemians you praise at a distance? That’s what her look implied. Having a mistress might be acceptable in Chelsea; it was not in Mayfair, and certainly not with a wife like yours. You tried to straddle both worlds, and for the first time you risked losing your balance.
So how could you make such a slip? I do not ask how you could do such a thing, consort with a common shop girl when a beautiful if somewhat well-controlled woman was already yours. That is all too clear; there is something quite horrible in a woman who will not bend to your will, when everyone else not only bends but breaks at your very nod. But the magnitude of the mistake! You, who had never taken a false step in your life! That is something I cannot understand. It almost makes you human. Almost makes you deserve sympathy—would do, except for the way you reacted. But Jacky? What was it? Was it sleeping with a woman artists slept with? Is that your frailty, that all along that was what you wanted to be? Does your unstoppable desire to control and direct painters come from a frustration at not being one yourself? I cannot believe it, and yet I cannot think of any other reason why you would choose her. Did you talk of tactility with her, after the passion had passed? Seek her opinion on Post-Impressionism? Or did you enter into her enthusiasms and quiver with anticipation as s
he showed you her latest rouge? Or was it the squalor of it that you needed; some respite from the beauty and aestheticism? A sordid and furtive animality to act as counterpoint to all that refinement. I hope you were satisfied with your choice, but I doubt it. You were no more able to arouse Jacky than I could, of that I am sure. Perhaps it was the payment that excited you, the reduction of human emotion to cash transaction?
I am being provocative; I apologise; I do not wish to set your weak heart a-flutter. There is a reason for it, though. I would like to see you angry again, to see you lose control for once in your life, in my presence. Otherwise Jacky will have triumphed over me, for you lost control with her, did you not? Hence the grey-green in my picture, to set off the shadows and echo the darkness back into your face. You will see it soon enough. The shadow in the background, the perfect man with the monumental flaw. The way the light falls on your face and is absorbed, so that there is a hint of something hidden behind. It is the fear that is in your life; a contrast with the earlier portrait, which has none of that, which has the blue and red of boundless self-confidence, of a world waiting to be tamed, a man who does not know his own weakness. Combine that with a slight hunching of the shoulders, as if you are protecting your soul from reality, and the point will be made, for those who can see. Only a true friend can do that, put that in. Only me.
I know about it only because Jacky came to see me a few weeks before her death to ask my advice, because I was your friend and would know best what to do. And because she feared to say anything to Evelyn, her friend and confidante, who could have given your wife a lesson or two in puritanism, so I thought. She shook her head when I suggested Evelyn might be a more appropriate person to talk to. “I couldn’t,” she said. “She’d never talk to me again.” There was fear in her as she said that; she made me promise I would tell no-one; certainly not Evelyn. Only I was to know.
Which just shows how desperate the poor girl was. Do you know what she said? That she had “compromised herself with a gentleman.” I was so delighted with the phrase—if you try it you will find it rolls around the mouth like a fine cigar—that I didn’t quite grasp what she was talking about for a while. She wanted to know what to do. She arrived at my studio just as I was beginning work, so I was probably rather brusque with her; I thought she probably wanted money or something to get her jewellery back from the pawnbrokers.
But no; she was compromised. And with a gentleman. I suppose a working man would merely have got her into trouble. Her face was a picture. I don’t mean that harshly, you understand. I’m not being comical. But as a model she always had this perfect deadpan look about her. No frown or smile ever troubled that pink face of hers; not with me, in any case. I didn’t hire her for her emotional register. Now, all of a sudden, she was a portraitist’s dream. The levels of emotion were extraordinary; shame, despair, hope, the pleasure of attention, fear. And something else as well, which I couldn’t pin down. Something fierce, almost animal-like. It was that look which ultimately brought you to sit in my chair here.
The interaction was ludicrous, of course; she talked in this bizarre language which was her own special parody of a drawing room conversation, so it was difficult to understand her at times. But eventually all became clear enough. She was pregnant; you were the father; and what could she do about it.
My initial reaction was one of complete indifference, once the astonishment at your foolishness had subsided. Such things happen, and they happen to people like her all the time. But then there was that fierceness. Do you know, I do believe things might have turned out differently had her expression not been so magnificent, and if she had not placed herself—quite by chance—by the window so the early morning light illuminated it perfectly? The way that emotion transformed her from a silly little woman into a queen, an empress, a goddess, even; the way her eyes shone and her skin took on a fiery grandeur; the tilt of her head as pride and defiance took over her soul. I could have sat her down and painted her then and there, just for that look. I knew that I should do my best to banish it, make sure that it never crossed her face again, to put out that light in her eyes forever. But it would have been a sin to do so. She was beyond beautiful, and her beauty was caused by the thought of that child. So I didn’t try to persuade her to do the sensible thing and go to the angel-maker, as the French so delicately say. Not because of her, or you, or because of what was right, but because of the effect of the light turning on her face. I gave her what she truly wanted. She hoped I would lend her the money for the abortionist. I told her to have the baby.
And, I may say, I gave her some practical advice as well. That she should write you a letter informing you of what had happened, and asking you to contribute to the upkeep of your joint creation. I considered for a moment that she should also assure you that the secret would be safe in her hands. That she would not approach you nor threaten you in any way. That she would leave London and be as discreet as if she did not exist. But I decided against the idea. No, I thought. Let him sweat a bit. Let’s worry him a little. It’ll make him more generous. A mistake. I underestimated you.
Good God, man! All she wanted was ten shillings a week! Less than you spend on wine. She had nothing, and wanted nothing except that little brat. And she knew what she was giving up, as well. She knew that her chances of a dutiful husband and a little parlour and a respectable life would all but vanish once she had someone’s bastard on her hands. Even her friendship with Evelyn might well evaporate. She would be all on her own, and she was willing to take the risk. It wasn’t much she was asking of you, and it wasn’t blackmail. Even had you refused, she wouldn’t have done anything. She wasn’t like you.
But that was not the point, was it? The point was that she decided to defy you, go against your wishes. And that was unforgiveable. And even more unforgiveable were the actions of the person behind this plot to blacken your reputation. Jacky could never have written that letter to you; it was too well-phrased, too suggestive. Too well spelt. So who could it be? Who in your circle could be behind this? Not Henry MacAlpine, for example, who would never dare attack you, who was too much the fawner and flatterer. No; only one possible person who knew Jacky could give her such advice. Your attention turned to Evelyn.
What did you see in your mind—the two women, sitting together, giggling as they plotted to destroy your marriage, bring you to ruin? The ruthless fury of womanhood scorned, relentless in their pursuit, never resting until they had taken their revenge? Did you imagine that she was going to start spreading stories about you? That she would write to your wife? Did you think that Evelyn wanted a hold over you, to guarantee that you favoured her? Were you so puffed up with your own importance and so sure that everyone had the same values as you did?
They paid a heavy price, by God they did. When I read about Jacky being dragged out of the river, my heart skipped a beat. The reporter quoted the police. Part-time prostitute, pregnant, killed herself in desperation. Happens all the time. Open and shut, no mystery, racing results from Sandown in the next column. Maybe it was even true. How should I know? I have no evidence to suggest otherwise, except for the memory of the way her face glowed in the light through my window. A woman like that wants to live, will do anything to cling on to life. Such a person needs the life torn from her by force.
Did she scream and struggle, William? Did her fingernails scratch on the stone parapet? Did she thrash in the water before she went under? Did she hear you as you crept up behind her in the dark? Probably not, because even Jacky could have taken you on in a fair fight. And what about you? Was your poor weak heart thudding, threatening to tear itself from its moorings as you pushed her? Did you hurry away with your cloak up around your face? Or did you stay and keep watch, to make sure she sank and never came to the surface again? I don’t even ask if you felt remorse, or guilt. I know you too well; you decided it was necessary. It was done. She was punished for her impudence. She didn’t matter. People don’t, do they?
One more glass of wine
; but no more. I don’t want you falling asleep on me, you know, and it is easy to do if you have too much of this. It is a deceptive brew, more potent than it seems when you drink it.
You cannot send a man to the gallows because of a tilt of the head in the sunlight. Not when you are so desperately trying to convince yourself that it cannot be true, when you range over your memories, reorganising your past to persuade yourself that a friend could not possibly do such a thing. Suppose I went to the police. They would make enquiries, and conclude there was no substance to the suggestion. But you would hear of it, and know who had said such a thing. So I kept quiet once more, and a week later you moved on to ensure that nothing Evelyn ever said about you, nothing she knew or suspected, would have any effect either.
I saw Evelyn after Jacky was found, and she had seemed calm enough on the surface, at least. Those years of careful upbringing were being put to use. She was most upset, she said, in an even voice. Upset, distressed, but not overly so. She passed no comment on the circumstances but politely, and somewhat coldly, took her leave. Her exhibition was to open the following day, she had a lot still to prepare. She was anxious.
Why should she be any more than regretful, after all? Jacky was just a model, however valued. A friend, perhaps, but what friendship can there really be between two such people, so different in outlook, upbringing, temperament and tastes? And many people become preoccupied, distracted, when they are preparing for a show. I put it out of my mind, in the same way that I tried not to think of Jacky. I succeeded there; I even forgot to go to the funeral. I was working, trying something new and different which I couldn’t get right. I kept trying and trying, almost stopping but then going back for one last attempt. And when I finally gave up, the effect I was chasing still unachieved—it was too late.