Mrs Whistler

by Matthew Plampin

  January passed, and it became yet harder to concentrate. Maud’s hand grew unreliable. She wanted simplicity and delicacy, and the impression of easefulness, yet when she set brush to page, none of it was there. She made herself persevere, though, as best she could; and when that knock came on the final morning she was already at her place at the room’s round writing table, her paintbox open and her colours mixed, a study of a golden yellow crocus already wandering off in quite the wrong direction. The flower had seemed too weakly defined, the petals meagre and thin, lacking that velvet quality they had – and then all at once it was laboured, overdone, spoiled. Losing heart, she’d fallen to staring down into the street below, looking back to Pentonville Road: the steady march of traffic, its lanterns lit against the miserable day, the blurring fall of sleet.

  The knock was confident – three quick raps. Maud started; she turned around in her chair. No one was expected. The breakfast plates had been taken away. Edie wasn’t due until the afternoon. It must be someone from the desk, she thought, with a message perhaps. She dropped her brush in the water cup, climbed slowly to her feet and lumbered across the carpet to the door.

  Rosa Corder was dressed in turquoise with a black cloak and a small black hat, squarish in shape, a turquoise feather looped at its side. Instead of Edie’s tentative embrace – considerate, before all else, of her condition – she was given a hug so fierce that it carried them both back two or three paces into the room, and a great smacking kiss. Rosa then moved away from her abruptly, without speaking. She took off her cloak and hat by the fire, setting them on an armchair – her eyes lingering on the sheaf of Jimmy’s letters tucked behind the carriage clock, each one stamped with a claret-coloured Parisian postmark. Hanging from her arm was a little black basket. The heavy sound it made when she put it on the table told Maud that it contained a bottle. Placing a hand upon her slender hip, framed perfectly by the single large window, she angled her head to study the watercolour of the crocus.

  Maud found that she was grinning, grinning wide, filled with raw, unreflecting pleasure at seeing Rosa again. The next moment, however, she remembered the weeks of absence; the single, rather cursory letter; the unexplained disappearance in the court corridor. The grin died away. She steadied herself against the mantelpiece.

  ‘How did you get up?’ she asked. ‘Did the desk not ask your business?’

  ‘Charles talked to them,’ Rosa replied, without looking round. ‘He sends his love, of course. He had to run off to see a fellow in Clerkenwell about an armoire. Jacobean, they think it might be. We have both been so very busy of late. So much blessed work. Otherwise we would certainly have called on you sooner. It is a relief, I must say, to discover you looking so well.’

  ‘Do you know what’s been happening?’

  As might have been foreseen, this set her off about the blasted pamphlet. The brush and the bloody pen. The mighty fuss it had caused, marking the beginning of a new bravery, a new integrity, among artists – and how this would do them such good, as disciples of Whistler, who heeded his example and his—

  ‘At the White House, I mean,’ Maud interrupted. ‘The debt with the builder. The bloody bailiffs.’

  Rosa hesitated. ‘Dear Maud,’ she said, picking up the crocus study to examine the one behind, ‘you really mustn’t worry yourself about all that. Charles’s solicitor has been in touch with Nightingale’s. Everything is under control. And Jimmy is working hard indeed, I hear,’ she went on, ‘over in Paris. Charles believes that his sales will soon be completely recovered.’ She held up another watercolour sketch: a sprig of leftover holly, as leadenly unsuccessful as the crocus. ‘These are very fine, you know. You’ve been putting your time here to good use. Why, Charles could sell this. I’m sure of it. Any dealer in London would be glad to put it up in his window.’

  This praise sounded empty. Maud had done better than these hotel sketches. Rosa had seen them – those begonias, for instance. She sat, lowering herself stiffly into an armchair; feeling doubt now, alongside her anxiousness and her fatigue.

  ‘What happened to you that day? After the trial?’

  Rosa pulled out a chair from the table and sat down herself. ‘I went to find Mrs Leyland,’ she said, as if it were obvious. ‘I imagined she would be nearby. I thought I could spell out to her what I knew of her schemes and oblige her to intervene – to remove her husband from the premises.’

  This seemed likely enough, if rather naive. ‘I really don’t think he’d have heeded her, Rosa.’

  ‘Who can say?’ Who would have thought that she’d be part of that loathsome little ploy she tried to spring on you back in the summer?’

  Maud recalled their brief tussle just before the verdict, when Rosa had spotted Mrs Leyland in the corridor. ‘So you were going to confront her.’

  Rosa was unapologetic. ‘You are my friend, Maud, my very dear friend, and I’m afraid that if I hear of someone seeking to make you their tool, and cast you in some ridicu­lous game involving a locket, and secret conferences of the enemy, then I will be seeking to tell them exactly what they are. To the devil with caution, or good manners, or anything else.’ She crossed her legs, pinching at the hem of her turquoise gown to set it straight. ‘Nothing happened, though. I couldn’t find her. She’d gone, I think. Left without him.’

  ‘So you just left yourself. You didn’t try to find me or Jimmy. You didn’t come round to the White House. You just left.’

  ‘I meant to. I did, Maud. I planned only to stop at home for a minute, to meet with Charles, then come out to you. But the letter concerning my brother was waiting for me there. I had to leave that same evening. He really was very ill. It seemed that he might – well …’ Rosa took a breath. ‘I apologise. I do know that things have been happening, besides the pamphlet. Jo Hiffernan, for instance, paying a visit to Tite Street with a certain young gentleman in tow.’

  Maud leaned back in the armchair. ‘Owl told you about that.’

  Rosa was watching her; she could tell that this encounter had left Maud with some troubling questions. ‘He said that Jimmy is awkward with the child.’

  ‘He sees him, though,’ Maud answered, a touch too quickly. ‘He talks of meeting with him for treats and – and shows and suchlike. He has him lodged with someone he once loved. Not with strangers.’ She could hear the distress gathering in her voice. ‘Is it because Ione was a girl? Is that why?’

  ‘No,’ Rosa said. ‘No, it’s because of Jimmy. He wouldn’t meet the son until the little fellow was over six years old. He told Charles that infants unnerve him.’

  Maud was torn between an odd relief – it was good to have a reason, she supposed, even if it was as basic and insurmountable as this one – and annoyance at being observed, and understood, and having her own life explained to her. ‘He’s always said that he can’t live with children,’ she muttered, feeling that she had to add something, ‘on account of his art.’

  ‘The circumstance with Jo Hiffernan is tangled indeed,’ Rosa continued. ‘It took much strife to bring them to where they are now. Their fragile accord.’

  Wearing a slight smile, she went on to tell a tale of Jo and Jimmy, well over a decade old: of an artist and his muse, lovers and friends, who travelled often to France, where they mixed with Jimmy’s many acquaintances. Among these were some of the country’s greatest painters, and one, a Monsieur Gustave Courbet no less, was rather taken with Jo. He had her model for him while she brushed her hair, all perfectly innocent – but later on, when everything between Jimmy and her was no longer so very wonderful, she came back to France without him, and made a bee-line for the studio of Monsieur Courbet. People talked, they talked up a storm; and then these other paintings began to appear. Nudes they were, but not at all like the one Maud had posed in for Jimmy. The slightest whisper of their subjects, creeping back over the Channel, proved more than sufficient to kill off Jo and Jimmy forever. One apparently showed Jo and another woman lying naked together, wrapped in a passionate embrace. An
other, The Beginnings of the World Rosa thought it was called, gave a close, unsparing view of Jo’s—

  At first, Maud listened readily. This was all rather different in character from what she’d been told of Jimmy’s younger self, and a part of her was eager for it – for the suggestion that Jo Hiffernan, with her prim retreat from the White House, might be something of a hypocrite. As Rosa went on, however, she grew uneasy. The story had an Owlish quality, both in its intimate nature and its heedless indiscretion. It made her wonder what other, more recent Whistler tales Owl and Rosa might be spinning. She decided that she’d heard enough.

  ‘You’ve been with your brother the whole time then, have you?’ she broke in. ‘Since the trial – the end of November?’

  ‘For most of it,’ Rosa replied, switching neatly. ‘Jonathan is his name. He is most unwell, poor man. Delusions. A terrible torpor. He can do almost nothing for himself.’ She folded her long hands atop her knee. ‘I did actually return to London a week or so ago, if I am honest, but have been confined to my studio. Commissions to catch up on. Good things.’

  ‘Your studio,’ Maud said, ‘that I have never even seen.’ Her indignation flared; it was suddenly gigantic. ‘You told me I’d be welcome. Whenever I liked. That I could bring my work. When we first met, this was. A – a year and a bloody half ago.’

  ‘I shall take you.’ Rosa made as if to stand up. ‘My goodness, Maud, if this has brought you pain, any pain at all, then I shall take you right this minute. It isn’t far.’ She appeared to think. ‘As a matter of fact, there is something on the stocks that I want you to see. An artistic question, you understand. I have a portrait nearly finished – a portrait in oils of one of Charles’s associates – a most unfortunate-looking man, extremely like a hedgerow creature, a shrew or some such. He has requested a rose bower in the background, but I admit that this has me stumped. I simply cannot imbue the wretched flowers with any sense of life. They resemble the pattern on a dull piece of needlework. I was hoping that you’d be willing to suggest how I might improve them.’

  Maud was thrown by this, rather expertly thrown, straight down into a deep ditch. She looked at the fire, thinking despite herself what it would be like to assist Rosa with an oil painting, with a paid commission. Surely it would be marvellous. Her resentment now seemed foolish and unwarranted. Might she actually be losing her wits, left up there in that hotel room with only Edie for company, who knew nothing of art or any of it?

  ‘I can’t. I – I just can’t.’ She rubbed her belly; she made a hopeless gesture. ‘This could happen at any time.’

  Rosa merely shrugged, then went for the bottle she’d brought with her: squat and inky black, the golden label flashing in the firelight. Brandy. After tracking down a pair of teacups, she joined Maud at the hearth, pulled an armchair close to hers and poured them both a large measure, even though it was scarcely ten. The liquor tasted of burned fruit and lint, with a trace of India rubber. It scalded Maud’s throat and melted through her compacted innards; she seemed to sink a little into her chair, her fingertips tingling, her eyes fluttering shut.

  When she opened them again, Rosa had paper and pencil and was sketching, sketching rapidly, recreating her shrew-man and his roses while asking a string of questions about colouration, arrangement and so on. Maud’s replies sounded weak to her, formless and incomplete, but Rosa seemed well pleased by them; she nodded and sketched further, making notes at the sheet’s edge.

  ‘This is how it will be, Maud,’ she declared, after a few minutes. ‘Between the two of us – in the future. Assistance. Collaboration. This is where we are heading.’

  They began to talk again of a shared house, that old dream, but now sustained by their own earnings alone. Maud soon became so involved in it, in Rosa’s company and the intentness of her conversation, that the everyday routine of which she was so heartily tired became something of a surprise. Edie entered without knocking, as usual, having been supplied with a key by the desk. Rosa stood as the door closed behind her, leaving Maud seated in the middle – wedged, it felt like, between the arms of her chair. She looked at Edie, then at Rosa, and then back at Edie again; and she knew that this meeting could only speed along Rosa’s departure.

  Edie’s clothes that day were brown and soapstone grey, sensible in every regard, like all the clothes she owned. She removed her gloves, drawing herself up in the subtlest and most respectable form of confrontation. She was not unfriendly, not in the least; indeed, she was regarding Rosa with an expectant curiosity, almost as if her sister’s visitor was a performer of some kind, who might at any moment trill out an aria or produce a dove with a flourish of her hand.

  ‘Rosa,’ said Maud, ‘this is my sister. Mrs Edith Crossley.’

  Rosa’s smile was inscrutable – drawn curtains, a shuttered shop. ‘I can see the resemblance,’ she said.

  ‘Miss Rosa Corder,’ said Maud to Edie. ‘My friend.’

  ‘Miss Corder, that is a remarkable gown. May I ask where it came from?’

  Edie was polishing up her accent, her manner, presenting what she imagined was her best self. It struck Maud as very stupid. She fought the urge to cover her face with her hand.

  Rosa’s smile did not waver; her eyes went, just for an instant, to her cloak and hat. ‘Why thank you, Mrs Crossley,’ she replied. ‘Most kind. I made it myself.’

  Edie seemed to find this fascinating, asking about fabric and patterns, and sources of inspiration – as if she, in the span of a dozen lifetimes, would ever wear anything so bold. Rosa’s replies were brief, faintly evasive, those of someone preparing to leave. Maud asked if she’d join them for luncheon, which wasn’t far off now. Different parts of her hoped that Rosa would accept and deliver her from tedium; or that she would refuse, and spare her further embarrassment.

  ‘We can tell the hotel,’ she said. ‘Have them send up another plate.’

  Rosa turned to Maud, the affection on her face revealing clearly that the offer was to be refused. She retrieved her cloak and pulled it on, fastening it at her throat. ‘I must be off. All I wanted, dearest Maud, was to let you know that you are in our thoughts. That you never leave them. We shall talk more when this is done with. We have plans to make, you and I.’ She looked pointedly towards the watercolours on the table. ‘Beginning with next year’s Grosvenor.’

  Edie – still by the door, in her hat and coat – was listening closely. ‘Plans?’

  Maud tried to sit up. ‘Miss Corder is an artist. She sells her work. She supports herself by it.’

  Edie considered this. ‘Can a woman really hope to make her livelihood in this way?’

  Maud glowered over at her. Jimmy’s mother had asked much the same question, but she at least had the excuse of age for her obsolete views. This had been coming for a while, Maud realised, accumulating throughout the days Edie and she had spent together at Sharp’s Hotel: an argument written deep, impossible to efface or resolve.

  ‘Rosa does,’ she retorted. ‘She has a studio, a studio of her own, not far from here.’

  Edie was quiet for a second. Maud could sense her scepticism; her determination to say her piece. ‘I take it, Miss Corder, that you are a follower of Mr Whistler?’

  For once Rosa would not be drawn. She fitted on her hat, apologised, and said again that she really had to be going.

  ‘It is you, I suppose,’ Edie continued, ‘who has been encouraging my sister to paint these flowers of hers. Does she think that she can become an artist like you? That she can support herself with sketches once she has exhausted her value as a model and is no longer wanted by Mr Whistler?’

  This was new: open disdain, thrust forward, almost as if Edie had been waiting for an opportunity – for a culprit, perhaps, beyond Maud herself. Furthermore, it was now abundantly clear that she thought of her sister’s life not only as shameful or unrespectable but ridiculous, brainless, a waste of time. It was similar to the scorn Jimmy endured from certain quarters of the press, and from the enemies who’d asse
mbled at the trial. Maud stood, wobbling with the weight of the baby, and maybe the teacups of brandy as well. Edie came forward, ready to help; Maud stepped to the side, refusing even to meet her eye.

  ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ she announced. ‘I will walk with you, Rosa. To Southampton Row.’

  ‘Maud,’ said Rosa – she sounded rather less sure than previously. ‘Would it not be best to wait until you are—’

  ‘It isn’t far. You said so yourself. I’m perfectly fine.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be walking any distance at all,’ said Edie. ‘Think of the cold, Maud. The stairs.’

  Maud wouldn’t be deterred. ‘Come,’ she said to Rosa. ‘Let’s be off. I find that I cannot bear the thought of another afternoon cooped up in here.’

  She readied herself to go, forcing on her boots, grabbing at her hat and shawl. Edie didn’t protest any further; but as Maud struggled by her, out into the corridor, she said that she believed she would come along as well.

  ‘You needn’t,’ Maud told her. ‘Truly.’

  Edie’s stubbornness was a match for her own, however; her sister left the room after them, locking the door, and followed a few yards behind as they inched down the staircase. Maud clung to the banister with both hands. The stairs were steeper than she remembered. Her back was straining horribly; the child had selected this moment to shift itself into a yet more burdensome position. But she was determined. She would do this. Rosa was beside her, alert for mishap. There was a nervousness in her artist friend, though, a certain distance, that Maud hadn’t seen before; she was like someone unused to dogs given the task of holding the chain of a growling mastiff.

  As they approached the bottom of the staircase the concierge hurried over, looking for the signal to run for a cab.

  ‘No,’ Maud told him, shaking her head, ‘no, just a stroll. Just a – a stroll.’

  The women crossed to the hotel doors under the close scrutiny of the entire lobby. Once they were outside, Maud looked towards Pentonville Road, a hundred yards or so away, and had a sharp sense of how limited her energy was – of how it was being drained further by every halting step. She panted in the biting air; she licked her cracked lips. There was actually a very real chance that she would stumble, and slump, and be able to go no further.